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Prawn Soup
Mince finely two onions, a carrot, and half a dozen of the outer sticks of a head of celery, and put them into a stewpan with three ounces of fresh butter, a bay-leaf, a bunch of parsley, and a sprig of thyme, and let them steam gently for a quarter of an hour. Shake the saucepan every now and then to keep them from burning. Pour over them three pints of broth or water, and mix this gradually with four ounces of flour mixed to a smooth paste with a little cold water; stir the liquid over the fire till it boils, then draw it back, let it simmer gently for a quarter of an hour, and strain. Pick out the tails of fifty prawns, and put the bodies and shells into a stewpan with a little stock and a glassful of light wine. Let them stew for a quarter of an hour; then pass the liquid through a fine sieve, and mix it with the soup. Season with a little cayenne, and add a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce. Put in the picked prawns, let them boil for five or six minutes, and serve very hot. Time, an hour and a half. Probable cost, variable. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A Victorian shellfish bisque built on a flour-thickened vegetable broth rather than cream. Almost all of its flavour comes from one step that is easy to skim past: the stewing of the prawn heads and shells.
- The hinge: shell stockThe shells and bodies, not the tails, carry the flavour. Stew them hard enough to extract it, crushing them against the pan as they go, and press the liquid through the sieve rather than letting it drain.
- Do not boil the tails for six minutesPeeled prawn tails are firm in a minute or two and rubbery by five. Add them off the heat at the end and let the hot soup finish them, particularly if you are using raw prawns rather than the pre-cooked ones a Victorian fishmonger sold.
- Fifty prawnsThese were the small prawns of the period, not tiger prawns. Reckon on something in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 lb of whole shell-on prawns, which should give both enough picked tails and the shells you need for the stock.
- The flour is heavy-handedFour ounces of flour to three pints of liquid gives a soup close to a sauce. Two ounces is nearer modern taste, and whisking the paste in off the heat prevents lumps. Simmer at least 15 minutes to cook out the raw flour.
- A glassful of light wineA wineglassful of the period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz. A dry white is the safest reading; 'light' generally meant unfortified and not sweet. Sherry works if you prefer the bisque register.
- Mushroom ketchup and anchovy sauceMushroom ketchup is a thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, still made by a few British firms; a teaspoon of soy plus a little Worcestershire is the usual stand-in. For the anchovy sauce, a scant teaspoon of anchovy paste or one mashed fillet does the job.
- Steam gently, quarter of an hourThis is a sweat: low heat, lid on, no colour on the vegetables. Three ounces of butter is generous but it is the fat that carries the aromatics into the broth.
- Seasoning at the endThe anchovy, ketchup and shell stock are all salty, so hold back salt until the soup is assembled. Add the lemon juice last of all, off the heat, or it dulls.
- YieldSix or seven as a first course, as stated -- rather fewer if you thin the flour and serve it as a main.
Prawn soup of this kind sits between two traditions: the old English shellfish "soop", thickened with flour and sharpened with ketchup and anchovy, and the French bisque, which extracts the same shells but finishes with cream and butter. Cassell's, compiled for middle-class households in the late nineteenth century, characteristically takes the thriftier English route -- nothing is wasted, and the heads and shells that a French cook would pound in a mortar are simply stewed with a little wine and strained. Mushroom ketchup and anchovy sauce were the standard British savoury boosters of the period, kept in every store cupboard and doing much the work that stock cubes and fish sauce do now. The cost is simply given as "variable".