Our Jerusalem artichoke plants have done amazingly well. A couple of weeks ago the gardener lifted one of the (dozen or more) plants. This resulted in half a bucket of the best looking, and enormous, tubers I’ve ever seen. (Top tip: don’t lift them until you need them as they don’t store for ever like potatoes.)

As I’ve said before, when I was a kid (in 1950/60s) my parents grew artichokes in a small piece of poor soil and got a reasonable crop. Ours, this year, have been in good soil and well watered so no real wonder they’ve done well. We’ve already decided to grow them again next year.

We’ve still not got to the end of this first batch, despite several rounds of roast artichokes (just scrub them, cut them if they’re too big, and roast them in hot oil; no need to cover them, and they’ll caramelise a bit).

As a change I decided to try making soup. As usual with me what I did was a combination of two recipes from the intertubes.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Ingredients

• At least 500g Jerusalem artichokes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 25g butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 floury potato (about 150g), chopped small
• 600ml vegetable stock or chicken stock
• 3 tbsp double cream, plus a little extra to serve (optional)
• 1 tsp truffle oil (optional)
• salt and black pepper (to season)

What to do …

1. Scrub the artichokes well (they’re very good at clinging to mud) and chop into small pieces.
2. Melt the butter & oil in a large saucepan, and add the onion, potato, artichokes, and some black pepper. Cover the pan and sweat gently for 15 mins, stirring now and again.
3. Pour in the stock, cover and simmer for another 15 mins until the vegetables are completely tender. If it looks too thick add a few splashes of dry sherry and/or a glass of white wine.
4. Whizz the soup in a food processor, or with a stick blender, until very smooth.
5. Return soup to the pan. Add the cream and truffle oil; season to taste with a little salt and more freshly ground black pepper; stir together well and return to a very gentle heat for a couple of minutes.
6. Serve the soup in bowls, with a swirl more cream and any other topping of your choice (should you wish), and crusty bread.

Notes

1. When preparing artichokes, look them over carefully and remove any damage. The ends of tubers can rot, and any damaged areas will be discoloured (red/brown).
2. Another top tip: Despite what a lot of recipes say, do not peel artichokes. If you do they’ll just go to mush; the flesh gets very soft and you need the skin to hold them together (although not such a problem with soup). Added to this they’re knobbly, so a pain to peel as you don’t want to lose a large part of the tuber.
3. Unless you’re going to cook the artichokes within minutes, drop them in some water (add some lemon juice if you like) as the cut surfaces go brown quite quickly (like apples).

The soup was good and substantial. I think we might do it again.