No. 292

Cabbage Soup

Potage aux Choux

Remove the outer leaves from a medium three pound cabbage, and divide it into four parts; wash well in plenty of water, then blanch in boiling water for ten minutes, with the addition of half a pound of salt pork, cut lengthwise in two; drain the cabbage and pork, refresh them thoroughly in cold water for half an hour, then drain and squeeze out all the water from the cabbage. Put the cabbage into a saucepan, season with a little salt and pepper and lay on top one pound of brisket of beef, a bunch of parsley garnished with bay leaf, two medium carrots cut in four, two large onions with two cloves in them, and the lard that was blanched with the cabbage. Moisten with three quarts of boiling water, skim, close the lid hermetically and boil slowly for three hours. Drain and cut the cabbage into small pieces, set them into a soup tureen, with some sliced bread dried in the oven, pour the soup over and serve.

← No. 291 Brunoise Soup with Quenelles Soups & Broths No. 293 Calf's Feet Soup, English Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A plain French farmhouse cabbage pot, scaled for a professional kitchen. Nothing here is difficult, but two of Ranhofer's terms will mislead a modern reader.

"The lard that was blanched"This is not rendered pig fat. Lard in French means bacon or salt pork, and the instruction simply returns the half pound of salt pork you blanched with the cabbage to the pot. Use a slab of unsmoked salt pork or streaky bacon, in one or two pieces.
The blanch-and-refresh stepTen minutes in boiling water followed by half an hour in cold water pulls out the sulphurous bite of long-cooked cabbage and much of the salt from the pork. Skipping it gives a noticeably harsher soup. Squeeze the cabbage hard afterward, as directed, or the water it holds will dilute the broth.
"Close the lid hermetically"Simply a tight-fitting lid; period cooks sometimes sealed a lid with a strip of flour-and-water paste for long braises. A heavy Dutch oven with its lid on is the equivalent.
Three hours at a bare simmerCabbage will collapse to nothing at a rolling boil, and a one-pound piece of brisket cooked hard turns stringy. Keep the surface barely trembling; the brisket should be sliceable, not shredded.
SkimmingSkim after the boiling water goes in and again in the first twenty minutes, before the lid goes on. Grey protein foam that stays in the pot clouds the broth permanently.
Quantities and yieldThree quarts of water, a three-pound cabbage, a pound of brisket and half a pound of salt pork will give eight to ten servings as a first course, and will need a pot of at least six quarts. Under a tight lid the liquid will reduce only a little over three hours.
SaltSeason with a very light hand at the start. Salt pork and a three-hour reduction will do most of the work; correct at the end, after the meat comes out.
The meatsRanhofer serves only the cabbage and broth over dried bread. The brisket and salt pork are best sliced and served alongside with mustard and coarse salt, as in a pot-au-feu, rather than discarded.
The bread"Sliced bread dried in the oven" means stale country loaf crisped through in a low oven, not toast. It should be dry enough to soak without turning to paste.

A Little History

Potage aux choux is the plainest kind of French country soup: cabbage, a piece of salted pork, root vegetables and whatever fresh beef the household could spare, simmered in one pot and poured over dried bread. It belongs to the same family as garbure and pot-au-feu, where the broth is the first course and the boiled meats follow. Its appearance in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) is worth noting, since that book records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, the most elaborate restaurant in the country. Ranhofer numbered well over a thousand recipes and included the peasant repertoire alongside the truffled and glazed showpieces, partly because a professional cook was expected to know the whole range, and partly because cabbage soup with a slice of brisket was still what a great many diners actually wanted to eat. The recipe also calls for blanching the cabbage and refreshing it in cold water before the long simmer.