Warm Carrot Soup with Herbs

A fragrant, heart-warming soup for the cold weather while boosting your immune system, as well as perfect for cleansing your body.

In my country, January-February is the peak of rainy season, while it is winter in the northern parts of the globe. The temperature in Jakarta drops the most during this period, as it would rain mostly everyday, with dark clouds hindering the sunshine. My parents tend to get sick under this weather and my Dad would moan that the absence of sunshine made him unwell.

I went for grocery shopping and it was just two weeks before my 1-week vacation to South Korea. During the rainy season, a soup would be really nice to warm up the body and keep it in good health. I love to blend up veggies to make a creamy, nourishing soup, plus the herbs, minus the dairy (most cream soups use cream). Smelling the herbs and deciding which one would make a perfect match with which veggie, I took carrots and sage leaves.

Despite my first time cooking with sage, I find it a really nice herb for soups, which somewhat has a sweet, minty aroma. A long time ago, people used sage as medicine to treat colds and fevers, however now it remains as a popular herb for cooking. I think sage works really well with the natural sweet flavour of carrots.

This recipe requires no oven, just a pan/saucepan (I recommend using a deep, large stovetop pan), a blender and you're good to go.

Despite the absence of dairy or any vegan milk, this soup is creamy and smooth. It makes a perfect appetizer or just when you need something pleasurable during cold days. Ginger is one of the ingredients that helps boost your immune system and warms your body from inside. This soup is also suitable for cleansing.

In addition, don't skip the toppings! It gives an extra kick of flavour to this luscious soup!

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Warm Carrot Soup with Herbs

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 3 large carrots, sliced

• 1/2 an onion, large, sliced

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 2-3 cm knob of fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped

• Fresh sage leaves (IMPORTANT note: keep the leaves on their stem, do not separate them)

• 1 vegetable stock cube dissolved in 1~1.2 litre hot water or the same volume of vegetable broth

• 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg

• Extra light olive oil, for sautéing

• Salt and ground blackpepper, to taste

• Extra virgin olive oil, to serve

• Chopped cilantro, to serve

Instructions

1. Into a hot pan or saucepan, add some oil. Set the heat to high. Add the sliced onion and sauté until slightly caramelised and translucent. Add the garlic and continue sautéing for a few seconds. When the garlic is just about to turn golden brown, immediately toss in the carrots. Cover then set the heat to medium. Let the carrots roast in the pan while cooking itself with the steam, tossing the vegetables every 5 minutes or so to prevent them from burning.

2. When the carrots have browned, add the ginger, vegetable stock and sage leaves. Stir and bring to a boil, uncovered.

3. Once boiling, remove from heat. Let cool slightly, about 10-20 minutes, then remove ALL the sage leaves. Transfer the mixture to a blender or use a stick blender. Blend until smooth.

4. Now pour the mixture back into the saucepan (skip this step if you are using a stick blender) and reintroduce the sage leaves to enhance the aroma. Stir in ground nutmeg, salt and blackpepper. Once again, on the heat and bring to a boil. Off the heat.

5. To serve, drizzle an adequate amount of extra virgin olive oil and top with chopped cilantro.

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