Of course, we are talking about real, tasty and good quality soups. Soups are quite easily reduced to the level of bland, primitive foods if they are prepared without proper training and, more importantly, without understanding their specific properties. It is noted, that cooking delicious soups for many chefs is more difficult than any sophisticated dish.
Therefore, in most cases, soups are cooked sloppily – why bother when a good result is not easy to achieve anyway? They are eaten because “we need to eat soup”, “we need to eat something hot”, “winter always needs to eat soup” and other similar reasons, which are far from taste evaluation. And we are so used to it that our banquets, meetings, dinners, birthdays and other occasions usually go without soups. They are not serving, because the food is “too simple”, and they offer appetizers or snacks and hot, the so-called “main course”. Meanwhile, soup cooked according to the rules and with a high degree of skill is a table decoration and really a first course.
But cooking a good soup is a great art that requires special attention and time. The main thing is that cooking high-quality soups is more difficult than all other dishes, due to a variety of circumstances.
Briefly about the circumstances
First of all, soups are improved to a lesser extent than those that are cooked. It is best to cook the soup for no more than 6-10 servings at a time, that is, in a saucepan up to a maximum of 10 liters. Therefore, homemade soup, cooked for 3-5 people, is preferable to any other.
Second, soup ware should always be earthenware, porcelain, stone, or enamel, but not bare metal. Therefore, it matters not only the material, the coating and the protection of the internal surface of the tray, but also its thickness and, therefore, its heat capacity and thermal conductivity. The slower and quieter boiling soup, so it tastes better.
Third, the proportion of water and other products in soups must be exactly balanced. At the end of cooking, the amount of liquid per serving should not exceed 350 – 400 cubic centimeters or milliliters. And minimum 200 – 250 milliliters per serving. At the same time, during cooking, liquid can not be drained or added, as it significantly affects the taste. But precisely this condition is almost never observed either in catering or at home. It is necessary to properly balance the amount of water and other products in the soup before you start cooking, taking into account the amount of water that will evaporate in the cooking process.
Six rules you should know
1. Soups require high freshness of all products and careful handling, removal of all defects by cleaning, cutting, scraping. Products for the soup should not only wash off dirt from the outside, but also from the smell that not everyone can and wants to do. The cutting must be done carefully, so that each piece of meat, fish, vegetables, destined for the soup, must be thoroughly cleaned, washed and dried.
two. When cutting food, a cutting shape must be strictly adhered to, which is characteristic of this soup, since it affects the taste. This means that in one type of soup the whole onion must be added and chopped in another; in one soup a whole carrot should be added, in another – diced or in halves. It is not about external decorative differences, but about the requirements dictated by the taste and naming of the soup.
3. The products should be added to the soup in a certain order, so that none of the components remain undigested and the whole soup does not boil too much, and keeps until a time when all its components are cooked. To do this, the cook must know and remember the cooking time of each product and each component.
Four. Soup should always be salted at the end of cooking, but not too late, at a time when the main products it contains have just been cooked but have not yet been digested and can evenly absorb salt. If the soup is salted too early, even when the products are hard, it cooks for a long time and becomes too salty, since the salt remains mainly in the liquid, and if it is salted too late, then it becomes salty (liquid) and tasteless (thick).
5. During the cooking of the soup, you need to constantly monitor it, do not let it boil, taste often, correct mistakes in time, watch the changing taste of the broth, with the consistency of meat, fish and vegetables. That’s why soup is an uncomfortable dish for cooks, because not even a minute goes by. At home, and in the restaurant, it is often neglected in practice, leaving the soup to its fate. A good cook does not consider time, cooking the soup and knowing that these “losses” will be compensated with excellent quality.
6. The most crucial moment comes after the soup is mostly cooked, salted and left for only a few minutes, 3-7, until it is completely done. During this time, it is necessary, said the cook-practices “to flavor the soup”, to give it taste, smell, spiciness, depending on the type and requirements of the recipe, as well as individual cooking skills, your personal taste and wishes. Usually, this final operation cannot please everyone, and right at this point the soup can completely spoil. Meanwhile, a cook with refined taste during this final moment, adding a variety of seasonings, spices, can turn an apparently mediocre soup into a masterpiece.
Finally, the soup is ready and removed from the heat, but then the real chef does not rush to serve it to the table. You will pour it into a tureen, let it sit under the lid for 7 to 20 minutes, so that the spices and salt penetrate evenly into the meat or other ingredients and the liquid part of the soup is not watery, but rather thick. . texture. This soup has a strong flavor, tenderness, smoothness, suitable temperature, and therefore well perceived by the organs of touch, smell and digestion.
