Soup, Baked
INGREDIENTS for soup for 12 persons.-1 lb. of any kind of meat, any trimmings or odd pieces; 2 onions, 2 carrots, 2 oz. of rice, 1 pint of split peas, pepper and salt to taste, 4 quarts of water. AVERAGE COST, 18.
Cut the meat and vegetables in slices, add to them the rice and peas, season with pepper and salt. Put the whole in a jar, and bake for 4 hours. fill up with the water, cover very closely, TIME.-4 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. This will be found a very cheap and wholesome soup, and will be convenient in those cases where baking is more easily performed than boiling. Soup à la Cantatrice. (An Excellent Soup; very Beneficial for the Voice.) INGREDIENTS for soup for 6 persons.- 3 oz. of sago, 1/2 pint of cream, the yolks of 3 eggs, 1 lump of sugar, and seasoning to taste, 1 bay-leaf (if liked), 2 quarts of medium stock. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Having washed the sago in boiling water, let it be gradually added to the nearly boiling stock. Simmer for 1/2 hour, when it should be well dissolved. Beat up the yolks of the eggs, add to them the boiling cream; stir these quickly in the soup, and serve immediately. Do not let the soup boil, or the eggs will curdle.
TIME.-40 minutes.
SEASONABLE all the year.
Note. This is a soup the principal ingredients of which, sago and eggs, have always been deemed very beneficial to the chest and throat.
In various quantities, and in different preparations, these have been partaken of by the principal singers of the day. Soup à la Crecy. - INGREDIENTS for soup for 8 persons.-4 carrots, 2 sliced onions, 1 cut lettuce and chervil, 2 oz. of butter, 1 pint of lentils, the crumbs of 2 French rolls, half a teacupful of rice, 2 quarts of medium stock. AVERAGE COST, 2s.
Put the vegetables, with the butter, in the SOUP À LA FLAMANDE. stewpan, and let them simmer 5 minutes; then add the lentils and 1 pint of the stock, and stew gently for half an hour. Now fill it up with the remainder of the stock, let it boil another hour, and put in the crumb of the rolls. When well soaked, rub all through a tammy. Have ready the rice boiled; pour the soup over this, and serve.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE all the year.
Soup à la Flamande. (Flemish.) -INGREDIENTS for soup for 8 persons.-1 turnip, 1 small carrot, 1/2 head of celery, 6 green onions, shred very fine, 1 lettuce, cut small, chervil, 1/4 pint of asparagus, cut small, pint of peas, 2 oz. of butter, the yolks of 4 eggs, 1/1 pint of cream, salt to taste, 1 lump of sugar, 2 quarts of medium stock. AVERAGE COST, 3s. 6d.
Put the vegetables in the butter to stew gently for an hour, with a teacupful of stock; then add the remainder of the stock, and simmer for another hour. Now beat the yolks of the eggs well, mix with the cream (previously boiled), and strain through a hair sieve. Take the soup off the fire, put the eggs, &c., to it, and keep stirring it well. Bring it almost to boiling point, but do not leave off stirring, or the eggs will curdle. Season with salt, and add the sugar.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE from May to August.
Soup à la Flamande. (Flemish.) - INGREDIENTS. - 5 onions, 5 heads of celery, 10 moderate-sized potatoes, 3 oz. of butter, 1/2 pint of water, 1/2 pint of cream, 2 quarts of stock.
Slice the onions, celery and potatoes, and put them, with the butter and water, into a stewpan, and simmer for an hour. Then fill up the stewpan with stock, and boil gently till the potatoes are done, which will be in about an hour. Rub all through a tammy, and add the cream (previously boiled). Do not let it boil after the cream is put in.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE from September to May.
Note. This soup can be made with water instead of stock.
A frugal one-pot soup cooked in a covered jar in the oven rather than on the hob, meant for households where the oven was already hot. Everything goes in cold and comes out four hours later as a thick, pease-pudding-coloured broth.
- Order of workSlice the meat and vegetables, combine with the rice and peas in the jar, season, then fill up with the water and cover very closely before it goes into the oven. A tight seal matters here: an uncovered jar will lose a good deal of the four quarts to steam.
- The jarA tall stoneware or earthenware jar with a lid. A large lidded Dutch oven or deep casserole will do the same job, but it needs to be roomy: the liquid alone is about 4.5 litres. If the lid is loose, seal it with foil first.
- Oven heatBeeton gives no temperature. A cooling bread oven or the side of a range would have suited the dish. Treat it as a slow oven, around 300F, for the full four hours; hotter and the liquid boils hard and the peas catch on the base.
- Imperial measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so 4 quarts is close to 4 3/4 US quarts, or about 4.5 litres. A pint of dried split peas weighs roughly 1 lb.
- Soak the peasWhole split peas will soften in four hours of slow baking, but soaking them a few hours first gives a more even result and helps them break down into the thickening the soup depends on.
- Meat and trimmings"Any kind of meat, any trimmings or odd pieces" means exactly that: shin, neck, skirt, bones with a little meat left on. Bone and gristly cuts give the body that 1 lb of lean meat alone will not.
- Seasoning and finishingSeason lightly at the start and correct at the end, since long covered baking concentrates the liquid. Skim the fat from the surface before serving, and thin with boiling water if it has gone past soup into porridge.
- YieldStated as 12 servings, which is generous by modern portioning; reckon on 8 substantial bowls. It reheats well and thickens further overnight.
Baked soup belongs to the economical end of Victorian cookery, where fuel mattered as much as food. A brick bread oven or a coal range held usable heat for hours after the main baking was done, and a sealed jar of meat scraps, pulses and water could be pushed in to cook unattended without a fire being kept alive under a stockpot. Beeton's own note gives the reasoning plainly: it suits "those cases where baking is more easily performed than boiling". The average cost of one shilling for twelve people puts it among the cheap soups her book offers for large families, servants' meals and charitable distribution.