A Winter Soup that is full of gooooooddnessss

Winter Vegetable Soup with spinach pesto and crisp gubeen bacon

Tom Cleary has being supplying me with seasonal vegetables for the past sixteen years. He is a chef’s dream, coming in the back door of the kitchen with his hand grown produce is a pleasure to see and when the seasons change so does his fantastic vegetables.
Serves 8 people

• 200g of smoked Gubeen bacon cut into lardons
• 2 tblsp of olive oil
• 50g of good Irish butter
• 225g of finely diced onion
• 275g of finely diced carrot
• 225g of finely diced potato
• 200g finely diced celery
• 200g finely diced leek
• 200g finely diced turnip
• Salt and pepper
• 1.8 litre of chicken stock
For the spinach pesto you will need:
• 50g of cooked and drained spinach
• 15g of pine nuts
• 1 crushed clove of garlic
• 150ml of olive oil
• Pinch of salt and white pepper
First fry off the gubeen bacon in a dry frying pan until it is nice and crisp, set aside.
In a large pot sweat off the onions in the butter and olive oil, add in the potato, carrot, celery, turnip and cook out for five minutes over a low heat. Now add in the chicken stock and the leeks, bring to the boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
This soup is more of a broth so there is no need to liquidize it. Tom’s veg are full of flavour so let them speak for themselves.
To make the pesto, put the spinach in a bowl with the pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and blend together finely using a hand blender.
Pour the soup out into hot bowls, sprinkle the bacon on top and a dollop of pesto and there you have it, Tom’s soup full of goodness…..