Soup (Is) for Dummies
By Clare Nisbet
Over the last two weeks, the temperature in Buenos Aires has dropped 20 degrees, the skies have opened up and regaled us with thunderstorms, and I have finally started winning the battle against my first official cold of the Southern Hemisphere winter. That, my friends, can only mean one thing in terms of a blurb about cooking: soup! I know it’s a little more geared towards those south of the equator but those of you in the US and elsewhere can still take advantage of the odd chilly day or an unseasonably bad cold to try your hand at homemade soup that, while it may not cure everything, sure feels like it does.
Over the past year in Buenos Aires I have been getting increasingly more adventurous with the stuff. The thing to remember is that soup is like empanadas in the sense that it’s really difficult to mess it up. You can put almost anything in it (leftovers!) and as long as you use a good stock, it ends up tasting good. If you want to get crazy, soak some lentils overnight (or, fine, get a can) and chuck those in for yummy nutrition. I started making soups by cooking some vegetables in a big pan (potato, carrot, onion, celery, etc.), adding some water, some stock, simmering it until the veggies soften and that’s it! I sometimes add leftover barbeque meat, corn, black beans and you can make delicious combos of any of the above. My main advice for making easy soups at home is not to skimp on the stock. Buy a good, name brand stock (veggie, chicken, beef, whatever your little heart desires) and the soup for beginners will turn out better. The most important thing to remember is that soup does not need to look pretty to be damn tasty!
So while I am busy at home cooking up giant pans of idiot-proof soup, I pulled in the help of the big guns for this article. Growing up, one of my fondest memories of growing up on the icy tundra of Glasgow was my mom’s homemade soup. To this day, whenever I get the slightest tickle in my throat, I want my mom’s soup. Mary, being the kind soul she is has allowed me to share her recipe. Naturally, we have left out a secret ingredient or two but this soup is amazing, nutritious, and full of good vitamins for any one struck down with the plague. The recipe is a little more complex that the idiot-proof (or APB for you porteños) versions that I use. However, those of you with an adventurous spirit to try new recipes will not be disappointed. Direct from the Goleta Foothills desk of One Sorry Blog:
The recipe is a typical Scottish one - a puckle of this and two puckles of that so the following quantities are not exact. But here goes:
5-6 big carrots, cleaned and chopped
2 cups split red lentils
2 onions, chopped
Stock to fill a big pot (chicken stock is good, vegetarian also works - stock cubes are fine)
Put everything in the stockpot; bring to a boil and simmer until lentils and carrots are soft. Liquidize (or even just mash with a potato masher if you don’t have a blender - as long as the carrots and lentils are soft enough, this works.) Then add orange juice to taste (usually about a cup). I usually don’t do salt and pepper in this since the stock often has enough salt but if S&P’s your thing then go for it.
