There was a little more preparation involved in this soup but nothing that should put you off making it. The carrots I bought were not as clean as I previously bought to make the Oriental Carrot Soup so you may, like me, need to top and tail and peel your carrots.

Before starting to prepare your soup you will need to sort out your peppers by peeling and de-seeding them. This is easy enough but if you have not peeled peppers before then you will need to know the trick. There are a few ways of doing this but I place my peppers under the grill (broiler) and keep them there until the skin starts to blister and go black. Keep rotating them until all sides are done. Once done, place the peppers in a bowl and cover with cling film. Leave for half an hour to cool and then you will find them easy enough to peel.

This is another rich and warming winter soup, given a hint of Oriental cooking with the addition of Chinese 5 Spice. If you want a vegetarian soup just use all vegetable stock cubes.

Ingredients

1kg Carrots, chopped into one inch segments
3 Red Bell peppers, peeled, de-seeded and chopped
1/2 Celeriac, chopped
4/5 Garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 Chicken stock cubes
2 Vegetable stock cubes
1 1/2 heaped tsps Chinese 5 Spice
Bunch of fresh Coriander
Freshly ground Black pepper
Water

Method

• Red peppers

  Celeriac

  Peel (see above for method), de-seed and chop the peppers and place in your pan.
  
  
• Clean, peel and chop the carrots into roughly one inch pieces and add to the pan.
  
  
• Peel your half of Celeriac and cut into cubes. Add to the pan.
  
  
• Peel and roughly chop your garlic cloves. (You can use more or less according to your tastes.) Add to the pan.
  
  
• Add water to the pan so the level is about one inch from the top of your pan. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer for an hour or so.
  
  
• Add the Chinese 5 Spice.
  
  
• Taste the soup to see how salty it is. At this stage you add two chicken stock cubes and one vegetable stock cube (I prefer Knorr stock cubes. I use the stock cubes both to enhance the flavour but also to season the soup as stock cubes are quite salty which is why you should add and then taste after they have dissolved.) After tasting add the second vegetable stock cube if required.
  
  
• Finely chop your Coriander (plenty of it) and add to pan. Add a generous few twists of freshly ground black pepper. Continue to simmer for a further two or three minutes and then remove from the heat.
  
  
• Remove half the cooked carrots from the pan, drain them over a bowl so as not to lose any of your liquid and then discard.
  
  
• Liquidise the soup in either a liquidiser (will need to do in batches) or with a hand-held liquidiser so that a smooth consistency is achieved.
  
  
• Serve immediately or leave to cool and store in the fridge and reheat as required. If not using all at once only reheat the amount you need each time and not the whole pan of soup.

Serves 8

Making anything like this does not require you to use precise amounts so do not worry too much about weighing or the size of the ingredients. If your Celeriac is big half will do but if small then use the whole thing. The Celeriac, as well as adding flavour, helps to thicken the soup when you liquidise it.

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