Home › Vegetables › Potato Soup (1 quart of milk Piece of onion)
Potato Soup (1 quart of milk Piece of onion)
1 quart of milk, Piece of onion the size of a sil- A sprig of parsley, ver quarter, A stalk of celery or a half teaspoonful of celery seed, 1 tablespoonful of butter, I bay-leaf, 2 even tablespoonfuls of flour, Salt and pepper to taste.
Put the potatoes on to boil in a quart of cold water. When half done, drain, throw the water away and cover the potatoes with a pint of fresh boiling water. Add the bay-leaf, onion, parsley, and celery and boil slowly until the potatoes are done. Put the milk on to heat in a double boiler. Rub the butter and flour together, add to the hot milk, and stir till it thickens. When the potatoes are tender press them through a purée sieve with the water in which they were boiled. Add the thickened milk gradually to this, return to the farina boiler and when very hot, serve immediately.
This soup cannot stand and is not good warmed up. 1/2 cup of rice, 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, Stalk of celery,
A plain milk-based potato purée soup, thickened with a butter-and-flour paste rather than a roux cooked in the pot. It goes together in half an hour and, as the original warns, must be served the moment it is hot.
- The hinge: do not let it sitOnce the thickened milk meets the potato purée, the starch continues to swell and the soup turns pasty; reheating splits it further. Have the bowls warm and the table ready before you combine the two.
- Quantity of potatoesThe ingredient list as printed does not give a weight or number of potatoes. For a quart of milk, about 1 1/2 lb (roughly 4 medium) floury potatoes gives the right body.
- The onion measure"The size of a silver quarter" means a slice about an inch across and thin — a token piece for flavour, not a chopped onion. Fish it out, with the bay leaf and parsley, before sieving.
- First water thrown awayParboiling and discarding the first water appears in a number of nineteenth-century cookbooks, where it is linked to drawing off a 'strong' taste in potatoes. It costs you starch and flavour; if you skip it, use a pint of water from the start and expect a slightly heavier soup.
- Farina boilerA farina boiler is a double boiler — an inner pan set over simmering water. It keeps the milk from scorching and the flour from catching. Any heatproof bowl over a saucepan works.
- Butter and flour rubbed togetherThis is beurre manié, worked cold into a paste and whisked into hot milk. Add it in small lumps and stir constantly or it will set in strings.
- Purée sievePur e sieve -- A fine sieve, pressed through with a wooden pestle or the back of a spoon; the recipe does not describe the shape of the utensil. A food mill or a ricer gives the same fine, non-gluey texture; a blender or food processor will make potato glue and should be avoided.
- Seasoning and yieldSalt is essential here and the recipe leaves it entirely to taste — start with a teaspoon for the finished pot. Makes about 2 quarts, or six generous servings.
Potato soups like this sit alongside the work of the American cookery schools, which taught French sauce-thickening methods to home cooks using cheap ingredients: potatoes, milk, a spoonful of butter and a bouquet of onion, bay, parsley and celery. The double boiler, or "farina boiler," turns up often in books of this period, milk being easily scorched on a coal or wood range. The instruction to parboil the potatoes and throw the first water away recurs in nineteenth-century vegetable cookery, often justified by the belief that potatoes held something rank or indigestible that water would carry off.