ON SOUPS AND BROTHS.
At every great dinner--indeed I may say at every dinner of the least
pretension in the most civilised countries--you begin by eating soup.
Often in Paris and at Brussels, between September and April, at dinners
at restaurants, you also commence by half a dozen, a dozen, or eighteen
oysters by way of appetiser; but this practice is not resorted to at
formal dinners, or, as the French say, _diners d’apparat_, in private
houses; though if three or four intimate friends are dining together
_sans façon_, oysters may be, and often are, introduced before the
soup. In Russia the custom is to take _caviare_, or a slice of raw
or pickled herring before soup, which relish is followed by a glass
of Cognac or some liqueur. But these are customs not likely to be
introduced into more civilized countries; customs, moreover, quite
repugnant to English habits.
The basis of nearly every soup is a stock or broth called by the
French a _grand bouillon_. The best way of making this stock is by
boiling, or rather stewing down a sufficient quantity of properly
prepared and washed beef in a _marmite_, or iron or earthen pot, or
stewpan. The water must be judiciously apportioned to the quantity of
meat. The French, who make the best _bouillon_ in the world, generally
pour a quart of water, on half a kilogramme (equivalent to about a
pound) of meat, and let it simmer from five-and-a-half to six hours.
When the liquid is sufficiently diminished to receive the vegetables,
a few young carrots, an onion with a couple of cloves stuck in it, a
parsnip, a little celery and a bunch of thyme and parsley are added.
The water should be cold, and seasoned with a little salt. The pot or
earthen vessel should be placed on a clear fire, and allowed to remain
till the liquid is diminished a third. This _bouillon_ is the basis
of most soups, and it is called a _consommé_ when a large fowl or the
half of a turkey is added. Some cooks use old partridges or pigeons
instead of fowls. It is an axiom in cookery, however, that at least
two sorts of meat are necessary to make a good _bouillon_. When the
_bouillon_ is skimmed it serves as the stock for all kinds of soup.
It cannot be too often stated that the basis of all soup, and indeed
of all broth, except mutton, should be juicy young beef and pure soft
water. It should be remembered that the trimmings and the bones of
fresh meat, the necks of poultry, the liquor in which a joint has been
boiled, and the shank-bones of mutton, are excellent additions to
the stock-pot, and should be reserved for it. As soup is the food of
childhood and old age, it should be restorative and nourishing. The
great defect of English soups is, not the want of meat, but the want of
a proper boiling or concoction. This radical fault is vilely but vainly
attempted to be supplied by the excessive use of seasoning and herbs.
The following elementary rules for making nourishing broth, are from
the French of Parmentier:--
I. Sound, healthful, fresh viands.
II. Vessels of earthenware in preference to those of metal, as a
less degree of heat keeps them boiling; and once heated, a few
hot cinders will maintain that slight degree of ebullition which
is wanted.
III. Double the weight of water to that of the meat used.
IV. A sufficient quantity of common salt to facilitate the
separation of the blood and slime that coagulates under the form
of scum.
V. In the early stage of the process, such a degree of heat as
will throw off the whole scum.
VI. A lower, but an equable temperature, that the soup may
_simmer_ gently till the substances employed, whether
nutritive, colouring, or flavouring, are perfectly combined with
the water, according to their several degrees of solubility.
Great care should be taken to have all the utensils clean. Pots,
saucepans, and stewpans, should be well tinned, especially for soups
and gravies, as they are obliged to remain a long time upon the fire.
Whatever is boiled in a brass or copper pot, should be taken out while
it is hot; if left to cool, it would have a disagreeable taste, and
be very unwholesome. As a convincing proof of this, if the liquor
that any kind of meat is boiled in remains in the pot till the next
day, the fat at the top will be quite green, and the liquor of course
very pernicious. Iron pots, saucepans, &c., are the most wholesome,
but they spoil the colour of many articles of cookery, and therefore
are not much used; but they are useful for anything that would not be
discoloured. Pots lined with earthenware are certainly preferable to
any other kind, but they are very expensive.
The broth to be used for soups and gravies should be kept separate;
because the broth of the stock-pot, being required for white as well
as brown sauces, should not be coloured; whilst that for soups, unless
they be white soups, should always be made brown. If, however, you have
more coloured broth than you require for soup, you may apply it to
making brown gravies.
An excellent stock-pot may be produced with all the bones you can
collect, carcasses, and the under or claw-legs of poultry or game--all
bones and parings, in short, of flesh and fowl. Put them into a large
pipkin with water; or if you have the liquor in which beef, or mutton,
or veal, has been boiled, use it in preference. To this you may add,
if you have it, a few ladlefuls of the water in which a ham has been
boiled, first skimming off the fat. With the bones, put a bunch of
leeks, a bunch of green celery, an onion with three cloves stuck into
it, a couple of carrots, a turnip, a bit of parsnip, some salt, a
bunch of herbs, and two or three sheep’s melts. A small quantity of
sugar will also greatly improve the flavour of stock, and indeed of
all rich soups. Let the whole stew simmer very slowly during seven or
eight hours, keeping it closely covered all the while. Season it with
a little salt. When reduced to a good _consommée_, and you are
satisfied with its flavour, strain it through a sieve, and put it by
for use.
