Paper Chef #40 - Simplicity

This month's Paper Chef is hosted by April's winner, Bron Marshall. Paper Chef is a culinary challenge where cooks and chefs alike brag and boast showcase their cooking creations using 4 secret ingredients. Challengers have one weekend to star in their own kitchen stadium, like an Iron Chef, to cook for an international internet audience, and to write about their experience.

Bron, with the help of 2 beautiful fairies, randomly picked the secret ingredients:

Prosciutto
Floury Potatoes
Thyme
Mother’s Day

... the fourth ingredient selected for Mother's Day is STOCK. A good stock makes a great difference to a dish. Most people can identify with the labour of love that goes into creating the heart and soul of a meal. Stock making clearly reminds of a motherly figure bent over a stove carefully skimming off the fat. Without this skimming, we won't be light as fairies!

Since parents of baby boomers go through post war frugality, the dish presented for the challenge is titled Simplicity, a deconstructed vichyssoise, a French potato and leek cream soup. The dish is served as a creamy base with components of the soup: onion, leek, potato, thyme, and molded jellied stock (not shown here). The soup is usually served chilled, but can be heated. To serve warm, omit the jellied stock or set the stock with translucent starches like water chestnut or potato.



Soup
1 leek, cut into 2 cm lengths
2 floury potatoes, peeled
1 waxy potato, peeled
1 L chicken stock
1 onion
1 garlic
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs of thyme
1 teaspoon green peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 pickling onion
1 cup milk (or 150 mL cream)
2 tablespoon butter (omit if using cream)

To make the soup, bring to boil all ingredients except milk and butter. Simmer for 1 hour. Remove the pickling onion, waxy potato and green leek parts after 15 minutes.

When the soup is ready, remove the bay leaf. Add butter and milk. Puree in a blender until smooth and creamy. Chill if serving cold.



For serving
1 stalk spring onion
8 slices prosciutto
1/2 cup jellied stock (boosted by pork rind)
1/2 teaspoon gelatin, if required
4 sprigs of fresh thyme

Cut the spring onion into decorative strips. Use iced water to curl.

Cut the prosciutto into 1 cm wide strips. Wind the prosciutto strips around a thin roll of baking paper shaped like a chopstick. Microwave on high for 30-45 seconds until crisp. Slide off the baking paper.

Heat the jellied stock, adding gelatin if needed. Pour into flexible ice cube molds and chill. Use star molds to appease Bron's fairies. Omit the jellied stock if serving the soup warm. The stock can also be set in water chestnut flour or potato starch to avoid melting.



Assembly
Pour the soup into shallow serving dishes. Add waxy potato cube, halved pickling onion, fresh sprig of thyme, molded jellied stock, and a slice of green leek. Place prosciutto chopsticks over the dish as shown. Garnish with spring onion.