Mike van de Elzen: Curried Kumara soup

Mike’s website – goodfromscratch.co.nz Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. This week we have been harvesting the start of our kumara. And as you can see, they are huge! Note: when growing Kumara they love a hard pan.  By this I mean, when you plant kumara they are best grown approximately 20 cm below the surface but they need to hit something hard! This will force them to grow outwards and across otherwise they just continue to go down, creating a long skinny tentacle type shape instead of a lovely plum tuber. So, a tip is to dig down and lay some bricks or wooden lengths, or even kitchen tiles so that the kumara hits them and starts growing outwards. This soup is by far one of my favourite recipes!  Curried Kumara soup Cook time: 35mins Prep time: 20mins Serves: 8–10  2 kg peeled & chopped kumara  4 white onions, peeled and diced  4 cloves garlic, peeled chopped  4 granny smith apples, peeled and chopped  200 gm unsalted butter  2 tbsp curry powder  1 tsp ground ginger  500ml coconut cream  1-litre vegetable stock   4 tbsp honey  250 ml cream  1/2 tsp salt  Take a large heavy based pot and heat.  Melt 50g of the butter slowly and then sauté the kumara, onions, garlic and apples.  Toss in the curry powder and ginger powder.  Sauté for a further minute before pouring in the coconut cream, honey and stock.  Simmer for 30 minutes or until the kumara is cooked through.  Using a hand blender, blitz the kumara until smooth before slowly adding in the remaining 150g cubed butter and finally fresh cream.  Season with more salt than you think and serve.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.