Hearty Potato Soup
"This is the soup I have been waiting for my whole life," my husband said after tasting this soup. It will satisfy your hunger for the rest of the day. With tons of flavor, and lots of vegetables, I am so glad I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. The original recipe, Russian Mushroom Soup, was featured the other day as "Recipe of the Day." I adapted it a little bit to suit what was available in my pantry, and although it was originally a vegetarian soup, I also added ham. It had some ingredients I was not familiar with, but I discovered they are all very easy to work with. This is probably going to become one of my favorite soup recipes!
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 leek, chopped
3 carrots, sliced
2 cups water
2 cans chicken broth
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
16 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 fully cooked ham steak
8 oz sour cream
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Melt 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in large pot. Add leek and carrots. Sauté for five minutes, then add water and chicken broth. Season with broth with bay leaf, salt, and black pepper. Add potatoes to broth, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaf.
Meanwhile, add ham steak to large skillet. Brown on both sides, about five minutes each, until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Slice into bite-size pieces and add to soup. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon of butter in separate frying pan. Sauté mushrooms about five minutes, until golden and tender, then add to soup.
Combine flour with sour cream, until smooth. Add to soup, stir, and heat through to thicken.
I never knew what a leek was until I discovered this recipe. They have the same flavor as onion, but are long and have tall green stems and little baby roots on the bottom. Remove roots and the top stems, leaving about 1/2 inch of light green at the top. Slice lengthwise in half, then crosswise. If you don't have leek, you can substitute it for one medium onion without a problem. I also have never used bay leaf before. I got a whole canister of them for just about a dollar, and of course I only used one, but I think they flavor added something, and I will certainly use it again in other soups!