Soup

With my littlest one under the weather, my parental sympathies are kicking in, and we could use a good bowl of wholesome soup. A cursory search found no recent thread on the subject. So now my curiosity is piqued.

At first I was looking for a standard chicken soup, maybe with a matzo ball, but then thoughts of pho and tortilla soup began. . . and a great creamed soup always hits the spot. Of course I would prefer soup made from scratch, without cans or preparred bases entering the picture.

I happen to be looking on the NW side to downtown, but I would welcome reccomendations from any location.

With the lagging cold snap today, it seems to be the right time to discuss. What do you say?

It's a hard thread to find, but you'll find a lot of great recommendations for restorative soups in this thread, including my personal favorite, Korean chicken-ginseng soup.

Best,
Michael

Soup does sound good on this nasty day! As it happens, I'm making a batch of navy bean soup today, using a big left over ham bone and some homemade chicken stock. Tonight's dinner will be soup accompanied by a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

If its for your littlest one, I think good old Campbells chicky noodle would fit the bill.

For the rest of the family, any of the signature soups at Dominicks would be good, especially the Tomato Basil.

The matzo ball soup at The Bagel on N. Broadway is always good. For fans of such, they also offer mish-mash; it's not for me - I like the simplicity of matzo ball - but either way it's good stuff.

-Dan

I can't believe I'm recommending this but....the bucket of chicken noodle soup from Costco is really good. My husband and I came down with colds in March, we picked up a bucket of that soup and lived off of it for 2 days, it was awesome. They make it from rotisserie chicken and there's carrots and celery and thick, toothsome noodles. We went back for more after we got well.

It's in the refrigerated section across from the meats.

Over the weekend I made the Ultimate Cream of Tomato Soup (their title, not mine) from Cook's Illustrated. It's an excellent feeling yucky damp day soup. I also made grilled cheese to go along side it.

Anyone remember the Cream of Tomato soup that used to be served at the Stouffer's in the loop? It may have been State St, maybe Wabash, and it's easily 30 years ago, but oh man, I still remember loving that soup. It wasn't as smooth as campbell's in the can but real sweet and just darn yummy. Wonder if there's a recipe out there for THAT?

Erzsi wrote:Over the weekend I made the Ultimate Cream of Tomato Soup (their title, not mine) from Cook's Illustrated. It's an excellent feeling yucky damp day soup. I also made grilled cheese to go along side it.

Recipe?

I suppose this is a good time to bring up the chicken noodle soup entry on Wikipedia. I know Campbell’s does have a stronghold on American chicken noodle soup, but I something aches in my heart with i read the United States portion of the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_no ... and_Canada

It doesn’t ring true with me. Somehow I know chicken noodle soup has a more fundamental root in our culture other than the commercial Campbell’s aspect. Am I wrong? Is it just that my mother made her homemade soup that it angers me that Campbell’s dominates the chicken noodle soup Wikipedia entry? Afterall a lot of people do look to Wikipedia as the ultimate source of knowledge. Maybe we all owe it to the name of our country to correct the entry. I’ve started by beginning the conversation on the topic in the Wikipedia forum. Let’s all help by adding/correcting the existing entry!!! It’s our duty as the penultimate food authority (ok maybe that’s going too far). Either way the Midwest is where the food culture of the US meets up to create the most diverse food system in the world. OK back to Wikipedia to correct the Campbell’s marketing debauchery… you with me or not?

Taqueria Moran (under the blue line) at Milwaukee & California has one of the best tortilla soups i've had - and really cheap.

Funny, this idea for a topic just crossed my mind last week.

The soups at Fox and Obel downtown are mostly excellent, full of flavor and ingredients. You really can't go wrong with just about any of them.

We've been less impressed with the soups at Foodstuffs in its north suburban locations. They have a few freshly refrigerated and a bigger selection in the freezer. Most are just okay, but occasionally we'll hit one we like a whole lot, as we recently did with their Crab and Mushroom Chowder.

