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Bread Soup

A historical recipe from The Dinner Year-Book, by Marion Harland (1883).

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A historical recipe

The Dinner Year-Book, by Marion Harland (1883). Project Gutenberg eBook #49958.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards. Its words name: raw meat or fish. Check current food-safety guidance before following this.

  • Raw or underdone meat. Raw or underdone meat or fish carries a risk. Cook to current safe temperatures.

Ingredients 5 ingredients

  1. 1 pint of stock
  2. 4 quarts of cold water
  3. 1 lb. stale bread-crusts
  4. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter
  5. 1 onion

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Oven and hot trays. Use dry oven gloves for trays and dishes: a hot tray looks just like a cold one. Open the oven door away from your face and let the first rush of heat out.
  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. A few raw beef-bones and trimmings, spoken of yesterday.
  2. Bones, bits of skin, gristle, etc., left from Sunday’s roast when you have cut off the meat for the cannelon.
  3. 1 pint of stock.
  4. 1 onion.
  5. 2 stalks of celery.
  6. Bunch of sweet herbs.
  7. 4 quarts of cold water.
  8. 1 lb.
  9. stale bread-crusts, the drier the better, provided they are not mouldy or sour.
  10. Salt and pepper.
  11. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
  12. Crack the bones, chop meat and vegetables;
  13. put on in the water, and boil slowly down to two quarts.
  14. Strain the liquor;
  15. let it cool;
  16. take off all the fat, season, and return to the pot with the stock.
  17. Boil up and skim;
  18. put in the crusts;
  19. stew, covered, half an hour.
  20. Take it from the range and beat in the butter, taking out indissoluble bits.
  21. Then simmer, in a vessel set within another of boiling water, half an hour.
  22. As you will see, by a careful perusal of these directions, the preparation of this soup requires little actual expenditure of time.
  23. I beg, therefore, that you will “gather up the fragments” from larder and bread-box, and give your family a hot, nourishing, “comforting” dish of porridge, if it is wash-day.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Chef's knife
  • Cutting board
  • Slotted spoon
  • Sieve
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From The Dinner Year-Book, by Marion Harland (1883). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #49958 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49958). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.