Vegetable Soups — From the COOKS.COM Culinary Archive.

VEGETABLE SOUPS

  Soups are made from the water in which some vegetables have been boiled and thickened with the pulp of the vegetables, mashed fine and sifted.  Milk or cream is added to improve the flavor and make them more nutritious.  The liquid and vegetable pulp should be blended with a little flour, or other starchy thickening, to keep them from separating.  Celery, tomatoes, green peas, green corn, carrot and parsnips may be used for soup in the same general way as the potatoes.  They are valuable foods, enabling one to utilize the water and mineral salts in the vegetables.

  Such soups are named for the vegetable used.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR VEGETABLE SOUPS MADE WITHOUT STOCK

  Prepare the vegetable; cook potatoes, cauliflower or artichokes in boiling water and discard water; cook others in cold water, let it cook nearly all out; mash, press through sieve, add white sauce (one cup to each pint of pulp and water for most fresh green vegetables, also for canned vegetables; add one pint of sauce for each pint of pulp from spinach, tomatoes and other succulent vegetables).  Season with salt and pepper; dilute with hot milk if too thick; add beaten egg, or more pulp if too thin.  Serve with toasted crackers.

WHITE SAUCE FOR SOUPS

  Melt two tablespoons butter in a saucepan; cook it in two tablespoons flour.  Add gradually one cup hot milk or cream.  Season with one half teaspoon salt and one fourth teaspoon white pepper.

  In making a white sauce, be careful to cook the flour in the hot butter, without browning them; but cook and stir until the mixture becomes slightly thinner.  The high temperature of the butter changes the flour into dextrin, which, being soluble, may be diluted with the hot liquid and yet remain smooth.  Add the liquid hot, that it may boil quickly and cause the cell walls to burst and the starch grains to swell; and add gradually that the sauce may be stirred, while it is like a thick paste, until it is smooth.  If all the liquid be poured on at once, or the mixture be not stirred thoroughly while it is thick, the sauce will be lumpy.  Enough liquid must be used to swell all the flour, and make the sauce of the desired consistency.  The usual proportion is one tablespoon of fat and two tablespoons of flour to one cup of liquid; and by varying these proportions, and using different liquids and seasonings, a great variety of gravies and sauces may be made with this general rule as the foundation.

  Cooking the flour in the hot butter or fat cooks it thoroughly; for the fat, when it stops bubbling, is much hotter than boiling water.  When done in this way the flour never has a raw, uncooked taste, and the butter or fat is absorbed by the flour instead of floating on the surface of the sauce.

POTATO SOUP

3 potatoes.
1 pt. of milk or half milk and half water.
1 tsp. chopped onion.
1 tsp. salt.
1 spk. white pepper.
1/2 tbsp. flour.
1/2 tbsp. dripping.

  Wash and pare the potatoes, put them into boiling water and cook till very soft.  Cook the onion in the milk in a double boiler.  When the potatoes are done, drain and mash them.  Add the boiling milk and the seasoning.  Rub them through a strainer, and put them back into the double boiler to boil again.  Melt the dripping in a small pan, add the flour, and stir till it thickens.  Stir it into the boiling soup.  Let it boil five minutes.  Add one teaspoon finely chopped parsley, and serve very hot, with croutons.  If the soup be too thick add a little more hot milk or water.

BAKED BEAN SOUP

  Take cold baked beans, add twice the quantity of cold water, and let them simmer until soft.  When nearly done add half as much tomato.  Rub them through a puree strainer.  Add more water till the right consistency, season to taste with salt, pepper, and mustard.  Heat again and serve with toasted crackers or fried dice of bread.

CREAM OF CHESTNUTS

1 pk. chestnuts.
1 pk. milk or white stock.
1 c. cream.
1/2 tsp. salt.
1/8 tsp. pepper.
1 egg.

  Remove the shells from the chestnuts, then cover with boiling water, let them stand five minutes; drain, and cover again with boiling water, and blanch them by removing the thin, brown skin.  Cook them in boiling salted water to cover, until very soft.  Mash them with a potato masher, in the water left in the pan, and rub them through a fine strainer into the milk or stock and cream.

 Heat again and let it simmer ten minutes, add salt and pepper to taste, add a little sugar if you desire.  Remove from the fire and stir in the beaten egg quickly and serve at once.  If the soup be too thick add more hot milk, and if too thin, before adding the egg let it reduce by longer simmering.  Serve with toasted or fried croutons.

CROUTONS

  Cut stale bread into half-inch slices.  Remove the crusts and cut into half-inch cubes.  Put them on a shallow pan and bake until brown.  Use them in the place of toast, or as a garnish, or in soups and stews.

CANNED CORN SOUP

  Empty the corn from a can and turn over it one quart of milk.  Stir it well; then turn into a colander to drain.  Put the milk on to boil in the double boiler and turn the drained corn, which should be as dry as possible, into a pan in which you have melted two tablespoons of butter.  Let the corn cook in the butter, stirring it frequently until it is dry and browned slightly; season it highly with salt and pepper, and if it forms a glaze on the pan scrape it off and let as much of it glaze as will.  This will give something of the roasted corn flavor.  When well cooked turn it into the milk, taking all the browned part, and let it simmer until the milk is well flavored with the corn.  Turn again into a strainer and press as much of the corn through as will go; re-heat; add more salt and pepper if needed; stir in one cup of white sauce.

TOMATO CREAM SOUP

1 pt. stewed tomatoes.
1/2 tsp. soda.
1 tsp. salt.
1/4 tsp. white pepper.
1 qt. milk.
1/3 c. butter.
1 tbsp. corn-starch.
6 crisped crackers.

  Stew the tomatoes, add the soda, salt, and pepper, and rub through a strainer.  Boil the milk in a large double boiler.  Cook the corn-starch in one tablespoon of the butter in a small saucepan; add gradually about one cup of the hot milk.  Stir it carefully into the boiling milk and cook ten minutes.  Cut the remainder of the butter into small pieces and stir into the milk.  Add the tomatoes, and when hot and well mixed strain into the hot tureen.

BROWNED CRACKERS

1/2 tsp. butter to each whole cracker.

  Split round crackers in halves, spread the inside with a thin layer of butter.  Put them, buttered side up, into a pan and brown in a hot oven.  Serve plain with soups and oyster stews.

Gentlemen do not take soup at luncheon.
 
  Lord Curzon — Short Journey

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