Tag: soup

Jerri’s Potato Soup

When I was growing up, there was a potato bin in our basement. It was eight feet long, six feet wide and about seven feet high. Trust me when I say that it held a lot of potatoes and that filling the bin explains why I hated potatoes for a few years.

Not to eat them of course; we ate lots of potatoes and I still love them. But planting them, weeding them, digging them, picking them, bagging them and helping haul them from the potato patch to the basement tainted my attitude to the tubers. And guess who had the late winter job of removing the sprouts from the three or four hundred pounds of potatoes left in the bin?

We kept my grandparents in potatoes, gave some to other family members and shared a few with neighbors. Wisconsin is good potato country. When Dad was growing up, Wisconsin was the third ranking potato producer in the United States, and Grandpa Rang’s farm had the right soil for growing potatoes.

Potatoes were a cash crop that helped Grandpa support his family. My father told me that the field between the house and the road was so productive that Grandpa bought a 1929 Ford touring car with the profit earned from that one small field, and we have a photo of the proud family with the car.

Thanks to Grandpa Rang, Dad was a perfectionist when it came to potatoes. In early spring we would visit two or three different farmers to buy good seed potatoes. We planted Triumphs, red potatoes with thin smooth skins for eating as new potatoes, and Russets, big brown potatoes that kept well over the winter.

Dad was proud of his potatoes. Once when we were visiting after Jerri and I were married, he showed me a huge potato he had grown in the garden at the house. He no longer had a large potato patch, but he still planted some Triumphs and grew enough russets to last for much of the winter.

As I recall that big potato weighed over three pounds. They were Dad’s potatoes, but I’m sure that Mom talked to the garden every day. When I asked her what she did to rejuvenate the sick and dying flowers people brought to her, she said she just talked to them. “I just try to be friendly and encourage them. Plants are like people and need that.”

Her technique worked with other plants too. Once someone gave her a little yellowed palm tree that she nursed back to health. It turned green and got so tall that she sold it to the local bank where it would have a good home.

I can almost hear her tell Dad’s potato plants, “You’re looking good. Now just keep getting bigger to surprise Harry.”

One of the ways Mom used Dad’s potatoes was to make potato soup. Hers was a simple cream sauce spiced with salt and pepper. Jerri uses onions and celery in her recipe. It is still an easy soup to prepare, but I think the result is terrific.

Here’s how to make six servings of Jerri’s potato soup.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups diced potatoes
About 4 cups water
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
5 T butter, divided
4 T all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. white pepper
6 cups milk

PROCEDURE:

Peel and cut the potatoes into a half inch dice. Clean and chop the onion and celery fine. Chop any celery leaves on the stalks as well, as they have lots of flavor.

Put the diced potatoes into a medium sauce pan, add a teaspoon of salt and cover them with water. Bring the potatoes to a boil and cook them so they are tender but not soft. Drain them in a colander.

While the potatoes are cooking, sauté the onion and celery and make the sauce. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a small skillet and sauté the onion and celery over low heat until the vegetables are tender but not browned.

To make the sauce, melt four tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over low heat. Add four tablespoons of flour and stir with a wooden spoon for three or four minutes to cook the flour. Stir in a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of white pepper.

Add three cups of milk and stir continuously until you have a smooth sauce, then add the rest of the milk, potatoes, celery and onions. Simmer the soup for five minutes, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve alone for a light lunch or with salad and sandwiches for dinner or supper.

NOTES: Whole milk makes a richer soup, but 1% and 2% low-fat milk work all right. We have not tried using skim milk. We use russet potatoes for this soup, but other varieties should work fine too. Garnish with parsley for a gourmet presentation.

Julia Child’s Cream of Mushroom Soup

I don’t remember how we ended up with two copies of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but it’s good that we did. The first one came as a wedding gift from one of Jerri’s friends at Maine South High School, but the second copy is a mystery. We now think that it was a bonus book from a book club that we chose because we thought it would make a good gift for someone.

Fortunately, we did not follow through with our generous intention. With one copy at home and another at the cabin, we can make “Potage Velouté Aux Champignons” (Cream of Mushroom Soup) at both locations without carrying the book with us.

