Flavour intensity and balance of ingredients: two keys to super soups

Winter is once again upon us, which makes warming foods such as soups a must-have on the foodservice menu.  And with so many commercial kitchens facing ongoing rising costs, soups are often an ideal choice because given their relative ease of preparation and potential profit margin. We spoke to three chefs to get their input on which soups are potentially strong additions to the menu.

“I always say every soup tells a story,” says Gary Johnson, former National Executive Chef for a nationwide hotel chain and now a sought-after consultant to foodservice. “All of us who have done any travelling will know that every nationality and culture has their own soups, whether it’s a Vietnamese Pho or a Chicken Wonton Soup served in a back lane – soup is often balm for the soul, and many traditional soup recipes originated as medicinal.

“When you look at the history of our different cultures you consistently find that soups are handed down across the generations and some recipes date back millennia. I think that’s because soup is a universal meal and that accounts for its widespread appeal. You can serve it anytime from breakfasts to late night suppers, you’ll even find soup stations at cocktail parties during the winter months.

“At home with my family we’ll always have a soup on the weekends, generally around lunchtime because it’s an all in one meal. The wonderful thing about soup is there are so many options, from hearty American chowders to classic Japanese ramen, to miso soups, to laksas. What we’re currently seeing on the local market is that chefs are experimenting with layering soups – so that even though the base might be a fairly traditional recipe, chefs are now adding different textures and certain aromatics, often in the form of garnishes – these could be a nicely flavoured oil, or even dusting olives through the soup itself.”

Gary says Middle Eastern cuisine is being mined as a source of inspiration for soups on today’s menu. “We’re seeing a lot of soups like harira, which is a tomato-based Moroccan soup made with lentils, chickpeas, herbs and spices – this is fabulous served up with some fresh baked bread on the side which you can dip into olive oil and break apart. Another trending soup is curried pumpkin, which is often garnished with some torn coriander, perhaps a swirl of yoghurt and served with crispy pappadums on the side. The aim always is to choose sides and garnishes that complement your core flavours.”

Green pea soup topped with basil and chorizo, finished with a dob of sour cream, is another example Gary sites. “It’s about choosing full-flavoured ingredients – peas give you a very strong flavour, and when you cook them and then garnish with aromatics you can really smell the soup coming as it’s being served. That’s very enticing for the customer especially when it's chilly outdoors and really enhances the overall dining experience.”

Gary emphasises the value of looking to fresh vegetables and fruits when seeking inspiration for your core flavours. “For example, a zucchini soup is perfect with some hot smoked salmon, served with some ricotta bruschetta drizzled with olive oil. Soups present a terrific opportunity to take advantage of fresh seasonal ingredients and I would also recommend taking advantage of the cultural influences you may have in your own kitchen. For example, we’re so multicultural a society today that you’re likely to have three or four different nationalities represented in the kitchen, so ask your staff what was their favourite soup growing up and think about trying  those recipes or an adaptation of them with your customers. When I worked in Istanbul, for example, there was a local soup called Yayla Corbasi, which is made with yoghurt, chickpeas and rice and generally topped with some herbs or mint. It’s a really distinctive soup and I’ve never forgotten it.”

Emphasising that the key to great soup is flavour intensity, Gary suggests roasting some Mediterranean vegetables – “that way you’ve removed most of the water content” – before putting them into a pot with some rich vegetable stock and torn herbs and bringing up to the boil. He argues that not all soups need to be pureed – “a rustic soup, with some chunky inclusions, can aid in that marriage of flavour and enhance and accentuate the overall experience. I’d serve up that Mediterranean vegetable soup with a nice goat’s cheese crostini on the side and hopefully a Chianti as well!” 

Gary also advises to err on the side of caution when choosing your flavour combos: “It’s important to know what to leave out, as opposed to just throwing everything together and hoping for the best! The best soups are those which have an element of discovery and clever combinations of flavour that enhance each other – those are the ones we all look forward to. Ideally you should be able to put your head over a steaming bowl of soup and inhale the aroma just like a good wine.”

Soups undergoing a resurgence

Chef Adam Moore says soups are undergoing something of a resurgence on foodservice menus in recent times. “I think customers are engaging with soups a lot more, but what we’ve seen is that the very traditional recipes like minestrone or potato and leek have gone, and what we have instead are ramen broths, vegetable led soups like sweetcorn or pumpkin – tomato is still a favourite but we’re also seeing more Asian broth style soups and even Chinese influenced soups like chicken egg drop soup and chicken noodle.

