Roasted Beetroot, Garlic and Goats Cheese Soup

Beetroot.  You can just tell that anything that brightly coloured has GOT to be packed full of goodness, vitamins and E numbers.  No wait, I'm pretty sure that one of those isn't true*

*Actually, Betanin, or E162 is an red glycosidic food dye extracted from beetroot. So there. Don't say you don't learn anything from this blog. Other beetroot facts are* :

Beetroot is an excellent source of folate and a good source of manganese,^[9] and contains betaines which may function to reduce the concentration of homocysteine,^[10] a homolog of the naturally occurring amino acid cysteine. High circulating levels of homocysteine may be harmful to blood vessels and thus contribute to the development of heart disease, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease.^[11] This hypothesis is controversial as it has not yet been established whether homocysteine itself is harmful or is just an indicator of increased risk for heart disease.^[11][12]
The red colour compound betanin is not broken down in the body, and in higher concentrations may temporarily cause urine and stool to assume a reddish colour; in the case of urine this is called beeturia.^[13] This effect may cause distress and concern due to the visual similarity to hematuria (blood in the urine) or blood in the stool, but is completely harmless and will subside once the food is out of the system.

Last year, I abandoned 2 blog posts as, after making the soups, I looked back through the blog and realised that I'd already written the same or very similar soups before.  I really should plan my posts better.  Regular readers (you know who you are! Hello Mum!) will probably know that I've done at least 3 beetroot soups before, but I thought, why the heck not do another one.  This one is slighly different, and who has the time to wade through old blog posts anyway.  This is 2015 dammit, we're all in a hurry, we want our soups right now...

Although this soup *will* take a bit of time, as you need to roast the beetroot first to release all those sugars and other goodies that make the little purple blighters taste even better, and make that addition of lemon juice a nice counterpoint.  I also used hard goats cheese, as it melts and goes all gooey when you put it in the bowl, covered in soup. Which is perfect at this time of year, when it's cold and you want tasty comforting foods.

*Isn't Wikipedia amazing...

Ingredients
350g Beetroot
2 Stalks Celery
1 Onion
6 Cloves Garlic
900ml Vegetable Stock
30g Butter
1 Lemon
1tsp Thyme
100g Hard Goats Cheese

Method
1.  Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Peel the beetroot with a potato peeler.   Wrap them up in some kitchen foil, with some salt and a splash of olive oil.  Then place in the oven, leaving them to roast for 45 minutes.  Set them aside to cool.

2.  In your soup pan, heat the butter.  Finely chop the onion, garlic and celery then fry them for a few minutes until everything starts to soften.

3.  Cut the roasted beetroot up into smaller pieces, then add to the pan, along with the stock, thyme and lemon juice.  Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

4.  Blend the soup until smooth and then reheat.  Adhust seasoning to taste then serve.  Garnish with some cubed bits of hard goats cheese.  Enjoy!

Beetroot Rasam

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with beetroot.  On one hand, beetroot risotto is one of the greatest things ever, on the other is that lingering taste that can only be described as earthy.  Or to be less charitable, I made a beetroot and chocolate cake, and despite using half a tonne of chocolate and cream, it still tasted of soil.

It is the kind of vegetable that, to my mind, is healthy but dull - the twin of kale in being a joyless thing that healthy eating advocates bang on about, but I really can't stand,  Or at least it takes a fair bit of effort to make it palatable. Of course, it's entirely possible that beetroot has the same effect on me that sprouts have on others - a chemical that renders if awful tasting to me whilst others don't suffer. (Scientists are telling me that this theory could be what they describe as 'utter tripe')

And yet, and yet, here I am, attempting the fourth soup recipe involving beetroot (and reading the old entries, I see I have rather belaboured the point about beetroot's eccentricities, so I won't malign the poor purple vegetable any more) but suffice to say that this Indian soup recipe, through some subtle alchemy of spices tastes amazing, and not a hint of the evil 'soil taste'*

So here at Soup HQ we have a rather small kitchen, mostly consisting of jars of spices of one kind or another, and it's a huge decision every time we think about investing in another kitchen gadget.  "There's no room!" goes the cry.  Which is why I still don't have a deep fat fryer despite recently discovering the joys of making my own chips.  Another gadget that I still crave is a pressure cooker.  If you have one, it would be prefect for this recipe, as it would cook the lentils and beetroot amazingly, but alas, until I open the West Wing of my kitchen and have room for more gadgets, I'll have to do this the old fashioned way - just boiling the heck out of the beetroot.

