Shall I put the kettle on?

 Swede is one of those vegetables. Yes, it’s a root vegetable, obviously, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is it’s not one of those popular vegetables. Like your carrot. Or your parsnip. No, swede is one of those vegetables that people always sneer at a little. I think they think your average swede is a bit ugly. A bit pale, a bit chunky and a beast to tackle. Poor swede.

But at Union of Genius we’re not so judgemental. After all, who couldn’t love a vegetable with a purple bum?* Anyway, we embrace all veg equally (figuratively, of course). No veg is too big, or small, pretty or ugly to be hacked in to inch-size cubes and blended in to a sea of edible bliss. And this week it was the turn of lilac-bottomed Mr Swede.


The other day, soupmonger-in-chief Elaine found a Gordon Ramsay recipe for swede and cardamom soup. Marvellous. We at Union like nothing more than combining vegetables with unlikely or lesser-known spices. There’s our splendid pumpkin and sumac, the tremendous tomato, pepper and harissa, the much-loved Lebanese lemon, lentil and spinach with zatar. But more on those another day.

Today, we’re all over cardamom. As a big fan of the pestle and mortar, I take the lead on peeling and crushing the cardamom pods. Elaine therefore is left wielding a knife against the swedes like a dragon-slayer against a rough, yellow-skinned monster. Naturally for such an experienced soupmonger, she emerges victorious. And so alongside celery, onions and garlic, we add some cream and chili. Boil and blend.

The soup is good. At least, it looks good. Smooth and milky-coloured. And it smells good, aromatic and perfumed. But what of the flavour? We take our teaspoons. We dip, we taste, we ponder. Our soup antennae twitch. Something’s missing.

The door bangs and Elaine goes to serve a customer. I sip my tea – the Union kitchen is fuelled by Tetley’s** – and ponder some more. I stare in to the pale, creamy, beige depths of the nine litre soup pan. What do you need friend? What can I get you? Another sip and it hits me – black tea! That’s how I take my tea and I’m feeling an affinity with our new soup friend already. The swede and cardamom, like me and my now cold mug, needs a nice fresh cuppa. Why? Who knows. Perhaps it’s an instinct that comes with soup mongering.

Elaine returns and I coyly suggest the tea addition. Luckily, she’s not an eyebrow raiser (that’s Bruce’s department). Sure, she says, give it a try. So we do. And, hey, you know what? It works. Soup history is made and Mr Swede is no longer a pale ugly beast but a delicately perfumed masterpiece. Our work here is done.

So come in next week and sample our new soup: ‘awesome swede,’ with cardamom, chili and black tea. It’ll be a seasonal and on all week. We hope you love it as much as we do.

---

*Technically a purple head but this blog is not rated for adult content. By the way be careful if you do an image search for "swede."

**Not product placement, honest.