Corn. ✠

1 large fowl, cut into eight pieces.
1 doz. ears green corn—cut from the cobs.

Boil the chicken with the cobs in a gallon of water until the fowl is tender—if tough, the boiling must be slow and long. Then, put the corn into the pot, and stew an hour longer—still gently. Remove the chicken with a cupful of the liquid, if you wish to make other use of the meat. Set this aside, take out the cobs, season the corn-soup with pepper, salt, and parsley; thicken with rice or wheat flour, boil up once, and serve without straining, if the corn be young and tender.

A tolerable fricassee may be made of the chicken, unless it has boiled to rags, by beating up an egg and a tablespoonful of butter, adding this to the cupful of reserved liquor from which the corn must be strained. Boil this for a moment, thicken with flour, throw in a little chopped parsley, pepper, and salt; pour, while scalding, over the chicken, which you have arranged in a dish; garnish with circular slices of hard-boiled eggs and curled parsley.

MEAT SOUPS.

Beef Soup (à la Julienne). ✠

6 lbs. of lean beef. The shin is a good piece for this purpose. Have the bones well cracked, carefully extracting the marrow, every bit of which should be put into the soup.
6 qts. of water.

The stock must be prepared the day before the soup is needed. Put the beef, bones and all, with the water in a close vessel, and set it where it will heat gradually. Let it boil very slowly for six hours at least, only uncovering the pot once in a great while to see if there is danger of the water sinking too rapidly. Should this be the case, replenish with boiling water, taking care not to put in too much. During the seventh hour, take off the soup and set it away in a cool place, until next morning. About an hour before dinner, take out the meat, which you can use for mince-meat, if you wish; remove the cake of fat from the surface of the stock, set the soup over the fire, and throw in a little salt to bring up the scum. When this has been skimmed carefully off, put in your vegetables. These should be:—

2 carrots.
3 turnips.
Half a head of white cabbage.
1 pt. green corn—or dried Shaker corn, soaked over night.
1 head celery.
1 qt. tomatoes.

These should be prepared for the soup by slicing them very small, and stewing them in barely enough water to cover them, until they break to pieces. Cook the cabbage by itself in two waters—throwing the first away. The only exception to the general dissolution, is in the case of a single carrot, which should likewise be cooked alone and whole, until thoroughly done, and set aside to cool, when the rest of the vegetables, with the water in which they were boiled, are added to the soup. Return the pot to the fire with the vegetables and stock, and boil slowly for half an hour from the time ebullition actually begins. Strain without pressing, only shaking and lightly stirring the contents of the cullender. The vegetables having been added with all their juices already cooked, much boiling and squeezing are not needed, and only make the soup cloudy. Cut the reserved carrot into dice and drop into the clear liquor after it is in the tureen,—also, if you like, a handful of vermicelli, or macaroni which has been boiled tender in clear water.

The seasoning of this excellent soup is a matter of taste. Some use only salt and white pepper. Others like with this a few blades of mace, and boil in the stock a handful of sweet herbs. And others fancy that, in addition to these, a glass of brown sherry imparts a flavor that renders it peculiarly acceptable to most palates. Send to table very hot, and have the soup-plates likewise heated.