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Ever since I first saw purple cauliflower on a cooking competition show, I've wanted to make a soup from them. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any. I have used orange cauliflower, but that color eluded me. Likewise, no purple potatoes, though I have found purple carrots. Then, my What's Your Favorite (Food) Color? post - which I repeated on my work cooking forum - yielded a response of "purple", specifically from yams that can be found in a local Asian market. So, I picked some up.
Externally, they look like potatoes.
Inside was quite a different matter. I expected them to be a solid purple color, but the reality is much prettier than that.
Looking more like a nebula in deep space than a type of food, I decided to come up with things that would work in a soup. Unlike literally every other soup I've ever made, the ingredient choices started with colors, and then whether or not they made sense. I wanted greens, oranges, maybe reds to offset the color. I considered sauteing carrot slices - orange discs offset against the purple would be stunning - but scratched that because I decided I didn't want this to be too sweet. These yams aren't as sweet as the orange variety, but they do have some sweetness.
I also dropped orange bell peppers, mostly because I didn't think they made sense in a soup. And, I did consider adding mint and/or saffron - so it would qualify for the current cooking challenges - but decided against both.
Not surprisingly, as I often do, I went in an Asian direction. I cut the yams into chunks, covered them in olive oil, salt, and homemade Chinese Five Spice, and oven roasted them.
I decided on oven roasting over just boiling so I could deepen the flavors. Then, I built the soup more or less the way I usually do. The finished product was thicker than I expected - something like split pea soup - but there was no mistaking it for a sweet dish. The orange circles you see are from a habanero jelly I made (I will post that recipe later). Very, very tasty.
ingredients
4 ears corn
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, retaining shells
4 cups water
1 carrot, chopped
1 teaspoon thyme
2 small onions, chopped - divided
2 pounds purple yams
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Chinese Five Spice
1 tablespoon kosher salt
6 Calabrian chile peppers, diced
1 tablespoon galangal root, grated
1 ounce ginger, grated
2 tablespoons garlic, grated
5 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced (stems removed)
2 ounces green onion, sliced
Directions
- Bring enough water to cover the corn to a boil. Add a pinch of salt, and boil for 8 minutes. Extract the corn, but retain 4 cups of the water. Cut the corn from the cobs and set aside, retaining the cobs.
- Combine corn cobs, shrimp shells, water, carrot, thyme, and one onion in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 4 hours. Strain contents of pot out to retain the stock.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. peel yams until the purple inside is exposed. Cut into 1" chunks, discarding any parts that aren't purple. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, and Chinese Five Spice. Arrange on baking sheets so they aren't touching. Cook for 20 minutes or until softened somewhat. Remove from oven and set aside.
- While the yams roast, heat remaining oil in a large pot on medium. Saute onions until soft, about 10 minutes. Add peppers, galangal, garlic, ginger, and remaining chopped onion. Saute for about a minute, constantly stirring.
- Add shrimp to the pan, stirring occasionally to keep spices from burning. Cook both sides of shrimp for minutes, then remove from pan - leaving the ginger and other contents in the pot - and set aside.
- Add roasted yams to the pot, and stir to coat with the contents of the pan. Add stock. Stir, scraping up whatever sticks to the bottom of the pan. Lower to a simmer and cook for another 30 minutes, or until yams are soft.
- Pour contents of pot in a blender and puree. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides, since the mixture will be thick.
- Remove stems from mushrooms and slice in 1/4" pieces. Add to the pot and cook for 5 minutes. Add the corn, shrimp, and green onion and stir thoroughly.
- Serve with habanero jelly of this isn't spicy enough for you.
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