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Pub/hotel soup

[Deleted User]

Anyone here worked as a chef in a pub or hotel?

The crappiest pub or hotel always seems to deliver a delicious cream of mixed vegetable soup that is wonderfully savoury.

My cream of veg homemade soups always seem to be sweet, or if I try to counter the sweetness with green veg, kind of bitter.

Can anyone share a recipe to replicate the kind of soup I'm looking for? You might just change my life!

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the beer revolu

Ginger will pair well with any root vegetable.
Carrot, turnip, butternut squash, parsnip etc.

Foweva Awone

Where I worked, we used to use
- Potatoes
- Leeks
- Onions
- Carrots
- Veg boullion

Just boil it all up and cook until the veg got soft. Blend and add cream just before serving.

Very very simple, but it was known for being the best soup in town!!

Unknownability

Foweva Awone wrote: »

Where I worked, we used to use
- Potatoes
- Leeks
- Onions
- Carrots
- Veg boullion

Just boil it all up and cook until the veg got soft. Blend and add cream just before serving.

Very very simple, but it was known for being the best soup in town!!

I always get the consistency wrong either too watery or too thick.

Has anyone a tip for getting that correct?

Alun

Unknownability wrote: »

I always get the consistency wrong either too watery or too thick.

Has anyone a tip for getting that correct?

Remember, you can always add extra water at the end if it's too thick, you can't take it out

If I'm cooking any kind of vegetable soup I just make sure the water is only about an inch above the top of the vegetables. If it looks like it might start getting a bit too thick during cooking you can always add a little more.

If it's still too thick after you've blended it, just add a little more water, stir it in until it's just right.

Foweva Awone

Unknownability wrote: »

I always get the consistency wrong either too watery or too thick.

Has anyone a tip for getting that correct?

I think we used to put in enough water to almost cover the veg (maybe 80%) but not quite. If that helps!

RasTa

Pub's mushroom soup always number one.

SnowyMay

Reading this made me want to make proper veg soup this weekend, so took a lot of various tips and advice on board and went off.. It was a bit ad hoc (my cooking style), but turned out to be delicious!

So, two small onions and three small garlic cloves roughly chopped and sweated in a pot with butter for about 3 mins.

Threw in a half of a chopped red pepper and some leek, stirred around for about a minute, and then threw in five small potatoes (peeled and diced), two carrots (peeled and diced), half a parsnip (peeled and dic.. well, you get the idea)!

Filled to just a bit over the veg level with hot water and some chicken stock, salt and white pepper. And a small number of drained tinned chick peas at that stage as well. Let do its thing then for about 20 - 25 mins, and danced around the kitchen for a while, but also chopped about 1.5 sticks of celery.

Celery goes in. Some (about a quarter tsp) of curry power, and, on tasting, added some black pepper and a teeny bit of chilli flakes. Oh, and then I said fk it, and put in a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce just for fun.

Let it go on for another 5 mins then took it off the heat and zizzed it.

Served with a small bit of Creme Fraiche on top, and with ham sandwiches from a pre-cooked ham I had baking in the oven with cloves, orange juice, brown sugar and honey glaze.

Have to say, the soup was the star. Could be done in about 30 mins.

Have a very blurry picture of the soup, as it was half gone before I thought to take a pic, so it was taken with one hand on the phone, and one hand stuffing my face.

diaper dude

I think I probably can't stand the soups being mentioned here in connection with hotels, but maybe we are talking about different things. Love me a simple homemade soup though, but it has to be thick and brown to meet my approval.

Muahahaha

Dial Hard wrote: »

Yis are all mad. I don't think I've ever had a hotel/pub veg soup that wasn't over-salted mush.

The rolls are generally par-baked Cuisine de France style bouchons, btw. Lidl and Aldi used to do a bag of similar ones that you finish in the oven, worth checking if they still do for anyone trying to recreate the experience.