Also, be careful when blending the soup.  It went everywhere when I deployed my stick blender and made the kitchen look like Halloween had arrived early...

Also, beware the side effects of eating too many beets...

*Some of you may be wondering, if I have such strong feelings about beetroot, why am I eating it?  Well the simple answer is that we got some as part of our veg box delivery and I'll be damned if I'm going to let any vegetables go to waste.  Apart from Kale...

Ingredients
500g Beetroot
100g Yellow Lentils
50g Tamarind Paste
4 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Dried Red Chili Flakes
1tsp Coriander Seeds
1tsp Cumin Seeds
1tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1tsp Mustard Seeds
Pinch of Asafoetida
Salt
Oil
 
Method.
1. Soak the lentils in water for 30 minutes.  Roughly chop the Tamarind and put ina small bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to soak for 30 minutes too

2. Heat some oil in your soup pan.  Add the Coriander Fenugreek and Cumin Seeds and Chili flakes, and fry gently for a minute or so, until they flavour the oil.

3.  Wash and strain the soaked lentils and add these to the pan, along with the peeled and chopped beetroot and the peeled garlic cloves.

4.  Remove the pulp from the tamarind and add the flavoured water to the pan

5. Add 1.2 litres of water, bring the soup to the boil and simmer on a high heat, covered, for 30 minutes, until the beetroot is cooked and softened.  Remove the pan from the heat

6.  Blend the soup until smooth.  Return to the pan, reheat gently and adjust seasoning to taste

7.  In another pan, heat 3tbsp of oil.  Add the Asafoetida and mustard seeds and heat until the seeds start to pop.  Stir the flaovoured oil into the soup and serve.  Enjoy!

Beetroot Soup with Goats Cheese

By my count, this is the third soup that I've made involving Beetroot, and that's what I'm enjoying so much about writing this blog.  Even after 2 years, there are still so many soups left un-made, so many ingredients yet to so soupified and so many classics yet to be tried.

Speaking of which, I'll hopefully have a new challenge coming up in the next few weeks - along the lines of the Olympic Food Challenge, but less stressful as I'll be doing it on my own and won't have anyone else cracking the whip at me to get posts done on time, but nevertheless, should open the door to many new and interesting soup recipes - watch this space for details

All soup and no play makes Dan a dull boy...

I love beetroot, although it always looks like someone has been murdered in my kitchen, especially if there is a food blender lid malfunction, as happened today.  On the other hand, I now have free Halloween decorations in the flat - it's a scene from The Shining...

Although I started this post by saying that this is the third different soup I've made with beetroot, this could be seen as a variation of Borscht.  I'm assuming though, that Borscht has to have cabbage and/or ham in it to be proper Borscht.  If that is true, then this is a completely different soup, of not, then this is just a variation on a theme.

The vodka and horseradish give it a bit of a cheeky kick, and the sharpness of the goat's cheese is the perfect complement to the earthy sweetness of the beetroot.

Ingredients
750g Beetroot
800ml Beef Stock
1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
1tsp Fresh Thyme
1tbsp Horseradish
3tbsp Vodka
1 Large Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
Olive Oil
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
1.  Top and tail the beetroot, the scrub them under cold water, like you would new potatoes.

2.  Heat a large pan of water, bringing to the boil and then put the beetroot in, simmer and cook for 30 minutes.  When they are cooked through, remove from the heat, drain and allow the beetroot to cool.  Cut into cubes.

3.  Chop the onion and garlic.  Heat some olive oil in the soup pan and then fry off the onion and garlic.

4.  Add the beetroot, stock, tomatoes, thyme, horseradish and vodka to the pan, bring to the boil and then simmer.  Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

5.  Once the soup is cooked through, let it cool and then use a stick blender to make it nice and smooth.  Return to the pan and heat through.  Adjust seasoning and then serve.  Crumble some goats cheese on top of each bowl to garnish -  lots of goats cheese, as it tastes brilliant.  Enjoy!

Borscht

Today's post is dedicated to food that is unnaturally coloured (even if it contains no artificial colourings).  As the second beetroot based recipe on the blog, I've already talked at length about the amazing colour of the vegetable and the love/hate relationship I have with the flavour (see here)

When I was taking the photos for today's post it looked like someone had committed bloody murder in the kitchen.  As a strange co-incidence, for some reason the shower started running by itself at the same time I was snapping away, scaring the bejesus out of me. Perhaps the flat is haunted by the ghosts of all the beetroot I have brutally slain over the years - their purple juice is on my hands...

