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POTATO SOUP (another way) (Take two pounds of peeled)
Take two pounds of peeled potatoes, a stick of celery, and the white part of two leeks, cook with a small piece of butter in a saucepan with the lid on for ten minutes, add salt and a quart of water, and boil half an hour. Press the whole through a sieve, afterwards boil it for six or eight minutes, and serve very hot, mixed with half a pint of boiling milk or cream. Time, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, exclusive of the stock, 4d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A clean, four-ingredient purée that works as written; the only real decisions are how finely to sieve it and how thin to leave it.
- Sweat, do not brownThe ten minutes under a lid with butter is the flavour base of the whole soup. Keep the heat low enough that the leeks and celery soften without colouring, or the finished purée turns grey-tasting.
- Quantities in modern termsTwo pounds of peeled potatoes is about 900 g. The measures here are imperial: a quart is about 1.14 litres (a little under 5 US cups) and half a pint of milk or cream is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Floury potatoes such as russets or Maris Piper give the thickest result; waxy ones stay thinner and can turn gluey if worked hard.
- Sieve or blenderPressing through a sieve was one of the few routes to a smooth purée in a Victorian kitchen. A food mill or ricer gives the same silky texture; a stick blender is faster but overworking potato starch makes the soup elastic, so pulse briefly rather than running it.
- The final boilThe six to eight minutes after sieving is to cook out any raw floury taste and reduce slightly. Add the hot milk or cream off that boil and bring back only to steaming, since dairy added into a hard boil can catch and scorch.
- "Exclusive of the stock"The costing line mentions stock although the method calls only for water; the two do not agree. Light chicken or vegetable stock in place of the quart of water improves it considerably, in which case go easier on the salt.
- SeasoningSalt is the only seasoning specified, which is typical of the period's plain cookery. White pepper, a scrape of nutmeg, or chopped chives at the table are all in keeping.
- YieldFour to five as a first course, closer to three as a main. It thickens considerably on standing; thin with more milk or stock when reheating.
Potato soup of this kind — potato, leek, a little celery, softened in butter and then sieved — is a close cousin of what French kitchens codified as potage parmentier, named for Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, the eighteenth-century pharmacist generally credited with persuading the French that potatoes were fit for people rather than only livestock. Cassell's gives several potato soups in succession, this being the version that dispenses with meat stock altogether, and the costing of fourpence for four or five servings explains why: it was among the cheapest hot dishes a household could put on the table. The instruction to press everything through a sieve marks the recipe as pre-blender labour, the kind of arm work that Victorian kitchens took for granted and that a food mill now does in a minute.