Baxters Broth Brothers

Recovering recently from a bout of illness picked up on a trip to Cuba (I won't go into too much detail, but it was the Cuban equivalent of Delhi Belly, or as I dubbed it, 'Castroenteritis' ), I felt the need for some good hearty soups to restore me back to health. Of course something homemade will always be your best bet here, seemingly infusing the broth with additional healing properties, but when you're feeling a little under the weather, you don't always feel up to all that chopping of onions and veg, followed by a lengthy simmering, and then the blending - or if you do, you suddenly find that by the time you've finished, you're not that hungry after all.

So naturally I decided I would turn to the tins for comfort and sustenance, with Baxters seeming to me the next best thing to homemade, given that their messages from Audrey Baxter on the labels almost give the impression that they have been made by a real person. I happened to have two different tins in my stash - Highlanders Broth, and Scotch Broth - but which to go for? Which did I feel would do me the most good?

A closer look at the ingredients lists didn't help much - they seemed to be remarkably similar:

Scotch Broth - Water, Pearl Barley (11% cooked), Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Marrowfat Peas, Swede, Modified Cornflour, Leeks, Beef (1.5%), Mutton (1.5%), Cabbage, Salt, Yeast Extract, Parsley, Mutton Fat, Beef Extract, White Pepper.

Highlanders Broth - Water, Potatoes, Carrots, Pearl Barley (6% cooked), Celery, Onions, Beef (2%), Peas, Modified Cornflour, Wheatflour, Lamb (1.5%), Concentrated Tomato Paste, Lamb Fat, Salt, Yeast Extract, Herbs and Spices, Malt Extract (from barley), Beef Extract, Garlic Puree.

The Scotch Broth seemed perhaps the more old-fashioned of the two, with its mutton, cabbage and swede as opposed to the lamb, tomato paste and garlic puree of the Highlanders Broth - but Audrey Baxter writes on the label that it is the latter which is "one of our most traditional recipes", so what do I know? It certainly didn't sound like the two soups were going to be very different at all, backed up by the illustrations on the front of the tins, which suggested there would be a slight difference in hue, but otherwise the two would be near enough identical. The serving suggestion even had them in the same crockery, with the same bowl of croutons and, to be as Scottish as possible, sat on the same tartan rug. There was only one thing for it therefore - opening both tins and tasting and comparing the two at the same time.

On doing so, the difference between them was immediately more noticeable - the HB much darker and richer-looking, with quite a pronounced tomatoey smell from the concentrated paste, and the SB lighter, smelling more noticeably of stock and with a grainy texture on the surface and around the rim of the tin, almost like very small beads of couscous or some similar grain. But there was nothing in the ingredients list of that nature, suggesting it was in fact little globules of fat instead.

Pouring out half a tin of each into two identical bowls for closer examination, the HB was altogether thicker and more like what I would consider your standard tinned soup, where as the SB lived up more to its name, being a thinner, more traditional broth-type soup. A spoonful of the HB contained more potato than anything else, while the SB had more carrot, with a few bits of pearl barley - exactly what you would expect from the quantities in the ingredients lists.

The HB was certainly the richer-tasting of the two soups, its garlic and tomato purees giving it a slightly minestrone-like flavour, and nice soft peas in contrast to the hard, mealy marrowfat peas of the SB. On heating, the grainy globules in the SB had melted away, confirming they were indeed mutton fat. It had the meatier taste of the two, though the mutton had imbued it with an almost farmyardy smell, which might put off the more lily-livered consumer a bit.

It also had some great thick chunks of leek (always a good thing in my book; I love a leek) and I think of the two had the more rustic, homemade feel to it. On the label, Audrey claims it makes her "tingle inside". Well, each to their own - I can't say it had quite the same effect on me, but it did feel more like the soup to be bringing me back to health, so maybe that was the tingly feeling she was talking about.

Highlanders

Scotch

I would say however that I preferred the taste of the HB, which certainly was "rich and satisfying", and although I wasn't up for such activity at the time, I could see how it might well be "the perfect accompaniment to a day out on the hills", as Audrey says. Possibly had I tried it a little earlier in my illness, it might have been a bit too rich and hearty for me. As it was, my stomach was happy enough to take on the two, and I wolfed down both broths like a man who had barely eaten for days - which of course was true.