Soup tureen

“ Turn the egg over carefully, brush it clean, and lay it in the soup tureen ready filled with boiling-hot clear soup. Add a few leaves of tarragon and chervil, and serve.
Clear Soup with Quenelles.—Put into a saucepan 1 gill 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. ”

“ The hostess, who sits at the head of the table, with her husband generally on one side and her most honoured guest on the other, with two huge soup-tureens before her, asks those present whether they will have soup or filbunke, a very favourite summer dish. This is made from fresh milk which has stood in a tureen till it turns sour and forms a sort of curds, when it is eaten with sugar and powdered ginger. It appears at every meal in the summer, and is excellent on a hot day. ”

“ If most of the work is done in the morning while attending to the kitchen duties, the stock-making will take little of your time. Delicious gravies may be made by using stock instead of water.
CLEAR SOUP
Use two tablespoons of fat and fry one onion until brown. Add two tablespoons of flour and brown well and then pour in one pint of stock and cook for five minutes, and then add seasoning, salt and pepper to taste. Strain into a soup tureen and sprinkle with one tablespoon of finely chopped parsley. Serve with bread cut in finger lengths and toasted. ”

“ Throw back the bones into the soup. Dry a pinch of saffron, rub it to powder, put it in the soup, with a small wineglassful of pale vinegar, a tablespoonful of sugar, a little nutmeg, and salt to taste. Shred parsley may be added if approved. The brains, divided into small pieces, must be put into the tureen, with 3 or 4 yolks of eggs beaten, and the scalding soup poured on them. Dip the slices of meat in egg and breadcrumbs, fry them a delicate brown in butter, and serve them after the soup, with any white vegetable. ”

“ MOCK TURTLE SOUP. To make a single tureen of this favourite English soup in the most economical manner when there is no stock at hand, stew gently down in a gallon of water four pounds of the fleshy part of the shin of 24beef, or of the neck, with two or three carrots, one onion, a small head of celery, a bunch of savoury herbs, a blade of mace, a half-teaspoonful of peppercorns, and an ounce of salt. When the meat is quite in fragments, strain off the broth, and pour it when cold upon three pounds of the knuckle or of the neck of veal ”

“ Take up the meat; rub over with butter and cover upon a heated dish. Strain the soup from the vegetables without breaking them, and set the colander in which they are left over boiling water until after the soup is served. Strain this again through a soup-sieve, and pour upon plenty of fried bread in the tureen. If you like a thicker soup, return it after the second straining, to the fire with a handful of tapioca, or of German sago, ready-soaked, and simmer until clear. When the soup is out of the way, arrange the vegetables in little heaps around the beef, all of a kind together. ”

“ When the calf’s head is cold take off all the meat and fat, leaving nothing but the glutinous part, which cut into pieces an inch square; when ready to serve the soup put about three quarts (to each tureen) , into a stewpan with twenty of the pieces of head and a glass of sherry, boil altogether fifteen minutes, when skim and serve very hot. This soup may likewise be thickened without a roux, as directed for brown sauce (No. 4) . Forcemeat and egg-balls were formerly served in this soup, the latter in imitation of turtles’ eggs, but better imitations of bullets, and almost as indigestible ”

“ Cover with boiling salted water, cook ten minutes; drain, add stock and onion and cook until tender, rub through a sieve. Melt butter in a sauce pan, add flour, stir to a smooth paste; remove from fire and add first mixture slowly, stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper, add hot milk and cream, continue stirring. Cook tips in boiling salted water until tender, drain. Turn soup into hot soup tureen, add tips and serve. If canned asparagus is used, drain from liquor, rinse, reserve tips and follow directions given in the foregoing. ”

“ Cook gently four hours. Strain off the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the sieve; let it get almost cool, that you may remove the fat from the top, and put back over the fire with pepper and salt. Chop the brains and mix them into a paste with an equal quantity of crumbs; also pepper, salt, and raw egg, with enough flour to enable you to roll into little balls. Fry these to a nice brown, drain in a colander, and put into your tureen. Skim the boiling soup and stir in the corn-starch wet with half a cup of milk, then the tongue, skinned and cut into dice. ”

