Everything You Ever Wanted To Learn About Making Soup

By Christine Szalay-Kudra

Homemade soup is delicious, yet some people are intimidated when it comes to making their own. It may take a little practice to master, but the art of making it can be rewarding. Learn some basic tips and yours will turn out great. These tips can help you overcome any obstacles to making wining creations at home.

The very best ones are made with homemade stock. Any ingredients you use should be as fresh as possible. While this does add to the total cooking time, you cannot beat the flavor. If time is short, you can use canned broth or soups like tomato or creamed verities that come in cans to make your base. Frozen vegetables can also be used if needed.

To lower the amount of fat that you eat, you have two methods to choose from. You can use paper towels without any printing on them to soak up fat from the top, or you can chill your creation overnight. This lets the fat solidify on the top. All you need to do is skim it off and reheat the mixture. Savory verities always taste better the next day anyway.

When you taste your soup, you may feel it is too salty. This happens from time to time to everyone. Add a peeled potato to your soup. After fifteen minutes, remove it. The potato will soak up any excess salt. It tastes pretty good later, too, as it has soaked up some of the flavor of the mixture. When adding herbs, remember that herbs added towards the end of cooking will have a stronger impact than herbs added early. If you are using wine to add flavor, do not use as much salt. Wine will intensify the flavor of the salt.

Everyone loves noodle soups. For the best results, cook your pasta separately. This keeps the pasta from adding starch to your soup. Pasta will be the last ingredient you add. Other ingredients to add near the end of your cooking time include fast cooking vegetables like corn, leafy vegetables, and frozen peas.

Make your soup from ingredients you have on hand. If you have a chicken and some veggies, you have the makings for a delicious soup. Add in other ingredients like rice, potatoes, lentils and more. If you have pumpkins in your garden, make a delicious creamy pumpkin soup. You can make this one either savory or sweet... both versions taste great.

If you like creamed soups but need to watch your calories, you can substitute your heavy cream with a combination of a quart of cold water, two cups of powdered milk and a half can of evaporated milk. Do not boil creamed soups. They are much easier to make if you have a double boiler.

Leftovers can be refrigerated, frozen in jars, freezer bags or in plastic containers. You can preserve it in serving size quantities so it is easy to heat up one or two servings as needed for a quick lunch. Now that you know some soup making basics, it will be much easier to prepare some soup the next time you feel the urge.

About the Author:

Many recipes for creamy pumpkin soups are extremely simple to make. You can easily use fresh roasted pumpkin or canned pumpkin puree - both are excellent choices for this soup. Try making some tonight. You will see how easy it really is.

That's how you make soup!

Chef Brian's Cooking Tips

So Many Soups, So Little Time

By Christine Szalay-Kudra

Every culture makes soup. This comforting food comes in many varieties that are renowned the world over. While you may think that chicken noodle is the best soup ever, someone else may be dreaming of Japanese ramen or Cock-a-leekie from Scotland. The point is soup is served all over the world as a comforting source of nutrition.

Chilled verities come from all over the world. Russia makes not only a hot and a cold borscht using different recipes, they also make a cold kind called Okroshka, which is a vegetable and ham combination is made with kefir. Vichyssoise is a French cold verity made of potatoes and leeks. Tarator is a Bulgarian cold verity made from cucumbers and yogurt.

If you want to try a new flavor, why not try some Lagman... it is a traditional soup made of vegetables, pasta, ground lamb, and spices from Uzbekistan. Another unusual kind is Zurek. This is a soup from Poland that is made from wheat and sausages. It is frequently served in a bread bowl. Islensk Kjotsupa is a traditional verity from Iceland made of vegetables and lamb.

If you enjoy a good broth, there are many you can choose from. Avgolemono is a Greek one that is made from rice, lemon juice and the yolk of an egg. Scotch broth is obviously from Scotland. The ingredients in this traditional verity include vegetables, barley, and mutton. Panada is a bread soup. It is made with eggs, leftover bread, beef broth, and Parmesan cheese. Consomm is the ultimate broth.

If you are looking for a soup that is different from what you are used to, how about Zurek, a wheat soup from Poland? It is served with sausages. Sundubu jjigae is from Korea. It is a soup or stew made of spices and mild tofu. Caldo verde is from Portugal made of minced cabbage. These soups are very delicious and worth a try.

