- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen,
We're making a delicious, creamy vichyssoise,
so let's get started.
First off in making this delicious potato, leek soup,
we have to clean the leeks.
Leeks are one of my favorite veggies,
but they're grown in sand and they are full of sand inside,
which is not rich and creamy.
So let's cut 'em down the middle. Beautiful.
But if you look closely, you'll see
there is really fine sand throughout.
We're gonna trim away the dark green parts.
Also, strip away the last bit,
'cause that's a little bit dried.
For this soup, you want four large leeks.
But if you're going leek crazy,
you could use a little bit more.
These guys are full of dirt, so we're gonna chop them up
and let them soak in a bowl of water before rinsing them.
You're gonna be shocked by how much dirt's inside.
So vichyssoise is a cold, summer soup.
It has a French name, but technically it's American.
It was invented in 1917 by the chef of the Ritz-Carlton.
Although he was French and he like had the recipe in France,
so it was technically a French recipe
that's popularized in America, and then globally.
Here, we're gonna add this into a bowl.
And now these guys need to get soaked in cold water,
agitate them, and then you're gonna get all
that dirt released.
Yeah, you could probably see the dirt from where you are.
You've gotta rinse these thoroughly.
Whenever you're making leeks with a soup,
you can give them a chop like this, soak them,
rinse them, drain them, I'll show you everything.
It's an easy preparation, but your teeth won't feel any
of the grit after you're done.
(bell rings)
Do not throw the greens away. These are full of flavor.
The only thing is they're a little bit tougher.
You can cut them thinly and saute them.
You could fry them.
You can add this to your veggie stock for a ton of flavor,
or you can even make leek powder.
For this delicious potato leek soup,
we need about two pounds of potatoes, kind of up to you.
You can use a little bit more, a little bit less.
These are gonna give you a lot of creamy substance,
and potatoes are really good for making you feel full.
So this is a soup that will really stick to you
and you're not gonna be hungry right after you eat it.
This might be surprising,
but this was one of our favorite soups growing up.
And I'm gonna tell you,
like everyone puts their own spin on things.
And my mom would make vichyssoise fairly regularly.
But we enjoyed it warm. So this is a cold summer soup.
But it's equally, if not more delicious, warm.
So it's totally up to you how you'd like to enjoy it.
I suggest you try both.
And when we say a cold soup, think of like the way
it was invented.
Its inventor, Louis Diat, said that
he would make this delicious soup in the summer,
but they would pour a cold milk in it
to cool it down really fast.
So it's like a room temperature, coolish dish,
not an ice cold soup.
So it's not like a lot of people think
a gazpacho would be enjoyed, which is like cold.
It's more like just room temperature and pleasant.
Our last bit of prep is to give our potatoes a chop.
It does not matter what size they are really
as long as they're fairly small and uniform,
because we want this soup to cook up quickly.
And you will, of course, be pureeing it,
so your knife skills are not gonna be shown to advantage.
One of many wonderful things about this soup
is it keeps in the fridge for like, let's say four days,
and you will enjoy it every single day.
I mean, I will eat this entire thing.
Brian is not a fan of leeks, so it's all mine.
Everything's all prepped.
Right now, we're gonna add a quarter cup or 76 grams
of butter into a big pot and get this over a medium heat.
And to extract as much flavor as possible from the soup,
we're gonna brown the butter slightly.
Grab a wooden spoon.
If you haven't browned butter before, it's different
from burning butter where it turns black.
It's gonna take on some caramel, brown tones,
and you're getting a nice nutty flavor from it.
If it gets too dark and your flame is too hot,
it takes on a bitter taste.
So really we're just browning it
until it has that beautiful caramel color.
Oh my gosh, it smells so good already.
And while this is browning, I'm gonna check on those leeks.
Look at this. Oh my gosh.
It's full of sand on the bottom. Meh.
My butter is browned. Come take a look at this.
It's a beautiful color.
Okay, I'm taking this off heat.
You know, if I was doing the best job on this,
I would've taken the leeks and put them in a colander
in a bowl, that would've been smart, but I didn't do that.
So I'm fishing them out.
