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Cream of Lettuce Soup
Wash and pick over two heads of lettuce and cut them fine. Put over the fire in the inner pan of a double boiler, having boiling water in the outer kettle, and cook till tender. Press the lettuce through the sieve into the boiler again, add one pint of white stock, season with salt, pepper and bring to a quick boil to preserve the color. Add a very little lemon juice when served. Thicken with one tablespoon of butter, cooked with one teaspoon of flour for one minute.
A short, thin puree rather than a heavy cream soup — despite the name there is no cream in it. The whole point is speed at the end: lettuce loses its green fast.
- The hinge: heat brieflyOnce the stock goes in, bring it to a boil and serve. Lettuce puree turns olive-brown within a few minutes of sustained heat, and no amount of seasoning brings the color back.
- White stockA pale unroasted stock of veal or chicken bones with onion, celery and no browning. A mild low-sodium chicken stock is the nearest supermarket equivalent; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced.
- Two heads of lettuceHeads of the period were likely smaller and looser than a modern iceberg. A pound or so of trimmed leaves is a reasonable working figure -- romaine, butterhead or the coarse outer leaves saved from other dishes.
- The double boilerThe "inner pan" is set over boiling water so the lettuce sweats in its own moisture without scorching. A heavy saucepan over low heat with the lid on does the same job in less time; the lettuce is tender in five to eight minutes.
- SievingPressing through a sieve was the usual route to a smooth puree in a kitchen of this period. A blender or stick blender does it in seconds, though a pass through a sieve afterward still catches the tough ribs.
- The thickeningOne tablespoon butter cooked with one teaspoon flour is a very light white roux -- barely more than a gloss. Cook it the full minute so the flour loses its raw taste, then whisk it into the simmering soup.
- Lemon"A very little" means a few drops per bowl, added at the table. Too much acid will curdle nothing here but will flatten the grassy flavor the soup is built on.
- YieldA pint of stock plus the lettuce gives roughly three cups — two generous or four small first-course servings. Double it for a main-course quantity.
Lettuce soup belongs to a long European habit of cooking lettuce rather than only dressing it: the French braised laitues and put lettuce into potages. Its appearance in the Butterick book -- published by a pattern company for the household-managing reader -- suits the frugal logic of the period, when coarse outer leaves and bolted heads from the kitchen garden were too good to discard and too tough to eat raw. The recipe's insistence on white stock and a 'quick boil to preserve the color' is in keeping with a turn-of-the-century taste for delicately tinted soups, an idea generally traced to French professional practice, where the appearance of a pale-green potage counted for a good deal.