Name: Tuscan chestnut soup
Yield: Serves 6 or more
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: good-quality Tuscan olive oil; soured cream or créme fraîche; 1 chicken stock cube (optional); 100 g pancetta or streaky bacon, cut into lardons or diced; 1 celery stalk, strings removed, diced; 1 onion, peeled and diced; salt and pepper; 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped; 1 sprig thyme; 1 sprig rosemary; 1 bay leaf; 2 small fresh red chillies, seeded and finely chopped; 1 carrot, peeled and diced; 1 kg unsweetened, shelled chestnuts (tinned, frozen, vacuum-packed or dried); 2 tbsp tomato concentrate

Preparation info

Serves
6
or more

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Soho Cooking

By Alastair Little

Published 1999

About

Not a lot of connection with Soho in this recipe except that it’s going to be on the menu at Frith Street every autumn for as long as I have a restaurant there. While it is indubitably better when made with fresh chestnuts, the sheer labour of roasting and peeling them predisposes me towards either the dried packet type or the vacuum-packed peeled sort. Check that any processed chestnuts you buy are not in any way sweetened.

I have just thought of a connection with Soho: the roast c