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Chicken Soup, Delicate

Pluck and wash thoroughly three young chickens, and put them in a stewpan with five pints of good, white, nicely-flavoured stock, thoroughly freed from fat and cleared from sediment. A sliced turnip and carrot may be put with them, and removed before the soup is thickened. Let them simmer gently for nearly an hour. Remove all the white flesh, and return the rest of the birds to the soup, and simmer once more for a couple of hours. Pour a little of the boiling liquid over a quarter of a pound of the crumb of bread, and when it is well soaked, drain it, put it in a mortar with the flesh which has been taken from the bones, and pound it to a smooth paste, adding, by degrees, the liquid. Flavour with salt, cayenne, and a very little pounded mace, press the mixture through a sieve, and boil once more, adding one pint of boiling cream. If the soup should not be sufficiently thick, a table-spoonful of arrowroot which has been mixed may be added very smoothly with a little cold milk. Probable cost, chickens, 2s. 6d. each. Sufficient for six or eight persons.