A hot bowl of soup warms up a cold evening, which is reason enough to try Italian garlic soup. It is smooth as cream and smells of garlic and leek. The difficulty is that letting the soup boil again after the cream goes in will split it.
The onion, leek, garlic and dried thyme cook for 15 minutes over medium heat to draw out their sweetness before the potatoes and stock go in. Blend the soup until completely smooth, return it to the pot with the parsley and stir for 1 minute.
This batch weighs about 2.8kg, at roughly 99 calories per 100g.
Method
Peel and chop 1 onion, slice 1 leek finely and peel 2 small garlic bulbs and cut them into small pieces. Peel 2 medium potatoes and cut them into bite sized chunks.
Set a pot on the stove with 65ml of olive oil, add the onion, leek, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme, and stir for 15 minutes over medium heat.
Add the potatoes with 1.5 liters of chicken stock, season with salt and pepper, stir, then cover and cook for 25 minutes.
Add 120ml of whipping cream, stir gently over low heat for 1 minute and turn off the heat.
Pour the soup into a blender and blend until smooth, return it to the pot with 60g of chopped parsley, stir over low heat for 1 minute and turn off the heat.
Heat a pan with 60ml of olive oil, fry the 6 slices of cubed bread until golden and crisp, and serve them with the soup.
Tips
Once the whipping cream goes in, the soup must not boil again or it will split.
Croutons are easy to make at home by frying cubes of sandwich bread in butter.
A full 15 minutes of cooking the onion and garlic is what makes the soup naturally sweet.
Blend until completely smooth before returning the soup to the pot, and the texture stays silky.
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