It’s “Soup Sunday” again, and my inspiration came from someone else’s (Afton’s) recently posted soup recipe. We had a pretty empty cupboard so a trip to Granville Island was in order.
It goes something like this:
olive oil
6 russet potatoes
3 heads of garlic
2 or 3 large leeks
8 cups chicken stock
2 really good quality black forest ham steaks, chopped into half-inch cubes
6 slices double smoked bacon
1 cup heavy cream
Fresh ground black pepper
Garnish:
Grated extra aged cheddar cheese
Chopped chives
Sour cream
Peel four of the potatoes, leave two with peels intact. Chop into 1 inch cubes, toss with olive oil, and spread in a large baking sheet. (Try to keep the peeled and unpeeled potatoes separate) Cut the tops off of the heads of garlic and place in the baking sheet, cut side up, with the potatoes. Top the garlic heads with a hefty slug of olive oil. Grind fresh black pepper to taste over top of everything. Roast in the oven at 350F until the potatoes are soft.
Meanwhile – heat some olive oil in a large dutch oven or soup pot. Clean and chop the leeks and sauté them in the oil until soft. Add the chicken stock and simmer to meld the flavours.
When the potatoes are tender, dig the roasted garlic cloves out of their husks and put them and the peeled potatoes in the pot with the stock and leeks and puree with a hand blender (or put through a blender or food processor – whatever you have) until smooth. Roughly mash the unpeeled potatoes and stir them into the pureed soup.
Add the cubed ham and heavy cream and stir well. Allow to sit on very low heat for awhile to let the flavours make love.
Cook the bacon slices – I usually do bacon in the oven, less messy and stays nice and flat. Reserve separately after crumbling or dicing.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream, some grated cheese, crumbled bacon, and chives/green onions.
And OMG is it amazing!