Cook for the future and lose weight. Five soup myths

Doctors advise for proper digestion to use once a day during lunch. There are many options, so even when housewives cook according to the same recipe, the taste is different. In the article we will analyze the popular types and talk about how to cook soup. Read to the end for tips from chefs to help you get it right.

Cream soup with croutons

A light soup that is suitable not only for home menus. It looks great on a holiday table.

Necessary:

• 6 medium sized potatoes;
• 350 g chicken breast;
• 1 pc. carrots and onions;
• spices and salt;
• fresh greens;
• 140 g cheese.

How to cook puree soup? His recipe is extremely simple.

We send the chopped meat to cook in a small amount of water. Then add potatoes (preferably whole), spices, roasted onions with carrots and salt. We bring everything to readiness. Then grind the dish with a blender to a puree-like state and boil again.

Cut the bread into small thin squares, fry in the oven. Pour into a deep bowl and squeeze enough garlic into it. So that the croutons do not become soft, you need to pour them into a plate just before eating. Sprinkle grated cheese on top.

Real Ukrainian borscht

We all try to make this dish a bright red color, but after cooling, the shade changes. This national recipe is for those who want to cook a hearty first course, which, when served, differs from the usual borscht.

For a four liter pan, we need to take:

• 450 g pork pulp (you can take beef brisket);
• 250 g of white cabbage;
• large beets;
• medium carrot;
• 1 small onion;
• 1/2 cup beans;
• 3-4 medium sized potatoes;
• 3 art. l. tomato paste or 2 tomatoes;
• 1 small pepper (Bulgarian);
• bay leaf, salt, garlic and pepper to taste;
• ½ tsp vinegar;
• vegetable oil;
• greenery.

We will serve the dish in the same way as it is prepared in Ukraine. Therefore, for dumplings we will buy:

• 400 g wheat flour;
• 2 eggs;
• by 4 tbsp. l. vegetable and butter.

How to cook soup with a rich taste and bewitching color, we will analyze step by step.

1. Red beans will take the longest to cook. Therefore, it is better to soak it in advance for several hours in cold water. We put the pot with the beans on the fire and after boiling we change the water. Now you can add the meat, which must be immediately divided into portions. Be sure to remove the foam that forms on the surface.
2. At this time, we are preparing the roast. We clean all vegetables. We send the onion and bell pepper (in cubes) to sauté. There are various options for preparing soups, but here we add carrots and beets, cut into strips (Ukrainians do not use a grater for borscht). At the end, you need to put tomato paste or chopped tomatoes without skins. Simmer a little over low heat.
3. After 1 hour, send chopped cabbage to the broth. Start preparing the potatoes. We release it from the peel, cut it into cubes and send the pan with frying.
4. 15 minutes before readiness, add our seasonings, salt, finely chopped garlic and bay leaf.
5. Leave to infuse and add vinegar, which will give a slight sourness and retain the color.
6. To prepare dumplings, we start the dough. To do this, mix eggs, salt, flour and butter. We sculpt dumplings, and then boil in salted water.

Serve the dish in bowls with sour cream.

Pea soup with smoked meats

For some reason, it is believed that this is a male dish, although women are happy to eat it during lunch. Now let's try to cook pea soup, like in a restaurant.

Ingredients:

• shelled peas - 350 g;
• salt and spices;
• 1 small red bell pepper;
• 1 medium carrot;
• 1 onion;
• 6 potatoes;
• smoked pork ribs - 500 g;
• oil - 4 tbsp. l.;
• fresh greens.

First you need to soak the peas for a few hours. Then rinse it until the water runs clear. You can skip this if you like a cloudy broth. We put on fire.

We chop the ribs into small pieces and wash well from bone fragments. How to cook pea soup if the smoked meat manufacturer used paint? You can bring the meat to a boil in another bowl and drain the water. After 25-30 minutes, send to the pan to the cereal.

We make roasted vegetables in sunflower oil. We clean and cut potatoes. We check the degree of readiness of peas. It all depends on your taste, as some prefer to boil it. Throw prepared products into the broth, salt and add seasonings.

You need to turn off the stove when the potatoes are almost completely cooked. We throw off the chopped greens and let it brew.

homemade soup

Now let's talk about how to cook soup with meatballs.

Take the following ingredients:

• 300 g minced chicken;
• 1 carrot and onion;
• bay leaf, spices and salt.

For the test you will need:

• 35 g of vegetable oil;
• 1 egg;
• 140 g flour.

First of all, mix all the ingredients with a little salt. Let's put it in the fridge for a while. Constantly adding flour, you need to roll out very thin cakes with a rolling pin, roll them into a roll and cut the noodles (now they sell a special apparatus for this). The noodles need to be scattered on the table so that they do not stick together, and then dried for half an hour. Then it can be fried in a dry frying pan until golden brown. So we will be able to cook soup, as they did in ancient times.

We put a 3-liter saucepan with water on the fire. When it boils, we roll small meatballs with wet hands and dump them there. While they are cooking, fry the carrots and onions, cut the potatoes without peel.

We send everything to the pan along with the noodles to the minced meat balls. The soup will turn out transparent if you first throw homemade pasta into boiling water in another container, and then, immediately throwing it into a colander, throw it into a common cooking dish. Add spices and bring to readiness.

