I Made Vichyssoise (All Day)

One might think making leek and potato soup is easy. I sure did before I started with the fiddly job of finding more leeks than the ones I’d picked a few days ago. Then of course I had to clean them, cut off their bottoms leaving the roots intact (I’ll explain why later) and then peeling down the layers until the pristine level was reached (in China) and all without sitting down. It seemed like a year later I was done with that part of the job. So I threw the lot onto the cutting board, one or two at a time and sliced them into pieces then dropped them into the melted butter that had expected something in it eventually in the large soup pot on the stove.

Feeling like I must hurry up I quickly peeled the spuds and then spent oodles of time cutting them into half inch pieces. I did this all while stirring the pot occasionally to soften the leeks, which I later read on the online recipe should have only been the white and light green pieces of the leeks. Thus I scooped out most of the bright green pieces that grew out of the main shoot and those dripped all over the counter to give me one more clean up job. It took ages for the leeks to soften but eventually I added the potatoes, a cup of water and 4 cups and a bit more of chicken stock and salted the whole thing, as I brought it up to a boil. I know I sound very dramatic about all this as if I conquered crossing the ocean in a dinghy, but for me, an old slowpoke, this was a long task. Then when it reached that stage I turned down the heat and let it simmer for another half an hour or so until all the potatoes softened. By this time I thought I was almost done with the time consuming part but I was wrong. Once it reached its desired consistency I had to let it cool before pulsing excessively. No not me, I wasn’t pulsing, it needed pulsing. By this time I was ready for a lie down, having spent at least an hour and a half fooling around with all this, although it felt like I spent the better part of my life making this concoction. So feeling smug I asked my husband to puree the mixture for me since I didn’t feel like holding onto the stick blender or pouring it by batches into the blender. He complied willingly since I think he was hungry. Otherwise a team of wild horses couldn’t drag him to do it. But he was nice and I got a few minutes to compose myself, seated for a change. Next I added double cream and milk and since John had a taste of the mix when I wasn’t looking, he wanted some right away. What does he know about cold soups? Absolutely nothing as it seems. So I complied, being the nice little wifey person that I am sometimes. 

After whisking the milk and heavy cream into the semi hot soup I took a small amount for a second smaller pot to get it reheated, being careful not to boil the cream. Then I trotted off to find the nutmeg to grate for the top and again I asked John for yet another favor. “Could you please, pretty please pick me some chives from your garden plot for the soup?”

Being hungrier than ever, he almost ran out the door. He probably knew that if he left that to me it would take another half an hour to serve up, so he complied.

And presto after many moons of talking about vichyssoise I ladled it into a couple of small bowls, garnished it with chopped chives and nutmeg and a dash of cracked pepper. Yum.

But once I began sipping my soup I noticed that there were fibrous and stringy pieces in each spoonful. John wasn’t fussed at all about them and hardly any were found on his empty bowl when I got the great honor to wash it. However I thought I’d choke since there were so many in my bowl. So without knowing where a cheesecloth was, or if I even had one, I put most of the soup into a wire strainer and hoped for the best. But it didn’t jump through the spaces on its own accord. I actually had to press the ladle firmly around and around the circular colander to get some of the fluid to drop into the bowl underneath.  That took another few minutes of hard slog. Now it’s cooling down in the fridge and by tomorrow I get to add the rest of the heavy cream to the mix. So what seemed like a very simple and straightforward recipe, became a tedious chore by the end of the two and a half hours it took to complete the job. But don’t think I was chained to the stovetop continually. That was the easy part. But getting it in the house and into the pot and turning it into soup….well that took most of my efforts, which were needed elsewhere.

The good news though is that it is really delicious and my mate gobbled it up. As I said, he must have been really hungry. 

Personally I can’t wait to have it cold tomorrow. Then all the labor I did today will feel like child’s play. All I’ll have to do is spoon it into the bowl and use the grated nutmeg that’s left over from today and cut up a little more of the extra chives after adding the rest of the cream. Nice and easy from here on out.

Yay. And tomorrow I will take the stubs of the leeks with their roots on them still and replant them in the soil where I pulled them out. Or perhaps I will just let them sit in a shallow bowl with a little water in it for another week or so as I wait for new growth to come out of the white part of the leek. That’s what I do with green onions that I grow and then I replant them once they start growing out of the stubby part of the plant. 

Sometimes it doesn’t work but usually it’s an easy way to get a bit more from a harvested vegetable. When I saw some of these roots I knew I just couldn’t throw them away in the compost pile. They’ve still got a lot of life in them….like me even if I give new meaning to the phrase about a slow cooked meal. They ain't kidding. I am the original slow cook.