IntroductionToday, kids, we are going to talk about how to make soup. I don't make tomato-based soups, so if that's what you are looking for then please just fuck off until I am a better chef. Actually that's a lie, I once made a tomato based soup and it tasted awesome, but was made exclusively out of chopped tomatoes, cream, herbs and seasoning, and that's hardly a concoction deserving of the title 'soup'. Also if you want to make soup with meat in it, then I am obviously not going to encourage you by telling you how, but just between you and me, if you take a recipe and shove some meat in it, it magically transforms into a recipe with meat in it.
The two types of soupThere are two types of soup, as far as I am concerned. Soup which is clear with shit floating around in it (Jewish chicken soup) and soup which is quite smooth and potatoey (leek and potato soup). Also I have experimented with sort of broth-like soups, which I guess are like the clear soups but thicker and more starchy. So there you have it, the three types of soup.
IngredientsThere are two ways to do this: You can look in your cupboard, see what ingredients you have and make a soup which fits these ingredients, or you can look in your cupboard, realise that all you have is a box of inexplicable sesame seeds and and some vanilla essence and go and buy the ingredients for a soup of your choice. The thing to remember about soup is that you can do whatever you want and it will probably turn out fine. It's not a terribly subtle art. Soup should contain stock, vegetables and something starchy. It can also contain protein if it has to I guess.
For clear soups, I have some great stuff called 'chicken soup mix' which is from the Jewish section in Sainsbury's and is vegetarian. It's basically vegetable stock but it tastes really good and possibly has some kind of thickening stuff in it, but that's not really necessary. Vegetable oxo cubes are my favourite kind of stock, and should be the base of all soup, including clear soups if you don't have the chicken soup mix.
Ingredients for clear soup should include things such as sweetcorn, peas, onion, garlic, spring onions, chopped carrots, chopped celery, cabbage or leeks. Basically fresh, sweet or oniony flavours work well. Starchy vegetables don't work too well, because there's nothing less fun than a big lump of flavourless potato in the middle of your soup. You are going to be tasting each vegetable individually because this isn't a blended soup, so you want strongly flavoured delicious vegetables. For starch, noodles, pasta and quinoa all work really well. Use about 50g of noodles (or whatever), enough vegetables to make you feel pleasantly full, and use your imagination when it comes to adding water. I use a lot of stock cubes in general, because I love salt and hate my arteries.
The base ingredient for a thick soup is the potato. Get floury potatoes of course. If you accidentally get waxy ones, you will realise when they don't really blend properly and make a kind of lumpy soup. If this happens, then personally I would just shut the fuck up and eat my soup anyway, but you can throw it all away in front of a homeless person and just use the rest of the potatoes in a potato salad or for wedges instead, if you like. Things which go well in thick soup include just about anything which isn't lettuce. Leeks, carrots, garlic, sweetcorn, etc etc etc. I can't really think of any vegetables today, but I'm sure you can. If you're making carrot soup, shove in some celery and a bit of coriander. If you are making leek soup, onions and garlic can only improve things. You don't need a lot of different vegetables with these soups, because it will be blended anyway, so too many flavours will all just get lost in each other. Use half potatoes, half some other vegetables, and cover with stock, but add more if it's looking too thick, because thick soup is good, but it can just turn into mashed potato if you're not careful.
For a broth-style soup, go crazy with the starch. Use turnips or swede, they are absolutely delicious in soup, really buttery and gorgeous but an absolute bitch to prepare, because they are super hard. Potatoes, carrots, celeriac, butternut squash and parsnips in lots of stock, with pasta, rice, lentils, dried soup mix (from Holland & Barrat, or the section in Tesco where they have lentils and grains) or pot barley, makes for a really lovely and thick starchy winter broth.
What to do with the ingredientsNow you have ingredients, all you must do is fry any hard vegetables (carrots are hard, onions are hard, peas are not) in oil or butter and oil. The more oil you use, the more delicious and more deadly your soup will be, as a rule of thumb. Do this for a few minutes in a big saucepan, until the vegetables look kind of shiny and delicious. Add any stock, potatoes, pasta and quinoa (any ingredients which take 10-15 minutes to cook) and boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Wait about 10 minutes then add things like noodles, peas and sweetcorn (anything which takes about 3 minutes to cook). Wait until everything is cooked, then blend if it needs it, and serve.
A picture by Banksy. He is my favourite artist. I don't know any other artists but I bet if I did, Banksy would still be my favourite.
