SOUPS AND BROTHS

Soup Note — To produce the most nutritious and palatable soups

is an art in which the French especially excel, forming the greater part of the food of the people. Italian cooks also produce very fine pottage or broths.

401. Soup Stock— The foundation for all soups is lean meat- beef, veal or game — to which is added the broken bones of the same, of fowls, or small bits of ham bone saved from time to time, and boiled down in the stock kettle. When highly concentrated by boiling it will be a jelly-like compound, and the impurities having been precipitated it is left clear for ready use. For clear soups a white stock should be used the base being veal or fowls, instead of beef. Soups are also compounded of different fish, shell-fish, frogs, etc., or of vegetables, of which dry beans or peas are prominent and very nutritious. The proportion of beef to use in compounding stock is a pound of meat to a quart of water. In using fresh meats for soups, instead of stock, put the meat, properly cut up, into cold water, and let it stand to draw out the juice until it begins to color the water, and then put in to boil. The soup is done when the meat is destitute of juice.

For either soup or stock the coarser parts of beef may be utilized, as the neck, flank or a soup bone (the shank of the fore-quarter or hock of the hind-quarter), the fat being mostly removed before boiling, and the balance can be entirely removed when cold. Mutton is too strong in flavor for good stock, and should not be used, while veal, although quite gelatinous, adds very little in nutriment.. Good soups are free from grease.

The seasoning or flavors for soups are quite numerous, and vary according to taste, the plainer having simply pepper and salt; the richer have many flavors, blended in such a manner that no one predominates; this is really the great secret in soup making. The herbs most in use by skilled cooks are sage, mint, thyme, tarragon, basel, parsley, bay leaves, sweet marjoram, summer savor; onions and garlic are used in such small quantities that they add their flavor almost imperceptibly. Of spices, cloves, mace, celery-seed, white, red and black pepper, or red capsicum pods in very small quantities. Macaroni, vermicelli, rice, sago, pearled barley (in mutton broth), generally afford, when used, their names to the soup, while vegetable soups are also compounded of onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips, celery, etc., all chopped and blended together, the proportions of each being ad libitum. Noodles also form a common addition to several soups. The best sour> makers have a fine sense of taste, as the proportions of ingredients or flavors cannot be given by rule for the finer productions, but must be left to the judg- ment for delicacy in compounding.

When soups form the principal dish they should be richer than when they precede meats or fowls in regular course.

Thickened soups should be seasoned higher than thin ones, and white or clear soups should be strained through a hair sieve or fine cloth.

Coloring is used in some brown soups, the chief of which is burnt sugar; this it also known as caramel by French cooks.

The fat removed from soup or when compounding stock may be clarified by melting and pouring it in a bowl containing a little hot water. When cold, all sediment or impurities may be removed from the bottom of the jelly (or cake, if boiled down), and the clear fat utilized in many processes of cookery.

The more delicate flavors should ^e added to soups just before serving, or they will be destroyed by evaporation. Stock may'be varied in flavor by the addition of a little anchovy or Worcestershire sauce, sugar, calve's foot or ham as predominant; vegetables boiled with stock will prevent its keeping. Bone and gristle, possessing the gelatine matter necessary to solidify, are requisite for stock to jell. Meat alone will produce a broth only equal to beef tea. Roast beef bones, or those of steak after cooking, make good stock by the addition of some fresh meat to furnish more nutriment.

402. English Game Soup (for 25 persons) — There are four stages in the production of this soup.

1. Make a rich broth of the bones and frames of two dozen, or more, prairie chicken or other wild birds; then put into a sauce-pan four large or six small carrots, two onions, a little celery and leek, two table- spoons salt, ten each of cloves, allspice, and pepper-corns, and a teaspoon of mace; add the broth, diluted with water to four gallons, if not that quantity; set all on a hot fire, and when it boils, skim; let it boil down to about a gallon and a half; then strain through a medium sieve, rub- bing through it the vegetables and what meat comes off the bones; place it in another sauce-pan on the fire, and boil half an hour.

2. Boil the breasts only of six or eight prairie chicken, ducks, or other game birds, of dark meat (or venison may be used), in a por- tion of the broth; take them out, cut into squares or dice, and set aside, but kept warm until the soup is nearly completed.

3. Melt in a small stew-pan half a pound of butter, to which add two tablespoons browned flour and some of the broth; let it boil for fifteen minutes, and set aside to cool a little, when skim off all the fat; add a pint of sherry, half a pint of Madeira wine, and half a lemon, peeled and sliced; season with pepper and salt to taste; keep it hot.

4. Prepare some force meat balls in the following quantity for the above amount of soup : Half a pound of calf's liver chopped fine, two ounces beef suet or marrow, six ounces stale bread, grated and soaked slightly in sweet milk, and season with a little salt, pepper, nut- meg, sage, and ground cloves, well mixed; sift all, and add one egg and the yelk of another, together with sufficient flour to form a very thick paste, which put in a small tube formed of white paper, and drop out into hot water, bits about as large as a small marble; let them stand for ten minutes, and strain off. Lastly, put into the hot soup the diced breasts of game and the balls, and serve all hot. — Constantine Wolf} Chef, Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago.

