My favoured Vegetable-Beef-Soup - the classical recipe:
1) Preparation for the beef broth:
Buy some beef, if possible on the bone, (approx. 500 - 1000g), put it into cold water, with some garlic, some onion, pimento, juniper beers, peppercorns, bay leafs, and leave it on the smallest heat for some hours. It is ready, if the beef disintegrates under a spoon. Take the beef out of the broth and separate the beef into small pieces, that they can fit on a spoon. Through away the bone (or give it to the dog). Let the broth cool down a bit.
2) Preparation of the vegetable:
Buy some fresh vegetables of different kinds of the session. Clean those and cut those into small pieces. Bring some fresh water with salt and lemon juice to boil. Put the first kind of vegetable into the water and boil it under great heat, till it is just ready. Take the vegetable out of the water and put into the broth. Repeat this separately for each kind of vegetable. Pay attention that the vegetables are not over cooked.
2a) Alternative preparation of the vegetables:
Some vegetables, like celeriac or other roots, are better roasted in oil or lard: In this case put some oil or lard into a pot, heat it up (the best temperature is slightly below a point when the fat starts to produce smoke) and put the vegetable into the hot fat, let it roast under great heat it it is ready, stop it with some white wine and add it to the broth.
3) Final steps:
The water of the vegetable needs to get reduced: So boil it down, till the amount of water is roughly a 1/3 or 1/4 of the original amount - so you will have concentrated vegetable stock. Add this stock to the broth, an heat this up, add some butter or olive oil and spices (depending on the vegetables), let it boil very briefly, but intense, and serve.
For some case the taste of roasted garlic fits very well - in this case cut some garlic into very small pieces, heat up a small cast iron pan (diameter ca. 5-10 cm) with some olive and add the garlic, let it roast till it gets slightly brownish and add this with the oil to the soup.
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The most modern ways of making such a soup are less laborious and less time consuming, but this traditional method does produce still the best results.
30 May 2009, 11:22 pm
