SOUPS.

MEAT SOUPS

SHOULD be boiled in a closely-covered kettle, used for no other purpose; boil slowly and steadily to extract all of the meat juices. I prefer a granite soup kettle to any other, it being easily kept clean. Skim your soup as soon as it begins to boil and never add salt until your soup is strained. When strained skim off every particle of fat and save this fat in a little jar; you will find it comes in very handy for various uses, such as pie-crust and for browning flour and croutons and other purposes too numerous to mention. Root celery, parsley, onions, carrots, asparagus and potatoes are the best vegetables to add to soup stock. Never use celery leaves for beef soup. You may use celery leaves in potato soup, but sparingly, with chopped parsley leaves. Bouillon should always be thickened with yelks of eggs, beat up with a spoonful of cold water. Ordinary beef soup or tomato soup may be thickened with flour. To do this properly heat a scant spoonful of soup drippings, stir in briskly a spoonful of flour, and add a large quantity of soup to prevent it becoming lumpy.

Make a rich bouillon from three to four pounds of meat and a calf's head, which had better be boiled the day previous, add celery root, an onion, a few cloves, two bay leaves, and if you happen to have some smoked or pickled tongue, add it also. Soak one quart of turtle beans over night and boil in the soup from four to five hours. When half done add salt and pepper; and when done strain through a collander. An extra and very nice addition are a few sweetbreads boiled in the soup about half an hour and cut into squares and served with the soup. You may also cut up part of the meat that was boiled in the soup, and add. A cup of Madeira and a pint of oysters may be added, but just allow them to boil up once.

Take an old fat hen; after cleaning and singeing let it lay in fresh water half an hour. Scald the feet, scrape off the skin, crack them in two. Set them on to boil, with the heart and gizzard. Reserve the liver to add to the soup a few minutes before serving, it not requiring more than about three minutes to cook. Boil the chicken, which should be the largest you can get, at least three hours; add some parsley root, an onion and some asparagus, cut into bits. Season with salt. Rice, barley, noodles or dumplings are nice ingredients for this soup. Strain and beat up the yelks of two or more eggs with a tablespoonful of cold water, just before pouring into the soup bowl. This soup should not be too thin; and make use of the chicken either for salad or stew. Season to taste. I forgot to mention that you must skim the soup carefully when it begins to boil, and, after straining, skim off every particle of fat, which will come in very handy for salads, etc. Chicken fat takes the place of olive oil.

Three pounds of lean beef, two ox tails, chopped up; one large onion, celery root, parsley and two or three carrots. Boil in one gallon of water for four hours, slow but steady; boil until reduced to nearly one-half. Strain; return the pieces of ox tail and pieces of carrots cut up into the soup and thicken with one tablespoonful of flour, browned in a spider with a spoonful of fat. You may add dumplings or green peas. Very nice.

Boil a piece of veal, off the neck, and a couple of veal shanks, in two quarts of water; add parsley, an onion and asparagus, cut up into small pieces. Strain and thicken with the yelks of eggs. Very nice for the sick.

For six or more persons, select a piece of beef off the neck, say three or four pounds; add three quarts of water, an onion, one celery root, two carrots, a large potato, some parsley, three tomatoes and the giblets of poultry if you happen to have any. Cover up tight. It is important to cook soup in a vessel with a tight-fitting cover and put on as early as eight o'clock in the morning and boil very slow and steady if intended for twelve o'clock dinner. Remove every bit of scum that rises. Strain. Add salt and remove every particle of fat; put in noodles; boil about five minutes and serve at once. If allowed to stand it will become thick. I wish to suggest something right here: never throw away fat or drippings that you have skimmed off soup or meat gravy; save and put into refrigerator for pie-crust.

