The Basic Basics Soups Handbook: All You Need to Know to Make Delicious Soups and Broths

by Marguerite Patten

The definitive guide to one of the world’s most popular dishes.   Marguerite Patten draws on her years of experience to bring together recipes for one of the great comfort soup. Hot soups are warming in cold weather and cold soups are refreshing in the heat. Soup can also be made from every kind of ingredient. This guide contains recipes for every occasion and soups from around the world—from vichyssoise and minestrone to hot and sour—and covers all the information you need to make soups of perfect flavor and consistency, including stocks which are the secret of many good soups.  

Genres: Cookbooks, Reference, Nonfiction

411 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

Hilda Marguerite Patten was a home econonomist, food writer and broadcaster.
Marguerite Patten fresh from the Ministry of Food during World War II represented post-war austerity cookery books; many selling in huge quantities and produced in colour by Paul Hamlyn. She was one of the early TV cooks to have her own programme.

She was awarded an OBE in 1991.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic Soups by Marguerite Patten in a 2008 Grub Street Cookery publication.

I picked this book up on a whim from the Overdrive library. Although I make soups all year round, I am more apt to be in the mood to cook a big pot of soup during the winter months, which are almost upon us- so, I was hoping for some tips and tricks, and maybe a few recipes that would mix things up a bit.

I got all that and quite a bit more. The author goes into great detail about how to make the broth or soup stock and all the various meat or vegetable bases one could start with and goes on from there -including soups that are creamy or clear, vegetable, fish, meat, poultry- cold soups, and even fruit soups and soups for those who are dieting. Not only are there recipes, but various methods of cooking are explained, which includes microwave cooking and pressure cooking.

I learned a lot from the text portions and did find some interesting recipes. The huge downside of this informative cookbook is that there are no pictures- not one- front or back.

Overall, this book was very helpful for me when it came to making homemade broths and soup bases. The recipes are mostly simple, and the ingredients are not hard to find, in most cases. I appreciated the variations provided and the notes on how to freeze or not. That said, I’m not sure if I will purchase a copy for future reference, but I did keep it on my 'considering' list- just in case.