soup recipes

Here's one that I like - have made it several times with good results.

Autumn Vegetable Soup - Fine Cooking Recipes, Techniques and Tips

Delicatta and Kabocha squash are nice substitutes for the butternut that the recipe calls for. My preference between the two is the Delicatta.

Schmoozer

I've got a really good recipe for a Spanish Tomato Soup with sausage. I've got the recipe posted on my blog.

Go to: fishnpickles.blogspot.com

I've always loved making soups because you really aren't restricted by any set of rules, and you can really let your imagination run wild.

We love soup. Around here, a day without soup is a day without sunshine.

You can find some of my faves here: Autumn Soup. Tips and techniques for making soups while camping this fall.

One of my favorite winter soups comes from Chester Aaron, the garlic guru. It's a little more complex to make than others, but, IMO, worth the bother:

Chester Aaron's Root Soup

6 beets, roots and greens
3 turnips
8 carrots
3 parsnips
2 lg white onions
1/4 cup wine vinegar
Juice of 2 lemons
6 tbls honey
2 tbls butter
Salt & pepper to taste
1 head garlic

Separate beet roots from greens. Cut roots into slices or cubes. Cover with water. Add vinegar, lemon juice and honey. Boil until tender. Remove from pot.

Chop beet greens. Add to water and boil 10 minutes. Remove. Adjust sweet/sour taste with more vinegar or honey.

Cut other roots into chunks and cook in a separate pot until tender. Reserve cooking water.

Slice onions and fry in butter until golden.

In a large bowl add all roots except beets. Blend with an immersion blender, adding vegetable water as needed, until soup has a fine, smooth texture. Pour into a container.

Using immersion blender, bring beets, in their red juice, to the same smooth texture.

Mix beet puree into other vegetqable liquid. Stir. Add salt and pepper to taste.

We both love corn. But Friend Wife has trouble digesting it. After much experimentation we've concluded that it's the outer skin that troubles her. So I came up with a version of corn soup that gives us the flavor, if not the mouth feel, of whole kernels. You can, if you prefer, skip the final blending stage.

Bobby-J's Corn Soup

for the stock:
4-5 ears husk-on corn
1 sm onion, halved
1 rib celery
1 carrot, broken
3-4 garlic cloves
12 peppercorns

1/2 lb double-smoked slab bacon
2 onions, sliced thin
3 med potatoes
5 cups corn stock
3 cups corn kernels (approx)
Salt & white pepper to taste

Make the stock: Dehusk corn, reserving husks. Remove kernels from corn and reserve them. In a stock pot saute the onion, celery, carrot and garlic until just colored. Add the reserved hunsk, cobs, and peppercorns. Cover with water. Bring to boil, lower heat, and simmer 2 hours. Strain through cheesecloth.

Cut bacon into lardons. Peel potates and cut into 1/2" cubes.

Saute lardons over medium heat until brown and crisp. Drain on paper towels. Discard all but 2 tablespoons bacon grease. Saute onions in bacon grease until softened. Add potatoes and stock and simmer until potatoes are tender. Remove onions and potatoes. Reserve.

Add corn to stock and cook 3-5 minutes until softened. Working in batches, if necessary, transfer corn and stock to blender and puree. Return to pot, along with the potatoes and onions. Adjust seasoning with salt and white pepper. Sprinkle each serving with some of the lardons.

i made a beaut cream of chicken soup with tarragon at work last week

i basically:
-cooked the Mirepoix (onions, celery, leek, fresh thyme) in butter with a splash of oil and a pinch of salt.
-added flour to make a roux, then added some white wine and cooked out the roux.
-added chicken stock, light seasoning, stirred together, then gently boiled for about 15 mins.
-took it off the heat then blitzed and passed the soup though a chinoise.

-i separately cooked some diced chicken breast in the steamer with seasoning, and chopped some fresh tarragon.
-carefully added them to the soup and blitzed again.
-checked flavour, seasoning and consistency

it was beaut! :roll:

Coulis-o - sounds delish, but am curious.

Did you sieve after the blitzing once the chicken meat was added in? Was it smooth or was there a bit of (for want of a better word) grainy-ness still in there? I'm pretty adamant/obsessive about sieving creamy soups - forgive me.

I love that kind of soup - for me - leave the chunks in :) (Yes I know you wanted cream of chicken soup...just saying how I like it)

DC,

I just looked at that recipe and his technique, the way it comes across to me , sounds like a nice bowl of "cream" of chicken. I am guessing it was a good puree.

My favourite chicken soup is Princess cream of chicken...
Chunky chicken soup is great too, I really enjoy dill weed, it is one of those flavors that go in just about any soup, especially clam Chowder, Borscht, Derby soup, and Solferino.

