Pea Soup, From Dried Green Peas. - Proceed as in the above recipe in every respect, substituting dried green peas for ordinary yellow split peas. color the soup green by adding a large handful of spinach before it is rubbed through the wire sieve, or add a small quantity of spinach extract (vegetable coloring sold by grocers in bottles); dried mint and fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup, as with the other.

Pea Soup, Green (Fresh). - Take half a peck of young peas, shell them and throw the peas into cold water. Put all the shells into a quart or more of stock or water. Put in also a handful of spinach if possible, a few sprigs of parsley, a dozen fresh mint-leaves and half a dozen small, fresh, green onions. Boil these for an hour, or rather more and then rub the whole through a wire sieve.

You cannot rub all the shells through; but you will be able to rub a great part through, that which is left in the sieve being only strings. Now put on the soup to boil again and as soon as it boils throw in the peas; as soon as these are tender - about twenty minutes - the soup is finished and can be sent to table. If the soup is thin, a little white roux can be added to thicken it; if of a bad color, or if you could not get any spinach, add some spinach extract (vegetable coloring, sold by all grocers), only take care not to add too much and make the soup look like green paint.

Potato Soup. - Potato soup is a very good method of using up the remains of cold boiled potatoes. Slice up a large onion and fry it, without letting it turn color, with a little butter. Add a little water or stock to the frying-pan and let the onion boil till it is tender. Boil a quart or more of milk separately with a couple of bay-leaves; rub the onion with the cold potatoes through a wire sieve and add it to the milk. You can moisten the potatoes in the sieve with the milk. When you have rubbed enough to make the soup thick enough, let it boil up and add to every quart a salt spoonful of thyme and a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley. This soup should be rather thicker than most thick soups.

When new potatoes first come into season and especially when you have new potatoes from your own garden, it will often be found that mixed with the ordinary ones there are many potatoes no bigger than a toy marble and which are too small to be boiled and sent to table as an ordinary dish of new potatoes. Reserve all these little dwarf potatoes, wash them and throw them for five or ten minutes into boiling water, drain them off and throw them into the potato soup whole. Of course they must boil in the soup till they are tender. A little cream is a great improvement to the soup and dried mint can be served with it, but is not absolutely necessary.

Pumpkin Soup. - Take half or a quarter of a moderate-sized pumpkin, pare it, remove the seeds and cut the pumpkin into thin slices. Put these into a stew-pan, with as much water or milk as will cover them and boil gently until they are reduced to a pulp. Rub this through a fine sieve, mix with it a little salt and a piece of butter the size of an egg and stir it over the fire until it boils. Thin it with some boiling milk which has been sweetened and flavored with lemon-rind, cinnamon, or orange-flower water. It should be of the consistency of thick cream. Put toasted bread, cut into the size of dice, at the bottom of the soup-tureen. Moisten the bread-dice with a small quantity of the liquor, let them soak a little while, then pour the rest of the soup over them and serve very hot. Or whisk two fresh eggs thoroughly in the tureen and pour the soup in over them at the last moment. The liquor should to have ceased from boiling for a minute or two before it is poured over the eggs.

Rhubarb Soup. - This is a sweet soup and is simply juice from stewed rhubarb sweetened and flavored with lemon-peel and added either to cream or beaten-up yolks of eggs and a little white wine. It is rarely met with in this country.

Rice Soup. - Take a quarter of a pound of rice and wash it in several waters till the water ceases to be discolored. Take an onion, the white part of a head of celery and a turnip and cut them up and fry them in a little butter. Add a quart of stock, or water and boil these vegetables until they are tender and then rub them through a wire sieve. Boil the rice in this soup till it is tender, flavor with pepper and salt, add a little milk boiled separately and serve grated Parmesan cheese with the soup.

Rice Soup A La Royal. - Take half a pound of rice and wash it thoroughly in several waters till the water ceases to be discolored. Boil this rice in some stock that has been strongly flavored with onion, carrot and celery and strained off. When the rice is tender rub it through a wire sieve, then add some boiling milk, in which two or three bay-leaves have been boiled and half a pint of cream, till the soup is a proper consistency. Serve some egg force-meat balls with the soup.

Sorrel Soup. - Take some sorrel and wash it very thoroughly. Like spinach, it requires a great deal of cleansing. Drain it off and place the sorrel in a stew-pan and keep stirring it with a wooden spoon. When it has dissolved and boiled for two or three minutes, let it drain on a sieve till the water has run off. Next cut up a large onion and fry it in a little butter, but do not brown the onion. Add a tablespoonful of flour to every two ounces of butter used, also a teaspoonful of sugar, a little grated nutmeg, also a little pepper and salt; add the sorrel to this, with a small quantity of stock or water, then rub the whole through a wire sieve and serve. In some parts of the Continent vinegar is added, but it is not adapted to English taste.

Sago Soup. - Take two ounces of sage and having washed it very thoroughly, put it on to boil in a quart of stock strongly flavored with onion, celery and carrot, but which has been strained off. The sage must boil until it becomes quite transparent and tender. flavor the soup with a little pepper and salt, a quarter of a nutmeg, grated, about half a teaspoonful of powdered sugar and a teaspoonful of lemon juice from a hard lemon.

Cassell & Company, Limited: London, Paris & Melbourne. 1891.

Tags: Recipes and Cooking