Leek and Pear Soup

Leek and Pear Soup

Shirley Temple, remember her?

In 1935 she made the song Animal Crackers In My Soup insanely popular, performing the song in her movie Curly Top.

Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along: Curly Top/Animal Crackers in my Soup.

Curly Top takes you on a welcome journey back into simpler times.

No wait! 1935.

We were in the middle of the Great Depression. Forget that reference to simpler times. Curly Top must have provided a little escape from the collapse of the economy. Shirley played an orphan who charms a rich benefactor. Hope and resilience!

Unlike Shirley’s soup, there are no lions and tigers in today’s great soup recipe, but there is a lot of an equally unexpected ingredient: pears.

That’s right. There are pears in this soup.

Who knew you could even do that?

The original recipe comes from a cookbook More Mandy’s. (Mandy’s is a gourmet salad restaurant in Montreal, Canada. (Yay, Canada, by the way.) The book is available from your local independent bookstore or online.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

Leek and Pear Soup

April 28, 2025
Ingredients
  • 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 leek (white and light green parts--sliced thin)
  • 1 medium-sized onion (chopped)
  • 1 russet potato (chopped)
  • 1 stalk celery (finely chopped)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 t. fresh thyme leaves
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 pears (peeled, cored and quartered--I used Anjou)
  • 3 C. vegetable broth
  • 1/3 C. heavy cream
  • Drizzle of chili oil or hazlenut oil
Directions
  • Step 1 Heat olive oil in large soup pot and saute leek, onion, potato and celery until they are soft. Add fresh thyme and bay leaf along with salt and pepper. Continue to saute for another minute or so.
  • Step 2 Add pears and broth. Bring the soup to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for about 25 minutes until the potatoes and other vegetables are very tender. Discard the bay leaf.
  • Step 3 Puree the soup until relatively smooth. (I used my immersion blender.) Adjust seasonings. Stir in cream.
  • Step 4 Serve topped with a drizzle of flavorful oil. The original recipe recommended hazelenut oil. I think that would be wonderful. I didn’t have any hazelnut oil in my kitchen so I substituted a very small drizzle of chili oil (be careful here!) and enjoyed the little jolt of heat in my otherwise subtly-flavored soup. The color of the chili oil swirled into the soup made for a pretty presentation on my table, too.

 

 

 

 



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