Stock for Soup
Consomme or stock forms the basis of all meat soups, gravies and purees.
The simpler it is made, the longer it keeps. It is best made of fresh uncooked beef and some broken bones, to which may be added the remnants of broken meats. In a home where meat forms part of the every-day diet, a good cook will seldom be without a stock-pot.
Four pounds of beef and broken bones, one gallon of cold water and two teaspoons of salt. Put the meat and water on the back of the stove and let it slowly come to a boil, then simmer three or four hours, until the water is boiled away one-half; add the salt, strain and set to cool, in an earthenware dish well covered. When cold, take off the fat from the top and it is ready for To make soup for a family of six, take one-quarter of the stock, to which add one-quarter of boiling water, and any vegetables desired-boil three hours.
Season with salt and pepper. use.
A plain nineteenth-century brown-stock method: meat and bones, cold water, a long slow reduction by half. It works as written, though two of its instructions — the cooling arrangements and the three-hour vegetable boil — belong to a kitchen without refrigeration.
- The hinge: never let it boil hard"Let it slowly come to a boil, then simmer" is the whole technique. Hold it at 180-190F, where bubbles break only occasionally; a rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the stock permanently.
- What to buy"Four pounds of beef and broken bones" does not say in what proportion; beef shin, chuck or neck plus sawn marrow and knuckle bones will serve. Ask the butcher to cut the bones; whole ones give up less gelatin.
- Quantities in modern measureOne gallon is 16 cups (3.8 L). Reduced by half you finish with about 2 quarts of stock, so use a pot of at least 6 quarts.
- Salt at the end, as writtenThe instruction to add the two teaspoons of salt only after the reduction is deliberate and worth keeping. Salt added at the start concentrates along with the liquid, and stock destined for gravies and sauces will be reduced again.
- Skim, though the recipe does not say soGrey scum rises during the first twenty minutes of heating. Lift it off with a spoon before it breaks up and redisperses; this does most of the work of clarifying.
- Cooling and keepingAn earthenware dish in a cold larder was the period's best option. Chill the strained stock quickly — an ice bath, then the refrigerator — and use within four days, or freeze it. The fat cap sealed the surface against air in a kitchen without refrigeration, but it is not a preservative you should rely on.
- Three hours of vegetables is too longOnion, carrot, celery and leek give everything they have in 45 minutes to an hour; held for three they turn muddy and sweet. Simmer the diluted stock with the vegetables for an hour, or add them in stages if some are meant to be eaten.
- Yield and dilutionA quarter of the stock plus an equal quantity of boiling water is about 2 cups stock to 2 cups water — thin for six people by modern taste. Skip the water and season more assertively.
Nineteenth-century household manuals treated the stock-pot as a fixture rather than a recipe, which is why this entry reads more like an argument than a set of instructions: a good cook "will seldom be without" one, because the pot absorbed the bones, trimmings and "remnants of broken meats" that a household eating meat daily produced every day. The word consommé — from the French consommer, to complete or consummate — strictly means a stock clarified with egg white and lean meat until it is brilliantly clear; American cookbooks of this period often used it loosely, as here, for any strong reduced broth. The claim that "the simpler it is made, the longer it keeps" is sound pre-refrigeration reasoning — vegetables, starch and dairy all sour faster than plain meat broth, so the base was kept austere and flavoured only when a portion was drawn off for a particular soup.