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Thickening, Simple, for Ordinary Brown Soup
Put a breakfast-cupful of stock into a saucepan with a quarter of an ounce of sage, a quarter of an ounce of chopped onion, a quarter of an ounce of grated lemon-peel, and two ounces of celery. Let these simmer gently for half an hour, strain the liquor, and rub the herbs through a fine sieve. Dissolve six ounces of butter, and incorporate with it, gradually and thoroughly, six ounces of dried flour. Stir it quickly over a gentle fire till it is lightly browned. Moisten the mixture with the liquor from the herbs, and it will be ready for the soup, which ought to boil for an hour after it is added. Suitable seasoning will, of course, be required in addition. Time, three-quarters of an hour. Sufficient for five quarts of soup.
This is not a soup but a component: a brown roux carrying an aromatic infusion, made in bulk to thicken and season five quarts of stock. Scale it down unless you are cooking for twenty.
- Breakfast-cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup — reckon 8 to 10 fl oz, so about one generous cup. It is only a vehicle for the herbs and for loosening the roux, so precision matters little here.
- Dried flourVictorian kitchens spread flour in a pan and dried it in a cooling oven to drive off moisture, which was said to help it brown more evenly and keep it from lumping. Modern packaged flour is dry enough; skip the step, or warm it gently in a low oven if you want the fuller nutty flavour.
- Equal weights of butter and flourSix ounces of each is the standard roux proportion; it flows while hot and sets firm as it cools, which suits a thickening you will store. As written it thickens five quarts of soup fairly lightly; for one quart use about 1 1/4 oz each of butter and flour.
- The hinge: brown it slowly"Stir it quickly over a gentle fire" is the whole instruction — constant movement, low heat. A roux taken past pale brown on high heat scorches in patches, and burnt flour turns a whole pot of soup bitter with no way back. Ten to fifteen minutes at a bare sizzle.
- The sageA quarter ounce is about 7 g, a great deal of sage either way. If you are using dried sage, cut it back sharply — a teaspoon or so — or the soup will taste of stuffing.
- Straining, then sievingThe liquor is strained off and the softened aromatics are also pushed through a sieve, so nothing is wasted; the pur ening. A fine mesh sieve and the back of a ladle do the job.
- Boiling the soup an hour afterwardsThe recipe does not say why the hour is wanted; with a properly browned roux, 20 to 30 minutes at a gentle simmer will cook out any floury taste. A long hard boil on a butter-based thickening tends to break it and throw fat to the surface, which then has to be skimmed.
- Keeping itCooled, the paste sets firm and keeps a week or more refrigerated, or months frozen in portions. Whisk small pieces into hot stock off the boil to avoid lumps.
This preparation belongs to a nineteenth-century system in which a kitchen kept prepared thickenings, glazes and stocks on hand and assembled dishes from them. It is essentially the English version of the French roux brun, a technique generally traced to seventeenth-century French practice and imported into British cookery through the trained cooks of large households. What distinguishes it from a plain roux is the infusion of sage, onion, lemon peel and celery — closer to the seasoning of a forcemeat than to anything in Carême — which turns the thickening into a seasoning as well. The instruction that it is "sufficient for five quarts" points to a kitchen where brown soup was made in quantity and needed to taste the same every time.