Home › Soups › Beef Soup (Take the cracked joints)
Beef Soup (Take the cracked joints)
Take the cracked joints of beef, and after putting the meat in the pot and covering it well with water, let it come to a boil, when it should be well skimmed. Set the pot where the meat will simmer slowly until it is thoroughly done, keeping it closely covered all the time. The next day, or when cold, remove the fat which hardens on the top of the soup. Peel, wash and slice three good-sized potatoes and put them into the soup; cut up half a head of white cabbage in shreds, and add to this a pint of Shaker corn that has been soaked over night, two onions, one head of celery, and tomatoes if desired. When these are done, and they should simmer slowly, care being taken that they do not burn, strain (or not as preferred) the soup and serve. The different varieties of beef soup are formed by this method of seasoning and the different vegetables used in preparing it, after the joints have been well boiled. Besides onions, celery, cabbages, tomatoes and potatoes, many use a few carrots, turnips, beets, and force-meat balls seasoned with spice; rice or barley will give the soup consistency, and are to be preferred to flour for the purpose. Parsley, thyme and sage are the favorite herbs for seasoning, but should be used sparingly. To make force-meat balls, add to one pound chopped beef one egg, a small lump butter, a cup or less of bread-crumbs; season with salt and pepper, and moisten with the water from stewed meat; make in balls and fry brown, or make egg-balls by boiling eggs, mashing the yolks with a silver spoon, and mixing with one raw yolk and one tea-spoon flour; season with salt and pepper, make into balls, drop in soup just before serving. - Mrs. H. B. Sherman.
This is really a method rather than a fixed recipe: a two-day beef stock, then whatever vegetables the household had. A few of its terms and habits need translating.
- Cracked jointsAsk the butcher for beef shin and knuckle bones sawn across, ideally with some meat still attached; oxtail works too. Cracking exposes the marrow and collagen, which is the whole point. Figure 4-5 lb of bone and meat to 4 quarts of water.
- Shaker cornDried sweet corn, air-dried on the cob and shelled; the Shaker communities were known for dried garden produce of this kind. Modern dried sweet corn (sometimes labeled Pennsylvania Dutch dried corn) is the closest equivalent, though it is often oven-dried rather than air-dried, and it still needs its overnight soak. A pint runs roughly 8-10 oz dry.
- The overnight coolingThe instruction to let the pot stand until the fat hardens assumes a cold larder. Cool the stock quickly in a shallow pan or an ice bath, then refrigerate it; stock held for hours at room temperature is a textbook medium for Clostridium perfringens. Chilled overnight, the fat cap lifts off in one sheet, exactly as described.
- "Simmer slowly"Bare motion at the surface, around 185-195F. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat back into the liquid and clouds the stock. Four to five hours on the bones is enough; six will not hurt.
- SeasoningNo salt is called for in the soup or the stock; salt appears only in the force-meat and egg balls. Salt the finished soup to taste.
- Vegetable timingAdded together as written, the cabbage will collapse before the potatoes are done. Give the soaked corn, onions, celery and potatoes 20-25 minutes, then the shredded cabbage for the last 8-10, and tomatoes last of all.
- Force-meat and egg ballsThe force-meat balls are fried before going in, so they hold together; the egg balls are not, and they are fragile. The recipe has them dropped in just before serving; keep the pot off the boil at that point or they will break up. About two hard-cooked yolks per raw yolk gives a workable paste.
- The silver spoonSilver was probably specified because iron or steel could discolor the yolks and leave a metallic taste. Any stainless or wooden implement does the job now.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; on the proportions suggested above, expect roughly 4 quarts, or eight to ten servings.
Nineteenth-century American cookbooks often treat beef soup less as a dish than as a household system: bones from the week's joints went into the pot, the stock was degreased by chilling and lifting the fat, and the base was then finished differently each day depending on what the garden or the cellar offered. This entry is unusually frank about that, spelling out the variations rather than pretending to a single recipe. The mention of Shaker corn places it in a broad nineteenth-century context rather than pinning a date: the Shaker communities were known through much of the 1800s for reliable packaged seeds and dried garden produce, and their dried sweet corn carried enough of a reputation that a cookbook could name it as a shorthand for quality. The Dixie Cook Book, like most compilations of its era, credits contributions to individual women by name, and Mrs. Sherman's entry reads like a working cook explaining her method to a neighbor rather than a formal receipt.