Title: The ladies' new book of cookery : a practical system for private families in town and country; with directions for carving, and arranging the table for parties, etc. Also, preparations of food for invalids and for children.
Author: Sarah Josepha Buell Hale
Publisher: New York, H. Long & Brother
View page [preface]
> PREFACE.
COOKERY is an Art belonging to woman's department of knowledge; its importance can hardly be over-estimated, because it acts directly on human health, comfort, and improvement.
When studied, as it ought always to be, for the sake of the duties involved, it is an Art that confers great honor on those who understand its principles, and make it the medium of social and domestic happiness.
The TABLE, if wisely ordered, with economy, skill and taste, is the central attraction of HOME; the Lady who presides there, with kindness, carefulness and dignity, receives homage from the Master of the House, when he places at her disposal the wealth for which he toils. The husband earns, the wife dispenses; are not her duties as important as his?
If this truth were acknowledged and acted upon, by giving the Science of Domestic Economy a prominent place in Seminaries for Female Education, we should soon witness great improvements in household management.
There are encouraging signs of reform;--some of the most esteemed among our lady writers have devoted their talents to the illustration of these home duties; the cookery books of Mrs. Child, Miss Leslie, Miss Beecher, and others, have done much for the cause of Domestic Economy. Still it appeared to me that a "new book" on this science, combining features not hitherto included in any work of the kind, was needed. Some of these new features are the following:
In this work the true relations of food to health are set forth, and
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the importance of
good cookery to the latter clearly explained. See 'Introductory," commencing at page vii, and also "Rudiments of Cookery," pages 67-8.
"Preparations of Food for the Sick" have been carefully attended to, and many new and excellent receipts introduced.
"Cookery for Children" is an entirely new feature in a work of this kind, and of much importance.
A greater variety of receipts, for preparing
Fish, Vegetables and Soups, is given here, than can be found in any other book of the kind; these preparations, having reference to the large and increasing class of persons in our country who abstain from flesh meats during Lent, will be found excellent; and useful also to all families during the hot season.
As our Republic is made up from the people of all lands, so we have gathered the best receipts from the Domestic Economy of the different nations of the Old World; emigrants from each country will, in this "New Book of Cookery," find the method of preparing their favorite dishes.
The prominent features are, however, American; my own experience and studies gave some peculiar advantages in understanding "household good;"--and then I have been favored by ladies, famed for their excellent housekeeping, with large collections of original receipts, which these ladies had tested in their own families. I feel, therefore, confident that this "New Book" will be approved.
It has been my aim to give all directions in a concise, straight-forward manner, and so vary the receipts and modes, that every American household may model its management, to advantage, from the instructions.
A glance at the copious Index will give some idea of the variety of information the volume contains.
*The publishers intend to issue another work, now in preparation by Mrs. Hale, which will complete this system of Domestic Economy. The work is entitled--"Household Receipt Book: or Maxims and Directions for Preserving Health and Promoting Comfort in Domestic Life." Compiled from the most celebrated authorities.
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> CONTENTS.
PREFACE,..........................................................iii
INTRODUCTORY- The Science of Cookery,.............................vii
TABLE- Of Weights and Measures,...................................xvi
CHAPTER I. General Directions for Soups and Stock,................1-7
" II. Meat Soups, Soups of Poultry, Game, and Fish Soups, Vegetable Soups and Broths,....................-27
" III. Fish--Genral Directions, ..............................28
" IV. Fish--Cooking Cod, Salmon, Mackerel, Shad, Haddock, Sturgeon, Halibut, Trout, Perch, Small Fish, &c................................................................34-55
" V. Shell-Fish--Lobster, Crab, Terrapin, Oysters,.........56-61
" VI. Rudiments of Meat Cookery, ............................66
" VII. Beef,..................................................77
" VIII. Veal,..................................................97
" XI. Mutton,...............................................114
" X. Lamb,.................................................128
" XI. Venison,..............................................134
" XII. Pork,.................................................137
" XIII. Curing Meats, Potting, Collaring, ....................151
CHAP. XIV. Poultry,..............................................165
" XV. Game and Small Birds,.................................181
" XVI. Gravies,..............................................187
" XVII. Sauces,...............................................191
" XVIII. The Store Closet,.....................................208
" XIX. Vegetables,...........................................219
" XX. Salads, Macaroni, &c. &c......................247
" XXI. Eggs and Omelettes,...................................255
" XXII. Pastry,...............................................260
" XXIII. Puddings,.............................................284
" XXIV. Pancakes, Fritters, &c.,..........................304
" XXV. Custards, Creams, Ices, Jellies, Blancmange,..........310
" XXVI. Preserves, Fruit, Jellies, Marmalade,.................329
" XXVII. Cakes,................................................352
" XXVIII. Bread, Breakfast Cakes,...............................374
" XXIX. Coffee, Tea, Chocolate,...............................391
" XXX. Liqueurs and Summer Beverages,........................396
" XXXI. Preparations of Food, and Drinks for Invalids,.....409-18
" XXXII. Cookery for Children,.................................421
" XXXIII. The Dairy,............................................428
" XXXIV. Hints for a Household,................................437
" XXXV. Dinner Parties and Carving,...........................450
INDEX..........................................................465-74
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View page [introduction]
> INTRODUCTORY.
MISS SEDGWICK has asserted, in some of her useful books, that "the more intelligent a woman becomes, other things being equal, the more judiciously she will manage her domestic concerns." And we add, that the more knowledge a woman possesses of the great principles of morals, philosophy and human happiness, the more importance she will attach to her station, and to the name of a " good housekeeper."* It is only the frivolous, and those who have been superficially educated, or only instructed in showy accomplishments, who despise and neglect the ordinary duties of life as beneath their notice. Such persons have not sufficient clearness of reason to see that "Domestic Economy" includes every thing which is calculated to make people love home and feel happy there.
One of the first duties of woman in domestic life is to understand the quality of provisions and the preparation of wholesome food.
The powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, are greatly dependent on what we eat and drink. The stomach must be in health, or the brain cannot act with its utmost vigor and clearness, nor can there be strength of muscle to perform the purposes of the will.
But further, woman, to be qualified for the duty which Nature has assigned her, that of promoting the health, happiness and improvement of her species, must understand the natural laws of the human constitution, and the causes which often render the efforts she makes to please the appetite of those she loves, the greatest injury which could be inflicted upon them. Often has the affectionate wife caused her husband a sleepless night and severe distress, which, had an enemy inflicted, she would scarcely have forgiven--because she has prepared for him food which did not agree with his constitution or habits.
