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Types of Soup
Soups divide, fundamentally, into three categories. The first is the puréed soup, with vegetables aplenty boiled up together, then liquidised to silky smoothness (or if you prefer, rustic chunkiness). The second is the bits and bobs, meal-in-a-bowl soup, where a pleasing medley of this and that is simmered in broth, which may or may not be thickened. The third is the incredibly elegant upmarket consommé – a beautiful limpid concoction, intensely flavoured, served in suitably small quantity with maybe a single oyster or whatever floating in its centre. This is restaurant soup, not impossible to make at home by any means, but a good deal of work. If you want a recipe for this type of soup, look elsewhere.
Tips and Techniques
Making soup is all about extracting the maximum flavour from a set of ingredients. Certain techniques, like sweating vegetables and thickening or thinning the soup, are essential to a good result, while others, like stock-making, can be circumnavigated but are worth learning because they have the potential to turn a pedestrian but acceptable soup into a first-rate one. If you want to get the best soup on to your table, read these tips and techniques before you get out the saucepan.
First, a word about the basic structure of a soup. Most soups start off with a group of base ingredients (e.g. onion, garlic, butter or olive oil) that give the soup a background flavour. The main ingredients are what give the soup its predominant flavour – carrots, perhaps, or parsnips, or a medley of vegetables and beans.
Aromatics are the complementary ingredients that scent or spice the soup – usually herbs and spices. The commonest of these is a ‘bouquet garni’ which is a bundle of different herbs, tied together with string so that it can be easily removed before liquidising or serving the soup (see page 20).
All soups need some sort of liquid otherwise they wouldn’t be soups at all! And then last, but not at all least, they need to be seasoned with salt and pepper, or maybe cayenne pepper for a dash of colour and heat combined.
Sweating without Perspiration
Most puréed soups and many meal-in-a-bowl soups start off with a spot of sweating. Not the sort that requires a cold shower, but sweating of the culinary sort. Foodie sweating means cooking vegetables and often herbs with a little fat, over a very low heat, with the lid clamped firmly on the saucepan. Once they are on the stove-top, you barely need to bother with them for a good 10–15 minutes, apart from giving them a quick stir once or twice, but no more. This process develops the full depth of flavour of the vegetables so don’t try to rush it. As long as the heat is low, they’ll produce enough liquid to prevent them sticking or burning.
Thick, Thicker, Thickest
Somewhere among the ingredients will usually be one that serves primarily as a thickener, to give body to the soup. Potatoes are the commonest, but rice, beans or lentils play a similar role. A few more starchy vegetables, e.g. parsnips, need no thickener, as they are quite capable of doing the job themselves.
Liquid Essentials
Obviously soups need some type of liquid to dilute the main ingredients. In certain cases, where there is already a considerable depth of flavour present, water may be quite adequate. Milk can sometimes be used too. The rest of the time you really need a decent stock. This is the backbone of the soup. You can’t taste it specifically, but it is what all the other ingredients rely on for support. An insipid or tasteless stock will produce an indifferent soup. An absolutely tip-top home-made stock will transform the soup into something outstanding.
Stock-cubes and powdered ‘bouillon’ are tolerable stand-bys though not half as good as the real McCoy. Make them up slightly weaker than suggested on the packet so that the factory-brewed overtones are not so evident. You can buy real liquid stocks in supermarkets (sold in small tubs, often stacked alongside the chilled meat) and they come in second best.
By far and away the best option, however, is to make stock yourself. Whenever you have had a roast chicken, say, or find a selection of odds and ends of vegetables hanging around in your veg drawer, knock some stock up, and then freeze it for another day.
Microwave Chicken Stock
This is the ideal list of ingredients, but as long as you have the chicken carcass (most butchers will sell off raw ones cheap, and they do the best job), the onion, the carrot and one or two of the herbs, you can turn out a fine stock. Remember not to add salt to a stock. Why? Just in case you want to boil it down to concentrate the flavour, or add it to other ingredients that are already salty.
1 chicken carcass, raw or cooked
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 carrot, peeled and quartered
1 leek, quartered
1 celery stalk, quartered
1 bay leaf
2 parsley stalks
1 thyme sprig
8 black peppercorns
1 Break the chicken carcass up roughly. Put all the ingredients into the largest microwaveable bowl you own. Pour over enough boiling water to cover everything.
