Bouillon
5 lbs. lean beef from middle of round 2 lbs. marrow-bone 3 quarts cold water 1 teaspoon peppercorns 1 tablespoon salt Carrot, Turnip, Onion, Celery (1/3 cup each, cut in dice) Wipe, and cut meat in inch cubes. Put two-thirds of meat in soup kettle, and soak in water thirty minutes. Brown remainder in hot frying-pan with marrow from marrow-bone. Put browned meat and bone in kettle. Heat to boiling-point; skim thoroughly, and cook at temperature below boiling-point five hours. Add seasonings and vegetables, cook one hour, strain, and cool. Remove fat, and clear. Serve in bouillon cups.
A classic clear beef broth in the Boston Cooking School manner: part of the meat soaked raw for extraction, part browned for colour and flavour. Nothing here is dated except the vocabulary and the assumption that you own a marrow-bone.
- The hinge: never let it boilAfter the first skimming the pot should stay just below a simmer, with at most an occasional lazy bubble; the recipe specifies no temperature, only "below boiling-point." A rolling boil emulsifies fat and drives fine protein into suspension, which makes a bright bouillon much harder to recover by clarifying afterwards.
- "Clear" means clarifyThe instruction to "clear" assumes you know the egg-white raft: whisk two lightly beaten whites with their crushed shells into the cold, degreased stock, bring it slowly to a bare simmer without stirring, let the raft set for 15-20 minutes, then ladle through a cloth-lined sieve.
- Beef from the middle of the roundAsk for bottom or eye of round, or any lean stewing beef. What matters is that it is lean; fatty cuts cloud the broth and defeat the point. The body comes from the marrow-bone rather than the meat.
- Marrow-boneTwo pounds of cut beef shank or femur, sawn crosswise. The marrow is scooped out and used as the browning fat, so ask the butcher for pieces with a wide open channel.
- Cold water, and mean itThe half-hour cold soak on the unbrowned meat draws soluble protein and extractives out before any heat is applied, which is the reasoning behind starting cold. Books of this period held that starting hot seals the surfaces and gives a thinner result.
- Total time and yieldSix hours of gentle cooking plus cooling and clarifying: budget most of a day. The recipe states no yield; how much of the three quarts survives depends on how gently the pot is held, and it is served in the small handled cups the recipe names.
- Chilling does two jobsCool the strained stock uncovered to lukewarm, then refrigerate overnight. The fat sets into a lid you can lift off in one piece, and cold stock clarifies far more cleanly than warm.
- SaltA tablespoon in three quarts is modest for the volume, and it goes in at the five-hour mark rather than the start, with the vegetables. Taste at the end and adjust then, allowing for whatever has evaporated.