For the New Year,  Dom at Belleau Kitchen has invited us to cook from a new cookbook.  Now I only got one cookbook for Christmas and it features nothing but...CHOCOLATE!  However, the house is still full of chocs and biscuits, the fridge still has two jars of homemade mincemeat and we have only just finished the Christmas cake, so I really couldn't face making any more sweet things.

So instead I turned to the books I won from Ren Behan at Fabulicious Food, I got all three of the Moro cookbooks by Sam and Sam Clark.  I randomly chose the original Moro book from the three.  Then I opened the book in a random sort of way and found that I had chosen  


Beetroot Soup with Black Cumin

4tbsp olive oil
1/2 large Spanish onion,thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 rounded tsp black cumin or normal cumin seeds
750g raw beetroot, peeled and finely diced
1 large potato, finely diced
1.25 litres cold water
3 tbsp good quality red wine vinegar
1 small bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
100g home-made or Greek yoghurt, thinned iwht a little milk an seasoned with 1 garlic clove crushed to a paste with sea salt and black pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.  Add the onion and a pinch of salt.  Cook for 10 mintues, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to colour.  Now add the garlic and cumin and cook for 2 more minutes to release their flavour, followed by the beetroot and potato.  Pour in the water, bring to a gentle simmer and cook until soft, about 15 minutes (I don't think I chopped mine small enough as it took much longer to soften).  Place the vegetables and the cooking liquid in a blender or food processor and blend until just smooth.  You may need to do this in two stages. Return to the pan, add the vinegar, half the parsely and salt and pepper to taste, bearing in mind you may need more salt than you think to blance out the acidity of the vinegar.  Servie with a little yoghurt on top, the rest of the parsley and an extra drizzle of olive oil.




The soup was very easy to make and looks incredible, it has an interesting sweet and sour taste with the combination of the sweet beetroot and the red wine vinegar.  I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't taste the cumin and I did actually use black cumin but I can't say it was obvious.  I would make it again but might increase the amount of cumin, or maybe use some ground as well as cumin seeds.