Scotch Barley Broth;—a good and substantial dinner for fivepence per head.—(No. 204.)
Wash three-quarters of a pound of Scotch barley in a little cold water; put it in a soup-pot with a shin or leg of beef, of about ten pounds weight, sawed into four pieces (tell the butcher to do this for you); cover it well with cold water; set it on the fire: when it boils skim it very clean, and put in two onions of about three ounces weight each; set it by the side of the fire to simmer very gently about two hours; then skim all the fat clean off, and put in two heads of celery, and a large turnip cut into small squares; season it with salt, and let it boil an hour and a half longer, and it is ready: take out the meat (carefully with a slice, and cover it up, and set it by the fire to keep warm), and skim the broth well before you put it in the tureen.
s. d. Shin of beef of 10lbs 2 0 3/4 pound of barley 0 4 1/2 2 onions, of about 3 oz. weight each 0 0 1/2 Celery 0 1 Large turnip 0 1 2 7
Thus you get four quarts of good soup at 8d. per quart, besides another quart to make sauce for the meat, in the following manner:
Put a quart of the soup into a basin; put about an ounce of flour into a stew-pan, and pour the broth to it by degrees, stirring it well together; set it on the fire, and stir it till it boils; then (some put in a glass of port wine, or mushroom catchup, No. 439) let it boil up, and it is ready.
Put the meat in a ragoût dish, and strain the sauce through[200] a sieve over the meat; you may put to it some capers, or minced gherkins or walnuts, &c.
If the beef has been stewed with proper care in a very gentle manner, and be taken up at “the critical moment when it is just tender,” you will obtain an excellent and savoury meal for eight people for fivepence; i. e. for only the cost of the glass of port wine.
If you use veal, cover the meat with No. 364—2.
Obs.—This is a most frugal, agreeable, and nutritive meal; it will neither lighten the purse, nor lie heavy on the stomach, and will furnish a plentiful and pleasant soup and meat for eight persons. So you may give a good dinner for 5d. per head!!! See also Nos. 229 and 239.
N.B. If you will draw your purse-strings a little wider, and allow 1d. per mouth more, prepare a pint of young onions as directed in No. 296, and garnish the dish with them, or some carrots or turnips cut into squares; and for 6d. per head you will have as good a RAGOUT as “le Cuisinier Impérial de France” can give you for as many shillings. Read Obs. to No. 493.
You may vary the flavour by adding a little curry powder (No. 455), ragoût (No. 457, &c.), or any of the store sauces and flavouring essences between Nos. 396 and 463; you may garnish the dish with split pickled mangoes, walnuts, gherkins, onions, &c. See Wow wow Sauce, No. 328.
If it is made the evening before the soup is wanted, and suffered to stand till it is cold, much fat200-* may be removed from the surface of the soup, which is, when clarified (No. 83), useful for all the purposes that drippings are applied to.