Always use soft water for making soup, and be careful to
proportion the quantity of water to that of the meat. Somewhat
less than a quart of water to a pound of meat, is a good rule for
common soups. Rich soups, intended for company, may have a still
smaller allowance of water.
Soup should always be made entirely of fresh meat that has not
been previously cooked. An exception to this rule may sometimes be
made in favour of the remains of a piece of roast beef that has
been _very much_ under-done in roasting. This may be
_added_ to a good piece of raw meat. Cold ham, also, may be
occasionally put into white soups.
Soup made of cold meat has always a vapid, disagreeable taste,
very perceptible through all the seasoning, and which nothing
indeed can disguise. Also, it will be of a bad, dingy colour. The
juices of the meat having been exhausted by the first cooking, the
undue proportion of watery liquid renders it, for soup,
indigestible and unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. As there is
little or no nutriment to be derived from soup made with cold
meat, it is better to refrain from using it for this purpose, and
to devote the leavings of the table to some other object. No
person accustomed to really good soup, made from fresh meat, can
ever be deceived in the taste, even when flavoured with wine and
spices. It is not true that French cooks have the art of producing
_excellent_ soups from cold scraps. There is much _bad_
soup to be found in France, at inferior houses; but _good_
French cooks are not, as is generally supposed, really in the
practice of concocting any dishes out of the refuse of the table.
And we repeat, that cold meat, even when perfectly good, and used
in a large quantity, has not sufficient substance to flavour soup,
or to render it wholesome.
Soup, however, that has been originally made of raw meat entirely,
is frequently better the second day than the first; provided that
it is re-boiled only for a very short time, and that no additional
water is added to it.
Unless it has been allowed to boil too hard, so as to exhaust the
water, the soup-pot will not require replenishing. When it is
found absolutely necessary to do so, the additional water must be
boiling hot when poured in; if lukewarm or cold, it will entirely
spoil the soup.
Every particle of fat should be carefully skimmed from the
surface. Greasy soup is disgusting and unwholesome. The lean of
meat is much better for soup than the fat.
Long and slow boiling is necessary to extract the strength from
the meat. If boiled fast over a large fire, the meat becomes hard
and tough, and will not give out its juices.
Potatoes, if boiled in the soup, are thought by some to render it
unwholesome, from the opinion that the water in which potatoes
have been cooked is almost a poison. As potatoes are a part of
every dinner, it is very easy to take a few out of the pot in
which they have been boiled by themselves, and to cut them up and
add them to the soup just before it goes to table.
The cook should season the soup but very slightly with salt and
pepper. If she puts in too much, it may spoil it for the taste of
most of those that are to eat it; but if too little, it is easy to
add more to your own plate.
The practice of thickening soup by stirring flour into it is not a
good one, as it spoils both the appearance and the taste. If made
with a sufficient quantity of good fresh meat, and not too much
water, and if boiled long and slowly, it will have substance
enough without flour.