Jerusalem Artichoke And Carrot Soup

I've been getting a weekly veg bag for a few months now (I'm going to do a actual post about them soon) and every so often I get a vegetable that I haven't used before. Jerusalem artichokes are one of those vegetables! They're not from Jerusalem and they're not even artichokes so go figure. Anyway, I don't think I've ever even eaten them before! So I made soup and it was pretty damn good. I was going to go for a straight up Jerusalem artichoke soup but I didn't have loads so chucked in the carrots to bulk it out a bit. I used a couple of yellowstone carrots (another veg bag veggie) hence why the soup doesn't look particularly 'carroty' (read: orange). But yea, so now I want more of these tasty veggies to try out more ways of eating them!

This recipe makes 2 good sized bowls or 3 smaller bowls of soup.

Jerusalem artichoke and carrot soup

Ingredients

1 & 1/2(ish) cups Jerusalem artichokes (peeled and chopped)

1 large onion

5 cloves garlic

2 celery sticks

3 cups veg stock

oil of choice

salt and pepper

optional: 

Oatly creme fraiche 

1/4 cup roasted hazelnuts.

Method

Chop all your veg and heat a little oil in a pan. Gently fry the onion and garlic until soft. 

Throw in the rest of the veg and cook for a few minutes. 

Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes until all the veg is cooked and soft. 

Whilst the soup simmers you can roast the hazelnuts (if you want them), Stick your hazelnuts on a baking tray and pop in the oven on 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 for 5-10 minutes. When you get them out, put them a tea towel and rub them between your hands to get the skins off then roughly chop.

Blend the soup and serve as is or top with a generous dollop of Oatly creme fraiche, some of the hazelnuts and serve with crusty bread.