Culinary expert Colleen Miner demonstrates tips for preparing delicious homemade soups.
- One thing we must all understand before we begin making our own soups is the difference between broth and stock.
- Chicken broth is made with a whole chicken or parts of the chicken and simmered until the chicken is done. The chicken is then removed and what remains is broth.
- Stock is made by simmering the bones of a chicken--along with ingredients such as carrots, celery or seasonings--for approximately three or four hours. Throw away the bones.
- If you want to remove the layer of fat on top of your stock, try laying a paper towel over the stock to absorb the top layer of unwanted fat, and remove. Continue to skim off fat during the whole simmering process.
- If you are planning to get more than one meal out of your soup, try adding some pasta or rice to it. By giving it more substance, you won't have to eat as much of it to be full.
- You can easily lift bones or veggies from the stock with a pasta cooker after the stock is finished.
- If you accidentally add too much garlic to soup, don't panic. Just place some parsley flakes into a tea ball, and place that in the soup while it cooks. That will balance out the strong flavor of the garlic.
- If your soup is too salty, drop a couple pieces of potato into the soup to absorb some of the excess salt. Remove the potatoes when the soup has finished cooking.
- For a clear broth, cook soups and stocks on a low boil and skim frequently. Rolling boils force particles into the stock, creating a cloudy liquid.
- As a timesaver for future meals, make a large pot of soup and freeze the rest in plastic bags or containers.
- Homemade stock tastes wonderful in your soup, but you usually don't use all of it. The answer to this dilemma is to freeze your homemade stock in nonstick muffin tins. It's easy, and you can pop out one cup at a time each time you need just a little.
