It's been a rough winter here at Chez Hayes. Mrs. Hayes had another stay in the hospital last week, and another surgery. She's home now, recovering, and hopefully won't have any more follow-up procedures related to this last episode. I love winter (it's my favorite season), but yesterday evening, as I wandered through the grocery store, I knew it was time to move on. It was time for spring flavors, to slowly introduce them to a palate grown fuzzy over the grey months. I instantly thought of leeks, and a light, creamy soup. Here's what you'll need:
| 6 leeks, halved, thinly chopped, & washed | 2 carrots, rondelle'd (cut into 1/4 coins) | 6--7 medium, thin-skinned potatoes |
| 1/3 cup white wine | 4 cups chicken stock | 1 cup water |
| 2 egg yolks | 2 cups heavy cream | butter, olive oil |
| bay leaf | parsley | kosher S&P |
Cut your carrots first, setting them aside in a prep bowl. Taking a leek, peel the outside layer from the root, then rinse any sand from the first layer beneath. Lop off the dark green top. Repeat with the remaining leeks. Taking a leek, slice off the bottom, then half the root lengthwise. Chop it thinly, in 1/8" strips, including just the beginning of the light green portion of the root. Collect the strips in a colander. After you've processed the remaining leeks in the same manner, place the colander inside a larger bowl, and fill it with water. Agitate the leek strips in the water, then pull the colander from the water. Dump out the water and repeat, shake the excess water from the leeks in the colander, and you've got clean leeks. Now cut your potatoes with a clean knife on a clean board. No need to peel them - they'll cook up quite nicely. Prep's done!
In a heavy pot, melt some butter and drizzle in some olive oil. Once it's hot, toss the carrots in. Sprinkle with kosher salt and grind some pepper over them. I like to build my seasoning as I cook, avoiding huge seasoning adjustments at the end. Cook them until they begin to soften, but be careful to not let them caramelize. We're trying to release flavors without making things too heavy on the back end. Now, before you toss in the leeks, add a little more butter and a little more olive oil. I probably used 4 Tbsp of butter, total, but I wasn't really counting. You'll definitely need to add some, though, because you'll want to get a good coating on the leeks. Add the leeks, a good sprinkle of salt, and a few more grinds of pepper. Watch your temperature, though - you want the leeks to turn translucent, but not golden. Done? Deglaze the pan with that white wine, letting it cook off just a bit. Now add the chicken stock, water, bay leaf, and potatoes. A couple more sprinkles of salt and a several healthy grinds of pepper. Cover, and let it cook until the potatoes are soft enough to break against the pot with a wooden spoon. How long? About as long as it takes to drink a leisurely glass of beer. You are drinking a beer, right? Good.
Now we're hitting the home stretch. Once the potatoes are soft enough, drop your heat down from a boil, pulling the pot off the burner if it holds heat well. Pull out a few ladlefuls of soup, including a fair amount of potatoes, carrots, and leeks, about a bowl's worth in all. You'll need some broth, too, but make sure you don't get the bay leaf in there. Using an immersion blender (or a bar blender - be careful not to blow the top, scalding yourself and making a mess), thoroughly blend the bowl of soup until it's smooth, then add it back to the pot of soup and stir it in. Separate out your egg yolks and put them in the bowl you used to blend the soup. Whisk the eggs together, then add the heavy cream slowly until thoroughly combined. Season with a few sprinkles of salt and a few grinds of pepper, then add the mixture to the soup, stirring, and let it cook for a few minutes. Grab a tasting spoon, check your seasoning, and admire the nap of the soup on the spoon. If you're satisfied with the seasoning, finely chop a little parsley. Ladle the soup into bowls, sprinkle some parsley on top, and you're set. Open another beer, it's time to eat.
You could add some croutons if you like, or some crostini. I just wanted straight spring flavor, so I didn't mess around with those, but maybe I could have used a little crusty bread to clean that bowl when I was done. Your call.
I tweaked your opening image to keep it within the confines of the post on the front page. Additionally, your bowl has an impressive anti-gravity effect.
Even more impressively, the soup is at the end of the rainbow. It looked delicious enough to be a treasure.
meh. Where's the [redacted] unicorn?
Last night it was across the street beating the Celtics.
I thought it was a strangely-shaped pot at first- it took me a few glances to figure out the photos were upside down.
The rainbow in the first picture is an awesome touch. Looks delicious!
Even when it's the coldest one on record, Opening Day is a miraculous, rainbow-worthy event.
For some reason, WordPress would not upload the last three images right-side up, and wouldn't allow me to flip them in the Edit Media page.
Did you take them with an iPhone? If so, that's probably why. If not, then I don't fully know.
For the not flipping part, were there any errors? The server could be lacking some libraries to manipulate images.
All four were actually taken with an iPhone, so I'm at a loss for the difference. Given the utility of iPhones as cameras, this bug must annoy a ton of WordPress users.
As for editing, I don't get the image, but I get the editing tools. When I simply flip the (missing) image vertically, the message I get is "Could not load the preview image. Please reload the page and try again." When I reload the page, I get the image but no editing tools.
It's something that annoys a lot of people. I recall the issue stems from a person flipping the iPhone upside-down to take a picture. iOS records the changed orientation and uses it to correct the image when displaying it. Other programs/devices are unaware of the orientation field and so display an upside-down image.
I'll take a look and see if I can install a different set of image libraries to fix the WordPress side of things. It's probably using GD right now, which is rather ancient.
They look fine to me. 😉
Hey, they're displaying properly now, sean! Thanks!
I like it best when I don't have to do anything!
Sometimes discussing a problem to death kills any need to actually fix it. That was my experience working for the government, anyway.
Not applicable in this case.
Oh, you fixed them? I missed that in the wink - didn't realize you had blanket admin privileges here.
Well, then I ought to thank you.
I used the Brute Force Method.
WordPress knows better than to tangle with a guy who's been consistently hitting the gym.
Looks like Hicks Soup to me
mmm, potatoes and leeks and soup.
for the uninitiated, or the soup-curious, what is the difference between this and vichyssoise (ignoring the carrots)?
Vichyssoise is thoroughly puréed and typically eaten cold, though serving it hot is possible. I only puréed a portion of this soup, releasing some starch to aid the eggs' thickening power.
oy. I completely missed the eggs in the recipe.
I loves me some vichyssoise, but mrsS is not jiggy wit teh cold soups. never fear, because I love potato-leak soup too! 🙂
mrsS doesn't even eat gazpacho? Does she like cantaloupe? I've got a recipe for cold cantaloupe mint soup that I clipped from a issue of Gourmet about fifteen years ago. It's made with Gewürztraminer.
she is not a fan of gazpacho, sadly. Even less of ceviche. and she hates mint, so the cantaloupe thing would have to go a different direction. Boo.
Thanks for sharing (hope the Mrs. comes through recovery with flying colors). I cannot wait to try this!
Looks fab - am making it right now.
Amazing that I had a leek still in the fridge.
Works well with Oyster crackers BTW.