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Lentil Soup (Pick over and wash a cupful)
Pick over and wash a cupful of lentils. After soaking them for three hours, put on the stove to cook in 1 quart of boiling water. Cook slowly until soft and until the water is reduced one-half. Rub through a strainer and add a pint of milk.
When it begins to boil, stir in 1 tablespoonful of flour cooked in a tablespoonful of butter. Season with paprika, salt, and a small amount of sugar. Serve with croutons.
A plain vegetarian purée that depends on a roux thickening at the end. The only real hazards are scorching the milk and under-seasoning.
- Lentils and soakingA cupful is about 7 oz dry. Modern split red lentils need no soaking at all and will collapse in 20-25 minutes; brown or green lentils take roughly 30-45 minutes. The three-hour soak may reflect older, drier stock, though the recipe itself gives no reason for it.
- Reduce by halfThe instruction to cook until the quart of water is down to a pint is the measurement that matters — it sets the final thickness. Simmer uncovered or partly covered, and do not top up with water.
- StrainingRubbing through a sieve was the usual route to a smooth purée before electric blenders; a food mill or ricer would also serve. A stick blender does it in seconds; pass it through a sieve afterwards only if you want the texture genuinely velvety.
- Adding the milkA pint is 2 cups. Add it off the heat, then bring back gently. Lentil purée sits heavily on the pan bottom and will catch and taste burnt if pushed hard.
- The rouxCook the tablespoon of flour in the tablespoon of butter for a minute or two until it smells nutty but has not coloured, then whisk it into the simmering soup rather than dropping it in as a lump. One tablespoon of each in roughly four cups of liquid (a pint of reduced lentil liquid plus a pint of milk) gives a light body, not a thick sauce.
- The sugar"A small amount" is perhaps a quarter teaspoon — enough to lift the earthiness of the lentils, not enough to read as sweet. The recipe does not say which paprika; sweet is the likelier reading, as smoked paprika was not in general American use until much later.
- YieldAbout 4 cups finished soup: two or three generous bowls or four first-course servings. Croutons are cubes of stale bread fried in butter or toasted dry.