Potato and Spinach Soup

Once again, we had some spinach in the fridge that need to be used up. I was at the market earlier in the day and spotted some delicious looking, freshly baked bread, so decided to make a soup to go with it. It turned out to be a fairly warm day, so a hearty soup probably wasn't the best choice.

One word of caution: because of the high potato content of the soup, don't overblend the soup as it may turn out gluey. Ours was slightly on the gluey side...not good!

I didn't bother peeling the potatoes, because they were very small, and I find the skin adds a nice 'potatoey' flavour to the soup. I cooked this in my 22cm Le Creuset pot.

Potato and Spinach Soup (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, pg 927
serves 4

2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 tbsp oil
500g potatoes, cut into chunks
stock (I just used some powdered vegetable stock)
120g baby spinach
1 tsp ground cumin
salt
pepper



Over medium heat, sweat the onions and garlic in the oil until soft and translucent. Add the potatoes and enough stock to cover the potatoes. Bring to the boil and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 - 20 mins. Add the spinach and cumin, then season to taste with salt and pepper. I found I didn't need any salt because of the powdered stock. Allow to simmer for about 5 mins, to let the spinach wilt.

Blend in batches in a blender, or use a stick blender directly in the soup. Serve with crusty bread.

The flavour of this soup was nice and balanced. It was much less 'spinachy' than I thought it would be and you could really taste the flavour of the potatoes. I think this would be extra nice with some cream or sour cream plopped in the bowl when serving. Like I mentioned, the texture of ours wasn't great, but that was my fault. I would make this again, taking extra precautions when blending.