Cooking Soups

The popularity of soups today may be due to increased nutrition consciousness, to a desire for simpler or lighter meals, or to an increased appreciation of how appetizing and satisfying soups can be. Whatever the reasons, they emphasize the importance of soup-making skills. Soup according to the dictionary is a liquid food derived from meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables. This definition is all right as far as it goes, but there's a lot it doesn't tell us. Soups can be divided into three basic categories: clear or unthickened soups, thick soups, and special soups that  don't fit the first two categories.

Classification of Basic Soups

• Clear Soups - Clear soups are all based on a clear, unthickened broth or stock. They may be served plain or garnished with a variety of vegetables or meats.
• Thick Soups - Unlike clear soups, thick soups are opaque rather than transparent. They are thickened either by adding a thickening agent, such as roux or by pureeing one or more of the ingredients to provide a heavier consistency.
• Specialty & National Soups - This is a catch-all category that includes soups that don't fit well into the main categories and soups that are native to a particular country or region.

• Example of Basic Clear Soups are : Consomme or Vegetable Soup.
• Example of Basic Thick Soup are : Cream of Mushroom soup or Cream of Green Pea Soup.
• Example of Basic & National Soups : French Onion Soup or Soto Ayam  

Ingredients & Preparation for Chicken & Celery Consomme

Consomme

Ingredients

• Chicken stock
• Chicken breast
• English celery
• Salt
• White pepper
• Egg white

Method

• Pour the chicken stock in the stock pot. Bring to a boil. Slice the chicken breast and celery about 1 inch.
• Place the egg whites in the mixing bowl.
• Add the chicken breast in the boiling stock and simmer.
• Add the celery, egg white, salt and pepper, stir the stock and bring to a simmering point over a moderate heat.
• Simmer about 20 minutes. Ready to serve

Ingredients & Preparation for Cream of Mushroom Soup

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

• Button mushroom
• Peeled garlic
• Dried rosemary
• Dried tarragon
• Whipping cream
• Roux
• Chicken stock
• Salt
• White pepper
• Oil

Method

• Chop the button mushroom finely, chop the garlic.
• Slice some of the button mushroom.
• Heat the soup pot with oil. Add the garlic and saute awhile. Add chopped mushroom. Add all the herbs and pour the chicken stock. Let it boil.
• Add the roux and stir constantly until the soup becomes thick. Add the whipping cream and stir gently. Season to taste.
• In another saute pan, saute the remaining sliced mushroom. Add together nit the soup.
• Ready to serve.

Ingredients & Preparation for French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

Ingredients

• Brown stock
• Big onions
• Oil
• Dried thyme
• Bay leaves
• Salt
• White pepper

Method

• Heat the soup pot with oil. Slice the onion and add into the pot. Stir the onion until fragrant, brown and soft about 6-7 minutes with slow fire.
• Add the herbs. Add the stocks and season to taste.
• Simmer the soup about 18 minutes
• Ready to serve.

Ingredients & Preparation for Vegetables Soup

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

• Button mushroom
• English celery
• Carrots
• Fresh leek
• Garlic
• Chicken stock
• Oil
• Salt
• White pepper

Method

• Cut the button mushroom by 4 each pieces. Peel the celery and slice. Cut the carrots into cubes of 1cm. Slice the leek. Put aside.
• Boil the chicken stock in the stock pot. Chop the garlic finely. Add the oil in another stockpot. Add the chopped garlic. Stir gently and pour the stock in. Add the vegetables and simmer gently until all thr vegetables are cooked.
• Season to taste.

Ingredients & Preparation for Cream of Green Pea Soup

Cream of Green Pea Soup

Ingredients

• Green peas
• Peeled garlic
• Dried thyme
• Dried bay leaves
• Whipping cream
• Roux
• Chicken stock
• Salt
• White pepper
• Oil

Method

• Blanch the green peas until soft. Blend it finely in the food processor. Put aside.
• Heat the soup pot with oil. Saute the garlic until fragrant. Add the herbs and bended green peas.
• Let it cook and add the stocks. Stir gently and let boil. Add the roux to make it thick. Pour the cream.
• Season to taste. Ready to serve.

