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Belgian Puree
Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out, drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract and water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the saucepan off so that they may remain green. Pass them through the sieve, leave them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of three eggs, a pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessertspoonful of butter for each pint and a half of soup.
A sprout soup thickened with egg yolk and milk, from a book that assumes a stockpot always simmering. Nothing here is difficult, but the finish will curdle if you treat it like a sauce that can boil.
- The hinge: the egg yolksOnce the yolks and milk go in, the purée must not boil. Whisk the yolks with the cold milk, temper in a ladleful of hot purée, then return it all to low heat and stir until it thickens slightly — around 175F. Above about 185F the yolks scramble and the soup turns grainy.
- "Gravy" means stockIn period usage this is the meat juice or brown stock from a roast, not a thickened sauce. Beef or veal stock works; "meat extract and water" would have meant a commercial extract of the Bovril or Liebig type, so a good bouillon cube is a fair substitute — go light, as extracts are saltier than the original was likely to be.
- PintsThe book was compiled in England, so the pints are probably imperial (20 fl oz) rather than US (16 fl oz). Treat the milk as roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups and adjust to the consistency you want. A dessertspoonful is 2 teaspoons.
- Lid off, fast boilThe advice is sound in principle — uncovered rapid boiling lets volatile acids escape rather than concentrate on the sprouts — but it does not keep them bright green for long. Keep the first boiling short and the colour will survive.
- Don't overcook the sproutsTwo pounds of sprouts boiled, then buttered, then boiled again in stock is a lot of cooking by modern standards. Blanch them 5 to 7 minutes until just tender, and keep the second cooking in stock to about 10 minutes.
- "Pass them through the sieve"A food mill or a blender does this in seconds; a blender gives a smoother result but push it through a fine sieve afterwards if you want the texture the original intends. The "leave them in ten minutes" appears to mean let the purée stand and settle off the heat before binding.
- YieldTwo pounds of sprouts plus stock and milk gives roughly 2 1/2 quarts — six to eight servings as a first course. Season with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg; the original assumes the stock brings all the seasoning.
Brussels sprouts carry the city's name because they were long associated with market gardens in and around Brussels; cultivation there is generally traced to the 16th to 18th centuries, though the firm sprouts we know are a 19th-century development. The Belgian Cook Book was compiled by Mrs. Brian Luck during the First World War from recipes gathered from Belgian refugees in England. That origin shows in this recipe: it is a frugal dish that turns two pounds of a cheap winter vegetable into soup for a household, stretching a small quantity of meat gravy — or, when there is none, a spoonful of commercial meat extract — with milk and eggs. The egg-and-milk liaison is standard Franco-Belgian practice for a potage-purée.