Get those ingredients

By now, my casual Terps, you’re tired of my lofty lectures on food fundamentals and are craving the recipe that I came up with this weekend for vichyssoise, a chilled French-American potato-leek soup. Sound too difficult? No, no. Toss the ingredients in a pot, let them simmer and soften, and then blend everything into a smooth puree. Get ready to stun your starving schoolmates.

Let’s discuss leeks first. Leeks are related to onions, but their roots don’t form the familiar onion bulbs. The leek instead takes the form of a long green stalk that fades to white at the bottom. They have an onion-like flavor, but are much mellower and have a noticeable and ethereal green aroma that onions lack.

Here’s the extremely important part, though: The way leeks are grown, a lot of dirt tumbles inside their stalks and must be washed out. Here’s a simple way to make sure that your leeks are clean:

Fill a salad bowl with cold water. Chop off the thick green leaves from your leek and discard, so that you’re left with a 5-to-7-inch white-green stalk. Slice the stalk vertically, and then slice each half into semi-circles. Throw away the roots. Dump your chopped leek into the bowl of water and swish it around to let the dirt sink to the bottom.

When you’re ready to cook the leek, remove it from the water and drain it in a colander or sieve. Don’t pour the bowl of water into the colander or the dirt will end up back in your clean leeks.

This recipe makes two large servings or three small ones. Once chilled, this soup is fine on its own, but I garnished it with some pea shoots, lightly sauteed asparagus, and a drizzle of nice olive oil.
Ingredients

  • Butter or oil
  • One large (2-inch diameter) leek or two small (1-inch inch diameter) leeks
  • One large potato or two small potatoes
  • 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth or stock
  • 1/4 cup of heavy cream (optional)

Procedure:

  • Melt a tablespoon of butter or oil in a pot preheated over medium-low heat.
  • Toss in your chopped-and-cleaned leeks and let them sweat for five minutes to remove some moisture and intensify their flavor.
  • In the meantime, peel and chop your potatoes into 1/2-inch cubes for fast cooking.
  • Toss in your diced potatoes and the stock. If the potatoes aren’t fully covered, add more stock or some water.
  • Bring the pot to a simmer and let everything cook until the potatoes are soft, about 20 to 30 minutes.
  • Puree the soup in a blender (or use an immersion blender) until smooth. Do this in small batches so that you don’t explode the puree all over your kitchen.
  • If you feel like making the soup extra rich, stir in the cream. I left this out and it was just fine.
  • Before setting the soup in the fridge to chill, taste it for seasoning. At this point, it probably needs lots of salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Trust your tongue.

Keep it classy, casual and culinary, my turtles.