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Cream Soups

1. Meat Soups. Those with meat stock for foundation as, noodle soup, rice soup, chicken gumbo, bouillon, etc. 2. Cream or Milk Soups. Those with milk or white sauce for foundation as, cream of tomato soup, cream of asparagus soup, potato soup, oyster soup, cracker soup, etc.

Note.-Purees are very thick vegetable soups.

General Rules for Preparing Cream Soups. 1. Boil vegetables with seasonings until soft, then rub through strainer and add to an equal quantity of thin or medium white sauce, just before serving. 2. Reheat but do not boil as the acid in the vegetables will cause the milk to curdle if boiled or allowed to stand long. 3. To keep milk soups from curdling:- (a.) A speck of soda may be added to the strained vegetable pulp before it is combined with the white sauce. (b.) A sauce may be made of the butter, flour and strained vegetable pulp cooked together, the hot milk being added just before serving. (c.) A thickening of corn starch or flour mixed with cold water may be stirred into the strained vegetable pulp, then boiled until smooth. The butter and hot milk should then be added just before serving.

Adding flour or corn starch to these soups keeps the solid part of the vegetable pulp from separating from the liquids and is called "binding" the soup. The thickening must be boiled with the vegetable pulp.

If soup is too thick, add more hot milk; if too thin, a beaten egg may be added just before serving.

One quart of soup will serve four or five persons.

Serving Soup.

Cream soups are suitable for the main course at supper or luncheon, but are too heavy if a full dinner is to follow. Crackers, toast fingers, croutons or bread sticks may be served with soup. Celery, olives and pickles often accompany the soup course.

Avoid crumbling bread or crackers into soup. One glance at an untidy soup plate filled with soup-soaked bread crumbs will explain the reason for this rule. Crisply toasted croutons or the brittle little oyster crackers may be dropped a few at a time into the soup and eaten before they have time to become soaked and unattractive looking.

In serving soup, each bowl or plate should be heated and filled two-thirds full of soup, then set into a service plate and placed in front of a guest.

Soup is eaten with a round bowl soup spoon or a dessert spoon. The spoon should be placed on the table at the right of the knife, or if the teaspoons to be used later in the meal are on the table, these are placed at the right of the knife and the soup spoon at the right of the teaspoons.

In eating soup, the side of the spoon farthest from you should be dipped into the soup, the spoon should then be raised to the mouth and the soup silently sipped from the side of the spoon.

Value of Cream Soups.

Cream soups are nourishing, easily digested and economical. The tough, indigestible parts of the vegetables are strained out, leaving only the finely divided tender portion to be combined with milk, butter, flour, etc. Vegetables too old or tough to be served in the usual way can be cooked for a long time and after straining used in cream soups. The tender parts of celery or asparagus may be served as a vegetable at one meal and the tougher portions used in a cream soup at another. The celery leaves may be washed, dried and put away to use as seasoning for soup when celery is scarce or high in price.

Cracker Soup.