Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

Parsnips are one of those root vegetables that don’t always appeal to me. Sometimes, when the mood hits me, I just love them and can’t imagine why I haven’t been eating them more often. Other times the thought of them is really negative. So I hesitated when I looked at this recipe, but whenever I have used one of Belinda Jeffery’s recipes I have always been well pleased.

This book is proving to be one that I turn to much more frequently than others. The recipes are generally moderately difficult but the resulting flavours usually well repay the effort. I seem to be trying at least one recipe each month from each month’s selection. I do enjoy cookbooks arranged under a seasonal pattern so that you know what produce should be fresh at the time you are cooking.

While the recipe called for chicken stock I substituted it with a vegetarian one. Otherwise the instructions were followed as laid down.

The parsnip soup turned out to be wonderfully smooth and subtly flavoured. Parsnip has an odd taste to me, difficult to describe. In this soup it was not overly strong but it was there holding its own. Every so often you caught a burst of flavour from the Persian feta. I had never tried this particular type of feta before but it has a real zing to it. And then there were the pecans adding a pleasant bit of crunch. Or else you caught a little piece of olive to chew on. Good stuff.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