CREAMY POTATO AND LEEK SOUP WITH PANCETTA AND PANKO CRUNCH

Recipe and photo: Elsabie Templeton

• For the soup:
• 5 medium potatoes (floury variety like Sifra) peeled and sliced in 2cm slices.
• 4 large leeks sliced thinly (a lot of recipes only use the white part of the
• leeks but I use the green part too, no point in wasting anything.
• 100g butter
• 1 litre chicken stock (I used Ina Paarman stock powder).
• 250ml fresh cream
• For the pancetta and panko crunch:
• 3 slices of pancetta*, ask deli or butcher to cut as thick as pork rashers (or use pork rashers or streaky bacon) cut into small cubes.
• ½ a cup of panko crumbs.
• Chopped spring onions for garnish.
• Simmer the leeks in the butter until soft then add the potato slices and the stock. Gently boil until the potatoes are cooked through.
• Spoon carefully into a blender jug in batches and blend until smooth and lump free. Pour back into the pot, add the cream and warm it up again without boiling.
• Taste and add salt if required.
• Fry the pancetta cubes in a pan until the fat renders out then add the panko crumbs. Keep stirring over low heat so that the panko can just turn golden brown and go extra crispy and remove from the heat.
• Label the soup into warm bowls and spoon the pancetta and panko crunch over.
• Sprinkle finely chopped spring onions over and serve. This soup is filling enough without needing extra bread.
• Note:
  *Pancetta and bacon both come from pork belly, but bacon is cured and smoked, giving it a bold, smoky flavor. Pancetta is salt-cured and aged with spices (like garlic and black pepper) but is unsmoked, resulting in a richer, more pork-forward, and delicate taste.