Anyway, that got me thinking about all the foods I've eaten that have unnaturally strong colours, and how most of these rank on my list of most-hated foodstuffs. These include -

Piccalilli - like radioactive snot.  Sandwich fillings shouldn't glow in the dark

Semolina with Strawberry Jam mixed into it - turns the colour of a melted My Little Pony.  Not any old semolina pudding, I should point out, just the wallpaper paste consistency mess I was served as part of school dinners at Primary School in the 70'2

Sweet'n'sour sauce - specifically the gloopy orange stuff that comes from bad take-aways, sends shivers down my spine thinking about it - like the blood of an alien the Jon Pertwee incarnation of Doctor Who might have fought

And beetroot was also amongst the list, until recently, when I learnt to love the taste, and the colour too. I guess it's all part of growing as a person (why does that sound like the trite moral of a corny American sitcom episode?)

Which brings us to today's soup - a creamy and wonderful dish of pink heaven, set off perfectly by the hint of vinegar and sour cream.  Your mouth will never forget it, or your best white tablecloth...

Ingredients
300g Beetroot
100g White Cabbage
75g Smoky Back Bacon
1 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 Stalks of Celery
1.2l Stock
1tsp Thyme
1tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Bay Leaf
Oil
Salt and Pepper 
Sour cream
Parsley

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200ºc

2. Peel and dice the beetroot (about 1cm square cubes should be okay), then peel and roughly slice the onion

3.  Put some oil in a roasting tray, then toss in the beetroot, onion, thyme and some salt.  Put the tray in the over for 45 minutes to roast the vegetables until they are golden and soft

4. Roughly chop the cabbage and celery.  Crush the garlic cloves. Cut the bacon into small slices

5.  In your soup pan, heat some more oil, then toss in cabbage, celery, garlic and bacon.  Sweat these in the pan for 5 minutes until they become so, but not colour too much.

6. Add the stock to the pan, then add the beetroot and onions. Finally, add the bay leaf and balsamic vinegar.

7. Bring the soup to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8.  Using a hand blender, liquidise the soup until it's smooth, and at this point, feel free to pass it through a sieve, pressing down with a wooden spoon to get all the lumpy bits out and make the soup silky smooth

9.  Heat through just before serving, and garnish with sour cream and parsley.  Serve with fresh bread and enjoy!

Warm Beetroot and Black Pudding Salad

Sometimes, the food that you throw together at the last minute can be the best food.  All it takes is a little imagination and a vaguely well stocked cupboard and you can find yourself in taste heaven.

Take for example this little number, which we decided to call a salad in defiance of the encroaching Autumn (and I know that its a warm salad, but to me, salad is always something eaten when the calender points closer to Wimbledon than winter.  Either that or the stuff you push to the side of your plate when you have pub-meals).

It has so many delicious flavours, from the earthy beetroot to the savoury black pudding, it's brilliant as a starter, or do what we did and just make huge portions because it's so nice, especially when served with garlic bread!


Ingredients
4 Beetroot
1 Butternut Squash
2 Cloves of Garlic
Handful of Fresh Thyme
300 g Black Pudding
250g Goats Cheese
Salad Leaves or Spinach


Method
Heat the oven to 200ºc.  Wash and scrub the beetroot and then cut into chunks about 2cm in size.  Put the beetroot in an ovenproof dish with some oil and roast for 30 minutes, along with the garlic and thyme.

 Peel and chop the butternut squash, cube that too, and then add this to the beetroot and roast for a further 20 minutes. Check to make sure that the vegetables have been cooked through.  They will be the most glorious bright red colour by now.

In a frying pan, fry the black pudding for about 5 minutes, until it's cooked and starting to brown around the edges, then remove from the heat.

Put a layer of salad leaves (or spinach on the plate, then a layer of the roasted vegetables, then crumble the cooked black pudding and the goats cheese on top.  Then it's ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Beetroot, Lime and Wasabi Soup

Ahh, beetroot, stainer of shirts, pickled pink nemesis of salads, how maligned you are these days...

I'm a sucker for hard-luck vegetables - sprouts, parsnips and the humble swede, are, in my eyes every bit as wonderful as butternut squash, or whatever is the flavour de jour.  So here is a rather nice beetroot soup, which turns the rather ugly tuber into a thing of ruby red magnificence, a spicy and zippy little number that is almost as good as my sprout soup

This is a really light soup, and the coconut milk does wonders to counter-act the earthy flavour that puts a lot of people off.  It would work well as a starter or put it in a flask to take on a picnic.

Beware the fact that your kitchen may get messy when preparing the beetroot.  My hands were stained red for a few hours afterwards!