Yeah Aldi still has those par baked white rolls in packets of four, they are pretty identical to the Cuisine de France ones you'd get in pubs/hotels. Just 10 minutes in the oven at 200c and they're done like fresh. Though for soup I get their par baked baguettes which are the same bread as the rolls but theres more bread in them.

One soup Im enjpying a lot of lately is pea and chorizo, I cant believe I went years without discovering it because its absolutely divine. Once you fry the chorizo for a few minutes it leaks all its oils into the soup making it really flavoursome. For a budget cheapie soup its hard to beat butternut squash, a single squash is 79c in Aldi and that yields about a kilo of veg. With a bit of carrot and cumin added you get 4-5 bowls of soup for under a euro.

diaper dude

Muahahaha wrote: »

For a budget cheapie soup its hard to beat butternut squash, a single squash is 79c in Aldi and that yields about a kilo of veg. With a bit of carrot and cumin added you get 4-5 bowls of soup for under a euro.

Butternut Squash is one of life's great secrets.

HeidiHeidi

diaper dude wrote: »

Butternut Squash is one of life's great secrets.

I agree - back in my low-carbing days I used BNS and cauliflower mash to top shepherd's and cottage pie - it's a delicious combination.

And it makes DELICIOUS soup as well - thanks for the reminder, haven't made that in an age

rubadub

Adding MSG to soup gave me a distinct reminder of many soups I have had out.

Boullion is mentioned a lot here, some of those will have MSG, or the "MSG free" ones will typically have yeast extract, another glutamate or there are various other glutamates

Knorr Aromat is readily available and after salt the second main ingredient is MSG.

Muahahaha

Must try adding some MSG to soups, Ive a bag of it in the spice drawer but I only ever think of using it for chinese cooking

A2LUE42

A long time ago, but used to make this soup on a daily basis. The hardest 2 weeks ever from a soup perspective was when we had a conference group in and they wanted a different soup on the menu for lunch and dinner for 2 weeks.

But the basis for most of the hot veg type soups was as follows.

Leeks, onions and celery cooked/sweated off in the bottom of a large pot and then add some premade roux. (Flour and Butter version, not French)
The chicken stock would then be added. (Not too concerned about vegetarians back then.)
Then the vegetables that were to be the basis of the soup.
Carrots, Potato, Parsnip primarily. Avoid Broccoli and the like.
As mentioned previously if there were a pot of carrots leftover from the previous night, which was often the case, that would be used. 30l containers that would have been in a fridge from late the previous night.
Same with mashed potato, which also would have had Margerine, salt and pepper in it.
This is the part I didn't see mentioned though. The normal way these carrots would have been cooked was as slices or batons in a large pot, with a few blocks of margarine, salt, pepper and a considerable amount of sugar. This gives them a sweeter flavour and a bright shiny glazed look when being served as a side dish.

When the soup was cooked, you would then use an industrial hand blender to chop everything very finely in the pot.
This mix was then passed through a conical sieve into another large pot using a small ladle to speed up the pass-through process. anything that didn't pass through the sieve was waste.
The remaining mix was then heated up and cream added and kept in a bain-marie or soup holder until served.
The serving was normally with a small dollop of cream and a sprinkle of chopped parsley(fresh, not dried. Shouldn't have to point that out, but I have seen dried parsley used to quite comedic results)

[Deleted User]

Made another pot of this for warming Saturday lunches. Delicious.

Muahahaha

Made cauliflower soup a few weeks back, wasnt gone on it but think I didnt season it enough. It was only cauliflower, an onion and chicken stock I used.

Dizzyblonde

Muahahaha wrote: »

Made cauliflower soup a few weeks back, wasnt gone on it but think I didnt season it enough. It was only cauliflower, an onion and chicken stock I used.

There's a great recipe for broccoli soup in the Souper Soup thread which can also be used for cauliflower. I make it regularly, though I don't add cream. If you're a fan of blue cheese, crumbling some into cauliflower soup is really nice.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68984613&postcount=35

LilacNails

I bought veg soup in Aldi... New Grange *I think that's what it's called*. It's a big tub for 3euro. I thought of this thread while downing it, it is exactly like the bar/hotel soup this thread is about. Have bought it 4/5timea since, should be a lot more but a lot of the time it's already out of stock! And it's made in Ireland!

