When I was at my poorest (I had no money whatsoever for 13 weeks with a flat and 2 little dogs, was also pregnant so the savings I had for baby things had to go on rent and utilities😞plus needed dog food so I went without) I had bought the cheapest self raising flour and out of desperation, I used to just add water to make a thick batter, fry it in a pan and it made a fluffy kind of pancake. Bit of salt and pepper on top and a small amount of Chop Brown sauce (similar to HP brown sauce) and it was filling and tasty! Bag of flour lasted ages and cost about 30-40p (was over 35 years ago) Had no vitamins and minerals in but it was filling and tasted lovely! You do what you do to live! It's amazing what you can live through lol Fortunately, baby was a beautiful, healthy baby girl Bet the soup is nice too, just didnt think of a soup at the time, just the eggless, milkless pancake! It kept me and the baby alive and all that matters! xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Flour is actually pretty nutritious and the sausage have B12 in it. Maybe not the best diet for a pregnant woman, but i don't think your baby was deprived as many nutrients as you worried about. ❤️
A full belly is better then an empty belly. I have learned this lesson years ago. My parent's alway had no money and didn't know what to do with the food they had on hand. I was 10yo. Cooking a meal for my family. My mom, dad, grandparent's, my little sister... My parents and grandparents could NOT cook for the life of them. They stopped cooking all together when they realized I could cook better then them. 🤣 I don't know where I got it. They have all passed on now. Now I feed 6 children under 12yo and 3 adults daily "husband, his 22yo son, and me". Give me $5 and I can cook a meal for more then 10 people.
In Taiwan we have a sweet version of this soup called Mian Cha (麵茶). It's a cheap/comfort food belong to older generation: a hot soup made by pouring hot water into toasted flour and sugar with a bits of nuts such as sesame or peanuts powder. Sometimes there's a crunchy balloon-like flatbread (椪餅) on top. The pre-made powder is also sold in the supermarket.
She was moving around cold flour too in the beginning like as soon as she turned the flame on, it was driving me crazy. Let the pan warm, Emmy lol. But I love her!
We fry up a bit of russet potatoes and onion, move them over to one side of the pan, use the oil from it to toast the flour, add boiling water. We call it gravy or bi-oo-eł in our Navajo language. We make frybread and warm up some Navajo tea, it’s comfort food meal.
We learned yesterday that my husband is being laid off (as is the entire locale) after 21+ years. I've always been a thrifty cook, but your recipes and soothing voice are a balm in times of need. Blessings to all.
Only going up from there ! Last year me and my bf had nothing, no jobs, were lost , we risked everything and moved across the us, lived in the car for two weeks , and we are now doing great. Your only going up from there
My 95yo grandma often cooks this soup, and I always looooooved it! She cooks it a bit differently though, and there are no lumps if you cook it her way. She first boils the milk and then gradually adds the flour, and stirrs for a few minutes. Sometimes she cracks an egg in it, but I prefer it without the egg. Also, she calles it "Skrob", which in serbian simply means starch. 😄😃 Greetings from Bosnia! ❤
I can remember being broke enough where we would just put flour with water and salt and frying it in a pan with some veg oil. Stuff like this can really get you through those tough times
Hello Emmy!!! I made your flour soup the next day after I watched the video. I’m quite poor and eat from the food bank whatever I receive. I had some flour, lard and some stock from an old hambone. I doubled your recipe. I then followed your instructions and then added some onions, cooked split peas and Lima beans. For spices I added sriracha sauce, curry, parsley and a little fennel. I will serve it over rice. Thank you for your tremendous instruction, your accurate evaluation of flavour and your brilliant suggestions on how to modify the recipe. I found it encouraging, and uplifting to have something of quality to eat from lean pickings. Love your blog and find you to be eternally charming. I wish all even greater joy and success in your kitchen and blog journey!!
Try homemade biscuits using milk, flour, vinegar (splash) and baking soda, and oil. Mix them up and cook in oven. Then pour this "soup" over them w black pepper. Biscuits and gravy.
A mennonite friend was visiting a sick friend of theirs who was struggling and they had virtually nothing in the cupboards but he made a tomato soup out of some roux and tomato juice and some herbs, and a few other items too... all because he had been raised with a grandmother who lived through the great depression and had taught him. He went and bought food for him too afterwards but he was able to "make a meal from nothing" by knowing some of these hard times recipes. The guy is a food genius, he has Sunday brunches that are legendary.
I haven't been to a good Sunday brunch for too many years! I've had a couple of mediocre brunches, but they were all in restaurants. Why would a restaurant think that leaving a tray of eggs Benedict to congeal under a heat lamp, for who knows how long, was a good idea? And then, to have the nerve to expect people to pay $15 per person🤯. We didn't stay. My best friend of the past 50 years is, like your friend, a gourmet cook. She's never made me brunch, but she has made me some amazing breakfasts. Her lemon poppy seed pancakes, with homemade fruit compote, are so good. And her cheesecake is so light and fluffy, it's unbelievable. And now I'm hungry, lol!
My mother taught me how to "make something from nothing" and it made me a better cook. Using this roux recipe, I once made a sort of nacho cheese with 3 slices of sandwich cheese (which is all we had) and some seasoning. With a can of pinto beans and half a bag of tortilla chips. We had nachos and it was great. You can also use ketchup and seasonings to make a tomato bisque.
wow....great story. I love to hear about such creative people. That is what true cooking is all about IMO. You do with what you have. Thanks for sharing this.
I love how you don't judge the meal too much! I feel like with this type of recipe would be portrayed like it's wacky and crazy, but I like your more understanding approach to it!
My thoughts exactly 😂 This is how I've always made my white gravy for salmon patties, potatoes, and if you add cheese it's how I make my scratch Mac n cheese sauce. But now I wanna try it with mushrooms! Edit: oh duh, and sausage gravy! And if you use self rising flour or add some baking powder to the regular flour, milk, fat mix, roll it out, cut into circles and bake at 350F, you get easy peasy homemade biscuits! I do mine in the air fryer (4 minutes on each side) and it makes them wonderfully crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. So much you can do with just milk flour and fat!
This is how my mom makes milk gravy to go over biscuits. You can also brown ground sausage and use that grease to make the gravy, mix the browned sausage back into the gravey serve over hot buttered biscuits. Soooo good
There’s Flour Soup in Switzerland too, but the flour is roasted to a brown colour before making the soup with a bit of onion, butter and beef stock. And then we top it with a bit of Gruyere cheese!
Yes! This is the one I remember my Grandma making! In her accent, it came out like ‘mow soup’ which as a child, I heard as ‘mouse soup’. It took my mother a little time to get THAT image out of my head, but when she did, I really loved that soup.
Such a versatile recipe! My mother often used this as a base for soups during the cold months, and also used it as gravy over our potatoes - it can be changed up so much by the addition of fats, meats, vegetables and spices etc., and we ate every bite - we lovingly referred to it as her 'poverty slop' 😂
@@anarudiaz If it was a fresh batch, she would season and cook the meat first to brown it so it would give the dish more flavor, and then add the vegetables after so they won't be too mushy. If you are wanting to use leftovers, make the flour 'soup' first and add spices and the leftover meat/veggies, and let it simmer until the flavors infuse. At least that is the way she always did it :) (Also a splash of lemon juice mixed in at the end makes it very yummy!)
In the old days in Norway, this was very typical everyday food! Vassgraut, literally "water porridge", consists of basically just two simple ingredients, water and flour, and can be worked and prepared in many different ways. As Ruth Bradley has already said, using old porridge sort of like pan cake batter was very common, and depending on what you added it could be sweet, savory, sour or whatever you wanted. :) I think this is one of those foods that are so simple practically every culture with access to grains has a version of it.
@@samanthaoverlock7552 no doubt , ,Everyone has their own special recipes, I’ve never tried the butter method ,but sounds like it would be good over rice ,
I always heard hot roux, cold milk, no lumps. I don't make gravy much so I can't say it's foolproof. It does work for me when I do make it. I think it came from chef John. This looks interesting. When the hard times hit soon, I will have to give it a try
My mama told me a long time ago to never add hot milk to a roux unless you want lumpy gravy. Cold milk only. I also think a couple of extra tablespoons of butter could have helped smooth everything out.
Emmy, if you want lumps out of your gravy and soup, please don't use straight up milk. Mix it 50/50 with water or broth. It takes a little time more to thicken but worth it. That's how they do it in the Appalachian Mountains where I'm from!
@@dg594 I'm a trained chef and yeah my roux is a paste not a crumble and I also usually use hot fats not cold fats, for this specific recipe I would have actually browned the butter first
@@ConstantChaos1 same, i think a brown roux would work best here. Use more butter, let it brown first, then add the flour, let it toast a bit more and then slowly mix in the mix. Would get rid of all the lumps.
