Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea
by Marion Harland · English · Gutenberg #49944 · 640,637 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea
Author: Marion Harland
Release date: September 12, 2015 [eBook #49944]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA ***
[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
text is surrounded by _underscores_. The text uses a Maltese Cross to
signify some recipes, this has been represented in the text by an addition
sign.]
Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea.
_“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES_
BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA
BY
MARION HARLAND,
AUTHOR OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.”
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1886.
COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
FAMILIAR TALKS.
PAGE
Familiar talk with the Reader—Introductory 1
“ “ “ Breakfast 61
“ “ “ Croquettes 75
“ “ “ Haste or Waste? 98
“ “ “ Gravy 141
“ “ “ Luncheon 168
“ “ “ What I know about Egg-beaters 196
“ “ “ Whipped Cream 203
“ “ “ Concerning Allowances 294
“ “ “ Ripe Fruit 308
“ “ “ Tea 356
“ “ “ Parting Words 398
“ “ “ Practical—or Utopian? 402
FAMILIAR TALK WITH THE READER.
I SHOULD be indeed flattered could I believe that you hail with as much
pleasure as I do the renewal of the “Common-Sense Talks,” to which I
first invited you four years ago. For I have much to say to you in the
same free-masonic, free-and-easy strain in which you indulged me then.
It is a wild March night. Winter and Summer, Spring-time and Autumn,
the wind sings, or plains at my sitting-room window. To-night its shout
is less fierce than jocund to my ear, for it says, between the castanet
passages of hail and sleet, that neither friend nor bore will interrupt
our conference. Shutters and curtains are closed; the room is still,
bright, and warm, and we are no longer strangers.
The poorest man of my acquaintance counts his money by the million,
has a superb mansion he calls “home,” a wife and beautiful children
who call him “husband” and “father.” He has friends by the score,
and admirers by the hundred, for human nature has not abated one jot
in prudential sycophancy since the Psalmist summed up a volume of
satirical truth in the pretended “aside”—“and men will praise thee
when thou doest well unto thyself.” For all that, he of whom I write
is a pauper, inasmuch as he makes his boast that he never experienced
the emotion of gratitude. He has worked his own way in the world, he
is wont to say: has never had helping hand from mortal man or woman.
It is a part of his religion to pay for all he gets, and never to
ask a favor. Nevertheless, he confesses, with a complacent smirk
that would be amusing were it not so pitiable an exhibition of his
real beggary—“that he would like to know what it feels like to be
grateful,—just for the sake of the novel sensation!”
Poor wretch! I am sorry I introduced him here and now. There is a
savage growl in the wind; our snuggery is a trifle less pleasant
since I began to talk of him. Although I only used him as a means of
“leading up” to the expression of my own exceeding and abundant wealth
of gratitude to you, dear Reader and Friend. If I had only time and
strength enough to bear me through the full relation of the riches and
happiness you have conferred upon me! There are letters in that desk
over there between the windows that have caused me to look down with
a sense of compassionate superiority upon Nathan Rothschild and the
Duke of Brunswick. I am too modest (or miserly) to show them; but now
and then, when threatened with a fit of self-depreciation, I come in
here, lock the door, stop the keyhole, get them out and read them anew.
For three days thereafter I walk on air. For the refrain of all is the
same. “You have been a help to me!” And only HE who knows the depths,
sad and silent, or rich and glad, of the human heart can understand how
much I wanted to help you. Verily, I have in this matter had my reward.
Again, I say, I am grateful. Had I “helped” you a hundred times as
well as I have, I should still be your debtor.
May I read you somewhat copious extracts from a letter I received, the
other day, from a wide-awake New England girl? Not only wide-awake,
but refined, original and sprightly; a girl whom though I have never
seen her face, I know to be a worker in life as well as a thinker. She
says some things much better than I could have put them, and others
as noteworthy, which I wish to answer,—or, try to answer—since I
recognize in her a representative of a class, not very large, perhaps,
but certainly one of the most respectable and honored of all those
for whom I write the “Common-Sense Series.” I should like to give
the letter in full, from the graphic touches with which she sketches
herself, “sitting upon the kitchen-table, reading ‘Common Sense in the
Household,’” one bright morning, when herself and sisters had taken
possession of the kitchen to make preparation for “an old New England
tea-party,” at which their only assistant was to be “a small maiden we
keep to have the privilege of waiting upon, and doing our own work into
the bargain; who, in waiting at table, was never known to pass anything
on the right side, and has an invincible objection to learning how”—to
the conclusion, over against which she has, like the frank woman she
is, set her name and address in full.
But the modesty (or miserliness) aforesaid rises in sudden arms to
forbid the reproduction at my hand of certain portions of the epistle,
and it would be neither kind nor honorable to set down in prospective
print her pictures of home life and _dramatis personæ_. Steering
clear, when possible, of these visible rocks and sunken reefs, I will
indulge you and myself with a part of that which has added sensibly to
my treasures—not debt—mind you! of gratitude.
“I want to tell you how much your compilation does for those poor
mortals whom it rescues from the usual class of cook-books.”
A reef, you see, before we are out of harbor! We will skip two pages to
get at one of the well-said things I spoke of just now.
“You speak of ‘company china’ and ‘company manners.’ I detest company
_anything_! This longing for show and display is the curse and
failing of Americans. I abhor the phrase ‘Anything will do for us.’
I do not believe that a person can be true clear through and without
affectations who can put on her politeness with her company china any
more than a real lady can deliberately put on stockings with holes in
them. I seriously think that, so far from its being self-sacrifice to
put up with the meanest every day, and hospitality to use the best for
company, it is a positive damage to one’s sense of moral fitness. I
knew a woman once who used to surprise me with the deceptions in which
she unconsciously and needlessly indulged. This ceased to be a surprise
when I saw her wear a twenty-dollar hat and a pair of unmended hose,
and not seem to know that it was not quite the proper thing.”
Orthodox, you perceive, thus far, is our New England correspondent.
Honest and outspoken in her hatred of shams and “dodges” of all kinds;
quick to see analogies and deduce conclusions. Now comes the pith of
the communication:—
“I wish you could set me right on one point that often perplexes me.
_Is housekeeping worth while?_ I do not despise the necessary work. On
the contrary, I hold that anything well done is worth doing. But with
the materials this country affords, _can_ housekeeping be well done?
Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has, and can
use to her own and her friends’ advantage, in order to have a perfectly
appointed house? to wear herself out chasing around after servants and
children that things may be always done well, and at the stated time? I
have seen so many women of brains wear out and die in harness, trying
to do their self-imposed duty; to see that the large establishments
their husbands’ wealth, position and wishes place in their care shall
be perfect in detail. And these women could have been so happy and
enjoyed the life they threw away, if they had only known how _not_
to keep house. While, on the other hand, with a small income and one
servant the matter is so much worse. I should not mind if one could
ever say ‘It is a well-finished thing!’ But you only finish one thing
to begin over again, and so on, until you die and have nothing to show
for your life’s work. It looks hopeless to me, I confess. I wish you
would show me the wisdom—or the folly of it all.”
Now, I do not propose to show the folly of anything such as a girl that
writes. She is a sincere inquirer after truth. When her letter came I
tucked it under my inkstand, and said, “There is a text ready-written,
and in clerkly hand, for my next ‘Familiar Talk!’” She is altogether
too sensible and has too true a sense of humor to be offended when I
tell her, as I shall, that her lament over unfinished work reminded me
comically of the story of the poor fellow who cut his throat, because,
as he stated in his letter of explanation and farewell—“He was tired
of buttoning and unbuttoning!” There is a deal that is specious in the
threadbare adage set forth in dolesome rhyme:—
“Man’s work is from sun to sun,
But woman’s work is never done.”
Nothing in this world, or in all time, is finished. Or, if finished,
it is _not_ well with it. We hear this truth reiterated in every
stroke of the artisan’s hammer, employed—from the day he enters upon
his apprenticeship to that on which the withered hand can no longer,
by reason of age, lift the ponderous emblem of his craft—in beating
upon what looks to the observer of to-day like that which engaged him
yesterday; which to the spectator of twenty to-morrows will seem the
same as that which calls out the full strength of the brawny arm this
hour. When he dies, who will care to chronicle the circumstance that he
made, in the course of a long and busy life, forty thousand horseshoes,
or assisted in the manufacture of one thousand engine-boilers? We learn
the same lesson from the patient eyes of the teacher while drilling one
generation after another in the details that are the tedious forging of
the wards of the key of knowledge;—the rudiments of “the three R’s,”
which, laugh or groan as we may, must be committed to memories more or
less reluctant. They were never, I am sure, “learned by heart.” It is
well, so far as they are concerned, that the old phrase has gone out of
fashion. We read the like tale of ever-renewed endeavor in the bent
brows and whitening locks of brain-toilers, the world over. Nature were
a false teacher were this otherwise. Birth, maturity, death; first, the
blade then the ear, and, after the full corn in the ear, ripening and
destruction for the good of man or beast, or decay in the earth that
resurrection may come to the buried seed. Seed-time and harvest, summer
and winter,—none of these are “finished things.” GOD hold our eyes from
seeing many things that are!
A life, the major part of which is spent in sweeping, that the dust
may re-settle; in washing, that clothes may be again worn and soiled;
in cooking, that the food prepared may be consumed; in cleansing
plates and dishes, to put back upon the table that they may return, in
grease and stickiness, to the hardly-dried pan and towel, does seem to
the superficial spectator, ignoble even for the wife of a struggling
mechanic or ill-paid clerk. But I insist that the fault is not that
Providence has made her a woman, but that Providence has made and kept
her poor. Her husband at his bench, or, rounding his shoulders over his
ledger, has as valid cause of complaint of never done work. Is there
any reason why he should stand more patiently in his lot, waiting to
see what GOD the LORD will do, than she?
But—“Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has,
and can use to her own and her friends’ advantage, in order to have a
perfectly-appointed house, etc.?”
Certain visions that stir me to reverential admiration, arise before
me, at that query. I see Emily Bronté reading German while she kneads
the batch of home-made bread; Charlotte, laying down the pen upon an
unfinished page of Shirley, to steal into the kitchen when poor blind
Tabby’s back is turned, and bear off the potatoes the superannuated
servant insists upon peeling every day, that the “dainty fingers”
may extract the black “eyes” the faithful old creature cannot see. I
see the Greek grammar fixed open in the rack above Elihu Burritt’s
forge; and Sherman, reciting to himself by day over his lapstone and
last, the lessons he learned at night after work-hours were over. I
recollect that the biographer of the “marvellous boy” has written of
him—“Twelve hours he was chained to the office; _i.e._, from eight in
the morning until eight at night, the dinner-hour only excepted; and in
the house he was confined to the kitchen; slept with the foot-boy, and
was subjected to indignities of a like nature. Yet here it was, during
this life of base humiliation, that Thomas Chatterton worked out the
splendid creations of his imagination. In less than three years of the
life of a poor attorney’s apprentice, fed in the kitchen and lodged
with the foot-boy, did he here achieve an immortality such as the whole
life of not one in millions is sufficient to create.”
Note here, too, that Chatterton died of a broken heart; was not driven
to suicide by hard work.
Please be patient with me while I tell you of an incident that seems to
me pretty, and comes in patly just at this point.
I have a friend—my heart bounds with prideful pleasure while I call her
such!—who is the most scholarly woman, and also the best housekeeper I
know. She is, moreover, one of the sweetest of our native poets—one
to whose genius and true womanhood even royalty has done grateful
honor; a woman who ‘has used her’ every ‘talent to her own and her
friends’ advantage’ in more ways than one. She had a call one day from
a neighbor, an eminent professor, learned in dead and spoken tongues.
In the passage of the conversation from trifles to weightier matters,
it chanced that she differed in opinion from him upon two points. He
refused to believe that potatoes could ever be made into a palatable
sweet by any ingenuity of the culinary art, and he took exception to
her rendering of a certain passage of Virgil. In the course of the
afternoon he received from his fair neighbor a folded paper and a
covered dish. Opening the former, he read a metrical translation of the
disputed passage, so beautiful and striking he could no longer doubt
that she had discovered the poet’s meaning more truly than had he. The
dish contained a delicious potato custard.
A foolscap page of rhymed thanks went back with the empty pudding-dish.
It was mere doggerel, for the pundit was no poet, and meant his note
for nothing more than jingle and fun, but his tribute of admiration
was sincere. I forget the form of its expression, except that the
concluding lines ran somewhat thus:—
“From Virgil and potatoes, too,
You bring forth treasures rich and new.”
Am I harsh and unsympathetic when I say, that in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, if a woman has genuine talent, she will find time
to improve it even amid the clatter of household machinery? I could
multiply instances by the thousand to prove this, did time permit.
But what of the poor rich woman who throws away her life in the vain
endeavor to bring servants and children “up to time?” Two things.
First, she dies of worry, not of work—a distinction with a difference.
Second, if she possess one-half enough strength of mind and strength of
purpose to have made herself mistress of a single art or science, or
sufficient tact to sustain her as a successful leader in society, or
the degree of administrative ability requisite to enable her to conduct
rightly a public enterprise of any note, be it benevolent, literary, or
social, she ought to be competent to the government of her household;
to administer domestic affairs with such wise energy as should insure
order and punctuality without self-immolation.
“If they have run with the footmen and they have wearied them, how
shall they contend with horses?”
Let us look at this matter fairly, and without prejudice on either
side. I should contradict other of my written and spoken opinions;
stultify myself beyond the recovery of your respect or my own, were
I to deny that more and wider avenues of occupation should be opened
to woman than are now conceded as their right by the popular verdict.
But _not_ because the duties of the housewife are overburdensome or
degrading. On the contrary, I would have forty trained cooks where
there is now one; would make her who looketh diligently to the ways
of her household worthy, as in Solomon’s day, of double honor. Of
co-operative laundries I have much hope. I would have washing-day
become a tradition of the past to be shuddered over by every
emancipated family in the land. In “co-operative housekeeping,” in the
sense in which it is generally understood, I have scanty faith as a
cure for the general untowardness of what my sprightly correspondent
styles “the materials this country affords.” Somebody must get the
dinners and somebody superintend the getting-up of these. I honestly
believe that the best method of reforming American domestic service and
American cookery is by making the mistress of every home proficient in
the art and a capable instructress of others. I know—no one better—how
women who have never cared to beautify their own tables, or to study
elegant variety in their bills of fare, who have railed at soups as
“slops,” and _entrées_ as “trash,” talk, after the year’s travel in
foreign lands their husband’s earnings and their own pinching have
gained for them. How they groan over native cookery and the bondage of
native mistresses, and tell how cheaply and luxuriously one can live in
_dear_ Paris.
“Will the time ever come,” they cry, “when we, too, can sit at ease in
our frescoed saloons surrounded by no end of artificial flowers and
mirrors, and order our meals from a restaurant?”
To which I, from the depths of my home-loving heart, reply, “Heaven
forbid!”
Have you ever thought how large a share the kitchen and dining-room
have in forming the distinctive characteristics of the home? It is
no marvel that the man who has had his dinners from an eating-house
all his life should lack a word to describe that which symbolizes to
the Anglo-Saxon all that is dearest and most sacred on earth. I avow,
without a tinge of shame, that I soon tire, then sicken of restaurant
and hotel dainties. I like the genuine wholesomeness of home-fare.
“Madame,” said a Frenchman whom I once met at an American
watering-place, “one of my compatriots could produce one grand
repast—one that should not want for the beautiful effects, with the
contents of that pail—tub—bucket—of what the peoples here call the
_svill_,” pointing to a mass of dinner _débris_ set just without a side
door.
“Monsieur,” I rejoined, with a grimace that matched his, “_moi, je
n’aime pas le svill_!”
He was right, without doubt, in the implication that very much is
thrown away as refuse which could be reproduced upon the table to the
satisfaction and advantage of host and guest. Perhaps my imagination
was more to blame than he for my unlucky recollection of his
countrywoman’s recommendation of a mayonnaise to a doubting guest:
“You need not fear to partake, madame. The fish has been preserved from
putrefaction by a process of vinegar and charcoal!”
It is a substantial comfort to the Anglo-Saxon stomach for its owner to
know what he is eating. Call it prejudice, if you like, but it may have
something to do with making one “true clear through,” as my Yankee girl
puts it.
“But such poetic repasts!” sighs my travelled acquaintance. “Such
heavenly garnishes, and flowers everywhere, and the loveliest
side-dishes, and everything so exquisitely served! When I think of
them, I abominate our great, vulgar joints and stiff dinner-tables!”
Yet Mrs. Nouveau Riche dawdles all the forenoon over a piece of
tasteless embroidery, and gives the afternoon to gossip; while Bridget
or Dinah prepares dinner, and serves it in accordance with her
peculiar ideas of right and fitness.
“Train American servants?” she says, in a transport of contemptuous
incredulity at my suggestion that here is good missionary ground, “I
have had enough of that! Just as soon as I teach them the rudiments of
decent cookery they carry off their knowledge to somebody else, trade
for double wages from my neighbor upon what they have gained from me!”
“But,” I remark, argumentatively, “do you not see, my dear lady, that
so surely as ‘ten times one is ten,’ if all your neighbors were, in
like manner, to instruct the servants who come to _them_ and desert,
so soon as they are taught their trade, the great work of securing
wholesome and palatable cookery and tasteful serving would soon be
an accomplished fact in your community? and, by the natural spread
of the leaven, the race of incompetent cooks and clumsy waiters
would before long become extinct? Would it not be worth while for
housekeepers to co-operate in the attempt to secure excellence in
these departments instead of ‘getting along somehow’ with ‘the
materials’—_i. e._, servants—‘this country affords?’ Why not compel the
country—wrong-headed abstraction that it is!—to afford us what we want?
Would not the demand, thus enforced and persisted in, create a supply?”
“Not in my day,” she retorts, illogically. “I don’t care to wear myself
out for the benefit of posterity.”
I do not gainsay the latter remark. If she had any desire that the
days to come should be better than these, she would see to it that her
daughters are rendered comparatively independent of the ungrateful
caprices of the coming Celt or Teuton, or the ambitious vagaries of
“the Nation’s Ward,” by a practical knowledge of housewifery. Perhaps
she is deterred from undertaking their instruction by the forecast
shadow of their desertion of the maternal abode for homes of their own.
The prettiest thing that has ever been said of the informal “talks” I
had with you, my Reader, in former days, was the too-flattering remark
of a Syracuse (N. Y.) editor, that they were “like a breath of fresh
air blowing across the ‘heated term’ of the cook.”
