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CHAPTER XXXVI: Serve

The okra is very delicate and is liable to scorch if not stirred frequently. When well fried and browned, add about 3 quarts boiling water and set on the back of the stove to simmer for an hour longer. Serve hot with boiled rice.

Beef Gumbo (Southern recipe).

Another recipe for gumbo, which is similar to the preceding one, the manipulation being practically the same, calls for the following ingredients: 1 quart tomatoes sliced, 2 pounds beef cut in small pieces, 2 quarts okras sliced, 4 tablespoonfuls butter, pound corned ham or pork, cut up, Small piece red pepper without seeds, Spray parsley.

Cream-of-Celery Soup. 1 head celery, 1 slice onion, 2 cupfuls milk, 3 tablespoonfuls cornstarch, 3 tablespoonfuls butter.

Clean outside stalks and white leaves of celery. Cut into small pieces and cook until tender in 3 cupfuls water. Scald onion in milk MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK in double boiler. Rub the celery, when soft, through a sieve. Blend together cornstarch with butter, cook for a few minutes, lifting from fire, beating and cooking in turn. Season with salt and white pepper to taste, gradually add the strained, scalded milk, cook thoroughly, then add the strained celery stock, and reheat.

Serve with croutons, bread sticks, or toasted wafers.

Cream-of-Corn Soup. 1 can corn, 2 cupfuls boiling water, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 teaspoonful celery salt, teaspoonful onion juice, 2 tablespoonfuls cornstarch, 3 tablespoonfuls butter, 2 cupfuls milk, 1 cupful whipped cream. a Rub corn through sieve into saucepan, add water, salt, celery salt, and white pepper to taste. Blend together in a saucepan cornstarch, with butter, gradually add the milk, and cook together five minutes, stirring constantly. Just before serving add beaten cream. Serve with crisp wafers.

Leek Soup. 3 quarts boiling water, 2 cupfuls leeks cut fine, 4 cupfuls potatoes cut in dice, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 3 teaspoonfuls salt, teaspoonful pepper, 4 slices stale bread cut in small pieces, 4 tablespoonfuls minced onion.

Wash the leeks and cut off the roots. Cut the white part in thin slices. Pare the potatoes and cut in dice, put them in a bowl of cold water. Put the butter, leeks, and onion in the soup pot and on the fire.

Cook slowly twenty minutes, stirring frequently, then add the hot water, potatoes, and seasoning, and cook at least half an hour longer. Serve very hot. If it is convenient and liked, cook with the leeks and butter the white stalks of 4 or 5 cibols, or 1 shallot may be cut fine and cooked with the leeks. - MARIA PAR- LOA.

Hotchpotch (Scotch recipe). 2 pounds lean beef, 24 quarts stock, 1 cupful beans (green), 2 carrots, 2 onions, 2 stalks celery, 2 turnips, 1 small cauliflower, 4 tablespoonfuls butter, 1 tablespoonful flour, Dash McIlhenny's Tabasco Sauce.

Mince the beef in chopper, and place in a stewpan with stock and beans. When these come to a boil, add chopped carrots, onions, celery, turnips, and cauliflower; cover, and boil gently for three hours. Melt butter and mix with it the flour; let it brown, dilute with a little broth, and add to the stew. Season with salt, pepper, and tabasco.

Cream-of-Onion Soup. 2 large onions, 3 tablespoonfuls butter, 4 tablespoonfuls cornstarch, 1 tablespoonful flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 teaspoonful white pepper, 2 cupfuls boiling water, 1 quart milk, 1 cupful mashed potatoes, 1 cupful croutons.

Slice the onions and fry until lightly brown, in butter, then add cornstarch, flour, salt, and pepper.

Stir until slightly browned, but do not allow to burn. Pour in gradually boiling water, and cook until smooth. Keep hot. Scald milk, pour it gradually on mashed potatoes.

Combine the mixtures. Simmer and stir for a few minutes, add croutons, cover, and let stand a moment before serving.

Soup Normandie (French recipe). 1 onion, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 2 cans tomatoes, 1 quart cold water, 1 tablespoonful cornstarch, 12 cloves, SOUPS 1 tablespoonful sugar, Dash McIlhenny's Tabasco Sauce, Salt and pepper.

Fry the onion in butter (do not let brown), add tomatoes and water.

