curried Sweet Potato and coconut soup

I love learning and there has never been a time to learn more than right now. Our world is opening up to all of us and and I have decided to seize the moment and deep dive in to that pool of creativity. I’m taking an online course to help me improve my skills. This curried sweet potato soup was inspired by vegan cheese. I decided to make a version of one. In my research most of the recipes call for your choice of nut that needs to be blended to create the vegan cheese.

This is tricky for me because I LOVE CHEESE!!!!! So I approached it from the point of view that it’s NOT cheese, don’t expect cheese. That worked to a point, but I have to say it did my head in a little. I rinsed and soaked 1 cup of macadamia nuts in cold water over night. The next morning I rinsed them again, poured them into my high speed blender with 1/4 cup of water and blended to a purèe, scraping down the sides as necessary. I added 1tbls Bragg nutritional yeast, 2 Tbls lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon salt. I blitzed some more and tasted. Like I said it did my head in a little. I wondered if I was going to toss it in the bin, because I would rather enjoy a proper cheese. I decided maybe it needed to go into the fridge to cool down like I needed to do. I did that! and forgot about it until this curried sweet potato soup needed a little flavour boost. And Viola!!!!! we have a perfect flavour affinity and a great way to use up the macadamia vegan cheese. You don’t have to go to this effort to make my curried sweet potato soup though, just use macadamia nut butter and you’ll get a similar result.

If you love sweet potatoes this is definitely a soup to try. If you don’t like sweet potato and really want to enjoy the health benefits, this is a perfect way to trick your brain into thinking more curry than sweet potato. You can leave the soup chunky if you like. You can also leave out the water and serve as a vegetarian curry. Just make it and see what I mean. I absolutely loved this soup and I had to slow Brian down from eating the entire pot in one sitting by offering him more bread. We had the last of it yesterday and the flavours intensified even more. You can eat it on the day for sure, but if you have leftovers they will last in the fridge for 4 days.

Curried Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Servings 8

Ingredients

• ¼ cup olive oil plus 1/4 cup extra for blending optional
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 carrots medium size, finely grated
• 1 celery stick finely chopped
• 750 g sweet potato peeled and diced. I used Kara Purple. They are not purple, they are white fleshed
• 10 g finely grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp salt black pepper, 1Tbls nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp of medium curry powder
• 1 tsp of ground cumin
• 1 tsp of ground cardamom
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground ginger
• ¼ tsp onion powder
• a few shakes of turmeric
• 1 tsp fresh chili
• 1 tin 400ml coconut milk
• 1 L of water
• squeeze of lemon and zest
• 2 Tbls macadamia nut butter or vegan cheese see vegan cheese (or sub with peanut butter, almond butter)

Garnish with black or white sesame seeds, coriander and chilli, olive oil – I used rocket flowers from my garden too

Instructions

• Heat pot on medium high heat and add
  ¼ cup olive oil
• Now add the onion and cook for about 3 minutes until golden and translucent
  1 onion
• Next in go the carrots and celery. Cook for a further 2 minutes
  2 carrots, 1 celery stick finely chopped
• The sweet potatoes go in now along with the ginger, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast. (I use Bragg Nutritional Yeast). Stir all the vegetable together until evenly mixed together and the colour is still golden.
  750 g sweet potato, 10 g finely grated fresh ginger, 1 tsp salt
• Now add the next ingredients. It is important to coat the spices in the oil and bloom them to bring out their flavours. Add a little more olive oil here if you think that will help. The spices are what will give this soup the deep, robust flavour and colour. Stir for about 3 minutes . Do not let the spices catch on the bottom of the pot. If they burn the soup will be bitter. There is a fine line here between building the flavour and burning. Use your senses and you'll nail it
  2 tsp of medium curry powder, ¼ tsp onion powder, ¼ tsp ground ginger, ¼ tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp of ground cumin, 1 tsp of ground cardamom, a few shakes of turmeric, 1 tsp fresh chili
• The base of the soup is now ready for the liquids. Add them and turn down to a gentle bubble for about 30 minutes. Check to see that the sweet potato is soft. This will depend on the size of the cubes you cut them into. Cook for more time if you feel they are not soft enough to be purèed.
  1 tin 400ml coconut milk, 1 L of water
• Check the seasoning Taste Taste Taste. Grate in the zest and squeeze in about a Tbls lemon juice. Stir in the macadamia butter – I used my macadamia vegan cheese here. Use a stick blender and purèe until smooth and creamy. I add more olive oil too to get an extra creamy texture.
  squeeze of lemon and zest, 2 Tbls macadamia nut butter or vegan cheese
• Garnish with sesame seeds, coriander, chilli and olive oil
• This quantity will serve 8 starter portions or 4 generous portions for a light meal serve home made bread to slow people down from wanting more.😉

Notes

Tip

When you need to grate ginger, rather than cut off the 10g you need, weigh the whole piece of ginger. If the big piece weighs 27g, grate 10g off and weigh the ginger again until you are left with 17g.  This is a great way to not GRATE your knuckles.

Coconut cream works very well in this soup too.  For a lighter alternative try using my vegan corn cob stock 

Almond butter is a great alternative to macadamia nut butter.  Tahini is also a great pairing with sweet potato. You can use either if you don’t have macadamia nut butter

Chilli is a tricky thing and too much can ruin a dish.  If you are not a fan of it, leave it out.  Or serve chopped fresh chilli on the side so people can add their own heat. The pleasure of eating this curried sweet potato soup is more a subtle tingle of heat not a dragon’s breath heat

 

Course: Light Meal, Starter

Cuisine: South African

Keyword: Sweet Potato