Thick soup of garlic in meat broth
210. To prepare a thick soup of garlic in meat broth with other ingredients.
When the cloves of garlic are clean there should be as many cloves as from fifty bulbs. Parboil them, changing the water often so they lose their strenght, and finish cooking them in a good meat broth that is not too salty, along with slices of pork jowl and desalted sowbelly. Just before you want to serve it, throw in a handful of herbs. If there is no salted meat in it, you can belend in cheese and eggs, not failing to put the spices in the one and the other. With them you can garnish and cook doves, cockrels and other fowl, serving them with grated cheese and cinnamon over the top.
Scappi, Bartolomeo, and Terence Scully. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): l’arte et prudenza d’un maestro cuoco. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008, p.243.
FIRST REDACTION
2 lb of clean garlic cloves
2 cups meat broth (bullion cubes)
1 slice of pork belly (thin slice about the amount and consistency of a slice of bacon)
1 TBS chopped herbs (basil, mint, thyme)
1 TBS cheese (parmesan)
Boil the garlic cloves for 30 minutes changing the water 3 times. Then place in meat broth with chopped up pork belly and cook for a further 10 mintues. Puree the garlic and stir in the cheese and fresh herbs at the last minute before serving.
SECOND REDACTION
2 lbs of clean garlic cloves
Olive oil
2 cups meat broth (bullion cubes)
1 heaping TBS chopped herbs (basil, mint, thyme)
3 heaping TBS of bread crumbs
3 heaping TBS of parmesan cheese
Roast the garlic cloves in aluminum foil for 20 minutes in 400 degree with olive oil until slightly browned. Add garlic to meat broth and simmer for another 10 minutes. Add herbs, bread crumbs and parmesan cheese and serve.
NOTES: I was aiming for something like French onion soup but didn’t succeed. The first redaction tasted too bitter for my taste, which was why I did the second redaction. This was slightly milder but still too strong to my taste. Others at the table liked it better than I did but found little or no difference between the two redactions.
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