Leek & Potato Soup: Julia Child's Recipe (Potage Parmentier)
Hello my friends- is today a bleak, rainy, dreary day for you as well? The only good thing I can find to say about this gloomy weather is that it's helping melt away the enormous walls of snow from our massive blizzard. It's funny how quickly everything has melted away. Mr. Mersy was in California during the storm, and I was worried that when he got back to NYC there wouldn't be any evidence left of what the fuss was all about. And now it's back in the 50s with stormy skies and rain drops. I wish a thunderstorm would roll in- it would make me think of spring and give me the perfect atmosphere for my current Agatha Christie short story obsession (more about that later!).
But what to do about this gloomy weather? Fancy joining me in a how bowl of soup? I've been experimenting recently with Julia Child recipes (remember the omelettes?) and have fallen in love with her leek and potato soup: potage parmentier. It also doesn't hurt to make a nice, gluten-free croque monsieur to go along with it!
I had never knowingly eaten a leek until about 5 years ago, and now I can't get enough of them. They smell nice, they taste good, and they are a fascinating and pretty plant. For all that, they're also quite dirty, so you have cut and rinse and wash them well:
Something I was not expecting when I delved into Julia Child's recipes was simplicity. I really thought that everything would be complicated and ingredients would be difficult to find or simply really numerous, but that's not the case at all. Her recipes are really about the simplicity of making individual ingredients spectacular and taste as they should- elevating whole foods with the help of a bit of butter, salt, and pepper.
I love that there's no chicken stock used in this recipe. Why should everything be required to taste like chicken? In Michael Pollan's book Cooked, he writes at length about the loveliness and transformativeness of cooking with water. Incidentally (as Grandma Mersy would say), this soup could easily be vegan by just leaving out the splash of cream at the end- I've tried it both ways and it's lovely. If you watch her video (lot's of fun!), Julia also shows variations on this soup, including one with watercress that I'm dying to try.
Just a few simple vegetables allowed to be their best selves!
Have a cozy, soup cooking day!
Love,
~Mersydotes
But what to do about this gloomy weather? Fancy joining me in a how bowl of soup? I've been experimenting recently with Julia Child recipes (remember the omelettes?) and have fallen in love with her leek and potato soup: potage parmentier. It also doesn't hurt to make a nice, gluten-free croque monsieur to go along with it!
I had never knowingly eaten a leek until about 5 years ago, and now I can't get enough of them. They smell nice, they taste good, and they are a fascinating and pretty plant. For all that, they're also quite dirty, so you have cut and rinse and wash them well:
Something I was not expecting when I delved into Julia Child's recipes was simplicity. I really thought that everything would be complicated and ingredients would be difficult to find or simply really numerous, but that's not the case at all. Her recipes are really about the simplicity of making individual ingredients spectacular and taste as they should- elevating whole foods with the help of a bit of butter, salt, and pepper.
I love that there's no chicken stock used in this recipe. Why should everything be required to taste like chicken? In Michael Pollan's book Cooked, he writes at length about the loveliness and transformativeness of cooking with water. Incidentally (as Grandma Mersy would say), this soup could easily be vegan by just leaving out the splash of cream at the end- I've tried it both ways and it's lovely. If you watch her video (lot's of fun!), Julia also shows variations on this soup, including one with watercress that I'm dying to try.
Just a few simple vegetables allowed to be their best selves!
Have a cozy, soup cooking day!
Love,
~Mersydotes
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