Vegetable Soup

Faith

Right, for some reason, I cannot make the simplest dish in the world. When I make vegetable soup, I inevitably end up with something really sweet and heavy. I might typically use onions, potatoes, leeks and carrots. I made it the other day with butternut squash instead of leeks, and it was horrible (IMO). I've gotten some really lovely vegetable soups out in restaurants and cafés, but I can't seem to recreate it myself. Can anyone give me ingredients that will make a nice non-sweet soup?

(For the record, I think it's the carrots that are causing the problem, and I definitely won't be including butternut squash again.)

LaChatteGitane

The veg you use are quite sweet. Even the onion and leeks.
Try adding celery/celeriac, fennel which will give the soup a 'lift'

gerrybbadd

I have the same issue. I love vegetables soup that you get all over Ireland, the kind you get in every restaurant across the land. It tastes homemade and wholesome. I can't recreate it though.

fangee

Just keep it very simple.

Slice one onion and sweat it off in olive oil with a dash of salt and pepper.

Then add the veg you want for your soup but choose just one.

For example, after you have sweated off the onion add some broccoli with veg stock.

You can peel and dice a potato and add this too but it's more to give some body unless you like your soup to be thin and clear.

Then blitz it in a mixer or with a hand held one.

The BBC website has some great soup recipes.

Faith

LaChatteGitane wrote: »

The veg you use are quite sweet. Even the onion and leeks.
Try adding celery/celeriac, fennel which will give the soup a 'lift'

It's funny, I never think of vegetables as being sweet until it comes to making soup!

The OH won't eat fennel or celeriac, but I can certainly try adding celery .

donal073

Of course if you present a delicious vegetable soup containing fennel and celeriac to the other half without telling her or him the offending items are in it the chances are she or he will say it was delicious!

Faith

donal073 wrote: »

Of course if you present a delicious vegetable soup containing fennel and celeriac to the other half without telling her or him the offending items are in it the chances are she or he will say it was delicious!

LOL . I might get away with the celeriac, but he's like a drug sniffer dog when it comes to fennel!

I think basically that I need to use more green vegetables.

Dizzyblonde

I find my vegetable soup too sweet too if I add a lot of carrot, and I find butternut squash way to sweet. Leek, potato and onion soup is delicious, and lately I've been making plain old potato soup with just onions and stock added.
I agree with fangee about keeping it simple and not adding too many different types of veg.
I sometimes add barley, it bulks it up and adds a nice flavour too.

niallb

Don't discount butternut squash permanently, but bear in mind it's a very sweet ingredient too, so maybe use it instead of the carrots rather than replacing the leeks. If you're not going to roast it first, make sure to peel it enough to take the pale coloured flesh off, as both the texture and flavour are inferior to the deeper coloured parts.

Blitzing is great for finishing a soup, but don't blitz the whole lot - leave a few cupfuls aside and put them back in after you've blitzed the rest and the soup will feel a lot better.

I second the recommendation from LaChatGitane that celeriac is a brilliant ingredient. It gives great body and flavour (and lowers the GI).
Celeriac and onion with a bit of garlic will give you a soup that's a lot less sweet than the ingredients you usually start with.
If you like mushrooms, a mushroom based soup can be a lot less sweet too. Either of those will benefit from some potato too.
Broccoli, or in the next month or two, purple sprouting broccoli are also good to base a deep green coloured soup on.

Start with a good recipe. Trial and error comes better after you've produced some things you're happy with and can reproduce regularly.
The BBC website is as good a place as any to start.

Faith

Thanks for all the replies! They just lead me to identify my OH as the problem . He'll eat most things, but doesn't like a lot of things that seem to make the best soups. Will take all your suggestions on board .

labradoodlelady

BBC good food recipe for butternut squash with chili soup is amazing. Also leek and potato with bacon. And the cully and sully page have a lovely chicken and veg one.

LaChatteGitane

Faith wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies! They just lead me to identify my OH as the problem . He'll eat most things, but doesn't like a lot of things that seem to make the best soups. Will take all your suggestions on board .

You know when I first moved in with my OH, there were quite a few things he REALLY didn't like. Now I never had much patience for fussy eaters, so he could leave it or lump it.:o

25 years later and he'll eat anything (except mussels - wimp) I put in front of him.:D

donal073

Problem other halves? Make soup out of them! Just kidding!

