BROTHY &HEARTY SOUPS
Match protein with flavorful broth for bowl of comfort
Winter soups can be more than just rich creamy potages or chunky chilies. Sometimes a brothy one accompanied by a good protein is a meal in a bowl.
Beef, chicken, turkey or pork are all good sources of protein. So is shrimp if you are a pescetarian and lentils if you are a vegetarian. All they need is a good flavorful broth and the soup is ready to be slurped.
Consider the fragrant Vietnamese pho. It doesn’t call for a half pint of cream to soothe your soul, but instead the beef broth-based rice noodle soup does it simply with meat and/or vegetables, spices such as star anise and cardamom, ginger, fish or soy sauce, and a mix of cilantro, mint and basil.
The dynamic duo — greens and beans — also make for a good brothy soup, and come in many guises. Spinach can be combined with white beans and browned sausage or chicken meatballs. G&B can take on an Italian accent when cannellini beans are cooked with kale, garlic, pancetta or prosciutto and tomato paste or a Southern one when black-eyed peas are tossed with turnip greens and country ham.
A special shout-out goes to the chicken noodle soup, which reigns
during the frigid months as it seems to ward off the cold and flu. Jazz up the old-fashioned flavor base of chicken, carrots, celery, yellow onion and parsley with tomato paste, chili powder, avocado and cilantro for a tortilla soup. Serve it with dumplings or make it in the form of a minestrone with pasta shells, vegetables, peas or beans.
Seared pork tenderloin can add a protein oomph to a hot-and-sour soup studded with shiitake mushrooms or to a broth perfumed with garlic, onion, garam masala and turmeric and slightly sweetened with chopped, dried figs.
All that meat chatter does not mean vegetarians have been abandoned; there are plenty of lentil-based soups to keep the base happy. The Greek faki soupa me spanaki is made with brown lentils, tomatoes, spinach and olive oil, while the mulligatawny has split peas, turmeric powder, tamarind paste, ground black peppercorns, ground cumin and red chilies. The soup’s name was appropriated by the British from the Tamil word molaghu tanni, which means pepper water.
Tofu and miso, made by fermenting soybeans, also are sources of protein, and it is not unusual for the Japanese to start their day with a bowl of miso that has shiitake mushrooms, rice vinegar and daikon noodles.
Since soups happily adapt to different diets, seasons and availability of produce, every one of the recipes shown can handle mixing and matching of ingredients.
We found that chicken meatballs have more flavor and texture when made with fennel and leeks and are studded with pecans. A shrimp soup improves when chicken broth is combined with tomato paste, white wine, coconut milk, cayenne pepper and paprika. Chicken-dumpling soup can easily be converted to a vegetarian one by replacing the meat with loads of vegetables and chickpeas. And a lentil-based soup gives a embraces earth with its nod to turmeric and cauliflower, So while the beastly winter presses on, hearty brothy soups are a way to beat the blues.