Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery. Marion Harland
Venison Soup. ✠
3 lbs. of venison. What are considered the inferior pieces will do.
1 lb. corned ham or salt pork.
1 onion.
1 head of celery.
Cut up the meat; chop the vegetables, and put on with just enough water to cover them, keeping on the lid of the pot all the while, and stew slowly for one hour. Then add two quarts of boiling water, with a few blades of mace and a dozen whole peppers. Or, should you prefer, a little cayenne. Boil two hours longer, salt, and strain. Return the liquor to the pot; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour wet into a smooth thin paste with cold water; add a tablespoonful of walnut or mushroom catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire or other pungent sauce, and a generous glass of Madeira or brown Sherry.
Hare or Rabbit Soup.
Dissect the rabbit, crack the bones, and prepare precisely as you would the venison soup, only putting in three small onions instead of one, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Hares which are too tough to be cooked in any other way, make excellent game soup. Also, the large gray squirrel of the Middle and Southern States.
Ox-Tail Soup.
1 ox-tail.
2 lbs. lean beef.
4 carrots.
3 onions.
Thyme.
Cut the tail into several pieces and fry brown in butter. Slice the onions and two carrots, and when you remove the ox-tail from the frying-pan, put in these and brown them also. When done, tie them in a bag with a bunch of thyme and drop into the soup-pot. Lay the pieces of ox-tail in the same; then the meat cut into small slices. Grate over them the two whole carrots, and add four quarts of cold water, with pepper and salt. Boil from four to six hours, in proportion to the size of the tail. Strain fifteen minutes before serving it, and thicken with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil ten minutes longer.
FISH SOUPS.
Oyster Soup (No. 1). ✠
2 qts. of oysters.
1 qt. of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 teacupful water.
Strain the liquor from the oysters, add to it the water, and set it over the fire to heat slowly in a covered vessel. When it is near boiling, season with pepper and salt; add the oysters, and let them stew until they “ruffle” on the edge. This will be in about five minutes. Then put in the butter with the milk which has been heated in a separate vessel, and stir well for two minutes.
Serve with sliced lemon and oyster or cream crackers. Some use mace and nutmeg in seasoning. The crowning excellence in oyster soup is to have it cooked just enough. Too much stewing ruins the bivalves, while an underdone oyster is a flabby abomination. The plumpness of the main body and ruffled edge are good indices of their right condition.
Oyster Soup (No. 2).
2 qts. of oysters.
2 eggs.
1 qt. of milk.
1 teacupful of water.
Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, pour in with it the water. Season with cayenne pepper and a little salt, a teaspoonful of mingled nutmeg, mace, and cloves. When the liquor is almost boiling, add half the oysters chopped finely and boil five minutes quite briskly. Strain the soup and return to saucepan. Have ready some force-meat balls, not larger than marbles, made of the yolks of the eggs boiled hard and rubbed to a smooth paste with a little butter, then mix with six raw oysters chopped very finely, a little salt, and a raw egg well beaten, to bind the ingredients together. Flour your hands well and roll the force-meat into pellets, laying them upon a cold plate, so as not to touch one another until needed. Then put the reserved whole oysters into the hot soup, and when it begins to boil again, drop in the force-meat marbles. Boil until the oysters “ruffle,” by which time the balls will also be done. Add the hot milk.
Serve with sliced lemon and crackers. A liberal tablespoonful of butter stirred in gently at the last is an improvement.
Clam Soup.
50 clams.
1 qt. milk.
1 pint water.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire with a dozen whole peppers, a few bits of cayenne pods, half a dozen blades of mace, and salt to taste. Let it boil for ten minutes, then put in the clams and boil half an hour quite fast, keeping the pot closely covered. If you dislike to see the whole spices in the tureen, strain them out before the clams are added. At the end of the half hour add the milk, which has been heated to scalding, not boiling, in another vessel. Boil up again, taking care the soup does not burn, and put in the butter. Then serve without delay. If you desire a thicker soup stir a heaping tablespoonful of rice-flour into a little cold milk, and put in with the quart of hot.
Cat-fish Soup. ✠
Those who have only seen the bloated, unsightly “hornpouts” that play the scavengers about city wharves, are excusable for entertaining a prejudice against them as an article of food. But the small cat-fish of our inland lakes and streams are altogether respectable, except in their unfortunate name.
6 cat-fish, in average weight half a pound apiece.
½ lb. salt pork.
1 pint milk.
2 eggs.
1 head of celery, or a small bag of celery seed.
Skin and clean the fish and cut them up. Chop the pork into small pieces. Put these together into the pot, with two quarts of water, chopped sweet herbs, and the celery seasoning. Boil for an hour, or until fish and pork are in rags, and strain, if you desire a regular soup for a first course. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, which should be already hot. Next the eggs, beaten to a froth, and a lump of butter the size of a walnut. Boil up once, and serve with dice of toasted bread