Many recipes call for straining the almost finished soup to get rid of any extra chunky bits and get the best mouthfeel. But I am really confused, because with any reasonably fine sieve I filter out almost all of the vegetable matter and end up with a very thin soup.
Not mentioning it's hard to actually finish the filtering process, because the sieve gets all cluttered. The same goes for certain sauces such as Bechamel. Not sure how I can strain the sauce, because it's so thick and doesn't go through the sieve very easily.
What's the best way to achieve really smooth soups and sauces? What kind of sieve should be used?