No. 250

Cream of Brussels Sprouts

Creme de Choux de Bruxelles

Blanch in boiling, salted water for ten minutes, two pounds of well cleaned Brussels sprouts, drain and fry them in butter, then moisten with two quarts of white broth, and when cooked, drain them into a mortar, and mash them to a paste; dilute this puree with its own broth, and should it be too thick, add some more white broth, then strain through a sieve or tammy, and add one pint of veloute (No. 415); heat all up without boiling and thicken with two egg-yolks, one gill of cream and two ounces of butter, this being the quantity to use for every quart of soup. Serve separately a garnishing of brioche croutons (No. 51), one quarter of an inch square, and dried in the oven.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock, velouté and brioche already on hand; the method itself is straightforward once those are sorted.

The hinge: the liaison must not boilEgg yolks and cream are added off the boil and the soup is brought only to about 170-180F, stirring, until it coats a spoon. A simmer will curdle the yolks and no amount of straining will bring the soup back.
White brothA pale, unroasted veal or chicken stock, unsalted or lightly salted. Any good low-sodium chicken stock stands in; avoid dark or browned stock, which muddies the colour.
Velouté (No. 415)A blond roux — equal butter and flour cooked without colour — moistened with the same white broth and simmered until smooth. A pint here is 2 cups, and it is what gives the soup body beyond the sprout purée.
GillHalf a cup. The finishing quantities — 2 yolks, 1 gill cream, 2 oz butter — are given per quart of finished soup, so scale them to what you actually have in the pot, which will be around three quarts.
Mortar and tammyA blender or food processor replaces the mortar, and a fine chinois or conical strainer replaces the tammy (a woollen straining cloth). Push everything through: sprout leaves leave stringy fibres that a blender will not fully break down.
BlanchingTen minutes in boiling salted water is longer than modern practice, but here it is deliberate — the sprouts are going to a purée, and the blanching water carries off some of the sulphurous edge. Refresh in cold water if you want to keep the colour green.
Frying in butterKeep the heat moderate and do not let the sprouts colour. Browning at this stage turns a pale green soup grey-brown.
Brioche croûtonsQuarter-inch dice of brioche dried in a 300F oven until crisp and just golden, about 10-15 minutes. Serve them alongside so they stay crisp.
YieldTwo quarts of broth plus a pint of velouté gives roughly three quarts after straining — eight to ten first-course servings.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print — nearly 3,500 numbered entries, cross-referenced to one another exactly as this one points back to the velouté at No. 415 and the brioche croûtons at No. 51. The cream soups form a long, formulaic series: blanch a vegetable, sweat it, cook it in white broth, purée, strain, bind with velouté, finish with a liaison of yolks, cream and butter. Brussels sprouts arrived in that series as one vegetable among dozens; they are generally traced to the region around Brussels, where they are said to have been grown since at least the eighteenth century. The soup's signature is the finish — the yolk-and-cream liaison held below the boil.