Iced Bouillon with Sherry from 1905
Reader ratingsBeef bouillon cooked with carrot, onion, celery, parsley and bay, strained, flavored with a little sherry or Madeira and served cold in cups: Armour’s iced bouillon of 1905.
- Recipe makes
- About 4 cups, 6 small cups
- Prep
- Total
About 30 minutes of cooking, then at least 2 hours to chill.
Iced bouillon with sherry in two-handled bouillon cups, with a small decanter of sherry.
The story behind the recipe
Iced bouillon is cold beef broth with a little sherry or Madeira in it, sipped from a cup. Armour & Company printed it in 1905 in Culinary Wrinkles, a recipe booklet by Ida M. Palmer for selling the firm’s Extract of Beef: “Flavor beef bouillon with a small quantity of sherry or Madeira wine, chill and serve cold.” The bouillon above it on the same page is extract, water, vegetables and seasonings, cooked half an hour and strained.
A cup for the table
Armour’s bouillon was meant for the table, to “serve in bouillon cups,” and the iced version was the same cup chilled, with wine. A generation later came another cold, savory cup, the tomato juice cocktail, which What Was a Tomato Juice Cocktail? follows; by 1929 New York was putting gin into the tomato juice, in Gin and Tomato Juice, the 1929 Hangover Cocktail.
Beef, wine and a chill: the iced bouillon is an early cold cousin of the Bloody Bull and the Bullshot, though with wine rather than spirit. A hot glass of beef extract from a bar of 1900, sherry or brandy optional, is Beef Tea with Sherry or Brandy from a 1900 Bar.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Use a beef extract or a concentrated beef stock paste. Modern pastes differ in strength, so taste the bouillon after cooking and add more if it is thin; salt only after tasting, since most are salted. Lift off the butter that sets on top once it is cold. Leave out the sherry and it is plain chilled bouillon, with no alcohol at all. The booklet’s cold glass sits beside the bar’s hot beef tea and the clam punch in The Bloody Mary Before It Had a Name.
Iced Bouillon
Flavor beef bouillon with a small quantity of sherry or Madeira wine, chill and serve cold.
The beef bouillon it starts from, just above on the same page, is three teaspoonfuls of Armour’s Extract of Beef to 2 quarts of water, with parsley, salt, half a bay leaf, whole pepper, butter and a quarter cup each of diced carrot, onion and celery, cooked 30 minutes and strained.
Recipe makes: About 4 cups, 6 small cups
Ingredients
For About 4 cups, 6 small cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 4 cups, 6 small cups.
- Water4 cups
- Beef extract1 1/2 tsp
- Small sprig parsley1
- Salt, to taste (up to 1 1/2 tsp)
- Bay leaf1/4
- Whole black pepper1/2 tsp
- Butter1 1/2 tsp
- Diced carrot2 tbsp
- Diced onion2 tbsp
- Diced celery2 tbsp
- Medium dry sherry or Madeira2 fl oz
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 4 cups water
- 1 1/2 tsp beef extract
- 1 small sprig parsley
- Salt, to taste (up to 1 1/2 tsp)
- 1/4 bay leaf
- 1/2 tsp whole black pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp butter
- 2 tbsp diced carrot
- 2 tbsp diced onion
- 2 tbsp diced celery
- 2 fl oz medium dry sherry or Madeira
Equipment
Saucepan with a lid
Fine sieve
Jug with a lid
Bouillon cups or teacups
Instructions
Bring the water to the boil in the saucepan.
Add the beef extract, parsley, bay leaf, whole black pepper, butter, diced carrot, diced onion and diced celery.
Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain into the jug, taste and stir in the salt as needed, let it cool, then cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
Lift off any butter that has set on top. Stir in the medium dry sherry or Madeira, taste, and pour into the cups.
Nutrition
25calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 4 cups, 6 small cups
- Servings
- 6
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for beef extract, butter, carrot, onion, celery and medium dry sherry, for one 2/3-cup serving.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is half of Armour’s two quarts.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: half of Armour’s quantities, with the pepper rounded up a little, to half a teaspoon. Salt to taste after cooking, up to half her tablespoon, in place of adding it at the start, since modern beef pastes are salted. The 2 fl oz of sherry or Madeira for her “small quantity,” covering and lifting off the butter are ours.
Strength: 2 fl oz of sherry at about 17% is about a third of an ounce of alcohol in some 30 fl oz, roughly 1%. It is low in alcohol, not free of it.
A cold savory glass needs no sherry: Chilled Tomato Juice, Seasoned at the Table is sieved tomato, lightly salted and seasoned glass by glass.
Storage
Keep it covered in the fridge and serve it soon. Add the sherry just before serving.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Ida M. Palmer, Culinary Wrinkles: Practical Recipes for Using Armour’s Extract of Beef (Chicago: Armour & Company, 1905), “Beef Bouillon” and “Iced Bouillon”, p. 12
Recipe details
- Drink
- DrinkLow-alcohol
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1900s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dinner party
- Season
- Summer