I quote it, partly that I may thank the author, principally that I
may borrow the illustration. The heavenly airs that really temper the
torrid heats of the kitchen are loving thoughts of those for whom the
house-mother makes the home. There is a wealth of meaning in the homely
old saying about “putting one’s name in the pot.” It is one thing,
I submit to the advocates of co-operative housekeeping, whether big
John’s and little John’s and Mamie’s and Susie’s and Tommy’s meals
are prepared according to the prescriptions of a salaried _chef_,
in the mammoth boilers, steamers and bakers of an “establishment”
along with the sustenance of fifty other families, or whether the
tender mother, in her “order of the day,” remembers that while Papa
likes smart, tingling dashes of cayenne, garlic, and curry, the
baby-tongues of her brood would cry out at the same; that Mamie has
an aversion to a dish much liked by her brothers and sisters; that
Susie is delicate, and cannot digest the strong meat that is the gift
of flesh and brains to the rest. So Papa gets his spiced ragoût under
a tiny cover—hot-and-hot—and the plainer “stew,” which was its base,
nourishes the bairns. Mamie is not forced to fast while the rest feast,
and by pale Susie’s plate is set the savory “surprise,” which is the
visible expression of loving kindness, always wise and unforgetting.
You remember the legend that tells how Elizabeth of Hungary, having
been forbidden by her lord to carry food to the poor, was met one
day by him outside the castle walls, as she was bearing a lapful of
meat and bread to her pensioners. Louis demanding sternly what she
carried in her robe, she was obliged to show him the forbidden burden.
“Whereupon,” says the chronicler, “the food was miraculously changed,
for his eyes, to a lapful of roses, red-and-white, and, his mind
disabused of suspicion, he graciously bade her pass on whithersoever
she would.”
I have bethought me many times of the legend when I have seen upon very
modest tables such proofs of thoughtful recollection of the peculiar
tastes and needs of the flock to which the home caterer ministered
as made my heart warm and eyes fill, and threw, to my imagination,
chaplets lovelier than Elizabeth’s roses around the platter and bowl.
This is the true poetry of serving, and the loving appreciation of it
is the reward, rich and all-sufficient, of thought, care, and toil.
A few words more before we proceed, in due order, to business.
This volume is not an amendment to “General Receipts, No. 1 of the
Common-Sense Series.” Still less is it intended as a substitute for it.
I have carefully avoided the repetition, in this volume, of a single
receipt which appeared in that. This is designed to be the second story
in the edifice of domestic economy, the materials of which I have
accumulated since the first was completed. As money makes money, and a
snow-ball gathers snow, so receipts, new, valuable, and curious, flowed
in upon me after “No. 1” was given to the world. Some of the earliest
to reach me were so good that I began a fresh compilation by the time
that book was fairly off the press.
Let me say here what you may find useful in your own researches and
collections. My best ally in the classification and preservation of the
materials for this undertaking has been the “The Household Treasury,”
published by Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, and arranged
by a lady of that city. It is a pretty volume of blank pages, a certain
number of which are devoted to each department of cookery, beginning
with soups, and running through the various kinds of sweets, pickles,
etc. Each is introduced by a handsome vignette and appropriate motto,
with a title at the top of every page. The paper is excellent and
distinctly ruled. I wish I could put a copy into the hands of every
housekeeper who believes in system of details, and development of her
individual capabilities. It has so far simplified and lightened the
task of preparing “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea” for my public, that I
cannot withhold this recommendation of it to others.
Yet if “General Receipts” was written _con amore_, its successor has
been, in a still higher degree, a work of love and delight. There were
times during the preparation of the trial volume when I could not feel
quite sure of my audience. There has not been a moment, since I began
that which I now offer for your acceptance, in the which I have not
been conscious of your full sympathy; have not tasted, in anticipation,
your enjoyment of that which I have taken such pleasure in making ready.
Do not think me sentimental when I ask that the Maltese cross, marking,
as in the former work, such receipts as I have tested and proved for
myself to be reliable, may be to you, dear friend and sister, like the
footprint of a fellow-traveler along the humble but honorable pathway
of every-day and practical life, bringing comfort and encouragement,
even in the “heated term.”
EGGS.
“Give me half-a-dozen eggs, a few spoonfuls of gravy and as much cream,
with a spoonful of butter and a handful of bread crumbs, and I can get
up a good breakfast or luncheon,” said a housekeeper to me once, in a
modest boastfulness that became her well, in my eyes.
For I had sat often at her elegant, but frugal board, and I knew she
spoke the truth.
“Elegant and frugal!” I shall have more hope of American housewives
when they learn to have faith in this combination of adjectives.
Nothing has moved me more strongly to the preparation of this work
than the desire to convert them to the belief that the two are not
incompatible or inharmonious. Under no head can practice in the
endeavor to conform these, the one to the other, be more easily and
successfully pursued than under that which begins this section.
Eggs at sixty cents per dozen (and they are seldom higher than this
price) are the cheapest food for the breakfast or lunch-table of a
private family. They are nutritious, popular, and never (if we except
the cases of omelettes, thickened with uncooked flour, and fried eggs,
drenched with fat) an unelegant or homely dish.
EGGS SUR LE PLAT. +
6 eggs.
1 table-spoonful of butter or nice dripping.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Melt the butter on a stone-china, or tin plate, or shallow baking-dish.
Break the eggs carefully into this; dust lightly with pepper and salt,
and put in a moderate oven until the whites are well “set.”
Serve in the dish in which they were baked.
TOASTED EGGS.
Cover the bottom of an earthenware or stone-china dish with rounds
of delicately toasted bread. Or, what is even better, with rounds of
stale bread dipped in beaten egg and fried quickly in butter or nice
dripping, to a golden-brown. Break an egg carefully upon each, and set
the dish immediately in front of, and on a level with a glowing fire.
Toast over this as many slices of _fat_ corned pork or ham as there are
eggs in the dish, holding the meat so that it will fry very quickly,
and all the dripping fall upon the eggs. When these are well “set,”
and a crust begins to form upon the top of each, they are done. Turn
the dish several times while toasting the meat, that the eggs may be
equally cooked.
Do not send the fried pork to table, but pepper the eggs lightly and
remove with the toast, to the dish in which they are to go to the
table, with a cake-turner or flat ladle, taking care not to break them.
BAKED EGGS. (No. 1.) +
6 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls good gravy—veal, beef or poultry. The latter is
particularly nice.
1 handful bread-crumbs.
6 rounds buttered toast or fried bread.
Put the gravy into a shallow baking-dish. Break the eggs into this,
pepper and salt them, and strew the bread-crumbs over them. Bake for
five minutes in a quick oven. Take up the eggs carefully, one by one,
and lay upon the toast which must be arranged on a hot, flat dish. Add
a little cream, and, if you like, some very finely-chopped parsley
and onion, to the gravy left in the baking-dish, and turn it into a
saucepan. Boil up once quickly, and pour over the eggs.
BAKED EGGS. (No. 2.) +
6 eggs.
1 cup of chicken, game, or veal gravy.
1 teaspoonful mixed parsley and onion, chopped fine.
1 handful very fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Pour enough gravy into a neat baking-dish to cover the bottom well,
and mix with the rest the parsley and onion. Set the dish in the oven
until the gravy begins to hiss and bubble, when break the eggs into it,
so that they do not crowd one another. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over
them, pepper and salt, and return to the oven for three minutes longer.
Then pour the rest of the gravy, which should be hot, over the whole.
More bread-crumbs, as fine as dust, and bake until the eggs are “set.”
Send to table in the baking-dish.
This dish will be found very savory.
FRICASSEED EGGS. +
6 hard-boiled eggs. When cold, slice with a sharp knife, taking care
not to break the yolk.
1 cup good broth, well seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley and a
suspicion of onion.
Some rounds stale bread, fried to a light-brown in butter or nice
dripping.
Put the broth on the fire in a saucepan with the seasoning and let it
come to a boil. Rub the slices of egg with melted butter, then roll
them in flour. Lay them gently in the gravy and let this become smoking
hot upon the side of the range, but do not let it actually boil, lest
the eggs should break. They should lie thus in the gravy for at least
five minutes. Have ready, upon a platter, the fried bread. Lay the
sliced egg evenly upon this, pour the gravy over all, and serve hot.
EGG CUTLETS. +
6 hard-boiled eggs.
1 raw egg well-beaten.
1 handful very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt, and a little parsley minced fine.
3 table-spoonfuls butter or dripping.
1 cup broth, or drawn butter, in which a raw egg has been beaten.
Cut the boiled eggs when perfectly cold, into rather thick slices
with a sharp, thin knife; dip each slice into the beaten egg; roll in
the bread-crumbs which should be seasoned with pepper, salt and minced
parsley. Fry them to a light-brown in the butter or dripping, turning
each piece as it is done on the under side. Do not let them lie in the
frying-pan an instant after they are cooked. Drain free from fat before
laying them on a hot dish. Pour the gravy, boiling hot, over the eggs,
and send to table.
STIRRED EGGS. +
6 eggs.
3 table-spoonfuls of gravy—that made from poultry is best.
Enough fried toast, from which the crust has been pared, to cover the
bottom of a flat dish.
A very little anchovy paste.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Melt the butter in a frying-pan, and when hot, break into this the
eggs. Stir in the gravy, pepper and salt to taste, and continue to stir
very quickly, and well up from the bottom, for about two minutes, or
until the whole is a soft, yellow mass. Have ready in a flat dish the
fried toast, spread thinly with anchovy paste.
Heap the stirred egg upon this, and serve before it has time to harden.
SCALLOPED EGGS (_Raw_). +
6 eggs.
4 or 5 table-spoonfuls of ground or minced ham.
A little chopped parsley.
A very little minced onion.
2 great spoonfuls of cream, and 1 of melted butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.
½ cup of bread crumbs moistened with milk and a spoonful of melted
butter.
Line the bottom of a small deep dish, well-buttered, with the soaked
bread-crumbs; put upon these a layer of chopped ham, seasoned with
the onion and parsley. Set these in the oven, closely covered, until
they are smoking hot. Meanwhile, beat up the eggs to a stiff froth,
season with pepper and salt, stir in the cream and a spoonful of melted
butter, and pour evenly upon the layer of ham. Put the dish, uncovered,
back into the oven, and bake five minutes, or until the eggs are “set.”
SCALLOPED EGGS (_Hard-boiled_). +
6 eggs boiled, and when cold, cut into thin slices.
1 cupful fine bread-crumbs, well moistened with a little good gravy and
a little milk or cream.
½ cup thick drawn butter, into which has been beaten the yolk of an egg.
1 small cupful minced ham, tongue, poultry, or cold halibut, salmon, or
cod.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Put a layer of moistened crumbs in the bottom of a buttered
baking-dish. On this lay the sliced eggs, each piece of which must have
been dipped in the thick drawn butter. Sprinkle the ground meat over
these, cover with another layer of bread-crumbs, and proceed in like
manner, until the egg is all used up. Sift on the top a good layer of
dry bread-crumbs. Cover the dish with an inverted plate, until the
contents are heated through, then remove the plate, and brown the top
upon the upper grating of the oven.
WHIRLED EGGS.
6 eggs.
1 quart of boiling water.
Some thin slices of buttered toast.
Pepper and salt to taste.
A table-spoonful of butter.
Put the water, slightly salted, in a saucepan over the fire, and keep
it at a fast boil. Stir with a wooden spoon or ladle in one direction
until it whirls rapidly. Break the eggs, one at a time, into a cup,
and drop each carefully into the centre, or vortex of the boiling
whirlpool, which must be kept in rapid motion until the egg is a soft,
round ball. Take it out carefully with a perforated spoon, and put it
on a slice of buttered toast laid upon a hot dish. Put a bit of butter
on the top. Set the dish in the oven to keep it warm, and proceed in
the same way with each egg, having but one at a time in the saucepan.
When all are done, dust lightly with salt and pepper, and send up _hot_.
POACHED EGGS _à la Bonne Femme_. +
6 eggs.
1 teaspoonful of vinegar.
½ cup nice veal or chicken broth.
Salt and pepper to taste.
½ cup butter or dripping.
Rounds of stale bread, and the beaten yolks of two raw eggs.
Prepare the bread first by cutting it into rather large rounds, and,
with a smaller cutter, marking an inner round on each, leaving a narrow
rim or wall on the outside. Excavate this cautiously, not to break the
bottom of the cup thus indicated, which should be three-quarters of
an inch deep. Dip each round thus prepared in the beaten egg, and fry
quickly to a yellow-brown in hot butter or dripping. Put in order upon
a flat dish, and set in the open oven while you poach the eggs.
Pour about a quart of boiling water into a deep saucepan. Salt
slightly, and add the vinegar. Break the eggs into a saucer, one at a
time, and, when the water is at a hard boil, slide them singly into
the saucepan. If the yolk be broken in putting it in, the effect of
the dish is spoiled. When the whites begin to curdle around the edges,
lessen the heat, and cook slowly until they are firm enough to bear
removal. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, trim each dexterously
into a neat round, and lay within the bread-cup described above. When
all are in their places, pour over them the gravy, which should be well
seasoned and boiling hot.
EGGS POACHED WITH MUSHROOMS. +
6 eggs.
1 tea-cupful of cold chicken or other fowl, minced fine.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
About a cupful of good gravy,—veal or poultry.
2 dozen mushrooms of fair size, sliced.
Some rounds of fried bread.
1 raw egg beaten light.
Mince the cold meat very fine and work into it the butter, with the
beaten egg. Season with pepper and salt, and stir it over the fire in
a saucepan until it is smoking-hot. Poach the eggs as in preceding
receipt, and trim off the ragged edges. The fried bread must be
arranged upon a hot, flat dish, the mince of chicken on this, and
the eggs upon the chicken. Have ready in another saucepan the sliced
mushrooms and gravy. If you use the French _champignons_—canned—they
should have simmered in the gravy fifteen minutes. If fresh ones, you
should have parboiled them in clean water as long, before they are
sliced into the gravy, and stewed ten minutes in it. The gravy must be
savory, rich and rather highly seasoned. Pour it very hot upon the eggs.
If you will try this receipt, and that for “Eggs _à la bonne femme_”
for yourself, your family and your guests will be grateful to you, and
you to the writer.
ANCHOVY TOAST WITH EGGS.
6 eggs.
1 cupful drawn butter—drawn in milk.
Some rounds of stale bread, toasted and buttered.
A little anchovy paste.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Spread the buttered toast thinly with anchovy paste, and with this
cover the bottom of a flat dish. Heat the drawn butter to boiling
in a tin vessel set in another of hot water, and stir into this the
eggs beaten very light. Season to taste, and heat—stirring all the
time—until they form a thick sauce, but do not let them boil. Pour over
the toast, and send to table very hot.
FORCEMEAT EGGS. +
6 eggs boiled hard.
1 cupful minced chicken, veal, ham or tongue.
1 cupful of rich gravy.
½ cupful bread-crumbs.
2 tea-spoonfuls mixed parsley, onion, summer savory or sweet marjoram,
chopped fine.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 raw egg beaten light.
While the eggs are boiling, make the forcemeat by mixing the minced
meat, bread-crumbs, herbs, pepper and salt together, and working well
into this the beaten raw egg. When the eggs are boiled hard, drop
for a minute into cold water to loosen the shells. Break these away
carefully. With a sharp knife divide each egg into halves; cut a piece
of the white off at each end (that they may stand firmly when dished),
and coat them thickly with the forcemeat. Brown them by setting them in
a tin plate on the upper grating of a very hot oven, and heap neatly
upon a hot dish. Pour the boiling gravy, in which a little lemon-juice
has been squeezed at the last, over them.
A HEN’S NEST. +
6 or 8 eggs boiled hard.
1 cup minced chicken, or other fowl, ham, tongue, or, if more
convenient, any cold firm fish.
1 cup of drawn butter into which have been stirred two or three
table-spoonfuls of good gravy and a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley.
When the eggs are quite cold and firm, cut the whites from the yolks
in long thin strips, or shavings, and set them aside to warm in a very
gentle oven, buttering them, now and then, while you prepare the rest.
Pound the minced meat or fish very fine in a Wedgewood mortar, mixing
in, as you go on, the yolks of the eggs, the parsley, and pepper and
salt to taste. When all are reduced to a smooth paste, mould with your
hands into small, egg-shaped balls. Heap in the centre of a dish,
arrange the shred eggs around them, in imitation of a nest, and pour
over all the hot sauce.
A simple and delightful relish.
OMELETTES.
For omelettes of various kinds, please see “Common Sense in the
Household, No. 1,” page 259.
FISH.
ENTRÉES AND RELISHES OF FISH.
WHAT TO DO WITH COLD FISH. +
1 cup drawn butter with an egg beaten in.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Mashed potato—(a cupful will do.)
1 cupful cold fish—cod, halibut or shad.
Roe of cod or shad, and 1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful minced parsley.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Dry the roe, previously well boiled. Mince the fish fine, and season.
Work up the roe with butter and the yolks of the boiled eggs. Cut the
white into thin rings. Put a layer of mashed potato at the bottom of
a buttered deep dish—then, alternate layers of fish, drawn butter
(with the rings of white embedded in this), roe,—more potato at top.
Cover the dish and set in a moderate oven until it smokes and bubbles.
Brown by removing the cover for a few minutes. Send to table in the
baking-dish, and pass pickles with it.
FRIED ROES OF COD OR SHAD. +
2 or three roes. If large, cut them in two.
1 pint of boiling water.
1 table-spoonful of vinegar.
Salt and pepper.
1 raw egg, well beaten.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls sweet lard, or dripping.
Wash the roes and dry with a soft, clean cloth. Have ready the boiling
water in which should be put the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Boil the
roes in this for ten minutes, then plunge at once into very cold water,
slightly salted. Wipe dry again; when they have lain about two minutes
in this, roll in the beaten egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry to a
fine brown in the fat.
_Sauce for the above._
1 cup drawn butter, into which beat a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce,
juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, with a little
minced parsley. Boil up once, and send around in a gravy-boat.
ROES OF COD OR SHAD STEWED.
Wash the roes, and parboil in water with a little vinegar, pepper,
and salt added. It should be at a hard boil when the roes go in. Boil
five minutes, lay in very cold water for two, wipe, and transfer to a
clean saucepan, with enough melted butter to half cover them. Set it
in a vessel of boiling water, cover closely, and let it stew gently
ten minutes. Should it boil too fast the roes will shrink and toughen.
While they are stewing prepare the—
_Sauce._
1 cup of boiling water.
2 teaspoonfuls corn-starch, or rice flour, mixed in cold water.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or good catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Beaten yolks of two eggs.
Salt and cayenne pepper.
