Chestnut and Fennel Soup with Sherry. Oh and Duck if you wantSo wasn't I the one who said I was too impatient to wait for persimmons to thaw out" Hmm I'm not sure how I ended up spending the better part of a half hour getting the shells, skins or whatever you call the outside bit of the chestnut, off a bag full of them. It wasn't too bad I suppose, but for anyone in a hurry I heartily recommend purchasing a bag of frozen peeled chestnuts for this recipe. Whatever you do, don't buy bargain basement chestnuts in the shell, there will be many rotten or hard ones, to be discovered only when you start peeling them, a waste of money and time. Soup is one of the many things the Thermomix excels at, all the chopping cooking and blending done in the one bowl and once the chestnut peeling is done, this soup is a snap.  I am sorry to all the vegetarians out there, this tastes good on its own, but it's much better if you add some duck. I just bought a half a duck from the Chinese restaurant and added the deboned meat to warm through before serving. Do make sure you find some kind of sherry, tokay or similar to add once the soup is in the bowl, it makes quite a difference. Everyone has a dusty bottle of sherry or tokay in the back of their cupboard don't they or is that just us"  Ingredients750 g chestnuts in the shell or 500 g peeled and frozen Quarter teaspoon fennel seeds1 onion cut in half1 medium sized fennel bulb cut into quarters
1 stick of celery rou...