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The cold snap last weekend combined with a parsnip glut in my produce drawer to give me a great excuse to make some soup. After all, summer is right around the corner, and while we’ll definitely eat some trendy gazpacho, apples and root vegetables are likely to be noticeably absent from the Burghilicious household for the next few months.
The parsnip bounty was partly due to a well-intentioned Giant Eagle purchase gone awry – I had planned to this roasty, cheesy version – and an early-season farm box delivery of storage parnships from last fall. With their dull, albino-carrot looks, parsnips definitely rank high in the “under-appreciated vegetable” category. Many people haven’t heard of or eaten them, but I remember them making intermittent appearances on the dinner table growing up and certainly preferred them to carrots, I think because they have a more pronounced, distinguished flavor that offsets their inherent sweetness. Wikipedia says they are also higher in vitamins and minerals than carrots, and the Romans thought they were an aphrodisiac. So parsnips clearly win.
They happen to combine deliciously with apples, as I learned this past fall. I had a parsnip-apple soup once in Providence and again not even two weeks later at Yo Rita before making one myself. That one back in December was consumed before a photo shoot could be arranged, but I wasn’t going to let that happen again. That one was spiced with chunks of fresh ginger, but this time I went with garam masala, the Indian spice blend. The finished product is sweet, spicy and luxurious – perfect for the last cold snap.
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Applesauce x squash soup = this!
Spiced Apple Parsnip Soup
A Burghilicious Original
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 pound parsnips, peeled and sliced
2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 quart chicken stock, plus extra if needed (or water)
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 pinch cayenne pepper (or to taste)
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Greek yogurt and snipped chives, to garnish
Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook 3-4 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add the parsnips and cook 5-6 minutes more, then add the apples, garam masala and cayenne pepper. Cook 2-3 minutes, until the apples just begin to soften, then add the chicken stock. Bring just to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover loosely and simmer 20-30 minutes, until parsnips are quite soft. Blend in batches until perfectly smooth. Serve garnished with thick Greek yogurt and snipped chives.
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