Cauliflower Cream Soup

For a rich first course, top cauliflower cream soup with parsley and a tuft of grated cheese.

The clear, white broth which has had an old fowl boiled tender in it is the best for such soup as this, and any pieces of bones from the breakfast or dinner meats may be put into the stockpot with it to make it richer. Take about a quart of stock, a pint of good rich milk, one pint of cauliflower sprays, one tablespoonful each of butter, salt and white pepper, one tablespoonful of minced parsley, half a blade of mace and a small quantity of any vegetables at hand--cauliflower being the principal one. If cooked for the purpose, pick the cauliflower into little branches, and boil it separately for half an hour in salted water. Strain off one quart of the stock, clear and free from grease, into a saucepan, and boil it with one tablespoonful of minced onion; then mash one breakfast cupful of cooked cauliflower and throw it in; boil one pint of rich milk and add that; season with a little salt and white pepper, if not sufficiently blended, thicken, till it looks like a thin cream, with flour and water; then add one tablespoonful of butter, and the other breakfast cupful of cooked cauliflower branches, and sprinkle on a tablespoonful of minced parsley. It is then ready to be served.