Ingredients & Preparation for Soto Ayam

Soto Ayam

Ingredients

• Chicken breast
• Dried bee hoon noodles
• Red shallots peeled
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Lemon grass
• Kurma powder
• Oil
• Chicken stock
• Lime
• Fried shallots
• Coriander leaves
• Cucumber
• Chili (cili padi)
• Dried star anise
• Cinnamon stick
• Salt
• White pepper
• Dried cardamom

Method

• Slice the chicken breast into 1 inch. Soak the bee hoon in the warm water about 10 minutes. Mix the shallots, ginger, garlic and lemon grass into the food processor. Blend all of them finely with a cup of water.
• Heat the soup pot with oil. Add the blended ingredients. Stir awhile and add the star anise, cinnamon and cardamom. add the kurma powder. Let it about 5 minutes until fragrant. Add the stocks and let it boil. Season to taste.
• Blanch the chicken breast in another pot. Put aside. Cut the cucumber into juliennes. Slice the coriander leaves and put aside.
• Place the bee hoon in the soup bowl. Pour the soup and chicken breast. Garnish with coriander leaves, cucumber, chili and fried shallots. Ready to serve. 

COOKING SAUCES

Basic Leading Sauces


Like stocks, sauces have lost some of the importance they once had in commercial kitchens - except of course, in the best restaurants serving what may consider luxury cuisine. Some of this decline is due to changes in eating habits and to increase labor cost. However, much of this change is due to misunderstanding. How many times have you heard someone said, " I don't pour the sauce all over everything. I like good simple food ". No doubt this person puts ketchup on hamburgers, gravy on mashed potatoes and tartar sauce on fried fish - for example! A good cook knows that the sauce are as valuable as salt and pepper. A sauce works like a seasoning, it enhances the flavor of the food. Sauce should not dominate or hide the food. A sauce may be defined as a flavorful liquid, usually thickened, that is used to season, flavor and enhance other food. The major sauces we consider here are made of three kinds of ingredients - liquid (the body of the sauce), thickening agent and additional seasoning and flavoring ingredients.

Leading Sauces

• Bechamel sauce
• Veloute sauce
• Brown sauce (Espagnole)
• Tomato sauce
• Hollandaise sauce     

Roux and Other Thickening Agents

Starches are the most common and more useful thickeners for sauce-making. Flour is the principal starch used. Starches thicken by gelatinization. Roux is the one and most famous of example basic thickening agents. The rest are beurre manie, whitewash, cornstarch, arrowroot, waxy maize, pregelatinized or instant starch, vegetables puree, bread crumbs and etc. All of the thickening agents have thier own characteristic and specific with purpose. A good chef must know what character of the thickening agent to make the sauce to be balanced, nice and right texture without changing the taste, flavor nor color.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Roux

Roux

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter
• Flour (all-purpose flour / wheat flour)

Method

• Heat the sauce pot over low heat. Add the butter and start to stir gently until the butter is melted well using the whisk. Do not let the butter to be burned.
• Add the flour slowly and continue to stir the mixture until you get a sandy-texture to the mixture.Control the fire. When the mixtures are well-combined turn off the fire and transfer the roux to a stainless steel bowl.
• Keep the roux in room temperature.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Bechamel Sauce

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

• Roux
• Milk
• Dried bay leave
• Onion
• Clove
• Salt
• Ground white pepper
• Ground nutmeg

Method

• Scald the milk in the sauce pot with medium heat.
• Gradually add the roux and stir gently using a whisk. Beating constantly.
• Bring the sauce to a boil and continue stirring constantly. Reduce heat to a simmer.
• Stick a bay leaf to the onion with the cloves. Add into the sauce. Simmer about 20 minutes. Stir constantly while cooking.
• Season with very light of salt and pepper. Add nutmeg but spice flavors should not dominate.
• Strain the sauce through the china cap. Bechamel sauce is done.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Veloute Sauce

Veloute Sauce

Ingredients

• Roux
• Chicken stock

Method

• Heat the chicken stock in the sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Add cold roux (not iced). Stir constantly. Reduce the heat for simmer.
• Simmer the sauce with very slow fire about 30 minutes. Skim the surface when necessary.
• Do not season the veloute sauce.
• Strain the sauce through a china cap. Basic veloute is done.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Espagnole (Brown Sauce)

