on the fire, and go on stirring the remainder, which will get gradually darker and darker in colour.  As soon as the colour is that of light chocolate remove the stew-pan from the fire altogether, but still continue scraping and stirring for a few minutes longer, as the enamel retains the heat to such an extent that it will sometimes burn after it has been removed from the fire.  It is important not to have the mixture too dark, and it will be found by experience that it gets darker after the stew-pan has been removed from the fire.  When we say light chocolate we refer to the colour of a cake of chocolate that has been broken.  The inside is the colour, not the outside.  It is advisable sometimes to have by you ready a large slice of onion, and if you think it is dark enough you can throw this in and immediately by this means slacken the heat.  Pour the brown roux into a separate basin, and put them by for use.

In the houses of most vegetarians more white roux will be used than brown, consequently more than half should be removed if this is the case when the roux first commences to turn colour.  When the brown roux gets cold it has all the appearance of chocolate, and when you use it it is best to scrape off the quantity you require with a spoon, and not add it to soups or sauces in one lump.

ALMOND SOUP.—­Take half a pound of sweet almonds and blanch them, i.e., throw them into boiling water till the outside skin can be rubbed off easily with the finger.  Then immediately throw the white almonds into cold water, otherwise they will quickly lose their white colour like potatoes that have been peeled.  Next, slice up an onion and half a small head of celery, and let these simmer gently in a quart of milk.  In the meantime pound the almonds with four hard-boiled yolks of egg, strain off the milk and add the pounded almonds and egg to the milk gradually, and let it boil over the fire.  Add sufficient white roux till the soup becomes of the consistency of cream.  Serve some fried or toasted bread with the soup.  It is a great improvement to add half a pint of cream, but this makes the soup much more expensive.  The soup can be flavoured with a little white pepper.

N.B.—­The onion and celery that was strained off can be used again for flavouring purposes.

APPLE SOUP.—­This is a German recipe.  Take half a dozen good-sized apples, peel them and remove the core, and boil them in a quart of water with two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs; add the juice of a lemon, and flavour it with rather less than a quarter of an ounce of powdered cinnamon; sweeten the soup with lump sugar, previously having rubbed six lumps on the outside of the lemon.