Six pounds of a shin of veal, one fowl, three table-spoonfuls of butter, four stalks of celery, two onions, one blade of mace, one stick of cinnamon, eight quarts of cold water, salt, pepper. Wash and cut the veal and fowl into small pieces. Put the butter in the bottom of the soup pot and then put in the meat. Cover, and cook gently (stirring often) half an hour, then add the water. Let it come to a boil, then skim and set back where it will boil gently for six hours. Add the vegetables and spice and boil one hour longer. Strain and cool quickly. In the morning take off all the fat. Then turn the jelly gently into a deep dish, and with a knife scrape off the sediment which is on the bottom. Put the jelly into a stone pot and set in a cold place. This will keep a week in cold weather and three days in warm.
Take a Calves Chaldron, after it is little more then half boyled, and when it is cold, cut it into little bits as big as Walnuts; season it with beaten Cloves, Salt, Nutmeg, Mace, and a little Pepper, an Onion, Parsley, and a little Tarragon, all shred very small, then put it into a frying-pan, with a Ladle-full of strong broth, and a little piece of sweet Butter, so fry it; when it is fryed enough, have a little lear made with the Gravy of Mutton, the juyce of a Lemon and Orange, the yolks of three or four Eggs, and a little Nutmeg grated therein; put all this to your Chaldrons in the Pan, Toss your Fricat two or three times, then dish it, and so serve it up.
Take a couple of young Capons, Trusse and set them and fill their bellies with Marrow, put them into a Pipkin with a knuckle of Veale, a Neck of Mutton, and a Marrow bone, and some sweet bread of Veale; season your Broth with Cloves, Mace, and a little Salt, set it to the fire, and let it boyle gently till your Capons be enough, but boyle them not too much; as your Capons boyle, make ready the bottomes and Tops of eight or ten new Rowles, and put them dryed into a faire Silver Dish wherein you serve the Capons; set it on the fire, and put to your bread, two Ladlefuls of Broth wherein your Capons are boyled and a Ladlefull of the Gravy of Mutton; so cover your Dish, and let it stand till you Dish up yovr Capons if need require, adde now and then a Ladlefull of Broth and Gravy, least the bread grow dry; when you are ready to serve it, first lay in the Marrow bone, then the Capons on each side, then fill up your Dish with the Gravy of Mutton, wherein you must wring the juyce of a Lemon or two, then with a spoon take off all the fat that swimmeth on the pottage, then garnish your Capon with the sweet Breads and some Lemons, and so serve it.
Remarks on Soup Stock. There is a number of methods of making soup stocks, and no two will give exactly the same results. One of the simplest and most satisfactory is that of clear stock or bouillon. By this the best flavor of the meat is obtained, for none passes off in steam, as when the meat is boiled rapidly. The second mode is in boiling the stock a great deal, to reduce it. This gives a very rich soup, with a marked difference in the flavor from that made with clear meat kept in water at the boiling point. The third way leaves a mixed stock, which will not be clear unless whites of eggs are used. In following the first methods we buy clear beef specially for the stock, and know from the beginning just how much stock there will be when the work is completed. By the second method we are not sure, because more or less than we estimate may boil away. The third stock, being made from bones and pieces of meat left from roasts, and from the trimmings of raw meats, will always be changeable in color, quantity and quality. This is, however, a very important stock, and it should always be kept on hand. No household, even where only a moderate amount of meat is used, should be without a stock-pot. It can be kept on the back of the range or stove while cooking is going on. Two or three times a week it should be put on with the trimmings and bones left from cooked and uncooked meats. This practice will give a supply of stock at all times, which will be of the greatest value in making sauces, side dishes and soups. Meat if only slightly tainted will spoil a stock; therefore great care must be taken that every particle is perfectly sweet. Vegetables make a stock sour very quickly, so if you wish to keep a stock do not use them. Many rules advise putting vegetables into the stock-pot with the meat and water and cooking from the very beginning. When this is done they absorb the fine flavor of the meat and give the soup a rank taste. They should cook not more than an hour--the last hour--in the stock. A white stock is made with veal or poultry. The water in which a leg of mutton or fowl have been boiled makes a good stock for light soups and gravies. A soup stock must be cooled quickly or it will not keep well. In winter any kind of stock ought to keep good a week. That boiled down to a jelly will last the longest. In the warm months three days will be the average time stock will keep.
