An excellent soup for lunch in cold weather, and always popular. Required: One ox-tail.

Two quarts of cold stock.

Four ounces of butter or good dripping.

I wo ounces of flour.

One onion.

(One turnip.

One large or two small carrots.

Four sticks of celery or a little celery salt.

A bunch of parsley and herbs.

Four cloves.

A dozen peppercorns.

A Made of mace.

Salt and pepper.

(// liked) A glass of sherry or Marsala.

Cut the tail in small pieces, dividing it at each joint, but the large joints should be cut into two or three pieces. Wash them well in water, then put them in a saucepan with boilng water to cover them, bring them to the boil and let them boil for five minutes.

Then lift them out of the water, and drain them well.

Melt half the butter or dripping in a saucepan, prepare and slice the vegetables; add them to the dripping, with the herbs, spice, and pieces of ox-tail.

Fry all these until they are lightly browned, then add the stock and a little salt, and let the soup cook gently for about three hours, or until the meat and gristly parts are quite tender. Keep the soup carefully skimmed. Choose out the nicest joints, and put them on one side to garnish the soup. Strain the soup into a basin.

Melt the rest of the butter or dripping in a clean pan, add the flour, and fry it a good golden brown; add the soup gradually, and stir it over the fire until it boils, then draw it to the side of the fire and let it simmer gently, so that the grease will rise to the surface and can easily be removed.

Add the wine, the pieces of ox-tail, salt and pepper to taste, and about a quarter of a pint of balls of carrot and turnip. These balls should be cut with a vegetable cutter made for the purpose, and boiled till tender in salted water. If, however, you have no cutter, cut the vegetables into neat, even-sized dice.