A favorite winter soup in our house is a carrot dill soup. Brian and I had it one Thanksgiving when we were in London.
A friend made it, gave us the recipe and I have been making it ever since. Thank you Beaufort! There were lots of wonderful dishes at that all-American Thanksgiving, but this was our favorite.
We serve it at both Thanksgiving and Christmas and sometimes I make it as an appetizer or, with some crab, crusty bread and a green salad, a main course too.
I mention crab because once again the commercial season has been delayed. I cannot tell you how we missed roasted crab the day before Thanksgiving. Our tradition is to oven roast it, make a simple homemade pasta with red sauce, a basic green salad and bread — bread is important because you want to dip it in the garlic/olive oil/butter sauce that the crab was roasted in.
Our Thanksgiving eve ritual was put on hold and this time it’s not the domoic acid from a few years ago. To decrease the chance of lingering whales getting entangled in the finishing lines, fishermen have had to, once again, delay the opening of the crab season to mid-month at the time of this writing.
As a farmer, I know how painful it is to work in a seasonal business when an important portion of your season is cut short. Thanksgiving crab did not happen, so this Christmas and New Years is a great time serve up lots of crab. It’s local and delicious.
Here is the recipe for carrot dill soup. You can make it all year long, but it’s at its best when you go to the farmers market and get those beefy looking carrots from Preston, Bernier or Tierra Vegetables. The recipe calls for celery too and once again, if you can get it at the farmers market, you will not believe the difference. You may feel like you have never had celery before — it’s that revolutionary. When it is out on Preston’s table, I don’t hesitate. Plus this recipe uses the leaves, which when farm-grown, are a beautiful deep green, and they have such taste. This quick and easy recipe is from “The New Basics Cookbook,” authors of “Silver Palate.” I love those cookbooks and reference them all the time.
Carrot Dill Soup
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
2 ½ pounds carrots, peeled and diced
2 ribs celery, leaves included, diced
8 cups chicken stock
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
pinch cayenne pepper
Process:
• Melt butter in a soup kettle. Add onion and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes, until wilted and translucent.
• Add carrots, celery, stock, ¼ cup dill, salt, pepper and cayenne (everything else). Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook for about 40 minutes. Carrots should be soft.
• Puree soup in a blender, in batches.
• Return to soup kettle and adjust seasonings to taste.
• Serve with fresh dill and roasted crab. Yum.
Next month: Citrus
Gayle Okumura Sullivan is co-owner, with husband Brian, of Dry Creek Peach & Produce in Healdsburg.
