Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (19 page)

These amounts serve six people.

This is a light and delicate soup which in Tuscany is most likely to be appreciated by the ladies. However, it should not be served in Romagna, that homeland of tagliatelle, where softness to the bite is not to the locals’ taste. Even less would they appreciate the pasty texture of tapioca, the very sight of which would, with few exceptions, turn their stomachs.

180 grams (about 6-1/3 ounces) of flour

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of butter

40 grams (about 1-1/3 ounces) of Parmesan cheese

4 deciliters (about 1-2/3 cups) of milk

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

salt to taste

a handful of spinach

a dash of nutmeg

Boil the spinach, squeeze it dry and pass it through a sieve. Heat the butter and when it has melted, add the flour, stirring well. Then add the milk, a little at a time. Salt it and, while it is cooking, work the mixture with a wooden spoon, turning it into a smooth paste.

Remove it from the heat, and when it is lukewarm add the eggs, grated Parmesan and nutmeg. Then divide the mixture into two equal parts. Use one part to blend in just enough spinach to make the mixture turn green.

Place the mixture in a pastry-tube using the attachment that has rather wide round holes. Squeeze the dough into boiling broth in the same manner as for the passatelli in recipe 48. This procedure must be repeated twice, once with the yellow mixture and once with the green one.

These amounts serve eight to ten people.

Take a half breast of capon or of a large chicken, a slice of untrimmed prosciutto, and a small piece of marrow. Work these into forcemeat, season with grated Parmesan cheese, add a dash of nutmeg, and bind it with an egg. Since you are using the prosciutto, salt is not necessary.

Take a long thin loaf of stale bread, slice it into round, half-finger-thick pieces and then trim off the crust. Spread the meat mixture on half of the pieces you have and then cover them with the remaining pieces, pressing firmly so that they will remain attached. Cut these paired slices into small cubes and fry them in pure lard, olive oil or butter, depending on personal or regional taste.

When it is time to send the soup to the table, place the fried cubes in a soup tureen, and pour the boiling broth over them.

During mushroom season, you can serve this soup even at an elegant dinner, and it will not embarrass you.

“Ovoli” are the orange mushrooms described in recipe 396. Take 600 grams (about 1-1/3 pounds) of these mushrooms—after cleaning and peeling them, you will be left with about 500 grams (about 1 pound). Wash them and then cut them into thin slices or small pieces.

Make a paste out of 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) of lardoon and a pinch of parsley, and place it on the fire with 50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) ounces of butter and three spoonfuls of oil. When this begins to brown, add the mushrooms, salt lightly, and wait until they are half-cooked. Then pour them with all the rest into a hot broth and allow them to boil for another ten minutes. Before removing them from the stove, break one whole egg and one yolk into the pan, and add a handful of grated Parmesan cheese. Then pour in the broth little by little, stirring constantly. Add cubes of toasted bread— but make sure that the soup stays very watery.

These amounts serve six to seven people.

If you make only half the portion, one whole egg will be enough.

Peel and thinly slice 1 kilogram (about 2 pounds) of yellow pumpkin. Cook it with two ladlefuls of broth and pass it through a sieve.

Over the fire make a paste with 60 grams (about 2 ounces) of butter and two level tablespoons of flour. When it begins to color, add broth and simmer. Then add the pureed pumpkin and enough broth to feed six people. Pour the boiling soup over cubes of fried bread and send it to the table with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

If you make this soup properly and with a good broth, it can be served at any table, and will have the added merit of being refreshing.

Since the peas for this dish are to be puréed, they need not be the most tender. 400 grams (about 14 ounces) of shelled peas should suffice for six people to dine fashionably—that is, with little soup. Cook the shelled peas in broth with a
bouquet garni
, which you will later discard, made with parsley, celery, carrot and a few basil leaves. When the peas are cooked add to their broth two pieces of bread fried in butter. When the bread has become soggy pass the mixture through a sieve. Dilute the result with broth as needed. You may add a little brown stock (recipe 4) if you have it, pouring it over the soup. This soup must be made with fine stale bread, diced and fried in butter.

A variety of garden vegetables can provide the ingredients for this soup. If you serve, for example, carrots, sorrel, celery and white cabbage, cut the cabbage like taglierini, squeeze firmly, and then place in a pan on the fire to get the water out. Cut the carrots and the celery into strips about three centimeters long (about 1-1/5 inches), and place them on the fire, together with the cabbage and the washed sorrel stalks, adding a little salt, a pinch of pepper and a piece of butter. When the vegetables have absorbed the butter, add broth and finish cooking.

