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Black Bean Soup
1 pint black beans 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 quarts cold water 1/4 teaspoon mustard 1 small onion Few grains cayenne 2 stalks celery, or 3 tablespoons butter 1/4 teaspoon celery salt 1 1/2 tablespoons flour 1/2 tablespoon salt 2 "hard-boiled" eggs 1 lemon Soak beans over night; in the morning drain and add cold water. Slice onion, and cook five minutes with half the butter, adding to beans, with celery stalks broken in pieces. Simmer three or four hours, or until beans are soft; add more water as water boils away. Rub through a sieve, reheat to the boiling-point, and add salt, pepper, mustard, and cayenne well mixed. Bind with remaining butter and flour cooked together. Cut eggs in thin slices, and lemon in thin slices, removing seeds. Put in tureen, and strain the soup over them.
A classic purée-style bean soup that depends on long, slow simmering and a final sharp garnish of lemon and egg. The ingredient column has been printed as a run-on, but the quantities and method are workable.
- Reading the ingredient listThe list interleaves two printed columns, so the alternatives run together. Read it as: 1 pint black beans, 2 quarts cold water, 1 small onion, 2 stalks celery or 1/4 teaspoon celery salt, 3 tablespoons butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 tablespoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, 1/4 teaspoon mustard, a few grains cayenne, 2 hard-boiled eggs, 1 lemon.
- A pint of beansDried beans were measured by volume; a pint is about 14 oz or 400 g, roughly 2 cups. That is a generous amount for 2 quarts of water, which is why the recipe expects you to keep topping it up.
- Simmering timeSoaked black beans usually collapse in 60 to 90 minutes at a bare simmer, so three to four hours is longer than most cooks will need; start testing at the hour and stop when they crush easily against the pot.
- Salt at the endThe salt goes in only after sieving, as written; a modest amount of salt in the cooking water will not prevent the beans from softening, so either order works.
- Rub through a sieveThis is the step that defines the soup. A food mill or a stick blender followed by a medium sieve gives the same result; the sieving is what removes the skins and produces the smooth, almost velvety body the recipe is after.
- Binding with butter and flourThe remaining butter and the flour are cooked together into a small roux, then whisked into the boiling soup. Let it bubble two or three minutes after it goes in so the flour loses its raw taste.
- Dry mustard, not prepared"Mustard" in a book of this period means dry mustard powder. Mixing it with the pepper, cayenne and salt before adding, as directed, keeps it from clumping.
- The garnishSliced hard-boiled egg and thin lemon slices go into the tureen and the hot soup is strained over them. The lemon is not decoration -- its acid cuts the heaviness of the purée, and the soup is markedly duller without it.
- YieldAbout 2 quarts finished soup, serving six as a first course or four as a main.