Carrots and onions are root vegetables, and therefore bring deep, concentrating energies into our bodies and helping to strengthen the colon and intestines.
The green, upward-growing celery helps bring some balance into our soup and some good energies to our liver and gallbladder.
The gentle sweetness of orange vegetables – like carrot, yams, or squash – give us beta carotene (a powerful antioxidant and important nutrient) as well as healthy complex carbs that regulate our sugar levels, help retain heat within the body, and soothe our spleen and endocrine system.
I like to make this soup a bit heavier on the oil in winter months or on a cool spring day because of the deep warmth brought by cooking with healthy fats like sesame or avocado oil (both have a high smoke point and are my usual choice for cooking). My favourite thing about pureed soups is how easy they are – so fast to prepare because you don’t have to worry about how you chop your veggies and you can walk away and let it cook while getting other things done.
I call it a velvety carrot soup because the texture is just divine! I hope you get the exact same result when you give this recipe a shot.
Makes 6-8 servings
Ingredients:
- 3 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 large white or yellow onion
- 3 large carrots
- 2 large stalks celery
- 1 chunk ginger, about the size of a thumb, skin removed and cut into chunks
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 tsp salt
- about 8 cups water (or stock)
Wash and scrub all your vegetables and heat the oil in a large stainless steel Dutch oven pot over medium-low heat.
Remove the onion skin, cut into half, cut the halves in half to get quarter pieces, and cut each quarter in half so you have 8 chunks of onion.
Add the cumin seeds to the oil, stirring to coat the seeds evenly and release their delicious flavour for about a minute.
Add the onions and the single chunk of ginger to the pot and stir to coat evenly with oil and cumin seeds. Let cook for a minute or two while you cut the carrots.
Give the carrots a rough chop, making sure all the pieces are around the same size. Add to the onions and stir.
Give the celery a rough chop and add to the onions and carrots. Add one teaspoon of the salt and stir to coat everything evenly. Let the vegetables cook for about 2 minutes while you prepare the water.
Measure out your water – I like to add mine a cup at a time, slowly, so that the temperature of the pot doesn’t drop too drastically. (It boils a lot faster this way.)
Turn the heat up to high and add your first cup of water, stirring slowly to get all the good oils, flavours, and pieces of vegetable off the sides. When the water starts to bubble, slowly add the next cup and stir. Continue to do this with all 8 cups of water, or until the vegetables are covered with about 2 cm of liquid covering the vegetables underneath for a good consistency in texture.
When the soup is boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.
When the vegetables are tender enough, turn off the heat.
Add the other teaspoon of salt and give a good stir to dissolve the salt into the hot liquid.
Then, puree with an electric blender or a food mill. The food mill will not give as velvety a texture as an electric blender. When blending, let it go a little extra longer than you normally would, making sure all the chunks are smoothed out and getting that amazing silky texture to shine through!
Serve hot, garnished with something fresh and green (I enjoy steamed broccoli) or with a nice side of organic blue corn chips.
Enjoy!