The Cook's Decameron Part 9

No. 21. Soup alla Lombarda

Ingredients: Clear soup, fowl forcemeat, Bechamel (No. 3), peas, lobster b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter and the yolk of an egg; thus you will have the Italian colours, red, white, and green. b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter separately.

No. 22. 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. 23. Venetian Soup

Ingredients: Clear soup, b.u.t.ter, flour, Parmesan, eggs.

Make a roux by frying two ounces of b.u.t.ter 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. 24. Roman Soup

Ingredients: Stock, b.u.t.ter, eggs, salt, crumb of bread, parsley, nutmeg, flour, Parmesan.

Mix three and a half ounces of b.u.t.ter 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. 25. Soup alla n.a.z.ionale

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 b.u.t.tered 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. 26. Soup alla Modanese

Ingredients: Stock, spinach, b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter, salt it and warm it up. Then let it get cold, pa.s.s 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. 27. 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. Pa.s.s 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 clear soup over them.

No. 28. 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.

Pa.s.s this through a sieve, form quenelles with it, and pour a good clear soup over them.

No. 29. 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 (No. 3), 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. 30. Soup with Risotto

Ingredients: Risotto (No. 189), eggs, bread crumbs, clear or brown soup.

If you have some good risotto left, you can use it up by making it into little b.a.l.l.s the size of small nuts. Egg and bread crumb and fry them in b.u.t.ter; dry them and put them into a soup tureen with hot soup. The soup may be either clear or brown.

No. 31. Soup alla Canavese

Ingredients: White stock, b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter. Then cover them with good white stock, boil for a few minutes, pa.s.s 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.