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Restorative Broths
Take one pound of scrag of mutton. Break the bone with a chopper, and put it into a saucepan with three pints of water. Add a little salt, a small onion, a small turnip, a stick of celery, and a table-spoonful of pearl barley. Let the liquor boil, then draw the saucepan to the side, and let its contents simmer for two hours. Skim carefully, strain, and the broth will be ready for use. The meat may be served with parsley and butter or caper sauce. Sufficient for one quart of broth. Probable cost, 6d. per pint. Or, split a calf's foot, and put it into a saucepan with two pounds of fresh knuckle of veal broken up. Add a large onion, half a small parsnip, a leek, a little salt, and three quarts of cold water. Bring the broth to the boil, skim it, then simmer it gently for four hours. A quarter of an hour before it is taken up skim it once more, and throw into it a handful of chervil, ten large sorrel-leaves, and a cabbage lettuce finely shredded. Strain the broth, and it is ready for use. Many invalids prefer to take this broth cold in the form of a jelly. Time, four hours. Probable cost, 8d. per pint. Sufficient for nearly two quarts of broth. Or, take half a pound of lean beef, and half a pound of lean mutton or veal. Cut the meat into small pieces, put these into a jar with a closely-fitting lid, pour a quarter of a pint of cold water over them, and place in a moderately-heated oven for half an hour. Take the meat out, pour over it a pint of water, and put it in the oven again for an hour and a half. Strain the broth through muslin, carefully remove every particle of fat, and add salt and pepper to taste. These should be put in sparingly, as an invalid's tastes are often peculiar. Sufficient for nearly three-quarters of a pint. Probable cost, 9d. per pint. Time, two hours. Or, cut up a partridge into small pieces with a pound of the roll of the bladebone of beef. Fry these in a little butter till they are lightly and equally browned, then lift them out, and put them into a dish. Cut two ounces of uncooked ham into dice. Mix with them the red part of a carrot finely scraped, and five or six sticks of celery cut up small. Stir these in a saucepan with a little butter for three or four minutes, add the fried meat, a little salt, a pinch of powdered thyme, and three or four peppercorns, and pour over all three pints of cold spring water. Bring the liquor slowly to the boil, remove the scum as it rises, and throw in a spoonful of cold water now and again to assist it in rising. Let it simmer very gently for an hour and a half, pour it out, and strain for use. Time, two hours. Probable cost, varying with the price of the partridge. Sufficient for a little more than a quart of broth. Or, take a chicken and cut it up into small joints. Put these into a saucepan with two pounds of knuckle of veal broken up into small pieces, an onion stuck with three cloves, six peppercorns, and one pint of cold water. Boil the liquor quickly until it begins to thicken, and be very careful that it does not burn. Pour over this three quarts of cold water, and add two scraped carrots, and five or six sticks of celery, or half a tea-spoonful of bruised celery-seed. Let the broth boil, remove the scum, then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let its contents simmer for two hours. Strain through a sieve, and the broth will be ready for use. Time, two hours and a half. Probable cost, 1s. per pint. Sufficient for a little more than two quarts. Many physicians are of opinion that Bovril dissolved in a little boiling water forms by itself a most excellent and restorative broth. A small quantity is also a valuable addition to broth made from fresh meat.
Five broths for the sickroom, plus a note on Bovril. All are gentle extractions rather than stocks for cooking, and the aim throughout is clarity, mild seasoning and easy digestion.
- The hinge: never let them boilThe hinge: keep it below a boil -- Most versions tell you to bring the liquor to a boil, skim, then draw the pan aside so the surface barely trembles, around 180F. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds the broth, which defeats the point of an invalid's broth. Two exceptions: the covered-jar beef tea never boils at all, and the chicken broth deliberately begins with a quick hard boil to reduce the first pint of water.
- Scrag of muttonThe neck end, bony and sinewy, sold now as lamb neck or neck fillet on the bone. A pound of bone-in lamb neck behaves the same way; if your butcher only has boneless, ask for a few bones to go in with it.
- Calf's footThe gelatine source that makes the second broth set cold as a jelly. Butchers rarely stock it; a split veal foot or extra veal knuckle bones ordered ahead will do much the same work. Without a foot the broth will still be good, though it will set softly if at all.
- "A moderately-heated oven"For the covered-jar beef tea the book gives no temperature; something in the region of 300-325F is a reasonable modern reading. The closely-lidded jar holds the meat in its own steam so the juices are drawn out without browning, and the yield is deliberately tiny: nearly three-quarters of a pint from a pound of meat.
- Chervil, sorrel and lettuceThese go in only for the last quarter hour. Sorrel collapses to a khaki puree within minutes; chervil's anise note fades with prolonged heat. Both are farmers'-market items now rather than staples.
- "The roll of the bladebone"The muscle lying over the beef shoulder blade, sold today as flat iron or feather blade. The partridge broth is the only one of the five that begins by frying the meat in butter until lightly browned, which gives it its colour and deeper flavour.
- Removing the fatThe instruction to take off "every particle of fat" is easiest done cold. Chill the strained broth, lift the solid cap, then blot the surface with kitchen paper. Doing it hot with a spoon leaves a slick.
- Costs and BovrilThe prices are late-Victorian pence and are useful only as a ratio: chicken and veal broth at a shilling a pint cost twice the mutton at sixpence. Bovril is still made, still a beef-and-yeast extract, and still dissolves in hot water; the appeal to "many physicians" reads more like the promotional language of the period than a reported finding.
- Yield and servingThe mutton and partridge broths give about a quart, the veal-foot and chicken versions close to two quarts. Serve in a cup, seasoned lightly as the text advises, and refrigerate what is not used within two hours.
Restorative broths belong to invalid cookery, a substantial department of every large Victorian household manual and one that Cassell's treats with the same seriousness as roasting or pastry. Before intravenous fluids and reliable antipyretics, feeding the sick meant liquids that were nourishing, warm and easy to keep down, and the profession genuinely believed that the goodness of meat could be drawn into water and taken by a patient too weak to chew. Hence the covered jar in a slow oven, essentially a domestic version of the beef teas and meat essences sold by chemists, and hence the caution about seasoning "sparingly, as an invalid's tastes are often peculiar." The closing endorsement of Bovril dates the entry: Johnston's Fluid Beef was rebranded under that name in 1886 and was aggressively marketed to doctors and nurses, and here it appears in a domestic cookery book as an addition to the home-made broths rather than a replacement for them.