Christmas Soup
A simple and delicious soup recipe from The Happy Pear duo, with warming Christmas flavours of parsnip, chestnut and cranberry.
From the book
The Happy Pear: Recipes for Happiness
Inspiring ideas for vegan and vegetarian cooks
Simple family favourite recipes
Classic dishes with a vegan twist
Introduction
This ultimate Christmas soup is really rich and delicious and will give you that Christmas feeling when you taste it! The vacuum-packed chestnuts are available in most supermarkets around the festive season and will take this soup to the next level, but if you can’t get them, simply replace with cashew nuts.
Ingredients
| 3 | small onions |
| 3 cloves | garlic |
| 1 | medium sweet potato |
| 2 | medium parsnips |
| 2 tbsp | oil |
| 1 ½ tsp | sea salt |
| ½ tsp | freshly ground black pepper |
| 10 sprigs | fresh thyme |
| 1 ½ litres | vegetable stock |
| 100g | vacuum-packed chestnuts |
| A handful | dried cranberries |
Essential kit
You will need: a stick blender.
Method
1. Peel and finely chop the onions and garlic. Roughly chop the sweet potato and the parsnips (no need to peel – the skin is where most of the nutrition is).
2. Put the oil into a large saucepan over a medium heat and, once warmed up, add the onions and garlic. Gently cook for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
3. Add the sweet potato, parsnips, salt and black pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs and sprinkle in (leaving some aside for garnish).
Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the vegetable stock and chestnuts, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and blend with a stick blender until smooth. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
5. Finely slice the dried cranberries and garnish each serving with a sprinkle of these, along with a few of the reserved thyme leaves.
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