Jarrett Stieber's creamy carrot soup was a much needed feast of
sunny colors against a rainy afternoon.
Ingredients
2 bunches of baby carrots
1 quart of milk
1 quart of water
1 cup of honey
1 stick of butter
salt and lemon juice to taste
For Garnish
Sparta Imperial Lions Mane and Shiitake (cut into pieces and roast in a 350º oven until they look sexy)
some toasted peanuts
some ground espresso
Directions
1. One of the most convenient things about soup making is how easily you can see how much you'll be making. This recipe should yield enough soup for dinner, but if you need to make a bigger or smaller batch you can just fill up a bigger pot with more of everything and have more soup. This recipe is very easy to make and if you pay attention to the little details, it is extremely delicious and will impress your diners!
2. Take your carrots firstly and cut off the green tops (since the soup is blended, the greens will mix with the orange and you'll end up with a less pretty brown color). DO NOT THROW THE TOPS AWAY, THEY ARE NOT GARBAGE! From here, you can add the carrots (unpeeled and cut into smaller pieces to increase cook time) to a pot with all of the other ingredients and boil vigorously until the carrots are completely tender and mushy but not overcooked to the point of loosing their pretty orange color. The butter will 'break' and be floating at the top. That is ok! It will become friends with the rest of the soup when you put it in the blender.
3. Next, ladle enough of the soup mixture to fill your blend halfway (blend in batches because over stuffing will cause improper blending and the hot liquid will expand too much and teach a scalding lesson on how easy making a mess can be). Blend on high speed for about thirty to forty five seconds (hold the top of the blender down with your hand holding a kitchen towel for safety because the heat may cause it to pop off), until the mixture is very well blended. Should you want to put on your fancy pants, you can even pass this soup through a strainer to take any remaining clumps out and give it that velvety restaurant feel... but after it's blended, it's ready to eat! Taste it and adjust the seasoning as necessary. Garnish the soup with some of your mushrooms, toasted peanut, a good pinch of ground espresso (freshly ground, please... you worked hard on the soup, don't ruin it by sprinkling the top with brown sawdust!) and some of the carrot tops (picked from the stems like you would with parsley or any other herb).
More on Carrot Tops:
The carrot tops can also be used for purees, pesto or soup but I would recommend blanching them in water with a good pinch of baking soda added to it for a minute or two before shocking and pureeing (the alkaline water will preserve the color of the chlorophyll and keep it forest green instead of swamp brown).
Most importantly, eat your soup with ample beer or wine and good company!