5unflower

My favourite recipes for vegetable soups all have some sort of Asian or other spicy touch to them which I find balances the "heavy" sweetness of the basic veg. Butternut squash for example works well with chili and orange juice (again a little sweet, but also tangy and adds some freshness). Carrot works well with ginger, coriander, a splash of lime and a little coconut milk.

Seaneh

Plain old Veg soup:

The rule is 2:2:2:2 for the basics.

2 medium carrots, 2 medium onions, 2 sticks of celery and 2 cloves of garlic, sweat them all off and when they are soft add whatever else you fancy, seeing as you don't want it sweet, broccoli is a good place to start, a good half head of brocc will give you a lovely green soup, throw in a spud or two if you want it thicker, I rarely bother to add it though, as it's just more starch and sugar and it makes soups heavy.

As said before, celeriac is good, as is fennel, avoid parsnips and turnips if you don't want is sweet, both are very high in sugars.

I prefer to use chicken stock over veg stock, again, it's not as sweet.

cook all those together 10 minutes after adding the stock and bringing to the boil and then blitz and you're laughing.

hdowney

*yoink* I am stealing the above

GalwayGuy2

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1651633/spicy-lentil-soup-with-curry-pinwheel-rolls

Not vegetable, but I can't sing the praises of this recipes enough. Makes load of portions, and if you can't be bothered to grate the carrots you have a beautiful gruely soup creating:P

the beer revolu

Two main types of soup:

Broth - thin stock with small pieces of vegetables and pasta/barley/rice.
Passed soup - pretty much the same as broth but blended of sieved (passed).

I assume it is the latter you're after. I love broths but they don't seem popular around Ireland.

I use onions, celery and leek as a base for pretty much any soup.
I nearly always include potato if I'm going to blend the soup.
Then add your feature vegetable. A clove of garlic or two can be good to add flavour without making the soup garlicy.
For a general veg soup I might use onion, leek, celery, carrot, potato, sweetcorn and peas. I'd usually flavour with fresh thyme and a bayleaf.

Any soup will only be as good as the stock you put in it.
I like to use homemade chicken stock but you can get pretty good results with chicken or veg cubes/pots. If using the cubes/pots don't add any salt without tasting the soup first as they are always very salty.

EZ24GET

Start with beef broth add canned tomatoes, onion, celery or celery salt. potato cubes, If you want just a bit of sweet drained canned corn works well and just enough carrot for a bit of color. Sort of things you like to your taste.

Cedrus

I think all that the sweeter vegetables need is a bit of spice to balance them, think 'carrot and coriander' or 'butternut with garam massalla'
I have also 'discovered' the herbs Lovage and Mace both of these add a meaty fullness to the flavour without even vegetable stock.
I love a good home-made stock but the OH doesn't ("it's too fatty" "the whole house stinks").
Our fridge is on the way out and it keeps freezing everything so I'm making lots of soup at the moment

April O Neill

the beer revolu wrote: »

Broth - thin stock with small pieces of vegetables and pasta/barley/rice.

I assume it is the latter you're after. I love broths but they don't seem popular around Ireland.

I LOVE broth. Chicken, sweetcorn, garlic, LOTS of soft onion, mushroom, parsnip, carrot and either small potato chunks, noodles or pearl barley. Yummers. :cool:

lolli

This is the way I make vegetable soup.. I cut up some peppers, onions and carrots, put them on a baking tray and spray a little bit of olive oil on them and put them in the oven for about 20 minues. I find it brings out the flavours of the vegetables. I then boil a pot of water I add a couple of Knorr vegetable stock pots.

I then add sliced potato, broccoli, cauliflower and the roasted onions, peppers and carrots. Let it all cook together until everything is soft. I then add parsley, black pepper and whatever herbs you want. Blend it all up and serve.

I tend to just use up whatever veg I have in fridge to make the soup but I find roasting them for a while really brings out all the flavours.

EZ24GET

sometimes i like to toss in some spinach and rice too. just a touch of nutmeg

Mrs Fox

the beer revolu wrote: »

I love broths but they don't seem popular around Ireland.

