SOUP A L' EAU. Put into a saucepan holding about three pints, a quarter of a cabbage, four carrots, two parsnips, six onions, and three or four turnips. Add a root of celery, a small root of parsley, some sorrel, a bunch of white beet leaves and chervil, and half a pint of peas tied in a piece of linen. Add water in proportion to the vegetables, and stew the whole for three hours. Strain off the broth, add some salt, heat it and serve it up, garnished with the vegetables.
SOUP GRAVY. Take some good juicy lean beef, free from sinews or other offal substance; or take the lean of a neck, or loin, or the fleshy part of a leg of mutton, or well-grown fowl, in the proportion of a pound of meat to a quart of water to beef, and rather less to mutton or fowl. Cut the meat in pieces, and let it stew very gently till the pure gravy is fairly drawn from the meat, without extracting the dregs. The time required for this will vary according to the quantity, the proper degree of heat being of course longer in penetrating the larger portion. From an hour and a half to three hours, at discretion, will allow sufficient time for any quantity that is likely to be wanted at once for soup, at least in private families. When done, strain the gravy through a hair sieve into an earthen pot, and let it stand till cold. Take off the fat, and pour the gravy clear from the sediment at the bottom.
SOUP MAIGRE. Melt half a pound of butter into a stewpan, shake it round, and throw in half a dozen sliced onions. Shake the pan well for two or three minutes, then put in five heads of celery, two handfuls of spinach, two cabbage lettuces cut small, and some parsley. Shake the pan well for ten minutes, put in two quarts of water, some crusts of bread, a tea-spoonful of beaten pepper, and three or four blades of mace. A handful of white beet leaves, cut small, may be added. Boil it gently an hour. Just before serving, beat in two yolks of eggs, and a large spoonful of vinegar.—Another. Flour and fry a quart of green peas, four sliced onions, the coarse stalks of celery, a carrot, a turnip, and a parsnip. Pour on three quarts of water, let it simmer till the whole will pulp through a sieve, and boil in it the best of the celery cut thin.—Another way. Take a bunch of celery washed clean and cut in pieces, a large handful of spinage, two cabbage lettuces, and some parsley; wash all very clean, and shred them small; then take a large clean stewpan, put in about half a pound of butter, and when it is quite hot, slice four large onions very thin, and put into your butter; stir them well about for two or three minutes; then put in the rest of your herbs; shake all well together for near twenty minutes, dust in some flour, and stir them together; pour in two quarts of boiling water; season with pepper, salt, and beaten mace: chip a handful of crust of bread, and put in; boil it half an hour, then beat up the yolks of three eggs in a spoonful of vinegar; pour it in, and stir it for two or three minutes; then send it to table.
SOUP WITH ONIONS. Blanch some small white onions in scalding water, peel off the first skin, and stew them in a little broth. When ready, lay them in a row round the edge of the dish intended for the soup. To keep them in their place, put a thin slip of bread rubbed with white of egg round the rim of the dish, and set the dish for a moment over a stove to fasten the bread. Slips of bread may be used in this manner to keep all kinds of garnishing to soups in their proper place.
SOUP A LA REINE. Blanch and beat very fine in a marble mortar, three quarters of a pound of sweet almonds, with the white part of a cold roasted fowl. Slice to these the crumb of four small rolls, and then strain to it three quarts of good veal gravy, boiled with a blade of mace. Simmer these all together for a quarter of an hour, then rub them through a tammis, season it with salt, give it a boil, and serve it up with a small tea-cupful of cream stirred into it, and the slices of crust cut off the rolls laid on the top.—Another way. Have ready a strong veal broth that is white, and clean scummed from all fat; blanch a pound of almonds, beat them in a mortar, with a little water, to prevent their oiling, and the yolks of four poached eggs, the lean part of the legs, and all the white part of a roasted fowl; pound all together, as fine as possible; then take three quarts of the veal broth, put it into a clean stew-pot, put your ingredients in, and mix them well together; chip in the crust of two French rolls well rasped; boil all together over a stove, or a clear fire. Take a French roll, cut a piece out of the top, and take out all the crumb: mince the white part of a roasted fowl very fine, season it with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a little beaten mace; put in about an ounce of butter, and moisten it with two spoonfuls of your soup strained to it; set it over the stove to be thoroughly hot: cut some French roll in thin slices, and set them before the fire to crisp; then strain off your soup through a tammis or a lawn strainer, into another clean stew-pot; let it stew till it is as thick as cream; then have your dish ready; put in some of your crisp bread; fill your roll with your mince, and lay on the top as close as possible; put it into the middle of your dish, and pour a ladleful of your soup over it; put in your bread first, then pour in your soup, till your dish is full. Garnish with petty patties; or make a rim for your dish, and garnish with lemon raced. If you please, you may send a chicken boned in the middle, instead of your roll; or you may send it to table with only crisp bread.
