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Radish Broth
Soak in cold water thirty minutes a large bunch fresh red radishes with the stalks and green leaves; wash well and drain, then finely slice and place in a saucepan with two pounds finely chopped shin of beef, one sliced carrot, one sliced onion, one sliced leek, two branches parsley, one bay leaf, a sprig thyme and one clove. Moisten with three quarts water. Season with teaspoon salt, lightly mix, then set pan on fire, and as soon as it begins to boil set pan on corner of range and slowly simmer two and a half hours. Remove, strain through a double cheese-cloth into six cups and serve either hot or cold.
A clear beef broth flavoured with the whole radish — root, stalk and leaf — and reduced by half over a long slow simmer. Nothing here is difficult, but a few of the original's assumptions need translating.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: bring it just to the boil, then drop it -- "Set pan on corner of range" means moving it off direct heat to the cooler part of a coal range, where it barely trembles. On a modern burner that is the lowest setting, lid ajar, with an occasional bubble breaking the surface. A sustained rolling boil emulsifies fat and protein into the liquid and no amount of cheesecloth will clear it afterwards.
- Shin of beefSold as beef shin, foreshank or osso buco cut. The recipe asks for it finely chopped; the collagen and marrow are what give the broth body. Two pounds is right for three quarts of water.
- Radish greensThe recipe depends on buying radishes in bunches with the tops still on, which is worth seeking out at a farmers' market. The leaves are peppery and slightly hairy; the thirty-minute cold soak loosens grit from the stalk joins. Bunch sizes vary a good deal, so judge by eye rather than count.
- One cloveA single whole clove, not a clove of garlic. The onion here is sliced rather than left whole, so if you want to be able to retrieve the clove easily, tie it in the aromatics or fish it out at straining.
- SkimThe original does not mention it. As the pot comes up to heat, lift off the grey foam that rises before you drop it to a simmer. Do this once properly and the finished broth strains almost bright.
- Timing and reductionTwo and a half hours takes three quarts down to roughly the six cups the recipe expects. If yours is reducing faster, the heat is too high; top up with hot water rather than cold.
- Season at the endOne teaspoon of salt in three quarts is a seasoning for the meat during cooking, not for the finished broth. Taste and correct after straining, when the volume has halved and the salt has concentrated.
- Straining and servingDouble cheesecloth in a sieve, and let it drip rather than pressing, which pushes fines through. Yield is six cups, four to six servings as a first course. Chilled overnight the fat lifts off in a disc and a good shin broth will set to a soft jelly — that is the intended cold service.
The International Cook Book (Alexander Filippini, 1906) worked its way through national kitchens dish by dish, and this is a broth in what might loosely be called the plain French domestic manner: a long, gentle simmer of shin with the standard aromatic set of carrot, onion, leek, parsley, bay, thyme and a clove. What makes it unusual is the radish, used whole. Cooks of the period are often said to have been less willing than we are to discard greens, and radish tops — too coarse and prickly for most salads — may well have been treated as a pot herb alongside turnip and beet leaves, contributing a mustardy bitterness that cooks out into something milder. The instruction to serve the broth hot or cold is a reminder that jellied consommés were a normal warm-weather course on a well-run table, made possible by exactly the sort of gelatine-rich cut specified here.