What can I do to soup to make it more interesting?
Helen, Oxford
“You could really go down the rabbit hole with this,” says Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes of Lisboeta in London. Soups are transformed by the addition of crunchy, creamy, fresh and/or herby things, he says, but you can go as simple (yoghurt, soft-boiled eggs, toasted nuts) or fancy (fish tartare) as you like. Smooth vegetable soups always welcome some extra veg at the end, Mendes says – he suggests finely dicing some more of the veg you used as the base for the soup, then mix it with fresh herbs and lemon zest and spoon on top. “Or blitz raw cauliflower or broccoli into ‘couscous’, season and add herbs,” he adds. Veg scraps, too, can give many a soup a lift, says Lucy Carr-Ellison, co-founder of Wild by Tart: “Use carrot tops to make a pesto, or shred raw beetroot tops and mix with olive oil and lemon juice.”
Root veg soups pair happily with fruit in various guises. Mendes floats orange segments on top of his borscht-style beetroot soup, then tops it with a little olive oil and chervil, for instance, while Ramael Scully, executive chef and co-owner of Scully in London, suggests a scattering of pomegranate seeds pickled in red-wine vinegar, pomegranate juice, sugar and a touch of water to go on top of pumpkin soup. Ferments, too, will give the likes of rich parsnip soup a welcome kick, with Mendes adding chopped kimchi, brown butter and toasted pine nuts to his.
