Make Good Soup

On the whole soup-making is a relaxed process mercifully free of rules and dictums. A broth that is correctly set to simmer needs only to be left undisturbed; it will tend to itself. Indeed, many a soup has been ruined in the name of improvement. Vegetable soups, in particular are the victims of unnecessary refinements; the traditional belief that vegetables should be precooked in fat and simmered in beef broth has been responsible for masking and altering many a fresh garden flavor.
Another familiar mistake is salting and peppering a soup at the beginning of cooking. Common sense dictates caution when you are adding salt: an amount that seems barely sufficient to season a full pot may be far too much when the liquid has reduced by the end of cooking. And pepper should never be added the start of any long cooking process. When it is freshly ground into a soup at the last moment, its clean, spicy perfume enhances the flavor of the other ingredients; but if pepper is cooked in the liquid for any length of time, its perfume dissipates and its taste becomes harsh and acrid.

*Exceptions for Meat Roasts; Salting meat before cooking is a good thing when cooking under high temperatures. The salt helps accentuate the carmelization of the natural sugars in the meat and also helps form the crust that seals in moisture and flavor. Choose coarse or kosher salt to use with meats.

MainRecipe.com Soup