Back on the Soup

I had another minor kitchen disaster yesterday, just to see November out as it has gone. Bah. (I don't know why I thought a German recipe involving beans, prunes, cabbage and vinegar would be at all photogenic, but it was hideous enough I struggled even to start eating it. And it tasted... meh.)

Luckily, I have also been making a Most Satisfactory Soup for this week's lunches. It's an old friend, from Tommi Miers Home Cook, a most excellent regular cookbook, only displaced by Diana Henry's Simple and basically everything Clair Thompson has written as my most-used kitchen book. It sounds complicated, and does have a fair few ingredients, but it's a chewy, joyful winter thing, full of good flavours and warmth.

Chestnut, Chorizo and Grain Soup

We're doing two things at once, but one of them is simple. 

1. Boil some water, and cook some grain in it. Spelt is the thing in the recipe, but I've done this with pearl barley - all you need is something that will suck up liquids, and you cook it alone so the cooking time isn't a worry. I'm sure you could do it with freekeh or something. You could probably use giant couscous, though it might not need this precooking. 

2. Cook some chunks of chorizo (150g? I used about that much this time, more would have been welcome) with veg over a slow heat for quite a while - about 20 minutes, till it's dark and well cooked. The specified veg are an onion, a celery stick and a carrot, but if you have a different mirepoix mix, that will be fine. It doesn't need to be finely chopped, but you don't want massive lumps of celery in your soup if you're me, so chop according to preference. 

 3. After 20 mins or so, add a load of flavours to the veg mix: 1tsp cumin, some thyme, sliced garlic, maybe a dried chilli. Cook them for a minute or two, then add a couple of chopped tomatoes. Stir these around for another minute or two. 

 

4. Hopefully your grains are now cooked. If not, the veg will wait off the heat (I did this bit the night before, that's how long they will wait). When they are done, combine the two pans. Add a pack of cooked chestnuts. Simmer this fairly briskly for 10-15 minutes till everything seems cooked and ready, and the chestnuts are soft and falling apart. Season at will. If you're feeling fancy, add saffron-infused water, but I think it's needlessly expensive, and the soup is plenty orange enough from the chorizo. 

If you don't eat it immediately, the grains will probably drink all the available liquid, and it'll need re-moistening. But it's utterly forgiving otherwise. 

You might serve it with something green - parsley is fine, watercress was nice when I had this very much liquid-absorbed bowl today. But it will do you nicely as is. Keep warm, folks.