Cheese soup with mushrooms

You can cook such mushroom soup from both dried and fresh products. We will use the latter option.

For 500 g of a mixture of champignons, boletus, white or any other, and 1 liter of water, you need:

• 2 pcs. potatoes;
• large onion;
• 400 g melted cream cheese;
• a couple of tablespoons of cream;
• a few peeled garlic cloves;
• vegetable oil;
• 1/4 tsp flour;
• seasonings and table salt - to taste.

Put peeled and diced potatoes to boil. At this time, we make the dressing: fry the onion with garlic, chopped mushrooms until creamy and add the flour. All this must be put into the pan when its contents are almost ready. You also need to send processed cheese, cream and spices there.

Cook for a few minutes until all the cheese is dissolved, and leave for 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with herbs and serve. Now you know how to cook mushroom soup.

Kharcho

Such a first dish will save you in the cold season. It is quite easy to prepare.

For cooking you will need:

• beef brisket - 450 g;
• round rice - 4 tbsp. l.;
• crushed walnut - 3 tbsp. l.;
• cherry plum (can be replaced with plum jam from prunes, tkemali and pomegranate juice);
• Caucasian spices;
• greenery;
• salt;
• adjika - 2 tsp;
• 4 cloves of garlic.

To cook a delicious soup, as in the Caucasus, we perform all the steps in sequence. We take out the boiled meat from the broth, cut it into pieces and send it back to the pan. Add rice with a sprig of cilantro and parsley. This greenery then needs to be pulled out.

When the cereal is almost ready, you need to pour the roasted nuts there, 1 tsp. hops-sumeli, chopped garlic, adjika and greens. Let the soup brew for 25 minutes, and then serve.

There are a wide variety of cooking options for this dish. The recipe used is almost always different and depends on the imagination of the hostess, as well as on the ingredients used. All types of meat and sausages that you have in the refrigerator are used. Here you can put:

• simple boiled and smoked meat;
• smoked and boiled sausage;
• sausages and sausages.

Cereals (rice or oatmeal), potatoes, vegetables are also added at your discretion. Main products for this soup:

• olives;
• salted cucumbers;
• tomato paste.

The housewives did not come to a consensus on how to cook a delicious hodgepodge soup. Therefore, the recipe can be developed independently, based on your taste preferences.

Here are some tips to help you prepare a delicious lunch:

1. Try to cook at one time, so as not to lose nutrients and not disturb the taste balance.
2. Do not add water to the finished broth. Otherwise, it won't be as intense. If you still have such a need, then use boiling water.
3. If you did not remove the foam in time, then you should strain the contents of the pan through cheesecloth.
4. The broth for fish soup will be more fragrant if you use several types of fish. Remove gills to avoid bitterness.
5. Cut the mushrooms into different sizes for the broth. Small ones add flavor, and large ones add flavor.
6. Barley before adding to the soup should be fried in butter.
7. To prepare milk soups, use cereals or pasta pre-boiled in water for 5 minutes.
8. Canned fish and stew are placed in dressing soups shortly before they are ready.
9. Stir-fry with stew fat if you are using it for soup.
10. To prevent the soup from becoming cloudy, remove the bay leaf after cooking.

How long to cook soup
Soup cooking time depends on the products used. Borscht, shchi and other soups with beef require at least 2 hours of cooking. Soups based on chicken or pork broth should be cooked for 1-1.5 hours, but light vegetable, mushroom or cheese soups require up to 1 hour.

How to cook soup
1. Boil the broth. Soup broths are boiled either on bones, or meat, or fish, or mushrooms. Put broth products in a saucepan, fill them with cold water and put on fire. After boiling, gently skim off the foam with a slotted spoon. Boil bone broth for soup for 3-4 hours, meat - 1-2 hours, fish - 20-30 minutes, mushroom - 1 hour. Meat after cooking can be divided or cut into pieces. You need to salt the soup as soon as the base of the broth is added to the soup.

2. Add a side dish to the soup - potatoes, rice, pearl barley, vermicelli, beets.

3. Prepare the roast: usually fried onions and carrots. Peel the onion and carrot, finely chop the onion, grate the carrot on a coarse grater. First, pour oil into a preheated frying pan, put the onion, fry it over medium heat for 7 minutes, then add the carrots and fry everything together for another 7 minutes.
4. Boil the soup together with the frying for 5-15 minutes.

How to serve soup
When pouring soup, it is important to scoop the grounds from the bottom of the pot. If soup puree is served, it is recommended to mix the soup beforehand. Such soups, such as, for example, pickle or hodgepodge, already contain salt, and are already salted in a plate. In any case, put a salt shaker on the table. Fresh bread or crackers are suitable for any soup, and you can decorate with a slice of lemon and herbs.

What to ask about soup at guests / at a party
The first question is whether to pour thick soup, depending on taste and degree of hunger. The second question - if the soup provides for both hot and cold serving - in what form to serve the soup. If the soup is very hot, it is enough to pour the soup into a plate that has been previously cooled with cold water, and then pour into 1 more chilled plate. Then you do not need to wait for cooling and you will start the meal at the same time as the guest.
If the soup contains large pieces of meat or pieces of chicken with bones, serve a separate plate with a fork and knife.

