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Beef Soup (Boil a soup bone the day)
Boil a soup bone the day before wanting it, skim the grease off next day; and melt the jelly; add spices to taste; a little brandy; a small teacupful of butter rubbed in browned flour, a little vermicelli, and a grated carrot. Boil three eggs hard, mash smooth, put in tureen, pour soup over them, and serve.
A late-Victorian household broth, thickened with browned-flour butter and garnished with hard-boiled egg. The whole method depends on the overnight chill, which both clarifies the stock and lets you lift the fat off in a single sheet.
- The soup boneA marrow or shin bone with some meat on it, covered with water and simmered gently for several hours; the recipe gives no weight or time. Ask a butcher for beef shin cut crosswise; a plain marrow bone alone gives gelatin but little flavour.
- "Melt the jelly"A properly made stock sets to a soft jelly when cold, which is why the recipe expects it. If yours stays liquid, it will still taste right but will be thinner in the mouth; the flour-and-butter thickening compensates.
- A teacupful of butterA Victorian teacupful is usually reckoned at about half a cup, so roughly 4 oz of butter rubbed into an equal volume of browned flour, and the recipe calls for a small one. That is generous for the quantity of stock a single bone yields; start with half and add more, since the fat has already been skimmed and a heavy roux will make the soup pasty.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a skillet or a low oven until the colour of hazelnut shells, stirred constantly. It thickens less than raw flour but carries a roasted flavour that is the point of the dish. Whisk the butter-flour paste into the hot soup off the boil, then simmer 10 minutes to cook out the raw taste.
- Spices to tasteLikely candidates for this kind of soup are whole allspice, mace, a clove or two, peppercorns and a bay leaf, plus salt; the recipe adds them when the jelly is melted and reheated. Nothing suggests heat, though the text leaves the choice open.
- The brandyA tablespoon or two. The recipe adds it with the spices as the soup reheats; adding it at the end, off the heat, keeps more of the aroma.
- Vermicelli and carrotBreak the vermicelli small and give it 4-5 minutes in the simmering soup; grated carrot needs about the same. Add both late or the pasta swells and the soup turns cloudy and starchy.
- The egg garnishThree eggs hard-cooked, peeled and mashed smooth with a fork, put in the bottom of the tureen so the hot soup breaks them into flecks as it is poured. Mash while still warm and they blend more evenly.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; a single soup bone will make enough for a small tureen served as a first course.
Recipes of this shape ran through American and British household books through much of the nineteenth century: a bone simmered the day before, chilled, degreased, then dressed up at the last minute with thickening, spice and a spoonful of spirits. The overnight stand in a cold larder had a practical point as well as a culinary one -- the fat set into a lid over the jelly beneath it. Browned flour was a standard nineteenth-century thickener for brown soups and gravies, toasted in quantity and stored in a jar, and mashed hard-boiled egg in the tureen is an old garnish for clear and brown soups. The brandy suggests a soup for company rather than an everyday family one.