Recipes · 30 September 2011 ·
Curried Celery Soup
My posting frequency has hit rock bottom, due to my move to Edinburgh and many other commitments. But I thought I may start adding a few recipes to this site, since I think that cooking is an integral part of human life, and everyone should know at least a few recipes. Thus, I thought I’m going to start with a vegetable that I personally despise, and tell you how to turn it into something edible: Celery.
There are many ways you can enjoy celery. You can make celery salad, fry it or just have it raw with hummus. I have also been told that it’s great with cream cheese and peanut butter, but I have my reservations. However, for someone like me, who despises the taste and smell of it, there is only one way to prepare it: Turn it into soup, and it will be delicious. Plus, it’s just about the right thing for the cold winter months ahead. (Even though the weather in Edinburgh has been stunning, it already gets dark at around 8pm) Therefore, to spread the good, I will be sharing the recipe with you here.
The soup is based on a normal vegetable soup, with added curry-spices. This is what you need:
- 1–2 bunches of Celery, for garnishing keep a few leafs of the celery
- 2–4 medium sized potatoes
- medium sized chopped onion,
- garlic
- Spices: tumeric, curry and curcuma, chilli pepper, pepper, salt.
- olive oil.
- sunflower or pumpkin seeds.
- optional: tomato puree
In a large saucepan, add a a bit of olive oil, plenty of turmeric, curry and curcuma . Make sure they don’t burn! Add the chopped onion and a little later, the garlic, and fry until soft and slightly brown. In the meantime chop the celery and the potatoes into cubes, add both to the onions and again, fry until soft. A little salt helps to facilitate osmosis and destroying the cell walls of the celery, speeding up the cooking process. Stir frequently. Then, add at least 500ml of vegetable broth (so that it covers all the vegetables, plus a few inches), bring to boil and leave to simmer for 10–20 minutes. Now you may add additional pepper, salt, curcuma, curry and tumeric, and the chilli pepper according to taste. For variation, you may also add a few spoons of tomato puree. Take a blender and blend everything until smooth. Distribute into serving bowls.
Before serving the celery soup, take a small sauce or frying pan and add a handful of sunflower or pumpkin seeds and roast them (without oil!) on medium heat in a small sauce pan until golden brown, and sprinkle them on the soup. Finally, use the fresh celery leafs to garnish the soup.
Share with friends and enjoy!