Bloody Mary soup

The spring has come, but hasn't decided on whether it wants to be warm or cold. One day the sun is shining, and you feel like getting rid of a coat and enjoying the fresh mild wind. The next day it's grey and miserable with the rain in different degrees from a slightly bothering drizzle to a bucketing relentlessly outpour. On a day like that, you crave comfort food. I love soups, and never get bored with them. It must be my Russian upbringing, as the Russians tend to eat soup on a daily basis.

I've been enjoying my souping boxes from Abel and Cole, of which I talked recently. 

The latest box had ingredients for Bloody Mary soup. 

I used all the ingredients suggested by Abel and Cole, but have slightly adapted a recipe. First of all, I added some vodka. How come a Bloody Mary miss such an important ingredient?! I didn't use a big chilli. In fact, the chilli has found a different kitchen altogether. I am not very good at chopping chillies, way too often I end up swearing at myself for touching my eyes or face in the process. So, I prefer to use a good old Tabasco sauce or chilli paste, which saves me time and effort (as well as my eyes).

Bloody Mary soup

Ingredients:

a punnet of tomatoes (about 15 small ones)

1 big red sweet pepper

1 red onion

a dash of olive oil

2 celery sticks

2 cloves of garlic

1tbsp of freshly grated horseradish

parsley, torn

zest of 1 lemon + juice of half a lemon

a dash of Tabasco

50g vodka

celery salt (optional, you can use a standard sea salt)

Roast the sliced pepper, onion and tomatoes in a tray with a dash of olive oil. Season with a bit of celery salt. Roast for about 20 minutes.

Dice the celery and chop the garlic, give them a quick fry with a bit of olive oil. Put all the veggies in a pan, add water to cover all the vegetables. Bring to boil, and simmer for half an hour, with the grated lemon zest and lemon juice, grated horseradish and a bit of Tabasco. Add vodka in the last 10 minutes of cooking. The alcohol will add a deeper flavour to the overall dish, but you can skip it for sure. Once cooked, blitz the soup with a hand blender. Serve the soup hot in mugs with parsley and a nice slice of bread.

This is an excellent zingy soup, very flavourful and tasty. Bloody gorgeous if you ask me.

If you fancy finding out what other delicious soups you can cook with Abel and Cole, check out their Superb Souping Box. 

I have used Diplomat vodka in this recipe, but I guess any good vodka will do, like Stolichnaya (only not the flavoured varieties). Actually I don't drink vodka, never have, but because I was born in Russia, people automatically jump to conclusions that I must be a vodka-drinker. Quite often when we have guests, they bring me a bottle of vodka as a treat, bless them. I don't want to sound rude, so always thank them graciously and then use in cooking. It's excellent for curing salmon for example, or making pickles. This bottle has been unopened for half a year, now that I opened it I'll need to think of good recipes for using it. What would you suggest?