soup rant
Not that this matters to anyone, but I would just like to go on record here: I cannot stand fussy, strained, clarified, refined soups. I do not see the point. I want my soups chunky and full of texture, proof positive that I made them from scratch. (That's not why, but it's a nice bonus. :-)
It's not because of the extra trouble. I'll go through three stages of extra trouble to get the vast majority of the fat out of my stocks, and that takes two days sometimes. No problem.
Even soups that are classically served smooth, I do not make smooth. My tomato soup is chunky and creamy and fabulous. So is my potato soup. Even when I'm drinking broth (which I often do with chicken stock I've made, it's yummy and warm and low-carb), I don't care about clarifying it -- cloudy is fine. Cloudy apple cider is better, cloudy lemonade is better, I want my orange juice with all the pulp.
I'm perfectly capable of clarifying/refining a soup. I just see no benefit whatsoever in doing so. It doesn't improve the flavor, and IMNSHO it does nothing for the texture; I'd much rather have it full of lumpy, chewy goodness.
(What brought on this rant? My last batch of chicken stock, I tried adding a splash of vinegar to help leach out minerals from the bones, and it turns out I am not a fan of the resultant flavor. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with that stock, since I can't stand to drink it as I usually would, and I've settled on Avgolemono, since it's made with a fair amount of lemon juice. I figure I'll just leave out some of the juice to compensate for the vinegar that's already in there, and it should be nigh-identical, and I *like* Avgolemono, it's one of my favorite soups when I eat out. And the recipes keep instructing me to clarify, and I am NOT going to do it. Okay, end rant. :-)
It's not because of the extra trouble. I'll go through three stages of extra trouble to get the vast majority of the fat out of my stocks, and that takes two days sometimes. No problem.
Even soups that are classically served smooth, I do not make smooth. My tomato soup is chunky and creamy and fabulous. So is my potato soup. Even when I'm drinking broth (which I often do with chicken stock I've made, it's yummy and warm and low-carb), I don't care about clarifying it -- cloudy is fine. Cloudy apple cider is better, cloudy lemonade is better, I want my orange juice with all the pulp.
I'm perfectly capable of clarifying/refining a soup. I just see no benefit whatsoever in doing so. It doesn't improve the flavor, and IMNSHO it does nothing for the texture; I'd much rather have it full of lumpy, chewy goodness.
(What brought on this rant? My last batch of chicken stock, I tried adding a splash of vinegar to help leach out minerals from the bones, and it turns out I am not a fan of the resultant flavor. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with that stock, since I can't stand to drink it as I usually would, and I've settled on Avgolemono, since it's made with a fair amount of lemon juice. I figure I'll just leave out some of the juice to compensate for the vinegar that's already in there, and it should be nigh-identical, and I *like* Avgolemono, it's one of my favorite soups when I eat out. And the recipes keep instructing me to clarify, and I am NOT going to do it. Okay, end rant. :-)