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Spanish Chestnut Soup

Take fifty large Spanish chestnuts. Throw them into a pan of warm water, and when this is hot enough to burn the fingers take the nuts out, peel and scrape them, and throw each one as it is done into a pan of cold water. When all are ready, wipe the chestnuts, cover them with good stock, and let them simmer gently till they break when touched with a spoon or fork. Drain and crush them, mix with them a quart of stock, and rub the soup through a fine sieve. Add as much salt, cayenne, and mace as will flavour it pleasantly. Boil it up again, mix with it off the fire a quarter of a pint of boiling cream, and serve immediately. If its sweetness is not objected to, the whole or part of the stock in which the chestnuts were boiled may be added to the soup. If brown soup is preferred instead of white, the chestnuts, after being scalded, peeled, and scraped, may be steamed with two ounces of butter, a sliced onion, half an ounce of loaf sugar, and a little pepper and salt. When tender, they should be drained and crushed, mixed with a quart of good brown gravy, and then boiled and rubbed through a fine sieve reversed. The puree, when made hot, will be ready for serving. Time to boil the chestnuts, three-quarters of an hour. Sufficient for six or eight persons.