‘I really love the taste of smoke, because it is so unexpected. Yet when you taste it, it’s sort of familiar and otherworldly at the same time. I guess that’s what I really like about what smoke does to food’
I saw a recipe for carrot and cardamom soup in the Covent Garden Soup cookbook and since I love all things cardamom, I thought I’d try it out, with a few adaptations.
Black cardamom is smoky, so it made sense to me to use this instead of green. I also used a smoked salt. People have often remarked to me that for a plant-based eater, I like a lot of smoke accented products. However, to me smoke is just another smell and flavour dynamic, not restricted to the smoking of meat. It adds a depth to the food, be it a lapsang tea, roasted matcha/barley or smoked salt and black cardamom. Mr. B likes this version too, not being a fan of the fragrant tastes green cardamom brings.
I also added lentils to this soup to increase the protein content and took out the flour originally in this recipe, as the lentils will thicken the soup which I assume is why flour was in the original.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 350g carrots/6 large carrots, chopped
- ½ cup red lentils
- 750ml/3-4 cups vegetable stock
- 1 tbsp. lime
- 2 tsp. black cardamom/seeds of 8 pods
- 1 tbsp. coconut cream
- Salt, at least 1 tsp. preferably smoked if you have it
Method
- Heat the olive oil and cook the onions, garlic, lentils and carrots with a pinch of salt
- Stir in the stock, coconut cream and lime juice. Bring to a boil then down to a gentle simmer for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender
- Cool and then liquidize in a blender
- Add the cardamom and salt, add more of each to taste
- Serve warm or cold. Garnish with fresh herbs or toasted coconut shavings