2 Cover with a tight layer of clingfilm, and then microwave on full power for 25 minutes. Let the whole lot stand for a further 25 minutes, then strain.
Classic Chicken Stock
1 Use the same ingredients on page 15.
2 Pile them into a roomy saucepan, and add enough water to cover generously. Bring up to the boil, then turn the heat down low and simmer very gently – the water should just tremble – for 3 hours, adding more hot water every now and then as the liquid level falls.
3 Once cooked, strain.
Vegetable Stock
The greater the variety of vegetables you add, the better balanced the taste. Avoid potatoes (which make the stock cloudy) and globe artichokes (which make the stock bitter). The sulphurous scent of over-cooked brassicas, such as cabbage, broccoli or Brussels sprouts, is not too pleasant either, so leave them out. This is a good way of using up fresh vegetable trimmings and parings, as long as the vegetables were washed.
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, sliced
2 bay leaves
1 large thyme sprig
3 parsley sprigs
8 black peppercorns
whatever other vegetables you have to hand (e.g. green beans, runner beans, courgettes)
1 Put all the ingredients into a saucepan and cover with water. Bring up to the boil, and simmer very gently for 30 minutes.
2 Strain and chill or freeze.
need to know
STORING STOCK Stock will keep for two days in the fridge. If you want to keep it for longer than that, pour it into a wide, deep frying pan and boil down until reduced in volume by about two-thirds. Cool, and then pour carefully into ice-cube trays. Freeze, and then store your own home-made frozen stock cubes in an airtight container in the freezer. When you come to use them, melt and dilute with water to taste, to restore your stock to its original state.
Machinery
If you like smooth soups, then you will need to invest in some type of liquidiser. Jug liquidisers are surprisingly cheap and make a far smoother soup than a processor, which is far more expensive anyway. Hand-held wand liquidisers are also a bargain. Although it takes longer to liquidise a saucepanful of soup, you have a greater degree of control, so that if you wish you can vary the texture from rough and chunky to silky smooth.
Before liquidising, let the soup cool a little, so that odd splashes won’t burn you. With a jug liquidiser, always make sure that the lid is firmly clamped on. Don’t over-fill – it is better to liquidise the soup in three or four batches, than to risk it squirting out all over the kitchen.
Even the toughest liquidiser can’t reduce absolutely everything to a smooth cream, so every now and then you will come across a soup that also needs sieving (such as the roast tomato and onion soup on page 24). The trick here is to make sure that you have a sieve with a comparatively loose mesh, i.e. with big enough holes to make sieving bearable. A sieve with a very tight mesh is fine for, say, sifting flour, but a nightmare when it comes to soups and sauces, as you have to work really, really hard for relatively small returns. So, go check your sieves and if necessary invest in a new, wide-meshed one as soon as possible. With that in hand, sieving a soup should be an easy enough matter. Use the largest wooden spoon you own to push the solids through the mesh of the sieve, scraping the puréed matter that clings to the underside off into the rest of the soup fairly frequently.
Alternatively, you could buy a mouli-légumes, or a food mill, which will do a similar job with efficiency.
Thinning Down
Once your soup is liquidised, you can assess the consistency properly. You may like it just as it is, but if you want to thin it down to a lighter consistency, stir in a little water if it needs only minor adjustment, or more stock, or perhaps some milk, if appropriate. Add a little at a time, stir in and then taste. Be careful not to overdo the extra liquid, or you will end up with a soup that tastes of precious little at all.
Dressing Up
An unadorned naked bowl of soup is a fine thing in itself, but there are times when all of us, soup included, benefit from a spot of dressing up. Some garnishes go particularly well with specific soups, whilst others are universally a good thing. Here is a list of some of the best, to be used on their own or in tandem with others
Fresh herbs Shredded basil leaves on any tomato-based soup; coriander leaves on soups with a hint of spice; chopped parsley or chives will give a lift to most soups; tarragon leaves bring a hint of aniseed – use your imagination.
Cream A drizzle or swirl of cream looks classy and enriches soup. It doesn’t matter a great deal whether it is single, whipping or double cream. Lightly whipped cream, seasoned with lime juice or herbs, floats on top of the soup, melting gently in the heat. Soured cream, crème fraîche and yoghurt (especially Greek-style yoghurt) need to be dolloped on gently. Yoghurt has a tendency to sink.
