French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [101]
POTAGE CRÈME DE CÉLERI-RAVE
Scrub a celeriac weighing to lb. and boil it until tender (about 45 minutes: test with a skewer, which should go in easily). When cool, peel and sieve it, mix it thoroughly with a purée made from lb. of potatoes cooked in 2 pints of salted water and sieved with their liquid. Heat up, thin with a cupful of milk, season well, add either a good lump of butter or a little cream before serving. Enough for four.
SUMMER SOUPS
In France, after the 14th of July, a great many people take advantage of their holidays to give their livers, about which the French are so obsessed, a little rest. The watering places are filled with people taking cures and in seaside, mountain and country establishments the meals, at any rate the evening meals, are apt to be composed of light and refreshing soups, plainly cooked meat or fish, and only a moderate amount of salads and fruit; and just before bedtime a tisane or infusion of lime flowers or some other scented, calming herb.
The two following recipes are typical of the sort of soups which one might get under these circumstances. The habit of serving soup iced, except for consommé, has not really spread to the country places of France. But even in hot weather a hot soup, so long as it is not too substantial, can be quite refreshing.
POTAGE DE TOMATES ESTIVAL
LIGHT TOMATO SOUP
Slice 2 lb. of ripe juicy tomatoes into a saucepan; add half an onion finely sliced and 2 teaspoons of salt. Cook with the lid on the pan, but without any liquid or butter, for 10 to 15 minutes, until the tomatoes are quite soft. Put through the food mill. In a bowl dilute 1 tablespoon of ground rice with a little cold milk. Stir this into the purée. Heat gently, and gradually add about 1 pints of hot milk, or half milk and half light chicken or veal broth. Cook very gently, stirring often, for about 15 minutes until all traces of the little white globules formed by the ground rice have disappeared. It should be quite smooth, but if it is not, press it once more through a fine sieve. Stir in some very finely chopped parsley or chervil. Properly made, this very simple soup is most refreshing and delicate, but it can, if you prefer, be enriched with a little cream or a lump of butter stirred in before it is served, though it should remain on the thin side. Makes four to six helpings.
POTAGE DU PÈRE TRANQUILLE
LETTUCE SOUP
The Père Tranquille seems to have been a somewhat mysterious Capuchin monk, but the name of this soup is also a reference to the supposed soporific effects of lettuce. It is a trouble to make but useful for those who have more lettuces in their gardens than they can eat as salads. Ordinary round or cabbage lettuces are the best ones to use.
Two large whole lettuces, or the outside leaves of 3, about 1 pint of mild chicken or veal broth and 1 pint of milk, seasonings, a little butter or cream.
Cut the carefully washed lettuce leaves into fine ribbons; put them in the saucepan with just enough broth to cover them. Let them simmer gently, adding a little more liquid, until they are quite soft. Sieve them, or purée them in the electric blender. Return the purée to the pan, gradually add the rest of the broth and enough milk to make a thin cream. Season with salt if necessary, a lump or two of sugar and a scrap of nutmeg. Before serving stir in either a small lump of butter or a little thick fresh cream. Makes five or six helpings.
Both these soups can be, and usually are, poured over thin slices of French bread baked pale golden in the oven, but personally I prefer them without. To make a smoother soup, sieve it again after the liquid has been added.
CRÈME VICHYSSOISE GLACÈE
ICED POTATO AND LEEK SOUP
It is interesting to follow the way French recipes develop as they are carried round the world by French cooks, emigrants and all those thousands of people who have enjoyed French cooking in its native land and who on returning home have reproduced various