Put in soup pot some very plain stock, or water will do quite well. Add 1 lb. lentils, 1/2 lb. onions, small carrot, piece of turnip, and a stick or two of celery, all chopped small, also a teacupful tomatoes. Boil slowly for two hours, pass through a sieve and return to soup pot. Melt a dessert-spoonful butter and stir slowly into it twice as much flour, add gradually a gill of milk. When quite smooth add to soup and stir till it boils. This is a very good soup and might be preferred by some without straining the vegetables. The lentils might be boiled separately and put through a sieve before adding. The foregoing are all varieties of White Soup and these could be extended indefinitely; but as such variations will suggest themselves to everyone, it is not necessary to take up space here. I might just mention that a most delicious
4 good-sized carrots, 1 small head of celery, 1 fair-sized onion, 1 turnip, 3 oz. of breadcrumbs, 1-1/2 oz. of butter, 1 blade of mace, pepper and salt to taste. Scrape and wash the vegetables, and cut them up small; set them over the fire with 3 pints of water, the butter, bread, and mace. Let all boil together, until the vegetables are quite tender, and then rub them through a sieve. Return the mixture to the saucepan, season with pepper and salt, and if too thick add water to the soup, which should be as thick as cream, boil the soup up, and serve.
Milk soup, as it is sometimes called in Germany, very much resembles English custard. It is made by putting a quart of milk on the fire and thickening it with two yolks of eggs and a little flour, and sweetening it with sugar. The soup is flavoured with either vanilla, lemon, laurel leaves, pounded almonds, cinnamon, chocolate, &c. As a soup, however, it is not suited to the English palate.
Just as in ordinary white soup the secret of success is to have some strongly reduced stock, so in vegetarian white soup it is essential that we should have a small quantity of liquid strongly impregnated with the flavour of vegetables. For this purpose, place an onion, the white part of a head of celery, and a slice of turnip in a stew-pan with a little butter, and fry them till they are tender without becoming brown. Now add sufficient water to enable you to boil them, and let the water boil away till very little is left. Now rub this through a wire sieve and add it to a quart of milk in which a couple of bay-leaves have been boiled. Thicken the soup with a little white roux, add a suspicion of nutmeg, and also, if possible, a little cream. Flavour with pepper and salt. Serve fried or toasted bread with the soup.
When this soup is well made it is a general favourite, but it must be well made, for it is impossible to appreciate the greasy, yellow, dish-water-looking liquid which is sometimes served in that name. Put in a saucepan 2 ozs. butter, and into that shred finely 1/2 or 1 lb. onions. Add half or more of a tin of tomatoes or about 1 lb. fresh ones sliced, and a cup of water or stock. Simmer very gently for an hour and rub through a wire sieve, pressing with the back of a wooden spoon to get all the pulp through. Everything should go through except the skin and seeds. Return to clean saucepan with stock or water, and two tablespoonfuls of tapioca, previously soaked for at least an hour. Stir till it boils and is quite clear. This soup may be varied in many ways, as by substituting for the tapioca, crushed vermicelli, ground rice, cornflour, &c. Some chopped spring onions, chives or leeks, added after straining are a great improvement, also chopped parsley, while many people like the addition of milk or cream.
Take three or four small cauliflowers, or two large ones, soak them in salt and water, and boil them in some water till they are nearly tender. Take them out and break the cauliflower so that you get two or three dozen little pieces out of the heart of the cauliflower, somewhat resembling miniature bouquets. Put the rest of the cauliflower back into the water in which it was boiled, with the exception of the green part of the leaves, with an onion and some of the white part of a head of celery. Let all boil till the water has nearly boiled away. Now rub all this through a wire sieve, onions, celery, cauliflower, and all; add to it sufficient boiling milk to make the whole of the consistency of pea soup. Add a little butter, pepper, and salt; throw in those little pieces of cauliflower that had been reserved a minute or two before serving the soup. It is an improvement to boil two or three bay-leaves with the milk, and also a very great improvement indeed to add a little boiling cream. Fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup.
Make a good gravy with one and one-half pounds of skirt of beef. With one half of the gravy make a very good purée of peas--if possible the green peas--with the other half make a good purée of tomatoes. Combine the two purées, adding pepper and salt and a dust of cayenne. For each guest add to the soup a teaspoonful of Madeira wine, beat it all well and serve quickly. Or add, instead of Madeira, one dessert-spoonful of sherry wine. This celebrated soup is honored by the name of the glorious defender of Namur. [Gabrielle Janssens.]
1 pint of fresh vegetable, cut up in small pieces, or one can. 1 pint of boiling water. 1 pint of hot milk. 1 tablespoonful of flour. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 3 shakes of pepper.
After the vegetable is washed and cut in very small pieces, put it in the pint of water and cook it for twenty minutes. Or, if you use a canned vegetable, cook it ten minutes. While it is cooking, make the rule for white sauce as before: Melt one tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles put in one tablespoonful of flour, with the salt and pepper; shake well, and rub till smooth and thick with the hot milk. Take the vegetable from the fire and press it through the wire sieve, letting the water go through, too; mix with the sauce and strain again, and it is done.
Almost all soups are better for one very thin slice of onion cooked with the vegetable. When you want a cream soup very nice indeed, whip a cup of cream and put in the hot soup-tureen, and pour the soup in on it, beating it a little, till it is all foamy.
Cut melon in half, seed and put on ice one hour before serving. When ready to serve, fill with crushed ice and sprinkle with, powdered sugar. Allow one-half melon for each person. Very refreshing for summer luncheons or dinners. For dinner serve before soup.
To half a pint of milk put two well-beaten eggs, and as much wheat flour as will make a smooth, rather thick batter free from lumps; drop this batter, a tablespoonful at a time, into boiling soup. Another Mode.--One cupful of sour cream and one cupful of sour milk, three eggs, well beaten, whites and yolks separately; one teaspoonful of salt, one level teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a spoonful of water, and enough flour added to make a very stiff batter. To be dropped by spoonfuls into the broth and boiled twenty minutes, or until no raw dough shows on the outside.
