Recipes: Potato and Parsnip Soup with Chorizo| Roasted Pumpkin and Chickpea Spread| Mini Chocolate Orange Cheesecakes
Rachel Allen’s Potato and Parsnip Soup with Chorizo
Ingredients. Serves 6-8 (Enough for 12 oatcakes)
50g butter
225g potatoes, peeled and chopped
225g parsnips, peeled and chopped
175g onions, chopped
Salt and pepper
850ml chicken or vegetable stock
150ml milk, or half milk and half cream
225g chorizo sliced into rounds about quarter cm thick
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
Method
Place a saucepan on a medium-low heat, add the butter and when melted, add the potatoes, parsnips and onions.
Season with salt and pepper and stir to coat the vegetables in butter.
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Hide AdCover with a butter wrapper (if you have one, otherwise use a disc of parchment paper), turn the heat down to low, put on the lid and continue to sweat, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes.
Next add the stock, increase the heat to medium, bring to a simmer and continue cooking until the vegetables are all soft.
Then liquidise the soup, either in batches in a blender or with a hand-held blender, add the milk and taste for seasoning.
While the vegetables are cooking, fry the chorizo in a tiny bit of olive oil in a pan.
Take off the heat when it’s nice and crisp, reserving the oil. Put a ladleful of the hot soup into a warmed bowl and top with about six or seven slices of cooked chorizo.
Finish by drizzling a little of the oil from the pan over the top and scattering over some chopped parsley.
Serve with a couple of Nairn’s Sweet Red Pepper Oatcakes to add some spice to dip into the soup.
Christine Bailey’s Roasted Pumpkin and Chickpea Spread. Enough for 12 oatcakes
Ingredients
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Hide Ad200g/7oz pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into large wedges
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled, left whole
2tsp honey
2tbsp olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt
1 x 400g/14oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1tbsp tahini
Juice of half lemon
Quarter tsp smoked paprika
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1tbsp chopped fresh coriander
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4
Place the pumpkin and garlic in a shallow roasting tin. Toss with the honey and 1tbsp olive oil and season with black pepper and salt.
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until tender. Allow to cool.
Peel the garlic cloves and place with the pumpkin in a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients except the coriander to the food processor and process until smooth. Add the coriander leaves and pulse to combine. Season with black pepper and salt to taste.
Spread on oatcakes to serve.
Rachel Allen’s Mini Chocolate Orange Cheesecakes
Ingredients
100g cream cheese
1.5 tbsp sugar
2 tsp finely grated orange zest
2 drops vanilla extract
15g dark chocolate, finely grated
Nairn’s Fine Milled Oatcakes
Method
In a bowl, thoroughly mix together the cream cheese, orange zest and vanilla extract.
Spread a heaped teaspoon of the mixture on to a Nairn’s oatcake, then top with a rounded teaspoon of the grated chocolate.
Repeat for the rest of the mixture and the chocolate.
These can be served immediately, but will happily sit for an hour or two.