403. Mock Turtle Soup — Scald a well-cleaned calf's head, remove the brain, tie it up in a cloth, and boil an hour, or until the meat will easily slip from the bone; take out, save the broth, cut it in small, square pieces, and throw them into cold wTater; when cool, put it in a stew-pan, and cover with some of the broth; if not rich, add some stock jelly; let it boil until quite tender, and set aside.

In another stew-pan melt some butter, and in it put a quarter of a pound of lean ham, cut small, with fine herbs to taste; also parsley, onion shallots, and mushrooms (if in season, or canned ones may be used) ; add about a pint of the broth, let it simmer for two hours, and then dredge in a small quantity of flour; now add the remainder of the broth and a quarter bottle of Madeira or sherry, let all stew quietly for ten minutes, and rub it through a medium sieve; add the calf's head, season with a very little cayenne pepper, and perhaps a little salt, the juice of one lemon, and, if desired, a quarter teaspoon pounded mace and a dessertspoon sugar.

Having previously prepared force meat balls, No. 413, add them to the soup, and five minutes after serve hot.

Three or four pig's feet, well cleaned, may be used with the calf's head, should the quantity of soup required be considerable; at the same time the other ingredients should be increased proportionately.

404. Bean Soup — Very Cheap and Nutritious — Boil in two quarts water a small soup bone until the meat can be easily removed from the bone, which take out. Having soaked a cup of small white beans for two hours previously, put in and boil an hour and a-half, then add three potatoes, half a turnip, and a parsnip or carrot sliced fine or diced; boil half an hour more; just before serving, put in a handful of dry bread crumbs, and serve; if the flavor of onion or garlic is liked, add either, cut fine; of garlic the slightest quantity should only be used. A« good soup may be had, for Saturday dinner, when preparing for Yankee Pork and Beans, No. 160, or Boston Baked Beans, No. 326,

.parboiling more beans than required to bake, and having taken out the necessary quantity, leave the remainder for the soup, and proceed as above.

405. Tomato Soup — One quart canned tomatoes, two heaping tablespoons flour, one of butter, one teaspoon salt, one of sugar, one pint hot water; let the tomatoes and water come to a boil; rub the flour, butter and a tablespoon tomatoes together, and stir into the boiling mix- ture; add seasoning; boil all together fifteen minutes, rub through a sieve and serve with toasted bread; this bread should first be cut in thin slices, buttered and cut into little dice, placed in a pan buttered side up and browned in a quick oven.

406.- Tomato Soup — Peel and cut fine six good sized tomatoes and boil in one quart of water; after boiling a few minutes put in half a teaspoon of soda, one pint of milk; add butter, salt and pepper to taste. — Palmer House, Chicago.

407. Economical Soup, with Vegetables — Any piece of the coarse beef will do, or a soup bone is best; after washing well and cut- ting off most of the fat, put it in a kettle, with cold water enough for the

soup; let it boil slowly from three to six hours, according to the quan- tity and quality. An hour before required, cut a solid head of cabbage in quarters, sprinkle it with salt, and put in the kettle, and a quarter of an hour after add a few turnips, whole potatoes if small, or cut in two if large; the two last should have been previously peeled and put in cold water for half an hour before; when all are done, remove the veg- etables and meat to a steamer, to keep hot; should the quantity of soup be insufficient, add boiling water, and thicken with flour and water, after which boil well; season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve soup and vegetables separate; the meat will not be worth serving.

408. Potato Soup— With a small piece of salt pork and a little celery boil six peeled potatoes; strain or rub through a colander and add to it milk, butter and salt till of the consistency of cream; add some finely chopped parsley and boil all five minutes; cut some stale bread into dice, fry brown in hot lard and throw into the soup just before serving. — Palmer House, Chicago.

409. Hulled Corn Broth — Boil half a pint of white beans; when done pour off the water and add fresh; then put in lean salt pork or corned beef; when nearly done take hulled corn previously boiled separately and put into the broth; be sure to have plenty of water.

410. Gumbo Soup — Fry out the fat of a slice of bacon or fat ham, drain it off, and in it fry the slices of a large onion brown; scald, peel, and cut up two^quarts fresh tomatoes, when in season (use canned tomatoes otherwise), and cut thin one quart okra; put them, together with a little chopped parsley, in a stew-kettle, with about three quarts water, and cook slowly two or three hours; season with salt and pepper before serving.

411. Chicken Soup — Save the broth after boiling chickens, and to it add a dozen fresh tomatoes, or a quart of canned, and an onion thinly sliced ; boil twenty minutes, season with salt and pepper, add two beaten eggs, and serve.

The same quantity of okra pods used for thickening instead of tomatoes, forms a chicken gumbo soup.

412. Chicken Soup, with Rice — Put in a sauce-pan two old chickens, a small beef shank or other soup meat, one bunch soup greens, salt and a few whole peppers; cover with cold water and let it come to a slow boil; skim well when the chicken is done, strain the broth on one-half cup rice, let it cook slowly till done, then add the meat of one chicken cut fine and a little nutmeg, and serve. — Palmer House, Chicago.

413. Force Meat Balls for Mock Turtle, Meat or Game Soups — In a wedge- wood mortar rub the yelks of five hard-boiled eggs, or in a bowl with the back of a spoon, adding gradually some calves brains; mix in two eggs beaten lightly to moisten, and season with a little butter and salt. Put in the soup five minutes before serving.

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