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Celery Broth (Have three medium stalks fresh)
Have three medium stalks fresh celery. Pick off all leaves and roots, keeping only the perfect hearts for to-night's dinner. Cut the branches into small pieces, and the roots as well, then thoroughly wash in cold water, drain well and place in a saucepan with one and a half pounds finely chopped lean, raw shin of beef, two branches of well-cleaned parsley, one branch of chervil and a fine branch of chives. Add two egg whites; season with two teaspoons of salt and two saltspoons white pepper; stir with a wooden spoon for five minutes, then gradually pour in two and a half quarts water, continually stirring while adding it; place the pan on the open fire and continually mix until it comes to a boil. Shift the pan to the corner of the range and let gently simmer for one and a half hours. Strain the broth through a cheesecloth into six cups and serve. If any of the broth is left over, strain it into the white broth.
This is a clarified consommé in miniature: chopped lean beef and egg white lift the impurities out as the pot heats, and the celery supplies the flavour. Everything depends on a gentle heat once the liquid moves.
- Stop stirring at the boilThe beef and egg white form a raft that traps sediment. Stir only while the pot is cold and warming; once it starts to move, leave it alone or you will break the raft and cloud the broth beyond rescue.
- "Three medium stalks" means three headsIn 1900s usage a stalk of celery is the whole bunch, what a supermarket sells as a head; the individual pieces are branches or ribs. Three heads is right for two and a half quarts of water.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon. The two teaspoons of salt is on the light side for 2.5 quarts reduced by 90 minutes; taste at the end.
- Shin of beefBeef shin, sold as shank, gives body and clean flavour from its connective tissue and lean muscle, and it was also an inexpensive cut. Ask for it boneless and chop it fine, or pulse it in a food processor, so it disperses through the water instead of clumping.
- Chervil and chivesChervil is still sold fresh in some markets but disappears fast; a little tarragon plus extra parsley approximates its anise note. A "fine branch" of chives means a small bundle, perhaps ten stems.
- "The corner of the range"On a coal range the corner was a cooler spot. On a modern hob this means the lowest setting that keeps an occasional bubble breaking the surface. A hard boil will emulsify fat back into the broth and cloud it.
- StrainingLine a sieve with damp cheesecloth in two or three layers and ladle rather than pour, disturbing the raft as little as possible. Do not press the solids.
- Yield and finishingSix cups, as stated. The hearts held back for "to-night's dinner" would most likely have gone raw to the table; sliced thin, they also make a good garnish floated on the finished broth.
The International Cook Book is generally credited to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and the method here is straight restaurant practice scaled down to a household pot: lean meat and egg white whisked into cold water, brought up slowly, then held below a boil so the coagulating protein sweeps the liquid clear. That the recipe treats celery as valuable enough to have its roots washed and used, while the hearts are reserved for a separate appearance at dinner, says something about the vegetable's standing at the turn of the century. Celery was a comparatively expensive crop, grown in muck soils around Kalamazoo and elsewhere, and it was served raw in tall cut-glass vases as a course in its own right; nothing of the head was wasted. The closing instruction to tip leftovers into the white broth is the same economy at the stockpot level, the kitchen's running reserve of light stock topped up from whatever was made that day.