(d) Use milk instead of stock, and add, besides pepper and salt, just a small grate of nutmeg.
Pot au feu.—(a) Take 6 lb. round of beef, put it in a large earthenware pot, with any stray bones, and 14 qt. cold water; add 3 handfuls of salt, some whole pepper, and a few cloves; let simmer, without allowing to boil, until you can skim; after skimming add 4 turnips, 5 or 6 carrots, 2 parsnips, 1 stick celery, 2 large onions, and a clove of garlic; take a bunch of leeks, and tie up with them a leaf of bay laurel, and a root of parsley (if you have not the whole plant, some leaves alone), and put this into the pot with the other things. Let boil very slowly for 4 hours. Cook apart in a saucepan 2 fine cabbages; do not put any water with them, but when the pot au feu is nearly cooked, take off the top of the soup, put it over the cabbages, and let them cook in it for ½-1 hour. When the soup is ready, take some crusts of bread which have been well browned in the oven, cut them in pieces, let them soak for a few minutes in boiling water, then put them into the soup tureen, and, after skimming the soup, pour it over them. Serve the meat on a dish, arranging the cabbages, carrots, turnips, onions, and parsnips all round.
(b) Take a piece of fresh silverside of beef weighing 6 lb., and about ½ lb. bones; tie up the meat neatly with string, and put both into a 6-quart saucepan; fill it up with sufficient water to come well over the meat and bones, and set it on the fire; remove carefully with a skimmer the scum that will rise as the water gets warm, but do not allow it to boil. Add at intervals during the process about 1 pint cold water in small quantities; this will have the effect of checking the ebullition, and will help the scum to rise. When the scum is all removed, put in about 1 oz. salt, a small handful of whole pepper and allspice, 1 onion, stuck with 12 cloves, 1 onion toasted almost black before the fire or on the hob, 1 leek, and three carrots of average size cut in 2 inch lengths, 2 turnips of average size each cut in four, and a bouquet garni—i.e. 2 bay leaves, 2 or 3 sprigs each of thyme and marjoram, a clove of garlic, and a small handful of parsley, all tied together into a small faggot. The above vegetables should not be put in all at once, but gradually, so as not to check the gentle simmering; now skim for the last time, and place by the side of the fire to simmer gently for at least 4 hours. According to the season, all or some of the following vegetables may be added: A head of celery cut in 2 in. lengths, a couple of tomatoes, a couple of parsnips, a handful of chervil. At the time of serving, strain the broth and skim off all the fat, add the least bit of sugar (not burnt sugar) and more salt if necessary; make the broth boiling hot, and pour it into the soup tureen over small slices of toasted bread, adding, according to taste, a portion of the vegetables cut in thin slices. To serve the meat, having removed the string, garnish it with some of the vegetables, or with mashed potatoes, spinach, &c.
Poultry Soup.—Remains of any kind of poultry will do for this. Cut all the meat off the bones, free it from skin, and pound it smooth in a mortar. Soak a slice or two of bread, without crust, in as much milk as it will absorb; add it, with the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs, to the pounded meat, and pass all through a sieve. While preparing the above, let the broken-up bones boil in some good meat broth. Strain this, and mix with it the pounded meat. Give it one boil up, and serve with Hühner Klösse. In boiling up the bones, any kind of seasoning may be added, such as herbs, vegetables, lemon peel, salt, and pepper. See also Chicken Soup.
Pumpkin Soup (de potiron).—Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces (removing the seeds). Put it into boiling water with some salt, and leave it to boil until reduced to a pulp thin enough to pass through a strainer. Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan with a wine glass of cream. Add the pulp, when strained, with salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of flour. Let the whole simmer for ¼ hour, thicken with the yolk of an egg, and serve.
Quenelle Soup.—Put into a saucepan a gill of water, a pinch of salt, and a small piece of butter; when the water boils stir in as much flour as will form a paste, put the mixture away to get cold. Take ½ lb. lean veal, cut it into small pieces, and pound in a mortar; add 3 oz. butter and 2 oz. of the paste, and thoroughly mix the whole in the mortar, adding during the process the yolks of 2 and the white of 1 egg, salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste; pass the mixture through a sieve, work a little cream into it, and, by means of 2 teaspoons, shape it in pieces the size of an olive; lay these carefully in a saucepan, pour in at the side sufficient boiling stock to cover them, and let them cook gently for a few minutes. Have the tureen ready filled with well-flavoured clear stock, boiling hot; slip the quenelles into it (with or without the stock they were boiled in), and serve.
Rice Soup (au riz).—(a) Pick over carefully 6 oz. best Carolina rice, wash in 3 waters, until no dirt remains, blanch in boiling water, and then drain; put 1 qt. milk into a saucepan, and set it over the fire; throw in the rice; let boil for 10 minutes and then simmer; season with salt and white pepper, and add a small cupful of cream just before serving. Send plain toast, not fried, to table with it.
(b) Pick and wash a handful of rice, boil it in salted water till the grains just burst; drain the water off, and leave the saucepan at the side of the fire, covered with a damp cloth. At the time of serving, put as much rice as is wanted into the saucepan in which the soup (well flavoured and clarified stock) is being made hot, and as soon as it boils send it up to table. Grated Parmesan cheese to be handed round with it.
(c) The rice must be well washed, first in cold then in warm water; 2 oz. is enough for 5 half-pints of soup. Boil the rice 2 hours at least, either with some of the soup or with water sufficient to boil it to a jelly; then add it to the soup. In the latter case have the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs in the tureen.
(d) Boil some rice as in (b); pass through a hair sieve; add as much white stock as may be necessary; make quite hot, and stir in off the fire 1 gill cream beaten up with the yolk of an egg and strained. Serve with small dice of bread fried in butter.