Basic but ultimate - soupe tôt faite
- rosemary
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
"It carries within it always the message of well-being and, were my vice and my curiosity more restrained, I, too, would adore to eat it every evening of my life." Richard Olney
Basic because you can't get simpler than this and because it's the forerunner of so many somewhat fancier variations. Ultimate because it's the ultimate in deliciousness and comfort, plus nostalgia for me.
I'm on my soup tour, beginning with France. I'm going to ignore my old home of the British Isles this time and start with our nearest neighbour/relatives/enemies and friends across the channel and their beautiful food. But I'm not going to do the super well-known touristy ones, like French onion and Bouillabaisse. No - my representative French soup is this Soupe tôt faite - soup quickly made - with just potatoes, leeks, water and a touch of butter. With a recipe that you won't find online, but which can be summarised in a few words - slice some leeks finely, ditto some potatoes. Put them in a pot with water and boil until the potatoes can be crushed against the side of the pan - maybe 20 minutes. And that's it. You can pour it over some bread in your bowl, and/or add a dab of butter. But that's it. And yet wow!
I have made it a couple of times to my great delight. It's from Richard Olney's wonderful book Provence the Beautiful Cookbook and also in Simple French Food, although in that recipe he boils the water before adding the vegetables, but that version has a rather nice introduction, which rang so true to my own experience in the kitchens of the Ile de France area of France - around Paris and down to the Loire, that I had to reproduce it here:
"The potage bonne-femme of the cookbooks (finely sliced leeks and potatoes stewed in butter, moistened with consommé, usually, but not always, pureéd and finished wth milk and either butter or cream - or with both) - that soup which, chilled and richly creamed has become the American Vichysosse - would come as a surpise to the bearers of the tradition from which it is borrowed. The potato and leek soup that is prepared night after night in the kitchens of nearly every Parisian concièrge and in the kitchens of nearly every Ile de France working family is nothing more than potatoes and leeks more or less finely sliced or cut up, depending on the bonne femme, boiled in salted water, and served, a piece of butter being either added then to the soup or being put to join the inevitable crush of bread in the soup plate before the boiled vegetables are poured over." Richard Olney
Potage bonne femme, as shown above is almost always puréed and also includes other vegetables - carrots, zucchini, onions ... whatever is to hand really, which are first stewed in butter before cooking in stock or water. In that way I guess it is more flexible - it's just what is to hand at the time - Housewife's soup rather depends on the housewife. But also slightly more fussy and time-consuming.
And Vichysoisse - well yes it is American - or at least it's widely believed to have been invented by chef Louis Diat, who although French, was working at the New York Ritz-Carlton, when he invented it in the early 20th century. There are onions as well in the mix and lots of cream, and moreover it's served cold. Of course it can be served hot as well, but that's not what it's famous for. It's great, but be prepared for the suprise of it being chilled. Not everyone warns you.
Then there's Potage Parmentier and the link here is to this bowl cooked up by the endearingly inexpert cook Jamie of the Jamie and Julia videos. Julia being Julia Child, and this is her recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. By his own admission it's greener than it should be because he probably used more of the green part of the leeks than he should have. And yet it's "As tasty as anything you're ever going to make" - his verdict. Really the only difference between this and Richard Olney's Soupe tôt faite is that the soup is blended at the end. Traditionally of course you would put it through a mouli - or Julia Child suggests just mashing it with a fork. He used a stick blender, as would most of us these days, although somehow or other it doesn't quite taste the same as the mouli version. And the vegetables are roughly rather than finely chopped and so it takes longer to make.
Julia Child's recipe is indeed just potatoes and leeks, but there are lots of other recipes out there for Potage Parmentier which include other vegetables, herbs and cream ...
As I said at the beginning France has a complete treasure trove of soups, many of which are world famous. Perhaps my other great favourite is the Provençal and Languedoc versions of fish soup with rouille, but this is much too complicated to make at home. Well that's what I think anyway - I tried it once, and, yes it was pretty good, but it was such a lot of work. Indeed Jamie of Jamie and Julia compared the simplicity of Potage Parmentier, to the nightmare of a lobster bisque that he had also tried on an earlier occasion. Save those for the restaurants, and turn instead to the simple soups that are served up every night in every French - northern French anyway - home.
I'm tempted to say that Potato and leek soup is an ancient dish, because of its basic nature, and its simplicity, but of course it isn't, as potatoes were not known in Europe until the fifteenth century and I think I am right in saying that the Americans would not have known about leeks. I am - there is something called a wild leek but it's not the same species. Before the arrival of the potato in Europe I'm guessing that leeks were used in soups with other vegetables, and maybe grains as well. The potato would have been a real gift to the leek. They are perfect together.
So do the Welsh - whose national emblem is the leek, have a potato and leek soup? Yes they do and it's called Cawl cennin/Amy's Cooking Adventures - but it features bacon, so it's not the same at all really. And what about the Irish? Well yes they do but it seems not to be a particular thing. And then although they had a lot of potatoes, the really poor didn't have much else did they? Not even leeks. Hence the disaster of the potato famine.
A more crucial question is why aren't there more recipes for potato and leek soup in which the vegetables are left whole, as in my source recpe? A soup with whole vegetables and a puréed soup are quite different in texture are they not, which turns them into quite different things. My husband, for example, prefers the texture of chunks of vegetable but it is a quite different sensation is it not? When you have chunks you get a different taste with every mouthful, depending on what vegetable dominates in the mix on your spoon. If the soup is blended every taste is the same, and the overall taste is a combined taste. Different but not necessarily worse.
David Lebovitz in the introduction to his Potato and leek soup describes why he prefers the blended version:
"I kind of have a funny relationship to soup. If I’m going to eat soup, I eat it as a main course for lunch or dinner, not before. And since for me, soup is a meal, I like thick soups."
I'm not so sure I agree. I do like both blended and unblended soups, but if it is blended I don't like it to be too thick. That's more like a runny mash. If it's soup - it should be runny - well at least a creamy texture. Not so thick that you can stand a spoon in it. And although I do love cream and tend to overdo the adding of cream to things, when it comes to leek and potato soup I would much prefer the knob of butter on top at the end to cream. Cream takes away some of the taste of the vegetables I think.
I found a few other recipes - some which stayed pretty much with the potato and leek combination and some that did different things: Leek and potato soup - Nagi Maehashi/Recipe Tin Eats - pretty straightforward but rather too creamy and thick looking for me - gluggy; Leek and potato soup - delicious. UK with the addition of onions, mustard and chives - but they did keep the vegetables whole; Felicity Cloake does her Perfect thing; Potato leek soup - Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen, which is pretty straightforward, but: "I insist that this soup is also finished with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. It lights the whole place up." and she does load the top with baked potato skins and lots of chives; Potato and Parmesan soup - Nigel Slater - yes he adds a couple of big chunks of Parmesan rind to the mix, and scrapes off the cheesy bits into the soup before discarding it and finally Thomasina Miers who goes trendy modern by adding 'crispy nduja crumb' - Creamy potato and leek soup with crispy nduja crumb
A potato is a humble thing but a delicious thing. Add leeks and you have heaven. This is just one of those ways in which to produce that heaven. There are so many more, and even if you are just looking at soup and just those two ingredients, there are still lots of ways in which that combination can be played with. Such is the creative world of the home cook. For this soup is most definitely a bonne femme thing.
YEARS GONE BY
August 19
2024 - Nothing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Nothing
2016 - Pizza Margherita
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