Carrot soup with toasted hazelnuts and pink grapefruit
Buy the best carrots you can for this, preferably organic - they are the star of the show
- 500g organic carrots
- 100g unsalted butter
- 1 star anise
- 5g salt
- 1 peeled clove of garlic
- 500ml water
Garnish
- ½ pink grapefruit
- 10g hazelnuts
- 30ml groundnut oil or vegetable oil
- 10g pitted green olives
- 5 leaves of tarragon chopped
- 5 leaves of coriander chopped or coriander microcress
Method
Peel the carrots. Slice them into even sized pieces. Heat a pan and add the butter and when it starts to bubble add the carrots, garlic, star anise and salt. Place a lid on the pan and allow the carrots to soften.
When they begin to soften, add the water and bring it up to the boil; simmer until the carrots are completely cooked.
Remove the star anise. Take the carrots and the liquid and place in a blender, taking care not to fill it too much. Blitz the soup until smooth. Remove from the jug and allow to cool.
For the garnish, warm the groundnut oil in a pan over a medium heat and toast the hazels until they go golden. Tip them out on to a plate to cool down and reserve the oil. Once the nuts are cold take a rolling pin and hit each nut once just to crush it a little bit.
Cut each olive in 8 pieces. Skin the grapefruit and remove four segments. Dice into five pieces.
Serve the soup at room temperature. Pour into a bowl and top with the garnishes; finish by adding the herbs and a little of the oil you kept from the hazelnuts.
