Harper's cook book encyclopædia

have it. Should dripping be lacking, butter may be used. Cover and cook slowly for an hour, until soft. Pour in then slowly three pints of weak stock, hot; salt and pepper to taste, and boil for fifteen minutes. Put through the colander, and serve very hot. Croutons should also be served with this. Celery Soup.— Cut the white part of celery into pieces about an inch long, and put them into a saucepan with a pint of good white stock, 2 ozs. of butter, % lb- of lean ham, and a lump of sugar. Let them boil for a quarter of an hour; put in with them three pints more of stock, a little salt, and a blade of mace. Stew gently for an hour, then press the soup through a coarse sieve. Heat it again, pour it into a tureen, add a pint of boiling cream, and serve immediately with toasted sippets. If liked, this soup may be thickened with a little flour. Cherry Soup or Bouillon. — Get some freshly plucked, not over-ripe cherries, wipe them perfectly dry, pick off the stalks and take out the stones ; crack these carefully, so as, if possible, to preserve the kernels whole. Put the fruit and kernels into a stewpan — a small, bell -metal preserving-kettle is best — with red wine and water, half and half. Add some very finely pared lemon -rind, and stew the whole gently until the fruit is entirely melted. Boil in the soup a small stick of cinnamon, and sweeten it to taste. Pass it through a colander. Put it back in the stewpan, and add to it some fried croutons. Chestnuts, Cream of. — Have 3 lbs. of French chestnuts; make a small incision in each. Put them over a brisk fire in a frying-pan, toss them all the time during six minutes ; while hot remove both shells and skins, put them in a covered saucepan with two quarts of good broth, and boil them forty minutes. Remove from the saucepan, cut one Chicken Gumbo Cock-a-leekie pint of the chestnuts in small squares, and set aside for future use. Pass the remaining ones through a strainer, pouring in some of the broth to help the sifting. Put back the puree in a clean saucepan, add to it two quarts of good chicken consomme, one teaspoonful of salt, one salt-spoonful of pepper; boil slowly for ten minutes. Add one pint of good, rich cream ; boil five minutes more, and remove from the fire. Add two table-spoonfuls of fresh butter and the square pieces of chestnuts. Stir gently and serve hot in cups. Chicken Gumbo. — Flour and fry a chicken brown after the usual manner (though it need not be a young fowl). Fry two slices of breakfast bacon or salt pork, into the grease of which stir a table-spoonful of sifted flour ; have a quart of okra and two mediumsized onions, cut rather fine ; fry this in the bacon grease until the okra begins to “ rope” (do not let scorch). Then turn all — chicken, gravy, okra, onion, and bacon — into a porcelainlined or granite soup-pot; add three quarts of hot water ; cook slowly two hours ; stir well from the bottom occasionally. A green pepper added gives a nice flavor; some also add green corn and tomatoes. Serve with dry boiled rice. It is a dinner in itself. Okra is found in most markets. See also Gumbo File Soup.