Croûtons The traditional croûton is a small, crisp golden cube of fried bread which adds a welcome contrast in texture to most soups. I find it easier to bake croûtons in the oven: toss cubed bread (crusts removed) with a little oil, turning well, then spread out on a baking sheet and bake at 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5, turning occasionally until golden brown, about 5–10 minutes. Although any decent loaf of bread will do, you can make extra-fancy croûtons with, say, olive bread or sun-dried tomato bread.
Croûtes Croûtes are larger versions of croûtons. Small slices of bread (either quarter large pieces, or use slices of a baguette) can either be toasted, or brushed with olive oil and baked in the oven until crisp (the best method, I think, see the croûtons section above). You could top each one with a smear of pesto (bought or home-made, see page 71), or tapenade (an olive and caper purée that can be bought in small jars from the deli). Or try a small swirl of crème fraîche, or you could pile some grated Gruyère cheese on top. Whatever you do, the idea is then to float it in the soup as it is served.
Cheese Grated or very finely diced cheese is a good garnish for chunky soups, such as the Italian vegetable and bean soup on page 26. Parmesan is wonderfully piquant, but grated mature Cheddar brings oodles of flavour, too. The sweetish, nutty taste of Gruyère is another winner.
Olive oil A drizzle of a really fruity extra virgin olive oil works well in many more Mediterranean soups, bringing a fresh, light richness that invigorates all the other flavours in the soup. For a powerful injection of energy, fry 1 or 2 chopped garlic cloves and a deseeded chopped red chilli in olive oil until the garlic is golden, then spoon over the surface of the soup, still hot and sizzling, just before serving.
Bacon Choose good-quality dry-cured streaky bacon (it crisps up better than back bacon), and cook in rashers until brown and crisp (see page 21).
Diced tomato, cucumber or pepper These add an appealing freshness to a soup, as well as a splash of colour. Deseed tomatoes and peppers, but don’t skin them, before dicing small. I really can’t see the point in deseeding cucumbers, but if you really want to, that’s fine. Diced celery can also work well, but a fair number of people aren’t so keen on it.
Good Vegetable Soup
This is a basic primer recipe for puréed vegetable soup. It’s ideal for using up the odds and ends of vegetables that gather in the bottom of the fridge or in the vegetable rack (as long as they are not too old and mouldering), but you can also use it to make a purer mono-veg soup, such as the curried parsnip soup below.
Serves 4–6
BASE INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons olive or sunflower oil, or 30g (1oz) butter
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
AROMATICS
1 bouquet garni (the classic one below)
and/or 1–2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and chopped
or 1 teaspoon or more curry paste or curry powder or spices, e.g. cumin, fennel seeds, cinnamon, etc.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
1 potato, or other thickener if needed, peeled and cut into chunks
500g (18oz) vegetables, prepared as appropriate (see page 27) and roughly chopped
LIQUID
1–1.5 litres (13/4– 23/4 pints) Vegetable or Chicken Stock (see pages 15–17), or vegetable cooking water, or a mixture of water and milk
SEASONINGS
salt and pepper
1 Heat the oil or butter gently in a large saucepan, then add the base ingredients, the aromatics and the main ingredients. Stir around to coat everything in the fat, then sweat very gently for 10–15 minutes.
2 Add the smaller amount of stock or other liquid, saving the rest for thinning down (if necessary), and season with salt and pepper. Bring up to the boil, then simmer gently for about 20 minutes until all the vegetables are tender.
3 Liquidise in several batches, and return to the pan. Thin down with the reserved stock, water or milk as required, and check the seasoning.
4 Reheat when needed, and eat.
need to know
BOUQUET GARNI This is a bundle of herbs, that gives flavour to stocks, soups and stews. Classically it is a bay leaf, a sprig of parsley and a sprig of thyme tied together with string. Other flavours can be added – leek leaves, alternative herbs or lemon zest.
Potato, Parsley and Garlic Soup
This yummy, comforting soup can be served as a first course, or in larger quantities whenever you are need of a bit of inner warmth. I love it with a touch of cheese and some crisp, salty bacon bits stirred in, but neither is utterly essential. You might just want to scatter over a few chopped chives instead, or spoon on some nuggets of golden-fried chopped garlic and chilli with a drizzle of olive oil.