The issue wasn't the milk. Those lumps formed and cooked with that butter. You should toast that flour by itself UNLESS you use equal amounts of butter and flour while toasting. Melt the butter then add flour and you'll get a nice roux. She should use more butter or omit it while toasting the flour. I've made enough recipes involving roasting flour and roux that I know milk wasn't the issue but the process.
This reminds me of Papas. You fill a pot with milk, add sugar and stir in flour. Stir and stir and stir on medium-low heat until it thickens. Sprinkle some cinnamon over it (if you have it) and eat. A childhood staple. We were also quite poor. Edit: For anyone else unaware, or for those who remember this dish but not the spelling, it's pronounced: "Pah-Pehzh"
I’m so glad I found this comment! I had forgotten the name. My grandmother would make it for me when I was really little and she was looking after me. It was always so comforting. I’ve been trying to recreate it for years. Thank you!
LOL. Here in the Appalachians area that's called country gravy, and it goes over biscuits, toast, or even fried potatoes. It's also the base to a roux, especially for cheddar soups, or baked Mac & cheese. I frequently use it to make sausage gravy over homemade biscuits. To have heard my mother, it was a welcome added flavor during the Great Depression. She raised nine children with such basics.
My family is from West Virginia originally and my grandpa this is how he has taught all of us how to make gravy and when we're making gravy though you add flour into the fat not fat into the flower so that kind of threw me off when she was making the soup you always take your grease from your sausage or whatever and you add flour to the grease gradually until it becomes a thick paste and you want to keep stirring it because if you don't it'll start to stick but the flower toes up a little bit we don't toast the flour that much though just a tiny bit and then at our milk and sausage and salt and pepper and put it over biscuits! When we're making gravy for Thanksgiving it's the same thing but we use the turkey fat or the juice from the turkey and we take that and add flour to it and we cook it a little bit longer so it's a little bit darker but that's the gravy we eat with our turkey for Thanksgiving and it is amazing if you haven't tried making gravy for Thanksgiving like that which it's a West Virginia / Appalachian mountains thing so I'm sure you have but if you haven't you have to try it it is the best gravy for Thanksgiving we eat it on our sweet potatoes and our turkey and stuffing pretty much everything that is on the plate is covered with gravy LOL
@@amandahawkins87 , I know you're right! You add that flour to those drippings, not the other way around. And you brown that mixture just enough to take the raw taste out of the flour. Momma used to sometimes add dried, chipped beef in, but I'm thinking that was a Navy thing, (where my Dad had served when Pearl Harbor was attacked), to please my Dad. Mom would make creamed turkey with Thanksgiving leftovers, but never used milk in her turkey gravy for our Thanksgiving meal. Sometimes she used flour in our holiday meal, other times she thickened the gravy with cornstarch, but always made her gravy with the turkey broth and water. I'm guessing that was the method she picked up from my Dad's family. Still, my siblings and I loved that gravy over mashed potatoes, stuffing (especially), and the turkey - you bet!
Hi Emmy, I am a Danish Canadian and I have a "hard times" meal for you. Its called Øllebrød. Its a porridge made with rye bread, water, sugar and beer 🍺 ! Back in the day, one would save the butt ends and close to butt ends of the rye bread loaf. As either they were stale ( or no one would eat them) once enough were saved, into a pot they would go with a beer and water to just cover the bread. It would get cooked down until it was a lumpy porridge consistency. At this point I would cool slightly then blend, as I don't like lumps! Lol Back in the pot it would go, and sugar would be added. Sugar to your preference but at least a half to a full cup. Cook until sugar is dissolved and serve in a bowl with cold non whipped cream dashed on top! As a kid I always liked making a pattern. I Dont always wait for the butt ends of bread and will take a half loaf of rye and make it. Careful not to use a Russian rye that has caraway in it! Give it a try! Breakfast with beer 🍺 lol 😂
we also got the rye bread crumbs we put on yoghurt, and the porridge version retains some of that deep rich almost savory flavor that comes from ryebread and sugar,i think its disgusting now texture-wise but it was my go-to breakfast for a long time when i was a kid
My grandmother used the exact same recipe ! She used some cauliflower, put it in a oven safe container add that “sauce/soup) and add some old cheddar on top. She broiled the whole thing in the oven and voila! All my family eats that we are originally from the bas saint-Laurent in Quebec. ⚜️🇨🇦
This is very similar to cauliflower cheese which is very common and popular in the UK. But cauliflower cheese usually involves a cheese sauce as well as the cheese on top.
This definitely is the base for cream of mushroom, chicken, etc. my boyfriend can’t have dairy so when I need cream of whatever, I make my own with dairy free milk and this is the base! I also enjoy eating it plain because when seasoned it’s actually quite tasty!
My mom used to make this when i was young and we were poor. She added a bit of ground beef and served it over toast. I loved it and only now realize it was truly a hard-times meal.
That sounds kinda like chipped beef. In my house, we add tuna and peas and put it on toast (“creamed tuna on toast”) and it’s a quick, simple, and filling staple for me (and cheap!). I don’t like tuna or peas normally, but damn do I like creamed tuna on toast.
We had that before! We also did "pizza" toast. Bread, pizza sauce and a slice of canned pineapple and American cheese. If we were lucky we got lunch meat ham on it. Anyone else have that?
@@sgtfifilarue8957 isn't that the truth, at our house it was rice with milk, a little sugar and cinnamon, thought I was the luckiest kid to get that for dinner
I agree.. my Basler Mehlsuppe is way darker and is made with cold stock. Béchamel has different ratio.. more Butter and less Flour. 🤗 And waaaaay more nutmeg.. 🤪👌🏻
Dear Emmy, Chef John from Food Wishes here on RUclips says to keep the soup from getting lumpy, add cold liquid to hot roux. He adds the cold liquid all at once and whisks it in and it blends in smoothly. This goes against my early training, but it works 🤗
I've had this as a kid. When I younger we had a version of this called "toasted four an bacon soup". It was common when we were homeless for two years as we lived in a 13 passenger van. We would also get free bacon chunks with the bacon lard trimmings from the local butcher. A good batch could feed all of us for allmost two days. It's funny, to this day when me an my siblings reflect on that time it was all mostly halarious fun. My Mom made it feel like one long camping trip instead of calling us "homeless" cuz technically we had the car. But yah, good memories of hard times.
it's basically a bechamel one of the "mother sauces" I make this quite often, and add diced ham, browned sausage, or browned ground beef. I's very hearty and filling.
It's so strange to me that a recipe with a fancy sounding name like bechamel, got renamed to something like, burnt flour soup in a different culture. 😆 I guess it depends on who makes it, and how they view their options at the time, but it's still amusing to think about how different the names are.
@@bitchenboutique6953 when you add cheese to a béchamel, it becomes sauce mornay! :) always think that's a neat little bit of info. I usually use it to make macaroni and cheese
I would say keep in mind that the context is relatively different. We see it as a bechamel and as a component in other dishes, but for other people it’s making due with what they had. It’s very possible that, depending on when this soup originated, the soup may have come first and someone said “hey, let’s use this in other dishes” or alternately it was used as a culinary premise and then in times of need it was repurposed as a base means of nutrition. Or they could be unrelated - it’s amazing how different people in different parts of the world come up with what essentially amounts to the same dish just within different contexts without it otherwise being communicated.
@@tailorforeman7082 Do as I do with my Chilean mom! Use the butter to fry your rice and infuse the flavour into before you boil it and you'll get a deliciously rich rice. We usually fry garlic with the rice too.
I literally made something a lot like this recently when I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth removed. I'd been drinking a lot of meal replacement drinks and was getting sick of their sweetness, so I made something savoury.
It DOES look like an awesome base for a cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup! Meantime, anyone else find Emmy's voice to have a particularly pleasant ASMR quality? Very pleasant, very soothing.
You mentioned a Swiss version having cheese, and I just realised I’ve made at least one variation of flour soup! Cheese soup was a staple for me as a student; an easy, cheap meal.
Yep, or use bacon fat and add a little rubbed sage to get something close to Cracker Barrel's "sawmill gravy". (Add diced leftover chicken and serve over rice...yum!)
I have actually made this by accident once! I was trying to make cream of chicken soup from scratch and I ended up adding too much milk so I just went with it. It was really yummy and I've made it on purpose a couple of times since. It can also make a really nice cheesy cream sauce if you add a lot of cheese, I usually add about a bag of the shredded stuff. I have never had it get that lumpy, I usually add the butter first though until it's completely melted than I add the flour and make sure to whisk the flour in slowly to make sure the flour doesn't lump. The paste should be smooth with the butter and flour. At least it was when I made it again my accident. Instead of as much milk I usually do half milk half chicken broth and add freshly cooked chicken to make cream of chicken soup. It's amazing how versatile this recipe is and its one step from a whole bunch of other soups! It's pretty cool!
