Potage Favori

Potage Favori (three-velouté spring soup) teaches proportion before richness. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is this: the asparagus must lead without swallowing the lettuce or poultry. Each velouté, a smooth soup built on a pale roux, must taste complete by itself before the three meet in their exact 2:1:1 proportion.

The original formula assumed a saucier with three finished veloutés at hand and white consommé never far from the fire. Your equivalent is one saucepan used three times, two measuring jugs, and good chicken stock. The book's two-pint base is scaled by half again so the consommé, liaison, and finishing butter bring it to about two quarts. Reusing one pan is brigade scaffolding that can go. Keeping the three bases distinct until their marriage is the dish and must stay.

The finished Potage Favori should be pale spring green, smooth enough to pour in an unbroken ribbon, with asparagus tips and fine sorrel giving freshness against the butter. The liaison, the egg-yolk-and-cream binding, supplies silk rather than heaviness. Once the liaison enters, the soup must never boil.