One of the challenges of making soup and stock is that it is important to cool and then chill it quickly, especially in hot, humid weather when foods tend to spoil more readily. Follow the instructions here to get that soup or stock cooled quickly and safely.
In cold weather, divide the stock into smaller containers and allow the stock to cool to warm room temperature, and then chill in the refrigerator. In hot weather, place the strained stock into a sink full of ice and water, or place a freezer gel pack inside a heavy-duty plastic bag into the stock to cool it quickly. Alternatively, use a submersible ice wand that can be filled with a mixture of ice cubes and water to stir through the soup and chill it quickly.
2. CHILL:
Transfer stock to storage containers or metal bowls and chill overnight. The next day, remove and discard any solidified fat from the top. Note that stock placed in a metal container or pot, preferably stainless steel, will cool more quickly than if it is placed in plastic or other less-conductive container. Do not place hot stock or soup directly in the refrigerator because it will warm up everything else in there, cutting down on shelf life and decreasing food safety. Freeze stock if desired. Always defrost in the refrigerator or in a container with cold water running over it.
3. DEFAT:
Once the stock has chilled, you may remove any layer of fat that will have risen to the top (not present in vegetable stocks). The fat forms a protective layer against bacteria while the stock is in the refrigerator. If you plan to freeze the stock, however, remove and discard the fat, and then pour the stock into a jar or plastic freezer container. Leave about 1 inch (2.5 cm) of headspace at the top of the freezer container because liquids expand as they freeze.
4. STORE:
For best shelf life, cool soup stock quickly. You may then refrigerate it for 3 to 4 days. Hearty long-cooked bean soups will last longer than quickly cooked clear soups such as chicken soup. Soups based on seafood—chowders and Mediterranean-style fish soup or stews, for example—will keep their sweet flavor for only 2 to 3 days. You may boil the soup or stock again anytime during this period to add a few more days of shelf life. Always sniff a container of stock from the refrigerator before using to make sure it hasn’t spoiled.
SOUPMAKER’S TIP
If time is short, consider using frozen vegetables, which just as high in nutrients as fresh and can be a big timesaver for your soups. Try frozen sliced leeks, chopped spinach, sliced carrots, garden peas, artichokes, collards, sweet peas, and asparagus. Asian and Indian markets are good places to find more exotic frozen vegetables such as fava beans, grated coconut, mustard greens, and sweet potatoes. Rinse the vegetables under cold water to get rid of frost which holds odors and undesirable flavors.
1. Place the cob in its husk on the work surface with the stem end across from your dominant hand. Feel around the base of the cob to find where the cob ends and the narrower stem begins. Using a heavy chef’s knife, cut off the bottom of the cob about 1/2 inch (1 cm) above the end of the cob. The more woody and difficult the cob is to cut through, the tougher the corn. A cob that is relatively easy to cut through will have tender, juicy, sweet kernels.
2. Turn the cob so the top is facing your dominant hand and feel around to where the main, thick portion of the cob begins and slice it off. (The top end has a narrower cone-shaped end with tiny, undeveloped kernels.)
3. Pull off the husk and inner layer of silks. (If desired, you may use the green husks to wrap tamales or fish for steaming, infusing them with corn flavor.)
Rub off any remaining silks (there is one silk for every kernel) with your hands or a clean kitchen scrub pad. Some small bits will inevitably remain.
4. Stand the cob on its larger end. Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut down through the kernels, but not too deep into the cob or the kernels will be woody. The kernels will tend to fly away, so work away from the edge of the work surface. Cut in a strip about one-fifth of the distance around the cob.
5. Turn the cob and continue cutting in strips until you have removed all the kernels. Younger, smaller cobs mean less yield but usually sweeter flavor.
6. To extract the most in sweet corn goodness, use a sharp chef’s knife to scrape off the corn “milk” contained in the cob, working in strips.
Depending on the size, one corncob will yield 1/2 to 1 cup (77 to 154 g) of kernels.
For a clearer broth, strain the broth while it is still hot and thin in consistency through a dampened paper towel laid into a wire sieve, which has been placed over a bowl. Or, use a large paper coffee filter. Use the bowl of a ladle to swirl the broth against the sieve encouraging the broth to fall into the bowl below. If the broth contains a lot of small bits of debris, you may need to change the towel before adding more broth for a second round of straining.
