Spicy Potato Soup

Ingredients:

6 small/medium sized Potatoes
5 small carrots (or fewer big ones)
2 Capsicums
1 Serrano chilli
chicken stock
pinch of paprika
salt and pepper to taste
oil
water

I didn't use - but would recommend - an onion and some Soy sauce as well.
If you are using onions chop them up with everything else and fry them a little before chucking the other veggies in the pot – but not for too long because you don’t want burned onion.

And here's what the ingredients look like - I forgot to find the capsicum so it's not the picture.

Step 1:

Start by peeling the potatoes and carrots (you may not have to if they are clean and fresh and depending on what you like).

Then cut the Potatoes into cubes - the size doesn't matter as long as you are consistent. Usually chunky is good but smaller may be handy if dinner needs to be done more quickly.

Slice the carrot into fairly thick slices and dice up your capsicum. I cut my capsicum very finely because I don't like eating large chunks of it but capsicum lovers would probably prefer larger bits.

Finally cut the chilli very finely - you may want to consider wearing gloves to do this or otherwise your hands will be very spicy for quite a while afterwards which could becomes unpleasant if you get itchy eyes or something.

Having cut everything up it should look somewhat like this (note that there's capsicum in my photo this time).

Step 2:

Now on to the actual cooking.

Find a fairly large, preferably non-stick, pot and chuck some oil into the bottom of it. Then pop your potatoes and carrots in there and fry them up a little on high until they get some colour. If you have decided to have quite large chunks of capsicum you may want to add it at this stage - otherwise leave it till later. This will probably need a fair bit of stirring so don't go wandering off at this stage - there will be plenty of time for that later.

Step 3:

Now add water to completely cover your veggies - add all the other ingredients as well. Essentially you want to use enough stock, soy sauce, salt and pepper to give a nice flavour. This will depend a lot on how much water you use. You can always add more later if the flavour isn't quite right so don't worry too much.

If someone you're serving doesn't like things too spicy don't use all of the chilli or they will complain alot which may spoil the meal.

Step 4:

Stir everything up and then stick a lid on the pot and leave everything to cook. Check in occasionally - it's done once your potatoes and carrots are soft. Make sure you've added enough water or add some extra if too much is evaporating - it is meant to be soup after all.

Once things have been cooking for a while it is also a good time to check the flavour. Add whatever is missing (in my case it was mostly salt).
This is also a good time to go away and have a beer or to wash some of the dishes you used while chopping things up - or both.

Depending on the size of your veggies it should take around 10-15 minutes until your soup to be done cooking.

Serve…