Diarios de Madrid

I may be living in uptown Madrid but if you live in a flat without any kind of heating then you must resort to other means to get warm. Times like these call for a nice cup of hot soup and this next recipe is one of the best soups you'll ever eat; my flatmates devoured this soup in less time than it took to cook it...
For the Antwerp crowd, the essential ingredient for this soup, the chorizo that is, is available at the Spanish Bodega in the "Zirkstraat". If you're feeling bold try the spicy ones. At the end of the recipe there's an alternative vegetarian version as well for those who don't do chorizo (you know who you are).
Again this recipe is very easy to do so even women who don't cook™ should be able to pull this of.

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 chorizo para freir (the kind you can fry)
• 4 carrots
• 2 small soup leeks
• 1 big onion (preferably red)
• 2 small sweet potatoes (or 1 big one)
• 3 - 4 red bell peppers (depending on size)
• tin of chopped tomatoes (I prefer the Elvea brand, for a smoother taste see if the bodega has tomato frito)
• 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced in half
• about 1 liter of vegetable stock
• optional: red chili pepper(s), stock cube (without glutamates por favor)

This is how we do it

• peel, slice and dice all the vegetables
• slice the chorice in half lengthwise then slice in chunky slices
• get your pot or wok hot over a medium fire
• start frying the chorizo over a medium fire. This will release a lot of delicious, deeply red-coloured fat. fry for about 3-4 minutes, then scoop out the chorizo and keep about 4 tablespoons of that fat in your pan/wok
• turn the heat up and add the onions, carrots, sweet potatoes , garlic and peppers and fry while stirring until the peppers go soft. If the mixture goes a little dry add a bit of extra virgin olive oil.
• add leeks, fry for a further 2 minutes
• add tomatoes, fry for a further 2 minutes
• add stock, a stock cube and simmer for about 10-15 minutes
• add about 1/3 of the chorizo chunks to the soup and puree the soup using a handmixer or blender
• add rest of chorizo chunks and a few grinds of the pepper mill
• eat piping hot with some crusty bread and enjoy!

For our veggie friends: something similar can be done without the chorizo but you'll need a bit of pimenton, which again the Spanish Bodega normally sells. Before you add the tomatoes, add about a small teaspoon of pimenton (you really don't need a lot of this) to the mix and stir for about a minute, then add a glass of red wine and reduce the wine by half.
Now continue as in the rest of the recipe.

The first recipe on this blog, the one for pesto, elicited a record 5 comments, by all means let me know what you think of this one!