combine with each other. Sweating an onion will break
down cell walls, allowing this process to happen. The
same holds true for garlic, shallots, and leeks.- Browning starts out like sweating, but generally
takes place over higher heat. Once excess liquid from
vegetables has evaporated, the vegetables can begin to
brown and caramelize, creating rich flavors, more sweet
notes, and more complexity. You might think that more
flavor is always better, and thus you should always brown
your vegetables, but more often than not, this browning
can be overpowering, making soups too sweet or
competing too much with the subtler flavors of your main
vegetable.Step 4: Add Second-Level Aromatics Like Spices and
Pastes
After your aromatics have sweated or browned, the next
phase is your secondary aromatics, and it’s an optional stage
that’s often omitted. If you like very clean, pure-tasting
soups, jump ahead. If you like playing with flavors and
spices, then you’ll have fun with this step.
These are things like ground spices (say, curry powder,
ground cumin, or chili powder) and moist pastes (like
tomato paste, harissa, or chopped chipotle peppers in adobo
sauce). These types of ingredients benefit from a brief
toasting or frying in hot oil, which alters some of their
constituents into more complex, more aromatic products, as
well as extracting fat-soluble flavors so that they disperse
more evenly into the soup.
Because ground spices have such a high ratio of surface