How to cook soup with a kettle
Soup can really be cooked with a boiler. You can even in a glass jar - with slow boiling and the absence of temperature changes, it will not burst. Of course, safety precautions must be observed - it is important that the boiler is completely in the soup. But the general essence is the same - the water boils, the soup is cooked. The only caveat: in soups that involve a slow fire, you need to bring the water to a boil, then wait a minute or two, bring the water to a boil again - and so on until the end of cooking.

Of course, we are talking about real, tasty, good-quality soups, and not about what people call balanda. Soups are very easily reduced to the level of primitive and tasteless dishes if they are prepared without sufficient skill and, most importantly, without an understanding of their specific properties. It has been noticed that not all cooks succeed in tasty soups, and that for many it is much more difficult to cook them than any complicated second course.

Therefore, in most cases, soups are prepared carelessly - why bother when a good result is still not easy to achieve: very often in the dining room and at home, soups become the most tasteless, unappetizing dishes. They are eaten because “you can’t do without soup”, “you need something hot”, “with soup a more satisfying dinner”, “you definitely need soup in winter”, and for other similar reasons, very far from taste assessment. And so we got used to it, that at our banquets, evenings, dinner parties, name days, birthdays and other solemn occasions, soups usually do not happen. They are not served as “too simple” dishes, but are offered either as appetizers alone, or appetizers and hot, so-called “second courses”. Meanwhile, soup prepared according to all the rules and with a high degree of skill is a decoration of the table, indeed the first dish in terms of its taste.

But making a good soup is a great art that requires special attention and time. The main thing is that in soups, high quality is more difficult than in all other dishes, due to a number of circumstances.

Briefly about the circumstances.

First. Soups work out the better, the smaller the volume they are cooked. It is best to cook the soup for no more than 6 - 10 servings at a time, that is, in a saucepan (or cauldron) with a maximum of 10 liters. This means that homemade soup cooked for 3-5 people is preferable to any other.

Second. Dishes for soups must necessarily be earthenware (faience, porcelain), stone or enameled, but in no case metal without any coating. Especially delicious are soups in stoneware, which is used to this day in some places in the Caucasus. Thus, not only the material and coating, the protection of the inner surface of the dish matters, but also its thickness, and hence its heat capacity and thermal conductivity. The slower and calmer the soup boils, the tastier it is. It is even better when it does not boil, but languishes.

Third. The ratio of water and other products in soups should be precisely balanced. By the end of cooking, the amount of liquid per serving should not exceed 350 - 400 cubic centimeters or milliliters. Minimum liquid 200 - 250 milliliters per serving. At the same time, during cooking, you can neither pour out nor add liquid - both of which significantly impair the taste. But it is precisely this condition that is almost never observed either in public catering or in the household. It is necessary to correctly measure the amount of water and other products in the soup before cooking, taking into account how much water boils away during the cooking process.

As you can see, the three main prerequisites do not concern the art of cooking itself, but are connected, so to speak, with the technical conditions of cooking: time, utensils, fire, water and volume. In everyday life, they are often neglected, especially since in cookbooks they are not mentioned at all or they are spoken in such a patter that they go unnoticed.

In addition, there are a few more purely culinary rules that also need to be considered.

These are the six rules, the six commandments in order.

First. Soups require high freshness of all products and their careful processing, removal of all defects by cleaning, trimming, scraping. Soup products should be washed not only from external dirt, but also from foreign smell, which not everyone knows how and wants to do. The cutting must be carried out so carefully that each of the pieces of meat, fish, vegetables laid out for soup must first be completely cleaned, washed and dried, only then all the components are filled with water.

Second. When cutting products, the form of cutting, characteristic of this soup, must be strictly observed, because it affects its taste. This means that in one type of soup you need to put, say, a whole onion, and chop it in another; carrots should be put whole in one soup, in cubes in another, straws in the third, etc., etc. These are not external, decorating, decorative differences, but requirements dictated by the taste and purpose of the dish (soup).

Third. The laying of products in the soup should be carried out in a certain order, so that none of the components is digested and that the whole soup didn't boil for too long, and would have kept up just when all its components were cooked. To do this, the cook must know well and remember the cooking time of each product, each component.

Fourth. You should always salt the soup at the end of cooking, but not too late, at the moment when the main products in it have just been cooked, but have not yet been digested, not overcooked, but are able to absorb salt evenly. If the soup is salted too early, when the food is still solid, then it cooks longer and is over-salted, since the salt mostly remains in the liquid, and if the soup is salted too late, it becomes both salty (liquid) and tasteless (thick).

Fifth. When cooking soup, you must constantly monitor it, do not let it boil, often try, correcting mistakes in time, watching the change in the taste of the broth, the consistency of meat, fish, vegetables. That is why soup is considered an uncomfortable dish by cooks, because it does not let go of itself even for a minute. At home, and in restaurant practice, this is often neglected, leaving the soup to its fate. A good cook, on the other hand, does not consider time when preparing soup, knowing that these “losses” will pay off with more than excellent quality.

sixth. The most crucial moment comes after the soup is mostly cooked, salted and there are literally a few minutes - from 3 to 7 - until it is fully cooked. During this time, as practicing chefs say, it is necessary to “bring the soup to taste” - to give it aroma, smell, piquancy, depending on its type and requirements of the recipe, as well as on the individual skill of the cook, on his personal taste and desire. Usually it is this final operation that few people succeed in, and it is at this stage that the soup can be thoroughly spoiled. Meanwhile, a chef with a delicate taste at this final moment, introducing a variety of seasonings and spices, is able to turn a seemingly ordinary soup dish into a masterpiece.

