Cookery for every household

1 qt. good white stock. I 1 oz. cornflour or potato 2 oz. butter. Salt. | flour. 1 gill cream. Melt the butter in a lined saucepan and stir in the cornflour until smooth. Add the stock gradually and stir until boiling. Pour in the cream, bring to the boil again and simmer 10 minutes. Then strain or tammy and return to the saucepan to reheat. Season to taste and serve with croutons of fried bread, or of cheese pastry (see Recipe 1305). Note. — A garnish may be added to the soup if wished, such as green peas, carrot cut in fancy shapes, asparagus points, egg balls, &c. Time to cook, £ hour. Probable cost. Is. 6 d. Quantity, 2 pints. 176, Clear Fish Soup (Consomme Poissoniere) 1 qt. good fish stock. 6 oz. raw white fish. Fish quenelles. The fish stock used flavoured. Put it into 2 whites anfl shells of eggs. 1 glass of white wine, must be good and well a lined saucepan with the wine, the raw fish finely shred and the whites and shells of eggs. Whisk over the fire until a good froth rises, allow the soup to boil well up, then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire and let it stand for 10 minutes. Strain through muslin or a soup cloth, see Consomme, Recipe 117. When all has passed through return the soup to the saucepan to reheat, season to taste and add a garnish of small fish quenelles, see Recipe 1300. If liked, half the quenelles may be coloured pink with a little lobster butter. Quantity, 2 pints. 177, Lobster Soup or Bisque (Bisque de Homard) 1 lobster. 3 pts. fish stock. 1£ oz. butter. 1J oz. flour. | carrot. J turnip. 1 onion. 1 stick celery. A small bunch of herbs. 1 tea-sp. anchovy essence. Pepper, salt. 2 table-sps. cream. 1 glass white wine. A squeeze of lemon juice. Melt the butter in a saucepan, and when smoking hot put in the vegetables, cut in small pieces, and fry them a few minutes. Sprinkle in the flour and fry a pale brown colour. Then add the stock and stir until boiling. Meantime have the lobster broken in pieces, remove the green part from the throat, throwing it away, cut the meat from the big claws into neat pieces, and reserve them for serving in the soup. Put the shell and the rest of the lobster into a mortar and pound well. Add this to the soup with the bunch of herbs and boil all together for one hour. Rub through a fine sieve, rinse out the saucepan, and return the soup to it. Let it boil up and skim well. Add the cream, pieces of lobster, wine, and other seasonings ; make all very hot and serve with toast. Notes. — If the fish stock is well flavoured some of the above vegetables may be omitted. The wine and cream may also be omitted and a little milk added. If a hen lobster is used and there is spawn, pound this in a mortar with a little butter, rub it through a hair sieve and add it to the soup at the last to give colour. A few fish quenelles (see p. 311) are sometimes served in this soup. Time to cook, 1 \ hours. Quantity, 2 pints. 178. Oyster Soup (Potage aux Huitres) 2 doz. fresh oysters or 3 doz. tinned oysters. 2 pts. white or fish stock. 1 oz. butter. 1 oz. flour. A pinch of cayenne. 2 yolks of eggs. 1 tea-sp. anchovy essence. 1 gill of cream. A squeeze of lemon juice. White pepper and salt.