CLASS FIVE.
MIXED SOUPS.
Delicacy in seasoning and flavoring is pre-eminently the distinguishing mark of a fine soup of any kind; but to mix, mingle and combine many different articles of food so as to produce a soup whose flavor is distinct from any single ingredient entering into its composition, yet embodying the best qualities of each, is the true criterion of merit in a mixed soup.
Nearly all soups are in a certain sense mixed soups; but plain, clear, vegetable and white soups, have distinctive characteristics by which they can be recognized, and their genuineness established, while the individuality of a mixed soup must be evolved from the harmonious adjustment of seemingly discordant materials, and depends in a great measure upon the good judgment, discriminating taste and artistic skill of the person who prepares it.
An illustration of a mixed soup that can not be placed under any other division is
No. 1.—MOCK TURTLE SOUP.
Ingredients:
A calf’s head, a beef soup bone, five quarts cold water, one onion, one turnip, one carrot, one half stalk celery, one half bunch parsley, one bay leaf, one lemon, five cloves, ten allspice, ten pepper corns, one fourth nutmeg, two teaspoons of salt, a little cayenne pepper, two ounces butter, one ounce flour—a glass of wine to each quart of soup.
Put the head after removing the brains with the spices in the soup kettle, and cover with three quarts of cold water to which half a teaspoonful of salt has been added.
When it boils skim carefully and let simmer four or five hours, removing the meat as soon as tender. Strain and set aside till next day. Put the beef bone and vegetables in the soup kettle and cover with two quarts of cold water to which half a teaspoonful of salt has been added, and simmer four hours, removing the scum as it rises. Soak the brains in cold salt water an hour, tie in a linen cloth and boil gently twenty minutes in salted water. Plunge an instant in cold water to render white and firm. Cook two ounces butter and one ounce of flour in a sauce pan till very brown. Put both soup stocks together in the kettle, after all grease and settlings have been removed, also the meat from the head cut in small dice, and the yolks of a dozen hard boiled eggs, and when it boils add the brains cut in small pieces. Put the lemon, cut in thin slices, in a heated tureen, with a gill of wine for each quart of soup; pour the boiling soup on them, and serve.
No. 2.—SAVE-ALL SOUP.
Collect the scraps left from breakfast and dinner, for instance, a half pint of soup, a gill of gravy, a half pint of mashed turnip or potato, a little macaroni cooked with cheese, a sour baked apple or broiled chop or steak, etc., etc.; put them in the stock pot or soup kettle with sufficient cold water, simmer for an hour, removing any scum that rises, then strain and set aside. Next day remove the grease, put the soup to cook, and when it boils, season with salt and pepper, and if it seems to need other seasoning add a pinch Of thyme, or celery seed, or a teaspoonful of sugar. It is sometimes well to put half a bay leaf and two or three cloves in the kettle with the scraps. The flavorings and spices required in a mixed soup of this description depend greatly upon the nature of the scraps used. If they are mostly light and delicate, thyme, mace, celery, or parsley can be added; if dark and heavy, cloves, bay leaf, sweet marjoram or a little Worcestershire sauce, or walnut or other catsup can be used more appropriately. Sometimes an ounce each of butter and flour cooked together in a saucepan till browned, and then added to the soup, give it the very thing it lacks; or it may be that the flour stirred with a gill of cold sweet cream is what is needed to make it a perfect soup.
To select and harmonize the materials for a mixed soup is one of the best evidences of culinary capacity; and the cook who can do this successfully, is qualified to prepare a soup of the most complex as well as one of the simplest character, without regard to its name or class.