Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery. Eliza Leslie
from a turtle-soup house.
OX TAIL SOUP.
Three ox tails will make a large tureen full of soup. Desire the butcher to divide them at the joints. Rub them with salt, and put them to soak in warm water, while you prepare the vegetables. Put into a large pot or stew-pan four onions peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, two sliced carrots, two sliced turnips, and two dozen pepper corns. Then put in the tails, and pour on three quarts of water.
Cover the pot, and set it on hot coals by the side of the fire. Keep it gently simmering for about three hours, supplying it well with fresh hot coals. Skim it carefully. When the meat is quite tender, and falls from the bones, strain the soup into another pot, and add to it a spoonful of mushroom catchup, and two spoonfuls of butter rubbed in flour.
You may thicken it also with the pulp of a dozen onions first fried soft, and then rubbed through a cullender. After it is thickened, let it just boil up, and then send it to table, with small squares of toasted bread in the tureen.
OCHRA SOUP.
Take a large slice of ham (cold boiled ham is best) and two pounds of the lean of fresh beef; cut all the meat into small pieces. Add a quarter of a pound of butter slightly melted: twelve large tomatas pared and cut small; five dozen ochras cut into slices not thicker than a cent; and a little cayenne pepper to your taste. Put all these ingredients into a pot; cover them with boiling water, and let them stew slowly for an hour. Then add three quarts of hot water, and increase the heat so as to make the soup boil. Skim it well, and stir it frequently with a wooden or silver spoon.
Boil it till the tomatas are all to pieces, and the ochras entirely dissolved. Strain it, and then serve it up with toasted bread cut into dice, put in after it comes out of the pot.
This soup will be improved by a pint of shelled Lima beans, boiled by themselves, and put into the tureen just before you send it to table.
BEAN SOUP.
Put two quarts of dried white beans into soak the night before you make the soup, which should be put on as early in the day as possible.
Take five pounds of the lean of fresh beef—the coarse pieces will do. Cut them up, and put them into your soup-pot with the bones belonging to them, (which should be broken to pieces,) and a pound of bacon cut very small. If you have the remains of a piece of beef that has been roasted the day before, and so much under-done that the juices remain in it, you may put it into the pot, and its bones along with it. Season the meat with pepper only, and pour on it six quarts of water. As soon as it boils take off the scum, and put in the beans (having first drained them) and a head of celery cut small, or a table-spoonful of pounded celery-seed. Boil it slowly till the meat is done to shreds, and the beans all dissolved. Then strain it through a cullender into the tureen, and put into it small squares of toasted bread with the crust cut off.
Some prefer it with the beans boiled soft, but not quite dissolved. In this case, do not strain it; but take out the meat and bones with a fork before you send it to table.
PEAS SOUP.
Soak two quarts of dried or split peas over-night. In the morning take three pounds of the lean of fresh beef, and a pound of bacon or pickled pork. Cut them into pieces, and put them into a large soup-pot with the peas, (which must first be well drained,) and a table-spoonful of dried mint rubbed to powder. Add five quarts of water, and boil the soup gently for three hours, skimming it well, and then put in four heads of celery cut small, or two table-spoonfuls of pounded celery seed.
It must be boiled till the peas are entirely dissolved, so as to be no longer distinguishable, and the celery quite soft. Then strain it into a tureen, and serve it up with toasted bread cut in dice. Omit the crust of the bread.
Stir it up immediately before it goes to table, as it is apt to settle, and be thick at the bottom and thin at the top.
GREEN PEAS SOUP.
Take four pounds of knuckle of veal, and a pound of bacon. Cut them to pieces, and put them into a soup kettle with a sprig of mint and five quarts of water. Boil it moderately fast, and skim it well. When the meat is boiled to rags, strain it out, and put to the liquor a quart of young green peas. Boil them till they are entirely dissolved, and till they have thickened the soup, and given it a green colour.[C]
Have ready two quarts of green peas that have been boiled in another pot with a sprig of mint, and two or three lumps of loaf sugar, (which will greatly improve the taste.) After they have boiled in this pot twenty minutes, take out the mint, put the whole peas into the pot of soup, and boil all together about ten minutes. Then put it into a tureen, and send it to table.
Never use hard old green peas for this soup, or for any other purpose. When they begin to turn yellow, it is time to leave them off for the season.
Lima bean soup may be made in the same manner.
ASPARAGUS SOUP.
Asparagus soup may be made in a similar manner to that of green peas. You must have four or five bunches of asparagus. Cut off the green tops, and put half of them into the soup, after the meat has been boiled to pieces and strained out. The asparagus must be boiled till quite dissolved, and till it has given a green colour to the soup. Then take the remainder of the asparagus tops (which must all this time have been lying in cold water) and put them into the soup, and let them boil about twenty minutes. Serve it up with small squares of toast in the tureen.
You may heighten the green of this soup by adding the juice of a handful of spinach, pounded in a mortar and strained. Or you may colour it with the juice of boiled spinach squeezed through a cloth. The spinach juice should be put in fifteen or ten minutes before you take up the soup, as a short boiling in it will take off the peculiar taste.
FRIAR'S CHICKEN.
Cut up four pounds of knuckle of veal; season it with white pepper and salt: put it into a soup-pan and let it boil slowly till the meat drops from the bone. Then strain it off. Have ready a pair of young fowls skinned, and cut up as you carve them at table. Season them with white pepper, salt, and mace. Put them into the soup, add a handful of chopped parsley, and let them boil. When the pieces of chicken are all quite tender, have ready four or five eggs well beaten. Stir the egg into the soup, and take it immediately off the fire lest it curdle. Serve up the chicken in the soup.
Rabbits may be substituted for fowls.
CAT-FISH SOUP.