Part 45

_Polish Soup (barszcz)._--Fill a good-sized jar with slices of beetroot cut in pieces, and cover them with cold water, to which should be added a slice of bread. The jar should then be covered, and left until the juice, which becomes a deep vermilion colour, is fermented and has a sour taste. In warm weather 3 days will suffice for this, in winter it takes 5-6. The ferment which rises to the top must be removed, and the juice passed through a sieve. It is then boiled with an equal proportion of strong beef stock, to which is added small pieces of ham. The soup comes to table looking clear and red, and for variety may be made pink by adding a pint of sour cream. (H.) See also p. 506.

_Pomeranian Soup._--1 qt. white beans must be boiled soft in water; mash half of them, thin with broth, and work through a sieve. Let boil with the broth to a smooth soup, in which has been boiled a head of celery cut small. Add the whole beans, a mild seasoning of sweet herbs, some parsley, salt and pepper. Let all boil ¼ hour, and serve.

_Poor Man’s Soup._--See Potato Soup.

_Potato Soup (Parmentier, pauvre homme)._--(_a_) Put 1 oz. butter into a saucepan with 3 large onions, shred fine, and fry them a pale brown colour; add 1 teaspoonful flour, stir for a few minutes, but do not allow the mixture to darken; then add 1 qt. common stock previously flavoured with carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and parsley boiled in it; stir until soup boils, and season to taste with pepper and salt. Peel 1 or 2 potatoes, cut them into small dice, and put to boil with the soup. Cut some crust of bread in long pieces the size, and half the length of, French beans, dry them in the oven, and at the time of serving throw them into the soup; then stir into it off the fire the yolks of 2 eggs, beaten up with a little milk, and strained.

(_b_) Peel 8-10 large potatoes, 3 onions, 2 heads of celery, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, a slice of ham or lean bacon, cut all in small squares; boil them with some broth; when done, rub all through the sieve, and season with pepper and salt.

(_c_) Boil some potatoes in water with an onion, a head of celery, and salt to taste; when done pass them through a hair sieve, and put them into a saucepan with a lump of butter, adding sufficient stock to bring them to the consistency of soup. Let it boil up, season with pepper and salt, and at the time of serving throw in either minced parsley or small sprigs of chervil. Small dice of bread, fried in butter, to be served in or with the soup.

(_d_) Use milk instead of stock, and add, besides pepper and salt, just a small grate of nutmeg.

_Pot au feu._--(_a_) Take 6 lb. round of beef, put it in a large earthenware pot, with any stray bones, and 14 qt. cold water; add 3 handfuls of salt, some whole pepper, and a few cloves; let simmer, without allowing to boil, until you can skim; after skimming add 4 turnips, 5 or 6 carrots, 2 parsnips, 1 stick celery, 2 large onions, and a clove of garlic; take a bunch of leeks, and tie up with them a leaf of bay laurel, and a root of parsley (if you have not the whole plant, some leaves alone), and put this into the pot with the other things. Let boil very slowly for 4 hours. Cook apart in a saucepan 2 fine cabbages; do not put any water with them, but when the _pot au feu_ is nearly cooked, take off the top of the soup, put it over the cabbages, and let them cook in it for ½-1 hour. When the soup is ready, take some crusts of bread which have been well browned in the oven, cut them in pieces, let them soak for a few minutes in boiling water, then put them into the soup tureen, and, after skimming the soup, pour it over them. Serve the meat on a dish, arranging the cabbages, carrots, turnips, onions, and parsnips all round.

(_b_) Take a piece of fresh silverside of beef weighing 6 lb., and about ½ lb. bones; tie up the meat neatly with string, and put both into a 6-quart saucepan; fill it up with sufficient water to come well over the meat and bones, and set it on the fire; remove carefully with a skimmer the scum that will rise as the water gets warm, but do not allow it to boil. Add at intervals during the process about 1 pint cold water in small quantities; this will have the effect of checking the ebullition, and will help the scum to rise. When the scum is all removed, put in about 1 oz. salt, a small handful of whole pepper and allspice, 1 onion, stuck with 12 cloves, 1 onion toasted almost black before the fire or on the hob, 1 leek, and three carrots of average size cut in 2 inch lengths, 2 turnips of average size each cut in four, and a _bouquet garni_--i.e. 2 bay leaves, 2 or 3 sprigs each of thyme and marjoram, a clove of garlic, and a small handful of parsley, all tied together into a small faggot. The above vegetables should not be put in all at once, but gradually, so as not to check the gentle simmering; now skim for the last time, and place by the side of the fire to simmer gently for at least 4 hours. According to the season, all or some of the following vegetables may be added: A head of celery cut in 2 in. lengths, a couple of tomatoes, a couple of parsnips, a handful of chervil. At the time of serving, strain the broth and skim off all the fat, add the least bit of sugar (not burnt sugar) and more salt if necessary; make the broth boiling hot, and pour it into the soup tureen over small slices of toasted bread, adding, according to taste, a portion of the vegetables cut in thin slices. To serve the meat, having removed the string, garnish it with some of the vegetables, or with mashed potatoes, spinach, &c.

