FoodNetArchive

The thorough good cook

1895

Page 59 · 2 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
When thoroughly clarified, serve in a tureen with bread- dice lightly fried. This is one of the wholesomest and most palatable summer soups I know. I call it, " Do- without-the-doctor soup." If for a dinner-party you Avant a fancy name for this soup, 3-ou may christen it " Cardinal," or " Mazarin," or "Richelieu;" because red is the distinctiA^e colour of the vestments of the Princes of the Roman Church. Remember also that any dish — soup, fish, or entree — dressed AA^th tomatoes, may be styled " a la Portu- guaise ;" because Ave seem to have borroAA^d the delicious fruit-vegetable in question from the Portuguese kitchen. 17. Potato or Parmeiitier Soup. I have given an alternative " fancy " title to this excellent pottage in remembrance of the philanthropist Avho Avas the first to introduce the potato into French cooker}^ Parmentier Avas a military apothecary, Avho, late in the last centur}-, had learnt to believe in the dietetic value of the potato Avhile 86 THE THOnOUGII GOOD COOK. serving with the French armies in Germany. At the outset he had to encoimter the bitterest opjDosition both from the French Academy of Sciences and the French clergy. The first decLared the tuber to be poisonous ; the latter denounced it as a " Protestant " vegetable. Parmentier, however, suc- ceeded in obtaining the support of Benjamin Franklin and pf Lavoisier ; but his triumph was completed when he induced Marie Antoinette to accept and wear in her bosom a bouquet of potato flowers. "La Liberte et les Patatas" — "Liberty and Potatoes " — was a popular cry in Paris in the early days of the French Revolution ; and the strip of ornamental garden of the Palace of the Tuileries was planted Avith seed potatoes. Slice ten large potatoes (kidneys are the best), blanch them ; stew them in stock with two leeks and a head of celery tied up, and the crumb of a French roll ; when they break under the pressure of the finger, take out the bunch of herbs, and rub the potatoes through a tammy ; mix with a sufiicient quantity of stock, clarify the whole, add a pinch of sugar and a little nutmeg. When serving, just after boiling point, mix in a pint of milk — nursery milk if you can get it and if you can afford it — a third of a pint of double cream and a pat of fresh butterPotato or Parmentier Soup. Pour the soup into a tureen with some blanched chervil ; fried crusts as usual, to make it more toothsome. This is a cheap soup without the cream, and eminently relishable. You may also make a clear Parmentier soup by using finely shredded jDOtatoes mingled with shredded onions in the broth, and leaving out the milk and cream. 18. Old-Fashioned Fea Soup, The foundation of this capital and thoroughly English (and sea-going) souj? is the stock, otherAvise a liquor in which a knuckle of veal or leg of mutton or pork has been boiled. But pork liquor is the best; and by all mcai}s, if 2'>ossihle, SOUPS. 87 Old-Fashioned Pea Soup