Always use soft water for making soup, and be careful to proportion the quantity of water to that of the meat. Somewhat less than a quart of water to a pound of meat, is a good rule for common soups. Rich soups, intended for company, may have a still smaller allowance of water. Soup should always be made entirely of fresh meat that has not been previously cooked. An exception to this rule may sometimes be made in favour of the remains of a piece of roast beef that has been very much under-done in roasting. This may be added to a good piece of raw meat. Cold ham, also, may be occasionally put into white soups. Soup made of cold meat has always a vapid, disagreeable taste, very perceptible through all the seasoning, and which nothing indeed can disguise. Also, it will be of a bad, dingy colour. The juices of the meat having been exhausted by the first cooking, the undue proportion of watery liquid renders it, for soup, indigestible and unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. As there is little or no nutriment to be derived from soup made with cold meat, it is better to refrain from using it for this purpose, and to devote the leavings of the table to some other object. No person accustomed to really good soup, made from fresh meat, can ever be deceived in the taste, even when flavoured with wine and spices. It is not true that French cooks have the art of producing excellent soups from cold scraps. There is much bad soup to be found in France, at inferior houses; but good French cooks are not, as is generally supposed, really in the practice of concocting any dishes out of the refuse of the table. And we repeat, that cold meat, even when perfectly good, and used in a large quantity, has not sufficient substance to flavour soup, or to render it wholesome. Soup, however, that has been originally made of raw meat entirely, is frequently better the second day than the first; provided that it is re-boiled only for a very short time, and that no additional water is added to it. Unless it has been allowed to boil too hard, so as to exhaust the water, the soup-pot will not require replenishing. When it is found absolutely necessary to do so, the additional water must be boiling hot when poured in; if lukewarm or cold, it will entirely spoil the soup. Every particle of fat should be carefully skimmed from the surface. Greasy soup is disgusting and unwholesome. The lean of meat is much better for soup than the fat. Long and slow boiling is necessary to extract the strength from the meat. If boiled fast over a large fire, the meat becomes hard and tough, and will not give out its juices. Potatoes, if boiled in the soup, are thought by some to render it unwholesome, from the opinion that the water in which potatoes have been cooked is almost a poison. As potatoes are a part of every dinner, it is very easy to take a few out of the pot in which they have been boiled by themselves, and to cut them up and add them to the soup just before it goes to table. The cook should season the soup but very slightly with salt and pepper. If she puts in too much, it may spoil it for the taste of most of those that are to eat it; but if too little, it is easy to add more to your own plate. The practice of thickening soup by stirring flour into it is not a good one, as it spoils both the appearance and the taste. If made with a sufficient quantity of good fresh meat, and not too much water, and if boiled long and slowly, it will have substance enough without flour.
Fish for nearly all dishes is better if boned before cooking; it is also economy to do this, as the bones can then be used for stock for fish soups. These soups, although not well known here at present, are a valuable food; they are easy to make, wholesome, and nourishing. After the fillets of fish have been removed, directions for which are given amongst the fish recipes, take the bones, wash them well in cold water, and cut away any black substance that may be adhering to them. Break them up and put into a saucepan with a teaspoonful of salt; when it boils remove the scum and put in one dozen white peppercorns, a fagot of herbs, one onion, and one carrot; boil steadily for two hours or longer, strain through a sieve into a basin, and it is ready for use.
This soup will require eight hours to prepare. Take a large calf's head, and having cleaned, washed, and soaked it, put it into a pot with a knuckle of veal, and the hock of a ham, or a few slices of bacon; but previously cut off and reserve enough of the veal to make two dozen small force-meat balls. Put the head and the other meat into as much water as will cover it very well, so that it may not be necessary to replenish it: this soup being always made very rich. Let it boil slowly four hours, skimming it carefully. As soon as no more scum rises, put in six potatoes, and three turnips, all sliced thin; with equal proportions of parsley, sweet marjoram and sweet basil, chopped fine; and pepper and salt to your taste. An hour before you send the meat to table, make about two dozen small force-meat balls of minced veal and beef-suet in equal quantities, seasoned with pepper and salt; sweet herbs, grated lemon-peel, and powdered nutmeg and mace. Add some beaten yolk of egg to make all these ingredients stick together. Flour the balls very well, and fry them in butter. Before you put them into the soup, take out the head, and the other meat. Cut the meat from the head in small pieces, and return it to the soup. When the soup is nearly done, stir in half a pint of Madeira. Have ready at least a dozen egg-balls made of the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, grated or pounded in a mortar, and mixed with a little flour and sufficient raw yolk of egg to bind them. Make them up into the form and size of boy's marbles. Throw them into the soup at the last, and also squeeze in the juice of a lemon. Let it get another slow boil, and then put it into the tureen. We omit a receipt for real turtle soup, as when that very expensive, complicated, and difficult dish is prepared in a private family, it is advisable to hire a first-rate cook for the express purpose. An easy way is to get it ready made, in any quantity you please, from a turtle-soup house.
