Cream Soups

I make a lot of soup. It's not a mystery that I like soup and I try to experiment with them. Vegetable, Chicken Noodle, Chili, Lentil, Green Bean, Fish Soup, Potato, Tomato, Hamburger (yes, it is a thing), Consommé, French Onion Soup, Miso, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Bouillon, Pho, Italian Wedding Soup, Thanksgiving Turkey, Cabbage Soup, and a billion other clear soups have been made by me and I like the results of my work.

I also make Cream Soups. This process involves making a normal soup and then adding heavy cream. The process may also involve using a stick blender as well. This article will document my adventures with cream based soups.

Pretty much all of the Cream Soups I make go along great with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Cream of Chili Pepper Soup

I really like this one. It is tangy, spicy, and creamy all at the same time. It will cure your desire for a vinegary, hot, and buttery meal and is pretty simple. There are several ways you can do this. Chipotle, fresh peppers, grilled peppers, and a few other processes. My favorite way is to just chop up a bunch of peppers and sweat them with onions and garlic.

Method

• buy or grow a bunch of chili peppers. use a mix of any you can find.
• chop them up in a rough chop. remove the stems and membrane.
• chop a medium sized sweet onion
• put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, lard, or avocado oil to a large sauce pan
• put the pan on medium heat and wait about 7 minutes. or five minutes. or 10 minutes. it depends on your stove
• toss he chili peppers and onion into the pan
• sweat them for about 10 minutes
• while the peppers and onions are reducing down, mince 5 cloves of garlic
• when your peppers and onion are basically a hot mush, add the minced garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds
• when you smell the garlic blooming, add chicken broth. the amount of broth is defined by the amount of peppers you have used. just barely cover the mush.
• lower the heat
• simmer the mess, covered, for at least 30 minutes
• once everything is broken down, use a stick blender to blend all of the vegetables down as far as you can.
• the previous step can take 20 minutes of blending
• taste for salt
• taste for other seasoning
• you are going to need a bit of Frank's Red Hot© sauce in there for acidity. put a dab or five in
• taste again
• if it tastes good, slowly drizzle in 3 or 4 tablespoons of heavy cream into the pot while you have the stick blender back in there, on high speed

Other Stuff

You can add bacon, chopped onions, chopped cilantro, or large hunks of cheddar cheese while the soup is still hot. Hell, if you want to go crazy, you can add pineapple and ham, but I won't because that's gross.

Alternates

You can omit all the fresh chili peppers and just use a couple of cans of those smoked chipotle peppers you can find in the canned food section. Be mindful, some brands are hotter or more smokey than others. Using this sort of chili pepper will give you an end product that will have a much more barbecue/sweet/smokey end product.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

It seems silly to put this here because the food industry has a billion choices when it comes to canned mushroom soups, yet here we are.

I like to use the more robust mushrooms like portobellos, baby bellas (young portobello mushrooms), shiitakes, porcinis, and even morel mushrooms if they are available. It is okay to use white button mushrooms as well, they impart that "mushroomy" flavor, but are just filler.

I also use those packs of dried mushrooms, but you have to steep them for a few minutes before you incorporate them into any recipe. Also, they are almost prohibitively expensive. Only make this sort of soup when you have the time and the money to cook it up.

Cream of Potato Soup

It is no wonder that people put bacon crumbles, cheddar cheese, and spring onions into this soup. It is bland. But there is a reason why this soup is on this list. My mom used to make this incredible cream of potato soup that actually tasted good without all the doctoring.

What you need

• 6 large russet potatoes, unpeeled
• 5 cloves of peeled garlic, whole
• 1 pound of cheap ground beef. 73% is good for this.
• 2 quarts of beef broth, beef stock, or bone broth.
• 2 large knobs of butter. Probably around 3 tablespoons
• 1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon of a hot sauce that contains a lot of vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of onion powder
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• Salt and pepper to taste. It is highly recommeded that you use a lot of black pepper in this.
• Super Secret ingredient that you may or may not use.

Method

Bring the broth and cut up potatoes and garlic cloves to a boil in a large pot. Boil until everything is almost soft. Add the ground beef and use your spatula to break it up in the hot broth. Turn down the heat until the whole concoction is at a bare simmer. Add all of your spices. Continue to simmer the pot on low heat for 20 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and use a stick blender to smooth everything out. This usually takes about five minutes. Add your heavy cream in drips and drabs while blending. Keep an eye on your color and flavor while doing this. Stop blending when the soup is smooth.

While the soup is still very hot, stir in the mustard, hot sauce, and butter. Taste it as you go, you may want to back off on the mustard. Add salt and pepper to adjust the seasoning.

Tomato Soup

Yes, tomato soup is a cream soup. But tomato soup has its own article. You may visit that article here.

Variations

These things are great.

As you can pretty much guess, the "cream soup" process is pretty simple. You add your particular main ingredient, cook it with some onion and garlic, and then add cream. Of course, there are several other steps you can do depending on what kind of soup you are making, but the process remains similar. Here are some other soups that fall into this category and can be made this way:

• Cream of Asparagus. Add some lemon zest and lemon juice to brighten this one up. Alternatively, you can toss a pinch of nutmeg in there as well.
• Vichyssoise. I fucking love this soup. It's potato soup with leeks in it. Usually eaten cold, you can eat it hot as well.
• Cream of Chicken. Gross. Don't even bother. So many other, better, things you can do with chicken.
• Cream of Spinach. See Cream of Asparagus above.
• Cream of Broccoli. Use it when you can't find mushrooms.
• Cream of Cauliflower. See Cream of Broccoli above. Also, I am getting sick of riced cauliflower.
• Cream of Pumpkin. This stuff is pretty good. Just make sure you don't get a gourd. Also, roasted pumpkin makes a helluva pasta sauce.
• Cream of Squash. Roasted butternut squash. Very similar to cream of pumpkin. Both soups are very rich.
• Clam Chowder. This one deserves its own article. Sure, it has milk in it, but if you really want, you can sub out the milk with cream.

References

mmmmm, Cream Soups is a part of a series on Food

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