Recipe: Twisted Bell pepper soup

This recipe should be called roasted bell pepper soup, but has a great twist to it, you will see. It is a spicy and roasted Paprika soup with cream, sherry and Chipotle chilli. It will warm heart and soul, and get you a real boost with vitamins!

This is an easy recipe that can be made fairly fast.
A vegetarian version is made very easy.
So here we go, what you need:

500 grams of Paprika
Stock cubes or powder for 2 Litre
A good glass of sherry or sherry brandy
200 grams Smoked back bacon naturally cured, for vegetarians 1 Aubergine
2 Jalapeños green colouring to red, or 4 Czechoslovakian Black chillies turning to red
1 Chipotle chilli or 1 smoked Naga
1/4th of a litre cream

Roast the peppers over open fire from your stove or grill them turning them around to get an even roast. The skin should be bubbly and will get some black spots, no worries, that is normal and will not affect the taste at all. You can even do this with a solder burner, or a kitchen burner that you use for Crème Brulé. Let the peppers cool a bit and peel the skin off.
From 500 grams of peppers you will get 400 grams of peeled pepper. You can also buy these in cans, easier but less taste and vitamins.

Once peeled and cleaned out, put the peppers in 1.7 litre of water, and add stock cubes or powder for 2 litres and add 1 Chipotle chilli ( a smoked chilli, not to hot ) very fine sliced and cut no seeds. Seeds should be avoided to get an even creamy smooth soup. For hotheads I would suggest using a smoked Naga, available at Terry Kernow Chilli Farm. Get them to the boil, and keep them on a low boil for about 20 minutes.

Slice the bacon and make very fine cubes about 3 mm or 1/10th of an Inch. If you are vegetarian, roast or grill salted thin salted slices of aubergine in olive oil do not add black pepper.
After roasting or grilling, cube to very fine cubes same size like the bacon.

Chillies; if using Jalapeños use the ones that are getting a touch of red, for looks. If using Czechoslovakian Black chillies, use the ones just turning red, also for looks. Cut the top off from the chilli and clean out the seeds and seed lists, to only keep the mild outside of it. This will make the chillies milder than the soup. Now this is the trick to have a great and surprising soup, as the soup is rather salty and bomb full with herbs. The puzzling bite is the chilli as the Jalapeños is sweet, mild and tasting like fruits. The Czechoslovakian Black has a different taste, having sweet herbs like fresh ground coriander seeds, tasting warm, nutty, spicy, and orange-flavoured.

If the paprika has been boiling 20 minutes give it a good wizz with a stick blender, up to the point you get an even creamy substance. Add the bacon or the aubergine and the sherry or sherry brandy at the same time, get to the boil. If you see bubbles you can kill the fires. Add the cream, slowly stirring, and serve.
Add a spoonful of chilli rings at the table; to give every spoonful a different bite.
You will notice the salty aubergine or bacon every now and then, or a bite of sweet chilli that will run through your mouth as a sweet swirl.

Enjoy !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer