Soup is technically easy to make, but can still quickly go wrong. Our CSA box came with 2 lbs. of white sweet potatoes this week, and it was time for something else besides sweet potato fries. The trusty interwebs told me that white sweet potatoes were pretty similar to regular ones, so I thought I’d give 3-1: Sweet Potato Vichyssoise a whirl.
Vichyssoise is originally a French-American creation. This version is definitely more of an autumn/Thanksgiving-type of flavor, but it was still easy to make and pretty good. Obviously the recipe card depicts the use of an orange sweet potato, but white sweet potatoes work pretty well also.
Soup’s on!
Another virgin recipe card. We’ve been treading through a lot of uncharted territory…eventually we’ll find some of the tested/documented ones.
Here we go with ingredients and substitutions. White sweet potatoes subbed for traditional ones, celery stalks subbed for celery root, bottled lime juice subbed for a fresh lime, and ½ coconut milk & ½ heavy cream combined to make half-and-half.
Everything else is pretty much on point. I make my own chicken stock/base (from saved & frozen roast chicken bones, vegetable scraps, etc.), so that’s what you see in the big container in the back. If you wanted to make this vegan, swap the chicken broth for veggie and all the half-and-half for coconut milk.
Peel dem taters & chop ‘em up good.
Measured out the same amount of celery (8 oz.) and then added in about a handful or so more, since celery stalks tend to be weaker in flavor than celery root. Didn’t even chop them up more than the pieces you see–they’re going to get Vitamixed anyway.
Celery, taters, chicken stock, and wine go into the pot. Boiled until soft, about 20 minutes or so. Onion had already been sautéed in this pot with butter before the rest went in.
Veggies are soft, throw in the lime juice. Stirred it up, and pulled it off the heat. Time for the Vitamix!
My beast. I love it–I’m always looking for things to pulverize in the Vitamix. Soup is always a good occasion. I used to use a Cuisinart food processor (still do, for other things), but this works way better for pureeing soup.
Added my Frankenstein half-and-half (see my forthcoming Meat-Filled Crepes recipe for an example of substitution fail) and gave it one more pulse. Obviously, mine is more of a greenish color rather than the bright orange depicted on the recipe card–but it tastes virtually the same as if I had used regular sweet potatoes.
This isn’t on the card, but I always like to throw my newly-blended soups back onto the heat for a few minutes. Soup can always benefit from sitting longer as long as you keep the heat from getting too high (and inadvertently burning the bottom of it). In fact, soup usually tastes better the next day, after it’s had time for the flavors to meld overnight. If you don’t have that kind of time, gently heating it back up and stirring it can always be a help.
The final result (we like to eat our soups out of mugs). Made enough for probably 6 of these mugs-worth of soup. Always a good one to freeze if you have leftovers and not a lot of fridge space.
This was intended to be a double-recipe meal accompanied by Meat-Filled Crepes. However, due to a substitution fail, 5-24: Meat-Filled Crepes is on temporary hiatus while I re-assess (and purchase) the parts that failed.
Grade: A-
