The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 42

The seasoning for all these soups is the same, viz. salt and a very little Cayenne pepper.

N.B. To make excellent vegetable gravy soup for 4-1/2_d._ a quart, see No. 224.

_Scotch Barley Broth_;--a good and substantial dinner for fivepence per head.--(No. 204.)

Wash three-quarters of a pound of Scotch barley in a little cold water; put it in a soup-pot with a s.h.i.+n or leg of beef, of about ten pounds weight, sawed into four pieces (tell the butcher to do this for you); cover it well with cold water; set it on the fire: when it boils skim it very clean, and put in two onions of about three ounces weight each; set it by the side of the fire to simmer very gently about two hours; then skim all the fat clean off, and put in two heads of celery, and a large turnip cut into small squares; season it with salt, and let it boil an hour and a half longer, and it is ready: take out the meat (carefully with a slice, and cover it up, and set it by the fire to keep warm), and skim the broth well before you put it in the tureen.

_s._ _d._ s.h.i.+n of beef of 10lbs 2 0 3/4 pound of barley 0 4-1/2 2 onions, of about 3 oz. weight each 0 0-1/2 Celery 0 1 Large turnip 0 1 ---------- 2 7

Thus you get four quarts of good soup at 8_d._ per quart, besides another quart to make sauce for the meat, in the following manner:

Put a quart of the soup into a basin; put about an ounce of flour into a stew-pan, and pour the broth to it by degrees, stirring it well together; set it on the fire, and stir it till it boils; then (some put in a gla.s.s of port wine, or mushroom catchup, No. 439) let it boil up, and it is ready.

Put the meat in a ragout dish, and strain the sauce through a sieve over the meat; you may put to it some capers, or minced gherkins or walnuts, &c.

If the beef has been stewed with proper care in a very gentle manner, and be taken up at "the critical moment when it is just tender," you will obtain an excellent and savoury meal for eight people for fivepence; _i. e._ for only the cost of the gla.s.s of port wine.

If you use veal, cover the meat with No. 364--2.

_Obs._--This is a most frugal, agreeable, and nutritive meal; it will neither lighten the purse, nor lie heavy on the stomach, and will furnish a plentiful and pleasant soup and meat for eight persons. So you may give a good dinner for 5_d._ per head!!! See also Nos. 229 and 239.

N.B. If you will draw your purse-strings a little wider, and allow 1_d._ per mouth more, prepare a pint of young onions as directed in No. 296, and garnish the dish with them, or some carrots or turnips cut into squares; and for 6_d._ per head you will have as good a RAGOUT as "_le Cuisinier Imperial de France_" can give you for as many s.h.i.+llings. Read _Obs._ to No. 493.

You may vary the flavour by adding a little curry powder (No. 455), ragout (No. 457, &c.), or any of the store sauces and flavouring essences between Nos. 396 and 463; you may garnish the dish with split pickled mangoes, walnuts, gherkins, onions, &c. See Wow wow Sauce, No.

328.

If it is made the evening before the soup is wanted, and suffered to stand till it is cold, much fat[200-*] may be removed from the surface of the soup, which is, when clarified (No. 83), useful for all the purposes that drippings are applied to.

_Scotch Soups._--(No. 205.)

The three following receipts are the contribution of a friend at Edinburgh.

_Winter Hotch-potch._

Take the best end of a neck or loin of mutton; cut it into neat chops; cut four carrots, and as many turnips into slices; put on four quarts of water, with half the carrots and turnips, and a whole one of each, with a pound of dried green pease, which must be put to soak the night before; let it boil two hours, then take out the whole carrot and turnip; bruise and return them; put in the meat, and the rest of the carrot and turnip, some pepper and salt, and boil slowly three-quarters of an hour; a short time before serving, add an onion cut small and a head of celery.

_c.o.c.ky-leeky Soup._

Take a scrag of mutton, or shank of veal, three quarts of water (or liquor in which meat has been boiled), and a good-sized fowl, with two or three leeks cut in pieces about an inch long, pepper and salt; boil slowly about an hour: then put in as many more leeks, and give it three-quarters of an hour longer: this is very good, made of good beef-stock, and leeks put in it twice.

_Lamb Stove, or Lamb Stew._

Take a lamb's head and lights; open the jaws of the head, and wash them thoroughly; put them in a pot with some beef-stock, made with three quarts of water, and two pounds of s.h.i.+n of beef, strained; boil very slowly for an hour; wash and string two or three good handfuls of spinach (or spinage); put it in twenty minutes before serving; add a little parsley, and one or two onions, a short time before it comes off the fire; season with pepper and salt, and serve all together in a tureen.

_Scotch Brose._--(No. 205*.)

"This favourite Scotch dish is generally made with the liquor meat has been boiled in.

"Put half a pint of oatmeal into a porringer with a little salt, if there be not enough in the broth, of which add as much as will mix it to the consistence of hasty-pudding, or a little thicker; lastly, take a little of the fat that swims on the broth, and put it on the crowdie, and eat it in the same way as hasty-pudding."

