Creamy Irish Potato Soup

Due to our busy schedule, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day a day early last week. Today I'm starting to roll out the recipes, and we start with what we started with - Creamy Irish Potato Soup. 

I worked with leeks a few weeks ago when I made my homemade chicken noodle soup. As I stated then, you have to wash these really good before you use them. This one was dirtier than usual. You will need TWO leeks for this soup. (They usually come in groups of three.) 

Begin by cutting off the dark green part of the leaves and then removing the outer layer.

Next, cut in half lengthwise.

Cut into half inch half moons and submerge in cold water. Swish around a lot and let them sit.

Meanwhile, melt a stick of butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat.

Here you can see all the sand and grit left from the leeks. Yuck! Don't want that in our soup.

Here are the leeks after I removed them from the water and patted them dry.

Add leeks and one chopped up medium onion to the butter. Stir to coat. Reduce heat to low, cover and allow to cook for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally so it doesn't get brown.

While this is cooking, peel and dice three large russet potatoes. These are the large baking-sized ones.

This is what the onion and leeks should look like after the 20 minutes - soft but not brown.

Add diced potatoes and three large cloves of garlic, minced. Stir well, cover and cook another 20 minutes on low.

Here's what it looks like. Potatoes are soft and letting off their starch. Still not any color on anything.

Add four cups of chicken broth.

Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover.

After another 15 minutes, here's what you have.

Remove from heat and use a stick blender to puree soup. Once soup is smooth, add one cup of heavy cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. I did all of this that morning so all I had to do was reheat the soup for supper.

Later that night while I was cooking our cabbage and Irish cornbread, I took the last leek and using just the white part, I sliced it into thin sticks. 

Then I cleaned these in water and dried them COMPLETELY.

I added about a teaspoon or two of EVOO...

and a 1/4 cup of flour, salt, pepper and a teaspoon each of garlic powder and paprika. Mix these well by tossing.

I spread these out as much as possible and put them in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Watch them and don't let them burn. Allow them to cool on the pan. They will crisp up as they cool.

I shredded a little of our corned beef and used it as well as the leeks and some chopped chives to garnish the soup. Do this at the last minute. It will sink pretty quickly.

It was St. Patrick's Day, so to be cute, I added about 8 drops of green food coloring to the soup after I pureed it. It's subtle, but noticeable, and didn't affect the taste at all.

This was so creamy and rich. Everyone ate this soup - and asked for more!

I'm so glad you stopped by my neck of the woods!

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