Boil the bones of the head three hours, add a piece of gravy
meat cut in dice and fried brown, three onions sliced and
fried brown, a carrot, a turnip, celery, and a small bundle of
sweet herbs; boil gently for three hours and take off the fat.
When it is ready to be served add a glass of sherry and slices
of lemon. The various parts of a calf's-head can be cooked and
used as forcemeat balls, and made to look exactly like turtle.
This soup is found canned and is almost as good as the real
article.
Dried-pea soup, _crème d'asperge_, and bean soup, in fact all the
_purées_, are very healthful and elegant soups. The _purée_ is the
mashed mass of pea or bean, which is added to the stock.
Boil a pint of large peas in a quart of water with a sprig of
parsley or mint, and a dozen or so of green onions. When the
peas are done strain and rub them through a sieve, put the
_purée_ back into the liquor the peas were boiled in, add a
pint of good veal or beef broth, a lump of sugar, and pepper
and salt to taste. Let the soup get thoroughly hot without
boiling, stir in an ounce of good butter, and the soup is
ready.
A plain but quick and delicious soup may be made by using a can of
corn, with a small piece of pork. This warmed up quickly, with a
little milk added, is very good.
As for a _crème d'asperge_, it is better to employ a _chef_ to teach
the new cook.
Mulligatawny soup is a visitor from India. It should not be too strong
of curry powder for the average taste. The stock should be made of
chicken or veal, or the liquor in which chickens have been boiled.
Slice and fry in butter six large onions, add four sharp, sour
apples, cored and quartered, but not peeled. Let them boil in
a little of the stock until quite tender, then mix with them a
quarter of a pound of flour, and a small teaspoonful of curry
powder. Take a quart of the stock and when the soup has boiled
skim it; let it simmer for half an hour, then carefully take
off all the fat, strain the soup, and rub the onions through a
sieve. When ready to heat the soup for the dinner-table add
any pieces of meat or chicken cut into small, delicate shapes.
When these have been boiled together for ten minutes the soup
will be ready; salt to taste. Boiled rice should be sent in on
a separate dish.
Sorrel soup is a great favourite with the French people. We do not
make enough of sorrel in this country; it adds an excellent flavour.
Carefully wash a pound of sorrel, and having picked, cut it in
shreds, put it into a stewpan with two ounces of fresh butter
and stir it over the fire for ten minutes. Stir in an ounce of
flour, mix well together and add a pint and a half of good
white stock made as for veal broth. Let it simmer for half an
hour. Having skimmed the soup, stir in the yolks of three eggs
beaten up in half a pint of milk or cream. Stir in a little
pat of butter, and when dissolved pour the whole over thin
pieces of toasted bread into the tureen.
With the large family of the broths every housewife should become
acquainted. They are invaluable for the sick, especially broths of
chicken and mutton. For veal broth the following is an elaborate, but
excellent recipe:
Get three or four pounds of scrag, or a knuckle of veal,
chopped into small pieces, also a ham bone, or slice of ham,
and cover with water; let it boil up, skim it until no more
rises. Put in four or five onions, a turnip, and later a bit
of celery or celery seed tied in muslin, a little salt, and
white pepper. Let it boil gently for four hours; strain the
gravy and having taken off all the fat return the residue to
the pot and let it boil; then slightly thicken with corn
flour, about one teaspoonful to a quart of soup; let it simmer
before serving. Three pounds of veal should make two quarts of
good soup.
A sheep's-head soup is famous all over Scotland and is made as
follows:--
Get the head of a sheep with the skin on, soak it in tepid
water, take out the tongue and brains, break all the thin
bones inside the cheek, and carefully wash it in several
waters; put it on in a quart of water with a teaspoonful of
salt and let it boil ten minutes. Pour away this water and put
two quarts more with one pound of a scrag of mutton; add, cut
up, six onions, two turnips, two carrots, a sprig of parsley,
and season with pepper and salt. Let it boil gently for four
or five hours, when the head and neck will not be too much
cooked for the family dinner, and may be served either with
parsley or onion sauce. It is a most savoury morsel. Strain
the soup, and let it cool so as to remove every particle of
fat. Rub the vegetables through a sieve to a fine _purée_. Mix
a tablespoonful of flour in a quarter of a pint of milk; make
the soup boil up and stir it in with the vegetables.
Have the tongue boiled until it is very tender, skin and trim
it, have the brains also well cooked, and chop and pound them
very fine with the tongue, mix them with an equal weight of
sifted bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of chopped green
parsley, pepper, salt, and egg, and if necessary a small
quantity of flour to enable you to roll the mixture into
little balls. Put an ounce of butter into a small frying-pan
and fry the balls until a nice brown, lay them on paper before
the fire to drain away all the fat, and put them into the soup
after it is poured into the tureen. Scald and chop some green
parsley and serve separately on a plate.
Thackeray thought so much of a boiled sheep's head that he made it the
point of one of his humorous poems.
"By that grand vow that bound thee
Forever to my side,
And by the ring that made thee
My darling and my bride!
Thou wilt not fail or falter
But bend thee to the task--
A boiled sheep's head on Sunday
Is all the boon I ask!"
In France, cabbage is much used in soup.
"Ha, what is this that rises to my touch
So like a cushion--can it be a cabbage?
It is, it is, that deeply inspired flower
Which boys do flout us with, but yet--I love thee,
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these thy puny brethren, and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
And now thou seemst like a bankrupt beau
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments."
The cabbage is without honour in America; and yet if boiled in water
which is thrown away, having absorbed all its grosser essences, and
then boiled again and chopped and dressed with butter and cream, it is
an excellent vegetable. Its disagreeable odour has led to its
expulsion from many a house, but corn-beef and cabbage are not to be
despised.
Cauliflower, which Thackeray calls the "apotheosis of cabbage," is the
most delicate of vegetables; and a _purée_ of cauliflower shall close
our chapter on soups.
Boil in salted water, using a small piece of butter, two heads
of cauliflower, drain and pass them through a colander, dilute
with two quarts of sauce and a quart of chicken broth, season
with salt, white pepper, and grated nutmeg. Add a teaspoonful
of fine white sugar, then pass the whole forcibly with a
wooden presser through a fine sieve,--the finer the sieve the
better the _purée_. Put the residue in a stewpan, set it on
the fire, stir all the while till it boils, let it boil for
ten minutes, strain well, add a mixture made with the yolks of
six eggs and half a pint of cream, finish with four ounces of
table butter, and serve with small, fried, square _croûtons_.
A _purée_ of celery is equally excellent; but all these soups require
an intelligent cook. It is better to have one's cook taught to make
soups by an expert, for it is the most difficult of all the dishes, if
thoroughly good. The plain soup, free from grease and well flavoured,
is easy enough after a little training, "but the chief ingredient of
soup is brains," according to a London _chef_. It is, however, a good
practice for an amateur cook to experiment and to try these various
recipes, all of which are practicable.