Soup

What It Is

• A basic assemblage of proteins, starches, vegetables, and broth neatly packed in a bowl– For examples, soups have been

perfected into silken bisques, refined consommés and hearty minestrones

• All soups are permutations of the same minor miracle: water transformed into a meal

What It Does

• Most soups, other than some fruit soups, start as a vegetable, fish, poultry, or meat broth.

• The plainest soups, bouillons and consommés are the most technically challenging– They are started with broth, strained of all

its solid ingredients, and because these soups are nothing but liquid, a strongly flavored broth is essential

What It Does

• Bouillons and Consommés– In order to make a strongly flavored

both, it may be reduced to concentrate its flavors, or sometimes it is simmered with additional vegetables and meats and strained again

– Advantages: gelatinous mouth feel• If lacking in gelatin (which it gets from the

collagen in meat and bones), it will be thin or watery and will not linger in the mouth long enough to deliver full flavor

What It Does

• Bouillons and Consommés– Advantages• The consistency of a bouillon can be

adjusted by adding a pinch of unflavored gelatin to the cold broth, then heating it to dissolve the gelatin, which reinforces the broth’s gelatin content

Consommés

• A consommé is bouillon clarified with egg white– The egg whites are whisked into cold

broth– The mixture is heated gradually and

whisked continuously to keep the egg white suspended

– As it heats, the protein in the egg coagulates, making the broth appear cloudy and dirty

Consommés

• Making a consommés with egg white– At a certain point the threads of egg

solidify, which is the clue to stop stirring, allowing the web of egg to rise to the surface, trapping all of the miniscule elements in the broth that made it hazy

– The set egg floats like a raft on the surface, and when the “raft” is removed it leaves behind a crystal clear liquid

Additional Ingredients

• Additional solid ingredients are added to the broth to make most soups. Most of the time starchy ingredients, like grains, noodles, or potatoes, are cooked separately and then added to the finished soup so that their starch doesn’t slough into the broth (exceptions include potato and bean soups that are thickened with the sloughed starch)

Additional Ingredients

• Tender vegetables, fresh herbs, fish, or shellfish are usually added after the broth is fully flavored, since they would otherwise overcook.

• Some broths are lightly thickened with roux (flour mixed with fat) or a slurry (starch or flour mixed with water)

• Cream or milk is added to “cream of” soups to enrich the broth

Pureed Soups

• Soups can be made thicker by pureeing all or part of the solid ingredients– Bisques are rich, smooth soups (often made

from seafood) that are pureed, strained, and then smoothed with some cream and sometimes starch

– Pureed vegetable soups are often named for their dominant vegetable (usually something pulpy or starchy)

– Purred fruit soups are more often thinned sweetened purees that is more like a smoothie

Broth vs. Stock

• They are made similarly and currently the terms are used interchangeably. Classically there is a difference:– Stocks

• Are made mostly from bone• Have a richer consistency from the collagen in the bone• Always strained

– Broths• Are made mostly from meat• Meatier flavor• Sometimes served with the solid ingredients that

flavored them

How It Works

• Soups are almost always started by cooking flavorful ingredients – often called aromatics – lightly in a little oil

• Sweating– A method that concentrates flavorful

juices and starts extracting them from the vegetables, herbs, and/or meats sweating in the pot, where they can then be captured with cold water

How It Works

• Cold water is purer than water from a hot water tank and also takes longer to bring to a boil

• The longer cooking time extracts more flavor– Add just enough water to cover the sweated

ingredients by no more than a few inches, since more results in weak flavors, which will need to be concentrated by boiling off the excess water after the broth is finished

How It Works

• As soon as the liquid boils, reduce the heat so the broth barely simmers, and skim off any debris floating on the surface.– This debris, known unfortunately as “scum,” is

not harmful or dirty– Made most of tiny bits of coagulated protein, it

will cloud the soup and eventually coagulate– Avoid vigorous boiling, which can break the solid

ingredients apart, causing the broth to become murky

How It Works

• Broths should simmer just until they are full flavored:– Fish broths need about 45 minutes– Vegetable broths need about 1 ½ hours– Chicken broths need about 2-3 hours–Meat broths need about 4-6 hours

• Simmering for too long results in an overcooked stewed flavor

How It Works

• When broth is finished cooking, it can be strained or not– Inedible items like bones and whole herbs or

spices are removed before finishing the broth or stock into a soup

• When making soups with fully flavored canned or boxed herbs, an initial period of sweating is still important, but, once the broth is added, the soup needs to simmer only until the solid ingredients are tender

How It Works

• Bouillon cubes or soup bases are broth (or stock) concentrates made by dehydrating broth– Glace de viande

• Classic French version of the soup base, prepared by reducing a flavorful beef or veal broth down to 1/16th of its original volume

• It gels into a solid as it chills and can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month

– Glace de volaille• Poultry base soup

– Glace de poisson• Fish base soup

Assignment

• Complete questions #1-21 in the back of your workbook.