No. 324

Meissonier Soup

Potage a la Meissonier

Despumate on the side of the range, about three quarts of thickened soup, prepared with mutton broth. Remove the fat and hard parts from a cold, braised saddle of mutton; then take one pound of lean meat and pound it, mixing with it when cold, three minced white onions fried in butter and cooked in consomme. Pound all well together, and rub it forcibly through a fine sieve, and put this puree into a bowl with a little cayenne pepper and from four to eight raw egg-yolks, diluting with two gills of cream. At the last moment skim the fat from the soup, strain, and return it to the saucepan to let boil up, then set it aside and thicken it at once with the above preparation; heat it once more without boiling, and finish the soup with a piece of butter; pour it into a soup tureen and serve with a plateful of hot, small, round pieces of toasted bread.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A purée of braised mutton finished with an egg-and-cream liaison — essentially a potage lié in the old French service style. The whole dish stands or falls on the last thirty seconds.

The hinge: never let it boil after the liaisonOnce the egg-yolk and cream mixture goes in, the soup must not return to a simmer or the yolks will curdle into threads and the purée will break. Hold it between 160F and 175F, stirring, just long enough to thicken.
DespumateAn old cookery term from Latin despumare, to skim off froth. Ranhofer's separate direction, 'on the side of the range,' puts the pot over gentler, uneven heat so scum and fat gather to one side where they can be lifted off. On a gas or electric burner, set the pan slightly off-centre over low heat and skim repeatedly.
"Thickened soup"Ranhofer means a broth already bound, as with a white roux or blond velouté, cooked out and simmered smooth. It is not a clear consommé.
GillsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of cream is one cup.
Egg yolks"Four to eight" is not vagueness so much as a call on how rich you want it; six large yolks per three quarts is a reasonable middle. Temper them with a ladle of hot soup before adding, which the original assumes rather than states.
Cold braised saddle of muttonA saddle is the whole unsplit loin, and mutton — sheep generally over a year old — is rarely sold in the US. Braised lamb shoulder or leg, cooked the day before and chilled, gives similarly gelatinous, well-seasoned meat; one pound of trimmed lean is what you need.
Sieving"Rub it forcibly through a fine sieve" is the tamis stage. A food processor followed by a fine chinois does the same work in a fraction of the time, but do not skip the sieve — pounded meat leaves fibres that no blender fully breaks down.
Yield and serviceThree quarts serves ten to twelve as a first course. The croûtons are small rounds cut with a cutter, toasted dry and sent separately so they do not soften in the tureen.

A Little History

Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's for most of the thirty years after 1862, named dozens of dishes in The Epicurean (1894) after patrons, singers, statesmen and painters, and this one honours Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, the French military and genre painter whose small, minutely finished canvases commanded some of the highest prices of the nineteenth century and were avidly collected by wealthy Americans. Attaching his name to a soup was a compliment to the sitter and a flattery of the diner who recognised it. The construction is pure classical French practice of the period: nothing is wasted, since the dish exists to use up a cold braised saddle from an earlier service, and the finish with yolks and cream — a liaison — was the standard way to give body and sheen to a purée soup before stock reductions and blenders took over that job.