Quails are small birds, related to partridges. Although -at least in the Netherlands- they are called ‘game birds’, they are actually bred at farms for their eggs and meat. They make a beautiful dark stock. The small birds could be regarded as the replacements of even smaller songbirds that used to be eaten (and in…
Recipes for making stock and soup
There are many recipes for making stock, soup and processing leftover meat on coquinaria. On this page is a list of all recipes concerning these subjects.
Creamy Oxtail Soup
This recipe for creamy oxtail soup is an addition to the recipe for clear oxtail soup. The recipe for the basic oxtail stock that is used in this recipe can also be found there. For 1 litre soup (4 to 5 portions); preparation 20 minutes. 1 liter oxtail stock meat of an oxtail, pulled in threads 40…
Queen’s Soup
Cream of Chicken Soup the Dutch way Three years ago I published the historical version of this soup on Coquinaria, from a seventeenth-century French cookbook. For that soup you needed partridges and cockscombs (not mushrooms, but the real thing), so I do not expect many people to have prepared that soup. That may be completely…
La Varenne’s meat stock
This is the first ‘historical’ recipe for stock on my site. This meat stock is taken from Le cuisinier françois by François Pierre la Varenne, from 1651. It is the opening recipe in the book, a real basic recipe. The stock is made with a lot of meat, and all kinds of it: beef, mutton, fowl. From…
Fish Fumet
A good beef stock is made with meat bones, a good fish fumet (concentrated stock) needs fish bones. Ask the fishmonger to collect the bones when he is filleting, you’ll need about one kilogram. The bones have to be from lean fish like sole, halibut, plaice, flounder, etc., no bones from salmon or maquerel. By…
French pea soup
Straight to the recipe A vegetarian recipe from the seventeenth century This recipe for a nutritious soup made of split peas dates from the era of Louis XIV, the French Roi Soleil. The soup is meatless, and fits in a vegetarian diet. Potage was served during the first course of a meal. Often a thick slice…
Stock from winter vegetables
A recipe from a century ago I prepared this vegetarian stock for the vegetable cutlets from Iwan Kriens. The stock recipe is also from his cookbook, that he wrote with Dorothy Peels in 1918 to provide the British with recipes to use during the food rationing. More can be read at the recipe for vegetable…
Chinese stock
Soup is important in the Chinese kitchen. No good soup without a good stock. Chinese soup is better not made with a western stock cube, try preparing a Chinese broth instead. Chinese stock is lighter than Western stock. A comparatively small quantity of vegetables is used, just some spring onions and ginger. By the way: it…
Chinese tomato soup
The secret ingredient in this soup is apple sauce. This soup is sold in many Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands. The recipe is very popular with children (no doubt because of the apple sauce), and very simple to make. How simple exactly depends on the stock you use. It is not necessary to make Chinese stock for…
Concentrated Game Stock
Back to the list with recipes for stock and soup No good stock without bones. When preparing hare, deer or whatever, and you only want to use the meat, use the carcass or ribs, or ask the shop. Sometimes you’ll have to ask in advance, so that he can collect a fair amount of bones….
Beef Stock
Back to the list with recipes for stock and soup You’ll never get a good beef stock without meat and bones. In some supermarkets in the Netherlands you can buy soup packages to make your own stock, but what they provide is a miserable quantity, barely enough for one cup of soup. That’s why so many recipes…
Medieval Beef Stock
This recipe is not based on a medieval source, there are no separate recipes for medieval stock. Stock was so common, there was no need to write down recipes for that, just as with recipes for baking bread. Often, the stock used in recipes was simply the liquid in which meat was cooked. So here…
Polish cold soup from a Russian cookbook
Very refreshing! This is a delicious dish when it is hot. It is a soup, a chlodnik or ‘cold thingy’ according to the cookbook A gift to young housewives (Пода́рок молоды́м хозя́йкам, first published in 1861) from Jelena Molochovjets. According to her, this soup is Polish in origin. The Polish wikipedia defines Chłodnik as any cold soup; the Spanish gazpacho is also a…
Clear Oxtail Soup
Haute cuisine for the Middle Class In my youth we used to eat oxtail soup as the first course of our Christmas dinner. My mother did not really like cooking, so the rest of the year our dinner fare was simple. If she did serve soup, it was prepared from a can or stock cube….
Potage à la Reine
Straight to the recipe The French origins of a Dutch soup ‘Queen’s Day‘ (Koninginnedag) was a national holiday in the Netherlands. It was celebrated on April 30, originally the birthday of Queen Juliana, grandmother of our King Willem-Alexander. Prior to Juliana’s ascension to the throne in 1949, Queen’s Day was celebrated on August 31, the birthday of Juliana’s…