POTAGES OR SOUPS.
Potage is the modern word for soup, and is used in bills of fare everywhere.
Three kinds of liquor are used to make potages: broth, milk, and water.
Besides the liquor, meat, fish, and vegetables are used.
The richest potages are made with consommé and some other compounds; such as bread, Italian pastes, vegetables, etc.
Consommé means rich broth; literally, it means consumed, perfect, that is, properly reduced and partly consumed, as it is the case in making it. Consommé is broth reduced to a certain point, according to want or taste.
Broth.—Broth is to good cooking what wheat is to bread. Dishes (with some exceptions) prepared without broth are, to those prepared with it, what rye or corn bread is to wheat bread. Broth, and especially consommé, are to old age what milk is to the infant. Broth is called bouillon in France, and stock in England. The word pot-au-feu means the meat, vegetables, seasonings, spices, and the "pot" or soup-kettle itself, i. e., every thing made use of in making broth. The popular meaning of the term in France is, the soup and the beef and vegetables served as relevés; and, with the working-classes, the only thing (with bread, wine, and fruit) composing the family dinner. The French army is fed on this pot-au-feu three hundred and sixty days in the year.
It is a great mistake to believe that bones or veal make good broth; by boiling or simmering bones or veal, you obtain a gelatinous liquid, but not a rich broth with a pleasant flavor. When properly made, broth is clear. If milky, it has been made with bones, veal, or very inferior beef.
Broth for Potages.—Take three pounds of good, lean, fresh beef, from any part except the shin. There must not be more than two ounces of bone to a pound of meat, and the less bone the better. Place the meat in a soup-kettle or iron saucepan lined with tin, with three quarts of cold water and salt, and set it on a good fire. After about thirty minutes, the scum or albumen of the meat will gather on the surface, and the water will commence boiling. Now place the kettle on a more moderate fire, add one gill of cold water, and begin to skim off the scum, which will take only a few minutes. Then add one middle-sized carrot, half as much turnip, one middle-sized leek, a stalk of celery, one of parsley, a bay-leaf, one onion with two cloves stuck in it, and two cloves of garlic. Keep the kettle between simmering and boiling heat for about five hours. Dish the meat with carrot, turnip, and leek around it, and serve it as a relevé. Strain the broth, and it is ready for use.