SOUPS
SOUP STOCK.
Two pounds of coarse lean beef, chopped almost as fine as sausage-meat; one pound of lean veal, also chopped; two pounds of bones (beef; veal or mutton) cracked in several places, half an onion chopped, two or three stalks of celery, five quarts of cold water; meat and bones should be raw, but if you have underdone beef or mutton you may crack and add them. Put all the ingredients, no salt or pepper, in a large clean pot, cover it closely and set on one side of the range where it will not really get hot under two hours. This gives the water time to draw out the juices of the meat; then remove to a warmer place, stir up well from the bottom, and cook slowly five hours longer. It should never boil hard, but bubble soft and steadily all the while. Fast boiling toughens the fibers and keeps in the juice of the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up, lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping tablespoonful of salt and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your stock pot. This should be a stout stone crock or jar with a cover, and be used for nothing else. See that it is free from grease. Put on the cover and set in a cold place until the next day; then take off every particle of the caked fat from the top. Strain the skimmed liquid through a colander, squeezing the meat hard to extract every drop of nutriment. This process should give you about three quarts of strong stock; rinse your jar well and pour back the strained stock into it to be used as the foundation of several days' soup; season it highly and keep in a cold place; in warm weather on the ice. —Mrs. Robert H. Seymour.
BEEF SOUP.
Take four pounds of beef; or what is better and more economical, a nice beef shank or soup-bone; put it into four or five quarts of water, salt it, let it boil slowly for five or six hours, skim well half an hour before you wish to take it off; put in rice, a small quantity of potatoes, carrots, onions and celery, cut in small pieces. Mutton soup can be made in the same way. — Mrs. J. W. Rathburn.
|
