This glorious soup is so pretty, the colour so intense that it’s hard to think of it as food but it is packed full of nutritional goodness and has a deep and complex yummyness that is totally delicious. The toasted fragrant fennel seeds and the bouncy orange zest perfectly compliment the sweet earthy beetroot. As our New Zealand soils are deficient in iodine I always like to add seaweed to my soups and the Kombu used here adds a very nice salty ocean complexity.Ingredients.

4 or 5 Beetroot about 600 grams.

3 small or 2 large onions.

1 litre of bone broth or use vegetable stock if vegetarian.

1 tablespoon of fennel seeds.

3 -4 cloves of garlic.

2 tablespoons of cider vinegar, I am using a Beetroot cider vinegar that I made previously but you can use ordinary cider vinegar. The acid here keeps a brightness to the Beetroot flavours.

1 tin of coconut cream, full fat, not light.

kombu seaweed, one piece simmered for an hour in plenty of water. Optional.

zest of one orange.

large bunch of parsley.

salt and pepper.

Chop the onions quite small and fry in some coconut oil in a large saucepan until softened but not browned.

Next peel and chop the Beetroot into 1 cm cubes, Beetroot takes ages to cook so make the pieces quite small to hurry it up. Peel the garlic, no need to chop. Dry fry the fennel seeds until fragrant then grind them up a bit in a pestle and mortar or spice mill. Cut the Kombu up (if using) with scissors into 2-3cm square, keep the cooking liquid. As the soils in New Zealand are deficient in iodine I do like to add seaweed to my soups and it does add a depth of salty flavour hard to achieve with just salt.

Add the Beetroot, Kombu plus cooking liquid, garlic, broth or stock,  cider vinegar and fennel seeds to the onions in the saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer, cover and continue to simmer for 50 minutes or until the Beetroot is soft. If your pan is not well sealed you may have lost a bit of liquid volume during this time, if so just add a bit of extra water.

Next chop the parsley and zest the orange and add these to the soup.

Using a stick blender purée the soup until smooth then add the coconut cream plus salt and pepper to taste. We put the orange zest and parsley in right at the end to retain their freshness and vibrancy.The colour of this soup is very beautiful. This recipe makes about 2 litres of soup so serves about 8. Which is about 14grams of carbs per serve. It freezes well. I like to serve with extra orange zest and parsley.