Sweet Potato and Turmeric Soup
1 medium onion finely diced
1 pound of Sweet Potatoes, peeled, 1-inch cubes or smaller
¼ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (cheap kind)
1 tablespoon of Coarse Sea salt (or Kosher salt),
(if no Coarse salt, use ½ tablespoon fine salt)
1 inch of fresh turmeric, ( ¾ of it peeled. You will grate it directly into the soup)
Equipment
Wooden spoon
Pot
Blender, or hand blender
First. Note on turmeric: I found some in my fridge. I did not recognize what it was, so I asked my wife, “what is this?”
She said “Turmeric”.
I replied “Tumric? I have never used fresh tumric before.”
Patiently she replied, “It is Tur-mer-ic. The ‘r’ is before ‘m’, and you are missing an ‘e’. Yes, I bought it the other day.”
“Tumric?”
“No, Tur-mer-ic”
Immediately inspired to pair things orange in colour, I announced to my wife as she walk out of the kitchen, “I am Going to Make a Tumric and Sweet Potato Soup.”
Tossing both hands her into the air in frustration, she quips “sounds good dear”.
Add oil and butter into a pot on medium heat. Give them a minute to melt together, then add the onions and salt. I always add my salt with the onion, helps to break-them-down and bring out the onions sweetness (that is my theory, and I am going with it).
Now, the critical part of the recipe is the cooking of the onions, they should be bathing in the fat as they cook. Depending on the size of your pot, this may not happen; “it is not only the amount of water that is in a pool that lets you swim, but also its shape” Siddhartha Gautama.
The onions are cook when tender and sweet. Once that goal has been achieved, add the cut sweet potato, and roll it around in the fat and onions with your wooden spoon. Now take your turmeric and finely grate it into the potatoes and onions, roll it around again. Lightly cooking the turmeric helps to burst open its flavor (one note about your hands at this moment. You do not have jaundice from liver failure; it is the turmeric. The colour will eventually go away. I find a good Alsatian white, a dry Riesling perhaps, helps in remedying this problem; you care less about the colour on your hands the more you drink the wine)
Add cold water, just enough to cover sweet potatoes and have they gentle bobbing in the pool of love. Turn up the heat to a medium high and let it simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender when poked with a knife. The excess oil and butter help to smooth and enrichen the soup once pureed.
Let cool for a few minutes, ten if you can wait that long. Then add to a blender.
Now this is most dangerous part of the recipe. When hot objects are blended, in a blender, they tend to vehemently erupt (something to do with physics and energy, blah, blah.) My technique to avoid scalding of my eyes and making a mess on the ceiling, is to leave the center part of the blender top open (it is designed like that for a reason) and cover it loosely with paper towel. If you are in a tax bracket that permits you to have a Vita mix, great, good for you, you have a very low speed option to begin with – use it. If you are like the rest of us, choose the lowest speed possible, tense your shoulders, take a slurp of wine for courage, gently hold the top of the blender with your hand and paper towel, and Turn it On!
Blend until blended. You may bravely go up in speeds. If the soup appears to stop circulating at the top of the blender, just add a small amount of water to loosen it. The soup is pureed when it appears as a velvet gold mine. Taste for your salt after. Should be in the right ballpark
Serve hot in a bowl. Lemon zest would be nice or chopped up roquette. I always add always add Maldon salt.
Cheers. enjoy