Boil twenty minutes. Strain through a colander, set back on stove, and add cornstarch dissolved in water, cloves, salt, and sugar. Let boil five minutes, then season with tabasco.

Serve with croutons.

Dried-Bean Soup. 2 cupfuls dried beans, 4 quarts water, 1 large onion minced fine, 4 tablespoonfuls butter, 3 tablespoonfuls flour, 1 tablespoonful minced celery or a few dried celery leaves, teaspoonful peppers, 2 teaspoonfuls salt.

Wash the beans and soak them over night in cold water. In the morning pour off the water and put them in the soup pot with 3 quarts cold water. Place on the fire, and when the water comes to the boiling point, pour it off. Add 4 quarts boiling water to the beans and place the soup pot where the contents will simmer for four hours. Add the celery the last hour of cooking. Cook the onion and drippings slowly in a stewpan for half an hour.

Drain the water from the beans (save this water) and put them in the stewpan with the onions and drippings. Then add the flour and cook half an hour, stirring often. At the end of this time mash fine and gradually add the water in which the beans were boiled until the soup is like thick cream. Then rub through a sieve and return to the fire; add the salt and pepper, and cook twenty minutes or more. Any kind of beans may be used for this soup; Lima beans give the most delicate soup, but the large or small white beans are very satisfactory and are less expensive than Limas. In cold weather the quantities of beans and flavorings may be doubled, but only 6 quarts water are used. The resulting thick soup can be kept in a cold place and a portion boiled up as required and thinned with meat stock or milk.-MARIA PARLOA.

Bouillabaise (English recipe).

Take 3 pounds cod, cut in pieces from 2 ounces to 4 pound each. Slice 2 good-sized onions and place them in a stewpan large enough to contain all the fish at the bottom. Add 2 tablespoonfuls olive oil; fry the onions light brown; put in the fish with as much warm water as will cover it well, a teaspoonful salt, dash pepper, half bay leaf, peeled lemon cut in dice, 2 tomatoes cut in slices, a few peppercorns, and clove garlic. Boil till the liquor is reduced to one third.

Then add a tablespoonful chopped parsley, let it boil one minute longer, and pour into a tureen over croutons. This is also good made from any white fleshed fish; the garlic may be omitted, if preferred.

Oxtail Soup. 1 small oxtail, 6 cupfuls brown stock, cupful carrot cut in fancy shapes, cupful turnip cut in fancy shapes, cupful onion cut in small pieces, cupful celery cut in small pieces, teaspoonful salt, Few grains cayenne, 1 teaspoonful shire Sauce, Worcester- 1 teaspoonful lemon juice.

Cut oxtail in small pieces, wash, drain, sprinkle with salt and pepper, MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK dredge with flour, and fry in butter ten minutes. Add to brown stock, and simmer one hour. Then add vegetables, which have been parboiled twenty minutes; simmer until vegetables are soft; add cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice.-FAN- NIE M. FARMER.

Asparagus Cream Soup. 1 bunch asparagus, 3 cupfuls milk, 1 cupful veal stock, 3 tablespoonfuls flour, 3 tablespoonfuls butter, Salt and pepper.

Cook the asparagus in boiling, salted water for thirty minutes.

Take from water, cut off tips, and put into soup tureen. Press pulp from stalks through sieve. Scald milk, add stock. Mix flour with butter in a saucepan over the fire, adding gradually portion of scalded milk to make very smooth. When thoroughly done, add remainder of milk and asparagus pulp. Season with salt and pepper. Stir till boiling, then strain into the tureen. Soup Maigre (French recipe). 6 cucumbers, 4 heads lettuce, 2 onions, blanched, 1 cupful spinach, Sprig mint, 1 pint green peas, Small piece ham, 4 tablespoonfuls butter.

Put ham and vegetables into 2 quarts water and boil four hours, then pass all through a sieve. When cooked to a purée, strain, put in 1 pint parboiled green peas, and a few slices of cucumber.

Purée of Celeriac. 1 quart celeriac cut in dice, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 1 tablespoonful flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, cupful stock or cream.

Cook the celeriac thirty minutes in boiling water, rinse in cold water, then press through a purée sieve.

Put the butter in a saucepan on the fire. When hot, add the flour and stir until smooth and frothy, then add the strained celeriac, and cook five minutes, stirring frequently.