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Soup, A Good Family
INGREDIENTS for soup for 12 or 14 persons.- Remains of a cold tongue, 2 lbs. of shin of beef, any cold pieces of meat or beef-bones, SOUP À LA REINE. 2 turnips, 2 carrots, 2 onions, 1 parsnip, 1 head of celery, 4 quarts of water, 1/2 teacupful of rice; salt and pepper to taste. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 8d.
Put all the ingredients in a stewpan, and simmer gently for 4 hours, or until all the goodness is drawn from the meat. Strain off the soup, and let it stand to get cold.
The kernels and soft parts of the tongue must be saved. When the soup is wanted for use, skim off all the fat, put in the kernels and soft parts of the tongue, slice in a small quantity of fresh turnip onion; stew till the vegetables are tender, small quantity of fresh carrot, turnip and and serve with toasted bread.
TIME.-5 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Soup à la Reine. - INGREDIENTS for soup for 8 persons.-1 large fowl, 1 oz. of sweet almonds, the crumb of 1½ French roll, 1/2 pint of cream, salt to taste, 1 small lump of sugar, 2 quarts of good white veal stock. AVERAGE COST, 5s. 6d.
Boil the fowl gently in the stock till quite tender, which will be in about an hour, or rather more; take out the fowl, pull the meat from the bones, and put it into a mortar with the almonds, and pound very fine. When beaten enough, put the meat back in the stock, with the crumb of the rolls, and let it simmer for an hour; rub it through a tammy, add the sugar, 1/2 pint of cream that has boiled, and, if you prefer, cut the crust of the roll into small round pieces, and pour the soup over it, when you serve.
TIME.-2 hours, or rather more.
SEASONABLE all the year.
Note. All white soups should be warmed in a vessel placed in another of boiling water.
Soup à la Reine. (Economical.)- INGREDIENTS for soup for 4 or 5 persons.- Any remains of roast chickens, 1/24 teacupful of rice, salt and pepper to taste, 1 quart of any white stock. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the cold chicken, 6d.
Take all the white meat and pound it with the rice, which has been slightly cooked, but not too much. When it is all well pounded, dilute with the stock, and pass through a sieve. This soup should neither be too clear nor too thick.
TIME. -1 hour.
SEASONABLE all the year.
Note. If stock is not at hand, put the chickenbones in water, with an onion, carrot, a few sweet herbs, a blade of mace, pepper and salt, and stew for 3 hours.
SOUP À LA SOLFERINO.
Soup à la Solferino. (Sardinian Recipe.)-INGREDIENTS.-4 eggs, 1/2 pint of cream or milk, 2 oz. of fresh butter, salt and pepper to taste, a little flour to thicken, 2 quarts of bouillon. AVERAGE COST, with cream, exclusive of the bouillon, 1s. 3d.; with milk, 8d.
Beat the eggs, put them into a stewpan, and add the cream, butter and seasoning; stir in as much flour as will bring it to the consistency of dough; make it into balls, either round or egg-shaped, and fry them in butter; put them in the tureen, and pour the boiling bouillon over them.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE.-All the year.
Note. This recipe was originally the property of an English gentleman who was present at the battle of Solferino, on June 24, 1859, and who was requested by some of Victor Emmanuel's troops, on the day before the battle, to partake of a portion of their potage. He willingly enough consented, and found that these clever campaigners had made a palatable dish from very easily-procured materials. In sending the recipe for insertion in this work, he has, however, Anglicised, and somewhat, he thinks, improved it.
SPANISH SAUCE.
A two-stage broth: a long simmer on day one, then a skim and a quick vegetable stew on day two. It is a leftovers soup, built around the trimmings of a cooked tongue and whatever bones the household had.
- Read it as two sessionsThe four-hour simmer, straining and cooling is the whole of day one. The soup is finished only when it is wanted, by skimming the set fat, adding the reserved tongue and fresh sliced root vegetables, and stewing until tender. The stated five hours covers both stages.
- Cool it properlyA gallon of stock left to stand in the pot sits for hours in the range where bacteria multiply. Divide it between shallow containers, cool quickly and refrigerate, then bring it back to a rolling boil before serving. The fat cap lifts off just as cleanly.
- "Kernels and soft parts" of the tongueThe kernels are generally taken to be the small glands and fatty tissue at the root end, the soft parts the tender under-surface. They are the ragged bits left when a cold tongue is sliced for the table; here they are the meat of the soup. A shop-bought pressed tongue may already have been trimmed of them.
- Shin of beefSold as beef shin, shank or gravy beef. It is the right cut because the connective tissue dissolves into gelatin over a long simmer, which is what gives this soup body, the rice apart.
- MeasuresA teacupful is roughly half a modern cup, so half a teacupful is about a quarter cup, on the order of 2 oz of rice, for four quarts of liquid. Four imperial quarts is a gallon, about 4.5 litres.
- Two sets of vegetablesThe turnips, carrots, onions, parsnip and celery in the ingredient list go into the first long simmer and are strained out spent. The fresh carrot, turnip and onion sliced in at the end are a second, separate lot, and they are what makes the finished bowl taste of something.
- SeasoningTongue and any cured leftovers carry salt into the pot. Season only at the end, after reducing and after the tongue trimmings have gone in.
- YieldTwelve to fourteen portions as written, which is a great deal of soup for a modern household. Halving works without adjustment; keep the four-hour simmer.
Soup of this kind is the pivot of Victorian household economy: the shin of beef and vegetables are bought, and the rest assembled from bones, a cold joint and the glands and trimmings of a tongue too good to throw out but too ragged to slice for the sideboard. The stated cost was 1s 8d for twelve or fourteen people, and the two-day method suited a kitchen with a cold larder rather than refrigeration — the overnight stand was as much about letting the fat set into a liftable cap as about convenience. Boiled ox tongue was a standard cold-table meat in nineteenth-century England, so the leftovers this recipe presumes would have been genuinely common; they are the reason it reads oddly today, when few kitchens have a spent tongue to raid.