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Cream of Cauliflower Soup
4 cups hot White Stock II or III 1 cauliflower 1/4 cup butter 1 slice onion 1 stalk celery, cut in inch pieces 1/2 bay leaf 1/4 cup flour 2 cups milk Salt
A classic white-roux cream soup: cauliflower cooked and pureed, thickened with a butter-flour roux, loosened with stock and milk. The proportions here are the standard ones, and they scale predictably.
- White Stock II or IIIThese are numbered light stocks given earlier in the book; the recipe gives no further detail about them. Any light homemade chicken stock works; if using commercial broth, choose low-sodium, since the salt at the end is the only seasoning listed.
- Cauliflower sizeThe recipe simply says one cauliflower; a modern head of about 1 1/2 to 2 lb untrimmed, yielding roughly 4 to 5 cups of florets, is a reasonable reading. Reserve a few small florets, cooked separately, for garnish.
- The roux ratio1/4 cup butter to 1/4 cup flour is about 4 tablespoons each, thickening the full 6 cups of liquid (4 cups stock plus 2 cups milk) to a light cream-soup body. Cook the flour in the butter two or three minutes before adding liquid or the soup tastes pasty.
- Onion, celery and bayThe single onion slice, one celery stalk and half bay leaf read as aromatics rather than soup vegetables; the usual handling is to steep them in the warm liquid and strain them out. The quantity is small, and more bay will overwhelm cauliflower.
- Do not boil after the milk goes inOnce milk and puree are combined, hold the soup just below a simmer. A hard boil in a floury milk base scorches on the bottom and can curdle if the cauliflower liquid is at all acidic.
- Sieve versus blenderNo method is given; a recipe of this date would ordinarily have the cooked cauliflower forced through a sieve. A blender or immersion blender gives a smoother result in seconds, but blend before the roux is added, since overworked starch turns gluey.
- SeasoningSalt is the only seasoning listed; white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg are traditional companions in cream soups of this style and will not distort the recipe.
- YieldAt least 6 cups: the stock and milk alone total 6 cups before the cauliflower puree goes in. Serves six or more as a first course.
Cream soups built on a butter-flour roux with milk and a light white stock were the backbone of American cookery-school teaching from the 1880s onward, spread by the Boston Cooking School and its many imitators. The pattern is always the same one-vegetable cooked, pureed, thickened, thinned-so that a single method could be printed once and then applied to asparagus, celery, spinach or cauliflower, which is why entries like this one read as little more than a list of proportions and a cross-reference to a numbered stock earlier in the book. Cauliflower was a well-established market vegetable by then, prized in the kitchen precisely because its mild flavor and pale color suited the fashionable white soups of the period.