Soup

Makin’ your own stock is a bit time-consuming, but the reward is in the depth of flavor it brings to any dish. There’s nothing hard about the preparation, and it makes your house smell delicious.

Homemade stock is the foundation of all truly great soups and stews. Not everyone has the time to make it, but if you do you’ll find it really makes a difference in your cooking.

A few years back, we were closed on Sunday. People kept turnin’ up anyway, so we gave in and opened with a limited menu. We created this soup just for that day. It has a good Sunday vibe.

This has been the Dinosaur’s Wednesday soup special for as long as I can remember. It’s a good, hearty soup that’s perfect for places like Syracuse and Rochester, New York, that are blessed with six months of winter a year—not that folks stop eating Corn & Potato Chowder in the summer. Made with fresh corn, just picked and cut from the cob, this soup takes on a real summer attitude. Best of all, you can make it in less than half an hour any time of the year.

Now this is real comfort food. It makes me feel like I’m doing something good for myself every time I eat it. Delicious and healthy—what more do you want?

The best description I can offer of my sister’s baked potato soup is that it tastes just like the best potato bar you ever tried. I always used to love twice-baked potatoes, mainly because the work of “fixing” a baked potato with the sour cream, cheese, and so on, was all done for you. It’s the same with this soup. It’s like someone fixed the ultimate baked potato just for you and put it into a bowl. All you have to do is enjoy it.

Some recipes in this book have been passed down from generation to generation, and some are newer recipes discovered in the past few years that have become family classics. This is one of the old-timers. My mom used to make this soup when I was a child, and I remember how much my dad loved it served over biscuits. For me, when a recipe has a great memory attached to it, it tastes even better. I make this soup at the first sign of cold weather every year and serve it poured over Buttermilk Cornbread (page 154).

Chicken tortilla soup became really popular in restaurants a few years ago, but it was never something I made at home. Garth loves this soup and orders it almost every time he sees it on a menu, so I started studying the different versions at each restaurant and questioning Garth about what he liked and didn’t like about each one. This recipe I finally came up with doesn’t actually taste like any of those we tasted in restaurants, but we love it—and now we can enjoy it whenever we want!

I love living in Oklahoma. I do miss my family in Georgia, but luckily I get to travel back and forth a lot for visits. My Georgia family has also made the trek to Oklahoma several times, so now both places feel like home. Only once have I gotten so homesick I thought I wouldn’t make it, and that was because I was really sick with the flu and Mama wasn’t there to take care of me. Sometimes nobody will do except Mama! She made this soup for me, froze it in quart containers, packed it in dry ice (who knew you could get dry ice in Monticello?), and shipped it overnight to me in a Styrofoam cooler. When I got it the next morning, I cried, ate some soup, cried, ate some more soup, and thanked God for the most awesome mom on the planet!

My grandmother, Lizzie Paulk, was an amazing woman. She worked the fields in South Georgia with my grandfather Winnes, raised three children, and somehow still found time to put three home-cooked meals on the table every single day. She passed away when I was in junior high, but I have wonderful memories of her laughter and her love for her family. Mama had always complained she could never get her dumplings to come out as thin as her mom’s, but the first time she made them after Grandma died, she said it was as if Lizzie were guiding her. Maybe she finally decided it was okay for Mama to be able to make her dumplings! They’ve come out perfectly every time since.

It’s tough to find real chowder in this city, so we promised we would always have delicious homemade chowder by the cup or bowl at McKiernan. Ours is made with fresh Carr’s PEI clams.

Nowadays, every restaurant seems to have marrow on the menu. But for decades, the after-work evenings of local chefs have usually ended up (drunkenly) in the same place, L’Express, with its infamous three large trunks of marrowbone, sel gris, and rounds of cabbage. There is something about hot marrow in a cold climate; it’s the kind of thing you want to eat when snow is melting off your boots. Essentially a thick French peasant (cultivateur) vegetable soup with marrow, this recipe is a Joe Beef winter standard. Marrowbones are always from the hind legs of the animal. You want them crosscut, which reveals a long tube of marrow. If you have purchased them frozen, thaw them in the fridge first.

Chef Justin Devillier purées bread into this soup to achieve a silky texture. For the best results, caramelize the onions over low heat.

The foundation of this elegant soup? Peanut butter. Make your own by grinding dry-roasted peanuts in a food processor while you roast the garlic. You can use any mild-flavored honey to sweeten the whipped cream garnish, or go Southern with a spoonful of tupelo honey.

These ricotta gnocchi may be the tenderest dumplings you'll ever eat.

A colorful array of garnishes offer a fresh contrast to this bold, smoky chicken soup from Nashville's Mas Tacos Por Favor.

This chilled soup always makes me imagine what summer in Eden must have been like: silky, verdant, bright, and refreshing. My only other need would be a glass of cava or vinho verde to go with it. The quality of your avocados is key to this recipe. Try to find the Haas or Bacon varieties from a domestic grower—the Fuerte ones from Chile (which are common in supermarkets) are too watery.

This brothy chowder is loosely inspired by bouillabaisse, the classic Provençal seafood soup, but it’s both simpler and easier on the pocketbook. To go all the way with this dish, drizzle the soup with fresh aioli (or mix mayonnaise with minced fresh garlic and thin with lemon juice). Serve with crusty bread.

This classic Mexican soup develops its flavors from a series of techniques: braising, roasting, toasting, and frying. The soup itself is fabulous, but this dish is really elevated by the garnishes. Put them out in bowls and let guests help themselves to whatever they want. The soup is best when made one day in advance to allow the flavors to come together. If you can’t wait, be sure to save some for the next day so you can see how much better it gets.

This is one of our deli’s best-selling items in the summer. Two cups may seem like a lot of oil, but the soup really doesn’t have the same rich flavor with any less (we’ve tried). You can, of course, reduce the amount if you like. You can also use any combination of Roma and heirloom tomatoes.