I thought it might be a useful blog to write down my thoughts on soup making. I've tried to keep it non-technical to make it useful to a broad audience.
There are certain principles when making soup that will help improve your soup making. Generally I try to avoid putting "Everything in but the kitchen sink", because you’re going to end up with a miss-mash of flavours. Also it not necessary to boil the soup for hours, particularly in the case of Vegetable soup because then the vegetables taste stewed not Moorish. Any vegetable you can think can go in a soup the trick is to get the combination right.
Here are some general guidelines
Root Vegetable based Soups
If you put root vegetables in (Carrots, Parsnip, Turnip, Swede (Rutabaga), Celeriac, and Potatoes they work fine in various combinations.
Summer Vegetables based Soups
Zucchini, Butternut Squash, Artichokes, Aubergine, Peppers, Marrow, Sweetcorn etc get the picture.
Onion Family
Onions, shallots and garlic can go most kinds of soup. Leeks are a little more bitter so they go better in root vegetable based soups.
Thickening agents
Generally speaking root vegetable soups are thickened with potato in various forms (from dry power all the way to baked potato and by the puree of the vegetables themselves. Summer vegetable soups work better if you use various dried or tinned beans (fava beans, haricot beans, pinto beans etc.
*Bread is also neutral enough to work in most kinds of soup as is rice but the latter works better in spicy types of soups like curries.
In some circumstances lentils can also be used to soups from either group.
Another neutral thickening agent are noodles from the pasta in minestrone, mom’s chicken noodle soup, to various oriental noodles in clear broths.
Puree
A puree soup is thickened by its own ingredients.
Clear Broths such as consommé when done well these are the kings of soups but rarely seen even in restaurants.
Roux based
These are thickened with flour but are seen less and less because of the growing number of people who have an allergy to gluten.
*Cream may sometimes be added to either a roux based soup or a puree.
Cabbages work best in root vegetable soup.
You can make delicious soup from lettuce but you need to have a counter balance to the often-bitter flavour of lettuce. Little gems can be great in certain types of fresh pea soup.
One size fits all
Unfortunately many restaurants wont make soups that have meat in them because company policy states the soup most edible for vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
This a crying shame which prevents some great classics being put on menus today.
Variations
A tomato soup made from a combination of tinned fresh tomatoes can be delicious,
As the winter nights draw near you can roast the fresh tomatoes first to give a more intense flavour.
Think Outside The Box
A lot of chefs are way too pedestrian when it comes to making soups, here a couple of suggestions.
A potato soup with peppery rocket (arugala) and a dollop of caramelised red onions floated on the top served with a Brie and Basil cheese toastie.
A tomato and red pepper soup garnished with small grilled pieces of Aubergine tossed with coriander and a little roasted garlic puree.
Over used vegetable in soup is Broccoli.
An underused vegetable in soup is Cauliflower.
*If you think this article has been helpful please let me know via the comments and I could write notes on other subjects.
thank you for your insight into soup making. I was surprised to know about resturants not using meat in most soups. I didn't think of it that way!