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Potage, Allemande
Cut one medium carrot, one turnip, one onion, two leeks and two branches of celery into extremely small square pieces. Place these in a small saucepan with half a pint hot water, one ounce butter, half teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Cover the pan, set on the range, and as soon as it comes to a boil place in the oven for thirty-five minutes. Remove, add two tablespoons of asparagus tips and three tablespoons of barley (boiled in a pint of water with half teaspoon salt for forty minutes and drained) and keep hot.
Knead in a saucepan one ounce butter with two ounces flour; heat for one minute, then add one pint milk and two and a half pints white broth. Sharply mix with a whisk for two minutes, then add the above vegetables; boil for ten minutes, season with half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper, mix well again and serve.
A creamed vegetable and barley soup built on a roux, thickened with milk and light stock. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the quantities and one of the vessels need translating.
- VolumesHalf a pint of hot water is one cup; a pint of milk is two cups; two and a half pints of white broth is five cups. A saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all. A moderate oven, with the pan covered, will suit the intent: gentle, even stewing rather than reduction.
- White brothThis means a pale unroasted stock, veal or chicken, made from bones that were never browned. A good low-sodium chicken stock stands in; avoid dark or beef stock, which will muddy the pale colour of the finished soup.
- The knife work"Extremely small square pieces" is brunoise, roughly 1/8 inch. Cut them evenly or the carrot and turnip will still be firm when the leek has collapsed.
- PepperHalf a teaspoon of white pepper plus a saltspoon of cayenne in two quarts of soup reads as sharp now. Start with half of each and correct at the end.
- BarleyPearl barley boiled forty minutes and drained is right; hulled barley needs longer, an hour or more. Draining matters, since the cooking water is starchy enough to turn the finished soup gluey.
- Asparagus tipsThe original gives no cooking instruction for them, as it does for the barley, so they were probably already cooked. Blanch fresh tips two to three minutes and add them at the very end so they keep their colour.
- The rouxOne ounce butter to two ounces flour is a dry, tight roux. Heat it only the minute specified, add the milk and stock gradually while whisking, and let the final ten-minute boil cook out the flour taste.
- YieldAbout two quarts finished, which serves six to eight as a first course.
"Allemande" on a French menu means German-style, and in classical kitchen shorthand it points to the pale roux-and-cream family of sauces and soups -- sauce allemande being the blond veal velouté enriched with egg and cream, a sauce whose name later chefs argued about. The recipe's structure, an oven-stewed brunoise of root vegetables folded into a milk-and-white-stock velouté, is a standard professional method.