The Soupmaker's Kitchen: How to Save Your Scraps, Prepare a Stock, and Craft the Perfect Pot of Soup

Soup, beautiful soup—the most basic of cooked foods, the universal cure-all, a nourishing way to use small amounts of food or leftovers, a dish that can always be stretched to feed more …

Once again award-winning chef Aliza Green invites you into her kitchen to share her time-tested techniques for making dozens of soups, bisques, chowders, and purées. From the basic foundation of stocks to the older, European-inspired concoctions, such as Zuppa Pavese and French Onion Soup, Aliza outlines the origins, ingredients, and steps necessary to create a warm and satisfying culinary experience every time. Explore more than 100 soup recipes, plus variations on each one, from all over the world, and in every style of soup you might want to eat. Recipes include:

—Hungarian Woodlands Mushroom Soup with Sour Cream and Paprika

—Tuscan Pappa al Pomodoro

—Senegalese Peanut and Yam Puree with Ginger

—Provencal Soupe au Pistou with Savoy Cabbage, White Beans, and Leeks

—Wild Salmon Chowder with Sweet Corn & Gold Potatoes

—Tom Kha Gai (Thai Chicken Coconut Soup)

—Cream of Cauliflower with Nutmeg and Chives

—Kerala Red Lentil Soup (vegan)

—Vietnamese Pho Soup with Beef Brisket

—Caribbean Callalou Soup with Crabmeat and Coconut

Accompanied by Steve Legato’s clearly detailed, full-color photography, your soup making success will be effortless. Inside you’ll find a wide-ranging collection of recipes to suit every palate including seafood, poultry, pork, beef, vegan and vegetarian formulas, and a wealth of information you will use over and over again in your culinary endeavors.

Basic Stocks: The importance of using your vegetable water, roasting juices, trimmings, seasonings, and the right vegetables to get optimum flavor from your stock

Soupmaker’s Tips: Ingredients prep—how to correctly wash, slice, and dice ? When fresh versus frozen is important ? Using flavor enhancers such as fresh herbs and appropriate spices ? How to get the best results from the proper utensils ? Invaluable time savers ? Creative serving suggestions

Basic Techniques: How to properly chill soup, the process of cooking dried beans, the correct shredding method for cabbage, the art of cutting leaves into chiffonade, and many more

Aliza Green is an award-winning author, journalist, and influential chef whose books include The Butcher’s Apprentice, Making Artisan Pasta, The Fishmonger’s Apprentice, and The Soup Maker's Kitchen. A former food columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Green now write regularly for Cooking Light and is known for her encyclopedic knowledge of every possible ingredient, its history, culture, and use in the kitchen and bakery. Green’s books have garnered high praise from critics, readers, and culinary professionals alike, including a James Beard award for “Best Single-Subject Cookbook” in 2001 for Ceviche!: Seafood, Salads, and Cocktails with a Latino Twist (Running Press, 2001), which she co-authored with Chef Guillermo Pernot. She lives in Philadelphia, PA. Visit her online at http://www.alizagreen.com.

Photography by Steve Legato [Photographer]. Steve has been on assignment in the Philadelphia, NJ/NY area, across the US and internationally for over 10 years. He is a regular contributer to Art Culinaire, Philadelphia Magazine, New Jersey Life, and Main Line Today. Other clients include Food Arts, Wine Spectator, Market Watch, Philadelphia Style, New Jersey Monthly, Elegant Wedding, Wine and Spirits Quarterly, Philadelphia Official Visitor's Guide, AC Now and Delaware Today. His work has also been featured in Bon Appetit, GQ, Travel & Leisure, Elle, Town & Country, Departures, Wine and Spirits and the New York Times. Steve has photographed ad campaigns for ARAMARK, wawa Food Stores, and Oso Sweet Onions as well as contributed images to many restaurant and hotel websites and print ads. Additionally, Steve has photographed for 11 cookbooks/food reference books including, Civiche by Guillermo Pernot which won a James Beard Award, 2002. Steve resides just outside Philadelphia with his wife and two children, where dinner is mostly made from scratch and inspired attemps at cooking are reasonably well tolerated.