It's getting to be soup season. What are your favorite soups?
It's split pea or ham and potato for me.
In my mind, soup is just a technique that's really about the stock. This is just me suggesting that you all should adopt traditional French cooking technique.
For me, it's saving old chicken scraps and certain veggies and then cooking them until they are mush in water. Grocery store rotisserie chicken skin, bones, and juice; carrots, onions, celery, garlic. Anything getting past it's prime. No brassicas though. I'll throw a t bone in there, but while really good beef broth is amazing, good beef bones cost as much as real beef.
Clam juice or shrimp/crab/lobster shells sauteed in butter with water (or the aforementioned stock...) Is also awesome.
Once you've got that, just put anything in it. That's good soup.
Make sure that you put the correct amount of salt in it. If there's no salt, stock tastes terrible.
I love Italian wedding soup. There's a Sicilian version I've made with eggs, cheese, and meatballs instead of parsley, basil, and meatballs and that's my absolute favorite.
I made chicken Marsala for the first time this year, and was so into the sauce I was like, I could just quadruple the sauce, cut up the chicken and make this a soup. I thinned it down with broth a bit, it's still very rich (mostly cream, wine and butter) but I find it delightful.
I once made a yellow lentil and pumpkin soup that was quite thick. It came out the same way it went in.
Fun fact: Vets often recommend canned pumpkin as a laxative for pets (do not give your pet laxatives without consulting a vet as they may have a dangerous blockage).
If you think summer is too hot for soup, you've never had a good Pho or Tom Yum Goong. Perfect soup for all weather.
It's becoming summer in the southern hemisphere, and we're not stopping the soup. We'll have more Gazpacho and chilled borscht but we're still souping it up down here.
"Slavic soup" - a potato cream with bits of sausage and/or meat
Usage of soy sauce and the name hint me that this is a local (Paraná) adaptation of some Polish soup brought with the immigrants. Lovage and chives are my own take on it. 2 servings.
Sour cream can be made at home by mixing a cup of 20% fat milk cream with 1 Tbsp of yoghurt, and leaving it to ferment for ~12h at room temp. You can also use unsoured cream "as is", if you want - it's up to you.
100g of some random meat. Softer beef cuts, bacon, Krakow sausages, salami, or... really, whatever you like. Cut it into thin strips.
half onion, diced
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp ketchup; don't sub it with tomato paste
Salt and black pepper to taste
100g sour cream or 20% fat milk cream.
[OPTIONAL] chives, for garnish
Cook the potatoes and [OPTIONAL] the lovage in the beef broth until the potatoes are really soft.
In another pot, while the potatoes are cooking, use the veg oil to cook the meat of your choice. The actual step depends on the meat; for example if using salami you don't need to do much, but if using beef you'll likely want to brown it a bit.
Add the diced half onion and the smoked paprika to the pot with the meat. Let it cook until the onion is soft. It takes a bit of time, use low fire and stir occasionally.
At this rate the potatoes should be soft already. Discard the lovage, and blend the potatoes alongside the beef broth. Then add the blend over the meat and onion mix.
Add the soy sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper. Let them dissolve, taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary, let it boil a bit.
Turn off the fire and add the cream. Mix it well and, if using chives, sprinkle them over it.
cock-a-leek - chicken with leeks, rice, and carrots
I got this Scottish recipe from a site, tweaked it to my tastes, and here it is.
If you don't have a pressure cooker, just simmer the chicken and leek leaves for 1h20min instead on step 1.
300g chicken, including bones (important) - thighs and legs work well for this
2 leeks, including the green part, washed; cut the white part into 1cm thick slices
Salt and pepper to taste
1 carrot, peeled, grated
1/2 cup of long-grain rice, washed
parsley to taste
Put the chicken and green part of the leeks in a pressure cooker, with enough water to cover them (half litre should be enough). Cook them together for 30min or so, or until enough to have the meat falling off the bones.
Discard the green leaves and the bones, both did their job already. Shred the meat with a fork, and send it back to the pot.
Add to the pot salt and pepper. Taste it, and use your judgment to know if you should reduce it or leave it as is. Add a bit more salt than you think that it needs, since you're adding rice and vegs to it later.
Add rice. Simmer the thing for 10min or so.
Add grated carrot and the white part of the leeks. Keep simmering until the rice is soft.
Garnish with parsley.
