Chef Juliette
Bouillabaisse à la Marseillaise
Marseille's great fish stew, saffron-gold and garlic-scented, proves that a hard boil can be the careful choice: it binds olive oil into broth before the whole pot meets bread.
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Purées
Created by Chef Juliette
Based on No. 239, Purées, from Le Guide Culinaire (1907) by Auguste Escoffier
Purées de légumes teach the first law of the soup pot: floury vegetables bind themselves, watery vegetables need measured help, and both become silken through skimming, butter, and one final sieve.
Soups & Stews
French
Comfort Food
Weeknight
25 min
Active Time
1 hr 15 min cook•1 hr 40 min total
YieldAbout 2 quarts (8 cups / 1.9 L)
Purées de légumes (vegetable purée soups) teach one true thing before you touch the pan: know where the body will come from. Lentils, dried beans, and floury potatoes bring their own starch. Carrots, pumpkin, turnips, celery, and tender herbs do not, so they need rice, potato, or butter-fried bread crumb to cohere. This carrot purée uses rice at the classical proportion, enough to bind the soup without announcing itself in the bowl.
The original formula assumed a saucier beside the pot, ordinary white consommé never far from the fire, brigade quantities, and a tamis (drum sieve) broad enough to process them. Your honest equivalents are a light chicken stock, an immersion blender, and a fine-mesh sieve. This batch begins with one pound of carrots and keeps the book's exact proportion of three ounces of rice; only the volume and the number of hands have changed. One cook, one stove, one evening.
The enormous pot and its attendant cook were scaffolding. The quiet simmer, careful skimming, butter added away from the heat, and second passage through the sieve are the dish, so those remain. The step that matters most is the finish: take the pan completely off the fire before the butter enters, then strain once more for the texture a proper purée promises.
Potages purées belong to the Parisian classical kitchen and the French bourgeois table, where vegetable and pulse soups from regional households became a practical system organized by texture. Their defining distinction is starch: beans, lentils, and potatoes bind themselves, while carrots, pumpkin, turnips, celery, and tender herbs require rice, potato, or butter-fried bread crumb. Careful skimming and repeated straining carried the family into the grand repertoire, but purées never stopped being generous, useful soups for the home table.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
carrots
Quantity
3½ cups (830 ml / 450 g)
peeled and cut into even ¼-inch (6 mm) slices
plain white rice
Quantity
Scant ½ cup (110 ml / 85 g)
ordinary white consommé or light unsalted chicken stock
Quantity
Up to 8 cups (1.9 L / about 1.9 kg)
warmed and divided
cold unsalted butter
Quantity
¾ cup (180 ml / 170 g)
cut into small cubes
fine salt
Quantity
As needed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| carrotspeeled and cut into even ¼-inch (6 mm) slices | 3½ cups (830 ml / 450 g) |
| plain white rice | Scant ½ cup (110 ml / 85 g) |
| ordinary white consommé or light unsalted chicken stockwarmed and divided | Up to 8 cups (1.9 L / about 1.9 kg) |
| cold unsalted buttercut into small cubes | ¾ cup (180 ml / 170 g) |
| fine salt | As needed |
| prepared Chiffonade (No. 215)warmed for serving | ½ cup (120 ml / about 60 g) prepared Chiffonade (No. 215) |
Equipment Needed
- •4-quart heavy saucepan with lid
- •Immersion blender or heat-safe countertop blender
- •Fine-mesh sieve at least 8 inches wide
- •Ladle or flexible spatula
- •Heatproof measuring jug
Instructions
- 1
Classify the vegetable
Carrots are aqueous vegetables, so the rice is essential here: three ounces for one pound of carrots supplies the coherence the vegetable lacks. Do not rinse the rice, because its starch is wanted. When making a purée from dried beans, lentils, or floury potatoes, omit the additional thickener; those vegetables carry their own.
Cut the carrots evenly. Thin and thick pieces cooked together leave you choosing between firm carrots and exhausted rice. - 2
Cook until yielding
Put the carrots, rice, and 5½ cups (1.3 L) of the warm ordinary white consommé or stock into a heavy saucepan. Bring just to a boil, lower the heat immediately, and hold at a gentle simmer with the lid slightly ajar for 30 to 35 minutes. Stir along the bottom every few minutes, especially near the end, until a carrot slice crushes without resistance and the rice has lost its distinct outline. Add a little reserved consommé if the solids begin to stand above the liquid.
- 3
Blend and strain
Take the pan off the heat and blend with the blade kept fully submerged until no grains of rice remain visible. Pass the purée through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean saucepan, pressing with a ladle or flexible spatula. If it sits in the sieve like paste, do not force a dry mass through; loosen it with warm consommé, two tablespoons at a time, and continue. Ça se rattrape. Discard only the dry fibers left behind.
- 4
Purify the purée
Thin the strained purée with enough reserved consommé to make it slightly looser than heavy cream. Bring it to a boil while stirring constantly, then lower the heat to the faintest simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Skim away every patch of pale foam or dull scum as it gathers; this slow dépouillement, purification by skimming, gives the soup its clean flavor and gloss. Stir along the pot floor often. If the purée catches, do not scrape the scorched layer into it: pour the unburned soup into a clean pan and continue at lower heat.
- 5
Monter au beurre
Remove the saucepan completely from the heat. Monter au beurre, finish with cold butter, by whisking in the cubes a few at a time until each disappears and the surface gleams. If butter gathers in oily beads, the purée was too hot; whisk in a tablespoon of cool consommé away from the fire, then rebuild the emulsion gradually. Ça se rattrape. Taste for salt, adjust the consistency and volume with warm consommé if necessary, and pass the finished purée through a clean fine-mesh sieve once more into a warmed vessel.
- 6
Garnish and serve
Divide the warmed prepared Chiffonade (No. 215) among heated soup bowls and ladle the purée around it, letting the green leaves settle naturally into the butter-glossed surface. Serve at once. The purée should coat the spoon lightly, then flow from it without sitting in a mound. À table!
Chef Tips
- •The family rule is simple: farinaceous vegetables such as dried beans, lentils, and floury potatoes need no additional thickener. Aqueous vegetables such as carrots, pumpkin, turnips, celery, and tender herbs do.
- •For each 1 pound (450 g) of aqueous vegetable, choose one classical thickener: 3 ounces (85 g) rice, 10 ounces (285 g) potato, or 10 ounces (285 g) of soft bread crumb cut into dice and fried in butter. Rice is the lightest; potato gives greater density; butter-fried bread crumb lends a peculiar mellowness worth remembering.
- •Ordinary white consommé gives the clearest savory line. A well-made, lightly salted chicken stock is the honest home equivalent; milk is the classical dilution for a Lenten variation when dairy suits the table.
- •Use one garnish with purpose. This version takes prepared Chiffonade (No. 215); another batch may take chervil pluches, small butter-fried crusts, fried potato dice, or vegetables cut brunoise-fashion into small even dice.
Advance Preparation
- •Cook, blend, strain, and complete the 25 to 30 minute purification up to one day ahead. Cool promptly, cover, and refrigerate; reheat gently, then monter au beurre and complete the second straining immediately before serving.
- •The prepared Chiffonade (No. 215) may be held separately in the refrigerator for one day. Warm it gently before dividing it among the bowls.
- •A finished butter-enriched purée keeps for up to three days when cooled promptly and covered. Reheat over low heat without boiling, whisking in a spoonful of consommé if the texture tightens.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 240g)
Calories
240 calories
Total Fat
18 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
50 mg
Sodium
600 mg
Total Carbohydrates
15 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
4 g
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