Chives: Blue Vichyssoise with Chives

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Serves 6
Chilled vichyssoise is an elegant first course for a hot summer day, but it’s delicious served hot in winter, too. Make it with deep blue potatoes to delight your guests. (Medium or light blue ones will give you a gray, not lavender soup.) If you can’t get blue potatoes, the vichyssoise will taste just as good made with white ones.

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 cups sliced white part of leeks
• 3 cups chopped deep blue potatoes, peeled
• 3 to 3½ cups chicken broth
• 1 cup half-and-half
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Dash of nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh chives for garnish

1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and gently sauté the leeks to soften. Stir often and do not brown. Add the potatoes and broth and bring the mixture to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer the soup for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
2. Add the cream and seasonings and puree in a blender or food processor. Thin with additional chicken stock if desired. Chill. Transfer the vichyssoise to a large soup tureen and ladle it into individual bowls (it is lovely in glass bowls). Garnish with chives.

Rosalind Creasy is an herb gardener and landscape designer in Los Altos, California, and the author of many books. Her most recent is Herbs: A Country Garden Cookbook, written with Carole Saville.

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