Were you expecting "potato flakes" — AKA "instant mashed potatoes"? I loved that.
I'm posting this video because Jacques Pépin making this soup is comfort food for your mind... but I will tell you that you can get some nice "potato flakes" at Amazon, and I'll earn a commission if you use that leek... I mean link. But commission-earning is not why I'm posting this video.
I bet this soup is actually really good. It's obviously simple to make. And I don't know about you but I didn't know exactly how to clean and cut up a leek. Please try to avoid using the phrase "take a leek" in the comments. Pépin refers to it as a "lick," so there's another path to childish humor.
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58 comments:
Always suspect/inspect a leek as you would suspect/inspect a muddy book.
I have made this soup, and it is as easy and good as advertised. M. Pepin has spent much time not that far away from my location, and I have bumped into him at an eating establishment or two. It delights me when I can pretend I don't know him from Adam, and it probably delights him too.
Thanks! I was just leaving to go to the supermarket, and it's cozy warm soup weather here!
I love him. I found his Techniques book at a used book store for $3 years ago. What a bargain.
https://www.amazon.com/Jacques-Complete-Techniques-JACQUES-Hardcover
Pepin is the soup maestro conducting the leeks in a symphony of potatoes warmed for comfortable consumption. Encore!
Is it the mother or teacher who forewarned, deters the children from indulging in adolescent hijinks? No soup for you. Next!
"I sure hope that the Trump administration is not a victim of too many leeks this time around."
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Leeks
Soup is my favorite food.
A half portion of potato flakes added to any canned soup is good. Reduces perceived saltiness too.
His "Cooking at Home" series is terrific. I've been watching this man cook for my entire life, and I'm glad he's still going strong.
Interesting! Thanks for the tip. Like Lem I also love making soup, and I prefer thick over thin.
Pépin refers to it as a "lick," so there's another path to childish humor.
There was a House Hunters International in New Zealand one time, where there's a similarly entertaining vowel shift. The wife kept saying how she wanted a spacious back yard and "a really big dick."
i had assumed that all this was secret.. I'm glad there was a leek
Great Recipe. I've cutting up the leaks all wrong. I dont flake out though. I like cut in 4s whole potatoes better. Then I mash them in the soup. I'd eat Chicken potato leek soup more often but Lerks are hard to find and expensive around here. We must have a lot of plumbers.
Man I learned several things from that 3 minutes, not the least of which is that the flower of chives is a pretty little purple ball, edible and adds a garlic-like taste. That's important to me because I have a special lady friend who developed a total aversion to garlic after undergoing Interferon chemotherapy. So I stopped using garlic in anything I cook that she will share and learned that other plants of alium family such as onions, scallions, and now I know chives, can provide a near-garlic flavor to dishes. I was aware onions could do this magic trick when the lady approved of a batch of my salsa sans-garlic but noticed that it had an "almost garlic" flavor after sitting a few hours that the onion gave off. It wasn't enough to trigger her aversion, just enough to add that flavor.
Prior to this video I always thought of potato-leek soup as chunky chowder-type soup. Interesting variation!
Pepin's videos are always well done, concise, and extremely useful for anyone who cooks. It has always amused me that in his series with Julia Child, he, the classically trained French chef, was much more relaxed about cooking than she ever was. And working for Howard Johnson's gave him real insight into how to make good food efficiently and unashamedly. He's a binational treasure.
I'll be succinct: yum.
Avoid Bon Vivant vichyssoise
The important thing about leeks is sand. You don't want it if you also want your teeth. I handle leeks much like celery. I don't use the top half inch nor the bottom inch, they're wilted and tough respectively. After chopping I place the pieces in a large bowl with cool water. Stir the bowl a bit and the lurking sand will fall to the bottom.
Leeks are far too under-used in American cuisine. I think we've become addicted to the much stronger taste of onions which often overwhelms less assertive ingredients.
Potatoes are more than starch. They have their own flavor that we often miss when onions are used. To really appreciate the potato for itself, one should try Peruvian food. Many people say its too bland, but I say it's subtle. Another problem is the limited choice of potatoes in most U.S. supermarkets. In Peru, they have their choice of hundreds of cultivars and just as many subtle flavors. I don't know what variety of potato is used in those instant mashed potato products, but I assume it's russets, which may be a letdown compared to what a potato leek soup could be. Russets were bred for texture and low water-content. Taste-wise they are quite bland, which explains gravy, butter, bacon, and too much salt. I will try this recipe, but I've tried to use potato flakes in soups before and was disappointed.
His cookbook "Fast Food My Way" is very good; you should post an Amazon affiliate link for that one, Professor.
I would add the potatoes more gradually than Jacques does. They take a few moments to expand, and if you add too many you end up with wallpaper paste.
I add cups of frozen or fresh vegetables to adjust my salty-tude
Althouse writes, "Take a leek..."
