Carrot Soup Maigre

Ingredients

• 2 ounces salt
• 1 gallon water
• 3-4 carrots
• 1 onion
• parsley
• 2 quarts carrots
• pepper
• salt
• 1 quart or more Brussels sprouts
• a few ounces vermicelli
• celery, leeks, and turnips

Instructions

1. Throw two ounces of salt into a gallon of boiling water.
2. Add three or four carrots quartered or thickly sliced, one onion (or more to taste), and a faggot of parsley or some parsley roots.
3. Boil gently for upwards of an hour.
4. Strain off the liquor and return it to the saucepan.
5. Scrape and wash fresh carrots; split them into strips about the size of large macaroni and cut them into half finger lengths.
6. Boil the fresh carrot strips perfectly tender in the carrot broth.
7. Turn the carrots with their liquor into the tureen.
8. Season with pepper and additional salt as needed.
9. If thickening, stew vermicelli in the soup for twenty minutes or longer, rather than using flour and butter.
10. Optionally add celery, leeks, and turnips boiled down in the carrot-stock, or add them when the fresh vegetables have been stewed in the broth for about ten minutes.
11. Alternatively, reduce the proportion of carrots and substitute a quart or more of Brussels sprouts, boiled and drained, for part of them.