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Spring Soup, or Potage Prin- taniere
persons.—1/2 pint of green peas, if in season, INGREDIENTS for soup for 8 persons. pint of green peas, if in season, a little chervil, 2 shredded lettuces, 2 onions, a very small bunch of parsley, 2 oz. of butter, the yolks of 3 eggs, 1 pint of water-seasoning to taste, 2 quarts of stock. AVERAGE COST, 28.
Put in a clean stewpan the chervil, lettuces, onions, parsley and butter, to 1 pint of water and let them simmer till tender. Season with salt and pepper; when done, strain off the vegetables, and put two-thirds of the liquor they were boiled in to the stock. Beat up the yolks of the eggs with the other third, give it a toss over the fire, and at the moment of serving, add this, with the vegetables which you strained off, to the soup.
TIME. of an hour.
SEASONABLE from May to October.
SPROUTS, TO BOIL.
A clear spring vegetable soup finished with an egg-yolk liaison. Everything hangs on the temperature at which those yolks meet the hot stock.
- The hinge: never boil the yolksBeat the yolks with the reserved cooking liquor, then warm them gently over low heat, stirring constantly, and stir the mixture into the soup off the boil. Above roughly 180F the yolks scramble and the soup turns grainy.
- ChervilSold fresh in some markets and easy to grow, but it collapses in heat and loses its faint aniseed note. A small handful is enough; parsley plus a pinch of tarragon is the usual stand-in.
- LettucesShredded lettuce was a standard soup vegetable in Victorian kitchens. Cos or romaine holds up best; a soft butterhead will melt to nothing in the ten to fifteen minutes of simmering.
- StockThe recipe specifies only 'stock', two quarts of it. A light veal or chicken stock suits the pale colour the dish seems to want, though Victorian household stocks were often beef-based; a well-made unsalted chicken stock is the safest modern choice.
- The peasThe peas are listed only 'if in season' and are never mentioned again in the method, so the cook is left to judge; frozen peas are closer to fresh podded ones than most tinned or elderly fresh peas. Add them near the end so they stay green and sweet rather than going khaki.
- TimingThe vegetables need only until tender, in practice ten to fifteen minutes for shredded lettuce and sliced onion. Long boiling flattens the flavour that the name of the soup is advertising.
- SeasoningSalt the vegetable pan lightly, since two-thirds of that liquor goes back into an already-seasoned stock. Correct at the very end, after the liaison, and only with the pan off direct heat.
- YieldAs written this serves eight as a first course, roughly a cup each. It does not reheat well: once the yolks are in, gentle rewarming only, and never a second boil.
Potage printanier — spring soup — belongs to the French repertoire of light, clear soups built on the first tender vegetables of the year, and Mrs Beeton's household books absorbed a good deal of that vocabulary alongside their English roasts and puddings. The seasonal note here, May to October, is a reminder that a Victorian cook worked to the kitchen garden rather than the shop: green peas, chervil and lettuce arrived together and were used together. The finish with egg yolks is the old liaison, a thickening method that predates roux-based soups in domestic English cookery and that survives today mainly in Greek avgolemono and in certain French veloutés. The costing in shillings, given for eight persons, was one of the features that made these books so useful to the mistress of a house planning against a fixed weekly sum.