Leek and Potato Soup

If the soups were to have personalities, I think this leek and potato soup will be the simplest and the humblest of the once I cook. Yet, there is something so homely and deliciously satisfying about gulping bowls of this hot soup on cold wintry evenings that you will not feel like you are missing any fancy ingredients or embellishments!

This soup has few ingredients and as long as I buy leek from farmer's market, all other ingredients are pantry staples which is a huge plus for weeknight dinners.

It is also very quick cooking - about 20minutes. And the recipe is forgiving so no worries if you are multi-tasking in kitchen or playing with kids while a pot of this is bubbling away!

(Incidentaly, I really need to spend more than the 5 secs I have gotten used to spending on my food photos. I went down from an SLR to a Canon decent mid-ranger to my Nexus5 phone for photos and the quality has relatively taken nose-dive too. And while this phone does an okay job in natural light, it's barely manageable in night home yellow light. But anyway, it's either having some photo or no photo, so I am going to deal with the poor quality photos for now. Hope you will excuse the photo quality too :) )

Recipe:
1 sliced leek
2 russet potatoes
2 cloves of garlic - crushed
dash of dried oregano (thyme works well too)
dash of whole milk or heavy cream
juice of half a lemon
1Tbsp olive oil + 1Tbsp butter
salt & pepper

Clean and slice leeks in thin half-moon slices. Leeks are notorious for hiding dirt in between leaves, if this is your first time working with leeks, check out this cool page on how to clean and prep leeks.

In a large pan, heat 1Tbsp olive oil. When hot, add garlic and saute for a minute. Then add chopped leek and saute for a few mins until they are tender.

While the leek is cooking, peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes.

Add potato cubes to the pan and cook for a minute. Add water for desired consistency - I added about 6C. Add thyme or oregano, salt & pepper, cover and cook on low medium for about 15mins.

Check that potatoes are tender, remove from heat. Using an immersion blender or just a potato masher, mash or blend soup. I like my soup chunky so I use potato masher and mash lightly. If you like silky smooth soup, then please use blender and puree.

Add 1Tbsp butter, dash of milk/cream and lemon juice. Taste, adjust seasoning. Serve hot!

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