Virginia Cookery-book

Put on a gallon of water ; let it boil ; put in two doublehandfuls of okra, one handful of shelled butter beans, one small cymling, six Irish potatoes, one onion, four ears of com, and a soup-bone of beef, or one fowl. About an hour before you take up your soup put in the tomatoes, peeled and cut up, in such quantity as you can spare — from one pint to two quarts, according to taste or con- 4* VeniiBiice. A red pepper pod adds greatly to the flavor of this soup, and black pepper and salt too must be put in to taste. Put the soup-pot on the fire as early as possible after breakfast, letting it simmer all the time, not boil. A stone vessel and wooden spoon are desirable for the preparation of such soups. Good Lenten Soups. (Miss Loa AnnstroDg.) Tomato Soup. — To one quart of tomatoes stewed and run through a colander add one quart of boiled milk, thickened with a small table-spoonful of flour or cornstarch; add a table - spoonful of butter, and season to your taste with black pepper, salt, and a teaspoonful of mustard if you choose. Let the soup merely come to a boil, and serve immediately. This soup offers the advantage of being presentable upon very short notice. Onion Soup. — Cut in pieces twelve large white onions ; boil them in three quarts of milk and water equally mixed. Put in a bit of veal or a fowl after the onions are boiled soft. Thicken it with a gill of sweet cream, pepper, and a bit of butter rolled in a teaspoonful of flour. The meat must be taken out before this soup comes to the table, and slices of untoasted bread laid at the bottom of the tureen. Irish Potato Soup. — Boil well one quart of potatoes, and mash up smoothly in a little boiling water until quite thin. Stir in two ounces of butter, a little pepper and salt, into two quarts of milk. Beat up four eggs, and add them to the potatoes. When the milk boils, pour it hot from the kettle on to the potatoes and eggs. Do not return the soup to the fire. Float toast in it when ready to be served. VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. 88 f CHAPTER VIII. POULTRY AND MEATS, To Roast a Turkey. — Gravy for Roast Turkey. — Deviled Turkey. — To Boil a Turkey, with Oyster Sauce.— To Boil a Turkey, with Egg Sauce. — To Roast a Goose. — The Epicure's Improvement to Roast Qoose. — To Roast a Goose before a Range or in a Stove. — To Roast Grown Pullets. — To Roast Young Chickens. — To Roast Pheasants or Partridges. — To Boil Grown Chickens. — ^To Roast Ducks. — Tp Dress Wild Ducks. — Gravy for Wild Ducks or Grouse. — To Roast a Pig Whole. — Souse. — To Roast a Haunch of Venison. — ^To Roast a Shoulder of Venison. — A Venison Pasty. — To Roast Mutton like Venison. All of the old Virginia recipes for cooking meats speak in general of roasting them, where baking must be substituted in modem times. Large, open fireplaces, with tin kitchens and spits, were in universal use in that State until within the last thirty years. As roasting proper is by far the best way of cooking, and is still adhered to where taste has not been forced to yield to economy, we still give many such recipes. Where there is no way of really roasting, the same directions may easily be modified so as to answer for baking. M. Pierre Blot insisted that every well-appointed kitchen should have at hand the appliances for roasting meats, but in the large majority of well-to-do families throughout the Union epicurism has given way, in this particular, to convenience. To Roast a Turkey. A hen-turkey, weighing from six to seven pounds, furnishes the swjsetest and most savory meat, and yet for