How to make soup that is delicious and nutritious? Tips and precautions for making soup

There is a bowl of steaming hot soup on the dining table, which often makes people salivate. Especially in winter and spring, the soup can not only help people keep warm, but also whet their appetite.

Making soup is something people often do, and of course it refers to those who pay more attention to health. Everyone knows that this kind of soup is very beneficial to health, but if you don't know how to make soup, it's hard to say whether it has any effect. In order for drinking soup to truly play a role in strengthening the body, preventing and curing diseases, certain scientific principles must be followed when making and drinking soup, otherwise deviations may occur.

Soup ingredients

1. Food ingredients

Freshness is not the traditional "meat is killed immediately, fish is eaten alive" freshness. The freshness mentioned here refers to 3-5 hours after the fish, livestock, or poultry are killed. At this time, various enzymes in the fish, livestock, or poultry meat decompose proteins, fats, etc. into amino acids and fatty acids that are easily absorbed by the human body, and the taste is also good. most.

2. Cooking utensils

The best way to make fresh soup is to simmer it in an aged earthenware pot. Crock pots are made of clay made of quartz, feldspar, clay and other raw materials that are not easy to conduct heat, and are fired at high temperatures. It has good ventilation and adsorption properties, and also has the characteristics of uniform heat transfer and slow heat dissipation. When simmering fresh soup, the earthen pot can transfer external heat to the internal raw materials in a balanced and lasting manner. The relatively balanced ambient temperature is conducive to the mutual penetration of water molecules and food. The longer this mutual penetration is maintained, the more delicious the soup will be. The more ingredients dissolve, the more delicious the soup will be and the crispier the texture of the food will be.

3. Heat

The key to simmering soup is to bring it to a boil over high heat and simmer slowly over low heat. This can dissolve food protein extracts and other fragrant substances as much as possible, making the soup fresh and delicious. Only by simmering over low heat for a long time can the extract be dissolved more, making it clear and rich.

4. Water distribution

In principle, when making soup, water should be added to soak all the ingredients. When using ingredients such as beef and mutton, the water level must exceed the ingredients. Remember not to add water halfway to avoid diluting the original flavor of the ingredients. If water must be added, heat the water as well. The timing has to be right. Although soup needs to be simmered over slow fire for a long time, longer is not always better. For most soups, 1 to 2 hours is appropriate, and for meat, 2 to 3 hours is the best time to bring out the freshest flavor. If leafy vegetables are used as the main ingredient, it is even more unfavorable to cook them for too long.

5. Seasoning

If you like to drink the original flavor refreshingly, you can add no seasoning. If you want to season it, it is recommended to add some salt to enhance the flavor before cooking. Adding salt too early will release the water contained in the meat and accelerate the coagulation of protein, affecting the delicious taste of the soup. If you like a stronger taste, you can also add chicken essence or mushroom essence. If you are cooking fish, you can add ginger slices or rice wine to remove the fishy smell.

Soup Tips

1. Fresh

It is best to use cold water when making soup. If hot water is poured into the pot at the beginning and the surface of the meat is suddenly exposed to high temperature, the outer protein of the meat will solidify immediately, so that the outer protein cannot be fully dissolved into the soup. Only by using cold water and heating it slowly can the protein be fully dissolved into the soup and the soup will taste delicious. In addition, don't add salt too early when making soup. Salt will cause the water contained in the meat to escape quickly and will also accelerate the coagulation of protein. It is not advisable to add soy sauce early, and do not add too much condiments such as onions, ginger, and wine, as these will affect the flavor of the soup itself.

2. Clear

If you want the soup to be clear and not turbid, you must cook it over low heat so that the soup only boils but does not boil. Because the boiling speed will cause the protein molecules in the soup to condense into many white particles, and the soup will naturally become turbid.

3. thick

In the absence of fresh soup, to make the soup thicker, first, add thin gravy to the soup to increase the thickness of the soup. The second is to add oil to mix the oil and soup into an emulsion. The method is to heat the oil first, wash down the soup, cover the pot tightly and cook over high heat. After a while, the soup will thicken.