Potato soup is a very good method of using up the remains of cold boiled potatoes. Slice up a large onion and fry it, without letting it turn colour, with a little butter. Add a little water or stock to the frying-pan, and let the onion boil till it is tender. Boil a quart or more of milk separately with a couple of bay-leaves; rub the onion with the cold potatoes through a wire sieve and add it to the milk. You can moisten the potatoes in the sieve with the milk. When you have rubbed enough to make the soup thick enough, let it boil up and add to every quart a saltspoonful of thyme and a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley. This soup should be rather thicker than most thick soups. When new potatoes first come into season, and especially when you have new potatoes from your own garden, it will often be found that mixed with the ordinary ones there are many potatoes no bigger than a toy marble, and which are too small to be boiled and sent to table as an ordinary dish of new potatoes. Reserve all these little dwarf potatoes, wash them, and throw them for five or ten minutes into boiling water, drain them off and throw them into the potato soup whole. Of course they must boil in the soup till they are tender. A little cream is a great improvement to the soup, and dried mint can be served with it, but is not absolutely necessary.
This soup is not as expensive as it appears, for the bacon is served as a dish of meat, either after the soup or cold for breakfast or tea. Put two quarts of water into a saucepan; when it boils put in a pound of bacon neither too lean nor too fat. Let it boil slowly for one hour. The bacon must be well washed and scraped before cooking, and when it boils skim the pot thoroughly. Well wash the cabbage and soak it in hot water for half an hour. Take all the water away and put the cabbage into the saucepan with the bacon and vegetables cut up, and the peppercorns tied in a piece of muslin; let them simmer together for two and a half hours, take up the cabbage, and cut it into quarters. Take one quarter and cut it into small pieces and put it into a soup tureen. Cut some stale pieces of bread into thin slices and lay on the top, pour over the boiling liquor, and serve. Dish the bacon, pull off the rind, and put the rest of the cabbage round the dish.
Take it and spit it, & lay it down to the fire, and when your Pig is through warme, skin her, and cut her off the Spit as another Pig is, and so divide it in twenty peeces more or lesse as you please; when you have so done, take some White-wine and strong broth, and stew it therein, with an Onion or two mixed very small, a little Time also minced with Nutmeg sliced and grated Pepper, some Anchoves and Elder Vinegar, and a very little sweet Butter, and Gravy if you have it, so Dish it up with the same Liquor it is stewed in, with French Bread sliced under it, with Oranges and Lemons.
Select a small shin of beef of moderate size, crack the bone in small pieces, wash and place it in a kettle to boil, with five or six quarts of cold water. Let it boil about two hours, or until it begins to get tender, then season it with a tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper; boil it one hour longer, then add to it one carrot, two turnips, two tablespoonfuls of rice or pearl barley, one head of celery, and a teaspoonful of summer savory powdered fine; the vegetables to be minced up in small pieces like dice. After these ingredients have boiled a quarter of an hour, put in two potatoes cut up in small pieces, let it boil half an hour longer; take the meat from the soup, and if intended to be served with it, take out the bones and lay it closely and neatly on a dish, and garnish with sprigs of parsley. Serve made mustard and catsup with it. It is very nice pressed and eaten cold with mustard and vinegar, or catsup. Four hours are required for making this soup. Should any remain over the first day, it may be heated, with the addition of a little boiling water, and served again. Some fancy a glass of brown sherry added just before being served. Serve very hot.
When this soup is well made it is a general favourite, but it must be well made, for it is impossible to appreciate the greasy, yellow, dish-water-looking liquid which is sometimes served in that name. Put in a saucepan 2 ozs. butter, and into that shred finely 1/2 or 1 lb. onions. Add half or more of a tin of tomatoes or about 1 lb. fresh ones sliced, and a cup of water or stock. Simmer very gently for an hour and rub through a wire sieve, pressing with the back of a wooden spoon to get all the pulp through. Everything should go through except the skin and seeds. Return to clean saucepan with stock or water, and two tablespoonfuls of tapioca, previously soaked for at least an hour. Stir till it boils and is quite clear. This soup may be varied in many ways, as by substituting for the tapioca, crushed vermicelli, ground rice, cornflour, &c. Some chopped spring onions, chives or leeks, added after straining are a great improvement, also chopped parsley, while many people like the addition of milk or cream.
10 lbs. Thick Brisket of Beef, Corned or Fresh--1s. 6d.
1 fagot of Herbs
1 stalk Celery--1/2d.
1 Onion
2 Carrots
1 Turnip
40 Peppercorns--1 1/2d.
Total Cost--1s. 8d.
Time--Four Hours
Bind the beef with tapes to keep it a good shape. If it is corned, put it on in cold water; if fresh, in hot stock or water, and bring to the boil, then skim carefully and put in the vegetables and peppercorns. Simmer very gently indeed for four hours, then take it up. Take off the tapes, slip out the bones, and put it into a dish; place a piece of board on the top and some heavy weights and leave till the next day, then turn out and serve with a salad. If fresh meat is used for this dish the liquor may be used for soup, or the bones may be put back when removed from the meat and boiled without the lid very quickly for an hour. Then strain off and stand away till the next day; it should then be in a strong jelly. This may be cut into blocks and put round the meat.