*The termhousekeeper, in this book, is used in its American signification, the same as "Mistress of the family," or "Lady of the house."
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And many a tender mother has, by pampering and inciting the appetites of her young sons, laid the foundation of their future course of selfishness and profligacy.
If the true principles of preparing food were understood, these errors would not be committed, for the housekeeper would then feel sure that the best food was that which best nourished and kept the whole system in healthy action; and that such food would be best relished, because, whenever the health is injured, the appetite is impaired or vitiated. She would no longer allow those kinds of food, which reason and experience show are bad for the constitution, to appear at her table.
We have, therefore, sought to embody, from realiable sources,* the philosophy of Cookery, and here give to those who consult our "New Book" such prominent facts as will help them in their researches after the true way of
living well and
being well while we live.
Modern discovery has proved that the stomach can create nothing; that it can no more furnish us with flesh out of food, in which, when swallowed, the elements of flesh are wanting, than the cook can send us up roast beef without the beef to roast. There was no doubt as to the cook and the beef, but the puzzle about the stomach came of our not knowing what matters various sorts of food really did contain; from our not observing the effects of particular kinds of food when eaten without anything else for some time, and from our not knowing the entire uses of food. But within the last few years measures and scales have told us these things with just the same certainty as they set out the suet and raisins, currants, flour, spices, and sugar, of a plum-pudding, and in a quite popular explanation it may be said that we need food that as we breathe it may warm us, and to renew our bodies as they are wasted by labor. Each purpose needs a different kind of food. The best for the renewal of our strength is slow to furnish heat; the best to give us heat will produce no strength. But this does not tell the whole need for the two kinds of food. Our frames are wasted by labor and exercise; at every move some portion of our bodies is dissipated in the form either of gas or water; at every breath a portion of our blood is swallowed, it may be said, by one of the elements of the air, oxygen; and of strength-giving food alone it is scarce possible to eat enough to feed at once the waste of our bodies, and this hungry oxygen. With this oxygen our life is in some sort a continual battle; we must either supply it with especial food, or it will prey upon ourselves;--body wasted by starvation is simply eaten up by oxygen. It likes fat best, so the fat goes first; then the lean, then the brain; and if from so much waste, death did not result, the sinews and very bones would be lost in oxygen.
[Editorial note: The following note appears at the bottom of page x.]
*I have followed chiefly the system of Dr. Andrew Combe on "Diet and Health," corroborated by the authority of Baron Leibeg in his "Familiar Letters" and "Animal Chemistry."
The more oxygen we breathe the more need we have to eat.
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Every one knows that cold air gives a keen appetite. Those who in town must tickle their palates with spices and pickles to get up some faint liking for a meal, by the sea, or on a hill-side, are hungry every hour of the day, and the languid appetite of summer and crowded rooms, springs into vigor with the piercing cold and open air of winter. The reason of this hungriness of frosty air is simply that our lungs hold more of it than they do of hot air, and so we get more oxygen, a fact that any one can prove, by holding a little balloon half filled with air near the fire, it will soon swell up, showing that hot air needs more room than cold.
But the oxygen does not use up our food and frames without doing us good service; as it devours it warms us. The fire in the grate is oxygen devouring carbon, and wherever oxygen seizes upon carbon, whether in the shape of coals in a stove or fat in our bodies, the result of the struggle (if we may be allowed the phrase) is heat.
In all parts of the world, at the Equator and the Poles, amidst eternal ice and under a perpendicular sun, in the parched desert and on the fresh moist fields of temperate zones, the human blood is at the same heat; it neither boils nor freezes, and yet the body in cold air parts with its heat, and just as we can keep an earthenware bottle filled with boiling water, hot, by wrapping it in flannel, can we keep our bodies warm by covering them closely up in clothes. Furs, shawls, and horse-cloths have no warmth in themselves, they but keep in the natural warmth of the body. Every traveler knows that starting without breakfast, or neglecting to dine on the road, he feels more than usually chilly; the effect is very much the same as if he sat to his meals on the same cold day in a room without a fire; the internal fuel, the food, which is the oil to feed life's warming lamp, is wanting. On this account, a starving man is far sooner frozen to death than one with food in his wallet. The unfed body rapidly cools down to the temperature of the atmosphere, just as the grate cools when the fire has gone out. Bodily heat is not produced in any one portion of the body, but in every atom of it. In a single minute about twenty-five pounds of blood are sent flowing through the lungs, there the whole mass meets the air, sucks in its oxygen, and speeding on carries to every portion of the frame the power which may be said to light up every atom of flesh, nerve, and bone, and to keep the flame throughout the body ever burning with the fresh warmth of life.
In accordance with these facts we find men all over the world acting instinctively. In a cold climate, either by necessity or choice, we exert ourselves, quicken the blood's speed, breathe rapidly, take in oxygen largely; in short, fan the flame which quick-returning hunger makes us feed. Even the least civilized follow correctly the natural law; the fruit so largely eaten by the native inhabitants of the tropics contains in every 100 ozs. not more than 12 of direct heat-producing elements, whilst the blubber and oil of the Esquimaux have in every 100 ozs. somewhere about 80 ozs. of such elements. Nor is it possible without injurious effects to live in opposition to this instinct,
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which science has shown to be in strict accordance with the intention of nature.
So far therefore we have evidence that good may come of method in cookery.* Plum-pudding is no dish for the dog-days, but its suet blunts the keen tooth of winter. Nor is it a mere sentimental sympathy that makes the wish to give the poor a good Christmas dinner. Scant fare makes cold more bitter. Those who, poorly clad, must face the wintry wind unfed, shiver doubly in the blast. The internal fire sinks for want of fuel, and the external air drinks up the little warmth the slow consuming system gives.
Milk, when a little rennet is poured into it, becomes curd and whey. The curd, chemists call animal
casein.
When the water in which the meal of peas, beans, or lentils has been steeped for some time, is warmed, and a little acid is poured into it, it also gives a curd, called
vegetable casein,which is precisely the same as the curd of the milk, and contains, like it, all the ingredients of the blood.
There is, then no difficulty in understanding how one may live on peas, beans, &c., just as on milk or meat.
When the white of egg is poured into boiling water, it becomes firm; the substance so formed is called animal albumen, and is identical with the albumen of the blood.
When vegetables are pounded in a mortar, the fresh juice expressed, lets fall a sediment which grass gives out largely, and which is also to be had from all kinds of grain. This deposit is the same as the fibrin or lean of flesh. When the remaining clear piece is boiled, a thick jelly-like substance is formed. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and asparagus are especially rich in this coagulating substance, which is the same thing as white of egg or animal albumen. It is called, therefore, vegetable albumen, and is, in common with the white of egg, identical with the albumen of blood, which with the fibrin, whether animal or vegetable, is the source of every portion of the human body.
