My favourite quick carrot soup

You say 'pureed soup' - I think 'carrot soup with coriander and aniseed'

For me, it's the quintessence of pureed soup, it's a liquid dream, it's the warm comfort of a cold evening, the cooling pleasure of a hot afternoon. It's versatile, it's under my skin.


I've almost always got organic carrots in the fridge that we've grown ourselves. They're full of taste and have got a homely flavour. Making this soup is very easy and, fortunately, someone has usually peeled the carrots before I get my hands on them:) In wintertime, it's great to enjoy it warm, but it's just as wonderful when eaten cold. I especially love that during summertime! We do have 1-2 weeks of hot weather here!;)

Chicken broth can be replaced by vegetable broth, heavy cream or sour cream can be used in place of cream cheese. Whatever you've got handy! Cream cheese can also be flavoured with herbs /onion/garlic/whatnot.

Carrot soup with coriander and aniseed
(serves 4)

400 g carrots
1 onion
1 tbsp butter
8 dl chicken broth
ground coriander seeds
ground aniseed
4 tbsp cream cheese
1 tsp sugar
salt, pepper

1. Slice the onion and the carrots, sautee in butter in a saucepan until onion is transparent, about 10 minutes.
2. Add the broth and boil until carrots have turned quite tender, 20 minutes will do fine.
3. Puree the potful, then return to the saucepan.
4. Add cream cheese and flavour with coriander, aniseed, salt (if needed), pepper and sugar to taste. Heat, but don't let the soup reach boiling point.

The soup is creamy, even a little portion of cream cheese does wonders! The flavour of carrots is sweetish, but the spices push it to a limit. Coriander and aniseed are not very strong flavourers, they're rather mild, so they suit carrot perfectly. What pleasure!

This time I served the soup with some crispy rye bread cubes, but it's equally good with white bread cubes or grilled chicken. More often than not I like to eat it plainly, without a topping, because the soup itself completes the taste. That sounds weird enough:)

So I guess it's also the perfect recipe for this month's Monthly mingle, themed Comfort foods. Although it's not something from my childhood or anything I'd eat together with my family, I'm sure this soup will guide me through the best and worst moments of the life still ahead of me:D

Halva - a dessert that knows no limits

For me the definition of halva (or halvah, halava) has always been peanut halva. In Estonia these shiny packages with Ali Baba on them are known to everybody. We do have quality sesame halva too and even sunflower halva in little plastic bags that one can find in those little shops with questionable value on some streetcorner.
Yes, peanut halva. I remember spying on the biggest pieces when my mom used to cut it up for the family. Now I've been grabbing a knife when someone has bought a package to sneak some of it into a dessert or onto a cake. It's superb with apples. And berries. And curd cheese. And yoghurt.


Halva is a widespread dessert, but it's usually made of tahini (sesame paste) or semolina flour. It was about a year ago when I discovered an Indian recipe for carrot halva (my heart went 'ooh' and 'aah' at the same time) and began seeing all the opportunities: vegetables, seeds, nuts. Why not try beetroot halva?
In any case, halva is a very sweet dessert that's always served cold. Honey is a usual component, but different spices, raisins, syrups, pieces of nuts, vanilla etc can be added. I tried to find my own basic recipe for peanut halva. Although the final result is not exactly what I had hoped it to be, it makes a delicious dessert. I believe you could cheat a bit here by just using store-bought peanut butter.


Peanut halva with vanilla

140 g peanuts
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp honey
vanilla

1. Roast the peanuts on a dry skillet until golden brown.
2. Grind the peanuts and sugar to flour-like consistence (I used a coffee grinder as my food processor wouldn't have been good enough for the nuts to be finely ground).



3. Add honey and vanilla. Pulse in a food processor until the consistency is really smooth and the halva can be formed or has already formed a stiff ball.
4. Shape the halva to your liking, wrap it into plastic wrap and let it stand in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.



The finished dessert isn't as crumbly as the store-bought version, but tastes as good. It can be sliced easily: it won't fall apart or flatten. I believe the best way of serving it is indeed to just slice it. It's consistence is somewhere between crumbly and soft. The taste slightly reminds of peanut butter and that's probably because the amount of sugar added is smaller than usual. It may be just a bit sticky on the tongue. But the fingers! The feeling on my fingers after eating it was just like after eating store-bought halva, so it must be the real thing!

What next? I'd like to try adding syrup instead of sugar or just more sugar to make the halva harder. Heating up the whole thing after reaching smooth consistency is another idea: it would reduce the proportion of liquid and sugar in it would start to caramelise. Using cashews next time would be great. One day carrot halva has to be tried too, but that's already another day, another recipe and another story.

This post will be taking part in the event Monthly Mingle #9, this month's theme being Arabian Nights.