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Shrimp and Tomato Soup
Boil a pint of shrimps in salted water, flavoured with a bunch of sweet herbs and a large slice of lemon. Drain, cool, and shell the fish, and preserve a quarter of a pint of the liquor in which they were boiled. Slice a dozen large ripe tomatoes, and stir them over the fire, with four sliced onions, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a slice of fresh butter, for three or four minutes. A clove of garlic may be added, if liked; and if there is difficulty in procuring the tomatoes, a smaller number must be made to answer. Pour over them as much stock as will cover them, and let them stew gently till quite tender. Rub them through a sieve, and mix with them half a tumblerful of the liquor in which the shrimps were boiled, and a little more stock, if necessary. Season the soup with cayenne, and let it boil, stirring it well till it begins to thicken. A few minutes before serving, throw the picked shrimps into the soup. Time, two hours. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A tomato purée soup finished with shellfish, from a period when tomatoes were still a slightly uncertain purchase in Britain. The two things worth getting right are the shrimp cooking time and the fact that the soup is thickened by reduction alone.
- A pint of shrimpsShrimp were sold by volume, not weight; a pint of small unshelled shrimp might weigh anywhere from about 10 oz to a pound, giving perhaps 4-6 oz of picked meat. Small cold-water shrimp or brown shrimp suit this best.
- Boil them brieflyTwo to three minutes in the seasoned water is enough — they are done the moment they turn opaque and curl. The recipe's later instruction to add the picked shrimp "a few minutes before serving" should be read as one or two minutes, off a bare simmer, or they will be tough.
- Liquid measuresA quarter of an imperial pint is 5 fl oz, a scant two-thirds of a US cup. "Half a tumblerful" is perhaps 4-5 fl oz — in practice much the same quantity of shrimp liquor, so reserve about a cup and use what tastes right.
- A slice of fresh butterAround 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter. "Fresh" here means unsalted, as opposed to the salted keeping butter of the period.
- TomatoesA dozen large ripe tomatoes is perhaps 3-4 lb. Out of season, tinned whole plum tomatoes, drained of their thinnest juice, will give a better result than pale fresh fruit; the recipe itself only allows for making a smaller number answer when they are hard to procure.
- Rubbing through a sieveA food mill or a blender followed by a fine sieve does the work in a fraction of the time. Straining is not optional: it removes the skins and seeds, and it is what gives the soup its texture.
- How it thickensThere is no flour or cream. The final boil reduces the purée until it coats a spoon, so keep it moving over medium heat and be prepared for 15-20 minutes. Adding extra stock late will undo this.
- Timing and yieldThe stated two hours is mostly the gentle stew of the tomatoes; active work is a good deal less. The recipe gives it as sufficient for five or six persons.
- SeasoningCayenne is the only pepper called for, and the shrimp liquor will bring some salt of its own. Taste after the reduction has concentrated things before adding more.
Cassell's compiled its New Dictionary of Cookery at the turn of the twentieth century, when the tomato had moved from a suspect novelty in British kitchens to something a cook might reasonably expect to buy — though the recipe's cautious aside about "difficulty in procuring the tomatoes" shows the supply was still seasonal and unreliable outside the summer months. The shrimp are the older half of the dish: the small brown shrimp of the English and Welsh coasts were landed in quantity through the nineteenth century, sold by the pint from baskets, and consumed in vast numbers potted, in sauces and in soups of this kind. The soup is built instead on a strained tomato purée, and it is tempting to read that choice as an echo of French practice, where a purée de tomates was standard groundwork; the technique of building a soup on a sieved vegetable and finishing it with a garnish of shellfish would certainly have been familiar from the classical repertoire that English cookery writing was busy absorbing.