Eat In Season - Carrot, leek & mustard seed soup recipe

by Bex

I was recently sent a gorgeous hamper of ingredients to make a seasonal soup to help promote the Scottish Government's Eat In Season campaign.  They have some brilliant recipes from top Scottish chefs backing the campaign, Tony Singh, from the BBC's Incredible Spice Men, and Seumas Macinnes from Café Gandolfi.  Both chefs have created their own menus and recipes for the campaign.

The hamper I was sent contained everything to make carrot, leek & mustard seed soup (except the milk but they did send me 2 yoghurts for some reason)...

Ingredients:
10 large carrots (900g), roughly chopped
1 large leek (200g), roughly chopped
1 large onion (150g), roughly chopped
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 tbsp mustard seeds
pinch of salt & pepper
1.5L veg or chicken stock
250ml skimmed milk
50ml low fat yoghurt, to serve
handful of chopped chives, to serve

Method:
Heat the rapeseed oil in a large pan over a medium heat.  Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds and leave them to bubble and pop for a couple of minutes as they release their aroma.  Be careful not to burn them, I turned the heat down a lot to avoid this as they do pop quickly - be careful not to burn yourself on any rogue seeds!

Reduce the heat slightly and add the onions, leeks (and rapeseed oil according to the recipe but since this was already in, I didn't add any more) with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Cook for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent.

Add the carrots to the pan and stir, let them sweat for about 5 minutes before adding the hot stock.

Put the lid on and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, remove the lid, turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until the carrots are tender.  Remove from the heat and add the milk.

Liquidise with a hand blender.

Serve with the yoghurt and chives...

It was delicious and perfect on an autumn Saturday afternoon :)