🇺🇸 United States · New York (Ritz-Carlton), from a French leek and potato soup
VichyssoiseCold leek and potato soup
A cold, creamy purée of leeks and potatoes in chicken stock with cream, served ice cold with chives; created by the French chef Louis Diat at the Ritz-Carlton in New York from his mother's hot leek and potato soup.
Origin and history
Vichyssoise was created by the French chef Louis Diat at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, who by his own account first made it in 1917 from his mother's hot leek and potato soup, cooled with cold milk. It was on the menu year-round from 1923, as crème vichyssoise glacée, named for Vichy near his home. The earliest print dates from 1927.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 4 h
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 4 large (about 700 g)4 large (about 1.5 lb) leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced, washed well
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 40 g3 tbsp butter
- 450 g1 lb floury potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
- 1 litre4 1/4 cups light chicken stock
- 250 ml1 cup whole milk
- 250 ml1 cup heavy cream, plus a little for stirring in
- salt and white pepper, to taste
- 3 tbsp chopped chives, to serve
Method
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1. Melt the butter in a large pot over low heat and cook the leeks and onion for 10 minutes until soft, without letting them brown.
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2. Add the potatoes and stock, bring to a boil, then simmer for 25 minutes until the potatoes fall apart when pressed.
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3. Add the milk and warm it through for 2 minutes.
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4. Purée the soup until perfectly smooth, then pass it through a fine sieve into a bowl.
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5. Season well, as chilling dulls salt. Let it cool, then stir in the cream.
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6. Chill for at least 3 hours, until ice cold.
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7. Taste again for salt, thin with a little cold milk if it is too thick, and serve in chilled bowls with chives.
Notes
- Use only the white and pale green of the leeks; dark green gives a grassy colour and flavour.
- Diat's version was strained twice, with the cream added after the second straining; the double sieving is what gives the silk texture.
- Served hot, the same soup is the French leek and potato soup it was adapted from; as a cold soup it counts here as its own dish.
- In warm weather serve over a little crushed ice. Make it a day ahead; it keeps three days.
- Vegetable stock can replace chicken stock, though the soup then departs from the classic.
- Diat's printed version of 1957 used 4 leeks, 1 onion, 5 potatoes, 1 litre of broth or water, 2 cups of milk and 3 cups of cream in all for 8 servings; the proportions here are scaled to 6 and slightly leaner. His earliest published recipe (1927) lightly browned the leeks and used white consommé instead of plain stock.
- The name has stuck even though 'Vichy' later became tied to the wartime French government; in 1941 some chefs tried to rename it crème gauloise, but Diat's name for it endured.
Adapted from Edible Manhattan, on Louis Diat's vichyssoise and Bonjour Paris, French cooking: vichyssoise.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.