FYI. The reason you have the lumps is because you didn’t add enough liquid initially. It is good to add it a bit at a time, but you need to add enough liquid to make it thin, and allow it to thicken up.
this series reminds me of my childhood and adolescence. me and my dad loved loved loved going to the movies and i always liked movie popcorn but as times started to get tough we started to bring popcorn from home into backpacks and stuff and so my dad in an effort to make things better learned how to make a sweet caramelized popcorn that he tossed in milk powder after it was done. we still eat it in movie nights to this day. love you, dad ❤️
I grew up eating a sweet version of this. We call it flour porridge. My mom would add sugar, cinnamon and cloves. I never thought it was weird because we ate all forms of porridge from cornmeal to oatmeal. We are Caribbean by the way. We also had bread soup which is soup made with old bread with bits of random vegetables.
My Dad use to boil water & stir in Flour then a can of Coconut Milk. No Lie, it was Amazingly Delicious. I think the name was HeuHeu, means Stir in Tongan, which now makes sense🥰 Rest In Love Dad!
It's been boiling in the soup for some time so I don't see how it could be raw. They've been whisked around pretty thoroughly too, so they're quite small, no way they're going to still be dry. Effect should be like tiny dumplings.
I love this soup! My Mom always made it for me when I had stomach problems but she did it with water instead of milk. It's still one of my go-to quick soups that I eat even when I'm feeling great! Sometimes I add Italian spices or just parsley and a tiny bit of cumin. Even paprika tastes great in this soup. Whatever spices you like. Edited to add: my Mom always used COLD water to prevent clumps.
Reminds me of the base my mom used to make that ended up being biscuits and gravy or sausage gravy to go over biscuits. She would sometimes use ground beef. Whatever fat she had on hand typically saved bacon grease.
@@stacithompson5016 yes my dad would use toast too sometimes. He was ex military and called it 💩 on a shingle. Always grossed me out but he said it was the slang for it in his service days😂
That sounds good! It seems that there's a variation of this soup from a lot of different countries and cultures, I've seen Taiwanese, Navajo, Polish, etc in the comments section.
I know that we’re always told to add the liquid a little at a time. I used to try that and always had lumps. I started adding most of or all of the liquid and just stirring it until it thickens. This way has always given me nice smooth gravy.
Thank you for giving me this idea. I've had a really hard month financially so I've only been having one or two meals every couple of days. This will be a very cheap meal
Hi Alec. The youtube channel "the Quaint Housewife" might be of use to you, she places a heavy focus on making a variety of tasty meals with the lowest possible cost. I'm worried about your wellbeing, I hope your hard times come to an end soon.
A local food bank near you should be able to help. Also, do you have a local Dollar Store near you? TheWolfePit RUclips channel has a lot of really good homemade recipes you can make for pennies a serving. Check out his channel. Praying things get better for you!
When I discovered this recipe about 35 years ago, it was in an Italian cookbook, and attributed to the herders of the Tuscany region, made especially during Winter. I fell in love with it immediately, and to this day I make it regularly every Winter here in southern California....I use chicken stock, and dried thyme, and that's it.
If this is flour, butter, milk we called it “milk Brye” growing up I never knew it was a poor man’s meal…. This adds sugar and butter even brown sugar. It’s delicious you can have fruit with it too
The soup reminds me of making sausage gravy. Very similar looking, and sounds like it tastes similar too. The only difference is you usually start with the fat and frond from cooking sausage already in the pan.
Same! But I'm from PA so we also do sweet Lebanon bologna gravy as well. Same recipe as sausage gravy just a different meat, it's sweet and smokey in taste, similar to "sh*t on a shingle" lol absolute favorite 😋
Using colder liquid can help you avoid lumps when making roux, as it gives time for lumps to dissolve before the flour reacts and thickens once the liquid boils.
You basically made my mom's country gravy... Which I would eat by the bowl full any day! I would eat cream of mushroom soup straight from the can in college. Love it! I know I'm weird..
This is something I wouldn't of thought of. It's so simple! 😊 Oh also, whenever I make a roux, I use room temp stock or cold milk from the fridge and I've never had lumps. I also let it get almost into a paste so it smells like pie crust, then add the rest of liquid....but I'm definitely going to try this. Thanks Emmy!
Its great to see that yall are making this *flour boiled in water* dish into fancy italian dish *flour soup* My father is 'a 71 liner and he survived a famine. he would always mention us how his family survived eating *rice gruel* or *steamed flour mixed with water* without salt..
Looks like classic gravy to go with buscuits. And yes Ive definitely made gravy just to eat by itself. Usually use milk myself but during hard times ive used straight water. Thank you for these videos.
We toast flour when making Filipino polvoron (no bake shortbread cookies). So I love that flavor. I can imagine it goes well in a soup. You can also use toasted flour to make scrumptious edible cookie dough. Fun fact: I used browned flour as a diaper powder for all my kiddos. Browning it helps remove moisture, and it's great for preventing diaper rash...and cheap.
My mother used to make us this soup with potatoes and onions to give it more flavour. We grew up eating it most days of the week because we didn't have a lot of money. She taught me to make it and to avoid lumps use cool (not ice cold) water with the flour and stir in a separate dish until there's no lumps before putting back in the pan and continuing with the rest. It does require a little extra flour but for no flour clumping it's worth it.
Made me think of chip beef gravy. My grandma made it with Buddig beef which is still 80 cents a package. You cut the beef into half inch by 2.5 inch ribbons and then make a regular milk gravy with salt and pepper for seasoning and serve it on toast. One pack of the beef was enough to feed 4 and even adults were full after 2 pieces of toast topped with chipped beef gravy.
This is essentially a ‘toasted’ bechamel. To prevent lumping, the fat & flour amount should be the same. Cook the fat & flour, turn off heat, add a little bit of liquid, mix. You want it to congeal/lump up at this point. Whisk well (1-2 mins), return to heat, then add all of the remaining liquid. No lumps!
I'm intrigued except that this seems kind of nutritionally void. (Starvation recipes are often like that, though.) I feel like mushrooms and maybe some dark green veg would make this recipe bomb.
Hey Jenn, Mom used to change up the Zucchini & Summer Squash summer mix by also sauteing tomatoes and onions with it. I'm not a fan (I have a "squishy" thing intolerance) but really love to use Zucchini as a lasagna noodle. If I happen to get one that has big seeds I simply use the mandoline for slices and rotate the Zuc to miss the seeds. It's a great alternative to the normal pasta lasagna noodle. ❤❤❤ Love your honesty and content.
Makes me think of another RUclipsr, an old lady whom survived the Great Depression which made videos about making food during that time period. Very good to see Emmy keeping the memory alive.
There's a few American "convict cookbooks" too. Emmy has one but I can't remember the name of it right now. She's done at least two recipes from it as far as I remember. I think if you look for "prison recipes" or something similar in her videos you will find it. Edit: Here's her playlist of prison recipes: ruclips.net/p/PLkUFQm9t2lDVIvPpqI8VX8FEIjS1hXMkS
We have something like it in Norway, translated it's butter-porridge. Heat milk, whisk in a cup or two of flour and let boil. Add a helping of butter towards the end. Served velvety smooth with sugar.
To avoid lump, add only a little bit of liquid first, stir until there is no lump, repeat until runny, then add the remaining liquid. Basically, it's runny bechamel sauce.
We need more in this series, please! My favorite is Mrs. Beaton’s Bread Soup. It requires stale bread and broth. Nothing else, but suggestions are milk or butter, “if it’s affordable “!
Im indigenous (canadian) and grew up having flour soup with either ground beef or with moose/deer/elk meat 😋 if we had extra we would maybe put in some potatoes or berries but otherwise its just the meat and flour
*This is going to help so many people who are going through a difficult financial time right now trying to make ends meet this month!* You always produce such amazing content Emmy. Another home run! 😊🙌🤩
This would be awesome with some inexpensive shredded cheddar (it’s usually on sale for 1.77 for 8oz) then, throw in some chopped broccoli (usually on sale for 99 close cents/pound). For just a bit more, you can add some great flavors!
I grew up eating this! It’s called papas. My family is Portuguese and we got this as kids when we weren’t feeling well. I love it! We sweeten it. I love it.
We have the same soup in Croatia, it's called prežgana juha, and with addition of smoked paprika and some spices it actually becomes quite tasty. I have no money problems but still occasionally make it in the winter because it's so good and satisfying. I used to add an egg into it, but now I just opt for croutons.
My background is from the Balkans. We make something similar. We brown the flour more, and add stock (cold stock/water to the roux to avoid lumps - something my dad insists on and swears by) so it’s ends up looking a bit like a brown gravy. We also add lots of garlic, and sometimes chicken or meatballs. I sometimes add sautéed mushrooms. And some nice fresh bread to dip into it!
A trick to speed up the process is to toast your flour in the oven! You can toast a large batch of flour in the oven ahead of time, cool it, and store it for months, and then use it anytime you want to make a roux without having to stand and watch over it at the stove for as long. It honestly is very hard to tell the difference in flavor between the oven toasted flour method and the stovetop method!
I’m descended from Norwegians, and one thing we eat every Christmas is Rommegrøt - a flour porridge, but made with sour cream. It’s divine topped with cinnamon sugar.
