LongHorn Loaded Potato Soup

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There is one thing that ruins potato soup permanently, and a lot of recipes tell you to do it: put it in a blender.

Potato cells are packed with starch granules. Cooking swells them and they stay intact, which gives you soft potato. High-speed blades rupture them and release free starch into the liquid, where it forms a gluey, elastic gel.

That texture is not a matter of taste. It is the same chemistry that makes wallpaper paste, and once it happens there is nothing you can do.

What to do instead

Mash about a third of the potato against the side of the pan with a potato masher or a fork. You get body and thickness from the mashed portion and recognisable pieces from the rest.

A hand blender is just as bad as a jug blender — worse in some ways, because it is easy to keep going for "one more second".

If you want it smoother, mash more. The upper limit is a soup that is thick and slightly rustic, and that is where potato soup should stop.

Floury potatoes

Russets or Maris Pipers. They break down at the edges and thicken the soup as they cook, which is doing half the work for you.

Waxy potatoes hold their shape and never release anything, so the soup stays thin and you end up reaching for cornflour.

Build it on the bacon fat

Render the bacon first and cook the onion in what comes out. Almost all of the savoury depth in this soup comes from that step, and using butter instead makes a noticeably blander soup.

Keep the crisp bacon back for the top. Stirred in, it goes soft within a minute and you lose the contrast that makes it "loaded".

Cheese off the heat, always

Cheddar splits above about 80°C — the proteins tighten and squeeze out fat, leaving a grainy soup with an oily film.

Take the pot off the heat entirely before the cheese goes in. A soup this thick holds plenty of heat to melt it.

What you need

• 1 kg floury potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 900 ml chicken stock
• 350 ml whole milk
• 120 ml double cream
• 200 g mature cheddar, grated
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 120 ml sour cream
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. 1. Render the bacon slowly in a large pot, 8 minutes. Lift it out, leaving the fat.
2. 2. Onion into the fat, 5 minutes. Garlic, one more minute.
3. 3. Stir in the flour and cook it 1 minute. Raw flour tastes of raw flour and a minute removes it.
4. 4. Whisk in the stock gradually, then the milk.
5. 5. Potatoes in. Simmer 20 minutes, until completely tender.
6. 6. Mash about a third of the potato against the side of the pot.
7. 7. Cream in. Season.
8. 8. Off the heat, stir in the cheese a handful at a time until smooth.
9. 9. Serve with bacon, spring onion, sour cream and more cheese on top.

Add the stock gradually

The flour and fat form a roux, and adding all the liquid at once gives you lumps that no amount of whisking fully clears.

A splash at a time for the first few additions, whisking to a smooth paste each time, then the rest can go in freely.

Storing

Four days in the fridge. It thickens a lot as it cools — thin it with milk when reheating.

Reheat gently and do not boil it, or the cheese and cream will split.

It does not freeze well. Potato goes grainy and dairy soups separate.