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VEGETABLE SOUP, WINTER (another way)
Allow half a pint of mixed vegetables cut small to every quart of water. Fry the vegetables in butter or fat till they are lightly browned. Pour upon them the boiling stock, and let them simmer gently till tender. Rub them through a sieve, moisten the pulp with the stock, and add salt and cayenne. Simmer the soup till it is thoroughly hot, and serve with toasted sippets. Carrots, turnips, onions, celery, and sweet herbs are the vegetables best suited for vegetable winter soup.
A purée soup built on browned root vegetables, from the era before blenders. The proportions are given by volume, and the liquid is described inconsistently — water in the first line, stock thereafter.
- The proportionHalf a pint of cut vegetables to a quart of liquid is one part vegetables to four of liquid (imperial half-pint, so nearer 10 fl oz of vegetables to 40 fl oz of stock). That is a thin soup by modern taste; doubling the vegetables gives more body.
- Water or stockThe opening line says water and the method says boiling stock. Use stock — a vegetable or light chicken stock — since there is nothing else in the pot to build flavour beyond salt and cayenne.
- Brown, but not darkCook the diced roots in butter over medium heat until they take colour at the edges, 10-15 minutes, without letting the onion scorch and turn the pur eue bitter. The browning is what gives this soup its colour and depth.
- Sweet herbsIn Victorian usage this means the mild kitchen herbs parsley, thyme, marjoram, a bay leaf not a sweet flavouring. They may be tied in a bundle and lifted out before sieving, though the recipe does not say so.
- Sieving"Rub through a sieve" was the standard pur eree method of the period. A blender or food processor does it in seconds; pass the result through a fine sieve afterwards if you want the smoothness the original intends, since carrot and celery leave fibre.
- Cooking timeDiced roots simmer tender in 25-35 minutes depending on size. The final "simmer till thoroughly hot" is just reheating after sieving — do not boil hard once puréed, or the soup catches on the pan base.
- SippetsSmall triangles or dice of bread, toasted or fried in butter, handed separately or scattered on top. Croutons in all but name.
- YieldAs written, roughly four modest servings per quart of stock.
The winter designation is practical rather than decorative: winter meant stored roots carrot, turnip, onion, celery which is what this recipe lists. Browning the vegetables in fat before adding liquid supplies colour and depth, a technique the nineteenth-century kitchen used across brown soups and gravies. The sieve work is worth noting as labour: a pur eree of roots pressed through a hair or wire sieve with a wooden spoon was a genuine arm's job. Sippets, the small toasted bread garnish, are an older English word than crouton and appear throughout Victorian soup cookery, often as the only accompaniment specified.