Nordic Winter Vegetable Soup

I finally had time to look through my January 2011 Food & Wine magazine over the weekend. It was CA cold outside (Not compared to the weather for you east coast peeps) but cold for me.

I knew I wanted to make some soup and Food & Wine magazine and Trina Hahnemann – author of  The Nordic Diet – provided me with the perfect solution. In the article, Trina calls the root vegetables in her Nordic Winter Vegetable Soup the “gold of Nordic soil”  – They’re high in nutrients and grow well in cold climates. 

The soup recipe sounded delicious. I wanted healthy lunch options for the week, so I headed to the store to gather the ingredients.

Link to the Ingredients and Recipe on the Food & Wine website.

My only substitutions to the recipe were to use one box of low sodium chicken stock and one box of regular – I already had the full sodium version on hand. I also used some Garlic Gold Nuggets to top off my finished soup. So this made the original recipe non-vegetarian, next time I will use veggie stock to make it authentic.

I started with prep – I chopped up one large white onion, then I got my leeks washed and ready for slicing.

I started on the celery root next.  I’m familiar with celery root, I tackled it over the summer with Williams-Sonoma’s Cheese Toast w/Celery Root and Carrot Salad recipe.

I’ve discovered that I waste a lot less by using a peeler instead of trying to remove the skin with a knife.

I got the celery root cut into 1/2 inch pieces – they were supposed to be cubes, but that didn’t work out so well.

The next star of the recipe was 1 lb. of parsnips. I’ve eaten parsnips before, but I’ve never purchased and prepared them. I keep seeing parsnip fries on lots of healthy living blogs – just have never tried them on my own.

I got my parsnips peeled and ready for chopping.

Not much different than the celery root in photos.

I heated up 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in my dutch oven and then added the onion, leeks and garlic and cooked over medium/high heat – stirring occasionally until tender. I ended up adding several more splashes of olive oil – it seemed to dry out pretty fast. Probably could have just sautéed over medium heat. It took about 10 minutes to get the ingredients tender.

I added my cup of pearl barley and then stirred the mixture together. Pearl barley excites me – there, I said it. My Mom has used pearl barley in soups since I was a kid. I think that is why I love it so much, it reminds me of kitchen counter time with my Mom.

I then added the two boxes of chicken stock – one low sodium, one regular.

4 cups of water was next on the list.

I added fresh thyme and bay leaves and then brought the soup to a boil.

Once I achieved a good “boil” – in went the celery root and parsnips.

I then added salt and pepper to taste. It seemed like it needed a lot of seasoning – but I later realized the flavors developed more as the soup simmered. I’m glad I didn’t over season early on. I let the soup simmer on low heat for more than the recommended 40 minutes. It took 50-60 minutes before the root vegetables and barley became tender.

I then added the spinach and freshly ground nutmeg.

I continued to stir. I let the soup simmer for another 5 minutes before serving. My kitchen smelled wonderful. I could not wait to grab a spoon.

I topped my soup with some Garlic Gold Nuggets before eating.

This soup easily makes my top 5 in taste and texture. I couldn’t be more excited that I have a freezer full of the stuff. I love that I have another (almost) vegetarian option for lunch and even a main course. I’m so excited about this soup – I will definitely be purchasing The Nordic Diet cookbook so I can get my hands on more of  Chef Trina Hahnemann’s amazing recipes.

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    • Dave2 on January 11, 2011 at 1:34 am

    It does indeed look wonderful… except I would have to find a vegetarian broth that didn’t have free range chickens as the primary ingredient. 🙁

      • foodiddy on January 11, 2011 at 5:33 am
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      Whoops, just re-worded the post. I substituted chicken broth because I had it… The recipe did indeed call for veggie stock. My version is not quite the veggie option Trina had in mind, I will make it her way next time for sure.

    • Mommers on January 11, 2011 at 10:35 am

    I can almost smell it from here………it looks just wonderful and definitely something worth making. So good on one of our “cold” days….

    Mommers

  1. Thanks for the congrats!! Love the look of your site too 🙂 And I’m on such a huge soup kick…that looks delicious!

    • Hilly on January 16, 2011 at 9:06 am

    I’m not a huge soup fan but this one looks super deeeeelicious!

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