Chestnut Soup
Ok - the fantastic & rich Chestnut soup recipe ....
Liberated from a Donna Hay Magazine (July / August 2005)
www.donnahay.com
I've halved the amounts (as I only ended up with 1/2 the amount of chestnuts needed).
this is what is needed for about 400-500ml of soup)
400g - shelled chestnuts
1 brown onion - finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic - finely chopped / crushed
500ml stock (vegetable or chicken) ... (vegetable for any vego friends out there)
20g butter
250-300ml pouring cream
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt / pepper
additional stock / water
Porcini Oil:
1/4 cup olive oil
3-5g dried porcini mushrooms.
To Make Porcini oil:
put dried mushrooms & olive oil in small saucepan - over low heat .. heat for approx 5 minutes - then take off heat to cool.
(Make sure the oil isn't too hot - as your dried mushrooms will burn - and the oil will end up tasting rather rancid.)
When cool - strain off mushrooms - retaining only the oil.
To de-shell / de-skin chestnuts: - 2 options
(options not provided with recipe .. so had to scrounge around my thousands of books for this information)
Roasting:
. cut a small cross in the base of each chestnut
. pre-heat oven - 220C
. roast in pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes
. take out of oven .. and place in newspaper - wrap fairly tightly - the steam will loosten the shell & make it easier to remove the inner skin
Boiling:
. cut a small cross in the base of the chestnuts
. boil in water - approx 15-20 mins
. take out - drain/ cool ... skins should remove fairly easily
To Make Soup:
in a largish pot .. heat over fairly high heat
. add onion, olive oil (1 Tbsp), garlic, chestnuts - and fry for approx 2-3 minutes until onion starts to soften
. add stock - and cook for approx 15-20 minutes until chestnuts are soft - stirring occassionally
(if you are cooking with raw chestnuts [ie. not boiled or roasted] allow for additional 15 minutes)
. keep watch over your soup - approx every 5 minutes or so
(you may need to skim the top of the soup - and add more liquid if it looks like too much has boiled away).
. take off heat when cooked - (and rest soup until the liquid has stopped bubbling)
. add cream - stir through
. add salt & pepper to taste
. blend soup in food processor
. pass through sieve to remove larger chunks of chestnuts .. this will result in a smoother soup
To serve:
. drizzle each serving with a small amount of porcini oil
Enjoy.
Notes:
This soup is very very rich ... so only serve smallish portions
Also .. regarding the use of 'raw chestnuts' .. This is NOT recommended.
If ever you read a recipe and it says to use 'roasted' or 'boiled' chestnuts, don't think you might like to try it from scratch / raw ... getting the shells off is a really really painful process (both mentally & physically) ... my fingers have only just recovered after a week (the inner skins gets up and under your finger nails and tends to either become stuck, or just go in for the quick kill (the under the fingernail paper-cut)
Liberated from a Donna Hay Magazine (July / August 2005)
www.donnahay.com
I've halved the amounts (as I only ended up with 1/2 the amount of chestnuts needed).
this is what is needed for about 400-500ml of soup)
400g - shelled chestnuts
1 brown onion - finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic - finely chopped / crushed
500ml stock (vegetable or chicken) ... (vegetable for any vego friends out there)
20g butter
250-300ml pouring cream
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt / pepper
additional stock / water
Porcini Oil:
1/4 cup olive oil
3-5g dried porcini mushrooms.
To Make Porcini oil:
put dried mushrooms & olive oil in small saucepan - over low heat .. heat for approx 5 minutes - then take off heat to cool.
(Make sure the oil isn't too hot - as your dried mushrooms will burn - and the oil will end up tasting rather rancid.)
When cool - strain off mushrooms - retaining only the oil.
To de-shell / de-skin chestnuts: - 2 options
(options not provided with recipe .. so had to scrounge around my thousands of books for this information)
Roasting:
. cut a small cross in the base of each chestnut
. pre-heat oven - 220C
. roast in pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes
. take out of oven .. and place in newspaper - wrap fairly tightly - the steam will loosten the shell & make it easier to remove the inner skin
Boiling:
. cut a small cross in the base of the chestnuts
. boil in water - approx 15-20 mins
. take out - drain/ cool ... skins should remove fairly easily
To Make Soup:
in a largish pot .. heat over fairly high heat
. add onion, olive oil (1 Tbsp), garlic, chestnuts - and fry for approx 2-3 minutes until onion starts to soften
. add stock - and cook for approx 15-20 minutes until chestnuts are soft - stirring occassionally
(if you are cooking with raw chestnuts [ie. not boiled or roasted] allow for additional 15 minutes)
. keep watch over your soup - approx every 5 minutes or so
(you may need to skim the top of the soup - and add more liquid if it looks like too much has boiled away).
. take off heat when cooked - (and rest soup until the liquid has stopped bubbling)
. add cream - stir through
. add salt & pepper to taste
. blend soup in food processor
. pass through sieve to remove larger chunks of chestnuts .. this will result in a smoother soup
To serve:
. drizzle each serving with a small amount of porcini oil
Enjoy.
Notes:
This soup is very very rich ... so only serve smallish portions
Also .. regarding the use of 'raw chestnuts' .. This is NOT recommended.
If ever you read a recipe and it says to use 'roasted' or 'boiled' chestnuts, don't think you might like to try it from scratch / raw ... getting the shells off is a really really painful process (both mentally & physically) ... my fingers have only just recovered after a week (the inner skins gets up and under your finger nails and tends to either become stuck, or just go in for the quick kill (the under the fingernail paper-cut)
posted by bec at 6:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home