We’re over a week into September, which means autumn is right around the corner. I love fall, it’s my favorite season. I love the crisp in the air, wearing cozy sweaters, and drinking too many pumpkin spice lattes. But this year, I don’t feel ready yet for crunchy leaves and hot apple cider. I want more sun, more time outside, more frolicking on the beach. Time marches on though, the sun is setting earlier, it’s started getting chillier and I’ve been craving warm comforting foods. This is where the carrot and coriander soup comes it. I find it to be a perfect transitional summer-to-autumn meal.
I don’t think “transitional meals” are a thing, but they probably should be. I’m not ready for root vegetables and hearty stews yet – it isn’t truly fall. But it’s getting cold and I want something warm. Also, I’m not ready to give up on the bright fresh flavors of summer. This soup does everything I need it too. It’s warm and a little it thick for fall. But it’s also a a bit sweet from the carrots, bright from the cilantro, and overall not to heavy.
And now that I’ve said cilantro, let’s talk about the difference between cilantro and coriander. Here in the UK coriander is both the plants, its leaves, and the seeds. In the US (and according to Wikipedia most of North America), the plant and leaves are called cilantro and the seeds are called coriander. Why the difference? I have no idea. The best I could find was that cilantro is the Spanish word for it and coriander comes from the it’s full Latin name, Coriandrum sativum. 
So I had a real difficulty deciding how to name this post since I used both words and both types of ingredient are in the recipe. Real tough dilemmas right? Anyway I decided on carrot and coriander because both are use and I’ve adapted this from a BBC recipe. Whatever you call it, this is a really nice, fairly light, but cozy soup for this transitional days when it’s not yet fall but not really summer yet.
I think the only drawback is that you start with vibrant orange carrots and end up with a dark soup. This is not your pretty and flashy kind of meal but this is about taste not aesthetics. While I’ve mentioned taste, can I say something sort of ridiculous? This is totally a vegetarian soup, and vegetarian soups have their place – but I think this soup is much tastier with chicken broth. I’ve made it with both vegetable and chicken broth, and I think the chicken broth gives it a more complex and rich flavor. Why have a meat free soup with chicken broth? I don’t really know, except to say that I like the flavor. I say do what you like and whatever you think tastes better.
Adapted from BBC Good Food.
Messy level: This is so much easier if you have an immersion blender. If you don’t have an immersion blender decide if your blender of food processor is better and stick with that. I started with my food processor knowing it was junk, and then had to switch to my blender. It made more dishes and a huge mess.
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 potato, chopped
- 450g/ 6 regular full-sized carrots, peeled and chopped
- 6.5 cup/ ~1.5 liters vegetable or chicken stock
- salt and pepper, to taste
- large bunch of cilantro, leaves and stems (about ¾ a supermarket packet)
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan over medium heat.
- Once the oil is hot add the onion. Fry the onion for about 5 minutes, or until softened and starting to brown.
- Add in the ground coriander and potato. Stir and cook for 1 minute more.
- Add the carrots and the stock. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
- Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.
- Simmer for about 20 minutes or until the carrots are tender.
- If you have an immersion blender add in the cilantro then use the immersion blender to blend the soup ingredients until smooth. Otherwise, add the cilantro and then use a regular blender of a food processor and blend the soup until smooth. You might need to do this in batches if your machines don't have enough space.
- Return the soup to the pot. Taste it and adjust salt if necessary. Reheat if needed and then serve with crusty bread.
