Beer Cheese Soup Recipe

How to make it

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• Melt butter in a 4-5 quart saucepan (greater surface area than a stock pot.) on medium to medium low, add the onions, celery, carrot and garlic and cover. Sweat these vegetables until pale wilted and tender to the bite. Eight minutes, check at four to make sure your heat is not too high.
• Stir in flour and cornstarch, cook until bubbly, 2 minutes. This step might prove difficult if the heat was too high and the vegetables have dried out, add a little butter to help with the bubbly part if need be.
• While this is going on you can chop up the cheese, last time I made this I got a smoky, bacon cheddar and swiss. (That's two separate cheeses) I think the combo is a good one, look to a Stilton and Jarlsberg as a guide. But this is a good time to empty out some of those little chunks in that cheese drawer. The small the dice the faster the melt. You could grate this too. Watch out for oily cheese as they tend not to combine after the melting stage.
• Pour in the stock. The last time I made this I emptied out my 'fridge of those partial boxes of stock. Time for the beer, my favorite is a really good porter. Stouts work well. Pilsners can bring a thin nothingness quality to the table. Add the two cheeses, if you are planning on being around the whole time, then just dump these all in along with the rest of the stuff and slowly stir. If you want to shorten the attention span, heat up the stock and veggies to a near boil and then start adding the cheese a handful at a time. When the cheese melts add the cream and baking soda.
• Heat until a lazy boil. The one with those occasional bubbles, nothing rolling about it. This is an easy soup to burn or curdle, high attention as we get to the high simmer or lazy boil. Hold for a few minutes at least ten.
• If you don't have an immersion blender, I am sorry for you, take the step and buy yourself one or give the heavy hint at gift time for you. An immersion blender makes the next step almost fun instead of potentially painful. Puree the soup, get rid of those little lumps of veggies emulsify that beer, broth, cheese, cream solution with the rest until souper smooth.
• Now is a good time to take a taste: salt, pepper, paprika, Cajun, Italian ? Just about anything works, what do you need the soup to go with? This is a very versatile recipe and forgiving.
• Much of this recipe is adapted from "The Complete Book of Soups and Stews" by Bernard Clayton, Jr. Simon and Schuster 1984. An excellent book on the the subject.