Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Traditional Soup

This soup is traditionally Swedish and comes in many different variations, but all with clear stock and root vegetables. This will be our first post actually containing the root vegetable Swede. You might know it as Rutabaga, Swedish Turnip or Yellow Turnip. Here in Sweden we call it Kålrot, simply meaning Cabbage root.


You will need:
6 medium sized Potatoes, 3 Carrots, ½ Swede, ½-1 Leek, 1 very small Garlic clove, 1 Brown Onion, 3 Vegetable Stock Cubes, vegetable oil, Pepper, Salt, 3 Bay Leaves, 4 whole Allspice "berries", 1cup Parsley and 1½-2 liters Water (1 large pan to cook the soup)
  • Peel your potatoes, carrots, swede and onion. Cut them all into chunks, leaving the slightly harder root vegetables in pieces smaller than eg. the potatoes. That way everything will be ready at the same time. 
  • Finely mince you garlic clove.
  • Add oil in a big pan, gently fry your potatoes, carrots, swede, garlic and brown onion for 5min. Sprinkle with pepper.
  • Pour the water over the vegatables and add the stock cubes. Stir to make sure nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pan. Let simmer. (don't be worried if it looks very watery, it should be)
  • Use both green and white part of your leek, clean inbetween all the layers of the leek to ensure all grit is gone. Cut into thick slices.
  • Add your leek, bay leaves and the whole allspice into your soup.
  • Let gently simmer for 15-25min. Test your root vegetables to make sure they are ready. Do not over cook them!
  • Mix in the chopped parsley. Taste! Use more salt and pepper if needed.



4 comments:

  1. This looks really comfort food-ish - I think because of the potatoes! I've never cooked with rutabaga before. What's the taste like? Is it similar to a potato?

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  2. It's a good comfort food, I am currently sick with the flu and this is wonderful to eat then. Well it is great to eat other times too, but you know how good soup is when your sick.
    Rutabaga is very tasty, like a mix between white cabbage and potatoes. I even like to cut small pieces and eat it raw, like a snack. Rutabaga is also great to eat like mash, or mixing with potato to make a mix mash.

    /The Vegan Swedes (Emma)

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  3. mmm. I only had white turnips so I used them instead, and then used all of the peelings and some celery to make the stock. Delicious. I'm looking forward to cooking my way through more of your blog.

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  4. Thank you very much Ryan, we have been slow with the update lately. But it will pick up again soon, this is due to us moving house and living basically in boxes ;)
    Thanks again for reading and trying my recipes.

    //Emma @The Vegan Swedes

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