Blog Assignment #2 - Making Soup
The soup I chose to make for this blog assignment was a bit of a blend between the chowder made in one of my labs, a chicken pot pie, as well as a recipe I made a year ago in my high school home economics class. I chose to make this soup for several reasons, the first being that I thought the texture of the chowder was absolutely gorgeous, but I didn’t enjoy it very much because I find seafood absolutely disgusting (can’t really say why, it’s just always been that way). I figured I could just substitute the clam with chicken and it went swimmingly. The second reason I made this soup was because my mom is a huge fan of heartier, chunkier soups whereas I like them to be smooth, so this seemed to be a perfect compromise with the smooth texture from the roux combined with the rough cuts of vegetables (I tend to purée my soups). The third reason was that I wanted to make a soup and keep it as white as possible (just because my soups I make for myself are always vibrant colors like orange or green) so I made a recipe in my head and went for it, and it turned out remarkably well.
Ingredients:
· 150g leek – fine dice, white part only – roughly 1 large leek’s worth
· 150g celery – same size as leek – roughly 3 ½ large celery stalks
· 300g white onion – same size as leek – roughly 1 average white onion
· 350g potato – small dice
· 6 strips of bacon – same size as leek
· 50g butter
· 70g all-purpose flour
· 900mL chicken broth – stock would be ideal but I only had premade broth on hand
· 200mL 5% cream
· 1 large chicken breast, cooked and shredded
· (optional) peas – I used about half a cup’s worth – I really like the way the bright green looks in the white soup!
This is about the size of the chicken that I shredded up, you may want to do it smaller based on your preference. I just roasted a large breast in the oven and seasoned it with salt and pepper to keep it simple. I’ve done something similar but I used grilled chicken with a delicious barbeque sauce on them and it was equally as amazing.
Directions:
1. Start the bacon off in a cold pan and cook it out over a low heat to render out that fat
2. Once the bacon has cooked to your liking, add in your base of celery, leek and onion and sweat them out over continued low heat
3. When the vegetables are cooked out nicely (you’ll find they’ve changed color and shrunk to about two thirds to one half of their original volume) then melt your butter and add your flour to the mix to create your roux.
4. Once your roux has cooked out to around a blonde level then add in your chicken broth and give it a big stir and then raise the heat, stirring even incorporate everything.
Roux before adding in the chicken broth
Chicken broth has been added, and the soup is starting to come to a boil.
5. Once the soup has come to a boil and the texture has reached your desired consistency, reduce the heat and stir in your cream. Add in your potatoes and slowly cook them out.
These were about the size of my potatoes I used for the soup.
6. Once the potatoes are cooked to your liking, the soup is essentially finished cooking. Add in your chicken and peas, the only thing you have to worry about is reheating them. Season your soup and serve.
The soup looks so vibrant and alive once the beautiful color from the peas are in there!
Now personally, I found that between the broth, the chicken I prepared as well as the bacon, the soup was already quite salty, so I did not have to add very much salt to the soup to season it.
I garnished my soup with the leaf from a celery heart.
Evaluation:
I personally found the soup to be delicious. I thought that the bacon, aside from the texture it offered the soup, lent this gorgeous smoky flavor that would have been impossible to get otherwise. The texture of the chicken was just right, the flavor of the chicken was extraordinary and unique, because that was the only ingredient that had any kind of pepper in it. The texture of the soup was very smooth and creamy, but it wasn’t particularly sticky which was pleasant. Surprisingly, the smells of the butter and the vegetables and chicken actually overwhelmed the smell of the bacon, which you would have to be up closer to smell. Visually it maintained a delicate, very light color, and I was quite pleased with the overall result.
I had my mother, my next-door neighbours and my neighbour from down the street try the soup and by some dumb luck they all said the same things. They all found the soup to be delicious, they made mention of the smoky bacon flavour almost right away, and they said the smell was “amazing”, “great” or “awesome”. In particular, my mother noted that the taste of the chicken was “outstanding”.
What were the challenges involved? Did you learn something? What would you do differently?
This recipe wasn’t particularly challenging to write and the soup was not particularly difficult to make. One thing I learned though is that the roux starts out much darker if an animal fat like bacon grease has been used. Honestly there isn’t anything I would have done differently in this process. One other thing I could do with this recipe is, instead of salting it at the end, I could reduce it down and then put it in a pie crust for a very good chicken pot pie.