“ ONION SOUP
(Soupe à l'Oignon)
Slice or chop two medium-sized onions; let them colour an instant in 1 oz. of butter; add a tablespoonful of flour; make a brown thickening. The onions must on no account be allowed to burn. Add 21⁄2 quarts of water, salt, and a pinch of pepper; stir on the fire until it boils; let it cook five minutes. Cut some slices of bread very fine (like a leaf) ; dry them in an open oven. Place in the tureen a layer of bread, a layer of grated cheese, until the tureen is half full. Pass the soup through a sieve into the tureen. ”

“ Continue the cooking for 2 hours, after adding the vegetables, then strain some of the soup into a tureen, cut a little carrot, turnip, and leek into dice or cubes, and add them, with the chopped parsley and fried bread, to the soup in the tureen, and serve. Place the meat on a hot dish, and garnish with the rest of the vegetables. ”

“ Cook, covered, until tender, four or five hours, add one tablespoonful of salt the last hour, rub through a strainer, add the strained beans to the water in which they were boiled, return to the soup kettle. Melt one tablespoonful of flour, stir this into the hot soup, let boil, stirring constantly; add a little pepper, slice thinly one lemon, put all the slices into the tureen and pour the soup over. Serve very hot. ”

“ Add a spoonful of soy, and one of mushroom catsup. Some people do not serve the vegetables, only boil for the flavour. A small roll should be made hot, and kept long enough in the saucepan to swell, and then be sent up in the tureen.
A rich White Soup. Boil in a small quantity of water a knuckle of Veal, and scrag of mutton, mace, white pepper, two or three onions, and sweet herbs, the day before you want the soup. ”

“ Put the meat and water into a stock-pot or boiling pot; let it come gently to boiling point, and skim well. Wash and clean the vegetables, stick the cloves in the onion, tie up the cabbage and leeks, and put all in with the meat. Add the carrots cut into large pieces, the bouquet-garni, peppercorns, and salt, and let the whole simmer gently for 4 [20] hours. Just before serving cut the bread into thin slices, place them in a soup tureen, and add some of the carrot, leeks, and onions cut into small pieces. ”

“ When ready, put into a tureen some fried bread cut into dice, dried mint rubbed fine, pepper and salt if needed, and pour in the soup. When there is plenty of vegetables, no meat is necessary; but if meat be preferred, a pig's foot or ham bone may be boiled with the peas, which is called the stock. More butter than is above mentioned will be necessary, if the soup is required to be very rich. ”

“ This is a delicious summer soup. Have a clear stock made with fresh green vegetables, such as lettuce, green onions, spinach, bunch parsley, sprig mint, &c., the shells wiped clean and about half of the peas—about 2 lbs. will be needed—reserving the finest. Rub through a sieve, return to saucepan and bring to boil. Add remainder of peas, boil 15 minutes, and pour into tureen over an ounce or so of butter. Some may prefer cream in place of butter, in which case add just before serving, and do not allow to boil up. ”

“ Have ready two or three dozen force-meat balls, the size of a hickory nut, and made of the usual proportions of minced veal, bread-crumbs, butter, grated lemon-peel, mace, nutmeg, and beaten yolk of egg. Put them into the soup, and let it boil an hour longer; also the eggs of the turtle, or some hard-boiled yolks of eggs. After it has thus boiled another hour, add the juice and grated yellow rinds of two lemons, and a pint of Madeira. Boil the soup a quarter of an hour longer, and it will then be ready for the tureen. It must never boil hard. ”

“ Plump the fish in their own liquor, but do not let them boil; pour the liquor to the soup, and add to it a pint of boiling cream; put the oysters into the tureen, dish the soup, and send it to table quickly. Should any thickening be required, stir briskly to the stock an ounce and a half of arrow-root entirely free from lumps, and carefully mixed with a little milk or cream; or, in lieu of this, when a rich soup is liked, thicken it with four ounces of fresh butter well blended with three of flour. ”

