Raid the Fridge Fridays: Sweet potato, chilli and lime soup

We are not soup people in this house. Although there are only two of us in this house, and when I say house I mean flat, I like to think my point was put across. Last winter, despite the startling cold, the slippers which I keep banging on about, and the blankets wrapped around me as I huddled at my desk, soup was a no-show all season.

Now, however, thanks to a rather frisky cauliflower and leek number which I made for my blog a couple of weeks ago, Gaylord’s head has been turned. Is he becoming a soup person?

French cooking: Creamy leek and potato soup

My parents make soups. My dad’s ‘red soup’ - sweet potato and roast pepper - is a family favourite, and during lockdown my mum became a soup wizard, conjuring up what felt like endless cauldrons of seafood chowder and a great post-Christmas turkey soup speckled with mustard seeds (which I hope to see again this Boxing Day! Hint hint). We became a ‘soup family’ if there is such a thing, sipping wholesome liquid lunches on a daily basis.

Again, I’m not sure why soup has fallen so far off my radar. Especially as, while at one of my chef jobs, I was responsible for rustling up big stock pots of soup for the specials’ menu. There I flexed my soup-making muscles and concocting pot after pot of beetroot and apple, cauliflower, harissa and almond (oooh yes this one was good), butternut laksa, and French onion (delicious but have you ever spent a morning slicing 30+ onions?!).

Another soup which I found myself returning to time and time again was sweet potato, chilli and lime.

This soup was one of the many recipes with which I was saddled at cookery school. I had cardboard wallets full of stapled papers coordinated by theme, and thanks to all those daily time-plans for our practical cooking classes, my room at the time seemed to be drowning in paper. Once hired as a chef, I pulled this recipe out of those stacks now jammed into a book shelf, and took it with me to work.

What is amazing about this sweet potato soup is that it is so flavourful yet only needs five ingredients. It doesn’t seem logical to me.

Surely to have such subtlety of sweet lime and the chilli’s oomph when you gulp it down there needs to be layers of ingredients - maybe like that lasagne recipe from a few weeks ago, that ingredients list went on for ages - with herbs, spices, possibly a parmesan rind because why not.

Classic lasagne with three cheeses

Nope.

All it needs is onion, sweet potato, lime, chilli and stock, then some salt and pepper to balance and accentuate. It’s sweet yet prickly with heat and the onion brings depth so it doesn’t taste like you’re eating a spicy dessert for lunch.

And, this extraordinary soup’s final gift, enough to make it a smash hit in my book, is that it takes no time at all to make. The most time-consuming part is peeling and chopping the sweet potato. Lunch is made in a jiffy.

And so, with Gaylord fast learning the ropes of soup making - since the leek and potato soup, there’s been this one, and he made his first soup ever, with roasted butternut squash topped with crispy rosemary croutons and crème fraiche, and then beef ramen on Tuesday - and me with more soup recipes up my sleeves than I care to admit, it looks like we’re becoming soup people. And I’ll keep wearing slippers. Our glamour never ceases to amaze me.

Sweet potato, chilli and lime soup

Prep Time: 15 mins

Cook Time: 10 mins

Course: Appetizer, Lunch, Main Course, Snack, Starter

Keyword: sweet potato, chilli, lime, soup

Servings: 2 generously

Author: Adapted from Leiths’ recipe

Ingredients

• 1 onion

• 1 red chilli - you can use as much or as little as you like

• 500g sweet potato

• 1 lime

• 600ml vegetable stock

• Salt and pepper

Instructions

• Dice the onion and finely slice the red chilli. I used about half of mine.

• Peel and chop the sweet potato.

• Heat some oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s hot, add the onion and fry gently until soft. Add the chilli and cook for a couple of minutes to release the aroma.

• Chuck in all the sweet potato and stir it all around in the onion and chilli. Grate in the zest of the whole lime, season with salt and pepper then toss it all together.

• Cover with the stock, bring to the boil then lower the heat.

• Cook for 10-15 minutes until the sweet potato pieces are soft and a cutlery knife can cut through them.

• Using a hand blender, puree the soup until smooth and thick. You may have to add a splash of extra water. Cut the lime into quarters and add half of the juice. Blend the soup to combine, and then taste. Add salt, pepper and more lime juice if necessary.

• Serve in bowls with sliced chilli and coriander to garnish.