The housewife's referee

Ploughboy Soup. — Take a couple of onions, two carrots, two small turnips, a head of celery, one leek, two lettuces, some winter cabbage, a bottle of preserved French beans and six potatoes. The onions and leek must be minced and fried, with some fat bacon chopped small, till of a nice colour ; then add the other vegetables chopped except the lettuces and potatoes, then boil the latter and add half a pound of tongue and also some stock. Let all boil up for about half an hour, and then add the chopped potatoes, and when they are nearly cooked shred in the lettuces and a little parsley ; remove the tongue and serve up the soup. Polish Soup. — Fry an onion in butter, and mix in two tablespoonfuls of flour, and fry for two minutes, adding gradually two quarts of broth. Stir till it boils, then let it stand by the side of the fire and add a raw chicken, and let all simmer. When the chicken is cooked, skim the soup, pass it through a sieve and let it boil up again. Have ready some carrots, parsley, and celery, cut up in lengths half an inch long and a quarter- inch wide, and cook them in a little thin stock. Then, just before serving, mix in these vegetables, and thicken the soup with sour cream mixed with the yolks of three eggs ; pass through a sieve ; then chop a little fennel finely and scatter it in. Pot-au-Feu. — Put in a saucepan six pounds of beef (bones included) cut into two or three pieces ; three-quarters of a pound of mixed vegetables, such as onions, carrots, turnips, leeks, white cabbage, etc., celery with its leaves left on, all cut in good-sized pieces, three small spoonfuls of salt, one of pepper and one of sugar ; add eight pints of water, let it boil gently three hours, remove the fat, add crusts of roll or slices of bread, either previously toasted or plain, and serve. Potage a la Cussy. — Slice and fry six Spanish onions in butter, with a dredge of castor sugar till they are of a pale gold colour. Then put them into a stewpan with as much boiling milk as will make the required quantity of soup, and after it has come to the boil, season with pepper and salt, let it simmer for half an hour, pass the soup through a sieve, and serve with little croutons of fried bread, dipped into grated Parmesan cheese. Royal Soup. — Mix the yolks of six eggs, with rather less than one gill of cold water and a pinch of salt ; strain the mixture and divide it into three equal parts ; colour one with some cochineal, the other with spinach greening, and leave the third plain. Put them into three small plain moulds, previously buttered, and set these in a pan of hot water, place on the fire to boil just long enough to set the mixture. When the water in the saucepan has become quite cold turn out the contents of each mould on to a wet napkin, and you will have three small cakes of firm custard, respectively green, red, and yellow. Cut them into small dice and, handling them in the gentlest possible manner, spread them out on a plate to be kept till wanted. At the time of serving put a clear and well- flavoured consomme into the soup tureen ; slip in carefully the custard dice and serve at once.