I am a canny shopper so when I was down my local grocery shop and saw this incredible deal I knew I couldn’t miss out!

On getting back to my professional chef’s kitchen I decided to open the tins and this is where I ran into the first of several not inconsequential problems; I had no tin opener so had to use a pen knife and could only open half the lid which meant getting the ingredients out was very difficult:

However after much shaking I managed to free some of the delights from inside their cans:

So, what do they taste like? The carrots are very odd, I would say they taste like no carrot I have had before; they don’t really taste like carrot, they taste like a vegetable that has been boiled for several weeks. The poor bastards, they didnt stand a chance. On to the potatoes: they’re a bit better and even taste a bit like potato but they harbour a clawy aftertaste which I find most disagreeable.

I have to admit, I am a bit lost as to what to do, but after much thought figured I’d make a carrot and orange soup and make some crispy potato croutons to go with it.

Lets start with a base for the soup. The point here is that you want to pack it full of flavour so I’m using 1cm cube ginger, 1/3 stalk lemon grass, small chili, 3 cloves garlic and I’m going to fry these in olive oil for about 3-4 minutes

Next I’m going to add a pint of chicken stock and the juice from 1 orange and half of its zest:

Right, so while that’s infusing I slice some of those potatoes and add to a hot pan along with fennel seeds.

This is where another problem presented itself: it turns out that frying these potatoes is quite dangerous, I’ve never had so much hot oil spat at me, so just be aware of this.

After about ten minutes I blend the soup and remove the potato croutons from the heat and I add in some vanilla yogurt (ran out of cream) and here’s the result!

So how’s it taste?

It’s actually really fcking nice; the combination of lemon grass, fennel and vanilla yogurt combine really well with the orange and carrot and the crispy croutons finish the dish. I defy anyone to beat this! I DEFY YOU!

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Thai Style Carrot and Orange Soup With Vanilla Yogurt and Crispy Potato Croutons

Ingredients

1 tin of Heritage Carrots and New Potatoes

1 pint chicken stock(hey look, I used one of them stock pots so use whatever you have to hand)

1cm cube ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 small chilli

3rd stalk lemon grass

juice of 1 orange plus half it’s zest

1 tablespoon vanilla yogurt

for the potatoes, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Method

As in the post