TURNIP SOUP.—
For a very small family take a neck of mutton, and divide it into steaks, omitting all the fat. For a family of moderate size, take a breast as well as a neck. Put them into a soup-pot with sufficient water to cover them, and let them stew till well browned. Skim them carefully. Then pour on more water, in the proportion of a pint to each pound of meat, and add eight or ten turnips pared and sliced thin, with a very little pepper and salt. Let the soup boil till the turnips are all dissolved, and the meat in rags. Add, towards the last, some bits of butter rolled in flour, and in five minutes afterwards the soup will be done. Carefully remove all the bits of meat and bone before you send the soup to table. It will be found very good, and highly flavored with the turnips.
Onion soup may be made in the same manner. Parsnip soup also, cutting the parsnips into small bits. Or all three—turnips, onions and parsnips, may be used together.
PARSNIP SOUP.—
The meat for this soup may either be fresh beef, mutton, or fresh venison. Remove the fat, cut the meat into pieces, add a little salt, and put it into a soup-pot, with an allowance of rather less than a quart of water to each pound. Prepare some fine large parsnips, by first scraping and splitting them, and cutting them into pieces; then putting them into a frying pan, and frying them brown, in fresh butter or nice drippings. When the soup has been boiled till the meat is all in rags, and well skimmed—put into it the fried parsnips and let them boil about ten minutes, but not till they break or go to pieces. Just before you put in the parsnips, stir in a table-spoonful of thickening made with butter and flour, mixed to a smooth paste. When you put it into the tureen to go to table, be sure to leave in the pot all the shreds of meat and bits of bone.
CARROT SOUP.—
Take a good piece of fresh beef that has not been previously cooked. Remove the fat. It is of no use in making soup; and as it must all be skimmed off when boiling, it is better to clear it away before the meat goes into the pot. Season the beef with a very little salt and pepper, and allow a small quart of water to each pound. Grate half a dozen or more large carrots on a coarse grater, and put them to boil in the soup with some other carrots; cut them into pieces about two inches long. When all the meat is boiled to rags, and has left the bone, pour off the soup from the sediment, transferring it to a tureen, and sending it to table with bread cut into it.