Soup vs. potage
It's true that we're finally coming out of winter as I write these lines, and that we'll all be making, no doubt, a little less soup and potages, but even if it's out of season, it really is a simple and delicious dish, which is one of the always easy answers to "What's for dinner this (Sunday) evening?".
Speaking of soups and potages, even if they're very similar, do you know the difference?
Speaking of soups and potages, even if they're very similar, do you know the difference?
8,062
Keywords for this post:SoupPotageDifferenceCookingVegetablesBrothWaterLast modified on: April 9th 2022
Soup vs. potage
Soups
Basically, it's water and vegetables cut into small pieces, seasoned and cooked until the vegetables are well done, to obtain a soup.
Of course, the basic recipe can be enriched by replacing the water with broth or milk, for example, or by adding various small ingredients: leftover cooked meat, legumes, croutons, etc. etc. The only limit is your imagination, and what you have in your cupboards or fridge.
Potages
Basically, it always starts out as a soup: water + vegetables that you cook, but then there's the difference: you blend it or put it through a food mill, and you get a soup.
A soup that can also be enriched and improved by adding all kinds of ingredients: Cream, grated cheese, a little cornflour to thicken, etc.
The term "potage" comes from the 17th century, in the sense of "vegetables cooked in a pot", and then gave rise to "potager", a place where vegetables are grown for soup.
As you can see, it's more a question of texture: soup has chunks, while potage is smoother.
Having said that, this boundary is rather blurred, as the 2 words are used for a whole host of very different dishes on restaurant menus, for example, and thus fall outside the usual domain: starter or single dish, hot and savory.
Desserts include fruit soups, for example, which are often a fruit juice or a custard, or both, in which pieces of fruit are placed.
In short, with the imagination of chefs, a soup is just about any dish, made up of a liquid part and a solid part in small pieces, strawberry soup for example.
Other words
In addition to soup and potage, there are other related words, a little outdated nowadays, to designate more specific kinds of soup:
Consommé: In principle, this is a soup in which the water is replaced by a broth, usually beef, which is fairly full-bodied and sometimes with wine added. In ancient times, it was a popular starter at festive meals.
Velouté: This is a soup generously enriched with cream, and sometimes bound with a little cornflour, and very carefully blended or even sieved, all to obtain something very smooth and creamy.
Bisque: This is a soup based on cream and shellfish (lobster, shrimp, etc.).
All these appetizing variations should not blind us to the fact that there's almost nothing simpler to make than a soup at home: water, a few vegetables, salt/pepper and you're done!
And let's not forget that soup has been the mainstay of our meals, if not the meal itself, for centuries (just look at the number of expressions with "soup" in them: soupe au lait, soupe à la grimace, cracher dans la soupe, ...).
It's a dish that's probably as old as humanity itself, and can be found in every culture, in every country. A good thing it has in common with bread.
To sum up: soup is mainly vegetables cooked in water, so there are chunks, whereas potage is a soup that has been blended or put through a food mill.
Lasts posts
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20251,3125
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20251,3075
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...July 31th 20251,3925
Parsley stems
Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?July 28th 20251,539 13
A drizzle of olive oil
Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...July 13th 20251,6495
Other pages you may also like
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20251,3125
The art of the charlotte
In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...February 27th 201342 K4.3
Steam for baking bread
What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...June 16th 2021141 K4.5
The window-pane test in bread-making
The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...June 16th 202192 K 23.9
The 3 secrets of Parisian flan
A flan Parisien, or boulanger, is a simple yet delicious cake. A cream, a mixture of milk, eggs and sugar, is poured into a raw pastry base and baked in the oven until the pastry and cream are cooked. This is the simplest version of the recipe, probably the original one, but nowadays the cream...July 21th 202311 K4.7
Post a comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.