Chestnut Soup

Used leftover quail for this soup, which I made last week for the fam.

Ingredients:
16 oz whole cooked chestnuts (Find them at a Chinese grocer. For some reason, a spaghetti-sized can at Wegmans is $15, but you can buy the same thing in a bag, already cooked, for $3 at the Chinese market down the street)
1 c shredded quail or chicken meat
5-6 c chicken stock
3 sticks celery, chopped
3 or 4 handfuls of baby carrots, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic
herbs (tarragon, thyme, parsley, cilantro)
salt, pepper
1 tsp butter

half-and-half (to desired taste)

Directions:
Boil everything except for chicken/quail meat and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add meat and simmer for another 15. Keep warm. When you're ready to serve, add cream to taste (I like to add about 1/4 c - not too creamy, but just enough to complement the chestnuts).

When I made this for my family, I also roasted a dozen chestnuts and peeled them, which was tedious and only moderately improved the soup. I will never do that again. If you really want to know, though, I knifed X marks into the flat sides of all the chestnuts and threw it in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes. I took the hard shells off, then boiled them for 3 minutes and peeled the skins off. It was a horrible, backbreaking experience, and I think roasted chestnuts are totally overrated. But cheers to the holidays, and all that.

--- Scrooge