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There’s a lot of fancy soup about these days. Don't get me wrong, I like a good bit of fancy soup, and I’m as guilty as the next person when I'm brewing the stuff up – chorizo, ginger, coconut milk - it all makes its way into my soups (not necessarily all together, you understand). However, the other day, driven by an excessive amount of leeks in the fridge, I made a big vat of good old fancy-free leek and potato, and boy was it good. It’s still good – I made it on Tuesday for the kids to have for tea with fish finger croutons and it has kept me going for lunch for the rest of the week. It's delicious, undemanding and soothing. Dead easy to make too.
Leek & Potato Soup
To make a big pot
1tbsp olive oil & 1 knob of butter; 1 onion, peeled & chopped; 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped; 5 leeks, cleaned & sliced; 2 large potatoes, peeled and diced; 1 litre of veg stock (I used 4 tsp Marigold bouillon powder, basically because Nigella does); 500ml semi-skimmed milk
Melt the butter and oil in a big pan, add the onions and garlic and fry for 5 minutes or so, stirring so they don’t catch & burn. Add the leeks and potatoes, salt and pepper, and a splash of stock if you want, then turn the heat right down and sweat the veg gently with the lid on for 15 minutes or so. Add the stock and milk, bring to a simmer and carry on simmering for another 15-20 minutes till everything is cooked. Whizz/blitz with your preferred whizzer/blitzer (I have a stick blender). You can freeze it at this point (once it's cold), or just leave it to eat later on.
When you want to eat, heat on a gentle heat – don’t let it boil away too much.
If you like, you can garnish the end result with some cream and chopped chives, or if like me you were trying to feed the kids, you could grill some fish fingers, and either serve them ‘on the side’ for dipping (Pink) or chopped up in chunks into the soup as croutons (Blue).
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| and my bowl - croutons & dipping so neither felt 'left out'... |
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