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. Wash the beef shin meat clean and place it in a pot. Sprinkle over it one small tablespoonful of pounded black pepper and two of salt. Add 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). Pour on three quarts of water, cover the pot close, and keep it gently and steadily boiling for five hours, which will leave about three pints of clear soup. Do not let the pot boil over, but take off the scum carefully as it rises.
2. When the soup has boiled for four hours, add a small bundle of thyme and parsley, and a pint of celery cut small (or a teaspoonful of celery seed pounded). These latter ingredients would lose their delicate flavour if boiled too much.
3. Just before serving, brown the soup in the following manner: put a small tablespoonful of nice brown sugar into an iron skillet, set it on the fire and stir it until it melts and looks very dark. Pour into it a ladle full of the soup, a little at a time, stirring it all the while. Strain this browning and mix it well with the soup.
4. Take out the bundle of thyme and parsley, put the nicest pieces of meat in your tureen, and pour on the soup and vegetables. Add some toasted bread cut in dice, and serve it up.