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First Stock
Procure a piece of beef, the breast part will answer, put it into the stockpot with some trimmings of beef, pour in a sufficient quantity of cold water, allowing about two pints to the pound of beef, and set it over the fire. Keep it well skimmed, removing the scum as soon as it rises to the top, and pouring in occasionally a little cold water to force the scum to the surface. When quite clear put in a few prepared vegetables, such as turnips, carrots, onions stuck with cloves, leeks and celery; add one or two tablespoonfuls of salt, move the stockpot to the edge of the fire and allow the contents to simmer for five or six hours. Skim off all the fat and strain the broth through a fine hair-sieve into a basin. When using the broth pour it out carefully, so as to avoid disturbing the sediment at the bottom. This broth is used for making any other kind of broth.
A classic French-style premier bouillon, written for a coal range where a pot could sit at the cool edge all afternoon. Nothing here is difficult, but a few of the assumptions need translating.
- The hinge: cold water, never a boilThe stock is started cold and held at a bare simmer so that proteins coagulate slowly and rise as scum instead of emulsifying into the liquid. A rolling boil at any point clouds the broth permanently and no amount of later straining will fix it. Look for a lazy bubble breaking every second or two, around 180-190F.
- Ratio and yieldTwo pints of water per pound of beef, as directed. Five pounds of brisket and trimmings in about ten pints of water is five quarts before cooking, and appreciably less after five or six hours of simmering; how much less depends on how tightly the pot is covered.
- "Breast part" and trimmingsThis is brisket. Ask a butcher for beef shin or marrow bones as the trimmings; packaged "soup bones" are often knuckle, which is fine and gelatin-rich. The old kitchen had a steady supply of scraps that a home cook has to buy deliberately.
- Edge of the fireThe stockpot was moved off the hot plate to a cooler ring where it could not boil. On a modern hob use the smallest burner at its lowest setting, or hold it in a 200-250F oven with the lid ajar, which regulates itself better than any burner.
- Onions stuck with clovesTwo or three cloves pressed into a peeled onion, no more. It is a period signature and it dominates quickly. Add all the vegetables only after the stock has cleared, as Oscar directs; put them in at the start and their sugars and starches muddy the skimming.
- SaltOne or two tablespoonfuls for the whole pot is light, and deliberately so, since this is a base that will be reduced further into other soups and sauces. Keep it under-seasoned and correct at the end of whatever you make from it.
- Hair sieveA fine-mesh strainer lined with damp muslin or a coffee filter does the same job. Ladle rather than pour, and stop while an inch of cloudy liquid still covers the sediment.
- Fat and storageSkimming hot fat is thankless; chill the strained stock overnight and lift the solid cap off in one piece. Refrigerated stock keeps about four days, or freeze it. If the trimmings were gelatin-rich the stock may set to a jelly when cold, which is a sign it worked.
The Waldorf kitchen ran on the French brigade system, and this page is the base of the whole edifice: first stock, from which consommés, veloutés and much of the sauce list descend. The logic is that of Escoffier's generation, set down for an American audience, and the practice of making one large clear stock and deriving everything from it was a mark of the professional kitchen. The insistence on beef breast rather than bone alone reflects a period when stock was expected to carry real meat flavour and body, not merely gelatin; the phrase "this broth is used for making any other kind of broth" states that economy in one sentence.