curried sweet potato soup

The days are still quite warm here, I'm wondering if the leaves will be able to turn color this year, or will they just dry up and fall off...hmm.

I wanted to share another book which I read about in a review in the Australian Gourmet Traveller--actually, it was for the bigger version, "Soup Kitchens", I realized this after looking at the book I had bought.

"Little Book of Soup" is filled with recipes for different kinds of soups by the U.K.'s greatest chefs and food writers. Most of the recipes seem quite simple. Plus, the royalties benefit homeless charities such as the Salvation Army and Centrepoint.

In it, I found a simple recipe that is perfect to show off autumn's gifts here in Japan.

Curried Sweet Potato Soup by Jill Dupleix (from "Little Book of Soup")-- Serves 4
1 kg. orange fleshed sweet potato
1.2 litres boiling water or stock
salt and pepper to taste
400g canned white beans
1 tsp good curry powder or more
2 tbsp fresh parsley or coriander leaves

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into small cubes. Put in a pan, add the boiling water or stock, salt and pepper, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft.

Drain the beans and rinse. Add half the beans and curry powder to the soup, stirring well, then whizz in a food processor in batches, being careful not to overfill the bowl.

Return to the pan, add the remaining whole beans, and gently heat. If too thick, add extra boiling water. Taste for salt, pepper and curry powder, and scatter with parsley or coriander.

Notes: In Japan, I have only seen the purple skinned type sweet potato, so that was what I used. Also, I couldn't find canned stock and didn't have time to make my own, so I used consomme cubes. I thought that this soup might be too sweet with just water, so I made it with the stock version. My food processor is a "cute" little thing, so whizzing took awhile, but this soup came out great! I served this with some salt and peppered zucchini and onions and a flax seed roll.

Enjoy!