_Poultry Soup._--Remains of any kind of poultry will do for this. Cut all the meat off the bones, free it from skin, and pound it smooth in a mortar. Soak a slice or two of bread, without crust, in as much milk as it will absorb; add it, with the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs, to the pounded meat, and pass all through a sieve. While preparing the above, let the broken-up bones boil in some good meat broth. Strain this, and mix with it the pounded meat. Give it one boil up, and serve with Hühner Klösse. In boiling up the bones, any kind of seasoning may be added, such as herbs, vegetables, lemon peel, salt, and pepper. See also Chicken Soup.

_Pumpkin Soup (de potiron)._--Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces (removing the seeds). Put it into boiling water with some salt, and leave it to boil until reduced to a pulp thin enough to pass through a strainer. Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan with a wine glass of cream. Add the pulp, when strained, with salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of flour. Let the whole simmer for ¼ hour, thicken with the yolk of an egg, and serve.

_Quenelle Soup._--Put into a saucepan a gill of water, a pinch of salt, and a small piece of butter; when the water boils stir in as much flour as will form a paste, put the mixture away to get cold. Take ½ lb. lean veal, cut it into small pieces, and pound in a mortar; add 3 oz. butter and 2 oz. of the paste, and thoroughly mix the whole in the mortar, adding during the process the yolks of 2 and the white of 1 egg, salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste; pass the mixture through a sieve, work a little cream into it, and, by means of 2 teaspoons, shape it in pieces the size of an olive; lay these carefully in a saucepan, pour in at the side sufficient boiling stock to cover them, and let them cook gently for a few minutes. Have the tureen ready filled with well-flavoured clear stock, boiling hot; slip the quenelles into it (with or without the stock they were boiled in), and serve.

_Rice Soup (au riz)._--(_a_) Pick over carefully 6 oz. best Carolina rice, wash in 3 waters, until no dirt remains, blanch in boiling water, and then drain; put 1 qt. milk into a saucepan, and set it over the fire; throw in the rice; let boil for 10 minutes and then simmer; season with salt and white pepper, and add a small cupful of cream just before serving. Send plain toast, not fried, to table with it.

(_b_) Pick and wash a handful of rice, boil it in salted water till the grains just burst; drain the water off, and leave the saucepan at the side of the fire, covered with a damp cloth. At the time of serving, put as much rice as is wanted into the saucepan in which the soup (well flavoured and clarified stock) is being made hot, and as soon as it boils send it up to table. Grated Parmesan cheese to be handed round with it.

(_c_) The rice must be well washed, first in cold then in warm water; 2 oz. is enough for 5 half-pints of soup. Boil the rice 2 hours at least, either with some of the soup or with water sufficient to boil it to a jelly; then add it to the soup. In the latter case have the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs in the tureen.

(_d_) Boil some rice as in (_b_); pass through a hair sieve; add as much white stock as may be necessary; make quite hot, and stir in off the fire 1 gill cream beaten up with the yolk of an egg and strained. Serve with small dice of bread fried in butter.

(_e_) Use water and milk in equal parts instead of stock.

(_f_) Mix rice flour with either milk and water or white stock cold; then make it hot, and when it has boiled finish the soup as in (_d_).

_Rice and Carrot Soup (Crécy au riz)._--Make 1 qt. vegetable stock boiling hot, then strew lightly into it 4 heaped tablespoonfuls Bousquin’s _Riz Crécy_; let gently simmer for ½ hour. Then stir in, off the fire, the yolk of an egg beaten up with a little milk or cream; add half a pat of butter, and serve.

_Rice and Pea Soup (de riz aux pois)._--Having prepared the soup as in (_b_) add to it at the time of serving a cupful of very young green peas boiled in salted water and thoroughly drained.

