Today we start our new recipe column where Oxford’s top chefs help you replicate their favourite dishes from your own homes.

Our first recipe is from James Durrant, the head chef at The Thatch in Thame, who is still energetically cooking at home while The Thatch is closed.

His first recipe is cheap and healthy. You can find wild garlic in your hedgerows while out exercising. If not you can use leeks instead of garlic, or alternate with rocket, spinach, watercress, or just 8 cloves of garlic and one whole bunch of parsley stalk.

JAMES DURRANT’S WILD GARLIC AND POTATO SOUP

Ingredients

  • 2 x large potatoes
  • 200g x wild garlic
  • 20g x parsley
  • 30g x butter
  • 1 x white onion
  • 3 x garlic clove
  • 1 x chicken/veg stock cube
  • 3 Litres of water
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

*Sweat off the garlic and onion in the butter and cook until soft

Peel and dice the potato (roughly size of a dice) add to the pan and season as you go

Boil the kettle and dissolve the stock cube in 3L of water – add to the pan

Bring to the boil and simmer until potato is cooked through

Pick and wash the wild garlic and parsley

Take the pan off the heat, add the parsley and garlic, give it a stir and blitz straight away (being careful as the soup may burst out the top of the blender if it’s too hot)

Blitz until smooth and check seasoning

Garnish with goats cheese and chilli oil if you have it (as seen in pic)

Eat

https://www.thethatchthame.co.uk The Thatch is currently closed