Drain off the can liquor; cook the succotash half an hour in boiling water; drain, add a cup of hot milk, and stir in pepper, salt, and a great spoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer three minutes and pour out.
Strawberry Méringue.
Make a good puff-paste, cut out large, and round as a dinner-plate, and bake to a light brown in a quick oven. Draw to the oven door; lay strawberries, rolled in sugar, over it, and cover these an inch deep with a méringue made of the whites of four eggs whisked stiff, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Bake until the méringue is faintly tinged with yellow brown. Eat fresh, but not hot. It is delicious.
Third Week. Saturday.
Amber Soup.
This soup should be prepared very early in the day; therefore, have the materials in the house overnight.
- 4 lbs. lean beef.
- 2 slices of lean ham.
- 2 lbs. of veal-bones.
- 2 onions, sliced and fried.
- 1 carrot.
- 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery.
- Pepper, and, if required, salt.
- ½ cup granulated tapioca.
- Whites and shell of an egg.
- 5 quarts of cold water.
- Butter and dripping.
- Burnt sugar.
Cut the meat into strips; put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a soup-pot, and lay the meat in it. Let it stand where it will heat slowly for half an hour. Then set over the fire, and stir until the meat is glazed with a brownish crust. Put a quart of water—cold—upon it, and bring gradually to a boil. Fry the onion and carrot in dripping to a fine brown, and drain off the fat, then put the vegetables into the pot with the meat, as soon as the latter is boiling hot. Cook half an hour; put in the rest of the cold water, the minced ham, and the bones broken to bits. Boil slowly four hours, then strain. Put meat and bones—highly seasoned—into a stone vessel, and pour half the soup over them for to-morrow. Put the rest back into the soup-kettle; season and boil up. Skim with care; put in the white and shell of an egg; boil three minutes; take from the fire and pour into a broad pan to cool. Burn two tablespoonfuls of sugar in a tin cup, on the hot range, and while still liquid, pour in half a cupful of boiling water. Let it stand thus until you are ready for it. The tapioca should have been soaking two hours in a little cold water. When the soup is cold, take off fat and scum—every particle; return to the scalded pot; boil up once, put in tapioca, and strain the sugar-water upon it. Simmer ten minutes, or until the tapioca is clear; skim once again, and pour out.
This is a fine company soup, but you should make it once or twice for family dinners in order to manage it properly. It is really not difficult.