asian sweet potato soup

my chilli and ginger sweet potato soup is one of the recipes on this blog that people have consistently tried since i originally made it back in 2006.

this week i fancied revisiting it but, having not been very well recently i wanted something with gentler flavours. i wanted to keep the asian flavours so it was just a matter of omitting the spices and scaling everything back. the result was really delicious and if you don’t have a taste for spicy food, try this version rather than the original

asian sweet potato soup (serves 4)

4 large sweet potatoes, cubed

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

½ a teaspoon chilli flakes

2 onions, roughly choppped

2 chillis – i used one red, i green

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 litre vegetable stock

75g coconut cream (or you could use 200ml coconut milk)

juice of 2 limes

handful of fresh coriander leaves

salt & pepper

heat the oven to 200c. toss the sweet potatoes with half the oil, half the garlic and the chilli flakes then roast until just cooked.

heat the remaining olive oil and gently fry the remaining garlic with the onion, chilli and ginger until soft and cooked through. add the cooked sweet potatoes, stock and coconut cream and bring to the boil. allow to cool slightly then blitz – i left my soup quite thick with a few chunks of sweet potato still remaining. add the lime and coriander and season to taste.