Boil the young beets in salted water for an hour. Lay in cold water until cool enough to handle. Scrape off all the skin and chop the beets very fine. Turn the beets and the juice which has exuded from them into a pint of mutton stock, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Rub through a fine colander or a coarse soup-strainer and keep hot at the side of the range. Cook together two teaspoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and pour upon them a pint of milk. Stir until thick and smooth, then add slowly the beet and mutton purée. When very hot, season with salt and white pepper and serve.
Tomato cream soup (No. 1)
Cut up a dozen ripe tomatoes and stew tender in a pint of water. Rub through a strainer and thicken with three teaspoonfuls of corn-starch rubbed to a paste with a tablespoonful of butter. Season with salt, pepper and sugar, and pour slowly upon the mixture a quart of scalding milk, to which a pinch of soda has been added.
Tomato cream soup (No. 2)
Cook a quart of tomatoes soft and rub them through a colander, or drain the liquid from a can of tomatoes. Heat it over the fire, cooking with it a pinch of soda and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Cook together in another saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble, and then pour upon them a pint of hot milk. Stir until it thickens, salt and pepper the tomato to taste, and mix with it the thickened milk. Add half a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and serve at once.
Cream of celery soup
Cut a bunch of celery into small bits and put it over the fire in enough water to cover it. Stew until very tender; rub through a colander, and stir into it a pint of hot veal or other white stock. Cook together two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same of flour, and pour slowly upon them a pint of hot milk in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. When thick and smooth, add gradually, stirring constantly, the celery and stock. Season with pepper and celery salt, and serve.
Onion cream soup
Into a quart of mutton stock slice six large onions and simmer for an hour. Rub through a colander, return to the fire, and thicken with two tablespoonfuls of flour, rubbed to a paste with two of butter. Bring a half pint of milk to the boiling point and stir it into the soup. Season with salt, white pepper and a tablespoonful of minced parsley.