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Rice-and-Pea Soup
Wash thoroughly one teacupful of rice, put it into a saucepan with one pint of white stock, and allow it to boil gently until it is very tender. Put one-half pint of young green peas into another saucepan with one pint of white stock and stew them until tender. When both the above vegetables are cooked, stir them together and add as much more stock as will make the required quantity of soup; when boiling move the pan to the side of the fire, and stir in quickly the yolk of an egg that has been beaten up with one pint of cream. Season to the taste with salt and pepper, pour the soup into a soup tureen, and serve it with a plateful of sippets of toast or croutons of bread fried in butter to a delicate brown.
A classic egg-and-cream liaison soup from the Waldorf's kitchen. The whole dish hinges on the last step: once the yolk goes in, the soup must never boil again.
- The liaisonPull the pan off direct heat before the yolk-and-cream mixture goes in, and keep it below about 180F afterward. Temper by whisking a ladle of hot soup into the yolk and cream first; if it boils, the yolk scrambles into threads and the soup is finished.
- TeacupfulA Victorian teacup measure is smaller than a modern mug; sources reckon it anywhere from a half to three-quarters of a cup. Taken at about 3/4 cup it gives roughly 5 oz of raw rice, which will absorb the full pint of stock and then some.
- White stockAn unbrowned veal or chicken stock, made from bones blanched rather than roasted. A good low-sodium chicken stock stands in; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, which will muddy the color the soup is named for.
- A pint of creamThat is 2 cups, against the two pints of stock the recipe names plus however much more is added to reach "the required quantity," which it never fixes. Either way it reads very rich. Half a pint to a pint of cream with two yolks gives a better-balanced soup; scale to taste rather than pouring in the full quantity blind.
- PeasHalf a pint of shelled young peas is about a cupful, roughly 5 oz by weight. Frozen peas need 3 to 5 minutes, not the long stewing the original assumes of field-fresh shelling peas, whose sugars turn starchy soon after picking.
- TextureAs written this stays a chunky soup. If you want the smooth pale-green purée that the cream and yolk suggest, blend the peas with their stock before combining, and reserve a spoonful of whole peas for garnish.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread cut from a crustless slice; the recipe offers either toasted sippets or croutons fried in butter to a delicate brown. They are served alongside on a separate plate so they stay crisp.
- YieldAround 2 quarts finished, serving six to eight as a first course. Reheat gently and never above a bare steam, or the liaison will break.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) is a large compendium associated with the Waldorf's kitchen, and this soup shows the French classical framework the hotel ran on: a base of white stock, a starch and a vegetable cooked separately so each keeps its character, and a finish with egg yolks and cream, the liaison that turns a broth into a velvety potage. Rice and green peas together in a light stock is a combination found across nineteenth-century soup chapters under various names, and it invites comparison with Italian risi e bisi, though Oscar's version is thinner and richer rather than a thick spoonable dish. The instruction to "move the pan to the side of the fire" is a coal-range direction: the cook shifted the pot off the hot plate to a cooler part of the top, the period equivalent of turning the burner off before adding the eggs.