4. light

Just sew flour or rice into a small cloth bag, put it into the soup and cook it together. The salt will be absorbed and the soup will naturally become lighter. You can also add a washed raw potato and cook for 5 minutes to make the soup lighter.

5. Refreshing

Some raw materials with too much fat will make the soup very greasy. In this case, you can roast a small amount of seaweed on the fire and then sprinkle it into the soup to remove the greasiness.

Soup is very important in both Chinese and foreign meals, whether it is a Han-Manchu banquet or a meal in ordinary people's homes. Drinking soup can improve your health and preserve your health. Today, drinking soup has become a fashion. You can see people specializing in soup everywhere. storefront. Sometimes when you have a busy day, it's nice to have some soup when you get home. However, in order for drinking soup to truly play a role in strengthening the body, preventing and treating diseases, and promoting health, science must be paid attention to when making and drinking soup.

Things to note when making soup

1. It is not suitable to make soup to supplement when you have a cold. Even American ginseng, which is mild in nature, is best not to take it because it can easily aggravate cold symptoms.

2. Some soups with therapeutic effects need to be drunk regularly to be effective, preferably 2-3 times a week.

3. You can also choose mild soup according to your physical condition. If your body is full of fire, you can choose fire-clearing and moisturizing foods such as mung beans, kelp, winter melon, lotus seeds, etc. If your body is too cold, you should choose ginseng as the soup. Soup.

4. When making soup, do not use too high a fire. The heat should be based on the boiling degree of the soup. If the soup boils to a large boil, the protein molecules in the meat will be destroyed.

5. When simmering over low heat, do not open the lid or add water midway, because the meat being heated shrinks when it is cold, and the protein is not easily dissolved, and the soup will lose its original flavor, otherwise it will affect the taste of the soup.

6. When making soup with meat such as chicken, duck, ribs, etc., first boil the meat in boiling water. This process is called "watering out" or "flying water". It can not only remove blood and water, but also remove part of the fat to avoid being too fatty. .

7. The technique for making fish soup is to fry both sides of the fish in oil first. The skin will be firm and not easily broken, and there will be no fishy smell.

8. When making soup, it is better to add ingredients in cold water, because hot water will solidify the protein quickly and make it difficult to release the umami flavor.

9. When making soup, avoid adding too much seasonings such as onions, ginger, cooking wine, etc., so as not to affect the original flavor of the soup itself. Also avoid adding salt too early, because adding salt too early can make the protein in the meat coagulate and become difficult to dissolve. The color of the soup is dark, the concentration is not enough, and the appearance is not beautiful.

10. For soup-making utensils, it is better to choose a casserole with a fine texture. The enamel of inferior casseroles contains a small amount of lead, which is easily dissolved when cooking acidic foods and is harmful to health. A clay pot with a clean inner wall is the best. Use a newly bought casserole to cook porridge for the first time or grease the bottom of the pot and leave it for a day before washing it and boiling water. Only after completing the boiling procedure can you start making soup.

11. The nutrients in the soup are mainly amino acids. If the heating time is too long, new substances will be produced and the nutrients will be destroyed. Generally, about 1 hour for fish soup and about 3 hours for chicken soup and pork rib soup are enough, so it is not the time required to cook the soup. The longer the better.

12. Slaughter live chickens and eat frozen chickens: We are all used to going to the market to buy live chickens, killing them on the spot and making soup when we get home. We wish we didn’t waste any time in between. Actually this is not right. After buying fresh chicken, you should put it in the freezer of the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours before taking it out to defrost and make soup. This is the same as the principle of detoxifying meat. When an animal is killed suddenly, a variety of toxins will naturally be released in the body, and bacteria in freshly slaughtered hot meat multiply rapidly. Freezing not only sterilizes the meat, but also allows the meat to transition from the "rigid stage" to the "putrefactive stage" to the "mature stage". At this time, the meat quality is the best, and it is obviously fragrant and tender when simmered in soup.

