Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Scotch Hotch-potch. — Take two quarts of good mutton or lamb broth, or liquor in which joints of either have been boiled, remove all fat and strain clear of sediment; grate two carrots and slice three, adding young turnips, onion, lettuce, and parsley, until there is altogether a quart of shred vegetables. Then take a pint of young green pease, and add sprigs of cauliflower sufficient to make up a second quart of vegetables ; put them, with the exception of half of the pease, into the stock. Keep the whole stewing gently for half an hour, then trim 2 lbs. of ribs of lamb or mutton into cutlets, and add with the rest of the pease, flavoring with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley; simmer slowly for an hour, and then serve very hot. Shell-fish Soup. — Put into a stewpan some olive oil (half a tablespoonful for each person) and a very little garlic finely chopped. When the garlic is well fried add some tomato sauce (half a table-spoonful for each person) ; then put in your shell - fish (all sorts of small shellfish, clams, shrimp, even mussels, etc., such as the market offers), well washed and brushed beforehand. Now add a spoonful of consomme for each person, a few cloves, and a little nutmeg. If you have no consomme use extract of meat. Serve with croutons. Soubise Broth. See Brown Soubise Broth. Soup a la Grecque. — To two pints of stock add half a teacupful of rice and a little mint. Boil slowly for twenty minutes, then add half a pint of cold stock, and mix well together. Beat up three eggs until thick, and to them add the stock and rice slowly. At first a spoonful at a time. Mix the whole well, and then pour back into the pan, stirring continually, and return to fire. Add 1 oz. of butter and the juice of one lemon, and stir well. When ready for table add pate de foie gras, or two chicken livers finely minced. Spinach, Cream of. — Wash two quarts of spinach, and while it is still dripping wet put over the fire in a double boiler. Add to the spinach a pinch of soda, but no water except that clinging to the leaves. Cover closely, and cook until soft enough to rub through a colander. Heat to the scalding - point a quart of milk, thicken with a table-spoonful of butter and one of flour rubbed together, and add to this the spinach. Season and serve. Squirrel Soup (Mrs. Stuart's). — Even persons who find squirrel dis- Tapioca Cream Soup Turkey Soup tasteful as meat regard it as supplying delightful material for soup. Three squirrels are none too many to allow for making a tureen full of soup. Put them on, with a small table-spoonful of salt, directly after breakfast, in a gallon of cold water. Cover the pot closely, and set it on the back part of the stove to simmer gently, not boil. Add vegetables just the same as you do for other meat soups in the summer season, but especially good will you find corn, Irish potatoes, okra, and lima beans. Strain the soup through a coarse colander when the meat has boiled to a rag, so as to get rid of the squirrels' troublesome little bones. Then return to the pot, and after boiling a long while, thicken with a piece of butter rubbed in flour. Celery and parsley leaves chopped up are also considered an improvement by many, and those who like it thick as gumbo add a spoonful of powdered sassafras leaves.