Vegetable Soup
Cut in half-inch dice sufficient carrot and turnip to measure one-third of a cupful of each; cut into half-inch pieces celery to measure one-half of a cupful; dice one and one-half cupfuls of raw potato and slice one-half of a white onion. In a stewpan put three tablespoonfuls of butter, add the carrot, turnip, celery and onion, cover and cook for fifteen minutes without browning. Add the potatoes and cook for five minutes then add one quart of water and boil steadily for an hour beating occasionally with a spoon to break up the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste, one tablespoonful of parsley and serve.
A plain water-based vegetable soup that gets its body from potato beaten apart in the pot rather than from stock or thickener. A few points on vessels, timing and seasoning.
- The hinge is the butter sweatThe first fifteen minutes, covered and with no colour, is what gives this soup flavour, since there is no stock behind it. Keep the heat low enough that nothing browns and the vegetables give up their liquid rather than frying.
- StewpanThe recipe specifies only a covered stewpan. Anything of roughly 3 quarts with a tight lid will do; a pan wide enough that the diced vegetables sit in a shallow layer rather than heaped suits the fifteen-minute covered sweat.
- An hour of boilingSteady boiling for a full hour will reduce a quart of water noticeably and cook the carrot and turnip to collapse, which is the intention here. Keep a kettle of hot water nearby and top up if it drops below a soupy consistency.
- Beating with a spoonThis is the thickening step, not stirring. Crushing the potato against the side of the pan releases starch and turns the water cloudy and slightly bodied; skip it and you have vegetables floating in water.
- Water, or stockThe original assumes water, and the result is deliberately light and clean. A light chicken or vegetable stock in place of the quart of water makes a richer soup without changing the method.
- ParsleyOne tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley, added at the end so it stays green. Dried parsley contributes nothing at this stage.
- SeasoningSalt only at the end, as written, but salt generously — a quart of water and three cups of vegetables need more than a token pinch to taste of anything.
- YieldRoughly a quart, depending on how hard it boils and whether you top up; two generous bowls or four small first-course servings.
Soups like this one belong to a tradition of household cookery that taught economy as much as technique: a quart of water, a few cellar vegetables, and butter doing the work that meat stock would otherwise do. The technique of sweating the aromatics in fat under a lid before adding liquid is straight out of French practice.