Soups Made Simple
Is there anything better that enjoying a warm bowl of rich soup on a cold day? The tastes, the textures, the endless varieties, and let’s not forget the comfort food factor. While soups are often thought of as a wintertime food, there’s no reason they can’t be a year-round favorite. Many of the heartier soups can be a complete meal. And for the hottest days, you can always switch to chilled soup if you prefer. Below are some of are some of the basics about the types of soups you can make.
It’s interesting that most soups can be broken down into a few categories, basically that there are soups that begin with or without a stock base. Then there are also the fruit soups. Some examples of soups requiring stock include your broths, bouillon, and consomm. Soups without stock would be bisque, chowders, creams, and purees.
If you’re making your own stock, you can choose to make it meat or vegetable based. Meats often used are beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, veal, and fish. If you use dark color meat such as beef you will end up with the darker, brown color stock while your lighter meats such as fish and poultry will result in a white, clearer soup stock. Vegetables favored for flavoring stock are typically celery, onion, and carrots. These based are most commonly used for soups like tomato, cabbage, chicken, beef, vegetable soup, and broth’s.
Purees and cream soups often make a great main course for lunch or for a lighter dinner since they’re quite thick and rich. Varieties can include split pea, creamy corn or tomato, clam chowder, potato and bean purees bisques like lobster or oyster, and vegetable cream soups such as cream of broccoli or mushroom.
Fruit soups are a wonderful chilled alternative enjoyed year-round, but especially in the heat of summer. Varieties include strawberry, peach, melon, cantaloupe, and cherry. You’ll find certain cold soup recipes use vegetable based stock and others list fruit juice in the ingredients instead. Either makes a wonderful vegetarian dish.
There’s nothing like well-made, scrumptious, homemade soup to make any meal complete. Remember to top your creamy soups with a simple garnish for that finishing touch. Serve soups like bean or onion in a covered soup dish, while your cream soups are best served in a round, flat soup bowl. Don’t be surprised if everyone asks for seconds.
Homemade bread is a great side dish for your soup. Bake up a fresh loaf in this great clay bread pan . You’ll find that having quality kitchen bakeware helps produce great baking results.
