There are many people who are good cooks, yet fail in clear soup, which is with them semi-opaque, while it should be like sherry. The cause of this opacity is generally quick boiling while the meat is in. This gives it a milky appearance. After the stock is once made and clear, quick boiling will do no harm, but of course wastes the soup, unless resorted to for the purpose of making it stronger. A word here about coloring soup: Most persons resort to burnt sugar, and, very carefully used, it is not at all a bad makeshift. But how often have we a rich-looking soup put before us, the vermicelli appearing to repose under a lake of strong russet _bouillon_, but which, on tasting, we find suggestive of nothing but burnt sugar and salt, every bit of flavor destroyed by the acrid coloring. Sometimes stock made by the recipe for _pot-au-feu_ (to follow) requires no color; this depends on the beef; but usually all soup is more appetizing in appearance for a little browning, and for this purpose I always use burnt onions in preference to anything else. If you have none in store when the soup is put on, put a small onion in the oven (or on the back of the stove; should you be baking anything the odor would taint); turn it often till it gets quite black, but not _charred_. Then put it to the soup; it adds a fine flavor as well as color, and you need not fear overdoing it.
Soup that is to be reduced must be very lightly salted; for this reason salt is left out altogether for glaze, as the reduction causes the water only to evaporate, the salt remains.
GOUFFÉ'S POT-AU-FEU.--Four pounds of lean beef, six quarts of water, six ounces of carrot, six of turnip, six of onion, half an ounce of celery, one clove, salt.
Put the meat on in cold water, and just before it comes to the boil skim it, and throw in a wineglass of cold water, skim again, and, when it is "on the boil," again throw in another wineglass of cold water; do this two or three times. The object of adding the cold water is to keep it just off the boil until all the scum has risen, as the boiling point is when it comes to the surface, yet once having boiled, the scum is broken up, and the soup is never so clear.
The meat must simmer slowly, _not boil_, for three hours before the vegetables are added, then for a couple of hours more.