_Rice and Sorrel Soup (de riz à l’oseille)._--Boil some rice in water; when half done drain off all the water, and finish cooking the rice in some clear stock; then add, according to taste, more or less sorrel finely shredded, boiled in salted water till done and strained.

_Rice and Tomato Soup (de riz aux tomates)._--In 1 qt. vegetable stock boil a handful or more of rice; as soon as this is cooked (not over done), draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and add an 8_d._ bottle of _conserve de tomates_. As soon as the soup is quite hot (it must not boil) put in a small pat of fresh butter, and serve.

_Sago Soup (au sagou)._--(_a_) Wash 5 oz. sago in warm water, set it in a saucepan with 2 qt. milk, and simmer until the sago is thoroughly dissolved; season with pepper and salt, and add a small capful of cream before serving. Good clear stock is generally used for both sago and tapioca soup; but they are even nicer made with milk.

(_b_) The stock must be ready seasoned and quite boiling. Strew in the sago by degrees, about the same proportion as in rice soup. Boil ¼ hour, and serve in the tureen with yolks of eggs.

_Savoy Cabbage Soup._--Take half a savoy cabbage, shred it very finely, and set it to boil in stock free from fat and well flavoured; parboil a teacupful of rice, and when the cabbage has boiled for 10 minutes throw it in to finish cooking with the cabbage; when both are thoroughly done, put in a handful of grated Parmesan cheese, and serve.

_Savoyard Soup._--Peel and slice a small quantify of young turnips, put them into boiling water slightly salted. In another saucepan put the crusts of a quartern loaf previously soaked for 3-4 minutes, in the liquor of the _pot au feu_, and cut into pieces 1 in. square; grate over them some Gruyère cheese, and put the saucepan over a moderate fire till the crusts become dry and crisp; brown the turnips in some grease from the _pot au feu_, put them on the top of the _croûtons_, then reversing the saucepan put them all into a soup tureen, having the turnips at the bottom and the crusts at the top. Pour over them some good stock, and serve.

_Scrap Soup._--Obtain from a butcher 6 lb. ends, trimmings, bits, and bones, which he will sell at 7_d._ a lb. or less, if told that it is for a soup kitchen. Place all in a very large saucepan, or, better still, divide the quantity and put each half into a separate saucepan, covering well with water. Throw in any vegetables, either previously cooked or not, that can be had, a few herbs, cold potatoes, crusts of bread, celery and lettuce stalks, and bacon rinds. Simmer all down gently for 6 hours or longer, removing the scum from time to time, and adding water when necessary. Strain through the colander, and it is ready. This should make enough for 12 persons, allowing 1 pint to each, 1½ gal. water being used; 2 gal. water, making it rather poorer, will extend the number to 16. Cost to make 4_s._ = 4_d._ a head.

_Scotch Broth._--(_a_) Take ½ lb. Scotch barley, 5-6 lb. mutton (neck or breast), put on the fire with 5 qt. water, and bring it slowly to the boil. Add turnips, carrots, onions, or leeks, and celery cut up small, with ½ pint dried green peas, ½ hour after the meat and barley have boiled. The whole is then to be simmered 2½ hours longer. The fat must be removed as it rises to the surface when boiling. If preferred, the meat can be served as a separate course, with some large vegetables round it.

(_b_) The liquor in which a sheep’s head has been boiled is most useful for this soup. If wanted stronger, the remains of the head can be boiled down in it again as for ordinary stock. Wash 1 oz. pearl barley, and put it to 2 qt. stock; chop fine 2 small carrots, 2 turnips, 1 onion, 2 or 3 outside sticks of celery; add pepper and salt to taste, and simmer till the vegetables are tender. Dried vegetables in shreds answer very well for this, and can be bought at about 1_s._ per lb., 1 lb. being sufficient for 8 qt. of stock.

_Semolina Soup (à la semoule)._--Have 1 qt. well-flavoured stock boiling fast on the fire. Take in one hand some of the coarsest semolina that can be procured, and slowly strew it in the stock, which is to be continuously stirred with a spoon held with the other hand. One handful will be sufficient for the above quantity of stock, but more may be used according to the thickness the soup is desired to be. Keep on stirring for a few minutes, when the soup will be seen to thicken, and it is then ready. Parmesan cheese may be served with it.

