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Leek and Potato Soup
Soup is one of the easiest but most delicious things you will ever make. You can also create your own recipes with whatever needs eating up in the fridge or the cupboard.
For this recipe, you will need a blender or a food processor, in order to make the soup smooth. Stick blenders are perfect. You put them into the pan of soup, and they whizz the soup smooth in no time.
If you don’t have a blender, you can just leave it with the lumps of leek and potato. Some people like it better like that. Or you could try the recipe for chicken and sweetcorn soup below.
Ingredients you will need:
(this will make enough for 4 people)
1 tablespoon of oil
- olive oil is best because it has a nice taste (a tablespoon is a large spoon used for serving food. It is equal to three teaspoons.)
1 large onion
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
1 large or 2 small leeks
2 large potatoes
1 vegetable or chicken stock cube
Equipment you will need:
A sharp knife
A potato peeler
A chopping board ( to protect your work surface)
A big pan
A blender or food processor to make the soup smooth at the end
Skills you will learn:
How to prepare and chop onions
How to prepare potatoes
How to prepare leeks
How to prepare garlic
How to cook onions
REMEMBER – check with a grown up before you start and tell them what you are going to do. And remember to wash your hands!
What to do:
Get the vegetables ready before you start.
1. Chop the onions.
Don’t worry if your chopped onions are different sizes. For soup, it doesn’t matter too much, because you are going to whizz it smooth anyway. You will get better at chopping onions the more you do it. Most savoury recipes contain chopped onions so this is a very important skill to learn.
Slice the leeks into rings about a centimetre thick.
Dice the potatoes
4. Prepare the Garlic and Crush It
Now you can get on with making the soup.
5. Put the oil into a pan and heat this up over a low to medium heat. Add the chopped onions to the pan. They should sizzle a little bit, but you want to cook the onions slowly without them getting brown. So watch them cook. If they are sizzling alot or starting to go brown, turn down the heat.
6. Keep cooking the onions until they start to go soft (about 3 – 5 minutes). Then add the garlic, chopped leeks and potatoes and stir so that the vegetables are coated with the oil. Allow these to sizzle for another three minutes, still taking care not to let the onions go brown.
7. Boil a kettle and add enough hot water to the pan TAKE CARE! so that the vegetables are covered completely (about 1 litre), then crumble in your stock cube. Stir gently and then turn the heat up to medium until the water starts to bubble. It will probably be making a loud noise. The soup is now boiling.
8. Turn the heat down, so that the soup is only bubbling a little bit at the edges. The loud noise should have changed to a low rumbling sound. The soup is now simmering. This is the ideal temperature for it to cook.
9. Leave the soup to simmer for about 25 minutes until the potatoes are soft when you poke them with a knife. While it is cooking, check the soup every 5 minutes. Check it is still simmering. You may need to turn the temperature up or down. Make sure the water is covering the vegetables. If it isn’t, add more hot water from the kettle. Also, stir the soup with a wooden spoon, to make sure the vegetables are not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
10. When the vegetables are soft, turn off the heat and leave the soup for 5 minutes to cool down. If you have a stick blender, whizz up the soup while it is still in the pan. If you are using a blender or food processor, carefully transfer the soup to the processor. Ask a grown up for the best way to do this in your kitchen.
11. Put the soup back in the pan. Now TASTE IT. It will probably need some pepper and perhaps some salt (although the stock cube will have been quite salty.) This is your soup, so you decide when it is right. Then warm the soup up again and serve in bowls.
Other Soup Ideas
… and a Soup-er Story!
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