Have you ever followed a soup recipe to the letter and it turned out mediocre or worse uneatable? Of course you have. We have all experienced that disappointment from time to time.
Often the reason can be traced back to a misread causing 'too much of this' or 'not enough of that', but there is one part of soup recipes which is so very important and just about everyone takes it for granted and never gives it a second thought. I am talking about the water you use in the recipe.
To make good soup you need pure, fresh clean water. And you might think 'Ok now that's a stretch!!' But let me ask you this would ever consider using the water from the ditch out by the street? NO! Why not it's water! Ah—it's not good enough for you soup recipes. So the water you use is a concern! And it of course will make all the difference in taste, aroma and quality of soup you make.
The way I found out,about how important filtered water was was by accident some years ago. A friend of mine--a Jamaican immigrant--had purchased an old rundown restaurant in the neighbor. It was a pretty sad-sack establishment at that time--;(so everyone thought he was crazy). He knew there was potential that the rest of us couldn't see.
Trevor went to work fixing up the old place. He got the parking lot repaved -a fresh coat of paint on everything. Installed new fixtures where needed and went with a 1950s motif. Then his marketing genius kicked in he began sponsoring local kid's sports teams and provided a free hot dog and soda at the restaurant as an after-game snack for all the kids. This of course brought the parents in, who would have otherwise never have visited.
Folks came in with their children and we fashion coats online re struck at how nice the place looked. They wound up ordering the soup special for lunch and were pleasantly surprised. Young and old were impressed with the look of the place how delicious the soup was. People even commented on how good the tea and coffee were. Trevor had turned the place into a going concern and soon it was insanely busy all the time.
So I asked Trevor "What's your secret?" He gave me a big Jamaican smile and said "I had a water filter system installed as soon as I bought the place, man."
That's the secret?! The ingredient is water! He nodded, he was a very good cook and he knew that you had to start with the best and freshest ingredients including the best water to produce the best results.
Oh it might sound ludicrous, but if you filter your tap water and use that to make your soups, sauces and gravies you will have improved results no question. The vast majority of tap water comes with chlorine added to it. Remove the chlorine and improve the taste. This also holds true of tea and coffee.
Filtered water--tap water that has been cleansed of chlorine and other taste destroying contaminants really does improve your overall cooking. By eliminating chlorine and other contaminants right at your kitchen tap this is much easier than lugging those big bottles of water (which incidentally do not have any government standards--;other than they must be at least equal to tap water) obviously no benefit there!
Don't fooled by these free standing pitcher units either. The best they can do is remove about 75% of the chlorine. Would you eat a sandwich that had 75% of the dirt removed? You want all the chlorine removed or at least brought down to undetectable levels and that takes a high quality counter top water filter system.
Install a high quality counter top water filter system and you will feel so much better serving this soup to your family and friends.
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