In the meantime prepare the bread, which should be of good quality and at least a day old. Cut it into small cubes and fry it in butter, virgin olive oil or lard. To keep the bread from becoming too greasy, use a good deal of fat but wait until it is sizzling before tossing in the bread. Alternatively, roast the bread in slices half a finger thick, and then cut them into cubes. Place the bread in a soup tureen, pour the boiling broth and the vegetables over it, and send to the table immediately.

With professional paring utensils you can cut the vegetables into charming and elegant shapes.

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of sorrel

1 head of lettuce

After having soaked the vegetables, drain them well, cut them into strips, and place them on the fire. When they are cooked, flavor with a pinch of salt and 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of butter. In the soup tureen place two egg yolks with a little lukewarm broth. Add the vegetables and then, a little bit at a time, enough boiling broth as needed for soup, stirring constantly. Add diced, fried bread, and send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side.

Prepared in this way, this soup serves five people.

Certain cooks, to give themselves airs, mangle the phrases of our less than benevolent neighbors, using names that resound mightily and say nothing. According to them, the soup I am describing should be called soup
mitonnée
. And if I had stuffed my book with these exotic and disagreeable names, to please the many who grovel before foreign customs, who knows how much prestige I would have enjoyed! But, for the sake of our national dignity, I have made every effort to use our own beautiful and harmonious language, and so it pleases me to call the soup by its simple and natural name.

To succeed with this soup one must know how to make a good meat sauce (see recipe 5), something of which not everyone is capable.

To serve four, you will need about 500 grams (about 1 pound) of beef for stewing, with some chicken necks and kitchen scraps, if you have them. In addition to its sauce, this soup requires plenty of garden vegetables. Depending on the season, you can use a combination of celery, carrot, Savoy cabbage, sorrel, zucchini, peas, and even a potato. Dice the potato and the zucchini, slice all the rest.

Boil all the vegetables together, and then saute them in butter, moistening them with the sauce. Slice the bread a half-finger thick, brown the slices and cut into cubes. Take a pan, or better yet, a pot—something presentable, since it must be brought to the table—and
assemble the soup in it as follows: a layer of bread, one of vegetables, and then a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Continue in this fashion. Finally, pour the sauce over it, cover with a plate and a napkin, and keep it near the fire for a half hour before serving it.

I warn you that this soup is supposed to be nearly dry. Therefore it is well-advised to keep a little sauce on the side, to add to the soup when you send it to the table, in case it is too dry.

From the name alone, one would have to judge this the best of all soups. Certainly it belongs among the most distinguished. The name, however, is a bit exaggerated.

The soup is made with the white meat of a roasted chicken, skinned and stripped of tendons. Chop it fine with the mezzaluna, and then pound it in a mortar with five or six sweet, blanched almonds and crustless bread soaked in milk or broth. The amount of bread should be between a fifth and a sixth of that of the meat. When the mixture is well mashed, pass it through a sieve, place it in a soup tureen, and then pour in a ladleful of hot broth.

Take some dry bread, cube it, fry it in butter and add this to the sauce in the tureen. Then add very hot broth, stir and send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side.

This soup will serve you well when, after a dinner, you have leftovers of roasted or boiled chicken, although the best results are obtained using only roasted chicken.

Almonds serve to add a milkiness to the broth, but the resulting liquid should not be overly dense. Some people dissolve the yolk of a hard-boiled egg in the broth.

Take the breast of a young hen or capon, cut it into small pieces and cook it in butter over a low flame, seasoning it with salt and pepper. If the butter does not provide enough moisture, add a little broth. Remove the chicken breast from the pot, and throw in a handful of crustless bread. Add broth to make a firm paste. Place this paste and
the chicken breast in a mortar. Add two egg yolks and a dash of nutmeg. Crush it into a fine mash, and leave it in a cool place to firm up. When you are ready to use it—which may even be the next day— place the mixture on a pastry board sprinkled with flour and roll it out in a small cylinder (no wider than a finger) which you will cut with a floured knife into many identical small pieces.

Use your hands (also dusted with flour) to roll the pieces into balls about the size of hazelnuts or smaller. Throw the little balls in boiling broth, and after five or six minutes pour them into a soup tureen, where you will have already placed some cubed bits of bread sautéed in butter or in pure lard. Better still, instead of bread you can serve the meat stuffing described in recipe 32.

This is an elegant soup that serves ten to twelve people.

This soup has not much flavor, but having seen it frequently served at foreign-style tables, I will describe it to you.

3 eggs

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of flour

a walnut-size pat of butter

First blend the three egg yolks with the flour and butter. Whip the three egg whites and add them to the mixture. Pour it all into a smooth mold, lining the bottom with buttered paper. Cook in the oven or in a Dutch oven.

After the loaf has cooked and cooled, cut it into cubes or into small lozenges, pour the boiling broth over it, and send to the table with Parmesan cheese on the side.