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Cheese Soup with Savory Custard
2 heaping tablespoonfuls grated cheese I quart (4 cups) white stock ¼ pint (1/2 cup) cream 2 egg yolks I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) butter I blade mace 1 teaspoonful salt I onion I carrot 1 teaspoonful whole peppers 1 stalk celery Bunch sweet herbs I heaping tablespoonful (I oz.) flour Few sprigs parsley Savory custard Pare and slice the vegetables and fry them in the butter with the herbs, mace, and whole peppers for five minutes, then add the flour and the stock; simmer for one hour, rub through a sieve; mix together the egg yolks, cream, and grated cheese, add to the soup and re-heat, taking care that it does not boil. Meanwhile prepare a savory custard as follows:
Put half a cupful of stock and one tablespoonful of grated cheese into a small saucepan and bring to boiling point. Beat up two eggs with salt and pepper to taste, strain the stock to them, pour into one or two small buttered molds, stand in a pan of hot water, allowing the water to come within half an inch of the top of the molds; place in the oven, and when set turn out and allow to cool, cut into dice, divide into petites marmites, and pour over the soup.
A thickened cheese veloute finished with egg yolks and cream, garnished with cubes of baked cheese custard. The hinge is the finish: once the yolks go in, the soup must never boil.
- Do not let it boil after the liaisonEgg yolks set at around 160-180F; a boil curdles them and the cheese turns stringy. Reheat over low heat, stirring, until it just steams and coats a spoon.
- White stockAn unroasted veal or chicken stock, pale and lightly gelatinous. A good low-sodium chicken stock stands in; taste before adding the teaspoon of salt, since modern stock is already seasoned.
- The cream measureThe cream is a quarter pint, which the recipe glosses as half a cup. British pints and American pints differ, but the half-cup gloss is the figure to follow.
- Mace and whole peppersA blade of mace is a piece of the lacy covering of nutmeg; about a quarter teaspoon of ground mace substitutes, added with the flour rather than fried. The peppercorns and herbs are aromatics for the hour-long simmer and are strained out.
- Bunch sweet herbsPeriod shorthand for a tied bundle of aromatic herbs, usually including parsley stalks and thyme with a bay leaf, though the mix varied. Tie them so the sieve stage is easier.
- Rubbing through a sieveAn hour of simmering softens the vegetables enough to push through a fine sieve with a ladle. A blender followed by a sieve gives a smoother result in less time.
- The cheeseThe recipe specifies only 'grated cheese'; a firm, dry, well-aged cheese such as English Cheddar or another hard grating cheese suits it. Grate it fine so it melts on contact and add it mixed into the yolks and cream, off the boil.
- The custard garnishBake the water bath at 325F for 20 to 30 minutes, until the centre barely trembles. Chill before cutting, or the dice will not hold their edges.
- Petites marmites and yieldThe small lidded pots the soup is served in; any warmed soup cup will do. A quart of stock plus cream serves four to six as a first course.
Cheese soups of this kind belong to the early twentieth-century Anglo-American repertoire built on French technique: a mirepoix sweated in butter, a flour binding, white stock, and a final liaison of yolks and cream, in the manner of a veloute. The cubed royale garnish, here called a savory custard, is a classic consomme garnish, baked firm and diced so it keeps its shape in the bowl. The generous use of egg yolks and cream to enrich soups at the last moment, rather than reducing for body, marks the period well.