Vichyssoise from ‘Audrey at Home’
Photo courtesy of the Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection
From Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Audrey at Home by Luca Dotti
Vichyssoise
Serves 4
As is often the case for the best dishes, the source for vichyssoise is nostalgia—for a childhood taste and a distant home.
In the summer of 1917, Louis Diat, the renowned chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, was very worried about his native France, disheartened by war. His memory thus incessantly returned to a hot summer, many years earlier, when he and his older brother had cooled down their grandmother’s traditional leek and potato soup, pouring in a bit of milk.
That soup for him was akin to the madeleine that Marcel Proust had dipped in his tea. Only Louis Diat was a chef, not a writer. Instead of going “in search of lost time,” he gave the rediscovered dish the name of the city (Vichy) closest to his native Montmarault.
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 leek hearts (white parts)
3 ½ tablespoons (50 g) unsalted butter
1 quart (1 l) chicken broth
2 potatoes, diced
1 tablespoon (3 g) finely chopped chives
Freshly grated nutmeg
Worcestershire sauce
½ cup (120 ml) cream
Cook finely sliced onion and leek hearts in butter over a very low heat for 15 minutes. Add the broth, potatoes, chives, and nutmeg and Worcestershire sauce to taste and continue to cook for another 30 minutes. Pour in the cream and blend everything together. Cool in the refrigerator for at least four hours. Purists suggest preparing it one day ahead.
Reprinted with permission from Audrey at Home: Memories of My Mother’s Kitchen by Luca Dotti (Harper Design).
More creamy soups to love:
Chilled Avocado and Yogurt Soup Recipe
Blue Crab and Chipotle Bisque Recipe From ‘The Domestic Man’