_Obs._--This Scotsman's dish is easily prepared at very little expense, and is pleasant-tasted and nutritious. To dress a haggies, see No. 488*, and Minced Collops, following it.

N.B. For various methods of making and flavouring oatmeal gruel, see No.

572.

_Carrot Soup._--(No. 212.)

Sc.r.a.pe and wash half a dozen large carrots; peel off the red outside (which is the only part used for this soup); put it into a gallon stew-pan, with one head of celery, and an onion, cut into thin pieces; take two quarts of beef, veal, or mutton broth, or if you have any cold roast-beef bones (or liquor, in which mutton or beef has been boiled), you may make very good broth for this soup: when you have put the broth to the roots, cover the stew-pan close, and set it on a slow stove for two hours and a half, when the carrots will be soft enough (some cooks put in a tea-cupful of bread-crumbs); boil for two or three minutes; rub it through a tamis, or hair-sieve, with a wooden spoon, and add as much broth as will make it a proper thickness, _i. e._ almost as thick as pease soup: put it into a clean stew-pan; make it hot; season it with a little salt, and send it up with some toasted bread, cut into pieces half an inch square. Some put it into the soup; but the best way is to send it up on a plate, as a side-dish.

_Obs._ This is neither expensive nor troublesome to prepare. In the kitchens of some opulent epicures, to make this soup make a little stronger impression on the gustatory organs of "grands gourmands," the celery and onions are sliced, and fried in b.u.t.ter of a light brown, the soup is poured into the stew-pan to them, and all is boiled up together.

But this must be done very carefully with b.u.t.ter, or very nicely clarified fat; and the "grand cuisinier" adds spices, &c. "_ad libitum_."

_Turnip and Parsnip Soups_,--(No. 213.)

Are made in the same manner as the carrot soup (No. 212.)

_Celery Soup._--(No. 214.)

Split half a dozen heads of celery into slips about two inches long; wash them well; lay them on a hair-sieve to drain, and put them into three quarts of No. 200 in a gallon soup-pot; set it by the side of the fire to stew very gently till the celery is tender (this will take about an hour). If any sc.u.m rises, take it off; season with a little salt.

_Obs._ When celery cannot be procured, half a drachm of the seed, pounded fine, which may be considered as the essence of celery (costs only one-third of a farthing, and can be had at any season), put in a quarter of an hour before the soup is done, and a little sugar, will give as much flavour to half a gallon of soup as two heads of celery weighing seven ounces, and costing 2_d._; or add a little essence of celery, No. 409.

_Green Pease Soup._--(No. 216.)

A peck of pease will make you a good tureen of soup. In sh.e.l.ling them, put the old ones in one basin, and the young ones in another, and keep out a pint of them, and boil them separately to put into your soup when it is finished: put a large saucepan on the fire half full of water; when it boils, put the pease in, with a handful of salt; let them boil till they are done enough, _i. e._ from twenty to thirty minutes, according to their age and size; then drain them in a colander, and put them into a clean gallon stew-pan, and three quarts of plain veal or mutton broth (drawn from meat without any spices or herbs, &c. which would overpower the flavour of the soup); cover the stew-pan close, and set it over a slow fire to stew gently for an hour; add a tea-cupful of bread-crumbs, and then rub it through a tamis into another stew-pan; stir it with a wooden spoon, and if it is too thick, add a little more broth: have ready boiled as for eating, a pint of young pease, and put them into the soup; season with a little salt and sugar.

N.B. Some cooks, while this soup is going on, slice a couple of cuc.u.mbers (as you would for eating); take out the seeds; lay them on a cloth to drain, and then flour them, and fry them a light brown in a little b.u.t.ter; put them into the soup the last thing before it goes to table.

_Obs._ If the soup is not green enough, pound a handful of pea-hulls or spinage, and squeeze the juice through a cloth into the soup: some leaves of mint may be added, if approved.

_Plain green Pease Soup without Meat._--(No. 217.)

Take a quart of green pease (keep out half a pint of the youngest; boil them separately, and put them in the soup when it is finished); put them on in boiling water; boil them tender, and then pour off the water, and set it by to make the soup with: put the pease into a mortar, and pound them to a mash; then put them into two quarts of the water you boiled the pease in; stir all well together; let it boil up for about five minutes, and then rub it through a hair-sieve or tamis. If the pease are good, it will be as thick and fine a vegetable soup as need be sent to table.

_Pease Soup._--(No. 218.)

The common way of making pease soup[203-*] is--to a quart of split pease put three quarts of cold soft water, not more, (or it will be what "Jack Ros-bif" calls "soup maigre,") notwithstanding Mother Gla.s.se orders a gallon (and her ladys.h.i.+p's directions have been copied by almost every cookery-book maker who has strung receipts together since), with half a pound of bacon (not very fat), or roast-beef bones, or four anchovies: or, instead of the water, three quarts of the liquor in which beef, mutton, pork, or poultry has been boiled, tasting it first, to make sure it is not too salt.[204-*]