10 Nov parsnip soup

Even the act of slicing a parsnip releases, to me anyway, the smell of winter. These are the ultimate of the earthy root vegetables and never fail to sooth the chill of a cold winter’s day, whether they’re found in soup or in a side dish.

roasted parsnip soup

Warm up this week with a bowl of spiced parsnip soup.

Ingredients

6 parsnips

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon of ground ginger

2 tablespoon of honey

2 tablespoon of olive oil

Salt

Pepper

1 litre of vegetable stock

½ teaspoon of chilli flakes, to serve

More olive oil, to serve

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas Mark 6.

2. Peel and roughly chop the parsnips, onion and garlic. Transfer to a large roasting dish.

3. Add the ground ginger, honey and olive oil to roasting dish. Add a generous pinch of salt and pepper and mix everything well.

4. Cover the dish with tin foil and roast in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the parsnips are cooked through.

5. Transfer the parsnips to a large bowl and pour in the hot vegetable stock. Use a hand-held blender to blitz the soup.

6. Place a large sieve over a saucepan. Use the back of a wooden spoon to push the blitzed parsnip soup through the sieve into the saucepan. This will give your soup a beautifully smooth texture and is really worth doing.

7. If necessary, re-heat your soup in the saucepan and add a little more salt and pepper to taste.

8. Serve the soup with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of chilli flakes.

This recipe first appeared in Insider Magazine in The Irish Independent on November 6th