Soups & Stews

Soups and stews are the most forgiving things you can cook and the easiest to make taste of nothing. The difference is almost always what happened in the first ten minutes, before any liquid went into the pot.

Brown things properly. Meat wants a hot, dry, uncrowded pan and enough time to build a dark crust. Onions, carrots and celery want to soften and colour rather than sweat pale. Tomato paste and ground spices should hit the hot fat for a minute before liquid arrives. Every one of those steps deposits flavour on the bottom of the pot, and the liquid you add next lifts it back into the dish.

After that it is patience. A stew held just below a simmer, surface barely moving, gives you tender meat; a hard boil tightens the same cut and turns it stringy. Beans and pulses need the same gentle treatment or they burst and cloud the broth.

Season at the end as well as the start, since a pot that reduces for two hours concentrates whatever salt is already in it. Then add something sharp — vinegar, lemon, a spoonful of pickle liquid. A stew that tastes heavy and dull is usually short on acid, not salt.

Nearly everything here is better on the second day.