Cold Soups: Turn Down Heat and Turn Up The Flavor
Cold soup is a favorite as a refreshing alternative to warm, hearty soups. These recipes/dishes tend to be chock full of fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables from honeydew to cucumber and mint to zesty gazpacho. No doubt cold soups offer their own uniquely “slurpable” flavors.
For cold soup newcomers, one favorite Spanish recipe gazpacho is the ultimate chilled soup for many. Made with the ripest tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, this vegetarian classic soup is thickened with stale bread or bread crumbs/croutons and brightened up with garlic and sherry vinegar. Other favorite classic cold soups are vichyssoise, borscht, yogurt cucumber & dill, and carrot ginger. Soups, either hot or cold are great platforms for your creative side to shine. They can be jazzed up with seasoning blends, like Ras el Hanout, or Chinese five spice, to name just a few, and don’t forget about the wide variety of fresh herbs that will complement your creation.
Smoothies and smoothie bowls have been all the rage the past few years. For a Smoothie bowl, you can create pretty much any combo of flavors and then top it with your favorite fruits or crunchies like cereal and nuts. This means it’s more satisfying than a regular smoothie. You eat it with a spoon, like cold soup. This made us think, how about using some of our cold soups as a base for a smoothie or smoothie bowl. After trial and error with various soup blends, we ended up with a few tasty treats. Using these soup blends, such as carrot ginger, not only gave us great looking and tasty smoothies, but also a nice nutritional boost.
So for a change of pace, take the chance and mix some fruit and veggies together. Please see our featured recipes for some inspiration. Enjoy!
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Ingredients
There are three main types of soups: clear or brothy, creamy or thick, and cold. All soups begin with stock or broth. Clear soups can contain vegetables, meat and beans. Cream soups start off the same as a clear soup but also include cream or a thickening agent such as a roux. Some examples of creamy or thick soups are bisque, gumbo and stew. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be cold outside to enjoy soup. Cold soups are also delicious and refreshing to eat. They can be savory or sweet and even eaten as dessert!
Developing the perfect sausage can be an exciting and fun journey as seasonings, binders, casings, and meat choices come together as one. Here at Newly Weds Foods, we hold ourselves to a culinary gold standard in helping our customers create products that balance taste with texture, bite, and value. We also have a deep understanding of the manufacturing process and operate several pilot plants at select Newly Weds Foods locations around the world, which house processing equipment consistent with what our customers use. This enables us to translate a winning chef driven recipe to a formula that works on a large scale processing line.
The first key consideration is fat. It carries flavor and provides an entirely different texture and juiciness than the meat itself. The percentage of fat used is based on the type of sausage made, but typically ranges from 24% to 42%. The next consideration is the handling of the meat. The use of fresh meat is preferred over frozen meat because thawed meat tends to release a lot of moisture and lead to an overly dry and firm sausage. The meat should not be overmixed as that breaks down fat and leads to an unpleasant texture. Finally, meat temperature must be controlled in storage and in processing to meat food safety and quality standards. Too much heat can lead to bacterial growth and unwanted melting of fat. Finally, salt is essential. It opens up the muscle fibers in the meat to want and accept fat, water, seasoning, and other ingredients as well as envelop them to get the full impact in every bite. Salt also enables the fat to blend perfectly with the meat, which gives sausage that great snap people enjoy.
Rusk used in sausage production started in southwest Britain in the 1920’s. Until that point, sausages were often made with stale bread crumbs obtained from the local baker. However, stale bread, though cheap, did have its shortcomings. The variability of the bread led to differences in water absorption as well as uncontrolled bacterial count, leading to accelerated sausage souring and problems with color and shelf life. Rusk solved the issues through its manufacturing process, with its consistency delivering predictable outcomes. It greatly contributes to a desirable finished product texture (without being too meaty or mealy), extended shelf life, an enhanced appearance and overall value.
Sausages that were made in this way had a tendency to pop when cooked. During World War II British soldiers would put them on shovels over an open fire, and the bursting of their casing in the trenches of northern Europe were rumored to sound like cracks of gunfire. Thus, the British “banger” was born. While this tale may be more fiction than fact, it highlights one unique aspect that defines the banger, although maybe slightly exaggerated.
Cake
Let’s “relish the thought” of eating a simple hot dog at the old ballpark or during a backyard party this summer. Now, combine the love of hot dogs with the knowledge of cooking and fun ingredients. That takes one of America’s greatest comfort foods off the kid’s side of the menu and moves it to the adult side: “Haute Dogs.”