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Clear Soup with Nudels
Prepare the desired quantity of clear broth from beef, and skim it well. Peel and slice some carrots, onions and green leeks, put them into a stewpan with a good sized lump of butter and one young cabbage cut into thin shreds, cover with the lid, and put them over a very slow fire, where they may stew gently until quite tender, shaking the pan now and then. When the vegetables are cooked put them into the soup, and boil the whole gently for thirty minutes or so. Make the nudels as follows: Slightly warm one-fourth pound of butter and beat it until creamy, then work in with it slowly and smoothly three heaping tablespoonfuls of flour and three well beaten eggs. Strain the soup and return it to the saucepan; when it boils up again put in small quantities of the paste, moulding them into round balls with the hands, which should be constantly dipped in water, and let it simmer for an hour or so longer. When ready pour the soup into a tureen and serve.
Despite the name, these are not noodles but butter-and-egg dumplings of the Austrian Nockerl type, poached in the finished broth. Two things in the original need rethinking: the hour-long simmer and the fate of the vegetables.
- The hinge: do not simmer the dumplings an hourButter-and-egg paste of this kind is set through in 8 to 15 minutes at a bare simmer, depending on size. An hour will either dissolve them into the broth or leave leaden lumps. Poach one test ball first, cut it open, and time the rest from that.
- The vegetables are flavouring, not garnishThe carrot, onion, leek and cabbage are sweated in butter, simmered in the broth, then strained out and discarded — the point is a sweet, rounded consommé. If you want vegetables in the bowl, cook a second small batch separately and add them at the end.
- "A very slow fire" and a covered panThis is sweating, not browning: lowest heat, lid on, 20 to 30 minutes, shaking occasionally, with no colour taken. Any scorching will carry straight into the finished soup.
- Quantities for the dumplingsFour ounces (1 stick, 115 g) of butter to three heaping tablespoons of flour and three eggs is a very soft paste. The original expects it to be moulded straight away with wet hands rather than rolled; if it will not hold a shape at all, a short rest in the cold or a little more flour, added a spoonful at a time, will firm it.
- Wet hands, small ballsThe instruction to keep dipping the hands in water is the practical part of the method. Work quickly, keep the balls no larger than a hazelnut, and drop them in as you go; they swell noticeably.
- Skimming and clarity"Skim it well" is doing a lot of work here. Chill the beef broth and lift the set fat off, then strain through a cloth after the vegetables come out — the butter in the dumplings will add its own richness back.
- YieldThe recipe fixes no quantity of broth ('the desired quantity'), so servings are a matter of judgement; the paste as given is generous, and worth halving for a small dinner rather than trying to store it.
Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, was assembled at a moment when New York hotel cooking was French in structure but heavily staffed and patronised by German and Austrian speakers, and the middle-European dishes sit in it without apology. "Nudel" here may reflect an older, looser German usage in which Nudel could arguably cover soft egg-paste dumplings as readily as cut noodles; what the recipe actually describes is close to the Austrian Butternockerl or the south German Butterklösschen still served in clear beef broth today. The clear beef broth sweetened with butter-stewed root vegetables and cabbage is said to have been common in nineteenth-century hotel kitchens — the vegetables were bought for flavour and thrown away, an economy of taste rather than of money.