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Potage, Fermiere
Pare and finely slice three carrots, two white turnips, an onion and a quarter very small sound white cabbage. Put these vegetables in a soup pot with an ounce butter, teaspoon sugar, and cook to a light brown, frequently stirring meanwhile. Pour in four quarts water, two teaspoons salt, add a two-pound piece of beef from short ribs or neck, and let gently boil for two and a half hours. Finely chop twelve well-cleaned sorrel leaves, two branches parsley, a branch chervil, add to soup, lightly mix and boil for fifteen minutes more. Remove beef, cut a quarter of the lean meat only into small squares, add again to soup, skim fat off surface, pour soup into tureen and serve with six slices of toasted French bread.
A farmhouse beef-and-vegetable soup that builds its depth from browned root vegetables and a long, gentle simmer. Nothing here is difficult, but a few details in the original need translating.
- The hinge: brown the vegetables properlyThe teaspoon of sugar with the butter is there to push the carrots, turnips, onion and cabbage toward caramelization. Take a good ten to fifteen minutes over it on medium heat, stirring often; skip the browning and the soup is thin and pale.
- SorrelSorrel is a sharp, lemony leaf sold at farmers' markets in spring and early summer, not a supermarket staple. Twelve leaves will come to something like a loose cup once chopped, depending on leaf size; if you cannot find it, a squeeze of lemon at the end gives some of the acidity, though not the same body. Sorrel collapses to a khaki puree almost immediately, which is normal.
- ChervilA delicate anise-scented herb, common in French cooking and hard to find fresh elsewhere. Dried chervil is nearly flavorless; a little tarragon plus extra parsley is closer than nothing.
- The beef cutShort ribs or neck both work; so does chuck. Two pounds bone-in short ribs yields less meat than two pounds of neck, so plan accordingly. Keep the water at a bare shiver, not a rolling boil, or the meat turns stringy.
- Four quarts is a lot of waterAnd over two and a half hours a good deal of it will cook away, which is part of the point. Use a wide heavy pot and expect the finished quantity to be noticeably less than you started with -- how much less depends on your pot and heat. Skim the scum that rises in the first twenty minutes.
- SaltTwo teaspoons for four quarts is very light by modern taste. Salt again after the soup has reduced and the meat has come out, when you can judge the finished strength.
- The rest of the beefOnly a quarter of the lean meat goes back into the soup, and the recipe says nothing about the remainder. In this style of cookery the leftover boiled beef was commonly sent to table separately, though that is an inference here rather than something the recipe states.
- ServingSix slices of toast implies six servings. Put the toast in the bowls and ladle over, or pass it separately so it does not disintegrate.
Potage fermiere belongs to the large French family of everyday vegetable potages, and the pairing of a simmering beef and its broth is the same economy that produced pot-au-feu: one pot yields soup, boiled meat and vegetables for a table. The sorrel and chervil are garden herbs long associated with French kitchen gardens and less familiar in American ones. The International Cook Book was written by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its title points to the aim of setting the dishes of many national kitchens side by side for American readers; the browning-then-boiling method is a technique worth learning whatever the herbs available.