Clear Vermicelli Soup.
- 6 lbs. of veal—the knuckle is best.
- 1 lb. of lean ham, cut fine.
- 1 bunch of sweet herbs.
- ¼ lb. of vermicelli.
- 5 quarts of water.
- Pepper and salt with half a teaspoonful ground mace.
Cut the meat from the bones in thin shreds, and crack the bones to splinters. Mince the ham and herbs. Put into a soup-kettle, add the water, cover very tightly with a weight upon the lid, and stand where it will slowly boil, for five hours. Then turn into a jar, salt and pepper, and shut up while hot. Leave the jar all Saturday night upon the side of the range, where it will keep warm until morning. Pour into a bowl before breakfast and let it get cold. Take off the cake of fat two hours before dinner, turn the soup-jelly, bones and all, into the soup-pot, and when it is melted strain through your wire sieve. Put in the mace, boil for an hour and a half, and skim. Put the vermicelli, already broken into short bits and boiled tender, into the tureen (but not the water in which it was boiled) and strain the soup over it through double tarlatan. Let it stand ten minutes before serving. This is a showy soup, and easily made, really requiring little attention.