I never heard of a Soup Duet until January 2023. I was watching the Netflix Reality Food Competition, “Pressure Cooker”. It’s kind of like Big Brother meets Top Chef. Netflix describes it as, “Living under one roof, eleven chefs use culinary skills and strategic plays in a tense cooking contest where they vote on who among them will win $100,000.”
There’s lying, deceit, back-stabbing, alliances, crying, voting people out of the house, and … culinary skills. Uniquely, there’s no human host. A restaurant ticket printer gives them their challenges, and results.
In Episode 4, “Traitors” – Season One, (the only season so far), they make two teams to serve a dinner based on the four seasons of the year. The blue team’s first course was a Soup Duet to represent winter. It was a new discovery for me that I thought was so cool. Like my Goat Cheese Sformato Recipe, I couldn’t find a soup duet recipe, so I figured it out myself.
This recipe is the best reason to buy another measuring cup. It’s also my first successful use of Xanthan Gum. (The first time didn’t go so well.)
Soup Duet of Red and Yellow Pepper Cream
Equipment
- Blender
- Chef's Squeeze Bottle Optional for drizzling Crème Fraîche
Ingredients
Yellow Bell Pepper Soup
- 1 tbsp Butter
- 1 Small Onion (or half of a large one) chopped
- 2 Yellow Bell Peppers chopped
- 1 cup Cream
- 1½ cups Chicken Broth
- 2 tsp Turmeric
- 2 tsp Coriander
- 2 tsp Cumin
- 2 tsp White Pepper
- Salt & MSG Sprinkle a little when peppers and onions go in, and again when spices go in.
- ¾ tsp Xanthan Gum For thickening
- Crème Fraîche For drizzling
- Chives Chopped for garnish and flavor
Red Bell Pepper Soup
- 1 tbsp Butter
- 1 Small Onion (or half of a large one) chopped
- 2 Red Bell Peppers chopped
- 1 cup Cream
- 1½ cups Chicken Broth
- 1 tbsp Hot Paprika
- 2 tsp Coriander
- 2 tsp Cumin
- 2 tsp White Pepper
- 2 tsp Crushed Aleppo Chiles
- Salt & MSG Sprinkle a little when peppers and onions go in, and again when spices go in.
- ¾ tsp Xanthan Gum For thickening
- Crème Fraîche For drizzling
- Chives Chopped for garnish and flavor
Instructions
- You can cook the two soups separately in two saucepans simultaneously, or make them one at a time, and re-heat the first one.
- For each soup, melt butter into saucepan, over low heat. Add chopped onion and peppers. Sprinkle salt and MSG. Cook on medium-low, occasionally stirring for 6 to 7 minutes.
- Add cream and chicken stock.
- Yellow Pepper Soup - add seasonings of turmeric, coriander, cumin, salt, white pepper, MSG,
- Red Pepper Soup - add seasonings of paprika, coriander, cumin, salt, white pepper, crushed Aleppo chiles, MSG.
- Stir, bring to boil, stir again, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Remove both soups from heat and pour one of the soups into the blender.
- Let soup cool for five minutes, then blend until smooth.
- With blender running, add Xanthan gum, LITTLE BY LITTLE. If you dump it all at once, it will clump.
- Pour soup back into pot, or other container. Clean blender and repeat with the other soup.
- Pour each soup into a separate pouring vessel that has a spout. I used two different 1 cup measuring cups.
- With one in each hand, pour them simultaneously from separate sides of the bowl and they will meet in the middle.
- Drizzle Crème Fraîche and sprinkle chopped chives.
