Super soups in Fort Worth By Andrew Marton, Special to DFW.com
The original comfort food popular with grandmas everywhere — soup — is heating up in Fort Worth. So DFW.com ventured out to nine, ethnically varied Fort Worth restaurants to find the secrets of what was in the day’s soup pot. Here are the warming concotions that we turned up. Bon appetit.
Photos by Steve Wilson and Rodger Mallison
Wonton Soup at Cannon Chinese Kitchen
Scott Kaiser, Cannon’s executive chef, takes special care with this soup’s broth by roasting chicken bones, pork necks and pig’s femurs for two hours at 325 degrees. In a separate pot, Kaiser assembles ginger, the whites of green onions, plus dried shrimp and scallops, in water and pours it over the roasted bones before cooking it all low and slow for 12 hours.
The following morning, thin soy and white pepper are added to the broth before cooking for another two hours on a stove-top.
For the dumplings, fresh wonton skins are filled with a cooked mixture of pork, along with black tiger shrimp, plus green onions, fresh ginger, thin soy and white pepper. The completed dumplings are then steamed for two minutes before being dunked into the golden broth.
“The roasting of the chicken bones, pork femurs and pork necks — with all that velvety collagen and marrow — eventually makes our court bouillon attain a real depth of flavor,” Kaiser says. “It just produces a rich, yet light tasting broth.”
$4 cup, $11 bowl; 304 W. Cannon St., Fort Worth. 817-238-3726; cannonchinesekitchen.com
Green Chile Chicken Pozole at Taco Diner
For Oscar Saravia, culinary operations manager for Taco Diner, “a lot of the inspiration for this soup came when various general managers started played with different ingredients and we all started remembering how our grandmothers used to cook the same soup back home in Mexico — so we stayed with roughly that same recipe.”
For Saravia, it all starts with a large soup pot holding copious amounts of water, onions, chicken base, garlic, dried oregano, bay leaf, poblano peppers, salt and white pepper. This mixture is brought to a boil — taking around 10 minutes. Then, the distinctive hominy or “pozole” is added. This will be brought to a boil.
In a blender, Saravia combines spinach, cilantro, salsa verde and romaine leaves. This blended mixture is then added into the main pot along with a previously boiled and cubed chicken. This entire mixture is then allowed to cook for another five minutes. The total cooking time for the entire soup is about 20 minutes. It will be garnished with shredded green cabbage, diced yellow onions, radishes, more dried oregano, chopped cilantro and pickled jalapeños.
“And what you then have is a very traditional Mexican soup,” Saravia says.
$4 for a cup and $7 for a bowl; 156 W. Fourth St, Fort Worth. 817-566-0357; www.tacodinerrestaurants.com
Pho Bo at Pho District
Pho bo, which translated means “beef noodle soup,” is indeed that, at least judging from this version’s ingredients of filet mignon, meatball and brisket.
All three meats never threaten to overshadow the perfume of the exceptionally complex broth. The broth serves as a potent marinade for the beef, while also soaking the accompanying noodles.
The process for pho bo begins by placing a large quantity of beef knuckles in a pot and cooking them (for around 45 minutes) until they are free of any ancillary grease. Then in a new pot, they are covered in water, joined by shallots, ginger, a Vietnamese spice mixture (including star anise, citrus fruits and ground cinnamon), and then allowed to cook overnight.
The following morning, all the excess fat is skimmed from the pot’s surface before rock sugar and salt are added. The broth is then ready to be joined by rice noodles.
The garnishes include sliced red onions, cilantro, julienned green onions, jalapeños, bean sprouts, lime and Thai basil.
The brisket and meatballs are pre-cooked, and the filet mignon is so thinly slicedt that it will cook simply by being dunked in the scalding hot broth.
$9.95; 2401 W. Seventh St., Fort Worth. 817-862-9988; phodistrict.com
Baisen Shouyu Ramen at Hanabi Ramen & Izakaya
The process by which this remarkable soup is made purposely remains, by the restaurant’s choice, a Sphinx-like mystery.
However its base ingredients are pork bone, anchovy, apple, salt, a special soy blend that incorporates roasted garlic and onion, and tonkotsu (a broth often paired with ramen noodles).
Pork belly, ajitama (flavored egg), bamboo shoots, green onions and nori (seaweed) are added to the base.
Thanks to one of the best tools ever devised for eating a substantial, broth-based soup — a soup spoon that is part oar — this soup almost doubles its taste-bud pleasures. Arriving in its large, white ceramic bowl, the rich broth bears a flotilla of bamboo shoots, along with piping hot seaweed and luminescent green scallions.
Its pork-belly slices are balanced between tender and crisp. And everywhere are ramen noodles, encircling the rest of the soup’s ingredients. But perhaps the soup’s greatest miracle is a still-runny, perfectly soft-boiled egg, its mustard-colored yolk poised over the liquid replete with still al dente noodles.
$10.50; 3204 Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth. 817-420-6703
Winter Sweet Potato and Squash Soup at Bird Cafe
It should be noted that Bird Cafe’s soups change daily so this particular one may not be available.
“I love making soups because you get to utilize great product in order to make the soup into a kind of entree,” executive sous-chef Scott Curtis says.
And this wintery cream soup lends itself to any one of several members of the squash family — from spaghetti to summer to butternut.
