The Soup Topic (2007–2012)

It is quite simple. Take 300 grams of diced pumpkin (I used butternut) and simmer gently in 2 cups of milk for 40 minutes. Stir in 4 tablespoons of olive oil, fleur de sel to taste, and pour into a blender. Add the leaves from a bunch of basil and mix until the color starts to turn green (maybe a minute or so--don't mix for too long, or the basil will discolor from the heat). Strain. At this point you can serve immediately, or chill over ice and reheat later.

Wonderful. I am going to try this very soon, plus I just ordered the book.

Sorry to follow your beautiful photo with my latest soup, which is the most unfortunate shade of purplish khaki. It's a leek - potato soup (recipe by David Lebovitz here). I keep getting purple potatoes in my CSA which explains the strange color. It's not very attractive to start with, and I used my blender which turned it into a slimy mess. The taste was ok. Next time I will use my stick blender...

It appears that this purple potato soup may the mood ring of soups - I will come back to that if I can get proper photographic evidence. Also the taste was pretty good the second day (which may be related to my mood as well!).

I went with a much more conventional soup color last night with Gordon Ramsay's broccoli soup. The soup was recommended a while back by rarerollingobject in the Recipes that Rock: 2011 thread. I don't really like broccoli usually but this soup is fresh and clean, slightly peppery, and completely delicious! Plus any excuse to use goat cheese is fine with me. I used a fresh goat cheese but his original version with Sainte-Maure looks completely decadent and would be the way to go if you have it available.

I have proof now. Purple potato soup changes color with temperature.

Cold it's blue (sorry, it's not particularly appetizing).

As you warm it up it mutates to lavender/purple grey, even yellow (that's a hot spot, not butter). Cold soup in the tupperware on the right, for reference.

The heated soup, with cold soup in the middle. The (reversible) effect of temperature on anthocyanins. Very cool!

I made this up today - dill pickle soup finished with a blend of cream and Stilton. Sounds weird but it was really delicious.

This was a simple fridge clearance soup. Carrots, leeks and mushrooms in a pigeon carcase stock which was in the freezer. Warmed me through on a cold day.

By far my favorite soup, and the best recipe I've ever come up with, is this:

If you really want to go all out, make it with duck. Buy a whole duck, render fat from trimmings and leftover skin, make confit with the legs, remove the breasts for another purpose, and make a stock with the remainder. I made this for a dinner party recently hosted by a professional chef and he was blown away.

I made garlic soup, aka "Evening Garlic Soup in the Manner of the Corrèze" from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France, a couple of nights ago. Very comforting. It's the French answer to egg drop soup - it's thickened with egg. There is a touch of red wine vinegar to brighten up the flavors.

I also made a large batch of Carrot Ginger Soup last night for us and for a friend who is recovering from surgery. I had carrots and ginger from my CSA. I love the flavors together. Touch of curry powder and heavy cream, chives from the garden.

By far my favorite soup, and the best recipe I've ever come up with, is this: http://forums.egulle...e-with-chicken/

If you really want to go all out, make it with duck. Buy a whole duck, render fat from trimmings and leftover skin, make confit with the legs, remove the breasts for another purpose, and make a stock with the remainder. I made this for a dinner party recently hosted by a professional chef and he was blown away.

This one seems interesting too.

Some selected soups I made over the last month or so:

Bak Kut Teh with "country-style pork ribs [rather than my usual pork spare ribs] = "Yook Kuat". I added in selected Chinese herbal ingredients** (not the full panoply of stuff often used in the Klang or similar versions) plus the usual other stuff (including age dofu, and copious garlic) plus Kikkoman soy sauce. Eaten with boiled white rice.

** These included:

Tong KwaiTong Kwai ("Radix Angelica Sinensis"; Angelica sinensis) Yook Chook (Polygonatum odoratum 'Druce'); Black Dried Jujubes; Dong2 Sam1 (Codonopsis pilosula 'Nannf'); Chun Pei (dried orange peel); Dried liquorice twigs, shaved; cinnamon sticks; cloves; whole star anise.

Beef short ribs soup w/ garlic, daikon & snow fungus. The bone-in short ribs were browned w/ the garlic first, water added, simmered for about 1 hr before the rest of the stuff went in. Eaten w/ softened skinny rice noodles ("mei fun").

"Harm Choy Tong". Pickled sour mustard soup, with ginger, tomatoes, vinegar, mirin and bone-in skin-on fat-on chicken as the meat. Additional salt to taste.

...and a "Hakka-esque"/"Hakka-inspired" soupy braise (I made it fairly soupy that day so it could be freely ladled onto rice and the "soup" drunk as-is): Sliced pork belly (“Sam Chang Yook” or “Ng Far Yook”) marinated w/ shiro miso, “Liu Ma Kee” (Brand) wet bean curd (“Fu Yee”), Shaohsing wine, yellow (cooking) wine, minced garlic, julienned ginger; then sautéed in peanut oil; water added and slow-simmered with some lumps of rock sugar and sliced washed salted turnip (“Jaat Ji Chung Choy”) till meltingly tender.

Wonderful soups Huirai, good vitamin bombs!

Thanks, rod rock.

I like soups. Lots of soups.

