Leek soup with pickle salad --------------------------- Pickle salad ------------ Ingredients: - Black forest- or other smoked raw ham (prosciutto or parma ham should work well too) - Parmesan cheese shavings - Mild mustard (I used American) - Balsamic vinegar reduction - 3 seafood sticks, chopped small - 1 chopped up gherkin Croutons -------- Cut a slice of white bread in small cubes, discarding the crusts. Heat some olive oil in a skillet and add the bread cubes, pepper, salt, and oregano. Fry briefly, then place on kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. Method: ------- Mix all the ingredients together. For the leek soup: Ingredients: ------------ 400ml water 1 leek, white+greens 2 cloves of garlic, chopped small. pinch of thyme teaspoon oregano 2 small bayleaves 1/3 nutmeg, freshly grated pepper, salt a few drops of hickory liquid smoke (about 1ml/half a teaspoon?) 2 tablespoons oil 1 tablespoon milk powder Method: ------- 1. Cut the leek in half- a green part and a white part. 2. Discard only 1 cm of the tips of the green part. 3. Quarter the green part of the leak. 4. Wash the leaves of the green part well to get rid of any sand. 5. Cut the green part of the leek in 1cm strips. 6. Sweat the leeks in the oil along with the garlic 7. Add all remaining ingredients except for the white leeks. 8. Blend until smooth. This will break down the cell walls of the green part of the leeks and release the character of the leek. 9. Cut off the roots from the white part of the leek. Quarter it. 10. Cut the white part of the leek into .5 cm wide strips and add it to the soup. This will restore some texture. 11. Adjust the seasoning as needed. 12. We're looking for a quite thick soup; reduce down a bit if too thin. In an emergency the soup can be thickened with some corn starch dissolved in water. 13. Place the pickle salad in a ring on a soup plate. Serve the soup around it. Dress up the soup with some fried salad onions, croutons and some fried ham.