"vichyssoise" news and stories

Happy National Vichyssoise Day!

According to legend, vichyssoise is an accidental creation resulting from French King Louis XV's paranoia. History has it that the king was eternally convinced that his meal was poisoned, and, as a precaution, would regularly insist that his servants sample his soup before him. By the time his beloved potato-leek soup would reach the table it was usually cold -- and the French followed the trend, embracing vichyssoise below room temperature.

More than 200 years later, chef Louis Diat of New York City's prominent Ritz-Carlton would attempt to lay claim to the creation -- named after the town of Vichy, near his birthplace -- insisting that he was inspired by his childhood habit of cooling down his mother's potato soup with cold milk.

The soup's origins may be uncertain, but its recipes are pretty standard, using minimal ingredients beyond potatos, leeks, stock and cream. The New York Times, however, adjusts the recipe with green garlic for extra flavor, in a rendition so successful that you may find yourself hard-pressed to find the patience to let the soup cool before devouring it.

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Happy National Vichyssoise Day!

We'll take cue from a master, and agree with Julia Child that the traditional leek-and-potato vichyssoise "is the mother of the family in all her simplicity." The vegetables combine to a delicate smooth soup, and, wrote Child, "a bit of cream at the end is a nourishing touch, but by no means necessary." But dear Julia, since when were you one to go easy on the fat?

Created by the chef of New York's Ritz, Louis Diat, the soup made an appearance shortly after the restaurant opened in December 1910. Debatably a Franco-American hybrid, the soup was inspired by the cooking of Diat's mother: "One of my earliest food memories is of my mother's good leek and potato soup," he wrote. Although similar French potage recipes predate the chilled Vichyssoise as we know it, the temperature is what differentiates the refreshing dish.

And what better way to celebrate National Vichyssoise Day than with Louis Diat's original recipe from 1941's "Cooking a la Ritz"? Check it out, after the jump.

Beautiful fresh leeks. Photo by LollyKnit/Flickr

In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.

My father loved to cook, but few of the recipes in his regular repertoire could really be described as "gourmet." The major exception was his vichyssoise, a cold potato-and-leek soup that he would pull out when the weather got hot and he was in the mood for something refreshing.

Of course, "refreshing" is a relative term; after eating a bowl of his rich, cream-laden soup, I would usually feel like I'd covered my lips in a thick layer of grease. While my version could hardly be described as "low fat," it uses a fraction of the heavy cream that his required and is a lot lighter on the palate. Best of all, it really lets the flavor of the leeks and potatoes shine through. Although this requires a lot of advance time, it refrigerates beautifully and makes a great summer soup!

Get the recipe for vichyssoise after the jump!

It almost looks like some strange abstract painting of "food" because of the purple color, but it really is a photograph of a bowl of soup. Mercedes of food blog Desert Candy made vichyssoise, a chilled potato soup, but instead of using plain old white potatoes, went with purple. The color of the soup is incredible, and hard to believe that there isn't a drop of unnatural food coloring in there. The recipe is super simple, with just butter, leeks, potatoes, water, salt and cream, plus the gorgeous chives as garnish.

A poached prawn is not exactly a traditional component of vichyssoise. The thick and creamy chilled leek and potato soup is almost always simply garnished with a sprinkle of chives, but Jocelyn at Kuidaore, wanted to accent her version of vichyssoise with the prawn and a few drops of prawn oil. The fishy flavor stands out beautifully against the mild soup, just as the contrasting color of the prawn does, and transforms a good dish to a great one for seafood fans. The soup is velvety and smooth thanks to a large amount of butter and cream, but there are lighter versions available that preserve the flavors of the dish while saving a few calories. No matter which version you choose to make, the soup is a wonderful addition to your recipe file and a nice change of pace from gazpacho when you want a cold soup in summer.

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