Potato Soup with Chorizo and Parsley Pesto

A velvety Winter warmer!

Ingredients:

25g butter
500g floury potatoes such as maris piper,
cut into small cubes
1 onion, chopped
850ml fresh chicken or vegetable stock
125ml milk
1 tbsp olive oil
50g chorizo, thinly sliced

For the parsley pesto
25g parsley, chopped
25g Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese, grated
25g pine nuts
2 garlic cloves, crushed
75ml extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for covering

Method:

1 Melt the butter in a pan and add the potatoes and onion. Season, stir well, cover with a lid, and sweat over a gentle heat for 10 minutes.
2 Pour in the chicken or vegetable stock, bring to the boil, cover again and simmer for another 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the milk, then blitz with a stick blender until the soup is smooth.
3 Make the parsley pesto. Put all the ingredients except the oil into a food processor and whizz to a textured purée. Add the oil and a good pinch of
salt, and blend briefly to a coarse paste. (This will make more pesto than you need, so spoon the leftovers into a sterilised jar, and cover with a 1cm layer of oil. It can then be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks – just cover the pesto with more oil after each use to preserve it.)
4 Return to the soup: heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the chorizo slices and fry for 30 seconds each side, until they are crisp and the oil has run out into the pan. Lift the chorizo on to
kitchen paper to drain briefly, reserving the amber-coloured oil.
5 Divide the hot soup between 4 warmed bowls and swirl 1 tsp pesto into each. Top each bowl with some slices of chorizo and a few drops of its reserved oil.