Starter Soup Light Bites Lunch

Leek, Chard & Tarragon Soup with Wild Garlic Pesto

Wild garlic is in season from March until late May, so now’s the ideal time to start searching for this super seasonal treat. It is a challenge to get the flavour of wild garlic into a soup like this as the flavour does disappear with heat – the solution is to stir in a delicious homemade pesto just before serving.

20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tbsp butter

2 leeks, thinly sliced

1.5 litres well-flavoured chicken stock

A large pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 tbsp hot water

1 strip of lemon zest

A small bunch of tarragon, stems and leaves separated

A small bunch of baby chard leaves

3 small courgettes, sliced into rounds

75g baby broad beans, blanched and skinned

50g fresh peas

200g cooked chicken (optional)

For the pesto:

100g wild garlic (a mixture of leaves, stems and buds)

50g Cornish Yarg, crumbled

50g blanched hazelnuts or cobnuts, lightly toasted

Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

Olive oil

To serve:

A few small leaves of wild garlic

A few wild garlic flowers (optional)

Black tahini paste (optional)

Method

To make the pesto, roughly chop the wild garlic and put in a food processor. Blitz for a few seconds until it is starting to break down, then add the cheese, hazelnuts and lemon zest. Blitz again until everything is ground down to the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. Add the lemon juice, then with the motor running, drizzle in olive oil until you have the texture you like. We prefer it thick enough to stay on a spoon, so only add 2–3 tablespoons, but add as much as you like. Transfer to a sterilised jar if you want to store it – it will be fine in the fridge for several weeks.

To make the soup, put the oil and butter in a large casserole. Heat gently. When the butter has melted and started to foam, add the leeks. Cover and leave to braise for around 10 minutes, stirring and checking every so often, until the leeks are just tender.

Pour over the chicken stock, along with the saffron and its soaking water, the lemon zest and the tarragon stems. Simmer for 5 minutes, uncovered, then add the chard leaves, courgettes, broad beans and peas. Continue to simmer until vegetables are still al dente and have retained their bright, fresh green. Add the cooked chicken, if using, and allow it to heat through in the broth.

Finely chop the tarragon leaves and stir through the soup. Remove the tarragon stems from the soup, then serve garnished with a few wild garlic flowers and leaves, with the pesto and the black tahini paste on the side, to be added at the table.