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Stock, Quickly Made
Take an onion, peel it, split it in halves, and stick two cloves into it; put it into a saucepan with a pint and a half of water, a bunch of fresh green parsley-leaves, a tea-spoonful of gelatine, and a little salt and cayenne. A stick or two of celery or a few celery-seeds, or a very small pinch of dried tarragon may be added, if they are at hand, as they will greatly assist the flavour of the stock. Boil the liquor till the gelatine is dissolved, strain it into a bowl, and press the onion and parsley so as to get as much of the goodness out of them as possible. If the gelatine is good, the stock will be bright and clear. Stir into it until dissolved a tea-spoonful of Bovril, and it will be ready for use. It may be served as it is, as clear soup, or a little macaroni or vermicelli may be added to it, though they should be boiled separately, or the soup will not be clear; or a few vegetables cut as for Julienne soup may be put in (see VEGETABLES, DRIED), or a few fresh tarragon-leaves may be finely shredded and thrown in. Probable cost, plain, 3d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A meatless cheat's consommé: an aromatic infusion given body by gelatine and savour by a spoonful of beef extract. It takes about twenty minutes.
- The measureAn imperial pint and a half is 30 fl oz, or about 3½ US cups (roughly 850 ml). Expect to lose a little to evaporation, which is no bad thing for flavour.
- GelatineA teaspoon of modern powdered gelatine (roughly 3 g) is plenty for this volume — enough for body and gloss, not enough to set. Bloom it in a little cold water first; dropping dry powder into hot liquid gives lumps that never dissolve, and the recipe's promise of a bright clear stock depends on it going in cleanly. Leaf gelatine works equally well, about one and a half sheets.
- BovrilStill made and still the same idea: a salty beef extract paste. Marmite or a vegetable bouillon concentrate substitutes directly if you want the stock meat-free, though the colour will differ. Add it off the boil and taste before adding salt — a teaspoon carries a good deal of sodium on its own.
- ClarityThe recipe says to boil, but a bare simmer keeps the onion and parsley from clouding the liquid. The book asks you to press the solids hard for flavour; a gentler squeeze against the sieve trades a little of that for a clearer result. A second pass through a damp cloth will polish it if it comes through hazy.
- Celery seedIf using seeds rather than sticks, a scant quarter-teaspoon is enough; they are far more assertive than the stalk and turn bitter in quantity.
- The pasta noteThe direction to cook macaroni or vermicelli separately is worth keeping. Starch shed into the broth is exactly what ruins the clarity the gelatine was added to achieve. Drain, rinse briefly, and add at the last moment.
- What it is and is notThis is a light seasoned broth, not a substitute for a long-simmered bone stock in braises or sauces. Serve it as the book suggests, as a clear soup, three or four small cups' worth.
Cassell's belongs to a long Victorian tradition of stock recipes that assume a stockpot always on the range; this one is the exception, written for a cook with no bones, no time, and a small budget — the stated cost of threepence makes the point. Its two shortcuts are both products of late nineteenth-century industry. Commercial powdered and sheet gelatine replaced the tedious business of boiling down calves' feet for a jelly base. Bovril was developed by the Scottish butcher John Lawson Johnston in the early 1870s to supply concentrated beef to the French army, and reached British grocers under that name in the 1880s; the name is generally explained as bovine plus Vril, the life-force in Bulwer-Lytton's 1871 novel The Coming Race. A recipe that names a branded product outright is a small marker of how far manufactured foods had entered the middle-class kitchen by the turn of the century.