Roasted carrot and ginger cream

It's time for hot soups and creams, and one of the cream recipes that we like the most at home since I discovered it recently is this roasted carrot and ginger cream . It's a healthy soup, which when made with roasted carrots and some pumpkin Baking it greatly enhances the flavor and creates an exquisite cream.

Spices are a must to round out the flavour - ginger is a great addition, as it also goes very well with the light touch of coconut provided by the coconut water. The list of ingredients is a delicious combination.

Roasted carrot soup has nothing to do with traditional carrot soup. Its flavour is intensified and modified, while providing those more woody and autumnal tones. At the same time, the pumpkin, together with the ginger, give it a tone that reminds us of the most Indian flavours, I would say, full of spice flavour.

I highly recommend it. Today I made it in a cocotte , but you can shorten the time by preparing it in a pressure cooker.

Ingredients

• 350 gr carrot
• 100 gr pumpkin
• 1 pinch of sugar (optional)
• 1 whole leek (the white part and the greener middle part)
• 450 gr vegetable broth
• 150 gr water
• 150 gr coconut milk (coconut water)
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 roasted garlic cloves*
• Olive oil

*If you have them, all the better. If not, you can add some raw garlic to the trays along with the carrot and pumpkin, so that they soften and roast (in the first step of the preparation). I recommend reading How to make roasted garlic and how to use it , and always have a small jar of garlic in the fridge, it enhances the flavour of any preparation.

Le Creuset Traditional Cocotte and Naturals Nordic Ware Tray

Preparation

1. Roast the carrots, squash, and garlic: Peel and cut the carrots lengthwise or into large chunks. Peel and cut the squash into large chunks. Arrange on one or more baking sheets (I use Nordic Ware Naturals for quick, small batch roasting). Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and bake until roasted, about 20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don't have roasted garlic, add it to these baking sheets to roast.
2. Prepare the cream: In the Le Creuset cocotte , apply a generous splash of oil to the bottom (you can also use a tablespoon of butter if you prefer) and put it on low heat.
3. Add the roughly chopped leek. Add a pinch of sugar and sauté over low heat for a few minutes until translucent.
4. Raise the heat so that the leek browns a little if it isn't already, season with salt and pepper to taste and add the rest of the ingredients: add the previously roasted carrot and pumpkin, the roasted garlic, the water, the vegetable broth and the coconut water.
5. Leave it to simmer for 20 minutes to blend the flavours (the main ingredients were already cooked in the oven, so it doesn't require much more cooking). Remove from the heat and transfer to a blender to blend (you can wait for it to cool a little, so you don't burn yourself).

Grades

• If you want, after blending you can pass it through a sieve or a colander to make sure there are no leek threads left, but this is not a cream that generally requires it (there is very little leek).
• You can serve it in soup bowls or mini-cocottes, with a few pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of oil, or with a splash of cooking cream. It makes a lovely presentation! Remember that there are also the Every ceramic mini cocottes from Le Creuset , which are so ideal for these creams!
• If you want to make the recipe vegan, you can substitute the butter with coconut oil.
• Another option, if you want to modify the recipe and try new things, is to replace the coconut milk with almond or oat milk. The result is a different and interesting cream. If you do it this way, decorate it with some toasted almonds when serving.

Believe me, it is a delicious cream. I say so, as do my family and those who have tried it, so I can only hope that you will be encouraged to try it too.

And here's to many more chup chup en cocotte recipes!