Finish Your Soup With a Little Bit of Fat

Finish Your Soup With a Little Bit of Fat
Contributor: Claire Lower

All meals deserve a finishing touch of something, and soup is no different. Flakey salt, a squeeze of lemon juice, or a smattering of fresh herbs are all welcome first-tier finishers, but the most luxurious of them all is a touch of fat, specifically butter or olive oil. It’s particularly special when used added to a bowl of soup.

I’m sure other fancy oils like hazelnut or sesame would work as well, but the ubiquitous olive works with almost any kind of soup, be it a hot bowl of creamy mushroom soup, or a chilled gazpacho. Butter is a bit more limited — it doesn’t do to well in cold soups — but very powerful when used correctly.

But before we talk soup specifics, it’s helpful to understand the benefit of finishing with a little fat. Fat carries flavour, but the flavour of the fat itself — like the tang in cultured butter, or the pepperiness of a good olive oil — can get lost and muddled during cooking. Adding a small amount to your soup right before serving lets that flavour shine, while also providing a fuller, more luxurious feeling in one’s mouth. (And who doesn’t want a mouthful of luxury?)

Olive oil is a pretty universal finisher, but I think it does particularly well with veggie-heavy gazpacho, or a “cream of” anything. It may seem like overkill to add oil to an already creamy soup, but high-quality olive oil feels silky, not creamy, and the two textures work in tandem to create a soup that feels ultra-rich but not too heavy or greasy.

Butter is a little different, and its application is a little more instinctual. Nothing really tastes bad with butter, though it would probably feel weird in a cold soup. Think about all the things restaurants slather on butter to heighten their flavour, then go from there. It can complement a beef and barley soup in the same way it finishes a steak, heighten the decadence factor in a bowl of chicken and rice (or stars), and — as A.A. Newton has mentioned previously — butter and miso go together “like peanut butter and jam.”

Baked potato soup, corn chowder, lentil soup, and ramen all become more meal-like and delicious with a little pat of butter floated on top. Adding it to a seafood bisque is probably overkill, but I’ve never been known for my restraint.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


Leave a Reply