We see, therefore, that the cattle have in peas and beans as casein, in corn and grass as fibrin, in sundry vegetables as albumen, the very materials of their flesh; and that, whether we live upon grain or pulse, beef or mutton, milk or eggs, we are in fact eating flesh; in meat, diet ready made; in the case of the others, diet containing the fit ingredients of preparation. Nor are we left in the least shadow of doubt that albumen, of whatever kind, is sufficient to produce flesh, for not only do we find every ingredient of flesh contained in it, but we can turn the flesh and fibrin of the blood back to albumen.*
[Editorial note: The following footnote appears in two sections; the first section appears at the bottom of page x and the second section appears at the bottom of page xi.]
*"The intelligent and experienced mother or nurse chooses for the child," says Leibig, "with attention to the laws of nature; she gives him chiefly milk and farinaceous food, always adding fruits to the latter; she prefers the flesh of adult animals, which are rich in bone earth, to that of young animals, and always accompanies it with garden vegetables; she gives the child especially bones to gnaw, and excludes from its diet veal, fish, and potatoes; to the excitable child of weak digestive powers, she gives, in its farinacceous food, infusion
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of malt and uses milk sugar, the respiratory matter prepared by nature herself for the respiratory process, in preference to cane sugar; and she allows him the unlimited use of salt."
But besides the flesh-making ingredients, namely, the albumen and fibrin, we have shown that it is needful the blood should have food for oxygen; this also is contained in milk, grain, pulse, vegetables and meat. In the meat as fat, which more or less the juices of the meat and even the lean contain, in the pulse, grain, potatoes, as starch, in the vegetables, as sugar of various kinds, and in milk, as sugar of milk.
At first sight, few things seem less alike than starch and sugar, but modern discovery had proved that our saliva--the natural moisture of the mouth (which in its froth, as it is swallowed with every mouthful of food, always contains air) has power, when mixed with moistened starch at the heat of the stomach, to turn the starch into sugar; and again we find that butter and fat contain the same ingredients as starch and sugar, but with this difference, that ten ounces of fat will feed as much oxygen as twenty-four ounces of starch. Grains, vegetables, milk, and meats differ from each other, and amongst themselves in their quantities of flesh-producing and oxygen-feeding substances; but whether the oxygen feeders be in the form of sugar or fat, we can tell exactly how much starch they amount to, and the following list taken from Baron Leibig's Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in this way shows the relative value of the several kinds of food in flesh-producing, and oxygen-feeding, or warmth-giving ingredients.
Flesh Producing. Warmth Giving.
Human milk has for every ten flesh-producing parts..........10 40
Cows' milk..................................................10 30
Lentils.....................................................10 21
Horse beans.................................................10 22
Peas........................................................10 23
Fat mutton..................................................10 27
Fat pork....................................................10 30
Beef........................................................10 17
Hare........................................................10 2
Veal........................................................10 1
Wheat flour.................................................10 46
Oatmeal.....................................................10 50
Rye flour...................................................10 57
Barley......................................................10 57
White potatoes..............................................10 86
Black ditto.................................................10 115
Rice........................................................10 123
Buckwheat flour.............................................10 130
Here, then, we have proof of the value of variety in food, and
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come upon what may be called the philosophy of Cookery.* In our food the proportions of human milk are the best we can aim at; it has enough of flesh-producing ingredients to restore our daily waste and enough of warmth-giving to feed the oxygen we breathe. To begin with the earliest making of dishes, we find that cows' milk has less of oxygen-feeding ingredients in a given measure than human milk; a child would, therefore, grow thin upon it unless a little sugar were added; wheat flour has, on the other hand, so much an excess of oxygen feeding-power as would fatten a child unhealthily, and it should therefore have cows' milk added to reduce the fattening power.
The same sort of procedure applies in greater or less degree to all dishes. Veal and hare stand lowest in their list for their oxygen-feeding qualities, and, on this account, should be eaten with potatoes or rice, which stand highest, and with bacon and jelly which furnish in their fat and sugar the carbon wanting in the flesh. With the above table before us, and keeping in mind the facts already detailed, it is clear that cookery should supply us with a mixed diet of animal and vegetable food, and should aim so to mix as to give us for every ounce of the flesh-making ingredients in our food, four ounces of oxygen-feeding ingredients. It is clear, also, that the most nourishing or strength-giving of all foods are fresh red meats, they are flesh ready made, and contain, besides, the iron which gives its red color to the blood, being short of which the blood lacks vitality, and wanting which it dies.
To preserve in dressing the full nourishment of meats, and their properties of digestiveness, forms a most important part of the art of cooking; for these ends the object to be kept in mind is to retain as much as possible the juices of the meat, whether roast or boiled. This, in the case of boiling meat is best done by placing it at once in briskly boiling water; the albumen on the surface and to some depth, is immediately coagulated, and thus forms a kind of covering which neither allows the water to get into the meat, nor the meat juice into the water. The water should then be kept just under boiling until the meat be thoroughly done, which it will be when every part has been heated to about 165 degrees, the temperature at which the coloring matter of the blood coagulates or fixes; at 133 degrees the albumen sets, but the blood does not, and therefore the meat is red and raw.
The same rules apply to roasting: the meat should first be brought near enough a bright fire to brown the outside, and then should be allowed to roast slowly.
[Editorial note: The following footnote appears at the bottom of page xii in the original text.]
*"Among all the arts known to man," says Leibig, "there is none which enjoys a juster appreciation, and the products of which are more universally admired, than that which is concerned in the preparation of our food.
Belonging to this question of waste and nourishment it is to be noted, that the almost everywhere-agreed-upon notion that soup, which sets into strong jelly, must be the most nutritious, is altogether a mistake.
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The soup sets because it contains the gelatine or glue of the sinews, flesh, and bones: but on this imagined richness alone it has, by recent experiments, been proved that no animal can live. The jelly of bones boiled into soup, can furnish only jelly for our bones; the jelly of sinew or calf's feet can form only sinew; neither flesh nor its juices set into a jelly. It is only by long boiling we obtain a soup that sets, but in a much less time we get all the nourishing properties that meat yields in soups which are no doubt useful in cases of recovery from illness when the portions of the system in which it occurs have been wasted, but in other cases, though easily enough digested, jelly is unwholesome, for it loads the blood with not only useless but disturbing products. Nor does jelly stand alone. Neither can we live on meat which has been cleared of fat, long boiled, and has had all the juice pressed out of it; a dog so fed, lost in forth-three days a fourth of his weight; in fifty-five days he bore all the appearance of starvation, and yet such meat has all the muscular fibre in it. In the same way, animals fed on pure casein, albumen, fibrin of vegetables, starch, sugar, or fat, died, with every appearance of death by hunger.
