Taking a Leek

Of all the meals I tend to cook, if I had to pick a specialty, it’d be soup. It’s easy to make and there’s endless combinations of ingredients (note to self: try making cream of scrapple soup with fried onions). OK, maybe not endless…

Anyways, I recently saw a recipe for a Cream of Broccoli, Potato and Leek Soup in one of the several cooking magazines I subscribe to. For some reason, just “Leek Soup” doesn’t sound right but would be awfully easy to make for anyone who just drank a gallon of water. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve utilized this onion-like plant in my cooking and so far both times have been soups. Of any vegetable you should wash before using, it’s definitely the leek. As it’s grown in a sandy environment, that crunchy “goodness” tends to find its way between the layers of the plant. So unless you like rolling your Good Humor Ice cream cone in the sand while you’re at the beach, do yourself a favor and rinse the leek thoroughly.

The recipe called for sautéing the 3 veggies in butter, then adding stock and water after 10 minutes. Then, the recipe suggests you throw the soup in a blender or food processor in batches until pureed. For some reason, I must have over-filled my processor because it started doing its best Linda Blair impression and started spewing the green fluid out of its top the moment I turned it on (the machine, not Linda Blair).

After returning it to the pot and adding some half and half it wasn’t much longer until I was done.

It wasn’t too bad, though it wasn’t as thick as I had hoped. Perhaps next time I’ll add more potatoes and half and half to thicken it up. Though the original recipe for the garnish/topping called for pan-fried pancetta with sage, rosemary and bread crumbs, I instead substituted bacon. Not because I love smoked pork bellies, but because Weis Markets doesn’t necessarily have the same Über-selection as Wegmans. And everyone knows that food selections with an umlaut are much better than those without...