Mike van de Elzen: Parsnips in a soup w/ curry oil

Parsnips in a soup with curry oil

Cook time: 35 minutes 

Prep time: 20 minutes 

Serves: 6

1 kg parsnips, peeled and chopped  

3 white onions, peeled and chopped  

10 cloves garlic  

3 tbsp sunflower oil  

1 cup white wine  

1.5 ltr vegetable stock  

2 cups cream  

Salt  

Curry oil:

1 tbsp coriander seeds  

1 tbsp cummin seeds 

 2 tbsp garam masala 1 

Tsp turmeric  

1/2 cup sunflower oil  

1 tsp salt 

Start by heat a large deep based pot over a medium heat.  

Add in the oil and then the onions and garlic, slowly cook them out but be careful, not to allow it the stick and start to colour up. The end result wants to be a white creamy soup not brown.  

Once soft, add the parsnips and continue to saute for another minute before adding the wine. Once the wine is reduced add the stock and season with salt.  

Cook out for 30 minutes before testing.  

To make up curry oil, start by making a basic curry powder. Toast the coriander seeds and cumin seeds until fragrant. Place into the pestle and mortar and crush. Add in the garam masala and turmeric. Bingo - you have just made a basic curry powder! Place the curry powder into a pot with the oil and salt, bring to the simmer. Turn of and allow to cool before passing through a choux cloth. Don't push it through, just allow it to drip. Blitz the soup and add in the cream, check the seasoning.  

Serve in bowls with a drizzle of oil.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'd be and if you were going to make a
vegetable soup, would the parsnip be your choice vegetable? Well,
our resident chef, Mike vander Ellison is with us and
he's going to do his best to sell us on
the charms of the humble parsnip.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Good morning, Mike, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I did think to myself, actually, this is amazingly youre
talking about partips today because we've just had Ben Elton
on who co created and wrote Blackadder, and I thought, oh,
I remember Blackadder. They had heaps of jokes about parsnips,
but it wasn't parsnips. It was turnips. I don't know
if you remember, if you ever watched Blackadder Baldric hand

(00:49):
with turnips. I was like, oh this, oh look, we're
just this is brilliant. We're just lining all these things up.
But turnip is different to a parsnip, isn't it. A
turnip is round than a parsnip?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Is the long white exactly? That? That's okay, And we
were paired to have them coming out of we passed
our garden.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So what did they did? They naturally did did somehow
the seeds street? Did the boots do a trick or something?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, they're just self seated. And it's amazing because the
passps are it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
If you like partips, that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
But the genmy growing in winter, so we're happy because
the coldness kind of brings out the sweetness of the
parsnip or enhances the sweetness of the passip. And so
here we are at the end of a very hot
summer and we're harvesting our passips and they they are
actually delicious and pips. It was, and I'm getting a
little bit over them now, I must say, it's been

(01:42):
two weeks of pass it. During the week we had
supper Glove and I introduced because people don't know what
the menu is until then. And I was like, right,
so you'll started tonight. It's going to be a delicious, silky,
smooth parsnip soup. Anyone just went, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Okay, I'm sure that you tuned into something is absolutely delicious.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
That was great. It was great. So lots of butter,
lots of cream help that one. And for the soup today,
it is actually well, don't figure it's pass it soup.
But what works really well with the soup is a
curry oil, and that the flavors of the curry kind
of really enhances the parsate flavor. And to make the

(02:27):
curry oil, you'd simply just need to make your own
curry powder. So for those of you out there that
buy curry powder, let me run you through the ease
of making your own curry powder. So take tablespoon and
this will make I don't know, this will make one
of those little square boxes that you buy at soup.
Make so tablespoon of curry and seeds. Tablespoon and cuman seeds.

(02:50):
You could add federal seeds that if you wish, like
maybe teaspoon of federal seeds. Take them, fire them in
the oven or toast them in a pan, and cook
them until they start to become fragrant. And what that
cooking process is doing is it's releasing the essential oils
and a part of that seed and the essential oils
are released upon So toast them off once you're starting
to get a little bit of fragrance coming out, pop

(03:11):
them into a pestile and water crust them up. Into
a fine powder. And then you pretty much take equal
parts of your cumen and crying the seeds and mix
that with gara masala, mix that to get and then
maybe a teestpoon of trumeric for color and water. You
have just made your own curry powder. So we're now
going to turn that into a curry oil. So you

(03:31):
take your curry powder, put into a pot and just
cover it with a flavorous oil like or like sunflat
oil or a grap sit or something. There's no color,
no flavor. Just just just cover your curry powder and
then turn your element on, bring it up to a
similar turn it off, let it sit for like half
an hour, and then strain it through like chucks cloth,

(03:52):
and you get the most vibrant, flavorsome curry or that
you're going to use on your pass it soup. I've
kind of made the parce it ont the sideline. You know,
you like how I've done that. It's all about the
curry oil.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Exactly exactly Is there the reasons to that?

Speaker 3 (04:08):
No? No reason. Let's make a parse it suit. So
keerlow parsips, peel them, chopp them up, take three onions,
saute them off ten clothes of garlic. They love garlic.
They work really well together. Saute off the garlic, add
in your parssip, saute that off. What we don't want
to do is get too much color onto the parsips,
because we want the end result to be a nice

(04:28):
white parsp soup. Chuck in a cup of wine, reduce
that down, and then and go one and a half
leaves vegetable stock. Bring that to boil, add a little
bit of salt, cook it to your Parsip's a nice
and tender, and then blitz it while adding or whilst
adding two cups of cream. And you serve that pretty
much straight away with the all important curry oil.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Would you add any other vegetable to the parsa? What
does the parsnip just need to sit and be the
hero of the day.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
I think I think parssup is a really it is
quite an overwhelming flavor. So I think whatever else you
added to it, it would like to kind of challenge it.
So if there was anything you could would be maybe cauliflower, okay, yeah,
just dominate. Yeah, it just dominates. Everything you could add
and some potatoes if you want. If you want it

(05:15):
to be a bulk in that I'll just go pass its. Yeah,
maybe some lenks, maybe some lynks.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, if that sounds nice, what else would you do
with a parsnip?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
We roast them off heap. So remember last week I
spoke about making a shimola. Yes, so take that shimilla paste,
cut up your passips, mix it through that shamala paste,
and then fire them into the oven. And that shimola
kind of caramelizes on the outside. What Bee does quite
often with parssups, so she just cuts them up into
like little stacks and then she put some tight like
sweet thy chili sauce on it nice and then roast

(05:48):
it off. And what the sweet chili sauce does is
that here really caramelizes on the outside, and you get
all these little crusty, sweet, crusty caramelized bits.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
What I am noticing is that you're adding quite a
lot of flavor to the parsnip.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
I'm overpowering it, Okay, So are you going to plant
more parts you'd be getting more passive than for winter,
or are you're just going to let them just you know,
we run themselves.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
We don't need to plant any more pass it because
they're going to take over the entire path.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Oh, I love it. Thank you so much, Mike. Always
good to chat.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio