No Soup for You!

Winter and Fall have no chance against this medicine.

Soup is a staple food in virtually every national cuisine around the globe, and it's been around for longer than you might think. One of the first known forms of food preparation, ancient soup bowls dating from up to 20,000 B.C. have been found in China, with the dish originally made using heated rocks to create early forms of broth. As history tumbled on, more defined soup recipes started to form across Europe and Asia, while home cooks mastered the act of throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot and making a delicious liquid-based meal from it — a practice that continues to this day.

Soup

/so͞op/ noun

1. 1.

   a liquid dish, typically made by boiling meat, fish, vegetables, etc., in stock or water.

   "a bowl of tomato soup"

   2.

   a substance or mixture perceived to resemble soup in appearance or consistency.

   "the waves and the water beyond have become a thick brown soup"

2. Soup is life. (I added this one for grins…)

What a bummer that its definition so incredibly limits its potency, possibilities, and endless variety. I personally think that soups are almost directly embedded into the emotional and somatic memories that every human has. Some of my fondest memories are having soup on various occasions. Not only all over the world but as a way of grounding and feeling more connected to people, places, or events.

So, at the Intentional Table today, it’s Soup Day! I once wrote a poem called "The Way to make coffee is to begin by capitalizing Coffee". You guessed it, it's about intention. It's about that often dramatic and incredible Journey a coffee being hast to take in order to fall into your cup and make you smile and then get to work. So today at the Intentional Table, I will call this: “The way to begin making soup is by capitalizing Soup.”

So, with such an incredible history and all we know about it, why is soup still so tricky to perfect? While it's not difficult to make a passable soup, too often, the homemade versions will have an underpowered flavor or be full of mushy and unsatisfying vegetables. There can also be a temptation to try and bolster the flavor of soup with salt or sodium-filled ingredients, leaving you with something less than dramatically delicious, and why, in the world, would you eat anything less than ‘dramatically delicious’? Come on….

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You may even be saying to yourself, "I make a really good soup. What in the world is he talking about?" I am sure that that is absolutely true. None of the things here in this little stack that you read are meant to say that we do it better here or that you couldn't, shouldn't, or wouldn't be able to do it where you are. No. No. Hopefully, you'll find these arguably one-sided conversations helpful, instructive, and fun to read. You may have noticed that there's a big fat comment box as well, which you are absolutely able to use. As absolutely famous as I am, I do read everything that you comment on. 😌

So here are 14 (Yes, 14) things to think about when it comes to Soup.

1. Forgetting about your fats

Soup is often championed as a food that can be low in fat yet still delicious. While that can sometimes be the case, this can often lead to people skimping too much on the fat in their soups, leading to a flat and lifeless meal. Fat serves to activate our taste buds and somewhat works as a taste in itself, thereby serving to round out a meal's flavor and underlining the other notes in our food. This is true even when it comes to liquid-heavy meals like soup, where fat doesn't work so much as a lubricant as it does as a flavor addition.

Fat also contributes to a better mouthfeel in foods, and crucially, it can also have an effect on satiety, making meals keep you fuller for longer. The best part is that you can add fat at pretty much any stage of the cooking process with soup, and it will still have a positive effect on your meal. Add it at the beginning to sauté your vegetables properly, or finish your bowl off with a garnish of drizzled olive oil or a pat of butter. Doing this allows you to taste the full flavor of the fat and gives your soup an extra silkiness.

2. Not adding in a thickener

One of the greatest tragedies that we can think of is a soup that's too watery. And this can often happen if you're not thinking about how to thicken it. While soup can often be thickened simply by simmering it on the stove for long enough or by the ingredients in it releasing starch to provide body, oftentimes, this may not be enough and may result in you overcooking things. Adding a thickener to your soup, however, is a quick way to give it density without intensifying its flavor too much.

There are many easy ways to thicken your next soup, but our favorite method is using cornstarch or flour slurry. These starch-heavy ingredients serve to create bulk in your soup without changing its flavor. You can make an easy flour or cornstarch slurry by mixing a few teaspoons with water and then pouring it into the hot broth. This will prevent the dry ingredients from clumping together in your liquid. Try mixing in some coconut milk for a vegan thickener that adds fat and flavor. Alternatively, you could also blitz up some stale bread or mash up some boiled potatoes and stir them through for near-instant thickness. ‌

3. Turning your heat up too high

🔥 Soups should ideally be cooked on a low simmer, but this, of course, takes time. And if you're in a hurry or are feeling hungry, the temptation can be to speed things up by turning up the heat. However, this is a surefire way to ruin your soup. Boiling your soup, instead of simmering it, will quickly cause your vegetables to overcook, making them mushy instead of tender. Any protein you add can also quickly toughen up and become dry when boiled due to the protein fibers constricting and pushing out the meat's juices.

