A bowl of soup offers immense health benefits and warms up the system. But what’s the best consistency for soup? Neither gelish nor watery.
Don’t lose heart if your hurriedly made or well-planned appetizer turns loose. Here are a few smart tips to thicken up soups. So perk up!
- To thicken up soups, add a chopped carrot or two to the soup mix.
- A potato cooked along with soup helps thicken it.
- Maida mixed in water when added to soups, makes them thick.
- To skim out the fat, cool the soup and refrigerate it. The fatty layer at the top can be forked out.
- Remove the foam and scum that tend to float on top while the soup boils.
- Add skimmed milk (fresh or powdered) to soups. This helps in cutting down the fat.
- Milk boiled with a pinch of soda, when mixed with tomato soup, will not curdle.
- Eggs and chicken soup will stay longer if poured into ice trays and frozen.
- A pinch of ajinomoto mixed with soups perks up their flavour and taste.
- Soup materials are to be cooked over a low flame till they mix well with the water and the taste comes out.
- While doing soup bones, break the bones into bits to allow the marrow to seep into the soup medium.
- Watch out when adding beaten eggs to boiling soup. Lower the flame, raise the dish in which eggs are beaten and pour out the egg mixture slowly while stirring the soup with a fork all the while.
- If eggs are to be added for the final flavour to soups, add them only when they are to be served. Never add eggs to soup mix much before it is to be served.
- To add fizz to veg soups, top them up with either cheese scrapings or a dessert spoon of fresh cream.
- For the best soup flavour and taste, pressure-cook the pieces.
- For the best effect, have the soup with salt and pepper while hot.
- Never cook soups in wide-mouthed vessels, lest the flavour should escape.
- Cheap stock soup can be had from cooked veg and meat leftovers.
- Soups again can be thickened with flour, oil, boiled potato, barley, milk, bread and beaten eggs.
