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Creme D'Orge, Soup Of
Cut three-quarters of a pound of veal and half a pound of beef into small pieces. Put them into a saucepan with two ounces of pearl barley and two quarts of cold water, bring it to a boil, skim thoroughly, and simmer as gently as possible for three hours. Then rub the whole through a sieve. Add pepper and salt, and any other seasoning that may be fancied. The soup should be of the consistency of thick cream. Probable cost, 10d. per pint. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian purée soup thickened entirely by barley rather than flour or cream. The method is sound; the main adjustments are equipment and expectations about texture.
- Cut of veal and beefUse stewing veal (shoulder or breast) and beef shin or chuck, both cut into 1 in dice. Lean cuts will not give the body the soup depends on; connective tissue is what makes the sieved purée feel rich.
- Pearl barley quantityTwo ounces is a scant 1/3 cup dry. It swells considerably over three hours and does most of the thickening, so do not reduce it.
- Two quarts of cold waterA little over 2 litres by imperial measure. Starting cold and skimming as it comes up is what keeps the finished soup clean-tasting; once it boils hard the scum emulsifies and cannot be lifted off.
- "Simmer as gently as possible"The hinge of the recipe. Hold it at a bare shiver, 180-190F, with the lid ajar. A rolling boil for three hours will cloud the liquid and reduce it far below the volume the sieving stage needs.
- Rubbing through a sieveThe original means forcing meat, barley and all through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon. A food processor followed by a fine strainer or food mill does the same work in minutes; discard only the gristle and any stubborn fibre.
- Consistency"Thick cream" is the target. If the pot comes out thicker than that, loosen with hot stock or water at the end rather than starting with more liquid.
- SeasoningThe book leaves this open because the base is deliberately plain. A blade of mace, a bay leaf and a little onion added at the start, and a squeeze of lemon at the finish, suit it; salt only after sieving, since the purée concentrates.
- Yield and costFour to five servings, as stated. The "10d. per pint" is a Victorian price note of no practical use today.
Crème d'orge is simply "cream of barley," and the name reflects the French vocabulary that ran through nineteenth-century English kitchen books even for thoroughly domestic dishes. Barley is often said to be among the oldest thickeners in the British larder, long predating the roux, and a soup bound by sieved grain rather than flour or dairy belongs to a family of restorative potages that were fed to invalids and children as often as they were served at table. The recipe demonstrates the technique cleanly: a long, gentle extraction of meat and grain, then a sieve to turn the whole pot into one smooth substance, with nothing added to hide a thin result. The veal is there for gelatine and mildness, the beef for flavour, a division of labour standard in stock-making of the period.