Potato soup with bayleaf

When I think of home cooking I always think of simple dishes prepared with love, with home grown ingredients. No recipe, just adding things as I go, and having a slightly different outcome every time. However, I'm so bad at making my kids cook with me, that when a total stranger asked for the recipe, I decided that this simple dish deserves to be saved in this online cacophony of recipes, given that it is a family favorite.

The biggest compliment I ever received for it was from the husband of a friend, from the former Hungarian territories that were attached to Serbia. He was from a Slavic minority, bunjevac, from the Bácska region. He said: "It taste just like my grandma's...". Who was Hungarian. It shows how food unites us across borders, centuries of tormented history, and how mixed our families, heritage and roots are. It strengthened my determination to raise my kids on Hungarian food, to give them a feeling of belonging for a lifetime. I guess I succeeded :), my youngest refused some fish tacos this morning in favor of my potato soup :D.

Now off to the recipe.

Ingredients

3 pounds of red potatoes, pealed, cut in about 1 inch size cubes

8 cups of liquid. This particular soup had 3 cups chicken stock and 5 cups water (I use everything from 8 cups plain water, to any combination of water to broth)

4 bay leaves

1 small bunch of parsley (replace with 1 tbsp dry parsley, or even better, my favorite 1 tbsp lovage aka lestyán in Hungarian)

1 small-medium yellow onion

1 medium to large tomato (any you use in salad will work, I prefer the juicy ones) 

1 pepper, whole or just the core with the seeds and eat the rest in a sandwich (you can use more cores if you had leftovers)

1/4 cup of vinegar (or more if you like), salt, pepper to taste

2 cups of milk

paprika powder

dash of oil (~5 tbsp) + 3 tbsp flour for the rough 

sour cream for serving

Roux 

In a small pan heat the oil, add the flour, and let it brown to a light golden color. The consistency should be of a smooth, soft paste. Remove from the heat, and add 1 tbsp paprika powder (or 2 if you like).

Soup

Peel the potatoes, rinse them well, and place them in a minimum 4 quart pot with the broth, water, and 1 tsp salt. The amount of salt will have to be adjusted depending on how salty your broth is. 

Add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, bay leaves, the onion, the tomato (remove the stem part), the pepper core (or whole) and the parsley bunch (reserve some for later to add fresh). Boil for 15 to 18 minutes. Add the rough, and boil for 3 more minutes. Make sure the potatoes are done, but not overdone.

Chop in the remaining parsley, and add the 2 cups of milk. I usually add some of the hot soup to the milk in a separate bowl to lightly heat it up before adding it to the hot soup to reduce the chance of crumbling. Boil for 2 more minutes.

Remove the onion, the pepper core, tomato skin, and the bay leaves. Let is cool slightly stirring occasionally to prevent the formation of the skin on the top.

In a small bowl add 1-2 ladles of hot soup to the 1/4 cup vinegar and pour it back into the pot. Again, both the cooling and the pre-heating of the vinegar is just to prevent the milk from crumbling.

Serve with fresh bread (country style or sourdough are the best, but whole wheat, rye, all will work) and 1 tsp of sour cream per serving.

We had German rye bred from a local bakery, Prager's brothers, who must be baking the only good bread in the city, apart of the homemade, of course.

I also love to serve freshly and thinly sliced, lightly salted onion, or crunchy pepper wedges on the side.

Bon appetit!