Today at work I surpassed my very own cooking skills. Speaking without false modesty, I made a soup that was simply divine (I ate three plates of it). The nice part is that it was totally random: I just used the wonderful organic vegetables delivered by my boss. Lots of stuff comes from the last harvest on his farm, back in October. Actually, the soup itself is not so special. It's the way it is served, that is. Here is the recipe for 4 people:
- a piece of ginger as big as one of your fingers
- half a celery root
- about 6 medium-size carrots
- 200 gr red lentils
- spinach
- the shredded peel of 1 organic orange and/or lemon
- a bunch of parsley
- olive oil
- salt
Preparation:Peel the ginger and cut it into tiny little cubes. Cut the celery root into slightly bigger cubes. Chop all the parsley and fry everything in olive oil on the bottom of your pot. You can also add extra spices at this point, like paprika or cumin (I didn't do it, because the soup is tasty enough at this point). This is the base of your soup, which is supposed to be both mildly spicy and aromatic.Julienne half of the carrots and make sure they don't get dark while waiting (I used the juice of half an orange to prevent the oxidation). Put them on one side. Put the rest of the carrots in the blender with enough water. Now, add only the blended carrots to the soup base, extra water, and the washed lentils. Stir well and bring to boil (be sure the lid is not on when it starts boiling, lentils make foam!). Add salt. Meanwhile, chop off the hard part of the spinach leaves and add them and the carrot staves to the boiling soup. Chop the rest of the spinach leaves and put them in a bowl. Grate the peel of the orange and/or the lemon and prepare it on a small plate/bowl.When the lentils have cooked and the soup has taken a nice intense-yellow colour, the soup is ready to be served. I put it in a deep plate first, put the fresh spinach in the middle, added a spoonful of olive oil and a pinch of lemon peel on top. Ready.You know, it's a real pity to cook the spinach when it's so fresh and organic as the one I had today in my kitchen - it loses like 80% of its weight and in soup it almost disappears! - that's why I served it fresh, and I used everything of them. But since it's winter, and it's Norway, and you need something to warm you up, fresh spinach leaves put to soften in a hot ginger soup is the best you can get.Same goes for the lemon. It's a pity to throw away the peel when you use organic lemons. And you can do so many things with it! In this case, it goes perfectly both with the taste of the ginger and the carrots, and it surprises the eater with its unusualness in soups.
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