Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/32

28 Broth is more quickly made than soup, as it needs no stock foundation; at the same time, it requires good cooking and careful watching, and should always have some good piece of meat as a foundation, in place of the stock; and, by all means, plenty of fresh vegetables—not enough to make it too thick, but just sufficient to flavour well. The usual compound, called mutton broth, is a thick mixture, in which large pieces of mutton and mashed rice form the only ingredients, instead of which there should be no mutton left in the tureen. The rice should not be too much boiled, and there should be a flavour of all the vegetables.

Very few people know how to make good soup. Even experienced cooks often fail, making a tasteless mixture, which has to be flavoured and rendered palatable by the addition of sauces and condiments from the cruet stand. Good soup should require no sauce to flavour it. It should be rich, nourishing, and pleasant to the taste, without any aid from such things. Of course, I am speaking now of an everyday vegetable soup, which, after all, is the best and most nourishing, especially in a warm climate, when one often feels disinclined to eat hot meat. I know a family whose midday meal consists of soup, light puddings, and fruit. No meat at all during the hot months—but then the soup is stronger than a joint would be. It is the very essence of the meat. The secret of making good soup is in the boiling. You cannot put your meat on and let it boil so long, and then say it is soup that you strain off. No; it requires as much attention as any other dish. First and foremost, you must have a suitable pot. Having thoroughly cleaned out your pot, chop your bones to a convenient size, and put them in; threepence or fourpence worth of soup bones from the butcher is sufficient to make enough soup for eight people. Put in two dippers of water, and set the pot over a gentle fire; throw in some salt.

When it comes to a boil, remove some of the fire from under it, letting it only simmer gently, not boil, for five or six hours. The butcher usually comes early in the morning, and the soup should be put down at once, or as soon as possible after his coming. About ten o'clock cut up an onion into slices, a carrot, turnip, and a little celery. Throw this into your soup, and wash some rice, sago, barley, whichever you prefer, or a little of all three, if you like. Stir the bones well to ensure the vegetables, etc., being well covered. Let it simmer on till half an hour before serving. Then remove the pot from the fire, take out all the bones and meat, and with your ladle, skim off all the fat into a basin. It will be quite clear like oil, and, when clarified, makes the best dripping for short crust or pastry of any sort. Don't stir your soup until you have got all the fat off. It is very easy to take every particle of it away, though it seems almost hopeless at first. The soup should