The complete cook book

and boil slowly two hours. Rub together one tablespoonful of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour and add one quart of hot milk. Pour this into the soup kettle and season with white pepper. Let come to boiling point and serve at once. ASPARAGUS SOUP. Boil two bunches of fresh, tender asparagus in water with one slice of onion and one teaspoonful of salt, thirty minutes. Throw away the onion, remove the asparagus, and cut off the tender part and pound it to a paste with a little water. Add to it a lump of butter rolled in flour and half a teaspoonful of sugar. Mix over the fire until it melts. Now add all to the boiling water, in which the asparagus was cooked. Then beat the yolk of one egg in half a pint of cream or milk and add to the soup. Season with salt and pepper, and as soon as it comes to boiling point strain and serve. Cut one stalk of asparagus in thin slices and add the last thing. MAMMY SILVY'S NOODLE SOUP. Put a soup bone weighing two or three pounds into four quarts of cold water, and boil a half hour. Add one-half pint of tomatoes, two small Irish potatoes, two small carrots, one sprig of parsley, one small onion, one tablespoonful of rice and two tablespoonfuls of okra; add salt and pepper to taste, and boil two or three hours. Now remove and strain. Place again on the stove, and add one-fourth pound of home-made noodles or vermicelli, and let it boil until tender. This is pretty served with whole small tomatoes that have been skinned. Place one in each plate and pour soup over it. GUMBO. Cut up one fat chicken, roll it in salt, pepper and flour, and fry it a nice light brown, using lard as if for fricassee. Put into a soup pot three quarts of boiling water j and add the chicken when done; in the same lard where your fried your chicken, fry one slice of 24 The Complete Cook Book» ham and a thin slice of breakfast bacon, and add to the soup. Now fry one generous quart of fresh green okra sliced and sprinkled with a little flour, and one-fourth pint of green corn. Then add to the soup with one quart can of tomatoes. Boil from two to three hours. Seasons with red pepper and salt, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour, wet in a little cold milk. Oysters, crabs or shrimps should be added when in season. Serve with boiled rice. GEEEN CORN SOUP. One pint of grated corn, which will require eight or ten ears. Sufficient water to cover the corn cobs. One pint of sweet milk or cream, a tiny pinch of soda, one teaspoonful of salt and one thin slice of onion, a pinch of white pepper, one tablespoonful of flour, one tablespoonful of butter and yolks of two eggs. After grating the corn, cover the cobs with cold water, and boil slowly for half an hour. Take out the cobs, add the corn, and cook until soft and tender. Heat the milk in which the soda has been dissolved, and thicken with the butter and flour, add sugar and seasoning to the cream or milk. Allow it to boil up once, then remove from the fire, add the beaten yolks of eggs, stirring briskly ; and a cupful of whipped cream is a great improvement added just before serving. CELERY SOUP— ENOUGH TO SERVE TO SIX PEOPLE. Take the outside stalks of six celery stalks. Wash them and cut up fine, and after adding enough cold water to cover it, allow it to boil until tender enough to rub through a colander. Into another saucepan make a white sauce of two tablespoonfuls of cornstarch or flour and one generous tablespoonful of butter. Bring one pint of milk to a boiling point and stir in the white sauce slowly, but thoroughly. Now strain the water off the celery, and add to the milk. Season with salt and pepper and strain through a sieve. Add the well beaten yolks of two eggs quickly. Let it heat once more and The Complete Cook Book. 25