BEEF SOUP.
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.
BISQUE SOUP
Have ready a good broth made of three pounds of veal boiled slowly in as much water as will cover it, till the meat is reduced to shreds. It must then be well strained.
Having boiled one fine middle-sized lobster, extract all the meat from the body and claws. Bruise part of the coral in a mortar, and also an equal quantity of the meat. Mix them well together. Add mace, cayenne, salt and pepper, and make them up into force meat balls, binding the mixture with the yolk of an egg slightly beaten. Take three quarts of the veal broth and put it into the meat of the lobster cut into mouthfuls. Boil it together about twenty minutes.
Then thicken it with the remaining coral (which you must first rub through a sieve), and add the force meat balls and a little butter rolled in flour. Simmer it gently for ten minutes, but do not let it come to a boil, as that will injure the color. Serve with small dice of bread fried brown in butter.
BROWN SOUP -1.
Take six pounds of the lean of fresh beef, cut from the bone. Stick it over with four dozen cloves. Season it with a tea-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of pepper, a tea-spoonful of mace, and a beaten nutmeg. Slice half a dozen onions; fry them in butter; chop them, and spread them over the meat after you have put it into the soup-pot. Pour in five quarts of water, and stew it slowly for five or six hours; skimming it well. When the meat has dissolved into shreds, strain it, and return the liquid to the pot. Then add a tumbler and a half, or six wine glasses of claret or port wine. Simmer it again slowly till dinner time. When the soup is reduced to three quarts, it is done enough. Put it into a tureen, and send it to table.
BROWN SOUP -2.
Simmer together two pints of sliced potatoes and one third as much of the thin brown shavings (not thicker than a silver dime) from the top of a loaf of whole-wheat bread, in one quart of water. The crust must not be burned or blackened, and must not include any of the soft portion of the loaf. When the potatoes are tender, mash all through a colander. Flavor with a cup of strained, stewed tomatoes, a little salt, and return to the fire; when hot, add a half cup of cream, and boiling water to make the soup of proper consistency, and serve at once. If care has been taken to prepare the crust as directed, this soup will have a brown color and a fine, pungent flavor exceedingly pleasant to the taste.
Calf's Head Soup.
Scald and clean the head, and put it to boil with two gallons of water, a shank of veal, three onions, two carrots, a little bacon, and a bunch of sweet herbs. When they have boiled half an hour, take out the head and shank of veal, and cut all the meat off the bones into pieces of two inches square; let the soup boil half an hour longer, when strain it, and put in the meat; season it with salt, cayenne and black pepper, and cloves, if you like; thicken it with butter and browned flour, and let it boil nearly an hour; put some fried force meat balls in the tureen, and just before you pour out the soup, stir into it a table-spoonful of sugar, browned in a frying pan, and half a pint of wine. This resembles turtle soup.
OX-TAIL SOUP.
Two ox-tails, two
slices of beef, one ounce of butter, two carrots, two turnips, three onions, one
leek, one head of celery, one bunch of savory herbs, pepper, a tablespoonful of
salt, two tablespoonfuls of catsup, one-half glass of port wine, three quarts of
water. Cut up the tails, separating them at the joints; wash them, and put them
in a stew pan with the butter. Cut the vegetables and beef in slices and add
them with the herbs. Put in one-half pint of water, and stir it over a quick
fire till the juices are drawn. Fill up the stew pan with water, and, when
boiling, add the salt. Skim well, and simmer very gently for four hours, or
until the tails are tender. Take them out, skim and strain the soup, thicken
with flour, and flavor with the catsup and port wine. Put back the tails; simmer
for five minutes and serve.