Yyhhuuu

LilacNails wrote: »

I bought veg soup in Aldi... New Grange *I think that's what it's called*. It's a big tub for 3euro. I thought of this thread while downing it, it is exactly like the bar/hotel soup this thread is about. Have bought it 4/5timea since, should be a lot more but a lot of the time it's already out of stock! And it's made in Ireland!

Dont waste your money buying soup. Very very unhealthy as full of salt. I make my own for 50cent which lasts about 5 days and is delicious.

con747

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

Dont waste your money buying soup. Very very unhealthy as full of salt. I make my own for 50cent which lasts about 5 days and is delicious.

I also make my own soups in large quantities in an 11 litre stock pot and freeze it but I also keep tins of soup like this https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250412487 in my cupboard for a quick lunch when I need to. Not all bought soups are "Very very" unhealthy or "full" of salt. It's like everything else taken in moderation.

[Deleted User]

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

Dont waste your money buying soup. Very very unhealthy as full of salt. I make my own for 50cent which lasts about 5 days and is delicious.

Excuse me my home made soup is full of salt :pac:

the beer revolu

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

Dont waste your money buying soup. Very very unhealthy as full of salt. I make my own for 50cent which lasts about 5 days and is delicious.

Aren't you just fantastic!

LilacNails

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

Dont waste your money buying soup. Very very unhealthy as full of salt. I make my own for 50cent which lasts about 5 days and is delicious.

Ok, well how do u make it (and taste just as good) for just 50c?

Mantis Toboggan

Would agree that most of the packet soup is full of salt.

I'd recommend a soup maker, fire in whatever veg you want, couple of spuds, some pepper, chicken or veg stock cube, some garlic and onion and fill with water, when ready add some cream and small bit of milk. 5 or 6 portions of soup in just 25 minutes. Savage.

Yyhhuuu

LilacNails wrote: »

Ok, well how do u make it (and taste just as good) for just 50c?

LOL When you ask about tasting as good did you ever have home made soup. Far tastier than overpriced bought soup with high sodium levels contributing to stroke and heart disease.
I make it for ~50c Very easy, I buy usually organic vegetable offer in Aldi for 49c ( generally better quality than Lidl) or reduced to clear. Btw most of my main meals cost less than €1 using either fish or meat ( not processed food).

I don't need a soup maker. I use a saucepan and a good blender.

Those packet soups are quite unhealthy, fullof salt and additives. Homemade is far better and a fraction of the cost.

Qwertyminger

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

There's a great recipe for broccoli soup in the Souper Soup thread which can also be used for cauliflower. I make it regularly, though I don't add cream. If you're a fan of blue cheese, crumbling some into cauliflower soup is really nice.

We made the closest soup I ever had to the hotel variety the other day.

Used a packet (chicken and country veg with the bits taken out) but added potatoes, broccoli and string beans.

Probably full of msg but what are you going to do.

Tree

Some of the worst soup i've ever eaten has been homemade. There's a lot to be said for letting the professionals at it (the soup maker in question has since found a cheffy boyfriend and no longer makes soup)

Yyhhuuu

Tree wrote: »

Some of the worst soup i've ever eaten has been homemade. There's a lot to be said for letting the professionals at it (the soup maker in question has since found a cheffy boyfriend and no longer makes soup)

You dont need to be a professional to make homemade soup. It can be very simple. Homemade in my opinion and those I asked, superior than anything bought unless you want a tonne of salt.

[Deleted User]

Mystery Egg wrote: »

No butter/cream?

Drop of milk

Faith

Mod note: yyhhuuu, you’ve made your point. This isn’t the Nutrition and Diet forum so we’re not interested in preaching about healthiness or salt content or anything like that. Don’t post on this thread again, thanks.