No. 344

Sherman Soup

Potage a la Sherman

Have a garnishing of stuffed cabbage leaves, prepared as follows: Blanch some cabbage leaves, drain and trim them nicely, then fill the insides with a quenelle and cooked fine herb forcemeat (No. 89), roll them up and lay them one beside the other, cover them with bouillon and sheet of buttered paper, cook in a slack oven for two hours, being careful to add some moistening when they become too reduced. Cut some carrots into three-eighth inch balls, blanch and cook them in broth; prepare a pluche of chervil; chervil leaves free of stalks, thrown into boiling water for one minute, then drained. Cut the cooked cabbage in slices of a quarter of an inch leaves, lay them on a deep dish, and dust over some grated parmesan cheese, over this place some thin slices of buttered bread browned in the oven, then another layer of cabbage, cheese and bread; pour over some very fat broth, besprinkle grated parmesan on top, and bake in the oven. Pour some consomme into a soup tureen, add the carrots and chervil, and serve the baked cabbage apart.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going and a numbered reference for every forcemeat. Stripped down, this is a clear consommé garnished with carrot balls and chervil, served alongside a gratin of stuffed cabbage layered with parmesan and toasted bread.

The hinge: two separate dishesThe tureen holds only consommé, carrots and chervil. The cabbage is baked in its own dish and passed at table, so the soup stays clear and the gratin stays crisp. Combining them collapses the whole point of the recipe.
"Slack oven"Around 250-275F. The stuffed leaves are braised, not roasted; at that temperature two hours is right for cabbage to go silky without the forcemeat drying out.
The forcemeat (No. 89)The recipe calls for a quenelle forcemeat mixed with cooked fine herbs, for which it cross-references No. 89; that recipe is not given here, so its exact composition is not on the page. Any well-seasoned mousseline-style farce of chicken or veal will stand in. Allow roughly a tablespoon per leaf.
Blanching the leavesTwo to three minutes in heavily salted boiling water, then straight into ice water. Pare down the thick central rib with a knife so the leaf rolls without splitting.
"Very fat broth"Unskimmed stock. The fat is what makes the gratin work; a defatted modern stock will leave the bread dry. Add a little butter or rendered poultry fat if your broth is lean.
Pluche of chervilJust the leaf tips off the stems, dipped in boiling water for a minute to fix the colour, then drained. Chervil is fragile and turns grey if it sits in hot soup; add it to the tureen at the last moment.
Carrot ballsThree-eighths of an inch is a small parisienne scoop. Blanch, then finish in broth so they carry flavour rather than dilute the consommé. Twenty to thirty for the tureen is ample.
The gratin bakeFinish the layered dish at 375-400F, about 20 minutes, until the top cheese is browned and the broth is bubbling at the edges. The bread should already be toasted before it goes in.
YieldThe original gives no quantities. Six cabbage rolls, about two quarts of consommé and a gratin dish serve six to eight.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working archive, with hundreds of dishes named for the patrons, politicians and generals who ate them. William Tecumseh Sherman lived in New York from the mid-1880s until his death in 1891, and the name is usually taken to refer to him, though the recipe itself says nothing on the point; this is one of a long run of commemorative garnishes and consommé names alongside the French ones. The construction itself is thoroughly classical: a clear consommé with a delicate garnish, plus a substantial meat dish served apart, so that a single course could offer both refinement and something to eat. The layered cabbage, cheese and toasted bread bathed in fat broth invites comparison with the soupes of Savoy and the Jura, where the same three ingredients have long been baked together, though Ranhofer refines it with parmesan and quenelle forcemeat rather than the rustic tomme and bacon said to characterise the mountain version.