Finally, the soup is ready, removed from the stove, but even after that, a real chef is in no hurry to serve it on the table. He will definitely pour it quickly into the tureen (or “transfer” the solid part separately, and fill it with liquid), let it stand under the lid from 7 to 20 minutes, so that the soup is infused, so that the spices and salt evenly penetrate the meat or other components, so that the liquid part of the soup was not watery, but would have acquired a pleasant, thick, velvety texture (it is when the soup is poured into a tureen that the liquid thickens and mixes).

Such a soup has a pronounced aroma, tenderness, softness, the right temperature and therefore is well perceived by the organs of touch, smell and digestion. Many soups continue to “ripen” even when poured into bowls (this should by no means be done with metal, but with enameled, porcelain or wooden ladles). Now it remains only to put dill, celery, parsley, sour cream, lemon, a solution of fruit leftovers, and sometimes croutons, cereal, poached eggs into them - and the soup has finally acquired taste completeness and wholeness.

And soups have one more property, one feature. A feature that turns them into preferred dishes. Soups are not recommended to be reheated. They are best eaten immediately after preparation. Even very well-cooked soups deteriorate the taste after reheating.

Only one type of soup - daily cabbage soup (lean, on a mushroom broth with sour cabbage) - improves its taste in a day (no more!), Of course, with proper storage: in glass, enamel or earthenware, that is, non-oxidizing, dishes. From this it is clear why soups are not liked to be prepared for banquets: they cannot, like snacks, be prepared in advance a day in advance and put in the refrigerator.

Already from this very cursory enumeration of the basic rules for making soups and their properties, it can be seen how complex, and most importantly, time-consuming and capricious soup dish and how much we usually miss when cooking it somehow, hastily, not according to the rules.

Of course, each specific soup has many more little cooking secrets that are easily given to a person who is attentive, observant and has mastered the above basic rules.

In world culinary practice, one and a half hundred types of soups are known, which are divided into more than 1000 types, and each type also has several subspecies or variants. So, for example, there are 24 options for cabbage soup, 18 for soup, and 22 for borscht. But, of course, only types of soups differ sharply from each other. Of the 150 world types, only the peoples of our country have about 90. There are several hundred species and variants in our country. They are often mistakenly considered different soups. For example, soup with potatoes, soup with dumplings or soup with vermicelli. In fact, these are not different soups at all, but exactly the same or one kind. And they are prepared according to the same technological rule and have the same set of components in terms of their culinary essence. Out of all the variety, out of a true kaleidoscope of soups, both in public catering and at home, we use at most two or three types, or even one, using only its different variants. This is, of course, irrational. That is why the development of new types and types of soups and their widespread introduction both into public and home catering is our common task that affects everyone.

And now some purely practical advice.

When is the best time to eat soup?

Of course, during the day, ideally at 13 o'clock in the afternoon. Soup early in the morning is irrational. It overloads the stomach of a person who has rested from sleep and reduces efficiency in the best, most “bright” productive hours of the day. In the evening, at dinner, soup should also not be eaten - it makes the stomach heavier, causes fast sleep, but at the same time speeds up the digestion process in a dream, which sometimes leads to sleep disturbance, waking up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. A bowl of soup at lunchtime (full, kind, “heaped”) is quite a sufficient norm per day. Soups are best made thick, so that they are thick (vegetable) with a small amount of rich liquid, and not the liquid itself, such as broth.

There is a simple, even primitive, but absolutely sure way: pour as many plates (full!) of water into the pan as it is planned to receive servings. Excess water will boil away during cooking, and the rest, along with the grounds, will make just a full plate!

How to prepare, cut vegetables for soup?

Good cookbooks always indicate the form of cutting vegetables for soup, because the taste depends on the form. To choose the shape of the cut yourself, you must first see what the general composition of the soup is, namely, carefully read the recipe.

The more components in the soup, the richer and tastier it should be. Hence, with a large number of components, the cutting should be larger, with a small number - smaller. This is a general rule. If the soup is vegetable, the vegetables are cut as small as possible. If the soup is cereal, dumpling, dumpling, etc., then the vegetables are always put whole: whole carrots, onions, turnips, potatoes, etc.

Yes, because the taste of dumpling soup should be created by dumplings, cereal - by cereals, meat - by meat, and not vegetables, the role of which in this case is to modestly complement, accompany in taste, and not stand out.

The order of adding ingredients to the soup is usually indicated in cookbooks, you just need to not neglect it. If they are not in the recipe, then it is necessary to proceed from the cooking time of the available components and lay them so that they ripen at the same time.

A table of cooking times for each product is usually found in cookbooks. But these tables, unfortunately, are almost never used. Therefore, we give a typical procedure for cooking soups with meat, with fish and purely vegetable.

Meat.

1. Pour water (or boiling water), put the meat, bring to a boil.

2. Add a whole onion or finely chopped onion and at the same time carrots (whole or in strips), parsley, radish, turnips, beets. At the same time or earlier, vegetables such as legumes and sauerkraut are put into soups. But more often they are cooked separately, in parallel with the main soup in another bowl and mixed together towards the end of cooking.

