Giant carrot and cardamom soup.Dropping by work to collect my pay the other evening I discovered a very large carrot. Enormous. Must be on steroids. Or grown in radioactive soil. None of my colleagues has ever seen a carrot of such magnitude. It had been kept aside as material for the standard workplace sexual harassment (Oh I am thinking of you, DI) and sight gags, as much for it's novelty. So with beer fueled bravado, waving 12 extra fat inches of carrot in the air I announced:
"I'm going to cook this!"
It has been days. I just can't bear to bring myself to cut this split, gnarled monster, let alone peel away it's manhood. I had toyed with the idea of stuffing it, or roasting it, or removing the inner core, roasting that then stuffing the carrot, but I think soup. Soup will work. It's idiot proof.
1 x Litre basic chicken stock (recipe here)
olive oil
1 x giant carrot, peeled and diced
1 x large onion, diced
2 x French shallots, sliced finely
2 x cloves garlic, sliced finely
3 x freshly picked cardamom leaves (remove before puree')
1 x small knob of ginger, peeled, cut coarsely (to remove before puree')
Heat a heavy based pan, with a good whack of olive oil. Saute the onion and shallot until soft, season, add the carrot and garlic and knock back the heat. Cook out until the carrot caramelises a little, then add the stock, cardamom leaves, ginger and simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz 3/4 of the soup with a stab blender or liquidizer and add the rest to retain some texture. Garnish with some coconut cream or maybe some garlic chives.
