The Belgian Cookbook | Page 3

a thin purée.
IMMEDIATE SOUP, OR TEN MINUTES SOUP

Into a quart of boiling water throw two tablespoonfuls of either
semolina or tapioca: let it boil for eight minutes with a dust of salt and
pepper. Meanwhile, take your tureen, put quickly into it two yolks of
very fresh eggs, add two pats of butter and two small spoonfuls of
water to mix it. Stir quickly with the spoon, and when the soup has
done its eight minutes' boiling, pour it on the egg and butter in the
tureen. This is an extremely good soup. It is rendered still better by a
small quantity of Bovril.
CHERVIL SOUP
Put a bone of veal on to cook in water, with four or five potatoes,
according to the quantity desired. When these are tender, pass them
through the tammy and return them to the soup. Chop up the chervil,
adding to it half a dessert-spoonful of cornflour. Quarter of an hour
before serving, put in the chervil, but take the cover off the pot, so that
it remains a good green color. Pepper and salt to be added also.
[_V. Verachtert, Café Appelmans, Anvers._]
A GOOD PEA SOUP
Soak your dried peas over-night. The following day boil some fresh
water, and throw in the peas, adding a few chopped onions and leeks,
with pepper and salt. Let the soup simmer for three hours on the top of
the stove, giving it a stir now and then. If you have a ham-bone, that is
a great improvement, or the water in which some bacon has been boiled
is a good foundation for the soup, instead of the fresh water.
[Mdlle. M. Schmidt.]
WATERZOEI
This is an essentially Flemish soup. One uses carp, eels, tench, roach,
perches, barbel, for the real waterzoei is always made of different kinds
of fish. Take two pounds of fish, cut off the heads and tails, which you
will fry lightly in butter, adding to make the sauce a mixed carrot and
onion, three cloves, a pinch of white pepper, a sprig of parsley, one of

thyme, a bay-leaf; pour in two-thirds of water and one-third of white
wine till it more than covers the ingredients and let it simmer for halfan
-hour. Then the pieces of fish must be cut an equal size, and they are
placed to cook quickly in this liquor for twenty minutes. Five minutes
before serving add a lemon peeled and cut into slices and the pips
removed. Some people bind the sauce with breadcrumbs grated and
browned. You serve, with this dish, very thin slices of bread and butter.
For English tastes, the heads and tails should be removed when
dressing the dish.
A GOOD BELGIAN SOUP
is called _crême de sauté_. Itself one of the most wholesome of
vegetables, watercress combines admirably with potatoes in making
soup. Wash, dry, and chop finely four ounces of the leaves picked from
the stalks, fry slowly for five minutes with or without a thinly-sliced
onion, add one pound of potatoes cut in small dice, and fry, still very
slowly, without browning; pour in one quart of water or thin stock,
simmer gently, closely-covered, for from thirty-five to fifty minutes,
rub through a hair sieve, and having returned the puree to the saucepan
with a half-teaspoonful of castor sugar, and salt and cayenne to taste,
thicken with one table-spoonful of flour stirred smoothly into one
breakfast-cupful of cold milk; boil up sharply, and serve sprinkled with
watercress.
[E. Haig.]
BELGIAN PURÉE
Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out,
drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with
a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract
and water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the
saucepan off so that they may remain green. Pass them through the
sieve, leave them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of
three eggs, a pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessert-spoonful
of butter for each pint and a half of soup.

AMBASSADOR SOUP
A pint and a half of either fresh peas, or of dried peas that have been
soaked for six hours in cold water; a leek, and three onions chopped
finely. Simmer till the peas are tender, then pass all through the sieve.
Well wash some sorrel and chop it, and add as much as will be to your
taste. In another pan cook five tablespoonfuls of rice, and add that to
your soup. Simmer up again, stirring it all very well. This soup should
be of a green color.
[Mme. Georges Goffaux.]
CRECY SOUP (BELGIAN RECIPE)
Take ten carrots, two onions, one leek, five potatoes, and cook all
gently in water, with salt and pepper; when