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Puree, Crecy
Scrape and thoroughly wash six medium, very red fresh carrots, finely slice and place in a large saucepan with two sliced onions, two leeks and one ounce butter; place the pan on the range and let gently brown for fifteen minutes, stir frequently with a spoon, then besprinkle with two ounces flour; stir while heating for three minutes. Moisten with two and a half quarts broth, add two branches of parsley and one branch chervil, season with a tablespoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg, mix a little and let gently boil for forty-five minutes. Remove, press the whole through a sieve into another saucepan, place on the fire and let boil again, then add half ounce butter and one gill cream; thoroughly mix while boiling for two minutes longer; transfer the puree into a soup tureen and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A classic French carrot soup, thickened with flour rather than the potato or rice a modern version would use. Nothing here is difficult; the measurements simply need translating.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz). A saltspoon is roughly a quarter teaspoon, so the nutmeg is a small pinch.
- SaltA full tablespoon of salt assumes an unsalted homemade broth. With commercial stock, add none at the start and season only at the end, after the purée has reduced.
- Branches of herbsA "branch" is a sprig. Chervil is stocked erratically; a little flat-leaf parsley plus a few fennel fronds or tarragon leaves gives a similar anise edge. Fish the stems out before sieving.
- The browning stepFifteen minutes of gentle browning is where the flavour comes from, but the pan must not scorch — the flour goes in next and burnt fond will make the whole soup bitter. Keep the heat moderate and stir.
- Cooking out the flourThree minutes of stirring after the flour is the minimum; the raw-paste taste needs to go. Add the broth in stages, whisking, or the roux will seize into lumps that the sieve then has to catch.
- Sieve or blenderPressing 2.5 quarts of soup through a sieve is heavy work. A blender or stick blender does it in a minute; pass it through a fine strainer afterwards if you want the original's smoothness, as carrot fibre and leek strings survive blending.
- FinishingAdd the butter and cream off a hard boil and hold it just below a simmer. The recipe's two minutes of boiling with cream in it is more than the enrichment needs.
- YieldTwo and a half quarts of broth makes roughly eight to ten first-course servings. It thickens noticeably as it cools; thin with broth when reheating.
"Crécy" on a French menu means carrots, and usually this soup. The name is traditionally traced to the carrot-growing country around Crécy-en-Ponthieu in Picardy, though Crécy-la-Chapelle in the Brie also claims it, and the question has never been settled. In later professional practice potage Crécy was commonly thickened with rice or with potato; the flour-and-butter version here belongs to the older tradition of soups bound with a light roux. The call for "very red" carrots reflects period usage, older carrot varieties varying a good deal in colour.