“The other growth area with soups is add-ons – such as adding some pesto to a pumpkin soup to give it a more zest and flavour, or adding soy sauce to a ramen. Accentuating flavour is definitely core. So more add-ons, more inclusions on the sides – for ramen you have eggs, crab sticks made from potato starch, croutons, broken roasted crackers, toasted seeds and so on. These are supplanting those standard vegetable puree styles of old.

“Another interesting evolution is the way in which soups are now being served. Soul Origin, for example, are offering a choice of five takeaway soups which are packaged in cups with lids as grab and go snacks. This trend has come to us from the UK, where it was very big about 10 years ago – soup was a main driver for big takeaway operations there like Pret a Manger, and we’re now seeing that here in Australia. It’s a great way to appeal to the consumer drive for convenience by offering soups to go in three serving sizes, which customers can grab with a bread roll or a similar inclusion and enjoy on the run. For dining in, on the other hand, I think we’re going back to the 1980s in that people want their soup elegantly presented in a big hearty bowl – not a flat-lipped, minimalist approach.”

Experiment with your kitchen ingredients for recipes

Chef Peter Wright recommends experimenting with the ingredients already in your kitchen to come up with satisfying soup recipes. “I would be starting with something like a classic chunky vegetable soup, because it’s a hearty dish. You can then add some chicken but make sure it’s in chunks, not pureed – especially if you’re serving it for lunch, you want something with texture and bite.”

Peter also advises that a big part of the success of soup lies in the way it’s described on the menu. “The other day I saw a menu which said ‘creamy chicken soup’ and that sounds like something you would buy in a can at the supermarket. You need to choose some enticing descriptions for your soup and – you might include something about the origin of the ingredients, you might call out certain herbs or aromatics. It’s worth going a little bit out there with the description.”

He recommends trialling new soup recipes on the specials board on a cold day. “Customers see soup as an affordable option and if you serve it with a big chunk of bread, like a grilled olive focaccia or some rosemary and potato bread, it’s a big, hearty, filling meal that offers great value so you can charge the right amount of money and still get your spend per head.”

Peter also advises that a big part of the success of soup lies in the way it’s described on the menu. “The other day I saw a menu which said ‘creamy chicken soup’ and that sounds like something you would buy in a can at the supermarket. You need to choose some enticing descriptions for your soup and – you might include something about the origin of the ingredients, you might call out certain herbs or aromatics. It’s worth going a little bit out there with the description.”

He recommends trialling new soup recipes on the specials board on a cold day. “Customers see soup as an affordable option and if you serve it with a big chunk of bread, like a grilled olive focaccia or some rosemary and potato bread, it’s a big, hearty, filling meal that offers great value so you can charge the right amount of money and still get your spend per head.”

Choosing great garnishes is also important. “Just drizzling a bit of basil oil on at the end can add an extra dimension to both flavour and aroma. Ideally what you want from a soup is that it tastes great all the way through and it fills you up. Think of those Asian soups with vermicelli noodles – they’re typically served in a 500ml bowl, which is a substantial serve, and they’re full of fresh herbs and topped with bean shoots and other ingredients which can add some crunch and texture. You can use tofu as your main protein and make an Asian style soup that’s really delicious.

“Legumes are a great choice for soup and right now there’s been an influx on the local market of pre-cooked shelf-stable legumes which come in vacuum sealed pouches. They’re great to use as a soup base – they’re better quality than tinned legumes and much easier and quicker to prepare than using the dried variety. Within 15 minutes you can have something simmering away on the stove while you’re doing your other prep. Legumes pack a nutritional punch and you can add almost anything to them – when your customer eats a big bowl of white bean or black bean soup, it’s going to really fill them up until their next meal.”

The final recommendation Peter makes is always to try your soup recipes yourself before sharing them with customers. “If it’s bland and you can’t get to the bottom, then clearly you need to go back and start again,” he points out. ”Soup is not just about cleaning out old ingredients from the back of the fridge – it needs to be hearty and it needs to be satisfying. You can’t just throw ingredients together, you need to follow a recipe because a good soup is a balance of a lot of delicate flavours to get the right combination. It has to be not too sour, not too sweet, not too hot – so test your own skills at flavour combinations by making a pot up and serving it to your staff to get their input.”