Inventing recipes from scratch is a totally new thing for me, and this was the first one I tried that gave me some sass. I mean, buttermilk for the cream soup base? Won’t that be like, I don’t know, seriously disgusting? How am I supposed to make that work? Only one way to find out!

Okay, to be honest, I have heard of buttermilk soup before, I just assumed it would be something I’d never serve to my own face, ever. And, in hindsight, because buttermilk in the only kind of milk in the game (no regular milk, coconut milk, etc) I could have safely substituted it for literally any other kind of milk/cream and it would have not been hugely rule-breaking. But that didn’t occur to me until after I gave it a go as written.

Normally, when I make a soup, the veggies and meat cook in the broth to infuse extra flavor. I can’t do that here because if you boil or simmer buttermilk, it curdles like almost immediately. To make this work, I’d have to assemble every part of the soup separately, then combine with the buttermilk at the end.

First, I cut up the potatoes into little bite-size cubes and popped them into a pot of cold water with some salt. Starting them in cold water is slower than boiling first, but it helps all the ‘tatoes cook more evenly, so it’s worth the wait. I let them do their thing while I prepared the leeks. How long the potatoes take depends on how big you cut them, but you can check to see if they’re done by taking one out and putting a fork through it. If the potato piece slides easily off the fork, then it’s done!

I have never actually cooked with leeks before, but they are known to be a solid soup onion so I’m like aight let’s do this. I totally had to google how you cut a leek up though.

Start by cutting off the very bottom part (with the weird little tentacle roots) and the top part, with the green stalks.

Then, slice up the middle part you’re left with into little quarter-inch bits! Once they’re all chopped up, rinse them out in a colander because leeks like to hide bits of dirt in their little leek rings (rude). Most of the rings will start to separate from their friends when you wash them, but if they don’t just push on them with your thumb and they will.

There isn’t any kind of oil in this recipe (booo!) so I put a little butter in a soup pot and cooked the leeks in that. They needed to be stirred every once in a while to make sure they weren’t sticking, but it only took about 7-10 minutes for them to cook. I didn’t want them to turn brown, because they start to lose their crunch, so if you see them changing color get those lil guys outta there.

When my leeks finished, I put them back on the cutting board for later. Now it’s time to make the roux! Roux is a thickener for soups and white sauces made from equal parts butter and flour. All you do is pop some butter into your soup pot (I used about 1/4 cup) and let it melt and start to simmer on medium heat. Then, drop in the same amount of flour and quickly whisk them together. Put some muscle behind it and really smush the whisker in there. If you didn’t fuck up, they will combine into a pale brown paste. Fucking up your roux is totally a thing that can happen if you’ve never done it before, so it’s okay to dump it if it looks shitty and try again.

Once I had my roux lookin boss, it was time to add in my chicken broth! GW2 has a specific recipe for chicken broth, but let’s be real here, there’s no way I am making my own chicken broth. It takes forever and I have a life to live. So I did my best to find a pre-made one at the store with about the right ingredients. I’m doing my best to be accurate here, but not at the cost of my sanity. ANYWAY I did about 2 cups, in hopes that it would help tone down the buttermilk flavor. The broth almost immediately combined with the roux to make a large pile of poop-colored paste. DELICIOUS.

At this point, I was feeling VERY skeptical but ready to assemble everything! I poured in about a cup of buttermilk and added my already cooked leeks and potatoes, plus some salt and pepper. I found I needed to go a little ham on the salt to really balance the flavors here, but do it to your own tastes. I think mostly I was just excited to find a GW2 recipe that actually included salt and pepper in the ingredient list. Will I ever be this blessed again? (spoiler: probably not). Once everything was in there, I stirred it up to combine and keep the heat on low. And I mean like fucking low because my stupid buttermilk could still curdle and ruin my life. As soon as the soup was steaming, but not bubbling, I took it off the heat and ladled that bitch out for a taste test.

It was actually.. pretty good?? The broth was tasty and the leeks gave it a really great crunch amongst the mushy potatoes. At first, my guy and I were not really feeling it, because I think your brain anticipates a very specific flavor when it sees a broth this color, and that flavor is not buttermilk related. But once we got over that mental challenge, it was reasonably tasty! I don’t know if I’m going to turn into a buttermilk soup fanatic, but I liked this one for sure.

My verdict? This recipe is both edible and actually enjoyable without any adjustments at all. It could absolutely benefit from some more complex spices, but not enough so that I felt compelled to make a second version. But if you did want something with more flavor, a little cumin, coriander, turmeric, red pepper flakes, and fresh parsley would make this soup seriously poppin. I included amounts/instructions below if you want to go that route. Unless you straight up hate buttermilk. Then don’t bother with any of this crap.