Yogadad World

Tonight's supper was a soup I made Sunday afternoon and stashed in the refrigerator for later in the week. The recipe was from Sunday Soup by Betty Rosbottom. This wasn't my first soup from the book. Rosbottom's recipes for Russian Vegetable soup and Butternut Squash and Apple soup with Cider Cream were both very good. (I froze the Russian Vegetable and am just now finishing it up. It freezes very well.) I'm not sure what happened with tonight's soup, Cold Weather Potato Chowder with Caraway Cheese. I have a couple theories. But first the recipe.

Ingredients
4 slices bacon, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup diced celery
1 lb red-skin potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/2 in. dice
1 Tb minced garlic
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups whole milk
1 cup (4 oz) Harvarti cheeese with caraway seed, coarsely grated
1 Tb unsalted butter @ room temp.
1 Tb all-purpose flour
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 Tb chopped fresh chives for garnish

Saute bacon in large heavy pot, medium heat, until browned & crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towel to drain, save 2 Tb bacon grease & discard the rest.

Add onion & celery to the bacon drippings and cook until softened, about 5 mins. Stir frequently. Add diced potatoes & saute for about 2 minutes. Add garlic and saute, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add chicken stock & milk to the pot & bring mixture to a simmer. Cook soup at a simmer until the potatoes are tender, for 10-15 mins. Do not boil soup. (Soup can be prepared to this point 1 day ahead. Cool, cover, & refrigerate. Reheat over low heat & proceed with recipe.)

When ready to serve, add the cheese, a little at a time, stirring until melted after each addition. In a small bow, mist the butter & flour with a fork to make a paste. Whisk into the soup, a little at a time, and cook until completely blended, for 1 to 2 minutes. Salt & pepper to taste.

Ladle into bowls and sprinkle each service chopped chives & bacon.

Sounds great, eh? Mine wasn't. Not even close. It had a bitter, sour taste to it. I think I went wrong when I didn't follow the recipes admonition to add the cheese and the flour paste just before serving. Instead, I shrugged, and added both on Sunday, then stuck the soup into the refrigerator. I think that somehow the cheese & potatoes weren't good together in the fridge. Alternatively, it could have been the cheese. I couldn't find Harvarti with carraway seeds at the store so I picked up some Havarti dill cheese. It's possible that dill was not the right herb to use in this soup. A third possibility is that the milk was just a little bit off. It'd been in the fridge for a while but it smelled ok. Normally, my nose doesn't go wrong. This time it might have.

I think I'll give this recipe another go sometime and correct all those things. Maybe next time, it'll be the tasty treat that it should be.

Right now, I'm heading back to the kitchen to find something a bit more satisfying than this soup.