Stir the corn-starch smoothly into the boiling water, and set it over
the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens up well. Add pepper,
salt, butter, and parsley; mix well together, put in the lemon-juice
and catsup, lastly the roes, which should have been frequently turned
in the melted butter. Set within a vessel of boiling water for about
eight minutes, but do not let the roes and sauce boil fast. Take them
up, lay on a flat, hot dish; add to the sauce the beaten yolks, stir
fast and well over the fire for two minutes, pour over the roes, and
serve.
Should the receipt for so simple a dish seem needlessly prolix, I beg
the reader to remember that I have made it minute to save her time and
trouble.
SCALLOPED ROES. +
3 large roes.
1 cup of drawn butter and yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
1 teaspoonful anchovy paste or essence.
1 teaspoonful of parsley.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
Boil the roes in water and vinegar, as directed in former receipts;
lay in cold water five minutes, then wipe perfectly dry. Break them
up with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, but not
so fine as to crush the eggs. When ready, they should be a granulated
heap. Set aside while you pound the hard-boiled eggs to a powder. Beat
this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning;
lastly, mix in, more lightly, the roes. Strew the bottom of a buttered
dish with bread-crumbs, put in the mixture, spread evenly, and cover
with very fine crumbs. Stick bits of butter thickly over the top, cover
and bake in a quick oven, until bubbling hot. Brown, uncovered, on the
upper grating of the oven.
FISH-BALLS. +
2 cupfuls cold boiled cod—fresh or salted.
1 cupful mashed potato.
½ cup drawn butter, with an egg beaten in.
Season to taste.
Chop the fish when you have freed it of bones and skin. Work in the
potato, and moisten with the drawn butter until it is soft enough to
mould, and will yet keep in shape. Roll the balls in flour, and fry
quickly to a golden-brown in lard, or clean dripping. Take from the fat
so soon as they are done; lay in a cullender or sieve and shake gently,
to free them from every drop of grease. Turn out for a moment on white
paper to absorb any lingering drops, and send up on a hot dish.
A pretty way of serving them is to line the dish with clean, white
paper, and edge this with a frill of colored tissue paper—green or
pink. This makes ornamental that which is usually considered a homely
dish.
STEWED EELS _à l’Allemande_.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup rather weak vinegar.
1 small onion, chopped fine.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
½ saltspoonful mace.
1 saltspoonful salt.
About 2 pounds of eels.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Chopped parsley to taste.
Make a liquor in which to boil the eels, of the vinegar, water, onion,
pepper, salt and mace. Boil—closely covered—fifteen minutes, when
strain and put in the eels, which should be cleaned carefully and cut
into pieces less than a finger long. Boil _gently_ nearly an hour.
Take them up, drain dry, and put into a sauce made of melted butter
and chopped parsley. Set the vessel containing them in another of hot
water, and bring eels and sauce to the boiling point, then serve in a
deep dish.
EELS STEWED _à l’Americain_. +
3 pounds eels, skinned and cleaned, and all the fat removed from the
inside.
1 young onion, chopped fine.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
Cut the eels in pieces about two inches in length; season, and lay in a
saucepan containing the melted butter. Strew the onion and parsley over
all, cover the saucepan (or tin pail, if more convenient) closely, and
set in a pot of cold water. Bring this gradually to a boil, then cook
very gently for an hour and a half, or until the eels are tender. Turn
out into a deep dish.
There is no more palatable preparation of eels than this, in the
opinion of most of those who have eaten it.
FRICASSEED EELS.
3 pounds fresh eels, skinned, cleaned, and cut into pieces about two
inches long.
1 small onion, sliced.
Enough butter, or good dripping, to fry the eels.
1 cup good beef or veal gravy, from which the fat has been skimmed.
Season with wine, catsup and lemon-juice.
Pepper and salt with minced parsley for seasoning.
A little flour.
Flour the eels and fry in the dripping, or butter, until brown. Take
them out and set aside to cool while you fry the sliced onion in the
same fat. Drain this, also the eels, from every drop of grease. When
the eels are almost cold, lay them in the bottom of a tin pail or
farina-kettle, sprinkle the onion, parsley and other seasoning over
them. Add to your gravy a little anchovy sauce, or flavorous catsup;
the juice of half a lemon, and a glass of brown sherry. Pour over
the eels, cover closely, and set in a pot of _warm_ water. Bring to
a gentle boil and simmer, after the contents of the inner vessel are
heated through, about twenty minutes. Too much, or hard cooking, will
spoil them.
Serve upon a chafing-dish.
CUTLETS OF HALIBUT, COD OR SALMON. +
3 pounds fish, cut in slices three-quarters of an inch thick, from the
body of the fish.
A handful of fine bread-crumbs, with which should be mixed pepper and
salt with a little minced parsley.
1 egg beaten light.
Enough butter, lard or dripping to fry the cutlets.
Cut each slice of fish into strips as wide as your two fingers. Dry
them with a clean cloth; rub lightly with salt and pepper; dip in the
egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry in enough fat to cover them well.
Drain away every drop of fat, and lay upon hot white paper, lining a
heated dish.
CUTLETS OF COD, HALIBUT OR SALMON _à la reine_.
Prepare the fish as in the last receipt until after frying it, when
have ready the following sauce:
1 cup strong brown gravy—beef or veal.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce or mushroom catsup.
Pepper, salt, a pinch of parsley and a _very_ little minced onion.
1 glass brown sherry and juice of half a lemon.
Thicken with browned flour.
Lay the fried cutlets evenly in a broad saucepan with a top, cover with
the gravy and heat slowly all through, _but do not let them boil_. Take
up the cutlets with care, and arrange upon a chafing-dish. Pour the
gravy over them.
These are very nice, and well worth the additional trouble it may cost
to prepare the sauce.
BAKED COD OR HALIBUT. +
A piece of fish from the middle of the back, weighing four, five or six
pounds.
A cupful of bread-crumbs, peppered and salted.
2 table-spoonfuls _boiled_ salt pork, finely chopped.
A table-spoonful chopped parsley, sweet marjoram and thyme, with a mere
suspicion of minced onion.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or Harvey’s, if you prefer it.
½ cupful drawn butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 beaten egg.
Lay the fish in very cold salt-and-water for two hours; wipe dry; make
deep gashes in both sides at right angles with the back-bone and rub
into these, as well as coat it all over with a force-meat made of the
crumbs, pork, herbs, onion and seasoning, bound with raw egg. Lay in
the baking-pan and pour over it the drawn butter (which should be quite
thin), seasoned with the anchovy sauce, lemon-juice, pepper and a pinch
of parsley. Bake in a moderate oven nearly an hour,—quite as long if
the piece be large, basting frequently lest it should brown too fast.
Add a little butter-and-water when the sauce thickens too much. When
the fish is done, remove to a hot dish, and strain the gravy over it.
A few capers or chopped green pickles are a pleasant addition to the
gravy.
BAKED SALMON WITH CREAM SAUCE. +
A middle cut of salmon.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter melted in hot water.
Butter a sheet of foolscap paper on both sides, and wrap the fish up
in it, pinning the ends securely together. Lay in the baking-pan, and
pour six or seven spoonfuls of butter-and-water over it. Turn another
pan over all, and steam in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an
hour to an hour, lifting the cover, from time to time, to baste and
assure yourself that the paper is not burning. Meanwhile, have ready in
a saucepan a cup of cream, in which you would do well to dissolve a bit
of soda a little larger than a pea. This is a wise precaution whenever
cream is to be boiled. Heat this in a vessel placed within another of
hot water; thicken with a heaping teaspoonful of corn starch, add a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, a liberal pinch of
minced parsley, and when the fish is unwrapped and dished, pour half
slowly over it, sending the rest to table in a boat. If you have no
cream, use milk, and add a beaten egg to the thickening.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (FRIED).
Cut slices from the middle of the fish, an inch thick.
1 table-spoonful butter to each slice, for frying.
Beaten egg and fine _cracker_ crumbs, powdered to dust, and peppered
with cayenne.
Wipe the fish dry, and salt slightly. Dip in egg, then in cracker
crumbs, fry very quickly in hot butter. Drain off every drop of grease,
and serve upon a dish lined with hot, clean paper, fringed at the ends.
Sprinkle green parsley in bunches over it.
The French use the best salad-oil in this receipt, instead of butter.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (BROILED).
Three or four slices of salmon.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
½ cup drawn butter, thickened with browned flour, and seasoned with
tomato catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub the steaks with the butter, pepper and salt slightly. Broil upon a
gridiron over a very clear fire, turning often, and rubbing each side
with butter as it comes uppermost. When nicely browned, lay on a hot
dish, and pour the sauce over them.
SALMON CUTLETS EN PAPILLOTE.
Dry and lay in melted butter ten minutes. Dust lightly with cayenne
pepper, and wrap securely in well buttered or oiled white paper,
stitching down the ends of each cover. Fry in nice dripping or sweet
lard. They will be done in ten minutes, unless very thick. Have ready
clean, _hot_ papers, fringed at both ends. Clip the threads of the
soiled ones when you have drained them free from fat, slip dexterously
and quickly, lest they cool in the process, into the fresh covers, give
the fringed ends a twist, and send up on a heated dish.
Salmon _en papillote_ is also broiled by experts. If you attempt this,
be careful that the paper is so well greased and the cutlets turned so
often that it does not scorch. The least taste of burnt paper ruins the
flavor of the fish, which it is the object of the cover to preserve.
SALMON IN A MOULD. (_Very good._) +
1 can preserved salmon or an equal amount of cold, left from a company
dish of roast or boiled.
4 eggs beaten light.
4 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Season with pepper, salt and minced parsley.
Chop the fish fine, then rub it in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl
with the back of a silver spoon, adding the butter until it is a smooth
paste. Beat the bread-crumbs into the eggs and season before working
all together. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, and boil or steam for
an hour.
_Sauce for the Above._
1 cupful milk heated to a boil, and thickened with a table-spoonful
corn-starch.
The liquor from the canned salmon, or if you have none, double the
quantity of butter.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 raw egg.
1 teaspoonful anchovy, or mushroom, or tomato catsup.
1 pinch of mace and one of cayenne.
Put the egg in last and very carefully, boil one minute to cook it, and
when the pudding is turned from the mould, pour over it. Cut in slices
at table.
A nice supper-dish.
STEWED SALMON. +
1 can preserved fresh salmon, or remains of roast or boiled.
1 cup drawn butter.
2 eggs well beaten.
1 teaspoonful anchovy or Harvey’s sauce.
Cayenne and salt to taste.
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
Some capers or minced green pickles.
Stew the salmon in the can liquor, or a very little water, slightly
salted, ten minutes. Have ready, in a larger saucepan, the drawn butter
thickened with rice-flour or corn-starch. Season and stir in cautiously
the beaten raw eggs, then the salmon. Let it come to a gentle boil, add
the chopped eggs and pickles and turn into a covered deep dish.
_Or—_
Add the hard-boiled eggs and capers to the salmon, with a
table-spoonful of butter, toss up lightly with a fork, pepper slightly,
and heap in the centre of a hot flat dish, then pour the boiling sauce
over all.
It is very appetizing served in either way.
MAYONNAISE OF SALMON.
If you use canned salmon, drain it very dry and pick into coarse flakes
with a silver fork. If the remnants of roast or boiled fish, remove all
bits of bone, skin and fat, and pick to pieces in the same way.
1 bunch of celery, or 2 heads of lettuce.
_For Dressing._
1 cup boiling water.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
½ cup vinegar.
1 small teaspoonful black pepper, or half as much cayenne.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2 raw eggs—yolks only,—beaten light.
2 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered sugar.
Wet the corn-starch with cold water and stir into the boiling water
until it thickens well; add half of pepper, salt, sugar, and all the
butter. Remove from the fire, and beat in the raw yolks while still
scalding hot. Set aside to cool, while you cut the celery or lettuce
into small pieces, tearing and bruising as little as may be. Mix this
lightly with the fish in a deep bowl. Rub the boiled yolks to a powder,
add the salt, sugar and pepper, then the oil, little by little, beating
it in with a silver spoon; next, the mustard. When the thick egg sauce
is quite cold, whip the other into it with an egg-beater, and when
thoroughly incorporated, put in the vinegar. Mix half the dressing
through the fish and celery, turn this into a salad-dish, mounding it
in the centre, and pour the rest of the dressing over it.
Garnish with rings of boiled white-of-egg or whipped raw whites, heaped
regularly on the surface, with a caper on top of each.
Do not be discouraged at the length of this receipt. It is easy and
safe. Your taste may suggest some modification of the ingredients, but
you will like it, in the main, well enough to try it more than once.
DEVILLED SALMON. +
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into strips half an inch wide and an inch
long.
4 table-spoonfuls good beef gravy, seasoned with onion.
1 table-spoonful tomato or walnut catsup.
1 table-spoonful vinegar.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter or best salad-oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Cayenne to taste.
Boil the salmon ten minutes in clear water. Have ready in a saucepan
the gravy and seasoning, hot and closely covered, but do not let it
boil. Lay the salmon for ten minutes more in the melted butter, turning
it several times. Then put into the hot gravy, cover and simmer five
minutes. Pile the fish upon a hot platter; pour the sauce over it, and
serve with split Boston crackers, toasted and buttered.
SMOKED SALMON (_Broiled_). +
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into narrow strips.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne pepper.
Parboil the salmon ten minutes; lay in cold water for the same length
of time; wipe dry, and broil over a clear fire. Butter while hot,
season with cayenne and lemon-juice, pile in a “log-cabin” square upon
a hot plate, and send up with dry toast.
SALT COD _an maître d’hôtel_. +
About a pound of cod which has been soaked over night, then boiled,
picked into fine flakes.
1 cup milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the butter, then the corn-starch;
stir until it thickens, when add the fish; pepper and cook slowly
fifteen minutes. Turn out upon a dish, strew thickly with chopped green
herbs—chiefly parsley; squeeze the lemon-juice over all and serve.
Mashed potato is an improvement to this dish.
SALT COD WITH EGG SAUCE. +
1 pound salt cod, previously soaked, then boiled and allowed to cool,
picked or chopped fine.
1 small cup milk or cream.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch or flour.
2 eggs beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A little chopped parsley.
Half as much mashed potato as you have fish.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk, thicken with the corn starch; then the potato, rubbed
very fine; next the butter, the eggs and parsley, lastly the fish. Stir
and toss until smoking hot all through, when pour into a deep dish.
_Or,_
Make a sauce of all the ingredients except the fish and potato. Mix
these well together, with a little melted butter. Heat in a saucepan,
stirring all the while; heap in the centre of a dish, and pour the
sauce over all.
SALT COD WITH CHEESE.
1 pound boiled codfish, chopped fine.
1 cup drawn butter.
Pepper and parsley.
2 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.
Bread-crumbs.
Heat the butter to boiling, season and stir in the fish, then the
cheese; put into a baking-dish; strew fine bread-crumbs on the top, and
brown in the oven.
SALT COD SCALLOPED.
Boiled cold cod, minced fine.
1 cup oyster liquor.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Chopped parsley and pepper.
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
1 cup fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Boil the oyster liquor, thicken and stir in two tablespoonfuls of
butter with seasoning. Let it cool. Put a handful of bread-crumbs on
the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, cover these with the oyster
sauce, next comes a layer of fish; one of chopped egg; then more sauce,
and so on, leaving out the bread-crumbs until the dish is full, when
put a thick layer, with bits of butter set closely in it. Bake covered
until hot through, then brown.
FRICASSEED LOBSTER. +
Meat of a good-sized lobster, boiled.
1 cup rich veal, or chicken broth—quite thick.
½ cup cream.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the lobster-meat in pieces half an inch square; put with the gravy,
pepper and salt, into a saucepan. Cover and stew gently for five
minutes. Add the cream, and just as it is on the point of boiling, stir
in the butter. When this is melted, take the saucepan from the fire,
and stir in, very quickly, the lemon-juice.
Serve in a covered dish.
Boston crackers, split, delicately toasted, and buttered while hot, are
a nice accompaniment to this fricassee.
Canned lobster may be used if you cannot procure fresh.
LOBSTER RISSOLES. +
1 large lobster—boiled.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Yolks of 3 eggs.
Handful of bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful of anchovy sauce.
Cayenne, salt, and chopped parsley to liking.
Pick the meat from the boiled lobster, and pound it in a Wedgewood
mortar with half the coral, seasoning with salt and cayenne pepper.
When you have rubbed it to a smooth paste with the butter, add a
table-spoonful of anchovy sauce and the yolk of an egg, well beaten.
Flour your hands well and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll
these in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry to a light brown in
sweet lard, dripping, or butter.
_For the Sauce._
The coral of the lobster rubbed smooth.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
4 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 table-spoonful of cream.
Have ready in a saucepan 4 table-spoonfuls of melted butter; the
remainder of the coral of the lobster pounded fine, and stirred in
carefully, and a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce. Let this heat almost to
boiling; add the cream, and pour hot over the rissoles when you have
arranged these upon a heated dish.
Garnish with parsley or cresses.
LOBSTER CUTLETS +
Are made precisely as is the paste for rissoles, except that enough
flour is added to it to enable you to roll it out into a sheet about as
thick as your finger. Cut this into strips about three inches in length
and one in width. Fry these quickly and drain dry before arranging them
in the dish.
Pour the sauce over them. If properly made and fried, they are light
and palatable.
LOBSTER CROQUETTES. +
1 fine lobster, well boiled, or a can of lobster.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted, but not hot.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
Season with salt and cayenne pepper.
Pound the lobster-meat, coral and all, in a Wedgewood mortar. Mix with
this the bread-crumbs, then the seasoning and butter. Bind with the
yolk of one egg. Flour your hands and make into oblong croquettes. Dip
in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry quickly to a light-brown
in sweet lard or butter. Drain off fat, by laying upon a hot, clean
paper, before dishing them.
Make a border of parsley close about them when you have piled them
tastefully in the dish.
LOBSTER PUDDING.
1 large lobster well boiled, or a can of preserved lobster.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup cream or rich milk.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
1 teaspoonful of Worcestershire or Harvey’s sauce.
¼ pound fat, salt pork, or corned ham, cut into _very_ thin slices.
3 eggs.
Pound the meat and coral to a paste. Mix into this two eggs well
beaten, the seasoning, the bread-crumbs, and one table-spoonful of
cream. Stir all together until light. Line the pudding-mould with the
sliced ham. Pour the mixture into this and fit on the top. Set into a
pot or pan of boiling water, and boil steadily for one hour.
_Sauce for Pudding._
½ cup drawn butter.
The remainder of the cream.