This broth, if required, may be used for making white soups.
All soups should be closely covered during their boiling, by which the
heat will be very much economised. There may be, however, occasionally
some deviations from this course, which must depend upon the discretion
of the cook. In making soups and broths, stale as well as fat meat
should be avoided; the first will impart an ill taste, and the last
will be attended with considerable waste.
Of the kinds that will keep are brown soup, hare soup, soup of game
of any kind, giblet soup, and generally all soups made of the meat of
animals of mature growth. Soups into which vegetables and young meats
enter in any quantity, are best when fresh made, as these things have a
strong tendency to ferment. This also applies to veal and fish soups.
This tendency may be partly checked by boiling them up, or changing the
vessels.
The best meat soups are, beyond question, those which are made from the
lean alone, without much, if any, fat.
In making pea-soup with dry peas, soft water should be used; with green
peas, hard water, which contributes to the preservation of their colour.
A soup should never be permitted to grow cold in the vessel in which
it has been boiled. If not immediately wanted, it should be poured out
into a clean pan; one made of stoneware is the best, as neither salts
nor acids will act upon it, a consideration of essential importance.
While cooling, the soup should not be covered over; nor indeed is it
desirable to cover soup after it is cold, except with a hair sieve.
It facilitates the operation, if meat for soup or gravy be cut into
pieces of about half a pound each, and improves both the flavour and
colour, if the meat, onions, and carrots be stewed at the bottom of the
soup-pot or digester, before the water is added to it, with a bit of
butter to prevent burning.
To this previous drawing out of the juices without much or any water,
much of the superiority of French soups is to be attributed. Some
French cooks, to regulate the flavour of soups more exactly, boil the
roots, herbs, and vegetables separately to a mash, and then squeeze
them and add the juice till the desired flavour is obtained.
As long boiling is necessary to make good soup, particularly where the
whole or the greater part of the virtues of butchers’ meat are to be
extracted, it will be necessary to add more water from time to time
as it boils away; and, in order to save time, it will be best to add
the water boiling, or, at least, very hot to the soup. In the addition
of herbs, other vegetables, or condiments, care should be taken that
they are in such quantities that no one may predominate, unless, as
is sometimes the case with celery or onion, it is desired that there
should be a predominancy of a particular flavour.
As celery is so generally used to flavour soups, the cook should know
that, when the root is scarce, the seeds bruised and added to the soup
a few minutes only before it is served up, will flavour it well; indeed
the seeds will be generally found superior to the root for the purpose
of flavouring. Boiling the seeds, however, for a long time, will
dissipate their essential oil on which their flavour chiefly depends.
This observation applies with equal force to all spices, the long
boiling of which, in open vessels, must necessarily dissipate their
oils in which their good qualities reside: indeed, sometimes a few
drops of their essential oil, as of cinnamon or cassia, will supply
the place of the spice itself.
The boiling of poultry and game in the stock-pot is a practice very
common abroad. When stewed enough to be tender, they should be served
immediately with a good sauce.
In regard to broths, some of the general directions concerning boiling
must be carefully attended to, as well as the preceding observations on
the preparation of soups. Broth may be made from the coarsest pieces
of meat, and of any strength, by adapting the water to the quantity
of meat, and by sufficient simmering. To make the broth good the meat
should always be simmered till it is tender, and will separate without
difficulty from the bones. In every case, as well of broth as of soup,
in order to obtain them with the least boiling, and consequently most
economically, the meat should be cut into small pieces, the bones,
if large, broken, and the joints, such as those in a neck of mutton,
separated, unless the meat be wanted to be served up with the broth or
otherwise as a whole joint.
Broth, I may safely say, is the essence and foundation of all cookery.
Among our neighbours, the French, the broth-pot, or _pot-au-feu_, may
be said to be the substratum of the cookery of the middle and working
classes. To them it yields a substantial nourishment. Any parings or
trimmings of meat will serve to make the first broth, provided the scum
and fat be carefully removed. If this be not sedulously attended to,
the broth will be too highly coloured to mix with the sauce. Those,
therefore, who are charged with the stock-pots should skim them slowly
over a gentle fire, adding at intervals a little cold water, that the
scum may rise more copiously. Broth should always be in the larder of a
good kitchen, as it is perpetually required for sauces, braises, soups,
_consommés_, and essences.
The great English soups are, real turtle, mock turtle, ox-tail, gravy,
giblet, hare, green-pea soup, and pea soup. The great English broths
are, chicken broth, mutton broth, Scotch-barley broth, veal broth, and
beef broth or tea, which is almost equivalent to the French _grand
bouillon_.
