Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

After washing the sorrel, put it into a stew-pan with the cold water, and boil for ten minutes ; then drain off the water, and chop the sorrel very fine. Cut the onion into bits, and putting it into a frying-pan with the butter, cook it slowly for five minutes ; then add the flour, and stir until smooth and frothy. Add the chopped sorrel, sugar, salt, and pepper, and after stirring for three minutes, gradually pour in the milk, which should be cold. Simmer for five minutes, and meanwhile heat the cream to the boiling-point. Strain the soup, and add the cream to it ; then serve immediately. This is the simplest kind of sorrel soup, save that milk may be substituted for the pint of cream. A richer kind is made by using a pint of white stock in place of the same quantity of milk, and the richness may be further increased by beating the yolks of two eggs with two table-spoonfuls of milk and pouring the soup upon this mixture just before serving time. Do not fall into the error of supposing that it will be as well to stir the eggs into the soup, because they would then be cooked in flakes, whereas by the other way they are cooked to a smooth cream. Sorrel soup is not so handsome as some green soups, because the heat spoils the original color of the plant, but it is certainly delicious. Normandy Soup. Normandy soup is made of three pounds of the knuckle of veal, three quarts of cold water, one quart of milk, an onion, a slice of carrot, a slice of turnip, a slight grating of nutmeg, a quart of stale bread, free of crust, two large table-spoonfuls of butter and one of flour, and some salt and pepper. After washing the veal, put it on the stove with the cold water; and when the water begins to boil, skim it carefully, and set back where it will boil only gently. After the meat has been cooked for three hours, put the butter into a small frying-pan with the onion, turnip, and carrot, all cut fine, and cook slowly for ten minutes ; then draw the vegetables to the side of the pan, press the butter from them, and transfer them to the soup-pot. Put the flour with the butter remaining in the fryingpan, and stir until the mixture is smooth and frothy, but not till it is brown ; then add to the contents of the kettle. Add also the bread, nutmeg, one table-spoonful and a half of salt, and half a teaspoonful of pepper. Cook the soup slowly for two hours more ; then remove it from the fire, and press through a colander. The veal, of course, will not pass through, but all the rest should. It should then be returned to the kettle, and the quart of milk, heated to the boiling-point, should be added. When the soup boils up it will be ready for serving. Garbure a la Printanidre. This is a variety of vegetable soup which is very popular in France. For six or eight persons use three quarts of cold water, four or five pounds of the upper part of the round of beef, two onions, a quart of fine-shred cabbage, one pint each of carrots and turnips, and half a pint of celery, cut into dice, one pint of peas, if they be in season, two young leeks, four cloves, the crust of a good-sized loaf of bread, one level teaspoonful of pepper, one table-spoonful of sugar, two of salt, and three of butter.