The Queen Cook Book: A Careful Compilation of Recipes and Practical ...

I quart soft water i tablespoon butter Yolks of 2 eggs Salt and pepper to taste First wash your pea pods before shelling, and souse them well, to get the dust and sand off. Do not wash the peas after they are shelled as you loose the sweet juice that is in the inside of the pod. Shell them and put them into the cold water, with salt, boil about twenty minutes till fit for eating, according to age. Rub through a sieve, return to soup kettle with a pint or more of milk or cream. Stir butter and flour together smoothly then stir it in boiling soup, boil five The Queen Cook Book 39 minutes to cook the floor. Beat the yolks well, add two tablespoons of milk to thin them and stir it in the soup; season. Green Corn Soup. I pint grated corn 2 tablespoons butter I quart of water, or mutton i tablespoon flour stock. Salt and pepper I quart milk Put the corn in the water cold, boil five minutes, scrape the milk from cob, rub flour and butter together, put in your milk; if you have cream, use one pint cream, and one pint milk; when hot stir in the worked butter,' salt and pepper, boil to cook the flour three minutes. Asparagus Soup. Wash the asparagus, using only the top about three inches long, tie in bunches of six or eight stalks each, boil in water enough to cover, with a little salt (asparagus bears less salt than any other vegetable). Boil six minutes and throw away the water; then put on the cup of water and boil till tender, then rub through a colander, stir the butter and flour together, put all together with pepper and salt, boil to cook the flour. If preferred use veal stock instead of milk, with the cup of cream. Early asparagus boils tender very quickly. Haricot (harako) Soup. One and a half pints of good small white beans, wash and soak over night in luke-warm water. In the morning drain off this water, cover with fresh cold soft water, bring slowly to a boil for thirty minutes, drain off this water. Take three pounds of beef o^ 40 The Queen Cook Book a good sized shin-bone and put the beans and beef in four quarts of cold water, bring to a boil slowly, skimming often. Keep hot water to add as fast as it boils away. Slice and fry an onion and put it in with salt, six cloves, a dozen peppers and some parsley. Boil for three hours till the meat will fall from the bones. Stir from bottom often, and boil slowly; when cooked take out the meat, strain the soup, which should be four quarts, through a colander, mashing the beans, let no skins go through. If you wish it to be superfine, you can slice two or three hard boiled eggs and put in the tureen with crputons hot. Boil the eggs twelve minutes, then drop into cold water before peeling to prevent the discoloring of outside of yolk. Bob^ the Sea Cook. Plain Bean Soup. Prepare the beans the same as in the preceding with salt, and boil in soft water, one pint of beans to two quarts of water, boil till they all burst open very soft, then strain through a soup sieve; return to the kettle, add a little butter and pepper and boil up. For a change you can boil with beans two bunches of parsley and one of celery, and pour on croutons, and two hard boiled eggs sliced, and one lemon sliced, if liked. For a good beef stock for any soup or bouillon choose a piece of round of beef of about four pounds; have also three or four pounds of beef leg and bones. Put the leg of beef and bones in a pot with four quarts of cold water. Let it just boil for three hours. Then cut into two pieces the round of beef and put in, let boil altogether for three hours more; remove the piece of round of beef and eat plain, and dished up in some of the bouillon; thicken for a breakfast dish. Strain The Queen Cook Book 41