Chilled Potato Leek Soup

You can also call this soup vichyssoise if you are having a fancy dinner party; or, you just want to make it sound more enticing then cold potato soup. According to Wikipedia there is a debate about the origins of this soup -- it sounds French but it probably isn't really French. French, American, vichyssoise, potato soup; whatever, it is just plain good and perfect for a summer night.

I have never made this so I consulted various recipes. Some recipes included garlic or heavy cream or half and half. I tried some soup with some Mexican crema; because, I didn't have any heavy cream in the house. I thought the crema made the soup too heavy. I decided not to use any cream or milk product and just let the creaminess of the potatoes give the soup a creamy consistency without the milky flavor. I used a clove of garlic; because, I think garlic makes everything better. But, if you don't like garlic you can drop it from the recipe and have a soup where you really taste the leeks.

So, here's what I did. First, I got together my ingredients:

For the soup:

4 leeks

1 clove of garlic

2 potatoes

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

salt and pepper

4 cups of chicken broth

For garnish:

1 scallion

high quality olive oil for drizzling

So, then I prepped my ingredients. The most important thing here is to properly prepare your leeks. You need to pull off all the dark green rough leaves. Then cut the leeks in half lengthwise and soak in water to get rid of dirt. They should look like this:

Then, chop the leeks. Peel and chop your potatoes to roughly the same size as the leeks. Mince the clove of garlic. Heat the butter and olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add the leeks and the garlic. Add salt and pepper. When the leeks have softened add the potatoes.

Then, add the broth. Turn up the heat until the broth starts to boil; then, put the heat down to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Check the potatoes to make sure they are soft and mushy. When the potatoes are ready take the pot off the burner. You can use a hand held blender or a regular blender to then puree the soup. You can leave it a bit lumpy if you like it that way or blend to smooth if you like. Then add salt and pepper to taste.

Put soup in serving dishes. At this point, you can add cream, yogurt, crema or some other dairy product if you want some extra creaminess. I simply drizzled some high quality olive oil on the soup and scattered some scallions on top. This soup was really good and super easy to make. I highly recommend giving it a try.

A note about olive oil. I used two different types of olive oil in this dish. I used an inexpensive olive oil to saute the leeks and garlic. Then, at the end, I used a higher quality olive oil to just drizzle on top. I like to have both kinds of olive oil in my kitchen - one for cooking and another for drizzling or making salad dressings.

E-mail me! Please let me know what you have been making with the veggies in your CSA box. I look forward to hearing about all the delicious meals you've made with your local veggies. My e-mail address is csagirlcal@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading my blog. I'll be back soon!