The Concierge's Potato Soup

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myrialux and I made a fabulous soup tonight. It's from a cookbook I've owned for close to 30 years, long enough that the spine cracked (ok, the glue's not great) and half the pages fell out so I bought another copy. There's several recipes in there that are standards in my repertoire.

I'd never made this one, though. Not sure why, other than I've only recently become a Soup Person (and I still prefer creamy soups to ones made of lots of stuff in a thin broth). But our not-quite-a-CSA delivered a pound of carrots to us, and I wanted potatoes, and between me marking several recipes and making myrialux go through them and narrow them down, we ended up with this one.

The book is A Passion for Potatoes (affiliate link) by Lydie Marshall. There's at least one other potato-based cookbook with the same title, by Paul Gaylor. I have that one also, but it just doesn't have the same place in my life.





Isn't that color gorgeous? The oil-like trails are swirls of butter. The butter is not necessary but it made it even more delicious. The original recipe calls for margarine, but (a) the cookbook author and perhaps the recipe itself came out of postwar France/Europe, (b) it also came out of the midcentury obsession with plant fats replacing animal fats and (c) OMG NO DON'T DO IT. We got 6 very generous servings from it, it would easily make 8 good servings if you accompanied it with a salad or bread or something. As Philistines, we just ate it by itself.

It's a 2 to 2.5-hour recipe, with 30-45 minutes worth of work in total, split into roughly equal amounts on either end of the simmering process. I found it easiest to pick the meat off the bones with my fingers.

It calls for chicken or turkey backs, which you can save if you buy whole birds and break them down for cooking other things. I was going to get chicken wings, as they have plenty of fat for flavor and bone for the collagen, but found that Central Markup actually sold chicken backs, so we got 2 pounds for $2.50. Definitely cost-effective! AAA would buy again!

The Concierge Potato Soup
A passion for potatoes, Lydie Marshall, p 25

Serves 6 to 8

1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes peeled and diced into 1 inch cubes
1 pound carrots peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices
2 medium onions peeled and diced
1 garlic clove peeled
2 pounds chicken or turkey backs cut up
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
8 cups cold water
6-8 tablespoons butter (optional)
Parsley optional

In a stock pot, cover the vegetables and chicken bones with 8 cups cold water, salted with the 1.5 Tb salt, and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and simmer over medium (or low, if need be) heat for 1 1/2 hours.

Discard the bones. Pick the meat off the bones and set aside. You can add it later to the soup or keep it for sandwiches. Purée the solids in a food processor or a vegetable mill, gradually adding the broth.

Reheat the soup. Season with freshly ground pepper and more salt if necessary. Serve very hot.

Optional: Put 1 tablespoon butter into each of six to eight soup bowls. Ladle in the hot soup and garnish with parsley.

Notes:
Could be made more quickly without poultry pieces by using chicken stock and a bit of gelatin for mouthfeel. (Be sure it hits a boil for the gelatin.) Would not smell nor taste as fantabulous, though.

Needs way more than 1 clove garlic! Throw in as many as you'd like. I think we used 4.