The spirit of cookery

General Observations. — Soup may be made from potatoes directly after they have been boiled or during their being boiled, or the potatoes may be boiled and dried, and then moistened again ; or they may be roasted or fried in fat, and then made into soup. Each of these processes imparts a somewhat different character to the product. In most cases it is advisable to transform the potatoes into a purde, and give to this uniformity by a binding if the potatoes used were rough-starched. Plain Potato Soup. — A dozen tubers requires the ordinary bulbs, roots, herbs and spices, but above all, a quantity of not less than 4 oz. of fresh butter; moisten the whole with two quarts of standard broth. Serve with chips of fried bread. Fried Potato Soup. — This soup goes under various patronymics, all of which are unsupported by history or anecdote. It possesses some specificity in this, that a portion of the potato-starch is by frying transformed into dextrin, which imparts to the soup a somewhat more mucilaginous body, reminding of barley soup. Some recipes order the addition of a pint of boiling cream, which is excessive and detrimental to the savoury character and digestibility of the soup. Others advise the addition of a garnish of shredded lettuce, which interferes with the unity of this excellent soup.* Potato Soup with Quenelles of Potato. Quenelles of Potatoes to be used in the Foregoing Soup. — Bind the mashed and sifted potatoes (six) with butter, cream, and tinctures of spices ; add the yolks of three eggs and the whites of two eggs, whipped to a froth, also chopped parsley; heat the paste, form into quenelles, and poach these in boiling water or broth. * Potato soups, various, cf. D.D., 850 ; F., 310. LEGUMINOUS SEED SOUPS Tapioca Soup. — 4 oz. of tapioca to two quarts of standard broth, boiled until gelatinous and easily compressed or crushed. Bind with yolk cautiously. Cassava Soup. — Break the cassava bread or cake, made from the fleshy part of the manioc-root, in a mortar, and use the fragments as just prescribed for tapioca. The cassava is even more gelatinous than the tapioca, and, if of good quality, makes an excellent soup. Soup made with Rye — Green Corn Soup. This soup is pecuhar by the fact that its material is mainly parched under-ripe green rye. This is sold in a roughlypounded condition, ready for being put into the casserole. Boil it in standard broth for an hour, with leek, parsley, salt, butter, tincture of spice, and pass the product through a tammy ; point the mucilaginous puree with a little butter, and send to table with fried dice of bread, or small quenelles of fish, or veal, or game.* CHAPTBE XI. SOUPS MADE WITH LEGUMINOUS SEEDS— PEAS, BEANS, LENTILS, SOY. For the purpose of being eaten in soups, leguminous seeds are most suitably transformed into purges. These can then be diluted with broth or water, and adapted to the wants of consumers. Leguminous seeds are the mainstay of vegetarian diet so called, because they alone can, in some measure, supply the nitrogenous food of which meat is the Rottenhofer, loc. cit., p. 50, adds eggs as a liaison, and a boiled cwlard (this latter misnamed cream). The specificity of the soup is most evident without any solids except fried bread.