Complete Book of Soups and Stews (Paperback)

by Bernard Clayton (Author) "Stock is the liquid in which meat or meat bones, fowl or fowl bones, fish or fish bones and vegetables have been cooked to extract..." (more)
Key Phrases: heated tureen, heated howls, moistened cheesecloth, New York, Craig Claiborne, New England (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Marian Burros The New York Times Book Review His creative touches make the recipes special....There is much to admire. -- Review

Product Description

Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s, first book, The Complete Book of Breads, won the coveted Tastemaker cookbook award and was praised by Craig Claiborne as perhaps the best book on the subject in the English language. Of Clayton's The Complete Book of Pastry, which also received a Tastemaker award, Claiborne said: "One of the most important cookbooks of this year if not this decade." Now this highly respected author turns his attention to soups and stews.

From his travels around the world, Clayton has put together an eclectic collection of 250 soup recipes and 50 stew recipes, adding to the clear instructions personal anecdotes and historical background throughout. He covers a wide range of soups, from Asparagus-and-Crab to Peach-Buttermilk. American classics such as New England Chowder, Burgoo and U.S. Senate Bean Soup share the spotlight with such international gems as Japanese Shabu-Shabu, Nigerian Peanut Soup and Scottish Cock-a-Leekie Soup. After a thorough discussion of the many kinds of stocks, from Brown Stock to Vegetable Stock, Mr. Clayton includes, for those of us who are lazy, the pros and cons of homemade versus storebought stock, along with tricks and tips to improve the later.

With recipes that are well written and easy to follow, Clayton shows that soup-making is neither time-consuming nor difficult, and in any case is well worth the effort.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Fireside ed edition (November 15, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671438646
• ISBN-13: 978-0671438647
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,975 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good recipes,but rather involved, January 18, 2000

By	Brad Montzheimer (Redmond, Wash.) - See all my reviews

If you are looking for a quick and easy to prepare recipe...not here from what I have found.If you don't mind some detailed preparation, go for it. Otherwise they are not bad.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Soup Book, Excellent Cookbook. Buy It!, March 21, 2006

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

`The Complete Book of Soups and Stews' by the late blooming culinary writer, Bernard Clayton was very slow in coming to my attention as a reviewer, even though I have owned a copy for several years. Part of my tardiness is due to the fact that I am very sanguine about the ability of a `...Complete...' book to live up to its presumption on just about any culinary subject, especially one so big as soups and stews. Another part of my reluctance to critically read this book is the fact that I did review the author's `The Complete Book of Breads' and found it to be missing an awfully big chunk of bread lore, in that it had very poor coverage of artisinal breads baked using wild yeasts such as the famous San Francisco sourdough yeast. In comparison, Rose Levy Beranbaum's `The Bread Bible' and books from Peter Reinhart are superior on some of the more arcane corners of bread baking.

So, I have spent my time reviewing good soup and stew books by such luminaries as Barbara Kafka, James Peterson, and Deborah Madison, plus a passle of `soup Nazi' wannabes who run soup restaurants from one coast to the other. I am paying for my tardiness in my regrets for not cracking open this excellent book much sooner. This is one of those books which makes you wonder why later writers bother to write on a subject, since Master Clayton seems to have covered the subject so well. On the issue of `...Complete...', Clayton addresses this issue head on by saying that the book is not complete in the literal sense, since one can easily write volumes on the subject of onion soups alone. Rather, the book is complete in that it touches on every major genre of soup and stew.

The very first thing to impress me about this book was the meticulous detail to which all recipes went in both fact and in useful typographical layout. And, all of this is done in the service of soups, by golly, which the author quite correctly says are certainly a lot easier to make than, for example, breads. The next thing that impressed me was the author's description of stock making. It was not overly fussy, but it managed to leave out no important details about the stock making procedure for the basics such as beef, chicken, fish, and vegetable stocks. I did spot one minor misstatement when he says with no qualification that older meats are better for stocks than flesh and bones from young animals. There is a major counter-example to this statement in the use of veal to make thick stocks with gelatin, since young animal bones have more gelatin in them then older animals. I am also tempted to argue with his identifying genus vegetable stock as `count bouillon'. I strongly suspect that `court bouillon' is simply one species of the very large family of vegetable stocks. I know this from my reading of Deborah Madison on stocks, with whom by great good sense, Clayton concurs in that both state the opinion that a stock should be made to reflect the use to which it will be put. To that end, Clayton makes the excellent observation that stocks made for creamy soup have no need to be clear, or at least not as clear as stocks to be used in consumes or chicken noodle soups, for example.

