Title: Creme Vichyssoise
Categories: Famous Soup
Yield: 8 Servings

4		Leeks; whit only
1	md	Onion
2	oz	Sweet butter
5	md	Potatoes
1	qt	Water; or chicken stock
1	tb	Salt
2	c	Milk
2	c	Medium apples; cream
1	c	Heavy cream
		Chives; optional

* Chef Louis Diat (1885-1957) Louis Diat served as Chef de cuisine at the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York from its opening in 1910 to its closing 41 years later. Diat created such fine new dishes as breast of guinea hen Jefferson (guinea hen with ham, creamed tomatoes, wild rice fritters and a whisky sauce) and chicken Gloria Swanson (sauteed chicken cooked in white wine and cream, served with creamed mushrooms and garnished with rice and truffles). His most famous invention was a simple soup that has become a classic in America. In the days before air conditioning, the Ritz had a Japanese roof garden and Diat was constantly on the lookout for dishes that would cool his customers in the sultry July and August weather. He remembered the simple bourgeois hot leek and potato soup his mother made when he was a boy in Montmarauly in Central France and how he and his family had cooled the soup by adding milk to it. And so on the rooftop of the Ritz he prepared this same cold soup and called it Creme Vichyssoise, after the famous spa not far from his hometown. Source: Classic French Cooking by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey

CREME VICHYSSOISE

Finely slice the white part of the leeks and the onion and brown very lightly in sweet butter, then add the potatoes, also sliced finely. Add water or broth and salt. Boil 35 to 40 minutes. Crush and rub through a fine strainer. Return to heat and add 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of medium cream. Season to taste and bring to a boil. Cool and then rub again through a fine strainer. When soup is cold, add the heavy cream. Chill thoroughly before serving. Finely chopped chives may be added.

from the loving heart of Molly

Posted to MM-Recipes Digest V4 #6

Recipe by: Chef Louis Diat (1885-1957) *

previous

next