I have a carrot soup standby. It is sweet and delicious—with both coconut milk and maple syrup to sweeten an already sugary base of carrots and ginger. I am sure that I’ll make that one at some point this year. However, today’s soup is a different sort of carrot soup. This soup blends the natural sweetness of carrots (2#s of them…) with the salty sea-like flavor of miso.
One of my friends recently turned me on to Smitten Kitchen, a food blog about the trials and tribulations of cooking great food in a tiny NYC apartment, and that’s where this soup was created. I followed her recipe for Carrot Soup with Miso & Sesame as written. I am in complete agreement with her commentary--- this is a refreshingly different type of carrot soup. Besides looks, it hardly resembles my other carrot soup recipe. The flavor of the miso is pronounced (only try this one if you know that you like miso….). Since miso is often found in, well… Miso Soup, which has a brothy base, the hearty puree of the carrots is a different sort of pairing with the miso. I did swirl in a little bit of toasted sesame oil before serving, and sprinkled the top with scallions. This made for a really stunning presentation (bright, bright orange, with a little subtle swirl of oil, topped with bright green scallions). I’m not usually one to get overly excited about how my soups look (and frankly they aren’t often pretty…), but this one made me step back and admire!
The verdict on this one is that is really good. I’m not sure that I’d go as far as calling it great, but really, really good.
Note: Be sure to use good fresh (as you can get) carrots for this one. I sprung for the fancy top-still-on organic kind, and can imagine that this would be even better with carrots from your own garden, or the farmer’s market. Alas, it is January, so the best of the grocery store will have to do.
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