The base of soup should be made of good lean fresh meat and bones - two ounces of bone to a pound of meat; allow one quart of water to a pound of meat; put it on a good fire, and when it boils skim well and set back where it will simmer for five hours: add a little pepper and salt, and then strain into a stone jar and place where it can cool quickly. In cold weather this stock will keep several days,, and from it can be made a variety of soups, according to flavorings or materials used. Vegetables, tapioca, rice, etc., should be cooked before being added, as too much boiling spoils the flavor of the broth.

It is best to make the broth or stock the day before it is to be used, so that all the grease may be removed.

Onions are nicer if fried until brown in hot butter before being added to the soup.

Yolks of hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, lemon slices, or croutons are simple additions used with soup. Place in the tureen one for each person, and pour the soup over them.

Stock For Sauces And Gravies

Place in a saucepan fresh bones of beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or poultry, of either or all; also bones of the same meats from roasted pieces or trimmings; with one quart of cold water to every pound of meat or bones, add vegetables and seasonings, and simmer six hours; then skim off all the fat, pass through a strainer, and set aside for use.

How To Make A Soup Of The Liquor

Remove the fat and put two quarts, or more if required, of the liquor into a saucepan, and put on the fire to boil; when boiling, sprinkle in two ounces of tapioca or sago, and boil fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally.

Force Meat Balls For Soup

Take cooked-meat or fowl and chop fine; season with pepper, salt, and herbs, and a little lemon; mix together with an egg; roll in crumbs, and fry in hot lard.

Stock For Soup

Have a large pot on the back of the stove. Put in lean beef, either after having been cooked or before, in the proportion of one pound of beef to one quart of water. Add pork rinds with all the fat taken off. This may cook slowly two or three days. When cold, skim off all the fat and put into another vessel. This stock may be used for all soups in which meat broth is required. By adding for thickening either barley, rice, sago, macaroni or vermicelli, it will make any of these soups.

Bean Soup

1. Boil the beans and put them first through a colander and then through a sieve; season with butter, pepper and salt.

2. Soak one and a half pints of beans in cold water over night. In the morning drain off the water, wash the beans in fresh water, and put into soup kettle, with four quarts of good beef stock, from which all the fat has been removed. Set it where it will boil slowly but steadily till dinner, or three hours at the least. Two hours before dinner slice in an onion and a carrot. Some think it improved by adding a little tomato. If the beans are not liked whole, strain through a colander and send to the table hot.