Cur­ried Car­rot and Gin­ger Soup with Dukkah

Way, way back in the day before we were mar­ried, John lived in a shiny, ele­gant apart­ment in Brook­lyn with the first nice kitchen of our adult lives.  He came to this kitchen with two recipes, as far as I can remem­ber.  One was a very clas­sic chick­en soup (for when we got sick), and then there was a thick, spicy car­rot soup with cur­ry powder.

As the years have gone by, I’ve large­ly tak­en over our cook­ing life, includ­ing soup-mak­ing.  Last week, John said nos­tal­gi­cal­ly, “I wish we could have that car­rot soup I used to like so much.”  It was easy to find the orig­i­nal recipe from my blog (in a Wil­low pat­tern blue soup bowl, which means I took the pho­to­graph at a Land­mark Trust house on vaca­tion!).  A lot has changed in my kitchen since then, for exam­ple the absolute dis­ap­pear­ance of ground gin­ger from my life.  I would nev­er use it any­more, for any­thing.  Fresh gin­ger was­n’t a thing dur­ing our upbring­ing, cer­tain­ly not in Indi­ana or Iowa, so pow­der was the only option.  Fresh gin­ger nowa­days is ubiq­ui­tous, no mat­ter where you live, so our fridge always, always con­tains a large bulb, and we use it in every­thing from a hot tod­dy when we have a cold, to Tom Yum Soup, a stir-fry, peanut­ty chick­en in let­tuce wraps, you name it.

So when I went back to the draw­ing board with my car­rot soup, I seized a big chunk of gin­ger first off.   Next, I reached for the bowl of fresh home­made chick­en stock that I near­ly always have on hand.  Third, I was lucky enough to have a jar of dukkah, that love­ly crunchy nut and spice blend, in my spice draw­er, a Christ­mas gift from my bell-ring­ing and mend­ing friend Kather­ine.  And away we went.

Cur­ried Car­rot and Gin­ger Soup with Dukkah

(serves 6 at least)

2 tbsps butter

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 white onion, cut into large pieces

6 cloves gar­lic, smashed

8 car­rots, cut into large pieces

2‑inch knob fresh gin­ger, peeled and cut into slices

chick­en stock to cov­er, per­haps 4 cups/1 litre

sea salt and fresh black pepper

sour cream to garnish

dukkah to garnish

This soup could­n’t be sim­pler.  Melt the but­ter in a heavy-bot­tomed saucepan and fry the spices gen­tly to release their aro­ma.  Add the veg­eta­bles and cov­er with the stock.  Sim­mer for about half an hour or until the car­rots are eas­i­ly pierced with a sharp knife.  Sea­son to taste, then pulse with a hand blender or in a food proces­sor until smooth and pass through a sieve.  Ladle into warm bowls and top with sour cream and dukkah.