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Portable Soup

Take five pounds of the shin of beef and three pounds of the knuckle of veal. Cut the meat into small pieces. Take out the marrow from the bones, and break them up. Put them with the meat into a stewpan with two gallons of cold water; bring this gradually to the boil, skim carefully, and add half a cupful of cold water two or three times to assist the scum in rising. Draw the soup to the side of the fire, and let it simmer gently but continuously for eight or ten hours. Strain through a hair sieve, and put it aside until the following day. Remove the cake of fat from the top, and pour off the soup carefully, leaving behind the settlings which are at the bottom of the pan. Put it into a saucepan with a dozen peppercorns and a tea-spoonful of salt; leave the pan uncovered, and let the liquid boil quickly until it begins to thicken. Pour it at once into a clean dry jar, place this in a saucepan over a gentle fire, and let it boil until it feels quite ropy and thick. Watch it carefully that it does not burn. Take a little out in a spoon, and if it jellies it is done enough. Pour it at once into small jelly-pots, and when it is cold turn the shapes out and put them on flannel in a warm place to dry. Keep them in tin canisters. If it is wished that the soup should be flavoured, sweet herbs, vegetables, and spices can be stewed with the meat, but usually it is more convenient that these should be omitted: the soup can then be used for any purpose. When it is wanted it is only necessary to dissolve one or two of the cakes in boiling water, and make the soup of any strength or any flavour that is required. This portable soup, which was formerly very valuable for ordinary household purposes, and also for the use of those who were obliged to take their provisions with them on long journeys, is now almost entirely superseded by Bovril and other extracts. Time, two days to make; eight or nine days to dry.