A little chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Heat almost to boiling; stir in a beaten egg, and so soon as this
begins to thicken, take from the fire.
Turn the pudding out carefully upon a hot dish, and pour the sauce over
it. Cut with a sharp thin knife.
Send around lemon cut into eighths, to be squeezed over each slice,
should the guests wish to do so.
CURRIED LOBSTER.
1 large lobster, boiled.
1 large cup of strong veal or chicken broth.
1 shallot.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 great spoonful chopped thyme and parsley.
Juice of 1 lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 table-spoonful curry-powder.
Pick the meat very fine and set aside in a cool place. Mince the onion,
and put it with the chopped herbs, the butter and a table-spoonful of
hot water, into a small covered saucepan. Set this over the fire until
it begins to simmer, then add the broth. Boil all together for five
minutes, strain as for soup, stir in the curry powder and corn-starch,
and stew gently ten minutes longer, stirring often. Season as directed,
and add the picked lobster. Let the saucepan stand in a pan of boiling
water ten minutes, but do not let the contents of the inner vessel
boil. Pour into a deep dish.
Send around wafery slices of toast buttered while hot, and pieces of
lemon to be added if necessary.
DEVILLED LOBSTER. +
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 wine glass of vinegar.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Pick the meat carefully from the shell, breaking it as little as may
be. Rub the coral to a smooth paste with the back of a silver spoon.
Chop the meat fine. Stir into this the butter, melted, but not hot, the
yolks of the eggs, rubbed smooth with the coral, the pepper, mustard
and salt, and put all together in a saucepan over the fire. Stir until
it is smoking hot, then turn into the shell, which should be washed and
heated.
STEWED LOBSTER.
1 large lobster, well boiled.
1 cup good gravy—veal is best.
1 blade of mace.
2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne and salt to liking.
1 glass sherry.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the meat of the lobster into pieces an inch long and half as
wide, keeping the coral until the last. Put the meat, with the broth
and seasoning, into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring frequently
until it is near boiling. Then add the coral and butter (which should
previously be well rubbed together) and the chopped parsley. When the
mixture again nears the boiling point, add the wine and lemon-juice and
turn into a deep dish.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER (No. 1).
1 boiled lobster.
4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 tea-spoonful anchovy sauce.
Season to taste with cayenne, salt and nutmeg.
Juice of half a lemon.
Rub the meat of the lobster, including the coral, a little at a time,
in a Wedgewood mortar with the butter, until it is a soft paste. Put
this into a saucepan with the seasoning, and heat to boiling, stirring
constantly. Remove from the fire, and add the cream and lemon-juice,
stirring in well. Fill the lobster shell with this mixture. Strew
bread-crumbs over the top, and set on the upper grate of a quick oven
until the crumbs begin to brown.
Send to table in the shell, laid upon a hot dish.
You can scallop crab in the same manner.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER (No. 2).
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce.
½ cup of bread-crumbs.
½ cup of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
Season with cayenne pepper and salt.
Cut the lobster carefully into halves with a sharp knife. Pick out the
meat carefully, and set aside while you prepare the sauce. This is
done by rubbing the coral and the soft green substance, known as the
“pith,” together in a mortar or bowl, adding, a little at a time, a
table-spoonful of butter. Put this on the fire in a covered saucepan,
and stir until it is smoking hot. Then, beat in the anchovy sauce,
pepper and salt before adding the cream. Heat quickly to a boil, lest
the cream should curdle, put in the picked meat, and again stir up well
from the sides and bottom until very hot. The eggs, whipped to a froth,
should now go in. Remove the saucepan from the fire so soon as this is
done.
Have the upper and lower halves of the shell ready buttered, strew
bread-crumbs thickly in the bottom of each, moisten these with cream,
and pour in the lobster mixture while still very hot. Put another layer
of bread-crumbs, well moistened with the remainder of the cream, on the
top. Stick bits of butter all over it, and brown on the upper grating
of a hot oven.
In either of these preparations of scalloped lobster, should the canned
lobster be used, or should you chance to break the shell in getting
out the meat, you may bake the mixture prepared, as directed, in a
pudding-dish or small _paté_ pans.
CRABS
Are so near of kin to the lobster family that the same receipts may
easily be used for both. Only, bear in mind that the lesser and tougher
shell-fish needs more boiling than does the aristocratic lobster. If
underdone, crabs are very unwholesome. Also, in consideration of the
crab’s deficiency in the matter of the coral which lends lusciousness
and color to lobster salads and stews, use more butter and cream in
“getting him up” for the table.
Cayenne pepper is regarded by many as necessary in dishes of lobster or
crab, because of its supposed efficacy in preventing the evil effects
which might otherwise follow indulgence in these delicacies.
SOFT CRABS.
For a receipt for preparing these, please see “Common Sense in the
Household, No. 1,” page 71.
TURTLE FRICASSEE. +
3 pounds turtle steak.
1 large cup strong veal gravy.
4 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 teaspoonful Harvey’s sauce.
Juice of half a lemon.
2 dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion, minced fine.
1 bunch sweet herbs, minced.
1 glass wine, and butter for frying.
Browned flour for thickening, with cayenne and salt.
Cut the steak in strips as wide and as long as three of your fingers;
fry brown (when you have floured them) in butter. Take up; drain off
the grease; put with the gravy, which should be ready heated, into a
tin vessel with a close cover and set in a pot of hot water. It must
not boil until you have put in the rest of the ingredients. Slice the
onion and mushrooms, and fry in the same butter; add with the herbs and
other seasoning to the meat in the pail, or inner saucepan. Cover and
set to stew gently. To the butter left in the frying-pan, add three
spoonfuls of browned flour (large ones) and stir to a smooth unctuous
paste, without setting it on the range. Add the lemon-juice to this,
and set aside until the turtle has simmered half an hour in the broth.
Take up the meat, and arrange upon a covered hot-water dish; transfer
the gravy to a saucepan, and boil hard five minutes uncovered. Put in
the brown flour paste; stir up until it thickens well; add the wine and
yolks of eggs, each cut in three pieces, and pour over the turtle.
PANNED OYSTERS. +
1 quart of oysters.
Rounds of thin toast, delicately browned.
Butter, salt and pepper.
Have ready several small pans of block tin, with upright sides. The
ordinary “patty-pan” will do, if you can get nothing better, but it
is well, if you are fond of oysters cooked in this way, to have the
neat little tins made, at a moderate price, at a tinsmith’s. Cut stale
bread in thin slices, then round—removing all the crust—of a size that
will just fit in the bottoms of your pans. Toast these quickly to a
light-brown, butter and lay within your tins. Wet with a great spoonful
of oyster liquid, then, with a silver fork, arrange upon the toast as
many oysters as the pans will hold without heaping them up. Dust with
pepper and salt, put a bit of butter on top and set the pans, when
all are full, upon the floor of a quick oven. Cover with an inverted
baking-pan to keep in steam and flavor, and cook until the oysters
“ruffle.” Eight minutes in a brisk oven, should be enough. Send very
hot to the table in the tins in which they were roasted.
Next to roasting in the shell, this mode of cooking oysters best
preserves the native flavor of the bivalves.
FRICASSEED OYSTERS. +
1 pint good broth—veal or chicken—well strained.
1 slice of ham—corned is better than smoked.
3 pints oysters.
1 small onion.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup of milk.
1 table-spoonful of corn-starch.
1 egg beaten light.
A little chopped parsley and sweet marjoram.
Pepper to taste and juice of a lemon.
If the ham be raw, soak in boiling water for half an hour before
cutting it into very small slices, and putting it into the saucepan
with the broth, the oyster liquor, the onion minced _very_ fine, the
herbs and pepper. Let these simmer for fifteen minutes, and boil fast
for five, then skim and put in the oysters. Boil up once briskly,
keeping the contents of the saucepan well stirred. Have ready the
corn-starch, rubbed smoothly into the milk. Stir this in and heat
carefully, using the spoon constantly until it boils and begins to
thicken, when the butter should go in. So soon as this is melted take
out the oysters with a skimmer; put into a hot covered dish, heat the
broth again to a boil, remove the saucepan from the fire, and stir in
cautiously the beaten egg. A better way is to cook the latter gradually
by beating in with it a few tablespoonfuls of the scalding liquor,
before putting the egg into the saucepan.
Turn the gravy over the oysters, and serve at once. Squeeze in the
lemon-juice after the tureen is on the table, as it is apt to curdle
the mixture if left to stand.
Send around cream crackers, and green pickles or olives with this
savory dish.
OYSTERS BOILED IN THE SHELL.
Large shell-oysters, washed very clean and scraped, but not opened.
Pot of boiling water over a hot fire.
Sauce of melted butter with chopped or powdered parsley.
A lemon, cut in half.
Put the oysters, one by one, quickly and carefully into the water,
which must be kept at a hard boil all the time. In five minutes, turn
off every drop of the water by inverting the pot over a cullender, dry
the shells rapidly with a soft cloth and send to table upon a hot dish.
Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each oyster, and put a little
hot melted butter with pepper over it before eating it from the shell.
The epicurean oyster-lover may consider boiled oysters insipid, but
they are liked by many.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 1). +
Large, fine shell-oysters.
Butter.
Fine bread-crumbs, or rolled cracker.
Minced parsley, pepper and salt.
Lemon-juice.
Open the shells, setting aside for use the deepest ones. Have ready
some melted butter, _not_ hot, seasoned with minced parsley and pepper.
Roll each oyster in this, letting it drip as little as may be, and lay
in the shells, which should be arranged in a baking-pan. Add to each a
little lemon-juice, sift bread-crumbs over it, and bake in a quick oven
until done.
Serve in the shells.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 2). +
1 quart of oysters.
1 teacupful very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded cracker.
2 great spoonfuls butter.
½ cup of milk, or cream, if you can get it.
Pepper to taste.
A little salt.
Cover the bottom of a baking-dish (well buttered) with a layer of
crumbs, and wet these with the cream, put on spoonful by spoonful.
Pepper and salt, and strew with minute bits of butter. Next, put
in the oysters, with a little of their liquor. Pepper them, stick
bits of butter in among them, and cover with dry crumbs until the
oysters are entirely hidden. More pieces of butter, very small, and
arranged thickly on top. Set in the oven, invert a plate over it to
keep in the flavor, and bake until the juice bubbles up to the top.
Remove the cover, and brown on the upper grating for two or three
minutes—certainly not longer.
Send to table in the bake-dish.
This is a good intermediate course between fish and meat, and is always
popular.
BROILED OYSTERS. +
1 quart of the finest, firmest oysters you can procure.
½ cup very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded crackers, sifted almost as fine
as flour.
Pepper to taste.
½ cup melted butter.
Dry the oysters by laying them on a clean cloth and covering them with
another. Dip each in the melted butter, which should be peppered,
roll over and over in the cracker-crumbs, and broil upon one of the
wire gridirons, made for this purpose, over a clear fire. These wire
“broilers” hold the oysters firmly, and can be safely turned when one
side is done. Five or six minutes should cook them. Butter and pepper a
hot dish, lay in the oysters, and serve immediately.
DEVILLED OYSTERS. +
1 quart fine oysters.
Cayenne pepper.
Lemon-juice.
Some melted butter.
1 egg, beaten light.
½ cup rolled cracker.
Wipe the oysters dry, and lay in a flat dish. Cover with a mixture of
melted butter, cayenne pepper (or pepper-sauce), and lemon-juice. Let
them lie in this for ten minutes, turning them frequently; roll in the
crumbs, then in the beaten egg, again in the crumbs, and fry in mixed
lard and butter, made very hot before the oysters are dropped in.
OYSTERS IN BATTER.
1 quart of oysters.
2 eggs, whipped light.
1 cup of milk.
Flour to make a good batter.
Pepper and salt.
Dry the oysters with a soft cloth, dip in the batter twice, turning
each one dexterously, that it may be thickly coated, and fry in a
mixture of butter and lard.
STEWED OYSTERS.
1 quart of oysters.
1 cup of milk.
Salt very slightly, and pepper to taste.
1 great spoonful butter.
Drain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan and heat to a boil.
At the same time, put on the milk to heat in another vessel set within
a pot or pan of boiling water. When the liquor in the saucepan boils
up, put in the oysters and stew until they begin to ruffle or crimp at
the edges. Stir in the butter, and when this is quite dissolved, turn
the stew into a tureen. Add the milk immediately (which should be
boiling hot), cover closely, and send to table. Send around pickles, or
olives, and crackers with them. There is no danger, when oysters are
stewed in this way, of the milk curdling.
OYSTER PATÉS.
1 quart of oysters, minced fine with a sharp knife, with a thin
blade,—not a “chopper.”
1 great spoonful butter “drawn” in a cupful of milk, or cream, if
you can get it, and thicken with a teaspoonful of corn-starch or
rice-flour, previously wet up with cold milk.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Drain the liquor from the oysters, and chop them as directed. When the
milk has been boiled and thickened, and the butter well incorporated
with it, stir in the minced oysters, and stew about five minutes,
stirring all the while. Have ready some shapes of nice pastry, baked,
and fill with the mixture. Set in the oven about two minutes to heat
them well, and send to table.
_Or,_
You can heat the chopped oysters in a very little of their own liquor
before adding to the thickened milk. Unless you are sure that the
latter is quite fresh, this is a prudent precaution.
CREAM OYSTER PIE.
Line a pie-plate with good puff paste; fill it with slices of _stale_
bread, laid evenly within it; butter that part of the crust lining
the rim of the dish, and cover with a top crust. Bake quickly in a
brisk oven, and while still hot, dexterously and carefully lift the
upper crust. The buttered rim will cause it to separate easily from
the lower. Have ready a mixture of minced oysters and thickened cream,
prepared according to the foregoing receipt, and having taken out the
stale bread (put there to keep the top crust in shape), fill the pie
with the oyster cream. Replace the cover, set in the oven for two
minutes, or until hot, and serve. This is a nice luncheon dish, and not
amiss for supper.
BREAKFAST.
He was a shrewd Cœlebs who restrained his loverly impatience to throw
himself, in unconditional surrender, at the feet of his beloved, by
the resolution to see her first at the breakfast-table. It is to be
regretted that his admiring biographer has not recorded the result of
the experiment. Let us hope, for the sake of preserving the “unities of
the drama,” that Cecilia was “in good form” on the momentous occasion;
not a thread ironed awry in bib or tucker; not a rebellious hair in her
sleek locks. Cœlebs—Hannah More’s Cœlebs—and every other that I ever
read or heard of, was a pragmatical prig; the complacent proprietor of
a patent refrigerator, very commodious and in excellent repair, but
which ought never, even by his conceited self, to have been mistaken
for a heart.
Knowing you, my reader, as I do, I would not insult your good sense by
intimating that the husband of your choice resembles him in any leading
trait. Being a sensible (and avowedly a fallible) man, therefore, John
does not expect you to appear at the breakfast-table in the flowing
robes and elaborate laces that belong to the leisure hours of the day.
If he does, he should don dress-coat and white cravat to keep you in
countenance. He will not find fault with a neat _peignoir_ (if it
_be_ neat), or a plainly-trimmed dress, or a white apron before the
same. He ought to look for, and to see a clean collar put on straight
and fastened snugly at the throat, or a white ruffle and cuffs, or
wrist-ruffles, to correspond, and hair in irreproachable order. I have
seen women who called themselves ladies, who could never find time to
give their hair what they called “a good combing,” until afternoon.
And time and patience would fail me, and I fear the equanimity of your
diaphragm as well, were I to attempt even a partial recapitulation
of the many and disgustful varieties of morning toilettes, of which
I have been the unwilling spectator. You should hear my John,—whose
profession takes him into what the renowned Ann Gale styles the
“buzzom of families,” at all sorts of unconventional hours,—dilate
upon this theme. Not invalid attire. When the work of wearing the robe
of flesh becomes a matter of pain and difficulty, he must be indeed
hypercritical who notes the ill-fitting wrapper, or roughened hair.
“But the queens of the breakfast-table!” he says, with lifted eyebrows.
“The grimy chrysalids of the afternoon butterflies! It is not a casual
glimpse of Cinderella on sweeping-day, or during house-cleaning week,
that I complain of; but my heart swells with sincerest pity for the
husbands before whose eyes the play is enacted three hundred and
sixty-five times every year; to whom the elf-locks and collarless neck,
the greasy, lank, torn dressing-gown of dark calico appear as surely
and regularly as the light of each new day.”
I do not say that you should bring to the breakfast-table a face like
a May morning. I hate stereotyped phrases and stereotyped smiles. But
try to look as gracious as though a visitor sat between you and the
gentleman at the foot of the board. It is not always easy to appear
even moderately cheerful at breakfast-time. An eminent physician told
me once, as the result of many years’ study and observation, that no
woman should be up in the morning more than an hour before breaking
her fast. My own experience has so far corroborated the wisdom of the
advice that I always strive to impress upon my domestics, especially
the not strong ones, the expediency of eating a slice of bread and
drinking a cup of tea during the interval that must elapse between
their rising-hour and the kitchen breakfast. I practise the like
precaution against faintness and headache, in my own case, when I have
to give my personal superintendence to the morning meal, or when it
is later than usual. But with all precautionary measures, I believe
“before breakfast” to be the most doleful hour of the twenty-four to
a majority of our sex. In winter, the house is at a low temperature;
dressing, a hurried and disagreeable business; the children are drowsy,
lazy, and cross; John “doesn’t want to seem impatient, but would like
to have breakfast on time, to-day, my dear, as I have an important
engagement.” While the mother, who has slept with one ear quite open
all night, and one eye half shut, because she fancied, at bed-time,
that baby’s breathing was not quite natural, fights twenty battles with
bodily discomfort and spiritual irritability before she takes her seat
behind the coffee-urn, and draws her first long breath at the beginning
of the “blessing,” that reminds her of the mercies, new every morning,
which are still hers. For all this, try womanfully to launch John upon
the day’s voyage with a smile and word of cheer. Think twice before you
tell him of the cook’s indolence and stupidity, and the housemaid’s
petulance. In the hope that the nauseating pain in your head may yield
to a “good cup of tea”—(bless it, with me, O my sisters, one and all!)
it is as well to withhold the fact of its existence from him. If he
_will_ read the morning paper over his coffee, his cakes growing cold
meanwhile, and thereby obliges the cook to bake twice as many as would
be necessary for the meal were all to partake of it at the same time,
restrain the censure that trembles on your tongue, and chat merrily
with the children. A silent, hasty breakfast is one of the worst things
imaginable for their digestion and tempers.
