Parsnip & Apple Soup

At the risk of this turning in to a ‘soup of the week’ feature, I wanted to share another soup recipe with you. Parnsip and apple is one of my favourite flavour combinations for soup. In the past I’ve made this with cooking apples, which are a lot more tart, but since we are still working our way through the mountain of apples we picked at Craigie’s Farm the other week, I used those instead, which made the soup a lot sweeter. It was quite sweet, in fact. But perfect for the kids, as it turns out. They called it ‘Kindersuppe’ (i.e. kids’ soup). They were fighting over the leftovers the next day, that’s how much they liked it!

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

• 3 large parnsips,
• 4 large apples
• 1 large potato
• a handful of shallots*
• 2 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1.2 litres vegetable stock
• 200ml milk
• salt & pepper

* It’s difficult to quantify the shallots, as they come in such different sizes. In the photo below, you can see how big mine were. I used four of them, which was roughly a large handful. 

Directions

• Peel and cube the parnsips and potato. Peel and slice the shallots. Peel, core and cube the apples.
• Melt the butter, together with the oil, in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onions and gently fry until they start to soften.
• Add the parsnip, potato, apple and garlic, and fry for another 2-3 minutes, letting the apples and vegetables infuse the flavours of the onion and garlic.
• Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, and cook for around 20 minutes, or until the apples and vegetables are very soft.
• Remove from the heat and leave to cool for around 10 minutes, then blend to a smooth consistency, being careful not to burn yourself – I used a hand blender, but you could use a food processor if you own one.
• Stir in the milk, season with salt and pepper and heat through before serving (I actually take some of the slightly cooled soup out for the boys at this point, before heating it through again for the grown ups).
• Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or Greek yoghurt, and a sprinkling of mixed seeds (optional, but the boys love it). We also had it with some sliced pitta bread on the side.