CHESTNUT SOUP

Last weekend I had some friends over for dinner and I made them this lovely velvety, earthy soup for a started. Everybody loved it and I was quite surprised that they never had this lovely soup before.

Back in Germany when I was growing up, we had a big chestnut tree in our village and everybody was collecting them to bring home for their mum to make some lovely chestnut soup.

For me its the perfect soup on a cold day when you come home and need something warm in your tummy!!

Ingredients:

500g fresh or vac packed chestnuts

1 large potato

2 medium onions

1 garlic clove

2 celery sticks

1.5 l vegetable stock

1 bay leaf 

knob of butter

150~200ml single cream

salt and pepper

Directions:

 I used fresh unpeeled chestnuts because I feel they taste the best but if you ever had to peel a few chestnuts you know how tricky it can be to get the skin off. There are lot of of methods on how to peel them and everybody has their own technique even I used to roast them in the oven and then peel them but not anymore. I found a much better method that works brilliant for me and doesn't take long. 

What I do is, I make a cross on each chestnut and then put them in two's or three's into boiling hot water for about 1 min at the time. Then take them out and while they are still boiling hot rub them with a towel and you will see the skin comes off ever so easy.

On to the soup!!!

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and fry the onions, garlic and celery till soft but not coloured.
2. Add the potato and all of the chestnuts, vegetable stock and bay leaf 
3. Boil, the simmer for 30 minutes and season with salt and pepper
4. Once the potato is soft, remove the bay leaf and blitz with a hand blender till smooth   
5. Stir in the cream and check the seasoning
6. Serve with a dollop of cream or croutons, use parsley for some decoration                       

 VOILA

Have you ever tied chestnut soup. If you have please let me know if you liked it and if you haven't then what are you waiting for, grab yourself some lovely chestnuts and get cooking!!!