3. After 30 minutes, you can lay potatoes, cereals - wheat, rice, buckwheat.

4. After 35 - 40 minutes after the start of cooking, you can add fresh cabbage of various types, zucchini, etc.

5. After 45 minutes - 1 hour - tomatoes, pickles, apples (sour).

6. After 1 hour 20 minutes - spices (the second bookmark of onions or green onions, garlic, dill and salt, etc.). At the same time or a little earlier, the onion is taken out of the soup, laid whole, so that it does not fall apart and its leaves boiled with an unpleasant taste would not spoil the soup. A Russian proverb says about such a soup from a negligent hostess: "You spit more than you eat."

Fish.

1. Pour some water, salt cool, let it boil, put finely chopped onions, potatoes in slices, bars or cubes, carrots in strips.

2. 15 minutes after boiling, put the fish, cut into equal pieces (no more than 10 × 4 cm), boil for 10 - 12 minutes, add bay leaf, pepper, parsley, tarragon, dill during the cooking process.

3. Depending on the desire to add one of the following components:

a) pickles, cucumber pickle or lemon and boil for 1 - 3 minutes;

b) tomato juice 0.5 cups or paste 2 - 3 tablespoons and warm over low heat, but do not bring to a boil.

Vegetable.

From two to seven vegetable components are laid so that they are similar in their cooking time; for example, all root vegetables are set at the same time and earlier than cabbages and other tender vegetables. The onion is laid first and finely chopped. Boil vegetables over low heat until soft, then salt them, add sour cream, spices. Vegetable soups are the fastest.

The given standard procedure for cooking soups makes it possible for each person to cook at least two dozen of the most diverse soups of different composition, texture and taste.

For all the complexity of creating a good taste in soups, for all their capriciousness to the conditions (freshness of products, the right dishes, enough time), soups have one extremely convenient property - they are very flexible and mobile in their combinations, and therefore, in order to prepare a delicious soup, there is no the need to memorize his exact recipe. You just need to learn the above rules, understand their meaning and remember the order of laying products in soups of the main types. The rest is the result of your free creativity.

But since novice cooks have a very strong admiration for a certain recipe, I will point out those ways to improve and vary the taste of soups, to methods of changing their composition, which are usually not included in any recipes of cookbooks and which at the same time provide every beginner with an excellent opportunity become the “original” soup maker and thereby get used to independent and more varied cooking faster, quickly give up on pedantically holding on to a recipe like a blind man to a wall.

The main possibility of varying soups and improving their taste lies not in changing and replenishing their solid part, but in changing the usual composition of the liquid part.

This secret is no longer in the realm of the alphabet. It is difficult to come to the idea of ​​the very possibility of modifying the liquid part, because this part is traditionally the most stable. There are peoples who make soups only on the water, for example, this is the Russian national cuisine. There are peoples who make soups mainly with milk, as is customary in Estonian national cuisine and partly in Finnish. And there are also such national cuisines that allow the preparation of soups both on kvass, and on beer, and on vegetable or fruit juices, or they do not use water at all in soups, but pour a separately cooked hard part, sometimes not even boiled, but either raw , or fried, sour dairy products: ayran, katyk, sour cream. Such are the Central Asian national cuisines, where raw chopped young vegetables, drenched in katyk, give a cold summer chalop soup, and fried pieces of meat, boiled in boiling water with fat and vegetables, form shurpa.

Finally, there are a number of ancient national cuisines that have developed an exceptionally virtuoso and complex soup liquid structure, involving the finest solutions from a mixture of water, egg yolk, various acids, such as citric, lactic, as well as the introduction of fermented milk products that do not coagulate even at boiling temperature. ! But this is preceded by subtle culinary “tricks” using starchy mucus, decoctions, eggs, and other methods (for example, introducing small pebbles, thin aspen sticks, silver objects into the soup), which delay one or another process or, conversely, speed it up. .

Thus, the culinary creativity of a number of peoples proves that the taste of soup can be completely changed using various liquids (or additives to them), without touching the composition of solid foods. Variations with the liquid part change the taste of the soup as a whole, and this makes it possible to literally revolutionize the preparation of soups, allowing a beginner to immediately become a grandmaster, bypassing the stage of both the arrester and the master.

So, attention! Here are a few specific recipes for quickly transforming ordinary, boring soups into completely new tastes.

Introduction of milk and dairy products

Have you eaten fish soup with milk? Or milk soup with fish? No? Seems impossible? It's not tasty?

But try it. You have cooked a regular fish soup, that is, boiled fish with vegetables or cereals (onions, carrots, potatoes, rice) for 10 - 12 minutes. Drain the liquid of the soup or, better, remove the fish from it, because the vegetables will not interfere. Set aside the fish on a separate plate or bowl. Now take a quarter or half a glass of cold boiled (required!) Water and carefully dilute a tablespoon of flour in it (wheat, rice, rye - it doesn't matter). Shake it up! To spread the flour evenly. Now pour this liquid into the soup without fish simmering over low heat and stir. After boiling for two or three minutes while stirring, pour half a liter of milk into the same soup and bring the mixture to a boil, continuing to stir it.