Onion soup, fish soup,

Another two favorties. Onion.... Hot melted gooey cheese all golden brown and sizzlin'.
A baguette and a glass of Chateau Montelena Riesling 2006 maybe......

sorry have just noticed your question i'm still trying to figure out how to use the new forum lay out

in response to your question i didn't sieve the soup after blitzing it again with the chicken, for reason being that i didn't want to 'sieve out' all the chicken that i had just placed in the soup, and with it being a chicken soup i wanted it to have real chicken in the soup.

the result was it having finely blitzed chicken meat in the soup nothing close to chunks or pieces, but not as smooth as a Soubise texture either, i ultimately wanted the chicken soup to have real chicken meat in it regardless of how smooth it is.

I think I am looking for a Soubisse textured soup most times I make a cream of (insert ingredient/s) soup, then add some of the meat producing the stock, or a small portion of the steamed breasts...thats just me and my taste buds :)  Say a white bean soup, for example, that has been made, then pureed, save a few beans from the blitzer to include in the final product as garnish.

I wasn't critising...just asking what was done with it, is all. I am always curious.  Glad I am not a cat!

Thanks for your reply.

P.S. Never leave me alone in a kitchen without a sieve

point taken i take it you have what it takes as a cook to make a perfect cream of puree soup

i generally tend to strain soup with a chinoise rather than a sieve works better for when making Soubise.

two favorites:
zuppa di scarola - escarole soup - boil escarole, a sliced onion, a sliced carrot sliced, and sliced celery, until the escarole and other ingredients are soft.  Boil some rice on the side.  Ladle the soup and the rice separately into the bowls, add lots of parmigiano.  It sounds so rustic and so simple.  It is not improved by sauteeing the vegetables, in fact i think it's ruined.  You can embellish with tiny meatballs (ground beef, lots of parmigiano, an egg) - add to the simmering soup near the end.  A meal in itself however you make it.  I could eat it every night and never tire of it. 

Another incredibly mouth-watering soup is cream of potato and fennel.  Sautee onions and fennel, all sliced thin, and then add potatoes cut up and water to cover, and some milk so the liquid is above the potato line and  simmer till the potatoes are soft.  Blend with an immersion blender and add a little cream if you like it.  I can't tell you how appetizing it is! 

Since you like bean soup, I have a bean soup for ya

Split Pea Soup with Ham

recipe video is at www.bethecook.com/recipes/Split-Pea-Soup-with-Ham

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 onion - diced
• 2 ribs celery - diced
• 3 cloves sliced garlic
• 1 lb diced ham
• 1 lb split peas
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

 

Step 1

Put 2 tbsp butter into a soup pot over med-low heat.
Add 2 ribs celery and 1/2 onion. Cook them slowly for a few minutes.

 

Step 2

Dice 1 lb ham. After the onion and the celery become soft and tender,
put the ham in the pot. Add 1 bay leaf, some salt and pepper.
Set the heat to medium low, cook for about 5 minutes.

 

Step 3

After that, Add 1 lb split peas, 1 quart chicken stock, and 2 1/2 cups water.
Bring it to a simmer, then simmer on low heat for 1-1.5 Hours.

Go to wasatchfoodies.com and look in the Recipes section for a couple of my favorites.  I've only got two in there so far, they shouldn't be hard to find!

mjb.

Another one I like is incredibly easy to do.  Take about a cup of broth, or however much you plan to eat and put in a small saucepan on the stove.  Add 1 T soy sauce, maybe 1/2 T fish sauce if desired.  Slice a mushroom or two, throw in the broth, simmer for 4 - 5 minutes.

Put in a bowl, top with a chopped scallion and eat.


mjb.

another favourite soup i like to make is:

Watercress Soup with diced Saute Potatoes and Poached Egg..

250g Butter
500g Mirepoix (onions, celelry, leek, fresh thyme)
3-6 Cloves Garlic
5 bunches of Watercress - washed and stalks trimmed
300g Plain Flour
1/4 litre White Wine
5 Litres Vegetable Stock
1-2 cups Dble Cream
Seasoning

melt the butter and cook the mirepoix with the thyme till soft adding the garlic halfway through cooking, add the flour mix in well on a low-medium heat then add the wine and cook out the flour for a few minutes stirring well.
add the stock season mix well and bring to boil, simmer for 10-15mins. remove from heat add watercress and blitz well, pass through a chinoise, add the cream mix and check seasoning/consitency.

prepare and cook the diced saute potatoes seperate and warm through and add to the soup upon serving, cook the poached egg when putting the soup together upon serving.

put the warmed through potatoes in the soup bowl, add the soup then place the egg in the soup on top of the potatoes. garnish with fresh chopped parsley

I like Pea soup a lot. Or if you like you can visit foodista.com and look for more soup recipes there. I got some of my recipes from there.