Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

It may have snowed here on Friday, but it's been in the 60s the entire weekend, which is bizarre but I'm most definitely not complaining. Despite the heatwave, I'm well on my way to soup season. Last weekend as I was walking up and down every single aisle of the last outdoor farmers market by me for the season, I ran across little baskets filled to the brim with what looked like shiny ginger, but were labeled as Jerusalem Artichokes.



They looked absolutely nothing like regular artichokes and I eavesdropped as the sales guy recommended just roasting them with some olive oil, salt and pepper to the woman ahead of me. Intrigued, I picked out the fullest carton, dragged them home, and then promptly forgot all about them for a week.



I found the bag a few days back and luckily they still looked good as new. I'd been roasting everything in sight, so I wanted to do something a little bit different with these and so they went into a soup.


Please ignore my dusty table, Suzy homemaker I will never be.

The wonderful thing about soups is that they're incredibly hard to ruin and super easy to make up on the spot. I normally start mine with some caramelized onions and a few smashed cloves of garlic, but I had a bunch of leeks in the fridge and not an onion in sight, so plans changed. A few tiny potatoes left over from the hasselback experiment went in with peeled sunchokes (another name for the jerusalem artichokes, and one that I like more since in my opinion these tasted nothing like artichokes), a few cups of stock, some seasoning, and a bit of yogurt and dinner was served.



Jerusalem Artichoke Soup
Recipe made up by me

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, trimmed and sliced
4 cloves garlic, smashed or minced
1/2 lb Jerusalem Artichokes (or sunchokes), peeled and halved
2 small potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 sprig fresh thyme, or just a pinch of dried
1/4 cup cream or lowfat yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

- In a medium pot set over medium high heat combine the sliced leeks with the olive oil and cook until they're limp and just barely starting to brown, stirring often. I over-browned mine a bit, which is why my soup came out darker, but it was still good so don't worry if you do the same.
- Add the garlic and stir it in for about a minute, just to get it to mellow a bit.
- Add the sunchokes, potatoes, stock and thyme, bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes begin to fall apart (about 15-20 min).
- Take the pot off the heat, pull out the thyme sprig, stir in the cream or the yogurt, and blend the soup either in your blender in batches, or in the pot with a stick blender (my favorite tool ever). Adjust the seasonings adding salt and pepper and scoop into bowls. It gets even better the 2nd day, just warm it back up and it's ready to go.