The Fundamental Principle of Any Soup, Stew, Casserole, or Dal
A hearty minestrone style soup with green split peas, black cabbage and olives. Flavour base: onion + fennel + garlic + celery + carrot + tomato; Liquid: water with vegetable stock from solid.
There are three elements:
The ‘Flavour Base’
We’re talking some type of allium, i.e. onion family (garlic, onion, leek, etc.) as well as spices, herbs, etc. Although you could also consider as part of the ‘liquid’, I refer to tomatoes as part of the flavour base because they contain glutamates, which is what gives the umami flavour.
When cooking a plant-based soup, stew, or dal it’s really important for the final result to use plenty of material for you flavour base. In the base of pulses, over the years, we’ve discovered that a good ratio is 1:1 dried pulses to solid material in the base. So for instance, if you are using 300 grams of dried lentils, you will want to use roughly the same quantity of onion, carrot, celery, fennel, leek, or whatever it is that you’re using.
Unless you are allergic to onion, it really is pretty fundamental and should be included. If you are allergic to onion, an alternative is to use other veg foundation and then add some asofeitida otherwise known as hinge, which is a powder made from a root that’s widely used in Indian temple cooking where they don’t use onion for religious reasons.
The liquid
so water or some kind of stock along with ingredients like miso, soya sauce, anchovies, etc. that will give umami depth.. this is particularly important when you are cooking without any animal ingredients and want to ensure a deeply satisfying result.
What you’re cooking
So that could be pulses, grains, meat, fish, veggies or a combination thereof. If you are using pulses you will get a far more delicious result if you start with the dry ones, which are then soaked and then cooked directly in the flavour base + liquid. If your pulse of choice is red kidney beans, you will need to boil them for ten minutes in salty water before adding to the soup/stew/casserole.
Method:
Chop, slice or dice the elements for your flavour base. A hack here is to use a food processor if you can’t be bothered to do the knife work.
Add oil (in most cases extra virgin olive oil works well) to a thick bottomed pot that’s on a medium heat. Add the veg for your flavour base and sweat until it’s really nice an caramelised. The level of colouring depends on the character (light or dark notes) that you want to final result to be. As an example, if you’re cooking a lentil bolognese type ragu (Italian name for stew) then you will want some serious caramelisation, whereas if your cooking a South Indian type light and fragrant dal, you will want less caramelisation.
When your flavour base has come about half way (5-10 minutes) then you add dry herbs and spices that you’re using.
Finish sweating/sautéing your flavour base until you think it’s there. You will get bette and better at judging it the more you do it. Rule of thumb though is always: the longer the better. You can sweat a light colour flavour base for just as long as one that darker. It depends on the temperature at which you’re working it. On that note, it’s a good idea to have some water handy to lower the temperature if it starts to catch or burn. Simply add a few splashes. You will also want to use a lid along the way. By keeping the steam in the vessel, you are controlling the temperature, which allows for the Maillard reactions to happen without it going to dark.
If using tomato, now is the time for those to go in. If using tomato concentrate you want to add this first in order to ‘burn off’ the acidity. By doing so you are deepening the final result. ALWAYS ‘burn off’ tomato concentrate.
After your tomatoes (if using) have been cooking for 15-20 minutes (it’s really important when using tinned tomatoes that they are cooked for a long time, so the acidity develops into more desired flavour molecules (again it’s the Maillard reactions at play).
Add the liquid you are using. Typically water if you are using a solid stock. Otherwise the liquid could be a stock or bouillon.
Allow everything to cook together and infuse for sometime (15-20) minutes) before adding the main element i.e. pulses, grains, meats, etc. If you are using meat you will typically have wanted to brown this off and remove from the pot before you commence the flavour base sweating action.
Cook until everything is as tender as you want it to be. Taste and adjust seasoning. Maybe a few drops of soy sauce or fish sauce (we cannot stress enough the importance of working with umami giving ingredients), perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice, a few drops of sherry vinegar.. a bit more salt, a pinch of sugar? Remember that seasoning, that is, getting the dimensions of umami, salt, acidity, sweetness in balance is the difference between an average stew and something that will make you hear a choir of angels.
Happy home-cooking!