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Brown Soup Stock
Three quarts cold water; six pounds of shin beef including marrow bone; one-half cup each of diced celery, turnip, carrot and onion; two sprigs each of parsley and thyme, one-half bay leaf and one-half dozen each of peppercorns and cloves; one tablespoon of salt, or more, according to taste. Cut lean meat in inch cubes, remove marrow from marrow bone.. In a saucepan brown the meat cubes in the marrow, stirring constantly. In the soup kettle place remaining cubes of lean meat, fat and bone. Over these pour cold water in the proportion of one pint to each pound of meat, bone and fat. Allow the soup kettle to stand thus filled for an hour, that juices may be drawn from the meat. Then add the browned cubes of lean meat, bring slowly to the boiling point and then cook slowly for six hours or more. The resulting scum may be removed or not, according as the soup is desired clear or otherwise. Vegetables and seasonings should be added during the last hour of cooking.
WHITE STOCK (With Veal)-Six pounds of knuckle of veal; half a pound of lean beef; small piece of butter; two onions; two turnips; two carrots; four cloves; small bunch of thyme and savory; pepper and salt; one tablespoon of flour, and six quarts of water. Cut the meat and crack all the bones, slice the vegetables and herbs, add two quarts of water, and put on to boil. Let simmer slowly and take off the scum as it rises. At the end of an hour add the rest of the water-one gallon. Let it cook steadily four hours, strain and set away to cool.
WHITE STOCK (With Chicken)-Clean and truss a fowl, put it, breast down, in as small a stewpan as will hold it, cover it with cold water, and heat it slowly to the boiling point. Let it simmer until the fowl is tender, skimming off all the scum; then take up the fowl and set it away to cool. Strain the water, set it away, and when cold, remove the fat that forms on the top. The fowl can be used in many ways. This stock will serve as the basis for cream soups and white sauces.
BOUILLON-Five pounds of round of beef (no bone); two and one-half quarts of water; one-half of a large onion; one-half slice of carrot; one-half slice of turnip; eight peppercorns; three cloves; two eggs (whites only); one and one-half inch piece of cinnamon; one and one-half teaspoon of salt; one sprig of parsley; one sprig of thyme; one sprig of summer savory; two small bay leaves; one leaf of sage; one and one-half stalk of celery. Having removed every particle of fat from the meat, cut off one pound of the lean and set it aside; then cut the remainder into small pieces, cover with the water, heat slowly, and, when boiling, move back on the range where it will keep at the bubbling point for six hours. At the end of this time add all the seasoning, having the herbs tied in a muslin bag; simmer one hour, remove from the fire, strain, and set away to cool. The next morning remove any fat that may have collected on the stock. Chop very fine the pound of meat that was reserved, and place it in the soup on the fire, beating the whites of eggs at the same time and adding them, with the shells, while the soup is yet cool. Heat slowly, and when bubbling, set the soup back, tightly covered, and keep it at this degree of heat for one hour. Now add salt if necessary, and strain. CONSOMMÉ-Three pounds of round of beef cut into inch pieces. Divide this quantity in half and brown one portion in a frying-pan with a little marrow taken from one pound of marrow bone which is one of the ingredients of this soup. Have four quarts of cold water in soup kettle and put in three pounds of knuckle of veai cut in inch pieces, together with the pound of marrow bone, and both the browned and the uncooked cubes of beef. After standing an hour, bring to the boiling point and allow to simmer gently for three or four hours, from time to time removing the scum on top of kettle. Brown in butter one-third cup each of diced carrots, turnips, celery and onion, and add to soup together with a tablespoon of butter, one of salt and white pepper, four cloves, and a sprig each of sweet marjoram and parsley. Cook two hours longer, strain, remove fat and clear. This is the foundation for many of the most delicious soups and may be served with any of the accessories mentioned in the following chapter on Soup Accessories. The following are the best known varieties of Consommé: Consommé Princesse served with shreds of breast of cooked chicken and green peas.
Consommé à la Royale-served with blocks of Royal Custard. Consommé with Vegetables-served with carrots and turnips cut in fancy shapes; also small pieces of French string beans. Consommé with Marrow Balls.
Consommé with blocks of Tomato, or Spinach Paste. See Chapter on Soup Accessories.
This is really five related recipes under one heading: a brown stock, two white stocks, a clarified bouillon and a consommé. The proportions are sound, but the vessels, cuts and cooking times assume a coal range that could hold a pot at a bare simmer all day.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: keep it off a rolling boil -- Each of these stocks is brought slowly up to the boiling point and then held back to a bare simmer, or in the bouillon to the "bubbling point" the book names. A hard boil emulsifies fat and breaks albumen up into cloud, and later clarifying will not fully undo it. Around 180-190F, with a lazy bubble every few seconds, is the usual target.
- Shin beef and knuckle of vealShin is beef shank, sold crosscut as osso buco or as boneless shank meat; ask for the shank bones too. Knuckle of veal is the joint end of the leg, mostly cartilage and bone, and is the gelatin source. A butcher will usually supply veal bones on request; without them the white stock will have body but not the sticky-lipped texture intended.
- Marrow as the browning fatThe recipe has you scoop marrow from a split bone and fry the beef cubes in it. It works, but marrow melts and colours quickly and will scorch if left unattended. Any neutral fat or clarified butter gives much the same fond with less watching.
- The cold-water hourStanding the meat in cold water for an hour before heating is not superstition: soluble proteins and flavour compounds leach out into cold water and coagulate as the scum you skim once it heats. Starting in hot water coagulates the surface proteins early and is generally reckoned to draw out less.
- Water proportionsOne pint of water per pound of meat, bone and fat is the working rule here, and the brown stock's three quarts against six pounds follows it. Expect appreciable loss to evaporation over six hours; top up with boiling water rather than cold if the bones become exposed.
- Vegetables in the last hour onlyModern practice agrees, and for good reason. Carrot and onion held for six hours go flat and slightly sour, and celery turns bitter. Herbs and peppercorns want thirty to forty minutes at most.
- Clarifying with egg whiteThe bouillon method is a classic raft: lean chopped meat plus beaten whites and crushed shells, stirred in while the stock is cool, then brought up slowly and left undisturbed for an hour. Once the raft forms, do not stir. Ladle the finished stock out through a hole in the raft, then strain through wet cheesecloth.
- Yield and keepingThe brown stock gives roughly two to two and a half quarts after straining and skimming; the veal white stock rather more. Chill fast and uncovered, lift the fat cap the next day, and use within four days or freeze. A well-set stock will be firm enough to slice.
- "Set away to cool" means the iceboxWritten for a cold larder or ice chest. Do not leave a large hot pot on the counter overnight; divide into shallow containers so it drops through the 40-140F range quickly, then refrigerate.
Stock chapters like this one are the backbone of American cookbooks between about 1880 and 1920, when French culinary vocabulary reached middle-class kitchens. The book sells cookery as another department of competent housekeeping, and its soup chapter reflects that: a housewife is expected to know brown stock from white, to keep both on hand, and to build consommé — princesse, à la royale, with marrow balls — by dropping garnishes into a clear base, exactly as a restaurant would. The insistence on shin and knuckle rather than prime cuts is also economic; these are cheap collagen-heavy cuts, and turning them into six hours of slow stock was thrift as much as technique.