Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/38

let it boil till the onions are quite soft; then pour the broth into the tureen over some fried snippets of bread, and about a tablespoonful of grated cheese.

Tomato Soup.

Ingredients: Two turnips, two carrots, two or three sticks of celery, a small ham bone or pieces of lean ham, two quarts of soup or stock, eight or ten ripe tomatoes, pepper and salt.

Mode: Slice the carrots, turnips and celery. Put these, with a small ham-bone or a few ounces of lean ham into the soup, stock, or liquor meat has been boiled in, and add the tomatoes sliced. Let all simmer slowly for a couple of hours, then rub the vegetables through a sieve and boil them again with the soup for a few minutes. Add the pepper and salt, and serve hot with toasted bread cut in dice.

Time: Two hours.

Tomato Soup.

Ingredients: One quart of tomatoes, one teaspoonful baking soda, one pint sweet milk, a small lump of butter, pepper and salt, parsley.

Mode: Peel the tomatoes by pouring boiling water over them (cold they will peel). Put them into one quart of water, and let it come to the boil, then drop in the soda, and when it has ceased to foam, add the milk, butter, pepper and salt. Fry some dice of bread, as for pea soup, and, before serving, put into the tureen and pour the soup over them. A little parsley chopped fine is an improvement, and some people like it thickened with a spoonful of cornflour blended and stirred in when boiling.

Bush Pease Soup.

Ingredients: One pint split peas, one large onion, one tablespoonful beef dripping, one bunch green mint, pepper, salt, a little flour.

Mode: Wash the peas and peel the onion, tie up in a piece of muslin or a muslin bag with the dripping and mint, tie the muslin pretty tight and put into a saucepan of boiling water, and boil for three or four hours. Then mash the peas, etc., through a colander,

return to the stock, season with pepper and salt, and thicken with a little flour smoothly blended. Let it boil again for a few minutes, skim off the fat, and serve with fried bread.

Time: Three or four hours.

Bean Soup.

Ingredients: One cup of haricot beans, one onion, one pint milk, one tablespoonful flour.

Mode: Soak the beans in cold water over night, slice the onion and boil it with the beans in one quart of water and one pint of milk for four hours very slowly. Press through the colander or a hair sieve, if preferred, mashing the beans through with a wooden spoon. Put back into the saucepan, season to taste, thicken with the flour, stir till the soup boils, and serve with fried bread.

Time: Four hours.

Potato Soup.

Ingredients: Cold meat, one onion, pepper and salt, six or seven potatoes, pieces of toast.

Mode: Cut up the remains of any cold meat you may have in the house, if only a mutton bone, crack it across and across several times, and put into a saucepan with the onion, pepper and salt, and the potatoes cut into small pieces. Let it boil for two hours or more, then remove the bones, take off the fat, and serve with small pieces of toast in it.

Time: Two hours and a half.

Meat Essence for Soup.

Ingredients: Scraps of lean beef, bones, etc., and water.

Mode: On a station where killing day comes about every three weeks, it is necessary to have some way of preserving meat for soup to last the time. One of the very best methods is by converting it into essence of meat in the following way: Put all the scraps of lean beef into a large boiler or iron pot. Chop every particle of bone into small pieces and add it to the meat. All the bones left after cutting up and salting, the shins, neck, leg bones, and even the head can all