A Prize Soup

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 300, 23 March 1945, Page 23

A Prize Soup

Dear Aunt Daisy, While listening to your session one morning I heard you read a letter from another one of the links of your Daisy Chain, about the tomatoes she had bottled. She said that somehow they seemed to have a flat taste; and was there any way by which she could improve the flavour. You gave several suggestions, and mentioned also that the tinned tomato soups we can buy are

always very tasty because of the particular secret recipe used by the particular firms. I am enclosing a recipe of a Vegetable Tomato Soup, which I think will help your particular listener, and many others, It is the recipe of a British Army cook, from the Army School of Cookery, Aldershot — and he, was awarded the prize in an international competition, competing against more than six hundred cooks and housewives in all parts of the world. The competition was for the three most simple, economical and nutritious vegetable soups, and the judging was done by some of the worldfamous chefs--one of them being the chef to His Majesty King George V. (I have had the recipes a few years.) Here is the Vegetable Tomato Soup-quantity being for 8 persons, Cut into very thin slices one onion, one small carrot, one stick of celery. Melt loz. butter in a stewpan and fry vegetables for a few minutes, without browning. Add 242lb. tomatoes cut into slices, and cook for a few minutes. Add 2 pints water, 2 or 3 cloves, and a little bunch of herbs. (I have used a small teaspoon mixed dried herbs.) Then bring to boil, season to taste, and simmer gently until vegetables are cooked. Remove herbs and cloves, and strain through fine sieve. Return to clean stew pan, and correct for seasonings. Bring slowly to the boil, thicken a little with cornflour, mixed with cold water, then add a pinch of castor sugar, and serve with croutons of fried bread.-"Daisette"-Still another link in your Long Chain.