The birth of this recipe starts standing in the garden, dubiously eying a patch of overgrown perennial herbs overflowing into the driveway. I had just been informed that this patch of earth had once been a culinary garden.
“See this,” my dad said, plucking a large floppy leaf from a low-lying plant and tearing it in two. “I think it’s sorrel.” He chewed on it with a confirmatory “mmh,” and handed me the other half. I nibbled gingerly on the edge of the leaf and grimaced. It tasted like sour apples.
“What about the other ones?” I asked, gesturing to the mass of greenery. He shrugged and left me standing there, half-chewed sorrel in hand, before I could ask him anything else.
Had my grandmother planted these, or had they been there before? I struggled to accept the former possibility; other than a sprinkling of chives or spring onions, I cannot recall herbs being a common feature in my grandmother’s cooking. Garlic was to be avoided, and onions were slowly simmered in cream until the last pungent compounds had evaporated, replaced by the sweetness of caramelized sugars.
Over the next few days, I collected samples from the plants, rubbed them between my fingers, inhaled their aroma, and finally tasted them. I flipped through an illustrated guide to herbs and spices, and matched the images and tasting notes.
Some were easy to identify. The tall purple fronds, for example, other than their unusual colour, matched my sensory experience of supermarket fennel. Others were harder, like the leafy stems with the slightly musty, camphoraceous fragrance, that were too mild, in my opinion, to be oregano, but did not match any picture I could find of marjoram or thyme.
And then there was a tall, lush monster, well over 6 feet tall, that loomed over all the others. Chewing on the leaves produced a taste reminiscent of celery and parsley, very pronounced and mildly spicy. Looking through my guidebook, my eyes stopped on a picture that looked very much like my mystery plant, albeit a tame, well-groomed version of it. Lovage. It was such a familiar name on my tongue, yet with no referent in my lived experience. It conjured images in my mind of Medieval gardens and of dusty apothecary jars, not of a plant I had walked by nearly every day for the past five years.
I immediately wanted to use it. There was so much of it, after all. I could make enough pesto with it to last me an entire year. But I also had a large piece of taro root leftover from making Cardamom Coconut Dessert, so I decided to dream up a recipe that would put both plants to use. How my mind jumped to vichyssoise is not obvious or clear, even to me, but I can retrospectively divulge that this was one of my better ideas!
Classic Vichyssoise
Vichyssoise, according to Le Grand Larousse Gastronomique (2007 edition), is a thick soup (potage) made with butter-sweated leeks simmered with potatoes until the latter are tender, and then pureed, cooled and served with crème fraiche and finely chopped chives. Although the origins of the soup are clearly French, the dish was actually invented in New York in the early 20th century. Cookbook author Leah Koenig, writing for Politico, explains:
The dish was created by a chef named Louis Diat, who modeled it after a beloved leek and potato soup his doting mother made him as a boy growing up in Montmarault, France. In 1910, the 25-year-old Diat moved to New York to be chef de cuisine at the just-opened Ritz-Carlton hotel. Seven years later, he offered his first bowl of crème vichyssoise glacée to hotel diners. The soup was a feat of seasonal magic making. Diat’s mother’s version had been served like most soups are: warm. But according to Diat’s 1957 obituary in the New York Times, “The hotel took special pride in its summer roof-garden restaurant, and [Monsieur] Louis worked hard at dishes to tempt appetites stunned by New York summers.” His ingenious solution was to take the hearty potage of his youth, thin it with ample amounts of milk and cream, and serve it chilled. He named the dish after Vichy, the well-known spa near his hometown.
Indeed, Diat’s recipe, in a version that serves 8 to 10, includes four tablespoons of butter, two cups of whole milk, two cups of half-and-half, and one cup of heavy cream. If only there were more cooks today who used dairy fat so liberally, and more eaters who revelled in it, fearlessly, like the New Yorkers of the early 20th century.
Customers were immediately delighted. A 1950 New Yorker profile of Diat reported that he “put [the soup] on the menu every evening that summer, and every summer thereafter. He took it off during the cold weather, but got so many requests for it in all temperatures…that in 1923, he put it on year-round.”
Un-Classic Vichyssoise
Unsurprisingly, at least to regular readers of my blog, my own version of the French-American cold soup brings in influences from the Far East. Inspired by this recipe by chef David Myers, which I found while searching if anyone else had ever served lovage with vichyssoise (many had!), I decided to include a touch of Japanese miso paste in the dish, which I thought would pair wonderfully with the taro root and leeks. Soon after I had made that decision, my recipe was soon infiltrated by a handful of other usual suspects from my Japanese pantry. The synergy was perfect, each ingredient adding a layer of depth to the dish without overpowering it with the flavour stamp of Japanese cuisine.
Miso, dashi, shio koji and saké all add complexity to the flavour of the leeks and butter without betraying themselves to the unsuspecting taster (none of my guinea pigs were able to identify the secret ingredients). Creamy, rich and refreshing, each bite delights and mystifies, leaving the eater grasping to solve the enigma of its composition.
Joëlle
Serves 2 (as a main), 8 (as an appetizer)
Subtly layered with traditional Japanese seasonings, and topped with crème fraiche and lovage purée, this cold leek and taro soup delights ad mystifies -- a modern twist on a French-American classic!
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Ingredients
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup sliced leeks, white and light green part only
- 2 tbsp saké
- 1 cup peeled and diced taro root
- 1 tbsp shio koji
- 1 cup dashi
- 1 tbsp white miso paste
- 1/2 cup lovage leaves and stems
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tsp shio koji
- 2 tsp white miso
- 1 tsp rice vinegar
- Lovage leaves
- Lovage Miso Puree (see above)
- Crème fraiche
Instructions
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add in leeks and cook them until soft, but not brown.
- Add saké, diced taro root, shio koji and dashi and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, partially covered, until the taro cubes are soft and cooked through, about 10-12 minutes. Check by piercing a few of the larger cubes with a fork.
- Remove from the heat and stir in miso, mashing it with a fork against the sides of the saucepan and then mixing it in.
- Empty the mixture into blender and blend until smooth. Alternatively, use a stick blender, and purée the mixture directly in the saucepan. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool, first on your counter, and then in the fridge.
- While the soup is cooling, add all of the ingredients for the lovage miso purée to a blender and blend until smooth.
- When you are ready to serve, spoon the soup into soup bowls and drizzle each bowl with a bit of lovage purée. Garnish with a generous dollop of crème fraiche and a few fresh lovage leaves.
Notes
Shio koji (塩麹) is a lacto-fermented mixture of rice koji (rice inoculated with aspergillus oryzae spore -- the basis for many well-know Japanese ferments such as miso, sake and soy sauce). It provides enzymes and probiotics while imparting the dish with a unique umami flavour. You can substitute sea salt, himalayan salt or fish sauce. To learn more about shio koji, how to make it at home, and how to use it in the kitchen, click here. If you can't find lovage, you can use celery leaves or parsley instead (or a mix of both!)
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Inspiration
Flint, Jessica. (2009, July 9). David Myers’s Vichyssoise with Miso, Scallop, and Lovage Puree. Vanity Fair. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2009/07/david-myerss-vichyssoise-with-miso-scallop-and-lovage-puree
References
Koenig, L. (2013, January 3). Lost Foods of New York City: Vichyssoise. Politico. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2013/01/lost-foods-of-new-york-city-vichyssoise-067223
Robuchon, J. (2007). Le grand Larousse gastronomique. Paris: Larousse.