Further experiment showed that these worse than useless foods were entirely without certain matters which are always to be found in the blood, namely, phosphoric acid, potash, soda, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron,* and common salt (in certain of these we may mention, by way of parenthesis, that veal is especially deficient, and hence its difficulty of digestion and poor nutrient properties.) These salts of the blood, as they are termed in chemistry, are to be found in the several wheys and juices of meat, milk, pulse, and grain. Here then was the proof complete, that such food, to support life, must contain the several ingredients of the blood, and that the stomach cannot make, nor the body do without the least of them.
It is an established truth in physiology, that man is omnivorous--that is, constituted to eat almost every kind of food which, separately, nourishes other animals. His teeth are formed to masticate and his stomach to digest flesh, fish, and all farinaceous and vegetable substances--he can eat and digest these even in a raw state; but it is necessary to perfect them for his nourishment in the most healthy manner, that they be prepared by cooking--that is, softened by the action of fire and water.
[Editorial note: The following footnote appears at the bottom of page xiii in the original text.]
*Some determined advocates of the vegetable system maintain, that the teeth and stomach of the monkey correspond, in structure, very closely with that of man, yet it lives on fruits--therefore, if man followed nature, he would live on fruits and vegetables. But though the anatomical likeness between man and monkeys is striking, yet it is not complete; the difference may be and doubtless is precisely that which makes a difference of diet necessary to nourish and develope their dissimilar natures. Those who should live as the monkeys do would most closely resemble them.
In strict accordance with this philosophy, which makes a portion of animal food necessary to develop and sustain the human constitution,
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in its most perfect state of physical, intellectual and moral strength and beauty, we know that now in every country, where a mixed diet is habitually used, as in the temperate climates, there the greatest improvement of the race is to be found, and the greatest energy of character. It is that portion of the human family, who have the means of obtaining this food at least once a day, who now hold dominion over the earth. Forty thousand of the beef-fed British govern and control ninety millions of the rice-eating natives of India.
In every nation on earth the
rulers, the men of power, whether princes or priests, almost invariably use a portion of animal food. The people are often compelled, either from poverty or policy, to abstain.--Whenever the time shall arrive that every
peasant in Europe is able to "put his pullet in the pot, of a Sunday," a great improvement will have taken place in his character and condition; when he can have a portion of animal food, properly cooked, once each day, he will soon become a
man.
In our own country, the beneficial effects of a generous diet, in developing and sustaining the energies of a whole nation, are clearly evident. The severe and unremitting labors of every kind, which were requisite to subdue and obtain dominion of a wilderness world, could not have been done by a half-starved, suffering people. A larger quantity and better quality and better quality of food are necessary here than would have supplied men in the old countries, where less action of body and mind are permitted.
Still, there is great danger of excess in all indulgences of the appetite; even when a present benefit may be obtained, this danger should never be forgotten. The tendency in our country has been to excess in animal food. The advocates of the vegetable diet system had good cause for denouncing this excess, and the indiscriminate use of flesh. It was, and now is, frequently given to young children--infants beforerhey have teeth,--a sin against nature, which often costs the life of the poor little sufferer; it is eaten too freely by the sedentary and delicate; and to make it worse still, it is eaten, often in a half-cooked state, and swallowed without sufficient chewing. All these things are wrong, and ought to be reformed.
I hope this "New Book of Cookery" will have some effect in enlightening public opinion on the proper kinds of food, and on the best manner of preparing it.
It is generally admitted that the French excel in the economy of their cooking. By studying the appropriate flavors for every dish, they contrive to dress all the broken pieces of meats, and make a variety of dishes from vegetables at a small expense.
Next to the knowledge of the differences in the human constitution, and the nature of the food proper for man, this study of flavors and art of re-cooking to advantage is to be prized by the good housekeeper. Every family who has a garden spot should cultivate those vegetables and herbs which are requisite for seasoning-horse-radish, onions,
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celery, mustard, capsicum, (red-pepper,) sage, summer savory, mint, &c. &c. are easily raised. These, if rightly prepared, will be sufficient for all common culinary purposes, and a little care and study will enable the housekeeper to flavor her meats, gravies, and vegetables in the best manner.
Bear in mind that in preparing food, three things are to be united, the promotion of health, the study of economy, and the gratification of taste.
Times of taking Food.--Nature has no fixed particular hours for eating. When the mode of life is uniform, it is of great importance to adopt fixed hours; when it is irregular, we ought to be guided by the real wants of the system as dictated by appetite.
A strong laboring man, engaged in hard work, will require food oftener and in larger quantities than an indolent or sedentary man.
As a general rule, about five hours should elapse between one meal and another--longer, if the mode of life be indolent; shorter, if it be very active.
When dinner is delayed seven or eight hours after breakfast, some slight refreshment should be taken between.
Young persons when growing fast, require more food and at shorter intervals than those do who have attained maturity.
Children under seven years of age, usually need food every three hours: a piece of bread will be a healthy lunch, and a child seldom eats bread to excess.
Those persons who eat a late supper should not take breakfast till one or two hours after rising. Those who dine late, and eat nothing afterwards, require breakfast soon after rising.
Proper quantity of Food.--As a general fact, those who can obtain sufficient food, eat much more than is required for their sustenance.
Children should never be fed or tempted to eat when appetite is satisfied; and grown persons should also be careful of eating beyond that point.
The indigestion so much complained of, and which causes so many disorders and sufferings in the human system, is a wise provision of nature, to prevent the repletion which would otherwise ensue, when too much food is taken.
The power of digestion is limited to the amount of gastric juice the stomach is capable of providing: exercise in the open air, promotes the secretion of the gastric juice.
It is a good and safe rule to proportion our meals to the amount of exercise we have taken; if that exercise has been in the open air, there is less danger of excess. The delicate lady, who scarcely walks abroad, should live very sparingly, or she will be troubled with nervousness, headache, and all the horrors of indigestion.
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> TABLE OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
By which persons not having scales and weights at hand may readily measure the articles wanted to form any receipt, without the trouble of weighing. Allowance to be made for extraordinary dryness or moisture of the article weighed or measured.
Wheat and flour.................one pound is...................one quart.
Indian meal.....................one pound, two ounces, is......one quart.