As soon as the first signs of boiling appear after five or six minutes, taste the soup liquid with a spoon (it should be slightly cooled, not hot). If during the test you do not feel either the taste of milk or the taste of fish soup, but you see that some unknown to you, but obviously pleasant symbiosis has been created, some kind of indissolubility of the new soup liquid has appeared, then everything is in order and you can lower the fish into the soup . The soup, now with fish, needs to be warmed up for one or two minutes, and it is ready. Let it stand, like all soups, for 10 minutes, and then eat to your health. I guarantee that it will give you a new culinary pleasure.

It would seem that a small trick, almost imperceptible - to take out the fish (one!), to introduce a spoonful of flour (two!) - a trifle, but a complete guarantee that the milk will not curdle, and, besides, the taste is completely new.

Otherwise, even very fresh milk in 50 cases out of 100 will curdle when it comes into too sharp contact with fish broth, not to mention the taste that we got and the velvety that will bring you surprise and pleasure, of course, with a quick, a hasty combination of milk with broth will not work.

According to the same scheme, milk can also be introduced into root vegetable soups, but without sour vegetables.

Another culinary trick with soup can be done not with sweet, but with sour milk or with some kind of fermented milk product - katyk, sour cream, suzma.

It's even easier here. But the taste is excellent.

Take such a set of products - potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes. Just literally two things. This soup is convenient when there are few vegetables, and several people need to be fed. And add one to one and a half cups of rice to this set. Cut the vegetables as small as possible, but do not rush with tomatoes, they must be laid at the very end.

Pour a lot of water, pour rice into boiling water, cook it until half cooked, then add vegetables (according to the rules already familiar to us) and cook over high heat with the lid open so that almost all the water boils away. As soon as this happens, pour half a liter of sour cream or half a liter - a liter of katyk or yogurt into the resulting liquid porridge. Your soup is ready. Its liquid part is almost without water, sour-milk. And the taste is quite unusual and tantalizingly appetizing. Try it. Don't forget to add salt at the end of cooking.

In terms of ease of preparation, this soup of the peoples of the Pamirs is just right for beginners in cooking. Here you do not have to bring the soup liquid to taste. Sour cream or curdled milk will do this for you. You can add garlic, parsley, dill to hot porridge before pouring sour cream, and the taste will improve even more and become “thick”, “strong”, “bright”.

Introduction of eggs and egg products

For a long time, culinary specialists of both the East and Western Europe have long striven to enrich the taste of soup liquid with an egg. And although they followed different paths, they came to one decision, to one fundamental conclusion: to create an egg emulsion that can dissolve, but not coagulate in hot water, is possible only with the help of vegetable oils, acids and a small dose (sometimes drops) alcohol.

This discovery was made in different parts of the world and at different times. In Asia, in Armenia and Georgia - during the time of the Argonauts, several centuries before our era; in ancient Media and Assyria, perhaps even earlier. But here it peacefully dozed for almost two and a half millennia, enriching only the local menu of the peoples of Iran, Transcaucasia and Turkey with several types of soups, in the liquid of which either one yolk, or a yolk with a small part of the protein, or the whole egg was added, or only the protein. .

In Europe, in Spain in the 17th century (on the Balearic Islands), two thousand years later, the same culinary discovery was repeated. However, here it served as the basis for the creation of the now familiar mayonnaise and thus gained wide and lasting world fame. But things did not come to the creation of egg-emulsion soups in Europe. Dilute an egg in water to a colloidal state, so that it could not coagulate even in hot water, European culinary specialists did not consider it possible. We stopped ... on mayonnaise. In soups, they considered it possible to introduce only a whole, not dissolved, but the so-called poached egg, that is, one that floated in the soup without curdling.

To do this, part of the soup liquid of a completely prepared soup is poured from a saucepan into a wide porcelain or faience cup, a little wine vinegar or lemon juice is added there (half a glass for half a liter - a liter of soup), pre-whipped with a spoonful of sunflower or olive oil, and, after stirring all this, dropping a fresh egg into it. This is one of the secrets: they do not drive an egg into it, but lower it.

This means that the egg is first gently broken and just as carefully poured into a saucer or a separate clean plate so that the yolk does not break, but floats on the protein. Then, when the mixture of soup with wine vinegar is prepared in another bowl, there is carefully poured from the saucer, or, as the cooks say, the egg descends.

This is poaching.

What is the meaning of this subtlety?

If you immediately drive an egg into a ready-made boiling or hot soup, it will instantly curl up, and, moreover, it will curl up extremely ugly: some kind of grayish threads, flagella, knots, not to mention the fact that it will be tasteless, but for the soup itself from it won't make any sense. It will simply be a foreign and unsuitable additive.

If we pour the egg into a mixture of soup (water) and acid, and even whipped with butter, and at a slightly lower temperature compared to hot soup, then the egg will not only not curdle, but the acid will gain elasticity and enhance its bright shiny color. In addition, it will cook just so that it will be neither liquid nor solid, but jellyfish. And therefore, in the soup, it will not float on the surface, but in the middle of the liquid, like a submarine. This soup is very effective.

The fact that the acid creates the condition for poaching is clear. But why pour an egg from a special plate into a cup, and not immediately beat it into it? At first glance, this approach seems completely redundant. However, in cooking there are no unnecessary trifles. It is in them that the key to an important result sometimes lies.

