I thought soup was good for freezing?

vicwatson

So what went wrong with mine?

Thawed it out and it looked curdled - not a pretty picture, it was vegetable soup containing veg stock cube, leeks, onion, potato, carrot and a knob of butter at the end.

It was quite gorgeous when cooked fresh.

But why not freeze/thaw good?:(

Alun

Soup can sometimes look a bit odd and lumpy when first thawed out, but when heated up and given a good stir will be fine. If there's any fat in it, it will tend to separate out a bit which can add to that impression, but will melt back in when heated.

The Hill Billy

That's weird.

Maybe a stupid question, but what did it look like after a good stir?

Also, it may come back to its former glory after being reheated.

The Hill Billy

Snap!

vicwatson

The Hill Billy wrote: »

That's weird.

Maybe a stupid question, but what did it look like after a good stir?

Also, it may come back to its former glory after being reheated.

Not too appetising ! Maybe it was the butter as I haven't seen it happen before. Bit of freezer burn on top perhaps but consistency was like a sponge on top and hard to break through. Wasn't in freezer for that long, maybe 2 weeks tops.

Thanks for advice thus far

Dizzyblonde

Maybe it was the butter, because I don't use it in my soups and the freeze really well.

Edit: Might have been the potato, if there were little lumps.

Alun

I don't really understand this bit about a spongy layer on top .. was it a blended soup, or were the vegetables left whole? Was this spongy top the vegetables that had floated to the top, or what?

Also about the butter, in future I'd sweat the vegetables off in the butter to start with before adding the stock rather than adding a lump of it at the end.

vicwatson

Alun wrote: »

I don't really understand this bit about a spongy layer on top .. was it a blended soup, or were the vegetables left whole? Was this spongy top the vegetables that had floated to the top, or what?

I had blended it yes before freezing, I should have taken a picture of it, for want of a better term it looked like brains ! It looked seperated and the top part was as described, a sponge like consistency.

Faith

Funny, the same thing happened to me recently! I made a big batch of blended vegetable soup and most defrosted without issue, but one batch was really lumpy. It was disgusting, actually. I didn't add butter, and I've no idea what caused it. Heating and stirring a lot did nothing to improve it.

Alun

That's odd. Was it thickened in any way, with a beurre manié, cornflour or suchlike?

Faith

Alun wrote: »

That's odd. Was it thickened in any way, with a beurre manié, cornflour or suchlike?

Nothing in my case anyway. Just vegetables and stock, and so far it's just been one batch that defrosted weirdly.

foodaholic

would you have had cream in the soup ? That can curdle when frozen

Merkin

Was it thoroughly cold before you put it in the freezer? I think it's no harm in leaving it overnight before freezing it. I also make and freeze soup and it never looks that appetising when you take it out but as soon as it is reheated it is back to its best. As long as it looked fine on reheating then I wouldn't worry!

miezekatze

That also happened to me once recently, it looked all spongy too. Soup was completely cold when I put it in the freezer and there was no cream in it. I've frozen soup before and that was the only time it ever happened. I ended up throwing it out as heating it up didn't help.

Alun

Very strange, next time it happens to someone, alert us and the boards.ie soup analysis team will be round in a jiffy to figure out what's going on

The Hill Billy

I'll make sure the Soup-Mobile is fully fuelled & ready to go!

the beer revolu

I've often known soup to go kind of spongy and separated on defrosting but I've never known it to not come together when heated and stirred.

vicwatson

Alun wrote: »

That's odd. Was it thickened in any way, with a beurre manié, cornflour or suchlike?

foodaholic wrote: »

would you have had cream in the soup ? That can curdle when frozen

No none of the above

Merkin wrote: »

Was it thoroughly cold before you put it in the freezer? I think it's no harm in leaving it overnight before freezing it.

It was definitely cold, it was a day or two old IIRC

missmyler

I had the same problem with my soup last week. I made 2 batches, one with potatoes and one without . The soup with the potatoes came out of the freezer spongy and pretty inedible

Alun

missmyler wrote: »

I had the same problem with my soup last week. I made 2 batches, one with potatoes and one without . The soup with the potatoes came out of the freezer spongy and pretty inedible

That's interesting, maybe I have an explanation then.

Every now and then in a batch of potatoes I find some that have an odd fibrous texture to them. It's difficult to spot when they're raw, but you can sometimes see pale brown 'veins' going through them emanating from the centre.

When boiled, the surrounding normal potato flesh cooks normally, but this odd fibrous mass stays all nasty and stringy.

Maybe that's what's happening?

vicwatson

Alun wrote: »

That's interesting, maybe I have an explanation then.

Every now and then in a batch of potatoes I find some that have an odd fibrous texture to them. It's difficult to spot when they're raw, but you can sometimes see pale brown 'veins' going through them emanating from the centre.

When boiled, the surrounding normal potato flesh cooks normally, but this odd fibrous mass stays all nasty and stringy.

Maybe that's what's happening?

Not in my case as I used small baby charlottes and not stringy. I do know the ones you mean though, the ones that if you boil them you can say goodbye to them as they turn to mush.

Animord

vicwatson wrote: »

Not in my case as I used small baby charlottes and not stringy. I do know the ones you mean though, the ones that if you boil them you can say goodbye to them as they turn to mush.

I suspect it might be something to do with the freezing process. My soup for lunch today was a bit spongy on top (I did a thorough examination after reading this thread ). Anyway, it appeared that the liquid (mostly water) had in some way separated from the actually pureed vegetable, which gave an oddly spongy type layer on top.

It was fine after I heated it and gave a it a good stir.