Therefore, you should always simmer your soup on low heat, keeping it barely bubbling until it's ready to serve. Make sure to keep an eye on it, especially if you're cooking it with a lid on, as heat can quickly build up due to the trapped steam and moisture. You can also avoid your vegetables becoming overcooked by making sure everything is chopped to the same size. This will prevent some of them from cooking earlier than others and getting a ruined texture.

4. Forgetting to sauté your ingredients

As soup is cooked by throwing everything into a pot and simmering it, it can feel a bit pointless to brown your ingredients first. But fail to do so, and you'll end up with something ‘less than.’ Sautéeing vegetables and other ingredients before you add liquid is crucial for developing your food's flavor. Giving them access to direct dry heat through frying them allows the Maillard reaction to occur, giving all your ingredients a browned surface with a deeper flavor and unlocking sweet and savory flavor notes in vegetables like onions, peppers, and garlic.

Sautéeing vegetables also helps to keep them firm when they're subsequently simmered by locking in their crunchy texture. As well as this, sautéeing vegetables can also help to preserve their color. It's also a good way of ensuring that any fats that you're adding are well incorporated into your soup by coating your vegetables thoroughly when sautéeing instead of pouring them in afterward. And if you're using a thickener like flour, adding it in at the sautéeing stage can also prevent it from clumping up if it's thrown in later.

I am a huge fan of sauteing. In French, ' saute' means ‘to dance. ' This technique is characterized by high heat, a very small amount of oil, if any, and a short period of time.

5. Adding in your spices at the end

If you want to make soup like a chef, you're going to need some spices.

WAIT A MINUTE… LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT THAT LAST SENTENCE. So many places you will find this line. if you want to make ‘fill-in-the-blank’ like a chef… This is such a mockery of the word. Did you know that the word chef comes from the French military. Chef essentially is and equates to ‘manager.’ If you are in your own kitchen, you're the manager of that kitchen and therefore you are the chef. the only differentiation (according to famous Chef, Thomas Keller, in fact) between yourself, and a professional chef is that you have not been formally educated, in the chemistry of food, nor it service however, your intention, art form, and results are clearly, and only a precipitate of your desire and your acquired skill. If you have some skill and good ingredients, you, my friend, are a Chef. Let's just get busy with capitalizing Chef from now on too why don't we…

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Spices, herbs, and other aromatics provide an irreplaceable element to soups, imbuing them with complexity and depth of flavor and preventing them from becoming bland. However, when exactly you add your spices is crucial, particularly if you're working with ground ones. If you're putting ground spices in at the end of the process, not only are you not giving them the time they need to unlock their flavors by releasing their natural oils, but you also run the risk of them clumping up in your broth.

Instead, you should always add your spices at the beginning of your cooking process. If you're using whole spices, throw them in as early as possible to give their flavors a chance to develop and the spices time to toast. Ground spices should always be added before you add your liquid, and give some time to fry. However, make sure you're not adding them too early. Because ground spices are pretty fine, they have a tendency to burn if exposed to dry heat for too long. It's best to mix them into your vegetables and protein a minute or two before adding your liquid.

6. Over-salting your soup

One of the worst things that can happen to a soup is it becoming too salty. Salt is, of course, a key flavor component of soup, and an ample amount is usually required to marry all of your ingredients together and stop your meal from being flat. But adding just one extra pinch can tip the balance and make your meal unpalatable. Soup can also quickly become too salty by adding extra ingredients that you're not using primarily for salt but which can contain high levels of sodium, like Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, or spice mixes.

Unfortunately, the solution isn't as simple as just adding extra water, as this can throw the balance off for all of your other ingredients. Instead, you can fix over-salty soup with a simple potato hack. Raw potatoes, as well as other raw starchy vegetables, will absorb salt as they cook, essentially working as a sponge for excess sodium. Simply peel a potato and place it in your soup for about half an hour while on a gentle simmer before pulling it out. Make sure you do a taste test afterward to assess the seasoning levels and make any necessary adjustments.

7. ‌Assuming you always need to use broth

Using a pre-made broth or stock, or one you've made from scratch, is a quick way to give soup loads of additional flavor. But if you've always assumed that you need it to make the best soup, you're mistaken. Soups can be just as delicious if you're using regular water as the base of your cooking liquid, and doing so allows for a more gently-flavored dish that contains the taste of your ingredients more fully.

Using water is also, of course, a big money-saver. While stock cubes don't cost much, fancied store-bought stocks and broths can be fairly pricey, And you may find that they don't actually add that much flavor at all. If you're making your own stock or broth, it can also turn what should be a relatively quick meal into something that takes hours to prepare. Additionally, relying on a store-bought broth or stock can result in you adding significant levels of salt to the soup as well as herb or spice combinations that you may not love for your chosen recipe, whereas using water allows you to control precisely how much salt you're putting into your meal.

Wow… are we there yet?

I know it’s a longer read than usual, but hey, it’s NOT SOUP YET…

See part 2, which will come right after this.