Well, ragazzi, to say Annalena has been somewhat uninvolved with her blog and the internet in general, would be an understatement. And she offers no explanations here. Instead, in response to several of you, she is posting her recipe, for the above named soup. And in the course of the recipe, she will give you different options and directions in which to take this soup, which is delicious in the TWO ways she made it. And a warning aforehand: this recipe makes a LOT of soup. Annalena got 3.5 quarts out of it. It is worth it. It is vegan. It is cheap. And it is good.
Sweet potatoes, to Annalena, are one of the forgotten vegetables of the fall and winter. Indeed, Annalena forgot about them. The soup resulted from a realization that she had tons of these guys sitting around, doing nothing. They keep well, so there wasn't a storage problem, but there they were, sitting there, quietly, doing nothing. But soup needed to be made. Just a couple more weeks before the Guyman ends his musical rehearsals for the season, and Monday soup making will go on hiatus. so, what better than?
We will need 3.5 pounds of sweet potatoes:
Annalena's sweet potatoes are organic, and they are local, so they are smaller than what you will find in a supermarket, where a sweet potato can easily weigh nearly 2 pounds. That is why you see so many of the sweets here. Do weigh them. As Annalena has noted, you are going to have a lot of soup, and while you can play with the ingredients, proportions are important. Now please put those aside while we get to work with the other ingredients.
What you see here, is a pound of roughly chopped onion (it was one HUGE onion), and two chunked green peppers. So far, Annalena does not give you leave to change the recipe. You will need these, and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. You are also going to need about 4 cloves of garlic, and two tablespoons of roughly chopped ginger:
And here we take our first fork in the road: if you do not like ginger, or you do not like it very much, cut back on it, or leave it out completely. Annalena is a big fan of ginger, so she used plenty. You can replace this with, for example, curry powder, or perhaps chipotle sauce or chili peppers if you like. You do want the garlic.
Have all of this ready, and then, in a BIG pot, heat the oil, and add the onions and the peppers at the same time. When you are getting some serious feedback from the hot oil, lower the heat, stir the stuff every now and then, for about ten minutes. Give it that full ten minutes, and keep it moving every few of those ten. You want something like this:
While the onions and peppers are cooking, you should peel, and chop your sweet potatoes roughly. You have plenty of time to do this while the basic veggies are cooking, and that is a good thing, because once they cook, you are going to be moving pretty fast for a few minutes.
When the veggies have softened (and by the way, add salt along the way), add two tablespoons , of red curry paste.
And here we come to another fork in the road, ragazzi. If you do not have red curry, or you know you do not like it, or you don't want curry, don't use it. Use something you like: this is YOUR soup. But if you use the curry paste, cook it for about two minutes. Then add the ginger and onions and cook for about a minute: when you smell the ginger, you've cooked it enough.
Now add your sweet potatoes:
And really, it's easy street now. You stir these together with the aromatic vegetables, and then add two quarts of your preferred liquid. Annalena used water. You can use vegetable stock, you can use chicken stock, you can use what you like. NO COCONUT MILK YET. Coconut milk will "break" if you cook it for too long, so no, not yet. Add the liquid, taste for salt and correct, and then let this simmer, for about 15-20 minutes. You want to test the potatoes, to see that they are soft.
And now, we come to another fork, ragazzi. This one is simple: if you do not want to puree the soup, or if you just want something chunky, leave it as it is. But if you want to take it to creamy, let this cool a bit, and then add a 16 ounce can, of low fat coconut milk (There is no need to use the full fat stuff here). Stir it around , and puree it, and you get the soup at the top of this blog post. Or, as Annalena did, puree some and leave some chunky and you'll have two very different soups.
And now... yet another fork in the road. The original recipe calls for lime juice, fresh. Annalena loves lime juice, just not in her soup. You could also add shoyu. Or.. as Annalena plans to do, some seafood. She'll be using crabmeat to finish it off. But don't feel compelled to do it.
Annalena got 3.5 quarts of soup out of this, so please keep this in mind. She has not tested it for its ability to freeze, but in view of her good nature, she shared it. And you should too, especialy if you go completely vegan on it, which is easy to do.
So ragazzi, please make this soup. Enjoy it. Tell Annalena if you varied it, and how you liked it. And please keep in touch. It may not be clear, but Annalena misses you.
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