Potato Leek White Wine Soup

This soup looks pathetic, but it's flavor makes up for the ugliness.

On my way to San Jose, I was watching the "canadian lobster" challenge on Iron Chef. It was a Jet Blue flight so we all got our own individual baby screens. Neat! One of the ingredients that the rookie chef used was leeks. I thought, "what the hell are leeks?" This shows my lack of culinary knowledge. Since rookie chef seemed to think that leeks are a sensational ingredient, I looked up common leek-recipe pairings. I kept coming across potato leek soup. One of the sites, I can't remember which, said that the soup only requires those two ingredients. The simple combination of leeks and potatoes is so powerful, that no other ingredients are necessary (well, maybe a little salt and pepper).

I don't do simple. Thus, I decided to roundhouse kick the flavor with some white wine and turkey sausage!


Here are the ingredients and recipe:

6 yellow potatoes
4 leeks
1 32 oz chicken broth
1-2 cups wine
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper


1. Clean the leeks by chopping them in half (lengthwise) and then turn the faucet on full blast. Make sure you're cleaning out all the thin layers. These suckers are dirty. It looks like someone dragged them through mud. (I made the mistake of peeling the potatoes first before I cleaned the leeks. I had to stop the whole cooking process.)

1a. Quarter the leeks, and then chop up into the thin slices. Just chop them up super tiny. Place them in a soup pot over medium high heat.

2. Peel and chop the potatoes into quartered slices, then add them to the pot.

Here is a random picture of the potatoes, in case you didn't know what potatoes looked like.
















3. Add the chicken stock and white wine so that it covers the potatoes and leeks. I like a lot of wine, in my soup and in my life, so feel free to reduce the amount you add to the soup.

This picture makes much more sense than the potatoes. Except that it's off-center. I noticed most of my pictures are askew--do not confuse this with artistic creativity. I'm simply a frazzled cook who is terrible at multitasking.














4. Let simmer for 20 minutes. While simmering, cook the turkey sausage over medium high heat in a sauté pan  for 10-12 minutes. I added about a teaspoon of olive oil. I bought Jimmy Dean sausage because there wasn't much selection at the ghetto grocery store I went to. I bet you could find fun sausage flavors elsewhere.

5.  Once the soup has simmered for 20 minutes, remove the pot from the burner and then take out your aggression on the potatoes and leeks--preferably with a handheld potato masher. Add the turkey sausage to the potato leek mix, along with the salt and pepper. Put the pot back on the burner, and simmer for 10 more minutes.

Voila! Soup!

This soup is hearty, delicious, gluten free and lactose free! Love it. Although, I have to brush my teeth 3 times after I eat it.