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Crab Soup
Wash half a pound of rice in one or two waters, then put it into a saucepan with a quart of milk or white stock, an inch and a half of stick cinnamon, a little salt and pepper, and a piece of butter the size of an egg. Let it simmer gently till quite tender, then mix with it the pounded yellow pith from the body of a freshly-boiled crab, and another quart of stock. Rub all through a sieve, then pour it into a stewpan with the flesh from the claws torn into flakes with two forks. Add a tea-spoonful of the essence of anchovies. Stir it again over the fire until thoroughly heated, but it must not boil after the crab is added. Time, one hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. per quart. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A rice-thickened crab soup of the sort English cookery made before French bisque conventions took hold. Two things decide whether it works: the brown meat from the crab body, and keeping the pot below a simmer once that meat goes in.
- Never boil after the crabThe instruction is in the original and it is the hinge. Once the brown meat and flaked claw meat are in, boiling curdles the milk version and turns the crab fibrous and grainy. Hold it at about 160-170F, stirring, just until hot through.
- "Yellow pith from the body"This is the soft brown meat and tomalley from inside the carapace, not anything discarded. Scoop it all out, including the paste clinging to the shell, and discard only the gills and the hard stomach sac behind the eyes. It carries most of the flavour and does the emulsifying.
- Crab quantityNo size is given. One large boiled brown crab of 2-2.5 lb yields roughly 4-6 oz of brown meat and a similar amount of white, which is right for two quarts of finished soup. Two smaller crabs work as well; pre-picked dressed crab is a fair substitute if you can get the brown meat separately.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons.
- Essence of anchoviesA commercial Victorian bottling, thin and salty. Use about a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or two mashed oil-packed fillets, or a teaspoon of Asian fish sauce. Add it at the end and taste before adding salt, since the rice was already salted.
- Rubbing through a sieveHalf a pound of rice cooked to collapse will go through a drum sieve with a wooden spoon, but a blender or stick blender does it in seconds. Pass the blended base through a fine sieve anyway to catch shell fragments and cinnamon.
- ConsistencyHalf a pound of rice to two quarts of liquid gives a thick, almost porridge-like soup by modern taste. Thin with extra stock or milk after sieving until it coats a spoon lightly.
- TimingWhat the stated hour and a half covers is not spelled out; it is longer than the rice needs, so it may include preparation as well as the simmering. The rice needs 30-40 minutes in the milk or stock to go completely soft; remove the cinnamon stick before blending or the spice will dominate.
- YieldTwo quarts, serving five or six as a first course.
This sits between two traditions: the older English practice of thickening with rice, breadcrumbs or ground almonds, and the French bisque, which in some hands was built on a roux and cream -- though bisques of the period were themselves still frequently thickened with rice. Rice was the cheaper and more forgiving thickener, and it also mutes nothing in the crab, which is why the brown meat can carry the whole dish. The bottled essence of anchovies is a period marker in itself; anchovy essence, mushroom ketchup and Harvey's sauce were kitchen staples in Victorian Britain, sold by grocers as concentrated savour long before the word umami reached English. The costing of 1s. 6d. a quart, given as a matter of course, reflects a readership running to a budget and a cook expected to account for it.