Vegetarian soup is a liquid food that is prepared by boiling vegetables in water and then seasoning and sometimes thickening the liquid that is created. It is usually served as the first course of a dinner, but it is also often served as a light meal, such as luncheon, on its own.
Soup is an easily made, economical and when properly prepared from fresh, nutritious vegetables, very wholesome food.
Care should be taken to make this food attractive enough to appeal to the appetite, so it should not be greasy nor insipid in flavour, neither should it be served in substantial quantities nor without the correct accompaniment.
A small quantity of well-flavoured, attractively served vegetarian soup cannot fail to find approval when it is served as the first course of a meal. The point of this piece is to acquaint you with the details of making appetizing and nutritious vegetarian soup that is both nutritious and healthy.
The three main types of soup that can be made from wholly vegetarian (but not necessarily vegan) ingredients are: broths, cream soups (contains dairy produce) and purees. The basis of these three sorts can be a vegetable stock prepared from either dried or fresh vegetables or both.
BROTHS have as their base a clear vegetarian stock. They are occasionally a thin soup, and other times they are prepared fairly thick with vegetables, rice or barley when they are served as a large part of a meal.
CREAM SOUPS are extremely nutritious and there are many varieties. They have for their base a thin cream sauce, and to this are always added vegetables or grains.
PUREES are soups made thick partly or entirely by the addition of some foodstuff obtained by boiling an article of food and then straining it to form a pulp.
If vegetables containing starch such as beans, peas, lentils or potatoes are used for this purpose, it is unnecessary to thicken the soup with any additional starch, but when watery vegetables are used, other thickening is necessary. To be correct, a puree ought to be nearly as smooth as double cream and of the same texture.
When preparing vegetarian soup always use soft water but be careful to proportion the amount of water to that of the vegetables. Somewhat less than two pints of water to a pound of vegetables is a good rule for ordinary soups. Rich soups, meant for company, might have a smaller amount of water.
Here is a puree type recipe for carrot soup:
CARROT SOUP
4 good-sized carrots, 1 small head of celery, 1 fair-sized onion, 1 turnip, 3 oz. of breadcrumbs, 1-1/2 oz. of butter or margarine, 1 blade of mace, pepper and salt to taste.
Scrape and clean the vegetables; cut them up small; put them in a pan with 3 pints of water, the butter or margarine, breadcrumbs, and mace. Boil until the vegetables are fairly tender; rub everything through a sieve and return the mixture to the saucepan.
Reheat; season with salt and pepper. If it is too thick add water. The soup ought to be as thick as cream; boil and serve with crusty bread.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of topics, and is now concerned with low carb vegetarian recipes. If you would like to know more, please visit our site at http://vegetariancasserolerecipes.com
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