Soups and stews are a great way to get more vegetables into your diet and more water at the same time.  Soup is great in the winter because it's warm and the steam helps to loosen up congestion.  It's also great in the summer because it's light and easy to digest.

 

Before we get to the actual recipes, I'd like to share some tips on making soups.  There are as many soup recipes as there are cooks, but certain things will always make a soup better.  You have to do more than put some stuff in boiling water.

 

 

Soups are always better with some kind of animal fat, but butter isn't always what you want.  So it's a good idea to have some bacon, goose breast, fatback, or whatever kind of animal fat you prefer in single use amounts.  I usually buy it in a bulk of a half kilo to a kilo at a time, and then cut things up at home, so when I want to make a pot of soup, I have just the right amount ready.  To render the fat so that you can use it to sweat your onions and herbs or sear your meat, lay the slices of fat or the chicken skin on the bottom of the pan, and turn on low heat.

 

Let the fat fry slowly on low heat until it is brown and crispy.  You do this on low so that the fat doesn't burn.

 

Alternatively, you can render large amounts of fat at a time, and put them aside for later.  I don't really like to do this because I like things as fresh as possible.

 

 

Sweating your onions means frying them a little on low heat until they're a bit clear.  This makes their flavor more pleasant, which carries over into a less pungent, better tasting soup.

 

 

Salt, vinegar, and other salty or acidic ingredients will make beans take longer to cook, and their skins very tough.  So unless a soup is supposed to be slow cooked, it's best to precook them in clear water before adding them to a soup.  If it is a bean soup, then the beans should be cooked and soft before any salt or acidic ingredients are added.

 

 

Instead of using soup mixes or MSG to boost the flavor of your soups, try vinegar and gray salt.  Once you try chicken soup with cider vinegar and gray salt, you'll understand how much of junk most soup mixes are.  There are many vinegars that affect the flavor of soup in different ways.  Never use a refined salt in soup.  It takes away from the flavor, and the extra chemicals used to keep it dry can cause a bitter aftertaste that just isn't there with gray salt, especially in a fish soup.

 

In some soups, the juice of lemons is nice as the acidic part of the taste.  We'll get into the details in the recipes.  Generally though, a 3-4 liter pot of soup takes 1/4 cup vinegar and only 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of salt.