The nice thing though is you'll see all of the silt
on the bottom.
Rinse your leeks out one last time in the colander,
just to be sure.
Get all the water out if you can.
I'm gonna add my leeks in and they'll cook
for about five minutes until they're wilted.
If you've never had a leek before,
it's like an onion's elegant sister.
So delicious, full of refined flavor,
and not as blunt and heavy-handed as an onion is.
So you can use them in place of onions.
You can use them with onions in a lot of dishes,
and they add a wonderful flavor.
It's so much more subtle and just beautiful.
These are one of my favorite things to have in the world.
My dream breakfast, which I will share with you,
so you can do it yourself, is sauteed leeks and garlic,
just until they're translucent,
perfect amount of salt and pepper added into that in butter.
Then you have soft scrambled eggs over the leeks
with a big handful of really well-spiced,
freshly fried bread crumbs with cheese.
Ah, so delicious, crunchy, creamy. Amazing.
You try that out.
We're gonna stir our leeks occasionally.
There's a lot in this pot,
so they're probably not gonna burn very quickly,
but keep an eye on them, and also,
you can break up some of the larger pieces.
Right now, I'm adding in about a teaspoon of salt.
It's good to add some salt in the beginning of any recipe
because it really works its way into everything.
It's been about five minutes.
You can see these have taken on
a more emerald, vibrant color, and they're wilted.
So now it's time to add our chopped potatoes in.
And just to be clear, potato leek soup is definitely like
a French recipe.
It's the addition of the cold cream
that was popularized in America.
I don't want any comments expressing horror.
I know that it's a French recipe made by a French chef.
I'm gonna add in the remaining teaspoon of salt right now.
And now I'm adding in six cups of chicken stock.
If you wanna make this as a vegetarian dish,
you could definitely use vegetable stock.
And if you make your own chicken stock at home
and add those leek greens into it, ah.
You are so good and I appreciate you.
We're gonna bring this to a boil and then reduce heat
to a simmer and simmer it for 35 minutes or so,
or until the potatoes are very tender.
You can give this an occasional stir if you want
or come back in half an hour, it's really up to you.
(clock ticking)
After about 30 minutes or so, you're gonna see
that your potatoes are very tender.
You can use a fork to test it out, or take a bite.
It's probably delicious.
Remove the soup from heat and you can either do this now
or let it cool down a bit like I did.
I let this stand for half an hour,
just so it's not screaming hot.
We're going to blend this up.
I'm using an immersion blender today.
If you want, you could definitely transfer it
to your blender to do.
I like doing it in the pot.
We want our soup to be silky smooth,
so you're gonna be blending it up
until you don't see any chunks.
After a few minutes of blending, you're gonna end up
with a velvety mixture, just like this.
I just wanted to taste for the salt content
before I chilled it.
If it doesn't taste salty enough, add a little bit more.
If it tastes too salty, don't worry,
you're gonna add some cream to it,
that'll mellow things out of it.
But the two teaspoons you added
should have been just enough.
Transfer the mixture into a bowl.
This needs to cool down completely.
And you can see there's no lumps in that.
Cover this up, pop it in the fridge,
and we're gonna let it cool completely.
Once your soup is chilled, remove the cover,
grab one cup of cold cream, and we're gonna stir this in.
Yes to heavy cream in soup.
I'm also adding in a quarter teaspoon
of ground white pepper.
The white pepper doesn't taste the same
as black pepper basically,
but it doesn't disturb the appearance.
This is a delicate soup.
Now you're gonna chill once more, and this time
until it's actually cold.
(bell rings)
Before you serve your chilled vichyssoise,
let it warm up on the counter for about half an hour
so it's not ice cold.
It should be cool.
I love having a beautiful garnish on my vichyssoise,
so I have some chives here.
Giving them a delicate little cut.
Spoon your chilled, but not cold, vichyssoise into a bowl.
Finish your soup with a sprinkle of chives,
and if you'd like, a little grate of nutmeg too.
That brings back all the childhood memories.
This is such a good soup that you've gotta try.
And yes, it's delicious warm or cold.
I really hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my soup playlist.