Vichyssoise: a cool soup for balmy days

I have never been a huge fan of cold soup. It has always seemed to me to be contrary to everything good about soup: soup is inherently warming and cheering. It demands large portions and an accompanying doorstep of bread. Who on earth would want to chill it down and serve it in tiny portions – and without bread and butter? Madness!

Historically, I have made an exception for gazpacho and salmorejo on the basis that they hail from hot countries, and that they aren’t thickened with dairy. But I drew the line at what I thought of as hot soups served cold. Vichyssoise was doubtless the worst of them: give me a vat of hot leek and potato, but spare me the cold stuff.

Sometimes, we don’t get what we want, we get what we need. And during a recent heatwave, I had to make vichyssoise for work. I bought the ingredients, followed the recipe, but was making it under a certain level of duress.