This started out as two separate recipes I got from my grandmother. I was making the potato soup recipe she had given me, when the old man started calling every half hour to “help” (read: “interfere”). He insisted I was actually making the wild rice soup recipe she’d given me, and nothing I could say (including “I’m looking at the farking recipe!”) would change his mind. So I finally threw in a pile of wild rice just to humor him. This is the result. If you’re going to make this, make sure you have a day to do it in. I usually get started at 9AM and end up serving it around 6PM.
- 1 package of bacon, chopped into little pieces
- 4 large carrots, sliced
- 4 ribs celery, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 brick cream cheese
- 1 stick of butter
- 16 ounces of sour cream
- “Family size” can of cream of mushroom soup
- Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 cup wild rice, dry
- half a bag of potatoes, chopped up into bite-sized pieces
- About a quart of milk
Cut the whole package of bacon into 1/4″ strips and fry in the bottom of a Dutch oven. While it’s cooking (you don’t have to get it crispy, but at least cook it until the fat isn’t white and sticky to release the flavors) chop up your veggies. Add the broth, veggies and bay leaves to the bacon and let simmer for a couple of hours over low heat.
When the veggies are soft, fish out the bay leaves and add the cream cheese, sour cream, butter, and mushroom soup. It will look absolutely disgusting at this point. The first time I made it I thought something had gone horribly wrong. Just let it simmer for a while and it’ll be fine. Add some Worcestershire sauce and any other seasonings to taste.
While it’s simmering, chop up the potatoes. You can peel them or leave the skins on. I do the latter, and it always turns out just fine.
In a saucepan, boil your wild rice in a few cups of water. Drain and repeat. The water you boiled it in makes an excellent base for soups – I drain it off mainly to keep the soup from getting watery. Throw the wild rice into the pot along with the potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are soft. You’re going to have to cut it with milk a few times during this last simmer, about a quart total, because the wild rice will continue to soak up liquid.
Serve with bread and butter.
It freezes relatively well, but you might have to add some milk when you reheat it, and it won’t be nearly as creamy.
A whole batch has 5,620 calories, 421 grams carbohydrate, 160 grams protein, 360 grams fat, and costs around twenty bucks. That said, when I make this it’s enough to feed three adults with enough leftovers for two more decent meals for those same adults. If we call that ten servings (at least one of us usually has a second bowl when it’s fresh) it comes out to a pretty reasonable 562 calories, 42 grams carbohydrate, 16 grams protein, 36 grams of fat, and costs about two bucks. That’s well within acceptable for my lunches, and it’s lower in calories, fat, and carbs than most of my work lunches.
Vegetarian Notes: This chowdah is basically a bunch of vegetables in a cream base, so you could pretty easily make it vegetarian with a couple of quick modifications. I don’t think it’s possible to make a vegan version that would be palatable (I have no idea how plant-based dairy would cook up, and I’m kind of terrified to investigate), but replacing the bacon with some smoke flavoring and the chicken stock with vegetable stock would make it vegetarian. I haven’t tried it this way, but I’ll bet it wouldn’t be bad.
Wild Rice Note: For your wild rice, ideally you want the good tan de-hulled stuff hand-processed up on the rez with equipment right out of the Old West — that’s what I use. I helped with a couple batches of it, and it’s a really interesting procedure. That black stuff you get at the store will work, but you get those creepy little shells in your soup. It doesn’t make a huge difference, but you’ll notice it if you’ve had both. It’s almost like the difference between white and brown rice, especially if the person making the brown rice doesn’t know what they’re doing and the hulls don’t quite cook through so it feels like you’re eating a pile of bugs.