Royal Soup (Cup stale bread crumbs cup)

The page as printed is an ingredient list only — the method has been lost with the page break, and the last line breaks off at "3½ cups White," almost certainly White Stock (Farmer's veal-and-chicken stock) rather than white sauce. What follows is how these quantities were meant to behave.

• The structure of the soupThis is a purée thickened by bread and egg yolk, not by flour. The crumbs soften in the ½ cup of milk to a panada, the pounded chicken breast and sieved yolks go in with it, and the whole is thinned with the scalded milk and stock and passed through a sieve.
• Stale bread crumbsCrumbs from a day-old loaf rather than fresh soft crumbs; the text does not specify whether the crust is removed. Fresh crumbs carry more moisture and will make the purée slacker.
• "Hard-boiled" in quotation marksThe quotation marks may reflect Farmer's preference for cooking eggs below the boil rather than at a rolling boil: the eggs are held in water kept hot but not boiling, which gives a tender, evenly set yolk that sieves smoothly instead of crumbling grey. No timing is given in this recipe.
• Pounding the chickenThe original expects the breast worked to a paste in a mortar. A food processor does it in seconds, but add a little of the milk to keep it from packing into a ball.
• Scalded milkHeated to about 180F, when bubbles ring the edge of the pan, not boiled.
• SeasoningWhite stock, milk and chicken breast are all mild; this needs more salt than you expect, and white pepper rather than black if you want to keep the pale colour the name implies.
• YieldThe measured liquids come to about five and a half cups before any reduction; six small first-course cups, or four bowls.