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Shin of Beef Liee
Place four pounds of shin of beef in a saucepan with five quarts cold water, adding tablespoon salt, and as soon as it comes to a boil skim off the scum; add one carrot, one turnip, one onion with two cloves stuck in it, two leeks, one stalk celery, a small bunch parsley and one bay leaf. Cover the pan and let slowly boil for three hours and a half. Place in saucepan one ounce butter and two ounces flour, stir on the fire until a light brown. Skim the fat from the surface of the broth, then strain it through cheesecloth into this pan, sharply mix with whisk for two minutes, add three tablespoons sherry, the juice of half a sound lemon and one saltspoon cayenne pepper, mix well, boil for ten minutes, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A gelatin-rich beef broth finished with a brown roux — a classic potage lié, or "bound" soup. The instructions are sound; only the units and a couple of proportions need translating.
- The name"Liee" is liée, French for bound or thickened. The whole point of the dish is the brown roux at the end, so do not treat it as an optional garnish step.
- Weights to volumesOne ounce butter is 2 tablespoons; two ounces flour is a scant 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, which is a lot of cayenne — start with half and taste.
- Shin of beefBeef shin, sold as shank or soup bones, is still available but often needs ordering. Ask for it bone-in and cross-cut: the marrow and connective tissue are what give the broth body.
- Skim before you strain, not afterThe fat must come off the surface before the broth meets the roux, or the soup will taste greasy. Chilling the broth briefly makes this easier.
- Adding broth to rouxThe original pours hot strained broth straight into a hot roux and whisks hard for two minutes. That works, but add the first cup or two gradually; several quarts of hot liquid hitting a half-cup of roux at once will lump if you dump it.
- Cooking timeThree and a half hours at a bare simmer is right for shin, though a rolling boil will cloud the broth and toughen the meat. Keep it at the barest tremble despite the word "boil."
- Sherry and lemon lastThe three tablespoons sherry and lemon juice are added before the final ten-minute boil, which drives off some of the alcohol and dulls the lemon. For a brighter finish, add the lemon juice off the heat.
- YieldFive quarts of water reduces to roughly three to four quarts of finished soup — eight to twelve servings. The boiled meat is not mentioned; slice it and serve it separately with mustard and coarse salt rather than discarding it.
A potage lié is the plainest expression of nineteenth-century French kitchen practice as it was taught in American hotel kitchens: build a clear beef broth on a gelatinous cut, then bind it with a cooked brown roux and lift it with fortified wine, acid and pepper. The International Cook Book is generally attributed to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe carries the marks of that training — the onion stuck with cloves, the bouquet of leek, celery, parsley and bay, the insistence on cheesecloth and on skimming. Shin was cheap, and the fashion for thickened soups made it useful: a cut that would be stringy roasted gives up a good deal of collagen in three hours. The sherry-and-cayenne finish is often said to be close cousin to the seasoning of mock turtle.