form, because of their tradition of keeping a year's supply of food in every home. Wherever you

can find any, keep a supply of commonly needed soup and stew vegetables in dehydrated form

for emergency—onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper, mushroom and tomato. Of course, if you have

a dehydrator, make your own supply.

What to put in the liquid

Consommé, that you always serve clear, is in a class by itself. It is so flavorful, so

delectable and so appetizing with its crystal clear dazzle that they need no enhancement. If you

are ambitious enough to make consommé, serve it in cups (traditionally having two handles) for

sipping.

All other soups need some kind of a body, some kind of texture that may be:

•

very fine as in a purée

chunky as in minestrone

thickened liquid with chunks of meat or vegetables, as in a stew

clear, highly flavored liquid with the least body, as in chicken soup—you add

vermicelli, carrots and peas, which offer varied color, flavor and texture, to complement the base

and each other.

If you follow a good soup recipe, it often recommends the appropriate soup body. If you

are constructing a free-form soup, the responsibility is on your shoulders to make sure that the

flavors don't clash, nothing dominates and you've included a variety of textures and colors.

Enhance and enrich

Thickening

Each ethnic cuisine deals with its soups its own way. Some cultures thicken all their

soups, others very rarely or not at all.

Clear, very flavorful soups do not need thickening. And for any first course soup your

best choice is to omit thickening. If the soup serves as a more substantial part of the meal,

thickening is a good idea. Here are some ways to thicken your soup.

Purée some of the vegetables ingredients and stir the purée back into the soup. Reheat and

serve. Very simple, very effective and you need not add anything extra. You accomplished

thickening with the fine-grained particles that contribute to bite.

Add starch indirectly by using starchy fillers such as noodles, potatoes or rice. This serves as

both real thickening—thanks to the starch in these fillers—and perceived thickening because

of the heavier body in the soup: solid pieces that fill your spoon and mouth. These kinds of

soups are quick, cheap and you produce them with minimal labor—the choice for many

restaurants or your busy everyday fare. These tend to get boring.

Egg yolk is also an effective thickener. Beat the egg yolk with heavy cream, then add a little

hot soup while stirring vigorously. When the mixture is a smooth paste, add a little more hot

soup and mix again. Then pour it slowly into the pot of soup, stirring continuously. A few

more minutes of cooking thickens the entire pot. If you add egg yolk to a hot soup without

tempering, the protein in the yolk coagulates at once in the hot liquid, and the result is a thin

soup and tiny floating specks of cooked egg yolk and blobs of cream—a disaster.

A soup thickened with tempered egg yolk and cream gains extra richness and a golden color

(not to mention cholesterol and calories). One egg yolk combined with one tablespoon cream

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