Servings: 9 quarts. This recipes serves about 12 people. Please adjust accordingly.
INGREDIENTS
1 Whole Rotisserie chicken
4 large poblano chiles
12 slices thick-sliced bacon, diced
8 cups (about 4 pounds) leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced 1/2-inch thick
2 large white onion, diced
6 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
6 large garlic cloves, peeled and cut in large chunks
5 quarts chicken broth
2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup french-fried onions – for topping
PREPARATION
Prepare the Poblanos
Roast the poblano over an open flame or 4 inches below a broiler, turning regularly until blistered and blackened all over (about 10 minutes for a broiler).
Cover the poblanos with a kitchen towel.
Let cool for at least 15 minutes.
Rub the blackened skin off the chiles and pull out the stem and seed pod.
Cut into a small dice and set aside.
Prepare the leeks
Cut off top dark leaves leaving about an inch of the dark leaf on the leek
Pull off outer leaves that are tough and fibrous
Slice off bottom with the leaf hairs
Cut the leek in half
Lay on flat side and slice
Put the leeks in cold water in a bowl to clean them
Swish the leeks around to clean them. The dirt will go to the bottom of the bowl
Then pull out the leeks and put them in a calendar
The dry and put aside
Prepare the bacon
Add the bacon into a large stockpot set over medium-high heat and cook until the bacon pieces are crispy.
Remove them from the pot and place on a paper towel lined plate to cool.
Leave the bacon fat in the pot. W are going to use the pot for cooking everything else
Prepare the Rest
Chop 2 white onions into a large chop
Peel and dice 6 pounds Yukon gold potatoes. Keep them in water so they don’t get brown
Peel and cut 6 garlic cloves in large chunks
Prepare 5 quarts of chicken broth
Chop 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
Chop 1 cup of fresh spinach
Drain and rinse 2 cans of pinto beans
Shred 2 cups of cheddar cheese
Pull the meat off the rotisserie chicken and put it in the refrigerator to stay cool
Chop the cilantro for garnish
Time to Make the Soup
Add the leeks and onions into the pot with the bacon fat.
Add ½ teaspoon of salt
Cook until the vegetables become soft about 25 minutes.
Add the potatoes, garlic, stock, spinach and thyme
Bring it back to a boil
Then lower the heat to medium and cook for about 25 minutes or until the potatoes are completely soft.
Add the pinto beans.
Use an immersion blender until blended.
Add the diced poblano peppers.
2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Add the chicken
Bring the soup back to a simmer and cook for 5 more minutes so that all the flavors meld.
Taste and season with salt, usually about 1 – 2 teaspoons.
Top each bowl of soup with some of the crispy bacon.
The Origins of Leek and Potato Soup and why we messed with an original.
Served cold Leek and Potato soup is called Vichyssoise Soup. Vichyssoise is a great vegetarian dish, but at the same time, it is also rich enough that a meat eater will not notice the difference. We decided to make some adjustments for us meat eaters by adding bacon and chicken. And we couldn’t keep it as a light pre-main course soup. We wanted this soup to be the center of attention of your main meal. In addition to the meat, we spiced it up with Mexican poblano peppers, Mexican spices and what the heck, why not add bacon fat instead of butter. You could say, we ducked it up.
Vichyssoise Soup
Vichyssoise Soup History:
History has it that King Louis XV of France (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774) accidentally invented a version of today’s Vichyssoise Soup. The paranoid King loved his comforting potato soup and had it for dinner quite often. He was always worried that someone was trying to poison him and demanded that a number of servants taste his food before he ate it. King Louis’ favorite recipe for potato soup was often passed from one servant to another. By the time it finally reached the King, it was cold. King Louis decided he preferred potato soup cold. Myth of True – you be the judge!
1903: There is a recipe in Escoffier’s Guide Culinaire in 1903 for Puree Parmentier, a French-style cream of leek and potato soup. And even father back in history, a recipe for Leek and Potato Soup appears in Jules Gouffe’s 1869 Royal Cookery Book. The major difference, though, is that both Escoffier’s and Gouffe’s potato soups were served hot.
1917: Vichyssoise (Vee-she-su-waa-ze) soup is generally accepted as being created by Chef Louis Diat (1885-1957). Diat worked at Ritz hotels in Long, Paris, and New York. While chef of New York’s Ritz Carlton, he created the cold leek and potato soup know as Vichyssoise. In the days before air conditioning, the Ritz had a Japanese roof garden and Diat was constantly on the lookout for dishes that would cool his customers in the sultry July and August weather. He remembered the simple bourgeois hot leek an potato soup his mother, Annette Alajoinine Diat, had made when he was a boy in Montmarault in Central France and how he and his family had cooled he soup by adding milk to it. And so on the rooftop of the Ritz, he prepared this same cold soup and called it “Creme Vichyssoise Glacce” after the famous spa located 20 miles from his home town of Bourbonnaise, as a tribute to the fine cooking of the region. Diat served this soup during the colder seasons, he did not include it in the menu, but so many people asked for it, that in 1923, Diat placed it on the menu full time. Louis Diat told the New Yorker magazine in 1950:
In the summer of 1917, when I had been at the Ritz seven years, I reflected upon the potato and leek soup of my childhood which my mother and grandmother used to make . I recalled how during the summer my older brother and I used to cool it off by pouring in cold milk and how delicious it was. I resolved to make something of the sort for the patrons of the Ritz.
1940s: During World War II, some patriotic chefs tried to change the name to “Creme Gauloise Glacee” because in 1940, a government collaborating with the Nazis was set up in the French town of Vichy.