_Sheep’s Head Soup._--Let the head and pluck be well soaked in cold water, and then put on in 4 qt. cold water; cut the pluck in pieces, add ½ lb. pearl barley, 4 onions, 2 large carrots, 3 turnips, ¼ oz. mixed cloves, mace, and peppercorns. Take off the head and heart when done, then stew the pluck and other ingredients 2 hours longer; thicken the soup with a little flour and butter; cut the head and heart in pieces, and add forcemeat balls. ½ lb. lean beef is a great improvement to this soup. A wineglassful of sherry, ketchup, and soy to taste. Strain very carefully.

_Shrimp Soup (de crevettes)._--Take 1 pint shrimps, pound them in a mortar with the juice of half a lemon and a piece of butter equal in weight to them. When quite a smooth paste, pass it through a sieve, and add pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Take as much breadcrumbs as there is shrimp paste, soak them in stock. Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan, amalgamate with it a heaped tablespoonful of flour, mix the shrimp paste with the soaked breadcrumbs, and put both into the saucepan. Stir well, adding more stock, until the soup is of the desired consistency. Put the saucepan on the fire, stir the contents till they boil, then draw it aside and carefully skim off all fat, strain through a hair sieve, make the soup hot again. Stir in off the fire the yolk of an egg, beaten up with a little milk or cream, and serve.

_Sorrel Soup (a l’oseille)._--A good quantity of sorrel leaves must be picked from the stems and washed, then put into a stewpan with a piece of butter to steam. No water is requisite. Dredge in, continually stirring, a tablespoonful or two of flour, unless the soup is to be clear. Add enough soup, already seasoned and flavoured. Serve with sippets or dice of toasted bread.

_Spinach Soup (aux épinards)._--Pick and wash quite clean a quantity of spinach. Put it in a saucepan with sufficient salt, and when quite done squeeze all the moisture out, and pass it through a hair sieve. Dilute the pulp thus obtained with as much well-flavoured stock as will make it of the right consistency; make boiling hot, add a dash of pepper, and at the time of serving put a pat of fresh butter in the soup tureen.

_Spring Soup (jardinière, printanier)._--Cut some new carrots and new turnips in the shape of peas; put them in separate saucepans with enough stock to cover them, and a pinch of sugar; keep on the fire till the stock has all boiled away, but mind they do not catch or burn. Cook some peas and some asparagus points in the same way. Have equal quantities of each of these vegetables. Cut out of lettuces and sorrel leaves pieces the size of a sixpence; let them have one boil in some stock. Put all the vegetables so prepared in the soup tureen, add a few sprigs of chervil, pour over them some well-flavoured consommé, and serve.

_Strawberry Soup._--Boil ripe strawberries, with some rusks or slices of roll, in sufficient water until dissolved. Stir through a sieve; add wine and sugar to taste; make a thickening of arrowroot or potato flour, and boil the mass up again. When about to be served, add a saucerful of ripe strawberries which have been sprinkled with plenty of powdered sugar an hour or two previously. Any fruit soup can be made according to the foregoing directions, adding or leaving out certain flavours. Sponge cakes and macaroons may be served with any fruit soups.

_Sweetbread Soup._--Put a sweetbread on the fire in cold water, with a little salt. When it is warm, pour off the water and supply fresh cold; repeat this a few times as fast as it becomes warm, which process whitens the sweetbread. When it looks delicately white just let it come to a simmer; then take it out and lay it in cold water. Take off the outer skin, cut up the meat in small dice, and give it a boil up in good white veal soup. If for brown soup, fry the little pieces of sweetbread rapidly in butter, and drain them in a napkin. They must only be coloured yellow.

_Tapioca Soup._--(_a_) Made as sago, only the tapioca must be soaked for at least ½ hour in warm water before being put into the milk.

(_b_) To 1 qt. well-flavoured clear stock add 1 tablespoonful tapioca; leave to boil nearly ½ hour, stirring occasionally until the tapioca is cooked sufficiently.

(_c_) Mince an onion finely, fry it in plenty of butter till of a golden colour; add pepper and salt to taste, and 1½ pint water; when the water boils, strain and put it back into a clean saucepan with 2 tablespoonfuls tapioca; let it boil till almost dissolved, then serve.

_Tea Kettle Broth._--Cut a thin piece of bread and toast it crisply, cut into small pieces and put in a basin, then add a little salt and pepper, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and half a teacupful of thin cream; fill the basin with boiling water, and serve at once.

_Tomato Soup (de tomates)._--(_a_) Pour over 12 ripe tomatoes a small quantity of weak stock, and stew very gently until quite tender. Mash through a sieve, and add the required quantity of good strong stock: add cayenne pepper to taste. Let all boil together for a few minutes, and serve very hot.

