Pear-tatoe Leek Bisque
Ingredients: (for about 15 bowls)
1 cup Niagara Bosc pears (I'm sure you could substitute Bartletts in here if you were stuck)
5 cups baby yellow spuds
5 cups baby red spuds (both with skin on, its the best part...)
1 cup for drinking out of! and one bottle of Ravine Vineyards 08 Reserve Chardonnay
3 cups chopped Spanish onion
6 unusually large cloves of fresh Niagara garlic finely chopped.
4 cups of leeks from my garden scrubbed and chopped, you'll have to find your own here of course... and I have a fierce guard cat on site so don't even think about it.
4 pieces of peameal bacon (optional)
2 cups of sour cream.
1 cups of cream cheese.
2 cups of heavy cream.
1/4 pound of butter (1 stick).
8 cups of chicken stock.
Salt & Pepper
Process:
(in total it takes a little over an hour of your time to make)
-if you're a vegetarian you can ignore this first part where i prepare the bacon... I still think this soup would be amazing without it, but personally I wanted to get a little bit of that smokey flavour in there.
turn on the oven and set to 400, then pour yourself a glass of the Ravine Vineyards 08 Reserve Chardonnay...(or favourite Niagara white) throw on some opera music, which makes cooking anything that much better...and get ready to do some chopping! I was listened to (http://operamusicbroadcast.com/) which had a very pleasant mix of Italian and German.
put peameal in oven and over cook it so its nice and crispy
in large pot boil the spuds
in a large pan on a medium to low heat Sauté the chopped leeks, onions, and garlic in the butter until tender, add a couple of splashes of the chard here...
chop 2 large Bosc pears
when the peameal is nice and crispy finely chop it and add it to the leeks and onions which should be pretty much set at this point and smelling great!
Add pears to Leek, onion, bacon mix and puree the whole lot in your food processor (time wise, you should probably be on to your second glass of wine at this point)
Now the potatoes should be done, so transfer them into a strainer and then put the chicken stock into the pot on a medium heat
Add the rest of the wine, this will vary depending on how you've been pouring, but it should be just under half the bottle
Add the Leek mix puree to the pot
Mash and puree the potatoes and add them in as well.
Now add 2 cups of sour cream (1 tub), 2 cups of heavy cream and 1 cup of cream cheese.
Bring the pot to a simmer while stirring regularly to blend it, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot, as my grandad always said that’s where the best bits are..
Add Salt & Pepper as desired, Typically I go light on the salt, and very heavy on the ground pepper which seemed to work good, and thats it.... you have yourself a pear-tatoe leek soup!
Notes: in hindsight it would have been nice to have a second bottle of the Chard on hand, delicious!
