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Cider Soup
Put a pint of cider, just beginning to work, into a kettle; add a pint of water, and bring to a boil. Add a tablespoonful of flour stirred smooth in a little cold water, and cook a few moments before adding a cup of boiling milk, sugar to taste, and cinnamon to flavor. Serve with toast.
A thin sweet-sour fruit soup of the northern European type, thickened with a flour slurry and finished with milk. It comes together in about fifteen minutes, and the only real difficulty is keeping the milk from curdling in the acid cider.
- What "cider" means hereNot filtered supermarket apple juice. The recipe wants unpasteurised cider "just beginning to work" -- that is, in the first day or two of spontaneous fermentation, when it is faintly fizzy and still mostly sweet. Fresh cider from a farm stand, or a dry hard cider cut with a little sweet juice, both give the right tartness.
- The hinge: adding the milkAcid plus hot dairy curdles. Have the cider base at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil, pour the boiling milk in slowly while whisking, and do not let it boil again afterward. Whole milk holds up better than skim; a couple of spoonfuls of cream added with it gives more insurance.
- KettleIn this period a kettle is simply a saucepan or pot on the stovetop. Use a 2-quart non-reactive pan -- stainless or enamel, not bare aluminium or cast iron, which react with the acid.
- ThickeningA tablespoon of flour in this much liquid -- two pints of cider and water, rising to two and a half with the milk -- gives a soup barely thicker than cream, which is correct. Slake it in two or three tablespoons of cold water until smooth, then stir it in and cook it briefly, as the recipe directs, so the raw flour taste goes.
- Sugar and cinnamonNo quantities are given because cider varies. Start with two tablespoons of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon, then taste; the soup should read sweet-tart, not dessert-sweet. A strip of lemon peel or a stick of cinnamon simmered in the cider and removed is an alternative to ground spice.
- Serving and yieldA pint of cider, a pint of water and a cup of milk make about five cups, so three or four servings. "Serve with toast" means dry toast cut in cubes or fingers and dropped in at the table, or set alongside.
- AlcoholCider at the beginning of fermentation has very little alcohol, and boiling drives off part of it, though not all. If you substitute a finished hard cider, expect more to remain even after simmering.