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[email protected] koko@letscook.com is offline
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Default (Mostly) Guilt-Free Potato Soup?

On Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:08:21 -0800, "Bob Terwilliger"
> wrote:

>I want a soup which has the flavor of a baked potato with sour cream and
>chives, but which doesn't have the fat of sour cream or the carbs of
>potatoes. I'm using two ideas as background information for this experiment:
>
>1. The Vegetarian Epicure books use a potato-peel broth as their standard
>stock in soups. It's basically the same ingredients as meat-based stocks,
>but uses potato peels instead of meat.
>
>2. Clarifying soup to make consommé involves something called the "raft":
>Egg whites are whipped and mixed with some form of ground meat (and
>sometimes with eggshells as well). That egg-meat mixture is stirred into a
>cold soup. The soup is heated. As the egg whites coagulate, they form a kind
>of raft which floats to the top of the soup. The raft traps all kind of
>particles inside, so that the remaining broth is clear.
>
>So here's what I'm going to try for two diners: Roast three big russet
>potatoes. Use a knife to remove the peels, including some of the potato
>flesh. Use the remaining potato flesh for something else. (I'll be using it
>to make potato soufflés.) Combine the potato peels with three cups water,
>two tablespoons butter, one chopped onion, one smashed clove garlic, one
>chopped small stalk celery, and a chopped carrot. Simmer for one hour, then
>cool to room temperature and remove the cooked-out vegetables. Stir in a
>quarter-cup of sour cream. Grind one big chicken breast with skin. Beat six
>egg whites briefly, then combine the ground chicken and egg whites. Add
>chicken-egg combination to soup pot and stir to combine. Cook over low heat,
>stirring constantly, until egg whites coagulate and float to the top of the
>pot. Continue to cook another 15 minutes undisturbed. (Do not allow to boil,
>or the sour cream will curdle.) Remove raft using a skimmer, then pour
>through a fine strainer to catch any particles of eggs which may have
>dislodged from the raft. Skim off any fat from the top of the broth.
>Sprinkle with chives when serving.
>
>I'm *hoping* that the baked-potato flavor comes through, and that the raft
>traps most of the fat. I think that there will still be some carbs in the
>soup, because some starch will come out of the potato peels, but it
>shouldn't be nearly as high as normal potato soup. I'll be interested to see
>how thick the resulting soup is, and whether the raft can clarify the sour
>cream component.
>
>Has anybody here ever tried that kind of thing?
>
>Bob
>

I've heard of that but have never tried it myself. I think the only
thing I would do different would be to clarify the stock before adding
anything else.

koko
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