Growing up in Southeast Asia, we'd only have broths. Normally spiced with star anise, cinnamon, whole black pepper, cloves and cardamom, before sautéing shallots, ginger and garlic as the base. we'd chuck in bone-in meat/chicken, so no stock required as you get flavours from the bones, and veg are normally carrots and chunky potatoes. To serve, we'd sprinkle crispy fried thinly sliced shallots, as well as chopped spring onion and flat leaf parsley on top. Best eaten with either steamed rice or rice vermicelli noodles.
I made this for my Irish father-in-law when he was in the hospital. Let's just say that was the first and the last ever. Ive since learned to make his preferred pub-style creamy hearty passed soup.

EZ24GET

Mrs Fox wrote: »

Growing up in Southeast Asia, we'd only have broths. Normally spiced with star anise, cinnamon, whole black pepper, cloves and cardamom, before sautéing shallots, ginger and garlic as the base. we'd chuck in bone-in meat/chicken, so no stock required as you get flavours from the bones, and veg are normally carrots and chunky potatoes. To serve, we'd sprinkle crispy fried thinly sliced shallots, as well as chopped spring onion and flat leaf parsley on top. Best eaten with either steamed rice or rice vermicelli noodles.
I made this for my Irish father-in-law when he was in the hospital. Let's just say that was the first and the last ever. Ive since learned to make his preferred pub-style creamy hearty passed soup.

I think that sounds very good. I'm not wild about cream soups- maybe potato every now and then. My father in law used to chop in a little cabbage which I liked but the soup doesn't keep as long.

Radharc na Sleibhte

I always sweat my veg first.
Use a cartouche.
Once cooked take it off.
People have an awful habit of leaving soup on for hours.

Dizzyblonde

I made this for lunch today and it's really nice. I used 1litre of water, 2 chicken stock cubes and 500g of veg: 3 carrots, one parsnip, one good sized onion, one stick of celery and a couple of large broccoli florets. Lots of black pepper and a little salt.I threw in a handful of barley, simmered it for an hour (in order to be sure the barley cooked fully), and blended it but not too much.
It's really hearty and not at all sweet

spurious

Celeriac is just THE most divine soup ingredient.
That is all.

Merkin

Do you like a smokey flavour Faith?

If so here's my recipe:

80-100g of good quality smoked chorizo finely chopped and put into the pan without any oil. This will release some oil and coat the pan with flavour. Take this out when oil has been released and pan has been coated.

Then for the main ingredients:

6 cloves of garlic (I love garlic so suit to your own taste)
3 onions
3 carrots
2 potatoes
4-5 stalks of celery
Sea salt and cracked peppercorns to season
A boquet garni bag

Fry these up in the oil from the chorizo. Then make 1.5-2 litres of stock using good organic Swiss buillon and add the boquet garni. Bring to boil and then leave to simmer/very gentle boil for at least an hour. Then I blitz it with the hand blender and use the chorizo pieces from earlier as little meaty crutons which really add a deliciously savoury and moreish dimension to the soup. There's enough in the above for two big bowls for two people over two days. In fact I've just made some this morning and will be having it for my lunch shortly!

Kat1170

I find a simple BEEF stock cube really makes a difference to my veg soup.

Mr. CooL ICE

I'm always looking for ways of sneaking more veggies into my diet so I took some advice from this thread. I'm not the biggest fan of veg soup in general, but am usually willing to try everything at least once. So me being stubborn, I didn't follow any recipes here but must made a mishmash of what everybody said.

1) Sauteed a finely chopped onion in olive oil and butter for 10 mins. Added fennel seeds and sauteed for another 5.
2) Added a dash of white wine and after it evaporated, I added two carrots, a parsnip, a stick of celery.
3) I added 1 litre of water with two Knorr veg stock pots, about half a celeriac (or whatever a lump of it is called) and five baby potatoes.
4) I added cinnamon, oregano, salt, pepper, ground coriander and let it simmer for about 45 mins before taking it off the heat and blending it.

Jesus tap dancing christ, its delicious. I made it while I was waiting for my lamb stew to cook and was planning on having it this evening, but am salivating just thinking about it.

What stock brands do people use? I tend to avoid Oxo when I can and try to go for non-MSG products, but that's probably just me being a victim of marketing ploys.