April 29th, 2010

Baked Potato and Leek Soup With Roasted Chicken Cigarillos

Where has the sun gone!?!? Just as the bank holiday approaches the sun disappears. The truth is that the weather people have a more sophisticated answer for what’s happening i.e.- a cold front is moving in- or the arrival of other weather conditions but I am afraid all that type of jargon goes straight over my head. To my mind I have the simple answer which is that we are all bad sinful people and it’s a punishment from up above! Only joking!!! Hope I’m not evoking loads of anger with this silly comment.

Joking aside; I finally had the courage and  was brave enough to make a very humble potato and leek soup. I have had the idea for quite some time but I never felt it was challenging enough to write a recipe. I love the simplicity of such a soup, but that would be before I really started thinking about it. The challenge was to make a soup that has a complex full body taste with multi layers of flavours and I think this is it!

The inspiration for this dish came when Mr.P and I were talking over dinner about the left over baked potatoes and what to do with them. The conversation then led onto this idea of a baked potato and leek soup. I happened to have two cooked chicken legs left from a roast chicken dinner so this recipe could easily be made up from all the leftovers.

The secret for the successful cooking of a tasty potato and leek soup is when you add the seasoning. I’m a bit pedantic about the acceptable levels of seasoning in food, so I would recommend that some seasoning is added from the start of the cooking process so that the soup can develop flavour. The mistake that most cooks make is not to season their food at all during the cooking process but to add a heap of “raw” salt to the food at the end. The problem is that you only have surface salt and you need to add so much to inject flavour that you end up using too much .

Pepper is perhaps an enemy of potato and leek soup. You will be surprised how obvious the taste of pepper is in potatoes. I learnt a very hard lesson once many moons ago when I was a commis chef.  We used ready milled pepper at that particular restaurant and I added too much pepper to my potato and leek soup. It tasted like a pot of pepper, potato and leek soup and I was gutted as the chef verbally abused me and I had to start all over again. Lesson learnt, take it easy on the pepper as you can always add extra but you cannot take it away. I know it sounds like a old cliche but it’s the honest truth.

The roasted chicken cigarillos add an extra touch and transform a humble dish into a filling and interesting meal.

Baked Potato and Leek Soup

  • 3 large baking potatoes
  • 2tbs olive oil
  • 375g leeks
  • 20g unsalted butter
  • 1L vegetable or white chicken stock
  • 100ml double cream
  • Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Wash the potatoes, pierce them all over with a fork and rub the olive oil with seasoning over the potatoes. Place them on a roasting tray and roast them in the preheated oven for 1 hour, turning them once during the cooking time. Once cooked let them cool for 10 minutes, cut the baked potatoes in half, use a spoon to scoop the cooked potato flesh from the skins.

Rip the skin into pieces, place them on the oily roasting tray, turn the oven off and place the tray in the hot oven, they will become roasted and crisp.

Cut the leeks in 1cm rings, wash and drain.

Heat a large saucepan with the butter and saute the leeks, seasoned with salt and pepper, until the leeks starts to take on colour.

Add the cooked potato and stock to the sauteed leeks, bring the soup to the boil, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook the soup for 10 minutes, add the cream and blend the soup until smooth. It's optional to pass the soup through a fine sieve.

Return the soup to the pan, taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Leek Garnish

  • 1 leek
  • 1tbs olive oil
  • 1tbs unsalted butter
  • Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  • 140ml water

Slice the leek into 1cm thick rings, wash and drain, try and keep them in one piece.

Heat a frying pan with the butter and oil, saute the leeks with seasoning until golden brown on both sides. Be gentle to prevent them from falling apart. Once golden on both sides add the water and bring the water to the boil, cook until the water has evaporated and the leeks are cooked.

Set aside until serving.

Roasted Chicken Cigarillos

  • 100g roasted flaked chicken leg meat
  • 100g finely sliced leeks
  • 20g unsalted butter + 40g unsalted butter
  • Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  • 2tbs chopped chives
  • 4 sheets of filo pastry

Preheat the oven to 180 °C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Heat a frying pan with the butter and saute the sliced leeks with seasoning until soft.

In a mixing bowl mix the flaked roasted chicken leg meat, cooked leeks, 1 tbs chopped chives.

Cut the filo sheets in half and melt the 40g butter.

Brush each filo sheet lightly with butter and divide the chicken meat between the 8 pieces of filo pastry, scatter the remaining chopped chives and roll each cigarillo up tightly.

Place the cigarillos on the baking tray, brush each with more melted butter and bake them in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Serve the hot soup with the sauteed leeks, crispy potato skins and chicken cigarillos.

Serves 4


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19 Comments to “Baked Potato and Leek Soup With Roasted Chicken Cigarillos”

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  1. James Wahs says:

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  4. [...] Leek, potato, soup. What could it mean? cold day? Just want to stay at home and watch tv day? <– I have to say, most of the days I would want to stay at home and watch tv. HAHA but you get the idea. I got the idea of roasting the potatoes first before cooking with the leek from British Larder. [...]

  5. [...] Baked Potato and Leek Soup With Roasted Chicken Cigarillos Recipe … [...]

  6. Madalene, this sounds delicious. It is entirely different from my own recipe (I’ll have to blog that one day), but I enjoy all kinds of potato leek soup. I’m afraid your cigarillos could be addictive! Mustn’t make those–I have too many food addictions already!

  7. Bob says:

    Love this great for this cold weekend will try today

  8. Rita says:

    Absolutely brilliant! Love the styling and photograph. It’s so inspirational, the perfect recipe to cook tonight with my Sunday chicken roast leftovers. Looking forward making this dish, thank you so much for sharing and inspiring!

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