Curried Carrot & Corainder Soup With a Poached Egg

This easy and healthy soup is perfect for those trying to keep healthy. This thick hearty soup soup is great starter for almost any meal, and has a wonderful buttery flavour punch, that will make your guests keep asking for more.

This recipe is vegetarian, but additionally can be vegan with the substitution of the butter for an equal amount of oil at the start and the subtraction of the poached egg to serve.

Ingredients:

2 Onions, Finely diced

6 Cloves of Garlic, Finely diced

900 G of Carrots, peeled and Roughly chopped

250G salted butter

900 ml of Chicken or vegetable stock,

1 Tbsp of Coriander powder

1 Tbsp of Cumin

1 Tbsp of Turmeric

Coriander leaves to serve

1 Egg per portion

Cracked Black Pepper & Sea Salt

Serves 6

Utensils :

Pots and pans

Stick Blender.

I like to have the vegetables chopped up first and leave them neatly in bowls so that i can use them later. all of the ingredients that go in to the soup are eventually going to be blended. This means that you don't need to have all the vegetables neatly chopped, just give them a rough chop but try to ensure that they are all the same size.

Picture 1. Chop the garlic to a puree consistency, it doesn't need to be perfect, but roughly equal is fine.

Picture 2. Same goes for the onions Chop them finely in to pieces in to roughly the same size.

Picture 3. Finally chop the carrot up, the larger pieces that you chop this up in to the longer it will take to cook in the pan.

You can chose to use just normal oil at this stage, but i wanted to give this dish a lovely rich flavour and so decided to saute all my vegetables in butter instead. Using just normal oil would make the soup suitable for vegans.

Picture 1 Melt the 250g of salted butter in the pan until the butter browns slightly.

Picture 2. Add the onions and garlic in to the pan and allow to soften. this will often take about 5 minutes or so on a medium heat.

Adding the spices at this I think allows the flavours of the spices to integrate better. Once you have added the spices to the onions mix them in thoroughly and then allow the onions to cook in the spice mix for a few minutes.

Picture 1-3 Add in 1Tbsp of Cumin, Coriander powder and Turmeric

Picture 4. Combine all of the ingredients with the onions.

Picture 5. Allow to cook together for a few more minutes.

Time to form the base of the soup with the bulk of the ingredients, you want to lightly cook the chopped carrot in the hot butter before adding the stock.

Picture 1. Pour the 900g of chopped carrots in to the pot containing your cooked onions/ garlic with spices.

Picture 2. Stir in the carrots as to cover them in the onions and spices, cook them slightly at this stage in the hot butter they only need a few minutes.

Picture 3. After you have cooked them for a few minutes time to add your stock.

The carrots need to cook entirely before you can move on to the blending stage, for this they need to simmer gently on a low heat until the carrots are completely soft i would recommend around 20 minutes then check upon them to see if they need slightly longer.

Picture 1. Cook the carrots in the stock for around 20 minutes check they are cooked before you blend them.

This is going to be a thick soup, spend your time blending it entirely. You can if you would like pass this soup through a sieve to get a finer texture, but your stick blender should be able to sufficiently blend up the soup.

Picture 1. Once the carrots have cooked until soft and they are soft enough to be crushed against the side of the pot with a fork, the soup is ready to be blended.

Picture 2. Blend the ingredients until smooth.

I have chosen to garnish this dish with a poached egg, you can garnish with other ingredients if you wish. When poaching always ensure that you use fresh eggs, the older the egg the less of the egg white is going to stay around the egg yolk when you cook it.

Picture 1. In a small pot of water boil seasoned water with a touch of olive oil.

Picture 2. Always put the egg in a cup, opposed to cracking it directly in to the pot this. this allows you to pour the egg in slower are more gently.

Picture 3. Once the water is boiling create a gentle spin in the water and pour the egg in the middle. the spin will pull the egg around its self. once the egg has risen to the top your poached egg is cooked this will take around 2 minutes or so.

I have garnished this soup with a small amount of paprika, pepper, olive oil a poached egg and coriander leaves. I would recommend eating this soup on the day that it has been cooked, soup tends to be rather difficult to store in the fridge. This soup can also been frozen but i get i wouldn't recommend it as you would will lose flavour heating it to a high temperature in order to make it safe to eat again.

Thank you for reading , if you have any comments or queries please contact me and I will try to answer them as soon as possible.