Soup Of The Evening
Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
by Lewis Carroll, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
In the winter this old gal’s fancy heavily turns to thoughts of soup. Theoretically, soup can be any combination of vegetables, meats, or fish. Fruit soups are on their own. Soup can be any consistency from thick and chunky gumbo or stew, to thin and smooth consommé. In between you’ll find all manner of broths and bouillons, purées and cream soups, bisques and chowders.
Though most soups are served hot, some, like vichyssoise, gazpacho, or fruit soups, are served cold. These last, to me, are summer soups. In winter we’re talkin’ hot stuff. Canned or made-from-scratch, soups can be served as a first course or as a meal. As a meal they’re great with a sandwich, or a big chunk of crusty bread and a salad.
Soup can be as economical or as extravagant as you care to make it: it’s the end of the week, your cupboard is bare, and you’re down to a few bouillon cubes and an egg or two - voila! - egg drop soup.
Or: you’re entertaining a local politician or pundit, and you must come up with a fantastic, money-is-no-object, starter. Short of soups consisting of shark fins and gold - yes, there are such soups - you couldn’t go wrong with a chunky lobster or shrimp bisque.
Canned soups are not to be sniffed at. There are many ways to dress them in glory. Think of cream-of-chicken with some frozen peas or corn added in the cooking. Think of Scotch broth with a splash of vermouth. Think of any vegetable soup with a dash of soy sauce or a sprinkling of grated or shredded cheese. Cream of tomato is excellent made with water, not milk, and zipped up with a bit of dried basil and a swirl of sour cream. You can make any soup thicker by using about a quarter less liquid than called for. Think outside of the can. Other soup ‘zippers’ include rice wine vinegar, celery seed, crumbled bacon, and, of course, croutons.
Soups made from scratch can be made up fairly quickly. Unless you’d like them to sit longer to ‘flavor-up’, or you have large chunks of raw meat in the soup, about an hour is all you’ll need. Think of what you’d put on a dinner plate per person: a small serving of meat (soup is a meat stretcher), some vegetables, and a starch. Add a flavorful liquid and you’ve got soup.
The basic starter for most soups: onions. Figure one medium onion for two servings. Sauté the onions in butter, or oil if you prefer it, until they are translucent. Then add as much liquid as you’ll need - about a cup per serving. The liquid can be canned broth or bouillon, or water and bouillon cubes. The bouillon cube came to us from the French, those masters at both accelerating and slowing the many processes of cooking. Remember that the broth made from cubes will taste different than fresh or canned because it has more salt in it.
Before you consider vegetables other than onions, think of any meat or seafood you’d like in the soup. If you’ve pieces of raw meat to go in the soup they should be added, along any spices you prefer, at this point. They should be cooked until they are tender. Because it takes such a short time to cook, seafood will be added after the vegetables are tender and will be cooked until just done. Pre-cooked meats are also added as the last step and cooked just until heated through.
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| Old Carrots? Perfect for soup! |
Think of small-diced potatoes, barley, noodles, or rice, or a can of any type of beans - pinto, navy, kidney, or garbanzos, for your starch. Time things like rice and noodles according to the package directions.
Consider the vegetables. What have you? Carrots? Celery? An old turnip? Some cabbage? Some almost-past-it spinach? How about a can of diced tomatoes? Be sure to adjust for the liquid in the can. Other than the tomatoes, any canned vegetables or beans you use should be well rinsed before you add them to the pot. Raw vegetables should be cut no thicker than a half an inch. This is the time to add the spices if you haven’t added any meat. Vegetables can stand on their own in a soup. They’ll cook in up to twenty minutes. A soup made only of vegetables can be puréed with an immersion blender for a thick, satisfying bowl-full.
If you concoct a soup you love be sure to write down what you did. Think about making more and freezing some next time. So there you have it - soup of the evening (or lunch.) Beautiful soup.