You would often rather have “a comfortable cry” in a corner than act
thus, but persuade yourself bravely that nine-tenths of your miserable
sensations are hysterical, and, therefore, ephemeral. If we women do
not know what the “morning cloud” is, nobody does. Still, remember it
“passeth away.”
If possible, let your eating-room be light and pleasant,—warm in
winter, breezy in summer. Not only should the table be neat, orderly,
and, so far as you can make it so, pretty, but guard against what I
have mentally characterized, in some very grand _salles-à-manger_, as
the “workshop look”—the look that says to all who enter—“This is the
place where you must eat.” There are tall beaufets with loads of plate
and glass, side-tables with reserves of implements for the labors of
the hour and place; pictures of game, fish and fruit;—more eating;—and
if the walls are frescoed, more game, sheep and oxen, or, at the best,
hunting, seem to reassure the consumers of to-day that there will be
more creatures killed in season for to-morrow’s dinner. Therefore,
eat, drink and be solemn while doing it, as befits the season and
surroundings. There is nothing like having a single eye to business.
Do not fret yourself if your dining-room boasts neither paintings nor
frescoes. Throw open all the shutters in the morning, and coax in
every available ray of sunlight. Press the weather into service to
adorn the repast. If fine, remark upon the blueness of the sky and the
enjoyment of the outer world in the glory of the day. If stormy, make
the best of home-cheer, and promise something attractive as an evening
entertainment, should the weather continue wet, or snowy. A canary-bird
in the sunniest window is a good thing to have in a breakfast-room if
you like his shrill warbling. A pot of English ivy, brave and green,
twisting over the face of the old clock, and festooning the windows,
is a choice bit of brightness in the winter time. In summer, when
flowers are cheap and plentiful, never set the table without them if
you can get nothing more than a button-hole bouquet to lay on John’s
napkin. Insist that the children shall make themselves tidy before
coming to the table, whatever may be the meal, even if they will meet
nobody except yourself there. Teach them early that it is a disgrace to
themselves and to you to eat with unclean hands and faces. Inculcate,
further, the propriety of introducing, while at table, topics that
will interest and please all. Let wrangling, fault-finding and
recrimination be never so much as named among them. These are little
things, but whatever detracts from the idea that the family repast
is a tri-daily festival, and should be honored and enjoyed as such,
is a wrong to those whose happiness it is your mission to guard and
maintain. A wrong to health as to heart. Food swallowed in bitterness
of spirit engenders dyspepsia and bile as surely as do acrid fruit
and heavy bread. A sharp reprimand will take away sensitive Mamie’s
appetite, and a frown between the eyes that, when serene, seem to John
to mirror heaven itself, will beget in his bosom that indescribable
sinking of heart we know as “goneness,” which is yet not physical
faintness.
I have jotted down these hints under the heading of “Breakfast,”
although most of them are applicable to all meals, because, as a rule,
people bring less keenness of hunger to this than to any other. It is
as if the longest fast that separates our stated time of eating from
another were the hardest to break; as if we had got out of the habit of
desiring and receiving food. It behooves us, then, as wise housewives,
to make provision against mortifying rejection of our viands by various
and artful devices to tempt the dull or coy appetite. Especially should
we study to avoid sameness in our breakfast bills of fare; an easy
thing to compass by a moderate exercise of foresight and ingenuity on
the part of the housewife.
The American breakfast should be a pleasing medium between the heavy
cold beef and game pie of the English and the—for our climate and
“fast” habits of life—too light morning refreshment of the French.
That in order to accomplish these ends it is not necessary greatly
to increase the market bills of the household, or the cares of the
mistress, I have tried to prove in these pages, while I have not deemed
it well to specify, in all cases, which are exclusively breakfast
dishes. Very many of those I have described might appear with equal
propriety at breakfast, at luncheon, at what is spoken of in provincial
circles as “a hearty supper,” or as an _entrée_ or side-dish at dinner.
PATÉS.
No form of meat, _entrée_, or made dish is more popular, and, if
rightly prepared, more elegant than the _paté_. It is susceptible of
variations, many and pleasant, chiefly in the form of the crust and the
nature of its contents. The celebrated _patés de foie gras_, imported
from Strasbourg, are usually without the paste enclosure, and come to
us in hermetically sealed jars.
PATÉ OF SWEETBREADS. +
Make a good puff paste, basting two or three times with butter, and
set in a cold place for at least half an hour. The best _paté_ covers
I have ever made were from paste kept over night in a cool dry safe,
before it was rolled into a sheet for cutting. When the paste is crisp
and firm, roll quickly, and cut into rounds about a quarter of an
inch thick. Reserving one of these whole for the bottom crust of each
_paté_, lay it in a floured baking-pan, cut the centre from two or
three others, as you desire your _paté_ to be shallow or deep, and lay
these carefully, one after another, upon the whole one, leaving a neat
round well, a little over an inch in diameter, in the middle. Bake in a
quick oven, and when lightly browned, glaze by brushing each over with
white of egg and returning to the oven for a minute. Make ready as
many sweetbreads as you need (two of fair size will make a good dish),
previously prepared by boiling fifteen minutes in hot water, then made
firm by plunging into very cold. Cut them into slices, season with
pepper and salt, put into a covered saucepan with a great spoonful of
butter and a _very_ little water, and simmer gently until tender all
through. Cut these in turn into very small squares, and mix with less
than a cupful of white sauce. Return to the saucepan and heat almost
to boiling, stirring carefully all the time. Fill the _patés_, arrange
upon a hot dish, and send up at once.
_White Sauce for the above._
1 small cupful of milk, heated to boiling in a custard-kettle, or tin
pail set in hot water.
1 heaping teaspoonful corn-starch, wet with cold milk.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 table-spoonful butter.
A little chopped parsley.
Stir the corn-starch into the boiling milk until it thickens well, then
the butter and seasoning.
This mixture is useful in all similar preparations, but should be a
little thicker for oysters than for meats.
CHICKEN PATÉS. +
Line small _paté_-pans with good puff paste, let this get crisp in
a cool place, and bake in a brisk oven. Stir minced chicken, well
seasoned, into a good white sauce, heat through, fill the shells, set
in the oven to brown _very_ slightly, and serve.
_Or,_
Thicken the gravy left from the roast chicken with browned flour,
add to the minced meat the yolk of one or two hard-boiled eggs,
mashed fine; stir all together in a saucepan until hot, and fill the
paste-shells. This is a brown mixture, and if not over-cooked, is very
savory.
The remains of cold fowls, of any kind of game, and of veal, can be
served up acceptably in this way. The _patés_ should be small, that
each person at table may take a whole one. If preferred, the paste can
be cut round, as before directed, and baked without the tins.
PATÉS OF FISH.
The cold remains of baked or boiled salmon, fresh cod or halibut.
Some good white sauce, richer than if intended for meat.
About one-fourth as much mashed potato as you have fish.
Yolks of two or three hard-boiled eggs rubbed to a paste with a
spoonful, or so, of butter. This paste should be smooth and light.
Pepper and salt to taste, and a little chopped parsley.
Shells of good puff paste, baked quickly to a delicate brown and glazed
with beaten egg.
Rub the sauce gradually into the mashed potato until both are free from
lumps. When mixed, beat together to a cream. Season and stir in the
fish (which should be “picked” very fine) with a silver fork, heaping
it as you stir, instead of beating the mixture down. Do this quickly
and lightly, fill the shells, set in the oven to heat through, and when
smoking-hot draw to the oven door, and cover with the paste of egg and
butter. A little cream may be added to this paste if it be not soft
enough to spread easily. Shut the oven-door for two minutes, to heat
the paste.
Serve the dish very hot, and send around sliced lemon with it, as some
persons like to squeeze a few drops over the _paté_ before eating.
Canned lobster and salmon are very good, thus prepared. Smoked salmon
can be made palatable for this purpose by soaking over night, and
boiling in two waters.
SWISS PATÉS.
Some slices of stale bread.
A little good dripping or very sweet lard mixed with the same quantity
of butter.
Two or three eggs beaten light.
_Very_ fine cracker-crumbs.
Minced fowl or veal mixed with white sauce, and well seasoned. Cut
_thick_ slices of stale bread—baker’s bread is best—into rounds with
a cake-cutter. With a smaller cutter extract a piece from the middle
of each round, taking care not to let the sharp tin go quite through
the bread, but leaving enough in the cavity to serve as a bottom to
the _paté_. Dip the hollowed piece of bread in the beaten egg, sift
the pulverized cracker over it, and fry in the dripping, or lard and
butter, to a delicate brown. Drain every drop of fat from it. Arrange
upon a hot dish when all are done, heap up with the “mince,” and eat
without delay.
Devilled crab or lobster is nice served in this style.
Bread _patés_ are a convenience when the housekeeper has not time to
spare for pastry-making. You can, if you like, fry them without the egg
or cracker; but most persons would esteem them too rich.
STELLA PATÉ.
3 cups minced veal or lamb—either roast or boiled. If underdone, it is
an advantage, and if lamb be used, every particle of fat must be left
out.
1 can French mushrooms, or a pint of fresh ones.
4 hard-boiled eggs cut into slices, and a sliced onion.
4 table-spoonfuls melted butter, or a cupful strong veal, lamb or fowl
gravy.
3 cups fine bread-crumbs soaked in a cup of milk.
2 raw eggs beaten light and mixed with the milk.
Fry the mushrooms brown in dripping, or butter, with the onion, then
chop rather coarsely. Work the crumbs, milk and raw eggs into a thick,
smooth batter, with which line the bottom and sides of a well-greased
mould or baking dish. Within this put a layer of the minced meat,
seasoned to taste, wet with gravy or a little melted butter, and lay
sliced egg over it. Next should come a layer of mushrooms, then another
of meat, and so on, repeating the order given above until all your
materials are used up, or the mould is full. The upper layer should be
of the soaked crumbs. Cover closely and bake in a moderate oven half
an hour, or until the outer crust is well “set.” Then set the mould,
still covered, in a baking-pan half full of _boiling_ water. Keep in
the oven, which should be hotter than at first, fifteen minutes longer.
Pass a thin sharp knife around the inside of the mould to loosen the
_paté_ from the sides, and turn out with care upon a hot flat dish.
You should have a little brown gravy ready to pour over it.
If veal be the only meat used in preparing this dish, a layer of minced
ham will improve the flavor.
If these directions be strictly followed, the _entrée_ will be pleasing
to both eye and palate.
PATÉ OF BEEF AND POTATO.
This is made according to the foregoing receipt, but substituting for
the bread-crumb crust one of mashed potato beaten soft and smooth
with a few spoonfuls of cream and raw egg. In place of mushrooms, put
a layer of chopped potatoes (previously boiled), mixed with a boiled
onion also chopped. Season with beef gravy, from which the fat has been
skimmed.
IMITATION PATÉ DE FOIE GRAS. +
Livers of four or five fowls and as many gizzards.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
A chopped onion.
1 table-spoonful Worcestershire, or other pungent sauce.
Salt and white pepper to taste.
A few truffles, if you can get them.
Boil the livers until quite done, drain and wipe dry, and when cold,
rub them to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar. Let the butter and chopped
onion simmer together very slowly at the side of the range for ten
minutes. Strain them through thin muslin, pressing the bag hard to
extract the full flavor of the onion, and work this well into the
pounded liver. Turn into a larger vessel, and mix with it the rest of
the seasoning, working all together for a long while. Butter a small
china or earthen-ware jar or cup, and press the mixture hard down
within it, interspersing it with square bits of the boiled gizzards to
represent truffles. Of course, the latter are preferable, but being
scarce and expensive, they are not always to be had. If you have them,
boil them and let them get cold before putting them into the _paté_.
Cover all with melted butter and set in a cool, dry place. If well
seasoned it will keep for a fortnight in winter, but should be kept
closely covered.
This _paté_ is a delicious relish, and is more easily attainable than
would at first appear. The livers of a turkey and a pair of chickens
or ducks will make a small one, and these can be saved from one
poultry-day to another by boiling them in salt water, and keeping in a
cool place. Or, one can often secure any number of giblets by previous
application at the kitchen of a restaurant or hotel.
_Or,—_
A fair imitation of the foregoing dish can be made from the liver of a
young calf, with bits of the tongue for mock truffles.
CROQUETTES.
THESE popular little _roulettes_, although comparatively new to the
tables of most private families in America, hold their place well where
they have been once introduced. Like the _paté_, their name is Legion
as regards shape, nature and quality.
In a housewifely conversation with a lady a few months since, the word
“croquette” chanced to escape me, and I was caught up eagerly.
“Now,” with an ingenuous blush, “do you know, I was offered some at a
dinner-party the other day, and was completely nonplussed! I thought
croquet was a game.”
“Croq_uette_!” I interposed, making the most of the final _t_, and _e_.
“The gentleman who sat next me said ‘cro_quay_,’ very plainly, I assure
you. But never mind the name. What are they made of? Hominy?”
“Yes,” returned I. “Or rice, or potato, or lobster, crab, salmon,
halibut, cod, chicken, turkey, duck, game, veal, lamb, or beef. In
short, of all kinds of fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetable. The smaller
varieties are familiarly known to readers of cookery-books as ‘olives’
of meat, poultry, or game; the larger as _rissoles_ or _croquettes_,
the largest as _cannelons_ or _mirotons_.”
“Good gracious!” uttered my overwhelmed friend. “Before I would bother
my brain with such puzzling nonsense, I would set my family down to
cold meat three times a day three days in a week!”
I believed she meant what she said. But not the less is it a “good”
and a “gracious” thing for the housewife to conjure out of such
unconsidered and unsightly trifles as the mutilated cold fowl from
which half the breast and both legs are missing, or the few chops
“left over,” or “that bone” of lamb or veal, or three square inches of
cold fish, a pretty _plat_ for breakfast or luncheon, of golden-brown
croquettes, imbedded in parsley, or in a ruby setting of pickled beets,
that shall quicken John’s flagging appetite, and call from the little
ones the never stale plaudit, “Mamma can always get up something nice.”
“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost,” is a text
from which the thoughtful house-mother may preach to herself, as well
as to her servants. That no opportunity of making home fairer, and even
one hour of the day a little brighter, be lost or overlooked. That no
possibility of proving her constant, active love for the least of her
flock be passed by. These daily cares and hourly assiduities are the
rivets in the chain that binds her best beloved ones unto THE FAMILY.
Lacking them, the relation, instituted by law and continued by custom,
has no stancher securities than habit and convenience—a hay-rope that
will shrivel at the first touch of Passion, be rent by one resolute
wrench of Expediency.
“A serious view to take of croquettes?” do I hear you say. Then hearken
to something positive and practical.
_Unpalatable food is not wholesome._ It may be medicinal. Nothing
forced upon an unwilling appetite, and that does not gratify the
palate, can impart that freshness of animal spirit and vigor which we
call Life—spontaneous vitality. Indifferent fuel—green or sodden wood,
or slaty coal—may keep a fire from going out. There is not begotten
from these the leaping flame that gladdens, while it warms. And cold
meat and bread, dried into sawdusty innutrition, should no more form
the staple of John’s meals, even three times a week, than his grate be
filled, on December nights, with coke-dust and mica.
CHICKEN CROQUETTES. +
Minced chicken.
About one-quarter as much fine bread-crumbs as you have meat.
1 egg, beaten light, to each cupful of minced meat.
Gravy enough to moisten the crumbs and chicken. Or, if you have no
gravy, a little drawn butter.
Pepper and salt, and chopped parsley to taste.
Yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed fine with the back of a silver
spoon, added to the meat.
Mix up into a paste, with as little handling as may be. Nor must the
paste be too wet to mould readily. Make, with floured hands, into
rolls, or ovate balls, roll in flour until well coated, and fry, a few
at a time, lest crowding should injure the shape, in nice dripping, or
a mixture, half lard and half butter. As you take them out, lay in a
hot cullender, that every drop of fat may be drained off. Serve in a
heated dish, and garnish with cresses or parsley.
Turkey, duck, and veal croquettes can be made in the same manner. They
are even nicer if dipped in egg and cracker-crumbs before frying.
BEEF CROQUETTES. +
Minced cold roast or boiled beef.
One-quarter as much potato.
Gravy enough to moisten meat and potato, in which an onion has been
stewed and strained out. Season also with catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste, and a pinch of marjoram.
Beaten egg to bind the whole, and one or two more beaten in a separate
bowl.
Powdered cracker-crumbs.
Mash the potatoes, while hot, very smooth, or, if cold mashed potato
be used, be careful that no lumps remain in it. Mix in the meat,
gravy, and one raw egg, season, and form into the desired shape. Dip
each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in the cracker-crumbs, and fry
quickly to a light brown. Drain carefully, and lay upon a hot dish.
VENISON OR MUTTON CROQUETTES.
Some slices of cold roast venison, or roast or boiled mutton—the lean
only, if mutton be used—minced.
One-fifth as much stale bread, crumbed fine.
Some good gravy or drawn butter, thickened with browned flour.
Beaten egg for a _liaison_.
A pinch of mace, a very little grated lemon-peel, and chopped parsley
to taste.
Some currant jelly, in the proportion of a small teaspoonful to each
cup of gravy.
Stir the jelly well into the gravy, season and wet up with this the
meat and crumbs, add the beaten egg, make into rolls, and flour these,
or dip in egg and cracker-crumbs before frying.
_A Nice Breakfast Dish_
May be made of these by piling them in the centre of a flat dish,
within a wall, about two inches high, of mashed potato, moulded to fit
the inside of the dish, and browned in the oven. You had best use the
platter of a chafing-dish for this purpose, or one of stone china. You
can, if you like, brush the “wall” over with beaten egg before setting
in the oven. Have ready some good, brown gravy, with a little currant
jelly stirred into it; also, a small glass of claret. Thicken with
browned flour, boil up once, and pour over the croquettes.
_Or,_
This is still nicer, if you add to the gravy some mushrooms, previously
fried in butter, and chopped up. If you use these, you may, if you
like, omit the potato wall, garnishing the pile instead, with triangles
of fried bread.
FISH CROQUETTES.
Some cold fish—boiled, baked or fried—from which all fat, bones and
skin have been removed, chopped fine.
One-third as much mashed potato, rubbed to a cream with a little melted
butter.
A little white sauce, made of butter “drawn” in milk and thickened with
corn-starch, and a beaten egg.
Chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and anchovy sauce, or walnut catsup, for
seasoning.
Mix all well together, make into balls, which may be rolled in flour,
or in beaten egg, and then cracker-crumbs before they are fried.
Send around sliced lemon with these, which are not good unless eaten
hot.
These are, as will be seen, a modification of the well-known and
time-honored “fish-ball,” but, if properly made, will be found much
better.