How to make. Put a large handful of flour into a bowl, sifted of course. Make a hollow in the center of the flour, break in an egg. Take the handle of a knife and stir the egg slowly, always in the same direction, until the dough is so stiff that you can not stir it anymore with the knife. Flour a baking board and empty your dough upon it, and knead with the hollow of your hand, work with the hands until quite stiff. Flour your board and roll out as thin as possible. Lay on a clean table near the kitchen fire to dry. Cut into halves, double up, and cut as fine as possible; spread lightly to dry. If in a hurry just cut into little squares. Tastes just as nice, the only difference being in looks.

Make your soup stock as usual, adding about a pint of pea pods to the soup. Lay all the other vegetables used (in fact, I always save the pea pods) into your ice-chest and use them in any quantity in your soups daily. Heat a tablespoonful of nice drippings in a stewpan, put in the peas, with a little chopped parsley, cover up tight and let them simmer on the back of the stove. Keep adding soup stock when dry. When the peas are tender, put into the strained soup. Season with salt, and throw in a lump of loaf sugar; add some drop dumplings to this soup before serving.

Break into a cup the whites of three eggs, fill the cup with water or milk, put it with a cupful of sifted flour and a tablespoonful of butter or drippings, into a spider, and let it boil until it leaves the sides of the spider clean. Then remove from the fire, stir until cold, add the yelks of the eggs. Keep stirring for about five minutes. Season it with salt and nutmeg; then drop with a teaspoon, which has been previously wet with cold water, into the boiling soup. These little dumplings are called in German schwammklaesse. They are very good, and may be used in any clear soup stock.

Take two quarts of nice ripe tomatoes, stewed in a porcelain-lined kettle, with two quarts of okra, cut into small rings. Put this on to boil with about three quarts of water and a nice piece of soup meat (no bone), chop up an onion, a carrot and some parsley and add this to the soup. Fricassee one chicken with some rice, to be dished up with the soup, putting a piece of chicken and a spoonful of rice into each soup plate before adding the soup. Let the soup boil four or five hours, slowly but steadily. Season with salt and pepper. A little corn and Lima beans are an improvement, if you have them; they should be cooked with the soup for several hours. Cut the soup meat up into small squares and leave in the soup to serve.

Put on the barley in a porcelain kettle, a very small teacupful, with about a quart of water. Let it boil slowly on the back of the stove. Put on the soup meat in another kettle, with the addition of whatever vegetables you may happen to have. As the barley gets thick keep adding some of the soup stock, strained of course.

Salt to taste. Put on the soup meat two hours before you do the barley.

Cook all the vegetables in a separate kettle. Use a nice piece of soup meat, about four pounds, and a large soup bone. Cut up two carrots, two turnips, quarter of a head of cabbage, two heads of celery, a few tomatoes, some beans; cut up very fine a handful of peas and a few tablespoonfuls of corn--you may use canned. When tender pour your soup stock over this. Season to taste and serve. You may add some noodles, cut into little squares, but not too many, or it will be too thick.

Barley and peas cooked with goose, often used as soup, makes a very palatable dish. Take the backs of two geese, after being skinned and well salted with ginger and garlic. Lay the backs in the bottom of a porcelain-lined kettle, throw in a pint of whole peas, which have been previously soaked over night. Cover with water and plenty of it, add as much water as you would for soup; in an hour after throw in just as much barley. Cook slowly all the time for at least four hours. You may set it in the bake oven the last hour, in fact it improves by so doing. Add salt to taste. This is just as good warmed over.

Take a large soup bone or three pounds of soup meat, the latter preferred, one or two onions, a few potatoes, a few carrots, a turnip, soup greens and a can of tomatoes or a quart of fresh ones, and in season two ears of grated sweet corn. Season with salt and pepper. Thicken with a tablespoonful of flour, dissolved in cold water. A nice addition to this soup is a handful of noodles cut into round disks with a thimble.

One quart of tomatoes, one quart of water and one quart of cream or milk, salt and pepper to taste. Cook the tomatoes thoroughly in the water (and have the milk or cream scalding in another vessel), with a little parsley and celery. When cooked strain through a sieve. Put a piece of fresh butter into the soup dish before serving, also some oyster crackers or boiled rice. Add the cream just before serving. A valuable recipe for abstinence days.

