Fall has arrived here in Houston and that means soup season is back. This week I decided to make an old favorite – Potato Leek Soup. The biggest challenging with this soup is making sure the leeks are good and clean. The best way to do this is to slice them up and soak in a bowl of water for 3 or 4 hours. This will allow and sediment in the leeks to settle to the bottom of the bowl. The leeks themselves float and you can skim them off the top. Rinse and strain well. Then discard the bowl with the dirty soaking water.
What I particularly love about this soup is the great creamy flavor. If you’re looking for uber-healthy you’ll need to find another recipe because I like my cream-based soups creamy. So I use combination of half and half and skim milk. Another thing that makes this soup stand out is the fact it uses homemade poultry broth. I simply refuse to put up with the store bought stuff when it is so easy to make my own. My simple method is to take a turkey neck and over with 4-5 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the turkey neck and discard. You now should have 3-4 cups of poultry stock. One extreme advantage homemade stock has over store bought is the amount of sodium. If you choose to make this soup with store bought stock, remove the salt especially if your “stock” is just a bouillon cube and water.
- 3 tbs unsalted butter
- 5 cloves minced garlic
- 1/2 medium onion chopped
- 4 cups sliced leeks
- 2 cups cubed potatoes
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup half and half
- 1 cup skim milk
- 1 tsp dried Thyme
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 tsp ground black pepper
- In a large stock pot melt butter and saute garlic and onions for 3-4 minutes.
- Add leeks, over and sweat until translucent.
- Add thyme, salt, pepper and potatoes and cook for 5 minutes
- Add chicken stock, bring to simmer and cook 15 minutes.
- Add milk and half and half. Bring to a simmer and cook 10 minutes more
- Serve