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Puree, Jerusalem
Peel and thoroughly wash twenty-four Jerusalem artichokes, place in a saucepan with two and a half quarts water, one sliced onion; two branches parsley, one branch chervil, three branches celery, one bean crushed garlic, a level tablespoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper. Cover the pan and let slowly boil for one hour and fifteen minutes, then add a half pint tomato sauce. Knead in a bowl a half ounce butter with one ounce flour and add, little by little, to the soup, constantly mixing while adding it. Boil for five minutes more, press through a sieve into a basin, then through a Chinese strainer into a soup tureen, and serve with a plate of bread croutons separately.
A straightforward vegetable puree soup built on sunchokes, thickened with beurre manié and finished through a chinois. Two things need adjusting: the quantity is vague by modern shopping habits, and the boil is far longer than the tubers require.
- Twenty-four artichokesJerusalem artichokes are sold by weight now, and their size varies wildly. Twenty-four medium tubers is roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb peeled; buy 3 lb to allow for trimming the knobs.
- Cooking timeAn hour and a quarter is well past what sunchokes need. They break down at 25 to 35 minutes of gentle simmering, and longer only dulls their sweet, nutty flavour.
- Peeling and discolorationCut surfaces brown quickly. Drop the peeled tubers into acidulated water as you work, or peel straight into the cooking pot.
- "One bean crushed garlic"Older books size garlic by comparison, and a bean here most likely means a piece about that size; whether a whole clove is meant is not certain. Either way the quantity is restrained for two and a half quarts, and two or three cloves will not overwhelm the soup.
- ChervilStill sold, but rarely. Its anise-parsley note is the point; if you cannot find it, a little tarragon plus extra parsley comes closer than parsley alone.
- Half pint tomato sauceA cup. In a book of this period tomato sauce means a cooked, seasoned sauce rather than tinned puree or American ketchup; a cup of passata simmered briefly with a knob of butter serves.
- Beurre manieHalf an ounce butter kneaded with one ounce flour is a fairly dry paste. Work it smooth, then whisk it in in small pieces off a hard boil so it disperses rather than seizing into lumps, and give it the full five minutes to cook out the raw flour.
- Chinese strainerA chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. The double pass, coarse sieve then chinois, is what gives the soup its texture; a food mill followed by a fine strainer does the same work.
- YieldRoughly two and a half quarts, enough for six to eight as a first course. Croutons on the side, as written, rather than floated.
- A digestive noteSunchokes store their carbohydrate as inulin, which passes undigested and is notorious for causing gas. A modest bowl is wiser than a large one for anyone unaccustomed to them.
The Jerusalem artichoke is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke: it is the tuber of a North American sunflower, Helianthus tuberosus, taken to Europe in the early seventeenth century. The name is generally traced to a garbling of the Italian girasole, sunflower, though the derivation is traditional rather than firmly documented; the second half of the name comes from a perceived resemblance in flavour to the globe artichoke. In France the tuber was called the topinambour, and here it is given a familiar French treatment for a starchy vegetable: simmer with an aromatic garnish, bind lightly with beurre manie, pass twice, serve with croutons. The tomato sauce presumably serves to give the pale root puree some colour and acidity.