St. Patrick's Day Potato Soup With Pesto

"This luxurious, silky smooth potato soup showcases a brilliant emerald mound of pesto floating on the surface -- perfect for St. Patrick's Day dinners. Make the pesto ahead of time. If you can't obtain enough fresh basil, look for a good quality jarred pesto for this recipe. Crème fraiche is often available at a good cheesemonger or in some specialty food shops. You can easily make your own, though. Serve this soup with thin slices of toasted baguettes."
 
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photo by Thorsten photo by Thorsten
photo by Thorsten
photo by Thorsten photo by Thorsten
photo by Thorsten photo by Thorsten
Ready In:
50mins
Ingredients:
22
Serves:
4-6
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ingredients

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directions

  • TO MAKE THE CRÈME FRAICHE: gently warm the heavy cream. Remove it from the heat and combine it with the buttermilk or sour cream in a glass bowl. Mix well, cover and let stand at room temperature overnight. Give the mixture a good stir once it has thickened, then cover and refrigerate. It will thicken even more once chilled.
  • TO MAKE THE PESTO: crush the garlic with the salt and place the mixture in a blender or food processor along with the basil, olive oil and nuts. Blend until the ingredients are finely pureed. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the basil mixture into a small mixing bowl. Fold in the grated cheese and blend well. Carefully stir in the crème fraiche. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
  • FOR THE SOUP: melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic, bay leaf, thyme, leek, onion and celery and cook gently, reducing the heat after a minute or two, until the vegetables are quite tender, about 5 minutes. Do not allow them to brown at all. Add the potatoes, chicken broth and cream. If the potatoes aren't totally submerged in the liquid, add a little water. Simmer the mixture for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through and tender. Puree the potato mixture using a hand held blender or a blender or food processor. Stir in the buttermilk. Wipe the saucepan clean and pour the pureed soup through a fine sieve back into the saucepan. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup while it is still very hot into soup bowls and place a good dollop of pest in the centre of each serving. Run a toothpick through the pest to drag it out decoratively over the surface of the soup.
  • Great Potatoes.Kathleen Sloan-McIntosh.

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Reviews

  1. Wonderful soup! my wife will accept nothing less than this becoming a staple during the winter!
     
  2. A lovely soup and very easy to make, if you have Creme Fraiche and a good Pesto at hand (as I always have). The soup is put together in seconds. I followed the recipe exactly, except that I omit the step of sieving the soup. You can control "thickness" very easily. I like my potato soup "very thick", but you can thin it by adding a bit of chicken broth. Thanks for sharing.
     
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