Real turtle soup is seldom made in private houses, unless of the very
highest distinction. It is generally obtained ready prepared from the
Waterloo Hotel at Liverpool, and from some of the great taverns in the
City in Bishopsgate or Aldersgate Street, or from Gunter’s at the West
end, who has jars ready prepared, from the West Indies and Brazil.
Twenty-five years ago a great deal of turtle used to come to London
prepared by Weeks, of the Bush Hotel,[11] Bristol. But Bristol then,
and antecedently, stood at the head of the West-India trade, and there
were those who preferred the Bristol-made turtle to that of Birch,
Bleaden, or Kay. But the Bush Hotel no longer exists, and London now
bears off the bell for its turtle soup, as well as for its calipash and
calipee.
Turtle generally arrives in this country about the latter end of May or
the beginning of June, though, from the uncertainties of a sea voyage,
no exact period for its first appearance can be fixed. In the year 1814
it was so unusually late, that at the banquet given in Guildhall to the
Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, on the 18th of June, there
was no turtle to be had. The weight of a turtle varies from 30 lbs.
to 500 lbs. or 600 lbs., and the price from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ per
pound. The cooking of a turtle is generally performed by a professed
artist, whose fee is from one to two guineas. Some epicures prefer the
turtle cut into steaks and broiled, to be eaten with melted butter,
Cayenne pepper, and the juice of a Seville orange. They say the flesh
thus quickly dressed retains most flavour.
This soup is, says Carème, the most lengthened in its details of any
that are known; “the composition of its seasoning claims an able hand
and a strong memory: the palate of the cook who executes it should be
very fine; none of the ingredients should predominate, not even the
Cayenne or allspice, which the English cook inconsiderately employs.”
The great artist divides the dressing of a turtle into four operations,
and on each expends a page. In order to dress the turtle as it ought
to be prepared, he says, two large legs of veal, eight fowls, lean ham
in slices, sweet herbs, beef stock, the nut of a ham, cloves, Cayenne,
allspice, mace, long pepper, white pepper, eight bottles of dry
Madeira, and sixty eggs, are necessary. It is therefore clearly better
for those who wish to give turtle soup at a dinner, to have a quart or
gallon of it from some first-rate hotel, than to go to the expense of
all these ingredients.
Gravy, ox-tail, mock turtle, and giblet soups are much more common at
English dinners than real turtle soup, for the two sufficient reasons,
that they are more easily prepared, and that they are less costly.
Ox-tail, mock turtle, hare, and giblet soups are still made in the
fashion in which they were at the beginning of the present century.
Calf-tail soup is simply made by substituting pieces of calf-tail for
ox-tail. It is much more delicate than ox-tail, and very nutritious.
The stocks for white soups are made of veal, mutton, fowl, rabbit,
chicken, ox-feet, calf’s head and feet, with bacon and ham. In drawing
these stocks, a bit of ham, ham-bone, or lean bacon, is used with the
usual seasoning. Fish may be used in thickening meat white soups;
they give a turtleish lightness and flavour. Eggs make an excellent
thickening for the poorer kinds; but the richer or more delicate, are
thickened with almonds and artificial or real cream. Though the stocks
be properly made and well-seasoned, the thickening and finishing,
nevertheless, require great care.
As to French soups, their name is legion. There is scarcely a complete
French treatise on the art of cookery that does not contain receipts
for at least 150 soups; but those most used at English dinner-tables
are, the _purée à la Reine_, the _purée des carottes au riz_, the
_purée de lapins_, _à la Chantilly_, _à la Colbert_, _à la Dauphine_,
the _potage à la brunoise aux pointes d’asperges_, _à la paysanne_, the
_à la Julienne_, and _à la jardinière_. There are also the _bisques
d’écrevisse_, _de crabe_, _de chevrettes_, &c. But for all these soups
the aid of a really accomplished cook is necessary. Italian soups are
generally of macaroni, semolina, or of rice; but these, whether _à la
Medicis_ or _à la Corinne_, are much better prepared after the French
than after Italian receipts. No human being who had any taste in
cookery would think of giving the German soup made of green rye, or the
soup of poached eggs after the Styrian fashion; and Russian and Polish
soups are not suitable to English stomachs. The Russian cabbage soup
may suit a people who love train oil (which Theodore Hook used to say
was “bad for the liver, but good for the lights”), but assuredly it
would be rejected by any civilized Englishman.
I have said in another place that the Dutch eel soup, and the soup of
herring-roes, is very relishing.
To sum up, a host in England can never go wrong in ordering in the
winter months for his guests an ox-tail, a mock turtle, a calf-tail,
a giblet or mulligatawney from among English soups; or a _brunoise_
or _purée de gelinotte_, a _Julienne_, or a _purée à la Reine_ if he
requires a French soup. For the spring and summer, English spring soup
may be given with turtle, green pea, a soup _à la Condé_, or _à purée
de navets_, or _à consommé à la Xavier_.
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