“ On the day it is to be used, heat a quart of milk; stir one tablespoonful of butter to a cream; add a heaping tablespoonful of flour or corn-starch, a saltspoonful of mace, and the same amount of white pepper. Stir into the boiling milk, and add to the soup. Let all boil a moment, and then pour into the tureen. Three eggs, beaten very light and stirred into the hot milk without boiling, make a still richer soup. The bones of cold roast chicken or turkey may be used in this way; and the broth of any meat, if perfectly clear, can serve as foundation, though veal or chicken is most delicate. ”

“ Cover the meat with water, and let it simmer till quite tender. Strain the soup, put it on the fire again, and season and thicken it to your taste. Either serve the meat in the tureen with the soup, or put it in a dish with the bacon, and the vegetables round it. You may pour parsley and butter over the meat, or serve it in a boat. A little rice flour is good to thicken with. Some have whole rice boiled, as for eating, and put to the soup when it is returned to the fire. Others use vermicelli. Eggs and cream beaten together and strained, would enrich this soup ”

“ Put them into a soup-pot with four quarts of water, and boil them slowly till they are all dissolved and undistinguishable. Stir them frequently. Have ready a profuse quantity of fresh vegetables, such as turnips, carrots, parsnips, potatos, onions, and cauliflowers; also, salsify, and asparagus tops. Put in, first, the vegetables that require the longest boiling. They should all be cut [64] into small pieces. Enrich the whole with some bits of fresh butter rolled in flour. Boil these vegetables in the soup till they are all quite tender. Then transfer it to a tureen, and serve it up hot. ”

“ Six ounces of flour with seven of butter, made into a roux, or merely mixed together with a large knife, will be required to thicken a tureen of soup; as much as half a pound is sometimes used; these must be added by degrees, and carefully stirred round in the soup until smoothly blended with it, or they will remain in lumps. We would, however, recommend any other thickening rather than this unwholesome mixture. ”

“ Skim it carefully, take out the vegetables, and chop a small quantity of parsley very fine, then beat up in a bowl two eggs, pour into them a little of the broth—not boiling—beating all the time, then draw your soup back till it is off the boil, and pour in the eggs, stirring continually till it is on the boiling point again (but it must not boil, or the eggs will curdle and spoil the soup) , and then turn it into a hot tureen and serve. Use remains of the cold roast and boiled mutton together, to make made dishes ”

“ A Russian once obligingly furnished me with a description of a foreigner's probable views on this national delicacy: "a slimy pool with a rock in the middle, and creatures floating round about." The rock is a lump of ice (botvinya being a cold soup) in the tureen of strained kvas or sour cabbage. Kvas is the sour, fermented liquor made from black bread. In this liquid portion of the soup, which is colored with strained spinach, floated small cubes of fresh cucumber and bits of the green tops from young onions. ”

“ About 1⁄4 hour before serving, remove the paper, dredge the turkey lightly with flour, and put a piece of butter into the basting-ladle; as the butter melts, baste the bird with it. When of a nice brown and well frothed, serve with a tureen of good brown gravy and one of bread sauce. Fried sausages are a favourite addition to roast turkey; they make a pretty garnish, besides adding very much to the flavour. When these are not at hand, a few forcemeat balls should be placed round the dish as a garnish. ”

“ As we have stated in our chapter of Foreign Cookery, the Jewish smoked beef, of which we have given particulars there, imparts a superior flavour to soups and gravies; and it is an economical addition to them, as a small portion of it will much heighten their savour.
Turkey soup à la reine is made precisely like the Potage à la Reine of fowls or pullets, of which the receipt will be found in another part of this chapter.
PHEASANT SOUP. Half roast a brace of well-kept pheasants, and flour them rather thickly when they are first laid to the fire. ”