Leek & Leftover Baked Potato Soup

Try not to eat ALL the baked potatoes you make (slathered in butter) the night (or five nights) before; after all, you made 10 and you live alone. Nb: the recipe also works with leftover roast potatoes, and the only day there are EVER leftover roast potatoes is Boxing Day, so we’re just in time

Fry a ludicrous number of whole garlic cloves until gloriously golden and a pinch or two of cumin seeds in an overtly abundant mix of olive oil and butter, add two or three roughly but finely chopped leeks (washed free of mugs and bud - wait - mud and bugs), green and white bits, salted, until soft and sticky, add pepper and a load of roughly chopped baked/roast tatties, skin and all. Sweatily cook until a bit softer. The cooked potatoes can be crispy or stale or hard or old or chewy or crumbly or meh, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter a jot what they’re like unless they’re mouldy, in which case bin ‘em, but you’re not an idiot. Are you an idiot?

Side note: golden garlic and potato skin will make the soup go slightly freckled, but only a serial killer cares about their soup being WHITE AS DRIVEN SNOW ❄️

Pour over lashings of stock (I used chicken, vegetable is fine) to cover, simmer for a bit until everything is soft and luxuriant and still very wet, add a whole load of double cream (mixed with milk if you wish), and blend until silky smooth in a really good blender (I used a thermomix which makes it like silk; a hand blender is fine if that’s all you have)

Taste for seasoning, add s&p if you need, and top with water if you want it runnier

Top with whatever you fancy for some oomph and some contrast. I used homemade kimchi (recipe over on @themuffkitchen), @brindisaspanishfoods olive oil and Jerusalem artichoke crisps (unpeeled, mandolinned, deep-fried, seasoned) and it was fancy AF 👑