Cassell's dictionary of cookery

There is a good old saying that is most appropriate — " It is no use spoiling the ship for the sake of a ha'porth of tar." Do not let me be misunderstood on this point. I do not for one moment mean that it is necessary to have old-bottled wine or wine of any particularly good vintage, but what I mean is, it must be wine, and what I maintain is, that too often what is put in soups is not Avine at all. The best sherry foi' the purpose is golden sherry, and not a pale dry wine. Since the vineyards at Madeira have recovered, it is quite possible to get a cheap rich full wine, not fit to drink in fact at present, but nevertheless the very thing for soup. I should be glad if some of my readers would try the following experiment: — Have some good clear mock turtle soup made ; taste it before the wine is put to it — suppose the qixantity to be three quarts. Add a tumblerful of madeira, and then tfiste, and let them ask themselves whether the difference in the flavour is not well woi'th the money. PRINCIPLES — SOUP. There are several soups that will bear, and be very mucli imijroved by, the addition of sherry, and we would mention soup made from calves' feet or ox-feet, giblet soup, and soup made from any kind of game. A very good rough test of the value of adding sherry to mock-turtle soup is a pastrycook's. Let any one order a basin of soup and a glass of sherry for lunch, and add a table-spoonful of the shexTy to the soup — the lesson learnt will be worth the probable eighteen-pence paid. While on the subject of adding \Ane to soups I would mention hare soup, which is not really, or should not be, a thick soup, though of course it could not be called clear. Hai-e soup requires port wine, and not sherry, and of course the same observations that applied to sheny apply to the port. If you cannot afford or obtain real port, don't put in any bad wine to spoil the hare. In France Burgundy is used for dressing hare; but in England the imitation port is, if anything, a more horrible compound than the imitation sherry. What the effect of adding this compound to hare soup would be I camiot say, beyond that it would be as certain to spoil it as an equal quantity of blacking would. Hare will bear a large quantity of port wine. One of the greatest living cooks recom- mends half a bottle of port wine to one single hare. This is extravagant; but there is no doubt that the soup would be all the better for it. I would here mention the fact that whenever port wine is used in cooking, a few cloves, a very little piece of cinnamon, and a little lemon-juice may always be added with advantage. The gi-eat secret of success in making good hare soup is rubbing the meat well through a tamis, or wire sieve. The best part of the meat should of course be kept to add to the soup after it is made, while all the bones, &c., should be well stewed, and after the bones, which have been boiled till they are dry and white, have been taken out, all the meat and celery with which they have been boiled should be rubbed through a wire sieve with a wooden spoon. Hare soup requires no thickening.