Simple Potato Cream Soup, Cheap DIY hearty soup for all XD

I've made this soup for as long as I can remember. Since I knew how to made cream soup, I've never bought canned concentrated cream soup anymore..I found them to be soo expensive although the price of the ingredients are soo cheap. This might be due to the branding, and of course, the popularity.

Everytime I made this, people will assume that it is canned cream soup..haha..but nonetheless, Malaysian don't usually make ur own cream soup.. :)

This is a cream soup that doesn't use cream at all (laugh). You can even substitute the non-healthy ingredients with the healthy ones yay XD Very cheap and tasty, healthy and quick! I usually prepare this when I have leftover baguettes to dip with or a part of beef stroganoff-Yue's-suke-hati-cincai-style spaghetti.

How much will you get of all these ingredients? 1 big standard pot of rice (usually u can cook 6-7 cups of rice grains in it)
For 8-10 person

Ingredients
5 russet potatoes (or whatever potatoes you have, get the big ones, if small put in 7-8)

 Peeled potatoes

1-2 c of plain flour

2-4 tbs olive oil/vege oil/butter/margerine

 I prefer this brand of butter

1 cube chicken stock
1 can of evaporated milk/full cream/low fat milk (go ahead, whatever oso can, 1 small pack yea)
3-4 dash of italian herbs
1-2 slices of cheese
pepper
salt to taste

*optional (any of it or all of em or none of em oso can)
chunks of carrots
chunks of celery
crumble hard boiled egg whites
croutons

Methodology

1. Wash, peel and cubed the potatoes to about 1/2 inch in size. Soak in water for a while to remove starchy residues.

  Cubed potatoes soaked in water

2. Drain the cubed potatoes well with a colander. Transfer to a bowl, layered the colander with paper towels and return the potatoes to it, toss well for a few mins to let them reasonably dried out

3. In a big pot, at low-medium fire, add in the 2-4 tbs olive oil/vege oil/butter/margerine, I usually add in 2 tbs of olive oil and 2 tbs of butter (not melted yet)


4. Pour all cubed potatoes in the pot with melted butter+oil. Increase fire to medium. Stir fry them until a bit translucent. Don't stop moving those hands..I dun wanna let the cubes stick to the pot.

5. Add in the plain flour directly to the pot (DO NOT DILUTE WITH WATER) and immediately roux them together. You just have to keep on stirring to combine the flour with the potato cubes. They will stick to the potato to form a somewhat coating element. The texture of this combination will be sticky yet dry in nature..its perfectly fine

Addition of flour

The flour coated potatoes

6. Add in water, about 0.5-1 Litre or so..it depends as long as its at least 1 1/2 inch above the potatoes. Keep on stirring and let the water dissolve the flour into gooey consistency (you must aim for a partially thick consistency)..if too thick, add a bit more water..do stir at all times..


7. You can put in any other veges here..do not put in soft veges please. Let it simmer for 5-10 mins at low fire.

8. Pour in the evaporated milk/full cream/low fat milk, up to you how much, but make sure its not too watery, adjust the texture. Add in the chicken stock, salt and pepper to taste. Stir for 5 more mins

After adding some corns to the mixture (this is rice cooker pot)

9. Now you can add cheese and let it dissolve in, some dashes of italian herbs (if dun have the combi, parsley only oso ok)..if you have cream, do incorporate it now.

10. Just before serving, add in crumble egg whites/croutons..can garnish with a bit of cream on top and cracked black peppers :)

Done! Very easy and satisfying!

Note: In this photo, I prep the potatoes in a wok first because I dun wanna spoil my rice cooker pot. When finish step 5, I transfer to the rice cooker pot before adding water on stove. Another advantage, when serving, I can put in the rice cooker and let the soup stays warm.

When cooking for bigger crowd with a relatively cheap utensils, you have to resort to these methods in order to maintain the pots you have :)

Cheers!