If you try to immediately drive an egg into a cup with a mixture of soup and acid, then, firstly, it can spread, and if this happens in a separate plate, then the egg can be replaced with another one. Therefore, one of the reasons for this manipulation is a precaution, which is always useful in the culinary business, where it is easy to spoil, and difficult or impossible to fix.

But this is not all and not the main thing.

The bottom line is that no matter how carefully we try to crack an egg into a cup, we can't change the laws of physics. An egg may not spread, and a skilled cook will never spread, but it will inevitably fall vertically with the acceleration of gravity according to Newton's well-known law! And this means that the egg will inevitably break through a thin layer of vinegar-oil light film, which will float on the surface of the soup and fall directly into the soup, into the water. Thus, all our precautions will be superfluous. You might as well just crack an egg into a soup pot. Therefore, we will spoil the egg in the soup in the same way.

The most ancient civilizations of Asia created an even more complex and at the same time even simpler combination for introducing eggs into soups. The egg is first beaten, with the yolk and protein separate, and then combined. So it turns out a little longer, but much better, better and more accurate. Then citric, pomegranate or tartaric acid (pomegranate juice, wine vinegar, sour dry wine) is added to the beaten egg and beaten again into a homogeneous mass - liquid. This is the first step, the first stage.

The second step is to make the liquid of the soup itself, the broth (water), more dense before introducing the egg into it. We are already familiar with this technique - it consists in introducing a flour podbolka into the soup (water). But you can’t dissolve flour in hot water - nothing will come of it, because the flour will boil into a clot or spools. It is necessary to dilute the flour in cold boiled water, and then pour this mixture into the hot soup and stir. There should be more flour than for fish soup with milk - two - two and a half tablespoons per liter.

After that comes the third stage, the third step.

It is still dangerous to introduce a beaten egg even with acid and even into thickened soup: the egg will curdle - it is very tender, and the soup (water) is too hot. What to do?

The exit has been found. It turned out, as always happens in such cases, very simple. The whole subtlety lies in the fact that it is necessary to pour part of the soup into a cup from the main mass and mix it with a beaten egg. The soup should be a little more than half compared to the egg, and a little more not by weight, but by volume. And since the egg in a whipped state with acid has sharply increased its volume, then the soup should be taken about 65 - 70 percent, but not more. Only in this case, the egg does not coagulate, but ... perfectly combines with water into a colloidal solution. You just need to beat it thoroughly. And then pour this egg-soup mixture into the rest of the soup. In this way, the dissolved egg firmly loses its ability to coagulate, even getting into hot, ready-made soup removed from the stove. This is how many Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, Persian and Moldavian soups originated.

As for the soups of the Kurds, Arabs, Aisors and Syrians, only one yolk is most often introduced into them. It's much easier. In addition, the introduction of a whole egg gives a slightly worse taste, requires more salt and acid.

It must be remembered that, after pouring the egg-acid-soup mixture from the cup directly into the hot soup, it is necessary to continuously stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon for at least 5-7 minutes. Only then can you be sure that the egg will not curl. But the soup acquires a surprisingly elastic and dense, absolutely elastic texture, not to mention a completely unusual taste.

It must also be borne in mind that soups with a dissolved egg require that their broth be prepared with an increased amount of onions (three to five onions per 1 liter of water). This is one of the most original achievements of the culinary inventions of the past - egg soup.

Subsequently, in Europe, this achievement of the culinary specialists of the Ancient East was developed and supplemented with new elements - they began to combine an oriental-beaten egg with sour milk and beer and introduce it into soups, especially bread soups. This also gave interesting taste effects, added to the repertoire of soups.

It remains to say a few words about the bread soups we mentioned.

They are simple in composition and technology. But here the preliminary preparation of the material, raw materials is important.

For bread soups, not just any bread is needed, but carefully dried crackers from well-baked rye bread. Such crackers must be dried by ourselves and specially. Do not use stale bread for bread soups. It will be tasteless, even disgusting. But properly made bread soup - overeating.

First of all, let's take care of the breadcrumbs. A loaf of fresh black bread should be cut into thin narrow slices and dried on a low, gentle fire in the oven, not allowing the bread to burn.

Pour boiling water over these fragrant crumbly crackers and leave for two hours. You can, to speed up the aging, grind them in a coffee grinder or in a food processor and pour boiling water over them. Then the mass will cook faster. But it is necessary not just to soak crackers. It is necessary that they ripen into a gelatinous mass, which acquires a special taste. And this ripening takes time, at least an hour for ground crackers.

Then you need to put this gelatinous bread mass on a low fire, and all cooking must be done in an enameled bowl. Here you have to be especially careful.

The bread mass should be warmed up, but in no case should it boil. That is why it is poured, if not with boiling water, then necessarily with boiled water.

Bread is a ready-made, baked (that is, a kind of boiled!) Product. To boil it again means to spoil it, to decompose it into its component parts. Thus, boiling in bread soups is excluded. Sometimes they are cooked in a water bath.

As soon as the bread mass warms up, a little sugar is added to it, honey is even better, or both. Then dried fruits are introduced, most often raisins, pears, prunes, fruits that do not have acid, or fresh apples of sweet table varieties, like cinnamon, also devoid of acidity. You can add plums and any non-sour jam - quince, strawberry, cherry, pear, yellow plums, etc. In the process of slow heating, the bread mass should organically combine with the sweet fruit and honey part.

