I am still not over the fact that we are now past the hottest part of the year. I love love love the weather from December to March. I love the sweltering heat. I love that I don’t need to wear too many garments, or carry a coat. I love the extremely bright days. I love how sunny weather automatically makes me happy! As we move to a different season (not a season per se, just slight change in weather since our equatorial country has no seasons), the Long Rain season also brings it’s own set of comforts. I appreciate the cosy weather. I love the fresh crisp air and less dust. I love the cooler nights and I love that we can now get into our soups.
The soup playlist we have put together on Youtube has a new addition to it and that is my roasted red pepper soup with the most aromatic, buttery apple topping. Today could not have gotten here faster, and I am thrilled the day is finally here for me to share this beut with you!
I made a dope vid to accompany the blog post. Do watch below, and subscribe!
PREP TIME: 20 min COOK TIME: 20 min SERVES: 2
Ingredients
1 large red pepper
2 medium sized carrots
1/2 cup of chopped leek
1/2 teaspoon of clove
1/8 teaspoon of cumin
3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 red apple
1/2 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh sage (or 1/4 teaspoon of dried sage)
1/4 cup of chopped chives
For the topping
3/4 stick of butter
1 1/2 red apple
2 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of chopped sage
Method
Hohos (bell peppers) come in different colors with each color bringing something different to the table. The green ones are most common in this country; and their mild tartness makes them perfect for stews and meaty dishes. The red ones are slightly sweet, have a milder taste and that makes them perfect for soups, stews as well and part of burgers too (The famous Mango Masai Mama by MamaRocks has a roasted red bell pepper as part of the burger. Yum!).
Wash and core your pepper.
Begin by roasting the pepper over a stove top shelf and let it roast until the skin is blackened. The roasting is important because it enhances the inherent mild sweetness of the red hoho and also adds abit of smokiness.
It will go from this:
To this: (see 3.07 to 3.18)
Once done, transfer to a sealable, reusable plastic bag and let it sweat for about 10 minutes. The sweating is important to allow easy peeling of the char.
Now let’s start composing the soup. In your sufuria that has some oil and salt, add your leek, chives and sage. Leek goes so well with the flavor of onion chives. You can use red onion instead, but if you can get leek, use that.
I got my fresh sage form CarreFour at 20bob a bunch. You can use dried sage, but in my opinion, fresh sage – and fresh herbs in general- pack a punch!
Let this sautee until fragrant and softened. Add the spices, the carrots and apple and give it a rough mix. Make sure you use a red apple as a green one will be too tart and throw the flavors off. Once in and mixed, add in the spices and then the milk.
Remember that roasted pepper we have been sweating, we are going back to that at this point.
Grab your sweated roasted pepper and peel 90% of the char (see 8.49- 8.54). We leave abit of char on there so that we have some smokey flavor to the soup. Chop the pepper and add this to the sufuria too. Let everything simmer until the carrots are completely soft. The carrots may take abit long to soften, so if the liquid dries down, just keep topping the milk as needed until the carrots are completely soft.
It will look pretty disastrous at this point, but just keep going lol.
As the soup is coming together make the topping.
I did not intend on having any topping but let us thank the gods that I decided on a whim to make one. I wanted abit of contrast so I decided to go for a sweet topping. Off of the top of my head, I put together a fruity, buttery beaut that went so well with the flavor of the soup.
For the topping, in your pan, add your butter and then the sugar and cinnamon. Throw in the apple and then the sage and cook this for about 5 minutes.
With the topping done, set aside into a bowl.
Transfer the softened soup components to a blender and blitz.
Once pureed, ladle into a bowl, top with the gorgeous apple topping and slurp away!
I developed this a few weeks back and I told you guys on twitter that this is my favorite soup yet! I mean just look at this!!
The smokiness of the roasted pepper really comes through. You can appreciate the boldness of the leek, the herbiness of the sage and how the warmth of the cinnamon tied together the mild inherent sweetness of the carrot and the apple. The buttery apple topping was the crown jewel of it all! It’s buttery, warm spicy flavor softened the bold flavors of the soup and that contrast made each bite more memorable than the last!
I hope you get to try this out. Do check out this soup playlist as well and try out one other one after you give this perfect roasted red pepper soup a shot! Subscribe to my channel, watch today’s video as well and leave me a lil’ comment in the comment section.
xx
Get your downloadable recipe here :))
All content and images are copyright protected by
Do not copy in part or whole without giving due credit.
Hey there! My name is Kaluhi and I love food! Through my blog, I am happy to share with you my self-taught recipes, steeped in nostalgia and the happiest of memories. I hope each recipe you try out is as addictive as the previous one and is shared on a table full of love and hearty laughs!
I am a soup fanatic, and this one did not disappoint! The flavors were so amazing and meshed so well together. I cannot wait to make another batch soon!
I just know you will enjoy the next batch just as much too!
We.re just about out of soup season here in Texas. It is starting to warm up. I only needed to pick up leek, so, I jumped on the chance of having something new. It was smoky, sweet and full of flavor.
Happy yiu got to give it a shot! The sweetness, smokiness is out of this world
The Cinnamon Apple topping was a perfect sweet element to add to this dish. We used a bit of cumin with the cinnamon for the apples, delicious. Thank you for the helpful images as well. Made making this recipe even easier.
Awesome! Love the twist you added to this!
That apple topping really brought this soup to next level goodness. I plan on trying it on some some of other favorite soups like Pumpkin Soup & Tomato Soup.
Awesome!
I loved the smoky-sweet taste from the red pepper and carrots! My soup turned out absolutely creamy and delicious! I can’t wait to make this soup again.
You will love it next time too!
I can’t say enough about how good this soup is! I was blown away by the amazing flavors from the leek, carrots, and roasted peppers. And then the cinnamon apple topping with the sage just balanced it all out perfectly. Loved it!
Thrilled to know you loved it! It is such a stunner!
The unusual flavor profile did not disappoint. I am a fan for life!
xx
I’ve been dying to start cooking with leeks so the timing of this recipe was perfect! This recipe was a great introduction to cooking with leeks and the flavors were amazing. Thank you for sharing!
Glad you loved it!
This soup tasted so delicious! lt was so comforting and warming. I also really love the fact that it’s topped with apples.
Lovely to know you loved it! The apples do make such a beautiful difference!
The depth of flavor in this fish was second to none. Wow! You could taste the smokiness from the roasted peppers, and grabbing a bit of the apple-cinnamon topping with each bite made it that much better.
Music to my ears!!! I am so so so glad you enjoyed this as much as I did!
I love the earthiness of leeks, but I’m unimaginative and always need some help using them. This was perfect, and really delicious! I was really satisfied from the soup, and the cinnamon apple topping was wonderful as some added texture!
Leeks really make a great base to build flavor upon! Happy you really loved this recipe! It is a beaut!
This soup was absolutely fantastic! Savory and sweet gives us a perfect treat. It was perfect to eat on a cool rainy day
It is my rainy day favorite too
This was a nice twist from the usual. I would have never thought to add the apple topping but it was so good!
So many flavors that came together SO well! I loved the cinnamon apple topping, it really made the dish pop!
It really did add a beautiful twist to it!
The topping really is IT!
Tried the soup today….uweeee it was awesome 😍😍😍 I wish I made more.
There is always next time and you will love it just as much!