So I’m making this recipe as I type… which shows that it’s easy. I’ve made it before and it makes a great Christmas starter. The recipe is by Sam and Sam Clark (no idea) and I got it from the Observer Food Monthly in November 2009… it’s been a scrappy bit of paper in my recipe file ever since. It serves four people.
Ingredients- 4 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 large Spanish onion
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 celery stick (I hate recipes with one celery stick - what are you supposed to do with the rest if you don’t like eating it raw? But anyway.)
- Sea salt
- Black pepper
- 120g cooking chorizo
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
- The leaves of some sprigs of fresh thyme
- 2 small dried chillies
- 1 can of chopped tomatoes
- 500g cooked, peeled chestnuts (fresh or vacuum-packed)
- 20 saffron threads, infused in 3 to 4 tablespoons of boiling water - or - a teaspoon of ground tumeric
- 1 litre of water
Method
- Chop the carrot, onion and celery into small cubes.
- Chop the chorizo into thick cubes.
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.
- Add the carrot, onion, celery, chorizo and a pinch of salt.
- Fry for 20 minutes until everything caramelises and turns quite brown.
- Slice the garlic cloves into thin slices (well, to be honest I used minced garlic from a jar, but then, I’m a lazy toad).
- Roughly chop the chestnuts, and crush the chillies.
- Add the garlic, cumin, thyme and chillies to the pan and cook for one minute.
- Add the tomatoes and cook for two minutes.
- Add the chestnuts and saffron or tumeric, and stir well.
- Add the water and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and mash by hand with a potato masher until it’s almost smooth.
- Season with the pepper and serve.