Published September 1, 2007.
For beef and vegetable soup recipe in just an hour, we turned to quick-cooking sirloin tip steak and doctored store-bought broth with mushrooms, tomato paste, soy sauce, and red wine. One final touch perfected our quick beef and vegetable soup recipe: To re-create the richness of a long-simmered soup, we added a tablespoon of gelatin softened in cold water to provide the missing viscosity.
Choose whole sirloin tip steaks over ones that have been cut into small pieces for stir-fries. If sirloin tip steaks are unavailable, substitute blade or flank steak, removing any hard gristle or excess fat. Button mushrooms can be used in place of the cremini mushrooms, with some trade-off in flavor. Our preferred brand of beef broth is Pacific. If you like, add 1 cup of frozen peas, frozen corn, or frozen cut green beans during the last 5 minutes of cooking. For a heartier soup, add 10 ounces of red-skinned potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (2 cups), during the last 15 minutes of cooking.
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