I follow two cuisine historians on YouTube. One is Max Miller (the "Tasting History" channel) and the other is Townsends, who specializes in 18th century American foods. Both often quote from early cookbooks. It's quite remarkable how often a recipe starts with "Take a ..." However, instructional commands pertaining to non-food subjects also used "take a" or "take the". For example, there is are instructions for Continental soldiers written by George Washington personally. One of them meticulously describes the manufacture and use of musket cartridges, and begins with "Take a piece of paper..." If one goes back to Tudor-period source documents, one will often read commands beginning with "Take in hand..."
I still enjoy watching old episodes of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home on Pluto TV. They bounced off of each other perfectly. Just two old friends, who happen to be wonderful chefs, having a great time in the kitchen.
Love Pepin. I've been making this soup for years and it is very good. The only time I use potato flakes is for this soup. I'm half Irish.
One of my heroes. He turned down an offer to be the White House chef for JFK because he wanted to Howard Johnson's. He introduced me to the amazing qualities of Wondra brand flour. It is precooked and reground. Check this recipe. Pure simplicity and fantastic using Wondra. He created it for Howard Johnson's. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://eatingeuropean.com/jacques-pepin-chicken-garlic-parsley/
Huh. I started making that in the early '80s (while at the UW!). Made it more like a chowder though, with chunks of potato and carrot. And just the white part of the leek. Later found it in Julia Childs' two-volume set and was like "Hey, I've been doing French cooking!"
I love Jacques Pepin.
You could make that soup and still put some chunks of cooked potato in there.
Thanks for the link!
I like to add them to my chili as a thickener.
It's worth noting that Jacques Pépin, who has a lifetime of cooking knowledge and is a culinary treasure, uses a gas stove.
“Guess I’m just a spudboy… lookin’ for that real tomato.”
chunky = country style, but high class LP soup like Vichyssoise, is blended smooth.
chose your pref. I like 50/50 with chunks but creamy
indeed
Not ten minutes ago my wife told me she’d like potato leek soup for dinner tonight. I’ll use real potatoes however.
and "julia and jacques cooking at home cookbook"
agreeing about: needs more garlic, wine, and butter
disagreeing on the pepper type. Jacques was always right with fresh black rather than her pref for old stale white to be pretty
because he'd just left the DeGaulle kitchen
Don't pish-posh the idea of using potato flakes. I use them as thickeners for soups that my gluten-intolerant DIL will be eating.
I have now incorporated the potato flakes in my gnocchi recipe... and the results are fantastic! Light, airy, and delicious. I can't vouch for all brands, but the flakes I've used list 'potatoes' as the sole ingredient.
I've still got some homemade pesto and I got a super deal on burrata cheese.
I see a great dinner in my near future.
MfG
Goetz von Berlichingen
Pepin is an international treasure. Always informative, pleasant to watch, and more humble than you'd expect from someone so respected in the culinary world. Thanks for posting this one.
OK, I made it. I am not an expert cook like Mr Pepen, but it came out ok. A little too much potato flakes, I think, and I didn't have the chives, so I added bacon. I didn't add the leek to the broth before it came to a boil, and that might have had an effect.
I will make it again, though. And pay more attention to the instructions.
I always make potato soup with left over mashed potatoes after Thanksgiving. I made the mashed potatoes using heavy cream and butter. Just add some milk to thin them up and salt and pepper to taste. I usually throw in some left-over ham into it as well. My wife had her women's group over a couple of days ago and they loved it. There is no such thing as left-overs. Just pre-made ingredients. Oh, and to extend it I threw in some chopped up hash browns.
It's a shame leek potato soup isn't more popular. It's actually good when done right.
I watch his videos on YouTube a lot.
A leek and a promise, then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW5rhvmAu0c
I follow both of those guys too. The historic recipes assume that everyone who would be using this recipe already knows how to do this particular step, so why describe it.
A broad road to childish humor is provided by Scottish cock-a-leekie soup
I have had a lot of NZ friends over the years. This is very funny. Once had a NZ friend who worked at a London restaurant who was asked by a customer "what's in the vegan sausages?" this was at the S&M Cafe by the way. He replied "dead babies". It only really works in a NZ accent....
Nice to see a bit of cross-cultural love for M. Pepin. You're all all a bunch of fuckwits otherwise.
Taking a leak is childish humor. Taking a lick is adolescent.
I often watch The Old Cookbook Show
As he said, scallions make a more than adequate substitute.
I love that he uses "flakes" - this brings be back to college. . . a guy invited me over for dinner and made "mashed" potatoes from a box - I had never had them before. I thought they were pretty good, but we were really high, so who really knows.
He has a great story about really learning to cook by coming to America and working at a Howard Johnson’s. And about being amazed by a soup he was served as a young man and learning it was Campbell’s from a can.
I have a beautiful photograph of his elderly hand holding Julia Child’s even more elderly hand hanging over my kitchen table. It makes us grateful for all the joy delivered by those hands.
no soup for you, certainly
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