Good Cheap Grub ! Eating well on a low budget
Ital soup is a hearty and healthy Jamaican vegetarian soup favoured by Rastafarians .
Instructions :
1 :Chop the onions , garlic (optional , but good for your health !) and celery finely .
2 :Take an assortment of 'root vegetables' . Preferably include plenty of 'Sweet Potato' ; I also use ordinary potatoes and carrots as the basic ingredients . You can also add turnips , swede , celeriac and other similar vegetables ( see picture ).
N.B : If you peel the vegetables it makes for a more attractive , slightly better flavoured soup ; It's a shame to waste food though , so f you are 'generous' with the peelings and leave some of the vegetable attached to the peel , you can make a soup out of the peelings and a few other ingredients ( see below for the recipe ) .
Chop the vegetables into chunks ( these will be mashed later ) .
3: Put all the vegetables in a cooking pot or slow cooker, along with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable fat , a teaspoon or two of chilli pepper or black pepper ( or a combination of both ) , some herbs such as thyme or rosemary ( a couple of teaspoons of dried herbs in total ) , and a teaspoon or two of spices such as allspice or ginger and perhaps half a teaspoon of turmeric .
Also add a generous teaspoon of sugar .
If you have it , add 'creamed coconut' ( about a third of a little box ) ; this is around 2 or 3 tablespoons of chopped coconut .
4: Add about half a litre of boiling water to the pan or cooker ; make sure the vegetables are covered by the water . Bring the soup to the boil and let it simmer for as long as you like (!) . After an hour or so everything should be cooked through .
Take a 'potato masher' or a big fork and crush all the chunks of vegetables , so the soup becomes smoother yet 'lumpy' .
Have a look at the consistency of the soup ; if it's very thick , gradually add more hot water until it's somewhere between very thick and 'thin' . If it's too lumpy , mash it again .
Optional Step :
Near the end of the cooking time you can add some green leaves such as Kale to the soup if you like . At this point you could also add any other vegetables that you'd prefer to leave 'un-mashed' such as chopped sweet peppers . Let any of these additional vegetables cook through before serving .
5: Enjoy your Ital Soup !
This soup goes very well with cheese sandwiches , and having these as an accompaniment supplements the nutrition of this soup , adding a healthy 'calcium' and protein element.