No. 295

Chamberlain Soup

Potage a la Chamberlain

Keep boiling on the side of the range, two quarts of thickened soup (No. 195); boil and skim it well. Have four ounces of minced onions, Bermuda ones in preference, blanch them in plenty of water, then drain and fry them in butter; moisten them with one quart of broth, adding a pinch of sugar. When done, press them forcibly through a fine sieve, and mix this puree to the thick stock; boil, then skim, and when ready to serve, thicken the soup with a thickening of four egg-yolks, one gill of cream, and two ounces of fine butter. Serve separately a garnishing of small cream chicken forcemeat timbales molded in timbale molds (No. 5, Fig. 137), poached and cut in two crosswise, putting them into a vegetable dish with a little consomme added, and serve.

← No. 294 Calf's Tail a la Rundell Soups & Broths No. 296 Champetre Soup →

For the Modern Kitchen

An onion velouté finished with an egg-and-cream liaison, from Charles Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen. The cross-references are to other numbered recipes in the same book, so a few substitutions are needed before you can start.

The hinge: the liaison must not boilOnce the four yolks, cream and butter go in, the soup must be held below a simmer — around 175F. A boil will scramble the yolks and leave the soup grainy beyond repair. Temper the yolk-cream mixture with a ladle of hot soup first, then stir it back off the heat.
"Thickened soup (No. 195)"Ranhofer's No. 195 is his thickened-soup base, apparently a white, flour-thickened stock of the velouté type. A velouté made with veal or chicken broth (roughly equal weights of butter and flour, cooked out and skimmed) is a reasonable stand-in for the two quarts called for.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. With four yolks and 2 oz butter, that is a rich but not unusual finish for two-plus quarts.
Bermuda onionsA large, mild, flat sweet onion, once shipped in quantity from Bermuda and now largely displaced by Vidalia, Walla Walla and similar sweet varieties. Any sweet onion will do; a standard yellow onion will make the soup noticeably sharper, which is what the blanching step is meant to prevent.
Blanching then fryingDropping the minced onion into plenty of boiling water before frying pulls out the harsh sulphur notes. Drain it well and cook it in butter without colour — this is a white soup, and browned onion will muddy both the taste and the look.
"Press forcibly through a fine sieve"A blender or immersion blender does this in seconds, but still pass the purée through a fine chinois afterwards. The point of the original instruction is a soup with no fibre in it at all.
SkimmingHolding the pot at the side of the range, so it simmers on one side only, drives the scum and fat to the cooler edge where it can be lifted off. On a flat modern burner, set the pan half off the heat to get the same effect.
The timbale garnishSmall dariole or timbale moulds lined and filled with a chicken forcemeat lightened with cream, poached in a water bath until just set, then halved crosswise. Quenelles shaped with two spoons and poached in broth give the same effect with less equipment. They are served alongside in a moistened dish, not floated in the tureen.
YieldRoughly three quarts finished (two quarts of thickened soup plus the quart of broth used for the onions), which would serve ten to twelve as a first course rather than a main.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its soup chapter runs to hundreds of numbered entries built on a small set of mother preparations that are cross-referenced rather than repeated. Naming dishes after patrons, ambassadors and public figures was common in kitchens of this kind, and the Chamberlain here may well be a compliment of that sort rather than a place or an ingredient, though the book does not say so. The construction is orthodox nineteenth-century French: a flour-thickened white stock, a vegetable puree worked into it, and a last-minute liaison of yolks, cream and raw butter, a finish generally reckoned older than the roux and one that survives in dishes like blanquette de veau. The separately served garnish of forcemeat timbales is consistent with service a la russe, where courses arrived in sequence and a garnish could be passed on its own dish rather than drowned in the tureen.