Curtis, naturally, makes his own chicken stock by roasting chicken bones (thigh, breast and legs) low and slow, along with the classic combination of carrots, celery and onions, plus bay leaf, thyme and black peppercorns — all in water and left to simmer overnight, for about 10 hours.
The following morning, any residual fat is skimmed off and even strained through a cheese cloth.
In a pan, leeks, celery and onion are sweated before being roasted with the spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes. This pan is then deglazed with sherry before a house-cured tasso (spiced pork) is added to the already shredded, cooked squash and sweet potato mix.
The house-made chicken stock is then added to this mixture, before a bit of cream is folded in. Then the soup is smoothed with a stick blender.
Before serving, it will be salted and peppered a final time and a last dash of unsweetened cream and grated nutmeg added.
$6 for a cup; $8 for a bowl; 155 E. Fourth St., Fort Worth. 817-332-2473; www.birdinthe.net
Cream of Mushroom Soup at Little Red Wasp
Blaine Staniford, executive chef of Little Red Wasp and its elder sibling-restaurant, Grace, loves soups “because of the endless possibilities they present,” Staniford says.
“As the seasons change, you can mark that with a great soup, especially if you can use the freshest product. We want to treat the soup like the star.”
To achieve the “star” quality in his cream of mushroom soup, Staniford doesn’t bog it down with too many ingredients. He uses cremini or baby Portobello mushrooms and then caramelizes them till they reach a nutty brown color. They are then joined by equally caramelized yellow onions before deglazing the entire pan with sherry wine.
The soup is finished with house-made chicken stock, along with a touch of heavy cream, a half-bunch of fresh thyme plus salt and pepper.
It is topped by a centerpiece of crispy, sourdough bread croutons, redolent of olive oil, Parmesan cheese and fresh garlic.
“What you look for in a winter-time soup is one that coats the back of a spoon — which indicates an absolutely perfect cream-based consistency,” Staniford says.
$5 for a cup; $6 for a bowl; 808 Main St, Fort Worth. 817-877-3111; littleredwasp.com
Tom Yum Soup at Tie Thai
The sweet broth of this soup supports bobbing, toothsome mushroom caps, dotted by a fleet of red pepper flakes and scallion shavings.
In only about 30-minutes’ time, the following ingredients are all folded into, and cooked with, a basic chicken broth. These items, mostly purchased at one of the more popular, authentic Asian markets in east Fort Worth, include palm sugar, ginger root, lemon-grass, basil, shrimp, chili paste and soy bean oil, along with a dash of old reliable salt and pepper.
It is the palm sugar that lends the soup its slightly sugary tinge.
As someone familiar with the soup put it: “It’s a 2,000 year old recipe that is not rocket science but it tastes really good.”
$4.95 for a cup, $7.95 for a bowl; 911 Houston St., Fort Worth. 817-332-9110 ; thaifortworth.com
Carlito’s Bowl at La Perla Negra
There is an added dash of Prohibition-era speakeasy mystery surrounding the Carlito’s Bowl at La Perla Negra. For starters, it isn’t formally listed on the menu, nor is it, technically, a soup.
But if you request it, it will come.
“Carlito’s Bowl is quite a popular item because it is simple and clean,” says the chef, Kevin Martinez. “It is just a good, honest bowl. Nothing too fancy. Just a good meal.”
Deconstructing this bowl allows its “honesty” to shine through. Its bottom layer is a simple batch of expertly cooked rice. On top of that is a soupy layer of charro beans (really a Great Northern white bean) that also incorporates a mix of bacon and chorizo, vegetables, onion and jalapeño. Placed on top of the charro beans are slices of pleasingly-seared flank steak. The Carlito’s Bowl is then finished off with a shower of cilantro.
Those in the know often add their own finishing touches of avocado and shredded mozzarella cheese.
“And that’s really it,” says Martinez. “Again, I chalk up Carlito’s popularity to its simplicity. It’s just a clean dish, reminding many of our customers of what their mom might have made for them as a kid.”
$10; 910 Houston St.; Fort Worth. 817-882-8108; www.lpnegra.com
French Onion Soup at Saint-Emilion
One of the secrets of Bernard Tronche’s French onion soup, at his Saint-Emilion restaurant, is that his soup — a regular menu item since 2000 — actually gets better after its flavors are allowed to marry over several days.
Tronche admits his French onion soup is based on a remarkably simple recipe. But as with all tasty recipes, it’s no surprise that Tronche starts with bacon, which he rolls around several sprigs of rosemary, thyme and a bit of celery.
This is sauteed in a stock pot. A large quantity of yellow onions are added and allowed to cook until they reach that ideal, caramelized state. It can take as much as an hour for the onions to attain a dark, gilded color, when all the onions’ natural sugars have been coaxed out.
A touch of flour is added to the onions to act as a slight thickener. After that, a bit of Madeira and beef stock is added and reduced.
Before it is served, a few slices of toasted baguette form the soup’s roof, and then a slab or two of Swiss gruyere cheese are placed on top. The cheese will be melted into gooey submission underneath the salamander (a professional broiler).
Saint-Emilion serves its onion soup in another classic conveyance: A mini cast-iron bowl made by the French company Staub. Cast iron is vital here as it can withstand an oven’s high heat and allows the onion soup to be served piping hot.
“That heat is important because you don’t want to wolf down onion soup,” Tronche says. “You want to wait on it a bit. That’s part of the fun.”
$12.50; 3617 W. Seventh St., Fort Worth. 817-737-2781; saint-emilionrestaurant.com