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Creme Soubise
Finely slice four medium onions, place in a saucepan with two and a half pints milk and one and a half pints white broth. Season with two teaspoons salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper, and a saltspoon grated nutmeg; boil rather slowly for thirty-five minutes. Heat in another saucepan one and a half tablespoons melted butter, mix in four tablespoons flour; stir well while heating for a minute. Pour in the milk and briskly mix with the whisk for three minutes, let boil for five minutes, add a half gill cream and half ounce butter. Dilute one egg yolk with a tablespoon milk and add to soup. Stir while heating without boiling for two minutes. Strain soup through a strainer into a soup tureen and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A béchamel-based onion cream soup in the classic French manner. The one thing to watch is the finish: once the egg yolk goes in, the soup must not boil or it will curdle and no amount of whisking will bring it back.
- Saltspoons and gillsA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so the cayenne here amounts to roughly 1/2 teaspoon and the nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon. A gill is half a cup, making the half gill of cream 1/4 cup.
- Cayenne, with judgementHalf a teaspoon of cayenne in two quarts of soup is assertive by modern taste and pepper strength varies. Start with a quarter teaspoon and adjust at the end.
- White brothThis means a pale unbrowned stock, veal or chicken, made from bones and aromatics without roasting. Any light chicken stock works; avoid dark or heavily reduced commercial stock, which will muddy the colour.
- The saltTwo teaspoons presumes an unsalted homemade broth, as most period recipes did. If you use commercial stock, salt only after the soup is assembled.
- The rouxFour tablespoons flour to one and a half tablespoons butter is a dry, flour-heavy roux by modern habit; use three tablespoons butter for a smoother one, and keep it pale. Add the hot onion milk gradually to avoid lumps.
- StrainingThe original strains the onions out entirely, giving a smooth, thin cream. If you would rather keep the body, blend the onions into the soup before straining and press the purée through the sieve.
- Onion timingThirty-five minutes at a bare simmer is right for softening the onion and drawing its sweetness into the milk. Keep the heat low and stir now and then, since milk scorches on the bottom of the pan.
- YieldAbout two quarts, or six to eight first-course servings. Croutons served separately, as directed, keeps them crisp.
Soubise, in French cookery, denotes a preparation made with onion: sauce Soubise is a béchamel worked with onion purée, and the name is traditionally attributed to Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise, an eighteenth-century French marshal, though that attribution is culinary tradition rather than documented fact. The crème in the title is a formal designation rather than a description of richness, marking a soup thickened with a white roux and milk, as distinct from a purée thickened by the vegetable itself or a clear consommé.