Catherine Owen's new cook book ..

Soups. — As I have before said, I do not pretend to give many recipes, only to tell you how to succeed with the recipes given in other books. I shall, therefore, only give one recipe which I know is a novelty and one for the foundation of all soups. In one sense I have done the latter already. The stock for glaze is an excellent soup before it is reduced ; but I will also give Jules Gouffé's method of making pot-au-feu, it being a most beautifully clear soup. It often happens, however, that you have sufficient stock from bones, trimmings of meat, and odds and ends of gravies, which may always be turned to account ; but the stock from such a source, although excellent, will not always be clear ; therefore, you must proceed with it in the following manner, unless you wish to use it for thick soup : Make your stock boiling hot and skim well ; then have ready the whites of three eggs (I am supposing you have three quarts of stock — one egg to a quart), to which add half a pint of cold water ; whisk well together ; then add half a pint of the boiling stock gradually, still whisk- Boiling, 67 ing the eggs ; then stir the boiling stock rapidly, pouring in the whites of eggs, etc. ; as you do it, stir quickly till nearly boiling again, then take it from the fire, let it remain till the whites of eggs separate ; then strain through a clean, fine cloth into a basin. This rule once learned will clear every kind of soup or jelly. There are many people who are good cooks, yet fail in clear soup, which is with them semi-opaque, while it should be like sherry. The cause of this opacity is generally quick boiling while the meat is in. This gives it a milky appearance. After the stock is once made and clear, quick boiling will do no harm, but of course wastes the soup, unless resorted to for the purpose of making it stronger. A word here about coloring soup : Most persons resort to burnt sugar, and, very carefully used, it is not at all a bad makeshift. But how often have we a rich-looking soup put before us, the vermicelli appearing to repose under a lake of strong russet bouillon, but which, on tasting, we find suggestive of nothing but burnt sugar and salt, every bit of flavor destroyed by the acrid coloring. Sometimes stock made by the recipe for pot-au-feu (to follow) requires no color ; this depends on the beef ; but usually all soup is more appetizing in appearance for a little browning, and for this purpose I always use burnt onions in preference to anything else. If you have none in store when the soup is put on, put a small onion in the oven (or on the back of the stove ; should you be baking anything the odor would taint) ; turn it often till it gets quite black, but not charred. Then put it to the soup ; it adds a fine flavor as well as color, and you need not fear overdoing it. Soup that is to be reduiced must be very lightly salted; for this reason salt is left out altogether for glaze, as the 68 Culture and Cooking, reduction causes the water only to evaporate, the salt remains. Gouffé's Pot-au-Feu. — Four pounds of lean beef, six quarts of water, six ounces of carrot, six of turnip, six of onion, half an ounce of celery, one clove, salt.