101.—ARTICHOKE SOUP. (Fr.—Purée à la Palestine.)
Ingredients.—2 pints of white second stock or water, 1 pint of milk, 2 lb. of Jerusalem artichokes, 2 onions, 1 strip of celery, 1 oz. of butter, pepper and salt.
Method.—Wash the artichokes, put a tablespoonful of vinegar into a basin of water and keep the artichokes in it as much as possible while paring them, to preserve their whiteness. Cut the onions, celery, and artichokes into slices, make the butter hot in a stewpan, fry the vegetables for 10 or 15 minutes without browning; then pour in the stock and boil until tender. Rub through a fine sieve, return to the saucepan, add the milk and seasoning, bring to the boil, and serve.
Time.—About 1¼ hours. Cost, 8d. to 10d. without the stock. Seasonable from October to February. Sufficient for 6 persons.
Note.—When a thicker soup is desired a dessertspoonful of cornflour or flour should be blended with a little milk or stock, and added to the soup a few minutes before serving.
Bread (Fr.: Pain).—The use of bread is of the greatest antiquity, and is common to the most primitive races. The earliest kind consisted of raw grain softened with water, pressed together, and then baked. Cakes and similar forms of this unfermented bread made with bruised grain are still used in the rural districts of northern Europe, and in other parts of the world. All the cereal grains, as millet, rice, maize, rye, barley and oats are utilized more or less by the inhabitants of the countries where these are cultivated, but wheat is the most suited for the purpose of making the best qualities of bread. Wheaten flour contains in slightly varying proportions, according to the kind of wheat from which it is manufactured, starch, gluten—a grey, viscid, elastic, nitrogenous substance, consisting chiefly of vegetable fibrine—sugar, gum, mineral matter and water. The various kinds of bread are of two classes, unfermented or unleavened, as biscuits, Scotch bannocks, the corn bread of the United States, Australian "dampers"; and fermented or leavened bread of the ordinary household, and fancy varieties. Fermentation is usually produced by means of leaven or yeast, or by baking powders. Aerated bread is made with aerated water, which is strongly impregnated with carbonic acid under pressure. By law, all bread except fancy bread and rolls, must be sold by weight.
102.—BREAD SOUP. (Fr.—Soupe au Pain.)
Ingredients.—2 quarts of stock, broth, or pot-liquor, 1 lb. of breadcrusts, salt and pepper.
Method.—Break the bread into small pieces, and place them in a basin. Boil up the stock, pour sufficient over the bread to cover it, let it remain closely covered until the bread is quite soft, then beat out the lumps with a fork. Add the bread thus prepared to the remainder of the stock, boil up, simmer gently for 10 or 15 minutes, then season to taste, and serve.
Time.—About 1 hour. Average Cost, 1s. 2d. when made of second stock. Sufficient for 6 or 8 persons. Seasonable at any time.
