We are truly in the depths of winter, London has been freezing for weeks now and the only thing that warms me up is this soup, very strong tea with a tiny bit of milk and my hot water bottle with its fake fur fluffy cover.
My little boys go mad for this soup, which is good as it only takes 30 minutes to make and I always have potatoes, carrots and chicken stock in the pantry, so I only ever have to buy the leeks and cream on my way home.
I like it made with chicken stock (I only use the Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients stock as I developed it when I was a Buyer for them…!), but it does taste wonderful with vegetable stock or even made with water.
Miraculous ingredients: fresh leeks, Maris piper potatoes, Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients chicken stock
Potato leek soup
Ingredients
25g unsalted butter
2 big leeks or 3 smaller ones, finely sliced
3 large floury potatoes, Maris piper is good, peeled and chopped into cubes
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped
500ml chicken stock (Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients is the best) or vegetable stock or water
200ml water
150ml single or double cream to serve
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Method
Put a medium size sauce pan onto a low heat, melt the butter and add the finely sliced leeks and carrot. Stir, put the lid on and leave to gently cook for 8 minutes until soft. Add the potato cubes, chicken stock and water to the pan and season with black pepper and salt.
Let the soup gently simmer with the lid off until the potatoes are soft enough to mash, about 12 minutes. I like to squish the potatoes in the soup with a potato masher as I don’t like super smooth puree soups, but if that’s your thing, then blitz away!
Serve with a little cream or milk.
Preparation time 10 minutes, cooking 20 minutes, 2 adult portions, 2 children portions