Five ways to level-up your soup
How to slay at soup season
Around this time two years ago I was making a hell of a lot of soup. Nine days overdue, waddling around my kitchen going slightly more insane with each minute that passed, the clank of a wooden spoon on the side of a pan and the smell of onions softening grounded me in a way little else could. As each day passed, I stuffed the freezer with more Tupperwares full of soups and stews, wondering in an abstract way about the person who would eventually eat them.
My son turned two this weekend, and it’s odd to reflect on that person pottering in her kitchen, a wriggly baby kicking determindley at her ribs. What would I tell her now? I can’t condense the zillions of things you learn when you become a parent into one, two or ten pieces of advice. It’s all a jumbled mess. There’s a lot of learning as you go and muddling through and walking blindly into whatever next, terrifying, joy-filled phase is around the corner. But of one thing I’m sure. I’d tell her that the soup she’d stashed in the freezer will come in very, very handy on days when a hot meal feels impossible.
The temperature’s dropped and soup season is upon us, so this week, some rules of thumb to help all your soup/stew/broth taste better, plus lots of easy recipe ideas. Whether you’re filling up the freezer or just looking for cheap ways to feed yourself this winter, I hope they warm your bones.
It’s all about the base
Don’t try and rush the first stage of making soup. From a soffritto, made by slowly sweating finely chopped celery, onions and carrots, to a Cajun-style trinity of peppers, onion and carrot, or simply sliced onions cooked until deep, dark and sticky for a rib-sticking French onion soup, this is the point to get flavour into your soup. See also: cooking out whole spices for a fragrant dal and adding seasoning at the beginning to help give the veg maximum flavour. And while we’re on seasoning – add salt/seasoning at every stage to give your soup the proper flavour, not just at the end.
Don’t skim the fat
Fat – whether from a dollop of crème fraîche swirled through at the end or soup simmered with rich coconut milk – means flavour. Use generously. Test this theory in a creamy, 15-minute Thai-spiced coconut and chickpea soup. Sweat a finely chopped onion and the chopped stalks of a bunch of Swiss chard with a thumb-sized piece of chopped ginger until soft. Stir in half a jar of Thai red curry paste and 1 tsp turmeric then sizzle for 1 minute. Add a tin of coconut milk, a jar of chickpeas (splurge on the fancy jarred ones if you can here) and re-fill the coconut tin with water, stirring this in too. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add the chopped Swiss chard leaves and the juice of a lime. Serve with a big dollop of yoghurt and some fresh chilli flakes on top.
Take more acid
Unsure why your soup doesn’t taste quite right? It could be down to the acid. Try adding a splash of vinegar, a squeeze of lemon or some sharp cheese, the same way you would in a salad. I love to add sharp apple to a simple broccoli and cheddar soup, made by sweating down an onion and a finely chopped broccoli stalk until soft. Stir in the broccoli florets, a chopped white potato, and two chopped apples along with enough vegetable stock to cover. Bring to the boil, simmer until everything is tender then blitz until smooth. Take this soup to the next level by browning some butter and crisping up some sage leaves to drizzle on top.
Go off the boil
Add an extra flavour dimension by roasting some of the veg going into your soup, be it carrots, sweet potatoes or peppers. This also gives you a chance to add more texture (more on that in a second) as you can reserve some of the gnarly roasted veggies to use as a topping for your soup. To make a curried roasted cauliflower soup, break down a whole cauliflower and arrange on a baking tray, reserving the leaves. Drizzle with oil and toss in salt, pepper and 1 tbsp curry powder, tossing to coat. Roast at 200C fan for 20 minutes, or until starting to brown, then add the leaves, tossing with more oil, and roast for a further 10 minutes. Meanwhile, soften an onion in a large casserole and stir in a chopped garlic clove then stir in a tin of coconut milk before refilling the tin with veg stock and adding this. Stir in most of the cauliflower, blitz and serve with the roasted cauliflower on top. You could add extra flavour by making a quick green chilli chutney to swirl on top – made by blitzing a bunch of coriander with 2 tbsp coconut milk, 2 green chillies, 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp salt, until smooth.
Come out on top
Crunchy toppings will take your soup from good to great. Try peeling the skins from your potatoes before you use them to make a classic leek and potato soup, made by sweating down leeks then adding chopped peeled potatoes and vegetable stock before blitzing with cream and a dash of apple cider vinegar. While the soup is cooking, drizzle olive oil over the potato skins and crisp up in the oven with plenty of flaky sea salt. I sometimes serve a jammy boiled egg, cooked for six minutes in simmering water, here too. Croutons are always a good idea – crisped up sourdough, crumpets or pitta breads – as well as easy seedy, spicy toppings, made by toasting seeds and whole spices until fragrant.