Butter, when soft...............one pound is...................one quart.
Loaf sugar, broken..............one pound is...................one quart.
White sugar, powdered...........one pound, one ounce, is.......one quart.
Best brown sugar................one pound, two ounces, is .....one quart.
Eggs............................ten eggs are...................one pound.
Flour...........................eight quarts are...............one peck.
Flour...........................four pecks are.................one bushel.
Sixteen large table-spoonfuls are..............................half a pint.
Eight large table-spoonfuls are................................one gill.
Four large table-spoonfuls are.................................half a gill.
Two gills are..................................................half a pint.
Two pints are..................................................one quart.
Four quarts are................................................one gallon.
A common-sized tumbler holds...................................half a pint.
A common-sized wine-glass......................................half a gill.
Twenty-five drops are equal to one tea-spoonful.
> WEIGHT AND MEASURE.
> LIQUIDS.
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> THE LADY'S NEW BOOK OF COOKERY.
> CHAPTER I.
>
GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR SOUPS AND STOCK.
Cleanliness Essential--Proper Meats--Water--Time--Ingredients--To Clarify--Seasoning--Stock--Brown--White--Veal Gravy--Jellies--Coloring.
THE perfection of soup is, that it should have no particular flavor: this can only be secured by careful proportion of the several ingredients.
The kettles in which the soups are made should be well tinned, and kept particularly clean, by being washed in hot water and rubbed dry before they are put away; otherwise they will have a musty smell, which will give a disagreeable taste to all things afterwards cooked in them. If they are not kept well tinned also, the taste as well as the color of the soup will be liable to be affected by the iron; and if the soup-kettle be made of copper and the tinning not quite perfect, every thing cooked in it will be in a greater or less degree poisonous as every thing which is sweet, salt, or sour, extracts verdigris from copper.
Soup must never be suffered to stand in any vessel of tin, or copper, or iron, to get cold; but always must be poured off, while hot, into a shallow, well-glazed earthenware pan, and be stirred about, every five minutes, till it is nearly cold, otherwise, the liquor will become sour.
Lean, juicy, fresh-killed meat, is best for soup: stale meat will make it ill-flavored; and fat meat is very wasteful. An economical cook will save, as ingredients for soup, the liquor
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in which meat has been boiled; for example, leg of pork liquor may be easily made into peas' soup; and calf's head liquor, and knuckle, be made the base or stock of white soup. The trimmings of undressed meat and game will be useful to enrich soups; and the bones of dressed or undressed meat assist to make a good stock. Ham gives fine flavor, as well as the bone of a dressed ham, taking care to allow for its saltness.
Soft water should
always be used for making soup, unless it be of
green peas, in which case
hard water better preserves its color; and it is a good general rule to apportion a quart of water to a pound of meat, that is to say,
flesh without bone; but rich soups may have a smaller quantity of water.
Meat for soup should never be drowned at first in water, but put into the kettle with a very small quantity and a piece of butter, merely to keep the meat from burning until the juices are extracted; by which means of stewing the gravy will be drawn from it before the remainder of the water is added. A single pound will thus afford better and richer soup than treble the quantity saturated with cold water.
The water in the soup-kettle, when first put on, should not be allowed to boil for at least half an hour; else the water will not penetrate, but harden the meat, and keep in the impurities which, in slow heating, will rise as scum. Long and slow boiling, for at least four or six hours, is necessary to extract the strength from meat; but the pot should never be off the boil from the time it commences. The fat should be taken off as it rises. If, however, as is generally thought desirable, the soup should be prepared the day before it is wanted, the fat can be removed when cold, in a cake; and the soup attains more consistence without losing the flavor; but it need not be seasoned till wanted, and then slowly heated till boiling.
When put away to cool, the soup should be poured into a freshly scalded, and thoroughly dried
earthen pan; and, when to be kept for some days, occasionally simmered for a few minutes over the fire, to prevent its becoming mouldy; in re-warming soup be careful not to pour in the sediment.
All vegetables, bread-raspings, or barley, for plain common soups, when merely intended to thicken and flavor the soup, should be put in as soon as the pot is skimmed; but if the vegetables are to be served in the soup, none, with the exception of onions, should be put down to stew at the same time as the meat, and the different sorts should be put down at different
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times.
Onions, whether whole, or sliced and fried, at once;
pot-herbs, carrots, and
celery, three hours afterwards; and
turnips and others of a delicate kind, only about an hour before the soup is ready.
Spices should be put whole into soups; allspice is one of the best, though it is not so highly esteemed as it deserves.
Seville orange-juice has a finer and milder acid than lemon-juice; but both should be used with caution.
Sweet herbs, for soups or broths, consist of knotted
marjoram, thyme, and
parsley,--a sprig of each tied together.
Tarragon is also used in soups.
The older and drier onions are, the stronger their flavor; in dry seasons, also, they are very strong: the quantity should be proportioned accordingly.
Although celery may generally be obtained for soup throughout the year, it may be useful to know, that dried celery-seed is an excellent substitute. It is so strongly flavored, that a dram of whole seed will enrich half a gallon of soup as much as will two heads of celery.
Mushrooms are much used, and when they cannot be obtained fresh, mushroom ketchup will answer the purpose, but it should be used very sparingly, as nothing is more difficult to remove than the over-flavoring of ketchup.
A piece of butter, in proportion to the liquid, mixed with flour, and added to the soup, when boiling, will enrich and thicken it. Arrow-root, or the farina or flour of potato, is far better for the thickening of soups than wheaten flour.
The finer flavoring articles, as ketchup, spices, wines, juice, &c., should not be added till the soup is nearly done.
A good proportion of wine is, a gill to three pints of soup, this is as much as can be used without the vinous flavor predominating, which is never the case in well made soups. Wine should be added late in the making, as it evaporates very quickly in boiling.
Be cautious of
over-seasoning soups, with pepper, salt, spices, or herbs; for it is a fault that can seldom be remedied: any provision over-salted is spoiled. A tea-spoonful of sugar is a good addition in flavoring soups.
Vermicelli is added to soups in the proportion of a quarter of a pound for a tureen of soup for eight persons: it should be broken, then blanched in cold water, and is better if stewed in broth before it is put into the soup.
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If soups are too weak do not cover them in boiling, that the watery particles may evaporate; but if strong, cover the soup-kettle close. If they want flavor, most of the prepared sauces will give it to meat-soups, and anchovy with walnut ketchup and soy, will add to those of fish, but must be used sparingly.
