Mmmm… just finished a big ol’ bowl of one of my comfort foods, homemade potato soup. It is amazingly easy to make, and there are so many variations to it… What is YOUR secret recipe for the potatoy-cheesy goodness?
Mine: (As I fixed it today)
cut potatoes up into 1" chunks, peels on
cut up an onion
chop 3-4 ribs of celery
toss in a pot, cover with water. Add salt to taste. Boil till taters are soft.
Meanwhile… brown hamburger (or bacon or ham chunks or sausage, or… whatever meat you want, or no meat at all!) Drain & mix with potatoes. When they are soft, add sliced cheese to taste , today I used a combo of American and Swiss. Melt cheese.
Never tried it with heavy cream… that WOULD make it richer! But I do use bacon on occasion (I have tried all kinds of different meats!) No matter… it was sure good!
I’m making potato leek soup today. My friends send me some really nice bacon every year for my birthday, so it will include that.
Slice bacon into bits, and render the fat in a good soup pot. Reserve the bacon. Add cleaned and sliced leeks and cook over medium until translucent. Throw some diced carrot in (I like carrots, OK?) along with some diced peeled potatoes. Cover with chicken stock or broth and bring to a simmer. When the potatoes are tender, I hit them with the immersion blender until it’s at a texture I like and add cream or milk. Re-add bacon. OM NOM NOM.
First I diced and boiled a half dozen potatoes. While that was going on, I sautéed a leek and half an onion in four Tbsp of butter, added a quarter cup of flour, and cooked the flour. About when the potatoes were done, I drained them, reserving the water.
Added two cups of half-and-half to the soup pot, stirred it until it thickened, then poured in a can of chicken broth, a cup of diced ham, and just about a quart of the reserved potato water (maybe one or two cups more). I then brought out the potato masher, and went to work on the bulk of the potatoes.
Brought it to a boil, then stirred in a cup and a half of shredded cheddar.
The addition of some warm buttermilk biscuits and a Grand Parisian salad made it a nice dinner for a rainy evening.
1 onion - chopped
2 Tbls. butter/margarine
4 med. potatoes - peeled, diced
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley OR 2 Tbls. dried parsley - parsley does have flavor, you know
1/4 tsp. ground thyme - the thyme is important to me
1/4 tsp. celery seed
salt and pepper - to taste
1 1/2 cups milk mixed with 2 Tbls. all-purpose flour
In a saucepan over medium-high heat, cook onions in butter until soft. Add potatoes, chicken broth, parsley, thyme, celery seed, salt, and pepper to saucepan; simmer for 15 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Stir milk/flour mixture into the saucepan. Puree half of soup in a blender; return puree to the saucepan. Simmer soup, stirring often, until thickened.
If you have an electric hand blender, you can just puree it a little, without having to remove half of it and puree.
I’m anal about some of the potatoes being firm, perfect little cubes so what I do is start half the potatoes and reserve the rest in some lemon water. Let the first half cook 15-20 minutes and toss in the second half. By the time the second half is done, the first half has started to disintegrate and you don’t have to puree.
If you have dried mushrooms, rehydrate them then chop finely. It comes out a lot like clam chowder. Or, toss in chopped clams and make it clam chowder.
I just made this last night. My intent was to make potato-leek soup. Instead, I made Cream of Everything soup.
I used:
2 potatoes, diced
1 smallish sweet potato, diced
1 cup or so of shitaake and other random pricey mushrooms
1/2 cup shredded spinach
onions
celery, diced
1 leek, diced
1/2 cup shredded carrots
handful of frozen green peas
some chives
some rosemary from the garden
I boiled all that in some veggie stock, after starting a proper white roux of course, and then added the milk later, plus a little half n half. I didn’t use heavy cream, so I added some extra butter for extra richness. I pureed about half of it to thicken and smooth out the texture, but I like soup I have to chew.
I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t do the bacon thing at all. Last night, it was so good, I didn’t even bother shredding some cheese on top as a garnish. Just chucked a few chives on top and chowed down. Oh and I also had half a can of leftover corn, so I chucked that in as well.
Inspirations from this thread led me to dumb a goodly amount of grated sharp cheddar into the soup at the end, and since I couldn’t find the parsley I swear I just bought, I dumped some dried chives in instead. Polling of the housemates reveals it to be a success!
And I added a small onion along with the leeks this time.
I think adding cheese is overdoing it. Must we add cheese to everything? Get a block of cheddar and slice it onto some Triscuits on the side, but geez, does it have to go in the soup?
Oh, I’m not trying to irk anyone, but it’s the “toss in everything that tastes good in one pot” thing I’m against. I like tacos and burritos and thai hot & sour soup and Indian food and peanut butter & jelly sandwitches and ice cream and chocolate fudge, so let’s put it all in one pot and it will be better!
I’m exaggerating, but we don’t need to put everything we like in one pot.
Sure. You can put cheese in every soup ever made all over the entire earth. This is a “how do you like it thread” so by all means put cheese in everything. I’ll back out now.
Jesus, dude. We like cheese in our potato (POTATO, not “everything”) soup. If you don’t like it, back away slowly and go eat whatever the fuck turns your crank.
No but we can’t go wrong by putting everything that tastes good in combination into one pot.
Cheese just happens to work real well with ham and potatoes. And if I find some sour cream, I’ll put a big dollop of that on, too. This is a meal I’m talking about, not a first course.
Wow, this made my day. You actually got pissy enough about adding extra fatty cheese to soup enough to call someone a twat in a Cafe Society recipe thread.