Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Reserve half a cupful of the milk, and put the rest, with the onion and mace, on the stove in a double-boiler. Mix the flour and cold milk, and stir the mixture into the boiling milk Add the salt and pepper, and cook for fifteen minutes. At the end of that time take out the mace and onion and add the noodles. Five minutes' cooking will complete the work. Cream-of-Artichoke Soup. When French artichokes are comparatively cheap and in fine condition, it is well to use them in soup as well as a vegetable. Here is a simple rule for a cream soup made with them : — Use one quart of milk, two artichokes of good size, two table-spoonfuls of butter, two generous table-spoonfuls of flour, one teaspoonful of salt, and one-fourth of a teaspoonful of white pepper. Wash the artichokes, and let them stand for an hour in two quarts of cold water to which has been added two table- spoonfuls of salt. If the edges of the leaves be dry or brown, cut them (the edges) off. At the end of the two hours place the artichokes in a stew-pan with boiling water enough to cover them, and boil for thirty-five minutes. Now take from the fire, and drain. Pull the leaves from the head; then take out the "choke" and throw it away. Put the leaves and the bottoms of the artichokes in a puree sieve, and rub all the soft parts through. Add the strained artichokes to a cream foundation, and after boiling the soup up once, serve. This is the way to make the cream foundation to which reference has just been made : When the artichokes have been cooking for a quarter of an hour, put the milk on the fire in the double-boiler. Beat the butter and flour together, and gradually pour upon this mixture about half a pint of the boiling milk. Stir this new mixture into the milk remaining in the double-boiler. Add the salt and pepper, and cook for ten minutes. The cream will then be ready for the artichokes. This soup is sometimes garnished with chicken forcemeat balls or with profiteroles. Indeed, the latter arti- cles are becoming quite popular as an accompaniment of cream soups as well as of consomme. * Palestine Soup. For one quart of soup use enough Jerusalem artichokes to make a generous pint when pared and sliced, one generous pint of milk, one teaspoon ful of salt, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of pepper, two table-spoonfuls of butter, and two of flour. Scrape the artichokes, and put them in cold water. When they all have been scraped, slice them, and place them in another basin of cold water. Let them stand for half an hour ; then put them in a stew-pan with two quarts of boiling water, and cook for an hour and a quarter. At the end of that time rub the artichokes through a fine sieve ; then add to them one pint of the water in which they were boiled. Set upon the stove, and heat to the boiling-point. Rub the butter and flour together, and stir into the boiling mixture. Add the salt and pepper, and cook for ten minutes. Put the milk on the stove in a double-boiler ; and when the soup has cooked for ten minutes, add the hot milk to it, and boil up once. Serve with toasted bread. Unless the artichokes be kept in water until they are cooked they will grow dark, and spoil the appearance of the soup. Imperial Soup.