it sounds to me like your saying, make the soup as is, except for the ham, leave the ham out.

then after you've dished it up into a bowl, sprinkle the chives, cheddar cheese, and bacon over the bowl with a dollop of sour cream on the side of the bowl.

while it sounds to me like he thinks your saying add the cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, and green onions to the soup as a part of the cooking process.

so what are you saying?

This post was edited by Ylem122 on Feb 19 2014 04:43am

Cheese goes in after the soup is finished cooking, but before serving. Bacon goes in the pot right at the start, cook it and then sweat the mirepoix in the bacon grease. Build the soup from there. Green onions and sour cream are a garnish. This is just how I've found it turns out best from experience.

But honestly, you could add the green onions at the beginning, the sour cream with the cheese, or use all of them as a garnish and it would still turn out great.

You know absolutely nothing about my cooking knowledge, skill, or ability. You're making snobby assumptions because of chicken bouillon? get a grip dude. This isn't a purist 5 star restaurant recipe that you spend half a day making. Its meant to be simple - that's what the original poster requested. If you think adding cheese and bacon makes things better by default, then its my turn to question your cooking skills (i really dont care). Don't be so arrogant. Your last sentence doesn't even make sense because a recipe is a set of instructions for preparing a particular dish (methodology and technique), including a list of the ingredients required. Instead of trying to advise people on a recipe that you have never made, post your own.

You were the one who started the hostility. I also never said adding cheese and bacon by default makes things better, but in some cases it does. Simple using bad ingredients doesn't make it a good recipe. It's very easy and simple to buy high quality stocks, check your local butcher shops. You're giving out bad advice. Whether or not you admit it doesn't matter to me. I'm acting arrogant towards you because you deserve it, I'm usually never arrogant. And about your cooking knowledge, if you had any you'd be arguing my points about cooking, not about me being arrogant, or about what defines a recipe. Methodology is more than just a recipe, it's something you apply to everything you cook. You need basic knowledge and understanding of techniques and recipes to develop a proper methodology. You could call it "style" i suppose.

But, I'm done being negative. I did try your recipe tonight, and it tasted good.

cooking is much much much more then a recipie, its a science.

like say you have a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that's perfect but the cookies are crunchy and you want them chewy, what do you do? get another recipe!!!

No, replace some of the white sugar with brown sugar and after you spoon out the cookies put them in the freezer for a while before you cook them. the molasses in the brown sugar will attract more moisture and help keep the cookies moist, putting them in the freezer will help slow down how fast the center cooks and prevent them from over flattening out.

being a chef, being a cook, enjoying cooking, its about taking a recipe and saying, this is a good recipe, but with a few tweaks I can make it better.




Using the grease to sweat the veggies is a good idea, but I like my bacon crunchy when its on potatoes. Id probly do up a lot of bacon, set aside half of it, and make the soup with the other half. then after dishing it up, garnish with the cheddar cheese, then sprinkle over some of the bacon I set aside and the green onions. that way the soup has the bacon taste and the crunchy texture.

This post was edited by Ylem122 on Feb 20 2014 12:31am

That's a good idea ylem. Best of both worlds.

definatly going to sweat the veggies in the grease, but the bacon you sprinkle ontop are like little flavor crystals, and like how much bacon is on the broth, with good mouth feel its going to linger and i think is going to deminish from the impact of the flavor crystals, while you definatly want some bacon in the broth to keep you going till your next flavor crystal, finding the right balance, the grease alone might be enough.

as far as broths and boulion, some soups dont really matter, if i have a good ham bone im going to make split pea with it, if i dont ill use ham base for my split pea.




heres the deal right, meat has little connective tissue, bones have lots of connective tissue.

connective tissue curls up at high temperatures and and melts out at low temperatures over a long period of time.

this connective tissue give a soup its mouth feel

bones have lots of connective tissue, so a broth made with good bones has lots of mouth feel, very good consistency and texture, a broth made with just meat will have less mouth feel, more watery, but meat gives good flavor, a broth made with chicken base is barely going to have any mouth feel with out some thickner like corn starch, so like if your making a broth, drum sticks, a whole chiken, thighs, anything with the bone in it and some meat on it is a good start.

cover it with water season it add onions celery ect and boil it at a low boil for a long time, 1.5 hours or longer to get that connective tissue to melt off.

This post was edited by Ylem122 on Feb 20 2014 08:54am

Good advice on the stock/broth difference. However, when making stock I'd say that a low boil is too high, you risk making the stock cloudy. It should be BARELY simmering. Another very important factor is using bones from younger animals, so for chicken stock you'd want to use bones from a fryer not a roaster and especially not a stewing chicken. The younger the animal the more connective tissue and cartilage, which melts into gelatin and improves mouth feel. You also want to start with cold water, this way all the impurities will rise to the surface of the stock as the heat is increasing. Skim them off and you'll end up with a super clear and flavorful stock, provided you're gentle with the stock when straining.

All this is pretty important with stock making, but it's much easier to just check your local butcher shops, many of them make large batches of stock with all the scraps from butchering. If you want a good soup, and don't want to spend the time to make your own stock then this is the way to go.

Personally I like to use everything I can when I buy food so what I do at home is I will freeze leftover chicken carcasses or bones until I have enough to make a batch of stock. I always buy bone-in cuts or whole chickens and butcher them myself at home depending on what I need. It's also a good way to save money.

Post more recipes! I love soup!! Anyone know a good tortilla soup?