My Guide to Making Good Soup
Soup season is well and truly in full swing. While I love to make soup all year long, October is when it really kicks into gear. The change in the season has me wanting to spend time coddling a pot of something on the stove, mindlessly stirring my liquid creation regardless of whether any stirring is actually necessary.
The title for this started out as “You Don’t Need A Recipe to Make Delicious Soup” which I 100% stand by, but as the weeks went by I found myself thinking about different soups I’d like to make, and how actually a recipe would be pretty handy! So, here is a revised take on the concept, which is that you absolutely do not NEED a recipe to make infinite different soups, but sometimes recipes are also great, and regardless of whether you have a recipe or are flying off the cuff with improvised inspiration, here is a guide to making all soups delicious.
In my experience, there are 3 main things that can make or break a great soup. The first of these is seasoning. This almost goes without saying- the biggest difference between something tasting average or really good is salt. The next is to have a good base to ground the flavour structure and then add onto in order. The third is the liquid- the amount and the type.
Let’s start with the base…
By ‘base’ I mean onions in the very least plus any or all of the following: celery, carrot, leek, bacon, peppers, garlic (see note about adding garlic). I like to cut everything quite finely for my base, but that is less important than cooking it slowly with a good amount of fat (olive oil, butter, lard or bacon grease, chicken fat- I generally just use olive oil and sometimes I throw in some butter but it depends on what I have and what I’m making). The fat should generously coat the vegetables well, but doees’t need to be pooling at the bottom. A good pinch of salt early in the cooking is important to help the vegetables release their water which will evaporate and help to stop them from burning as well as intensify their flavour. You want to cook all the base vegetables EXCEPT the garlic for at least 10-15 minutes, until they are very soft, translucent and just beginning to get some caramelized color. At this point you can add the garlic, which burns much quicker than the other vegetables, and stir for a couple of minutes until you can smell the garlic.
From here, you can add any spices you might want to use. I like to think of spices as a little composition- musical or visual. There are some that are easy and provide a good base line, you can use a good amount of these without easily overwhelming the balance. Ground coriander seeds, cumin, turmeric, paprika (unsmoked) are good base spices. Middle spices- these are good for providing moments of interest, a little warmth, or a faint background glow. All spice, ground ginger, fennel seeds, smoked paprika chili flakes, star anise (though the latter arguably could fit into the next bracket) …I put all of these spices in the middle ground category. The high notes are for accents, when a little goes a long way…fenugreek, cinnamon, cardamom, cayenne pepper, smoked chipotle. This is just a guide, and generally how I think about using spices, of course each recipe and how everyone approaches spices is different , but I always think it is handy to have a least a little visual map in your head of how to use them. For a pot of soup for my family…say a chickpea and pumpkin soup I might add 2 tsp each cumin and coriander and turmeric, a tsp of ground ginger, a pinch or two of cinnamon, a pinch of cardamom and a pinch of cayenne.
The point I started to make was the you add the spices, if using, stir for a minute or two until fragrant and then add your main ingredients. If I am using vegetables, I generally like to give them all a little toss around in the pan with the oil and base, giving them a pinch of salt and getting a little colour on them before adding the liquid. If you have added spices you will need to mind the temperature to make sure they don’t burn. If in doubt, add some liquid.
Let’s talk about liquid…
My go-to base for soup is chicken broth (see my method here), and at this time of the year I roast a chicken or two a week just to keep up with making enough stock. I have plenty of roast chicken recipes in previous newsletters (search archive), but next week I’m going to post my latest go-to favourite which I am calling “better than rotisserie chicken chicken”. My mother-in-law gifted me an instant pot in the absence of my real stove (long story, will circle back here another time) and I am finally making friends with it. Nothing compared to a bubbling pot of stock on the stovetop, but I have found the instant pot to be pretty easy and fuss free, and I don’t have to babysit anything sit it on a burner which is nice.
Anyway, if you do not have or want chicken stock, vegetable stock is great and takes a fraction of the time. Simply save all your vegetables scraps from the week- onion skins and ends, carrot tops, celery bits, squash or pumpkin skin- anything but brassicas really. Throw them in a pot with an extra onion, carrot or celery stick, a few peppercorns, maybe a sprig of time if you have some- ooh mushrooms are always nice too- and cover with water then bring to a simmer and cook for about an hour. Yotom Ottolengi suggests a couple of prunes too which I think is a brilliant idea!
Beef, fish or pork stock can all be used depending on the recipe, but I find if those are called for, they will be specified. And I am certainly not above just using water in my soups, in fact, if the base and filling is sufficient and well seasoned, simply using water can yield a clean and very delicious soup.
