This heartwarming spicy cauliflower and tahini soup from Mob Kitchen's latest cookbook is a nutritious, filling and affordable mid-week supper that you can easily batch freeze
Autumn is the perfect season to reinstate soups into your cooking repertoire. Heartwarming, nutritious and super easy to make, they're the perfect mid-week supper.
This week, we've got our eyes on this silky, spiced cauliflower and tahini soup from Mob Kitchen's fifth cookbook, Fresh Mob. For the uninitiated, Mob Kitchen is a hugely popular food platform that majors in serving up delicious recipes made with affordable and filling ingredients that you'll actually want to recreate - you won’t find any pretentious decorative swirls or OTT garnishes here.
Mob says: "A spiced tahini and roasted cauliflower soup filled with plenty of lovely caramelized veg. The crunchy fried parsley garnish is a game-changer and the tahini rounds this dish off nicely with a good source of healthy fats."
Cook time: 1 hr 15 mins
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 large cauliflower
3 small potatoes
2 garlic bulbs
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp sumac
3 tsp smoked paprika
1 onion
2 litres (3 1⁄2 pints) vegetable stock
3 tbsp tahini, plus a drizzle to serve
3 red chillies
a small handful of parsley
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
salt and black pepper
Gluten-Free: Use gluten-free stock.
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas mark 4.
2. Roughly chop the cauliflower into small pieces, including the stems and leaves, before dicing the potatoes into equally small pieces, leaving the skin on. Next, slice one of the garlic bulbs in half horizontally. (Separate the other bulb into cloves for later.)
3. Tip the potato and cauliflower pieces into a large roasting tin along with the halved garlic bulb and pour over 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of the ground cumin,2 teaspoons of the sumac, 2 teaspoons of the smoked paprika, and1 teaspoon salt. Massage it all well into the veg with your hands and pop into the oven for 40 minutes until the cauliflower is crispy and the potato cooked through. (You may need to use two roasting tins.)
4. Pick out a handful of the prettiest cauliflower florets and crispiest potato cubes and save these to garnish.
5. Dice the onion and roughly chop 3 garlic cloves. Heat 1⁄2 tablespoon of the oil in your largest saucepan and sauté the onion and garlic over a medium–high heat for 5 minutes until the onion turns translucent. Add the remaining smoked paprika and ground cumin
and toast for 30 seconds.
6. Now add the roasted veg. Tip the crispy potatoes and cauliflower into the pan, squeezing out the soft flesh of the garlic cloves, then pour in the stock. Simmer and then blend with a stick blender until smooth. Add the tahini and season with salt. Adjust the thickness with water to the consistency of double cream.
7. Thinly slice the remaining garlic, the chillies and parsley. Pour the remaining 1⁄2 tablespoon of olive oil into a small frying pan and place over a medium–high heat. Fry thecumin seeds for 1 minute until they start to pop. Add the sliced garlic and chillies and the sesame seeds and fry for 2 minutes until the garlic is lightly golden. Add the sliced parsley and cook for 30 seconds until the parsley is crispy. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with the crispy garlic, chilli and parsley. Finally, layer on the reserved roasted cauliflower florets and crispy potatoes and top with a drizzle of tahini and sprinkle with the remaining teaspoon of sumac. Enjoy hot.
Recipe from Fresh Mob: Over 100 tasty healthy-ish recipes by Mob Kitchen, published by Hodder & Stoughton, £20, order now