The Guy's Kitchen

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Every year at Thanksgiving I make this soup, well except for this year, we had Thanksgiving at my brother’s home and he didn’t want me to make anything.  I found the original recipe in the LCBO’s Food and Drink magazine, the Holiday 1997 edition.  I have misplaced the magazine and now I just wing it when making the soup.  The recipe is something like this:

4-6 med/large sweet potatoes chopped into 1 inch cubes (about 6 cups)

2-3 leeks chopped, white and light green parts only (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 large carrot chopped (1 cup)

6 cups of chicken or veggie stock

1 tablespoon of cumin

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons of fresh ginger chopped

Zest of 2 limes chopped

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup of cream (for a very rich soup use 18% cream, for more healthy use half and half)

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of canola oil

Kosher Salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

The vegetables can be very roughly chopped, this soup is pureed so you do not need to worry about presentation at this point, you just want everything to cook at the same time.

Melt the butter with the canola oil in a large stock pot.  Once melted add leeks, carrots, a pinch of kosher salt (maybe a half teaspoon or so) and about the same of fresh cracked black pepper, you are not looking to add colour to these just want them to be soft and start to go translucent.  Add the cumin, cayenne, lime zest and ginger and sweat a little longer.  Once you can really smell the spices add the sweet potatoes and stir them around getting them coated with all that leeky spicy mixture.

After 3-5 minutes add the chicken stock, you want to just cover the vegetables, if you need to you can add some water.  Bring to a boil and if necessary skim the crud that can float to the surface.  Reduce heat to a medium simmer and let it cook until the potatoes are nice and tender, approx 20-30 minutes.  Test for seasoning at this point.  Depending on how salty your stock is you may need to add some more salt and pepper.

Once the soup is cooked it’s time to puree.   You can use an imersion or stick blender if you have one.  Make sure you get all the big chunks, you want the soup to be smooth.  If you are using a traditional blender be very careful when pureeing the soup.  Do not fill the blender to the top I wouldn’t go much over half full, and when you start the blender up make sure you put a folded kitchen towel over top of the lid.  Hot liquids expand when you blend them and not only can this make a huge mess, it can be dangerous!  Puree the soup in batches until you have it all smooth.

At this point you can cool and store the soup in the fridge, I often make this the day before Thanksgiving dinner.  When you are ready to serve slowly heat the soup, over med-low heat.  The soup is really thick and the bottom can get super hot and then start to spurt out of the pot.  I burned my hand during a soup geyser incident one year.  Stir the soup as it is heating to prevent this.

Once the soup is hot and just before you serve it, add in the lime juice stir it in to incorporate well. You can add the cream to the whole pot of soup and stir it in, or you can add a little to each serving and do a little swirl pattern.

This soup is always a huge hit at our Thansgiving/Christmas dinners and there are rarely any leftovers.