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Asparagus Points (Put five ounces of butter into)
Put five ounces of butter into a casserole to melt, add two ounces of flour to make it a brown colour; moisten with two pints of stock. When this boils, add two ounces of pearl barley, and let it cook for about two hours. When cooked, put it through a sieve, then turn it into a casserole, and let it simmer for about ten minutes; add the yolks of four beaten-up eggs, three-quarters of a pint of double cream, and four ounces of good butter. Serve with asparagus heads. - GENERAL REMARKS ON COOKING FISH, Fish should always be steamed, except the very strong kinds, such as Mackerel and Eels; these must be boiled. In my book of "Plain Cookery Recipes" I suggest several ways of steaming Fish in a small household where there are perhaps not many saucepans to be had. Since writing those remarks I have found a first-rate fish steamer,* made of block tin with a copper bottom and in various sizes. These steamers have a great advantage over my simple method, which is that from an arrangement under the drainer on which the fish is placed, the steam as it condenses on the lid does not drip back upon the fish and make it sodden, but falls down into the water underneath. Fish takes rather longer to steam than to boil, but it is very much nicer, as the flavour and goodness are fully preserved. Put a good tablespoonful of salt in the water, and do not put the fish into the steamer until the water * These steamers are to be bought of Messrs. Davis & Co., 200, Camberwell Road, S.F. boils. The recipes for Athenian Eel, Water Souchy, to warm up Salmon, and Perch; Bream Pie, and Stewed Trout, I found in MSS. among my grandfather's papers (Thomas Love Peacock, author of "Headlong Hall," etc.). Among the entrées, Filet de Bœuf aux huîtres, Salmi of Wild Duck and Minced Veal are also his.
Bream or John Dory Pie.
Ingredients.
Two pounds of Bream or John Dory.
Four Eggs (hard-boiled).
Two Shalots (chopped fine).
Two ounces of Butter.
Three ounces of Bread-crumbs.
Half a teaspoonful of Thyme and Marjoram.
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
One teaspoonful of Anchovy Sauce.
One teaspoonful of Worcester Sauce.
This is a barley cream soup — a brown roux thickened further with barley purée, then finished with an egg-and-cream liaison and garnished with asparagus tips. The verbatim page runs on into unrelated material on steaming fish and the start of a bream pie; only the first paragraph belongs to this recipe.
- The hinge: the liaison must not boilOnce the four yolks and the cream go in, the soup must be held below a simmer — around 175F at most. A boil scrambles the yolks and the soup turns grainy past saving. Temper the yolks with a ladle of hot soup first, then return the mixture off the heat.
- "Casserole" means a saucepanIn this period a casserole is a stovetop pan, not an oven dish. Use a heavy saucepan of about 3 quarts.
- Imperial measuresTwo pints here is imperial — 40 fl oz, or 5 US cups of stock. Three-quarters of a pint of double cream is about 15 fl oz; use heavy cream, which is the nearest US equivalent.
- Barley timingModern pearl barley is usually soft in 45 to 60 minutes rather than two hours, and longer only thickens the pot further; check it and stop when it crushes easily against the pan.
- The brown rouxFive ounces of butter to two of flour is a very loose roux by modern proportion. Cook it over moderate heat until it is the colour of a hazelnut shell, stirring — it will look greasy, which is normal.
- Sieving"Put it through a sieve" means forcing the cooked barley through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon or mushroom. A blender then a fine strainer gives a smoother result with far less work; the soup should coat a spoon lightly, so thin with stock if it has gone claggy.
- Total fat, and trimming itNine ounces of butter plus the cream is period richness. Halving the finishing butter to two ounces still gives a glossy soup, and the soup will take salt and a little white pepper, which the original does not mention.
- The asparagusCook the tips separately in salted water for two to three minutes, refresh them, and drop them into the plated soup so they keep their colour. The recipe as written yields roughly six small servings; it is very rich, so serve small.
Purée soups thickened with barley are a long-standing thread in European cookery, and the French crème d'orge belongs to that line; earlier potages leaned on cereal rather than on the roux-and-cream method that later came to dominate. This version does both at once, which is characteristic of high-class late nineteenth-century household books written for cooks with a coal range, a sieve and a steady supply of butter: the barley gives body, the brown roux gives colour and depth, and the egg-and-cream liaison gives the finish. The asparagus points are pure garnish, and asparagus was costly enough that naming a soup after it made sense. The digression that follows on the page is worth noting for its own sake: the author states that several of the fish and entrée recipes came from manuscripts among the papers of the author's grandfather, the novelist Thomas Love Peacock — the page itself names him and cites "Headlong Hall".