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Beef Soup
3 or 4 pounds beef from the round; 1 shinbone; 1 onion, sliced; 1 quart water to each pound meat and bones; 1 teaspoon salt; 3 or 4 cloves; 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Rinse and wipe the meat and cut in two or three pieces, just sufficient to pack closely with the bones in the kettle. Have the bone well cracked. Stick the cloves in the meat. Pack bones and meat in the kettle with the slices of onion between. Pour the cold water over it and cover closely and let it stand half an hour; then heat slowly and simmer for five or six hours, when the bones should be clean and the meat very tender, but not broken in pieces. Lift out the bone and any gristly pieces, add the salt and pepper, and leave the meat to cool in the liquor.
The next morning take off the cake of fat that will have formed on the top, take out the meat, and set aside to use for hash, meat balls, etc. When ready to make the soup, heat and strain, add any vegetables liked, season more highly, according to taste, or clear with egg and serve as a consomme or bouillon.
Made in this way the stock can be used as a basis for any soup, and the meat will retain the goodness and flavor. It is also made with less trouble than many soups.
This is a plain 19th-century stock pot: one long, slow simmer that yields both a foundation broth and a plate of boiled beef. The whole method turns on temperature control.
- Never let it boilThe instruction to heat slowly and simmer is the hinge. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and drives protein scum back into the liquid, giving cloudy, greasy stock that no amount of straining will fix. Hold it at a bare tremble, around 180-190F, with only occasional bubbles breaking the surface.
- The water ratioOne quart per pound of meat and bones means roughly 5-6 quarts for a 4 lb piece of round plus a shin bone. That needs an 8-quart pot or larger. Top up with hot water if the level drops below the meat during the long simmer.
- ShinboneBeef shin (the foreleg) is the collagen-rich cut that gives the stock body. "Well cracked" means broken open so the marrow and gelatin can get out; a butcher will saw it into short lengths on request, which does the same job.
- Salt is deliberately lowA single teaspoon in 5 quarts is barely seasoning. That is intentional in a stock meant to be reduced or built on later. Salt to taste only at the point of serving.
- CoolingDo not follow the overnight stand at room temperature. Once the meat is lifted out, cool the liquid quickly, in a shallow pan or an ice-water bath, and refrigerate within about two hours. Chilled overnight it will still throw the solid cake of fat the recipe wants you to lift off, and a good stock will set to a soft jelly.
- Clearing with eggTo make the consomme, whisk 2 egg whites with their crushed shells into the cold, degreased stock, then bring it up slowly without stirring. The raft that forms traps the fine particles; ladle the clear liquid out through a cloth rather than pouring.
- The clovesThree or four whole cloves in 5 quarts is a light background note rather than a dominant flavor. The recipe has you push them into the meat rather than dropping them in loose.
- Yield and the boiled beefExpect roughly 3-4 quarts of strained stock, depending on how much liquid cooks away over five or six hours. Long simmering does draw flavor out of the meat, though the recipe claims the opposite -- that "the meat will retain the goodness and flavor" -- before sending it on to hash and meat balls.
The all-purpose stock pot was the spine of a well-run 19th-century kitchen: one fire, one long simmer, and soups, sauces and made-over dishes out of a single cheap cut. Beef round and shin were chosen because they were cheap and gelatinous rather than tender, and the same pot was expected to produce both the liquid and the meat for a second meal, an economy the recipe advertises in its closing lines. The offhand mention of serving it "as a consomme or bouillon" reflects how far French vocabulary had settled into American household books, where consomme meant clarified stock and bouillon a lighter, plainer broth.