Scotch Soup
3 lbs. mutton from fore-quarter 2 qts. cold water 1/2 tablespoon salt ¼ teaspoon pepper 2 slices turnip 1/2 onion 1/4 cup flour Carrot ) 1/4 cup, each, Turnip ) cut in small cubes. 2 tablespoons pearl barley.
A plain mutton broth of the sort Fannie Farmer treated as a base rather than a showpiece. The ingredient list is spare, and most of the work is in the long, gentle simmer.
- The hinge: cold water, slow heatMeat and bone go into cold water and come up slowly, which draws out gelatin and flavour. A hard boil clouds the broth by emulsifying the fat; the ingredient list gives no method or timing, but a broth of this kind is usually held at a bare tremble for several hours.
- Mutton from the fore-quarterShoulder, neck, breast and foreshank, with bone attached, which is what gives the soup its body. Mutton is rare in American markets now; lamb shoulder chops or lamb neck give the closest result, though the flavour is milder and the cooking time shorter.
- The flourA quarter cup of flour in two quarts of stock is a light thickening, not a gravy. Farmer's usual method is to work it smooth with a little cold water or melted fat before stirring it into the hot liquid, then simmer several minutes so it loses its raw taste.
- Two slices of turnipEither white turnip or rutabaga (yellow turnip) will serve; two thick slices, diced, is roughly half a cup. White turnip is sharper and softens faster; rutabaga is sweeter and needs longer.
- SeasoningHalf a tablespoon of salt for two quarts is modest once the meat has absorbed some; taste after the broth has reduced and correct at the end rather than the beginning.
- Skimming and degreasingSkim the grey scum as it rises in the first twenty minutes. Easier still, chill the finished broth and lift the solid fat off the top, then reheat and thicken.
- YieldTwo quarts of water with three pounds of meat gives a moderate potful once skimmed and reduced, enough for four to six as a first course, though the recipe states no yield. The meat can be pulled from the bones, diced and returned to the pot.
Scotch broth in its home country is mutton, root vegetables and pearl barley, cooked long enough that the barley thickens the pot on its own; the Boston Cooking-School version keeps the mutton and turnip and thickens with flour instead. Mutton was cheap and abundant in the American market of the 1890s, and forequarter cuts, full of bone and connective tissue, were the ones soup recipes were written for. The near-disappearance of mutton from United States butcher shops over the following century is the main reason this soup reads as unfamiliar today, since flavour, not technique, is what changed.