Let’s be clear, if you talk about soup for soup and vice versa, no one will hold it against you and everyone will understand perfectly what you are talking about! However, there is a difference between these dishes.
What do we call soup?
Soup designates both the dish – a liquid in which foods, vegetables, cereals, legumes are cooked, without forgetting aromatics such as bay leaf, garlic or even onion – but it is also the name of the large family of soups, like soups, veloutés, but also milled or even consumed.
When we talk about soup, what are we talking about? A two-part mixture, liquid on one side, solid on the other. The “soup” therefore contains pieces. If we roughly grind the vegetables, we then speak of “mouliné”, but this term is used much less in everyday life today. In fact, to prepare a mouliné, you actually need a vegetable mill. For the record, the vegetable mill is an invention dating from 1928, and it was in 1932 that Jean Mantelet filed his patent for his model marketed by his company, subsequently renamed Moulinex. We consume less moulinés, but Moulinex is still there!
What do we call soup?
Soup is simply soup mixed with more or less liquid. We also use the word velouté to talk about a mixed soup. However, real velouté is a basic preparation in the kitchen for which we prepare a roux – butter and flour cooked together – moistened with chicken stock, veal stock, or fish stock. When everything is homogeneous, add thick crème fraîche and egg yolk. In common parlance, velouté refers to a soup which can be enriched with cream, egg, etc. Its consistency will be thicker. We then speak of “bound soup”.
The case of the consumed
Another slightly outdated word, which we nevertheless see appear from time to time: Consommé. Consommé refers to broth in which the aromas are concentrated while allowing the water to evaporate. For a perfectly clear preparation, the chefs even have techniques to remove impurities from the liquid and offer the purest dish possible. A technique that “Top Chef” viewers have already seen many times!
Whatever the name we give it – soup, potage, velouté, cream or even parfait –, the soup has not finished spilling ink!