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

Details

Achieving the perfect results

1. Set the oven at 200˚C/Gas 6.
2. Cut the leaves from the beetroot (cook them later, treating them as you might spinach) and scrub the beets well.
3. Put them in a roasting tin with a tablespoon of oil and 3 of water and cover tightly with foil.
4. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour until dark and almost tender.
5. 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.
6. Peel the beets and chop the flesh roughly.
7. 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.
8. Check the seasoning. It will need salt and black pepper. Pour into a jug and chill in the refrigerator.
9. To make the cream, remove the skin from the cheese and mash the flesh with a fork.
10. 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.