Mark Bittman (one of my favourite cooking authors; his How to Cook Everything is superb) recently had a really useful article on simple, customisable soups. Starting from four basic recipes (a creamy spinach soup, a simple broth with toast, an earthy bean soup, and a hearty minestrone) he proceeds to offer two additional variations on each, for a total of twelve different soups. Over the past few weeks I’ve been making the ones that sound good (no tomato soup, natch) for myself & my kid brother.
The curried cauliflower and squash-and-ginger soups are top-notch, as good as anything one might find in a restaurant. I made the spinach soup with lettuce; it was delicious, almost minty, the night I made it and loathsome the next day. I’ve also made a broccoli and ginger soup, which was tasty. I need to experiment more with blended soups: I really, really like them.
His broth recipe is thick and good; I’m going to have to use a variant of it in my future bone stocks. The egg drop soup was tasty, but I agitated the soup too much and the egg drops became more of an egg foam. The rice-and-pea soup was good but perhaps a bit too thick. I might try it again with less rice, or a different kind of rice.
The bean and black bean soups are good. I’m going to do more cooking with dried beans: they’re cheaper than canned, and have less sodium. The problem with the chickpea soup is that even soaked overnight, dried chickpeas take forever to cook. I’ll have to play with it some more.
I haven’t tried the minestrone or mushroom soups yet. I may make the former tonight. As for the latter, neither of us is a great fan of mushrooms, but perhaps with non-button varieties it could be palatable.
One nice thing about these recipes is that, having made them all, one should never again be at a loss for something to throw together at the last minute for dinner.