Snow peas are usually served whole, but they make a beautiful garnish for soup when cut into the long, thin strips known by the French term, julienne. Just a few are needed. The term julienne dates back about 300 years in print when it appeared in a French cookbook, Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, in a recipe for the soup Potage Julienne, which included carrots, beets, leeks, celery, lettuce, sorrel, and chervil all cut into delicate julienne strips.
1. To julienne, line up several snow peas, either raw or lightly blanched (cooked in boiling, salted water 1 minute and then rinsed under cold water to set the color), with their fatter, seeded side facing the knife, preferably a sharp chef’s knife. (The younger and flatter the snow peas, the easier it will be to cut them.)
2. Slice the snow peas lengthwise into thin, fairly even strips, keeping your fingers curled so you don’t cut them with the knife.
SOUPMAKER’S TIPS
USING FRESH HERBS
Aromatic fresh herbs, such as the dill, tarragon, and Italian parsley shown here, make for the freshest tasting soups. Use them generously, adding sprigs of herbs while simmering the soup, and then removing and discarding the herb sprigs before serving the soup. Finish the soup by adding chopped herbs near the end of cooking or just before serving.
Figure on using three to four times as much of the chopped fresh herb as its dried equivalent. Dried herbs make an acceptable though less sprightly substitute, but note many herbs—especially cilantro, parsley, and basil—lose most of their delicate flavor when dried.
Pick the herbs and chop the same day as you’ll be using them (because they break down quickly once chopped), using this technique.
1. Pick the leaves from their stems and arrange in a compact pile. Begin chopping, keeping your nondominant hand on the forward portion of the upper blade for control and using a rocking motion to chop.
2. Continue chopping, rocking the knife up and down and pivoting on its point moving in a fan shape from one side to the other. When you reach the end of the pile, use the knife to toss the herbs back together into a compact pile.
3. The herbs are ready when you have chopped them fine enough so that visible lines start to form after each chop of the knife, as in this photo.
SOUPMAKER’S TIPS
If you do chop the herbs a day ahead of time, roll up in a paper towel to absorb excess moisture, place in a plastic bag and refrigerate up to 2 days. Always sniff prechopped herbs to make sure they haven’t developed an unpleasant odor, which indicates that they’ve spoiled.
SAVE FOR STOCK:
Reserve the stems of tender herbs for stock. Do not use woody, resinous herb stems from savory, rosemary, oregano, and sage, which will be overly strong and slightly bitter if cooked. (You may collect these woody stems and throw them on the grill or in the smoker.)
The clove is a dried, unopened flower bud, and it has a potent, sweetly fiery taste that is delicious in small quantities but unpleasantly medicinal in larger amounts. Here we stick whole cloves into a peeled onion, which will simmer in broth, imparting a delicate clove flavor.
1. Using a pointed bamboo or metal skewer, stick one hole for each clove into a whole, peeled onion.
2. Insert one whole clove into each hole, pushing the clove in firmly to secure.
Fresh herbs lend their sprightly aroma to many soups. This technique will work for most tender herbs including basil, tarragon, marjoram, parsley, and cilantro.
1. Grasp the stem about one-third of the way from the top in your nondominant hand. Using that hand, pull downward on the lower portion of the leaves, detaching them from the stem so that the bottom portion of the stem is bare.
2. Still grasping the stem, use your dominant hand to pull upward to remove the more tender upper leaves and top sprig from the stem.
A bouquet garni is a small bundle of aromatic ingredients such as herbs, peppercorns, and orange zest strips. This bundle is tied with kitchen string; enclosed in a piece of cheesecloth or undyed muslin; placed in a tea strainer, a coffee filter, or a special small net bag; or in traditional French kitchens, wrapped in leek leaves. The bouquet garni is added to soups, stocks, sauces, and stews, where it infuses the food with its aromas and is removed before serving. Most commonly, a bouquet garni will include parsley, thyme, and bay leaf, but often it includes basil, rosemary, sage, savory, and tarragon as well.
