Wipe the meat with a warm damp cloth, and put it into a saucepan with the vegetables; bring to the boil and stew very gently for two hours. Take it up and remove all the bones, put it between two boards and stand some heavy weights on it till quite cold. Then cut into neat- shaped pieces, egg and bread crumb them; fry a good colour. Boil the peas by recipe given elsewhere. Pile the mutton on a dish and put the peas round. A breast of lamb is exceedingly nice done in this way; it may be cut off before the quarter is roasted. The liquor in which the meat was cooked makes excellent soup.
2 lbs. of spinach, 1 chopped up onion, 1 oz. of butter, 1 pint of milk, the juice of 1 lemon, 1-1/2 oz. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, and pepper and salt to taste. This will make about 3 pints of soup. Wash the spinach well, and cook it in 1 pint of water with the onion and seasoning. When the spinach is quite soft, rub all through a sieve. Mix the wheatmeal with the melted butter as in the previous recipe, stir into it the spinach, add the milk; boil all up, and add the lemon juice last of all. If the soup is too thick, add a little water.
1 dozen leeks, 1-1/2 pints of milk, 1 lb. of potatoes, 1 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and the juice of a lemon (this last may be omitted if not liked). Prepare the leeks as in the previous recipe, cut them into pieces about an inch long. Peel and wash the potatoes and cut them into dice. Set the vegetables over the fire with 1 quart of water, and cook them until tender, which will be in about 1 hour. When soft rub all through a sieve and return the soup to the saucepan. Add the milk, butter, and seasoning, boil up, and add the lemon juice just before serving. Should the soup be too thick add a little hot water. Serve with Allinson plain rusks.
This is a German recipe. Take half a dozen good-sized apples, peel them and remove the core, and boil them in a quart of water with two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs; add the juice of a lemon, and flavour it with rather less than a quarter of an ounce of powdered cinnamon; sweeten the soup with lump sugar, previously having rubbed six lumps on the outside of the lemon.
Like most soups that are either sweet or sour, this is a German recipe. Put a piece of butter, the size of a large egg, into a saucepan. Let it melt, then mix it with a tablespoonful of flour, and stir smoothly until it is lightly browned. Add gradually two pints of water, a pound of black cherries, picked and washed, and a few cloves. Let these boil until the fruit is quite tender, then press the whole through a sieve. After straining, add a little port, if wine is allowed--but the soup will be very nice without this addition--half a teaspoonful of the kernels, blanched and bruised, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a few whole cherries. Let the soup boil again until the cherries are tender, and pour all into a tureen over toasted sippets, sponge-cakes, or macaroons.
Proceed exactly as in the above recipe, only substituting white haricot beans for red. It is a great improvement to add a little boiling cream, but of course this makes the soup much more expensive. Some cooks add a spoonful of blanched, chopped parsley to this puree, and Frenchmen generally flavour this soup with garlic.
Fruit soups are used extensively abroad, although not much heard of in England. But they might be taken at breakfast with advantage by those vegetarians who have given up the use of tea, coffee and cocoa, and object to, or dislike, milk. The recipe given here is for apple soup, but pears, plums, etc., may be cooked in exactly the same way. 1 lb. apples, 1 qt. water, sugar and flavouring, 1 tablespoon sago. Wash the apples and cut into quarters, but do not peel or core. Put into a saucepan with the water and sugar and flavouring to taste. When sweet, ripe apples can be obtained, people with natural tastes will prefer no addition of any kind. Otherwise, a little cinnamon, cloves, or the yellow part of lemon rind may be added. Stew until the apples are soft. Strain through a sieve, rubbing the apple pulp through, but leaving cores, etc., behind. Wash the sago, add to the strained soup, and boil gently for 1 hour. Stir now and then, as the sago is apt to stick to the pan.
Chop the drained turnips into rather large pieces. Return to the stew-pan, and for one and one-half pints of turnips add one teaspoon of salt, one-fourth teaspoon of pepper, one tablespoon of butter, and four tablespoons of water. Cook over a very hot fire until the turnips have absorbed all the seasonings. Serve at once. Or the salt, pepper, butter, and one tablespoon of flour may be added to the hashed turnips; then the stew-pan may be placed over the hot fire and shaken frequently to toss up the turnips. When the turnips have been cooking five minutes in this manner add one-half pint of meat stock or of milk and cook ten minutes. When meat or soup stock is used substitute drippings for the butter in the above recipe.
Take pieces of ribs of lean salt pork, also a slice or two of the fat of salt pork; scald it well with hot water so as to wash out the briny taste. Put it into a kettle and cover it with cold water, enough for the required want. Cover it and boil an hour, season with pepper; then add half a dozen potatoes cut into quarters. When it all commences to boil again, drop in dumplings made from this recipe:-- One pint of sour or buttermilk, two eggs, well beaten, a teaspoonful of salt, a level teaspoonful of soda; dissolve in a spoonful of water as much flour as will make a very stiff batter. Drop this into the kettle or broth by spoonfuls, and cook forty minutes, closely covered.
