Beetroot & Reinette Apple Soup
Hi guys! Rita here. Welcome to our first blog post of 2017! How has this year been treating you? Our New Year's Eve celebrations were pretty close to perfection. We got together with friends and we all booked rooms in the spectacular O Lugar Guesthouse in Porto Côvo. We were there for two nights and had a total blast until it was time to come back home. We loaded the car with the whole lot of our stuff (including a wide array of spices, kitchen appliances, a skateboard AND a surfboard), said our goodbyes and got ready to hit the road, but our car had other plans. It broke down right then and there, and didn't even leave its parking space. To cut the long story short, we had to come home by taxi and had our car fixed and returned to us just this week (after giving up a few hundreds of euros...).
Fast forward a couple of weeks from this whole scenario and the first real winter days have finally arrived. Until now we'd been basking in the sun at a cozy 19ºC temperature but it's considerably colder now (3ºC this morning guys! This is such a low temp where we live!) and we're craving warm comfort foods, like soup. We realized we hadn't shared any soup recipes with you yet so now seemed like the perfect time to do so.
We must have cooked a dozen versions of this recipe. Mostly, because we really like beetroots and because we aim to cook one batch of soup every week. I'll tell you what, André even photographed one of those versions at a certain point, although we ended up not sharing it. It just wasn't right, I mean – it was some good soup, but not quite the stuff of dreams. Until I realized what was missing: spices! A ton of them! I got my inspiration from the mild curries we had while we were in Bali (stay tuned for a blog post on that!) and even added the long peppers we bought in the amazing market in Ubud. I can now safely say this soup hits all the spots for us: it's unpretentiously delicious and it doesn't just taste of beets (don't get me wrong beets, we love you!). Give it a go folks!
BEETROOT & REINETTE APPLE SOUP
15 minutes prepping + 30 minutes cooking | makes 3.5 L
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp cold pressed virgin coconut oil
1 cinnamon stick
2 long peppers
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
low sodium, oil-free vegetable stock (or filtered water)
4 medium large beets (about 1 kg)
2 reinette apples
1 large sweet potato (about 600 gr.)
2 leeks
3 garlic cloves
sea salt & black pepper to taste
TO SERVE
vegan coconut yogurt
nigella seeds
chili flakes
chopped chives
fresh cilantro
STEP BY STEP
Start by gathering, preparing and measuring all of the ingredients. This will improve your dynamic in the kitchen.
PREPPING THE VEGGIES
Peel the beets and sweet potato.
Wash and core the apples.
Wash the leeks and discard the green parts (which you can use to make more vegetable stock).
Peel the garlic cloves and remove their center germ.
Cut all veggies into medium sized chunks (the smaller you cut them, the faster they will cook).
COOKING THE SOUP
Heat the coconut oil in a large pot on medium heat.
Add all the spices and stir them around until the mustard seeds start sizzling (be careful not to burn them).
Add all the veggies to the pot.
Pour in enough veggie stock or water to cover the vegetables.
Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.
Cook for 20-30 minutes (or until the beetroot and sweet potato are tender).
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before blending the soup with an immersion or high speed blender.
Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve and enjoy!
WE HOPE YOU ENJOY!
Share the photos of your creations on Instagram with the tag #cocooncooksblog so we can find it! xo