If
coloring be wanted, a piece of bread toasted as brown as possible--but not blackened--and put into soup to simmer for a short time before its going to be served, will generally be found sufficient. Burnt onions will materially assist in giving a fine brown color to soup, and also improve the flavor, or burnt sugar, the usual browning may be used.
To clarify soup, put into it, when first set on, the whites of 1 or 2 eggs beaten to a stiff froth; skim the pot constantly, and the liquor will be clear when strained. Soak the napkin in cold water before you strain hot soup through it, as the cold will harden the fat and only allow the clear soup to pass through. Clarifying destroys somewhat of the savor of the soup, which ought, therefore, to be more highly seasoned.
It is very usual to put force-meat balls, of various sorts, into many different soups, for the purpose of improving their flavor and appearance.
There is sometimes great prejudice against the use of particular sorts of seasoning and spices.
Garlic is amongst these; and many a dish is deprived of its finest flavor for want of a moderate use of it.
Tomatoes would also be found a great improvement in many kinds of soup. If onions are too strong, boil a turnip with them, and it will render them mild.
In stirring soup, do it always with a wooden spoon.
By a
tureen of soup is generally meant 3 quarts.
Soup-Herb Powder, or Vegetable Relish, is an excellent article to keep on hand; it may always be used when fresh herbs cannot be had. Make it in the following manner. Take
dried parsely--winter savory--sweet marjoram--lemon-thyme of each
two ounces; lemon peel, cut very thin and dried--and
sweet basil, one ounce each. Dry these ingredients in a warm (not hot) oven, or by the fire, till you can pound them fine in a mortar, and pass the powder through a hair-sieve. Put this powder in a clean dry bottle, and keep it closely corked. The fragrance will be retained many months. It is an economical and delicious flavoring.
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> STOCK.
[Illustration: An illustration of a tall pot with a handle on each side and a lid.]
The basis of all well-made soups is composed of what English cooks call
"Stock," or broth, made from all sorts of meat, bones, and the remains of poultry or game; all of which may be put together and stewed down in the "Stock-pot;" the contents of which are, by the French, termed
Consommé.
This is chiefly used for the preparation of
brown or gravy soups: that intended for
white soups being rather differently compounded, though made in nearly the same manner.
Brown Stock. -- Put 10 lbs. of shin of beef, 6 lbs. of knuckle of veal, and some sheep's trotters or a cow-heel, in a closely covered stew-pan, to draw out the gravy very gently, and allow it nearly to dry in until it becomes brown. Then pour in sufficient boiling water to entirely cover the meat, and let it boil up, skimming it frequently; seasoning it with whole peppers and salt, roots, herbs, and vegetables of any kind. That being done, let it boil gently 5 or 6 hours, pour the broth from off the meat, and let it stand during the night to cool. The following morning take off the scum and fat, and put it away in a stone jar for further use.
Or:--Put into a stew-pan a piece of beef, a piece of veal, an old fowl, some slices of ham or bacon, and all the trimmings of meat that can be obtained; add to these materials, where such things are abundant, partridge, grouse, or other game, which may not be sufficiently young and tender for the spit. Put a little water to it, just enough to cover half the meat, and stew very gently over a slow fire or steam apparatus. When the top piece is done through, cover the meat with boiling water or broth; season with spices and vegetables; stew all together for 8 or 10 hours in an uncovered stew-pan; skim off the fat, and strain the liquor through a fine sieve, or woollen
tamis,known by cooks as a "tammy."
Brown stock may be made from an ox-cheek, ox-tail, brisket,
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flank, or shin of beef; which will, either together or separately, make a strong jelly if stewed down with a piece of ham or lean bacon, in the proportion of 1/2 lb. to every 7 lbs. of meat; but the shin of beef
alone will afford a stronger and better flavor.
This stock may also be reduced to a
glaze by boiling the skimmed liquor as fast as possible in a newly-tinned stew-pan, until it becomes of the desired consistence and of a good brown color; taking care at the same time to prevent it from burning.
White Stock. --Take scrag or knuckle of veal, ox-heel, or calf's-head, together with an old fowl and the trimmings of any white poultry or game which can be had, and lean ham in the proportion of 1 lb. to every 14 lbs. of meat. Cut it all into pieces (add 3 or 4 large
unroasted onions and heads of celery, with a few blades of mace; but neither carrots, pepper, nor spice of any kind but mace); put into the stock-pot with just water enough to cover it: let it boil, and add 3 onions and a few blades of mace; let it boil for 5 hours, and it is then fit for use.
Veal Gravy. --When all the meat has been taken from a knuckle of veal, divide the bones, and lay them in a stew-pot, with a pound of the scrag of a neck, an ounce of lean bacon, a bunch of parsley, a little thyme, a bit of lemon-peel, and a dessert-spoonful of pepper: add as much water as will cover them. Boil and skim it; stop the pot down close, and let it simmer, as slowly as possible, 3 hours. Strain off, and let it stand till cold; then skim it, and take the jelly from the sediment. Pound some mace fine, and boil it with 2 spoonsful of water, and add to the gravy. If cream is to be put to it, do not add the salt until the gravy comes off the fire.
Savoury, or Aspic Jelly. --Bone 4 calves' feet, clean them, boil, and skim till the water is quite clear; simmer till the feet are done, add 1/2 lb. of lean ham, and strain, remove the fat, add the juice of two lemons, a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, a blade of mace, some salt, a sprig of knotted marjoram, thyme, and parsley, and 2 onions; whisk in the whites of 10 eggs, and boil till they are curdled; then pass the whole through a jelly-bag till clear. 2 table-spoonsful of tarragon vinegar will heighten the flavor.
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This jelly may be put into meat pies, when warm, or upon the tops of cold pies: cold meats, and fish, are likewise garnished with it; for which purposes it is sometimes colored pink with cochineal, or green with spinach-juice.
Cow-heel Jelly --Is useful to thicken and improve weak soups. It may be made as follows:--soak the heels 12 hours; boil them 3 hours, and when cold, take off the fat; when nearly clear, lay white paper on the jelly, and rub it with a spoon to remove any grease that may remain.
Brown Coloring for Soup or Made Dishes. --Put in a small stew-pan 4 oz. of lump sugar, and 1/2 oz. of the finest butter, and set it over a gentle fire. Stir it with a wooden spoon till of a bright brown. Add 1/2 pint of water; boil, skim, and when cold, bottle and cork it close. Add to the soup or gravy as much of this as will give a proper color.
To restore Soups or Gravy. --Should brown gravy or mock turtle soup be spoiling, fresh-made charcoal roughly pounded, tied in a little bag and boiled with either, will absorb the bad flavor and leave it sweet and good. The charcoal may be made by simply putting a bit of wood into the fire, and pounding the burnt part in a mortar.
