Soup Stock
To four pounds of lean beef (the inferior parts are quite as good for this purpose) put four quarts of cold water (soft is best), wash the meat and put it in the water without salt; let it come slowly to boiling point, skim well before the agitation of the water has broken the scum, add a little salt, and a dash of cold water, to assist the scum to rise, skim again, set back and let it boil gently on one side or in one place, and not all over ("the pot should smile, not laugh"), for six or eight hours, until the meat is in rags (rapid boiling hardens the fiber of the meat and the savory flavor escapes with the steam), add a little pepper, strain into a stone jar, let it cool, and remove all the grease. This stock will keep for many days in cold weather, and from it can be made all the various kinds of soups by adding onion, macaroni, celery, asparagus, green pease, carrot, tomato, okra, parsley, thyme, summer savory, sage. and slices of lemon; many of the herbs may be first dried, then pulverized and put in cans or jars for winter use. Celery and carrot seed may be used in place of the fresh vegetables. Macaroni should be first boiled in slightly salted water, cut in pieces one or two inches long, and added a short time before serving. To prepare soup for dinner, cut off a slice of the jelly, add water, heat and serve. Whatever is added to this, such as rice, tapioca, vegetables, etc., may first be cooked before being added, as much boiling injures the flavor of the stock.
A rich stock can also be made from a shank or shin of beef (knuckle of veal is next best); cut in several pieces, crack the bones, add four quarts water, boil up quickly, skim, add salt, skim, and let boil gently until the liquor is reduced one-half; strain, cool and skim, and if boiled properly and long enough, an excellent jelly will result. Too violent boiling makes the stock cloudy and dark. To clarify stock that has been darkened by careless skimming and improper boiling, mix one egg and shell in a gill of cold water, add a gill of the boiling soup, then stir into the soup until it boils up; remove to back of stove, and let stand until the white and shell of the egg have collected the particles that color the soup, and strain once or twice until it looks clear. Stock should never be allowed to stand and cool in the pot in which it is cooked; pour into an earthen dish, let stand to cool uncovered, when all the fat should be removed and saved to clarify for drippings; the stock is then ready for use as wanted for soups or gravies. The flavor of stock may be varied by using in it a little ham, anchovy, sausage, sugar, or a calf's foot. Sprigs of herbs, and whole spices may be used in seasoning, and afterward strained out. Delicate flavors should be added just before serving, as boiling evaporates them. Stock made from meat without bone or gristle will not jelly, but will taste very like good beeftea. Never boil vegetables with stock, as they will cause it to become sour.
An economical soup-stock may be made of steak or roast-beef bones, after cooking, adding a little piece of fresh meat, or none at all, and allowing it to simmer at least five hours; strain, remove all fat the next day, and it will be ready for use.
A working beef stock in the nineteenth-century style: no browning, no aromatics in the pot, just meat, bone and water held below a boil for most of a day. The instructions are sound, and the one line that governs everything is the proverb in the middle of it.
- "The pot should smile, not laugh"This is the hinge. Hold the surface at a bare tremble, roughly 180-190F, with a bubble breaking every second or two. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and agitates the coagulated proteins into suspension, which is exactly what makes stock cloudy and greasy-tasting.
- Quantities and yieldFour pounds of lean beef to four quarts of water. The recipe sets no reduction target for this first version, and how much liquid is lost over six to eight hours will depend on the pot and how gently it is held. The shin version is explicitly reduced by half, giving about two quarts.
- A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. The clarification calls for one egg and its crushed shell beaten into a gill of cold water, then tempered with a gill of hot stock before it goes into the pot.
- Skimming before the scum breaksThe grey foam that rises during the first heating is coagulated albumin. Once the water moves briskly it shatters and disperses, and no amount of later skimming will retrieve it. The splash of cold water is a real technique: it drops the temperature just enough to let the raft consolidate.
- Why no vegetables in the potThe warning that vegetables "cause it to become sour" most likely reflects the storage conditions of the period. Vegetable solids spoil faster than the stock around them, and in a cellar-cool larder a stock carrying onion and carrot would be at greater risk of turning. Cook additions separately, as the recipe directs, and add them near serving.
- The jelly testShin, shank or a veal knuckle carries collagen-rich connective tissue that converts to gelatin over long, gentle cooking. Muscle meat alone will not set, which is why the text says such a stock tastes "very like good beeftea." Crack the bones as instructed; the marrow and exposed cancellous bone contribute noticeably.
- Storage, and where the original no longer applies"Will keep for many days in cold weather" assumed an unheated pantry or a cold cellar, and the layer of set fat on top acted as a partial seal. Do not follow this. Cool the strained stock quickly in a shallow pan, refrigerate within a couple of hours, and use within three to four days or freeze it. Stock held for days at cool room temperature is a well-known medium for spore-forming bacteria that survive boiling.
- The fatThe cap lifted off the cold stock is clean beef dripping. Rendered gently to drive off residual moisture and strained, it keeps well refrigerated and is excellent for frying potatoes or starting a pastry.
- Late seasoningThe note that "delicate flavors should be added just before serving" is correct and worth keeping. Fresh herbs, lemon and whole spices lose their volatile aromatics to hours of steam; add them in the last few minutes.
Stock in this form, kept as a chilled jelly in a stone jar and cut into with a knife as needed, was the foundation of the nineteenth-century soup course and the reason a household could put a different soup on the table each day without a different pot of broth each morning. Buckeye Cookery, compiled in Ohio and usually credited to Estelle Woods Wilcox, issued under the Buckeye title in the mid-1870s, was aimed squarely at the household that had no stockpot simmering permanently and no professional kitchen behind it, which is why the entry ends with an "economical" version built on roast bones already once cooked. The advice throughout is thoroughly French in its logic even where the book never says so; the distinction between a clear, gently drawn stock and a cloudy, hard-boiled one had long been standard in professional practice. The proverb about the pot smiling rather than laughing is an old kitchen saying whose authorship, like most such phrases, is not documented.