When I was younger, I didn't spend much time with my mother and stepfather, so busy was I with books and my bike, until I acknowledged our shared love of dining out and that my job as a pot wash wasn't going to get me much further than a copy of Just Seventeen and a bag of cola cubes.
Hundreds of meals thus ensued: the Indian at Hartley Whitney, the Chinese at Yateley, and the place I want to talk about: the Riverside Vegetaria, Kingston. It's still there, right now, and run by Ritchie who lives by the motto of 'love all, serve all'. I'm totally down with that, Ritchie, and in awe that he's been at it since 1989, which is almost as long as I have been alive. Just along the river, with views looking out across the Thames, Ritchie saw a gap for good vegetarian food. This was the late eighties, so you could say he was ahead of his time for there really were very few veggie places in London, let alone in meat-and-two-veg Surrey. It was somewhat a destination.
One day - aged 15 - I spotted 'Carrot and Orange Soup' on the menu and thought 'Good grief, how does that work?' but work it does, so much so that seventeen years later, I haven't forgotten it and decided finally to recreate it from the senses. I threw tarragon in for good measure because I generally want to put tarragon with everything.
Fragrant olive oil from the zest, really quite strong garlic, sweet carrots and an earthy hand from leeks and celery, and I was on the right nostalgic track.
It was just as good as I remembered. I urge you to try it, too.
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Serves four
Ingredients
8 carrots
1 shallot - sliced lengthways
Stock to cover (veg, or - scandalously - chicken)
1 orange - zested and juiced
Small handful of fresh tarragon - chopped
1/2 leek
Knob of butter
2 cloves garlic - sliced
1 stick celery - chopped
Garnish with coarse mixture of sea salt, more tarragon, black pepper and sunflower seeds
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Instructions
Melt butter knob
Saute onion until translucent
Add garlic and cook until delicious raw smell has faded
Add leeks and celery, saute for a few further minutes
Cover and sweat for five mins
Add carrots and orange zest
Cover and sweat for five more mins
Pour over boiling stock
Low boil for 40 minutes
Add half of the orange juice and the fresh tarrgon
Blend
Top with garnish
Serve
