Potato with hamon

Welcome Friends welcome back to the kitchen welcome back to another episode of what was on sale at the grocery store today um and so not sure when this is going to come out I've got a bit of a backlog of the editing that I need to take care of this is the first week of January so we're in the first week back after the holidays and today when I went to the grocery store they had more cream still on sale this was uh half price and they had these little hams now I know this is a formed ham and it's a pale shadow of a real ham but even so I love them absolutely love them that's a kilo and a half so just about three pounds um and it was five bucks so that's going to make soup for today and for lunches the rest of the week and it'll end up on tomorrow's dinner table with uh scalloped potatoes and maybe a braised cabbage or something so. I got my pot really hot uh probably too hot I put in some bacon fat to that I'm going to add celery and onion and we're just going to saute that a little bit to soften them up foreign a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper to that as well to taste so for five bucks that ham will feed.

Julie and I for four or five days cream is half price you don't have to use cream in this recipe you could use regular milk that would be fine it would taste just fine next is potato I'm gonna put the potato in at this point and that's that's just a mix of different potatoes that I had in the cold room um some of them were baking potatoes some of them were waxy potatoes a mix I like how. I like how they break down differently and they bring something different to the soup I find that all one potato doesn't please me I like a mix of potatoes just like when I make other things with beans I'll use a mix of different types of beans because they all bring different textures and flavors to the finished dish okay next in goes the ham and I've just diced that up get that all in the pot and then some chicken stock and we'll just give this a stir and I'll put the lid on now I'm really careful with how much salt I put in at the beginning the chicken stock is going to bring some salt the ham definitely going to bring some salt the Bacon fat that I started with definitely going to have some salt so I go really easy on the salt at the beginning and I'll taste it later on I'm going to put the lid on this now. I'm going to bring it to a simmer.

I'm going to simmer this for maybe about a half an hour just until the potatoes are fork tender and then we'll move on to the next step okay uh not quite ready yet but I can start moving on so we're gonna need to thicken this soup um and I'm going to do that using a burmeniere which is equal parts butter and flour the idea is that the butter you mash the butter and the flour together so I'm going to start that process I'll put in about half and I'll start mashing it together the butter coats the flour the fat coats the flour and so when you mix it in it doesn't clump and so then the flour gently thickens your sauce or your soup in this case and the butter adds just an incredible gloss to the sauce or soup so I just keep mashing this together until I get a nice paste formed and this is pretty standard in French cooking for centuries absolutely centuries this goes back.

Okay so we've got something that looks pretty much like pie dough add sugar to that and it's pie dough I think this should be ready at this point pull up one oh yeah pot's hot and the potatoes are done so it's going to take a little bit of the birminge and put it in a little bit at a time stir it around and it will thicken up the soup so put in maybe a tablespoon to start with maybe a tablespoon and a half and we'll just stir that and as the butter melts the flour will start to thicken it and it melts in really quickly the potatoes are going to thicken it a little bit too those baking potatoes those flowery potatoes and just keep stirring it in and when you get to that point where you think it's not quite thick enough yet but it's almost there stop because you don't want to go too far this is one of those situations where as it continues to cook it will thicken more and if you get it to the right thickness and then you cook it for another 20 minutes it's going to be too thick so just one of those little things in the kitchen that you have to be mindful of and that after you've done it a few times.

It'll be second nature so I'm going to say that looks really good to me I'm going to leave it at that level of thickness for the moment and I used about two-thirds of the bermeniere that I made this last little bit put it in a container stick it in the freezer and you can use it a month from now two months from now it'll keep really well in the freezer and it's the kind of thing where you can make it ahead of time in a log I know I've said this before make it in a log wrap it up and then just slice off pieces as you need it so you don't have to make it every time you need it you just go to the freezer and get some.

I'm going to add in some corn because why not I really like corn broccoli peas edamame all of those things are things that I would throw in this soup and really enjoy and then the last ingredient is some cream so we've got this container of cream and we're going to pour that in and in that goes and we'll just stir it all together this is on a very gentle Heat and put the lid on and just leave that go until Julie gets home from work foreign friends Glenn convinced me that I can't just eat cookies for dinner and that we really should taste the soup we're gonna try our soup and see how good I mean it looks really good but those cookies were really good so parsley would be really good on the top of this too as a garnish yes. I don't know. I don't know yet maybe I'm thinking I'm thinking parsley would make a great garnish it looks a lot like corn soup like the corn soup we always make you're smiling in that strange way that.

I don't know what to expect okay give it a go it tastes very similar to the corn soup we usually make it's almost like the hot dog soup we make yes that's what I meant I meant the hot dog soup yeah Gordon it's got corn in it corn and hot dogs yeah it has a very that's what I was thinking sorry wrong title so go back on the channel there's a hot dog soup that I that I made on the channel and it is a can of. Campbell's mushroom soup a can of cream of celery soup hot dogs onions bacon celery potatoes this is essentially that soup made from scratch with ham instead of hot dogs but hot dogs would fit in this perfectly perfect a little bit of hot sauce it could stand a little bit of hot sauce like some. Frank's Red Hot or something other than that it's pretty good it's um a little bit of parsley on top to finish it this is good soup I mean I really like this soup okay cookies no it's not cookies so really easy and if what you go to the grocery store and find tomorrow is hot dogs on sale make the soup there you go thanks for stopping by see you again soon..