The most important the to remember when adding liquid to your soup is not to add too much! The number one mistake I see people make when cooking soup is adding too much liquid. You can always add more, it is very difficult to remove. Add enough to just cover the vegetables/ legumes/ meat in the soup and then add more if it looks like it needs it. If you are blending your soup, you can add more liquid to thin.
Seasoning…
Because of the nature of soup being really just a lot of water, it can sometimes feel like it takes an uncomfortable amount of salt to make it taste good. The most important rule of seasoning- this goes for everything not just soup- is to season as you go. Every time you add something to the pot, give it a little salt- not too much- just a little. Doing this will build the flavour as your soup is cooking meaning you will need to add less at the end. I like to hover over my pot of soup, tasting and seasoning as it cooks. Always little amounts because just like liquid, it is easy to add more, very difficult to remove!
Cooking..
Most soup wants to be cooked for between 40-50 minutes. They can go longer, they can go a little shorter, But I find that 40-50 minutes is ample time to cook everything and get good flavour development. Despite what you might think, longer is not always better for soups. I think there is such a thing as cooking the life of out something whereby the clarity and vibrance can be leeched out of a soup’s character though excessive time on the stove. There are always exceptions of course, I am thinking of a heavily reduced French onion soup for example, but all in all I would err on the side of under an hour. If you want it to taste even better, put it in the fridge for the night and heat it up the next day (or up to 5 days later).
Adding Starches..
I love to add pasta, rice and potatoes to my soups. I have a few guidelines when I do this as follows:
Rice: when adding uncooked rice I give the grains a little rinse to remove some of the starch (otherwise it can end up more like risotto, which can also be completely fine) and then I add the rice to the base mix, tossing thought the oil and vegetables before adding the liquid. If I am using cooked rice, I throw it in about 10-20 minutes towards the end of cooking.
Pasta: I have taken to cooking my pasta directly in the broth rather than pre-cooking and adding it. To do this, I add the broth to the pot and bring it to a simmer for about 20 minus or so before I add the pasta and a good couple of pinches of salt and cook until the pasta is soft. It takes longer to cook like this- usually about 20 minutes to half an hour and I like the pasta to be soft, not al dente. If the pasta is already cooked (great way to use up stray leftovers), I’ll throw it in about 10 minutes before the end of cook time.
Potatoes: potato soups are the best! My main rule for potatoes in soup is to add them just after I add the liquid, or 20 minutes before end of cook time if I don’t want them to break up. I find that cooking them in the base before adding the broth can make them turn a bit gummy.
Using Meats
When I talk about using meat in soups, I am not talking about slow braising meats for hours. That to me is a braise, and if you get a soup jus from it, that’s amazing, but not what I’m talking about here today. I’m talking mostly about adding sausages or pre-cooked meats- roast chicken, braised lamb/beef, ham shank.
I love using sausages in soups- usually alongside beans, tomato, kale, potato, sometimes pasta. I love to add extra fennel seeds when I use Italian sausage because I can’t get enough of it. I have decided that I like to add half of the sausage to the base before adding the liquid and save the other half for adding at the end (squeezed from the casing and fully cooked) because I think it has more flavour that way.
If I am adding chicken, I cut or tear it up and add it to the soup 10-15 mintes before the end of cook time, I find it keeps the flavour of the soup cleaner and the chicken doesn’t get tough (an exception s if you have all thigh'/leg meat which can hold up to longer cooking). Slow cooked lamb or beef I toss in whenever I feel like it, I don’t mind if they fall apart though the soup, but if you prefer to have pieces rather than strings of meat, add 10 minutes before end of cooking.
To Blend or not to Blend?
Nine times out of ten I leave my soup unblended. I prefer to chew my food, but occasionally it is nice to have sometime smooth, especially a pumpkin or tomato soup. I cannot recommend a stick blender- bar mix/ immersion blender- enough. I will never transfer soup to a blander to puree!
Using Leftover and Stretching it Out
The best thing about soup is it’s versatility. I often don’t have enough to serve everyone the next day, so I will use the base of the soup and make another meal. A recent kale and squash soup had some leftover couscous added to it, served with a dollop of garlicky yoghurt and some chili paste, it was even better than the original soup!
Decorate the Top
A handful of herbs, a dollop of yoghurt, a grating of nutmeg, a lick of cream, a handful of croutons. The topping can change the character of a soup in an instant. I served the leftover black bean soup I wrote about last week with some leftover corn cut from the cob that I tossed in a pan with paprika, some chorizo sausage and a squeeze of lime and it was an amazing meal, very different from the previous night which was simply served with yoghurt and parsley.
I like your way of describing your approach and tactics in a way that illuminates a path to understanding. What do you think about a scrap assembly of liquids? Often I have small portions of stocks and jus from various sources and I throw them together—with "mixed" results, admittedly.