This Soup was a great succes the first time at a dinner party for my friends in 2002. I have made it a few times since then, and I have considered to repeat the success, now as we go into the cold Winter.

Roasted sweet potato Soup with garlic cream toasts

(serves 6)

700 g orange-fleshed sweet potatoes

8 large garlic cloves, unpeeled

120 ml oliveoil

2 medium leeks

1 celery stick

1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped

1 medium potato

1,4 litres chicken, vegetable stock or Water

125 g unsalted butter

2 tsp caraway seeds

284 ml buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 200 celcius/400F/gas 6. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into large chunks. Put into roasting tin (or two if necessary – don’t crowd them) with the garlic cloves, toss with half the olive oil and roast for about 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, until the potatoes are very soft and beginning to brown.

Meanwhile trim, slice and wash the leeks, de-string and chop the celery and dice the apple and potato. Heat the remaining olive oil in a large saucepan and cook these over gentle heat for 10 minutes until just beginning to brown and soften. Pour in the water or stock, bring to the boil, cover and simmer until the potato in the stock is tender.

Remove the garlic from the roasting pan and set aside to serve with the toasts. Add the sweet potato and any roasting juices to the stock vegetables, return to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Liquidise and return to the pan, adding extra stock or water if the soup seems too thick. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Heat the butter until it foams and starts to turn nut-brown, drop in the caraway seeds and keep warm for 10 minutes until the butter is infused with the spicy flavour. Swirl some buttermilk into each serving and spoon over a pool of nutty, spicy butter. Serve the soup with a pile of Melba toast and a bowl of roasted garlic cloves to be squeezed from their papery cases and spread on to the toast.

Note 1: In my notes, I have written, that one should roast much more than just 8 garlic cloves, as they are delicious.

Note2: I have also noted, that the amount of spiced butter is more than needed, really.

Note 3: And finally – it is important, that the sweet potatoes have orange flesh, as the colour of the soup will be rather boring otherwise.

Melba Toast

4 slices day-old soft-grain bread

Preheat oven to 180 celcius/350F/gas4. Toast the bread lightly on both sides. Quickly cut off the crust and split each slice horizontally with a serrated knife. Lightly scrape off any doughy bits from the inside surface and cut diagonally into triangles. Arrange on a baking sheet and dry in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden and curly. Cool an store in airtight tin.

Note: I have written “lots of work, but nice” 🙂

(both recipes are from the magazine Food & Travel, October 1998)