The handy dictionary of cookery

Cut some spongecake in slices, place them in the bottom of a pie-dish, squeeze over them enough orange juice to soak them. Place the dish in a cool oven for ten minutes. Whip up to a stiff froth the whites of four eggs with a pinch of salt, and heap them on the top ; dredge over some fine sugar ; place in the oven to take a pale brown. Souffle, Steamed. Put on water to boil. Butter a mould, tie on buttered paper, three inches standing up. Put one ounce of butter in a saucepan, let it melt ; add one ounce of flour ; mix well together one dessertspoonful of sugar, and a quarter of a pint of milk. Stir it over the fire till it thickens, stirring well to get out the lumps ; just let it boil two minutes. When it is a little cool, drop in three yolks of eggs, putting the whites on a plate ; stir well after each yolk is added. Whisk up four whites (with a little salt) to a stiff froth. Put into whites half a teaspoonful of vanilla (more if essence is weak). stir in lightly among the yolks, &c. Pour all into a tin. Put tin in pan of boiling water, steam twenty to forty minutes till the souffle is firm to the touch. Sweet Sauce — One ounce of sugar, one gill of water ; let it boil till sugar is melted and reduced about halfj then put in a few drops of lemon juice, and a tablespoonful of any jam (apricot the best). When jam is melted, pour the sauce over the souffle, which has been taken out of the tin and put on a hot plate. Soup a la Reine. Put half a pound of well-washed rice into a saucepan with three pints of good white stock made from rabbit, chicken or veal (veal is best) ; let it simmer one hour ; remove all the meat off a roast fowl, cut it up in small pieces ; pound it in a mortar with one ounce of butter ; pass it through a wire sieve with a gill of stock ; put the bones of the fowl in a saucepan with one quart of water, and a piece of every kind of flavouring vegetable ; simmer two hours. Strain off this second liquor and pass it and the rice all through a hair sieve, also the chicken the second time ; put all the soup well strained into a saucepan ; season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg; bring to the boil. Pour the boiling soup on half a pint of cream, and serve hot with sippets of toast and fried bread. Stale bread may be cut into dice, fried a golden colour, and served with this soup. Soup Maigre. Peel half a pound of potatoes, and parboil them, that is, partly boil them, and throw away the water, because there is in potatoes a hurtful, almost poisonous quality, which is removed by great heat ; the water that potatoes are boiled in is rendered unwholesome, they should always be parboiled before being made into soup or added to Irish stew, Potato Pot, &c. Cut the potatoes into slices, also the white part of two leeks, put them into a clean pan with one pint of cold water, one ounce of butter, a tablespoonful of crushed tapioca, half a tablespoonful of salt, a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper ; simmer till soft. Pass all through a sieve, return the soup to the pan ; add to it one pint of milk ; bring to the boil. Pour it into the tureen on to the beaten yolks of two eggs and a quarter of a pint of cream. Serve hot. Soups.