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Turnip Broth
This is made with about a dozen turnips peeled and cut into slices. Blanch them for a short time in water, and drain them; put them with a knuckle of veal, a small piece of beef, and the half of a hen into a stewpan; and pour some rich boiling broth over all. Let the whole stew for about two hours, then strain the broth through a double silk sieve, and use it with rice, vermicelli, etc. etc.
A Victorian white stock built on turnips rather than aromatics, meant to be strained and served as a clear soup base. The method is sound; the quantities are written for a household stockpot.
- Scale it downA dozen turnips, a veal knuckle, beef and half a hen suggests a 10-12 quart pot. For a domestic batch, use 3-4 turnips (about 1 lb), a 1.5 lb veal knuckle sawn across, half a pound of beef shin and two chicken leg quarters, with 3-4 quarts of liquid.
- Turnips, not swedesThe book does not specify, but white summer turnips, small and sweet, are the likeliest intent. Large winter turnips or yellow swede (rutabaga) will push the broth toward sulphur and bitterness. Choose turnips no larger than a tennis ball.
- The blanching is the hingeThat "short time" in water is what keeps the broth clean-tasting. Two to three minutes at a rolling boil, then drain and discard the water; it carries off the sulphurous compounds that otherwise dominate a long simmer.
- "Rich boiling broth"The original assumes broth already standing in the kitchen. Use a light chicken or veal stock, or water if you have none; the meat will make its own body from the veal knuckle's gelatin.
- Stew means barely simmerHold the surface at a lazy tremble, around 180-190F. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds it, which defeats the point of straining through silk.
- StrainingA silk sieve was among the finest filters available in the period. A fine chinois lined with damp muslin or a double layer of cheesecloth does the same work. Chill afterwards and lift the set fat off the top.
- Two hours is short for vealModern practice commonly runs veal bones four hours or more for full extraction. Two hours will give a light, delicate broth, which is what a garnish of rice or vermicelli wants; go longer if you want more body.
- Yield and servingExpect roughly 2-2.5 quarts of finished broth from the scaled-down version, serving six to eight. The meat need not be wasted -- shred the chicken and beef for a separate dish.
Broths of this kind sit at the foundation of nineteenth-century English cookery: not a soup in themselves but a stock flavoured toward one vegetable, held ready to be finished with rice, vermicelli, barley or a handful of herbs as the day required. The placement of this entry under "The Principles of Cookery" may suggest that Cassell's is teaching a method rather than a dish, though that is inference. Turnips were among the cheapest and most reliably available roots in Britain through the winter, and the practice of blanching them first is old kitchen wisdom about brassica flavour, long predating any chemical explanation of it. The instruction to use half a hen and a knuckle of veal together, and the call for a silk sieve, invite speculation about the kind of household the book imagined, but the recipe itself tells us only what it asks the cook to do.