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Asparagus Soup
255. Make rather a weak stock, and boil with it some fresh mint, a stick of celery, a turnip, carrot, and one onion; boil it about three hours; strain it, and boil with it a handful of mint till it is flavoured; take two bunches of asparagus, and cut all the tender part, about the size of peas, into cold water; take these out, and boil in half a pint of cold water till tender; pour them into the stock and thicken with flour and butter: add salt and a handful of mint chopped very fine when it is nearly thickened, and at the same time put in half a teacupful of spinach-juice (made by tying spinach leaves in a muslin after they have been washed, and pounding them, then squeezing the juice); pea-leaf would do better if it could be had.
A Victorian asparagus soup built on vegetable-infused stock, thickened with a butter-and-flour paste and coloured green with pressed spinach juice rather than with the asparagus itself. Everything hinges on treating the asparagus tips as a late addition, not as something to be boiled for hours.
- The critical timingThe asparagus goes in only at the end, cooked separately in half a pint of water just until tender; pea-sized pieces will need only a few minutes. Boiling the tips in the stock from the start would give you a grey, stringy soup.
- "Rather a weak stock"A light, unreduced broth; the recipe gives no quantity or type. The point is that it should not dominate: modern concentrated stock or bouillon cubes will overwhelm the asparagus and mint entirely, so dilute if that is what you have.
- Three hours of vegetablesSimmering the turnip, carrot, celery and onion this long is a period habit. An hour is ample for extraction; longer only pushes the turnip and onion toward sulphurous flavours. Strain and discard the vegetables as directed.
- Mint, in three dosesThe recipe uses mint at the start of the stock, again as an infusion after straining, and a third time chopped raw at the finish. That is intentional layering. The size of a "handful" is not specified; the final chopped mint goes in as the soup thickens, and will hold its colour better if the soup is not boiled hard afterwards.
- Thickening with flour and butterProbably beurre manié: soft butter and flour worked to a paste and whisked into the simmering soup in small pieces. The recipe gives no quantities; allow it several minutes at a simmer to lose the raw-flour taste.
- Spinach juiceHalf a teacupful is about 2 fl oz. It is a colouring agent, standard in nineteenth-century kitchens before green food dye. Add it at the end and do not let the soup boil afterwards, or the chlorophyll turns olive-brown. A handful of raw spinach blitzed with a little water and pressed through muslin gives the same result.
- "Pea-leaf"The tendrils and young leaves of the garden pea, once common in kitchen gardens and now sold as pea shoots. They give a sweeter, more distinctly green flavour than spinach and can be used the same way.
- YieldThe recipe specifies two bunches of asparagus but no quantity of stock, so the yield is not fixed. Season with salt at the thickening stage, as written, and taste again after the spinach juice.