We tend to wax poetic about soups at The Temple. Soup is our reward for surviving the heat of summer. Fall comes and soup can never be far behind.
Earlier this week we were talking about cooking while poor and I took the stance, as I always have, that peasant cuisine always aims to give both sustenance and comfort.
While we enjoy the soup course and the odd cup-of-soup for lunch as accompaniment to a small sandwich, what we love is soup as a meal. The added beauty, of course, is that it keeps so that you do not have to cook for at least a couple of nights.
One of the things that we enjoy most is what we call the never-ending soup. It often starts as a chicken soup and then we’ll add garbanzos or black beans, sometimes carrots or peas; around the third serving, we may add sausage and potatoes, then tomatoes or artichokes. A beef-based soup may turn into a lentil soup.
We used to have a friend who would be horrified by the idea of a soup made almost entirely of leftovers. We could not convince her it was heaven and kept our palate on alert—and every serving came with its own nuanced flavor and shifting aroma.
You can start with a root vegetable soup. Once the veggies are gone and you’re left with just stock, you may begin adding elements to transform it and stretch its existence. Additions may include a variety of ingredients like barley, pasta or rice; beans; sautéed or raw vegetables; or even homemade croutons.
Think of it in the same terms of a good ramen: you cook it for hours (and it does as you add ingredients and heats and reheats and replenishes stock). The flavors deepen as you add toppings: butter, beans, braised or roasted meats, cheese rinds, corn, olives, scallions, ramen eggs!
Credit: Kumamoto kakuni ramen by woinary,
Wikipedia Creative Commons
Sometimes you end up with something that resembles a sancocho without starting out that way (and a good sancocho is not a bad meal in itself either). We used to have a Cuban friend who’d make a giant pot of it for Christmas. It was always perfect. But that’s another story!
SOURCE FoxNews latino. RECIPE: http://bit.ly/1P0v0tt
The addition of lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, hot sauce will refresh the taste, as will fresh herbs, seeds, bacon…
There is a fantastic soup with five-day permutations over at Serious Eats that we’d like to try out soon because it sounds delicious in every form.
We've had small batches of chicken, beef, and lentil soups. We're ready to commit now!
Also check out the Fall Soups Pinterest board for more!
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