No. 265

Cream of Sweet Potatoes a la Gerard

Creme de Patates a la Gerard

Have two pounds of sweet potatoes previously steamed; peel, mince and fry them in four ounces of butter, moistening with two and a half quarts of white broth; cook until done, then strain and pound them in a mortar, diluting the puree with its own broth, and in case it be too thick, add some more white broth and a pint of veloute (No. 415); strain the soup through a sieve or tammy, then return it to the saucepan, and heat it to boiling point without allowing it to boil. Thicken with egg-yolks, cream and butter, using two egg-yolks, two gills of cream and two ounces of butter for each quart.

The Garnishing to be of one-quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs pounded in a mortar, and mingling with it gradually two eggs and a third of its volume of pate-a-choux (No. 132); roll it into small balls, three-sixteenths of a inch in size, and fry them in clarified butter, serving them the same time as the soup.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French cream soup from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, built in the old style: vegetable purée loosened with broth, enriched with velouté, then finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Nothing here is difficult, but the finish is unforgiving.

The hinge: never boil after the liaisonOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, the soup must not reach a simmer or the yolks will curdle into threads. Bring the soup to just under boiling first, then temper the yolk-cream mixture with a ladleful of hot soup and stir it back off the heat, holding the pot at about 175F.
Gills and quartsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of cream per quart is one cup. The liaison is therefore, per quart of soup: 2 yolks, 1 cup cream, 2 oz butter — very rich by current standards, and easily cut by half without harming the texture.
White brothRanhofer's white broth is an uncoloured veal or poultry stock rather than a browned one; the recipe itself gives no further detail. A light chicken stock or a good vegetable stock stands in. Two and a half quarts for two pounds of potatoes is deliberately loose; the purée backs down, not thickens up.
Velouté (No. 415)A blond roux cooked with white stock, simmered and skimmed. A pint of it is essentially a pint of thin white sauce; if you skip it, the soup loses body and you may want a little extra potato instead.
Mortar and tammyThe pounding and the tammy woven cloth through which the pur rced or wrung how nineteenth-century kitchens got a smooth pur nder or immersion blender does it in seconds; pass through a fine chinois afterward if you want Delmonico's texture. Avoid over-working a starchy pur ch can turn it gluey.
The garnish ballsBreadcrumbs bound with egg and one-third their volume of pâte à choux, rolled tiny and fried in clarified butter. Three-sixteenths of an inch is roughly the size of a peppercorn; expect the balls to swell slightly. Fry at about 340F and serve them the moment the soup goes out, or they soften.
Sweet potatoesIn 1894 New York these would generally have been the drier, pale-fleshed type rather than the moist orange varieties now sold as "yams." Orange-fleshed potatoes will give a sweeter, brighter soup; the drier kind gives the mealier, more restrained result the recipe expects.
Yield and seasoningAs written this makes roughly three quarts finished soup, or ten to twelve first-course servings. Ranhofer assumes seasoning is understood — salt the soup before the liaison, and a scrape of nutmeg or white pepper suits it.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of the food he served during more than thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York. The book's cream soups follow a single formula — vegetable cooked in white broth, puréed, bolstered with velouté, finished with a yolk-and-cream liaison — and the interest lies in which vegetable and which name is attached. The "à la Gerard" tag is one of hundreds of such dedications in the book, honouring patrons, public figures and colleagues; Ranhofer rarely explains them, and most are now unidentifiable. What is notable is the vegetable itself: the sweet potato was a homely American staple, common in Southern cooking and at market stalls, and here it is pushed through a tammy and enriched with cream and choux-paste garnish until it can hold a place on a French carte. That translation of native ingredients into haute cuisine vocabulary is much of what Delmonico's was selling.