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White Soup, Economical
Take a quart of nicely-flavoured stock made from the bones of veal, or the liquor in which veal, mutton, or chicken has been boiled will answer excellently for the purpose. Before being used it must be simmered for an hour with the flavouring ingredients mentioned below. Let the stock boil; then stir into it two table-spoonfuls of cornflour which has been mixed to a smooth thin paste with a little cold milk. Draw it to the side of the fire, and let it simmer gently, stirring all the time, for seven minutes. Season with pepper and salt. Put the yolk of an egg into the soup tureen, beat it with a table-spoonful of milk, and stir in gradually half a pint of boiling milk; add the stock, and serve immediately. When veal bones or cold meat liquor are not at hand, take one pound of the scrag-end of a neck of veal, and a slice of thin lean ham, or a piece of bacon-rind which has been scalded and scraped; put them into a stewpan with a small carrot, a turnip, one large onion, a blade of mace, a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme, and four peppercorns. Pour over the ingredients half a gallon of cold water, let the liquor boil, skim carefully, then draw it back, and simmer gently till it is strong and good. Strain it, and when cold, free it entirely from fat, and it will be ready for being converted into white soup. Time to simmer the stock, three hours. Probable cost of the scrag-end of the neck of veal, 7d. or 8d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A thickened white soup built on veal or chicken stock, finished with an egg-yolk and milk liaison. The whole thing hinges on the last step: once the yolk is in, the soup must not return to the boil.
- Imperial measuresA quart here is the imperial quart, 40 fl oz or about 5 US cups; half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 cups. Half a gallon of water for the stock is roughly 2.3 litres, or about 9 1/2 US cups.
- CornflourBritish cornflour is American cornstarch, not cornmeal and not wheat flour. Two tablespoons in a quart gives a light coating body; slake it in cold milk as directed or it will lump.
- The liaisonBeating the yolk with milk in the tureen, then adding boiling milk and hot stock, tempers the egg without scrambling it. If you finish in the pan instead, keep it below a simmer — around 180F — and never let it boil, or the soup will turn grainy.
- Scrag end of vealThe bony neck end, sold as veal neck if at all; most butchers will need notice. Veal bones or a veal knuckle work as well, and the recipe itself says liquor from boiled chicken or mutton will do.
- Bacon rindThe scalded and scraped rind is there for gelatin and a faint smokiness. A piece of unsmoked pancetta or a small ham hock does the same job.
- Blade of maceOne blade is a fragment of the lacy covering of nutmeg; blades vary in size, but one is usually reckoned at roughly a quarter teaspoon of ground mace. If substituting ground, add it late rather than simmering it for hours.
- TimingsThree hours at a bare simmer for the stock, an hour more with the vegetables and herbs if you are starting from ready-made stock. The seven minutes after the cornflour goes in is enough to cook out the starch.
- Degrease properlyChilling the stock overnight and lifting the set fat matters more here than in a brown soup; any fat left behind will streak the finished white surface.
- YieldFive or six small servings as a first course, closer to three or four as a light supper dish.
White soups — soupes blanches, or the older English "white soop" — were a fixture of genteel dining from the eighteenth century onward, and the grandest versions were thickened with pounded almonds and enriched with cream; white soup turns up in Pride and Prejudice as something Nicholls must make enough of before Bingley sends out his cards. By the time Cassell's was compiling its dictionary in the late nineteenth century, this "economical" entry reaches the same pale, mild effect with cornflour, one egg yolk and the liquor left over from boiling meat. That is the real point of the recipe — nothing is thrown away, and pot liquor that a modern cook pours down the sink becomes the base of a course. The stated cost of sevenpence or eightpence a pound for veal scrag is a reminder that the neck was the cheap end, bought precisely because it was gelatinous and bony rather than meaty.