Thickened Soup

Ingredients

• one quart of soup
• two ounces of Roux
• an ounce and a half of rice-flour

Method

1. 1

   Add Roux to the soup by pouring the soup over it off the fire.

2. 2

   Stir well to avoid lumps, then return to heat and bring to a boil.

3. 3

   For a lighter thickening, mix rice-flour with a little soup, then strain into the hot soup and simmer for 10 minutes.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book (1898) by Roundell, Charles Mrs, page 22. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

thickened soups is that they are too thick, sometimes more like gruel than soup. The cook can so easily avoid this error that it seems strange that she should commit it at all. But the reason is that she has never been told, and has never observed, that the full effect of the thickening can only be judged when the soup comes to the boil. The ordinary method of thickening soups (when they are not made unwholesome and expensive by the addition of cream and eggs) is to use what is called by French cooks Roux. Roux can be made either white or brown. To make it, melt two ounces of butter at the bottom of a saucepan over a slow fire, and when it is thoroughly melted add, little by little, two and a half ounces of flour. Stir well with a wooden spoon till the butter and flour are thoroughly mixed together. Reduce the heat still more, and let the Roux cook very slowly. White Roux must not be allowed to be more than cream colour, and it generally requires a quarter of an hour’s cooking. Brown Roux should be of a warm reddish-brown colour, and will take from twenty to twenty-five minutes to cook. If it is overdone it will be ugly in colour and bitter in taste. The flour must be added veiy gently, and the Roux slowly cooked. If not, the mixture will be lumpy, and there will be a taste of rawr flour. Roux is so often needed in sauces as w^ell as in soups that it is worth while to make some to go on wdth. If the proportions of one pound of flour to half a pound of butter are used Roux will keep quite well. Prepared Corn Flours should nevei' be used, nor potatoes, but some cooks put into the Roux whilst it is cooking a bouquet of herbs, containing three leaves of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a shallot well pricked, and two bay leaves. The bouquet, tied together with twine, is removed as soon as it has THICKENED SOUPS 45 ' given its flavour to the Roux. But, as a rule, it ’is best to use only good dry well-sifted flour and good butter for making Roux. The cook must bear in mind that the Roux must not be added to the soup, but the soup gently poured over the Roux , off the fire. Stir well, so as to avoid lumps, and when the soup and Roux are thoroughly mixed into each other put the soup back on the fire and let it boil up. If the soup is too thin add an ounce of home-made glaze. The soup will be greasy and lumpy if this process is not very carefully followed. Two ounces of Roux will be sufficient to thicken one quart of soup. If anything containing milk, cream, eggs, or butter, has to be added to the soup, the soup must be slightly cooled, and the additions made at the last minute before serving. The soup is easily cooled by taking it off the fire for a few minutes. Roux contains butter, and therefore is too rich an addition to soups in many cases. An excellent thickening of soups can be made by adding arrowroot, or rice-flour. For a quart of soup take an ounce and a half of rice-flour

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.