Modern cookery, in all its branches

< * We must here repeat our warning against the use of long-kept macaroni, vermicelli, or semoulina ; as when stale they will render any dish into which they are introduced quite unfit for table. r For white soups omit the onion. I For the different varieties of macaroni and vermicelli, and the time required to boil each of them, see Chapter XXI. § By Messrs. Stephens and Co., 2 White’s Row, Bishopsgate. [chap. i. POTAGE AUX NOUILLES, OR TAILLERINE SOUP Make into nouille-paste, with very fine dry flour, the yolks of four fresh eggs, and when ready cut, drop it gradually into five pints of boiling soup ; keep this gently stirred for ten minutes, skim it well, and serve it quickly. This is a less common, and a more delicately flavoured soup than the vermicelli, provided always that the nouilles be made with really fresh eggs. The same paste may be cut into very small diamonds, squares, stars, or any other form, then left to dry a little, and boiled in the soup until swollen to its full size, and tender. Nouille- paste of four eggs; soup, 5 pints : 10 minutes. SAGO SOUP. Wash in several waters, and float off the dirt from six ounces ol fine pearl sago ; put it into three quarts of good cold gravy- stock ; let it stew gently from half to three quarters of an hour, and stir it occasionally, that it may not burn nor stick to the stewpan. A quarter of an ounce more of sago to each pint of liquid, will thicken it to the consistence of peas-soup. It may be flavoured with half a wineglassful of Harvey’s sauce, as much cayenne as it may need, the juice of half a lemon, an ounce of sugar, and two glasses of sherry ; or these may be omitted, and good beef-broth may be substituted for the gravy-soup, for a simple family dinner, or for an invalid ; or, again, it may be converted into inexpensive white soup by the addition of some cream smoothly mixed with a dessertspoonful of arrowroot, or of thick cream and new milk in equal portions. Veal broth would be the most appropriate for this, or it might be made with half veal and half mutton. Sago, 6 oz. ; soup, 3 quarts : 30 to 45 minutes. TAPIOCA SOUP. This is made in the same manner, and with the same proportions as the preceding soup, but it must be simmered from fifty to sixty minutes. RICE SOUP. In France, this soup is served well thickened with the rice, which is stewed in it for upwards of an hour and a half, and makes thus, even with the common bouillon of the country, an excellent winter potage. Wipe in a dry cloth, eight ounces of the best rice ; add it, in small portions, to four quarts of hot soup, of which the boiling should not be checked as it is thrown in. When a clear soup is wanted wash the rice, give it five minutes’ boil in water, drain it well, throw it into as much boiling stock or well-flavoured broth as will keep it covered till dene, and simmer it very softly until the grains are tender but still separate ; drain it, drop it into the soup, and let it remain in it a few minutes before it is served, but without simmering. When stewed in the stock it may be put at once, after being drained, into the tureen, and the clear consomme may be poured to it.