CONSOMMÉ, OR JELLY SOUP.
Into two quarts of cold water, put four pounds of the lean of the best beef-steaks, and a large fowl cut into pieces, four large carrots, four onions, four leeks, a bunch of sweet herbs (parsley, thyme, sweet marjoram, sweet basil, and chives), tied up with a laurel-leaf, or two peach-leaves, and four cloves; add a little salt and pepper. Boil it gently for eight hours, skimming it well; then strain it.
PEASE SOUP.
Take two quarts of dried split peas, the evening before you intend making the soup, and putting them into lukewarm water, let them soak all night. In the morning, put the peas into a pan or pot with three quarts of cold water, a pound of bacon, and a pound of the lean of fresh beef. Cut up two carrots, two onions, and two heads of celery, and put them into the soup, with a bunch of sweet herbs, and three or four cloves. Boil it slowly five or six hours, till the peas can no longer be distinguished, having lost all shape and form; then strain it, and serve it up.
MACCARONI SOUP.
First make some good beef soup (without any vegetables), and when it is sufficiently boiled, strain it through a sieve. Take some maccaroni, in the proportion of half a pound to two quarts of soup. Boil it in water until it is tender, adding to it a little butter. Then lay it on a sieve to drain, and cut it into small pieces. Throw it into the soup, and boil all together ten minutes or more. Grate some rich cheese over it before you send it to table.
CHESTNUT SOUP.
Having made some beef soup without vegetables, strain it, and put in a pint of peeled chestnuts for each quart of soup. Boil it again till the chestnuts have gone all to pieces, and have become a part of the liquid.
A still better way is, to roast or bake the chestnuts first, (having cut a slit in the shell of each,) then peel them, and throw them into the soup ten minutes before you take it from the fire.