Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery: A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet

by A. G. Payne

Vermicelli Soup.—Take a quarter of a pound of vermicelli and break it up into small pieces, throw it into boiling water, and let it boil for five minutes to get rid of the dirt and floury taste, then throw it immediately into about a quart of [clear soup]. The vermicelli must be taken from the boiling water and thrown into the boiling soup at once. If you were to boil the vermicelli, strain it off, and put it by to add to the soup, you would find it would stick together in one lump and be spoilt.

Vermicelli Soup, White.—The vermicelli must be thrown into white soup instead of clear soup. (See [WHITE SOUP].)

White Soup.—Just as in ordinary white soup the secret of success is to have some strongly reduced [stock], so in vegetarian white soup it is essential that we should have a small quantity of liquid strongly impregnated with the flavour of vegetables. For this purpose, place an onion, the white part of a head of celery, and a slice of turnip in a stew-pan with a little butter, and fry them till they are tender without becoming brown. Now add sufficient water to enable you to boil them, and let the water boil away till very little is left. Now rub this through a wire sieve and add it to a quart of milk in which a couple of bay-leaves have been boiled. Thicken the soup with a little [white roux], add a suspicion of nutmeg, and also, if possible, a little cream. Flavour with pepper and salt. Serve fried or toasted bread with the soup.

CHAPTER II.

SAUCES.

Sauce Allemande.—Take a pint of butter sauce—(see [BUTTER SAUCE])—and add to it four yolks of eggs. In order to do this you must beat up the yolks separately in a basin and add the hot butter sauce gradually, otherwise the yolks of eggs will curdle and the sauce will be spoilt. In fact, it must be treated exactly like custard, and in warming up the sauce it is often a good plan, if you have no bain-marie, to put the sauce in a jug and place the jug in a saucepan of boiling water. The sauce should be flavoured with a little essence of mushroom if possible. Essence of mushroom can be made from the trimmings of mushrooms, but mushroom ketchup must not be used on account of the colour. Essence of mushroom can be made by placing the trimmings of mushrooms in a saucepan, stewing them gently, and extracting the flavour. The large black mushrooms, however, are not suited. In addition to this essence of mushroom, a little lemon juice—allowing the juice of half a lemon to every pint, should be added to the sauce, as well as a slight suspicion of nutmeg, a pint of sauce requiring about a dozen grates of a nutmeg. A little cream is a great improvement to this sauce, but is not absolutely necessary. The sauce should be perfectly smooth. Should it therefore contain any lumps, which is not unfrequently the case in [butter sauce], pass the sauce through a sieve with a wooden spoon and then put it by in a bain-marie, or warm it up in a jug as directed.

Almond Sauce.—This is suitable for puddings. The simplest way of making it is to make, say half a pint of [butter sauce], or, cheaper, thicken half a pint of milk with a little corn-flour, sweeten it with white sugar, and then add a few drops of essence of almonds. About a dozen drops will be sufficient if the essence is strong, but essence of almonds varies greatly in strength. The sauce can be coloured pink with a few drops of cochineal.

Almond Sauce (clear).—Thicken half a pint of water with a little corn-flour, sweeten it with white sugar, add a dozen drops of essence of almonds and a few drops of cochineal to colour it pink. The sauce is very suitable to pour over custard puddings made in a basin or cup and turned out on to a dish. It is also very cheap.

Apple Sauce.—Peel say a dozen apples; cut them into quarters; and be very careful in removing all the core, as many a child is choked through carelessness in this respect. Stew the apples in a little water till they become a pulp, placing with them half a dozen cloves and half a dozen strips of the yellow part only of the outside of the rind of a fresh lemon of the size and thickness of the thumb-nail; sweeten with brown sugar, that known as Porto Rico being the most economical. Add a small piece of butter before serving.

Arrowroot Sauce.—Thicken half a pint of water with about a dessertspoonful of arrowroot and sweeten it with white sugar. The sauce can be flavoured by rubbing a few lumps of sugar on the outside of a lemon, or with a few drops of essence of vanilla, or with the addition of a little sherry or spirit, the best spirit being rum. This sauce can, of course, be coloured pink with cochineal.