SOUP A-LA SAP. Boil half a pound of grated potatoes, a pound of beef sliced thin, a pint of grey peas, an onion, and three ounces of rice, in six pints of water till reduced to five. Strain it through a cullender, pulp the peas into it, and return it into the saucepan with two heads of sliced celery. Stew it tender, add pepper and salt, and serve it with fried bread.
SOUR BEER. If beer be brewed ever so well, much will depend on the management afterwards, to prevent its becoming sour or vapid. Different conveniences of cellarage will materially affect beer. If the cellar is bad, there should not be more than six weeks between brewing and brewing. Where beer is kept too long in a bad cellar, so as to be affected by the heat of the weather, it will putrefy, though ever so well bunged. Hops may prevent its turning sour, but will not keep it from becoming vapid. It should be well understood, that there is no certainty in keeping beer, if not brewed at the proper season. In winter there is a danger of wort getting too cold, so as to prevent the process of fermentation; and in the summer, of its not being cool enough, unless brewed in the dead of night. In temperate weather, at the spring or autumn, the spirit of the beer is retained, and it is thereby enabled to work the liquor clear; whereas in hot weather, the spirit quickly evaporates, leaving the wort vapid and flat, unable to work itself clear, but keeping continually on the fret, till totally spoiled. This is the obvious reason for the use of sugar, prepared for colour, because sugar will bear the heat better than malt; and when thoroughly prepared, possesses such a strong principle of heat in itself, as to bid defiance to the hottest temperature of the air, and to render its turning sour almost impossible. Clean casks are also essential to the preservation of good beer. To keep the casks sweet and in order, never allow them to remain open; but whenever the beer is drawn off, bung them up tight with the lees within them. In a good cellar they will never spoil. Should the casks get musty, the following method will remedy the evil. Soak them well for three or four days in cold water, then fill them full of boiling hot water; put in a lump or two of lime, shake it thoroughly till quite dissolved, let the casks stand about half an hour, then wash them out with cold water, and they will be clean and sweet. If still apprehensive of the beer getting flat or sour, put into a cask containing eighteen gallons, a pint of ground malt suspended in a bag, and close the bung perfectly. This will prevent the mischief, and the beer will improve during the whole time of drawing it. When beer has actually turned sour, put in some oyster shells, calcined to whiteness, or a little powdered chalk. Either of these will correct the acidity, and make it brisk and sparkling. Salt of tartar, or soda powder, put into the beer at the time of drinking it, will also destroy the acidity, and make it palatable.
SOUR KROUT. Take some full-grown hard cabbages of the closest texture, and cut them into slices about an inch thick, opening them a little, that they may receive the salt more effectually. Rub a good deal of salt amongst them, lay them into a large pan, and sprinkle more salt over them. Let them remain twenty-four hours, turning them over four or five times, that every part may be alike saturated. Next day put the cabbage into a tub or large jar, pressing it down well, and then pour over it a pickle made of a pint of salt to a quart of water. This pickle must be poured on boiling hot, and the cabbage entirely covered with it. Let it stand thus twenty-four hours longer, when it will have shrunk nearly a third. Then take the cabbage out, and put it into a fresh tub or jar, pressing it down well as before, and pour over it a pickle made as follows. To one quart of the salt and water pickle which had been used the day before, put three quarts of vinegar, four ounces of allspice, and two ounces of carraway seeds. This must be poured on cold, so as to cover the cabbage completely. Let it stand one day loosely covered, and then stop it down quite close.
SOUR SAUCE FOR FISH. Boil two blades of mace in a wine glass of water, and half as much sharp vinegar, for a quarter of an hour. Then take out the mace, and put in a quarter of a pound of butter, and the yolk of an egg well beaten. Shake these over the fire one way till the sauce is properly thickened, without suffering it to boil.
SOUSE FOR BRAWN. Boil a quarter of a pint of wheat bran, a sprig of bay, and a sprig of rosemary, in two gallons of water for half an hour, adding four ounces of salt. Strain it, and let it cool. This will do for pig's feet and ears, as well as brawn.