Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

The Jerusalem artichoke, also called the sunroot, sunchoke or topinambur, is a species of sunflower. Lately, I've become a big fan of this root vegetable and luckily a nearby farm sells its own, so I have access to very fresh sunchokes throught the winter. Most of the time the fresh soil is still on it! I just love the smell of the fresh soil and frankly, you can not get any better vegetable than those with still the wet soil on the outside! But there is a problem with sunchokes, I just hate to peel them! That is such a tedious work. As today, I had no time and no nervs for that, I decided to bake them in the oven, hoping to make the peeling part easier. Considering the lack of time, I cooked a simple, yet flavour sunchoke soup served with roasted hazelnut.

Ingredients:
500 g jerusalem artichoke
250-300 ml vegetable or chicken stock
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 shallot
1 small garlic clove
1 bay leaf
2-3 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon butter
nutmeg
salt, pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Wrap the jerusalem artichokes in foil together with some olive oil and salt, then bake for an hour in the oven. Sautee chopped onion for a few minutes, add sliced garlic, bay leaf and the peeled jerusalem artichokes. Pour stock over it and cook for 10-15 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and pour the soup into a mixer. Puree together with the cream and the butter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Serve with roasted hazelnut and some hazelnut or olive oil.