Mullagatawny means, simply,
pepper-water. The following is the receipt to make it. Slice and fry 1 or 2 large onions, add 1 table-spoonful of Chili vinegar, and a spoonful of curry powder; mix it well with a pint of water, or more, according to taste, and salt. Let it boil for an hour, well covered, over a slow fire. This is excellent in flatulencies and bilious complaints, and may be used to flavor the broths for invalids.
Curry Powder. --Put the following ingredients in a cool oven all night, and the next morning pound them in a marble mortar, and rub them through a fine sieve:--Coriander seed, 3 oz.;
turmeric, 3 ounces;
black pepper, mustard, ginger, 1 oz. each;
allspice and less
cardamons, 1/2 oz. each;
cummin seed, 1/4 oz.; thoroughly pound and mix together, and keep the powder in a well-stopped bottle.
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>
CHAPTER II.
SOUPS.
Utensil for cooking Soup--White--Veal--Currie--Potage Harrico--Chicken--Cottage--Pepper-pot-- Portable--Glaze--Clear Gravy--Maccaroni--Sago--Vermicelli--Potato--Asparagus--Tomato--Peas--Ochra--Gumbo--Rice--Onion--Carrot--Venison--IIure-Mullagatawny--Pigeon--Maigre--Turtle--Lobster--Clam--Oyster--Chowder--Eel--Fish--Broths.
A COMMON camp-kettle will be found an excellent utensil for making soup, as the lid is heavy and will keep in the steam. An earthen pipkin or jar of this form, if of a long and narrow make, widening a little in the centre, is perhaps one of the best vessels for soups, and universally used by foreign cooks, who insist "that it renders the gravy more clear and limpid, and extracts more savor from the meat, than when made in tin or copper."
[Illustration: An illustration of a camp-kettle.]
White Soup. --Take a good knuckle of veal, or 2 or 3 short shanks; boil it in 4 quarts of water about 4 hours, with some whole white pepper, a little mace, salt, 2 onions, and a small piece of lean ham; strain it, and when cold take off all the fat and sediment; beat up 6 yolks of eggs, and mix them with a pint of cream; then pour the boiling soup upon it. Boil the cream before putting it in the soup.
Veal Soup. --Skin 4 lbs. of a knuckle of veal; break it and cut it small; put it into a stew-pan with 2 gallons of water; when it boils skim it, and let it simmer till reduced to 2 quarts;
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strain and season it with white pepper, salt, a little mace, a dessert-spoonful of lemon juice, and thicken it with a large table-spoonful of flour, kneaded with an ounce of butter.
Currie Soup. -- Season 2 quarts of strong veal broth with 2 onions, a bunch of parsley, salt, and pepper; strain it, and have ready a chicken, cut in joints, and skinned; put it in the broth with a table-spoonful of curry powder; boil the chicken till quite tender. A little before serving, add the juice of a lemon, and a tea-cupful of boiling cream. Serve boiled rice to eat with this soup.
N.B. Always boil cream before putting it in soup or gravy.
Veal Potage. --Take off a knuckle of veal all the meat that can be made into cutlets, &c., and set the remainder on to stew, with an onion, a bunch of herbs, a blade of mace, some whole pepper, and 5 pints of water: cover it close; and let it do on a slow fire, 4 or 5 hours at least. Strain it, and set it by till next day; then take the fat and sediment from the jelly, and simmer it with either turnips, celery, sea-kale, and Jerusalem artichokes, or some of each, cut into small dice, till tender, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Before serving, rub down half a spoonful of flour, with half a pint of good cream, and butter the size of a walnut, and boil a few minutes. Let a small roll simmer in the soup, and serve this with it. It should be as thick as middling cream, and, if thus made of the vegetables above mentioned, will make a very delicate white potage. The potage may also be thickened with rice and pearl-barley; or the veal may be minced, and served up in the tureen.
Potage a la Reine. -- Is so called from its having been said to be a favorite soup at the table of Queen Victoria.
Stew 2 or 3 young fowls for about an hour in good fresh-made veal broth: then take them out, skin them and pound the breast, or only the white meat, in a mortar until it becomes quite smooth. That done, mash the yolks of 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs with the crumb of a French roll, soaked either in broth or in milk, and mix this with the pounded meat to form a paste, which must be afterwards passed through a sieve. During this operation the bones and skin have been left stewing in the broth, which must then be strained, and the paste
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put gradually into it: then, let it boil briskly for a short time, stirring it all the while to ensure its thorough mixture. When that is done, take it from the fire; warm a pint or more of cream, and pour it gently into the soup.
This being a delicate white soup, the broth should only be seasoned with salt and mace, nor should there be any other vegetable used than celery; but the cream may be flavored with almonds.
Hurrico Soup. --Cut some mutton cutlets from the neck; trim and fry them of a light brown; stew in brown gravy soup till tender. Have ready some carrots, turnips, celery, and onions; fry them in butter for some time, and clear the soup from the fat; then add the vegetables, color it, and thicken it with butter and flour; season, and add to it a little port wine and ketchup. If the gravy be ready, the soup will require no more time to prepare than may be necessary to render the chops and vegetables tender, and is an excellent family dish. If wished to be made more highly flavored, put in a little curry powder.
Soup for an Invalid. --Cut in small pieces, 1 lb. of beef or mutton, or part of both; boil it gently in 2 quarts of water; take off the scum, and when reduced to a pint, strain it. Season with a little salt, and take a tea-cupful at a time.
Chicken Soup. --Cut up a large fowl, and boil it well in milk and water; thicken with cream, butter, and flour. Add vegetables of different kinds cut in small pieces, such as potatoes, turnips, the heart of cabbage, one or two onions, celery, &c., with thyme, parsley, cayenne or black pepper, and mace. Boil all together: and just before you dish it, add wine, or a little lemon juice, and salt to your taste.
Shin of Beef Soup. - Put on the shin at 7 o'clock in the morning to boil--at 9 o'clock add the vegetables; take a large head of cabbage cut fine, 12 carrots cut small, 5 or 6 turnips, 2 or 3 potatoes, 2 onions roasted in hot ashes, and, if tomatoes are in season, add 2 or 3. Put in thyme, parsley, black pepper, salt, allspice, and a little mace.
When you serve, take out the meat first, and with a skimmer
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take from the bottom the thick part of the vegetables; mash them to a pulp, and pour on them the more liquid part. Serve the meat separately in a dish. This soup is excellent the second day, if kept quite sweet. Some people add mushrooms, parsnips, &c.
