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Black Bean Soup
Soak one pint of black beans over night, in the morning wash and drain them, put in a kettle with two quarts of cold water. In one and one-half tablespoons of butter fry one small onion delicately brown and add to the beans with two stalks of celery broken in pieces. Simmer gently until the beans are quite soft, adding more water if the liquor cooks away. Rub through a sieve, obtaining all the pulp possible; reheat to the boiling point and season with half a teaspoon of salt, one-eighth teaspoon of pepper, a fourth of a teaspoon of mustard and a dash of cayenne. Make a binding from one and a half tablespoons each of flour and butter cooked together, and stir into the soup.
Cut two hard-boiled eggs and one lemon in thin slices, put them in the tureen, then strain the soup over it and serve. -Stella A. Downing.
A straightforward purée soup whose only real complications are the archaic dry measure and the seasoning, which is pitched much lower than a modern palate expects. The egg-and-lemon garnish is the point of the dish, not decoration.
- A pint of beansDried beans were sold and measured by volume: one pint is about 2 cups, or roughly 14 oz to 1 lb. With two quarts of water that gives a fairly thick purée.
- Simmering timeNo time is given. Expect 1½ to 2 hours at a bare simmer for soaked black beans, longer if they are old. "Quite soft" means collapsing when pressed, not merely tender — undercooked beans will not go through a sieve.
- Sieve or blenderRubbing through a sieve was the usual method when this was written. A blender or immersion blender does it in a minute, though passing the purée through a mesh sieve afterward still catches the skins and gives the velvet texture the recipe is after.
- The binding"A binding from one and a half tablespoons each of flour and butter cooked together" is a white roux. Cook it a minute or two so it does not taste raw, then whisk it into the hot soup and let the soup boil briefly to thicken.
- Season upwardHalf a teaspoon of salt for two quarts of soup is very little by current standards, especially with no ham or stock in the pot. Salt to taste at the end; the mustard and cayenne are what keep it from tasting flat.
- Strain over, do not stirThe sliced hard-boiled egg and lemon go into the tureen first and the soup is poured over them, so they stay intact and float. Stirring them in breaks the egg into shreds.
- Lemon slicesSlicing the lemon thin leaves the rind on, and the pith can turn bitter if the soup sits. Serve promptly, or cut the peel away.
- YieldTwo quarts before reduction serves six as a first course, four as a main.
Black beans were widely sold in nineteenth-century America as "turtle beans," and the dark, thick, faintly sharp purée finished with hard-boiled egg and lemon echoes the way genuine turtle soup and mock turtle soup were dressed at table.