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Julienne Soup
Peel some carrots, onions, leeks and turnips and cut them into thin strips of an equal size and length, either straight or scalloped. Cut some heads of celery into pieces the same size. Put two ounces of butter into a stewpan, place in the prepared vegetables and toss over a slow fire for a few minutes. Other vegetables may be added, such as cauliflower, peas or asparagus when in season. Pour in over the vegetables as much clear chicken broth as may be desired for the soup, and put in any nice pieces of cold roast chicken that may be available. When boiling, move the soup to the side of the fire and let it simmer until the vegetables are tender. Put some thin sippets of toast, or croutons of fried bread into a soup tureen, pour the soup over it and serve.
A clear vegetable soup that depends entirely on the knife work and on the quality of the broth. Nothing here is difficult, but the proportions are left to the cook.
- The cut is the dishJulienne means matchsticks roughly 1/8 inch square and 1 1/2 to 2 inches long. Cut them all to the same size so they finish cooking together; unevenly cut vegetables give you both mush and raw carrot in the same spoonful.
- Sweating, not browning"Toss over a slow fire for a few minutes" means low heat with no colour at all. Browned vegetables cloud the broth.
- QuantitiesThe recipe gives none. For 6 servings, about 4 cups total of prepared vegetables to 2 quarts of broth, with the 2 oz (4 tablespoons) butter as written.
- "Heads of celery"In 1896 this meant the whole bunch, not the root. Use the ribs, cut to match the other strips; the leaves can go into the broth and be strained out.
- Timing the additionsCarrots and turnips need 10-15 minutes of simmering, leeks and celery less. Peas, asparagus tips and cauliflower florets should go in during the final 3-5 minutes or they lose both colour and shape.
- The chickenCold roast chicken is being used up here, so add it near the end and only heat it through. Simmering already-cooked meat for the full time leaves it stringy.
- Broth"Clear" is the operative word. Use a well-skimmed chicken stock, strained; canned broth works but taste for salt before seasoning, as the recipe gives no seasoning instruction.
- SippetsSmall pieces or narrow fingers of toast. Put them in the tureen at the last moment, or serve them alongside so they do not dissolve.
Julienne soup was one of the fixed points of nineteenth-century restaurant service, valued less for any regional origin than as proof of a kitchen's discipline: identical matchsticks of root vegetable in a clear broth advertised both a good stockpot and a well-drilled staff. The term julienne for this cut appears in French cookery writing by the eighteenth century, though the person behind the name, if there was one, has never been identified. Its place in Oscar Tschirky's book is telling in another way: the instruction to use "any nice pieces of cold roast chicken that may be available" is a hotel kitchen's thrift written down plainly, the same logic that turned yesterday's roast into today's consomme garnish in households far smaller than the Waldorf.