Chilled beetroot soup with creamed goat's cheese

Beetroot, like watercress, makes a thoroughly tasty chilled soup. Some may like to add cream, but I prefer the slightly sharper note of goat’s cheese. It adds a wonderful piquancy to the sweet roots.

Ingredients

Serves 4

500g raw beetroot
A tablespoon groundnut or vegetable oil
4-6 spring onions
750ml vegetable or light chicken stock
For the goat's cheese cream
100g soft goat’s cheese
3 tablespoons thick yogurt
2 tablespoons of mixed chopped fresh chives and mint
 

Achieving the perfect results

• Set the oven at 200˚C/Gas 6.
• Cut the leaves from the beetroot (cook them later, treating them as you might spinach) and scrub the beets well.
• Put them in a roasting tin with a tablespoon of oil and 3 of water and cover tightly with foil.
• Roast for 45 minutes to an hour until dark and almost tender.
• Warm the oil in a shallow pan. Chop the spring onions and let them soften for five minutes or so in the oil. Set aside.
• Peel the beets and chop the flesh roughly.
• Put them in the pan with the onions, pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for seven or eight minutes, cool slightly then put through a blender until smooth.
• Check the seasoning. It will need salt and black pepper. Pour into a jug and chill in the refrigerator.
• To make the cream, remove the skin from the cheese and mash the flesh with a fork.
• Stir in the yogurt and the chopped herbs. Serve the soup when it is thoroughly chilled, then add spoonfuls of the herb cream at the table.