HFF 4.24: Serve It In A Bowl

 

The Challenge: Serve it in a bowl--soups, stews, broths, ice creams, anything that can be served in a bowl. 

The Recipe: Carrot Soup from Beeton's Book of Household Management

CARROT SOUP. II.

121. INGREDIENTS.—2 lbs. of carrots, 3 oz. of butter, seasoning to taste of salt and cayenne, 2 quarts of stock or gravy soup.

Mode.—Scrape and cut out all specks from the carrots, wash, and wipe them dry, and then reduce them into quarter-inch slices. Put the butter into a large stewpan, and when it is melted, add 2 lbs. of the sliced carrots, and let them stew gently for an hour without browning. Add to them the soup, and allow them to simmer till tender,—say for nearly an hour. Press them through a strainer with the soup, and add salt and cayenne if required. Boil the whole gently for 5 minutes, skim well, and serve as hot as possible.

Time.—1-1/4 hour. Average cost per quart, 1s. 1d.

MEDIUM STOCK.

105. INGREDIENTS.—4 lbs. of shin of beef, or 4 lbs. of knuckle of veal, or 2 lbs. of each; any bones, trimmings of poultry, or fresh meat, 1/2 a lb. of lean bacon or ham, 2 oz. of butter, 2 large onions, each stuck with 3 cloves; 1 turnip, 3 carrots, 1/2 a leek, 1 head of celery, 2 oz. of salt, 1/2 a teaspoonful of whole pepper, 1 large blade of mace, 1 small bunch of savoury herbs, 4 quarts and 1/2 pint of cold water.

Mode.—Cut up the meat and bacon or ham into pieces about 3 inches square; rub the butter on the bottom of the stewpan; put in 1/2 a pint of water, the meat, and all the other ingredients. Cover the stewpan, and place it on a sharp fire, occasionally stirring its contents. When the bottom of the pan becomes covered with a pale, jelly-like substance, add 4 quarts of cold water, and simmer very gently for 5 hours. As we have said before, do not let it boil quickly. Skim off every particle of grease whilst it is doing, and strain it through a fine hair sieve.

This is the basis of many of the soups afterwards mentioned, and will be found quite strong enough for ordinary purposes.

Time.—5-1/2 hours. Average cost, 9d. per quart.

ECONOMICAL STOCK.

106. INGREDIENTS.—The liquor in which a joint of meat has been boiled, say 4 quarts; trimmings of fresh meat or poultry, shank-bones, &c., roast-beef bones, any pieces the larder may furnish; vegetables, spices, and the same seasoning as in the foregoing recipe.

Mode.—Let all the ingredients simmer gently for 6 hours, taking care to skim carefully at first. Strain it off, and put by for use.

Time.—6 hours. Average cost, 3d. per quart.

The Date/Year and Region: 1861, London

How Did You Make It:  I started with the stock, based on the 'economical stock' since I didn't have beef bones, but did have some left-over turkey bones from last week and a bit of frozen pork roast from the fear factor challenge. To these I added 2 oz of butter, two onions with 3 cloves each, 1 turnip, 3 carrots, about a half head of celery, 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp whole black pepper, 1/2 tsp ground mace, and a small handful of sage/thyme/parsley, and let it simmer all afternoon in 4 1/4 quarts of water. [I skipped the leek because there weren't any in the garden; re-reading, I should have omitted the butter since I didn't actually use it to prepare the meat, but Francatelli allows this, so...].

After cooking for 6 hours, I strained it, yielding 4 1/2 quarts of stock (so, either my rough 1 cup was closer to 2 cups, or enough water came out of the vegetables to make up the difference) 

At this point (and I should have started it earlier), I peeled and chopped up 1 lb (5) carrots, and stewed them on the stove in 3 Tbsp of unsalted butter. They browned slightly over the hour of cooking, at which point I put the carrots into 1 quart of the stock, and let it simmer another hour. [Since I accidentally let it reduce by 75% during that hour, I added another 3 cups of water to dilute the stock again.] After an hour, I used my collander-like jam-making thing-that's-basically-a-food-mill on the carrots, then added a generous pinch of cayenne pepper to complete the soup.

Time to Complete: About 10 minutes to assemble the stock, then 6 to boil it. Another 2:20 minutes to make the soup after that.

Total Cost: Unsure.

How Successful Was It?: Decently tasty, reasonable texture. It's like tomato soup but orange and carroty. The flavor was nice--I was a little concerned that the pork and turkey would overwhelm the other flavors, but the mace and cayenne worked well, and different vegetables made for a complex broth and a nice soup.

Making stock from scratch is a bit boring for interpretation, and I don't have a period-style collander, so this probably won't be used in cooking demonstrations. However, I'll keep this in mind for future dinner parties--it would be easy to make in advance, it's reasonably tasty, unfamiliar-but-not-weird, is already gluten free, and could easily be made vegetarian or vegan with a meatless broth.

How Accurate Is It?: No heirloom vegetables this time. The processes--boiling, crushing the carrots--are accurate even if the equipment I used is modern. I think this is a reasonable attempt, though there is room for improvement (mostly tying heirloom vegetables).

Boiling some stock

Stewing carrots in butter

Carrot Soup