Flavoring, Thickening, And Coloring Soups

The flavor of soup stock may be varied by using in it a little ham, anchovy, sausage, sugar, or a calf's foot. Herbs in the sprig, and whole spices should be used in seasoning, as they can easily be strained out. All delicate flavors, and wine, should be added to soup just before serving it, unless the contrary is expressly directed in the receipt, because boiling would almost entirely evaporate them:one gill of wine is usually allowed to every three pints of soup.

Soups which precede a full dinner should be less rich than those which form the bulk of the meal. Corn starch, arrow root, and potato flour are better than wheat flour for thickening soup. The meal of peas and beans can be held in suspension by mixing together dry a tablespoonful of butter and flour, and stirring it into the soup; a quarter of a pint of peas, beans, or lentils, is sufficient to make a quart of thick soup. Two ounces of macaroni, vermicelli, pearl barley, sago, tapioca, rice, or oatmeal, are usually allowed for each quart of stock.

If you wish to darken soup use a teaspoonful of caramel; but avoid burnt flour, carrot, and onion, as all these give a bad flavor. Caramel can be made from the following receipt; melt half a pound of loaf sugar in a thick copper vessel, Stirring it frequently with a wooden spoon, and boiling it slowly until it assumes a rich brown color, but do not let it burn; when brown enough add one quart of cold water, stir well, and boil gently at the side of the fire for twenty minutes; then cool, strain, and bottle tight. In using the caramel add it just as you are about to serve the soup, or sauce colored with it.

Clear Soup, Or Consomme. (Two Quarts For Eight Persons.)

This is made by straining two quarts of stock, which has been cooled and freed from fat, through a piece of flannel or a napkin until it is bright and clear; if this does not entirely clear it, use an egg, as directed for clarifying soup; then season it to taste with salt, using at first a tea-spoonful, and a very little fine white pepper, say a quarter of a saltspoonful; and color it to a bright straw color with caramel, of which a scant teaspoon-ful will be about the proper quantity. Consomme is sent to the table clear, but sometimes a deep dish containing poached eggs, one for each person, with enough consomme to cover them, accompanies it.

Poached Eggs For Consomme

Break the eggs, which should be very fresh, into a deep sauce-pan half full of boiling water, seasoned with a teaspoonful of salt, and half a gill of vinegar; cover the sauce-pan, and set it on the back part of the fire until the whites of the eggs are firm; then lift them separately on a skimmer, carefully trim off the rough edges, making each egg a regular oval shape, and slip them off the skimmer into a bowl of hot, but not boiling water, where they must stand for ten minutes before serving.

Vermicelli And Macaroni Soup

These soups are both made as for consomme; and to every quart of stock is added two ounces of one of these pastes blanched as follows. Put the paste into plenty of boiling water, with one tablespoonful of salt to each quart of water, and boil until tender enough to pierce with the finger nail; then drain it, and put it in cold water until required for use, when it should be placed in the two quarts of hot soup long enough to heat thoroughly before serving.