Sixmas Course 2 – Roast Chestnut Soup

Sixmas Course 2 – Roast Chestnut soup

This soup has all the wonderful nutty flavours of Christmas in a bowl.  I’m actually serving mine in these little bowls as I don’t want the guests to get too full.  It’s just a little teaser, bursting with flavour to warm the pallet.  It can be made up to a month in advance and frozen or make it a couple of days before as it will keep well in the fridge.

• roughly 250g chestnuts in their shells – with crosses cut in the top like you would a brussel sprout
• 1 large onion – finely chopped
• 1 celery stalk – finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots – finely chopped
• roughly 10 chestnut mushrooms – chopped
• 2 x 200g sachets of Merchant Gourmet chestnut puree (not the sweetened kind)
• 1 litre of good quality vegetable stock

pre-heat the oven to 200C and lay your chestnuts in a large roasting tin and roast them for 30 mins until they soften and darken and begin to split open.  Remove from the oven and if you can handle them, remove them from their shells and set aside.

in a large pan, sauté the onions, celery and carrots in butter until soft and the onions are beginning to turn translucent

add the chopped mushrooms and roasted chestnuts, stir and then place the lid on the pan and let them sweat down for 10 minutes

add the stock and then the chestnut puree, let it simmer for 25 minutes before blitzing until totally smooth, with a hand-blender. Serve with a swirl of cream

My Sixmas Dinner so far:

• Course 1 –  The Christmas Spritz
• Course 2 – Chestnut and Mushroom Soup
• Course 3 – Smoked Salmon Terrine
• Course 4 –  The Main Event
• Course 5 – Mini Christmas Cakes with naughty chocolate sauce
• Course 6 – Champagne Marmalade Trifle

Eat and of course, enjoy!