The thorough good cook

This interesting vegetable is shamefully neglected by English cooks. Boiled or fried pumpkin is eaten with roast meat in Australia; and pumpkin-pie is one of the nicest of American sweet dishes. 27. Another Soup Maigre. Cut small four ounces of sorrel, sixteen ounces of celery, and six or eight onions. Fry them in six ounces of butter, and stew them three or four hours in three quarts of water. Season with pepper, salt, and a little mace, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour, mixed with a teacupful of the soup. Beat up the yolks of two eggs in half a pint of cream, put it into the tureen, with a large slice of bread toasted and cut into dice, and then pour in the stewed ingredients. Whenever I prescribe cream, consult your dairyman's book. In a multitude of cases good, pure milk will do quite as well. 28. Yet Another Soup Maigre. Brown half a pound of butter in a saucepan, and stew it for a quarter of an hour with the following ingredients, all washed clean and chopped small : — Four cabbage-lettuces, two handfuls of spinach, the same of chervil, one handful of Avhite beet-leaves, and one of sorrel, three carrots scraped down, some 23epper and salt ; add five pints of boiling water, and a large slice of the crumb of bread cut thin and dried before the fire. Stew gently for two hours, and a little before serving thicken with the beaten yolks of three eggs, and half a pint of cream or good milk. A pint of green peas and the tops of asparagus may be added. 29. Leek Soup, or Cock-a-Leekie. Wash and clean three or four dozen leeks ; cut the white and tender green part in bits about an inch long, wash them again, and put them to drain in a colander or sieve. Have ready boiling four quarts of stock, made from beef, seasoned with pepper and salt ; put in the leeks, and boil them, gently for three hours, adding a fowl in time to allow it to be well boiled, and serve in the tureen. 30. Cabbage Soup. Take three white cabbages, which split, blanch, and place in cold water ; then cut the white leaves into pieces about an inch square, avoiding the stems as much as possible. Boil them in salt and water, with a piece of fresh butter as large as an egg. When tender, drain them well on a sieve, and pour over two quarts of clear brown stock, moderately seasoned with black pepper. Serve with the crust of a French roll, cut in pieces of the size of a halfpenny. 31. Scotch Kale Soup. Put barley on in cold water, and when it boils take off the scum ; put in any piece of fresh beef and a little salt ; let it boil three hours ; have ready a colander full of kale, cut small, and boil it tender. Two or three leeks may be added with the greens if the flavour is approved of This broth is also made with salted beef, which must be put in water overnight to soak. 32. Cucumber and Pea Soup. Prepare the broth as usual, and pour it quite boiling into a tureen containing a pint of peas dressed a la Française (that is to say, stewed in broth, butter, and sugar), also two cucumbers cut in scollops, as for an entree, and dressed in a demi-glaze with a pinch more sugar. 33. Braised Lettuce Soup.