I AM amused and yet made thoughtful by the fact that so many young
housekeepers write to me of their pleasure in cake-making and
their desire to learn how to compound what are usually known as
“fancy-dishes,” some sending excellent receipts for loaf-cake, cookies
and doughnuts, while few express the least interest in soups, meats and
vegetables. The drift of the dear creatures’ thoughts reminds me of a
rhymed—“If I had!” which I read years ago, setting forth how a little
boy would have if he could, a house built of pastry, floored with
taffy, ceiled with sugar-plums, and roofed with frosted gingerbread.
In engaging a cook one does not ask, first of all, “Can you get up
handsome desserts?” but, “Do you understand bread-making and baking,
and the management of meats, soups, and other branches of plain
cookery?”
The same “plain cookery” is the pivot on which the family health and
comfort rest and turn. If you would qualify yourselves to become
thorough housewives, it is as essential that you should master the
principles of this, as that a musician should be able to read the notes
on the staff. Some people do play tolerably by ear, but they are never
ranked as students, much less as professors of music. “Fancy” cookery
is to the real thing what embroidery is to the art of the seamstress.
She who has learned how to use her needle deftly upon “seam, gusset and
band,” will find the acquisition of ornamental stitches an easy matter.
Skill in Kensington and satin stitch is of little value in fitting one
to do “fine,” which is also useful sewing.
I am sorry to add that my observation goes to prove that more American
housekeepers can make delicate and rich cake than excellent soups.
Soup Stock.
Two pounds coarse lean beef, chopped almost as fine as
sausage-meat.
One pound of lean veal—also chopped.
Two pounds of bones (beef, veal, or mutton) cracked in
several places.
Half an onion chopped.
Two or three stalks of celery, when you can get it.
Five quarts of cold water.
Meat and bones should be raw, but if you have bones left from underdone
beef or mutton, you may crack and add them. Put all the ingredients (no
salt or pepper) in a large clean pot, cover it closely and set at one
side of the range where it will not get really hot under two hours.
This gives the water time to draw out the juices of the meat. Then
remove to a warmer place, stir up well from the bottom, and cook slowly
five hours longer.
It should never boil hard, but “bubble-bubble” softly and steadily all
the while. Fast boiling toughens the fibres and keeps in the juice of
the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up,
lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping tablespoonful of salt,
and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your “stock-pot.” This
should be a stout stone crock or jar, with a cover, and be used for
nothing else.
See that it is free from grease, dust and all smell, scald out with hot
water and soda, then with clean boiling water just before pouring in
the soup, or the hot liquid may crack it.
Put on the cover and set in a cold place until next day.
Then take off every particle of the caked fat from the top. You can use
this as dripping for frying. Soup that has globules of grease floating
on the surface is unwholesome and slovenly.
Strain the skimmed liquid through a colander, squeezing the meat hard
to extract every drop of nutriment. Throw away the tasteless fibres and
bones when you have wrung them dry.
This process should give you about three quarts of strong “stock.”
Rinse your jar well and pour back the strained stock into it to be used
as the foundation of several days’ soups. Season it highly and keep in
a cold place—in warm weather on the ice.
I hope you will not fail to set up a “stock-pot.” Every family should
have one. It makes the matter of really good soups simple and easy.
Clear Soup with Sago or Tapioca.
Soak half a cup of German sago or pearl tapioca four hours in a
large cup of cold water. An hour before dinner put a quart of your
soup-stock on the stove and bring quickly almost to a boil. When it
is hot, stir in the raw white and the shell of an egg, and, stirring
frequently to prevent the egg from catching on the bottom of the pot,
boil fast ten minutes.
Take off and strain through a clean thick cloth, wrung out in hot water
and laid like a lining in your colander. Do not squeeze the cloth, or
you will muddy the soup.
Return the liquid, when strained, to the saucepan, which must be
perfectly clean; stir in the soaked tapioca and a teaspoonful of minced
parsley, and simmer half an hour on the side of the range.
If necessary, add a little more seasoning.
When you have made nice clear soup once, you may, if you like, color
the second supply with a little “caramel-water.”
This is made by putting a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup and
setting it over the fire until it breaks up into brown bubbles, then
pouring a few tablespoonfuls of boiling water on it and stirring it
until dissolved. A tablespoonful of this in a quart of clear soup will
give a fine amber color and not injure the flavor. Send all soups in to
table very hot.
Julienne Soup.
One quarter of a firm white cabbage, shred as for cold
slaw.
One small turnip, peeled and cut into thin dice.
One carrot, peeled and cut into strips like inch-long
straws.
One teaspoonful of onion shred fine.
Three raw tomatoes, peeled and cut into bits.
One tablespoonful of minced parsley, and, if you can
get it, three stalks of celery cut into thin slices.
Use a sharp knife for this work and bruise the vegetables as little as
possible.
When all are prepared, put them in hot water enough to cover them,
throw in a teaspoonful of salt and cook gently half an hour.
Clear a quart of soup-stock as directed in the last receipt, and color
it with a teaspoonful of Halford sauce, or walnut catsup.
When the vegetables are tender, turn them into a colander to drain,
taking care not to mash or break them. Throw away the water in which
they were boiled, and add the vegetables to the clear hot soup.
Taste, to determine if it needs more pepper or salt, and simmer all
together gently twenty minutes before turning into the tureen.
White Chicken Soup (Delicious).
A tough fowl can be converted into very delicious dishes by boiling it
first for soup and mincing it, when cold, for croquettes.
In boiling it, allow a quart of cold water for each pound of chicken,
and set it where it will heat very slowly.
If the fowl be quite old do not let it reach a boil under two hours,
then boil _very_ gently four hours longer.
Throw in a tablespoonful of salt when you take it from the fire, turn
chicken and liquor into a bowl and set in a cold place all night.
Next day skim off the fat, strain the broth from the chicken, shaking
the colander to do this well, and put aside the meat for croquettes or
a scallop.
Set three pints of the broth over the fire with a teaspoonful of
chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and let it boil half an
hour. Line a colander with a thick cloth, and strain the liquid,
squeezing the cloth to get the flavor of the onion.
Return the strained soup to the saucepan, with a tablespoonful of
minced parsley, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, scald in a farina
kettle a cupful of milk, dropping into it a bit of soda the size of a
pea.
Stir into this when hot, a tablespoonful of cornstarch wet up with
cold milk. When it thickens scrape it out into a bowl in which you have
two eggs whipped light. Beat all together well, and stir in, spoonful
by spoonful, a cupful of the boiling soup.
Draw the soup pot to one side of the range, stir in the contents of the
bowl, and let it stand—but not boil—three minutes before pouring into
the tureen.