l _slowly_; ham or corn beef
should barely simmer. Yet they must not go off the boil at all, which
would spoil fresh meat entirely; steeping in water gives a flat, insipid
taste.

All vegetables except potatoes, asparagus, peas, and cauliflower should
boil as fast as possible; these four only moderately. Most vegetables
are boiled far too long. Cabbage is as delicate as cauliflower in the
summer and fall if boiled in plenty of water, to which a salt spoonful
of soda has been added, _as fast as possible_ for twenty minutes or half
an hour, then drained and dressed. In winter it should be cut in six or
eight pieces, boiled _fast_, in plenty of water, for half an hour, _no
longer_. Always give it plenty of room, let the water boil rapidly when
you put it in the pot, which set on the hottest part of the fire to
come to that point again, and you will have no more strong, rank, yellow
stuff on your table, no bad odor in your house. Peas require no more
than twenty minutes' boiling if young; asparagus the same; the latter
should always be boiled in a saucepan deep enough to let it stand up in
the water when tied up in bunches, for this saves the heads. Potatoes
should be poured off the minute they are done, and allowed to stand at
the back of the stove with a clean cloth folded over them. They are the
only vegetable that should be put into _cold_ water. When new, boiling
water is proper. When quite ripe they are more floury if put in cold
water.

SOUPS.--As I have before said, I do not pretend to give many recipes,
only to tell you how to succeed with the recipes given in other books. I
shall, therefore, only give one recipe which I know is a novelty and one
for the foundation of all soups. In one sense I have done the latter
already. The stock for glaze is an excellent soup before it is reduced;
but I will also give Jules Gouffe's method of making _pot-au-feu_, it
being a most beautifully clear soup.

It often happens, however, that you have sufficient stock from bones,
trimmings of meat, and odds and ends of gravies, which may always be
turned to account; but the stock from such a source, although excellent,
will not always be clear; therefore, you must proceed with it in the
following manner, unless you wish to use it for thick soup:

Make your stock boiling hot and skim well; then have ready the whites of
three eggs (I am supposing you have three quarts of stock--one egg to a
quart), to which add half a pint of cold wa