sweeter ones Second, enzymatic reactions that create simple sugars are accelerated with heat Step 2: Choose Your Aromatics Alliums—onions, leeks, shallots, garlic, and the like—are like the Best Supporting Actor of the soup pot They’re not there to steal the spotlight, but without them, your soup would be boring Nearly every soup I make starts with either onions or leeks, along with some garlic or shallot (and sometimes all four!) cooked down in olive oil or butter Other firm vegetables such as diced carrots, bell peppers, celery, thinly sliced fennel, or ginger can work well in certain situations, but they tend to have a stronger impact on the finished flavor of the dish, so make sure that you really want them there Make a carrot soup with just onions and it’ll taste like carrot soup Make a carrot soup with fennel or ginger, and it will taste like carrot-and-fennel soup or carrotand-ginger soup Step 3: Sweat or Brown Your Aromatics Next big question: to sweat or to brown? • Sweating is the process of slowly cooking chopped vegetables in a fat You do it over moderate heat, and the goal is to get rid of some of the excess moisture within those vegetables, and to break down their cellular structure so that their flavor is released With the case of alliums, there’s another process going on: onion aroma is created when certain precursor molecules that exist within separate compartments in onion cells break out and combine with each other Sweating an onion will break down cell walls, allowing this process to happen The same holds true for garlic, shallots, and leeks • Browning starts out like sweating, but generally takes place over higher heat Once excess liquid from vegetables has evaporated, the vegetables can begin to brown and caramelize, creating rich flavors, more sweet notes, and more complexity You might think that more flavor is always better, and thus you should always brown your vegetables, but more often than not, this browning can be overpowering, making soups too sweet or competing too much with the subtler flavors of your main vegetable Step 4: Add Second-Level Aromatics Like Spices and Pastes After your aromatics have sweated or browned, the next phase is your secondary aromatics, and it’s an optional stage that’s often omitted If you like very clean, pure-tasting soups, jump ahead If you like playing with flavors and spices, then you’ll have fun with this step These are things like ground spices (say, curry powder, ground cumin, or chili powder) and moist pastes (like tomato paste, harissa, or chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce) These types of ingredients benefit from a brief toasting or frying in hot oil, which alters some of their constituents into more complex, more aromatic products, as well as extracting fat-soluble flavors so that they disperse more evenly into the soup Because ground spices have such a high ratio of surface ... with flavors and spices, then you’ll have fun with this step These are things like ground spices (say, curry powder, ground cumin, or chili powder) and moist pastes (like tomato paste, harissa, or chopped chipotle peppers in adobo... tomato paste, harissa, or chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce) These types of ingredients benefit from a brief toasting or frying in hot oil, which alters some of their constituents into more complex, more aromatic products, as... competing too much with the subtler flavors of your main vegetable Step 4: Add Second-Level Aromatics Like Spices and Pastes After your aromatics have sweated or browned, the next phase is your secondary aromatics, and it’s an optional stage