Tonight's soup: http://egullet.org/p1901720

I just saw it! Excellent!

This morning I visited the local market and found the first sighting of watercress this season. So here is my watercress soup as eaten this afternoon.

It was actually much greener than it appears in the picture. The weather being miserable and overcast meant I had to use flash which washed out the colour. Anyway it's the taste that matters and it tasted just fine!

It seems interesting without doubt it tastes nice.

Seaweed (laver) and tofu soup.

Some more recent soups

Chicken, Pig's Blood and Tonkin Jasmine Soup

West Lake Beef Soup

Hot and Sour Soup

Bitter Melon and Preserved Egg Soup

Wild Chrysanthemum, Tofu and Preserved Egg Soup

and finally, my favourite

Clam and Mustard Greens Soup

Lovely soups, liuzhou.

The hot-and-sour soup does look a little "hot"/chili-ish, though for my taste. I usually make mine with tofu, bamboo shoots, "kum chum", "muk yee", button mushrooms, "tung koo", tofu sheets (broken up), maybe a few other things; no chili oil, loads of ground white pepper instead for the heat; Chinkiang vinegar; etc etc.

Care to share your recipe for that clam & mustard greens soup? And by "mustard greens" you mean...?

Thanks huiray.

Yes, that hot and sour soup was rather chili laden. We like our chillis in this part of the world. But I also sometimes make it the Sichuan way which uses white pepper instead.

I know "kum chum" are lily buds and "muk yee" is wood ear fungus. What is "tung koo"?

The clam and mustard greens soup is probably the easiest soup to make. It is also what they serve to every diner in every hole-in-the-wal restaurant around here.

A basic stock (chicken) is used. It is brought to the boil and a handful of clams and the mustard greens are thrown in. When the clams open it is served. Fine dining!

Classier versions would have perhaps a better stock, some Shaoxing wine and be finished with chopped scalions of Chinese chives. But essentially it is meant to be a simple soup.

By mustard greens I mean 芥菜 Brassica juncea. Sorry, I don't know the name in Cantonese.

_{Mustard green = guy choi.}

_{I don't use white pepper in my hot 'n' sour soup. You can see my version in the China cooking thread.}

_{Mustard greens and clams is a new one for me.}

Mustard green = guy choi.

Thanks Dejah, I only know the Mandarin - jiè cài - and Cantonese has so many different romanisation systems it gets confusing.

Anyway here it is.

There are many different hot and sour soups (more accurately "sour and hot soup"). The one in my picture is more typical of SE Asia and also this part of China. But I like the Sichuan version which uses white pepper, too. Fuchsia Dunlop has a good recipe in her Sichuan book.

The clam soup is by far the most common here - I doubt I've ever seen a menu that didn't have it and I get it served to me at almost every family dinner. Not that I am complaining.

What is "tung koo"?

I'm guessing 冬菇 (dōng gū in Mandarin) more commonly known as dried shiitake. It really is easier to use the English where it exists.

Mustard green = guy choi.

Thanks Dejah, I only know the Mandarin - jiè cài - and Cantonese has so many different romanisation systems it gets confusing.

Anyway here it is.

http://www.fotothing...d6579e9d10b.jpg

There are many different hot and sour soups (more accurately "sour and hot soup"). The one in my picture is more typical of SE Asia and also this part of China. But I like the Sichuan version which uses white pepper, too. Fuchsia Dunlop has a good recipe in her Sichuan book.

The clam soup is by far the most common here - I doubt I've ever seen a menu that didn't have it and I get it served to me at almost every family dinner. Not that I am complaining.

What is "tung koo"?

I'm guessing 冬菇 (dōng gū in Mandarin) more commonly known as dried shiitake. It really is easier to use the English where it exists.

Yes, by "tung koo" I do mean 冬菇 ; Yale romanization - dung1 gu1.

OK, thanks, that mustard green is 芥菜 ; Yale - gaai3 choi3. I wasn't sure because there are many varieties of greens that get called simply "mustard greens" in English. That clams & 芥菜 soup sounds like an attractive simple soup to do on the fly (providing one does have the clams). :-)

I don't remember the "hot & sour" soup in Malaysian-Cantonese/Malaysian-Chinese restaurants being as chili-laden as the one you show, though. They were more chili-ish and more sometimes more vinegar-ish (IIRC) than being "just brown" but they normally weren't as bright red with chili oil as the one you made? I'm sure Nyonya versions would tend to be more fiery w/ chili, yes, if a nyonya were to make it. But it's been a while.

Salmon & Leek soup: http://egullet.org/p1902746

I have a question about cornstarch thickened soup. Specifically, I make a Chinese Hot and Sour Soup which has white vinegar added for the sour component and is thickened with cornstarch. The soup thickens nicely in the pot but after eating about 1/2 a bowl it becomes noticeably thinner. Any idea what is going on? Is it the amylase enzymes in saliva that weaken the corn starch? Could I use some modernist modified starch to prevent this?

Perhaps pg 53 of this book might suggest one possible answer: Section in "Food Science"

Personally, it wouldn't bother me that it may thin out a bit. (Not that I use much corn starch anyway to start with, if at all, when I make hot & sour soup)

Great soups. I'll take one of each.

Thanks