"I always serve a bowl of soup. My father was a laborer, and when he came home in the evening he was never happy unless my mother served him soup." -- Jean-Louis Palladin
Soup is the ultimate comfort food. When it's cold out, there's nothing like coming in to a nice, hot bowl of soup. Soup can be a meal in itself, the start of a fancy meal, or just a snack.
One problem a beginning vegan cook has in making soup is that most soup recipes in non-vegetarian cookbooks call for chicken stock. Many say "chicken stock or water," but if you've ever tried that, you'll know it's pretty boring. Have no fear, Billy Magic's here.
Vegetable stock is not just a great way to add some flavor to your soups, it's a good way to eliminate a lot of the waste you generate in cooking. If you ever watched your mother make stock, you know it's just a matter of cooking the aftermath of some poor animal to an undignified paste in a big pot. Well, vegetable stock basically consists of doing the same thing to plant remains.
So, the first tip for making stock is to save your vegetable cuttings. Keep onion and potato skins, mushroom stems, carrot ends, tomato cores, and so forth in an airtight bag in the freezer until you're ready to make stock.
To make stock you need a big stockpot, a knife, a stove, a lot of leftover vegetable scraps, and a lot of water.
Cover the scraps with water and cook them for an hour or so. If you actually do this, chances are you'll taste the stuff and pour it down the sink. Then you'll ask yourself what you did wrong. The answer is, you didn't read the rest of the column.
A properly cooked stock requires an aromatic base. There are several ways to make this, but the simplest is to chop up a big onion and a leek white, crush several cloves of garlic, and cover them with about two inches of water. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and let cook until most of the water is gone, about 15 minutes. (Note: leeks are a great addition to stock. They cost a bit more than plain old white onions but are well worth it.)
While the onions are cooking, clean your vegetable scraps. Discard any mushy or smelly scraps, and clean the dirt off of mushroom and potato scraps. Chop large pieces into 1" squares. Now check the proportions you have; the mix should be at least one third carrot and celery pieces. If it's not, cut up enough fresh carrots to bring it up to that level.
You need a carrot-to-celery ratio of at least 1:1. Too much celery will overpower the rest of the flavors. Note also that cabbage family vegetables, such as cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbages of all colors and flavors emit nasty sulfur compounds when added to stock, so don't use them in any great quantity.
When the onion base is ready, add the vegetable cuttings, cover with about twice their total volume of water, and bring to a boil. As soon as the liquid boils, reduce to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for about an hour, adding more water if needed to keep the vegetables covered. Have a second, smaller pot ready.
Pour the liquid through a fine strainer, pressing down on the vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Don't do this with your hand -- the veggies are hot. Use the bottom of a small skillet or the back of a bowl.
Now comes the hard part. Since the liquid is probably about 190 degrees, it will soon cool to a perfect temperature for all the bacteria waiting to make it taste bad. You must cool it as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is to plunge the pot into a second, larger pot full of ice water. If you don't have a large enough pot to do this, add as many ice cubes as you can to the stock and put the pot into the fridge. It is important for the cooling that the stock be in a pot other than the one you just took off the stove -- cooling hot metal quickly will make it warp. You can keep vegetable stock in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for a couple of months.
Another important trick to vegetarian soup-making is to create an aromatic base for the soup itself. The secret to this is to saute the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, herbs, and spices for a few minutes, until they turn fragrant, before you add the rest of the liquid.
OK, so now that you've got the basics, whaddaya do with 'em? Well, it depends. When you get home from class at 6:00 on a freezing evening you want something stick-to-your-ribs good right then. For that you should have some soup in the freezer at all times; if you keep it in heatable containers you can have dinner ready within ten minutes of getting home. Either of the following two soups is great for this, enough to feed four hungry college students on a cold night.
Mushroom Barley Soup
Pick through lima beans and remove dirt. Rinse and cover with water. Soak overnight. Drain and rinse again.
Pick through barley as with beans and rinse. In large stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute about a minute. Add garlic and saute another 3-4 minutes, until onions become visibly lighter. Add mushrooms, carrot, and celery, and saute about a minute. Add herbs and stir a few times. Cook another 3-4 minutes, until fragrant. Add potatoes and, if desired, sherry. If you're not using sherry, add 1/4 cup stock. Stir several times and bring to boil. Let most of the liquid cook off, then add barley, beans, and stock. Bring to boil, reduce to low simmer and cook, partially covered, about 1 1/2 hours, adding more water if needed. The soup should be quite thick. Remove bay leaves before serving -- they're inedible.
Important cooking tip: as soon as soup starts to thicken, taste a spoonful (let it cool before you stick it in your mouth). If it tastes like it needs more of some spice, add it. Remember, you're the one eating the soup; chances are, the guy who wrote the recipe is at least a thousand miles away and eating something else, so always taste and season to the point that it tastes good to you.
Curried Cream Of Onion Soup
In large stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute about 2 minutes. Add all spices and saute about 3 more minutes, until onions are just trans- lucent. Add remaining vegetables and one-half apple, and cook 5 minutes or so, until vegetables are just tender. Add stock and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and cook, uncovered, about half an hour.
Stir lemon juice into soy milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Stir the curdled soy milk into soup and keep stirring until it's mixed in well. Cook another 15 minutes. Add remaining apples and cook 5 minutes more, then serve.
Finally, here's an emergency soup to make when all you've got is a few cans of organic tomatoes and some stale bread:
Pappa al Pomodoro For College Cooks
Heat olive oil over medium in large saucepan. Add onion and garlic and saute until translucent, 4-5 minutes. Add herbs and saute another minute, then add tomatoes and bring to boil. Reduce to low simmer and stir in bread. After a few minutes, season to taste. Cook about another half hour.
Eat hearty!!!
- Billy Magic, Chicago, USA
