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Vermicelli Soup, Clear
Lightly break a quarter of a pound of vermicelli, to prevent it hanging in long threads over the side of the spoon as the soup is carried to the mouth. Put it into boiling water, let it boil for five minutes, drain it, and it will be ready for the soup. If it cannot be immediately used, cool it by putting it into cold water (if it is left in a sieve to strain while hot, it will become lumpy, and will not again dissolve). When cold, drain it again, and it will be ready for use. If the vermicelli is not thus blanched before it is put into the soup, it will in all probability impart a cloudy look to the liquor. Boil three pints of bright, clear stock already seasoned and flavoured, put in the vermicelli, simmer gently till tender, and stir it now and then to keep it from getting into lumps. When tender, serve in a tureen. Grated Parmesan cheese served on a separate dish is a great improvement to this soup. It may, of course, be dispensed with. Time to boil the vermicelli, twelve to twenty minutes, according to quality. It must not be overcooked, or it will be spoilt. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A straightforward consommé with pasta, and the whole point of the method is clarity. Everything below serves that.
- The hinge: blanch firstBoiling the vermicelli separately for five minutes washes off surface starch, which is what would otherwise cloud the broth. Skip it and you get a cloudy, slightly gluey soup rather than a clear one.
- QuantitiesA quarter pound of vermicelli is 115 g; three pints is 1.7 litres (about 7 US cups). The ratio is generous — for a truly clear soup you may prefer 75 g.
- Modern pasta cooks fasterThe recipe allows twelve to twenty minutes 'according to quality', and it is not clear whether that includes the five-minute blanch. Modern vermicelli, already blanched, will likely need only a few minutes more. Taste rather than time it.
- Don't leave it draining hotThe warning is sound: hot drained pasta welds into a solid mass as it cools. Either use it at once or shock it in cold water, then drain again.
- "Bright, clear stock already seasoned"This assumes a proper clarified consommé, not a cloudy bone broth. A good chicken or beef consommé, or a well-strained stock lifted with an egg-white raft, is what the recipe expects.
- Vermicelli is not angel hair hereItalian vermicelli (slightly thicker than spaghetti) or capellini both work; break it up lightly, as instructed, so it does not hang in long threads.
- ServingSix to eight as a first course. Add the pasta only just before serving — it keeps swelling and softening in hot broth, and reheated leftovers will be mush.
Clear soups with a little pasta dropped in belong to the nineteenth-century British repertoire of "potages" borrowed at second hand from France and Italy, and vermicelli soup was among the most common of them; it is essentially a lesson in keeping a broth clear. Vermicelli — Italian for "little worms" — had been imported into Britain since the eighteenth century and was cheap and widely stocked, which is why a book aimed at ordinary households treats it as a staple. The remark about long threads hanging over the spoon carries its own plain reason: pasta was broken short before it ever reached the tureen. The optional Parmesan, offered separately and easily "dispensed with", shows how far grated cheese still sat at the edge of the English table.