Yesterday, I talked about clear soups. Today, we're talking about thick soups.
Thick soups break into 2 categories:
1. Purée Soups
2. Cream Soups
In Tuesday’s class, we made another 3 soups.
1. Purée of Split Pea (Purée Soup)
2. Cream of Mushroom (Cream Soup)
3. Chicken Waterzooi (Cream Soup)
We started with the split pea. Purées are best made with a starchy star ingredient as the starch becomes the thickening agent. If additional thickening is needed, potatoes are often added because of their high starch. Puréed soups are similar to the French Onion in that, they are simple and focus heavily on the main ingredient.
Seriously, very simple:
Render bacon
Sweat mirepoix
Add stock, peas (star), ham hock and potatoes; simmer for 90 min
Remove ham hock; purée
Boom; done
This is where we jumped ahead of other groups. We had a purée secret weapon. Stormy has worked in a smoothie shop before and took control of the blender. Too bad for her, this is my blog and I’m gonna spill the secret. You only fill the blender about 1/3rd of the way full. Then as it purées in the blender, the smoother it gets, the higher it will shoot up the sides of the blender. When it gets to the top, it’s nice and smooth. Thanks to Stormy we got compliments from Chef Pierre on the consistency.
While Bobby was getting started on the split pea, Stormy took initiative on the mushrooms for the Cream of Mushroom, 3 lbs of them! In case you didn’t know already, mushrooms are light. Those packs of mushrooms you buy at the grocery store are 8oz. So imagine chopping 6 of those packs in 15-20 min.
I spent much of the first hour and a half working on chopping veggies as well. We had a lot to get through.
1. Split Pea:
-12 oz diced onion
-4 oz diced celery
-2 cloves of chopped garlic
-16 oz diced potato
2. Cream of Mushroom:
-8 oz diced onion
-4 oz diced celery
-4 oz diced leeks
-3 lbs sliced mushrooms
3. Chicken Waterzooi:
-5 oz allumette carrots
-5 oz allumette celery
-3 oz allumette turnips
-8 oz allumette potatoes
-4 oz allumette leeks
Allumette is a new knife cut that we all got to learn. This was important that we all practice this because we have a mid-term in 2 weeks and part of that mid-term is a knife practical.
Interjection:
Here are the cuts we’ve used so far in class.
Thick soups break into 2 categories:
1. Purée Soups
2. Cream Soups
In Tuesday’s class, we made another 3 soups.
1. Purée of Split Pea (Purée Soup)
2. Cream of Mushroom (Cream Soup)
3. Chicken Waterzooi (Cream Soup)
We started with the split pea. Purées are best made with a starchy star ingredient as the starch becomes the thickening agent. If additional thickening is needed, potatoes are often added because of their high starch. Puréed soups are similar to the French Onion in that, they are simple and focus heavily on the main ingredient.
Seriously, very simple:
Render bacon
Sweat mirepoix
Add stock, peas (star), ham hock and potatoes; simmer for 90 min
Remove ham hock; purée
Boom; done
This is where we jumped ahead of other groups. We had a purée secret weapon. Stormy has worked in a smoothie shop before and took control of the blender. Too bad for her, this is my blog and I’m gonna spill the secret. You only fill the blender about 1/3rd of the way full. Then as it purées in the blender, the smoother it gets, the higher it will shoot up the sides of the blender. When it gets to the top, it’s nice and smooth. Thanks to Stormy we got compliments from Chef Pierre on the consistency.
While Bobby was getting started on the split pea, Stormy took initiative on the mushrooms for the Cream of Mushroom, 3 lbs of them! In case you didn’t know already, mushrooms are light. Those packs of mushrooms you buy at the grocery store are 8oz. So imagine chopping 6 of those packs in 15-20 min.
I spent much of the first hour and a half working on chopping veggies as well. We had a lot to get through.
1. Split Pea:
-12 oz diced onion
-4 oz diced celery
-2 cloves of chopped garlic
-16 oz diced potato
2. Cream of Mushroom:
-8 oz diced onion
-4 oz diced celery
-4 oz diced leeks
-3 lbs sliced mushrooms
3. Chicken Waterzooi:
-5 oz allumette carrots
-5 oz allumette celery
-3 oz allumette turnips
-8 oz allumette potatoes
-4 oz allumette leeks
Allumette is a new knife cut that we all got to learn. This was important that we all practice this because we have a mid-term in 2 weeks and part of that mid-term is a knife practical.
Interjection:
Here are the cuts we’ve used so far in class.
Medium Dice: cube-shaped cut; dimensions ½” x ½” x ½”
Small Dice: cube-shaped cut; dimensions ¼” x ¼” x ¼”
Brunoise: cube-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 1/8”
Bâtonnet: stick-shaped cut; dimensions ¼” x ¼” x 2”
Julienne: stick-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 2”
Allumette: stick-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 1 ½”
-This is normally only used for potatoes (matchsticks)
Paysanne: flat, square, round or triangular item; dimensions ½” x ½” x 1/8”
OK, back to soup. After finishing up the slicing, Stormy got started on the Cream of Mushroom. Cream soups are also puréed but are not called purées because they are not thickened with a puréed starchy ingredient but are thickened with a roux or an alternate starch and are finished by adding cream. After sautéing the mushrooms in butter (great smell by the way), we sweat the other veggies with them. Now, we need to do 2 things add the liquid and add the thickener. The order does not matter but the technique does. If you add the liquid first, you have to pre-make a roux (flour+fat). If you add the flour directly into the sautéed veggies you’ll make a roux with the veggies in it and can then add the stock after the roux has formed. At this point, you have a velouté with sautéed veggies. The mixture is still thick and has chunks of mushrooms. Stormy, the smoothie queen, again got our soup to a silky texture.
