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Chestnut Soup

Take off the outer rind from fifty chestnuts, and put them into a saucepan of cold water. Place them on the fire, and when the water is just upon the point of boiling, take them out and remove the under skin. Stew them in sufficient stock to cover them, until quite tender; put them in a mortar, and pound them to a paste, reserving a dozen to be placed whole in the soup just before it is dished. Pound with the paste two table-spoonfuls of bread-crumbs, two tea-spoonfuls of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, and half a nutmeg grated. Mix with it very gradually the stock in which the chestnuts were boiled, if its sweetness is not objected to, allowing a quart of the mixture and a pint of milk to every quart of stock. Boil all together once more, with the chestnuts which were reserved, and if the soup is too thick, add a little more stock. Before serving, place some fried sippets in the tureen. The stock may be either made from meat or from vegetables alone. Time, two and a half hours. Sufficient for eight or nine persons. Probable cost, exclusive of the stock, 10d. per quart.