There's so much more to soup than throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot and letting them cook. From crafting the perfect roux to getting the right texture to your vegetables, these easy-to-learn soup tips will have you bubbling, simmering and serving with the best of them.
Smart Seasoning: Aim for a strong taste foundation, with a balance among saltiness, tartness, and savoriness. Rich soups can benefit from a counterpoint of acidity. Vegetable purees can benefit from the background savoriness of a little bacon or tomato or Parmesan cheese, or soy sauce or Vietnamese fish sauce or Japanese miso.
Quick Tip for Thickening:
Use heavy whipping cream or high-fat crème fraîche for thickening, which contain too little milk protein to form noticeable curds even at the boil. If you use light cream, sour cream, yogurt, or butter, or a swirl of flavoured or olive oil, add at the last minute and keep temperature well below the boil. Reheat leftovers to (160°F/70°C, not to the boil.)Curtail Curdling: With dairy soups, choose recipes that include starch or flour, which help protect proteins from coagulating and creams from leaking fat.
Rock the Roux:,Predisperse the thickener in a roux, beurre manié, or slurry to prevent lumpiness. Add the thickener and then simmer just until the soup develops the right consistency.
Time it Right: Add uncooked ingredients in stages to a simmering soup to avoid over or undercooking them. This order is a good one to keep in mind:
- whole grains, or firm carrots or celery first
- then more tender onions or cauliflower, pieces of chicken breast, or white rice or pasta
- at the last minute, delicate spinach leaves, fish or shellfish.
Serve Warm: While serving, keep the pot covered and warm, around 140°F/60°C. Refrigerate leftovers within 4 hours of turning off the heat.
Lovely Leftovers: When preparing leftovers, reheat to at least 160°F/70°C, being especially careful with protein-thickened soups to avoid curdling.
Excerpted from Keys to Good Cooking by Harold McGee Copyright © 2010 by Harold McGee. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. KEYS TO GOOD COOKING provides simple statements of fact and advice, along with brief explanations that help cooks understand why, and apply that understanding to other situations. Not a cookbook, Keys to Good Cooking is, simply put, a book about how to cook well.
Adapted from "How to Be a Soup Star", December 2010.
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