Cheesy Creamy Potato-Ham Soup
This recipe expands on Grove's Potato Soup, adding leftover ingredients common after winter holidays. You can vary many ingredients depending on what you have on hand.
This recipe expands on Grove's Potato Soup, adding leftover ingredients common after winter holidays. You can vary many ingredients depending on what you have on hand.
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 1 quart heavy cream
- 2 whole yellow onion diced
- 6 whole carrot peeled and chopped
- 6 whole celery ends removed, chopped
- 1/2 lb butter
- 10 whole potato peeled and diced
- 1 tablespoon dried sage
- 2 teaspoons dried nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons parsely
- 1 lb cheddar cheese shredded
- 1 whole ham steak rind removed, diced
- Carbohydrate 24.0125512525057 g
- Cholesterol 358.082689285137 mg
- Fat 81.3949218463094 g
- Fiber 3.64784754956651 g
- Protein 77.9975328848693 g
- Saturated Fat 32.1122330949915 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (583g)
- Sodium 802.365307688331 mg
- Sugar 20.3647037029392 g
- Trans Fat 6.27625215112542 g
- Calories 1152 calories
Step-by-step
- Prepare (chop, dice, etc.) all ingredients before beginning the actual cooking.
- Melt the butter in a large stock pot, and sauté the onions and garlic first, until onions are almost translucent. Add Carrots and Celery and continue sautéing for about 8-10 minutes over reduced heat until tender.
- Add the Chicken Broth and Potatoes, all the Spices, and one tablespoon of the Parsley. Vary Spices according to taste. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to keep bottom from burning. Reduce heat, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- If you have a hand blender, use this to purée all of the ingredients. If you do not, do this in a food processor or blender. Due to the amount of soup, you will probably need to do this in stages.
- With the now-puréed mixture in (or returned to) the large stock pot, raise the heat a bit, and slowly pour in the Quart of Heavy Cream (you can substitute Half and Half if that's what's in the Fridge. Stir. Then add the Shredded Cheddar (or other preferred cheese) and stir, until all the cheese is melted, and the Cream and cheese are well blended with the rest.
- Add diced ham, and stir again to mix all thoroughly.
- Heat thoroughly (no need to boil), serve, and garnish each bowl with parsley.
- Due to dairy contents, refrigerate as soon as any leftover soup has cooled.
- Not only is this a hearty and delicious soup, it also works well as a hot topping for many kinds of open faced sandwiches. We used it on pulled pork, and it could supplement other foods.
Velvety ribbons of melted cheddar bind smoothly with heavy cream, yielding a thick, velvety broth that coats the back of a spoon without feeling leaden. Achieving this consistency requires careful management of starches and dairy, starting with the mirepoix. Sautéing the onions, carrots, and celery in half a pound of butter over medium-low heat for ten minutes breaks down their cellular walls completely, ensuring they dissolve into the broth rather than remaining fibrous after blending. Dice the ten pounds of potatoes uniformly to half-inch cubes so they soften within the exact fifteen-minute simmer window specified by the stock-to-boil ratio. The primary hazard with heavy dairy soups is scorching at the base of the stockpot during the final stage. Once the quart of heavy cream and the shredded cheddar enter the pot, drop the burner heat below medium and stir constantly with a heat-resistant spatula to prevent milk solids from burning against the metal. Process the cooked vegetable base in batches using an immersion blender until completely smooth before incorporating the dairy, because adding cheese and cream to chunky vegetables produces a grainy texture rather than a silken emulsion. Crusty sourdough bread provides the necessary acidic crunch to cut through the rich fat content of the soup, while roasted green vegetables offer a bright, sulfurous counterpoint to the heavy dairy. Store leftovers in shallow containers below four degrees Celsius within two hours of cooking, as high-fat dairy preparations spoil rapidly at room temperature.
