A most Christmassy soup, the candied bacon and toasted hazelnuts bring a delicious crunch and festive flavour to the sprouts. To get ahead, make the soup in advance and freeze it. The candied bacon can be made hours in advance of serving and the hazelnuts can even be roasted a couple of days ahead.
Ingredients
- 50g butter
- 175g peeled and diced potatoes
- 175g peeled and diced onions
- salt and freshly ground pepper
- 1.1 litres chicken stock
- 400g Brussels sprouts
- 250ml cream or milk, or a mixture
For the roasted hazelnuts:
50g hazelnuts
For the candied bacon:
- 25g soft, light brown sugar, such as light Muscovado sugar
- 6 slices streaky bacon (smoked if you wish)
For the parsley pesto (optional):
- Makes 1 small jar
- 25g parsley, chopped
- 25g freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 25g pine nuts or cashew nuts
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 75ml extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Method
- First, make the soup. Melt the butter in a large saucepan sitting over a medium heat. When it foams, add in the potatoes and the onions, season with salt and pepper, and stir to mix. Cover with a butter wrapper or a piece of parchment paper, turn the heat down to low, cover with the saucepan lid and sweat on a gentle heat for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes to stop the vegetables sticking and burning.
- While the potatoes and onions are cooking, prepare the sprouts. Trim the base of the sprouts, remove and discard the outer 2 or 3 leaves and slice the sprouts thinly. Set aside.
- When the potatoes and onions have been cooking for 10 minutes, add the chicken stock and boil for 2-3 until the potatoes are tender.
- Add the sliced sprouts to the saucepan and cook over a high heat, with the lid off, until tender, approximately 2-3 minutes. Do not overcook or the sprouts will lose their fresh colour and flavour. Add the cream or milk into the soup and blend until smooth. If you want the soup to be a little thinner, you can add a little more stock. Taste for seasoning.
- To prepare the hazelnuts and the bacon, preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F / Gas Mark 6.
- Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast in the preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, checking regularly, as they can burn quickly. To test the hazelnuts, take the tray out of the oven and carefully, rub the skin off a few of them, the nuts should be golden underneath.When ready, tip them out of the tray and on to a clean tea towel, and rub to remove the skins. Discard the skins and chop the nuts coarsely. Set aside until you're ready to use them.
- To make the candied bacon, line a baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper. Place the brown sugar in a bowl and dip both sides of the streaky bacon in it so that the two sides are completely coated, use a little more sugar if you need to. Cook for 5-6 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bacon is caramelised on both sides. Remove from the oven and allow to sit until cool and crisp. Once crisp, break, or snip with scissors, the bacon into pieces approximately 1cm in size.
- Reheat the soup gently until steaming, then pour into bowls and scatter with the roasted hazelnuts and the candied bacon. Serve immediately.
Note:
For a vegetarian version, you can use vegetable stock instead of the chicken, and omit the candied bacon, instead drizzling the soup with a parsley pesto and the roasted hazelnuts.
For the parsley pesto:
Put all the ingredients except the olive oil into a food processor and whiz up.Add the oil and a pinch of salt and taste.Pour into a sterilised jar, cover with 5mm of olive oil and store in the fridge. It keeps for months.
Note:
If this soup is to be reheated, just bring it to steaming point and serve. Prolonged boiling spoils the colour and flavour of green soups and it's smooth silky texture
