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Beef, Mutton, and Veal Broth
Put 2 pounds of lean beef, 1 pound of scrag of veal, 1 pound of scrag of mutton, sweet herbs, and 10 peppercorns, into a nice tin sauce-pan with 5 quarts of water; simmer to 3 quarts, and clear from the fat when cold. Add 1 onion if approved. Soup and broth made of different kinds of meats are more supporting as well as better flavored. To remove the fat, take it off when cold as clean as possible; and if there be still any remaining, lay a bit of clean blotting-paper or cap-paper on the broth when in the basin, and it will take up every particle.
A three-meat clear broth of the kind kept simmering in Victorian sickrooms. The method is sound; only the vessels, the cuts and the cooling need translating.
- ScragScrag is the bony neck end of veal or mutton, sold on the bone and rich in gelatin. Lamb neck is the usual substitute for mutton scrag; for veal, ask for neck bones or use a veal shank cut across.
- The tin saucepan"A nice tin sauce-pan" points to a clean tin-lined pot; "nice" here most likely means simply clean and sound. Tin-lined vessels were the ordinary choice for pale liquids, bare copper and iron being liable to discolour them. Any stainless or enamelled stockpot does the same job.
- VolumesFive quarts down to three is a reduction of about two-fifths; the recipe gives no time, but expect several hours at a bare tremble. Keep the surface barely moving: a rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the broth.
- Skim early as well as lateThe grey scum that rises in the first twenty minutes is coagulated protein and is worth lifting off as it appears, even though this recipe adds the herbs and pepper at the outset. The chilling-and-lifting step at the end deals only with fat.
- Blotting paperCap-paper was a coarse, unglazed wrapping paper. A folded paper towel laid briefly on the surface does the same work, as will a sheet of kitchen paper drawn across it once the broth is hot again.
- CoolingDo not leave three quarts of broth standing overnight at room temperature to set its fat. Cool it quickly in a shallow pan or an ice bath, then refrigerate; the fat still lifts off in a solid cake the next morning.
- SeasoningNo salt is given. Season at the point of serving.
- YieldThree quarts, about twelve cups. It keeps three or four days refrigerated and freezes well; reduced further it sets to a firm jelly.