This is a somewhat old fashioned cookbook in that it spends a fair amount of space on discussing kitchen equipment used to make soups. This is good stuff, but even better is his little tutorial on how to prep the six most important vegetables (onions, celery, carrots, leeks, garlic, and shallots) used in soup preparation.

Unlike a lot of books which are organized by soup styles (consommé, noodle, bisque, cream, chowder), it is organized by principle ingredient for the simple reason that people reach for a soup recipe (or can of soup) based on a particular taste. And, unlike stews, soups are a preparation where it is common for a single ingredient such as clam, carrot, leek, mushroom, chestnut, or whatever to predominate. I think this argument may be just a bit weak when we get to the thick Italian `everything but the kitchen sink' minestrones, but its better than having no good organizing concept at all. This concept also works well when you look in your fridge or pantry and find an overabundance of leeks or onions or potatoes or tomatoes or sausage.

In examining several important soup type recipes, I find, in general, that Clayton's recipes tend toward the simple. I find fewer ingredients and steps in, for example, his chowder recipes than I see in Jasper White's definitive and excellent recipes in '50 Chowders'. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It means that you can rely on this book for finding relatively easy examples of virtually every major classic soup recipe known to the cook in the European tradition, including lots of recipes coming to us from Japan and China.

For foodies, the book also manages to cover a pretty sizable number of interesting background facts. My favorite is the story behind the `Les Halle' onion soup, especially since I was fortunate enough to have this treat at 4 AM in a bistro on the outskirts of the `Les Halles' produce market in Paris, before they tore it down to be replaced by a larger and more sanitary market in the Paris suburbs (See Tony Bourdain's travel show on the new market.)

If you have the resources for owning no more than one soup book, and that book does not have to be vegetarian, then this is definitely the book for you. It is cheap and a smallish trade paperback, although still with over 440 densely packed pages.

Very highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Satisfying selection of Excellent Recipes, January 2, 2007

By	jimnypivo "Jim Hisson" (west of Chicago, USA) - See all my reviews

I am amazed that at this time , January, 2007 there are only four other reviews for this most excellent soup, stew, and chili recipe book. I have used it almost exclusively for my soup and stew cooking for over ten years, and have given it as a gift to friends and relatives several times (with 100% positive feedback).

This is a great source book for all types of cooks. Fledglings, those with limited success or confidence, bachelors or recently-divorced men, folks who delight in one-dish meals, and even soup afficionados like me will benefit from having it in their collection.

Clayton gives us an excellent introduction to the craft of soup-making by covering such important basics as stock preparation, use and selection of soup making tools. He is happy to share the difficulties and delights of soup-making with his readers, by supplying helpful information for each recipe; sometimes to explain the source or history of the recipe, or to share information about uncommon ingredients or variations. It's almost like having him in the kitchen looking over your shoulder, gently dispensing his knowledge and advice. He prepared these recipes himself, so the directions are clear and easy to follow, even the complicated ones.

But what about the recipes? I've had this cookbook for over ten years. I've prepared over twenty of the recipes and have not yet found a bad or mediocre one yet. In fact, I prepare several of them regularly enough to call them my favorites. Here are the best ones I've made so far:

Borscht : I make this at least once a month. In fact, I made it last night. Friends and family have raved at its stew-like quality and robustness. Although I can't get the Russian fellow at work to try it, I brought it for a Boy Scout campout. I was floored when the boys raved about it. The best compliment any soup can receive is from boys whose favorite vegetable is ketchup.

I've tried three of Clayton's chili recipes. First up was president Lyndon Johnson's mild, simple, and straightforward Pedernales River Chili made with meat, onions, and spices. I now add the `chili puree' from the Hernandez family chili recipe to every recipe I make because you can customize the spicing for each individual in the house. "Mom Unser's Chili" is a quick one, and made with pork instead of beef.

Old Fashioned Cabbage Soup incorporates frankfurters, and I was able to get my then very young children to eat it because I billed it `Hot Dog Soup'.

Irish potato soup. Absolutely delicious! I once thought a potato was a potato, but in his tips Clayton explains how using different potatoes brings different flavor to the soup.
Shaker Bean Chowder----"Good, smooth, and flavorful. Excellent for the vegetarians among us.

Saiman' soup, a Hawaiian pork-bone, sea kelp recipe which both Clayton and my wife insist has curative powers.

Pick up this most useful volume and cook up a delicious meal tonight!