The name of the soup is determined by the main vegetable used, e.g. carrots, turnips, jerusalem artichokes, celery. For example:
Purée of Carrot Soup — Purée Crécy
Purée of Turnip Soup — Purée Freneuse
Purée of Mixed Vegetable Soup — Purée de Légumes
Makes: 2 liters. Cooking time: 1 & 1/2 hours.
Ingredients:
— 100 grams butter
— 1 kg grams roughly cut vegetables
— 2 & 1/2 liters white stock or water.
— 450 grams potatoes
— 1 bouquet garni
— seasoning of salt and pepper
— diced bread croûtons
Method:
(1) Melt the butter in a deep saucepan.
(2) Add all the vegetables and sweat them. (3) Add the stock or water, bring to the boil and skim.
(4) Add the potatoes at this stage, the bouquet garni and seasoning.
(5) Allow to simmer until all the ingredients are cooked. (If other thickening agents are being used, they should be added at this stage.)
(6) Remove the bouquet garni.
(7) Purée the soup.
(8) Reboil, correct consistency, and season to taste.
Notes:
(1) Other possible thickening agents are rice, potato flour and potato powder. Thickening agents, including potatoes if used, must not be added at the initial stewing stage.
(2) To test if cooked remove some of the vegetables with a perforated spoon and test for softness by squeezing between the fingers. If they are cooked they should not resist the pressure but form a pulp.
(3) If sweating the vegetables in order to extract their flavour and cook them is not carried out properly the flavour of the soup will be affected and prolonged cooking may be necessary.
(4) If the vegetables are not thoroughly cooked before puréeing, a very coarse texture and graining will result. It is possible to rectify this to some degree by passing the soup through a very fine strainer, though this will have a direct effect upon the volume reducing it considerably.
(5) When making a white purée soup with cauliflower, jerusalem artichokes, haricot beans, etc., the colour will be affected if it is cooked in an aluminium pan. The soup may become grey in colour and the flavour distorted.
(6) The degree of fineness of the sieve or soup machine will affect the texture of the soup. This can be rectified by passing the soup through a fine conical strainer a second time, but there may be a loss of volume, especially where only a small quantity is being made.