Roasted Beetroot and Sour Cream Soup

I don't cook a lot with beetroot, not sure why. Its cheap, a kilo cost me £1.50 and i love the earthy sweet flavour of the stuff. I did make this stew with beetroot once but the flavour was masked slightly by everything else in there.

I spied this recipe in Sir Hugh's River Cottage Veg Everyday, a superb book which I have mentioned before and will mention again until you buy it and agree with me, and decided to give it ago.

The recipe itself is very simple it's basically scrub, roast, peel and blend. There are not many other ingredients which allows the beetroot to sing and sing it does especially after its been roasted for an hour..

The recipe calls for horseradish cream but I cannot stand horseradish and to put it on beef is a food crime so it was going nowhere near this soup, instead I opted for a good dollop of sour cream to cut through the sweetness.


Roasted Beetroot and Sour Cream Soup

Ingredients
1kg beetroot
2-3 sprigs of thyme
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and bashed
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp rapeseed/olive oil
750ml veg stock

Sour cream and thyme sprigs to serve

Method
scrub the beetroot and place whole in a roasting dish.
Add the garlic, thyme and oil and mix around so they are well covered.
add a wineglass of water to the dish and cover tightly with foil.
roast at 200C (fan) for an hour until a skewer can be inserted without force.
Leave to cool.
Top and tail the beetroot and rub/peel the skins off. Slice and dice with a knife.
Stick into a blender with the roasting dish juices, the garlic squeezed out of it's skin and the veg stock.
Bleeeeeeeeend
Transfer to a pan and heat to required temperature, don't boil it.
Add a dollop of sour cream and a few sprigs of thyme.
Serve.

Verdict
Well I took one spoonful, abandoned the spoon and drank it out of the bowl so make your own judgements.

Enjoy