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VERMICELLI SOUP (another way) (Break lightly four ounces)
Break lightly four ounces of Italian vermicelli, and soak it in cold water for half an hour. Drain it, and drop it into three pints of boiling stock. Add a spoonful of mixed mustard, half a tea-cupful of grated Parmesan, a lump of sugar, and a little salt. Stir frequently, and simmer gently for three-quarters of an hour. Pour into it two additional pints of stock, simmer a few minutes longer, and serve. Send to table with the soup some grated Parmesan on a separate dish. A little sherry or Marsala may be poured into the soup if liked, and will greatly improve its flavour. Time, one hour.
A late-Victorian pasta soup built on good stock, with mustard and Parmesan doing the seasoning. The only thing that needs real rethinking is the cooking time for the pasta.
- The hinge: don't simmer the pasta for 45 minutesModern dried vermicelli cooks through in a matter of minutes (check the packet; fine strands take three to five, thicker Italian vermicelli a little longer) and will break down into paste over three-quarters of an hour. Simmer the stock with the mustard, cheese and sugar for the long stretch to build flavour, then break in the pasta only for the last few minutes before serving.
- Skip the soakModern extruded dried pasta needs no soaking before it goes into the pot, and softening it first will only leave it slack.
- QuantitiesThree pints plus two pints is five imperial pints in all, about 2.8 litres or roughly 12 US cups. Four ounces of vermicelli is about 115 g. A teacupful is generally reckoned at around a quarter of a pint, so half a teacupful of grated Parmesan is perhaps a quarter to a third of a cup, somewhere in the region of 25-40 g.
- Mixed mustardThis means prepared mustard already made up with liquid, not the dry powder: English mustard from the jar is the closest match. A "spoonful" here reads as a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon, and it is easier to add more at the end than to pull it back.
- A lump of sugarLump sizes varied, but a modern sugar cube or a rounded teaspoon of granulated sugar is a fair working equivalent. It reads as being there to round off the sharpness of the mustard rather than to sweeten the soup.
- Cheese and clarityParmesan stirred into simmering stock can string or settle out. Add it off the boil, whisking, and keep the pot at a bare tremble thereafter; the second addition of stock will also thin and settle the soup.
- The fortified wineSherry or Marsala should go in at the very end, off the heat, or the aroma cooks away. A couple of tablespoons for the whole pot is enough.
- YieldFive pints of finished soup serves eight to ten as a first course. It does not hold well once the pasta is in, so cook only what will be eaten.
Vermicelli reached British kitchens as an Italian import long before pasta was widely cooked at home, and for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was often used as a garnish for clear soups, though it also turned up in puddings and sweet dishes. The recipe assumes you already have five pints of good stock and simply need something to carry it. The mustard, sugar and Parmesan are aimed at giving body and savour to broth that might otherwise taste thin ual enough in the case of the mustard ul and the suggestion of sherry or Marsala reflects a period habit of finishing soups with fortified wine that has largely fallen out of everyday use. The bowl of extra grated Parmesan sent separately to table is the one detail that would look entirely at home in an Italian dining room today.