Soup help

For the past few years I've been making a vegetable beef soup at home and the family, minus PP, really likes it. I start with fresh beef and chopped onion, celery and carrot. I brown the meat and veggies with some S&P added for a few minutes. I then add in water and simmer for a couple hours.

After the simmer I add in cans of different veggies, peas, corn, green beans, fresh cubed potatoes, more celery and onion and whatever.

What I'd like to do is after this has all simmered is to thicken up the liquid. What can I use to thicken this 6 quarts or so of liquid up some?

MikeS.

Rice?

I love barley in soups and it seems like it would add some thickness.

I was also going to suggest some barley added at the beginning of the cooking time.

Also, I don't know if your grocery store carries Hanover brand frozen vegetables but they make one called Vegetables For Soup and in adddition to the usual corn, peas, green beans, etc, the mixture includes cubed rutabagas and sliced cabbage and okra. It's great in beef vegetable soup.

Barley was mentioned and very good, also try some okra slices,

While I would never use instant mashed potatoes for actually making mashed potatoes, they do work nicely as a thickener in soups and stews that have potatoes in them anyway.

Besides adding barley or instant mashed potato powder, both of which will work, I have another idea for you. Because of a suggestion in Cook's Illustrated, I pureed the vegetable/liquid mixture when I made pot roast recently. Clearly, you could do the same thing with a stew.

You can ladle the stuff into a blender, or do as I did, and simply use an immersion blender in the pot. The gravy came out fairly thick, and was really, really tasty. If your kids are picky about vegetables, this is actually a good way to sneak veggies into their diet. You could still add barley or instant mashed potatoes if it did not turn out thick enough for you.

Add a handful split peas when you add the water, either green or yellow ones, or some lentils would work too.

Ditto on the okra - we keep frozen okra on hand at all times for soups or gumbo.

Roast your meat and onions, celery and carrots in the oven first. Make a roux from the fat and juices in the roasting pan. Proceed with your recipe as usual. You not only get a thicker final result but a tastier one as well.

Cornstarch mixed with cold water.....or a cooked roux. Of course any legume or starch would also thicken a soup, but if you did not want to add any of these, I would say cornstarch or roux.

quote:

Originally posted by lleechef

Cornstarch mixed with cold water.....or a cooked roux. Of course any legume or starch would also thicken a soup, but if you did not want to add any of these, I would say cornstarch or roux.

...or flour mixed with cold water.

Or mashed potato (a brown "Baking" potato boiled with the soup first)

But I like the idea of puree-ing some of the vegetables.

I agree with the browned roux, I don't make homemade soup but it works great in a stew. You might also try "agar-agar"(SP)a dried seaweed dirivative, no personal experience with it but I know its used as a thickener

I have been doing this to thicken soups for my sick FIL. I "Saute" onions, celery and carrots in chicken broth,cooking down until soft, kinda like risotto technique only with veggies. Then I pureee them all together and contiue with whatever kind of soup I'm making, it is very flavorful!
Enjoy
KB

Toss some butter or oil in a cast iron pan. Roll your beef in some flour and brown up as you normally would. After you remove the meat toss in some wine, heat it up a bit and scrape the cooked stuff to the pan off and let it reduce into a somewhat thick paste... Add a little more butter or oil, then sautee your onions.. Once they go translucent add flour to the mix and let it brown a little. Once this is done scrape it all into your soup pot and proceed as you normally would... You've built a nice base and thickener this way...

Thanks people, these were some great tips. Since the family likes barely soup I added a cup of dry barley to 12 qts of soup. It came out very well. We had soup for dinner 2x this week plus I froze a bunch and used my new favorite kitchen tool, the FoodSaver.

MikeS.

Wibdra Flour

I meant WONDRA. Sorry

Is there anything wrong with using Wibdra Flour???

If you like tomatos in your soup, try the crushed tomatoes. I also use okra in mine and some canned tomato juice.