Lanhydrock Estate and Parsnip & Apple Soup

When visiting Europe we love to roam the castles and manor houses of England and France, while in Cornwall this month we visited Lanhydrock Hall in Bodmin. I love that the National Trust calls it a country house which I am sure it was for many in Victorian times but for most of us it is a mansion beyond our wildest dreams. The most impressive for me were the vast kitchens, including pastry & bread kitchen, dairy, meat storage and prep room, vegetable prep room, roasting room and larder, my kind of house really.

My parents have visited the house several times, my sister lives in Bodmin and on their last visit my Pop said he bought a great recipe book with all Victorian recipes in it. In particular he liked the parsnip and apple soup and said he would make it for us once we got back to Liverpool which he did. It was a very creamy fragrant soup which I knew I would want to eat again so I noted it down before we left, well actually photographed the page with my IPhone. So here it is, it’s the first thing I cooked once back in NZ this week, I hope you like it too.

Below is a picture of my pop eating fish and chip in one of the many cute villages in Cornwall that we visited. There are also some pictures of Lanhydrock.

Ingredients
600g parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
600ml vegetable stock
300ml apple juice
300ml milk
1 tsp curry paste or powder
50g butter
Handful fresh mint leaves
Yoghurt to serve

Method
Melt the butter in a large pan over a medium heat and add the onions, parsnips and garlic and sauté for several minutes.
Add the stock, apple juice and curry paste to the pan and simmer gently until the parsnip has become soft.
Add the milk and mint then blend till smooth.
Heat the soup but do not boil as the milk will split, then serve in bowls with a dollop of fresh yoghurt.