Sunday 25 November 2018

Zanzibar-inspired Carrot and Coconut Soup

A bowl of Zanzibar-inspired Carrot and Coconut Soup · Lisa Stefan


This Zanzibar-inspired carrot and coconut soup is delicious, creamy and tasty. My body literally screams for it in autumn when the new crop of carrots appears in supermarkets. The recipe is from a friend's cookbook, Sigrun of CafeSigrun (remember the fun I had when helping her with the manuscript?). Sigrun has travelled frequently to East-Africa and this soup was inspired by days spent on the island of Zanzibar: She was sitting with a bowl of carrot soup admiring the view of the Indian Ocean, the air filled with the aroma from the Forodhani Food Market, in the historical city of Stone Town. The soup is vegan, easy to make (you need a hand-held blender or a food processor), and it will provide you with essential vitamins and dietary fibre.

ZANZIBAR CARROT AND COCONUT SOUP

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
a small piece fresh ginger
300 g organic carrots (2 cups)
150 g sweet potatoes (¾ cup)
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 organic vegetable stock cubes
750 ml water (3 cups)
150 ml coconut milk (5 oz)
½-1 teaspoon sea/Himalayan salt
optional: pepper to taste
optional: 7-10 saffron strands

Rinse the carrots (brush if needed) and peel the other vegetables. Chop everything coarsely. (Peel or scrape the carrots if they are not organic.)

In a saucepan, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Add onion and fry until tender. Add garlic and ginger and fry for a few more minutes before stirring in the curry powder (I prefer hot but mild is fine).

Stir in the carrots and sweet potatoes. Add the water and vegetable stock cubes, increase the heat and stir. Bring to the boil and stir in ½ teaspoon of salt. Reduce the heat, cover and let it simmer on low heat for 25-30 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the coconut milk and saffron strands. Use a hand-held blender to purée the soup until you have a smooth texture. Be careful, the soup is very hot: Hold the blender straight up and down and press the button when the bottom part of the blender is in the soup (if using a food processor/liquidizer, allow the soup to cool slightly before puréeing it in batches).

Finally, reheat gently to simmering point and season with salt and pepper, if needed. Serve the soup with freshly baked bread or bread buns.

Uppskrift á íslensku




Friday 16 November 2018

№ 17 reading list: Author loyalty

№ 17 reading list: Author loyalty · Lisa Stefan


In 1971 Joan Didion wrote an essay on Doris Lessing, beginning with the words: 'To read a great deal of Doris Lessing over a short span of time is to feel that the original hound of heaven has commandeered the attic. She holds the mind's other guests in ardent contempt' (The White Album, p. 119). Intriguing. I will keep her words in mind when I read Martha Quest, the first book of five in the Children of Violence series. My new reading list is somewhat based on author loyalty: Lessing's novels The Grass Is Singing and The Golden Notebook were on list № 7 and on my previous one were books by Didion, Johnson and Baldwin.

№ 17 reading list:
1  Martha Quest  by Doris Lessing
2  Two Lives  by William Trevor
3  Housekeeping  by Marilynne Robinson
4  Where I Was From  by Joan Didion *
5  Play It as It Lays  by Joan Didion
6  The Uncommon Reader  by Alan Bennett
7  Jesus' Son  by Denis Johnson
8  Nobody Knows My Name  by James Baldwin
9  Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?  by Raymond Carver **

* From We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, published by Everyman's Library.
** From Collected Stories, published by The Library of America.

For the first time I'm reading works by William Trevor and Raymond Carver, and Play It as It Lays is my first fiction by Didion. My next reading list will consist of Japanese literature. I promised the second Japanese list a long time ago and intend to keep that promise soon.