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Cream of Cauliflower
Pick off the green leaves of a large head of sound white cauliflower. Drop it into three quarts boiling water for ten minutes; remove and drain; cut in small pieces and place in a saucepan with one ounce of butter, cook for five minutes, stirring once in a while, then moisten with one quart broth and three pints of water, add two branches parsley, one branch chervil, one onion with two cloves stuck in it and one bay leaf. Season with a level tablespoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper and one saltspoon grated nutmeg, then let boil very slowly for one hour.
Mix in another saucepan one ounce butter with two and a half ounces flour; heat while stirring for two minutes, then strain the cauliflower broth over this roux and mix well. Pound the cauliflower very finely in the mortar and return to the soup, lightly mix and let boil for fifteen minutes, pour in half pint each milk and cream, mix well and boil for five minutes more. Dilute two egg yolks with three tablespoons cream, add to the soup with a half ounce butter and continually mix while heating for two minutes. Remove, strain through a sieve into a basin, then through a cheesecloth into a tureen, and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A full classical cream soup: blanch, simmer, thicken with roux, purée, enrich, strain twice. The steps are worth keeping, but several measures and one critical temperature need translating.
- The hinge: the yolk liaisonOnce the egg yolks and cream go in, the soup must not reach a boil or the yolks will curdle and the texture is gone. Hold it below about 180F, stirring, for the two minutes given, then pull it off the heat.
- Saltspoons and gillsSaltspoons -- A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons cayenne is half a teaspoon, which is assertive for two and a half quarts of soup; start with a quarter teaspoon. The nutmeg works out at a quarter teaspoon.
- The salt is heavyA level tablespoon of salt plus a quart of broth reads as very salty by current taste, especially with commercial stock. Add a teaspoon at the start and correct at the end, after the cream has gone in and dulled the seasoning.
- Liquid volumeOne quart broth and three pints water is 2.5 quarts, which reduces over the hour's simmer. With the purée and the milk and cream added, expect roughly two and a half to three quarts finished soup, serving eight to ten as a first course.
- Butter and flour by weightOne ounce butter is two tablespoons; two and a half ounces flour is about half a cup. That is a fairly stiff roux for this volume, and it is what carries the body once the purée is thinned by the milk and cream.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh. Substitute a little extra parsley with a few tarragon leaves, or leave it out; the onion, cloves and bay do most of the aromatic work.
- Pounding in a mortarA blender or immersion blender does in seconds what the mortar did by hand, and gives a smoother base. The final pass through sieve and cheesecloth is still worth doing if you want the glossy, seamless texture the recipe is after.
- BlanchingTen minutes in boiling water sets the colour and takes off the sulphurous edge; the cauliflower finishes during the hour of simmering. Drain it as directed before it goes into the butter, since the broth and water are measured separately.
Alexander Filippini spent decades in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906) reflects that training: a cream soup here is not a purée with milk stirred in but a full French construction with blanching, an aromatic garnish, a roux, a purée, a cream enrichment, an egg-yolk liaison and two straining stages. Cauliflower soup of this kind belongs to the family the classical repertoire files under Dubarry, a name traditionally said to honour Madame du Barry and applied to cauliflower dishes as a late-classical convention of French menu language. The double strain, through sieve and then cheesecloth into the tureen, is the mark of a restaurant kitchen with staff to spare.