Potage Parmentier / Potage Bonne Femme

Basically all Leek and Potato Soups come under the heading of "Potage Parmentiers", and I've added a few other hints/variations too. I adore Leek and Potato Soups.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

Method:

On a low heat, warm the olive oil in the saucepan, and when beginning to bubble a little, add butter in chunks and give it a bit of a stir to start melting.

Hint: The reason for adding olive oil first; it stops the butter (with its higher water content) from burning. You know what I think of burnt butter. Beure noir, my ass.

When butter has begun to melt around the edges, add the leek, potato, carrot, and herbs. Allow the vegetables to stew in the olive oil and butter for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to check they haven't "caught" (if they have, you have the heat turned too high).

Another hint: You may not see this way of stewing the vegetables in oil and butter first in another cookbooks. I find it gives a more intense flavour - a good thing as Leek and Potato Soups can be spectacularly boring - and more importantly, a faster cooking time than when you add the stock to the vegetables all at the same time.

When the vegetables have sweated down a little, and should be nicely covered in the oil and butter, add the stock, Keep the saucepan on a low heat, and allow the soup to reach and maintain a low simmer (the relaxed gloop-gloop, remember?) for about 30 minutes.

By this time the vegetables will have broken down a fair bit, ie, be mushy. This is good. If they're not mushy, there will be bits of uncooked spud in your soup which is Not Good, right?

Take saucepan of heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Put a wiper or chux cloth on the bottom of your clean, uncluttered sink, and place the saucepan on this. This will reduce the incidence of leek and potato flavoured, vomit coloured splashes all over your kitchen when you fire up the hand held blender.

Fire up the hand held blender (to about mid-speed), and well, blend. Move the blender around in a figure-8 motion to make sure you puree all the vegetables. This should only take about 5 minutes.

Put soup back onto a low heat. Bring back to simmer, then slowly add the milk, stirring all the while. You're after a consistency akin to thin custard here, not porridge.

Taste, and add salt and white pepper (because black pepper ruins the colour) to preference.

Serve in a wide flat bowl with a few chopped chives sprinkled artfully in the centre, and bread or croutons on the side to dip or float.

Leftovers can be frozen and thawed out successfully.

Although a trifle unorthodox, I also often add a couple of handfuls of well-washed watercress to the basic vegetable mixture as it adds a subtle spicy flavour and intensifies the green colour. The use of lots of parsley and the green of the leeks should give a nice green colour though - I have a personal dislike of porridgy white leek and potato soups.

For a Potage Bonne Femme, add 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped finely with the rest of the vegetables. This gives an orangey colour and a sweeter taste.  Yummy.