Most of my soups are of the Clear Out the Refrigerator variety, so all are inventions in a way, I guess.
But recently made a dal with red lentils, coconut milk, Hong Tsoi, and Berebere and wow it was good.
Soup is a drink.
You literally serve it in a cup sometimes.
Doubt I’m the first to figure this out, but putting broccoli in instant ramen. I like the texture of softboiled broccoli and it soaks up the salt from the broth.
Definitely don’t just put raw broccoli in your bowl and pour boiling water on top of it though, that will barely even cook it let alone make it soft. You need to boil it properly in a pot which will also make the noodles taste better. At least put cold water in your bowl and microwave boil it.
Cubed pork, daikon radish, shaved carrot, and napa cabbage in a miso-based broth. Oh, and as much ginger in there as you like.
Nice for when I feel like a soup with no starches. My other soups usually have rice, beans, noodles, or potato.
I make a “me” soup every time I take a bath.
I have a white chicken chili and a potato soup I use to make when the weather got cold.
Wild Thyme and Venison, “A Wild Thyme”
Teriyaki matzo ball soup. It’s exactly what the name states, just make sure to add some seltzer to the balls to make them fluffy.
I invented this when hungover and had teriyaki and matzo ball aoul leftovers.
Not so much invented as altered, I learned sometime ago that 15 bean soup can be taken up a notch. Instead of using ground sausage use a link sausage cutting the slices before you throw it into the soup. So much better. Especially the texture. Also always use fire roasted tomatoes.
IDK if it counts as “soup” but make a cup of oatmeal (1 cup oats 2 cups water) in an instant pot, then stir in a packet of TJ “Indian Fare” Jaipur Vegetables. Yum, you get a big bowl of tasty spicy glop that is at edible temperature right away, because you stirred in 10 oz of room temperature stuff into around 20 oz of near boiling stuff and it averages out.
I think technically that counts as gruel. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m all in favor of gruel, and the kind of thing your doing, but it’s a fun word to use.
I sometimes do something like this too, cooking oatmeal with extra water, some Better then Bouillon, some chopped onion, carrot or whatever vegetables I have handy. Maybe hot sauce or whatever spices I’m feeling. I haven’t done this in a while, thanks for reminding me, we’re getting into good weather for this kind of thing!
It sounds weird but like 4:1:1 oats, wheat gluten, and wheat bran is a really easy way to double the fiber and protein. That’s more for a raisin cinnamon green apple kind of thing no idea how it would go with weird vegetables
Refried beans mixed with Fritos. Really thick but good
Hatch Green Chili Pepper Soup. It’s cheap, fabulous and spicy. The Hatch green chilis are the star of course, but it also has pork, olive oil, bouillon, diced tomatoes/tomato paste, lime juice, and spices.
That sounds good. I’ll like to try it, would you share the recipe?
Sure thing.
1 lb pork shoulder
32 oz water
4 tsp chicken bouillon granules
1 can (14oz) petite diced tomatoes
1 cup of roasted/peeled hatch peppers diced (or 1 cup prepackaged/canned diced)
2 Tbs fresh lime juice
1 tsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp each paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and cumin
2 Tbs corn starch/2 Tbs water slurryDirections: Cube pork into 1" cubes and add to deep soup pan over a burner on high. Allow pork to cook through on high heat, allowing it to carmelize and render out a good percentage of the fat (remove rendered fat or leave it in for as decadent as you like it). Deglaze with about 1/4 cup of the water and scrape well to get all the bits loose. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the corn starch/water slurry). Bring everything to a boil, then turn heat to medium/low. Simmer for one hour, until the pork chunks break down. Use a masher to stringify the pork and distribute it throughout. Add 2 tbs corn starch/2 tbs water slurry to boiling mixture at the end and stir to thicken. Allow to cook uncovered for 15 more minutes.
Edit: Finished product looks like this. Apologies in advance for the American measures, lol.
Thanks a lot! It looks great and I am planning to try it out this week
I don’t really name the soups. They’re usually chicken potato soup as a base, then “whatever I threw in there”. Sometimes it’s tomato paste as the base flavor though.
Healthy slop
Start by sauteing a mirepoix. If you’re doing meat or mushrooms, saute those until browned as well. Then anything healthy goes in the slow cooker with some stock until it’s slop. If it’s something that gets sweeter when roasted, it’s roasted first. I season it with a bay leaf, mushroom powder, onion/garlic salt, black pepper, and whatever works for the protein. I like my soups/stews very earthy and comforting, with healthy slop ending up being like a non-acidic borscht or thicker chankonabe.
Good to write down the ratios when you do this, it can create new Established Unofficial Soups
I made up a soup with spicy Italian sausage and spinach and you top it with grated Romano and it’s my wife’s favorite soup now.
Next time add cheese tortellini 😋
Spinach or herb stews are good husbandslop make her some ghormeh sabzi
That looks phenomenal. Need to find dried limes.
The limes seem like they’re hard to find but every Persian cuisine grocery has it. It’s incredibly easy to farm thousands of husband points with this, perhaps too easy.
Oh sure, I’ll just stop by one of the several Persian cuisine groceries on my block.
But no actually there’s a place a couple miles up I think I can find them, they had mahleb
They’re in every country if you are in an urban area I swear! They have too many highly educated diaspora Iranians not to have those limes within a few miles
Oh yeah, I could ask any of my Iranian colleagues. Which actually exist this time.