Soak about a small teacupful of green kern in a bowl of water over night. Put on the soup meat as early as eight o'clock in the morning, half-past eight at the latest (provided you have dinner at noon); add a carrot, an onion, celery, parsley, one or two tomatoes, a potato, in fact any vegetable you may happen to have at hand. Cover up closely and let it boil slowly on back of the stove until dinner time. Put the green kern on to boil in water slightly salted, at least two hours before dinner, and as it boils down keep adding soup stock from the kettle of soup on the stove, always straining through a hair sieve, until all has been used up. Serve as it is or strain through a collander and put pieces of toasted bread into the soup. Cut the bread into little squares and fry in hot fat. Another way of using the green kern is to grind it to a powder. Also very fine.

Put into the soup kettle three pounds of lean beef (off the neck is best), two pounds of breast of veal and an old chicken. Add six quarts of water (cold), place on the back of the stove, where it will boil very slowly. Remove every particle of scum as it rises; boil at least three hours or until the meat is very tender. Remove from the fire and set in a cool place over night. Remove carefully all the fat from the stock, strain and put on to boil, with the following vegetables: One head of celery, three carrots, a small turnip, an onion and a few tomatoes and some parsley. Peel and slice the vegetables quite thin before adding. Boil an hour, adding salt just before straining a second time through a sieve. This should make a gallon of soup. If less is desired use less meat. If preparing for invalids it is better to omit all the vegetables except celery. Serve in cups. Beat the yelk of one egg for a cup of bouillon. In making a quantity three yelks will be sufficient; beat up the yelks, adding a few drops of cold water before adding the boiling bouillon.

When the soup stock has been strained and every particle of fat removed, return it to the kettle to boil. When it boils hard stir in carefully quarter of a teacupful of farina, do this slowly to prevent the farina from forming lumps. Stir into the soup bowl the yelks of one or two eggs, add a teaspoonful of cold water. Pour the soup into the bowl gradually and stir constantly until all the soup has been poured into the bowl. Serve at once.

Make a beef soup, and an hour before wanted throw in a pigeon. Boil slowly, with all kinds of vegetables (provided your patient is allowed to have them, for remember this is a soup intended for the convalescent). Strain, add the beaten yelk of an egg, add salt to taste.

Pour one quart of boiling water into a porcelain-lined kettle and one quart of good, rich milk. Stir in one-half cup of finely rolled cracker crumbs; as soon as this comes to a boil add one quart of fresh oysters and a lump of fresh butter, about the size of an egg. Let it boil up once, then remove from the fire immediately. Dish up in a soup bowl in which you have previously put salt and pepper. Stir briskly while pouring in the soup.

Crack all the bones and cut up all the meat of a cold turkey left over from a meal. Add an onion, a carrot, a turnip, celery, parsley, in fact any vegetable you may happen to have at hand. Boil slowly for two or three hours. Strain and add boiled rice or barley.

Wash the peas in warm water by rubbing them through your hands a great many times. A better plan is to soak them in lukewarm water over night, Use a quart of peas to a gallon of water. Boil about two hours, with the following vegetables: a few potatoes, a large celery root, a little parsley and a large onion. When boiled down to about half the quantity, take out the vegetables and press through a collander. To make this soup very rich add about two pounds of beef and boil with the soup until tender, then remove it. Boil some little sausages in this soup after it is strained. Serve these as an entree with your dinner. If your soup is too thin put a piece of butter into a saucepan, with a spoonful of flour. Let it boil, stir in part of the soup briskly and add to the whole. Have some croutons ready in the souptureen and serve. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Heat some butter or fat in a spider. Cut up about two slices of stale bread, put them into a spider and brown on both sides. Cut up the bread in dice shape before throwing into the hot fat. Brown nicely, but do not let it burn. Serve with split pea soup, bean and potato soups.

