Part 2 (1/2)

VEGETABLE SOUP

Fry four onions till they are brown. Add them to three pints of water, with four carrots, a slice of white crumb of bread, five potatoes, a celery and a bunch of parsley, which you must take out before pa.s.sing the soup through the sieve. A few tomatoes make the soup better; if they are tinned, do not add them till after the soup has been pa.s.sed through the tammy; if they are fresh, put them in with the other vegetables.

Simmer for an hour, add pepper and salt before serving.

[_V. Verachtert._]

MUSHROOM CREAM SOUP

On a good white stock foundation, for which you have used milk and a bone of veal, sprinkle in some ground rice till it thickens, stirring it well for twenty minutes. Wash and chop your mushrooms, and fry them in b.u.t.ter. Add the yolk of an egg and bind it. This is a delicious soup.

[_Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen._]

THE SOLDIER'S VEGETABLE SOUP

(Eight to ten persons)

Peel three pounds of vegetables. Put them in a large pot with all the vegetables that you can find, according to the season. In the winter you will take four celeries, four leeks, two turnips, a cabbage, two onions, pepper and salt, two-penny-worth of bones, and about five and one-half quarts of water. Let it all boil for three hours, taking care to add water so as to keep the quant.i.ty at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables through a tammy, crus.h.i.+ng them well, and then let them boil up again for at least another hour. The time allotted for the first and second cooking is of the greatest importance.

LEEK SOUP

Cut up two onions and fry them till they are brown; you need not use b.u.t.ter, clarified fat will do very well. Clean your leeks, was.h.i.+ng them well; cut them in pieces and fry them also; add any other vegetables that you have, two medium-sized potatoes, pepper, salt, and a little water. Let all simmer for three hours, and pa.s.s it through a fine sieve.

Let there be more leeks than other vegetables, so that their flavor predominates.

[_Mme. Jules Segers_.]

CELERIS AU LARD

Take one pound of celery, cut off the green tops, cut the stems into pieces two-thirds of an inch long; put into boiling salted water, and cook till tender. Take one-half pound potatoes, peel and slice, and add to the celery, so that both will be cooked at the same moment. Strain and place on a flat fire-proof dish. Prepare some fat slices of bacon, toast them till crisp in the oven; pour the melted bacon-fat over the celery and potato, adding a dash of vinegar, and place the rashers on top. Serve hot.

Leeks may be prepared in the same way.

CABBAGE WITH SAUSAGES

Cut a large cabbage in two, slice and wash, put it into boiling water with salt, and when partly cooked, add some potatoes cut into smallish pieces. Cook all together for about an hour; then drain. Put some fat in a saucepan, slice an onion, brown it in the fat, add the cabbage and potato, and stew all together for ten minutes; then dish. Bake some sausages in the oven and dish them round the cabbage; serve hot.