The Ultimate Potato Soup – a Do Over

A happy accident.

I found this ultimate potato soup on a chat forum, but there were no instructions on the cooking method. I don’t know what the original soup tastes like, but my results were like a nice creamy chowder. 

I will post a link to the original soup, but I really recommend that you try my method too, it’s amazingly good. 

Ingredients

• 1 pound bacon, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced, optional: one full bulb extra, roasted
• 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 4 cups chicken stock, or enough to cover potatoes*
• 3 tablespoons butter
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
• 3 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: 2 cans baby clams.

*your stock needs to be flavourful, but not overly salty. It could be a vegetable stock instead if you want. I’ve even used those chicken in a mug type, they work too.

This is what I had to work with. But I know how to cook quite well, and I like to modify most recipes anyways. I made up my own directions.

The optional bulb of garlic, and the optional clams are my add ins, and I made this soup in a completely different way than the recipe calls for. 

Cook the bacon in advance to crumble or cut up later. Add this with the celery towards the end of cooking.

I left out the celery, but if it was entirely my choice, I would add the diced celery closer to the end of the cooking to retain a little bit of crispness, for a nicer textured soup.

I sliced up the onion and put it in a little pan with some bacon grease (I’ve used butter instead too) to caramelize slowly. I did this to purée it into the white sauce made from the flour, butter, and cream. 

Optional: Roast a bulb of garlic. The flavour is totally different in roasted garlic — it’s mellowed, and chopped is a little spicy. This is why it’s nice to use both. To roast a garlic head, place in tin foil, drizzle olive oil all over, wrap up and roast for 30 min at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool, squeeze out the soft garlic.

This is never an exact science, check your garlic at 20 minutes to check for softness. Then it needs a little time to cool, or you’ll burn yourself. 

Make your white sauce: melt the butter, stir in the flour until smooth, keep stirring for a couple of minutes then whisk in the cream. If you have a hand mixer/purée tool, use it to purée in the caramelized onion, the minced garlic, and the roasted garlic. 

Have the above done in advance of cooking your potatoes, because the potatoes only take a short time to cook.

Put your cut up potatoes in a soup pot, cover with stock. Simmer.

Once your potatoes are just about cooked, add in the sauce you made, the celery and bacon. Season with salt and pepper to taste. As soon as the potatoes are soft enough, you have soup!

I didn’t have tarragon or cilantro at the time, so they got left out. It changes the flavour to flavour with different herbs, but that’s okay — experiment! 

Some people prefer to use white pepper with cream sauces, it’s up to you. I like seeing the little black speckles, and whatever green herb I decide to use.

I added in the clams after others had eaten most of the potatoes, and the soup was looking a little thin. They were a great match! It was now a whole new soup!

Here’s a link to the original recipe which I’m glad I found. I haven’t tried it this way yet, but people say that it’s good. I’m stuck on the way I make it, it makes sense to me.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/13218/absolutely-ultimate-potato-soup/