Soup recipes

lynzpower

Ok, I do have some carrots

Is there anyway I can do this in a SC?

jobbingmusician

The normal way of making soup is to have a white sauce, or a thin onion soup sauce, as a base. I will tell you how to do this if you want to.

HOWEVER, YOU HAVE POTATOES, LENTILS AND BEANS!

This means that it's perfectly safe to just chuck everything into the slow cooker and leave it. You will end up with a watery(ish) soup with cooked veg floating in it, which would be a bit dull to eat. However, if you then take some of the potatoes and beans out, put them in a container and mulch them, you can stir the result back into the soup and transform it!!! (Actually, the red lentils will do some of this work for you).

I would chuck into the slow cooker, in order of priority

leek
lentils
bouillon
potatoes
water (at least an inch above the dry ingredients, cos you know what lentils do!)
whatever you fancy from the remainder (putting everything in will be overkill)

I never use salt in cooking, but this soup is probably going to need some as most of your root veg will become quite sweet in this soup.

This has all the makings of a delicious mix!!!

Let us know how this turns out, or if you need anyone to visit and taste for you

Pink.

Hi Jm,

I've been making soups for more years than I care to remember and I've never heard of the white sauce or thin onion soup sauce

If you have time, would you mind teaching me how to do it? I will try to be as good a pupil as Mr BE

Pink

susank

I have made soup also for more years than I remember also and never used a white sauce either to make soup - just stock, veg and lentils or pearl barley or broth mix etc or just veg so would also like this recipe please

HappyIdiotTalk

Me neither. Are you thinking of sauce instead of soup?

jobbingmusician

Gosh, I'm honoured!

Ok, here's how to make a creamy soup, followed by my all time favourite soup recipe! You'll find it has a lot of similarities to the pie filling made by MrBE - it's the same thing, just a bit thinner!

Choose your vegetable for the soup. Most mixed soups seem to start with an onion base, so let's start with that. You can use a leek or another member of the onion family instead - my fav recipe below (mine own invention ) uses shallots. I'm a great olive oil fan, so I soften the sliced onions/whatever in olive oil until they get floppy and transparent.

I know this works for carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks, sweetcorn etc. And my all time fav (see below) Tomatoes, IMHO, need special flavouring so I tend to follow a recipe more. Parsnips are wasted if not cooked with apples :drool: I'm sure others will have views on other veggies....

Now for the exciting bit. (Do recognise this amended cut and paste from the pie recipe? ) Once the onions are nice and floppy, add your 'main vegetable'. (Or, for onion soup, don't. But onion soup is a bit special as you cook the onions for longer until they caramelise and go really sticky and almost burnt.) Stir your 'main vegetable' around a bit make sure your milk/cream is within reach. Now stir in 2 heaped tablespoons of flour and keep stirring for about 2 mins. Add milk (or even water if you are skint or slimming) gradually and keep stirring. The sauce will thicken up as the flour cooks. (You are aiming to be working at just about boiling point). If it looks a bit thick, add more milk. (You can always dilute, but thickening up means starting with a new lot of oil, flour and liquid - make an extra thick bit then stir that in.)

Cook gently until the veg is totally cooked. At this point you can take out a few bits of vegetable if you like bits in your soup, and liquidise the rest, then add the bits back. Or you can liquidise the lot. (A hand blender is best, and takes seconds to wash afterwards, and you can do it in the saucepan - but remove from the heat first and let it cool down for a couple of minutes if you have a plastic guard on your liquidiser).

For extra luxury, half stir in a drizzle of cream before serving.

And my favourite?? Asparagus made with full cream milk and started off with shallots. I remove the tips before liquidising, then add them back.

Hope this helps - as ever, I welcome additions, clarifications, pointing out of errors, suggestions.......:rolleyes:

HTH! Sorry I don't have any pix around to post with this.

jobbingmusician

PS Yes, this soup is just a thin sauce - but it is a proper way of making soup - honest!

needaspirin

Lynzpower. Are you Vegan? If not your soup would greatly benefit by the addition of a ham bone.

HappyIdiotTalk

I find it fascinating that anyone can just cook something new without a recipe like that. Could you describe how your thought processes when you do it. How do you decide what your going to do?

If I'm making something I need a recipe to follow. And most of the time I find recipes hard to follow. Especially when they say stuff like add a tablespoon of this and a teaspoon of that... How do you measure a tablespoon? Its completely subjective to me. I've been put right off making curries (which I love) because I find it incredibly difficult to work out quantities. I like recipes that call for weights because I can measure those on my electric scales exactly.

So the thought of just making a soup, just like that is fascinating.

jobbingmusician

Hiya, HappyIdiotTalk. I can remember being just like you, and what made me confident in the kitchen was working as a washer-upper in a restaurant when I was a student. One night the chef threw a wobbly and walked out (honest!) and the sous chef stepped into his shoes and proved himself MUCH better than the original. This guy used to just throw things into the pan with such PANache (:D sorry)that I never worried again! I now know that there are generally just a few basic techniques (like making a white sauce, or a wine and cream sauce) which you just modify for the recipe in hand.

There are 2 other things to remember....

- Cooking is not an exact science. You are working with 'real' organic things which don't behave the same every time. Flour will vary in its composition, so 4oz won't always produce the same results. So the look and the feel of the thing as you're going along is more important than exact weighing. (If you are worried about tablespoons, though, buy yourself a set of cheap measuring spoons. I agree that people seem to be confused about what an actual metal tablespoon in the kitchen is)

- There is normally a technique for rescuing disasters - most things except total incineration can be saved

There's a VERY easy way to make curries which involves jars of Patak's curry seasoning - a genuine ingredient which loads of my Indian friends seem to use

OOOOH, we should have a curry cookoff sometime! Curry Queen, where are you?