Chestnut Soup with Cheddar Puffs

Chestnuts are a typical winter holiday ingredient, particularly, in the Mediterranean cuisine. They have become popular and available all over the world, already precooked or roasted. So today, I want to share a recipe for an easy, yet sophisticated and tasty chestnut soup that can be served at an elegant dinner party.

It combines elements from three different recipes, which I tested to match the right ingredients. I think the final result is very good. The soup itself is easy and can be made a day ahead. But I think that what makes this soup truly delicious are the home made cheddar puffs spiced with rosemary, which accompany the soup and add the extra sharpness and flavor to its slightly sweet taste.

Home made puffs may seem difficult to make but in fact they are not. The pastry is cooked quickly in a pot and later baked in an oven. They also can be frozen and served cold or gently warmed up.



Chestnut Soup with Cheddar Puffs

The Soup

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked or roasted and peeled chestnuts,
2 small shallots chopped,
2 celery sticks, sliced,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1 cup of half-and-half or whole milk,
32 oz (4 cups) chicken or vegetable stock,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy duty pot. Add shallots and sliced celery and fry for about 3 minutes. Add chopped chestnuts and cook together for 2 minutes.



2. Pour in half-and-half or milk, cover the pot with a lid, and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Finally, add the stock and simmer the soup on on a low heat for 15-20 minutes.
4. Purée the soup using a food processor or a blender. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Cheddar-Rosemary Puffs

Ingredients:
1 cup flour all purpose,
1 stick unsalted butter,
1/2 tsp salt,
4 large eggs,
1 cup grated cheddar,
1/2 tsp baking powder.
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves.

Preparation:
1. Preheat an oven to 400 F. Grease a large baking form with butter.
2. In a medium pot boil a cup of water with a stick of butter and salt. Reduce the heat and quickly sift in flour, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon for about 2 minutes.



3. Remove the pot from the heat and cool slightly then add eggs beating well between each addition.
4. Stir in grated cheddar and chopped rosemary. Using a soup spoon scoop the dough puff by puff and place on the form.



5. Bake the puffs for about 30 minutes until they rise and become gold.
Serve them warm or at least in room temperature.

Jerusalem Artichokes Soup

I have been quite busy with my kids' spring breaks and English classes I have recently taken up, so although I still cook, if I write anything, it is mostly my homework, not recipes. Being so preoccupied with many things, I chose today to share a recipe for an easy soup, which I enjoyed very much a couple of weeks ago.

I was very curious already for some time to try Jerusalem artichokes, which, except for the name, have nothing to do with Jerusalem. Also known as sunchokes, unfortunately, they are not too popular and easily available in my area. So when the other day I saw them in my Balducci store, I greedily bought the whole pound without yet having an idea what to make from them. In any case, I knew that they tasted pretty good served just raw, sliced in salads.

Raw Jerusalem artichokes are crunchy. They have an earthy flavor, which comes out even more intensively when they are cooked. They have an interesting look, similar to ginger, and have many nutritional values. Just like the regular artichokes, they contain inulin, a type of dietary fiber, which is qualified as prebiotic and promotes growth of good, intestinal bacteria. Inulin kills the bad and support the good bacteria in the digestive track. Jerusalem artichokes are also extremely high in iron, in fact highest among all known vegetables. They are also very rich in potassium and copper.

There are many ideas how to serve these artichokes but probably the most popular are all kind of soups. Particularly one recipe intrigued me a lot. The soup was made from puréed artichokes and finished with milk. That made it very light and dietetic. But since I like to experiment, I served my portion with a dollop of crème fraîche. And it tastes even better that way, as long as you do not have to worry about the extra calories.

Jerusalem Artichokes Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and cut into smaller pieces,
1 medium onion, chopped,
1 garlic clove,
2 tbsp olive oil,
2 celery stalk, sliced,
4-5 cups vegetable stock,
1/2 cup milk,
crème fraîche or sour cream to serve,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy duty pot. Add the onion, garlic, celery and cook over the medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add Jerusalem artichokes and cook for another 5 minutes.

2. Pour vegetable stock into the pot. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer a soup for about 25 minutes, until the artichokes become soft.