Other soups that I'll share as requested:
borscht/barszcz - mostly following Polish recipes
lazy lamen using fish, cabbage, and carrots
kabocha cream with chickpeas
agnolini or cappelletti in brodo (note: I use store-bought dough for this, but I can share the broth itself)
I make a pretty simple potato and kale soup that's a favorite in my house. It's not a recipe per se with set quantities, I just wing it.
I start in a large pot with diced carrot, onion, and celery sautéed for a few minutes, then add spice at the end to bloom: rosemary, thyme, black pepper at a minimum. Sometimes I add some garlic powder and/or paprika for a touch of daring. Next add beans, usually 1 or 2 cans of cannellini beans. Then add chicken broth, homemade if possible. About 2 quarts of broth (or 2 liters if you use a sensible measurement system). Sometimes add another 2 of water to expand the amount. Salt to taste, cover, and bring to a simmer.
After at least 30 minutes add 3-4 potatoes diced into bite-sized pieces. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. At this point, I usually scoop out a few ladles-full and blend it smooth, then add back in to thicken the soup. Add some chopped fresh kale to wilt in the broth for a few minutes, then serve.
It's warm and hearty, can be vegan if desired by using vegetable broth, and can be ready in about an hour.
end note: If you want to use the whole kale leaf including the rib, dice the rib and add it to the carrot/onion/celery sautee. Keep in mind if you do this and also do the blending step, your broth will be greenish. Still tastes good though and you get more fiber.
I love butternut squash soup. Its really simple to make if you have stock prepared.
All you have to do is heat up a duch oven with olive oil, throw diced celery, onion and carrot along with the cubed butternut squash and whatever herbs and spices you like. I also add a few tbsp of brown sugar.
Then after frying for 5 mins, cover it with stock and let it simmer for 40mins. At the end, blend it in a blender or with a hand-blender.
Its like 10mins of active work and you get 2-3 quarts of really healthy soup.
I'm doing nearly the same exept without celery. I'll try to add it next time ! The 2 other changes that I'm doing are to replace the sugar with sliced apple for the sweetness (1/8 of apple per portion).
Also, adding blended cashew nuts (approx 30g per portion) improve a lot the texture and taste imho.
That sounds like an underpowered blender. Squash takes a really high blade speed to properly cream. Cooking it a lot longer before blending could help.
I love winter squash (roasted and al dente), but I've never really liked pureed soups. I can't complain, but they are too bougie for me. Meanwhile, I'm also wanting lobster/crab/shrimp bisque that need to be that except for the expensive stuff.
If you're set against it I won't try to convince you, but you can always reserve as many pieces of simmered butternut squash as you like and put them back in after blending. You can do the same with potato chunks, and also add other things in after pureeing like herbs or leafy greens.
There's a lot you can do to add to the texture of a pureed soup.
Watercress
My grandpa would make it often when I was a kid, and would usually add a bit of Portuguese linguiça. I like to add a splash of red wine vinegar just before eating.
Potato Leek is an outstanding soup. I often start it off with chopped bacon, reserve that for garnish, but leave the fond, deglazing it with the steam of the leeks as they hit the hot bacon fat.
It's hard to beat a simple pasta fagioli. Just cannellini beans, ditalini pasta, and a good stock. The trick is to take about a quarter of the beans and mash or puree them into the stock so it gets a creamy texture. Some people add tomato sauce but I prefer it without.
Not a recipe, but I love putting some parmesan rind on my stock, it completes the flavor a bit.
I just keep a jar with the rinds in the freezer for this purpose.
And if you're lactose intolerant, cheeses aged 12 months or more have no more lactose anymore
If stews are allowed, this is the perfect season for a hearty beef stew with a lot of potatos, carrots, and onion and cooked with a bit of wine or beer.
If we are going by a stricter definition of soup, then maybe a spicy seafood soup with a lot cilantro and lime.
Homemade Pho is my jam. Trash meat/bone cuts at the grocery store for less than $3/lb or salmon heads.
Just start with oil on saute in the instant pot and bloom out coriander, cinnamon, clove, star anise, and a LOT of black pepper. Toss in chopped onion or shallot, ginger, and lemon grass, add salt. Cook until browned, turn off the heat and toss in smashed garlic cloves, allowing carryover heat to bring out the fragrance. Add about 1/2 cup of water while still hot and use a WOODEN spoon to scrape the frond off the bottom of the cooking vessel. Do not skip this step.
