Soyer's standard cookery

Peel and slice four large cucumbers, and after removing the seeds fry in one ounce of butter. Turn them into a quart of white stock to which has been added a pint of hot milk with a blade of mace and a little pepper and salt. Cook gently for one and a half hours, then thicken with flour and butter and pass the whole through a sieve. Tchi. This is a favorite soup in Russia, and is very easily prepared. Take one pound of forcemeat, make into small balls, and fry a golden brown. Mince the heart of a cabbage and two large onions and fry in butter or suet. Add the vegetables to three pints of stock, thicken with two ounces of flour, and flavor with salt, pepper, and parsley. After cooking one hour add the balls of forcemeat and one small glass of tarragon vinegar before serving. Pepperpot. Take one pint of mixed vegetables cut small — any sorts that you happen to have — add three quarts of water, together with a pound of salt pork, mutton, and tripe fried in butter. Flavor with one clove, one bay leaf, and a small bunch of parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram. Cover closely and cook for three hours. Let it cool thoroughly, then remove the fat, thicken with the yolk of an egg and a little butter and flour, add pepper and salt to taste and make very hot before serving. Potage Bortsch. Cut in julienne-fashion the heads of two leeks, one carrot, half an onion, four ounces of white cabbage leaves, previously blanched, half a root of parsley, the heart of a stick of celery and four ounces of beetroot; stew the whole gently in butter for ten minutes. Moisten with six quarts of white consomme and two or three tablespoonfuls of the juice of grated beetroot; add a sprig of sweet marjoram, two pounds of moderately fat breast of beef, and a half of a semi-roasted duck; set to cook gently for four hours. When about to serve, cut the beef into large dice, and the duck into small slices. Put into the soup one quarter pint of beetroot juice extracted from grated beetroot pressed in linen, and a little blanched and chopped fennel and parsley. Now put in the beef and duck with twelve grilled and despumated chipolatas. A sauceboat of sour cream should be served separately. Consomme A 1'ficossaise. Prepare a mutton broth, and at the same time cook a piece of breast of mutton for the garnish. For four quarts of broth, put into the soup-tureen, five tablespoonfuls of pearl-barley cooked beforehand; and the breast of mutton cut into regular dice of one-fifth of an inch, in the proportion of one tablespoonful for each person. Pour the boiling mutton broth over this garnish. Consomme Divette. Prepare four baba-molds of royale made from crayfish veloute, thirty-six small quenelles of whiting forcemeat, molded to the shape of pearls, and one tablespoonful of small pearls of truffle. Cut the royale into oval slices, and put these into the soup with the poached quenelles and the truffle pearls. Pour two quarts of very clear, boiling consomme over the garnish. Consomme Gauloise. Prepare one mold of ham royale, and poach the latter in a small, well-buttered Charlotte mold. When quite cold, cut it into large lozenges, and put these into the soup-tureen, and six small cocks' kidneys cut in slices. When about to serve, pour over this garnish one quart of consomme, thickened slightly with two tablespoonfuls of poached tapioca.