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If you’re trying to make potato soup that contains other vegetables, whether it’s a classic potato soup with onions and celery or a cold potato soup like vichyssoise with leeks, balancing the flavors of all these ingredients should be top of mind. How do you do that? We spoke to chef Matthew Ryle, author of a new cookbook, French Classics: Easy and Elevated Dishes to Cook at Home, and the answer lies in when you add the spuds to the soup.
“Once your vegetables have been gently sweated and have given up their flavor, that is the moment to bring in the potatoes,” Ryle said. The sweating process uses steam to soften without browning, releasing aromas and flavors into the broth.
Ryle continued, “There is little to gain from sweating [potatoes]; potatoes don’t soften through gentle heat, they need to be simmered to become tender.” Adding them too early will do nothing but take attention away from the other vegetables like leeks, which he calls the “true flavor builders” of the soup’s base. The exact timeframe will likely vary based on the soup’s recipe, but in general, vegetables only need a few minutes (or 10 minutes to be thorough) to sweat out. Then you’ll add the potatoes.
Don’t wait too long to add the potatoes into the soup
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That said, you don’t want to wait too long to add potatoes either, and not just because properly cooked potatoes will taste better. This is because potatoes add something else besides flavor: starch. According to Matthew Ryle, “Potatoes should cook in the soup itself; as they simmer, they release starch, lending a natural creaminess that no amount of extra dairy can quite replicate.”
Starch is a well-known method for thickening a runny soup, and both bread and starchy veggies can make soup creamier without dairy or cornstarch. Potatoes are especially starchy and can easily thicken soup if you give it 20 minutes or so to release starch into the broth.
What type of potatoes work best? Ryle gave a few examples: “For blended soups, a floury potato such as a Maris Piper works beautifully. It breaks down willingly and thickens the broth without turning gluey.” Maris Piper potatoes are a British variety which aren’t common in the U.S. compared to similar floury potatoes like russets. For more chunky and “rustic” soups, he suggested a waxy variety like Charlotte potatoes to hold their shape in the soup more easily (these are also more commonly found in British markets, but gold potatoes and red potatoes are similarly waxy).
Dining and Cooking