Confessions of a Line Cook: December 2011

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

zen and the art of souping

so, i gotta tell ya, i'm getting really good at soup.  i mean, like, really good.  my soup file is expanding nearly every day, and most of them are knockouts.  i've been at my job for over a year and a half, and for a long time when i told somebody where i worked, i'd get "oh, that place has the best brunch!"  which is great, cause i work brunch and i'm proud of what we do.  but lately, the last few months (pretty much since i took over the majority of soup making duties) when i tell somebody where i work i get "aww man, that place has the best soups!"

yep.  that's me.  my boss loves my soups because they're all fairly straightforward and simple (we have a couple of guys that overthink things and try to do to much), and they all taste like what they're called.  my tomato parmesan bisque, for instance, tastes like tomatoes and parmesan.  really only two components to that one, but the end result...heaven.

some of my go to soups are...the tomato parm, hot and sour chicken noodle (that one is probably the easiest to make, and one i knock out when we just need something, but now...can also be hot and sour veg noodle, or hot and sour egg drop), potato leek, jalapeno corn chowder, andoullie beer cheese, summer pea bisque, ham potato and cheddar, the smokey dijon chicken and bacon, tomato bacon gorgonzola, and maybe loaded baked potato. 

some that maybe need a little tweaking...lemon chicken and garbanzo, korean black bean, maple bourbon pork stew, pumpkin apple bacon, sesame chicken, roasted corn chowder, and italian wedding.

i got some others in the rotation...standard chicken noodle, split pea, clam chow, manhattan clam chow (which we lovingly refer to as "manclam"), roasted red pepper gorgonzola...i'm sure there's others that i can't remember right now.  but the point is, i'm fucking awesome at making soups.  so there.