Delicious Italian Dishes by Mrs. W. G. Water - HTML preview

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Italian Soups

No. 1. Clear Soup

Ingredients: Stock meat, water, a bunch of herbs (thyme, parsley,

chervil, bay leaf, basil, marjoram), three carrots, three turnips,

three onions, three cloves stuck in the onions, one blade of mace.

Cut up three pounds of stock meat small and put it in a stock pot

with two quarts of cold water, three carrots, and three turnips cut

up, three onions with a clove stuck in each one, a bunch of herbs

and a blade of mace. Let it come to the boil and then draw it off,

at once skim off all the scum, and keep it gently simmering, and

occasionally add two or three tablespoonsful of cold water. Let it

simmer all day, and then strain it through a fine cloth.

Some of the liquor in which a calf's head has been cooked, or even

a calf's foot, will greatly improve a clear soup.

The stock should never be allowed to boil as long as the meat and

vegetables are in the stock pot.

No. 2. Zuppa Primaverile (Spring Soup)

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Delicious Italian dishes

Ingredients: Clear soup, vegetables.

Any fresh spring vegetables will do for this soup, but they must

all be cooked separately and put into the soup at the last minute.

It is best made with fresh peas, asparagus tips, and a few strips

of tarragon.

No. 3. Soup alla Lombarda

Ingredients: Clear soup, fowl forcemeat, Bechamel, peas,

lobster butter, eggs, asparagus.

Make a firm forcemeat of fowl and divide it into three parts, to

the first add two spoonsful of cream Bechamel, to the second four

spoonsful of puree of green peas, to the third two spoonsful of

lobster butter and the yolk of an egg; thus you will have the

Italian colours, red, white, and green. Butter a pie dish and make

little quenelles of the forcemeat. Just before serving boil them

for four minutes in boiling stock, take them out carefully and put

them in a warm soup tureen with two spoonsful of cooked green peas

and pour a very fresh clear soup over them. Hand little croutons

fried in lobster butter separately.

No. 4. Tuscan Soup

Ingredients: Stock, eggs.

Whip up three or four eggs, gradually add good stock to them, and

keep on whisking them up until they begin to curdle. Keep the soup

hot in a bain-marie.

No. 5. Venetian Soup

Ingredients: Clear soup, butter, flour, Parmesan, eggs.

Make a roux by frying two ounces of butter and two ounces of flour,

add an ounce of grated cheese and half a cup of good stock. Mix up

well so as to form a paste, and then take it off the fire and add

the yolks of four eggs, mix again and form the again and form the

paste into little quenelles. Boil these in a little soup, strain

off, put them into the tureen and pour a good clear soup over them.

No. 6. Roman Soup

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Delicious Italian dishes

Ingredients: Stock, butter, eggs, salt, crumb of bread, parsley,

nutmeg, flour, Parmesan.

Mix three and a half ounces of butter with two eggs and four ounces

of crumbs of bread soaked in stock, a little chopped parsley, salt,

and a pinch of nutmeg. Reduce this and add two tablespoonsful of

flour and one of grated Parmesan. Form this into little quenelles

and boil them in stock for a few minutes put them into a tureen and

pour a good clear soup over them.

No. 7. Soup alla Nazionale

Ingredients: Clear soup, savoury custard.

Make a savoury custard and divide it into three parts, one to be

left white, another coloured red with tomato, and the third green

with spinach. Put a layer of each in a buttered saucepan and cook

for about ten minutes, cut it into dice, so that you have the three

Italian colours (red, white, and green) together, then put the

custard into a soup tureen and pour a good clear soup over it.

No. 8. Soup alla Modanese

Ingredients: Stock, spinach, butter, salt, eggs, Parmesan,

nutmeg, croutons.

Wash one pound of spinach in five or six waters, then chop it very

fine and mix it with three ounces of butter, salt it and warm it

up. Then let it get cold, pass through a hair sieve, and add two

eggs, a tablespoonful of grated Parmesan, and very little nutmeg.

Add this to some boiling stock in a copper saucepan, put on the

lid, and on the top put some hot coals so that the eggs may curdle

and help to thicken the soup. Serve with fried croutons.

No. 9. Crotopo Soup

Ingredients: Clear soup, veal, ham, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg,

rolls.

