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Cream Chestnut Soup
To shell the chestnuts, wash them, and cut a slit in the side of each one, then boil them for a few minutes. Drain off the water and pour cold water over them. The shells and tough skins that cover the kernel can then be easily peeled off.
Boil the peeled chestnuts till tender in a small quantity of water. Rub them through a colander. For one cup of the puree, use: 1 cup of the water in which the chestnuts were boiled 1 pint milk 2 tablespoons oil or butter 1 tablespoon flour 1 1/4 teaspoons salt Heat the milk in a double boiler. Thicken it with the flour stirred smooth with a little cold water. Add remaining ingredients. Reheat.
A plain purée soup that depends almost entirely on getting the chestnuts peeled cleanly and the milk thickened without lumps. The proportions given are per cup of purée, so scale from there.
- How many chestnutsOne cup of sieved puree takes something on the order of 1 to 1 1/2 lb of chestnuts in the shell. With the cup of cooking water and the pint of milk that makes roughly 4 cups of finished soup, enough for four as a first course.
- Peel them hotThe slit-and-brief-boil method works, but the inner pellicle comes away far more readily while the nut is still warm. The cold-water step in the original cools the shells for handling; work through them a few at a time, keeping the rest in the hot water, or the skins cling to the kernel and the meat breaks up as you pick at it.
- Save the cooking waterThe recipe calls for a cup of the water the chestnuts boiled in, so boil them in a small quantity as directed rather than a full pot. That liquid carries most of the sweetness.
- Colander or blenderRubbing through a colander gives a slightly coarse purée, which is the texture intended. A blender or food processor produces something smoother and thicker; thin with a little more of the chestnut water if so.
- The flour slurryOne tablespoon of flour to a pint of milk is a very light thickening. Stir it smooth with cold water before it goes anywhere near heat, and add it to the milk in a thin stream while whisking. In a double boiler it will take 10 to 15 minutes to lose its raw taste.
- Oil or butterThe option of oil rather than butter is the sort of substitution common in vegetarian and health-reform cookery. Butter gives a rounder flavour here; a neutral oil keeps the soup lighter in dairy, though the pint of milk still makes it a dairy dish.
- SaltA teaspoon and a quarter for about four cups is on the assertive side by modern habit. Add two-thirds of it, taste after the puree goes in, and finish from there.
- Reheating"Reheat" means bring back to serving temperature over the water bath, not boil. Chestnut purée scorches readily and the soup will take on a burnt-starch flavour over direct heat.