The complete cook book

AH cream soups should be served with squares of bread fried brown in butter. Clear soups should be served with farina cake, egg balls or poached eggs. Gumbo should always be served with plain boiled rice. Sliced hard-boiled eggs are nice in soups. STOCK FOR ALL KINDS OF SOUP. Spread your soup pot with four tablespoonfuls of butter, lay on it next the meat, either a knuckle of veal or beef (or both together for the finest kind of stock). Add a cup of cold water, two tablespoonfuls of salt, three middle-sized onions with two cloves in each, one turnip, one carrot, and one-half a head of celery (if you have it). Put the cover on the pot, and occasionally stir it, until the bottom is covered with a whitish glaze, then fill up the pot with cold water, and when upon the point of boiling draw it to the side to simmer long enough to jelly. Strain while hot, and vary as suits yourself when serving. To two gallons of water about six pounds of veal or seven pounds of beef is the proper allowance. To make the stock very clear, put it, after straining, over the fire, skim well, and when boiling have ready the whites of three eggs whisked well in a cup of cold water. Add to these a cup of the boiling stock, still beating; then whisk the stock while pouring in the eggs, continue the beating until it is almost on the boil, remove it from the fire, let it remain a few minutes, when strain. WHITE BROTH. Two large whole and well-scraped carrots, one large whole peeled turnip, one large whole peeled onion, one 20 The Complete Cook Book. cleaned parsley root, two cleaned leeks (optional), four leaves of cleaned celery. First select a good knuckle of fine white veal with the scraps of meat, including the bone; put in vessel and cover completely with cold water, adding one tablespoonful of salt, and allow it to come to a boil, skimming clean as scum arises (this is very important) ; then add the above ingredients, and boil slowly for about six hours on back of stove ; skim the grease and impurities as they arise, and after the specified time, and all is skimmed clean, strain through cheese cloth into stone crock ; cover the mouth of crock . with cotton batting, and keep in cool place. As this sauce is used in making soups and sauces, it would be well to make up a good quantity to have ready when necessary. BEEF SOUP. Four pounds of the best part of the shin of the beef to three quarts of cold water. Let it come to a strong boil. Skim until no scum rises. Scrape and wash two large carrots and slice them. Add two large onions, sticking cloves in one of them ; one tablespoonful of salt, parsley, one-half a turnip; if you have celery, the tops or waste pieces improve the soup very much, or a teaspoonf ul of celery seed tied in a fine piece of muslin. When the soup boils up, set it on the back of the stove, where it will simmer constantly for six hours. Then strain the onions, and put them in the oven until they are black, and add to the soup to give a nice color. It is best to make the soup the day before, as you can better strain all the fat off. When the soup is boiled enough strain it through a hair sieve; and when ready to use, boil rice or vermicelli in it for a few minutes. SOUPE A LA REINE. Boil two chickens in water with thyme, sweet bay and parsley. When cooked (not to pieces), take them out of the water, cut up the breasts in small pieces the size of dice; fry a few pieces of onion without coloring them, add a little flour and the water that the chickens The Complete Cook Book. 21