A large tablespoonful of Captain White’s currie-paste, and a small one of flour, diluted with a spoonful or twos of the broth, or with a little milk or cream, if perfectly mixed with the rice and stewed with it for fifteen or twenty minutes before it is dished, render it excellent: few eaters would discover that it was made without meat.
Good beef or mutton broth can be used instead of water for the above soup, and in that case the vegetables sliced small, or rubbed through a strainer, may be added to it before it is served.
CARROT SOUP MAIGRE.
Throw two ounces of salt into a gallon of boiling water, then add three or four carrots quartered or thickly sliced, one onion or more according to the taste, and a faggot of parsley, or some parsley roots. When these have boiled gently for upwards of an hour, strain off the liquor and put it back into the saucepan. Have ready more carrots, nicely scraped and washed; split them down into strips about the size of large macaroni and cut them into half finger lengths. Two quarts of these will not be too much for persons who like the soup well filled with the vegetable; boil them perfectly tender, and turn them with their liquor into the tureen, first adding pepper sufficient to season it properly, and more salt if needed. The proportion of carrots may be diminished, and a quart or more of Brussels sprouts, boiled and drained, may be substituted for part of them. Some persons have these soups thickened, or enriched as they think, with flour and butter; but the latter ingredient should at least be sparingly used; and any other kind of thickening is more wholesome. A few ounces of vermicelli stewed in them for twenty minutes or rather longer, will be found a very good one. Celery, leeks, and turnips may be boiled down in the carrot-stock, or added when the fresh vegetables have been stewed in it for about ten minutes.
CHEAP FISH SOUPS.
An infinite variety of excellent soups may be made of fish, which may be stewed down for them in precisely the same manner as meat, and with the same addition of vegetables and herbs. When the skin is coarse or rank it should be carefully stripped off before the fish is used; and any oily particles which may float on the surface should be entirely removed from it.
In France, Jersey, Cornwall, and many other localities, the conger eel, divested of its skin, is sliced up into thick cutlets and made into soup, which we are assured by English families who have it often served at their tables, is extremely good. A half-grown fish is best for the purpose. After the soup has been strained and allowed to settle, it must be heated afresh, and rice and minced parsley may be added to it as for the turkey soup of page [32]; or it may be thickened with rice-flour only, or served clear. Curried fish-soups, too, are much to be recommended.
When broth or stock has been made as above with conger eel, common eels, whitings, haddocks, codlings, fresh water fish, or any common kind, which may be at hand, flakes of cold salmon, cod fish, John Dories, or scallops of cold soles, plaice,[[41]] &c., may be heated and served in it; and the remains of crabs or lobsters mingled with them. The large oysters sold at so cheap a rate upon the coast, and which are not much esteemed for eating raw, serve admirably for imparting flavour to soup, and the softer portions of them may be served in it after a few minutes of gentle simmering. Anchovy or any other store fish-sauce may be added with good effect to many of these pottages if used with moderation. Prawns and shrimps likewise would generally be considered an improvement to them.
[41]. Some persons prefer the vegetables slowly fried to a fine brown, then drained on a sieve, and well dried before the fire; but though more savoury so, they do not improve the colour of the soup.
For more savoury preparations, fry the fish and vegetables, lay them into the soup-pot, and add boiling, instead of cold water to them.