| 1 medium onion (4 oz), peeled | 1 medium celery root (12 oz.), peeled |
| 2 small parsnips (6 oz total), peeled | 3 medium carrots (8 oz. tota), peeled |
| 3 14-oz. cans chicken broth | 1/4 tsp. nutmeg |
| salt if desired | freshly ground pepper |
| 1/2 cup sour cream or yoghurt | 2 Tbs. snipped fresh dill, or 2 tsps. dried dill weed |
Use food processor (4 mm all-purpose slicing disk) or knife to thinly
slice onion, celery root, parsnips, and carrots.
Put vegetables and chicken broth into 4-qt. saucepan and bring to a
boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer gently until vegetables are
very soft, about 30 minutes.
Strain liquid into large bowl; reserve liquid and solids.
Use food processor with metal blade (or blender or food mill) to process
solids until smooth, stopping once to scrape work
bowl. Add 1/2 cup of reserved liquid and process for 10 seconds
more.
Return this mixture to saucepan and stir in reserved liquid, nutmeg,
salt if any, and pepper. If soup is too thick, add more chicken broth
and adjust seasoning. Soup may be frozen at this point.
Serve hot, garnishing each serving with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt
sprinkled with dill.
Makes 10 cups, serves 6 to 8.
This recipe is very versatile. You can use any combination of
root vegetables (onions, leeks, celery root, parsnips, carrots, turnips,
fennel) in just about any proportion, and add other vegetables (cauliflower,
broccoli) to get different flavors. We almost always use white turnips,
parsnips, carrots and onions as a base, and then add other vegetables.
As a general rule, use one small can (14 oz.) of canned chicken broth
to each 10 ounces of vegetables. Reserve part of the
broth until the end, and then add more if the soup needs to be thinned.