Tried it? 
I bought a root veg. I don’t know what it is. I saw it at the corner store one day and thought, why not? I figured, at best, it was a yam; at worst, a radish. Not that I don’t like radishes — it’s just that you can’t really do the same things with them as you could yams, and I had plans for my mystery tuber.
Okay, I actually didn’t have plans… but I did have the Internet and, after my recent success with fat-free biscuits, I thought I could find a recipe that would reveal its true potential. And I felt like soup.
I decided to jury-rig a Julia Child vichyssoise recipe I found online – the difference is that I didn’t have the right ingredients (in that I had this unknown root and various veg instead of, well, anything in the recipe). Did that stop me? Apparently not. Prepare for fail, said I…
Vegan Warning: None! Don’t say I never did nothin’ for you guys. And if you’re worried about sodium, don’t use salt.
Mystery Tuber Soup (made from 100% root veg!)
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 cups mixture of 1 medium thinly sliced cooking onion, 1 bunch thinly sliced green onions (only the white bottoms), and 3 cloves thinly sliced garlic
4 cups thinly sliced mystery tuber (potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes… whatever)
7 cups cold water
2 teaspoons salt
Put the water in a big pot and add the veg to it as you go (slice the yam or potato or whatever first so it doesn’t brown). Add salt and bring to a boil, cover partially, and simmer for half an hour. Puree in small batches once cool enough to not melt your blender. Serve warm or cold.
Have you ever been to fressen? You know that swanky $6 soup they have there? It’s like that. Or if you haven’t been, I’d imagine it’s like those fancy soups in a carton for which you pay through the nose at the supermarket. I’m not usually a fan of cooked carrots but, as leeks tend to be relatively mild, I figured that two cups of cooking onions would be a little crazy. You can do whatever the heck you want with this recipe — I did, and it worked!
Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I took a cup of the soup, added a crapload of curry powder and capsaicin, and kept it in a separate container to drizzle on the top when I served it. Don’t do that. Just don’t. And if you do, get ready to throw out a cup’s worth of soup.
Stupid drizzly flourishes aside, my husband (a big fan of fressen’s soups but not of fressen’s prices) was extremely happy with the soup and impressed with me as a result. It was super cheap and easy to make — and if there are two words with which I’m often described, it’s cheap and easy. No, wait…
… I think it was a red yam.
Update: After making this soup numerous times, I’ve created a simple formula:
Rooty Bulbous Soup
4 cups sliced roots (potatoes, yams, parsnips, carrots, etc.)
4 cups sliced bulbs (leeks, onions, garlic, scallions, etc)
7 cups cold water
2 teaspoons salt
Add veg to cold water. Bring to boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Puree. Tada.
0 Responses to “Start an Underground Soup Movement”