Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and your new year is off to a great start.
My homework over the holiday was to dig into the five or six cookbooks I borrowed from the library and was gifted by my family to come up with some new recipes to try and hopefully share with all of you.
One of those cookbooks was Big Heart Little Stove by Erin French, owner of The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine. When I happened upon her recipe for Fresh Celery Soup and saw the simplicity of its ingredients, I knew it was a recipe I had to try for two reasons. First, I adore celery. I always have it in my bin, and one of my favorite ways to use it is in a salad, something I learned from the “French study abroad mother” of my high school friend, Diane who I once visited at her house in Avignon while on my own semester in Strasbourg. Her “mother’ put celery in the salad she served us forty years ago and I have been adding it to my salads ever since! Second, this is a perfect reset soup after a season of indulgent food and drink. The ingredients are clean, and in fact I’ve made them a touch cleaner by reducing the amount of butter and elminating the heavy cream entirely from the original recipe. Not to worry though, I’ve made note of my changes should you want to take the recipe up a notch, or back to where Erin intended it to be! I also doubled the amount of potato in the recipe as her original quantity of 1 cup left me with half a potato leftover and rather than waste it, I increased the quantity to 2 cups as you will see.
Now, as much as I love celery, it’s true that some of the inner stalks sometimes get a little tired before they get used up. And, as I had two stalks in that situation, I found this first recipe a good match with what I had on hand. Fun fact – during the pandemic I did learn that if you wrap celery tightly and completely in plastic wrap, it will keep much longer (which is true). My mother used to slice it up into spears and keep it in the fridge in a tub of water which also helps to keep it nice and crisp (but takes up space!).
The only ingredients you may not have for the soup are celery seeds (which I keep on hand in case I want to make a slaw) and celery salt (which I also have on hand, not sure I can recall why but it’s a great seasoning agent). Otherwise, all you need are your celery, an onion, a carrot, some garlic and some chicken broth, along with a little bit of olive oil and butter.
When I made the soup, I used just a pinch of bouillion as my homemade stock looked a little anemic. It overpowered the soup just a little so I would not use it again, but taste your soup for seasoning and adjust as you see fit. You can drizzle the finished soup with a little olive oil if you’d like. Erin suggests brown butter, or some lump crabmeat which would make it more of a complete meal and oh so elegant.
So, what do you think? Is this celery and potato soup in your future? Scroll to the bottom to get the recipe…
Here are some other soup recipes on The Kitchen Scout to keep you warm and cozy…
Lemony Chicken Stew with Parsley and Dill
Amy’s Smoked Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Tuscan White Bean and Kale Soup
Katie’s Chicken Tortilla Soup with Black Bean Salsa
Roasted Broccoli and Parmesan Soup
This recipe is adapted slightly from "Fresh Celery Soup" in Big Heart Little Stove by Erin French. Erin's recipe uses 2 additional tablespoons of butter and 1/2 cup of heavy cream, but I like a very veggie forward soup so chose to omit those. Feel free to add then back in for a little luxury if you choose! This is a great soup to use up those inner sections of celery that often get abandonned in my fridge and satisfies my love of all things celery, using the vegetable, seeds and salt! Enjoy.
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon celery seeds
- 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cups chopped celery (from about 1 bunch), leaves reserved for garnish
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 cup chopped carrot
- 4 garlic cloves, sliced
- 1 teaspoon celery salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 cups peeled russet potatoes, cut into roughly 2-inch pieces (about 1 potato)
- 5 cups low sodium chick stock
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (see headnote)
Instructions
- Add the celery seeds to a dry, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven set over medium heat. Toast the seeds, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Add the olive oil and stir to coat the seeds and heat the oil. Add the chopped celery, onion, carrot and garlic and season with the celery salt and a few cracks of black pepper. Cook, stirring, until the onions are just translucent, about 5 minutes or so.
- Add the potatoes and season with two good pinches of kosher salt and a few twists of pepper, then give it all a stir. (Note, I did not add salt at this point, but rather used a little chicken bouillion to boost the flavor of my stock). Add the stock and bring the mixture to a slow boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes.
- Add the butter and allow to melt into the warm broth.
- Once slightly cool, puree the soup in batches in a blender until smooth (be careful to vent your blender if the soup is still steaming hot).
- Taste for seasoning and if you want to add a little decadence, go on and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream. I prefer to keep the soup lighter and mostly vegetables!
- Divide the soup among bowls and garnish with the reserved celery leaves.
- Enjoy.
