Vegetable Soup
1 quart brown stock, cleared or not cleared Salt 1 cup diced vegetables, raw or cooked Pepper If a clear soup is desired, follow the directions for clarifying soup stock and then add the vegetables. If the vegetables are already cooked, the soup needs to be boiled for only a few minutes. When raw vegetables are added, simmer until the vegetables are all tender, adding boiling water, if necessary, to replace any that may have evaporated. Season and serve.
A skeleton recipe of the kind cookery books of the 1920s expected a cook to flesh out from what was in the vegetable bin. The proportions matter more than the list: one cup of vegetable to one quart of stock gives a light soup, not a chunky one.
- Brown stockStock made from beef or veal bones and meat browned before simmering (in the oven or in the pot), giving colour and a roasted flavour. A good low-sodium beef broth stands in; if using a pale broth, roast the vegetables briefly before adding them to get some of the same depth.
- Quantity and yieldOne quart of stock with a cup of vegetables serves about four as a first course, two as a light lunch. Doubling is straightforward so long as the one-cup-to-one-quart proportion is kept.
- ClarifyingThe book refers the cook elsewhere for clarifying; the standard method of the period was the egg-white raft: whisk one or two egg whites with their crushed shells into cold stock, bring slowly to a bare simmer without stirring, let the raft form and set, then ladle the liquid out through a cloth. Add the vegetables only after the stock has been strained, or they will cloud it again.
- Dice sizeFor a clear soup cut the vegetables small and even, about a quarter inch; the recipe simmers them in the stock, though cooking them separately in salted water will keep starch out of the broth. For the plain version anything up to half an inch is fine.
- Timing for raw vegetablesFifteen to twenty minutes at a simmer covers carrot, turnip, celery and onion. Add peas, green beans or corn in the last five minutes, and any leafy greens in the last two, or the pot ends up a uniform olive colour.
- Cooked vegetables"Boiled for only a few minutes" means heating through, three or four minutes at most. Leftover cooked vegetables have no structure left to spare.
- SeasoningSeason at the end rather than the start, as the recipe directs. If the stock reduces while the vegetables simmer, top it up with boiling water, which is what the recipe's instruction is for.