Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches | Page 9

cook gradually in the hot water. In an hour pour off all
the water, and setting the pan on hot coals, stir up and toss the rice with
a fork, so as to separate the grains, and to dry without hardening it. Do
not use a spoon, as that will not loosen the grains sufficiently.
MOCK TURTLE OR CALF'S HEAD SOUP.
This soup will require eight hours to prepare. Take a large calf's head,
and having cleaned, washed, and soaked it, put it into a pot with a
knuckle of veal, and the hock of a ham, or a few slices of bacon; but
previously cut off and reserve enough of the veal to make two dozen

small force-meat balls. Put the head and the other meat into as much
water as will cover it very well, so that it may not be necessary to
replenish it: this soup being always made very rich. Let it boil slowly
four hours, skimming it carefully. As soon as no more scum rises, put
in six potatoes, and three
turnips, all sliced thin; with equal
proportions of parsley, sweet marjoram and sweet basil, chopped fine;
and pepper and salt to your taste.
An hour before you send the meat to table, make about two dozen small
force-meat balls of minced veal and beef-suet in equal quantities,
seasoned with pepper and salt; sweet herbs, grated lemon-peel, and
powdered nutmeg and mace. Add some beaten yolk of egg to make all
these ingredients stick together. Flour the balls very well, and fry them
in butter. Before you put them into the soup, take out the head, and the
other meat. Cut the meat from the head in small pieces, and return it to
the soup. When the soup is nearly done, stir in half a pint of Madeira.
Have ready at least a dozen egg-balls made of the yolks of hard-boiled
eggs, grated or pounded in a mortar, and mixed with a little flour and
sufficient raw yolk of egg to bind them. Make them up into the form
and size of boy's marbles. Throw them into the soup at the last, and also
squeeze in the juice of a lemon. Let it get another slow boil, and then
put it into the tureen.
We omit a receipt for real turtle soup, as when that very expensive,
complicated, and difficult dish is prepared in a private family, it is
advisable to hire a first-rate cook for the express purpose.
An easy way is to get it ready made, in any quantity you please, from a
turtle-soup house.
OX TAIL SOUP
Three ox tails will make a large tureen full of soup. Desire the butcher
to divide them at the joints. Rub them with salt, and put them to soak in
warm water, while you prepare the vegetables. Put into a large pot or
stew-pan four onions peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, two
sliced carrots, two sliced turnips, and two dozen pepper corns. Then put
in the tails, and pour on three quarts of water.

Cover the pot, and set it on hot coals by the side of the fire. Keep it
gently simmering for about three hours, supplying it well with fresh hot
coals. Skim it carefully. When the meat is quite tender, and falls from
the bones, strain the soup into another pot, and add to it a spoonful of
mushroom catchup, and two
spoonfuls of butter rubbed in flour.
You may thicken it also with the pulp of a dozen onions first fried soft,
and then rubbed through a cullender. After it is thickened, let it just boil
up, and then send it to table, with small squares of toasted bread in the
tureen.
OCHRA SOUP.
Take a large slice of ham (cold boiled ham is best) and two pounds of
the lean of fresh beef; cut all the meat into small pieces. Add a quarter
of a pound of butter slightly melted; twelve large tomatas pared and cut
small; five dozen ochras cut into slices not thicker than a cent; and salt
and cayenne pepper to your taste. Put all these ingredients into a pot;
cover them with boiling water, and let them stew slowly for an hour.
Then add three quarts of hot water, and increase the heat so as to make
the soup boil. Skim it well, and stir it frequently with a wooden or
silver spoon.
Boil it till the tomatas are all to pieces, and the ochras
entirely
dissolved. Strain it, and then serve it up with toasted bread cut into dice,
put in after it comes out of the pot.
This soup will be improved by a pint of shelled Lima beans, boiled by
themselves, and put into the tureen just before you send it to table.
BEAN SOUP.
Put