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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Soup is more than just throwing it all in a pot

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

"Soup?" my husband asked hopefully on a recent rainy Sunday.

"Soup," I agreed, heading to the kitchen.

It was a good day for it, not just because of the chilly, let's-stay-indoors weather, but because the freezer and refrigerator were full of odds and ends.

As I went about the business of putting the soup together, I pondered the tendency people have to stew soup into an anonymous melange. I much prefer soup in which each part is recognizable and at its proper degree of doneness.

Even good cooks say of soups and stews, "Oh, I just throw it all in the pot and let it boil." But when you analyze what they actually do, that's far from the truth. Soup-making is steps within steps.

First, the base ingredients are used to make a flavorful stock. If the stock is pallid or bitter, the soup will not work no matter how nice the finishing ingredients. Select a balanced mix of base ingredients, with no single flavor dominating. Bring the ingredients to a boil, skim off the foam, then simmer for 1-2 hours.

If you intend to use any of the stock ingredients in the final soup, you must assure that they aren't overcooked.

When making chicken soup with a whole chicken, for example, cook just until the breast meat is poached, fish out the bird, cut away the breast meat and return the carcass to the broth. If you started with fresh carrots and potatoes (as opposed to vegetables that were past their prime), pull them out, too, when they're properly cooked. Toss the chicken and vegetables together with salt, pepper and minced herbs and let them "marinate."

Once you have a flavorful broth, strain out the ingredients, reserving whatever looks good for the final soup. Pour the broth through cheesecloth or a flour sack towel to strain out dark bits and some of the fat, season it with salt and begin to make soup. That may mean adding additional ingredients such as meats, vegetables or pasta, thickening the broth with a roux or mashed vegetables and adding herbs or other flavorings. Ingredients should be added in the order necessary for proper doneness: meats and hard vegetables first, softer vegetables, pasta or rice later, and seafood last. Once all the ingredients are properly cooked, and the flavors have melded, the soup is done.

I don't return the reserved ingredients to the soup. Adopting a technique I've seen restaurants use, I warm the soup plates while the broth is finishing, place individual portions of herbed chicken and vegetables in the plates and pour the steaming broth over them. Since the two of us can never finish a pot of soup in a sitting, keeping the meat and vegetables separate from the broth means the meat stays tender and the vegetables retain their shape and texture. Store broth and reserved ingredients in separate containers in the refrigerator and reheat what you need for subsequent meals.

A far cry from "throwing it all in the pot," isn't it?