What is there not to love about this Red Pepper Soup with Chilli and Yoghurt – it’s colourful and has a lovely earthy, spicy flavour thanks to the Aleppo pepper and smoked paprika. It is super easy to make, but you must allow each layer of seasoning time to cook to ensure you get the real depth of flavour in the resulting soup. So, it would be best if you allow a good forty-five minutes to prepare it. I have used Aleppo pepper, but you could substitute that for red pepper paste or chilli flakes.
Red pepper soup or roasted red pepper soup is a universal recipe, but these spices give it a middle-eastern feel, echoing the flavour of the famous ‘Mhammara’ (hot red pepper dip). Florina peppers are still readily available, probably due to the exceptionally warm weather, which is perfect because this is a soup for the chillier weather. Sweet bell peppers would also work very well. Serve with warm pittas or thick crusty bread.
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Red Pepper Soup with Chilli and Garlic
Ingredients
- 1 k Florina red peppers (roasted in the oven until soft)
- 2 red onions roughly chopped
- 2 medium carrots (grated)
- 1 stick celery with leaves (finely chopped)
- 1 small banana chilli
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- small sprig fresh oregano
- 2-4 cloves grated garlic
- ½-1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp cumin
- 1 tsp Aleppo pepper or Turkish pepper
- 1 tbsp tomato concentrate
- approx 900 ml chicken or vegetable stock
- ½-1 tsp salt
- olive oil
Garnish
- ½ tsp sumac
- 50 g toasted walnuts
- few mint or coriander leaves
- 75-100 ml yoghurt or sour cream
Instructions
- De-seed the peppers and roast until the skins are slightly charred.
- Cook the onions in a little oil for 3 minutes, add the carrot, chilli and celery. Cook for a further couple of minutes, add the garlic and all the spices including ½ teaspoon of salt. Stir well, cook for another couple of minutes and add the chopped red peppers. Stir in the tomato concentrate. Simmer gently for 3 minutes.
- Cover the vegetables with the 800ml stock, bring to the boil and simmer gently for another 20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft enough to blend with a hand-mixer.
- While the soup is simmering, gently toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan.
- Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning. If it is too thick add a little more stock and bring it back to the boil, simmer for a couple of minutes.
- Pour into warm bowls with a swirl of yoghurt (sour cream) and sprinkle of sumac. Decorate with walnuts, mint or chopped celery leaves and serve with pittas or crusty bread.
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