Soyer's standard cookery

Fry four sliced onions in butter and add them to a quart of strong clear stock very hot. Pour this into an earthenware cooking pot and float on the surface some small rounds of toast, each thickly sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese. Serve in the cooking pot as hot as possible. In Italy this soup is usually served in small bowls instead of in soup plates. Leek Soup. Cut off the green tops from a large bunch of leeks and slice the rest. Fry in two ounces of butter, and add a pint of white stock and a pint of hot milk, with which two ounces of flour have been mixed carefully. Season with pepper and salt and a little parsley. After cooking for three-quarters of an hour stir in the yolk of an egg, and serve with very small triangles of toast. Jackson Soup. Slice six parboiled potatoes and fry them lightly in two ounces of butter. Add two ounces of minced ham, a sliced onion, half-a-dozen hearts of celery, and a little parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, with just sufficient stock to well moisten. After simmering for three-quarters of an hour pass the whole through a sieve into a pint of white stock to which has been added the same quantity of boiling milk with two ounces of butter and the yolk of an egg. After stirring thoroughly add a few tiny squares of toast and serve without delay. Piedmontese Soup. Slice eight large turnips into a quarter of a pound of melted butter, to which has been added a tablespoonful of sifted sugar. Fry briskly until the turnips are slightly browned, then add two quarts of strong stock, and let the whole simmer gently for three-quarters of an hour, after which strain carefully and add a large tablespoonful of stewed tomatoes. Now pound four anchovies with a clove of garlic and a little butter into a smooth paste. Pass through a fine sieve and add to the soup. Pour the soup into a tureen containing two dozen very small balls of mashed potatoes previously fried till the outsides are crisp, and add, if obtainable, some parboiled tarragon leaves. Grated Parmesan cheese should be handed round separately and added to the soup at discretion. Cabbage Soup. Partly boil a head of cabbage and chop finely. Next fry it in a little butter, mix with a tablespoonful of flour, and add to one quart of veal broth, flavoring with pepper and salt. After simmering gently for an hour pass the soup through a sieve, add a pint of hot milk, and serve at once. Celery Puree. Wash some celery well, and remove all the outside parts; cut up half-a-pound, put it on in cold salted water, bring this to the boil, take out the celery and drain. Put the celery into a pan with one-and-a-half gills of milk, half a bay leaf, a blade of mace, a slice of onion, and boil it all till tender, then rub the celery through a sieve and it is ready. Turnip Soup. Fry a quart and a half of sliced turnips with two ounces of butter, the same quantity of flour, and a tablespoonful of sugar. Add to these a pint of tomatoes with a little thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. After simmering for one hour, strain the whole through a sieve and add one cupful of hot beef soup and flavor with pepper, salt and grated cheese. Cucumber Soup.