3. Purée the soup using an electric blender. Add milk and bring to boil.

Serve the soup with a dollop of crème fraîche and white bread.

Tarragon Chicken Soup--with a Potato Surprise

Maybe because it is again so cold, this winter soup came to my mind today. I ate it more than twenty years ago in London.

When I was working in London in an interior designer studio, sometimes my boss Alexandra prepared this soup for lunch. At that time it was not my most favorite meal from all she made, as I am not particularly a soup person. But today, thinking how much good style and how many useful rules I have learned from her at that time, this soup stays in my memory as a souvenir of the good and exciting times.

She cooked it during winter months. She usually put a whole chicken in a huge pot and as many whole potatoes as the people the soup would be served for. I do not remember any other vegetables being added to it, which seems a bit odd. If any, they must have been only leeks and celery, as the soup was dark green in color. But I certainly remember that there was plenty of dried tarragon which made the whole taste of that chicken soup. She cooked it very slowly for a long time until the chicken and potatoes became soft. The soup looked a bit like a bouillon and was served with whole potatoes and pieces of the chicken meat on the plate. And it was surprisingly very tasty. A kind of eintopf.

These days I do not even ever buy a whole chicken, so I made a version of it with a very lean breast meat. I also added leeks and celery. When the soup was ready it tasted nice and delicate but it was very aromatic thanks to the tarragon, almost exactly as the soup I had in Alexandra's Chiswick studio many years ago.

Tarragon Chicken Soup
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts (or any other parts you like), preferably organic,
4 large potatoes, peeled,
1 medium leek, washed well and sliced,
4 celery sticks, sliced,
2 tbsp dried tarragon leaves,
1 bay leaf,
3 all spice grains,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. In a large pot put a gallon of water with a half a tbsp of salt, bay leaf, and all spice. Bring it to boil and add whole potatoes and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
2. Add to the pot sliced chicken meat (or whole other pieces) leek, celery and tarragon. Bring to boil and cook for about 30-40 minutes, until potatoes are soft and vegetables turn dark green color.
3. Season with pepper and serve in bowls with a whole potato in the middle.

Spicy Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Cream or Soup

So far, I knew only one way of serving sweet potatoes the way I like them--roasted. I cut them in wedges, add a few garlic cloves, drizzle with a very good olive oil, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and fresh rosemary, and bake until slightly brown. Roasted, they become attractively crispy and lose some of the sweetness that, otherwise, I find overwhelming.

But since sweet potatoes are very healthy (rich in Beta-carotene and Vitamin A) I have always been looking for more good ideas on how to prepare them.

When I recently saw in a French magazine a recipe for a spicy sweet potato cream (velouté), I instantly decided to give it a try. Moreover, the recipe included goat cheese and in my refrigerator there was a log of goat cheese waiting to be used. I made some changes to the original recipe to make it less sweet and even more spicy. I think it worked very well--the cream was definitely savory and almost not sweet at all.

I admit this dish is very rich, not only owing to the sweet potatoes but also the generous amount of goat cheese. But, probably because of that, it is also so good. Served in small, testing dishes it can be a nice Thanksgiving party snack that I am sure everyone would enjoy. By adding extra broth you can turn it into a cream soup.

Spicy Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Cream

Ingredients:
1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes,

2 medium shallots,
3 oz goat cheese, at room temperature,
2-3 cups of vegetable or beef broth,
1 tsp harissa or cayenne pepper,
salt and black pepper,
1/4 cup chopped chives,
2 tbsp olive oil.

Preparation:
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy duty pot. Add chopped shallots and fry until transparent. Add potatoes cubes, mix and fry them for about 3 minutes.
2. Pour in 2-3 cups of broth, enough to cover the potatoes, and cook on low heat for about 30 minutes, until potatoes become soft.
3. Take the pot off the heat and using a hand blender make a smooth purée. Put the pot back on the medium heat, add half of the goat cheese and, stirring often, let the cheese melt in the purée.

4. Bring it to boil, let simmer for a minute, and turn off the heat. Let it stand for 5 minutes.
5. Put the other half of the goat cheese in a small bowl, add harissa or cayenne pepper and, using a fork, make a smooth paste.

6. Divide the potato cream among small serving dishes, top with a bit of goat cheese paste and chives. Serve warm.