Turkish Carrot Soup

Peel potatoes and cut into a dice. Scrape carrots and chop up. Peel and chop an onion, and some garlic cloves. Melt a little olive oil in a heavy lidded pan. Add vegetables and stir round to coat with oil. All to soften over a low flame for 10 minutes. Meanwhile in frying pan heat a tsp or two of cumin seeds until they just begin to smell toasted. Tip into a pestle and mortar and grind up roughly. Add to the vegetables in the pan. Pour over stock. Bring to boil and cook until soft. Liquidise. Taste and season with salt pepper and lemon juice. Serve with yoghurt.

Mulligatawny Soup

Feeling all the Raj? Try this soup.

Scrape and chop carrots, peel and chop onion, together with any other odds and ends from the vegetable rack (parsnip, turnip, swede etc). Sauté in sunflower oil until onion is transparent. Tip in half a pack of red lentils. Add 1 tblspn medium curry powder (a version such as Schwartz containing whole spices is just right). Stir round to coat, then cover with boiling water. Bring to the boil and put in an oven 180C/Gas 4, for 45 minutes. Test to see if veg is cooked through. Then puree. Taste and season with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and lemon juice. Add a little more chilli if it hasn't enough kick. Serve very hot with plain yoghurt swirled in, and snipped greenery on top - I have tried rocket, parsley and fresh coriander to good effect.