Sunchoke Seafood Soup

I'm a big fan of leek and potato soup. It always seems like a miracle to me that such simple ingredients - leeks, potatoes, water, salt - can make such a heavenly soup. So, when I saw a recipe recently that seemed like a riff on that, but more complex and interesting, I wanted to try it.

This recipe, a variation on the one La Tartine Gourmande posted a while back, called for Jerusalem artichokes, potato, fennel, shallots, rosemary, celery and water to make the soup base. Then, it was enriched with some creme fraiche and enhanced with shellfish at the end.

I used quickly (30 seconds) sauteed bay scallops in My Beloved's portion as he is very partial to scallops but added bay shrimp to mine - I ate too many scallops as a child and seem to have permanently injured my scallop gene.

We enjoyed the fresh veggie taste of this soup base and felt that it made a nice, lighter alternative to heavy chowders but the sunchoke flavor was rather lost. Another time, I think I'd leave out the potato and try using only the sunchokes as the base. However, it was a really nice spring soup and I'd happily make it again.