CROQUETTES OF LOBSTER OR CRAB. +
Meat of one fine lobster, or six crabs well boiled.
2 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Yolks of two eggs, boiled hard and rubbed to a powder, then beaten into
the butter.
1 good teaspoonful lemon-juice.
Season well with salt and cayenne pepper; also, a pinch of mace and
lemon-peel.
Yolks of two raw eggs, beaten very light.
Mince the meat, work in the butter—melted, but not hot; then the
seasoning, the raw eggs, and lastly, the bread-crumbs. Make into
oblong balls, and fry quickly in sweet lard, dripping, or half lard,
half butter. Drain them of every drop of fat by rolling each, for an
instant, very lightly upon a hot, clean cloth. Be sure your dish is
well heated.
These are very delicious, and should be accompanied by milk or cream
crackers, with slices of lemon passed to such guests as would like the
additional relish.
CROQUETTES OF GAME. +
Remains of cold grouse, quail, etc.
Giblets of the same, or of poultry, boiled and cold.
Gravy.
One-fourth the quantity of fine bread-crumbs that you have of meat.
Season with pepper and salt.
Raw egg, beaten, for binding the mixture together, also some in a
separate vessel for coating the croquettes.
Fine cracker-crumbs.
Mince the meat, and pound the giblets in a Wedgewood mortar, when you
have removed skin and cartilage from the gizzards. Moisten with gravy
as you pound, until all are smooth. Mix into this the raw egg and
seasoning, then the meat, lastly the bread-crumbs. Mould, dip in egg,
then in cracker-powder and fry in _boiling_ fat. The dripping from
roast poultry may be used for this purpose. _Not_ that from beef or
mutton, as it spoils the flavor of the game.
It is easy to reserve giblets for this dish by a little foresight, and
in no other shape are they more useful.
VEAL AND HAM CROQUETTES.
Cold roast or stewed veal, the remnants of cutlets or chops, freed
from bone, skin and gristle, and minced fine.
Half the quantity of cold boiled ham. A little fat on a slice, now and
then, is an improvement.
Gravy or drawn butter thickened with browned flour to moisten the meat.
One-fourth as much fine bread-crumbs as you have meat.
Yolks of one or two eggs, boiled hard and powdered, then beaten into
the gravy.
Season with chopped parsley and pepper. The ham usually supplies
sufficient salt.
Beaten egg and powdered cracker.
Raw egg for the _liaison_.
Mix veal and ham well together; wet with the gravy and season before
putting in the raw egg. Stir up well, but do not beat, and add the
crumbs.
Boll in egg and cracker, and fry.
Mem. _The fat in which croquettes are fried must be boiling, yet must
not burn._
Try a bit of the mixture before risking the well-being of your whole
dish.
HOMINY CROQUETTES. +
2 large cups of fine-grained hominy, boiled and cold.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Salt to taste.
Work the butter well into the hominy until the latter is smooth and
soft, then the eggs, beating hard for two or three minutes with a
wooden spoon, season, and make into balls or rolls with floured hands.
Roll each in flour, and fry to a yellow-brown in sweet lard.
POTATO CROQUETTES. +
2 cups mashed potato, cold and free from lumps.
2 eggs beaten to a froth.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 egg beaten in a separate vessel.
1 teacupful cracker-crumbs.
Mix as you do hominy croquettes, roll in egg and cracker, and fry in
boiling lard. Take up as soon as they are done, and drain perfectly dry.
This is an excellent preparation of potato, and particularly acceptable
at breakfast or luncheon.
RICE CROQUETTES. +
2 cups cold boiled rice.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
3 eggs, beaten light.
A little flour.
1 raw egg and half a cup of powdered cracker.
2 table-spoonfuls white sugar.
A large pinch of finely grated lemon-peel, and salt to taste.
Beat eggs and sugar together until light, and work the butter well into
the rice. Next, stir up with this the beaten eggs. Season and make into
croquettes of whatever shape you may fancy. They are pretty, moulded
into the form of pears, with a clove blossom, end outward, at the large
end, and the stalk of another projecting from the small, to represent
the pear-stem. You may find it advisable to use a little flour in
working the rice paste, but be careful not to get it too stiff,
in which event the croquette, of whatever composed, ceases to be a
delicacy. Roll in flour, then in the beaten egg, lastly in the powdered
cracker, and fry, a few at a time, in sweet lard or butter.
Rice croquettes are sometimes eaten, with powdered sugar sprinkled
thickly over them, as a dessert, or sweet sauce is served with them.
They are delicious when properly mixed and cooked.
* * * * *
CANNELON OF VEAL. +
2 pounds of cold roast or stewed veal. The remains of a stewed and
stuffed fillet are good for this purpose, especially if underdone.
1 pound cold boiled ham.
1 large cupful gravy. If you have none left over, make it of the refuse
bits of the cold meat, such as fat, skin, etc.
1 small teaspoonful finely minced lemon-peel, the same of mace, and a
table-spoonful chopped parsley.
Salt and pepper.
1 cupful bread-crumbs, dry and fine.
Yolks of 3 eggs beaten light, reserving the whites for glazing the
cannelon when done.
Chop the meat very well, season it and stir in the beaten yolks; wet
with half the gravy, and mix in the bread-crumbs. It should be just
soft enough to handle without running into a shapeless mass. Flour your
hands and make it into a roll about three times as long as it is broad.
Flour the outside well and lay it in a greased baking-pan. Cover and
set in the oven until it is smoking hot, when remove the cover and
brown quickly. Draw to the oven-door and brush over with white of egg,
shut the door for one minute to set this, and transfer the cannelon,
by the help of a cake-turner or a wooden paddle, to a hot dish. Lay
three-cornered pieces of fried bread close about it, and pour a rich
gravy over all.
You can make a really elegant dish of this by adding to the gravy a
half-pint of sliced mushrooms, and stewing them in it until they are
tender and savory, then pouring them over the _rouleau_ of meat.
A savory and inexpensive dish, and a good _entrée_ at a family dinner.
Of course you can vary the size to suit the remnants of meat.
CANNELON OF BEEF
Is made precisely like one of veal, except that mashed potato is
substituted for bread-crumbs, and an onion is stewed in the gravy
before the latter is strained over the baked roll of meat.
Green pickles or olives are a palatable accompaniment to it.
A PRETTY BREAKFAST DISH
May be made of croquettes of fish, lobster, fowl or meat in the shape
of hen’s eggs, heaped upon a dish and surrounded by very thin strips of
fried potato, arranged to look as much as possible like straw. If sauce
is poured over the croquettes, be careful not to let it deluge the
potato that forms the nest.
SWEETBREADS.
IT is usually necessary to bespeak sweetbreads several days in
advance, as they are both scarce and popular. But if your butcher be
accommodating, and yourself a valued customer, there is seldom much
difficulty in procuring enough to make a dish for a family of ordinary
size.
Keep sweetbreads in a cold, dry place, and cook as soon as possible
after getting them, as they soon spoil. Be careful, moreover, in
cooking them, to see that they are thoroughly done.
BROWN FRICASSEE OF SWEETBREADS. (No. 1.) +
4 sweetbreads.
2 cups brown veal gravy, strong and well-seasoned.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pinch of mace, and twice as much cloves.
Browned flour for thickening.
1 teaspoonful chopped onion, stewed in, and then strained out of the
gravy.
Wash the sweetbreads carefully in warm water, removing every bit of
skin and gristle. Lay them in a saucepan, and cover with _boiling_
water. Boil them ten minutes hard, turn off the hot water, and plunge
them instantly into very cold, in which you have dissolved a little
salt. Leave them in this about fifteen minutes, or until they are
cool, white and firm. Cut each crosswise into slices nearly half an
inch thick. Have ready the butter in the frying-pan, and fry the
slices, turning frequently, until they are a good brown, but do not
dry them up. Drain off the fat through a cullender, lay the sliced
sweetbreads within a saucepan, pour the hot brown gravy, already
seasoned, over them, cover closely, and simmer, not boil, fifteen
minutes longer.
BROWN FRICASSEE. (No. 2.) +
4 sweetbreads.
2 cups good brown gravy—veal is best. Spice with mace and cloves.
1 onion.
½ cup butter.
1 pint mushrooms.
Prepare the sweetbreads by boiling and blanching as in previous
receipt. Slice the onion and mushrooms, and fry quickly to a fine brown
in half the butter. Strain the fat from these, and return it to the
frying-pan, adding the rest of the butter. When hissing hot, put in the
sliced sweetbreads. Turn over and over in the fat for three minutes.
Meanwhile, let the fried onions and mushrooms be stewing in the gravy.
Pour this gravy, when the sweetbreads are ready, into a jar or tin pail
with a closely-fitting top; set it in a pot of boiling water, taking
care there is not enough to bubble over the top, put in the sliced
sweetbreads, cover, and stew _gently_ at the side of the range for
twenty minutes—half an hour, should the sweetbreads be large. Arrange
the slices symmetrically upon a hot platter, pour the gravy over them,
when you have added a thickening of browned flour, and serve.
There is no more palatable preparation of sweetbreads than this,
especially if you add to the gravy a glass of brown sherry. Garnish
with triangles of fried bread.
WHITE FRICASSEE OF SWEETBREADS. +
3 fine sweetbreads.
3 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
A good pinch of nutmeg.
1 cup strong veal or lamb broth—never mutton.
Wash the sweetbreads well. Soak them in very cold or ice-water,
slightly salted, for half an hour. Blanch by plunging them for an
instant into boiling water, after which lay for five minutes in
ice-water. This process makes them white and firm. Put them into a
covered saucepan with the broth, which must be well seasoned with
pepper and salt, and, if you like, a very slight touch of onion.
Sprinkle with nutmeg, cover closely, and stew steadily for an hour, if
the sweetbreads are of a fair size, and you mean to serve them whole.
If they have been sliced, three-quarters of an hour is sufficient.
Heat the cream in another saucepan until scalding hot, but not boiling.
Take it from the fire, and stir carefully, a little at a time, into the
beaten eggs. Just before the sweetbreads are taken from the fire, add
this mixture slowly, stirring all the time. Leave it in the saucepan
just long enough to cook the eggs, but do not let it boil. Stir in the
parsley at the same time. Turn out in a hot covered dish.
LARDED SWEETBREADS STEWED.
3 fine sweetbreads.
¼ pound fat salt pork, cut into long narrow strips.
1 cup good veal gravy.
1 small pinch of cayenne pepper.
1 table-spoonful of mushroom catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should be boiling
when they are put in. Plunge immediately into very cold salt water. Let
them lie in this for five minutes, wipe them dry with a soft, clean
cloth, and lay upon a cool dish until perfectly cold. Lard them closely
with the strips of salt pork. Stew gently for twenty-five minutes in
the gravy, which must be rich and thick. Add lemon-juice, catsup,
cayenne, and, if needed, a little salt. Lay the sweetbreads in order on
a flat dish, pour the gravy over them, and garnish with sliced lemon
laid in the triangular spaces left between three-cornered bits of fried
toast.
N.B. A pleasant addition to this dish, as to the brown fricassee of
sweetbreads, is force-meat of chopped beef or veal very finely minced
and worked to a paste with hard-boiled yolk of egg, a little crumbed
bread, a spoonful or two of gravy or butter. Season very highly, work
in the beaten yolk of a raw egg to bind the mixture, and make into oval
balls a little larger than olives. Flour these, and lay on a floured
plate, so as not to touch one another. Set in a quick oven until they
are firm and hissing hot, garnish the dish with them instead of the
sliced lemon, and pour the hot gravy over them and the triangles of
toast as well as the sweetbreads. An outer circle of parsley looks well
with these.
LARDED SWEETBREAD—FRIED. +
3 or 4 sweetbreads.
4 or 5 slices very fat salt pork.
A little pepper.
Parboil, blanch and lard, as in preceding receipt. Have ready a
clean, hot frying-pan barely greased with a little butter. Put in the
sweetbreads, and fry without other fat than that of the pork lardoons
which should project half an inch on each side of the sweetbreads.
Cook steadily, turning the sweetbreads frequently, until they are of a
nice brown. Cut into one with a small sharp knife, to assure yourself
that it is done. Remove to a hot, well-buttered dish, and garnish with
sprigs of parsley, which have been crisped, but not burned, in a little
boiling butter.
BROILED SWEETBREADS. +
Parboil and blanch, as already directed, by putting first into hot
water, and keeping it at a fast boil for five minutes, then plunging
into ice-cold, a little salted. When the sweetbreads have lain in this
ten minutes, wipe them very dry, and with a sharp knife split each in
half, lengthwise. Broil over a clear, hot fire, turning every minute as
they begin to drip. Have ready upon a deep plate some melted butter,
well salted and peppered, mixed with catsup or pungent sauce. When the
sweetbreads are done to a fine brown lay them in this, turning them
over several times, and set, _covered_, in a warm oven.
Lay rounds of fried bread or toast within a chafing-dish, and a piece
of sweetbread on each. Pour the rest of the hot butter, in which they
have been lying, over them, and send to table.
ROASTED SWEETBREADS.
3 sweetbreads.
1 cup brown gravy—veal, if you can get it.
2 eggs, beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted.
Large handful of bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful mushroom or tomato catsup.
1 small glass brown sherry.
A very little onion, minced fine, and stewed in the gravy.
Soak the sweetbreads in tepid water for half an hour; then boil in
hot water ten minutes, plunging into very cold at the end of this
time. Wipe perfectly dry, coat with the beaten egg, then with the
bread-crumbs. Repeat this until they are thickly and closely covered.
Lay upon a baking-pan, put the butter, a little at a time, over them,
that it may soak into the crumbs; set in a moderate oven, turn another
pan over them, and bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour, if of fair
size, basting from time to time with the veal gravy. Dish them upon
toast or fried bread, give the gravy a boil-up when you have added the
catsup and wine, and strain it over the sweetbreads.
SWEETBREADS SAUTÉS AU VIN. +
3 sweetbreads.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful chopped onion and parsley, mixed.
1 cup brown gravy—veal or fowl.
1 glass brown sherry or fresh champagne.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 table-spoonful mushroom, or tomato catsup.
Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads, as usual; let them get perfectly
cold; cut lengthwise into slices about a quarter of an inch thick. Have
the butter hot in a frying-pan, and lay them in. Cook ten minutes,
shaking, tossing and turning them all the while; then add the gravy,
catsup, onion, parsley and other seasoning previously heated together.
Shake all until they have stewed and bubbled at boiling-heat for five
minutes, put in the wine, boil up once, and pour into a hot dish.
KIDNEYS,
Although less liked generally, are yet esteemed a _bonne bouche_ by the
epicure whose appetite has been educated by what is commonly styled
“fancy” cookery. They are cheaper than sweetbreads, and less difficult
to keep, if less delicate in flavor.
FRIED KIDNEYS.
3 fine large kidneys—the fresher the better.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup of good brown gravy—veal, mutton or beef.
A teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and half as much minced onion.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Skin the kidneys, and cut crosswise into round slices a quarter of an
inch thick. Roll them in flour. Have ready in a frying-pan the butter
well seasoned with pepper, a little salt, the parsley and onion. When
it begins to simmer over the fire, lay in evenly and carefully the
slices of kidney. Fry gently for two minutes, turn, and let them fry
as long on the other side, or until they are of a light brown. If
cooked too much, or too fast, they become tough and tasteless. Remove
instantly from the frying-pan with an egg-beater or perforated skimmer,
and arrange in order on a hot dish. Add to the gravy in the pan, a few
tablespoonfuls of broth, thicken with browned flour, boil up once, and
pour over the kidneys.
_Or,_
You can substitute for the butter in the pan three or four
table-spoonfuls of chopped _fat_ salt pork. Let it heat to hissing,
put in the seasoning, stir up well and fry the kidneys with the bits
of pork. Then, proceed according to the latter part of the foregoing
receipt.
TOASTED KIDNEYS.
3 kidneys skinned and split lengthwise, each into 3 pieces.
¼ pound of fat salt pork, cut into slices.
Pepper and salt.
Slices or rounds of toasted bread from which the crust has been pared.
Lay the kidneys upon a _very_ hot plate (a tin one is best) in front
of, and on a level with a clear brisk fire. Toast the pork upon a fork,
slice by slice, holding it so that the gravy will drip upon the kidneys
beneath. When the pork is done, lay it upon another hot plate, and set
this in the place just occupied by the kidneys. Toast these in their
turn, so that the gravy which falls from them shall drop upon the pork.
Turn them frequently, and be careful not to lose a drop of the gravy
from kidneys or pork. When the gravy ceases to flow the kidneys are
done. Serve upon the toast on a hot dish; cut the pork into strips,
and lay along the sides of the dish. Pour the gravy over kidneys and
toast. This latter should either be fried previously in butter, or be
well buttered if toasted in the usual way. Pepper and salt just before
sending to table, as salt hardens and toughens the kidneys.
KIDNEYS STEWED WITH WINE.
3 kidneys.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 onion, minced.
1 table-spoonful mushroom, or walnut catsup.
3 table-spoonfuls rich brown gravy.
1 glass of claret.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the kidneys into round slices. Heat the butter to a boil in a
frying-pan, stir in the chopped onion, then lay in the slices of
kidney, and fry two minutes. Have in another vessel the gravy, catsup
and wine, ready heated. Take up the kidneys, draining from them every
drop of fat, and transfer to this gravy. Cover closely, stew gently for
five minutes, or until tender, and serve directly.
BROILED KIDNEYS.
2 kidneys.
2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley.
Skin the kidneys carefully, but do not slice or split them. Lay for
ten minutes in _warm_ (not hot) melted butter, rolling them over and
over, that every part may be well basted. Broil on a gridiron over a
clear fire, turning them every minute. They should be done in about
twelve minutes, unless very large. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and
lay on a hot dish, with a bit of butter upon each. Cover and send up
immediately.
STEWED KIDNEYS.
3 kidneys.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel.
A very little mace, and pepper and salt to taste.
1 teaspoonful chopped onion.
1 cup good brown gravy.
Cut each kidney lengthwise into three pieces; wash these well and wipe
dry. Warm the butter in a frying-pan; put in the kidneys before this is
really hot, with the seasoning and gravy. Simmer all together, closely
covered, about ten minutes. Add the lemon-juice; take up the kidneys
and lay upon a hot dish, with fried or toasted bread underneath.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up once, pour over all, and
serve.
KIDNEYS À LA BROCHETTE.
4 kidneys—those of medium size are preferable to large.
2 great spoonfuls of butter.
1 great spoonful chopped parsley, onion, and very fine bread-crumbs.
