Smith St Soup Festival

This past weekend, we went to the Smith Street Soup Festival, a fundraiser for a local school where all of the local restaurants held a competition and tasting of their best fall soups. In reality, it felt more like a soup crawl and it took place on a perfect autumnal day.

Many of the offerings were variations on pumpkin and butternut squash – the fall classics, spiced up with little bits and bobs like aerated creme fraiche, crispy pumpkin seeds, parsley, tart yogurt, and apples.

There was lobster bisque and salty seafood gumbo, and decent Italian wedding soup with little meatballs.

These winter warmer soups reminded me of one of our own favorites from back in the day using an interesting root vegetable:

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

You’ll need:

• 250g of jerusalem artichokes
• 1/2 or 50g of onion (diced)
• 250g of chicken stock
• 100ml of water
• white truffle oil
• chestnuts
• seasonings: salt
• window dressing aka garnish: parsley

1. First, clean, peel and cube the jerusalem artichokes; then dice the onions.

3. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan, cover and sweat the onions+artichokes til tender (turning it occassionally); turn up heat after 10 mins, pour 250 ml of chicken stock and 100 ml of water. Bring to boil, reduce heat then boil for another 10mins or so until artichokes yield when you poke with fork.

4. Blend stock and artichokes.

5.Re-heat pureed soup, add 2 tablespoon of milk (or cream, up to you) – taste, add salt and adjust.

6. Add chopped chesnut, parsley and serve with a dash of truffle oil.