Corn Bisque
Drain the liquor from a can of corn. Chop the corn very fine, turn into a saucepan containing a quart of salted water, and simmer gently for an hour. Then rub through a colander; place again over the fire, add a teaspoonful of sugar and 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed into 2 of flour. Stir until it becomes smooth, and then pour slowly upon a pint of heated milk. Season to taste with salt, and then pour slowly upon 2 well-beaten eggs. Serve at once.
A late-Victorian cream soup thickened three ways at once: a butter-and-flour roux, a corn purée, and a final egg liaison. The hinge is the last step -- once the eggs go in, the soup must not go back over heat or it will curdle into scrambled threads.
- The can of cornCans of the period generally ran larger than today's; a modern 15 oz can of whole kernel corn is close enough. The recipe says to drain the liquor, but it is sweet and can replace some of the quart of water.
- An hour is too longCanned corn is already fully cooked. Twenty to thirty minutes of gentle simmering is enough to soften the kernels and flavour the water; an hour past that only drives off the fresh corn taste.
- "Rub through a colander"A colander here means a perforated pan used as a purée sieve. A food mill or a medium-mesh strainer with a ladle does the same job. A blender pulse followed by straining gives a smoother result and leaves the tough hulls behind.
- The rouxTwo tablespoons butter to two tablespoons flour is an equal-measure ratio by volume. Rub them to a smooth paste and whisk it into the hot corn purée in pieces so it disperses rather than lumping.
- Reversed pouringThe instruction is to pour the thickened corn onto the hot milk, rather than milk into corn. Heat the pint of milk to a bare steam, not a boil, and whisk as you combine.
- The egg liaisonBeat the two eggs in a warmed tureen or bowl and add the near-boiling soup in a thin stream while whisking hard. Do not return the pan to the burner afterwards; residual heat sets the eggs enough to enrich the soup. Pasteurized shell eggs are a sensible choice if the soup will be held even briefly.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of sugar in a soup made from sweet canned corn is often unnecessary now, since modern corn varieties are far sweeter than those canned in 1900. Taste first. A grating of nutmeg or white pepper suits the style of the period.
- YieldAbout a quart and a half, serving four as a first course. It does not reheat well once the eggs are in, so make it to the moment.