Culinary jottings

for an omelette adding two ounces of butter, dip a coffeecup into the soup, and mix tliat quantity with the egg and butter, adding another cupful when the butter is melted. Take the soup off the fire, pour it over the slices of bread, next add the liaison, and serve in three minutes. This should be enough for six basins. The eggs must be thoroughly beaten, if not, pieces of the white will form in flakes in the boiling soup, and spoil its appearance. This leads me to an important point in most thick soups, and purees, and that is the addition of cream, or milk with the yolks of eggs. It will be found in some recipes for these soups that boiled cream is ordered to be added. The distinction is important : not merely is the risk of curdling avoided, but the flavour imparted to the potage is different. All know, for example, how different is the taste of coffee that is made with boiling milk, from that to which cold milk has been added. When therefore you add cream to soup, boil it beforehand separately. Milk is a substitute for cream especially if a yolk of an egg be added to it, but be careful in adding the yolk lest the soup be curdled. To do this, boil the milk first attentively, and pour it through a strainer into the soup ; next make the tureen hot, and just before serving, throw into it the yolk of the egg, and a little butter ; take a spoonful of the soup, and work it well with the yolk, then add more soup, spoonful by spoonful, mixing thoroughly ; lastly, pour in the remainder of the soup which should, of course, be as hot as possible. Whether you add eggs, cream, or milk to soup, it is a sine quel non that the process be carried out off the fire, i.e., the vessel containing the soup must be lifted from the fire before you go to work. Thick soups may be divided into two classes — the white, and the brown. The principles followed in both are very similar ; the main difference, of course, consists in the sort of meat used, and the employment of roux, or liaison as the case may be. Boux is simply melted butter, with flour added to it, according to the quantity of soup you want to thicken. The butter must be melted first, the flour being dredged in by degrees, and stirred vigorously at the bottom of the sauce-pan until thoroughly incorporated, and velvety. As soon as it turns brown, the roux is ready. This is what is wanted for brown soups. For a white, the liaison must not be allowed to take colour ; you must commence adding the soup to it as soon as the flour and butter have been sufficiently worked together. In making these soups, the utmost care should be taken not to over-do the thickening. In the case of a white soup, this error is almost more fatal than in that of a brown. You might as well offer your guest a basin of arrowroot " conjee," or any nice gruel, for the savoury flavour of the soup is easily overpowered. A little practice will teach a cook how much flour is necessary to obtain the desired consistency of a thick soup, and he should bear in mind that the full effect of the thickening does not assert itself until the soup, which has been added to it, comes to the boil. Observe that you add the soup to the roux, not the roux to the soup. The adding should be done by degrees, if you want the soup to be smooth and creamy.