Company Bouillon

Take half a shin of beef, a knuckle of veal, and a fowl, cover with cold water and set over the fire. Let come slowly to boil and then skim and set on the back part of the stove, where it will merely simmer all day. Be sure it is tightly covered. At evening pour it in an earthen jar, and the next day take off the fat and strain the soup through a colander. Chop fine two onions, a small carrot, or half a large one, two stalks of celery, and one tomato. Also mince a pound of lean beef, and with this mix the whites of three eggs and their shells. Mix the meat and vegetables and put to the soup. Set all on the stove and bring slowly to boil. Then set back where the heat will merely keep it at a simmer and let it stand till clear. This will not be in less than half an hour. Strain through a cheesecloth bag, add salt and a dash of cayenne or Worcestershire sauce. The bouillon may be set away to keep in a;cool place. When time to use, heat very hot, and serve with seasoning given above, or give additional flavor by adding a cup of white California wine to six cups of the bouillon.

Rice Or Onion Cream Soup

Onion Cream Soup

Slice a dozen small white onions and fry them brown in a tablespoon of butter or drippings. Add a quart of boiling water, cover tight, and let the onions cook half an hour. Then add a pint of fresh milk or cream, salt and pepper to taste, and thicken with three tablespoons of flour worked smooth in a little cold water. Put all through a sieve. If you have used milk and not cream, add three eggs well beaten into half a cup of cream. If you use thick cream instead of milk, add merely a cup of whipped cream. Boil up once and serve hot with bread sticks or with toast.

Rice Cream Soup

Wash and cook for ten minutes in a quart of boiling water half a cup of rice. Drain the rice, put it in a quart of milk in a doubleboiler, cover tight and cook till soft, which will be in about twentyfive minutes. Fry two small onions in a tablespoon of butter. Put the rice and the onions through a sieve or colander, set them again to heat in the doubleboiler, season to your taste with salt, cayenne, and celery seed, and serve hot with sippers. Pot Au Fe.

The National Dish Of France

The French cook this dish of theirs, which is so tasty and so nourishing, in an earthen pot or pippin, a pot with a lid that fits close, cooks slowly, and does not hurry the meat. But with a good iron pot the care of the American housewife pan bring about as wholesome and tasty a dish. The pot must surely have a closefitting cover to hold in the steam and the savor of the meat. And the fire must be slow or the cooking must, must, must.

This soup or stew is made afresh once or twice a week by every family in France who can afford to buy the meat for it. The families who can afford to live well eat it for its own merit; those who can not afford the most substantial foods every day take it in between their vegetable soups to keep up their strength and nourish the body in full force. It has been said that the temperance of Frenchmen is due to the delicious preparation of this dish by their wives.

They eat at dinner of the nourishing pot Au fey, followed by a vegetable salad or by fruit, and they have had a "square" meal. Their hunger is satisfied. A craving for something more does not lead them to a dram of whiskey, as has happened in unnumbered instances in our country. Men have sometimes become drunkards because their body is starved by poor cooking at home their bodies crave substantial food, and they ignorantly stifle the craving with the poison of liquor. Let us have more of the French pot Au fey.

The French housewife begins to make this great dish of her people soon after breakfast on the day it is to be eaten. She puts the various things that go to make it gradually into the pot, attends to it throughout the day, keeps it simmering over a small fire, and when the good man comes in at night has it smoking hot, ready to dish in a hot bowl or deep platter.

On the first day she commonly serves it with slices of bread soaked in it; on the second day with rice, vermicelli, macaroni, etc.

And one more word as to the French housewife's process of making before we give full directions. In the way she goes at it, a great French cook says, she shows the most truly scientific knowledge. She first lays the meat in her pot and pours cold water to it in the proportion of about two quarts of water to three pounds of beef. She then places it upon the fire, where it becomes slowly, very slowly, hot. In this slow heating the heat enlarges the fiber of the meat, dissolves the albuminous and gelatinous which it contains, and diffuses the savory or extractive parts of the meat through the water.

From this one fact of bringing to boil slowly and boiling in the gentlest manner, a tasty, nutritious dish is obtained. If, however, the housewife had heated the water quickly the albumen of the meat would have been coagulated, the fibers shrunk, the savory parts not diffused, and the result would have been tasteless broth and tough, hard meat housewives, do remember this difference between slow heating and boiling and quick heating and boiling of meats.