6 to 8 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
2 bay leaves
2 to 3 sprigs basil
3 to 4 sprigs thyme, marjoram, or savory
2 strips orange zest (one-quarter of an orange), cut using a potato peeler with a minimum of bitter, white pith
1. Make a compact bundle of the herbs and orange zest strips.
2. Either tie securely with kitchen string or place in a piece of muslin and tie shut. This makes it easy to remove the bundle after cooking.
Saffron is the orange-red threadlike dried stigmas once attached to the base of the autumn flowering crocus flower. Its pungent, earthy, bittersweet flavor and acrid, haylike aroma complement fish and shellfish especially well. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice by weight, but because it is so concentrated, a few threads can flavor and color an entire dish. When purchasing saffron, check the harvest date, which should be of the current year, or at the latest, the past year. Avoid powdered saffron, which is easier to adulterate. Saffron may be stored, tightly sealed, in the freezer for up to two years with little loss of flavor.
1. The best saffron includes only the pure deep red-orange stigmas; less expensive saffron bulks up with flavorless yellow stamens. Any “cheap saffron” is likely something else entirely.
2. Sprinkle the saffron threads into the wine.
3. Soak the saffron in the white wine about 15 minutes or until the liquid is deep gold in color.
Dicing a ripe tomato without mashing it up is a challenge made easier by using a small serrated tomato knife.
1. Cut away the tomato core in a cone shape. Save for stock if desired.
2. Cut the tomato in half “through the poles” rather than “through the equator.”
3. Lay a half tomato flat side down on a cutting board and cut slices working from the blossom end toward the stem (core) end and leaving the slices attached at the blossom end.
4. Holding the tomato together with your nondominant hand, slice crosswise, at a slight downward angle to avoid cutting into your hand, three-quarters of the way through the tomato, leaving the slice attached at the blossom end.
5. Cut two more crosswise slices, keeping the knife at a slight downward angle and holding the tomato together with your other hand.
6. Now dice by slicing across the tomato and using your nondominant hand to hold the tomato together. Save the uncut tomato blossom ends for stock or sauce or chop by hand and add to the diced tomatoes.
Basil darkens, or oxidizes, very easily if bruised, changing the flavor as well. To prevent this, always cut basil with a very sharp knife and slice, rather than chop, the leaves. Here we cut thin ribbons of basil by rolling the leaves up into a cigar-shape.
1. Start with the largest leaves, placing one on top of the other, vein side up, to form a fat stack of about 10 leaves. Place any smaller leaves on top.
2. Use the fingers of one hand to hold the leaves in place, and roll up the basil into a compact lengthwise tube with the seam underneath.
3. Using a sharp chef’s knife, slice across the “cigar” to form thin ribbons of basil.
If you’re lucky enough to find a mature female lobster that weighs at least 1 1/2 pounds (680 g), you’ll probably find it filled with dark, greenish-black roe (its unfertilized eggs), which is also known as lobster “coral” for the bright orange-red color it turns after cooking. Roe is considered a delicacy for its concentrated lobster flavor and gorgeous color. Smaller females will likely have under developed roe, which will be light green and far less abundant. Here’s how to cook lobster roe, which has very similar characteristics as cooking common hen eggs.
1. Place the roe sacs on a large piece of plastic film.
2. Roll up to make a “sausage,” twisting the ends to make a compact bundle. Tie the ends securely shut. Place in a small pot of boiling water and cook until the roe turns completely red.
3. Unwrap the packet, place it in a sieve, and mash the roe against the sides of the sieve using a silicone spatula or a wooden pusher. Or, chop the roe into smaller chunks, place in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely ground.
4. Use as is or spread out on a parchment paper–lined baking pan. Bake at 300°F (150°C, or gas mark 2) for 10 minutes to dry out the roe for longer keeping (up to 1 week). The cooked roe also freezes well.
Here is an efficient way to cut an onion that takes advantage of the onion’s layered structure.
1. Place the onion on a work surface with its root end up. Grasping the side of the onion with your nondominant hand, cut straight through from the root to the stem. Pull off the outer layer of skin from one half of the onion using the stem end as a handle. Repeat with the second half. Trim off the stem of the onion.
2. Starting at the far side, cut thin even slices through one onion half, leaving the ends attached at the opposite root end. Hold the onion steady with the fingers of your other hand, curved to keep them away fromf the knife blade.