I have been making this soup for at least twenty years. Though Jerri has tackled a few recipes from Julia’s book, she finds many a bit intimidating: “If I have to turn the page, I don’t make it,” says she. This is not as extreme as her cousin who wrote me one time that “I don’t make anything that has more than five ingredients.” Both women exaggerate, but not always by a lot.

Julia’s recipe for this soup takes a little more than a page, but it explains exactly how to make the finest tasting Cream of Mushroom Soup you will ever find.

I have tried to condense (oops–a horrible word in this context–makes me think of gooey stuff in cans) and clarify the instructions and explain how I make Julia’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. It’s very easy to make. It takes a few more minutes for the simmering than some recipes, but you can finish the soup in an hour and the results justify the extra time..

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup minced yellow onion
8 T unsalted butter
3 T flour
Parsley
6 cups chicken broth seasoned with 1/3 bay leaf, 2 medium sprigs parsley and 1/8 tsp. thyme
Salt and pepper
3/4 – 1 lb. fresh mushrooms
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1/2-3/4 cup whipping cream

PROCEDURE:

Peel a yellow onion and mince a quarter cup of it. Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems from the caps. Chop the stems fine. Wash the parsley.

Put six cups of chicken broth, 1/3 bay leaf, two medium sprigs of parsley and 1/8 teaspoon thyme in a two quart saucepan and bring it to a simmer.

While the broth is heating, melt three tablespoons of the butter in a Dutch oven or large saucepan (at least 2 1/2 quarts) over low heat. Add the onions and cook them slowly for about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour, raise the heat a little and continue cooking the onions for three or four more minutes. Stir continuously, being careful not to brown the flour and onions.

Remove the onions and flour from the heat and stir in the hot broth. Make sure that the onion and flour mixture is well blended with the liquid. Add 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and the chopped mushroom stems. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the broth partially covered for 20 or 30 minutes.

While the broth simmers, thinly slice the mushroom caps and set them aside in a bowl.

After 20 minutes or so, strain the broth through a sieve or colander with fine holes into a large bowl to remove the solids. Press the juice from the chopped mushroom stems, onions and parsley and return the broth to the large pan. Discard the solids.

In a two quart saucepan, melt two tablespoons of the butter over moderate heat until it is foaming and toss in the sliced mushrooms with 1/4 teaspoon salt and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Stir, reduce the heat, cover and cook slowly for five minutes.

Pour the mushrooms and their cooking liquid into the large pan with the strained broth and simmer for ten minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.*

To finish the soup, beat two egg yolks until smooth with a whisk, and then whisk them thoroughly into a half to three-quarter cup of heavy cream in a mixing bowl. While beating continuously, very slowly add one to two cups of the hot broth to the eggs and cream mixture.

Heat the broth in the large pan until it starts to steam. While whisking continuously, gradually add the cream and egg mixture to the broth. Stir the soup over moderate heat for three or four minutes to poach the eggs. Stir continuously and do not let the soup come to a simmer.

Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Remove the soup from the heat and stir in two or three tablespoons of softened butter. Ladle into bowls decorated with sprigs of parsley.

*If you’re not serving the soup immediately, you can set it aside after you have simmered the sliced mushrooms in the broth but before you add the cream and eggs. Remove it from the heat, leave it uncovered and film the surface with a spoonful of cream. Reheat it to a simmer before finishing the soup. This means that if you allow ten minutes to bring the broth to a simmer, you can have bowls of soup on the table in less than 20 minutes.

NOTES: You can make this soup with half and half, but it will not taste as good. If you use salted butter, reduce the amount of salt you add to the mushrooms.

When I can find them at a reasonable price, I like to use baby bella mushrooms for this soup.  I think that they give it a more intense mushroom flavor, but white button mushrooms make a great soup too.

When adding the hot broth to the cream and egg mixture, I use a quarter cup measuring cup to dribble the broth very slowly into the cream while stirring quickly with a whisk. If you add the broth too quickly or don’t stir fast enough you can curdle the eggs.

The same thing can happen when you combine the cream, egg and broth mixture with the hot broth or if you boil the soup. Speaking from experience, I can say that the soup will taste fine anyway, but it won’t have the wonderful silky texture of a perfect cream of mushroom soup.