Soup

Despite the fun and convenience of eating pho at a local noodle soup spot, nothing beats a homemade bowl. What inevitably makes the homemade version đac biet (special) is the care that goes into making the broth, the cornerstone of pho. One of the keys to a great broth is good leg bones, which are often sold at supermarkets as beef soup bones. Avoid neck bones; instead, look for soup bones made up of knuckle and leg bones that contain marrow. At Asian markets, beef leg bones are precut and bagged in the meat department. Vietnamese markets will sometimes have whole leg bones at the butcher counter, and you can specify how you want them cut. A butcher who divides large sections of beef carcasses into small retail cuts is likely to have good bones. For the most fragrant and flavorful broth, I recommend the bones of grass-fed or natural beef.

While beef pho may be the version that most people know and like, chicken pho is also excellent. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in pho gà within the Vietnamese American community, and a handful of restaurants are specializing in the delicate noodle soup. Some of them use free-range gà chay or gà đi bo (literally “jogging chicken” or “walking chicken”), yielding bowls full of meat that has a flavor and texture reminiscent of traditionally raised chickens in Vietnam. If you want to create great chicken pho yourself, take a cue from the pros and start with quality birds. If you have never made pho, this recipe is ideal for learning the basics. It calls for fewer ingredients than other pho recipes, so you can focus on charring the onion and ginger to accentuate their sweetness, making a clear broth, and assembling steamy hot, delicious bowls. While some cooks flavor chicken pho broth with the same spices they use for beef pho, my family prefers using coriander seeds and cilantro to distinguish the two.

For Vietnamese living abroad, a trip to Saigon would be incomplete without a visit to Ben Thanh Market, a huge maze of fresh food and sundries. Near the center is a food court where vendors hawk popular Viet treats. As you sample their wares, you are apt to strike up conversations with other gluttonous Viet kieu (Vietnamese expats). On one occasion, a man from Texas visiting his family for Tet told me part of his daily routine while in Vietnam included eating mien gà, which was so deliciously light that it allowed him to order more dishes from other vendors. This noodle soup is easy to prepare. Most versions contain shallot, garlic, and chicken giblets, but our family enjoys a simpler preparation that focuses on just a few ingredients, most of which go into the hot stock moments before serving and are then ladled directly into the waiting bowls, with no fancy assembly required. For a nice lunch, present large servings of this soup with a special-event salad (pages 46 to 55). Or, offer it in smaller portions for an elegant beginning to a celebratory meal. This recipe is easily halved.

All of the best flavors of an American Thanksgiving are featured in this fall soup. The benefit of using vegetable stock is twofold: most important to me is taste—vegetable stock, as opposed to rich chicken stock, melds seamlessly with the pumpkin, thinning its body without competing with the flavor. It also means that this soup is a perfect option for vegetarian guests. Trust me; everyone at the table with be happy with this tasty offering.

I have had this chowder on the menu since day one, and no one—neither the patrons nor the staff—will let me take it off. Roasted sweet potato puree thickens the clam broth and imbues it with intense sweet flavor and a vibrant orange hue. That sweetness plays perfectly against the astringent wine and briny clam juice in the broth; a “touch” of rich cream added at the end brings everything lusciously together. Of course, there are also lots of fresh clams, smoky bacon, and (sweet) potato cubes in this hearty soup. Fresh tarragon delivers a touch of delicate anise flavor and a spot of green in the otherwise sunset-orange soup.

This soup is a perfect example of one of the things I love to do at Bar Americain: personalize a French brasserie classic with truly American ingredients. This is our American French onion soup. Vidalia onions are super-sweet variety of onion grown in—and trademarked by!—the state of Georgia. Their sweetness is unmatched, and the slow process of caramelizing them in this recipe intensifies their flavor. (If Vidalia onions aren’t unavailable, you can try Walla Wallas from Washington or Hawaii’s Maui onions.) Breaking though the browned crust of sharp Vermont cheddar cheese into the molten interior is the first delicious step in devouring this hearty soup. Fresh parsley pesto finishes the dish with a hit of bright color and flavor.

This soup delivers a powerful burst of summer. Corn truly is a seasonal ingredient; it’s at its best when eaten as soon after it’s picked as possible. For most of us, corn season is mid to late summer. Always buy ears of corn that are still in their husks, which should be green and tight around the ears, with silk that is a pale golden green and clings tightly to the kernels. Naturally sweet to begin with, corn intensifies in flavor when roasted. Making a stock with the cobs is a simple, gratifying step for the fullness of corn flavor it delivers. A touch of crème fraîche balances the corn’s sweetness and adds a richness to the finished soup while fried rounds of okra provide a nice crunch.

Years ago, my dad owned a Honeybee Ham store, which he bought mostly as a tax write-off—until my sister Mary Jane got involved, that is. She took over the kitchen and started making, among other things, her fabulous bean soup for the store’s little front-of-the-house café. Business took off. But my father, whose main business was swimming pool contracting, finally sold it. Until he did, for years we had ham for every occasion—parties, family reunions, holidays. After that, I didn’t eat ham for a while. My little sister died suddenly last year, and I recently found her handwritten bean soup recipe in an old notebook. Serve it with my iceberg wedges (page 219) and Sweet Potato Biscuits (page 239), and you’ve got an easy, fortifying meal fit for a group of friends or family on a cool winter evening. Don’t forget that the beans need overnight soaking before cooking.

