Hints on Making Soups and Stock.

Every housewife should bear in mind that a stock-pot always on the fire is a great aid to economy. Any odd pieces, trimmings, cooked bones, the liquor in which meat or poultry has been boiled (commonly known as pot-liquor), should be thrown in, and the pot kept about three parts full of water. When soup or gravy is required the stock should be well skimmed, and poured into a clean saucepan. The pot may be of brown earthenware with a cover and must be cleaned frequently. It should often be looked over, soft bones removed and fresh ones added.

In preparing soups:—

1. Allow plenty of time, so that all the goodness of the ingredients may be thoroughly extracted. To do this effectually always put soup-meat into cold water, so that the outside may not be hardened, and the flow of the juices may not be checked.

2. Make the stock the day before the soup is wanted.

3. Let the stock boil once; remove the scum, and draw the saucepan to the side of the fire to simmer only.

4. When the stock is made pour it at once into a clean basin and leave it uncovered. Remove the fat from the top next morning.

5. Bread fried in boiling oil or fat, and cut into small squares, should be served with all thick soups.

Order a melt (cost 8d.) from the butcher. After koshering, skin it, and notch it across several times; add 2 quarts of cold water, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 onion stuffed with whole peppers and cloves, salt, and simmer about 5 hours. This will make about 3 pints of good stock, and is more economical than any other soup-meat.

Another way of Making Fresh Stock. Time—5 hours.

2 lbs. shin of beef, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 1 onion, ½ head celery, 1 teaspoonful salt, ½ teaspoonful pepper, 2 quarts cold water.

Cut the meat into pieces, break up the bones, add the cold water and the salt. Bring to the boil and skim well. Prepare the vegetables, cut them into pieces, and add them. Simmer 5 hours. This will make about 3 pints of good stock.

White Stock.

Same as above, using knuckle of veal and poultry-bones instead of beef.

To Clear Soup. Time—1 hour.

3 pints stock, ½ lb. gravy beef, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 onion.

Chop up the beef fine; clean the vegetables and cut them into small pieces. After removing all the fat from the stock, which should now be in the form of jelly, place it in a stew-pan with the meat and vegetables. Whisk it over the fire until just on boiling point, when it should be left to boil up well. It should now be clear. Fix a clean kitchen-cloth on the legs of a chair, placed with its seat on a table; pour boiling water several times through the cloth into a basin, and then let the soup run twice slowly through the cloth.

Another Way.—Use 2 whites of eggs whisked in ½ pint cold water, instead of the gravy beef.

1 pint green peas, 1 quart stock, a few sprigs parsley, a small bunch of mint, salt and pepper to taste, 1 tablespoonful flour.

Put the stock on, and when it boils add the salt, peas and other ingredients. When the vegetables are tender pass them through a sieve with the stock they were boiled in; boil it up again in a clean stew-pan; thicken it carefully with flour, and cook 10 minutes.

Julienne Soup. Time—2 hours.

1 large carrot, 1 small turnip, 2 leeks, 1 onion, ½ head celery, 2 oz. dripping, 1 cabbage-lettuce, a little tarragon and chervil, 1 teaspoonful sugar, salt to taste, 3 pints stock.

Shred all the vegetables to the same length and size; fry all except the lettuce, tarragon and chervil, a light brown in the dripping in the stew-pan. Clear the stock as directed on page 2; boil it and add it with the sugar and salt to the vegetables; skim well until all grease is removed, add the lettuce, tarragon, and chervil; let it boil a few minutes, and serve.

Kugel.

1 pint dried green peas, 1 quart large haricot beans, both soaked over-night; 2 lbs. clod, 1 large onion stuffed with cloves, 1 tablespoonful flour; salt and pepper to taste.

Pudding.

2 eggs, ¼ lb. suet, ½ lb. flour, ¼ lb. brown sugar, ¼ lb. currants, ¼ lb. raisins or sultanas, 2 oz. candied peel: spice to taste.

Shred the suet and candied peel, wash and dry the currants, stone the raisins, mix all the dry ingredients together, add the eggs, well-beaten, place in a greased basin and tie a cloth over. Put the basin at the bottom of a large earthenware pan; place a plate on the top of the basin and the meat on this. Throw the peas, beans, onion, pepper, salt and flour into the pan, cover all with water, and tie a piece of brown paper over the pan. Put it in the oven when the cooking is finished on Friday, and dish up when required on Saturday, serving the soup, meat, and pudding as separate courses.