Add your protein (chicken skeletons or smoked turkey wings also work great), then toss in a dash of soy and a few drops of fish sauce. Go easy with the fish sauce as it's powerful joojoo and easy to overdo. Fill up the vessel to the top fill mark with water and cook on high pressure. In theory, it should require 38 minutes, but I go for an hour and twenty. Strain out the broth and pour over cooked rice noodle and add pho stuff to it.
I mainly just save my onion, carrot, celery, and garlic scraps. It's a safe combination. I often add these to chicken bones but it's not necessary if you're doing a vegetable centric soup
Did see someone mention chicken tortilla and pasta fagioli which reminded me it's been too long since I've made either of those, but I haven't seen anyone recommend my personal fav, beef barley!
If anyone's got a good pozole recipe, I'd love to check that out also!
It's been Souptober at my house for the weekends this month. Started with a beef barley stew. Then chicken noodle. Then a chilli. Next I'm trying to make a crab soup or french onion soup. Gonna finish it off with chicken and dumplings. I just need a tomato based soup to squeeze in there during the week.
Justin Wilson's Red Bean Gumbo. The trick is an ultra-dark roux. You're gonna burn it the first few tries, so give yourself a few hours to practice. This ultra-dark roux takes almost 45 minutes to make. It should look like chocolate pudding and smell of toasted wheat if you did it correctly.
A burnt roux is only suitable for the garbage bin. Seriously, don't try to save $0.50 of oil and flour, whatever you try to make with it will taste burnt and shitty
You get this recipe correct though, and you'll love it. I Gare-on-tee
I'm trying to find my recipe but serious eats has a good one for not having to use Velveeta. Use evaporated milk and cornstarch with your shredded cheese. That's their recipe. Then I throw in some cumin and rotel and diced chiles. Maybe taco meat if it's the main dish. Sometimes avocado.
There's a soup season? I eat soup practically everyday.
Anyway, my favorites are: Caldo Verde and Sopa de Feijão. As I'm sure most people don't know them heres a short description:
Caldo Verde
Lots and lots of finelly cut dark green cabbage on a smooth purée base of potatoes and onion. Traditional version also takes several slidces of blood sausage (chouriço).
Sopa de Feijão (Bean Soul)
Chopped up cabbage and carrots on a smooth base of beans and onion. Beans are usualy brown or butter beans bought dry, soaked overnight and then cooked.
I like vegetable soup as a way to use up any veg that's about to go out of date. Fresh vegetable stock, roasting some veg beforehand, and adding a hint of curry powder helps make a lovely blended soup.
Funnel chanterelle soup is my all-time favorite. Funnel chanterelles are pretty easy to forage where I live, so I always have a bunch of them in the freezer. It's a cream-based soup with blue cheese in it, an absolute blast of a meal.
mushroom soup, Adam Ragusea made a video a while, it was amazing! Very hearthy.
I made Georgian Kharcho few times. Its a beef soup with rice and spices.
Theres one that i have an addiction for. Ita a cold beet soup called Šaltibarščiai its basically buttermilk with cucumbers and beets, but its soo refreshing. And it takes no time to prepare. I eat it during the summer
For some inexplicable reason, all my soups turn into stews. It’s a mystery, really.
In any case I’ve been experimenting with chili- cooking off andouille sausage for its fond, starting with a sofrito sort of thing using fine chopped onion and celery, garlic towards the end, ginger. deglaze with booze- I’ve been settling to burbon, but white wine was fairly neutral. Enough water for the sofrito to cook down into almost nothingness, followed by the pepper purée.
That’s been a mix of sweet peppers, serano and smoked red chili’s that I’ve grown fresh, mostly aiming for a more mild heat.
Once that’s hot and simmering and cohesive, it’s the beef, I use rump cut into smallish pieces, that I first marinate with fish sauce and some extra booze. (Don’t worry the fish sauce only smells awful until you cook it.) some lime and orange zest, and lime juice. simmer until heavenly.
Other stews are chicken stew (lemon and white wine stock cooks down wonderfully. Add what ever vegetables you’d like- carrots, celery, onion, maybe green beans.). This finds its way into pot pie as often as not;
the GF’s go to is mushrooms soup. I’ll also go to town with a creamy pea soup if I can get my hands on a ham hock.
Though I personally- and without any real authority- divide the line based on how it behaves on a plate (well, hypothetically,)- if the stock/broth would stay clinging on the topping/filling/whateveritscalled rather than just spilling out and making a hypothetical mess…. It’s a stew