You can always try a kind with a name that will amuse your friends. Snert is a pea verity from the Netherlands that is served with sliced sausage. It sounds perfect for winter. Cock-a-leekie is a Scottish verity made of chicken broth, potatoes, and leeks. Fufu and Egusi soup is from Nigeria. It is made of fish, meat, vegetable and balls made of ground melon seed.

If you like vegetables, an onion soup recipe may fill the bill. You can make it completely vegetarian and use vegetable broth or you can make it with beef broth. Lentil soup is popular in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Lentils are high in protein and very filling. Shchav is a soup made from the sorrel plant that is popular in Yiddish, Polish, and Russian cultures.

If you like chowders, you will know how good they are. They are usually thick and creamy and feature seafood of one kind or another. Clam chowder is probably the best known. Corn chowder is also very popular with some people. The sweet corn gives it a wonderful flavor.

About the Author:

Onion soup is a delicious peasant food from France that has been enjoyed for centuries. This simple fare is just as satisfying today as it was way back when. Imagine bowls of steaming soup topped with bread and cheese set out on the large farm table while the family gathers around.

How basic is soup? It was probably the first meal after the invention of the pot! The most varied of all our staples and a great opportunity for being creative!

Chef Brian
Cooking Tips

The Basics Of Soup Creation

Lean, juicy beef, mutton, and veal, form the basis of all good soups; therefore it is advisable to procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and such as are fresh-killed.

Stale meat renders them bad, and fat is not so well adapted for making them. The principal art in composing good rich soup, is so to proportion the several ingredients that the flavor of one shall not predominate over another, and that all the articles of which it is composed, shall form an agreeable whole.

To accomplish this, care must be taken that the roots and herbs are perfectly well cleaned, and that the water is proportioned to the quantity of meat and other ingredients. Generally a quart of water may be allowed to a pound of meat for soups, and half the quantity for gravies. In making soups or gravies, gentle stewing or simmering is incomparably the best.

It may be remarked, however, that a really good soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, although, perhaps, greater wholesomeness is obtained by an occasional exposure to the air. Soups will, in general, take from three to six hours doing, and are much better prepared the day before they are wanted.

When the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed; and when it is poured off, care must be taken not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve.

A tamis is the best strainer, and if the soup is strained while it is hot, let the tamis or cloth be previously soaked in cold water. Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups about the consistence of cream.

To thicken and give body to soups and gravies, potato-mucilage, arrow-root, bread-raspings, isinglass, flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well together, are used. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit of butter and flour, and rubbed through a sieve, and gradually incorporated with the soup, will be found an excellent addition.

When the soup appears to be too thin or too weak , the cover of the boiler should be taken off, and the contents allowed to boil till some of the watery parts have evaporated; or some of the thickening materials, above mentioned, should be added.

When soups and gravies are kept from day to day in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh scalded pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar. In temperate weather, every other day may be sufficient.

Various herbs and vegetables are required for the purpose of making soups and gravies. Of these the principal are, Scotch barley, pearl barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, bread-raspings, peas, beans, rice, vermicelli, macaroni, isinglass, potato-mucilage, mushroom or mushroom ketchup, champignons, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, turnips, garlic, shallots and onions.

Sliced onions, fried with butter and flour till they are browned, and then rubbed through a sieve, are excellent to heighten the color and flavor of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of many of the fine relishes furnished by the cook.

The older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour. Leeks, cucumber, or burnet vinegar; celery or celery-seed pounded. The latter, though equally strong, does not impart the delicate sweetness of the fresh vegetable; and when used as a substitute, its flavor should be corrected by the addition of a bit of sugar.

Cress-seed, parsley, common thyme, lemon thyme, orange thyme, knotted marjoram, sage, mint, winter savory, and basil. As fresh green basil is seldom to be procured, and its fine flavor is soon lost, the best way of preserving the extract is by pouring wine on the fresh leaves.

For the seasoning of soups, bay-leaves, tomato, tarragon, chervil, burnet, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, mace, black and white pepper, essence of anchovy, lemon-peel, and juice, and Seville orange-juice, are all taken.

The latter imparts a finer flavor than the lemon, and the acid is much milder. These materials, with wine, mushroom ketchup, Harvey's sauce, tomato sauce, combined in various proportions, are, with other ingredients, manipulated into an almost endless variety of excellent soups and gravies.

Soups, which are intended to constitute the principal part of a meal, certainly ought not to be flavored like sauces, which are only designed to give a relish to some particular dish.

Enjoy!
Chef Brian
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