Serves 4–6
BASE INGREDIENTS
1 onion, peeled and chopped
30g (1oz) butter
AROMATICS
1 bouquet garni (2 strips lemon zest, 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme)
MAIN INGREDIENTS
leaves of 1 bunch parsley, roughly chopped
1kg (21/4lb) potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced
1 whole garlic bulb, separated into cloves, peeled
LIQUID
1.2 litres (2 pints) Vegetable or Chicken Stock (see pages 15–17)
300ml (10fl oz) milk
SEASONINGS
salt and pepper
freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 lemon
DRESSING UP (OPTIONAL)
a handful of grated Gruyère cheese
4–6 rashers streaky bacon, cooked until crisp (see right), and crumbled
1 Follow the basic method opposite, adding the stock only, plus salt, pepper and nutmeg at stage 2. When liquidised, stir in the milk, and add a squeeze or two of lemon juice (this highlights flavours, but shouldn’t be so much that the soup tastes lemony).
2 Reheat, and serve with the cheese and bacon if you wish.
need to know
CRISPY BACON To get bacon appetisingly crisp you will need to start off with a pack of streaky bacon. The higher fat content is what makes it go so irresistibly crunchy and golden. A dry-cure bacon is a better option than cheaper bacon which will probably have been pumped up with water and other additives. The best cooking method, I find, is to lay the bacon on a rack over a roasting tin and cook it in a hot oven, around 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6, for about 20 minutes until it is golden brown. Grilling is the second best option and not so dissimilar – keep the bacon about 10cm (4in) away from the grill and move it around the grill rack every few minutes so that it grills evenly. Either way, let it cool a little before attempting to crumble it.
need to know
HOW BIG IS A BUNCH? ‘A bunch of parsley’ is, I admit, infuriatingly vague. Actually, it’s deliberately vague, and I hope you will consider it empowering in a very small, kitcheny sort of a way. It’s a permission-giver of a term. So, if you quite fancy the idea of loads of parsley giving the soup a definite green tint, then you use a big bunch. For an altogether tamer affair, take it down to posy-ish size. The point, really, is that the exact size is not critical to the success of the soup; it just changes the taste a little…or a lot. Hey – you’re the cook here. It’s up to you how the food turns out. Embrace the responsibility!
Curried Parsnip Soup
When my Mum, the food writer Jane Grigson, came up with this wonderful soup way back in the 1970s, it seemed quite radical. Now, almost everyone has caught up with it, and variations on the theme abound. The original combination of humble parsnips and curry remains one of the best.
Follow the Good Vegetable Soup recipe on page 20, using a 1/2 tablespoon curry paste (or a little more if you like things extra spicy) as the aromatic element, and replacing potato and vegetables with 500g (18oz) parsnips, which are starchy enough to thicken the soup without aid. Smaller parsnips should be peeled, then sliced, discarding the top. After peeling, larger parsnips will need to be cut into chunks, then quartered lengthways to reveal the tougher inner core. Cut this bit out and chuck it in the bin. Use what is left for the soup.
This is a soup that takes particularly well to being finished with a little cream swirled into each bowl and a scattering of croûtons.
Carrot and Coriander Soup
This is another modern classic, but one that is often misinterpreted. It is coriander seed that works so magically with carrots, rather than coriander leaf (although this is welcome as a finishing touch).
Follow the recipe for Good Vegetable Soup on page 20, using a tablespoon of whole coriander seeds as the aromatic element, replacing the potato with 1 tablespoon of rice (any white rice: long-grain, pudding or risotto), and using carrots alone, with no other vegetables. Serve the soup with a scattering of fresh coriander leaves on top.
Roast Tomato and Onion Soup
Roasting the vegetables for a soup gives a great depth of flavour, and a hint of something darker and treaclier distilled from the heat-charred edges. It also happens to be a particularly simple way of setting about soup-making. Everything bar the stock is piled into a roasting tin and slid into the oven. You go away for 45 minutes or so, and then all you need do is liquidise the whole lot. And sieve it. Finito.
Serves 4–6
BASE AND MAIN INGREDIENTS
1.5kg (3lb 5oz) reddest tomatoes you can find, cut in half
1kg (21/4 lb) onions, peeled and cut into eighths
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 big thyme sprigs
4 tablespoons olive oil
SEASONINGS
2 teaspoons caster sugar
salt and pepper
LIQUID
900ml (11/2 pints) Vegetable or Chicken Stock (see pages 15–17)
