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BOX NEWS AND PARSNIP, FENNEL AND APPLE SOUP

Mattby Matt, 1 yr, 6 m ago in Blog
Comments | Tags: Box News, Local, soup, apple, fennel, parsnip


This week’s potato is the purple skinned ‘Arran Victory’, our favorite Christmas potato. It's floury flesh tends to break up in boiling water, but it roasts beautifully and makes superb mash; use a steamer to cook it and you don't then have to watch the pan like a hawk. Baked, it has the sort of tasty dry texture that cries out for, and happily gobbles up, lots of butter. They are grown in Lancashire, like the carrots which this week have come in a variety of shades. Apparently carrots were originally much paler than they are usually nowadays; it was the Dutch, with their fondness for orange, who bred the strong colour into them. The ‘rainbow’ carrots are particularly good roasted. Try them quartered lengthways and roasted in oil, rosemary and coarse sea salt. The Savoy cabbagesSavoy cabbage id=, leeks and the purple sprouting broccoli in the large boxes are from Yorkshire and the fennel and peppers are Spanish. This week’s English apple is the Red Pippin. 

FENNEL, PARSNIP AND APPLE SOUP ... A rich, quite ‘refined’ white soup. If the fennel bulbs have a few fronds attached chop them finely for a garnish.

  • 300g parsnips peeled, cored and sliced
  • 2 bulbs fennel sliced
  • 2 medium onions sliced
  • 50g butter
  • 1 litre vegetable stock
  • 1 largish apple (preferably quite tart) peeled and sliced
  • 1 or 2 tbsp cream
  • salt and pepper    
  1. In a large saucepan melt the butter and very gently cook the fennel and onions for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Add the stock, apple and parsnips and simmer for 15 minutes.
  3. Blend and pass the soup through a fine sieve.
  4. Season with salt and pepper and add cream (the soup turns out fairly creamy anyway so you might not need a lot).  
  5. Reheat gently before serving.
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