A writer for the cooking site kuchnia.mojegotowanie has shared her grandmother Jadwiga's trick for fixing watery soup without reaching for flour, sour cream or a traditional roux. The secret ingredient is semolina, a cheap kitchen staple most cooks already have on hand.
According to the writer, just two level tablespoons of semolina are enough to thicken a pot of soup holding around 1.5 litres, giving it a pleasantly creamy texture without masking its flavour.
How to add the semolina correctly
The key is not to tip the semolina in all at once. The soup should be brought to a light boil, the heat lowered, and the semolina poured in a thin stream while stirring constantly. Adding it all in one go causes the grains to clump into a dumpling that is difficult to dissolve back into the liquid.
Once added, the soup should simmer for a few more minutes with occasional stirring as the semolina swells and thickens the liquid. If the soup is only slightly thin, it is better to start with a smaller amount, since more can always be added later, but an overly thick, paste-like result cannot easily be fixed.
Why semolina works
The thickening effect comes from starch in the semolina, which swells and gelatinises when exposed to hot water and heat, giving the liquid a thicker, velvety texture. The result does not replicate the milky taste and fat content that sour cream adds, but the consistency and heartiness come out very similar.
Grandmother Jadwiga told her granddaughter she could confidently sprinkle semolina into vegetable soup, cauliflower soup, tomato soup, goulash soup, krupnik or vegetable cream soups.
The method also skips the extra steps of preparing a roux or mixing flour with cold water, and semolina's neutral taste does not overpower the aroma of vegetables, meat or spices, even in more delicate soups.
The site has previously covered how to make the perfect fried egg, noting that professional chefs recommend three different methods, each producing a different result.
