Vegetable / Potatoe & Leek Soup

Big Mouth

I've just moved in with the GF and have really got into cooking, we've made some soups before but to be honest the best taste of ours is equal to an avonmore cup of soup.

My question is how do I get these soups to taste like they do in Restaurants and Hotels? That vegetable soup I could eat every day! Is there some little tricks we're missing?

Thanks in advance

unkel

For a vegetable soup, try Jamie Oliver's winter minestrone. Or a pumpkin / squash soup with an Asian twist. See here for suggestions. For the best soup I've ever had (and the same for at least a dozen other people I have fed this soup) try Mr Magnolia's spicy Thai chicken and noodle soup

Shenshen

Big Mouth wrote: »

I've just moved in with the GF and have really got into cooking, we've made some soups before but to be honest the best taste of ours is equal to an avonmore cup of soup.

My question is how do I get these soups to taste like they do in Restaurants and Hotels? That vegetable soup I could eat every day! Is there some little tricks we're missing?

Thanks in advance

Well, how do you prepare them at the moment?

the beer revolu

Are you using stock or water in your soup.

The better the stock, the better the soup.
(homemade is best and the concentration of it is important for flavour)

huskerdu

the beer revolu wrote: »

Are you using stock or water in your soup.

The better the stock, the better the soup.
(homemade is best and the concentration of it is important for flavour)

+1.

The easiest way to make boring soup ( and most of us have done it) is to simmer vegetables in water, season, and liquidize. Not good enough. Soup needs loads of flavour.

Start with a good stock and use loads of seasoning and herbs. Experiment with bit of spice.

Alun

I agree. The basic recipe for pretty much any standard vegetable soup, including potato and leek, is to first sweat off the chopped vegetables in a little oil, add good stock and seasoning and/or spices, simmer (not boil) and then blitz. The sweating off of the vegetables including any onions or garlic is an important part of the process and releases the flavours of the vegetables, preferable over a low heat with a lid on, i.e. don't try and brown them. And don't be afraid of seasoning properly especially with soups that have a lot of root vegetables .. people have gone a bit OTT in my opinion with all the hype about links between salt and hypertension / high blood pressure with the result that they've gone too far in the opposite direction and are afraid of even a few grains of salt.