Our Favorite Potato Soup
Mamalion asked for my potato soup recipe. I’ve been making this soup since college; my aunt gave me an old cookbook she’d had since the 50s and this was pretty much the only recipe I ever tried in the whole book. Easy and oh so yummy.
Peel and dice one small onion* and 5 or 6 big potatoes (more if they’re small; I think we used about 10 small potatoes last night, maybe 12).
Put in your soup pot and add just enough cold water to cover potatoes.
Pause for ten-minute discussion with husband about why the water should be cold. (Answer: because the book said so.)
Salt the heck out of it, bring water to boil, and simmer until potatoes are soft. Pretty standard potato cookery here.
Mash the potatoes right in the pot. Don’t drain the water! I use a potato masher because we like this pretty chunky, but you could use a hand mixer if you want a smoother soup.
Add a big chunk of butter and a can of condensed evaporated** milk. Or, as we did last night, dump in a lot of cream.
More salt! Pepper. Cubed ham if you have it. We always make potato soup a day or two after we bake a ham.
You could add parsley or other herbs if you like, but we never bother. It’s so flavorful with just the salt and pepper. I like lots and lots of pepper.
Sometimes I grate some cheddar cheese to sprinkle on top, but Scott considers this an abomination. I will concede that cheese is completely superfluous in this perfect, perfect soup. But I’m not budging on the cold water. So there. (She says maturely.)
Potatoes, onion, water, butter, milk, salt, pepper, ham. Doesn’t get much simpler than that. When we eat it we have to talk about it a lot in a redundant and emphatic fashion. Oh man, this is SO GOOD. I know, it’s really good. Can you believe how good this is?
* Edited to add the onion. I forgot it until Phoebe reminded me!
**Edited again! I meant evaporated milk, not the sweetened condensed stuff. See why I seldom post recipes? LOL. Pioneer Woman I am not. Many thanks to Linda for the discreet inquiry. 🙂