Friday open thread: soup season

[dolorosa_12]

Actually, it's not really soup season ('high soup season'?), given that it was 16 degrees celcius today and the crocus bulbs are starting to bloom. However, this has been a very soup-heavy winter, and a prompt like this is about all I can manage at the moment, and thus:

What are your favourite types of soup?

My favourites are definitely the flavour- and texture-rich soups of southeast Asia: laksa, pho, and so on. I'm not such a fan of cooking them myself, however — but if they're available, I will almost always eat them.

When it comes to soups I can cook myself, I have various variants of chicken-noodle soup (Chinese, Malaysian, and Indonesian recipes) which I enjoy a lot. I also love various Turkish soups involving lentils, minestrone soup, a variety of takes on borsch, and a nostalgic, vegetable-and-legume-heavy soup that my mum used to make in industrial quantities throughout the Canberran winter when I was a child (ingredients included dried mixed legumes, potato, green beans, parsnip, carrot, leek, and barley), which I ate for lunch at school in a thermos flask, and as afternoon tea to fuel an evening of gymnastics training, and which a friend of mine with whom I used to carpool to gymnastics still raves about, because she ate so much of it at my place en route to the gym.

I could probably go on, but I think that's enough of a starting point. Talk to me about soup!

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I don't know if there's anything really connecting my favorite soups... other than maybe the lack of common ingredients I'm less fond of, like tomatoes. So, in fairly random order:

- (First because it's the one I had most recently) Czech garlic soup (with or without pork bits). I prefer the Czech and Slovak versions without cream, but the (Polish, I think?) version with cream is also pretty good.

- Clam chowder

- Fish soups. My definitive version is the homemade one with my grandfather's fresh catch and a lot of bay leaves and pepper, but I've enjoyed other spicy fish soup (no tomato base) varieties I've tried, e.g. I think a Jamaican one

- Borsch, but specifically the kind my great grandmother used to make (with pampushki/garlic rolls)

- Sopa Azteca / tortilla soup

- Pumpkin/squash bisque

- Zuppa toscana

- Pho (especially from this one hole in the wall place in Silicon Valley that everyone knew and everyone called "cheap pho")

And not seasonal, but I'm also a fan of some cold soups from the Old Country, especially Lithuanian Šaltibarščiai (cold beet soup which I know as rassol'nik)

[dolorosa_12]

All of those sound fantastic (although I can't agree with you about tomatoes — they are probably my favourite food, and are my go-to answer for what I would choose if I were only allowed to eat a single item of food for the rest of my life!).

Regarding fish soup, do you like the Nordic version with salmon, dill, vegetables and cream? That's something I tried making for the first time this year, and really enjoyed.

Borsch with pampushki is the best way to have it — I can't make the rolls myself, but I've had it served that way at a Ukrainian restaurant, and it was delicious.

[hamsterwoman]

That is serious commitment to tomatoes! Respect, even if I don't share it :) (Both of the primary cooks in my household LOVE tomatoes, so they end up featuring in what I eat a lot anyway :P)

Regarding fish soup, do you like the Nordic version with salmon, dill, vegetables and cream?

I've never tried this, but should maybe keep in mind for when I'm next in the Noridcs :) Salmon is one of my least favorite fishes (other than as lox), when it comes to sushi or entree, but I think Ive had it in soup and didn't mind it, so I would give it a shot. And dill and cream in soup are definitely things I like :)

I took the plunge a couple of years ago and tried making pampushki myself and it proved less daunting than I expected -- actually easier than all other things I've made with yeast dough. I've translated the recipe for another flister; would you like me to dig it up for you?

(P.S. your icon looks delicious! :D)

[dolorosa_12]

I took the plunge a couple of years ago and tried making pampushki myself and it proved less daunting than I expected -- actually easier than all other things I've made with yeast dough. I've translated the recipe for another flister; would you like me to dig it up for you?

That would be lovely, although I am not much of a baker. I'll cook anything, but baking is like witchcraft to me!

P.S. your icon looks delicious!

Thank you! It was made for me as a gift a few years back for fandomtrees or a similar fest, and it's always so tasty to look at!

[hamsterwoman]

Pampushki recipe :)

https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1183384.html?thread=16253592#cmt16253592

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you!