Plain Meat Soup

You can make meat soup, or stock, out of almost any kind of meat, cooked or raw, with bones or without. Many cooks never buy fresh meat for it, and others think they must always have it. It is best to learn both ways.

Plain Meat Soup

1 shin of beef.
5 quarts of water.
1 small tablespoonful of salt.
1 head celery, cut up.
1 onion.
1 carrot.
1 turnip.
1 sprig of parsley.
2 bay-leaves.
6 whole cloves.

Wipe the meat and cut off all the bone.

Put the bone in a clean kettle first, and then the meat on top, and pour in the water; cover, and let this stand on the back of the stove an hour, then draw it forward and let it cook. This will bring scum on the water in half an hour, and you must carefully pour in a cup of cold water and skim off everything which rises to the top.

Cover the kettle tightly, and cook very slowly indeed for four hours; then put in the cut up vegetables and cook one hour more, always just simmering, not boiling hard.

Then it is done, and you can put in the salt, and strain the soup first through a heavy wire sieve, and then through a flannel bag, and set it away to get cold, and you will have a strong, clear, delicious stock, which you can put many things in to have variety.
 

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