Recipes: Potato and Parsnip Soup with Chorizo| Roasted Pumpkin and Chickpea Spread| Mini Chocolate Orange Cheesecakes

Rachel Allen’s Potato and Parsnip Soup with Chorizo

Ingredients. Serves 6-8 (Enough for 12 oatcakes)

50g butter

225g potatoes, peeled and chopped

225g parsnips, peeled and chopped

175g onions, chopped

Salt and pepper

850ml chicken or vegetable stock

150ml milk, or half milk and half cream

225g chorizo sliced into rounds about quarter cm thick

2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Method

Place a saucepan on a medium-low heat, add the butter and when melted, add the potatoes, parsnips and onions.

Season with salt and pepper and stir to coat the vegetables in butter.

Cover with a butter wrapper (if you have one, otherwise use a disc of parchment paper), turn the heat down to low, put on the lid and continue to sweat, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes.

Next add the stock, increase the heat to medium, bring to a simmer and continue cooking until the vegetables are all soft.

Then liquidise the soup, either in batches in a blender or with a hand-held blender, add the milk and taste for seasoning.

While the vegetables are cooking, fry the chorizo in a tiny bit of olive oil in a pan.

Take off the heat when it’s nice and crisp, reserving the oil. Put a ladleful of the hot soup into a warmed bowl and top with about six or seven slices of cooked chorizo.

Finish by drizzling a little of the oil from the pan over the top and scattering over some chopped parsley.

Serve with a couple of Nairn’s Sweet Red Pepper Oatcakes to add some spice to dip into the soup.

Christine Bailey’s Roasted Pumpkin and Chickpea Spread. Enough for 12 oatcakes

Ingredients

200g/7oz pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into large wedges

3 garlic cloves, unpeeled, left whole

2tsp honey

2tbsp olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt

1 x 400g/14oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1tbsp tahini

Juice of half lemon

Quarter tsp smoked paprika

Pinch of ground nutmeg

1tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4

Place the pumpkin and garlic in a shallow roasting tin. Toss with the honey and 1tbsp olive oil and season with black pepper and salt.

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until tender. Allow to cool.

Peel the garlic cloves and place with the pumpkin in a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients except the coriander to the food processor and process until smooth. Add the coriander leaves and pulse to combine. Season with black pepper and salt to taste.

Spread on oatcakes to serve.

Rachel Allen’s Mini Chocolate Orange Cheesecakes

Ingredients

100g cream cheese

1.5 tbsp sugar

2 tsp finely grated orange zest

2 drops vanilla extract

15g dark chocolate, finely grated

Nairn’s Fine Milled Oatcakes

Method

In a bowl, thoroughly mix together the cream cheese, orange zest and vanilla extract.

Spread a heaped teaspoon of the mixture on to a Nairn’s oatcake, then top with a rounded teaspoon of the grated chocolate.

Repeat for the rest of the mixture and the chocolate.

These can be served immediately, but will happily sit for an hour or two.