A thick, silky soup built on a slow sweat of leeks in butter, finished with a swirl of chive cream. Naturally gluten free and ready in under an hour.
Prep
15 mins
Cook
35 mins
Servings
6
Per serving
£0.77
Difficulty
easy
Everything here depends on the first ten minutes. Leeks sweated gently under a lid with butter and salt turn sweet and almost creamy; leeks fried hard turn bitter and stringy. The potatoes are floury on purpose — they break down and thicken the soup so you never need flour or cream to give it body.
Melt the butter in a large pan, add the leeks, onion and half a teaspoon of the salt, cover and sweat over a low heat for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. They should collapse and turn silky without taking on any colour.
Slice the leeks thinly and wash them after slicing, in a bowl of water — grit hides in the layers and sinks to the bottom.
Add the garlic, thyme and bay and cook for another 2 minutes, then tip in the potatoes and turn them through the butter.
Pour in the stock, bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for 18-20 minutes until the potatoes are falling apart. Fish out the bay leaves and thyme stalks.
Blend until completely smooth, then return to the pan and loosen with the milk. Season carefully with the remaining salt and the white pepper — white pepper is traditional here and gives a gentler heat than black.
For a really glossy finish, pass the blended soup through a sieve. It takes two minutes and transforms the texture.
Stir the chives into the cream with a pinch of salt. Ladle the soup into bowls and swirl a spoonful of chive cream through each one.
The soup thickens considerably in the fridge and freezes well; loosen with a splash of stock or milk when reheating and do not let it boil once the cream is in.