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Consomme, Nivernaise
Prepare and strain into another saucepan a consomme and keep it simmering until required.
With the aid of a small Parisian potato scoop lift out all you can from three peeled, medium white turnips. Place these in a small saucepan with half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon sugar, half ounce butter and one gill water; mix a little, cover vegetables with lightly buttered paper, place cover on pan and set in oven fifty-five minutes. Remove, lift up paper, drop contents into the consomme, boil ten minutes more, pour consomme into a soup tureen and serve.
A clear soup whose whole character rests on the garnish: turnip balls glazed slowly under a paper lid, then dropped into hot consommé at the last moment. Nothing here is difficult, but the proportions and the oven work need translating.
- The hinge: glaze, do not stewThe buttered paper (a cartouche) sits directly on the turnips so the small amount of liquid reduces to a syrupy film rather than evaporating away. Check at 30 minutes; the balls should be tender and shining, not collapsing, and the pan should be nearly dry.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon.
- Parisian potato scoopA melon baller, ideally the small end, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Three medium turnips will give perhaps 30 to 40 balls; the trimmings are worth keeping for a purée or for the stockpot rather than discarding.
- Oven heatThe original gives none. A moderate oven, 325 to 350F, suits this; hotter and the sugar in the glaze will catch and brown before the turnips soften.
- Fifty-five minutesLong for turnip the size of a marble. Older storage roots may well have needed it; if yours are young and tender, start testing at half an hour.
- Ten minutes in the consomméEnough to warm the garnish through and let it perfume the broth, but the balls will soften further. If they were fully cooked in the oven, two or three minutes of simmering is sufficient to keep their shape.
- The consommé itselfAssumed to be already clarified elsewhere in the book. Use a properly clarified, well-seasoned beef or chicken consommé; adding the glazing liquid will cloud it slightly, so strain the turnips in if you want a mirror-clear bowl.
- YieldThe recipe does not say how much consomme to make; the turnip garnish from three roots would suit roughly four to six first-course bowls of about 6 fl oz.
In classical French garnish language a dish styled a la nivernaise takes its name from the Nivernais, the old province around Nevers, now the Nievre in Burgundy; the term is generally used for a garnish of carrots or turnips turned or scooped into neat uniform shapes and glazed in butter and a little sugar, the carrot version being the more usual. That this version uses turnips alone suggests the regional labels were being applied loosely. The recipe also records a piece of everyday professional equipment: the Parisian scoop, used for turning cheap roots into identical little spheres.