Important Tip Before You Begin
Leek must be chopped fine.
That way it will soften quickly and that is important for keeping all the nutrients.
We all know that vegetables don’t need to be processed too long so you want to make sure you have healthy soup, but soft vegetables.
Cook Time
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Ready in: 50 min
Yields: Serves four people approx. 16 fl oz of soup.
Ingredients
- 500g (approx 1 lb) leek, finely chopped
- 100g (4 oz) butter
- 2 to 3 potatoes, medium size
- 1 to 2 teaspoons sweet ground red pepper
- 50ml (2 fl oz) cooking cream, optional
- up to 700ml (2,5 pints) water
- 1 to 2 teaspoons Vegeta seasoning
- smoked meat, optional
Instructions in a Nutshell
- Wash and chop leek.
- Melt butter on medium heat.
- Add leek and some water and stir well.
- Add meat, cover, and stew for some 10 min.
- Grate potatoes and add them too.
- Stir well, add more water if needed, and stew until the potatoes are done.
- Season to your liking.
Melt the Butter
If you prefer not to add that cooking cream at the end because you find it too heavy, this little trick with butter instead of oil will add that beautiful aroma to the meal, the one you just can’t get with oil.
Put the butter on medium heat and melt it. Be very careful and don’t go anywhere, not even for a minute. Butter is very tricky and it can burn so quickly getting that dark burned color and strong smell and you would have to throw it away. Therefore the moment it’s completely melted be sure to either take it off of the stove or add the next ingredient immediately.
I Make My Leek and Potato Soup in a Deep Skillet
I love cooking in a deep skillet. I know it’s not exactly meant for soups, but this is not an ordinary soup anyway 🙂 I love the way I can melt butter with this non-stick inner surface.
The fact that a skillet is not as deep as a pot makes it very easy to stir while cooking yet it’s just deep enough to prevent accidental over boiling. One more thing I love about this pan is that it’s just super easy to clean. I truly recommend it.
Cover the Skillet
Once the butter has melted add the chopped leek and stir it well. You can raise the heat a little and now’s the time to add some water. What you’re doing now is stewing and you don’t want your leek to be drowning in too much water but just enough to prevent burning both leek and butter. So pour a pint or so (300 to 400ml), cover with the skillet cover, and let it stew.
To Make the Aroma Even Better
Leek and potato soup goes very well with a nice piece of smoked ham or some sausages (spicy ones if you like). Sure you can substitute that with those artificially flavored powders, but this is so much better. If you don’t eat meat forget this whole idea and enjoy your veggies 🙂
So Much Better Than Salt
Vegeta is probably the most famous product my country exports all around the world. It’s been used in my family for generations as the best seasoning mix not only for soups but also for stews, meatloaves, sauces, and roasts.
Besides the main, blue line of Vegeta packages now there’s this green line, with less fat and with no MSG (Monosodium glutamate).
Potatoes Must Be Grated!
As with so many recipes, I learned this simple trick from my grandma. Later on, in life, I did make my leek and potato soup “the usual” way now and then, boiled leek in water, potatoes sliced in cubes, etc. However, no one in the family liked it that way. Then I remembered the soup I used to eat as a child, I made it that way and that was IT, the winning combination. So here it is the same way for you to try to taste that little yet great difference.
Peel the potatoes and grate them by using the coarse shredding grater or a food processor with a coarse shredding disk. I have several graters I use, from really coarse ones to some really fine ones. My advice is not to grate it coarser than in this picture, but you can grate it into smaller pieces if you like. Just don’t mash it.
By grating the potatoes you’ll get that creamy texture when the soup is done without adding any flour or cornstarch whatsoever and without those your leek and potato soup will be lighter and healthy.
Time to Make This Soup Creamy
After some 10 minutes of stewing the leek, it’s time to add grated potatoes, pour the rest of the water over it, and bring the soup to its creamy end. Potatoes will need some 15 minutes to soften completely, but of course, the exact duration depends on how coarse the potatoes are grated.
Just as an Option
It depends on the quality of the potatoes. If I’m lucky enough to get those nice potatoes great for cooking and those potatoes do their trick nicely when I grate them, then no cooking cream is needed at all. This time I used very little as you see just to use some ground red pepper that was left on the kitchen counter. So I improvised a bit, so what 🙂
Leek and Potato Soup Almost Done
I add sweet ground red peppers. This is not necessary for the final taste, but it gives that nice red touch.
If you don’t use meat and you like spicy soups then you can use hot peppers for both color and great taste. It’s totally up to you.