Time and time again I reach for the Divermenti cookbook; as the snow started to thicken this morning I knew there was a reason I bought the root veg yesterday. Camilla Schneideman’s note is that her colleague Trish made it to cheer her up on a grey November afternoon. Never mind grey, let’s get our heads round a whiteout on December 1st. Forget curried parsnip, sweet potato or carrot and coriander, this is the daddy of all winter soups, easy as falling off a sledge, and with such comforting properties and depth of flavour I guarantee you will forsake all others.
Ingredients:
4 parsnips peeled and diced
2 carrots, ditto
Large onion, peeled, roughly chopped
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp coriander seeds
½ tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp turmeric
Sea salt & black pepper
750 ml veg or chicken stock (clever cheats use Marigold)
Handful flat leaf parsley
Half a lemon
Method:
Put all the veg and spices in a baking tray. Add the olive oil, spices and seasoning. Shake it around to coat everything. Roast in a pre-heated oven for around 35 minutes, til the veg are soft and starting to go sticky.
When cooked, transfer into a big blender or food processor, add a bit of stock and start whizzing. Keep adding – slowly or you’ll end up wearing the soup – til you’ve used all the stock up. Serve piping hot with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkling of parsley.