So THAT's Why Restaurant Soup Is So Much Better
We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how the pros nail everything from mashed potato to chips and even poached eggs.
But after a recent trip to a great cafe near me, I started to wonder if I’ve been making soup wrong at home, too.
Something about restaurant soup just feels more... soup-y, don’t you think? The flavours are more concentrated, the texture is silkier, and they rarely contain that unpleasant aluminium tang that tinned soup can bring to the table.
Thankfully, ex-professional chef Matt Broussard shared some answers on his Facebook page, revealing his secrets to the perfect tomato soup.
How do restaurants make soup taste so good?
He shared that the secret to a “creamy, luxurious soup” starts off with using both butter and oil as fat before sweating off your onions and garlic.
“The oil is going to help raise the smoke point of my butter,” which has “all that delicious flavour, but it can burn by the time I’m ready to get my onions in there and start sauteeing them,” he said.
He also tosses his spices in with the fat as the onions cook.
This, the ex-chef said, is because “spices love to be reconstituted, reheated, to get that dispersion of flavour”.
Fat absorbs that flavour and goes on to coat everything in the soup, Broussard added.
Another top tip is to use tomato puree before deglazing the pan; doing so after you’ve added liquid will prevent delicious “caramelisation”.
He also waits until the soup is fully blended before seasoning it with salt and pepper; you won’t know what baseline you’re working with otherwise.
Simmering your soup after pureeing it can provide that restaurant-level “silkiness,” Broussard continues, though he admits that nothing beats a “high-powered blender” for truly luxurious smoothness.
He blends his tomato soup for five straight minutes: “You’ve got to let it go for longer than you’d think... that’s going to make all of the difference.”
Lastly, the ex-pro serves his soup in a warm bowl, which he says is a game-changer.
Any other tips?
Yes! Speaking to Mashed, James DiBella, head chef of Link & Pin and The Cellar, said restaurants use way more onions than we tend to at home.
Chef Olivier Koster added that restaurants usually only let one or two ingredients “shine” too, refusing to muddy the flavour with conflicting, strong-tasting ingredients.
And lastly, a classic – chef Bernhard Mairinger told the publication that restaurant soups definitely contain more butter than homemade soups, too. We wouldn’t expect anything less.