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about to boil it is ready to serve. This is a very nice spring or early summer-soup, and to the careful housewife , who studies the important subject of stock, not at all expensive. Coloring for Soups.-As soups often require coloring, prepare " browning" for that purpose as follows :-Take a couple of onions and bake them; remove the outer skin and put them into your soup ; it will brown and give it a good flavor. The shells of green peas dried in the oven brown, but not black, equally well answer to brown soup, and will keep the whole winter well in a bag hung up in a dry place. It will be found much better to use either of the above to brown soup, in place of the caromel, or brown sugar, used by many cooks, for if too much is added it gives a sweet taste to the soup. These are apparently trifles, but most necessary to attend to.
FISH. Salmon-to Boil.-Scale and clean your fish, taking care that no blood is left inside, lay it in a fish-kettle with sufficient cold water to cover it ; throw in salt in proportion to the quantity of water which the size of the fish may require ; but be sure not to use vinegar in dressing either salmon or trout- it destroys both color and flavor. Let the kettle quickly boil, then take off the scum, and let the fish simmer gently till done. Eight minutes to each pound of large, thick salmon, and six to thin fish, is the general time allotted; but experience only can teach the precise moment when it is fully cooked, which is, when the meat separates easily from the bone. Of the two evils, it had better be over than underdone, since underdressed salmon is particularly indigestible, and , to some delicate stomachs, almost poisonous in its deleterious effects. If, when the fish is thoroughly done, any delay should occur, do not on any account allow it to remain in the kettle ; by such treatment it will become watery, insipid, and colorless. Drain it, and while waiting for the table, keep it hot by means of warm cloths. Serve on a hot napkin, garnished with lemon, or parsley, or fennel ; but to the last-mentioned article many people have a thorough aversion. Send up with it plain melted butter, and a bottle of any good fishsance, or lobster, or shrimp, or anchovy-sauce, as it is preferred. Many people never eat salmon without a cut lemon on the table, they consider a sprinkle of the squeezed juice greatly to improve the flavor; but real lovers of fish generally care more for the pure flavor of the salmon itself, with only a little plain melted butter. Cucumbers, when in season, thinly sliced, are seen on most tables, as an appropriate accompaniment to boiled salmon. In choosing your fish, feel with the finger and thumb if the belly be firm and thick, red gills are by no means an infallible sign of freshness. Pickling Salmon.-Take a fine salmon, split down the back, and cut into square pieces ; put into an unglazed pan a layer of salmon and a thin layer of salt, alternately, until the pan is nearly filled ; fill up with vinegar, tie it down closely with brown paper, put the pan into a saucepan of boiling water up to its rim, let it boil for twenty minutes, and in three days it is ready for use. DESSERTS. Bombay-Pudding.-This Indian pudding is a very nice, delicately-flavored one, and is well suited for an invalid, being extremely nourishing. To a good, sweet egg-custard add a little butter, some grated nutmeg, and a glass of wine or brandy; have ready a finely rasped cocoa-nut, and mix all well together. Having lined a dish with puff-paste, pour in the custard, and bake it a light brown color. Pommes au Sirop.-Prepare as many apples as are required, stew them, and dish them up in syrup, with a piece of currant-jelly on the top of each apple. Stewed pears, also pippins, stewed with sugar, and flavored with lemonjuice, are useful and economical sweet dishes.
Cream-Pudding.- Boil a quart of cream, with a blade of mace and half a nutmeg, grated; let it cool, and beat up eight eggs and three whites ; strain them well, and mix a spoonful of flour into them, also a quarter of a pound of almonds, blanched and beaten fine, with a spoonful of orange-flower or rose-water ; then, by degrees, mix in the cream and beat all well together; take a thick cloth, wet it and flour it well, pour in the mixture, tie it close, and boil half an hour; let the water boil fast ; when it is done, turn it into the dish, pour melted butter over, with a little sack, and throw fine sugar all över. Sally Lunn Pudding -Cut out a piece from the under side ofthe cake so as not to injure the upper crust, replace it, and let the cake soak for three hours in boiling milk in a basin that will just hold it. Mix one egg, well beaten, with a glass of wine and a little spice and sugar. Having removed the piece of cake previously cut, stir in these ingredients, still being careful not to break the crust ; replace the piece, put some butter on the basin, fill it up with bread-crumbs, and boil three-quarters of an hour. Orange-Custards.-Boil till tender half the rind of a Seville orange ; beat it fine in a mortar, put to it a spoonful ofbrandy, the juice of a Seville orange, four ounces of loafsugar, and the yolks of four eggs ; beat all well together for ten minutes ; pour in a pint of boiling cream by degrees ; keep beating till cold, then put them in cups, and place them in an earthen dish of hot water till set, stick preserved orange on the top, and serve either hot or cold. Cocoa-Nut Pudding.- Break the cocoa-nut and save the milk; peel off the brown skin, and grate the cocoa-nut very fine. Take the same weight of cocoa-nut, fine white sugar, and butter; rub the butter and sugar to a cream, and add five eggs, well beaten, one cup of cream, the milk of the cocoa-nut, and a little grated lemon. Line a dish with rich paste ; put in the pudding, and bake it one hour. Cover the rim with paper, if necessary. Solid Custard.-One ounce of isinglass, two pints of new milk, one dozen of bitter-almonds, pounded, the yolks of four eggs, sugar to taste. Dissolve the isinglass in the milk, add the pounded almonds, put the mixture on the fire, and let it boil a few minutes. Pour it through a sieve, then add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten; sweeten to your taste. Put it on the fire until it thickens, stir it till nearly cold, and put it into a mould. Gateau de Pommes.-Boil one pound and a half of lump sugar in a pint of water until it becomes sugar again, then add two pounds of apples, pared and cored, the peel, and a little ofthe juice of two small lemons; boil this until quite stiff, and put it into a mould. When cold, it should be turned out, and before being sent to table should have custard or cream poured round it. This gateau will keep for several months. Cream-Pudding.- Beatup four eggs a little ; strain them ; add a teacup of fine white sugar, the rind and juice of a lemon, and a pint of cream. Line a pudding-dish with puffpaste ; put in the above. Bake half an hour. Sago Jelly - Boil a teacupful of sago in three pints and a half of water till quite done ; when cold, add half a pint of raspberry syrup. Pour into a shape which has been rinsed in cold water, and when served pour a little cream round. Snow-Cream.- Put to a quart of cream the whites of three eggs, well beaten, four spoonfuls of sweet wine, sugar to taste, and a bit of lemon-peel ; whip it to a froth, remove the peel, and serve in a dish. Caledonian-Cream.- The whites of two eggs, two spoonfuls of loaf-sugar, two of raspberry-jam, two of currantjelly ; all to be beaten together with a silver spoon till so thick that the spoon will stand upright in it. Indian Corn Blancmange.-Stir one tablespoonful of corn gradually into one quart ofboiling milk ; pour into a mould, turn out when cold.
