the best italian soups

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alessandro del pita

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Italian Soups
1. Clear Soup.

2. Zuppa Primaverile (Spring Soup).

3. Soup alla Lombarda.

4. Tuscan Soup.
5. Venetian Soup.

6. Roman Soup.

7. Soup alla Nazionale.

8. Soup alla Modanese.
9. Crotopo Soup.

10. Soup all’Imperatrice.

11. Neapolitan Soup.

12. Soup with Risotto.
13. Soup alla Canavese.

14. Soup alla Maria l’ia.

15. Zuppa d’Erbe (Lettuce Soup).
16. Zuppa Regina di Riso (Queen’s soup).

No. 1. Clear Soup
Ingredients: Stock meat, water, a bunch of herbs (thyme, parsley,
chervil, bay leaf, basil, marjoram), three carrots, three turnips,
three onions, three cloves stuck in the onions, one blade of mace.
Cut up three pounds of stock meat small and put it in a stock pot
with two quarts of cold water, three carrots, and three turnips cut
up, three onions with a clove stuck in each one, a bunch of herbs
and a blade of mace. Let it come to the boil and then draw it off,
at once skim off all the scum, and keep it gently simmering, and
occasionally add two or three tablespoonsful of cold water. Let it
simmer all day, and then strain it through a fine cloth.
Some of the liquor in which a calf’s head has been cooked, or even
a calf’s foot, will greatly improve a clear soup.
The stock should never be allowed to boil as long as the meat and
vegetables are in the stock pot.

No. 2. Zuppa Primaverile (Spring Soup)
Ingredients: Clear soup, vegetables.
Any fresh spring vegetables will do for this soup, but they must
all be cooked separately and put into the soup at the last minute.
It is best made with fresh peas, asparagus tips, and a few strips
of tarragon.

3. Soup alla Lombarda
Ingredients: Clear soup, fowl forcemeat, Bechamel, peas,
lobster butter, 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 butter and the yolk of an egg; thus you will have the
Italian colours, red, white, and green. Butter 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 butter separately.

No. 4. 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. 5. Venetian Soup
Ingredients: Clear soup, butter, flour, Parmesan, eggs.
Make a roux by frying two ounces of butter 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. 6. Roman Soup
Ingredients: Stock, butter, eggs, salt, crumb of bread, parsley,
nutmeg, flour, Parmesan.
Mix three and a half ounces of butter 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. 7. Soup alla Nazionale
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 buttered 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. 8. Soup alla Modanese
Ingredients: Stock, spinach, butter, 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 butter, salt it and warm it
up. Then let it get cold, pass 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. 9. 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. Pass 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. 10. 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. Pass this through a sieve, form quenelles with it, and
pour a good clear soup over them.

No. 11. 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, 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. 12. Soup with Risotto
Ingredients: Risotto, eggs, bread crumbs, clear or brown
soup.
If you have some good risotto left, you can use it up by making it
into little balls the size of small nuts. Egg and bread crumb and
fry them in butter; dry them and put them into a soup tureen with
hot soup. The soup may be either clear or brown.

No. 13. Soup alla Canavese
Ingredients: White stock, butter, 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 butter. Thencover them with good white stock, boil for a few minutes, pass

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.

No. 14. Soup alla Maria Pia
Ingredients: White stock, eggs, butter, peas, white beans, carrot,
onion, leeks, celery, cream croutons.
Soak one pound of white beans for twelve hours, then put them into
a stock pot with a little salt, butter, and water, add a carrot, an
onion, two leeks, and a stick of celery, and simmer until the
vegetables are well cooked; then take out all the fresh vegetables,
drain the beans and pass them through a sieve, but first dilute
them with good stock. Put this puree into a stock pot with good
white stock, and when it has boiled keep it hot in a bain-marie
until you are about to serve; then mix the yolk of three eggs in a
cup of cream, and add this to the soup. Pour the soup into a warm
tureen, add some boiled green peas, and serve with fried croutons
handed separately.

No. 15. Zuppa d’ Erbe (Lettuce Soup)
Ingredients: Stock, sorrel, endive, lettuce, chervil, celery,
carrot, onion, French roll, Parmesan cheese.
Boil the following vegetables and herbs in very good stock for an
hour: Two small bunches of sorrel, a bunch of endive, a lettuce, a
small bunch of chervil, a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion,
all well washed and cut up. Then put some slices of toasted French
roll into a tureen and pour the above soup over them. Serve with
grated Parmesan handed separately.

No. 16. Zuppa Regina di Riso (Queen’s Soup)
Ingredients: Fowl stock, ground rice, milk, butter.
Put a tablespoonful of ground rice into a saucepan and gradually
add half a pint of milk, boil it gently for twelve minutes in a
bainmarie, but stir the whole time, so as to get it very smooth.
Just before serving add an ounce of butter, pass it through a
sieve, and mix it with good fowl stock.