Brrr. . . it’s freezing outside, and soup’s the perfect food to warm body and soul. So when I saw a hundred-year-old recipe for Cream of Onion and Potato Soup, I decided to give it a try.
The soup was lovely. It was creamy, comforting, and flavorful.
Here’s the original recipe:
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Cream of Onion and Potato Soup
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes (about 2 1/2 cups cubes potatoes)
5 medium onions, coarsely chopped (about 2 1/2 cups chopped onions)
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
4 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
parsley sprigs (for garnish)
1 hard boiled egg (for garnish)
Put the cubed potatoes and chopped onions into a large saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil using high heat; reduce heat and simmer until tender (about 12-15 minutes). Remove from heat and cool slightly, then puree. (A food processor or blender works well.) Set aside.
In the meantime, put the butter in a Dutch oven or other similarly-sized pan; melt butter using medium heat. Stir in the flour, then gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Add the salt and pepper, then stir in the pureed vegetables. Bring to a boil while stirring occasionally. When served, if desired, the soup may be garnished with parsley sprigs and slices of a hard-boiled egg.
I love that this suggests using leftover vegetables!
Sounds delicious, and I like your twists!
This is definitely the time of year for leftovers!
“both may be cold left-over vegetables”. Priceless!
Agree – It’s nice when a left-over can become a planned-over.
Warm and tasty!
This is the time of year for soup and other comfort foods.
It certainly is:)
Was the flavor predominantly onion, since there were so many suggested? Just curious, because I love potato soup, but other than French onion many years ago, I have never had onion soup.
You can definitely taste the onion, but the onion flavor is much more nuanced in this soup than what it is in French Onion Soup.
It looks really good. The hard boiled egg is an unusual addition, although many of our family recipes have hard boiled eggs in them including meatloaf.
I wonder if it was a way to add some protein, as well as a bit of color?
It is a very white soup. The slice of hard-boiled egg (and the parsley) brightened it up and improved the presentation.
Probably, as maybe they had their own chickens or eggs were cheap.
Over the years I’ve made at least one other old soup recipe that called for hard-boiled eggs. It was Celery Chowder, but that recipe called for chopping the hard-boiled eggs and mixing into the soup rather than using as a garnish.
We always made chicken corn soup with the hard-boiled eggs.
This sounds easy and delicious. Thanks for updating and testing. I have to give this a try.
I think that you will like it.
You really have to completely read an old recipe to make sure you’re getting it correctly. When I first read the 100 year old version, I missed that the flour was to mixed with butter. I thought, “Just adding flour to milk would be hard.” After re-reading, I realized the flour and butter were combined to thicken the soup.
It sounds tasty and the hard boiled egg slice makes for a pretty presentation.
Something seems grammatically off with the old recipe when it describes how to combine the flour and butter – and it ends up being confusing. Also, the wording in the old recipe almost seems archaic. I won’t say that the flour should be “rubbed” into the butter. I think that I’d use the term “cut” (though I actually melted the butter and then stirred the flour into it when I made this recipe since I couldn’t think of any reason flour would need to be cut into butter when it was being used to make a soup).
I think they were making beurre manie to act as a thickening agent. I liked your idea of melting the butter and then adding flour. Way less messy!
Makes sense. Your interpretation helps.
Adding the boiled egg is intriguing for a garnish!
I agree. When I made this recipe, I worried that the egg slice might sink, but it didn’t.
love onions…..
You’d like this recipe.