Page:Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book.djvu/341

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Boil a quart of shelled peas tender in salted hot water with a young onion, a few sprigs of parsley and six mint leaves. Rub through a colander and return to the fire, adding half a cupful of good stock, salt, pepper and a lump of sugar. When it has boiled two minutes stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, cook one minute longer and pour upon croutons of fried bread-dice in the tureen.

Crack a good marrow-bone well and put over the fire with three pints of cold water, a small sliced carrot, a stalk or two of celery and a grated onion. Cook slowly until boiled down to one-half the original quantity. Set aside until cold; remove the fat, take out the bones, and rub the vegetables through a colander back into the soup. Heat quickly to a boil, and pour upon your mashed potato, gradually, working in smoothly as you go on. Turn into a double boiler and when again hot put in a great spoonful of chopped parsley. Have ready in another saucepan a good cupful of hot water, in which has been dropped a pinch of soda. Stir into this a teaspoonful of butter, rubbed up in one of corn-starch. Cook three minutes, add to the potato soup, stir briskly for half a minute and put into the tureen. If properly seasoned this is a delicious family broth.

Peel and cut into quarters twelve potatoes, put three tablespoonfuls of beef dripping in a soup pot and fry in it the potatoes and a sliced onion. When brown, add two quarts of water and simmer until the potatoes are soft and broken. Rub through a colander, return the puree to the pot, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour rubbed to a paste with a great spoonful of butter, stir until smooth, add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste and serve.

It is very good.