I will now give you a list of the different kinds of soups that can be obtained in tins, and will explain how to make brown roux, which is used for improving every kind of thick soup, and also show how thin soups may be improved. The following soups may be obtained in tins: real turtle soup, game, grouse, oyster, hare, chicken broth, giblet, hotch potch, kidney, mulligatawny, mock turtle, ox cheek, ox tail (thick and clear), tomato, cressy, gravy, green pea, julienne, mutton broth, Palestine, bouilli, vegetable, venison, and vermicelli.

Brown roux is simply flour fried brown in butter. Probably most cooks have heard of the ordinary method of thickening soups with flour. The result is that the soup has a gruelly taste. If, however, the flour is fried a light brown before it is used for thickening the soup, it produces quite a different effect. In fact, in one case the flour is cooked, and in the other case it is raw, and the difference in the flavour is as great as that between a dish of pastry before it is put in the oven to be baked, and afterwards. You all know what a nice thing a rich piece of pie-crust is, especially if it be made from puff paste. Of course before it was put in the oven to be baked it would be absolutely uneatable. So with our brown roux. If you wish to make it properly proceed as follows: Take, if possible, an enamelled stewpan, and place in it half a pound of butter and melt it. When the butter has run to oil you will find that there is a sediment at the bottom, which looks something like milk, as, indeed, it is, as also a frothy scum at the top; skim this off, and then pour off the oiled butter into a basin and throw away the sediment. Now add to this clarified butter, which should have the appearance of good salad oil, half a pound of dry flour. Remember that you cannot fry anything properly unless it be first thoroughly dry. The flour and butter will form a sort of pudding, and you must stir this pudding over the fire with a spoon until the pudding begins to turn a light brown. As soon as it is turned a light brown colour, take the stewpan off the fire, but go on stirring. As the stewpan keeps hot a long time the flour will go on cooking for quite a quarter of an hour after it has been taken off the fire. You can if you like slacken the heat by throwing in a piece of onion. Of course, the onion will very soon turn brown itself. When the brown flour or roux has got comparatively cool, put it into a basin or small jar, and put it by for use. You will find it most convenient to make this in sufficient quantity to last, say, for a month. It will keep good for almost any length of time.

Every kind of thick soup sold in tins will be greatly improved by a good dessertspoonful of this brown roux being added to each pint of soup after the tin has been opened and the contents poured into a small saucepan. In addition to brown roux you must add a good-sized teaspoonful of extract of meat. Recollect the brown roux should be crumbled into the soup, and the soup should be allowed to boil for a few minutes in order that it may get thick.

Of course we cannot use brown roux for clear soups. Now these clear soups are undoubtedly, as a rule, very poor. I would suggest the following means of improving them. Add first of all a brimming teaspoonful of extract of meat, then to every pint of clear soup take a teaspoonful of cornflour. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water in a cup, say a dessertspoonful of cold water, or a little more, and while the soup is boiling in the saucepan, add the cornflour to it. You do not wish to make the soup thick, as could be done by adding a large quantity of cornflour, but by adding a small quantity you give it what may be called a consistency. The soup, instead of being as thin as water, is more like milk, and although the soup is not in reality any richer, it conveys the idea of being exceedingly good. Another method of improving clear tinned soups in flavour is by the addition of celery. If you have a head of celery in the house, take a small stick, and with a knife cut it into very thin slices indeed. Boil this in the soup, and you will find that it will improve the flavour very considerably, that is, if the soup contains other kinds of vegetables. Another method is to boil a couple of beads of garlic in the clear soup, but then many persons object to the flavour of garlic. Still, if garlic is used with care it is not nearly so objectionable as many people think. There is a strong prejudice against the use of garlic in this country, but I believe this prejudice is brought about by the fact that English cooks as a rule do not understand how to use it. Garlic should be used to impart a slight flavour, and should rarely if ever be chopped up to be eaten.

I will now go on to another class of preserved provisions, viz., fish. Sardines and pilchards are preserved in oil, and are very nice eaten just as they are, only bear in mind that cut lemon and cayenne pepper is a very great improvement to them in their natural state.

A very simple method of having a nice dish in a hurry for breakfast or for dinner can be made as follows:—Open a tin of sardines or a tin of pilchards, pour the oil of the tin into a frying-pan, and add to it a brimming teaspoonful or more of curry powder, moistened in a little water. Add a teaspoonful of cornflour, also moistened in a little water. Stir the whole for a time till you get a thick, oily gravy. Now add the fish, either sardines or pilchards, and gradually make them hot in this quickly-made curry sauce, and with a spoon keep pouring the sauce over the fish. You must be careful not to break the fish. As soon as the fish are thoroughly hot through, take them out of the frying pan with a slice similar to that you use for taking out fried eggs, place them on a hot dish, and scrape all the oily curry gravy over the top.

Some few years ago great things were expected from what was called the Australian meat in tins. Since the introduction of frozen meat, we have heard a great deal less about meat in tins. Still these tins are very useful to persons living in out-of-the-way places in the country, where frozen meat would be just as difficult to obtain as ordinary butchers’ meat. Australian meat differs very much in quality. As a rule you will find that unless the meat is surrounded by a good deal of jelly it is not worth having at all. When the Australian meat has plenty of jelly with it, and you can turn it out in a solid lump, I am not sure but what the best method is to have it as it is—cold. It wants cutting with a very sharp knife indeed. It is very light of digestion. You can send it to table just as it is, surrounded with the white part of a lettuce, placed alternately with beetroot. Australian meat can, however, be sent to table hot, and there are several ways of doing it. One method is to make it into an Irish stew. Warm the tin just sufficiently to melt the jelly, pour off all the jelly into a saucepan, and slice up half-a-dozen good-sized onions and boil them in the jelly. Boil, say, an equal weight of potatoes to meat, also separately, in some water. Then place the hot cooked potatoes, the tender-boiled onions, and gravy with the meat in a saucepan, and as soon as the meat is hot through send it to table. The reason why we proceed this way is that the drawback to Australian meat is that it is already over-cooked; consequently, you must avoid cooking it more than can be helped.

Tinned meat can also be made into curry in a similar way—that is, after you have melted the jelly you pour it off and use it to make some strong, rich curry sauce. The meat should then be placed in the curry sauce and served as soon as it is hot through. The meat should be shredded with a couple of silver forks, so that the curry can be eaten with a fork.

Australian meat can also be used for making a meat pie. To make a good meat pie, you must melt the jelly, pour it into a saucepan, and boil with it six beads of garlic, and also add some gelatine to make the jelly when cold nice and firm. In fact, it should be quite as firm as an ordinary mould of jelly. Now place the Australian meat in a piedish, pour the gravy over it, and place a few very thin slices of bacon on the top. You can also mix with the pie a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and be sure to add plenty of black pepper. Few cooks realise what a large amount of black pepper is required for a meat pie. You can also add to the pie half-a-dozen hard-boiled eggs cut in halves. Now cover the piedish over with the crust, and bake it in the oven. As soon as the pastry is done, the pie is done; the meat, as I have said before, is already over-cooked. Try and manage to keep by you a little of the gravy, and when the pie is cold, add the remainder. Pour this gravy into the pie through the top, and fill the gravy up so that it reaches the crust. Remember, this pie can only be eaten cold. If you use garlic in a meat pie, you cannot cut the pie while it is hot. The gravy should be poured in when it is nearly set.

(To be continued.)