Pound half a pound of lean veal in a mortar, then add three ounces

of cooked ham with some fat in it, the yolk of an egg, salt,

pepper, and very little nutmeg. Pass through a sieve, cut some

small French rolls into slices, spread them with the above mixture,

and colour them in the oven. Then cut them in halves or quarters,

put them into a tureen, and just before serving pour a very good

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Delicious Italian dishes

clear soup over them.

No. 10. Soup all'Imperatrice

Ingredients: Breast of fowl, eggs, salt, pepper, ground rice,

nutmeg, clear stock.

Pound the breast of a fowl in a mortar, and add to it a teaspoonful

of ground rice, the yolk of an egg, salt, pepper, and a pinch of

nutmeg. Pass this through a sieve, form quenelles with it, and

pour a good clear soup over them.

No. 11. Neapolitan Soup

Ingredients: Fowl, potato flour, eggs, Bechamel sauce, peas,

asparagus, spinach, clear soup.

Mix a quarter pound of forcemeat of fowl with a tablespoonful of

potato flour, a tablespoonful of Bechamel sauce, and the

yolk of an egg; put this into a tube about the size round of an

ordinary macaroni; twenty minutes before serving squirt the

forcemeat into a saucepan with boiling stock, and nip off the

forcemeat as it comes through the pipe into pieces about an inch

and a half long. Let it simmer, and add boiled peas and asparagus

tips. If you like to have the fowl macaroni white and green, you

can colour half the forcemeat with a spoonful of spinach colouring.

Serve in a good clear soup.

No. 12. Soup with Risotto

Ingredients: Risotto, eggs, bread crumbs, clear or brown

soup.

If you have some good risotto left, you can use it up by making it

into little balls the size of small nuts. Egg and bread crumb and

fry them in butter; dry them and put them into a soup tureen with

hot soup. The soup may be either clear or brown.

No. 13. Soup alla Canavese

Ingredients: White stock, butter, onions, carrot, celery, tomato,

cauliflower, fat bacon, parsley, sage, Parmesan, salt, pepper.

Chop up half an onion, half a carrot, half a stick of celery, a

small bit of fat bacon, and fry them in two ounces of butter. Then

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Delicious Italian dishes

cover them with good white stock, boil for a few minutes, pass

through a sieve, and add two tablespoonsful of tomato puree. Then

blanch half a cauliflower in salted water, let it get cold, drain

all the water out of it, and break it up into little bunches and

put them into a stock pot with the stock, a small leaf of dried

sage, crumbled up, and a little chopped parsley, and let it all

boil; add a pinch of grated cheese and some pepper. Serve with

grated Parmesan handed separately.

No. 14. Soup alla Maria Pia

Ingredients: White stock, eggs, butter, peas, white beans, carrot,

onion, leeks, celery, cream croutons.

Soak one pound of white beans for twelve hours, then put them into

a stock pot with a little salt, butter, and water, add a carrot, an

onion, two leeks, and a stick of celery, and simmer until the

vegetables are well cooked; then take out all the fresh vegetables,

drain the beans and pass them through a sieve, but first dilute

them with good stock. Put this puree into a stock pot with good

white stock, and when it has boiled keep it hot in a bain-marie

until you are about to serve; then mix the yolk of three eggs in a

cup of cream, and add this to the soup. Pour the soup into a warm

tureen, add some boiled green peas, and serve with fried croutons

handed separately.

No. 15. Zuppa d' Erbe (Lettuce Soup)

Ingredients: Stock, sorrel, endive, lettuce, chervil, celery,

carrot, onion, French roll, Parmesan cheese.

Boil the following vegetables and herbs in very good stock for an

hour: Two small bunches of sorrel, a bunch of endive, a lettuce, a

small bunch of chervil, a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion,

all well washed and cut up. Then put some slices of toasted French

roll into a tureen and pour the above soup over them. Serve with

grated Parmesan handed separately.

No. 16. Zuppa Regina di Riso (Queen's Soup)

Ingredients: Fowl stock, ground rice, milk, butter.

Put a tablespoonful of ground rice into a saucepan and gradually

add half a pint of milk, boil it gently for twelve minutes in a

bainmarie, but stir the whole time, so as to get it very smooth.

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Just before serving add an ounce of butter, pass it through a

sieve, and mix it with good fowl stock.