Torwood’s Wild Garlic, Bacon & Potato Soup Recipe
Wild Garlic, Bacon and Potato soup
Wild garlic, in season from March to June, is a wonderful ingredient you can grow in your own garden. To grow wild garlic from seed, scatter the seeds thinly in the soil and cover them lightly. Keep the soil moist and thin the seedlings as necessary after they have germinated. Enjoy in recipes such as soup, or a wild garlic butter to spread on a crusty loaf.
Ingredients
- 500g onions, thinly sliced
- 400g wild garlic, plus 25g wild garlic stalks
- 1 fresh thyme sprig
- 50g garlic bulbs, unpeeled
- 50g butter
- 150g potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced
- 25g double cream
- Salt
For the bacon-fat potatoes and crispy skin
- Olive oil for frying
- 50g smoked pancetta lardons
- 1 small waxy potato, cut in 1cm cubes, skin roughly chopped
- 1 fresh thyme sprig
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- Knob of butter
To serve
- 50ml sour cream
- Wild garlic oil, optional
- Handful small wild garlic leave
Method
- Put 400g onions, 400g wild garlic and the thyme in a large saucepan with 800ml water and bring to boil. Simmer for 30 minutes, remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4. Wrap the garlic bulbs in kitchen foil and roast for 30-40 minutes, or until softened. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the garlic into a bowl and set aside.
- For the bacon-fat potatoes, heat 2 teaspoons olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the pancetta, potato cubes, thyme and crushed garlic for 3-6 minutes, or until golden-brown and crispy. Remove from the heat, drain on kitchen paper and set aside.
- For the crispy skin, melt the butter in a small saucepan and pour over the potato skin. Season with salt. Fill a small heavy bottomed saucepan one third full with oil. Heat to 180C, deep-fry the potato skin until crispy, then remove with a slotted spoon and leave to drain on kitchen paper. CAUTION: Hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.
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For the soup, melt the butter in a large saucepan over a low heat and cook the remaining 100g onions for 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the potato slices and roasted garlic and cook without colouring until the potato is soft.
- In a separate saucepan, heat the double cream with the wild garlic stock, then pour onto the onion and sliced potato mixture. Add the remaining wild garlic stalks and bring to the boil. Blend the soup in a blender, strain through a sieve back into the pan and season with salt.
- To serve, place a spoonful of sour cream into the middle of four shallow bowls, top with wild garlic oil, if using, then the bacon-fat potatoes, crispy skins and wild garlic leaves and drizzle the soup around the edges of the bowls.