Prussian Soup
(A national dish.) Cut up and fry in 3 ounces of suet 2 heads of celery, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 2 onions, 2 leeks, and 1 pound of potatoes. Add 1/2 pound of beef cut into dice, cover and steam, but do not let it burn. Then add 2 quarts of water, 1 pint of dried beans soaked overnight, and a bunch of herbs. Cook 4 hours, press through a sieve, and add salt and pepper.
A puréed bean and root vegetable potage of the plainest German sort, thickened by nothing but its own vegetables. The instructions are compressed, so a few points are worth spelling out.
- The hinge: sweat, don't brownThe hinge: "Cover and steam, but do not let it burn." After the initial frying, keep the heat low enough that the vegetables and beef release moisture and soften in it; the recipe's only stated concern is that nothing catches and burns.
- SuetThree ounces of beef suet is roughly 1/3 cup of chopped fat, rendered as it heats. Rendered beef fat, lard or butter all work; oil works too, though it costs you some of the beefiness the recipe is built on.
- "2 heads of celery"A head of celery is the whole bunch, not a rib. Two full bunches is a great deal by modern proportions — one large bunch, trimmed of the coarsest outer ribs, gives a better balance against the beans and potatoes.
- A pint of dried beansMeasured dry by volume: 2 cups if the pint is American (roughly 14 oz), nearer 2.5 cups if imperial. White haricot or navy beans suit it best. Soak overnight, drain, and add the soaking water only if you want a heavier flavour.
- Salt at the endThe recipe seasons last, as was common practice; it is often said that beans salted early stay stubborn, though that is disputed. Season after the purée is made and taste again once it has cooled slightly.
- Four hours, and whether you need themFour hours of gentle simmering was aimed at breaking the beans down for the sieve. With a blender or food mill, 1.5 to 2 hours is enough, once the beans crush easily against the side of the pan. Top up with water as it reduces.
- Pressing through a sieveThis is what makes it soup rather than stew. A food mill or blender does the same work in a minute; if you use a blender, pass it through a sieve afterwards to catch bean skins and celery fibre. Half a pound of diced beef will not purée smoothly, so either fish it out and return it to the finished soup or accept a coarser texture.
- Herbs and yield"A bunch of herbs" is unspecified; a bouquet garni of parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf, tied and removed before sieving, is the usual reading. Two quarts of water plus the vegetables should give roughly 2.5 quarts of finished soup, enough for six to eight as a first course.
The label should be read loosely: what is described is an ordinary German bean and root-vegetable potage of a kind that turns up across the north in countless versions, rather than any single codified Prussian recipe. The structure is entirely of a piece with the German one-pot tradition: fat, root vegetables and a small quantity of meat used as seasoning rather than as the main event, with dried beans supplying both bulk and body. The half pound of beef against a pint of beans and two quarts of water tells you plainly what sort of kitchen it belonged to. Pressing everything through a sieve was the standard nineteenth-century route to a smooth soup, and the tedium of it explains why purées were considered rather refined work despite the humble contents.