Purple Vichyssoise with Tokyo negi

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I love making new discoveries, as I did the other day at the Japanese market.  I found Tokyo negi, which looks like a 2 1/2 foot long leek on steroids.  I asked the staff if it were more like a scallion or a leek - "Onion", "Leek", "well, kind of like both" were the responses - SOLD!  I grabbed two bunches and decided to use it as a leek; so if anyone asks you which it is, today it's a leek.

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The Negi is in the same family as the scallion and Welsh onion, in the genus Allium.  They are typically used as scallions - why my obsession with the leek-like qualities?  It is another of my rants, my opposition to the Retail-Industrial food distribution complex - you CANNOT buy large quantities of good leeks in most supermarkets!  The best one can hope for is only an inch or so of usable white bulb.  So the foot - long white bulbs of the negi were very appealing, as I have really wanted to make a batch of vichyssoise recently.

The purple potatoes - well, that's just me being weird.  I saw them at another store and had actually picked them up for mashed potatoes with a roast and changed course.

Obviously this is not the typical Vichyssoise recipe, as I have taken so many liberties and use some different ingredients.  However, it contains all the classical elements therein - rich, earthy potato, leek / onion flavor, stock and cream blended into a velvety puree.  I love to make this soup - even if I have to buy half a case of leeks (until now)!  The Negi gave this dish great flavor.  They are a bit forgiving, and as we have a purple dish, one can get a bit more of the leek-like flavor by using a bit of the light green stem above the bulb, unlike Western (commercial) leeks.

I thought to keep all the lovely color to blanch the potatoes, then plunge them into ice water and only steam them quickly and even preserve the steaming liquid to keep the color intact.  Things were going great up until this point; here reality took over the concept and the soup completely lost color.  After blending, the puree looked like poi - and I hadn't even added the cream yet!

FLUB.

I re-seasoned and tasted; this was a GREAT result - but I couldn't stand looking at it.  I ditched the original photos.  For the first and only time in writing this blog, I resulted to food coloring.   Going back to elementary school, I remembered red and blue make purple!  This cheat bought me a couple of shades on the color wheel, not too artificial a change.  I may try the purple potato in this dish again, and I have another trick up my sleeve - otherwise, back to regular spuds.

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THE RECIPE

about 6 medium purple potatoes, medium dice (approx. 4 cups)
Boiling, heavily salted water
4 stalks Tokyo negi, white bulbs cut in half lengthwise then thinly sliced (again, approximately 4 cups)
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 small shallot, minced
2 T butter
2 Quarts chicken stock
Sea salt and white pepper, to taste
1-2 cups heavy cream, based on final volume
Pinch nutmeg, to taste and for garnish

Drop potato cubes into boiling water and blanch for one minute; immediately plunge pieces into ice water.  Drain and steam potato over 1/2" water in a basket for 5-6 minutes, until just tender when pierced with a fork.  Reserve steaming water.

Sweat the negi, garlic and shallot in butter over medium heat for approximately 5 minutes.  Add to steaming liquid, potato and stock.  Season with salt and pepper.  Over medium low heat, simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat, cool and blend into a puree with a blender or immersion blender.  Add a pinch of nutmeg and as much of the cream as desired.  Chill and serve cool, with another pinch of nutmeg for garnish.