Orange Pepper Soup with Cilantro Purée

The last time I was at the produce market, I picked up a big bag of orange peppers for no reason other than to have something colorful and different in my refrigerator. I cut some up for stir-fry, threw in some with chicken in curry sauce, and chopped some up for salad. But since produce markets give you more than you need, I was still left with several that I didn’t know what to do with. That’s when I came across this recipe for Orange Pepper Soup with Cilantro Purée. The recipe calls for yellow peppers but the orange peppers are just as sweet and worked just as perfectly in this chilled soup. Although this is loaded with other flavors like garlic, onion, potato, apple, ginger, and fennel, the orange peppers are the star and are beautifully complemented by the other ingredients. The other highlight to this soup is the addition of curry powder which lays low in the background and provides a subtle warmth. The cilantro purée adds another layer of fresh flavor that works deliciously with the peppers. To easily make this soup vegetarian, use vegetable broth in place of the chicken broth. This soup would be perfect for a warm summer evening but it was still just as a good on a cold December day.

The soup ingredients:

Chop all of the produce (all of it will go into the blender so a coarse chop is fine).

Heat a skillet with butter and sauté the onion and fennel until soft.

Add in the curry powder, ginger, and garlic and sauté 1 minute.

Stir in the white wine and cook until evaporated before adding in the chopped peppers, apple, potato, chicken broth, and salt. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer 20 minutes.