Sunday 13 June 2010

Chestnut and Chorizo Soup

One of my favourite blogs is Cocina de Lina, following Emmalene cook her way through the tome that is 1080 Recipes by Simone and Inés Ortega.  Emmalene's exploits are honest, informative and extremely entertaining, and I'm making a note of all of the recipes I want to try for myself (i.e. the ones that work!).  I also have a real passion for Spanish food and have a few other excellent Spanish recipe books.  One of my favourites is José Pizarro's Seasonal Spanish Food (more on that to follow) and another, whilst not purely Spanish food, is Moro The Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark. 

Having a small piece of cooking chorizo to use up and being in need of some comfort food, I decided on this wonderful soup recipe, Sopa de Castanas.  It is probably more of a cold weather soup, but as it quick to prepare from mainly store cupboard ingredients, I would make it any time.  Here is my slightly adapted version:

Chestnut and Chorizo Soup - serves 2 for lunch or supper

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1/2 stick celery, thinly sliced
60g mild cooking chorizo, skinned and cut into small cubes
1 garlic clove, sliced or crushed
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) ground cumin
1/2 tsp crushed chillies
1/2 tsp dried thyme (or 1 tsp fresh)
1 tomato, fresh or tinned, roughly chopped
200g cooked peeled chestnuts (I used vacuum packed), roughly chopped
10 saffron threads, infused in 2 tbsp boiling water
500ml water/chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pan, heat the oil and gently fry the onion, carrot, celery and chorizo for about 20 minutes or until lightly caramelised.
Add the garlic, cumin, chillies and thyme and cook for a further minute.
Add the tomato and the chestnuts and cook for a few minutes.
Next, add the infused saffron and liquid and the water or stock.
Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
Remove from the heat and mash with a potato masher until almost smooth but with a bit of texture.
Season to taste, serve and enjoy (with a glass of Spanish wine if you can)...

2 comments:

  1. This looks and sounds so delicious - I adore Chorizo - I am sure it is tastes wonderful in a soup. I really enjoy Emmalene's cooking too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Lisa (and Lucie!!) for the mention;-)
    I love soups at any time of the year- this looks like a really good one for winter, although I have to say I do like a soup with a kick in the summer too- there's something about the heat of it all...chorizo and castanas sounds like an unusual pairing, but I bet it'd be nice now I think of it- sweet and hot mixed together.
    I have never heard of José Pizarro- I'll check him out. Penelope Casas is also a great Spanish food writer (I don't know if you've heard of her?), but for some reason I could never get into Sam and Sam Clark's books!

    ReplyDelete