No. 287

Bennett Soup

Soupe a la Bennett

This soup as made renowned by an article that appeared in the New York Herald, March, 1874.

Put into a soup pot six gallons of water, take a piece of the shoulder of beef (the chuck), weighing ten pounds; cut off all the fat and remove the bones; divide the meat into inch squares; set the bones and trimmings into a net, and place all into a pot with the water. Set the pot on the fire, and let boil; at the first boil remove all the scum arising to the surface, then add salt, a spoonful of whole peppers tied in a small bag with three cloves, one pound of carrots, and three-quarters of a pound of turnips, cut in half inch squares; half a pound of celery cut in quarter of an inch pieces, four ounces of onion, three-sixteenth inch squares, four pounds of cabbage, suppressing all the hard parts, and one pint of well washed barley. Cook for three hours, taste to see whether the seasoning be correct, stir in a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and serve hot.

It this soup should be made with dry beans, they need to be soaked in cold water twelve hours previous, and added to the soup, after it has boiled one hour.

With dried whole peas.—Soak them the previous evening, and add them to the soup, after it has boiled one hour.

With lentils.—Add them after one hour.

With rice.—Add it after two hours and a half.

With split peas.—Add them after one hour.

With potatoes.—Add them after two hours.

Three hours cooking will be sufficiently long to boil this soup, no matter which garnishing is used. Put in the vegetables according to the time designated for their cooking, so that the soup be always ready after three hours boiling, and see that the vegetables are not too well done. Remove the net containing the bones and trimmings, take out the meat and the gelatinous parts adhering to the bones, cut them up into small pieces, and serve them with the soup.

← No. 286 Barsch Polish Style Soups & Broths No. 288 Benoiton Soup →

For the Modern Kitchen

A charity-kitchen formula printed at its original scale: six gallons of water and ten pounds of beef. Everything below assumes you will either divide it down or commit to a stockpot the size of a laundry bucket.

Scale and yieldAs written this starts from six gallons of water before any reduction, well over eighty servings, and needs a pot larger than a domestic kitchen normally holds. Dividing by eight gives a manageable batch: 3 quarts water, 1 1/4 lb chuck, 2 oz carrot, 1 1/2 oz turnip, 1 oz celery, 1/2 oz onion, 8 oz cabbage, 1/4 cup barley.
The cut"Shoulder of beef (the chuck)" is ordinary bone-in chuck. Buy it on the bone if you can, since the bones and trimmings do the work here; boneless chuck plus a pound of beef marrow or knuckle bones is the equivalent.
The netA soup net was a loose muslin or coarse-mesh bag for bones and scraps, so they could be lifted out whole. A double layer of cheesecloth tied with kitchen twine, or a large stainless mesh basket, does the same job.
The pepper bagThe spoonful of whole peppercorns and three cloves tied in a bag is a sachet. Tie it to the pot handle so it can be found and pulled before serving; loose cloves in a six-gallon pot are unrecoverable.
Salt is unspecifiedRanhofer simply says "add salt." Salt lightly at the beginning and correct at the end, as the recipe itself instructs, since the liquid reduces over three hours.
Barley by volumeA pint of barley here is a volume measure, about 14 to 15 oz of pearl barley. It goes in at the start with the vegetables and will thicken the soup noticeably by the third hour.
SkimmingThe scum must come off at the first boil, before the vegetables go in, or it emulsifies into the broth and clouds it. After that, hold the pot at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil.
Vegetable timingThe staggered additions exist so everything finishes at the three-hour mark. At reduced scale the vegetables will overcook well before then; add carrots, turnip and celery in the last hour and the cabbage in the last 30 minutes, and expect the meat rather than the vegetables to set the total time.
Serving the meatThe instruction to cut the meat and the gelatinous parts from the bones into small pieces and serve them with the soup is the point of the dish. It is a one-pot meal, not a clear broth.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his long service as chef at Delmonico's — running, with a break, from 1862 to 1896 — and this entry is an odd guest in a book otherwise devoted to terrapin and truffled capons. The winter following the Panic of 1873 brought severe unemployment to New York, and Ranhofer cites an article of March 1874 in the New York Herald, then under James Gordon Bennett Jr. The formula is a plain one, built on a cheap braising cut and extended with barley or whatever pulse was to hand. That Ranhofer preserved it beside his banquet menus suggests he thought the calculation worth keeping ",