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Recipe: Bacon and Pureed Sunchoke Soup
This weekend I stopped in at the University of Alberta’s Green & Gold Community Garden. Run entirely by volunteers, all proceeds from the sale of vegetables go to the Tubahumurize Association, in Rwanda. Tubahumurize is a not-for-profit organization that supports socially and economically marginalized women through counselling, vocational training, health education, and employment opportunities.
As I was checking out the array of veggies for sale, I learned that the box full of little tubers which resembled ginger was actually a box full of Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes.
I have enjoyed pureed sunchoke soup on more than one occasion and thought it would be fun to experiment. After I had made my purchase I called my friend Chef Doreen Prei for some inspiration; I was bummed to find out I would have to peel them all, but successfully accomplished this task while watching Hockey Night in Canada. She gave me some simple instructions on what to do and told me that topping it with bacon would be delicious – so here you go. This is the result of my Saturday adventure with sunchokes.
Bacon & Pureed Sunchoke Soup
Ingredients
1 lb sunchokes, peeled and cut into chunks
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup cream
2 tbsp butter
5 slices high quality bacon
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with tinfoil. Bake 5 slices of bacon until crispy, approximately 8 minutes. Remove from pan and once cooled crumble into small pieces.
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, add the sunchokes, vegetable stock, and salt. (There should be enough liquid to cover the sunchokes , if not add more to cover with liquid) Cook until artichokes are tender, about 15 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender or upright blender, purée the soup.
- Return to saucepan and add cream and butter. Cook over medium heat until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- To serve – spoon the hot soup into bowls and top with bits of bacon. Enjoy!