Game Soup
INGREDIENTS for soup for 8 persons. partridges or 1 large pheasant, 3 slices of lean ham, 2 oz. of butter, 2 shred onions, 1 head of celery, 1 large carrot, 1 turnip, a small lump of sugar, salt and pepper to taste, 2 quarts of stock. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d. per quart.
Cut up the partidges, and braise the pieces in the butter till tender, then take out the best joints and set them aside.
Add to the remainder the onions, the celery, and 3 pints of the stock. Simmer slowly for 1 hour, strain and take the fat off as clean as possible; cut the flesh from the parts saved in neat pieces, and add with the sugar and seasoning, give one boil and skim again to have it quite clear.
Simmer the carrot and turnip, cut up in the remaining pint of stock, and when quite tender, add to the soup. Bones and trimmings of game, and the inferior parts of birds can be used to make more economical soup.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE. - September to February.
A clear game broth built in two stages: the birds are browned and stewed for flavour, the best meat reserved and returned as garnish. The whole point is clarity, so skim more than feels necessary.
- Quantity of birdsThe ingredient line has lost the number of partridges; the alternative given is one large pheasant. Two or three partridges would be a plausible equivalent for 2 quarts of soup, but the original figure cannot be recovered from this text.
- StockTwo quarts in this book's imperial measure is a little over 2 litres. A light brown chicken or veal stock is what suits here, not a heavily reduced demi-glace, which will muddy the finished soup.
- "Braise" in the butterAs used in this recipe, braising the pieces appears to mean cooking them in the butter in a covered pan until tender rather than roasting in liquid; the book's fuller braising directions elsewhere involve stock in a closed pan. Wild birds are lean, and 20-30 minutes is usually enough for partridge before the breast dries out.
- The hinge: skim, then skim againGame fat sets hard and tastes tallowy when cold. Take the fat off before the meat goes back, then bring to one boil and skim the grey scum a second time. Chilling the strained broth and lifting the solid fat off is the cleanest method if time allows.
- Lean hamListed but never mentioned again in the method; add the slices with the vegetables and the 3 pints of stock, and discard them at straining. A piece of unsmoked gammon or prosciutto end suits better than modern sweet-cured ham.
- The lump of sugarA single cube, about a teaspoon. It rounds the mineral edge of game rather than sweetening; leave it out and the soup tastes thinner.
- Vegetable garnishThe carrot and turnip are simmered separately in the remaining pint of stock; the recipe gives no reason, though keeping them out of the main broth would also keep starch and colour from clouding it. Cut them small and even, and add them to the soup at the end.
- Yield and servingEight servings from 2 quarts, served hot as a first course. Check the salt only at the very end.
Mrs Beeton's household books were written for a period when game arrived in the kitchen whole, in season, and often as a gift from the country rather than a purchase, which is why the seasonable note runs September to February and why the recipe closes by telling the cook to use the bones, trimmings and "inferior parts" for a plainer soup another day. Partridge and pheasant carried the prestige of the shooting estate, and a clear game soup was the sort of dish a middle-class table put out to show that connection. The average cost of 2s. 6d. a quart marks it as expensive by the standards of the book, well above a stock-based vegetable soup. The two-stage method here is standard Victorian practice for any clear soup with a garnish: extract flavour from the tough parts, keep the tender meat aside, and never let the garnish cook in the broth it will be served in.