Catherine Owen's new cook book ..

Put the meat on in cold water, and just before it comes to the boil skim it, and throw in a wineglass of cold water, skim again, and, when it is "on the boil," again throw in another wineglass of cold water ; do this two or three times. The object of adding the cold water is to keep it just off the boil until all the scum has risen, as the boiling point is when it comes to the surface, yet once having boiled, the scum is broken up, and the soup is never so clear. The meat must simmer slowly, not boil, for three hours before the vegetables are added, then for a couple of hours more. It is necessary to be very exact in the proportions of vegetables ; but, of course, after having weighed them for soups once or twice, you will get to know about the size of a carrot, turnip, etc., that will weigh six ounces. The exact weight is given until the eye is accustomed to it. This soup strained, and boiled down to one half, becomes consomme. Celery Cream is a most delicious and little-known white soup, and all lovers of good things will thank me for introducing it. Have some nice veal stock, or the water in which chickens have been boiled, reduced till it is rich enough, will do, or some very rich mutton broth, but either of the former are preferable ; then put on a half cup of rice in a pint of rich milk, and grate into it the white part Boiling, 69 and root of two heads of celery. Let the rice milk cook very slowly at the back of the stove, adding more milk before it gets at all stiff ; when tender enough to mash through a coarse sieve or fine colander add it to the stock, which must have been strained and be quite free from sediment, season with salt and a little wMte pepper or cayenne, boil all together gently a few minutes. It should look like rich cream, and be strongly flavored with celery. Of course the quantity of rice, milk, and celery must depend on the quantity of stock you have. I have given the proportion for one quart, which, with the milk, etc., added, would make about three pints of soup. CHAPTER X. SAUCES. Talleykakd said England was a country with twenty-four religions and only one sauce. He might have said two sauces, and he would have been literally right as regards both England and America. Everything is served with brown sauce or white sauce. And how often the white sauce is like bookbinder's paste, the brown, a bitter, tasteless brown mess ! Strictly speaking, perhaps, the French have but two sauces either, espagnole, or brown sauce, and white sauce, which they call the mother sauces ; but what changes they ring on these mother sauces ! The espagnole once made, with no two meats is it served alike in flavor, and in this matter of flavor the artist appears. In making brown sauce for any purpose, bethink yourself of anything there may be in your store-room with which to vary its flavor, taking care that it shall agree with the meat for which it is intended. The ordinary cook flies at once to Worcestershire or Harvey sauce, which are excellent at times, but "toujours perdrix" is not always welcome. A pinch of mushroom powder, or a few chopped oysters, are excellent with beef or veal ; so will be a spoonful of Montpellier butter stirred in, or curry, not enough to yellow the sauce, but enough to give a dash of piquancy.