Rippled Potato Soup?

Rippled Potato Soup you might ask?  Yes, Rippled, referring to an Old Dutch (my heritage) culinary delight made from flour and egg.  It kind of sounds like the start of pasta doesn't it?  But that's as far as it goes.  Ask any culinary expert how to make ripples and I’m sure they will be able to tell you about this tasty delight.  Bobby Flay...how do you make your ripples for your potato soup?  No reply, oh ok.  That's understandable Bobby, my mom's recipe is a secret too!  Though she has allowed me this one exception to share her culinary secret that once it’s out I’m sure will spread through kitchens and restaurants everywhere.

Mom's Rippled Potato Soup consists of: ½ milk and ½ water, potatoes, margarine, flour and egg.  Now doesn't that sound tasty?  Minus the water these are well conceived ingredients.  Everything you need to build yourself a nice soup.  So let’s build a soup, shall we?  We begin with the potato.  In our house this was a staple for recipes like this one.  Mom saved our instant potatoes for dishes we served with meat!  So far, you know this means a frozen 1lb package of ground beef.  The spuds we used were always kept with the highest respect in our concrete floored utility room, right beside the trash can and dust pan, adjacent to the dog's food, in front of the water heater, nestled next to outdated yellow and brown packages of DeCon that had yet to poison any mice.  Our potatoes would occupy the space beside our furnace, bottled soda pop and a soldering torch which was sometimes needed to thaw the exposed water pipes of this un-heated cave.  They were free to collect dirt, dust, and grime anytime!  The accumulation of dust I believe is what gave these fresh vegetables their shelf life, which in this case would be when they started growing sprouts!  Sprouts were a sign that the spuds were, "still good" my mom clambered.  All you need to do is peel, pluck or pull the sprouts then chop the potato.  “It was going to be cooked anyway,” she exclaimed.  I know in her head this seemed reasonable because they resemble bean sprouts.  In any case, bean sprouts are not byproducts of potatoes.  This metamorphosis of the potato is the product of the correct and absolute environment to keep them barely alive so they will begin to seed and make baby potatoes.  So as it were she would use 6 to 7 of these science experiments she called good (peeled and chopped of course) and add them to the pot of boiling water/milk mixture until they were at their prime (meaning before they turned to mush) then she would add her secret culinary delight: Ripples.  It’s also very tedious so one must be precise on measuring.  Take 1 cup of flour, add enough water (why water I do not understand) to make a paste-then add 1 egg to the paste to form a dough.  Now this is the tricky part; take the dough and tear it piece by piece into the boiling starchy potato water and let it go!  These Ripples will begin to boil; as they become fully cooked, watch them rise and break the surface of the pools of melted margarine!  Mmmmmm yummy doughy pillows full of spud/milky/water floating around and among those respected vegetables----potato soup she called it?  Oh, and don't forget to break out the Morton salt container and rusty tin of pepper for this special occasion to give it an extra kick.  I beg you, please do not try this in your home.  This is not something you or your family will appreciate.  This recipe takes years to master.  It can only achieve the proper flavor profile if your palate has proper training.  Years of eating my mom's meals will be needed before you can actually understand the subtle layers of flavor.  And one more small tip: find a better place to keep your potatoes.  Your un-heated, dirty utility room is not the place!  I want to also thank my youngest sister for the reminder.  She has co-authored this entry for the soon to be famous recipe.