To one quart of small dried beans add as much water as you wish to have soup. You may add any cold scraps of roast beef, mutton, poultry, veal or meat sauce that you may happen to have. Boil until the beans are very soft. You may test them in this way: Take up a few in a spoon and blow on them very hard, if the skin separates from the beans you may press them through a sieve, or take up the meat or scraps and vegetables and serve without straining. Add salt and pepper to taste. A great many prefer this soup unstrained. The water in which has been boiled a smoked tongue may be used for this soup. This may be thickened like split pea soup. Excellent.

It is made just like split pea soup, without straining. Add the sausage and croutons.

For two quarts of soup, boil sbout a dozen potatoes. After boiling a few minutes, pour off the water and add fresh water from the boiling teakettle. Add salt and fat, any drippings left from roast beef or boiled smoked tongue are particularly nice for this purpose. Celery and parsley roots and an onion should be added. When the potatoes are very soft strain through a collander. Salt and pepper to taste. Add croutons and serve. Sauce of roast beef or poultry improves this soup. This is a cheap and wholesome soup and deserves to be better known.

Cut three pounds of lean mutton into small squares; cover closely and boil with three quarts of water, slowly, for two hours; then soak one-fourth of a cupful of rice in warm water, just enough to cover it, then add the rice to the boiling soup. Cook an hour longer, slowly; watch carefully, and stir from time to time. Strain and thicken it with a little flour; salt and pepper to taste. Particularly nice for invalids.

May be made either of beef or mutton, adding all kinds of vegetables. Boil half a cupful of rice separately in a farina kettle. Strain the beef or mutton broth. Add the rice and boil half an hour longer, with potatoes cut into dice shape; use about two potatoes; then add the beaten yelk of an egg. Strained stock of chicken broth added to this soup makes it very palatable and nutritious for the sick.

This delicious soup is to be eaten cold, it is a summer soup. Use large, dark red or black cherries, a quart is sufficient. Take a bottle of claret, or any other red wine, and twice as much water as you have wine; half a cup of pearl sago, a few slices of lemon and some cinnamon bark or stick cinnamon, cook about one-half hour, cherries and all. If you find that the soup is too thick add more wine and water, sweeten to suit the taste, a cupful of sugar is the most I ever use.

Strawberry, blueberry and raspberry soups may be prepared according to above receipt.

Boil half wine and half water, sweeten to taste, add cinnamon, a few slices of lemon and thicken with a few yelks of eggs. Just before serving, break in some sweet almond macaroons. This may be eaten hot or cold; better cold.

Mix the beer with one-third water, boil with sugar and the grated crust of stale rye bread, add stick cinnamon and a little lemon juice. Pour over small pieces of zwieback (rusk). Some boil a handful of dried currants. When done add both currants and juice.

Take of rice or sago about one-quarter of a pound, scald it and put on to boil in cold water; add cinnamon, sugar and the grated rind of a lemon, a handful of currants thoroughly cleaned, not forgetting a good pinch of salt. Just before removing from the fire add a bottle of red wine and as much water; add more sugar if necessary.

MILK AND FLOUR SOUPS.

An earthen milk or a porcelain-lined kettle may be used for these soups, but a farina kettle is preferable if you have one large enough.

Heat a quart or more of milk or cream, add a spoonful of sweet butter and thicken with a spoonful of flour or corn starch, wet with cold milk. Pour boiling over pieces of toasted bread cut into dices; crackers may also be used.

Boil separately a quart each of beer and milk; sweeten the beer, add cinnamon, the crust of a rye loaf and the grated rind of a lemon; beat up the yelks of two eggs, add the milk gradually to the eggs, then the beer. Serve in small bowls.

Braune Mehlsuppe (No. 1).--Heat a spoonful of butter in a spider, add a spoonful of flour, stir briskly, but do not let it get black; pour boiling water over it, add salt and carroway seeds.

Mehlsuppe--Flour Soup (No. 2).--Heat butter or fat in a spider, put in a tablespoonful of flour; mix while boiling, but do not let it brown; add as much milk as you desire; add grated nutmeg and salt to taste. Rule, one tablespoonful of flour for one plate of soup.