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French White Soup
4 lb. fowl Knuckle of veal 3 qts. cold water 1 onion, sliced 6 slices carrot 1/2 bay leaf 1 sprig parsley 1/2 teaspoon thyme 1/2 teaspoon peppercorns 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon lean raw ham, finely chopped 4 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoon flour 1 cup cream Yolks 2 eggs Wipe, clean, and disjoint fowl. Wipe veal, remove from bone, and cut in small pieces. Put meat, bone, and water in kettle, heat slowly to boiling-point, skim, and cook slowly four hours. Cook vegetables and ham in one tablespoon butter five minutes, add to soup with peppercorns and salt, and cook one hour. Strain, cool, and remove fat. Reheat three cups stock, thicken with remaining butter and flour cooked together, and just before serving add cream and egg yolks. Garnish with one-half cup cooked green peas and Chicken Custard cut in dice.
A classic velouté-style white soup: a long clear stock of fowl and veal, finished with a butter-flour roux, cream and egg yolks. The whole dish stands or falls on the last thirty seconds.
- Never boil after the yolks go inBeat the yolks into the cream, temper with a ladle of hot soup, then stir the mixture back off the heat. Above about 180F the yolks curdle and the soup turns grainy — hold it below a simmer and serve at once.
- The fowlA "4 lb. fowl" meant an older stewing hen, tough and full of flavour. A supermarket roasting chicken of the same weight will give good stock in about half the time; if you can find a boiling fowl, keep the four hours.
- Knuckle of vealThe lower leg joint, sold as veal shank or osso buco cut. It is there for gelatin, not meat. Ask a butcher, or substitute a split veal or beef marrow bone plus a pound of veal shoulder.
- Skim, and keep it whiteWhite soup means colourless. Heat slowly, skim the grey scum before it disperses, and never let the pot break into a rolling boil or the stock clouds. Sweat the onion, carrot and ham in butter without letting them take colour.
- Roux proportionsThree tablespoons flour with three tablespoons butter for three cups stock gives a light coating consistency. Cook the roux two or three minutes without browning, then add the hot stock gradually.
- YieldThree quarts of water reduces over five hours, but the recipe uses only three cups of the finished stock — enough for four modest servings. Freeze the remainder; it will set to a firm jelly.
- The garnishChicken Custard is a separate savoury chicken custard, cut into dice; the recipe assumes the reader will find it elsewhere in the book. Cooked peas alone are a perfectly good substitute.
- SaltHalf a tablespoon into three quarts is light by design, since the stock is later reduced and enriched. Season the finished soup, not the pot.