Parsnip and Sunchoke Soup

We received more sunchokes and parsnips in this week's farmshare (CSA). Last week I boiled the parsnips and tossed them with orange juice, zest and honey. They tasted great. And, so far, my favorite way to eat the sunchokes is to boil them with an equal amount of baby red potatoes and some garlic cloves and mash them with butter and milk.

Today, I decided to take the bounty of last week's box and make a pot of soup. I sauted the green garlic, spring onions and a couple of carrots in olive oil and butter then added vegetable stock, dired thyme, sunchokes and parsnips. Once everything was soft, I pureed the whole works in the blender, returned it to the pot and added some cream and seasoning.

The verdict? Pretty good. The flavor of the sunchokes is dominant and is accented well by lemon and thyme. The consistency is that of a potato soup as the sunchokes are starchy. I topped the soup with a bit of finely shedded mozzerella also from Harmony Valley's cheese share. It would also be tasty topped with a bit of truffle oil or you could render some bits of bacon to saute the veggies in at the start and top the soup with the crispy bits.One note about parsnips: they smell bad. I mean, they taste great once they're cooked but during cooking they smell like death. Or like you forgot to take your garbage out before you left for a two week trip in the summer and something died in there. It's unpleasant. Open a window if you can.