I love soup. And pretty much every soup variety suits me just fine. I like chicken, pea, vegetable, barley, onion, etc. I do have a couple of pet peeves about soup, however:
1. Soup must be homemade (I'm actually vehemently opposed to canned soup).
2. Homemade soup must start with water and not chicken, beef, or vegetable stock.
3. If you're going to have soup for dinner you need to include a nice, as we say in Italian, "secondi" (a second dish or entree that can help fill you up and provide a complete meal).
Given the above prerequisites, the undisputed "king of soups" for me is Lentil. Lentils are tasty, packed full of proteins, and fairly straightforward to prepare.
Here's a simple Lentil soup recipe:
- Finely dice one medium onion, 2-3 medium sized celery stalks, and 1-2 medium sized carrots, and a single clove of garlic
- Sauté the above mixture (add salt and pepper to taste) for 8-10 minutes (depending on strength of flame) with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
- Next, add one cup of dry lentils and about two cups of pureed canned tomatoes (not tomato sauce, but rather canned tomatoes). You could substitute the canned tomatoes with tomato paste, but the flavor component will be completely different.
- Thereafter, add 4 cups of fresh water (filtered or purified water is best; remember water is the main ingredient in soups so it should be of good quality)
- Finally, cook ingredients for an hour and serve!
That's it, there's no magic to preparing soup (other soup recipes vary, but the basic steps are the same for many soups). Oh, I also like to add freshly grated Parmeggiono Reggiano just before serving!.
Italian
