Turnip
2 tablespoons pearl barley } 1/4 cup, each, cut in small cubes Wipe meat, remove skin and fat, and cut meat in small pieces. Add water, heat gradually to boiling-point, skim, and cook slowly two hours. After cooking one hour, add salt, pepper, turnip, and onion. Strain, cool, remove fat, reheat, and thicken with flour diluted with enough cold water to pour easily. Cook carrot and turnip dice in boiling salted water until soft; drain, and add to soup. Soak barley over night, in cold water, drain, and cook in boiling salted water until soft; drain, and add to soup. If barley should be cooked in the soup, it would absorb the greater part of the stock. Barley may be omitted; in that case sprinkle with finely chopped parsley and serve with croûtons.
White Soup Stock I 3 lbs. knuckle of veal 1 lb. lean beef 3 quarts boiling water 1 onion 6 slices carrot 1 large stalk celery ½ teaspoon peppercorns 1½ bay leaf 2 sprigs thyme 2 cloves
A long-simmered clear meat broth finished with separately cooked root vegetables and barley. The instruction that matters most is the one the original spells out: cook the barley apart from the soup, or it will drink up the stock and leave you with porridge.
- Barley, soaked and cooked separatelyCook it in its own pot of salted water, drain, and stir it in at the end so the broth stays clear. Overnight soaking may not be necessary with modern pearl barley; an hour in cold water is usually plenty, or none at all if you allow 40-50 minutes of simmering.
- "Cut in small cubes"The recipe itself calls these "dice" a line later. No size is given; cut the carrot and turnip small and evenly, or the turnip will collapse before the carrot is tender.
- Which turnipThe recipe does not specify. In American cookbooks of this period turnip generally means the white or purple-top variety rather than rutabaga, which was then sold as Swede turnip. White turnip is milder and cooks faster; rutabaga will give a sweeter, stronger-flavoured broth and needs longer cooking.
- Two hours at a bare simmer"Cook slowly" means the surface barely trembles, around 185-190F. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the stock, which defeats the straining and skimming the recipe insists on.
- Cooling to lift the fatThe instruction to strain, cool, and remove fat works best if you chill the strained broth thoroughly, ideally overnight, so the fat sets in a solid cap you can lift off whole. Refrigerate rather than leaving it out.
- ThickeningFlour "diluted with enough cold water to pour easily" is a slurry; the recipe gives no proportions, so judge it by eye. Whisk it into simmering soup and cook two or three minutes to lose the raw starch taste.
- Knuckle of vealFor the stock that follows, a veal knuckle is the joint end of the shank, sawn across so the marrow and gelatin can escape. Ask a butcher for cross-cut veal shank or osso buco bones; the gelatin is the entire point and beef bones will not give the same delicate result.
- CroutonsThe period croûton is a small cube of bread, browned in butter or fat or in the oven, rather than a broken crust. Make them just before serving so they stay crisp in the bowl.
Broth built on a cheap cut of meat, cooked slowly, cleared of fat, and given body by barley and root vegetables is one of the oldest patterns in northern European cooking; the Scottish version, Scotch broth, is the best-known ancestor of soups like this one. The Boston Cooking School's approach reflects the scientific-cookery movement of the 1890s, which treated stock-making as a set of principles rather than a single dish: extract gelatin and flavor at a low temperature, strain, chill, degrease, then reassemble the garnish so each element keeps its own texture. The warning about barley absorbing the stock is a small piece of that thinking, and the two grades of white stock that follow show the same instinct for classification borrowed from French professional kitchens and rewritten for a household with one range and a cold pantry.