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Potato Soup (INGREDIENTS for soup) (II)
INGREDIENTS for soup for 9 or 10 persons.-1 lb. of shin of beef, 1 lb. of potatoes, 1 onion, 1/24 a pint of peas, 2½ oz. of rice, 2 heads of celery, pepper and salt to taste; 3½ quarts of water.
Cut the beef into thin slices, chop the potatoes and onion, and put them into a stewpan, with the water, peas and rice.
Stew gently till the gravy is drawn from the meat; strain it off, take out the beef, and. pulp the other ingredients through a coarse sieve. Put the pulp back into the soup, cut up the celery in it, and simmer till this POTATO SOUP. is tender. Season, and serve with fried bread cut into it.
TIME.-3 hours.
SEASONABLE from September to March.
Potato Soup. (Very Economical.) - INGREDIENTS for soup for 4 persons.-4 middle-sized potatoes, well pared, a thick slice of bread, 6 leeks, peeled and cut into thin slices as far as the white extends upwards from the roots, a teacupful of rice, a teaspoonful of salt, and half that of pepper, and 2 quarts of water. AVERAGE COST, 3d.
The water must be completely boiling before anything is put into it; then add the whole of the ingredients at once, with the exception of the rice, the salt and the pepper. Cover, and let these come to a brisk boil; put in the others, and let the whole boil slowly for an hour, or till all the ingredients are thoroughly done, and their several juices extracted and mixed.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Potatoes. To Sir Walter Raleigh has generally been attributed the introduction of these valuable vegetables into England, but as a matter of fact, Sir Francis Drake brought them into this country year before, in 1585, just 20 years after they had been taken to Ireland by Sir John Hawkins.
Besides being in themselves a most useful, in fact, now an almost indispensable food, from potatoes other foods are obtained. The best substitute for arrowroot is made from the starch in potatoes, and, where flour is scarce, they are largely used in bread. Spirit is also made from potatoes by boiling the starch with weak sulphuric acid, which changes it into what is called grape water, this, being fermented, yielding alcohol. Potatoes are deficient in flesh-formers, but rich in heat-giving properties.
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF 1 LB. OF POTATOES. ... ... .16 ... ... ... ...
Water Albumenoids Starch, sugar, etc.
Fat ... ...
Mineral Matter Potatoes, -Potatoes. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... oz. grs. 12 0 0 161 POTATOES, TO BOIL. as possible; wash them in lukewarm water, and scrub them well, for the browned skin of a baked potato is by many persons considered the better part of it. Put them into a moderate oven and bake them for about two hours, turning them three or four times whilst they are cooking. Serve them in a napkin immediately they are done, as, if kept a long time in the oven, they have a shrivelled appearance. Potatoes may also BAKED POTATOES. be roasted before the fire in an American oven; but when thus cooked they must be done very slowly. Do not forget to send to table with them some butter.
TIME. Large potatoes, in a hot oven, 1½ to 2 hours; in a cool oven, 2 to 2 hours.
SEASONABLE all the year, but not good just before and whilst new potatoes are in season.
Two Victorian potato soups sit side by side here: a substantial beef-and-vegetable pottage thickened by sieving, and a very plain leek, potato and rice broth. Both are sound, but the quantities and timings need translating.
- The pea quantity is unreliableThe pea quantity is garbled -- "1/24 a pint of peas" is not a workable measure; the sense is probably half a pint of peas, and an imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 285 ml. If you use dried peas, soak them first.
- Shin of beef needs the long stewShin is all collagen and connective tissue, and the three hours specified is not padding: the gravy the recipe wants drawn out of the meat will not have developed in less.
- Sieving is the thickeningThere is no flour or cream in the first soup. Pulping the potato, onion, peas and rice through a coarse sieve is what gives body, so do not skip it. A food mill on the coarse plate does the same job in a fraction of the time; a blender gives a smoother, less characterful result.
- Add the celery lateThe celery goes in after the pulp and simmers only until tender. Long cooking would flatten it.
- Conflicting times in the economical soupThe method says boil slowly for an hour; the TIME line says two. An hour from the boil is enough for potatoes, leeks and rice.
- Old measuresA teacupful is usually reckoned at about a quarter of an imperial pint (5 fl oz) of rice, which is generous for two quarts and will give a thick, porridge-like soup. Two imperial quarts is about 2.3 litres. The average cost of 3d is a period price, not a guide to anything now.
- The slice of breadIn the second soup the bread is boiled in with the rest rather than served alongside, so it will break down into the broth and add body. Use a thick slice of a plain, close-crumbed white loaf; a modern airy sandwich slice contributes almost nothing.
- Yield and seasoningThe first soup as written serves nine or ten, the second four. If you find them bland by current tastes, salt at the end, after the sieving or after the rice has swollen; a squeeze of lemon lifts the potato considerably.
Potato soup earns two entries here because it did two quite different jobs in a Victorian household. The first version is built on a pound of shin of beef and sieved to a purée, using one of the cheapest cuts in the butcher's shop; the second comes to threepence for four people. The pairing of potato and leek that underpins the economical version is well established in both Britain and France, and predates the chilled cream version popularised in twentieth-century restaurants. The remark elsewhere on this page that potatoes are "deficient in flesh-formers, but rich in heat-giving properties" reflects the mid-Victorian nutritional scheme, in which foods were sorted into flesh-formers, heat-givers and mineral matter.