Stew. Choose a small head of celery, not a large, coarse head which will be tough. Well wash and cut into about 8 pieces. (Keep any large coarse sticks, if such are unavoidably present, for soup.) Put in stew-pan and barely cover with water. Simmer until tender. Lift out on to hot dish. Thicken the liquor with a little wholemeal flour, add a small piece of butter pour this sauce over celery, and serve.
1 head celery, 4 large tomatoes, 4 qts. water, 4 large English onions, 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped parsley. This soup figures often in the diet sheet of the Physical Regenerationists for gouty and rheumatic patients, but in addition to being a valuable medicine on account of its salts, it is the most delicious clear soup that I know of. To make: chop the ingredients to dice, cover closely, and simmer until the quantity of liquid is reduced to one half.
1 lb. chestnuts, 1-1/2 oz. nutter or butter, 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon wholemeal flour, 1-1/2 pints water. First put on the chestnuts (without shelling or pricking) in cold water, and boil for an hour. Then remove shells and put the nuts in an enamelled saucepan with the fat. Fry for 10 minutes. Add the flour gradually, stirring all the time, then add the water. Cook gently for half an hour. Lastly, add the parsley, boil up, and serve. It is rather nicer if the flour is omitted, the necessary thickness being obtained by rubbing the soup through a sieve before adding the parsley. Those who do not object to milk may use 1 pint milk and 1 pint water in place of the 1-1/2 pints water.
Make barley broth as in No. 1. Then strain it through a wire strainer. Squeeze it well, so as to get the soup as thick as possible, but do not rub the barley through. Skin 1/2 lb. tomatoes, break in halves, and cook to a pulp very gently in a closed saucepan (don't add water). Add to the barley soup, boil up once, and serve. In cases of illness, especially where the patient is suffering from intestinal trouble, after preparing as above, strain through a fine muslin. It should also be prepared with distilled, or clean boiled rain-water.
1 small head celery, 1 large onion, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped parsley, P.R. Barley malt meal, Mapleton's or P.R. almond or pine-kernel cream, 3 pints boiling water. Well wash the vegetables and slice them, and add them with the parsley to the boiling water. (The water should be distilled, if possible, and the cooking done in a large earthenware jar or casserole. See notes re casseroles in Chap. IV.) Simmer gently for 2 hours, or until quite soft. Then strain through a hair sieve. Do not rub the vegetables through the sieve to make a purée, simply strain and press all the juices out. The vegetable juices are all wanted, but not the fibre. To each pint of this vegetable broth allow 1 heaped tablespoon barley malt meal, 1 tablespoon nut cream, and 1/2 lb. tomatoes. Mix the meal to a thin paste with some of the cooled broth (from the pint). Put the rest of the pint in a saucepan or casserole and bring to the boil. Add the meal and boil for 10 minutes. Break up the tomatoes and cook slowly to a pulp (without water). Rub through a sieve. (The skin and pips are not to be forced through.) Add this pulp to the soup. Lastly mix the nut-cream to a thin cream by dripping slowly a little water or cool broth into it, stirring hard with a teaspoon all the time. Add this to the soup, re-heat, but do not boil, serve. This soup is rather irksome to make, but is intensely nourishing and easy of digestion. The pine-kernel cream is the more digestible of the two creams. Care should be taken not to cook these nut creams. If the soup is for an invalid care should also be taken that, while getting all the valuable vegetable juices, no skin or pips, etc., are included. The vegetable broth may be prepared a day in advance, but it will not keep for three days except in very cold weather. (When it is desired to keep soup it should be brought to the boil with the lid of the stockpot or casserole on, and put away without the lid being removed or the contents stirred.)
Peel thinly 2 lbs. potatoes. (A floury kind should be used for this soup.) Cut into small pieces, and put into a saucepan with enough water to cover them. Add three large onions (sliced), unless tomatoes are preferred for flavouring. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the potatoes are cooked to a mash. Rub through a sieve or beat with a fork. Now add 3/4 pint water or 1 pint milk, and a little nutmeg if liked. Boil up and serve. If the milk is omitted, the juice and pulp of two or three tomatoes may be added, and the onions may be left out also.
1 carrot, 1 turnip, 4 leeks or 3 small onions, 4 sprigs parsley, 4 sticks celery, 1 tea-cup pearl barley, 3 qts. water. (The celery may be omitted if desired, or, when in season, 1 tea-cup green peas may be substituted.) Scrub clean (but do not peel) the carrot and turnip. Wash celery, parsley, and barley. Shred all the vegetables finely; put in saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and slowly simmer for 5 hours. Add the chopped parsley and serve.
