Potage de Crécy (Puréed Carrot Soup)

One of my favorite vegetables to buy at the farmers’ market in the winter is carrots. There are two vendors in particular that sell them each Saturday morning – beautiful bunches of carrots in shades of orange, yellow, and sometimes purple. When they still have their luscious bouquet of green tops intact, I’m not sure if I want to eat the carrots or put them on display. The carrots are relatively thin which make them ideal for roasting whole with a sprinkle of olive oil and kosher salt. It brings out the natural sweetness in carrots, coated with a little char from the oven. It’s so simple and so full of flavor. I suppose it goes back to the philosophy that food tastes best when it’s in season.

While I would typically roast these carrots for dinner, I was in the mood for a little variety. Variety is the spice of life after all. Why not throw on the apron and attempt cooking something new? Come to find out, carrot soup (Potage de Crécy) is a classic French dish made up of pureed carrots and thickened with rice. Potage is a French term used to describe a thick creamy soup versus a soup that’s more broth based.

A delicious example of this is Pardon Your French’s recipe for potato and leek soup. I loved this soup and ate it for lunch over the course of a week. Making a potage with carrots most likely involved a similar process, non?

Fortunately, this potage produced good results! Roasting the carrots first gave the soup great flavor, and I found that I didn’t need to adjust the seasoning along the way. This recipe is flexible, so make it your own. Substitute potatoes with rice, use water or vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, swirl in a little heavy cream at the end, etc. I just used what I had in my kitchen. That’s one thing I appreciate about puréed soups. You can make a creamy soup for lunch or dinner using vegetables you have on hand by following a general method: sauté onion and garlic in butter or olive oil, boil the vegetables in liquid (water or stock), add a starch for thickness (potatoes or rice), and blend it all together. As Ina Garten would say, “How easy is that?”

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Puréed Carrot Soup

Yield: 6-8

Author: Julia Darling

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 2 lbs carrots, peeled and sliced thin
• 6 small/petit Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered (You could also use one medium Yukon gold potato or 1/2 of a russet potato.)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 gloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 Fahrenheit.
2. Add carrots and potatoes to a rimmed baking sheet and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss to mix it all together.
3. Bake the vegetables for 30-40 minutes until they are soft and starting to char.
4. Meanwhile, in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, pour a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot over medium-high heat.
5. Add the chopped onion and garlic to the pot and sauté for about 10 minutes,
6. Add the roasted vegetables to the pot and stir to mix.
7. Add the nutmeg, chicken stock, and bring to a boil.
8. Reduce hear to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
9. Add the butter to the pot and stir to incorporate.
10. Using an immersion blender, purée the soup. You can also purée the soup in batches using a regular blender.
11. Serve warm.