Chorizo Chowder

Description: Make sure you buy whole chorizo sausages and slice them yourself, as the packets of ready sliced chorizo that you can buy are too thin for this soup.

Ingredients:

• 50 g butter
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 500 g floury potatoes, cubed
• 1 leek, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 liter vegetable stock
• 250 g chorizo sausages, cut into 1 cm wide slices
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Steps:

1. Heat the butter in a large pan and cook the onion, garlic and potatoes for 5 minutes until lightly golden.
2. Add the leek and cayenne and cook for a further 1 minute.
3. Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until the potatoes are very soft and beginning to break up into the soup.
4. Using a potato masher, roughly mash the potatoes into the soup.
5. Stir in the chorizo and simmer gently for 5 minutes until the orange coloured oil from the chorizo rises to the surface of the soup.
6. Check the seasoning, ladle into bowls and garnish with a sprig of flat leaf parsley.
7. Serve with lots of crusty bread for mopping up.