Beef Soup

Ingredients

• 1 hind shin of beef
• 1 tablespoon pounded black pepper
• 2 tablespoon salt
• 3 onions
• 6 small carrots
• 2 small turnips
• 3 quarts water
• thyme and parsley
• 1 pint celery
• 1 tablespoon nice brown sugar
• 1 ladle soup
• toasted bread

Instructions

1. Take the hind shin of beef and cut off all the flesh off the leg-bone, which must be taken away entirely, or the soup will be greasy.
2. Wash the meat clean and lay it in a pot.
3. Sprinkle over it one small table-spoonful of pounded black pepper and two of salt; three onions the size of a hen's egg, cut small; six small carrots scraped and cut up; and two small turnips pared and cut into dice.
4. Pour on three quarts of water, cover the pot close, and keep it gently and steadily boiling five hours, which will leave about three pints of clear soup.
5. Do not let the pot boil over, but take off the scum carefully as it rises.
6. When it has boiled four hours, put in a small bundle of thyme and parsley, and a pint of celery cut small, or a tea-spoonful of celery seed pounded.
7. These latter ingredients would lose their delicate flavour if boiled too much.
8. Just before you take it up, brown it in the following manner: put a small table-spoonful of nice brown sugar into an iron skillet, set it on the fire and stir it till it melts and looks very dark, then pour into it a ladle full of the soup, a little at a time, stirring it all the while.
9. Strain this browning and mix it well with the soup.
10. Take out the bundle of thyme and parsley, put the nicest pieces of meat in your tureen, and pour on the soup and vegetables.
11. Put in some toasted bread cut in dice, and serve it up.