Here in Brazil, at least where i live, we use this as base for Macarrão ao molho branco, White sauce spaghetti, we put chicken in this sauce, but i'm a vegetarian, so i'm good with just this and spaghetti, some times broccoli, mushrooms are too expensive to get here, but i imagine it would be good too
That seems like a version of the German “thick soup” that is a whole bunch of flour, with egg, salt and fat (like butter) and a little water massaged in until it is a crumb-like texture, then sprinkled into a boiling water or broth, and cooked until thick and creamy. It creates tiny dumplings, in a thick broth. Then you can season it any way you like. Definitely filling, lol, but can be pretty tasty too.
In Norway we have a similar recipe we call velvet porridge. It's mainly flour and milk with some butter and salt in it. We usually top it with sugar and cinnamon, so some places it is eaten as a dessert, while other places it's eaten for dinner or lunch. It's a really delicious dish I make all the time and I highly recommend it :)
Flour soup is a staple in traditional Moroccan cooking. You make it with barley flour and it's delicious. The basic is water, flour and salt. But just the addition of black pepper when serving and olive oil takes it to the next level. There are so many variations depending on your preference and finance. It's eaten at the crack of dawn to start the work until breakfast is ready. Just like harira it's eaten with dates and figs.
I just made this and I think the lumps are there for some texture! I made mine thinner and it very much reminds me of a chowder. I'm eating it as I type this, very enjoyable simple soup 🥰
Love these hard times videos…gives insight into the birth (or stripping down?)of common cooking techniques. Once you master a basic roux…and springboard into velouté, béchamel, mornay, etc…the recipes become endless. I find myself not really measuring once you get the base set. Veggies, meats/fish, starches…whatever you have on hand and complement whatever flavor profile ‘native’ to your tongue…you can make some really tasty meals. And peeve your friends/family when they ask for a recipe and you just give them the basic fat/flour ratios and tell them you couldn’t replicate the rest of the dish you just made if you tried, lol. …also, I think you can achieve similar results using other starchy non glutinous flours (rice, potato, etc). It’s the hot fat surrounding toasted starch, shocked by a liquid that achieves the thickening action.
Thank you for sharing this! Friends and family get tired of me saying I can show them how much ingredients they need but are baffled bc I can’t give measurements. The sneaky ones just ask me to make it for them! 😂
My fav cheap meal is a bowl of grits. 1 canister of grits costs $1.50 (at Aldi) and makes around 15 servings. So literally 1 cent per meal. I cook it with 1 TBS of butter, top it with pepper and a sprinkle of cheddar, its so yummy, comforting, filling, and dirt cheap! It's also good with some crumbled up breakfast sausage or some fried eggs!
She’s really out here preparing us for the 2nd Great Depression 😭
Depending on where you live, it's already here.
Facts
😐😐😭
Well, it makes a great base for all the crickets and grubs.
Some people already dont have money for big meals
When I was at my poorest (I had no money whatsoever for 13 weeks with a flat and 2 little dogs, was also pregnant so the savings I had for baby things had to go on rent and utilities😞plus needed dog food so I went without) I had bought the cheapest self raising flour and out of desperation, I used to just add water to make a thick batter, fry it in a pan and it made a fluffy kind of pancake. Bit of salt and pepper on top and a small amount of Chop Brown sauce (similar to HP brown sauce) and it was filling and tasty! Bag of flour lasted ages and cost about 30-40p (was over 35 years ago) Had no vitamins and minerals in but it was filling and tasted lovely! You do what you do to live! It's amazing what you can live through lol Fortunately, baby was a beautiful, healthy baby girl Bet the soup is nice too, just didnt think of a soup at the time, just the eggless, milkless pancake! It kept me and the baby alive and all that matters! xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Strong and clever🙌
Flour is actually pretty nutritious and the sausage have B12 in it. Maybe not the best diet for a pregnant woman, but i don't think your baby was deprived as many nutrients as you worried about. ❤️
A full belly is better then an empty belly. I have learned this lesson years ago. My parent's alway had no money and didn't know what to do with the food they had on hand. I was 10yo. Cooking a meal for my family. My mom, dad, grandparent's, my little sister... My parents and grandparents could NOT cook for the life of them. They stopped cooking all together when they realized I could cook better then them. 🤣 I don't know where I got it. They have all passed on now. Now I feed 6 children under 12yo and 3 adults daily "husband, his 22yo son, and me". Give me $5 and I can cook a meal for more then 10 people.
oh i wish i could get flour for 40p....
Praying you don’t have physical ailments later in life since baby will take from your body what it needs if you’re not supplementing
In Taiwan we have a sweet version of this soup called Mian Cha (麵茶). It's a cheap/comfort food belong to older generation: a hot soup made by pouring hot water into toasted flour and sugar with a bits of nuts such as sesame or peanuts powder. Sometimes there's a crunchy balloon-like flatbread (椪餅) on top. The pre-made powder is also sold in the supermarket.
happy to see a fellow taiwanese mention this! :)
My Hokkien ancestors passed this recipe down as well! I love how my grandma and 3rd aunt made it. They stir fry the powder so perfectly.
Ooooh, I've never tried that, but it sounds tasty 😋
Where?
@@patrykskuba893 ask ur mom
As Chef John always says, “Cold milk, warm roux, no lumps.” My experience has always taught this to be true.
YEs and he adds it all at once. Always works for me.
I was wondering about the hot milk. I always add it in cold, and voila! No lumps!
She was moving around cold flour too in the beginning like as soon as she turned the flame on, it was driving me crazy. Let the pan warm, Emmy lol. But I love her!
Oh thank you I was wondering how to fix that before I gave it a go
Yes, love chef John. Not a recipe I have tried and not liked
We fry up a bit of russet potatoes and onion, move them over to one side of the pan, use the oil from it to toast the flour, add boiling water. We call it gravy or bi-oo-eł in our Navajo language. We make frybread and warm up some Navajo tea, it’s comfort food meal.
what is the Navajo tea made of?? I am off to look for a Navajo cooking channel here on RUclips. You made me curious to know more about all of it.
Sounds delicious
Whoaa, that sounds GOOD!
I want to try making Fry Bread.
That sounds yummy!
We learned yesterday that my husband is being laid off (as is the entire locale) after 21+ years. I've always been a thrifty cook, but your recipes and soothing voice are a balm in times of need. Blessings to all.
So sorry to hear that. I pray another door opens up soon for you guys, and that you are able to lean on each other for support and encouragement ❤️
Only going up from there !
Last year me and my bf had nothing, no jobs, were lost , we risked everything and moved across the us, lived in the car for two weeks , and we are now doing great.
Your only going up from there
@@ifyouknowyouknow6964 I will keep you in my thoughts, internet friend. Wishing you well. 💘
@@sharonn9991 I hope so as well. I wish you all the best. 🙏
Sending prayers 🙏
My 95yo grandma often cooks this soup, and I always looooooved it! She cooks it a bit differently though, and there are no lumps if you cook it her way. She first boils the milk and then gradually adds the flour, and stirrs for a few minutes. Sometimes she cracks an egg in it, but I prefer it without the egg. Also, she calles it "Skrob", which in serbian simply means starch. 😄😃
Greetings from Bosnia! ❤
Škrob*
@@theguiltypaytheprice.4899 Haha mi ovdje kažemo "skrob". 😄😊
I can remember being broke enough where we would just put flour with water and salt and frying it in a pan with some veg oil. Stuff like this can really get you through those tough times
Reminds me of recipe my mom makes, it has flour, water, eggs, salt and sometimes I'd sneak in 1 slice worth of cheese.
Sometimes we still eat it.
we did this growing up in 🇯🇲 jamaica sometimes we would add chopped onions or dried fish…. we call them fritters
Hello Emmy!!!
I made your flour soup the next day after I watched the video. I’m quite poor and eat from the food bank whatever I receive. I had some flour, lard and some stock from an old hambone. I doubled your recipe. I then followed your instructions and then added some onions, cooked split peas and Lima beans. For spices I added sriracha sauce, curry, parsley and a little fennel. I will serve it over rice. Thank you for your tremendous instruction, your accurate evaluation of flavour and your brilliant suggestions on how to modify the recipe. I found it encouraging, and uplifting to have something of quality to eat from lean pickings. Love your blog and find you to be eternally charming. I wish all even greater joy and success in your kitchen and blog journey!!
Try homemade biscuits using milk, flour, vinegar (splash) and baking soda, and oil. Mix them up and cook in oven. Then pour this "soup" over them w black pepper. Biscuits and gravy.
Your version of this soup sounds amazing!
@@joltjolt5060 I was thinking that! Very similar to my gravy recipe.
if in the us use butter, lard is more expensive usually
You just made country gravy.
