Giblet Soup
INGREDIENTS for 3½ quarts of soup. -3 sets of goose or duck giblets, 3 lbs. of shin of beef, a few bones, 2 large onions, 2 carrots, 1 large faggot of herbs, salt and pepper to taste, 1½ oz. of butter mixed with a dessertspoonful of flour, 3 quarts of water. AVERAGE COST, 3s. 3d.
Scald the giblets, cut the gizzards in 8 pieces, and put them in a stewpan with the beef, bones, onions, herbs, pepper and salt; add the water, and simmer till the giblets are tender, taking care to skim well. When the giblets are done, take them out, put them in your tureen, strain the soup through a sieve, add the butter, mixed with a dessertspoonful of flour, boil it up for a few minutes, and pour it over the giblets.
It can be flavoured with port wine and a little mushroom ketchup if liked. salt to taste.
TIME. 3 hours.
SEASONABLE all the year.
Add Ginger, Apple. (A Dessert Dish.) - INGREDIENTS sufficient for large dish.- 2 lbs. of any kind of hard apples, 2 lbs. of loaf sugar, 1 pint of water, 1 oz. of tincture of ginger. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 4d.
Boil the sugar and water until they form a rich syrup, adding the ginger when it boils up. Pare, core, and cut the apples SEASONABLE from the middle of July to into pieces; dip them the end of August.
A clear giblet broth thickened at the last moment, built on poultry trim and beef shank. Note that the page as printed is garbled: a stray "GHERKINS" heading sits at the top and the tail end of a separate recipe for ginger apples has run into the bottom. Read only the giblet soup instructions.
- The hinge: skim, and keep the liquid at a bare simmerGiblets and shank throw a great deal of scum and fat, and a rolling boil will emulsify it into a cloudy, greasy soup that no straining will fix. Hold the pot just below a simmer and lift the scum repeatedly in the first half hour.
- Three sets of gibletsA "set" is the trim of one bird; in Victorian usage it usually meant the neck, gizzard, heart and liver, and often the pinions and feet as well. Butchers rarely sell these loose now; ask for them, or save and freeze them from roast birds. Chicken or turkey giblets work, though the broth will be lighter than goose or duck.
- Hold the livers backSimmered three hours the livers turn grainy and lend a chalky bitterness to a broth meant to be clean. Leave them out, or poach them separately for a few minutes and slice them into the tureen with the rest.
- Shin of beefBeef shank, bone in if you can get it. It is a gelatine-rich cut and is doing the structural work here; the soup's body comes from it rather than from the flour.
- A faggot of herbsA tied bundle, not a modern bouquet garni sachet: parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf, bound with string so it lifts out whole. "Large" simply means generous.
- The thickeningAn ounce of butter kneaded with a dessertspoonful (about two teaspoons) of flour is beurre manié. Whisk it into the strained, boiling broth in small pieces and boil a full two or three minutes so the flour loses its raw taste. Three quarts of liquid will only be lightly bodied by this — it is not meant to be a thick soup.
- Mushroom ketchupThe Victorian condiment was a thin, dark, salty mushroom liquor, closer to soy than to tomato ketchup. Mushroom soy sauce or a splash of Worcestershire gives a similar note. Add the port and the ketchup after the flour has cooked out, and check the salt again then.
- Yield and timingThree quarts serves ten to twelve as a first course. Three hours is realistic for gizzards, which are muscular; test one with a knife rather than trusting the clock.
Giblet soup belongs to the thrift end of the Victorian kitchen, where the parts of a bird that could not be roasted were still expected to earn their keep. Goose and duck giblets were the natural base because both birds were, as a general habit, sold whole and dressed at home, and a Michaelmas goose left a bag of neck, gizzard, heart and liver that would otherwise be wasted. The recipe's structure — poultry trim propped up by three pounds of beef shank, then strained and barely thickened — uses flour to give a faint gloss rather than to make a sauce. The port wine and mushroom ketchup at the end mark it as a dish that could be dressed up for a dinner table as easily as served plain, and the note "Seasonable all the year" is the book's way of saying that unlike most game-adjacent dishes, this one depended on no season at all.