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To Make Clear Gravy Soup
then add a little more cold water, which will make the scum rise afresh; then take it off, and season with parsley root about the size of two fingers, a small carrot, an onion or two, a blade of mace (and about two ounces of clean bacon if you like this addition); boil it an hour and a half at least, till the meat is tender; then strain it. It may be made with mutton, beef, or veal, or the three combined. To MAKE GRAVY Sour. 229. Fry three or four pounds of meat, then fry half a dozen carrots and turnips, after which fry three or four onions, taking care not to let them burn; stew altogether with a little pepper, salt, a clove or two, and a stick of celery; strain it; when cold skim off the fat, and boil it up again with the white of three or four eggs to clear it; strain it through a cloth; it is then fit for use. Soak half a rasped roll in a little gravy, and stick it with almonds, to put in the soup when in the tureen; or, as is generally preferred, add some vermicelli, or macaroni made in small shapes for the purpose, or the piped macaroni cut in short lengths. (It forms a pleasing variety to add, instead of the above, some pieces of carrot cut long and thin, or in their season a few heads of asparagus cut in short lengths and made tender, but not to break. These make it like Julienne soup.) 230. Take a slice of beef, a piece of knuckle of veal, a small slice of lean ham or bacon, two or three carrots according to size, one large or two small turnips, six onions, a little parsley, two heads of celery and a small bunch of sweet herbs; cut the meat into small slices, and put it into a stewpan that will hold about six quarts, with about two ounces of butter, and the vegetables and herbs; cut the vegetables into moderate-sized pieces, and slice the onions; add half an ounce of black peppercorns, half an ounce of allspice, a blade or two of mace, about six cloves, and as much salt as you think necessary; put the stewpan over a brisk fire, and let it fry all together, keeping it frequently stirred to prevent its burning; as soon as it becomes of a light-brown colour fill up the stewpan with cold water, and just before it boils pull it off the fire and let it just simmer four or five hours; skim it frequently, strain through a sieve, and when cold take off every particle of grease, and it is fit for use; add a little pepper and salt if required: it is seldom served without something being put into it, either Italian paste, which you may buy at any Italian warehouse, and at some grocers, or a little macaroni, having previously boiled it in water till it is soft, and then it is usual to hand grated Parmesan cheese, and sometimes semolina is served with it: the meat may be boiled a second time; it will make stock for some other kind of inferior soup. MEAT SOUP FOR FAMILY USE OR VILLAGE DISTRIBUTION. 231. To make 120 quarts, use fifteen or twenty pounds of beef, half a bushel of turnips, a quarter of a peck of carrots, a quarter of a peck of onions, one peck of peas (or, instead of peas, three pounds of rice), one large spoonful of bruised celery-seed, three quarters of a peck of flour, or rather more; one ounce and a quarter of pepper, and the third of a peck of salt. The bones should be broken in pieces and separately boiled in a digester in half the water, and the liquor added to the remainder in which the meat and vegetables are boiled,
Four related entries for clear brown soup, running from a household consommé to a charity cauldron holding 120 quarts. The technique is the same throughout: brown meat and root vegetables hard, draw them slowly with water, then clear and degrease the result.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: don't let it boil hard -- once the pot is filled with cold water the book has you pull it off the fire just before it boils and "let it just simmer" four or five hours, which in modern terms means a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil. A hard boil emulsifies the fat and drives suspended protein through the liquid, and clearing with egg white afterwards will only partly recover it.
- Browning is the flavourFrying the meat, then the carrots and turnips, then the onions in separate batches is not fussiness; it lets each reach a deep brown without steaming. "A light-brown colour" in the third recipe is the book's own target; taking it further deepens the flavour, but stop short of black or the soup turns bitter.
- Clarifying with egg whiteWhisk the whites (a little of the shell and some minced lean beef helps) into the cold, degreased stock, bring it up slowly while stirring, then stop stirring as the raft forms. Simmer 20-30 minutes without disturbing it and ladle the clear liquid out through a cloth-lined sieve rather than pouring.
- Old measuresA peck is 8 dry quarts, a bushel 4 pecks. Half a bushel of turnips is roughly 25-28 lb, a quarter-peck of carrots or onions about 3 lb, a peck of dried peas around 14-16 lb. A digester is an early pressure cooker; a modern pressure cooker or a stockpot given longer will do the same work on the bones.
- Salt in the large batchA third of a peck of salt is something like five to eight pounds depending on how coarse the salt is, which across 120 quarts lands somewhere near 2 percent by weight -- distinctly salty by current taste. Salt the finished soup to taste instead.
- Vanished shopping"Italian paste" bought at an Italian warehouse means dried pasta shapes for soup; any small soup pasta, stelline or ditalini, answers. A "rasped roll" is a roll with the crust rasped off, here soaked in gravy, stuck with almonds and set in the tureen as a garnish.
- Fat and storageChilling overnight is the most reliable way to lift "every particle of grease" -- it sets to a cap you can pull off whole. Refrigerated clear stock keeps three or four days; it freezes well for several months, and reduced to a glaze it takes a fraction of the space.
- YieldThe third recipe here is built on a six-quart stewpan, and after skimming and clarifying will give something under that in finished soup; the others give no vessel size.
Clear gravy soup is the British household name for what French kitchens of the same period called consommé: a brown stock drawn from beef, veal and a little ham, cleared with egg white until it reads like dark glass. The book is one of the mid-century compilations that gathered receipts from contributors and earlier printed sources, which is why the same soup appears three times over in slightly different words, one version leaning on an Italian warehouse for its pasta and another on the garnish of almond-studded bread. The garnish note about carrot cut long and thin, or asparagus in short lengths, is what the recipe itself calls julienne soup. The last entry belongs to a different world: soup made by the hundred quarts for "family use or village distribution" is relief cooking of the kind that ran through the hungry decades of the 1840s and 50s, and its proportions -- pounds of beef against bushels of turnip and pecks of flour -- show plainly where the calories were expected to come from.