A mennonite friend was visiting a sick friend of theirs who was struggling and they had virtually nothing in the cupboards but he made a tomato soup out of some roux and tomato juice and some herbs, and a few other items too... all because he had been raised with a grandmother who lived through the great depression and had taught him. He went and bought food for him too afterwards but he was able to "make a meal from nothing" by knowing some of these hard times recipes. The guy is a food genius, he has Sunday brunches that are legendary.
I haven't been to a good Sunday brunch for too many years! I've had a couple of mediocre brunches, but they were all in restaurants. Why would a restaurant think that leaving a tray of eggs Benedict to congeal under a heat lamp, for who knows how long, was a good idea? And then, to have the nerve to expect people to pay $15 per person🤯. We didn't stay. My best friend of the past 50 years is, like your friend, a gourmet cook. She's never made me brunch, but she has made me some amazing breakfasts. Her lemon poppy seed pancakes, with homemade fruit compote, are so good. And her cheesecake is so light and fluffy, it's unbelievable. And now I'm hungry, lol!
My mother taught me how to "make something from nothing" and it made me a better cook. Using this roux recipe, I once made a sort of nacho cheese with 3 slices of sandwich cheese (which is all we had) and some seasoning. With a can of pinto beans and half a bag of tortilla chips. We had nachos and it was great. You can also use ketchup and seasonings to make a tomato bisque.
@@robins_corner m
wow....great story. I love to hear about such creative people. That is what true cooking is all about IMO. You do with what you have. Thanks for sharing this.
I was raised by my great grandmother and she was born in 1933, she taught me the ways as well. It’s a blessing bc I’m broke asf now x_x
I love how you don't judge the meal too much! I feel like with this type of recipe would be portrayed like it's wacky and crazy, but I like your more understanding approach to it!
This series was how I got into you. Your dignity towards these humble recipes is admirable.
So me making a big bowl of white gravy and just eating it straight is totally fine. Understood.
😂😂 love this! S much as I LOVE gravy, I thought this my be a bit crazy. Guess not
My thoughts exactly 😂 This is how I've always made my white gravy for salmon patties, potatoes, and if you add cheese it's how I make my scratch Mac n cheese sauce. But now I wanna try it with mushrooms!
Edit: oh duh, and sausage gravy! And if you use self rising flour or add some baking powder to the regular flour, milk, fat mix, roll it out, cut into circles and bake at 350F, you get easy peasy homemade biscuits!
I do mine in the air fryer (4 minutes on each side) and it makes them wonderfully crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. So much you can do with just milk flour and fat!
This is how my mom makes milk gravy to go over biscuits. You can also brown ground sausage and use that grease to make the gravy, mix the browned sausage back into the gravey serve over hot buttered biscuits. Soooo good
It would be better with some biscuits, sausage, and eggs lol 😆
I'm very excited about this permission to eat my gravy as straight up soup!
There’s Flour Soup in Switzerland too, but the flour is roasted to a brown colour before making the soup with a bit of onion, butter and beef stock. And then we top it with a bit of Gruyere cheese!
Yes! This is the one I remember my Grandma making! In her accent, it came out like ‘mow soup’ which as a child, I heard as ‘mouse soup’. It took my mother a little time to get THAT image out of my head, but when she did, I really loved that soup.
Now I want to make gravy your way. It sounds delicious and I just happened to have gruyere today.
@@cathyfield4765 y'all are so cultured , i wish i got to try stuff like that 😮
She literally toasted the flour beforehand.
Yep, she said at 1:36 that there is Mehlsuppe in Switzerland :)
Such a versatile recipe! My mother often used this as a base for soups during the cold months, and also used it as gravy over our potatoes - it can be changed up so much by the addition of fats, meats, vegetables and spices etc., and we ate every bite - we lovingly referred to it as her 'poverty slop' 😂
Would you add the meat/veggies before the milk or after?
@@anarudiaz If it was a fresh batch, she would season and cook the meat first to brown it so it would give the dish more flavor, and then add the vegetables after so they won't be too mushy. If you are wanting to use leftovers, make the flour 'soup' first and add spices and the leftover meat/veggies, and let it simmer until the flavors infuse. At least that is the way she always did it :) (Also a splash of lemon juice mixed in at the end makes it very yummy!)
@@KayOticOne thank you! I love learning recipes that can be done when things are tight at home.
I was gonna say, this sounds like an awesome base for an even heartier soup ❤️
In the old days in Norway, this was very typical everyday food! Vassgraut, literally "water porridge", consists of basically just two simple ingredients, water and flour, and can be worked and prepared in many different ways. As Ruth Bradley has already said, using old porridge sort of like pan cake batter was very common, and depending on what you added it could be sweet, savory, sour or whatever you wanted. :) I think this is one of those foods that are so simple practically every culture with access to grains has a version of it.
Hi Emmy, down South we call that breakfast gravy. Served with warm biscuits and either sausage or bacon. Greetings from North Carolina.
Yes, but it’s a must to use bacon or sausage grease to fry the flour
@@jennytaylor4968 I use butter when I make mine. Still comes out delicious 😋.
YES YES YES.. my favorite breakfast!
@@samanthaoverlock7552 no doubt , ,Everyone has their own special recipes, I’ve never tried the butter method ,but sounds like it would be good over rice ,
Yes definitely the white gravy with some sausage in it. Yum yum yum!!
I always heard hot roux, cold milk, no lumps. I don't make gravy much so I can't say it's foolproof. It does work for me when I do make it. I think it came from chef John. This looks interesting. When the hard times hit soon, I will have to give it a try
I agree, I’ve always used cold milk , and never had lumps in my gravies
Yes, this is true. I do this all the time and no lumps.
I always use cold milk-no lumps!
My mama told me a long time ago to never add hot milk to a roux unless you want lumpy gravy. Cold milk only. I also think a couple of extra tablespoons of butter could have helped smooth everything out.
I learned in a culinary class you either add cold liquid to hot roux, or cold roux to hot liquid.
Emmy, if you want lumps out of your gravy and soup, please don't use straight up milk. Mix it 50/50 with water or broth. It takes a little time more to thicken but worth it. That's how they do it in the Appalachian Mountains where I'm from!
@@dg594 I'm a trained chef and yeah my roux is a paste not a crumble and I also usually use hot fats not cold fats, for this specific recipe I would have actually browned the butter first
@@ConstantChaos1 same, i think a brown roux would work best here. Use more butter, let it brown first, then add the flour, let it toast a bit more and then slowly mix in the mix. Would get rid of all the lumps.
@@kiraflo98 yeah I mean you have so few ingredients you have to really make them give up all the flavour you can
The issue wasn't the milk. Those lumps formed and cooked with that butter. You should toast that flour by itself UNLESS you use equal amounts of butter and flour while toasting. Melt the butter then add flour and you'll get a nice roux. She should use more butter or omit it while toasting the flour. I've made enough recipes involving roasting flour and roux that I know milk wasn't the issue but the process.
Your username is so endearing 🥰
This reminds me of Papas. You fill a pot with milk, add sugar and stir in flour. Stir and stir and stir on medium-low heat until it thickens. Sprinkle some cinnamon over it (if you have it) and eat.
A childhood staple.
We were also quite poor.
Edit: For anyone else unaware, or for those who remember this dish but not the spelling, it's pronounced: "Pah-Pehzh"
I’m so glad I found this comment! I had forgotten the name. My grandmother would make it for me when I was really little and she was looking after me. It was always so comforting. I’ve been trying to recreate it for years. Thank you!
In Portugal we have something with the same name, however we use cornmeal instead of flour.
@@tantrums
My Vavo was Ciganos in Ponta Delgada.
LOL. Here in the Appalachians area that's called country gravy, and it goes over biscuits, toast, or even fried potatoes. It's also the base to a roux, especially for cheddar soups, or baked Mac & cheese. I frequently use it to make sausage gravy over homemade biscuits. To have heard my mother, it was a welcome added flavor during the Great Depression. She raised nine children with such basics.
Mmm, we put paprika on ours, topped over our country fried steak of course!
My family is from West Virginia originally and my grandpa this is how he has taught all of us how to make gravy and when we're making gravy though you add flour into the fat not fat into the flower so that kind of threw me off when she was making the soup you always take your grease from your sausage or whatever and you add flour to the grease gradually until it becomes a thick paste and you want to keep stirring it because if you don't it'll start to stick but the flower toes up a little bit we don't toast the flour that much though just a tiny bit and then at our milk and sausage and salt and pepper and put it over biscuits! When we're making gravy for Thanksgiving it's the same thing but we use the turkey fat or the juice from the turkey and we take that and add flour to it and we cook it a little bit longer so it's a little bit darker but that's the gravy we eat with our turkey for Thanksgiving and it is amazing if you haven't tried making gravy for Thanksgiving like that which it's a West Virginia / Appalachian mountains thing so I'm sure you have but if you haven't you have to try it it is the best gravy for Thanksgiving we eat it on our sweet potatoes and our turkey and stuffing pretty much everything that is on the plate is covered with gravy LOL
@@amandahawkins87 , I know you're right! You add that flour to those drippings, not the other way around. And you brown that mixture just enough to take the raw taste out of the flour. Momma used to sometimes add dried, chipped beef in, but I'm thinking that was a Navy thing, (where my Dad had served when Pearl Harbor was attacked), to please my Dad.