Another place that has a few good housemade soups is Schaefer's in Skokie, the liquor store that has a lot of foods as well. They do a great corn chowder, much better than the version at Whole Foods (which isn't bad, though, although most of the soups at Whole Foods are not particularly impressive). Funny that the Signature Soups at Dominick's came up; these are actually pretty good, certainly better than you would expect from a major grocery chain.

For ethnic foods, you can get carry-out soup from most ethnic restaurants. My absolute favorite soup in the entire world is the tom kha gai (Thai soup with chicken, coconut milk, lemongrass, and galanga) at Thai Sookdee in Evanston. The large version ($7) is a quart and we buy four at a time and throw them in the freezer.

The chicken noodle is decent at The Soup Box, if you are close to one and don't want to travel far (I wouldn't make them a destination by a long shot, obviously). My other half used to live right by the one on Broadway, and that was the only way I survived two bouts of nasty colds one winter when I was too sick to cook for myself.

While I like the lobster bisque at the Soup Box, I'm pretty well convinced that most of the soups that they serve are of the Progresso variety, dumped in a cauldron to create the impression that behind the hacky sack playing staff, that there is some loving old grandma somewhere making soup for the masses.

Soups at Whole Foods are kind of hit and miss. Chili is bland. Chicken Noodle is pretty good with a broth that displays the kind of depth that you would see in a soup made by an experienced chef or cook.

My favorite at Whole Foods, on which I practically lived this winter is their creamy poblano corn chowder. I don't think that a week went by that I didn't down at least a quarte of this stuff. Sometimes, it gets a bit thick in the store's electric cauldron. but, this can be easily remedied with a little milk to thin it . It is savory and flavorful with just a touch of spice that nicely offsets the creamy base.

Out in Park Ridge, Morningfileds serves a pretty good variety of soups on a daily basis. I usually opt for their very good cream of turkey.

Olivia's Market in Bucktown typically offers two tasty soups daily that they fly in from Hale and Hearty in New York.

Olivia's Market
2014 W Wabansia Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 227-4220

Unfortunately, my two go-to places for soup are now defunct. Both were in downtown Evanston (so too far North for a near-Northsider) but I'll detail them here anyway: first was the Cream of Mushroom soup at La Madeleine, a chain out of Texas similar to Corner Bakery, which went under shortly after it opened. The other was a restaurant exclusively devoted to soup, which had a dozen or so choices, including a wonderful if not authentic gazpacho with a lovely slick of EVOO; the building now houses Vive La Crepe, which was not an improvement.

IIRC, I had a very good Matzoh Ball Soup at Alexander's Restaurant in Edgewater - years ago.

Alexander's
6158 N Clark St
Chicago, IL 60660
(773) 743-3841

These days, I usually make my own...

Tierra Grill, esconsced on the eastern edge of Villa Park's restaurant row, serves a fine bowl of Pozole soup - a hearty broth, bits of hominy, and tender shredded pork. The less authentically named Aztec soup is a good choice as well, with a bit more zip.
Also a decent al pastor taco, but that's for another thread.

Tierra Grill
525 E. St. Charles Rd.
Villa Park, Illinois
(630) 941-9923

I forgot to mention one more place in the northern suburbs where you can get delicious (and very rich) soups: Gourmet Frog, the carry-out adjunct of Froggy's French restaurant in Highwood.

And the very best restaurant soups I've had in the "not for carry-out" category, are at Oceanique in Evanston. Even though they specialize in seafood, all of their soups, including vegetable-based and other types, are spectacular.

Mhays wrote:the building now houses Vive La Crepe

Vive La Crepe has closed.

For carryout soups, the Shop & Save markets in Niles, Schaumburg and Des Plaines have very good house-made soups, including Polish soups like borscht and pickle soup, as well as more routine choices.

www.shopandsavemarket.com