A Vichyssoise For The Lads
And a brand new look...
Hello! This week’s newsletter comes to you dolled up, having had a makeover with the help of designer Ryan MacEachern. Thank you Ryan, for making my vague vision into a swish reality.
Today we have a treat flown in from Melbourne, Australia in the form of Cian’s Vichyssoise. I’m excited to bring you more and more tasty recipes in this slicker format. Enjoy folks…
I often snub French food - perhaps out of a latent embarrassment at my teenage years spent as a Francophile. Perhaps as a reaction to the superiority of the cuisine that likes to think it reigns the food world. It’s a lot of fuss and a lot of cream, I often think.
Cian Fenaughty is my friend of ten years (!) and he is very talented. He is the chef patron of Zsa’s Bar Bistro Deli in Northcote, Melbourne. The good thing is, we can all enjoy Cian’s brilliant food via this recipe. While it does have a lot of cream, it has turned my Franco-prejudice on its head. I was blown away by how simple and impactful this dish is and can’t wait to try it all the ways Chef suggests. The white soy truly brings everything together - it’s available from Sous Chef but also from Japan Centre and many other shops besides, I’m sure.
Cian says:
“This American-French dish was one of my Mum's favourites to make during winter to serve hot, and during summer to serve cold.
When Thea mentioned doing a recipe it seemed like a good idea to use this one as we were serving it at the restaurant and it was (very) hot in London and not so much in Melbourne.”
Cian’s Vichyssoise
50g butter
½ brown onion, sliced thinly
1 leek, sliced thinly
1 large potato, small dice
500ml cream (that’s a little over 1 punnet FYI)
100ml white wine (‘Goon’ is fine)
50ml white soy (shiro shoyu)
Salt
Place a heavy pot on the stove and melt the butter. Add your sliced onion, leek and a pinch of salt, and start to move them around with a wooden spoon. The liquid of the onion and leek should start to leech out and help the vegetables cook slowly without colouring, until they are sweet.
Once the onion and leek are soft, turn the heat up to high, add the wine and boil it down until there is almost no liquid left in the pot. Add your cream then bring to the boil and add your potato. Simmer slowly until the potato is tender (about 12 minutes with a lid ajar).
Once the potato is soft, blend the soup in a blender - a bullet blender works best. (If you don’t have a bullet blender and only have a hand blender, it’s best to finish by passing the soup through a fine strainer, which is fiddly but worth it). Add the white soy, stir, and season to taste. Chill the soup in the fridge and ponder on the options below…
Serving suggestions:
This soup is served cold traditionally, but traditionally it doesn't really have white soy sauce, so you've kind of gone too far wrong already.
Some good ways to finish it as a cold dish are:
Flaked salt cod and dill
A hunk of bread, with a cheeky side of butter
Caviar and espelette pepper
And some ways to finish it when you heat it up:
Clotted cream and thinly sliced chives
Goat’s curd and shaved fennel
Cian’s Vichyssoise Pasta
“At the restaurant we started using this recipe as a pasta sauce to use during truffle season. The fat of the cream and the clean and simple flavours are a great vehicle to carry the intoxicating aroma and flavour of winter truffle. Using cheaper ingredients in this pasta dish means we can give our guests more of what they want - truffle.
The white soy adds a touch of umami which gives it a kind of mac and cheese nostalgia, in a sophisticated way. We use a frying pan when cooking for one to two people - but you may need a larger pot if making for your chosen family. We use 7g of truffle per serve, but anything from 3g upwards is a good start.”
To put together:
Boil your pasta until almost al dente, strain and reserve some pasta water.
Place a few tablespoons of pasta water, the pasta and 3 tablespoons of the vichyssoise per person into your frying pan. Boil down, stirring, until your pasta is cooked and the sauce is thick. Taste for seasoning and the texture of your pasta. When you're happy, place the pasta in your serving bowl and top with freshly cracked black pepper, sliced chives, and…
When I made the pasta, I topped it a couple of ways.
The first was with sliced chives and some smoked trout, and fresh black pepper. It was amazing and reminded me of a bacon and dill pasta dish I am in love with by Nigel Slater. I think it’d work with flaked smoked mackerel or hot smoked salmon too.
The second way was topped with the chives, crispy leek tops (fried in a pan with no salt until crispy), and some truffle salt. The truffle works so well with the sauce, so if - like me - you can’t afford to shell out for an actual truffle for topping, I recommend this stuff! You need just a couple of pinches and it goes so far. When you taste the Vichyssoise with that hit of truffle you will see what Cian means when he says ‘intoxicating’! And I say that as a truffle-sceptic… Whether as a soup or pasta - I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for reading comrades! See you next time.