Carrot Soup

Hey everyone.. Carrot Ginger Soup today from Suma's Veggie Platter..

Fig. 1. Carrot Ginger Soup

I always have carrots in the refrigerator. So am always looking for ways to use them up. I have made a carrot soup in the past with garlic seasoning. This version is similar. But the switch to ginger makes it taste quite different, so it was a good variation for us. For more carrot recipes, I would also check out Suma's Carrot Round-Up.

Ingredients:
Onions - 1 medium, finely chopped (1/2 for soup, 1/2 for garnish)
Baby Carrots - about 20
Ginger - about 1/2 inch by 1 inch piece, roughly chopped
Stock or whey or milk or water - about 2 cups, as per your preference for consistency. I used Water + 1/2 Maggie/Knorr Cube.
Oil - 1 teaspoon
Red chilly powder - 1 teaspoon
Pepper - pinch
Salt - to taste

Procedure:
1) Cook 1/2 of the chopped onion, all the baby carrots and ginger in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for about 4-5 minutes, stopping, stirring and checking every now and then to make sure the carrots don't dry out (sprinkle some water if that happens). Stop when everything is soft, tender and well-cooked.
2) Let the above mixture cool down. Then blend it into a puree. Add as much stock or water or milk as necessary to make puree. Note: Suma has used milk. I used water and a maggie cube as "stock".
3) Now add the rest of your stock/milk/water or whatever to the puree and mix to get desired consistency of soup. Add salt, pepper and red chilly powder as per desired taste. Heat well till fully cooked. If using milk, do not bring it to a full boil.
4) Meanwhile in a small bowl take remaining 1/2 onion, finely chopped. Drizzle with some more oil and heat for 2 minutes or so till the onions are soft and slightly browned. Then add this to the soup as garnish.

For garlic version, substitute the ginger with garlic. And at the end, instead of onion seasoning, add lots of browned, sauteed, chopped garlic as seasoning. Tastes yum!

Serve: I like to serve such soups either as a Rasam-like drink on the side for an Indian meal. Or with some bruschetta-like bread. Toast in the oven (at 350F) bread drizzled with some olive oil and then topped with a mixture of {chopped tomatoes + chopped onions + salt + pepper + some olive oil} for 10 or 15 minutes, till the bread is browned and crusty.

Cheers and enjoy!