Day 3: Ireland

Today we celebrate Ireland with Pota Brata (Irish Flag Soup)

The dish gets its name because the ingredients are the colors of the flag of Ireland. It's very colorful :)

By Adam Fullenkamp

The blended soup

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 large white onions, diced
• 3 large carrots, diced
• 3 large stalks celery, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 1/2 quarts vegetable broth
• 3 tablespoons dried sage
• salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat; cook and stir the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in the hot oil until the onions are translucent, 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Pour the vegetable stock into the pan and bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Season with the sage, salt, and black pepper. Reduce heat to low, place a cover on the pot, and cook until the flavors blend, about 1 hour.
3. Pour the soup into a blender pitcher to no more than half full. Hold the lid of the blender firmly in place. Carefully start the blender, using a few quick pulses to get the soup moving before leaving it on to puree. Puree in batches until smooth and pour into your serving vessel. Alternately, you can use a stick blender and puree the soup in the cooking pot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our Opinion: The dish is very easy to prepare. With minimal ingredients, it is a snap to whip up. It would make an excellent mid-winter meal, but we don't think it's great for summer. The taste was a little bland, especially in comparison to the Thai dish from yesterday. It's also a strange thickness - not quite soup and not quite stew. Not our favorite but certainly worth a try.