-A rich crust of very fine puff-paste, which may be filled
with various delicate ragouts or fricassees, of fish, flesh, or fowl.
Fruit may also be inclosed in a _vol-au-vent_.

[Illustration]

SOUPS.

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING SOUPS.

88. LEAN, JUICY BEEF, MUTTON, AND VEAL, form the basis of all good
soups; therefore it is advisable to procure those pieces which afford
the richest succulence, and such as are fresh-killed. Stale meat renders
them bad, and fat is not so well adapted for making them. The principal
art in composing good rich soup, is so to proportion the several
ingredients that the flavour of one shall not predominate over another,
and that all the articles of which it is composed, shall form an
agreeable whole. To accomplish this, care must be taken that the roots
and herbs are perfectly well cleaned, and that the water is proportioned
to the quantity of meat and other ingredients. Generally a quart of
water may be allowed to a pound of meat for soups, and half the quantity
for gravies. In making soups or gravies, gentle stewing or simmering is
incomparably the best. It may be remarked, however, that a really good
soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, although, perhaps,
greater wholesomeness is obtained by an occasional exposure to the air.
Soups will, in general, take from three to six hours doing, and are much
better prepared the day before they are wanted. When the soup is cold,
the fat may be much more easily and completely removed; and when it is
poured off, care must be taken not to disturb the settlings at the
bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a
sieve. A tamis is the best strainer, and if the soup is strained while
it is hot, let the tamis or cloth be previously soaked in cold water.
Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups about the
consistence of cream. To thicken and give body to soups and gravies,
potato-mucilage, arrow-root, bread-raspings, isinglass, flour and
butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well
together, are used. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit
of butter and flour, and rubbed through a sieve, and gradually
incorporated with the soup, will be found an excellent addition. When
the soup appears to be _too thin_ or _too weak_, the cover of the boiler
should be taken off, and the contents allowed to boil till some of the
watery parts have evapor