While that was working I got started on the Chicken Waterzooi (yeah, I’ve never heard of it either). We had been cooking an entire chicken for the first half of class in chicken stock, creating our own chicken broth (Why broth? Because we used the meat, not just the bones). We pulled the chicken from the broth and set it aside to tear up later. To this broth, we added a cold roux that we had already prepared and simmered it for an hour. After the hour we added the allumette veggies.
At this point, we have 3 almost finished soups. The cool part is that none of them are really done until just before service. For a cream soup, you don’t remember me saying “add cream” (you don’t have to scroll up and check, I haven’t). Just before service, we have to finish and garnish.
Here are the 3 soups we made on Tuesday:
Top: Purée of Split Pea is bowled and garnished with the diced up meat from the ham hock we pulled from the soup earlier and a few croutons.
Bottom Right: Cream of Mushroom is finished with cream (pouring in hot cream), bowled and garnished with some sliced mushrooms that we removed and saved before puréeing the soup and some finely chopped parsley
Bottom Left: Chicken Waterzooi is finished with a liaison (1 part egg yolk and 3 parts cream whisked together to add richness and smoothness). This, just as the cream is added, bowled and garnished with finely chopped parsley. The reason that the veggies for this soup were all cut allumete was because this soup is not puréed and that these veggies should look uniform to enhance the visual appeal of the bowl.
A little advice that we got from Chef Pierre on our cream soups:
The soups will always thicken as they cool. As soon as the soup is served it starts to cool. Make the soups thinner than desired in the pot so that when they are served, they don’t get too thick as ours had started to do.
The best part about preparing served items is that after we plate things, we get to eat them. I'm gonna let y'all in on a little secret, I've always loved French Onion and Split Pea Soup. Now, I love them more than ever. I’ve had 6 bowls of soup in 2 days and I still hunger for more.
--Rees
Small Dice: cube-shaped cut; dimensions ¼” x ¼” x ¼”
Brunoise: cube-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 1/8”
Bâtonnet: stick-shaped cut; dimensions ¼” x ¼” x 2”
Julienne: stick-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 2”
Allumette: stick-shaped cut; dimensions 1/8” x 1/8” x 1 ½”
-This is normally only used for potatoes (matchsticks)
Paysanne: flat, square, round or triangular item; dimensions ½” x ½” x 1/8”
OK, back to soup. After finishing up the slicing, Stormy got started on the Cream of Mushroom. Cream soups are also puréed but are not called purées because they are not thickened with a puréed starchy ingredient but are thickened with a roux or an alternate starch and are finished by adding cream. After sautéing the mushrooms in butter (great smell by the way), we sweat the other veggies with them. Now, we need to do 2 things add the liquid and add the thickener. The order does not matter but the technique does. If you add the liquid first, you have to pre-make a roux (flour+fat). If you add the flour directly into the sautéed veggies you’ll make a roux with the veggies in it and can then add the stock after the roux has formed. At this point, you have a velouté with sautéed veggies. The mixture is still thick and has chunks of mushrooms. Stormy, the smoothie queen, again got our soup to a silky texture.
While that was working I got started on the Chicken Waterzooi (yeah, I’ve never heard of it either). We had been cooking an entire chicken for the first half of class in chicken stock, creating our own chicken broth (Why broth? Because we used the meat, not just the bones). We pulled the chicken from the broth and set it aside to tear up later. To this broth, we added a cold roux that we had already prepared and simmered it for an hour. After the hour we added the allumette veggies.
At this point, we have 3 almost finished soups. The cool part is that none of them are really done until just before service. For a cream soup, you don’t remember me saying “add cream” (you don’t have to scroll up and check, I haven’t). Just before service, we have to finish and garnish.
Here are the 3 soups we made on Tuesday:
Top: Purée of Split Pea is bowled and garnished with the diced up meat from the ham hock we pulled from the soup earlier and a few croutons.
Bottom Right: Cream of Mushroom is finished with cream (pouring in hot cream), bowled and garnished with some sliced mushrooms that we removed and saved before puréeing the soup and some finely chopped parsley
Bottom Left: Chicken Waterzooi is finished with a liaison (1 part egg yolk and 3 parts cream whisked together to add richness and smoothness). This, just as the cream is added, bowled and garnished with finely chopped parsley. The reason that the veggies for this soup were all cut allumete was because this soup is not puréed and that these veggies should look uniform to enhance the visual appeal of the bowl.
A little advice that we got from Chef Pierre on our cream soups:
The soups will always thicken as they cool. As soon as the soup is served it starts to cool. Make the soups thinner than desired in the pot so that when they are served, they don’t get too thick as ours had started to do.
The best part about preparing served items is that after we plate things, we get to eat them. I'm gonna let y'all in on a little secret, I've always loved French Onion and Split Pea Soup. Now, I love them more than ever. I’ve had 6 bowls of soup in 2 days and I still hunger for more.
--Rees
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