10 The Formulation of Dehydrated Soup The main plant requirements for soup blending are an adequate number of ingredient bins, with discharge valves and weighing control, a collecting bin on a monorail beneath the ingredient bins, and good blending and mixing equipment. The mixer will require special blades to cut and distribute the hydrogenated fats which are invariably added to meat soups. This mixer’s blades must also set up an effective tumbling action to rapidly mix the other ingredients. The larger soup blenders use sophisticated punch card or computer systems by which the formulations are punched out on the cards fed into an electronic controller, that weighs and discharges the appropriate ingredients, in sequence, into the mixing plant, concurrently controlling the mixing time. From the blending operation, the soup mix discharges into the filling and packaging plant, which may handle bulk or smaller retail units as the pattern of trade demands. Soup blending is a highly competitive business, in the hands of a very few large international companies, and it is only viable on a small scale where it is ancillary to a basic dehydration operation, and the dehydrator has the bulk of his ingredients on hand. The larger operators are not always dehydrators themselves, and purchase their dried ingredients from producers all over the world. 219 The formulation of soups requires intimate knowledge of the constituent ingredients, and considerable skill. In particular, the rehydration characteristics of the various ingredients must be studied, bearing in mind that the ultimate user, whether it be caterer or housewife, will expect the soup to be prepared without prolonged cooking, and to be as palatable as soup made from fresh materials. The product must also be as competitive in price and quality as canned soup, which has been established for so much longer on the market, and the sale of which has been extremely heavily promoted. INGREDIENTS Ingredients outside the manufacturing scope of the dehydrator, such as starches, vegetable fats, spices, herbs and flavourings, must be supplied to a rigid specification, and this is obviously an area where the factory quality controller will be intimately concerned. Fats of all kinds must be subject to particular scrutiny for peroxide values, free fatty acids and moisture content. Rancidity in beef fat is a common fault and must be avoided at all costs. Hydrogenated vegetable oils are widely used on account of their stability, and their quality standards are generally high. Monosodium glutamate is used to accentuate the flavour of other materials. Yeast extract and beef extract also feature in many soups. Corn starch is the principal thickening agent in soup blends but farina and wheat starch also have their uses. The meat and poultry constituents are mostly in granular or powder form, and of a size which will meet the reconstitution requirements. Vegetable ingredients require to be in a form capable of rapid rehydration, ie, they will require to be fully cooked in 10-15 min. The particle size for root vegetables, normally described as ’thins’, is a cut 9.5mm by 9.5mm by 2mm or 6mm by 6mm by 2mm. Other vegetables, apart from peas, will require to be kibbled or powdered. Some of the large soup manufacturers are now producing soup mixes which reconstitute in a fraction of the above time, and for this purpose some of the basic ingredients are freeze-vacuum dried, thereby producing the quick reconstitution characteristics described earlier in the chapter on drying methods. Vending soups, which are required to blend instantly in hot water, are manufactured from materials ground to a very fine particle size, and sometimes precooked prior to drying. FORMULATION There are countless soup formulations, with several manufacturers’ variations on one particular type, therefore it is not the purpose of this chapter to develop a series of recipes which could be taken as representative of existing products 220 on the market. A vegetable soup mix as set out in table 10.1 is, however, a basic example from which the blender can produce his own variations, and, having obtained experience of a pleasing balance of ingredients, he can proceed to develop other soups by experimentation. Table 20.2 - Basic Vegetable Soup Formulation (1) Dry Mix YO YO Starch 23.73 Salt 9.73 Beef Fat 7.03 Beef Extract (dried) 6.22 Potato Granules 6.00 Monosodium Glutamate 5.41 Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil 2.70 Hydrolised Vegetable Protein 2.70 63.52 (2) Spice Mix Celery Salt 0.40 Black Pepper 0.35 Garlic Powder 0.30 Onion Powder 0.30 1.35 (3) Vegetable Mix Onion-Kibbled 8.46 Carrot-6x6x6mm Dice 8.11 Celery-6xGx2mm Flakes 4.91 Leek-Kibbled 3.38 Green Beans-Kibbled 2.70 Tomato-Granules 2.70 Peas-Petits Pois 1.76 Potato-Kibbled 1.76 Cabbage-bx6x6mm dice 1.35 35.13 100.00 The dilution factor of this formulation would be 10.5:l (water to dry mix) by weight, and cooking time 15 minutes. No artificial colours are used, and the only additives are the anti-oxidants incorporated in the vegetable oil and the residual SO, pertaining to the dehydrated vegetables, where this may be applicable in the original process. A 48g pack of the above formulation would make up to half a litre of soup, or 50g for 1 Imperial pint (575m1). The dehydrated vegetable content may be varied by the addition of 22 I noodles, in whatever proportion may be thought desirable, and, equally, there are permutations of flavourings which can be introduced to meet individual tastes. The object of this chapter is to give basic methods, rather than specific formulations and, from here on, improvisation must take over. ADDITIVES AND ARTIFICIAL COLOURS A growing percentage of the public, has, in the last