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Nov. 18th, 2006 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickRustic potato leek soup. Dead easy, honest. Six ingredients, seven if you include water, almost no measuring. A trained monkey could do it.
Get one small chicken, like four pounds max. You can get a whole one or an already cut up one, it doesn't matter. Put the chicken in a large pot, a huge pot. Cover with water, put on simmer. If you're using the whole-chicken, don't forget to check inside the bird for neck & gizzardy parts. Usually they're wrapped in paper. If they're present, unwrap 'em and drop them in the pot, too. Cook the chicken, turning and monitoring water level, until the pieces start to break apart when you touch them. Remove from heat.
While you're doing that, you can also wash and chop the leeks. You will need three (if fat and thick) or four (if kind of skinny and weak-looking) leeks. Leeks look like very big spring onions. They taste sort of like onions, too. You'll be using the part from the white bottom up to where they turn about halfway green. On an average leek, this is about five inches. Remember, it's not rocket science. It's cooking. Pick a spot that looks good to you. Leeks need to be washed pretty well. This is easiest to do if you split them in half lengthwise first. When they're washed, chop them across so that they make nice crescent moon shapes. Sautee the leeks in a frying pan with an embarrassingly large hunk of butter to keep them company. Use something more than a tablespoon but probably not more than two.
Strain stock-n-chicken through a colander. You will need about half of the stock produced for the potato leek soup. You can use the remaining stock and the chicken in another project (like making chicken noodle soup or like shredding the chicken for enchiladas and using the other stock for lentil stew).
Put the chicken stock in a large saucepan or small soup pot. Add the sauteed and wilty leek pieces. Now, get yourself some red potatoes, probably about seven of them if they're medium-sized. Wash 'em off well and then slice them thin into the stock. You don't need to peel 'em. Peeling takes away the vitamins. Leave the skins on -- they're what makes it rustic. Slice the potatoes thin like you're cutting apples for apple pie. Fill up the pot until there isn't really any room to put in more potatoes and have them covered by the stock. Now cook on a low-medium until the potatoes are soft. This will take about twenty minutes and you should stir things around about three times in that interval.
When the potatoes are soft, get a handheld potato masher. Mash the potatoes up so that the pieces are mostly smaller. Don't worry that the pieces are not all the same size. That's also a feature of rustic soups. Now, salt and pepper to taste.
Voila! Soup's on.
If you'd like to impress people, you can add half-and-half at this point to make it creamier. You can also add teeny bits of very crispy bacon on top, which will also impress people. However, the soup does not need either of these things to be really tasty.
If you try to buy chicken stock in cans and make this soup, you will be sorely disappointed. It doesn't work nearly as well with the canned stuff. Get a damn chicken and make the stock yourself. It's not difficult.
Get one small chicken, like four pounds max. You can get a whole one or an already cut up one, it doesn't matter. Put the chicken in a large pot, a huge pot. Cover with water, put on simmer. If you're using the whole-chicken, don't forget to check inside the bird for neck & gizzardy parts. Usually they're wrapped in paper. If they're present, unwrap 'em and drop them in the pot, too. Cook the chicken, turning and monitoring water level, until the pieces start to break apart when you touch them. Remove from heat.
While you're doing that, you can also wash and chop the leeks. You will need three (if fat and thick) or four (if kind of skinny and weak-looking) leeks. Leeks look like very big spring onions. They taste sort of like onions, too. You'll be using the part from the white bottom up to where they turn about halfway green. On an average leek, this is about five inches. Remember, it's not rocket science. It's cooking. Pick a spot that looks good to you. Leeks need to be washed pretty well. This is easiest to do if you split them in half lengthwise first. When they're washed, chop them across so that they make nice crescent moon shapes. Sautee the leeks in a frying pan with an embarrassingly large hunk of butter to keep them company. Use something more than a tablespoon but probably not more than two.
Strain stock-n-chicken through a colander. You will need about half of the stock produced for the potato leek soup. You can use the remaining stock and the chicken in another project (like making chicken noodle soup or like shredding the chicken for enchiladas and using the other stock for lentil stew).
Put the chicken stock in a large saucepan or small soup pot. Add the sauteed and wilty leek pieces. Now, get yourself some red potatoes, probably about seven of them if they're medium-sized. Wash 'em off well and then slice them thin into the stock. You don't need to peel 'em. Peeling takes away the vitamins. Leave the skins on -- they're what makes it rustic. Slice the potatoes thin like you're cutting apples for apple pie. Fill up the pot until there isn't really any room to put in more potatoes and have them covered by the stock. Now cook on a low-medium until the potatoes are soft. This will take about twenty minutes and you should stir things around about three times in that interval.
When the potatoes are soft, get a handheld potato masher. Mash the potatoes up so that the pieces are mostly smaller. Don't worry that the pieces are not all the same size. That's also a feature of rustic soups. Now, salt and pepper to taste.
Voila! Soup's on.
If you'd like to impress people, you can add half-and-half at this point to make it creamier. You can also add teeny bits of very crispy bacon on top, which will also impress people. However, the soup does not need either of these things to be really tasty.
If you try to buy chicken stock in cans and make this soup, you will be sorely disappointed. It doesn't work nearly as well with the canned stuff. Get a damn chicken and make the stock yourself. It's not difficult.
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Date: 2006-11-19 01:20 am (UTC)Now, my mom gave me some leeks from their garden, already chopped up & frozen, ready to go - any idea what kind of volume of leeks you get from 3 big or 4 wimpy ones?
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Date: 2006-11-19 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 01:18 pm (UTC)You can probably use a small amount of olive or corn oil instead of butter. Heck, you can probably omit the sautee-in-fat step entirely if you're willing to simmer the leeks by themselves until they're soft. Butter *is* tasty, but it's not essential if you have good chicken stock. If you make the chicken stock using a whole chicken as instructed above, your stock will be up to the task, butter or no butter.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 04:24 pm (UTC)