Bouillon Soup

4 pounds of round of beef cut into dice pieces. Trim off all fatty ski quarts water; 1 teaspoonful celery seed; 4 large onions; 6 large carrots; bunch of parsley; 6 blades of mace; 16 whole cloves, salt and pepper to taste.

Pour on the water, and let it simmer six hours, skimming carefully, for if any grease is allowed to go back into the soup it is impossible to make it clear. Scrape the carrots, stick 4 whole cloves into each onion, and put them in the soup; then add the celery seed, parsley, mace, pepper and salt. Let this boil till the vegetables are tender, then strain through a cloth, pouring the soup through first, then putting the meat in it to drain, never squeezing or pressing it.

If you wish to color it, you can put in a dessertspoon of burnt sugar. It can be nicely flavored by adding some walnut catsup, together with mushroom and a very little Worcestershire.

Beef Soup

Boil trimmings of roast beef and beef-steak bones for three hours. Cool and skim off fat; add half a salt spoon of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, 3 potatoes, pared and cut up, 1/2 a carrot, 1/2 an onion, 3 gumbo pods, half a bay leaf and a little chopped parsley. Add a few drops of caramel and serve hot. Strain, if preferred thin.

Tomato Soup without Stock

1 dozen tomatoes cut up and enough water to cover them; a salt spoon of mustard, salt and 2 dozen cloves. Stew thoroughly and strain. Rub together 2 heaping tablespoons of flour and a piece of butter the size of an egg. Put this in the strained liquor and boil. This makes soup for six persons.

Milk Tomato Soup

Boil 1 can of tomatoes very soft in 1 quart of water; strain, and add 1 pint of milk, 1 teaspoonful of soda, small piece of butter, a shake of mace, and salt to taste. Let it scald, not boil, and add 2 rolled crackers.

Bisque Soup

2 large onions sliced, 1 can tomatoes. Boil together half an hour or longer, then put through colander and add 1 quart beef stock, salt and pepper. Let this boil together a few moments. Whip 1 cup cream with the yolks of 4 eggs and 1 tablespoon of corn starch or flour; add this to the stock, boil up, and serve at once.

Mock Bisque Soup

1 quart tomatoes, 3 pints milk, 1 large tablespoonful flour, butter size of an egg, pepper and salt to taste, a scant teaspoonful of soda. Put the tomato on to stew and the milk in a double kettle to boil, reserving half a cup to mix with flour. Mix the flour smoothly with the cold milk and cook ten minutes.

To the tomato add the soda, stir well, and rub through a strainer that is fine enough to keep back the seeds. Add butter, salt and pepper to the milk and then the tomato. Serve immediately.

Bean Soup

1 coffee cup of brown beans soaked over night; boil in a gallon of water with a piece of salt pork 3 inches square (a little beef is good, also) several hours, until beans are soft; strain, and add a small bit of butter, the juice of 1 lemon and a small cup of sherry wine.

Black Bean Soup

1 pint of beans soaked over night; 2 quarts water and boil five or six hours, adding water as it boils away; when soft, strain out the skins, season with salt and pepper to taste. When ready for the table add a large spoonful of sherry wine, 2 boiled eggs, sliced, and 1 lemon, sliced very thin. Do not cook it any after these ingredients are added.

Split Pea Soup

1 gallon water, 1 quart peas, soaked over night; 1/4 pound salt pork cut in bits; 1 pound lean beef cut the same. Boil slowly two hours, or until the water is reduced one-half. Pour in a colander and press the peas through; return to the kettle and add a small amount of celery chopped fine. Fry three or four slices of bread quite brown in butter cut in squares when served.

Grandmother Sawtelle’s Pea Soup

Soak a quart of dried peas over night. In the morning put them on to boil with fragments of fresh meat; also cloves, allspice, pepper and salt. Let boil until soft, then strain through a colander. Have some pieces of bread or crackers inch square, and put them into the oven to dry without browning; a pint of bread to a quart of peas. Take 2/3 of a cup of melted butter and put the bread in it; stir until the bread and butter are well mixed, then put into the peas and it is done. If the peas do not boil easily add a little saleratus.

