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SCOTCH BROTH (M. Ude's recipe)
Take some of the worst cutlets of the neck, trim them, but not too finely; put them by, and with the trimmings make the soup in the following manner. Put into a stewpan the mutton trimmings, some scrag trimmings, and a knuckle of veal; moisten these with good boiling broth; then season the broth with a bunch of celery, leeks, parsley, one large onion with two cloves, a few slices of turnip cut into dice, and one or two carrots, also cut into dice. Let this broth boil gently three hours; season it with salt, and skim off the fat. When it becomes of a good flavour, drain it over the chops, which you must put in a small stewpan, large enough, however, to contain the soup. Have some barley that has been boiled a long time; wash it well, and put it with the turnips and carrots and chops to boil one hour. Skim again before sending to table. No bread is used with this soup. Celery cut into dice with the turnips gives additional flavour; you can sometimes add, just as you serve up, a little parsley, chopped very fine.
Ude gives no quantities at all, which is normal for a professional recipe of this vintage: the cook was expected to judge by the size of the pot. The hinge is that the broth and the meat are cooked separately — a long flavouring boil with trimmings, then a short, clean second cooking with the chops so they arrive at table whole and not shredded.
- "The worst cutlets of the neck"Neck of mutton chops — the bony, fatty end of the rack, sold cheaply. Lamb neck chops or a sliced lamb neck fillet do the same job; "trim them, but not too finely" means leave some fat and membrane on for flavour. Reckon on two chops per person.
- Scrag and knuckleScrag is the very top of the neck, above the cutlets; a knuckle of veal is the shank end, used purely for gelatine and body. A veal shank slice or two, or a couple of split veal bones, will supply the same silkiness. If veal is not available the broth will simply be thinner in the mouth.
- "Good boiling broth"Ude assumes a light stock already simmering on the stove, not water. A mild unsalted chicken or veal stock is closer to his intention than water; salt only at the end, as he directs, since the liquid reduces over three hours.
- Working quantitiesFor about 3 quarts of finished broth: 2 lb mutton or lamb trimmings and scrag, 1 lb veal bones, 3 quarts stock, 1 large onion stuck with 2 cloves, a head of celery, 2 leeks, a bunch of parsley stalks, and roughly 2 turnips and 2 carrots cut in dice. These are guesses at his scale, not a conversion — he gives none.
- The diced vegetables are used twiceThe turnip, carrot and celery dice go into the three-hour broth for flavour, then are strained out and returned to the second pot with the chops. Cut them fairly large, or they will collapse; blanching a fresh batch to add at the end gives better colour.
- The barleyPearl barley, boiled separately and rinsed — the rinsing removes the starch that would otherwise cloud and thicken the broth. Pearl barley needs about 40 minutes in plenty of water; wash it under cold water before it joins the chops. Hulled or pot barley takes an hour or more.
- The final hourAn hour of gentle simmering suits neck chops on the bone. Keep it at a bare tremble; a rolling boil will emulsify the fat back into the broth and undo the skimming, which is the whole point of Ude's two-pot method.
- DegreasingMutton fat sets hard and white. Making the broth a day ahead and lifting the cap off cold is far more effective than skimming hot, and does not affect the flavour.
- "No bread is used with this soup"A deliberate note: many broths of the period were poured over sippets or a slice of bread in the plate. Here the barley is the starch, and Ude wants the broth clear on the tongue. Serve it as a first course, with the chops in the bowl.
Louis Eustache Ude was a French chef who worked in England in the first decades of the nineteenth century — cook to the Earl of Sefton, later famous for running the kitchen at Crockford's gambling club in St James's — and his The French Cook (first published 1813) went through many editions. This is a restaurant kitchen's version of the dish, with a separately built flavouring broth, a veal knuckle for body, and barley cooked and washed apart so the finished soup stays clear. Scotch broth itself is much older and much humbler, a Scottish one-pot mutton-and-barley soup in which barley did the work that bread or potatoes did elsewhere; barley was the workaday grain of the Scottish farm long before wheat was common there. Ude's contribution is not the dish but the discipline — the same ingredients, taken apart and reassembled so that nothing is muddy.