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Potage, Belgium
Cut two white onions in halves, finely slice and place in a saucepan with three finely sliced fresh leeks, an ounce butter and brown for fifteen minutes, stirring quite frequently meanwhile. Add four finely sliced, peeled raw potatoes, moisten with two and a half quarts broth, season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and saltspoon grated nutmeg, mix well and let boil for forty-five minutes. Add a teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, lightly mix, pour soup into tureen, sprinkle an ounce grated Parmesan cheese over, set in oven for fifteen minutes, remove and serve.
A leek-and-potato soup finished with Parmesan and a spell in the oven. The quantities are large and the seasoning generous; scale down by half for a household of four.
- SaltspoonAn old measure equal to about a quarter teaspoon. A whole saltspoon of nutmeg in ten cups of soup is noticeable but not overwhelming.
- Broth quantityTwo and a half quarts is 10 cups. With four potatoes and five alliums this yields roughly eight to ten servings as a first course.
- "Brown for fifteen minutes"The hinge of the dish. Onions and leeks are meant to take real color in the butter, not just soften, and that browning is the only depth of flavor here besides the broth. Keep the heat moderate and stir often; scorched leek turns the whole pot bitter.
- An ounce of butterTwo tablespoons, which is thin coverage for five sliced vegetables in a wide pan. Use a heavy saucepan and do not begrudge an extra spoonful if things look dry.
- Forty-five minutes of boilingLonger than needed for sliced potato, which is tender in 15 to 20 minutes. The extended time is there to reduce and thicken the soup as the potato breaks down; keep it at a steady simmer rather than a hard boil, and check that it has not gone too thick.
- PotatoesChoose a starchy or all-purpose potato so the slices collapse into the broth. Waxy varieties stay in discs and the soup never binds.
- The oven finishUse a tureen or casserole that is genuinely ovenproof. The recipe names no temperature; a moderate oven is the likeliest reading, and the point is to set and lightly brown the Parmesan on top, so leave it uncovered.
- CheeseAn ounce of grated Parmesan is roughly a quarter cup. Grate it fresh; pre-grated cheese carrying anti-caking agents tends to brown less evenly.
Belgium and northern France share a deep repertoire of leek-and-potato soups, of which this is a browned, cheese-gratinated version rather than the pale, cream-finished style associated with the name potage parmentier. The name here is simply potage, the French word for soup, used in the classical kitchen for a thickened soup as against a clear consomme. The finish under a crust of Parmesan is a gratin technique, and the assumption that a cook has two and a half quarts of broth on hand suggests a kitchen with stock always to hand.