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Some Kitchen Kinks: Vegetable
Vegetable Soups. - Nearly every vegetable grown may be employed in the preparation of soups, either as the foundation for the soup or as a garnish to any kind of meat stock. A few types of vegetable soups are here given. Meat, meat broth, or beef extract may be added to any of them if additional flavor is desired, but as they stand they are very satisfactory soups.
Mixed Vegetable Soup. 3 quarts water. 1 quart shredded cabbage. 1 pint sliced potato. ½ pint minced carrot. ½ pint minced turnip. ½ pint minced onion. 1 leek. 2 tomatoes. 2 tablespoonfuls minced celery. 2 tablespoonfuls green pepper. 2 tablespoonfuls butter or drippings. 3 teaspoonfuls salt. 1/2 teaspoonful pepper.
Have the water boiling hard in a stewpan and add all the vegetables except the potatoes and tomatoes.
Boil rapidly for ten minutes, then draw back where it will boil gently for one hour. At the end of this time add the other ingredients and cook one hour longer. Have the cover partially off the stewpan during the entire cooking. This soup may be varied by using different kinds of vegetables.
A plain water-based vegetable soup written for a coal range, where moving a pot "back" meant sliding it to a cooler part of the top. A few of the quantities and timings want attention.
- "Draw back" means lower the heat"Draw back" means move the pot off the heat. On a wood or coal range the lids over the firebox were hottest and the far side of the top much cooler, so drawing a pot back slowed it to a simmer. On a gas or electric hob, bring to a hard boil, then reduce to the barest simmer.
- Turnip and onion quantitiesThe printed page gives ½ pint minced turnip and ½ pint minced onion, as our text now reads. Each matches the carrot measure, and the vegetables stay in balance.
- Total volumeThree quarts of water plus the prepared vegetables wants a pot of at least six quarts. The recipe asks for the cover to be left partially off for the whole cooking, which will let some liquid boil away, so expect to finish with rather less than you started; the reason is not given.
- Two hours is a long timeCabbage boiled for two hours goes grey and sulphurous. If you want it recognisable, hold the cabbage back and add it with the potatoes and tomatoes for the second stage, or in the last twenty minutes.
- Potatoes at the halfway markAdding potato and tomato only for the final hour still overcooks them by current standards; sliced potato is done in 15-20 minutes and tomato collapses fast. Thirty minutes of gentle simmering is plenty for both.
- Leek and green pepperThe recipe does not say how much of the leek to use; modern practice is the white and pale green, split and washed thoroughly, as grit hides in the layers. The two tablespoonfuls of green pepper are chopped pepper, not two peppers.
- Fat and seasoningThe recipe does not say when the butter or drippings go in; they are the only richness in the pot. Three teaspoonfuls of salt for three quarts is reasonable, but taste and salt again at the end after some liquid has boiled away.
- YieldEight to ten servings as a first course. It reheats well and may thicken overnight from the potato starch.
The point being made in the headnote is a practical one for a period when meat stock meant either a long-simmered bone pot or a jar of commercial beef extract: a soup built on nothing but water, vegetables, and a spoonful of drippings could still be served with a straight face. Bottled and jarred meat extracts had been widely sold since the second half of the nineteenth century, and their appearance here as an optional addition, rather than the foundation, marks the recipe as thrifty by design. The vegetables themselves are winter staples — cabbage, potato, carrot, turnip, onion — with leek, celery, green pepper, and tomato added for flavour.