The secret to good soup

maggiecon

Thanks everyone for the replies, When you say good stock do you mean stock cubes or homemade. Are there any brands of stock that I should/ shouldn't use or are they all the same?


I cooked a chicken in the slow cooker last week, then put the carcass back in that night and left on low for 12 hours to make my own stock. Then used this the following day to try and make a vegetable soup. It was completely tasteless


Also I was reading Jamie Oliver he said the secret is to cook the vegetables as little as possible, then others recommend a long slow simmer. He also insists onions, carrots and celery should be the basis for all soups.


I am going to try another soup tonight and see how I get on, I like the sound of curried parsnip, it sounds a bit unusual. Wish me luck

evie451

Maggiecon I have every sympathy for your soupy flops, I used to struggle with this too as like you noticed there seemed to be different advice.....:(
As far as stock is concerned I use jelly ones if feeling flush next move down is the ones Jamie loves the Kallo cubes but tbh I think that soup benefits from a bit of extra fat and salt so the basic ones are sometimes tastier! NB do not be afraid to use 2 cubes you can always water down. I do gently sweat the veg first with a bit of oil and season at that point because I find its easier and more effective to add earlier rather than later in the cooking process....
making your own stock is worth it but you need to give the chicken quite a lot of help! after a huge amount of trial and error what we like is: carcass + onion + end of a bunch of celery + carrot +seasoning and a couple of bay leaves.....I do use salt but a lot of people dont......cover in water and slow cook like you did but after you have sieved the bits out the next day/later you do need to reduce it a bit on the hob....depending on how long you reduce it for it ends up looking very similar to the jelly cubes but with a much better depth of flavour.......

BAGGY

I always add a cheapo powdered soup as stock. Even cuppa soups seem to have more taste then stock cubes. Onion Carrot and celery are usually my are with a tin of cheap tomatoes and a handful of red lentils or floury potatoes. Plop of curry paste and whizz. This is my fave ATM.

jonsherwood

A good stock is essential, fesh veg. a little butter or oil to cook up say the onions or harder veg for a few mins before adding the main ingredients and stock. Never over cook it though. I've had some probs recently with this, I've got a new cooker and its one of those induction hob ones, never used one before so getting used to it and slightly messed up the batch I made last night.

Keep at it though and season well

nickyhutch

Good stock, fresh herbs, and i always fry the base (onions, herbs, veg) in oil and butter.

maggiecon

evie451 wrote: »

Maggiecon I have every sympathy for your soupy flops, I used to struggle with this too as like you noticed there seemed to be different advice.....:(
As far as stock is concerned I use jelly ones if feeling flush next move down is the ones Jamie loves the Kallo cubes but tbh I think that soup benefits from a bit of extra fat and salt so the basic ones are sometimes tastier! NB do not be afraid to use 2 cubes you can always water down. I do gently sweat the veg first with a bit of oil and season at that point because I find its easier and more effective to add earlier rather than later in the cooking process....
making your own stock is worth it but you need to give the chicken quite a lot of help! after a huge amount of trial and error what we like is: carcass + onion + end of a bunch of celery + carrot +seasoning and a couple of bay leaves.....I do use salt but a lot of people dont......cover in water and slow cook like you did but after you have sieved the bits out the next day/later you do need to reduce it a bit on the hob....depending on how long you reduce it for it ends up looking very similar to the jelly cubes but with a much better depth of flavour.......

Ok I think I know where I went wrong with the chicken carcass, I didn't add any veg just onion, water and S&P. Also it didn't have that jelly like consistency. So I have a chicken in sc at the mo. Will put carcass on tonight with carrot celery onion added and see how it goes. How much water would you recommend in sc with a small chicken carcass. I think I might have used too much.

natbags

I usually find that one carcass isn't enough to make a decent stock. So when I portion up a chicken or when we've eaten the 'flesh' of a chicken I have a bag in the freezer that all the bits go into (I also have one with odds and sods of veg that seem to get left over) Then once I have at least 3 chicken carcasses or equiv. I make the chicken stock (pan or slow cooker) chicken bits, bones etc... (with veg) Its then important to let it go cold and then scrape the fat layer from the top - if you miss this stage your stock will be greasy Underneath this (as long as you haven't used too much water) you will have a good jelly like stock

lostinrates

Re long or slow cooking, I personally think it depends on the soup. A hearty winter soup that's simmered away for depth , yummy.

A fresh watercress soup blitzed quickly, verdant and fresh, suffers in over cooking IMO.

Similarly, I deal with things like tomato soup differently in the deep dark days of winter than I do in the 'cusp ' temperature days where I want something fresher, lighter. That difference is in length of cooking, in flavours and other stuff.



Lots of old stylers and confident soup makers make soup with ease and instinct and often with regularity. My repertoire is extended and I see soup as more interesting when I break my old habits and actually read some recipes occasionally, something I'd never set out to do for soup until I saw the covent garden soup books in a charity shop.

I'd recommend keeping your eye open for them or something similar ( there are some of those boks like 15o soup recipes, which have good pictures and tend to be inexpensive and cheap) to read or follow till you become confident.

And check any books you have for soup recipes to follow, and see how they turn out. Gain confidence in the process.


Its all very well us saying 'its easy' but somethings are just easier for some people to do with a step by step guide on hand.

Bluegreen143

To be honest, the first time I made soup with HM chicken stock I was really disappointed. But I hadn't added much in the way of salt and it makes all the difference - now I love making homemade stock. Using a bought stock will add loads of salt so you need to add a decent amount o your homemade effort if you want it to taste the same IYSWIM.

Other tips - sweat off your veggies as suggested, add bacon if you're not a vegetarian, add herbs and spices, add some acid - a small amount of vinegar or lemon juice added near the end can lift most simmered meals, whether soup or pasta sauce. Or intensely flavoured things like miso or tomato puree can help lift your soup where appropriate.

For things like minestrone, save your parmesan rinds and chuck them in while cooking. It gets the very end bit bits of cheese left on the rind to melt through your soup.

pigpen

if it makes you feel less inadequate.. my soup tastes like pond water... regardless of what is in it!