Swede, Chilli & Sage Soup

At this time of year it seems you can’t move for ‘winter warmer’ soups of various (but usually familiar) description: Spiced Butternut Squash / Honeyed Roast Parsnip / Carrot and whatever... it’s high time surely to give swede a good crack of the blender, no?

When your job is - in part* - developing recipes for others, it’s easy to forget to find time to cook for yourself – and though this is hardly a revolutionary recipe (a root veg soup is a root veg soup let’s be honest) it does pull together some of my favourite flavours, and in that respect was a pretty self-indulgent half hour or so. Sage is my *all-time* favourite herb and like @jamieoliver, I’m a die-hard chilli addict; both of these work really well with a slightly sweet root veg. Add in the tangy caramelized onion and you have a great combo of flavours (see my tip below for another ‘sweet’ edge to offset the heat if those chillies were hotter than you’d anticipated).

A good twist of black pepper (incidentally and perhaps unusually my favourite spice) – plus a few veg ‘crisps’ to offset the gloop-factor - and there you have it: a winter warmer in every sense.

Once again, another way to get your kids to enjoy a veg that’s rarely seen on dinner plates (though perhaps cut back on the chilli for little’ys). Don’t forget this will freeze well too…

* Besides of course refereeing the Morning Argument between the kids of Who Sits Where, Who Got The Most Juice & Who Gets The Pink Bowl.

INGREDIENTS

A generous tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
1 swede, peeled and diced to about 1cm squares (don’t cheat on this)
500ml hot vegetable stock

Seasoning

A few fresh sage leaves
Half a red chilli, chopped (use more or less, depending on your spice threshold)

Root veg shavings (use a mandolin or veg peeler) – and more sage if you want…

More butter / oil etc to fry off the above 3.

METHOD

1. Melt the first lot of butter in a large non-stick saucepan. Add the onion and swede (and a bit of seasoning) and cook for 30 minutes or so, stirring, until the swede is cooked through and the onion is lightly caramelized.

2. While this is happening, melt another (smaller) knob of butter (or oil) in a smaller pan and fry off the sage leaves and chilli for 3-5 mins. Complete stage 4 (below) too.

3. Place the contents of both pans (above) in a blender, add the stock and blitz. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Serve with root veg ‘crisps’…

4. Fry off the veg shavings and any additional sage in more butter / oil until crisp. Leave on a plate with kitchen roll to drain off excess fat (as you’ll see from the pic, mine could’ve been left to crisp up just a little more…)

TIP: Add some split yellow peas too (soak about 50g in cold water overnight, drain, then cook in boiling water for about 30 minutes before draining again and adding to the blender at stage 3)…