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Nov. 24th, 2005 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI made some really good potato and leek soup today. It's damn tasty. While the soup itself is quite enjoyable, you'll probably enjoy the story of me shopping for it more than the actual recipe... and you can get both behind the cut.
The soup started at the grocery store when I decided to buy leeks. I was buying leeks because they were pretty and because it was supposed to be cold, with shitty weather, all weekend. I also had leftover chicken stock in the fridge from the chicken-pot-pie thing last week and I figured potato and leek soup would be an excellent way to use it up. Anyway, leeks are sold in bundles held together with either rubber bands (this time) or gigantic twisty-ties (not this time). I like the twisty ties better because there is no elegant hand motion for removing the rubber bands from a bundle of leeks. (No matter what you do, it looks like you're jerking off the produce.) This time at the store, there were three leeks per bundle. All the bundles had three leeks. I checked.
At the checkout counter, the screen prompted me to select the kind of produce, which I did. (You get words AND pictures on the screen to help you identify your produce. I guess this is in case you're fucking illiterate OR are buying produce-you-cannot-name in which case I will no doubt see you on the cooking forums later in the evening posting shit like "Dude, I just bought a durian. What do I do with it?" or "So. Taro root. How do I prepare that? Would it go with mac-n-cheese, do you think?") I selected leeks from the list and then it said to enter the number of leeks that I had. It was at this point that I demonstrated my complete inability to manage self-checkout once again. It seems that a bundle of three leeks is really, in some meta sense, one big leek. (If I were a religious person instead of a Godless Heathen (TM), I would have made a holy trinity joke here.) The correct number-of-leeks for a bundle of three leeks is one, as the checkout helper lady informed me when she came over to save me from the automated screen telling me I was a dumb fuck.
If the screen had asked me how many bundles I had, I would have been able to answer the fucking question. It *asked* how many leeks I had. *sigh* I can read. I've been reading since I was four and I'm damn good at it. Reading comprehension is not an area where I experience even the slightest amount of difficulty. I comprehend just fucking fine. It's other people that can't write with any clarity. The screen said to put in how many leeks I had. I had three leeks. I put in that I had three leeks. Stupid damn self-checkout. Are normal people able to do this shit? The self-checkout at the local Weis makes me feel like I'm RainMan.
Today, I took my meta-leek from the fridge and removed its rubber band without incident.
I melted the chicken stock (It's a solid when cold. Good stock is a solid when cold, which is why soups made with home-made stock are so much better than ones put together using that canned shit.) and ran it through a strainer to get all the lumps out. It tasted like chicken, celery, and onions (because that stuff was in the chicken-pot-pie). I took three fist-sized red potatoes and scrubbed 'em well and sliced them up super thin (I didn't peel them. Most of the nutrients are near the peel.) and put them in the stock on medium to cook. Meanwhile, I cleaned about the bottom four inches of my meta-leek, chopped it up in pretty good-sized pieces, and sauteed it in about a tablespoon of butter. When the leek pieces were soft, I dumped that whole mess into the chicken-stock-and-potatoes thing. I cooked it on medium until I thought it was probably done, hit it with a handheld potato masher to break up the potato pieces a bit, salted the hell out of it, and declared it soup. And, lo, there was soup and it was good.
If you're going to do this at home, you probably should have three or four cups of chicken stock. If you're starting with just plain chicken stock, add a stalk of celery (chopped) and a quarter of a big white onion (chopped) to the stock early on so's to get a properly stock-y flavor. (Chop 'em pretty small and just leave 'em in there. They won't hurt anything.) Use three fist-sized red (for boiling) potatoes and a bundle of three leeks, each about an inch in diameter. Use the bottom four inches of the leeks for a volume of leeks about 2/3 that of the potatoes. If you're so inclined, you can pimp this out a bit by adding some milk or cream to finish the soup but note that it won't reheat as well if you do that. It's also not bad with hunks of ham in it and/or crumbled bacon on top even though I generally don't get that carried away for just me.
The soup started at the grocery store when I decided to buy leeks. I was buying leeks because they were pretty and because it was supposed to be cold, with shitty weather, all weekend. I also had leftover chicken stock in the fridge from the chicken-pot-pie thing last week and I figured potato and leek soup would be an excellent way to use it up. Anyway, leeks are sold in bundles held together with either rubber bands (this time) or gigantic twisty-ties (not this time). I like the twisty ties better because there is no elegant hand motion for removing the rubber bands from a bundle of leeks. (No matter what you do, it looks like you're jerking off the produce.) This time at the store, there were three leeks per bundle. All the bundles had three leeks. I checked.
At the checkout counter, the screen prompted me to select the kind of produce, which I did. (You get words AND pictures on the screen to help you identify your produce. I guess this is in case you're fucking illiterate OR are buying produce-you-cannot-name in which case I will no doubt see you on the cooking forums later in the evening posting shit like "Dude, I just bought a durian. What do I do with it?" or "So. Taro root. How do I prepare that? Would it go with mac-n-cheese, do you think?") I selected leeks from the list and then it said to enter the number of leeks that I had. It was at this point that I demonstrated my complete inability to manage self-checkout once again. It seems that a bundle of three leeks is really, in some meta sense, one big leek. (If I were a religious person instead of a Godless Heathen (TM), I would have made a holy trinity joke here.) The correct number-of-leeks for a bundle of three leeks is one, as the checkout helper lady informed me when she came over to save me from the automated screen telling me I was a dumb fuck.
If the screen had asked me how many bundles I had, I would have been able to answer the fucking question. It *asked* how many leeks I had. *sigh* I can read. I've been reading since I was four and I'm damn good at it. Reading comprehension is not an area where I experience even the slightest amount of difficulty. I comprehend just fucking fine. It's other people that can't write with any clarity. The screen said to put in how many leeks I had. I had three leeks. I put in that I had three leeks. Stupid damn self-checkout. Are normal people able to do this shit? The self-checkout at the local Weis makes me feel like I'm RainMan.
Today, I took my meta-leek from the fridge and removed its rubber band without incident.
I melted the chicken stock (It's a solid when cold. Good stock is a solid when cold, which is why soups made with home-made stock are so much better than ones put together using that canned shit.) and ran it through a strainer to get all the lumps out. It tasted like chicken, celery, and onions (because that stuff was in the chicken-pot-pie). I took three fist-sized red potatoes and scrubbed 'em well and sliced them up super thin (I didn't peel them. Most of the nutrients are near the peel.) and put them in the stock on medium to cook. Meanwhile, I cleaned about the bottom four inches of my meta-leek, chopped it up in pretty good-sized pieces, and sauteed it in about a tablespoon of butter. When the leek pieces were soft, I dumped that whole mess into the chicken-stock-and-potatoes thing. I cooked it on medium until I thought it was probably done, hit it with a handheld potato masher to break up the potato pieces a bit, salted the hell out of it, and declared it soup. And, lo, there was soup and it was good.
If you're going to do this at home, you probably should have three or four cups of chicken stock. If you're starting with just plain chicken stock, add a stalk of celery (chopped) and a quarter of a big white onion (chopped) to the stock early on so's to get a properly stock-y flavor. (Chop 'em pretty small and just leave 'em in there. They won't hurt anything.) Use three fist-sized red (for boiling) potatoes and a bundle of three leeks, each about an inch in diameter. Use the bottom four inches of the leeks for a volume of leeks about 2/3 that of the potatoes. If you're so inclined, you can pimp this out a bit by adding some milk or cream to finish the soup but note that it won't reheat as well if you do that. It's also not bad with hunks of ham in it and/or crumbled bacon on top even though I generally don't get that carried away for just me.