3. Place the sliced onion half flat side down, keeping it in place with the curved fingers of your other hand. Make a horizontal cut angled slightly toward the table to avoid your fingers and cutting through the onion but leaving the root end attached.
4. Make a second cut above the first also angling down.
5. Grasping the onion with your curved hand back at the root end, cut even crosswise slices forming small onion dice. Repeat with the other onion half. Save the onion skins, trimmings, and root ends for stock.
Celery root, or celeriac, is most commonly found minus its green tops, but the freshest, firmest celery root—minus the spongy center portion all too common in large, overgrown bare roots—is sold whole with tops. The greens are quite bitter and best used in small quantities only as a parsley-like herb.
1. Grasp the celery ribs in your nondominant hand. Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut away the root from the ribs just below the ends of the ribs. Discard the dark green ribs.
2. Using a sharp chef’s knife or a sturdy utility knife, pare away the darker outside layer of the celery root in strips, including the small rootlets on the bottom.
3. Save all the delicious trimmings for stock, transferring them to a bowl of cold water and swishing around vigorously to extract the dirt from the root ends. Once the trimmings are clean, drain and use for stock or transfer to a ziplock bag, and freeze up to 3 months.
4. Cut the pared celery root into 1/2-inch (1 cm) thick slices, and then cut the slices into even sticks about the same thickness. Line up the sticks and cut them crosswise into cubes of about the same thickness. Store in a bowl of cold water and refrigerate until ready to use, but use within 3 days.
One of the most challenging but most rewarding vegetables is the avocado, preferably a rich buttery-fleshed Hass from California or Mexico, to which it is native. An avocado is ripe when you can easily pull out the stem end from the tip of the avocado. A Hass avocado is ripe when the skin turns waxy, rather than shiny, and is purplish-black, rather than green. Prepare the avocado as close as possible to the time that you’ll be serving the soup as they quickly oxidize. Avoid using either underripe (hard and acrid in flavor) or overripe (mushy and bland in flavor) avocados.
1. Grasp the avocado in your nondominant hand with your fingers curled around one side. Use a sharp paring or boning knife to cut all around the circumference. The knife cut should meet at the tip where you began cutting to make a full circle around the avocado.
2. Grasp each half of the avocado in your hands and twist both halves in opposite directions. Pull apart the two avocado halves. The flesh should detach from the large center pit.
3. Cut the avocado halves in two to make four sections and pull out the pit. Use your knife to pull back on the skin. As seen here, the skin will pull away cleanly from a ripe avocado.
4. Slice each avocado quarter into three to five slices, and fan out the slices to separate them. Serve as a garnish for the soup.
It’s tedious work to pick off the small leaves of fresh thyme from the branch. Instead, when making soup, tie the sprigs together and simmer in the soup (or sauce). When ready to serve, just fish it out—most of the leaves will have fallen off into the soup but the tough branches will stay in the bouquet. Use the same technique with other fresh herbs such as tarragon, marjoram, or rosemary.
1. Cut off a length of kitchen string to about 8 inches (20 cm). Grab a small handful of thyme sprigs all lined up with their leaves at one end. Wrap the string tightly several times around the bundle.
2. Tie the string tightly into a secure knot and cut off any excess.
Leeks, which grow very slowly in the ground and consist of layer upon layer of leaves wrapped around each other, are notoriously difficult to clean because the dirt gets caught between the layers.
1. Cut off the white root end and save it for stock (use it in any kind of stock). Find where the white stalk begins to branch out into green leaves, and cut the leek at that point to form two fairly even sections.
2. Unwrap the tough, dark green outer leaves from the top section and discard them. (They are too strong in flavor and will darken any soup or stock to an unappealing color.) Reserve the remaining lighter green, tender sections.
3. Cut the bottom leek section into half lengthwise and then cut into quarters lengthwise. And then cut the reserved upper section into half lengthwise.
4. Line up all the leek pieces, grasping them together in a bunch with your nondominant hand. Slice crosswise to form small leek squares.
5. Transfer the cut leeks into a bowl of cold water and swish around vigorously to encourage any remaining dirt to drop to the bottom of the bowl. Scoop the washed leeks from the bowl using your hands or a wire skimmer and drain them in a colander.
