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Julienne Soup
2 quarts stock; 2 carrots; 1 turnip; 1 head celery; 2 onions; 1 head cauliflower; 1 head lettuce; 1/2 gill green peas; 1 pint asparagus heads. Pare and cut up all the vegetables, cut the celery into bits, the head of cauliflower into flowerets. Put them into a kettle, cover with boiling water; boil fifteen minutes, then drain them in a colander. Melt the stock and bring to a boil, put the vegetables in, and simmer half an hour. Put the peas and asparagus heads into boiling water and simmer them for twenty minutes; then drain to the boiling soup, then the lettuce cut into pieces or chopped, which should be cooked about ten minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve at once.
A clear vegetable soup built on good stock, with each vegetable blanched before it goes in so the broth stays bright. The name carries the instruction the text leaves out: everything should be cut into fine matchsticks.
- Cut it julienne"Pare and cut up" is doing a lot of work here. Julienne means strips roughly 1/8 inch square and 1 to 2 inches long; carrot, turnip and onion should all be cut that way so they cook evenly and look right in a clear broth. The cauliflower, lettuce, peas and asparagus heads keep their own shapes.
- "Melt the stock"Period stock was reduced, chilled and kept as a firm jelly, so it had to be melted before use. Two quarts of good unsalted chicken or beef stock, warmed and brought to a boil, is the equivalent.
- Half a gill of peasA gill is half a cup, so this is a quarter cup of peas -- a garnish rather than a vegetable. Scale it up to half a cup if you want them to register.
- Blanch, then drainThe fifteen-minute boil and draining is not wasted effort: it removes the strong sulphurous notes from turnip, cabbage-family cauliflower and onion, and keeps the finished broth clear. Do not skip it and cook the vegetables directly in the stock.
- Watch the cauliflowerFifteen minutes of blanching plus thirty minutes of simmering will reduce small florets to mush. Cut them a little larger than the other vegetables, or hold them back and add them for the last ten minutes.
- Asparagus and peasTwenty minutes of simmering is far longer than modern asparagus tips need. Three to five minutes in boiling water will do; drain and add them at the end so they keep their colour.
- LettuceA cos or romaine heart, shredded, holds up best. Ten minutes is enough to wilt it into ribbons; softer lettuces will disintegrate in half that.
- Seasoning and yieldIf your stock is already salted, taste before adding more -- the vegetables give up very little salt of their own. Two quarts serves six to eight as a first course.