Juice of half a lemon.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Split the kidneys lengthwise, but not quite through, leaving enough
meat and skin at one side to act as a sort of hinge. Rub them well
inside with melted butter, and lay them open, as you would small birds,
the back downward, upon a buttered gridiron, over a bright fire. They
should be done in about eight minutes. Turn often while broiling.
Have ready the stuffing of crumbs, parsley, onion, and butter, well
seasoned. Heat in a saucepan, stirring until smoking hot. Add the
lemon-juice; dish the kidneys, put some of this mixture inside of each,
close the two sides upon it, butter and pepper them, and serve.
A few bits of fat salt pork, minced very fine, gives a good flavor to
the stuffing. The pork should have been previously cooked.
HASTE OR WASTE?
“AH! you forget my sedan-chair,” said Madame de Staël, when, at the
height of her social and literary fame some one wondered how she found
time for writing amid her many and engrossing engagements.
The sedan-chair was the fashionable conveyance for ladies, at that day,
in their round of daily calls or evening festivities, and the brilliant
Frenchwoman secured within its closed curtains the solitude and silence
she needed for composition.
An American authoress who wrote much and with great care—never sending
her brain-bantlings into the world _en déshabille_—replied to a similar
question: “My happiest thoughts come to me while I am mixing cake. My
most serious study-hours are those devoted apparently to darning the
family stockings.”
I entered a street-car, not many days ago, and sat down beside a
gentleman who did not lift his eyes from a book he was reading,
or show, by any token, his consciousness of others’ presence. A
side-glance at the volume told me it was Froude’s “History of England,”
and I cheerfully forgave his inattention to myself. The conductor
notified him when he reached his stopping-place, and, with a readiness
that betrayed admirable mental training, he came out of the world
through which the fascinating historian was leading him, pocketed his
book, recognized me with a pleasant word, and stepped to the pavement
in front of his store, the thorough business man.
“That is an affected prig,” said a fellow-passenger, by the time
the other had left the car. “He and I take this ride in company
every morning and afternoon. It takes him half an hour to go from
his house to his store; and, instead of amusing himself with his
newspaper, as the rest of us do, he always has some heavy-looking book
along—biography, or history, or a scientific treatise. He begins to
read by the time he is seated, and never leaves off until he gets out.
It is in wretched taste, such a show of pedantic industry.”
After this growl of disapprobation, the speaker buried himself anew
in the advertising columns of the _Herald_, and I lapsed into a
brown study, which had for its germ the query, “Is it, then, more
respectable, even among men, to kill time than to save it?”
I knew the reader of Froude well. He was, as I have intimated, a
successful and a busy merchant; and I had often marvelled at his
familiarity with English _belles-lettres_, and graver literature, the
study of which is usually given up to so-called professional men.
That hour a day explained it all. The crowded street-car was his
sedan-chair. I also knew his critic; had seen him placed at such a
woful disadvantage in the society of educated men and women, that my
heart ached and my cheeks burned in sympathy with his mortification;
had heard him deplore the deficiencies of his early training, and
that the exigencies of his business-cares now made self-improvement
impracticable. He would have protested it to be an impossibility that
he could find a spare hour a day to devote to the neglected task;
six hours a week—a whole day in a month, two weeks in a year. Yet a
fortnight of newspaper-reading and idle gossip would be a sorry entry
in his year-book. For this lazy murder of time cannot, by any stretch
of conscience, be classed as healthful recreation, any more than can
the one, two, three, ten hours a week during which Mrs. Neverthink sits
with folded hands, discussing fashions and her neighbors’ frailties,
the while her work is steadily doubling itself up, snowball-like,
before the lever of each idle minute. All work and no play would make
Mrs. Neverthink a dull and a diseased woman; but the fact is, she is
not playing any more than she is working, as she sits, or stands to
parley about trifles. She is only wasting time, making inevitable
the haste. Oh! these “few words more,” with which the Neverthink
tribe prolong the agony of their would-be-if-they-could industrious
sisters, and heap up the burden of their own coming cares! The words
which mean nothing, the driblets of a shallow, sluggish stream that
meanders into anybody’s meadow, and spreads itself harmfully over the
nearest pastures, instead of being directed into a straight, beneficent
channel! “I haven’t a bit of system about me!” wails the worried
creature, when the ponderous snow-ball has finally to be heaved out of
the way by her own hands.
It would be a matter of curious interest could I recount how often I
have heard this plaint from those of my own sex who are thus straining
and suffering. From some it comes carelessly—a form of words they
have fallen into the habit of repeating without much thought of what
they mean. With a majority (I wish I were not obliged to say it!) it
is rather a boast than a lament. The notable housekeeper who would
be ashamed to admit that she does not look narrowly after paper and
twine, bits of cold meat and scraps of butter, does not calculate
wisely concerning coal, candle-ends and crusts—confesses, without a
blush, that she takes no thought of the gold-dust, known among us as
minutes and seconds, sifting through her lax fingers. By and by, she
is as truly impoverished as if she had thrown away the treasure in
nuggets, and then comes the lament, not repentance. She is “run to
death with work, but she doesn’t see how it is to be helped. All other
housekeepers are the same. She never could economize time; has no
genius for arranging her labors to advantage.”
The building of such an one is the heaping together of boulders
with crevices between, through which the winds of disappointment
whistle sharply. System,—by which we mean a sagacious and economical
apportionment of the duty to the hour and the minute; an avoidance of
needless waste of time; a courageous putting forth of the hand to the
plough, instead of talking over the work to be done while the cool
morning moments are flying,—“System,” then, is not a talent! I wish
I could write this in terms so strong and striking as to command the
attention, enforce the belief of those whom I would reach. It is not
a talent. Still less is it genius. It is a duty! and she who shirks
it does herself and others wrong. If you cannot order your household
according to this rule, the fault is yours, and the misfortune theirs.
“We are living too fast!” is the useless note of alarm sounded from
press, and pulpit, and lecture-room; echoed in a thousand homes, in
various accents of regret and dismay; most fearfully by the rattling
clods upon the coffin-lid, that hides forever the careworn face of wife
and mother, who has been trampled to death by the press of iron-footed
cares. Is not this haste begotten by waste?
Is there any good reason why, in our homes—yours and mine, my toiling
sister—and in those of our neighbors to the right and left of us,
should not reign such method as prevails in our husbands’ places of
business? Why, instead of meeting the morning with uplifted hands and
the already desponding cry, “I have so much to do I cannot decide what
to lay hold of first!” we should not behold our path already mapped
out by our provident study over-night—its certain duties; its probable
stumbling-blocks; recreation, devotion and rest—each in its proper
place? Why we should not be ready, “heart within and God o’erhead,”
to make the new day an event in our lives, a stepping-stone to higher
usefulness to our kind and toward heaven? Why we should not bring
to hindrance, as to duty, the resolute, hopeful purpose with which
the miner bends over his pickaxe, the gardener over his spade, the
book-keeper over his ledger? Why, in short, we should not magnify
our office—make of housewifery, and child-tending, and sewing a
profession—to be studied as diligently and pursued as steadily as are
the avocations of the other sex?
I should not dare ask these questions, were I not already convinced, by
years of patient examination of the subject, that it is feasible for a
clear-headed, conscientious woman to do all this, and more. Would not
“dare,” because I know by what a storm of indignant protest the queries
will be met, not only from those who pride themselves upon the amiable
foible of “having no system,” but on the part of deep-hearted women who
are really anxious to do their share of this world’s great work.
The pale-faced mother over the way will tell me of the clutch of
baby-fingers upon her garments whenever she essays to move steadily
onward, and how the pressure of the same holds her eyes waking through
the night-watches; how the weight of baby-lips upon the breast saps
strength and vitality together. Dear and precious cares she esteems
these; but they leave little time or energy for anything else. The
matron, whose younglings have outgrown childhood, is ready with her
story of the toils and distractions of a family of merry girls who
are “in society,” and inconsiderate, unpunctual “boys,” who look to
“mother” to supply, for the present, the place of the coming wife
to each of them. Martha, wedded and middle-aged, but childless, is
overpowered by cares, “put upon her by everybody,” she relates, with
an ever-renewed sense of injury wearing into her soul, “because it is
believed that women without children have nothing to do.”
One and all, they are eloquent upon the subject of unforeseen
vexations, the ever-hindering “happenings” that, like the knots tied
in wire-grass across the path by mischievous fairies, are continually
tripping them up.
“Moreover,” says Mrs. Practical, “there is little use in attempting to
be methodical and to save the scraps of time unless other people do.
We are liable to have our precious hoard stolen at any moment. If my
next-door neighbor persists in ‘dropping in’ whenever she feels lonely,
or wants a receipt, or has a morsel of news she cannot keep, and cannot
withdraw her unseasonable foot from my house under an hour at each
visit, of what avail are my watchfulness and diligence?”
With her accustomed shrewdness, Mrs. Practical has put her finger upon
the hardest knot of the tangle. Says that other model of sterling,
every-day sense, Miss Betsy Trotwood, touching Mr. Micawber’s
difficulties: “If he is going to be continually arrested, his friends
have got to be continually bailing him out—that is all!”
The family of Neverthinks (“may their tribe _de_crease!”) act upon the
reverse principle. If their acquaintances will be continually working
themselves into line with the flying hours, they—the Neverthinks—must
be zealous in pulling them to the rear. They are like an army of
mice scampering through the tidy cupboards of Mesdames Practical
and Notable. They claim, like Death, all seasons for their own.
Against such there is no recognized law, and no redress except in the
determined will and wise co-operation of their victims.
Dropping the fictitious personages, let us talk of this matter plainly,
as face-to-face, dear reader! Why have women, as a class, such an
imperfect conception of the value of time to themselves and to others?
To Mrs. Trollope belongs, I believe, the credit of bringing into
general use a word which, if not elegant, is so expressive that I
cannot do without it in this connection. Why do women _dawdle_ away
seconds and minutes and hours in playing at work, or affecting to play?
A clever young girl was once showing me a set of chairs embroidered by
herself. Knowing that she was her mother’s efficient aid in the cares
entailed by a large family, I asked her how she had made the time for
the achievement.
“O! I did it in the _betweenities_!” she returned, gayly. “Between
prayers and breakfast; between the children’s lessons; between the
spring and fall sewing; between morning and evening calls, and in a
dozen other gaps. I had a piece of it always within reach, and every
stitch taken was a gain of one.”
We all need play—recreation, wholesome and hearty diversion. I would
guard this point carefully. God-willing, we will talk of it, more at
length, some time, but to make the day’s work even and close, our
life’s work rich and ample, we must look well after the “betweenities.”
Let me probe a little more deeply yet. Have not the prejudices and
gallantries of generations had their effect upon the formation of
feminine opinions on this head? begotten in many minds the impression
that we are unjustly dealt with in being obliged to take up and carry
forward as a life-long duty any business whatsoever? Is not the
unspoken thought of such persons one of impatient disappointment at
finding that earth is not a vast pleasure-ground and existence one
long, bright holiday? If men will speak of and treat women as pretty
playthings, they at least should not complain when the dainty toy
proves to be an unserviceable domestic machine. A man who acknowledges
that he dislikes the business by which he earns his living is looked
upon with instant distrust, as silly, indolent, or, at the best,
unphilosophical. If his auditor has occasion to avail himself of the
services of one of the craft to which the unwilling workman belongs,
he will assuredly seek a man who would be likely to do himself and
his employer more credit than can be given by his half-hearted labor.
But housewives confess freely that they loathe housekeeping and all
pertaining thereto. I speak that which I do know when I say that where
you find one who works _con amore_ in her profession, there are two who
drudge on grumblingly, and consider themselves aggrieved because the
morning brings labor and the evening care. The fault begins very far
back.
“If girls knew when they were well off, they would never marry.”
“A butterfly before marriage—a grub afterward.”
“Let well enough alone.”
“She who weds may do well. She who remains single certainly does
better.”
These are specimens of the choice maxims shouted from the reefs
of matrimony to the pleasure-shallops gliding over the summer sea
beyond the breakers. By the time the boy begins to walk and talk, the
sagacious father studies his tastes and capacity in selecting a trade
for him; puts him fairly in training for the same so soon as he is well
embarked in his teens; sees for himself that his drill is thorough and
his progress satisfactory. Of the lad’s sisters their mother will tell
you, with tears in her eyes, that she “cannot bear to tie the dear
girls down to regular duties. Let them take their pleasure now, for
when they marry, trouble and responsibility must come.”
Not seeing that to the unskilled apprentice the practice of his art
must be cruelly hard; that her own loving hands are making tight the
lashings of the load which the tender shoulders must bear until death
cuts the sharp cords; that in her mistaken indulgence she is putting
darkness for light, and light for darkness; bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter.
MEATS, INCLUDING POULTRY AND GAME.
CALF’S LIVER _à l’Anglaise_. +
2 pounds fresh liver.
¼ pound fat salt pork.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 small shallot, minced very fine.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the liver into slices half an inch thick. Lay these smoothly in a
saucepan in which the butter has already been melted, but not allowed
to get hot. Chop the pork into very small bits, and spread upon the
liver. Sprinkle over this the minced parsley and onion, and season
to your fancy with salt and pepper. Cover the saucepan closely, and
set it where it will heat so moderately that the juices will be drawn
out without simmering. Care must be taken to observe this direction
exactly, as both the tenderness and flavor of the liver are impaired by
stewing. At the end of an hour and a half increase the heat gradually
until the contents of the saucepan begin to bubble. Remove from the
fire; arrange the liver neatly upon a hot chafing-dish, and keep this
covered while you boil up and thicken with a little browned flour the
gravy left in the saucepan. Pour over the liver and serve.
This process renders calf’s liver tender and juicy to a degree that
would seem incredible to those who know the much-abused edible only
through the medium of the usual modes of cookery.
Try it, when you are at a loss for something new, yet not expensive.
CALF’S LIVER _au Domino_.
2 pounds liver.
½ pound fat salt pork.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Seasoning of pepper, parsley and onion.
Cut the liver in pieces less than half an inch thick, and rather more
than an inch square. String these evenly upon a slender skewer (an old
knitting-needle will do) alternately with bits of fat pork of the same
shape and width. When the skewer is full, lay for ten minutes in the
melted butter, season with pepper (the pork salting it sufficiently),
minced onion, and parsley, then lay in a baking-pan, and cover with a
tin plate or shallow pan. Cook slowly in a moderate oven until the pork
begins to crisp. Remove to a hot dish, draw out the skewer carefully,
so as to leave the liver in the form in which it was cooked; add a
little hot water and butter to the gravy, thicken with browned flour,
boil up once, and pour over the _dominoes_ of pork and liver.
OLLAPODRIDA OF LAMB. (_Good._)
The sweetbreads, liver, heart, kidneys, and brains of a lamb. (Your
butcher can easily procure all with timely notice.)
Handful of bread-crumbs.
1 raw egg, beaten light.
One small, young onion, minced.
1 table-spoonful currant jelly.
Season with salt, pepper, and parsley.
1 cup good broth.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes, then simmer for ten in the
gravy. Take them up, and set aside to cool, while you boil the brains
in the same broth. When both brains and sweetbreads are cold and firm,
slice, dip in the egg, then the crumbs, and fry in good dripping or
butter. After the brains are taken from the broth, put in the slices of
heart, and stew very gently for at least half an hour. Let them cool,
then fry with the minced liver in dripping seasoned with the onion,
minced fine. Slice the kidneys, and having strained the useful broth
from the liver, return it to the saucepan, and stew the kidneys in it
for five minutes. Next, fry these for two minutes—no more—in butter.
Arrange all in a hot dish; add to the fat left in the frying-pan the
broth, thicken with browned flour and the jelly, season to taste, and
pour over the sweetbreads, etc.
You can make a larger stew—or fry—of calf’s sweetbreads, liver, heart,
and brains, and by most people this would be relished more than the
lamb ollapodrida.
It is a good plan to stew the various articles the day before you mean
to eat them, and have them all cold to your hand, ready for frying.
CALF’S LIVER _sauté_. +
2 pounds calf’s liver, cut into slices half an inch thick.
2 small young onions, minced.
1 small glass of sherry.
1 table-spoonful mushroom or tomato catsup.
Salt, pepper, and parsley, with juice of a lemon.
Good dripping or butter for frying.
Slice the liver, when you have washed and soaked it well, and fry it,
turning often, to a light-brown. Drain and lay in a hot chafing-dish.
Mix with the dripping or butter the onions, seasoning, lemon-juice, and
browned flour for thickening. Boil up, put in the catsup and wine, heat
almost to boiling again, and pour over the liver.
FRICASSEE OF CALF’S LIVER. +
2 pounds liver, cut into strips more than half an inch thick, and as
long as your finger.
2 young onions, minced.
1 glass wine.
Pepper, salt and parsley.
Butter or dripping for frying.
½ cup good gravy.
Dredge the sliced liver with flour, and fry to a light-brown, quickly,
and turning often. Mince the onions and parsley, and heat them in the
gravy in a saucepan; put in the fried liver, let all stew together
gently for ten minutes, when pour in the wine, and as soon as this is
hot, serve—the liver piled neatly and the gravy poured over it.
CALF’S LIVER _à la mode_. +
1 fine liver, as fresh as you can get it.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into lardoons.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
2 young onions.
1 table-spoonful Worcestershire or Harvey’s sauce.
2 table-spoonfuls vinegar and a glass of wine.
½ teaspoonful cloves.
½ teaspoonful allspice.
½ teaspoonful mace.
1 table-spoonful sweet herbs, cut fine.
Pepper and salt to taste—very little of the latter, as the pork should
salt it sufficiently.
Wash the liver in two waters and soak ten minutes in cold water,
slightly salted. Wipe dry, make incisions in it about half an inch
apart, and insert the lardoons, allowing them to project slightly on
each side. Have ready in a frying-pan the sliced onion, butter, sweet
herbs and spice. Put in the liver and fry to a good brown. Turn all
into a saucepan, add the vinegar and just enough water to cover the
liver. Cover closely, and simmer slowly an hour and a half. Take out
the liver and lay on a hot dish, add the wine and sauce to the gravy,
thicken with browned flour; let it boil up once, pour about the liver,
and send up the surplus in a boat.
This is good cold as well as hot, cut in thin slices.
RAGOÛT OF CALF’S HEAD, OR IMITATION TURTLE. +
Half of a cold boiled calf’s head.
1 cup good gravy.
4 hard-boiled eggs.
About a dozen force-meat balls made of minced veal with bread-crumbs
and bound with beaten egg, then rolled in flour.
1 teaspoonful sweet herbs, chopped fine.
A very little minced onion.
Browned flour for thickening; pepper and salt for seasoning.
1 glass brown sherry.
