Choice Cookery

for masking cold lamb or cutlets.--Take two tablespoonfuls of Spanish sauce, and dissolve in it a good teaspoonful of gelatine softened in cold stock, a tablespoonful of aspic, and one of thick mint sauce. If no aspic is ready, it is not worth while to make for the small quantity needed; a teaspoonful of glaze, two of gelatine, and half a wineglass of Sauterne may be dissolved together to take its place. No gelatine will be needed with the Spanish sauce in this case. Sweet sauces will be left until the desserts are treated of. VI. SOUPS. It is not proposed to give the soups to be found readily in most cooking-books in these pages, but only those less known or of peculiar excellence. It is supposed that the reader understands the making of good beef or veal stock, and perhaps the usual way of clearing it. But since cooking has been studied scientifically, improvements on methods have been introduced; one of these is the clearing of soup with albumen of _meat_ instead of egg. The advantages of this method are that the soup is strengthened and the flavor improved, while clearing with whites of eggs in the usual way, though greatly improving the appearance, tends to lessen the flavor of soup. _To clear Consomme with Beef._--Consomme is reduced stock, or stock made of extra strength. Carefully remove all fat from three pints of it when cold. It will, of course, be a stiff jelly. Chop fine an onion, a carrot, and a turnip. Chop half a pound of lean beef from which all fat is removed; this is best put through a chopping-machine, as it must be very fine. Put the consomme, meat, and vegetables into a saucepan. Stir them briskly till just on the boiling-point. Remove the spoon, let the soup boil up well one minute. It should now be clear. Take a clean cloth, fix it on a soup stand or in a colander, pour boiling water through it, to warm it thoroughly; throw the water away, and pour the soup gently through the cloth twice; do