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Cream of Cheese Soup
Heat, but not boil, in a double boiler, one full quart of milk, one blade of mace, one tea-spoonful of minced onion, one table-spoonful of carrot. Blend together one-fourth of a cupful of butter and two level table-spoonfuls of flour. To this add the hot milk, half a cup at a time, stirring constantly and cooking between each addition. Strain back into the double boiler, add three-fourths of a cupful of grated cheese and stir till melted. Season with salt and white pepper and pour over it the beaten yolks of two eggs. Cook a moment, remove the inner boiler, and beat with an egg beater till covered with a fine froth. Serve at once in hot cups. This is enough for eight persons.
A late-Victorian cheese veloute, thickened with a roux and enriched with yolks at the last moment. Everything hinges on keeping the pan below a simmer once the cheese and eggs are in.
- The hinge: no boiling after the cheeseCheese held much above a simmer separates and turns grainy, and the yolks will curdle if pushed too far as well. The double boiler is not fussiness; it is the main safeguard for a smooth soup.
- A blade of maceOne whole piece of the lacy aril from a nutmeg, infused and then strained out. If you only have ground mace, use a scant pinch and accept a slightly clouded soup.
- "One tablespoonful of carrot"Grated or very finely minced raw carrot, added purely for aroma and a faint sweetness. It is strained out with the mace and onion, so precision is not important.
- The reversed rouxButter and flour are blended cold, then the hot milk goes in half a cup at a time with cooking between additions. Done this way the starch swells gradually and there are no lumps to whisk out later.
- ProportionsA quarter cup of butter is 4 tablespoons or 2 oz; two level tablespoons of flour to that much fat gives a deliberately loose, souplike body rather than a sauce.
- The cheeseA firm dry cheese is meant, most likely an English Cheddar or a hard grating cheese. Three-quarters of a cup grated is roughly 3 oz. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch and will thicken the soup further.
- Adding the yolksPouring cold yolks straight into a quart of hot soup risks streaks of cooked egg. Slacken them with a ladleful of the hot liquid first, return the mixture, and give it no more than a minute off direct heat.
- The frothThe final beating with an egg beater aerates the soup so it arrives light; serve immediately, as the foam will not hold for long.
- YieldEight portions from a quart means small cups of about four ounces each, in the manner of a first course at a long dinner. As a modern bowl-sized starter it serves four.
This belongs among the lighter cream soups of the soup course of a formal English dinner, where a thin clear soup and a thick white one were often offered side by side and the guest chose. The technique follows French veloute practice as adapted by British and American cookery writers of the period: milk infused with aromatics, a butter-and-flour liaison, and a final enrichment of egg yolk common in dishes called a cream. Hard Cheddar of the kind made in quantity by the end of the nineteenth century grated and melted readily. The instruction to serve in hot cups fits a period fashion for soup taken from two-handled cups rather than plates.