Preliminary Hints And Observations

Take great care that your pots; saucepans, and covers, are very clean, and free from all sand and grease, and that they are properly tinned ; since, if this be not cautiously attended to, your soups and broths will not only acquire a bad taste, but become pernicious to the health and constitutions of many. When you make any kind of soup, particularly vermicelli, portable or brown gravy soups, or any other soups that have herbs or roots in them, be sure to remember to lay your meat at the bottom of the pan, with a large piece of butter. Then cut the roots and herbs small, and having laid them over your meat, cover your pot or saucepan very close, and keep under it a slow fire, which will draw all the virtues out of the vegetables, turn them to a good gravy, and give the soup a very different flavour from what it would have by a contrary conduct. When your gravy is almost dried up, replenish it with water; and when it begins to boil, take off the fat, and follow the directions given you for the particular kind of soup or broth you are making. Soft water will suit your purpose best in making old peas soup; but when you make soup of green peas, you must make use of hard water, as it will the better preserve the colour of your peas. In the preparation of white soup, remember never to put in your cream till you take your soup off the fire, and the last thing you do, must be the dishing of your soups. Gravy soup will have a skin over it by standing; and from the same cause peas soup will often settle, and look thin at the top. Lastly, let the ingredients of your soups and broths be so properly proportioned, that they may not taste of one thing more than another, but that the taste be equal, and the whole of a fine and agreeable relish.

Soup A La Heine

Put three quarts of water to a knuckle of veal and three or four pounds of beef, with a little salt, and when it boils, skim it well. Then put in a leek, a little thyme, some parsley, a head or two of celery, a parsnip, two large carrots, and six large onions, and boil all together till the goodness is quite out of the meat: strain through a hair sieve, and let it stand about an hour: skim it well, and clear it off gently from the settlings into a clean pan : boil half a pint of cream, pour it on the crumb of a halfpenny loaf, and let it soak well. Take half a pound of almonds, blanch and beat them as fine as possible, putting in now and then a little cream to prevent their oiling: then take the yolks of six hard eggs, and the roll that was soaked in the cream, and beat them all together quite fine: make your broth hot, and pour it to your almonds, strain it through a tamis, rubbing it with a spoon till all the goodness is gone quite through into a stewpan : add more cream to make it white, and set it over the fire. Keep stirring it till it boils, skim off the froth as it rises, and soak the tops of French rolls in melted butter in a stewpan till they are crisp, but not brown : take them out, and lay them on a plate before the fire; and, about a quarter of an hour before you send it to table, take a little of the hot soup, and put it. to the rolls in the bottom of the tureen. Put your soup on the fire, keep stirring it till it nearly boils, and then pour it into your tureen, and serve it up hot. Be careful to take off all the fat of the broth before you pour it to the almonds, or they will curdle and spoil it.