The handy dictionary of cookery

Soup can be made of almost any vegetables. Turnip, onion, or artichoke soup must be thickened with flour. All vegetable soups must be boiled after they are rubbed through the sieve, and after water or milk has been added. If they are not boiled, the water and, the vegetables do not mix. Meat, bones, or bacon-rinds improve all soups. If you have broth or pot-liquor, use it rather than water. Brown soups can be coloured with browning made for the purpose {see Browning). If a vegetable soup is too thin, let it boil fast for ten minutes, with the lid off the saucepan ; if it is too thick, add milk or water, and boil a few minutes. Peas, beans, and lentils are much more nourishing than potatoes, cabbage, or turnips. Vegetables go further when they are made into soup than when they are boiled in much water, as is the usual custom. By throwing away the water we waste much of the nourishment contained in the vegetable. When we make soup we throw away nothing, and we can besides use old and tough vegetables, that are not good to eat in any other way. Cold water must always be used in making soups, if bones or meat are used. Snipes a la Bonne Bouche. To make the forcemeat : put into a pan a quarter of a pound of fat bacon ; cut into thin slices ; also one pound of calfs liver, a small piece of turnip, carrot, onion, celery, a blade of mace, ten pepper corns, a very little grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, three truffles or mushrooms. Cook these together until the liver is done ; pass it through a sieve. Take a flat-pointed knife and mix in two ounces of lard. Prepare the snipes ; wipe them well inside with a clean damp cloth ; put them on a greased baking tin, cover it with a greased paper ; put them into a hot oven for twenty minutes ; baste frequently ; remove them from the oven ; cut the birds in half ; cover them with the forcemeat : put them on an entree dish ; lay a coil of the mixture round the birds ; garnish with fried bread, and serve with the following sauce : — Melt one ounce of butter in a pan ; mix into it one ounce of flour; then add half a pint of good brown stock ; stir till boiling ; season with salt and pepper and three chopped truffles. Pour round the dish and serve. — The gravy must be a rich brown. Spinach. Take some nice young spinach, the younger the better ; pick away all brown or faded leaves ; also the stalks, with their continuation down each leaf ; wash in several waters. Put into an iron saucepan with a dessertspoonful of salt, and a tiny piece of washing soda, the size of a split-pea. Put the lid on tightly so as to keep in the steam. Let it cook five minutes ; stir well to keep it from burning ; repeat this until it is quite soft and the moisture is dried up ; pour it into a strainer ; pass some cold water over it ; chop finely on a board, or pass it through a sieve. Put it into a saucepan with half an ounce of butter, half a teaspoonful of vinegar, a teaspoonful of cream, pepper and salt to taste. Stir this until it is quite hot ; serve on hot buttered toast. A poached egg may be served on the spinach. — Spinach is the only vegetable that does not require plenty of water to cook it in. It is one of the best vegetables we have as a purifier. It has an earthy taste as growing so near to the earth ; it imbibes much dirt, therefore needs so much washing. Spinach Soup.