(_b_) Cut ½ lb. lean raw ham into small pieces, and place in a stewpan with some peppercorns, 2 oz. butter, 4 shallots, 2 bay leaves, a few cloves, a blade of mace, and 2 sprigs of thyme; let these fry until they are a light brown colour. Take either 24 ripe tomatoes or an equal quantity of preserved tomatoes, squeeze well, and add 1½ pint good well-flavoured white stock, and a small quantity of white essence of mushrooms; mix with this the ham, &c., and let all boil together over a quick fire to reduce to the desired thickness. Then rub through a tammy, warm up again, and serve. Dice of bread fried in butter should be handed round with this soup.

_Turnip Soup (de navets)._--Peel and slice the turnips, put them in a stewpan with a piece of butter, a spoonful of sugar, and enough clear broth to cook them soft. Work through a sieve, and add the purée to a clear soup. Mix a tablespoonful or two of flour with a cup of cream or milk, add this with salt and white pepper; let boil for 2-3 minutes before serving.

_Turtle Soup (tortue)._--(_a_) Kill the turtle by cutting off its head. Then put it in water for 12 hours; divide the shells, remove the entrails, and carefully preserve the green fat, which should be put into cold water to steep. Put the fins and flesh with the shells cut into several pieces into boiling water for a few minutes, then remove the thin outer skin from head, fins, &c. Put the finer parts into some good stock and stew until quite soft, about 4 hours; remove the bones, and put the meat to press between 2 dishes until quite cold, when it must be cut up to put into the soup. Put the bones, entrails, and coarser parts of the turtle into a stockpot with plenty of ordinary stock, and with some onions, celery, mushrooms, a faggot of herbs, parsley, pepper, and salt, add any trimmings, of meat or poultry, and stew until reduced almost to a glaze, about 6 hours; then add the stock in which the meat was stewed; strain, and clarify the soup. Blanch the green fat, cut it up and put it with the cut-up meat into the soup, simmer until quite hot, and then add the juice of ½ lemon, 2 glasses white wine, with cayenne pepper and salt to taste to every 3 pints of soup, and serve.

(_b_) Dried.--Soak for 3 days, changing the water each day; then boil for 12 hours in 1½ qt. very good stock, adding a burnt onion, a little ham, and a glass of sherry or Marsala. If too strong with that quantity of stock, a little more can be added each day while it lasts. First-rate for delicate people.

_Vegetable Soup (bonne femme, brunoise, chiffonade, colbert, faubonne, de légumes, paysanne, &c.)._--(_a_) Cut up any vegetables, such as celery, carrots, turnips, or onions, or a judicious mixture of all, into small neat pieces as near of a size and shape as possible; place them in boiling water for about ¼ hour, then take out and stew in a little fresh water with a small piece of butter and salt. Into a larger stewpan put a good piece of butter with some leeks, onions, carrots, turnips, a head of celery, all cut up small; add a clove of garlic, if liked, and some thyme, parsley, or chervil. Stew on the fire, without water, for 1½ hour, turning frequently until well coloured; then add sufficient water for the stock, and boil ½ hour. Strain, and add the reserved vegetables; serve hot with small rounds of bread which have been well soaked in some of the stock, and then placed in a buttered tin and dried in the oven.

(_b_) Pass through a hair sieve all the vegetables used to make vegetable stock, melt a piece of butter in a saucepan, add a little flour, mix well, then add the vegetable pulp; stir well, and moisten with as much of the stock as may be necessary; let the soup boil, stir into it off the fire the yolks of 2 eggs beaten up with a little water and strained. Serve with sippets of bread fried in butter.

_Vegetable-marrow Soup (de courges)._--Remove the seeds from 2 or 3 vegetable marrows; cut into convenient pieces, and put to stew in a saucepan with a small quantity of stock, and pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg to taste. When quite done, pass through a hair sieve. Take 2 pints of this pulp and 1 pint milk, boil together for ½ hour, then gradually mix with 2 oz. butter, which have been previously amalgamated in a saucepan with 1 oz. flour. Let the whole come to boiling point, then serve.

_Vermicelli Soup._--Boil 2 oz. fine vermicelli in 1 pint stock free from grease, to which add a good pinch of salt, when cooked (in 10-15 minutes), drain, and put into the soup tureen containing 1 qt. well-flavoured clear stock, boiling hot. Grated Parmesan to be handed round with the soup.