Only when complete diffusion occurs will the bread soup acquire its true taste and turn into a treat.

Quite often, this moment (and it is determined only by trial and skill) is not waited for and they eat soup that is actually half-cooked, a semi-finished product, believing that it seems to have turned out well anyway. But this moment will come only when, in addition to the indicated components, you add more spices to the bread soup - cinnamon, star anise, cloves - each on the tip of a knife, and put well-whipped strong cream on top (one or two large spoons).

Anyone who has never tasted a real bread soup (“soup”, only in name, but in essence - delicacies) in his life, he undoubtedly made a gap in his culinary and taste education.

We dwelled in detail on the cooking of various products, and especially on the preparation of soups, based on their significance in the culinary art.

Now that we have thus passed, as it were, the equator in our culinary course, we can safely move on to more complex culinary techniques - frying and stewing.

| | How to cook delicious soup. Useful practical advice

Soups (stews, exotic soups, saltworts, pickles, cabbage soup, borscht and soups) traditionally belong to the first courses of our lunch menu.

Although soups, as such, only in the era of Peter I began to appear on the tables of Russians as a first course, and the attitude towards them was far from unambiguous.

Some said that soups were barbarian destroyers of table pleasures, that "this is a kind of preface to dinner, and a good essay does not need a preface."

Others took the side of soups no less zealously, arguing just as expressively: “Soup is for dinner what a facade is for a building, that is, it must give the right idea about dinner. Kind of like the way a comic opera overture is supposed to explain its plot."

But while thorough chefs, famous gastronomes and elegant wits were arguing about the benefits of soups, they were already cooked all over Russia, without thinking at all about such global issues: is the soup a barbarian-destroyer or is it a wonderful overture to a hearty and tasty dinner.

Chicken soup with green peas

The basis for the preparation of various soups are meat, fish and mushroom broths, as well as poultry broths, vegetable and fruit and berry decoctions, milk or kvass. (Tips for the hostess on a note on how to store and use milk, see )

According to the method of preparation, soups are divided into filling, puree soups, clear soups, as well as hot and cold soups.

Broths for clear soups should be not only really clear, but also strong.

And for this, meat must be cooked in less water than for dressing soups, and vegetables, rice, eggs, dumplings, pasta, etc. boil separately, just before serving, pouring them with broth.

They should be lightly fried, pre-finely chopped or grated.

When cooking vegetable soups, for greater preservation of vitamin C, vegetables should be placed in boiling water.

beetroot Potato soup with lamb

If acidic foods are used to prepare the soup, that is, pickles, sorrel, sauerkraut, they should be put in a saucepan after the potatoes are already at least half cooked, since this may not happen at all in an acidic environment.

Puree soups are prepared on broths, vegetable and cereal broths, on whole or diluted milk.

These soups are easily digestible and therefore are widely used in dietary and baby food.

Products for puree soups are boiled and then rubbed through a sieve or passed through a meat grinder.

So that the particles of the mashed products do not settle to the bottom, but are evenly distributed throughout the broth, and also for the necessary density, lightly fried flour in butter is added to all puree soups (except for cereals), which is then boiled for 20 - 30 minutes.

Sweet soup, vegetarian Spas (hot sour milk soup)

To improve the taste and increase nutritional value, puree soups are seasoned with butter, hot cream or egg and milk dressing.

Milk soups are prepared with vegetables, cereals, pasta, dumplings, first boiled in water, and only then, dipped in milk, brought to full readiness.

Rabbit is rightfully one of the three most dietary types of meat. It is recommended to give it to children, starting from a very young age. But are the first courses cooked from this meat, or are they just stewed? In this article, we will give useful tips to hostesses on this issue.

Is rabbit soup cooked for children and those on a diet

This meat will not make a rich broth, as it does not contain fat. But that is why pediatricians and nutritionists unanimously advise using it to prepare healthy dietary first courses. It is a valuable source of protein and sodium, which does not contain allergens. Fillet boiled for soup can be added to the first complementary foods for children, starting from 10 months.

As we wrote above, this is one of the most dietary types of meat. Therefore, rabbit soups are even recommended for those who are overweight.

Cook them without frying, adding a little olive oil at the end of cooking, to taste. Vegetable stew goes well with this meat, you get a very healthy dish.

Is rabbit rice soup cooked?

Why not? Rice is rich in protein, as is rabbit meat. The main thing is to cook the broth correctly, which we will discuss below. Add some vegetables, spices to taste and you will get a very tasty dish. But do not forget that it will be quite high in calories.

Is buckwheat soup made from rabbit

This meat tastes the best with buckwheat. Therefore, such a first dish will turn out very tasty. Just do not need to interrupt the taste of meat by frying, it is better to add a spoonful of olive oil at the end of cooking.

Which part is best for soup

For cooking, take the fleshy parts of the carcass, wash them and remove all films. Then they need to be put in a saucepan, pour cold water and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Then you should remove the foam, salt to taste and add bay leaf. Cover with a lid and cook the broth for 1.5-2 hours. Take out the meat, cool and disassemble from the bones.

Try also to prepare a very interesting dish for those who are losing weight or fasting.