How to Make
CREAMY Vegetable
Soups
WITHOUT A RECIPEWhen I was a totally green cook with my first serious
restaurant job, working under Chef Jason Bond at what’s
now a landmark Boston restaurant, No. 9 Park, there
were many moments when I learned a new technique or
perfected an old one and said to myself, “Holy crap, I just
made this?”But the very first was when Chef Bond taught me how to
make a creamy chanterelle soup (read: Campbell’s cream of
mushroom soup on tasty, tasty crack), sweating aromatics,
sautéing mushrooms, adding a good stock, and pureeing it
all while emulsifying the mixture with fresh butter.
Like any great vegetable soup, the end result was
something that tasted like a liquefied, purified, intensified
version of itself—this soup tasted more like chanterelles
than actual chanterelles. The magic lies in the way that
aromatic ingredients can bring out other flavors, as well as
the way in which liquids coat your mouth, giving more
direct contact to your taste buds and olfactory sensors, and
making for easier release of volatile compounds.
These days, there aren’t too many vegetables in the world