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Chapter XXXVI

a SOUPS Soup making is as much of an art as turning out fine cake or pastry, still the American housewife devotes twice as much study to the making of sweet dishes as to soup. The French woman makes a trifle of something sweet serve as dessert, while her soups are famous the world over. It is economy to be able to provide a soup which will often take the place of the pièce de resistance in a dinner, for a fine bisque or smooth, creamy soup is a meal in itself. Then there are the stimulating thin soups which make a proper beginning to a dinner. Soup is divided into several classes-soups with stock and soups without-and the variations which can be wrought by a clever housewife on these are numberless. With a pot of stock on hand and the assistance of vegetables for stockless soups, even in a frugal home there may be a soup for everyday in the year. Besides, we have excellent soups made from fish, and satisfying chowders with the addition of potatoes which makes the dish a full meal.

In recipes for making stock, the list of ingredients for seasoning seem endless. Still, a good cook keeps on hand everything that tends to fine flavoring. Spices such as mace, bay leaves, peppers, etc., are very cheap, so are the winter vegetables that most recipes call for and they may be kept constantly on hand. In a large family where there is a roast or meat dish once, perhaps twice, a day, little fresh meat is required for the stock pot if all bones and scraps are saved and utilized. Every morsel of a stew, roast with its gravy, chop and steak bones, carcasses of chick- 9 en or game, and the trimmings from meat, which a housewife pays for and should insist on having, are all grist for the soup pot. The meats to avoid using are bits of raw lamb or mutton with fat on them, which gives a disagreeable flavor, also smoked or corned meat. Scraps of bacon, cold ham, or even calf's liver may be added; they give a touch of good flavoring. Several utensils are a necessity for soup making. First there is a sharp meat knife, a hard-wood board, a strong purée strainer, a soup pot with a tight lid, and a strainer with a slide, which allows it to be placed across the tureen.

A soup pot need not do a continuous performance on the back of a stove from Monday to Saturday.

It is too handy for all sorts of fagends to be thrown in without being critically looked over; besides, the stock which is constantly at the boil, or very near it, does not extract the nourishment from meat and bones that cold water does. If you would have fine-flavored, good-colored soup, save all the scraps and keep in a scrupulously clean jar in the refrigerator. Make soup twice a week; three times if the weather is too hot for meat remains to keep, or if they accumulate very fast. Never add a morsel of anything that has the slightest taint; it will spoil the whole potful. Break bones thoroughly. If you would extract all the flavor from bits of meat, put them through a chopper. With a skewer pick marrow from the bones. Lay the bones at the bottom of the pot.

If there are any left-overs in the refrigerator of such vegetables as onions, celery, tomatoes, carrots, SOUPS parsnips, or peas, chop fine and add, but do not put in too much of one thing; it gives too strong a flavor to the soup. If there are no left-over vegetables on hand, chop ½ cupful each of carrot, turnip, and celery, and add for flavoring, with 1/2 teaspoonful peppercorns, 1 bay leaf, sprig of parsley, 6 cloves, and 1 chopped onion. Do not add salt till the stock is half cooked.

Cover the bones with cold water and set far back on the stove where it will come to the boil slowly. Let it simmer five or six hours, strain through a fine sieve, and cool as quickly as possible. Do not remove the cake of fat from the top of the soup until you are ready to use it, then run a thin knife around the edge to loosen it. Cut into quarters and lift each piece carefully. there are any grains of fat left on the top of the jellied stock, dampen a bit of cheese cloth and carefully wipe over the top. Floating globules of grease will ruin the finest-flavored soup.

If For an everyday family soup in which nourishment is the first consideration, it does not require clearing. In the sediment there is considerable nutriment. If it is to be cleared, set the strained, skimmed soup over the fire, mix with the white and crushed shell of one egg, a dash of celery seed, the chopped rind and juice of half a lemon, and pepper and salt if required. Mix thoroughly, heat, and boil ten minutes. Just before taking from the fire, pour in cupful cold water.

Pour through the finest strainer, and heat again to the boiling point before using.

Mutton Broth. 4 pounds neck mutton, 2 quarts water, 1 onion, 3 stalks celery, 1 small carrot, Bay leaf, Few peppercorns.

Wash the mutton thoroughly, cut it up and place it in the vessel of fireless cooker with water, allow it to boil, then skim and boil slowly fifteen minutes. Add the flavoring and vegetables. Cook ten minutes longer without raising the lid, set it into the cooker five hours.

Mock-Turtle Soup. 1 calf's liver, 1 calf's heart, Small knuckle veal, 2 quarts water, 1 onion, Salt and pepper, teaspoonful ground cloves, 2 tablespoonfuls brown flour, Yolks 4 hard-boiled eggs.

Put the liver, heart, and veal into the saucepan of the cooker, cover with water and boil fifteen minutes.

Put into the cooker for six hours.

When soup is lifted out, strain it, chop the meat fine, add the chopped onion, seasonings, thicken with brown flour, and cook for a few minutes.

After pouring into the tureen, add the yolks of the eggs cut in pieces, also some fine cubes of lemon. An excellent way to make this soup, as well as many others, is to leave it in the cooker over night, then strain, skim off any fat that may rise, allow it to cool, and prepare when needed for the table.

Bean Soup. 1 quart white beans, 3 pints boiling water, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 slice salt pork.