Mom would make creamed turkey with Thanksgiving leftovers, but never used milk in her turkey gravy for our Thanksgiving meal. Sometimes she used flour in our holiday meal, other times she thickened the gravy with cornstarch, but always made her gravy with the turkey broth and water. I'm guessing that was the method she picked up from my Dad's family. Still, my siblings and I loved that gravy over mashed potatoes, stuffing (especially), and the turkey - you bet!
My Appalachian daddy taught me how to make it. He learned from my grandma.
@@LaineyBug2020 , Absolutely!
Hi Emmy, I am a Danish Canadian and I have a "hard times" meal for you. Its called Øllebrød. Its a porridge made with rye bread, water, sugar and beer 🍺 ! Back in the day, one would save the butt ends and close to butt ends of the rye bread loaf. As either they were stale ( or no one would eat them) once enough were saved, into a pot they would go with a beer and water to just cover the bread. It would get cooked down until it was a lumpy porridge consistency. At this point I would cool slightly then blend, as I don't like lumps! Lol
Back in the pot it would go, and sugar would be added. Sugar to your preference but at least a half to a full cup. Cook until sugar is dissolved and serve in a bowl with cold non whipped cream dashed on top! As a kid I always liked making a pattern.
I Dont always wait for the butt ends of bread and will take a half loaf of rye and make it. Careful not to use a Russian rye that has caraway in it!
Give it a try! Breakfast with beer 🍺 lol 😂
Ever seen the wonderful movie "Babette's Feast"? Yeah, she's a gourmet cook from Paris, and she has to learn how to prepare that.
we also got the rye bread crumbs we put on yoghurt, and the porridge version retains some of that deep rich almost savory flavor that comes from ryebread and sugar,i think its disgusting now texture-wise but it was my go-to breakfast for a long time when i was a kid
I haven’t had it in a while, thanks for reminding me. I think I’ll make some for breakfast soon ♥️
It's not caraway, it's coriander))
@@alanedgarfillinpillin8880 actually its both! Coriander with caraway seeds- and molasses.... yum 🤤
My grandmother used the exact same recipe ! She used some cauliflower, put it in a oven safe container add that “sauce/soup) and add some old cheddar on top. She broiled the whole thing in the oven and voila! All my family eats that we are originally from the bas saint-Laurent in Quebec. ⚜️🇨🇦
This is very similar to cauliflower cheese which is very common and popular in the UK. But cauliflower cheese usually involves a cheese sauce as well as the cheese on top.
This definitely is the base for cream of mushroom, chicken, etc. my boyfriend can’t have dairy so when I need cream of whatever, I make my own with dairy free milk and this is the base! I also enjoy eating it plain because when seasoned it’s actually quite tasty!
My mom used to make this when i was young and we were poor. She added a bit of ground beef and served it over toast. I loved it and only now realize it was truly a hard-times meal.
Aren’t those comfort foods amazing. We never knew that it was a struggle bc we were to little.
That sounds kinda like chipped beef. In my house, we add tuna and peas and put it on toast (“creamed tuna on toast”) and it’s a quick, simple, and filling staple for me (and cheap!). I don’t like tuna or peas normally, but damn do I like creamed tuna on toast.
Yea that’s sh*t on a shingle as it’s sometimes called haha!
We had that before! We also did "pizza" toast. Bread, pizza sauce and a slice of canned pineapple and American cheese. If we were lucky we got lunch meat ham on it. Anyone else have that?
@@sgtfifilarue8957 isn't that the truth, at our house it was rice with milk, a little sugar and cinnamon, thought I was the luckiest kid to get that for dinner
isn't this just béchamel sauce?! that's how we always make it. also, we use cold milk for a lump free sauce.
love you and your videos 😊💕
totally agree. we use more butter but beside that, we make bechamel the same way (with cold milk for preventing lumps)
Looks a bit like Southern white gravy.
hot roux+cold milk=no lumps
YES!!! i use cold milk right out of the refrigerator and it comes out completely lump free
I agree.. my Basler Mehlsuppe is way darker and is made with cold stock. Béchamel has different ratio.. more Butter and less Flour. 🤗 And waaaaay more nutmeg.. 🤪👌🏻
I came here to say the fluid needs to be cold to avoid lumps. ❤️
Dear Emmy, Chef John from Food Wishes here on RUclips says to keep the soup from getting lumpy, add cold liquid to hot roux. He adds the cold liquid all at once and whisks it in and it blends in smoothly. This goes against my early training, but it works 🤗
I've had this as a kid. When I younger we had a version of this called "toasted four an bacon soup". It was common when we were homeless for two years as we lived in a 13 passenger van. We would also get free bacon chunks with the bacon lard trimmings from the local butcher. A good batch could feed all of us for allmost two days. It's funny, to this day when me an my siblings reflect on that time it was all mostly halarious fun. My Mom made it feel like one long camping trip instead of calling us "homeless" cuz technically we had the car. But yah, good memories of hard times.
it's basically a bechamel one of the "mother sauces" I make this quite often, and add diced ham, browned sausage, or browned ground beef. I's very hearty and filling.
That’s what I was thinking, especially when she mentioned the Swiss version adding cheese… it clicked in my head that it reminded me of a bechamel!
It's so strange to me that a recipe with a fancy sounding name like bechamel, got renamed to something like, burnt flour soup in a different culture. 😆 I guess it depends on who makes it, and how they view their options at the time, but it's still amusing to think about how different the names are.
It's literally bechamel sauce, yes. I don't really understand the point in calling it a soup? Lol...
@@bitchenboutique6953 when you add cheese to a béchamel, it becomes sauce mornay! :) always think that's a neat little bit of info. I usually use it to make macaroni and cheese
I would say keep in mind that the context is relatively different. We see it as a bechamel and as a component in other dishes, but for other people it’s making due with what they had. It’s very possible that, depending on when this soup originated, the soup may have come first and someone said “hey, let’s use this in other dishes” or alternately it was used as a culinary premise and then in times of need it was repurposed as a base means of nutrition. Or they could be unrelated - it’s amazing how different people in different parts of the world come up with what essentially amounts to the same dish just within different contexts without it otherwise being communicated.
Flour soup. My first thought is.... gravy? Second thought is ... finally a recipe I have all the ingredients for. 😂
The recipe usually starts with... "Take a clean bowl...". You're screwed! 😜
I literally don’t even have flour. I had pepper and butter though. What can I make with that?
@@tailorforeman7082 mmm peppered butter! Lol
@@SamanDroid I actually forgot I do have rice, rice with some butter and pepper actually isn't half bad
@@tailorforeman7082 Do as I do with my Chilean mom! Use the butter to fry your rice and infuse the flavour into before you boil it and you'll get a deliciously rich rice. We usually fry garlic with the rice too.
You are like the Bob Ross of cooking and I'm here for it
I literally made something a lot like this recently when I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth removed. I'd been drinking a lot of meal replacement drinks and was getting sick of their sweetness, so I made something savoury.
Emmy, congratulations!! You made FLOUR soup while wearing a dark blue top and not a speck of flour on it!!
I could not have pulled it off! My hubby always asks if I was going for a speckled shirt or redecorating the kitchen when I make gravy! 😂
Very impressive!!!
It DOES look like an awesome base for a cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup! Meantime, anyone else find Emmy's voice to have a particularly pleasant ASMR quality? Very pleasant, very soothing.
I’m not a fan of asmr but I totally agree with you about Emmy’s voice. It’s wonderfully soothing
When I was younger I didn't realize that canned soups were typically concentrated and would always just eat them straight from the can LOL
Ummm I’m 23 and just learned this.
@@AlexBenji depends on the soup and brand. Some are concentrate and some not. Just read the label.😊
You mentioned a Swiss version having cheese, and I just realised I’ve made at least one variation of flour soup! Cheese soup was a staple for me as a student; an easy, cheap meal.
Wait, this is called flour soup!? This is literally exactly how my family has always made country gravy for breakfast. Like, exactly the same. Huh.
It's the same thing.
Yep, or use bacon fat and add a little rubbed sage to get something close to Cracker Barrel's "sawmill gravy". (Add diced leftover chicken and serve over rice...yum!)
I was coming here to see if anyone else called this gravy! That’s how my mom does it too.
Yes, this is how I was taught to cook white gravy. All good no matter what you call it. Too bad I’m carnivorish now🙁 but can still cheat!!🤪
I think this soup would be good if you had either chicken tenders made in country fried style or better yet, steak tenders to use as dipping food.
Emmy, you just made my Mom’s “scorched gravy,” although her flour was toasted much darker. It is also the base for my version of French Onion soup.
