Now about thick soups, apart from purees:- these are perhaps more popular with the majority of English people, than the thin clear. There is an expression of richness and of strength in them which cannot fail to captivate the Briton. He, therefore, that would gratify his countrymen, must frequently offer them a soup which is in itself a meal.

I made the acquaintance of a little French woman in London whose husband kept a pastry cook's shop and was a chef indeed. Asking one day in a hurry for any clear soup they could give me, Madame Gregoire arched her eyebrows and said "Ah! m'sieur it would not pay us to make for our customers the consomme. Ox-tail, mock-turtle, and puree de pois we have ready; for a clear soup, we must have notice of a few hours." And we exchanged our regrets that Englishmen could not appreciate, even in the midst of July, a potage a la printaniere.

Still I confess that a thick soup is acceptable at times : - In cool weather; when you return as hungry as a hunter from some physical enterprise; or when you have a little cosy dinner of only a very few items to discuss - a soup, a slice of a joint, a dressed vegetable, and your cheese. But I hesitate to recommend soups of this class for a Madras dinner party, - to be placed before men whose labours all day have been sedentary, and ladies who have lunched well, and passed their day in graceful repose. And it is mainly for them, be it remembered, that I compose what a friendly critic terms my "menus mignons."

There is one feature about thick soups which is worthy of attention, and that is that you need not be so scrupulously careful in the making of the stock, or in selecting the materials of which the stock is made, for you have not to think of that clearness which is the salient feature of your consomme. Thick soups can therefore, be made of the bones of cooked meat, and scraps that would never do for potage a la Julienne for instance.

Let us take as a type of a really good thick soup that called potage a la bonne femme, which, is made in this way. Prepare a quart of stock, and keep that by your side : now cut up a good-sized (Bombay) onion into very thin rounds, and place them in a sauce-pan with two ounces of good tinned butter. Take care not to let the onion get brown, and when it is half done, throw in a quarter of a pound of sorrel leaves, a lettuce, and a bunch of parsley, all finely shred, add pepper, salt, half an ounce of flour, and keep stirring for five minutes. You then add a dessert-spoonful of pounded loaf-sugar, and half a cupful of the stock, freed from fat, and not coloured. Let the mixture reduce nearly to a glaze, when you gradually stir in about a quart of the stock; and let the soup simmer for a quarter of an hour. You now must prepare about a dozen pieces of bread cut very thin about two inches long, and an inch wide, taking care that there is crust along one of their long sides, and you must dry these thoroughly in the oven. When it is time to send up the soup, you remove the superfluous fat from it, and set it to simmer for a quarter of an hour. Now, prepare a liaison made as follows :- Break two eggs in a basin, beat them well as for an omelette adding two ounces of butter, dip a coffee-cup into the soup, and mix that quantity with the egg and butter, adding another cupful when the butter is melted. Take the soup off the fire, pour it over the slices of bread, next add the liaison, and serve in three minutes. This should be enough for six basins. The eggs must be thoroughly beaten, if not, pieces of the white will form in flakes in the boiling soup, and spoil its appearance.

This leads me to an important point in most thick soups, and purees, and that is the addition of cream, or milk with the yolks of eggs. It will be found in some recipes for these soups that toiled cream is ordered to be added. The distinction is important: not merely is the risk of curdling avoided, but the flavour imparted to the potage is different. All know, for example, how different is the taste of coffee that is made with boiling milk, from that to which cold milk has been added. When therefore you add cream to soup, boil it beforehand separately.

Milk is a substitute for cream especially if a yolk of an egg be added to it, but be careful in adding the yolk lest the soup be curdled. To do this, boil the milk first attentively, and pour it through a strainer into the soup; next make the tureen hot, and just before serving, throw into it the yolk of the egg, and a little butter; take a spoonful of the soup, and work it well with the yolk, then add more soup, spoonful by spoonful, mixing thoroughly; lastly, pour in the remainder of the soup which should, of course, be as hot as possible.

Whether you add eggs, cream, or milk to soup, it is a sine qua non that the process be carried out off the fire, i.e., the vessel containing the soup must be lifted from the fire before you go to work.

Thick soups may be divided into two classes - the white, and the brown. The principles followed in both are very similar; the main difference, of course, consists in the sort of meat used, and the employment of roux, or liaison as the case may be.

Roux is simply melted butter, with flour added to it, according to the quantity of soup you want to thicken. The butter must be melted first, the flour being dredged in by degrees, and stirred vigorously at the bottom of the sauce-pan until thoroughly incorporated, and velvety. As soon as it turns brown, the roux is ready. This is what is wanted for brown soups. For a white, the liaison must not be allowed to take colour; you must commence adding the soup to it as soon as the flour and butter have been sufficiently worked together.

In making those soups, the utmost care should be taken not to over-do the thickening. In the case of a white soup, this error is almost more fatal than in that of a brown. You might as well offer your guest a basin of arrowroot "conjee," or any nice gruel, for the savoury flavour of the soup is easily overpowered. A little practice will teach a cook how much flour, is necessary to obtain the desired consistency of a thick soup, and he should bear in mind that the full effect of the thickening does not assert itself until the soup, which has been added to it, comes to the boil.