It took my mother years to convince Chef Heinz at the Beaumont Country Club to share his recipe for brandied Cheddar cheese soup. Once she got the recipe, it became one of her favorite party soups. I’ve tweaked it a little, substituting beer for brandy and omitting the Cheese Whiz (it was the 1960s, after all). Serve it in little bowls, shot glasses, or espresso cups, so friends can pick it up and enjoy this rich, tummy-warming combination in a few sips, without a spoon.

Posole is a pork-based soup that’s really a cross between a soup and a stew. Apart from the pork, the main ingredient is hominy—white corn kernels that have been soaked in lye. Many Texans profess to love posole, but I’ve always found it impossibly bland. That is, until I tried Rosa’s version, which she transformed from blah to bueno with the addition of a flavor-packed red chile sauce. Rosa, a native of Mexico City, has worked at Rather Sweet since it opened almost ten years ago. A traditional Mexican concoction, posole comes in many styles, and is often prepared on feast days or to celebrate the new year, says Rosa. Sounds like a natural party food to me. I like to serve Red Posole as a main course for an informal dinner party on a cool night. Make a big batch of guacamole (page 255) and set out bowls with all of the traditional posole accompaniments—lime wedges, thinly sliced radishes, lettuce, and green onions. Serve the posole in the Dutch oven you made it in, or seize the chance to use that old-fashioned soup tureen you inherited from Great-Aunt Belle. Decorate your serving table with a Mexican-style tablecloth or a colorful runner. Bundle cloth napkins with the necessary silverware and set out a stack of deep soup bowls and small plates. Let guests serve themselves buffet style. Complete your stress-free, do-ahead dinner with a large pitcher of White Sangria (page 175) and a combination plate of Chile Crinkle Cookies (page 206) and Chubby’s White Pralines (page 68).

This cold soup is yet another use for the exploding basil in my garden. I created it for a backyard party that Country Living photographed for a summertime issue. There’s something special and a little bit elegant about starting an alfresco party meal with soup. Texas summers are so hot that I always like to offer something refreshing right off the bat. The gorgeous green color of this soup is set off beautifully by stark white serving bowls.

This is a recipe payoff from having made the Stewed Cauliflower, Butternut Squash, and Tomatoes (page 55), beefed up with the addition of white beans, crunchy croutons, fresh thyme, and cheese. The soup is a beautiful orange color and tastes of cream, even though it has no such thing in it.

This is like a taco in soup form. It is not a traditional tortilla soup, but a black bean backdrop for a double or triple hit of corn (stock, tortillas, and fresh kernels), plus just-cooked shrimp. Like a taco, it’s hearty and satisfying without being fussy, and once you have the black bean soup base (page 52) ready and waiting, it’s a snap to put together.

Scallops are a solo cook’s friend because, like shrimp, they come in easy-to-manage amounts, cook quickly, and take well to all sorts of preparations. Here, they help bulk up black bean soup into a meal. Look for “dry-packed” scallops, which are shipped without the extra water and additives that dull the flavor of wet-packed scallops, making them sweeter and easier to get a nice crust on. If you can find them, you don’t need to rinse and pat them dry.

This elegant soup has a depth of flavor, brightened by orange and layered with smoked paprika, that would make it right at home as a dinner party starter. For yourself, pair it with a side salad and a big piece of crusty bread, and it’s dinner tonight, while you plan the party for another day.

I got the idea from Lidia Bastianich to make soup bases that pack a lot of flavor on the weekend, then freeze them and thaw them as needed, adding various ingredients on the fly to take them in different directions. I like to concentrate the base, which saves freezer space, and then thin it out when I make a finished soup. Before you thin it out (and jazz it up) for the final soup, this base may remind you of a certain fluffy Thanksgiving side dish (minus the mini-marshmallows, thankfully), but there are some key differences. Besides the lack of cream or sugar, the most important one is the cooking method: Rather than boiling peeled cubes of sweet potato, I like to roast them, concentrating the complex flavor, which is highlighted by subtle hints of thyme and curry. This makes an especially vibrant backdrop to such treatments as Sweet Potato Soup with Chorizo, Chickpeas, and Kale (page 43). There are many other possibilities. You can sprinkle ground chipotle or pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika) for heat and/or smoke, or add toasted pecans, yogurt (or sour cream or crème fraîche), and other sausages or cured meats.

Turn the Sweet Potato Soup Base into a meal with spicy chorizo, hearty chickpeas, and vibrant green kale. This makes a truly beautiful bowl of soup. If you’d rather keep this soup vegetarian, try the grain-based chorizo substitute from Field Roast, one of the first meat substitutes I’ve actually liked. It’s available in natural food stores in almost every state and through www.fieldroast.com.