English and French cookery

Haricot Soup. — Soak 1 pint of haricots over night, and boil together with 2 onions, 2 turnips, and 2 carrots cut small, £ teaspoonful of celery seed, in 5 pints of water, 2 hours. Add butter, salt, and pepper to taste, and thicken with 1 ounce of soaked sago or tapioca. Pass the whole through a wire sieve. Hotch. Potch. — A quart of stock (rather thin), 2 onions or leeks, any cold potatoes, any cold cabbage, i teaspoonful of whole pepper, fresh bones (chicken bones are particularly nice) or scraps of meat, a handful of barley, salt to taste, boil till the barley is soft. If there is no fat among the scraps, add about i ounce of mutton dripping. To make this without meat stock take 4 ounces of pearl barley, soak and put them in the saucepan with 4 quarts of boiling water, boil for 2 hours, and add 2 carrots, and as many turnips cut small ; add 2 ounces of butter and h pound of bread-crumbs. When the vegetables are soft, add herbs and condiments. The Housekeeper’s own Soup. — To a quart of thin stock add 1 ounce of beef dripping or butter, a lump of loaf sugar, some whole pepper, and salt. Bring it to boiling point, then slice in 3 large mealy potatoes, 2 large onions or leeks, and boil to a pulp. Stir in gently enough tapioca to thicken, or add a little barley already soaked in water ; a turnip or carrot may be added if desired. If this soup is desired as a dinner soup, the potatoes and onions when soft may be taken out and rubbed through a sieve. When put back into the stock boil for 10 minutes. Julienne Soup.— Cut into thin shreds about 1 inch long 3 carrots, 3 turnips, the white part of a head of celery, 3 onions, and 3 leeks. Place in a stewpan with 2 ounces of butter and a small pinch of pounded sugar ; stir over a slow fire until slightly browned. Pour over them 3 quarts of clear stock, and simmer very slowly until the vegetables are tender. Skim, and add 2 lumps of sugar, 2 pinches of salt, and 2 pinches of pepper, if required, 2 cabbage lettuces, 12 leaves of sorrel, and 12 leaves of chervil, cut in the same way as the other vegetables, after being immersed in boiling water for a minute. Boil half an hour longer, skim carefully, and serve. Julienne. — Some 12 different vegetables and seasoning herbs are required to make Julienne soup as served up at the better-class Parisian restaurants. In the ordinary way, ‘ true ’ Julienne is seldom to be had in England, owing to the difficulty involved in procuring the necessary ingredients at certain seasons of the year. By introducing a mixture of 12 kinds of vegetables and herbs, after the famous Soyer recipe, Messrs. Chollet and Cie. have rendered the housekeeper a real service, which deserves appreciation, the preparation in question being of high quality and moderate in price. Steep Chollet’s Julienne in stock for 1 hour — 1 ounce of Julienne to every quart of stock — then put on the fire and boil for 45 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. If you have no stock, do as above directed in water, adding sufficient extract of meat. Lentil Soup. — Wash 1 pound lentils, and soak in water over night. Boil with 2 onions, 2 .turnips, 2 carrots, all chopped fine; a piece of celery or a little celery seed, 1 ounce butter, pepper and salt in 2 quarts water, 1 J hours. Thicken with 1 ounce sago previously soaked. Pass the whole through a wire sieve.