Take fine ripe tomatas, and wipe them dry, taking care not to break the skin. Put them, into a stone jar with cold vinegar, adding a small thin muslin bag filled with mace, whole cloves, and whole peppers. Then cork the jar tightly with a cork that has been dipped in melted rosin, and put it away in a dry place. Tomatas pickled in this manner keep perfectly well and retain their colour. For this purpose use the small round button tomatas.
ADDITIONAL RECEIPTS.
This soup is made without meat. Put into a soup-pot four quarts of shelled green peas, two large onions sliced, a handful of leaves of sweet marjoram shred from the stalks, or a handful of sweet basil; or a mixed handful of both—also, if you like it, a handful of green mint. Add four quarts of water, and boil the whole slowly till all the peas are entirely to pieces. Then take off the pot, and mash the peas well against its sides to extract from them all their flavour. Afterward strain off the liquid into a clean pot, and add to it a tea-cup full of the juice of spinach, which you must prepare, while the soup is boiling, by pounding some spinach in a mortar. This will give the soup a fine green colour. Then put in a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter rolled whole in flour; and add a pint and a half more of shelled young peas. If you wish the soup very thick, you may allow a quart of the additional peas. Season it with a very little salt and cayenne; put it again over the fire, and boil it till the last peas are quite soft, but not till they go to pieces.
Have ready in a tureen two or three slices of toasted bread cut into small squares or dice, and pour the soup on it.
This soup, if properly made, will be found excellent, notwithstanding the absence of meat. It is convenient for fast days; and in the country, where vegetables can be obtained from the garden, the expense will be very trifling. What is left may be warmed for the next day.
Take three pounds of shin of beef or of neck of mutton. Cut off the meat and break the bones. Then put the meat with the bones into a soup-pot, with a tea-spoonful of salt, and three quarts of water. Add a bunch of sweet marjoram, one of sweet basil, and a quarter of an ounce of black pepper-corns, all tied in a thin muslin rag; a sliced onion, and six or eight turnips and carrots, cut small. Let the whole boil slowly for two or three hours, skimming it well. In the meantime, have ready two sets of goose-giblets, or four of duck. They must he scalded, and well washed in warm water. Cut off the bills and split the heads; and cut the necks and gizzards into mouthfuls. Having taken the meat and bones out of the soup, put in the giblets, with a head of celery chopped. Boil it slowly an hour and a half; or more, taking care to skim it. Make a thickening of an ounce and a half of butter, and a large table-spoonful of flour, mixed together with a little of the soup. Then stir it into the pot, adding a large table-spoonful of mushroom catchup, and some small force-meat balls, or
little dumplings. Boil the soup half an hour longer. Then send it to table with the giblets in the tureen.