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Brown Soup Stock
6 pounds shin of beef 3 to 6 quarts cold water 1 bay leaf 6 cloves 1 tablespoon mixed herbs 2 sprigs parsley 1/2 cup carrot 1/2 cup turnip 1/2 cup celery 1/2 cup onion Wipe beef and cut lean meat into inch cubes; brown one-third in hot frying pan; put remaining two-thirds with bone and fat into soup kettle; add water and let stand 30 minutes. Place on back of range; add browned meat and heat gradually to boiling point. Cover and cook slowly six hours; add vegetables and seasoning one hour before it is finished. Strain and put away to cool. Remove all fat; reheat and serve.
A classic brown stock, built on the old range where the back plate held a permanent low simmer. Nearly everything translates directly; the main work is deciding on your water and controlling the heat.
- The hinge: never let it boilAfter it comes up to the boiling point, hold it at a bare shiver — an occasional bubble breaking the surface, around 185-195F. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and drives fine protein through the liquid, and no amount of straining or skimming will make the result clear again.
- 3 to 6 quarts is a real choice, not a typoThree quarts gives a concentrated stock; six gives a light broth for everyday soups. Start at the lower end, cover the bones by an inch or two, and top up with hot water only if they become exposed during the six hours.
- "Back of range"The coolest zone of a wood or coal range, used for long unattended cooking. On a modern hob this means the smallest burner at its lowest setting; a very low oven will also hold a steady bare simmer. The recipe keeps the pot covered.
- Shin of beefSold as beef shank or foreshank, usually cross-cut into rounds with the marrow bone in place. Ask the butcher not to bone it out — the connective tissue in shin is exactly what gives the stock body.
- Browning one-thirdOnly part of the meat is browned so the stock takes colour and roast flavour while keeping the clean, sweet character of the unbrowned meat. Get real dark colour on those cubes and deglaze the frying pan with a little water, adding that to the kettle; the fond is most of the point.
- The cold-water soakThe 30-minute stand in cold water is deliberate. Soluble proteins and flavour draw out into cold water and then coagulate slowly as the pot heats, rising as scum that can be skimmed — start hot and they set inside the meat instead.
- Vegetables at the endAdding the carrot, turnip, celery and onion for only the last hour keeps their flavour fresh rather than boiled-out and slightly bitter. The half-cup measures mean chopped, roughly 2-3 oz each. "Mixed herbs" in books of this period might include thyme, marjoram or savory, but the recipe does not specify.
- SeasoningNo salt quantity is given, which is correct for a stock meant to be reduced later. Salt the finished soup, not the kettle.
- Cooling and keeping"Put away to cool" assumed a cold larder. Strain, then chill fast — set the pot in an ice-water bath or divide into shallow containers — and refrigerate within two hours. The fat cap lifts off in a solid disc the next day. Refrigerated, it keeps four days; frozen, several months.
- YieldExpect roughly 2 1/2 to 5 quarts of strained stock depending on your starting water, enough for a large batch of soup or several weeks of sauces.
Brown stock was the foundation of the nineteenth-century soup kettle, and books of this vintage nearly always open the soup chapter with it — it served as consommé, as a clear soup with garnish, or as the moistening for a sauce. The two-part treatment of the meat here, browning a third and leaving the rest pale, closely resembles the brown soup stock of Fannie Farmer and the Boston Cooking School, whose stock recipes use almost identical proportions. Shin was the cut of choice because it was cheap, heavily worked, and rich in the collagen that sets a good stock to jelly when cold — a household test of quality. A book issued by a baking powder company is an odd place to find it, but promotional cookbooks of the era aimed to be complete household manuals, and no manual could call itself complete without a soup stock.