William Penn Life, 2013 (48. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2013-01-01 / 1. szám

:Jf . £

mamim BWHB"1 Wm.......... 1 ■ I ■ '

France created this particular soup when he combined butter, onions and champagne for a meal. This soup today also contains cheese and croutons, and I am sure we have all enjoyed it in our favorite restaurant.

Now that we have a little more background, let me give you some tips on how to make hearty soups you can enjoy this winter season. The recipes on the next page are some of the ones I enjoy the most and have made countless times at school and for my friends and family. Use these recipes as a base to make your own creations as well. You are only limited by your imagination and certain culinary rules that apply when making the perfect soup.

Flavor is the name of the game. Add it into your recipe wherever you can and from wherever you can get it. If your ingredients are not the best, your soup will not be either. Add cream or butter to your soup base to give extra flavor to soup.

Fresh ingredients are always better than frozen or canned. Sometimes we are limited in choices to fresh produce, but make those substitutions to give yourself the culinary edge. Remember, if you cannot get fresh, get frozen. Your last option should be using any canned products, with the exception of tomatoes. Tomato products from a can are better to use during the months when you cannot get garden fresh product with most brands very consistent in flavor.

Frozen ingredients, like mixed vegetables, add bulk to soup and minimal flavor. Frozen seafood also needs a boost in any chowder or bisque. To punch up the taste, use a good soup base. I tend not to use bouillon cubes as they add too much salt. I like soup bases that are in a paste form, and my favorite is "Better Than Bouillon."

Save your leftovers from meals in the freezer and use them as filling in your soups. Meatloaf makes a good substitution for beef when making beef barley soup. A few baked potatoes not eaten at dinner will thicken up your next chowder or cream of potato soup.

Herbs and spices will give extra flavor to your soups, and, again, try to use fresh rather than dried. Most soup recipes will tell you which is best to use and, by your own experience, you will know what you prefer flavor wise.

Simmer, do not boil, your soups. A good soup needs time to cook and meld all the flavors together. Boiling is a violent reaction of liquid and ingredients in a pot. It usually destroys the solid contents and makes the broth cloudy, which requires extensive repair.

Last, but not least, the three most important parts of making a good soup are taste, taste, and tas tel You should be tasting ingredients before you add them to your soup, tasting the soup at various stages of cooking and tasting the final product before you serve it. There is nothing worse than following a recipe only to find out at the end you needed more of a certain item to make it taste better.

I tip my hat to you all. Now, go into the kitchen and make soup to your hearts content.

Trivia Answer: Campbell's Soup. In 1898, Herberton Williams was an executive for Campbell's Soup Company and attended the football game between Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. Williams found the Cornell team colors of brilliant red and white made a striking image. He convinced Campbell's board of directors to change the label on their soup cans so they would stand out in any market or grocery store. Today, more than 100 years later, the same brilliant red and white colors still adorn Campbell's Condensed soups.

Have a great month!

Jé SA

William Penn Life 0 January 2013