1 quart pot-liquor, 6 oz. liver, 1 egg, 3 oz. dripping, 2 tablespoonfuls flour, half small roll; pepper and salt to taste.

Brown the flour in the dripping; add the liver cut in small pieces, the egg and bread, and let all brown in the pan until thoroughly done a good dark colour. Pound it, and return to the saucepan with the pepper, salt, and pot-liquor, to simmer about 1 hour.

Mock Turtle Soup. Time—1½ hour.

1 bullock’s foot, 2 lbs. shin of beef, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 1 small head celery, 1 leek, 1 onion, 6 oz. dripping, ½ lb. flour; bay-leaves, cloves, cayenne, and ground mace; 1 wineglassful sherry.

The day before the soup is required cut up the foot and put it in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water; simmer 5 hours, then strain; cut all the flesh off the bones and chop it up into neat pieces. Put on the shin separately in 2 quarts of cold water, and simmer 4 or 5 hours. Prepare the vegetables, cut them up, fry them in the fat in a large stew-pan; when soft add the flour, and stir till rather brown. Add the stock from the foot, then that from the shin, the bay-leaves and all the other ingredients. When it boils pass it all through a sieve, add the pieces of bullock’s foot, and simmer ½ hour. A little soy may be added if required. Before serving pour the wine into the bottom of the tureen.

Mulligatawny Soup. Time—2 hours.

2 oz. dripping, 2 onions, 2 apples, 2 or 3 carrots, 1 turnip, a few sticks celery, a bunch of herbs, 2 quarts stock or pot-liquor, 2 tablespoonfuls flour, 1 tablespoonful curry powder, 1 dessertspoonful curry paste, 1 gill water, 1 teaspoonful salt.

Prepare the vegetables, fry the onions in hot dripping in the stew-pan; when brown add the apples cut up and cored, carrots, turnip, celery, herbs and salt. Boil these in the stock. Mix the flour, curry paste and powder into a smooth paste with the water, pour into the soup, and stir till it boils. The fat should be skimmed off as it rises. Boil at least 1 hour, and then strain through a sieve. Serve with well-boiled rice (see page 35).

2 lbs. scrag of mutton, 2 oz. pearl barley or rice, 1 turnip, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 leek, 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 quart water.

Cut the meat into small pieces (removing the fat), and put it into a saucepan with the bones, cold water and salt; bring to the boil. Draw to the side of the fire as soon as the broth boils, skim well. Simmer for 1½ hour, skimming occasionally. Prepare the vegetables and rice, add them and let all simmer ½ hour till the vegetables are tender. Add the parsley just before serving.

Ox-tail Soup. Time—4 hours.

1 ox-tail, 2 oz. dripping, 1 carrot, 1 small turnip, 2 onions, 2 shalots, 1 tooth garlic or 1 leek, a bunch of herbs, a few sticks celery, a little mace, cinnamon, and 2 cloves, 2 quarts water or pot-liquor, salt, 2 or 3 mushrooms, 1 gill sherry or chablis.

Prepare the vegetables, cut them up, wash and wipe the ox-tail, cut it in pieces and fry all in hot dripping in a large stew pan. Add the herbs, spice, seasoning and water. When boiling skim off the fat and then stew gently for 3 hours; strain it into a basin, putting the pieces of ox-tail into the tureen with the sherry or chablis. Pour the soup into a stew-pan, stir till it boils. Add the mushrooms, and cook from 10 to 15 minutes, skimming off any scum; strain the soup and pour over the ox-tail.

Tomato Soup. Time—1½ hour.

2 quarts stock, 2 lbs. tomatoes or 1 tin tomatoes, 2 leeks, 2 carrots, 2 turnips; pepper and salt to taste; thyme, and half a bay-leaf, 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley, 1 oz. dripping, 2 tablespoonfuls flour.

Prepare and cut up the vegetables, boil all for half an hour in ½ pint water, and then pulp through a sieve. Warm the dripping in a stew-pan, stir the flour in smoothly, pour the pulped vegetables and stock on to it slowly, and let all thicken over the fire.