decade, been persuaded that the use of chemical additives and coal-tar derivative colours in value- added dehydrated products are undesirable, and possibly dangerous in the long term. Their use has sometimes reached the point where additives and artificial flavourings are introduced for cheapness, and artificial colours merely for cosmetic reasons. Some soups, in particular, have been criticised as being bland, flavourless and not distinctively related to the natural raw produce they are supposed to contain. The EEC labelling laws and the binding regulations now imposed on manufacturers of foodstuffs, by which additives and colouring matter must be declared on the label by quoting the E numbers, has done little to allay the public’s adverse attitudes to many processed foods. Media attention and medical opinion on the subject has done nothing to change the underlying feeling in many people’s minds that the proliferation of lists of ingredients on labels is confusing and few know for what purpose these ingredients are used in, say, a simple culinary product such as soup. The reputable soup manufacturers are caught up by the legislation in the same way as those who have no particular aspirations to meet a quality market and who are only guided by the need to meet a low price under a private label for a particular supermarket. Perhaps the answer is to get back to formulations which are understandable to the public, where E numbers for food dyes disappear from the label because they are not used, and the only additives present are those of residual SO, in any dehydrated vegetables which may have been used in the original processing, and which, in terms of percentage in a soup mix, are infinitely small and harmless. Many soup packers do not declare this as an additive in any case. Artificial colours are not necessary in dehydrated soups, are only cosmetic and, in spite of this, are widely used by some manufacturers. In a tomato soup recently examined, 4 separate dyes were declared on the label: E102-El24-El50 and E172, together with additives E320-E310-E262, flavour enhancer E621 and preservative E220. In the author’s opinion, the addition of artificial colours in tomato soup is superfluous and would indicate that the amount of tomato powder used may have been insufficient to give the natural tomato red colour to the 222 prepared soup. The use of sulphur dioxide (E220) would also appear to be unnecessary, as SO, is not used in the dehydration of tomato powder, or tomato flakes, therefore the SO, declared is not likely to refer to the residual sulphur dioxide in the main ingredient of the formulation. The acid regulator (E262) is Sodium Diacetate, of which the toxic effects are unknown at the present time. As Citric Acid is listed as an ingredient to increase acidity, it would appear sensible to omit both this and sodium diacetate and increase the naturally acid constituent - tomato. In effect, the only additive germane to this product is the anti-oxidant incorporated in a bought-in ingredient - hydrogenated vegetable fat - and the rest, including the colours, could have been eliminated, thereby producing a more natural foodstuff. Another preoccupation with some dried soup formulators is the necessity for their product to instantly rehydrate on addition of boiling water. This can only be achieved by comminuting the vegetable or meat ingredients so finely and in such small amounts per unit pack that the flavour becomes neutralised and not always recognisable as the product described on the label, insofar as the natural ingredients are concerned. French soup manufacturers have made fewer concessions to the convenience factor in the matter of cooking time, using identifiable, larger cuts of vegetables, and, where applicable, meat and fish, in their dried soups. The French, Swiss and American soup packers are, arguably, amongst the leading exponents of soup formulation, and their products, quality-wise, come a little closer to 'home cooking' than the synthesized packs of some cost-conscious producers catering for a less discriminating public. These packers are doing no service to the dehydrated soup industry. It is not surprising, therefore, that French housewives, long associated with the art and usage of the stock-pot are less concerned with the importance of making soup in a minute or two, than bringing a soup to their tables which is a fair representation of the 'pot-au-feu' style, which connoisseurs have associated with French cuisine for many years. The French housewife, in effect, was perhaps the last in Europe to accept dehydrated foods but there is a generation now which accepts the convenience factor, as long as the product is identifiable in some degree with fresh produce when reconstituted, and the quality, albeit not exactly 'haute cuisine', is a reasonable substitute for home cooking. The popularity of domestic packs of individual dehydrated vegetables, as already referred to earlier, has drastically declined. Dehydrated soups can retrieve in some degree the reputation of dehydration as an acceptable method of conserving food but increasing attention to the quality of soup formulation by the manufacturers is very necessary, and in some cases, overdue. 223 Modern living conditions appear to demand that less time be spent in the kitchen, and there are many pressures on people’s time which inevitably focus on the need for processed food, impulse foods, ready-meals, either frozen or dehydrated in some degree, packets of sauces, garnishes and soups. In other words, dehydration is coming back in a new image. It is important that attention to quality protects the new conception, and mistakes of the past do not re-occur - like cutting costs and over-synthesising natural products. 224