13. As the folk proverb goes, drinking salt soup in the morning is like ginseng soup, and drinking salt soup in the evening is like arsenic. It is better to eat it in the morning or at noon. Do not drink meat soup in the evening. Drinking a cup of light salt water in the morning can be quickly absorbed by the body, which can dilute the blood, increase blood flow, and prevent cerebral thrombosis and arteriosclerosis. Drinking light salt water in the morning It is also a good way to prevent habitual constipation and maintain health.

Reasonable diet: common misunderstandings about drinking soup

Among all foods, soup is both the best and most difficult to make. Because making soup delicious requires skills. But does making soup just require skills? The answer is of course no. Making soup requires not only skills, but also nutrition. Let’s take a look at what we need to pay attention to.

Among the various foods we eat, soup is both nutritious and the most digestible. A survey by American nutritionists showed that among more than 60,000 people who accepted a nutritional census, those with good nutrition were those who often drank soup. However, because soup can be evenly dispersed in the small intestine and nutrients are easily digested and absorbed, drinking soup has the potential to make people gain weight. Many people think that drinking soup is a very simple thing, but they do not know that only by drinking soup scientifically can they absorb nutrients and avoid fat accumulation. In this regard, what should we pay attention to?

1. Soup rice

When we chew food, we not only need to chew the food into small pieces for easy swallowing, but more importantly, we need to moisten the food with saliva. Saliva is produced by constantly chewing food. There are many digestive enzymes in saliva that can help digestion and absorption, which is good for health. Very useful. Tangzuke rice soaks the rice until it is soft, so it does not affect swallowing even if you do not chew it. Therefore, the food you eat often enters the stomach before it has passed through the digestion process of saliva, which increases the burden on the stomach's digestion. Over time, it will It can easily cause stomach upset.

2. Drink soup without eating "dregs"

Some people have done experiments. After cooking fish, chicken, beef and other foods containing different high-protein raw materials for 6 hours, the soup seems to be very thick, but the protein dissolution rate is only 6%-15%, and more than 85% of the protein is left. Still in the "scum". In other words, no matter how long the soup is simmered, the nutrients of the meat cannot be completely dissolved in the soup. Therefore, you should eat an appropriate amount of meat after drinking soup.

3. Like to drink hot soup

Freshly cooked soup is often very hot, but many people prefer to drink this very hot soup, thinking that drinking it will warm their stomach and body. In fact, the human oral cavity, esophagus, and gastric mucosa can only tolerate a maximum temperature of 60 degrees. Exceeding this temperature will cause mucosal burns and even malignant transformation of the digestive tract mucosa. Therefore, soups below 50 degrees are more suitable.

4. Drink soup after a meal

This is a unhealthy way of eating. Because the soup you drink at the end will dilute the chyme that has been well mixed with digestive juices, which will inevitably affect the digestion and absorption of food. The correct way to eat is to drink a few mouthfuls of soup before meals to lubricate the mouth and esophagus to reduce the adverse stimulation of the digestive tract mucosa by dry and hard food, promote the secretion of digestive glands, and play an appetizing role. Drinking an appropriate amount of soup with meals is also helpful for stirring and mixing of food and digestive glands.

5. Love to drink “unique soup”

The nutrients contained in each food are not comprehensive. Even the "thick soup" rich in amino acids with excellent taste will still lack some "essential amino acids", various minerals and vitamins that the human body cannot synthesize by itself. Therefore, it is recommended to mix several animal and plant foods to cook soup, which not only allows the umami flavors to overlap with each other, but also makes the nutrition more comprehensive.

6. Drink soup quickly

The slower you drink soup, the better: American nutritionists point out that if you extend the time to eat, you can fully enjoy the taste of the food and feel full in advance. The same is true for drinking soup. Drinking soup slowly will leave enough time for the digestion and absorption of food. When you feel full, you have eaten just right. If you drink soup quickly, by the time you realize you are full, you may have consumed more food than you need.

Editor's note: When drinking soup, you should not only be careful when making soup, but also don't drink it too hot. Drinking anything too hot will hurt your throat, cause pharyngitis, and even cause throat cancer, so you must be careful. , and you should also pay attention to the combination of ingredients in the soup, so as not to overwhelm your body without replenishing it.