Week 4, Day 2. Soups and Stocks

As Chef S often likes to do while lecturing on the topic of the day, he gave us a bit of a history lesson and talked about soup’s inauspicious and long-term status as nothing more than food for the peasant masses. It wasn’t until the early 1800s when Antonin Careme (according to the chef, one of the old farts that gave us classical cooking, but to you and I, widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern cooking) got people to begin thinking differently about soup. Escoffier followed in the footsteps of Careme and began to think of soup as a precursor of things to come throughout the duration of the meal. Naturally, based on that belief, the ‘art’ of soup-making began to evolve and modern (relatively speaking) soup preparations became much more refined than their predecessors. And so to make a very long story short, the ground work was set for soups to evolve into what we know today. Or something like that. Would Thomas Keller be treating soups in his own special way without the precedent set by Careme and Escoffier? Actually, seeing how he is a genius I’d have to say yes. Ok, bad example, so let’s just move on.

Before discussing soups, it is important to talk about the foundation of so many different soup varities…stock. What is a stock? Well, think of it as the liquid that is strained off after vegetables, usually some kind of animal bones, a few basic herbs (thyme, parsley stems, bay leaf), and water have all been simmered together for some period of time. Stocks are often used as bases for sauces as well as soups. The French hold such high regard for stock that they use the word fond (loosely translating to ‘foundation’) when describing it. Classically, there are two types of stocks…fond blanc (white stock) and fond brun (brown stock) and the most important difference between the two is that the bones are roasted in a brown stock, while in a white stock, they are not.

I won’t bore you to tears by detailing all of the steps for making a good stock, I’ll just point out a few key things. First and most important…place whatever bones you are using into an empty stock pot. Cover the bones with cold water and bring to a boil slowly, then dial-down the mixture to a simmer. Bones contain collagen, which will give the stock body and texture, and by starting with cold water you’ll be able to coax the collagen from the bones slowly. Immersing the bones into boiling water is bad because it will inhibit the collagen-extracting process. After the stock has simmered for a bit, you will notice some scum on the surface that should be skimmed off. Once it has been skimmed off, add your mirepoix, which is a classic combination of onions, celery, and carrots in a 2:1:1 ratio. We follow a 20% rule in class which can be illustrated by an example: if your stock has 10 lbs of bones, then you should have 2 lbs of mirepoix (1 lb of which should be onion). Simmering times depend on what kind of stock you’re making. Chicken stock shouldn’t simmer for more than 6 hours or else the bones will began to break down and the calcium will cause the stock to become cloudy. A good veal stock may need up to 18 hours to simmer. Simmering is advised (as opposed to boiling) because it is a more gentle cooking process that will help to ensure a clear stock. Stocks also generally have no seasoning…that comes later. Since as stock is used as a foundation for so many other things, if your foundation is over-salted, then so will anything else that calls for that stock’s usage.

My partner Celia and I were assigned to prepare a Shrimp Bisque. First we would have to prepare a fish stock. From what I gather, there is no such thing as a true fish stock in the classical sense. We made what was called a fumet, which is basically prepared just like a stock, except that we used 10 lbs of fish carcasses (I got to clean them myself) and added about a cup of white wine to the mix (wine, or any acid period, is not traditionally added to stock). Since I rarely have fish carcasses at home, this was a new preparation for me and let me say that the finished fumet smelled wonderfully delicious…a stark contrast to the smell emanating from the fish carcasses that smelled like, well, just how you’d expect 10 lbs of fish carcasses to smell. One important thing to note about the fumet…it only cooks 30-35 min, a much shorter cooking time than other stocks. Fish bones break down much faster than other animal bones; cook your fumet longer than that and it will become cloudy.

Many of the recipes that the students prepared today would represent different types of soup. Bisque is a type of soup made from shellfish meat and shells, cooked together with fumet, water, some optional pernod (star anise or licorice flavored liqueur), mirepoix, rice (used as a thickening agent) and a few other ingredients. After an initial cooking period, all of this is pureed together and simmered some more. To puree our soup, we employed the services of an industrial strength hand-held immersion blender which I imagine would make a good substitute for an outboard motor on a 30′ fishing boat. After another 45 min of simmering, we passed our bisque through three different strainers, each finer than the one before it, finished the soup with a little a heavy cream, salt, lemon juice, a splash of pernod, and we were ready to go:

How was it? It was absolutely divine. I’m not a big licorice guy and during the cooking process, the smell of the pernod was overwhelming. Thankfully a lot of it cooked out and what was left imparted a really nice sweetness that was needed to cut through the richness of the soup. Also of note was the nearly 10-step seasoning process that we used to finish the dish. We seasoned one ingredient at a time and noted the different tastes that resulted when 1 tsp of salt was added, then another, then a splash of lemon juice, then more salt, then pernod. It was interesting to note how the salt really brought out the shrimp flavor but also killed the sweetness imparted by the pernod, necessitating its addition at the very end. Good stuff. All students would receive a similar ‘mini-tutorial’ on proper seasoning.

Next up is a Cream of Asparagus Soup:

This is an example of a cream soup. This soup was made with nearly equal parts of chicken stock and heavy cream and also benefited greatly from the addition of some curry powder, which was toasted quickly before being added. You didn’t notice the curry powder immediately, instead you felt right after you swallowed a mouthful of the soup, leaving a really pleasant and warming aftertaste.

Creamy Mussel Soup:

This soup is classified as a Veloute. A veloute is another of the classic French ‘mother’ sauces (the 4th that we’ve covered in class) and is made by combining a roux and stock and cooking them together until you arrive at a basic sauce with a smooth and velvety texture to which you may add any number of additional ingredients. This mussel soup also used the fish fumet and the liquid that mussels were cooked in. The soup was also enriched with an egg yolk and cream mixture, called a liason.

This Pappa al Pomodoro (Bread and Tomato Soup) was a real surprise:

I was not expecting to like this soup, but I think we were all in shock over how good it really was. It is classified as a panade, which is a thick and hearty soup that is thickened with bread. Suspend your disbelief (I had to this), this soup was the real deal. It started with leeks, chicken stock, tomatoes, and basil, all simmered together. Then, finely crumbled up pieces of freshly baked Tuscan bread were added to thicken. It was served with a liberal dousing of high-quality Tuscan olive oil that was literally floating on top of the soup. A real surprise indeed seeing how we all expected this to be gross.

We also had another cream soup, this one a Cream of Potato Soup garnished with fresh pesto:

Note the common theme with cream soups, they are traditionally served sans chunks, save for the occasional garnish.

And finally, a Pot Au Feu:

Pot au Feu is a dish where at least two or more courses come from the same pot. In this example prepared in class, a brisket was braised with broth and aromatic vegetables. The broth was served as a soup and the brisket was served alongside various root vegetables that were also cooked in the broth.

Today was a great day in class. I thought that everyone’s items tasted great. All students benefitted from the same ‘seasoning’ instruction that Celia and I received, so I bet that was a part of it. Nevertheless, I think everyone did a great job today. Our recipes covered most of the different classifications for soup as explained by the chef. We did not prepare any pureed soups, compound broths (for example, a minestrone), or consommes (just the French being fussy, according to Chef S). Notably absent from the list of soup types is chowder. Chef S explained that chowders are hybrids because they contain cream but aren’t considered strict cream soups because they also contain lots of chunks. Also, not all chowders are creamy and there are lots of different regional chowder variants, so coming up with one catch-all chowder classification is basically impossible.