Epagnole also known as Brown Sauce

Ingredients

• Tomato puree
• Roux
• Brown stock (basic)

Method

• Heat the brown stock in the sauce pot with low heat. Bring to a boil.
• Reduce the heat and add the roux. Stirring constantly until the mixture is well-combined.
• Add the tomato puree, stir it constantly and simmer about 50 minutes.
• Basic brown sauce is done.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Tomato Sauce

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

• Chicken stock
• Tomato paste
• Roux
• Salt
• Ground white pepper
• Crystal sugar

Method

• Pour the chicken stock in the sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Add the roux and stir constantly. Let simmer a while.
• Add tomato paste and continue stirring the mixture untill well-combined.
• Simmer about 30 minutes. Strain the sauce with a china cap and season it with salt and pepper to taste.
• Heat the sauce again and add sugar.
• Tomato sauce is done.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter
• Ground white pepper
• Salt
• Lea & Perrins sauce
• Chicken egg yolk
• Lemon juice
• Ground Cayenne pepper
• White vinegar

Method 

• Combine the white pepper, salt and vinegar in a suace pan and reduce until nearly dry (au sec). Remove from heat. Add a bit cold water.
• Pass the diluted reduction throught a fine strainer into a stainless steel bowl.
• Add the egg yolk to the mixture bowl and beat well.
• Hold the bowl over a hot-water bath and continue beat the yolks until they are thickened and creamy.
• Remove the bowl from heat. Using a whisk, slwply and gradually beat and pour slowly the warm clarified butter. Add the butter drop by drop and continously beat the mikxture until it becomes thick. Drop a lemon juice and Lea & Perrins sauce into it.
• Season to taste. The hollandaise sauce must be thick and creamy.

COOKING STOCKS

The preparation of stocks has been simplified in many ways since the days of Escoffier (who was a French Chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods). Although this does not means that it demands less care or skill. Few chef today bother to tie vegetables for a stock into a bundle. They're going to be strained out anyway. The number and variety of ingredients is usually not as great as it once was. Nor is it common to cook stocks for as many hours as were once thought necessary. All these details are taken up one by one. A stock may be defined as a clear, thin (that is unthickened) liquid flavored by soluble substance extracted from meat, poultry, and fish and their bones and from vegetables. Our objective in preparing stocks is to select the proper ingredients and then to extract the flavors we want. In other words, to combine the correct ingredients with the correct procedure.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making Brown Stock

Brown Stock

PREPARING BASIC BROWN STOCKS.

- The difference between brown stocks and white stocks is that the bones and mirepoix are browned for the brown stock. This cause a few complications, as you will see. Otherwise, the procedure is essentially the same.

Ingredients

• Bone (beef bone or veal bone)
• Mirepoix (onion, carrot and celery)
• Tomato puree
• Sachet (dried bay leaf, dried thyme, peppercorns, parsley stems, whole cloves)
• Water.

Method

• Prepare the sachet. Cut the vegetables into mirepoix.
• Cut the bones into 8 - 10 cm long.
• Place the bone in a roasting pan in one layer and brown it in the oven at 190'c - 220'c.
• Let it in the oven about 1 hour. Add the mirepoix and tomato puree. Mix them well. Continue roasting about half and hour.
• Place the brown bone and mixture in a stockpot. Add water and mirepoix Start to boil the stock.
• Simmer the stock when the stock reach to the boiling point.Simmer with slow fire and regularly skim the scum using a skimmer.
• Simmer about 5 - 6 hours.

Ingredients & Preparation for Making White Stock

White Chicken Stock

PREPARING BASIC WHITE STOCKS.

- A good white stock has rich, full of flavor, good body, clarity, and little or no color. Chicken stocks may have a light yellow color.

Ingredients

• Bone (if desired, chicken, veal or beef bone may be blanched)
• Mirepoix (onion, carrot and celery)
• Sachet (dried bay leaf, dried thyme, peppercorns, parsley stems, whole cloves)
• Water.

Method

• Prepare the sachet. Cut the vegetables into mirepoix.
• Place bones in a stockpot. and add cold water to cover.
• Bring water to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Skim the scum that comes to the surface, using a skimmer.
• Add mirepoix and sachet.
• Simmer with light fire. Do not let the stock boil.
• Simmer about 3-4 hours.