Green Pea Soup

Boil the pods first, then remove and boil peas in same water until soft enough to mash easily. Add a quart of milk, and thickening made of a tablespoonful of butter and 1 of flour. Boil a few minutes and serve.

Celery Soup (for six persons)

Boil a small cup of rice till tender, in 3 pints of milk (or 2 pints of milk and 1 of cream); rub through a sieve, add 1 quart of veal stock, salt, cayenne and 3 heads of celery grated fine.

Cream of Celery Soup

4 teacups of chopped celery, 1 quart of milk; boil celery soft (saving water it is boiled in); rub celery through fine sieve; mix celery and milk. Take 1 heaping tablespoonful of flour, 1 even tablespoonful of butter, 1 scant teaspoonful of salt. If desired, can boil celery in the morning, then about half an hour before dinner take milk, flour, butter, salt and celery and boil together, stirring constantly so it will cook evenly. When the consistency of cream, it is ready for use.

Ox-tail Soup

1 ox-tail, 2 pounds lean beef, 4 carrots, 3 onions and thyme. Cut tail into pieces and fry brown in butter. Slice onions and 2 carrots, and when you remove the tail from the pan put these in and brown also; then tie them in a thin cloth with the thyme and put in the soup pot. Lay the tail in and then the meat cut into small pieces. Grate over them the remaining 2 carrots, and add 4 quarts of water, with salt and pepper. Boil four to six hours. Strain five minutes before serving and thicken with 2 tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil ten minutes longer.

Mushroom Soup

1 pint of white stock, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, and 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoonful corn starch, 1 pint of milk; heat milk. Mix butter and corn starch to cream, and add hot milk and then stock. Boil 1 pound of mushrooms until soft, and then strain. Have them ready and add to the soup, letting it stand to thicken. It is improved by a little whipped cream added before serving.

Soupe a l’Ognon

Put into a saucepan butter size of a pigeon’s egg; add 1 pint of soup stock. When very hot add 3 onions, sliced thin, then a full 1/2 teacup of flour, stirring constantly that it may not burn. Add 1 pint boiling water, pepper and salt, and let boil one minute, then placing on back of range till ready to serve, when add 1 quart of boiling milk and 3 mashed boiled potatoes. Gradually add to the potatoes a little of the soup till smooth and thin enough to put into the soup kettle. Stir all well, then strain. Put diamond-shaped pieces of toasted bread in bottom of tureen and pour soup over it.

Potato Soup

Boil and mash fine 4 large mealy potatoes; add 1 egg, a piece of butter size of an egg, a teaspoonful of salt, 1 teaspoonful celery salt. Boil 1 pint of water and 1 pint of milk together and pour on potatoes boiling hot. Stir it well, strain and serve.

Asparagus (white) Soup

Cut off the hard, green stems from two bunches of asparagus and put them in 2 quarts and a pint of water, with 2 pounds of veal (the knuckle is the best). Boil in a closely covered pot three hours, till the meat is in rags and the asparagus dissolved. Strain the liquor and return to the pot with the remaining half of the asparagus heads. Let this boil for twenty minutes more and add, before taking up, 2/3 of a teacup of sweet cream, in which has been stirred a dessertspoonful of corn starch. When it has fairly boiled up, serve with small squares of toast in the tureen. Season with salt and pepper.

Soup a la Minute (for six persons)

Cut 4 ounces of fat salt pork in dice and set it on the fire in a saucepan; stir, and when it is turning rather brown, add 1 onion chopped, and 1/2 a medium-sized carrot sliced. When they are partly fried, add 2 pounds of lean beef cut in small dice, and let fry five minutes. Then pour in it about 3 pints of boiling water, salt and pepper, and boil gently for three-quarters of an hour.

Caramel, for Coloring Soups

Melt 1 cup white sugar in a saucepan till it is dark; add slowly 1 cup cold water, stirring briskly, and boil till it thickens. Keep in large-mouthed bottle.