Cottage Soups. --Take 2 lbs. of lean beef, cut into small pieces, with 1/4 lb. of bacon, 2 lbs. of mealy potatoes, 3 oz. of rice, carrots, turnips, and onions sliced, and cabbage. Fry the meat, cabbage, and onions, in butter or dripping, the latter being the most savory; and put them into a gallon of water, to stew gently over a slow fire for 3 hours, putting in the carrots at the same time, but the turnips and rice only time enough to allow of their being well done; and mashing the potatoes, which should be then passed through a cullender: season only with pepper and salt: keep the vessel closely covered. It will make 5 pints of excellent soup.
Or:--To any quantity or kind of broth, add whatever vegetables may be in season, and stew them gently till quite tender. Then strain the soup; thicken it with flour and water, to be mixed gradually while simmering; and, when that is done, and seasoned to your taste, return the vegetables to the soup, and simmer for an hour.
Pepper Pot. --Stew gently in 4 quarts of water, till reduced to 3, 3 lbs. of beef, 1/2 lb. of lean ham, a bunch of dried thyme, 2 onions, 2 large potatoes pared and sliced; then strain it through a cullender, and add a large fowl, cut into joints and skinned, 1/2 lb. of pickled pork sliced, the meat of 1 lobster minced, and some small suet dumplings, the size of a walnut. When the fowl is well boiled, add 1/2 a peck of spinach that has been boiled and rubbed through a cullender; season with salt and cayenne. It is very good without the lean ham and fowl.
Portable Soup. -- Put on, in 4 gallons of water, 10 lbs. of a shin of beef, free from fat and skin, 6 lbs. of a knuckle of veal and 2 fowls, break the bones and cut the meat into small pieces, season with 1 oz. of whole black pepper, 1/4 oz. of Jamaica pepper, and the same of mace, cover the pot very closely, and let it simmer for 12 or 14 hours, and then strain it. The following day, take off the fat, and clear the jelly from any sediment adhering to it; boil it gently upon a stove without covering
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the sauce-pan, and stir it frequently till it thickens to a strong glue. Pour it into broad tin pans, and put it in a cool oven. When it will take the impression of a knife, score it in equal squares, and hang it in a south window, or near a stove. When dry, break it at the scores. Wrap it in paper, and put it closely up in boxes. There should always be a large supply of this soup, as with it and ketchup, no one will ever be at a loss for dressed dishes and soups.
Glaze. --Glaze is made like portable soup; a small portion will flavor a pint of water, and, with an onion, parsley, sweet herbs, allspice, and seasoning of salt and Cayenne pepper, will make a fine soup in a very short time. Sauces and gravies for game or poultry, are likewise quickly made with glaze.
Clear Gravy Soup. --Take solid lean beef in the proportion of 1 lb. of meat and 2 oz. of ham to 1 pint of water; cover the meat with cold water, and let it simmer by the fire for at least 3 hours; during which time it should not be allowed to boil, but, when coming to that point, check it with cold water, and skim it. As the gravy will then be drawn, throw in 3 quarts of warm water, along with 1/4 oz. each of black pepper, allspice, and salt, as well as a bundle of sweet herbs, a few cloves, 2 onions, 2 or 3 carrots and turnips, (the latter an hour afterwards,) together with 2 heads of celery; allow the whole to boil slowly, skimming it carefully, until the meat is done to rags, and the vegetables become tender. Then strain it through a napkin, without squeezing it. Boil the vegetables to be served in the soup separately, a few hours before dinner, in a portion of the broth, and add them to the soup. When soup is sufficiently boiled on the first day, all that it requires on the second is, to be made thoroughly hot.
This soup should be of a clear amber color, without any artificial browning; but if wanted of a deep color, a burnt onion will suffice.
This soup is, in fact, the foundation of all gravy soups, which are called after the names of the ingredients put in them; that is, vermicelli, macaroni, rice, barley, &c.
Macaroni Soups. --Take a quart of gravy soup; break 2 oz. of Naples macaroni into pieces of little more than an inch long,
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putting them, by degrees, into a small portion of the boiling soup, to prevent them from sticking together, and let them boil until quite tender, but not soft or pulpy--from 15 to 20 minutes, if quite fresh, but nearly 1/2 an hour, if at all stale. Vermicelli is used in the same manner. They will improve the consistence of the soup if the quantity above stated be added; but it is useless, and does not look well, to see as at some tables, only a few strings of it floating in the tureen.
Sago Soup. --Take gravy soup, quite clear and brown; add to it a sufficient quantity of sago to thicken it to the consistence of pea-soup, and season it with soy and ketchup; to which may be added a small glass of red wine, or a little lemon juice. It may also be made,
as a white soup, of beef, by leaving out the soy and ketchup, and using white wine, adding a little cream and mace.
Vermicelli Soup. --Put into a stew-pan 1 1/2 lbs. of lean veal, a small slice of lean ham, a bunch of sweet herbs, a head of celery, an onion, some whole white pepper, a blade of mace, and 1/4 lb. of butter; set the pan over a clear fire, taking care the articles do not burn; then thicken 2 quarts of white gravy and pour it into the pan, adding a few mushroom trimmings: when it boils, set it aside, remove the scum and fat, and strain the soup upon some vermicelli, which has been soaked a few minutes in cold water, and stewed in strong broth. This soup is sometimes served with a few blanched chervil leaves in it.
potato Soup [Scotch]. --Rasp off the skin of as many potatoes as will make the quantity required; throw them into tepid water to cleanse; have water, with a little clarified dripping, butter, the stock of roast beef bones, or any other stock; put in the potatoes, and fry some onions and add them, and let it simmer till it has thickened, and the potatoes are all dissolved. A salt or red herring is an excellent relish for this soup, or a little cheese. It is astonishing, that Rumford's economical plans have made so very little progress amongst us.
This is an excellent family soup, as well as for the poor Rasped carrots, celery, and sweet herbs, are great improvements; turnips and carrots may be cut down and served in it. Should the potatoes fall to the bottom, mix in a little rice flour or fried crumbs. It may also be made with a mixture of peas.
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Asparagus Soup. --cut off the heads of asparagus about an inch long, blanch and set aside in cold water a 1/2 pint of them; put the remainder of the heads in a stew-pan, with the rest of the asparagus, broken off as low as tender, and stew them in white stock till they can be pulped through a sieve; boil them with the soup, and add the 1/3 pint of whole heads previously dried. Add 2 or 3 lumps of sugar. To make 2 quarts of this soup will require 300 heads of asparagus.