Beetroot soup
I have a strong feeling my blog is going to feature a lot of soups in the coming weeks :D. I am in the have a lot of soups mode now. What I realised with my extremely busy mornings these days is that I tend to go super hungry and then grab anything I get on hand. Was clearly not working well for me. I dislike cold food in general and in the mornings especially. So this warm bowl of soup seems ideal in terms of health & filling up quotient for me. And ofcourse, I prep these the previous night and so there is no time spent in the kitchen in the mornings.
For my soups as mentioned earlier, I have pretty much my set base.. the mirepoix :). So basically, start off with butter/ olive oil; Add garlic, onion, carrots, celery and then build it with anything I want. I had some beetroots on hand yesterday and so wanted to make use of it in a soup. Beetroots have a strong and earthy flavour. So for a big bowl of soup just for me, I added just 1/2 a medium beetroot and found it perfect.
There is that slight hint of sweetness from the beetroot which adds a very nice flavour to the soup and oh, the colour – what a royal looking soup :D. D was very impressed when I showed him the soup but asked to keep it far away from him cos he doesn’t have beetroots :D.
On a personal note, Adya and my niece are so adept at riding bicycle and I couldn’t be happier :). We infact went to a cycling track where Adyant cycled for nearly 5-6kms and Tash kept up with us throughout (possibly 10kms). I am so impressed with these kids. Took them both to a skating trial and they loved it. Hoping to start classes soon. I am so glad Adya and Tash have each other so accessible to each other. Adya also has his cousins Nethra & Prithvi in Dubai and likes them a lot. A recent family drawing made at school had us + Tash/ Neths/ Priths & Athu :). What an emo melt moment for me that was!
- 1 small onion
- 1/4 no carrot
- 1/2 stalk celery
- 1/2 medium beetroot
- 3 pods garlic fat small ones
- 1 no bay leaf
- 4 nos cloves
- 15-20 nos black pepper corn
- 3/4 tsp rock salt
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1.5 cups water
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Prep work – Peel the skin of onion, garlic, carrot & beetroot. Roughly chop them all (including celery). Set it aside.
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Take a small pressure cooker, add 1t olive oil and heat (medium flame).
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Once hot, add bay leaf, cloves, whole black pepper corn. Saute for a few seconds.
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Add garlic & saute for a few seconds.
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Add onion and saute till it gets translucent.
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Now add carrot, celery, beetroot and saute for 30 seconds.
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Now add 1.5c water, 3/4t rock salt and pressure cook for 5 whistles.
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Allow the cooker to release its pressure naturally and then open the cooker.
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Fish out the bay leaf and cloves (accounting 2 mins of the given pulsing time above :D).
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Blending with a hand blender till smooth. Check and adjust salt. Also add some more water if you think the soup is too thick.
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Once blended completely, transfer to a bowl and enjoy!
- If you do not have a hand blender, allow the soup to fully cool down and transfer the chunks (leave the water) into a mixer jar & grind till smooth. Then mix it with water.
- As always, spice up/ spice down as per your taste.
- I usually have this entire batch of soup as my brekkie. Its filling and I love it. I make it the previous night so I don’t need to spend anytime in the kitchen.
