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Vegetable Soup (Cup carrot quart water cup)
1/3 cup carrot 1 quart water 1/3 cup turnip 5 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup celery 1/2 tablespoon finely 1 1/2 cups potato chopped parsley 1/2 onion Salt and pepper Wash and scrape a small carrot; cut in quarters lengthwise; cut quarters in thirds lengthwise; cut strips thus made in thin slices crosswise. Wash and pare half a turnip, and cut and slice same as carrot. Wash, pare, and cut potatoes in small pieces. Wash and scrape celery and cut in quarter-inch pieces. Prepare vegetables before measuring.
Cut onion in thin slices. Mix vegetables (except potatoes), and cook ten minutes, in four tablespoons butter, stirring constantly. Add potatoes, cover, and cook two minutes. Add water, and boil one hour or until vegetables are soft. Add remaining butter and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.
A plain water-based vegetable soup that gets its body from butter and a long, slow simmer rather than stock. The measurements are small and it makes barely more than a quart.
- Read the ingredient list in pairsThe quantities were originally set in two side-by-side columns and run together when read straight across. They resolve as: 1/3 cup carrot, 1/3 cup turnip, 1/2 cup celery, 1 1/2 cups potato, 1/2 onion, 1 quart water, 5 tablespoons butter, 1/2 tablespoon finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper.
- Measure after cuttingThe instruction to prepare the vegetables before measuring is not incidental. Cut pieces pack into a cup quite differently from whole or roughly broken ones, so measuring before cutting would change the amount of vegetable that ends up in the pot.
- The butter is the stockThere is no broth here, so all the savour comes from the ten minutes of stirring in four tablespoons of butter. Keep the heat moderate and let the vegetables soften and turn glossy without browning; scorched butter will carry through the whole quart.
- Cut sizeThe carrot and turnip are quartered lengthwise, each quarter cut in thirds lengthwise, then sliced thin crosswise; the celery is cut in quarter-inch lengths. Uniform pieces matter more than the exact geometry described.
- An hour is long by modern habitVegetables cut this small will be tender well before the hour is up, and the recipe itself allows 'one hour or until vegetables are soft.' The longer boil will break the potato down and thicken the liquid; if you stop earlier the soup stays thin and the pieces stay distinct. Either is a legitimate result, but decide which you want.
- Watch the levelThe recipe does not say whether the pot is covered for the hour's boiling. Left uncovered, a quart of water will lose a good deal of volume; cover partly, or top up with hot water if it reduces below what you want to serve.
- Finishing butterThe last tablespoon goes in with the parsley at the end; adding it off the heat will help it stay in suspension rather than separating into slicks. The recipe seasons only at this stage, once the liquid has reduced to its final volume.
- YieldAbout a quart, or two generous bowls as a light supper, four small cups as a first course.