1 lb. flour, 7 ozs. nutter, 1/4 lb. sugar, rind of 1 lemon. Mix together nutter and sugar, add grated lemon rind, work in flour, and knead well. Press into sheets about 1/2 in. thick. Prick all over. Bake in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes. An easy way of baking for the inexpert cook who may find it difficult to avoid breaking the sheets, is to well grease a shallow jam-sandwich tin, sprinkle it well with castor sugar, as for sponge cakes, and press the short cake into it, well smoothing the top with a knife, and, lastly, pricking it.
Put six eggs in a baking-dish and cover them with boiling water; put a cover on and let them stand where they will keep hot, but not cook, for ten minutes, or, if the family likes them well done, twelve minutes. They will be perfectly cooked, but not tough, soft and creamy all the way through.
Another way to cook them is this:
Put the eggs in a kettle of cold water on the stove, and the moment the water boils take them up, and they will be just done. An easy way to take them up all at once is to put them in a wire basket, and sink this under the water. A good way to serve boiled eggs is to crumple up a fresh napkin in a deep dish, which has been made very hot, and lay the eggs in the folds of the napkin; this prevents their breaking, and keeps them warm.
Take off the outside leaves of the cabbage; cut it up in four pieces, and cut out the hard core and lay it in cold, salted water for half an hour. Then wipe it dry and slice it, not too fine, and put it in a saucepan; cover it with boiling water with a teaspoonful of salt in it, and boil hard for fifteen minutes without any cover. While it is cooking, make a cup of cream sauce. Take up the cabbage, press it in the colander with a plate till all the water is out; put it in a hot covered dish, sprinkle well with salt, and pour the cream sauce over. This will not have any unpleasant odor in cooking, and it will be so tender and easy to digest that even a little girl may have two helpings.
If you like it to look green, put a tiny bit of soda in the water when you cook it.
Sift together flour, salt and baking powder; rub in shortening; add milk, and mix with spoon to smooth dough easy to handle on floured board. Turn out dough; knead quickly a few times to impart smoothness; divide into small pieces: form each by hand into short, rather thick tapering rolls; place on greased pans and allow to stand in warm place 15 to 20 minutes; brush with milk. Bake in very hot oven. When almost baked brush again with melted butter. Bake 10 minutes longer and serve hot. If a glazed finish is desired, before taking from oven brush over with yolk of egg which has been mixed, with a little cold water.
These rolls make excellent sandwiches, using for fillings either lettuce and mayonnaise, sliced or chopped ham, chopped seasoned cucumbers, egg and mayonnaise with a very little chopped onion and parsley, or other filling desired.
There are sets of thick iron gem pans to be had, which are very good for this purpose, but one can manage quite well with oven-plates made of sheet-iron or black steel. Into a large basin put 2 cupfuls of the coldest water procurable. Aerate by pouring from one vessel to another several times, or by whipping up with a spoon or spatula. Take 4 cupfuls whole meal, and pass several times through a sieve. Sprinkle the meal into the water a little at a time, whipping vigorously all the while till about three-fourths are worked in, and continue whisking from 20 to 30 minutes till the mixture is full of air bubbles. Sprinkle in the rest of the wheatmeal and mix thoroughly. Meanwhile, see that the oven is very hot, as a strong steady heat is necessary. Make the gem pans or oven-plates also very hot and grease lightly. Half fill the pans and put at once in oven, so that the moist air may be as quickly as possible converted into steam, and thus puff up the bread. If oven-plates are used, put dessertspoonfuls some distance apart on these and put in oven. If the oven is hot enough, a crust will at once form, and the steam trying to force its way out will send them up like puff balls. Moderate the heat, if possible after 10 or 15 minutes, and allow to bake for about 30 minutes longer. It is very easy to regulate the heat if a gas stove is used; if a range, put on some small coal. When baked turn out on a sieve, and when quite cold split open and toast on the inside. Another excellent kind of bread, which can be managed quite easily with a little trouble and practice, is raised with eggs. It is generally known as
Sift the flour into a basin, and make it into a firm paste with the water. Free the suet from skin, and put it twice through a sausage machine. Roll the paste out, and put half over it in very tiny pieces; sprinkle with flour and fold into three. Double the ends over till they meet, roll out again, and put on the rest of the suet and proceed as before. It is then ready for use, but is much improved by standing for an hour in a cold place. This is a very wholesome pastry, and particularly nice for meat pies. If it is properly made, it ought to rise like the best puff pastry; it is an easy crust to make in hot weather, when the puff crusts made with butter are troublesome.
1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. 2 eggs. 2 cupfuls of flour. 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder. Milk enough to make a smooth, rather thin batter.
Rub the butter and sugar to a cream, add the eggs, beaten together lightly, then the flour, in which you have mixed the baking-powder, and then the milk. It is easy to know when you have the batter just right, for you can put a tiny bit on the griddle and make a little cake; if it rises high and is thick, put more milk in the batter; if it is too thin, it will run about on the griddle, and you must add more flour; but it is better not to thin it too much, but to add more milk if the batter is too thick.
