Culinary jottings

It will be found that by adding the vegetables, the boiling of the broth will be thrown back ; as soon however as the bubbling recommences, watch the vegetables carefully, and remove them when they are done. If you leave them in the stock pot after they have been cooked, they will spoil the soup. Remove the muslin bag also. You can next put in a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a table-spoonful of Harvey sauce, and two of mushroom ketchup ; when the pot-au-fen is, so to speak, thus completed, it must be left to simmer slowly from three to four hours. The soup should now be strained into a basin and left to get cool, so that any remaining fat may be effectually skimmed off. The clear liquor is then fit to be warmed and served with maccaroni, bread sippets, or vegetables, &c., according to the kind of soup you wish to have. Observe that in order to carry out this recipe, an open, roomy vessel is necessary; a closed pot like a digester must not be used. This is, to my mind, the simplest recipe you can follow to achieve a bright clear consomme. It is, of course, imperative that you proceed exactly as described. First, the meat covered with cold water, and brought very slowly to the boil, being very carefully skimmed the while. Next, when the skimming is completed, the vegetables, — to be removed when done, the little bouquet of sweet herbs, the sugar, and a small allowance of sauce and ketchup. Now, a period of three hours to simmer, followed by straining. The liquor you have after this is actually beef consomme or strong broth quite clear and pale. Removing the fat whilst the simmering is going on is obviously a very important stage which cannot be too patiently manipulated. The fat so obtained is invaluable for frying purposes. It should be melted after it has settled, and strained through a piece of muslin. It may so happen that, owing to insufficient skimming in the early stage of the proceedings, you find to your sorrow that the consomme is not as clear as you could wish. You must therefore clarify it. There are two good ways of doing this. The simpler, and I believe, the more efficacious of the two is to put into the cool broth some very small fragments of raw beef, free from fat, put it on the fire again till it boils, let it settle, and then strain. Perhaps, however, you may not have saved a bit of meat for this contingency, so you must attain your object with the white of an egg; thus : — Break an egg, and throw the white and the shell together into a slop basin, — be careful not to let an atom of the yolk go in, — beat the white and shell np to a stiff froth, and mix it, flake by flake, very completely with the cool soup. Put the soup into a saucepan, and set it on the fire, stirring well till it boils. Take it off immediately, cover it close, let it stand for a quarter of an hour, and then strain it off through the tamis, or hair sieve.