I have actually made this by accident once! I was trying to make cream of chicken soup from scratch and I ended up adding too much milk so I just went with it. It was really yummy and I've made it on purpose a couple of times since. It can also make a really nice cheesy cream sauce if you add a lot of cheese, I usually add about a bag of the shredded stuff. I have never had it get that lumpy, I usually add the butter first though until it's completely melted than I add the flour and make sure to whisk the flour in slowly to make sure the flour doesn't lump. The paste should be smooth with the butter and flour. At least it was when I made it again my accident. Instead of as much milk I usually do half milk half chicken broth and add freshly cooked chicken to make cream of chicken soup. It's amazing how versatile this recipe is and its one step from a whole bunch of other soups! It's pretty cool!
FYI. The reason you have the lumps is because you didn’t add enough liquid initially. It is good to add it a bit at a time, but you need to add enough liquid to make it thin, and allow it to thicken up.
this series reminds me of my childhood and adolescence. me and my dad loved loved loved going to the movies and i always liked movie popcorn but as times started to get tough we started to bring popcorn from home into backpacks and stuff and so my dad in an effort to make things better learned how to make a sweet caramelized popcorn that he tossed in milk powder after it was done. we still eat it in movie nights to this day. love you, dad ❤️
I expect this to taste like the gravy for "biscuits & gravy". That's really how you make that gravy lol.
Yes I saw this on my recommendation tab and went oh she's making gravy
@@burn_learnearn_welding7101 me too. I just keep shouting "that's gravy!"
I grew up eating a sweet version of this. We call it flour porridge. My mom would add sugar, cinnamon and cloves. I never thought it was weird because we ate all forms of porridge from cornmeal to oatmeal. We are Caribbean by the way. We also had bread soup which is soup made with old bread with bits of random vegetables.
My Dad use to boil water & stir in Flour then a can of Coconut Milk. No Lie, it was Amazingly Delicious. I think the name was HeuHeu, means Stir in Tongan, which now makes sense🥰 Rest In Love Dad!
Thanks for sharing❤
I love sneezing lol 😆 Emmy's so pure & real love her
I've never seen anyone heat up milk to add to a roux. I've always heard cold milk to a hot roux means no lumps.
This is how I make my cream gravy and I have always added cold milk and never had lumps. Minus the sausage :)
This recipe is supposed to have lumps.
@@MicukoFelton Lumps of uncooked flour? No thanks.
It's been boiling in the soup for some time so I don't see how it could be raw. They've been whisked around pretty thoroughly too, so they're quite small, no way they're going to still be dry. Effect should be like tiny dumplings.
Finally someone who really appreciates their sneeze and don't hold back. Me too emme
I love this soup! My Mom always made it for me when I had stomach problems but she did it with water instead of milk. It's still one of my go-to quick soups that I eat even when I'm feeling great! Sometimes I add Italian spices or just parsley and a tiny bit of cumin. Even paprika tastes great in this soup. Whatever spices you like.
Edited to add: my Mom always used COLD water to prevent clumps.
Reminds me of the base my mom used to make that ended up being biscuits and gravy or sausage gravy to go over biscuits. She would sometimes use ground beef. Whatever fat she had on hand typically saved bacon grease.
Milk toast for me we used to get this gravy with broken up toast in it
A comfort food for my depression era Dad.
@@amyschneidhorst1384 yes for my parents also. Exactly what that was.
@@stacithompson5016 yes my dad would use toast too sometimes. He was ex military and called it 💩 on a shingle. Always grossed me out but he said it was the slang for it in his service days😂
My mom added ground beef. Served it on toast and called it SOS.
In South Africa there is something similar called Melk kos. It’s usually eaten sweet with cinnamon sugar like an oatmeal alternative.
That sounds good! It seems that there's a variation of this soup from a lot of different countries and cultures, I've seen Taiwanese, Navajo, Polish, etc in the comments section.
omg yes, it's so delicious!!!
For some reason I loved the sneeze 😆 you're just so real and it's appreciated. Thank you for this soup reminder!
I know that we’re always told to add the liquid a little at a time. I used to try that and always had lumps. I started adding most of or all of the liquid and just stirring it until it thickens. This way has always given me nice smooth gravy.
I'm going to try that next time.
Yep add all the liquid at once and if you're using milk you want it to be cold never warmed up or you'll always get lumps.
It's white gravy. Pour that over some toast or biscuits. 😋
Exactly what I was thinking. Some mashed potatoes and you're golden :)
White gravy has extra stuff in it that makes it extremely icky
Break up some cooked sausage in it and you have sausage gravy.
@@liwiathan This is the same as the milk gravy I grew up eating with fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Yum! 😋
Thank you for giving me this idea. I've had a really hard month financially so I've only been having one or two meals every couple of days. This will be a very cheap meal
I hope you reach out to your local food banks. Saying a quick prayer 🙏🏼.
Would be really easy to throw in anything extra to mix up the meals since it’s such a good base
Hi Alec. The youtube channel "the Quaint Housewife" might be of use to you, she places a heavy focus on making a variety of tasty meals with the lowest possible cost. I'm worried about your wellbeing, I hope your hard times come to an end soon.
Another channel that might be informative for you is called Frugal Fit Mom. She also places a focus on groceries while on a very tight budget.
A local food bank near you should be able to help. Also, do you have a local Dollar Store near you? TheWolfePit RUclips channel has a lot of really good homemade recipes you can make for pennies a serving. Check out his channel. Praying things get better for you!
When I discovered this recipe about 35 years ago, it was in an Italian cookbook, and attributed to the herders of the Tuscany region, made especially during Winter. I fell in love with it immediately, and to this day I make it regularly every Winter here in southern California....I use chicken stock, and dried thyme, and that's it.
If this is flour, butter, milk we called it “milk Brye” growing up I never knew it was a poor man’s meal…. This adds sugar and butter even brown sugar. It’s delicious you can have fruit with it too
The soup reminds me of making sausage gravy. Very similar looking, and sounds like it tastes similar too. The only difference is you usually start with the fat and frond from cooking sausage already in the pan.
I thought the same thing about gravy, as soon as she read the ingredients. I though, so we're making gravy....
Yes... sausage gravy and buttermilk biscuits. 🤤
Same! But I'm from PA so we also do sweet Lebanon bologna gravy as well. Same recipe as sausage gravy just a different meat, it's sweet and smokey in taste, similar to "sh*t on a shingle" lol absolute favorite 😋
@@xchasingthefallx sounds yummy! I'm a sucker for any open face gravy sandwich concoction lmao.
Using colder liquid can help you avoid lumps when making roux, as it gives time for lumps to dissolve before the flour reacts and thickens once the liquid boils.
You basically made my mom's country gravy... Which I would eat by the bowl full any day! I would eat cream of mushroom soup straight from the can in college. Love it! I know I'm weird..
Haha, reminded me of gravy too 😁 add a little ground sausage
@@breathe.8072 Or slice some hard-boiled eggs into it and serve it over toast. Soooo good!
What you made is pretty much what we call country gravy or peppercorn gravy down South. We pour it over buttermilk biscuits. It's amazing.
Thank you! I was sitting here trying to figure out if my homeade gravy was soup now😅
My mom would add some sliced hard-boiled eggs and serve it over toast. Good stuff!
This is something I wouldn't of thought of. It's so simple! 😊 Oh also, whenever I make a roux, I use room temp stock or cold milk from the fridge and I've never had lumps. I also let it get almost into a paste so it smells like pie crust, then add the rest of liquid....but I'm definitely going to try this. Thanks Emmy!
This should have lumps so she did it right.
Thank you for the hints on roux! I will definitely try these tips!
In culinary school I was taught to add cold liquid to hot rue
I always use cold milk too. And just a little at a time, whisking it completely in until it’s smooth before adding more.
Definitely cold milk works best!
We call it "flour porridge". Hot and filling. Condensed and / or evaporated milk is added along with bay leaves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Its great to see that yall are making this *flour boiled in water* dish into fancy italian dish *flour soup* My father is 'a 71 liner and he survived a famine. he would always mention us how his family survived eating *rice gruel* or *steamed flour mixed with water* without salt..
Looks like classic gravy to go with buscuits. And yes Ive definitely made gravy just to eat by itself.
Usually use milk myself but during hard times ive used straight water. Thank you for these videos.
more hard times videos pleeease! i love them
Same.I also like the prison recipes
We toast flour when making Filipino polvoron (no bake shortbread cookies). So I love that flavor. I can imagine it goes well in a soup. You can also use toasted flour to make scrumptious edible cookie dough.
Fun fact: I used browned flour as a diaper powder for all my kiddos. Browning it helps remove moisture, and it's great for preventing diaper rash...and cheap.
My mother used to make us this soup with potatoes and onions to give it more flavour. We grew up eating it most days of the week because we didn't have a lot of money. She taught me to make it and to avoid lumps use cool (not ice cold) water with the flour and stir in a separate dish until there's no lumps before putting back in the pan and continuing with the rest. It does require a little extra flour but for no flour clumping it's worth it.
