Baking Delights: Baking breads and treats for your family

Bennigan’s Baked Potato Soup

by Marye on September 22nd, 2008

So, here it is, the first day of fall…80 degrees here in Texas but that isn’t the point..it is now, quite officially…potato soup weather.

I grew up with potato soup.  Not this potato soup but my mom’s version..the one SHE grew up with..and she was born in 1918.  I hardly ever deviate from that recipe, my comfort food both when I was a kid and as an adult.  But this recipe may be…just a tiny bit better than my mom’s recipe.  If not in memories then in taste, anyway.  By baking the potatoes in the oven they have a roasted flavor, stronger than when they are boiled and stronger than when they are microwaved, too.

I have great memories of Bennigan’s.  I had my first legal drink at the one out by Six Flags in 1978 at my 18th birthday steak dinner. I am so out of the loop though, that I did not know they had filed bankruptcy.

This is not a delicate potato soup at all..It is robust and can hold up to garlic bread or onion rolls with ease. It is a great side with a corned beef sandwich, or on it’s own with a hunk of garlic bread and a salad.

You don’t have to put the bacon fat in if you are freaky about fat but you will be missing alot of taste that way.

Bennigan’s  Baked Potato Soup

5  pounds  potatoes, scrubbed and stabbed with a knife in the centers
6 tablespoons  butter
2  finely chopped onions
4 tablespoons minced fresh  garlic
2 cups Pacific Free Range Organic chicken broth
6 cups whole milk or half and half
3 tablespoons bacon fat

1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 lb bacon cooked and crumbled

Chopped scallions
Sour cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake potatoes 1 hour or until they are tender when pierced. Peel.

Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium low heat. Stir in onions and garlic; cover and cook 10 minutes until soft, but not brown. Add 2/3 of the potatoes and mash with a potato masher. Add the chicken broth, milk, salt and pepper.

Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Add the bacon fat.

Cut the remaining potatoes in small cubes.Add to the soup.

Ladle soup  into bowls.  Top each serving with a dollop of sour cream, crumbled bacon, shredded cheddar, and scallions.

8 servings

Image: Marye Audet

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POSTED IN: Quick and Easy