Pea and parsnip soup with aniseed

This recipe is inspired by the excellent book by Niki Segnit The Flavour Thesaurus. I have added some aniseed to her pea and parsnip soup. The flavours all worked well together and it was dead easy to prepare.
To get the aniseed give one clove of star anise a good whack in a mortar and pestle. Then peel out the individual aniseeds, throw the husk out and crush the aniseeds.

Take 2 large parsnips and peel and chop them into large dice. Fry a chopped onion in a good glug of olive oil. (Don't use extra virgin for this as its likely to burn a bit). Add the parsnip to the fried onions and give it a good stir. Cover with about a litre of vegetable stock. I used Marigold Swiss Bouillon in boiling water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the parsnip is soft. Then add 300g of frozen peas and the crushed aniseeds from one star anise. I am going to use a bit more of this next time, but the flavour of aniseed can be a bit overpowering, so go easy on it first time. Season with some pepper. You probably won't need any salt if the stock is salty enough, so try a spoonful first. Bring it back to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Liquidise and serve.

Ideal mid week and I still have plenty of parsnips from the garden. I never do well with peas unfortunately, so frozen it has to be. Vegetarian, filling and very tasty. We had this for a light dinner for 2 people, but it would be a great lunch in smaller portions.

Garden peas from Wexford

I was mad into growing peas when I was a kid. Something about the perfect little peas inside the pods that you would watch growing day by day. The number of peas I used to get would fit into 2 cupped hands (child's ones), so not a great yielder. I reckon they take too much work and produce too little yield in the garden to bother with them now. My father in law on the other hand has heaps of space and can turn his hand to any crop that he fancies. Good Wexford soil helps a bit, but he is just good at gardening full stop. He grew these beauties this year and gave us a big bag.

From Drop Box

The Flavour Thesaurus was a great help again and pointed in the direction of Pea and Mint soup. I know pea and mint are supposed to go together, but I had never tried it. The mint in the garden needed picking. I can never figure out what to do with it, but this was fantastic. Will be making it again. We have another batch of the Wexford peas left, but then I reckon I will try this one with frozen peas.

Pea and mint soup

Finely chop a carrot, stick of celery, a few cloves of garlic and an onion. Heat a glug of good olive oil up in a heavy based pot. Sweat the veg for about 10 or 15 minutes. Now add the peas. I used about 3 mug fulls of the garden peas. Add 3 teaspoons of Marigold vegetable stock powder. Cover the veg with boiling water and simmer the whole lot for about 30 minutes. Finally add a good bit of mint which you have finely chopped and puree the lot with a stick blender. 

I served this for lunch with some buttered home made brown bread. The photo is not great (no matter how many pixels your phone has it will still take naff photos), but the soup was gorgeous.

Beetroot and Apple with Horseradish dressing

I got a new book called The Flavour Thesaurus. It gives combinations of foods that go well together. This recipe is based on one of her recommendations on beetroot. The garden is full of it at the moment and we were looking for something to do with the glut. Don't like pickled beetroot particularly, so this was the first thing we tried:

Ingredients:
1 medium sized beetroot
Half of a nice tart apply - leave the skin on
Horseradish sauce (jar stuff is fine)
Natural yogurt


Method:
Wash the muck off the beetroot and twist the leaves and stems off. Steam it for as long as it takes to cook. This depends on size. For tiny beets its about 15 to 20 minutes, for the hefty one I used it was about 35 minutes. Use a skewer to check if it is done. Then hold the cooked beetroot under a running cold tap and rub the skin off. Use a knife to cut out any bits that garden nasties might have taken a chunk from.
Now chop the beet into small cubes. Leave this aside. Cut half an apple (I used a Jazz apple from Aldi) into similar sized chunks.
The dressing is made of 2 teaspoons each of the Horseradish and the yogurt. Mix these well in a bowl big enough to take the chopped beet and apple. Add some salt and pepper. Throw the chopped veg and fruit in and mix it all up. Dish this out on to 2 plates.

I served this with home made brown bread and a tin of mackerel from Aldi. Delicious. The quantities above serve 2 people for lunch.