Made me think of chip beef gravy. My grandma made it with Buddig beef which is still 80 cents a package. You cut the beef into half inch by 2.5 inch ribbons and then make a regular milk gravy with salt and pepper for seasoning and serve it on toast. One pack of the beef was enough to feed 4 and even adults were full after 2 pieces of toast topped with chipped beef gravy.
This is essentially a ‘toasted’ bechamel. To prevent lumping, the fat & flour amount should be the same. Cook the fat & flour, turn off heat, add a little bit of liquid, mix. You want it to congeal/lump up at this point. Whisk well (1-2 mins), return to heat, then add all of the remaining liquid. No lumps!
You are suppose to have lumps in this. It's meant to act as another texture kind of like dumplings.
Isn't that basically sawmill gravy. It is where I'm from. But still sounds tasty.
@Lisa Sinift
Sure sounds like sawmill gravy to me, as well. 😁
Exactly
I'm intrigued except that this seems kind of nutritionally void. (Starvation recipes are often like that, though.) I feel like mushrooms and maybe some dark green veg would make this recipe bomb.
Gotta do what you can
It's a shame nutrients do come with a price
Hey Jenn, Mom used to change up the Zucchini & Summer Squash summer mix by also sauteing tomatoes and onions with it. I'm not a fan (I have a "squishy" thing intolerance) but really love to use Zucchini as a lasagna noodle. If I happen to get one that has big seeds I simply use the mandoline for slices and rotate the Zuc to miss the seeds. It's a great alternative to the normal pasta lasagna noodle. ❤❤❤ Love your honesty and content.
Makes me think of another RUclipsr, an old lady whom survived the Great Depression which made videos about making food during that time period.
Very good to see Emmy keeping the memory alive.
Clara ♥️♥️ loved her so much.
clara! she was so lovely. I still enjoy her videos!
I picked up a “convict cookbook” in Australia that has loads of these sorts of dishes - highly recommend!
Now I’m going to have to research! Thank you for sharing this!
The Australian Convict Recipe Book?
@@MyFriendsKitchen yep! It’s stapled and like a pamphlet but it’s really great and inexpensive. Nice bit of local history too
@@jenduck5520 £156.00 on amazon in the UK
There's a few American "convict cookbooks" too. Emmy has one but I can't remember the name of it right now. She's done at least two recipes from it as far as I remember. I think if you look for "prison recipes" or something similar in her videos you will find it.
Edit: Here's her playlist of prison recipes: ruclips.net/p/PLkUFQm9t2lDVIvPpqI8VX8FEIjS1hXMkS
We have something like it in Norway, translated it's butter-porridge. Heat milk, whisk in a cup or two of flour and let boil. Add a helping of butter towards the end. Served velvety smooth with sugar.
To avoid lump, add only a little bit of liquid first, stir until there is no lump, repeat until runny, then add the remaining liquid.
Basically, it's runny bechamel sauce.
We need more in this series, please! My favorite is Mrs. Beaton’s Bread Soup. It requires stale bread and broth. Nothing else, but suggestions are milk or butter, “if it’s affordable “!
Emmy actually did a video on that soup, she has Mrs Beaton's book!
500 grams of spreadable from fridge butter is £5.00 in tescos. UK. I find this rather worrying.
This is basically the base to my family's cream of asparagus soup! And we pour it over toast! So yummo!
It's also the base for cheese sauce when making mac and cheese. :)
I love how quick and brief your sponsor msg was no 2.5 minute infomercial!
Im indigenous (canadian) and grew up having flour soup with either ground beef or with moose/deer/elk meat 😋 if we had extra we would maybe put in some potatoes or berries but otherwise its just the meat and flour
*This is going to help so many people who are going through a difficult financial time right now trying to make ends meet this month!* You always produce such amazing content Emmy. Another home run! 😊🙌🤩
I agreed! I've been eating flour soup for the past week. Adding Vienna sausage and peas .
This would be awesome with some inexpensive shredded cheddar (it’s usually on sale for 1.77 for 8oz) then, throw in some chopped broccoli (usually on sale for 99 close cents/pound). For just a bit more, you can add some great flavors!
I like the lumps. It makes it look like there's more to it than just flour.
Exactly. If there's no lumps you've got nothing to chew.
I grew up eating this! It’s called papas. My family is Portuguese and we got this as kids when we weren’t feeling well. I love it! We sweeten it. I love it.
"i love sneezing. doesn't it feel great" made me laugh. I also love sneezing. 🤣
Maybe I'm watching Townsends too much but I can imagine a few grinds of nutmeg would be a nice addition.
He's single-handedly has tripled nutmeg sales in the United States. Nutmeg it's not just for eggnog!
Your sneezing and then quick proclaination of your enjoying the sneeze made me laugh out loud.
We have the same soup in Croatia, it's called prežgana juha, and with addition of smoked paprika and some spices it actually becomes quite tasty. I have no money problems but still occasionally make it in the winter because it's so good and satisfying. I used to add an egg into it, but now I just opt for croutons.
My background is from the Balkans. We make something similar. We brown the flour more, and add stock (cold stock/water to the roux to avoid lumps - something my dad insists on and swears by) so it’s ends up looking a bit like a brown gravy. We also add lots of garlic, and sometimes chicken or meatballs. I sometimes add sautéed mushrooms. And some nice fresh bread to dip into it!
Always appreciate learning these hard times foods. Thanks Emmy!!
Same, because with the direction the world is heading, most people will need those recipes... D:
@@LordDragox412 Yuuuuup...we already do.
A trick to speed up the process is to toast your flour in the oven! You can toast a large batch of flour in the oven ahead of time, cool it, and store it for months, and then use it anytime you want to make a roux without having to stand and watch over it at the stove for as long. It honestly is very hard to tell the difference in flavor between the oven toasted flour method and the stovetop method!
How long do you toast it for and at what temperature, please? This could make my life easier on days when I can't stand for long. Thank you!
I’m descended from Norwegians, and one thing we eat every Christmas is Rommegrøt - a flour porridge, but made with sour cream. It’s divine topped with cinnamon sugar.
Here in Brazil, at least where i live, we use this as base for Macarrão ao molho branco, White sauce spaghetti, we put chicken in this sauce, but i'm a vegetarian, so i'm good with just this and spaghetti, some times broccoli, mushrooms are too expensive to get here, but i imagine it would be good too
That seems like a version of the German “thick soup” that is a whole bunch of flour, with egg, salt and fat (like butter) and a little water massaged in until it is a crumb-like texture, then sprinkled into a boiling water or broth, and cooked until thick and creamy. It creates tiny dumplings, in a thick broth. Then you can season it any way you like.
Definitely filling, lol, but can be pretty tasty too.
Now that sounds tasty 😋.
Emmy, me and my sister love your videos. By far one of our favorite times of the week. Thanks for such amazing content! :D
In Norway we have a similar recipe we call velvet porridge. It's mainly flour and milk with some butter and salt in it. We usually top it with sugar and cinnamon, so some places it is eaten as a dessert, while other places it's eaten for dinner or lunch. It's a really delicious dish I make all the time and I highly recommend it :)
Flour soup is a staple in traditional Moroccan cooking.
You make it with barley flour and it's delicious. The basic is water, flour and salt. But just the addition of black pepper when serving and olive oil takes it to the next level.
There are so many variations depending on your preference and finance. It's eaten at the crack of dawn to start the work until breakfast is ready.
Just like harira it's eaten with dates and figs.
I just made this and I think the lumps are there for some texture! I made mine thinner and it very much reminds me of a chowder. I'm eating it as I type this, very enjoyable simple soup 🥰
Yay! I'm glad you made it AND enjoyed it.
Love these hard times videos…gives insight into the birth (or stripping down?)of common cooking techniques. Once you master a basic roux…and springboard into velouté, béchamel, mornay, etc…the recipes become endless. I find myself not really measuring once you get the base set. Veggies, meats/fish, starches…whatever you have on hand and complement whatever flavor profile ‘native’ to your tongue…you can make some really tasty meals.
And peeve your friends/family when they ask for a recipe and you just give them the basic fat/flour ratios and tell them you couldn’t replicate the rest of the dish you just made if you tried, lol.
…also, I think you can achieve similar results using other starchy non glutinous flours (rice, potato, etc). It’s the hot fat surrounding toasted starch, shocked by a liquid that achieves the thickening action.
Thank you for sharing this! Friends and family get tired of me saying I can show them how much ingredients they need but are baffled bc I can’t give measurements. The sneaky ones just ask me to make it for them! 😂
I would be super interested in a cookbook by you with all the recipes from your Hard Times Series and maybe even more!
My fav cheap meal is a bowl of grits. 1 canister of grits costs $1.50 (at Aldi) and makes around 15 servings. So literally 1 cent per meal. I cook it with 1 TBS of butter, top it with pepper and a sprinkle of cheddar, its so yummy, comforting, filling, and dirt cheap! It's also good with some crumbled up breakfast sausage or some fried eggs!