IMBB #14: Carrot Soup
In The French Laundry Cookbook, Thomas Keller describes the goal behind his amuse-guele soups, "Soup is simple. Identify your ingredient, cook it perfectly, and adjust the consistency." The cookbook contains a total of only three soup recipes, but he shares tantalizing hints to how he approaches others. For carrots, he has this to say, "They're a root vegetable, so you glaze them. If you glaze them perfectly, there's your soup--just adjust the consistency with stock or other liquid... One spoonful of carrot soup should deliver the flavor of several carrots." That's not much to go on for a recipe, but it served as my inspiration.
- 1 T. olive oil
- 6-7 medium carrots, peeled and roughly sliced
- 1 c. water or unsalted chicken stock
- 1/2 c. fresh orange juice
- 1 T. fresh grated ginger
- 1/4 c. plain yogurt, plus a little more for garnish
- 1/2 t. fresh parsley, finely minced
"Soup is simple. Identify your ingredient..."
Our ingredient today will be carrots, in honor of Is My Blog Burning? #14: Orange you hungry?, hosted by Foodgoat. I'm not sure what further identification is needed. They're long, thin and, well, orange.
"...cook it perfectly... they're a root vegetable, so you glaze them."
I wasn't sure how exactly Mr. Keller would glaze his carrots. I've glazed beef bones, hams and cinnamon rolls, but never carrots. How does one glaze a carrot? If I'd been to cooking school, I would know this. After you roast things, you need to deglaze the pan, so maybe glazing is part of roasting? That's my best guess and I'm sticking to it.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Find a pan you can put in both the oven and the stovetop and coat it with the olive oil. Place the sliced carrots in the pan, then roast them in the oven for thirty minutes, stirring every ten minutes. Remove the pan to the stovetop, and at medium-high heat, use the water or stock to deglaze the pan, scraping the pan to make sure you get any delicious browned bits. Simmer for about two minutes.
French Laundry soups are very pure, but we don't know how to leave perfection well enough alone. Add the orange juice and ginger to those perfect carrots, then immediately remove the pan from heat and leave to cool slightly. Pour the carrot mixture into a blender and puree until very smooth. Transfer this puree to the fridge and let cool completely, at least a couple hours.
"...adjust the consistency with stock or other liquid."
Shortly before serving, stir in the yogurt. If the soup is too thick, you can think it with cream, milk, additional stock or water. Serve chilled in demitasse cups, granished with a petite dollop of yogurt and a sprinkling of parsley.
"One spoonful of carrot soup should deliver the flavor of several carrots."
This soup was a tremendous success, full of intense carrot flavor. Peeling then roasting them prevented the bitterness that sometimes comes along with carrots, and the high notes of orange and ginger give a multi-layered flavor. This soup as perfect as a small starter to wake up the mouth. In larger quantities it would simply be too much orange to take.
Normally I wouldn't even consider carrot soup because well, I think that in my kid-at-home years, my mom made us eat one too many servings of carrots boiled to death! Still, checking the ingredients here, ginger, yogurt, and o.j. has me intrigued!
A nice thing about this recipe is that it doesn't make gallons and gallons of soup. If you try it and you get boiled carrot flashbacks, you can toss the remainder without feeling bad about the waste.
Vegetable glaze: heat up blanched veg in a small amount of liq, season, and mount with a pat of butter.