Recipe A Day #15: Spicy Spanish Potato Onion Soup

This is a really simple and laughably cheap vegan soup that comes adapted from the always useful Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, a cookbook that's an absolute gold mine for quick, easy and healthy recipes. Today's recipe is perfect for using up any extra potatoes and onions that might be languishing in your fridge after making, say, last week's Potato Corn Chowder for example. Enjoy!

Spicy Spanish Potato Onion Soup

Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons olive oil
5 medium onions, sliced into coarse slivers
6 medium to large potatoes, 4 peeled, 2 unpeeled, chopped into 1-2” cubes
3 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon turmeric
A generous ½ cup sherry
3-4 bay leaves
9 cups water, in all
parsley for garnish

Directions:
1) Saute onions in oil on high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add all spices, combine well, reduce heat to medium and saute for another 7 minutes or so until onions are softening, browning and beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan.

2) Add one cup water and deglaze the bottom of the pan, then add potatoes, the remaining 8 cups of water, sherry and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Serve in bowls and garnish with parsley.

Serves 10.

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Recipe Notes:
1) Helpful hint: Feel free to pour a full cup of sherry and drink half as you prepare the recipe. We offer this tip regularly here at CK.

2) A flavor nuance: the idea behind sauteing the onions on high heat until they brown is to create a sweet flavor from the caramelization of the onions. We've previously seen this technique here at CK with Shrimp Creole, Paul Prudhomme Style, for example. This step adds an interesting and delicious nuance to the soup's flavors, so don't skip it!

3) Yet again, this is another incredibly inexpensive recipe. Let's run down the costs:

onions: $1.75
potatoes: $1.00
spices: 30c
sherry: 50c
bay leaves, parsley, oil, etc: 25c

Total: $3.80 or about 38c per serving. Hilariously cheap!

4) Attentive readers might find today's recipe reminiscent of another recipe here: Spanish Chickpea and Garlic Soup. Except that today's recipe is even easier and even less expensive.

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