Cut the meat of the calf’s head evenly into slices of uniform size.
Heat the gravy almost to a boil, with the seasoning, herbs and onion.
Put in the meat, simmer, closely covered, for fifteen minutes; add the
force-meat balls, wine and the eggs sliced. Let all become smoking hot;
take up the meat; pile neatly on a hot dish, lay the eggs on it; the
force-meat balls at the base of the heap, and pour a cupful of gravy
over all, sending up the rest in a boat.
This ragoût is very nice, and easily provided for by setting aside
enough meat for it, on the day you have calf’s head soup, if the head
be large.
It is also a cheap dish, as even a large head seldom costs more than a
dollar, and half will make a good ragoût.
RAGOÛT OF CALF’S HEAD AND MUSHROOMS. +
Half a cold boiled calf’s head, sliced and free from bones, also the
tongue cut in round slices.
1 can French mushrooms (_champignons_).
1 onion sliced.
1 cup strong gravy—beef, veal, game or fowl.
Season with pepper, salt and sweet herbs.
Browned flour for thickening.
½ teaspoonful mixed allspice and mace.
Juice of a lemon.
1 glass wine—claret or sherry.
3 table-spoonfuls butter for frying, unless you have very nice dripping.
Drain the liquor from the mushrooms and slice them. Fry the slices
of meat five minutes in the hot butter or dripping. Take them out and
put into a tin pail or inner compartment of a farina kettle. Pour
warm, not boiling, water into the outer vessel, cover the inner and
set over the fire while you fry the mushrooms, then, the onion, in the
fat left in the frying-pan. Drain them and lay upon the meat in the
inner sauce-pan. Have ready in another the broth, spiced and seasoned,
and now pour this hot upon the meat and mushrooms. Cover closely and
_simmer_ for fifteen minutes. Strain off the gravy into a saucepan,
thicken; let it boil up once; add wine and lemon-juice, and when it is
again smoking hot, pour over the meat and mushrooms in a deep dish.
Some strips of fried toast are an acceptable addition to this ragoût.
These should be laid on the heap of meat.
I have also varied it satisfactorily, by putting in sliced hard-boiled
eggs. It is a good _entrée_ at dinner, and a capital luncheon or
breakfast-dish.
A MOULD OF CALF’S HEAD. +
A cold boiled calf’s head freed from bones and cut into thin slices—or
so much of it as you need for your mould.
6 hard-boiled eggs—also sliced.
Five or six slices of cold boiled ham—corned is better than smoked.
1 large cupful of the liquor in which the head was boiled, stewed down
to a rich gravy and well seasoned with pepper, salt, mace and minced
onion. Strain before using.
Line the bottom of a buttered mould with the slices of egg also
buttered on the outer side, that they may easily leave the mould.
Salt and pepper them, then fill the mould with alternate layers of
sliced calf’s head, ham, sliced eggs, seasoning, etc., pouring in the
gravy last. If you have no top for the mould, make a stiff paste of
flour and water to close it in and preserve flavor and juices.
When done, set it, still covered, in a cool place. When cold and firm,
slice for luncheon or tea.
_Or,_
You can chop both kinds of meat fine, also the eggs, and pack in
successive layers within your mould.
A little lemon-juice and minced parsley, with a touch of catsup, will
improve the gravy.
CALF’S BRAINS FRIED.
The brains, well washed, and scalded in _boiling_ water for two
minutes, then laid in very cold.
2 eggs well beaten.
A little flour and butter.
Salt and pepper.
Beat the brains, when perfectly cold, into a paste; season, add
the eggs and enough flour to make a good batter, with less than a
teaspoonful of butter to prevent toughness. Have ready some good
dripping in the frying-pan, and when it is hissing hot, drop in the
batter in spoonfuls and fry.
_Or—_
You can fry on the griddle, like cakes.
They are very palatable either way when cooked quickly and freed of
every clinging drop of grease.
CALF’S BRAINS ON TOAST.
The brains.
3 eggs, beaten light.
Salt, pepper and parsley.
Six or eight rounds of fried bread.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Soak the brains fifteen minutes; free from skin and fibre; then drop
them into boiling water in which you have put a little salt and a
teaspoonful of vinegar. Boil hard for ten minutes, then throw the
brains into ice-cold water. When well cooled break them up with
a wooden or silver spoon; and stir into the beaten eggs with the
seasoning. Have ready the butter in a hot frying-pan, pour in the
mixture and stir rapidly for two minutes, or until it is a soft mass
like stirred eggs. Lay the toast upon a hot dish and heap the brains
upon it.
This dish is rendered yet more savory, if you will pour some good
well-seasoned gravy over the mounds of brains and the toast.
VEAL CUTLETS (_Stewed_). +
2 pounds veal cutlets, nicely trimmed.
1 small onion, sliced.
4 table-spoonfuls strained tomato sauce.
Enough butter or clear dripping to fry the cutlets.
Salt and pepper with a bunch of sweet herbs.
½ cup gravy.
Fry the cutlets to a light brown, but not crisp; take them out and put
into a covered saucepan. Have ready the gravy in another, with the
tomato sauce stirred into it. Fry the onion in the fat from which you
have taken the cutlets, and add with the fat to the gravy. Pour all
over the cutlets and simmer, covered, twenty minutes.
MOCK PIGEONS. +
3 or 4 fillets of veal.
Force-meat of bread-crumbs and minced pork, seasoned.
½ cup mushrooms and a little minced onion.
1 sweetbread.
A dozen oysters.
½ cup strong brown gravy.
1 glass of wine.
Take the bone, if there be any, out of the fillets (or cutlets, or
steaks) of veal; spread each thickly with the force-meat, and roll up
tightly, binding with packthread. Put into a baking-pan with enough
cold water to half-cover them; turn another pan over them and bake
from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in proportion to their size.
Meanwhile, boil the sweetbread fifteen minutes, blanch in cold water;
cut into dice, and put into a saucepan with the gravy, which let simmer
on the hob. Cut the mushrooms into small pieces and fry with the onion
in a little butter, then add to the heating gravy. In still another
vessel, when the veal is nearly done, heat the oysters, also chopped
fine, seasoning with salt and pepper. When the “pigeons” are tender
throughout, uncover, baste generously with butter, and brown. Transfer
to a hot flat dish; clip the packthread and gently withdraw it, not to
injure the shape of the rolled meat. Let the gravy in which they were
roasted come to a fast boil, thicken with browned flour and pour into
the saucepan containing the sauce, sweetbreads, etc. Boil up once, add
the wine; take from the fire and put in the chopped oysters. Stir all
together well in the saucepan, pour a dozen spoonfuls, or so, over the
“pigeons,” taking up the thickest part; send the rest to table in a
gravy tureen.
You can make a simpler sauce by leaving out the sweetbreads, etc., and
seasoning the gravy in the baking-pan with tomato sauce.
These “pigeons” will make an attractive variety in the home bill of
fare, and do well as the _pièce de résistance_ of a family dinner.
A VEAL TURNOVER. +
Remains of roast veal—cold, minced fine, and seasoned.
2 or 3 eggs.
1 cup milk.
Flour to make a good batter—about 4 table-spoonfuls.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.
Heat the butter to a boil in the frying-pan. Mix the eggs, milk,
flour, parsley, pepper, and salt into a batter, and pour it into the
frying-pan. Lay in the middle, as soon as it begins to “form,” the
minced meat. Fry rather slowly, taking care that the batter does not
burn. When done on one side, fold the edges of the pancake over to the
middle, enclosing the meat, and turn with a cake spatula. When both
sides are of a delicate brown, put the cake “turner” under it, and slip
over to a hot dish.
Send around a little gravy in a boat.
MEAT AND POTATO PUFFS. +
Slices of cold roast beef or mutton, and as many of corned ham.
2 eggs.
1 cup milk.
Enough potatoes and flour to make a good paste.
Pepper, salt, and mustard, or catsup.
Mash the potatoes, mix with them the eggs, well beaten, and whip up to
a cream, adding the milk gradually. Add flour enough to enable you to
roll it out into a sheet. Cut into squares, and in the centre of each
lay a slice of beef or mutton, well seasoned with pepper and salt,
and spread with made mustard or catsup. Lay on this a slice of ham of
the same shape and size; fold the paste into a triangular “turnover,”
printing the edges deeply with a jagging-iron, and fry in butter or
beef-dripping to a nice brown. Take up so soon as they are done; lay on
white paper for a moment to absorb the grease, and serve hot.
SCALLOPED CHICKEN. +
Cold roast or boiled chicken—chiefly the white meat.
1 cup gravy.
1 table-spoonful butter, and 1 egg, well beaten.
1 cup of fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt.
Rid the chicken of gristle and skin, and cut—_not_ chop—into pieces
less than half an inch long. Have ready the gravy, or some rich drawn
butter, in a saucepan on the fire. Thicken it well, and stir in the
chicken, boil up once, take it off, and add the beaten egg. Cover the
bottom of a buttered dish with fine bread-crumbs, pour in the mixture,
and put another thick layer of crumbs on top, sticking bits of butter
all over it. Bake to a delicate brown in a quick oven.
_Or—_
Instead of the gravy make a white sauce, as follows:
1 cup cream or rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter and 1 beaten egg.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in cold milk.
Pepper, salt and parsley.
Heat the cream to a boil, stir in the corn-starch until it thickens;
then the butter, seasoning and egg. Take at once from the fire, add the
minced chicken, and proceed as already directed.
Turkey may be used instead of chicken; also veal.
SCALLOPED BEEF (_Very good_). +
Some minced beef or lean mutton.
1 young onion, minced.
½ cup gravy.
Some mashed potato.
1 table-spoonful of butter to a cup of potato.
1 table-spoonful of cream to the same.
Pepper and salt.
Catsup, if mutton be used; made mustard for beef.
1 beaten egg for each cupful of potato.
Mash the potato while hot, beating _very_ light with the butter and
cream—lastly, the egg. Too much attention cannot be paid to this part
of the work. Fill a buttered baking-dish, or scallop shells with the
minced meat, seasoned with onion, pepper, salt and mustard or catsup,
moisten with gravy, and cover with the mashed potato at least half an
inch thick if your dish be large. Smooth this over and bake to a light
brown. Just before you draw them from the oven glaze by putting a bit
of butter on the top of each scallop.
MINCE OF VEAL OR LAMB. +
1 cup gravy, well thickened.
The remains of cold roast meat—minced, but not very fine.
2 table-spoonfuls cream, or rich milk.
1 saltspoonful mace.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
1 small onion.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 eggs well whipped.
Heat the gravy to a boil, add the milk, butter, seasoning, onion,
lastly the eggs, and so soon as these are stirred in, the minced meat,
previously salted and peppered. Let it get smoking hot, but it must not
boil. Heap in the middle of a dish, and enclose with a fence of fried
potato or fried triangles of bread.
If well cooked and seasoned, this is a savory _entrée_.
WHITE FRICASSEE OF RABBIT. +
1 young rabbit.
1 pint weak broth.
¼ pound fat salt pork.
1 onion, sliced.
Chopped parsley, pepper and salt.
A very little mace.
1 cup of milk or cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch or rice flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
Joint the rabbit neatly and cut the pork into strips. Put on the rabbit
to boil (when it has lain in salt-and-water half an hour) in the broth,
which should be cold. Put in the pork with it, and stew, closely
covered, and very gently, an hour, or, until tender, before adding the
onion, seasoning and parsley. When you do this, take out the pieces of
rabbit, put in a covered dish to keep warm and boil down the gravy very
fast, for fifteen minutes. Take out the pork, then strain the gravy
through your soup-strainer. Let it stand five or six minutes in a cold
place that the fat may rise. Skim this off; return the gravy to the
saucepan, and when it is almost on the boil, stir in the cream or milk
in which the corn-starch has been dissolved. Stir until it thickens,
put in the butter, then the pieces of rabbit and the pork. All must
simmer together five minutes, but not boil. When it is smoking hot, lay
the rabbit neatly on a dish, pour over the gravy, garnish with parsley
and sliced lemons and serve.
BROWN FRICASSEE OF RABBIT, _or_ “JUGGED RABBIT.” +
1 young but full-grown rabbit, or hare.
½ pound fat salt pork, or ham.
1 cup good gravy.
Dripping or butter for frying.
1 onion, sliced.
Parsley, pepper, salt and browned flour.
1 glass of wine.
1 table-spoonful currant jelly.
Let the rabbit lie, after it is jointed, for half an hour in cold
salt-and-water. Wipe dry, and fry to a fine brown with the onion. Have
ready a tin pail, or the inner vessel of a farina-kettle; put in the
bottom a layer of fat salt pork, cut into thin strips; then, one of
rabbit, seasoning well with pepper, but scantily with salt. Sprinkle
the fried onion over the rabbit, and proceed in this order until your
meat is used up. Cover the vessel, and set in another of warm water.
Bring slowly to a boil, and let it stand where it will cook steadily,
but not fast, for three-quarters of an hour, if the rabbit be large.
Take out the meat, arrange it on a dish, add the jelly, beaten up with
the browned flour, to the gravy, then the wine. Boil up quickly and
pour over the rabbit.
Do not fail to give this a trial.
CURRIED RABBIT.
1 rabbit, jointed.
½ pound fat salt pork.
1 onion, sliced.
½ cup cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Pepper, salt and parsley, and 2 eggs well beaten.
1 dessert spoonful good curry-powder.
Soak the jointed rabbit half an hour in cold salt-and-water, then put
into a saucepan with the pork cut into strips, the onion and parsley,
and stew steadily, not fast, in enough cold water to cover all, for
an hour, or until the rabbit is tender. Take out the meat and lay on
a covered chafing-dish to keep warm, while you boil the gravy five
minutes longer. Let it stand a few minutes for the fat to rise, skim it
and strain. Return to the fire; let it almost boil, when put in the
corn-starch. Stir to thickening, put in the curry-powder, the rabbit
and pork, and let all stand covered, in a vessel of boiling water,
fifteen minutes. Take up the meat, pile upon the chafing-dish; add to
the gravy the cream and eggs, and stir one minute before pouring over
the meat. All should stand, covered, in the hot-water chafing-dish
about five minutes before going to table.
No arbitrary rule can be given as to the length of time it is necessary
to cook game before it will be tender, since there are so many degrees
of toughness in the best of that recommended by your reliable provision
merchant as “just right.”
Hence, my oft-reiterated clause, “or, until tender.”
You can curry chicken in the same manner as rabbit.
DEVILLED RABBIT.
1 rabbit, jointed, as for fricassee.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
A little cayenne, salt and mustard.
1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, and 1 table-spoonful vinegar.
Parboil the rabbit, and let it get perfectly cold; then score to the
bone, the gashes about half an inch apart. Melt together in a saucepan
the butter and seasoning. Stir up well, and rub each piece of the
rabbit with the mixture, working it into the gashes. Broil over a clear
fire, turning as soon as they begin to drip. When they are brown lay
on a hot dish, and pour melted butter over them. Let them lie in this,
turning several times, for three or four minutes. Put the rest of the
mixture on them, if any be left, and serve.
DEVILLED FOWL.
Use only the legs and upper part of the wings of roasted or boiled
fowls. Treat precisely as you do the rabbit in the foregoing receipt.
SALMI OF GAME. +
An underdone roast duck, pheasant, or grouse.
1 great spoonful of butter.
2 onions, sliced and fried in butter.
1 large cup strong gravy.
Parsley, marjoram and savory.
Pepper and salt.
A pinch of cloves, and same of nutmeg.
Cut your game into neat joints and slices, taking all the skin off.
Put refuse bits, fat, skin, etc., into a saucepan with the gravy, the
fried onions, herbs, spice, pepper and salt. Boil gently one hour; let
it cool until the fat rises, when skim it off and strain the gravy.
Return it to the saucepan, and, when it heats, stir into it the butter
and thicken with browned flour. Boil up sharply for five minutes and
put in the pieces of duck. After this, the salmi _must not boil_.
Neglect of this rule ruins most of the so-called salmis one sees upon
private as well as upon hotel tables. Set the saucepan in a vessel of
boiling water, and heat it through, letting it stand thus ten minutes.
Arrange the meat upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it. Garnish
with triangles of fried bread, and serve a piece to each guest with the
salmi.
ROAST RABBITS. +
A pair rabbits.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into thin slices.
2 table-spoonfuls butter, and 1 glass of wine.
Bread-crumbs, chopped pork, parsley, grated lemon-peel, salt and pepper
for the stuffing.
1 egg, beaten light, and 1 onion, sliced.
Skin and clean the rabbits (or hares), and lay in cold salt-and-water
half an hour. Prepare the dressing as above directed, binding with
the egg. Wipe the rabbits dry inside and out, stuff with the prepared
mixture, and sew them up closely. Cover the backs of the rabbits with
the sliced pork, binding it in place with packthread wound around and
around the bodies. Lay them in the baking-pan, backs uppermost; pour
into it about two cupfuls of cold water, cover closely, and steam for
an hour, raising the upper pan now and then to pour a few spoonfuls of
the boiling water about the rabbits over their backs, that the pork may
not crisp; then remove the cover, clip the packthread, and take off
the pork. Brown the rabbits, basting bountifully and frequently with
butter. Chop the pork, and crisp in a frying-pan with the sliced onion.
When the rabbits are done transfer to a hot dish; pour the gravy into
a saucepan with the pork and onion. Boil up once, and strain before
thickening with browned flour. Add the wine, give a final boil, and
pour over and about the rabbits, sending up the surplus in a tureen.
Pigeons and grouse are very fine roasted in this way, also partridges.
BRAISED WILD DUCK OR GROUSE. +
A pair of ducks or grouse.
1 onion, minced fine.
Bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, a pinch of sage, and a little chopped
pork for stuffing.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter, or good dripping.
1 cup gravy.
Browned flour.
Prepare and stuff the fowls as for roasting. Have ready the butter or
dripping hot in a large frying-pan, and fry first one fowl, then the
other in this, turning as it browns below. Then lay them in a large
sauce-pan and pour the gravy, previously heated, in with them. Cover
closely and stew gently for an hour, or until the game is tender.
Transfer the fowls to a hot dish and cover it, to keep in flavor and
warmth while you strain the gravy. Let it cool a little to throw up the
grease. Skim, thicken with browned flour, and boil up well for five
minutes. Skim again, put back the duck into the gravy, and let all
stand heating—_not_ boiling—five minutes more, before dishing. Pour
a few spoonfuls of gravy over the ducks on the dish; the rest into a
tureen.
Send around green peas and currant jelly with them.
ROAST QUAILS. +
6 plump quails.
12 fine oysters.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Pepper and salt, and fried bread for serving.
Clean the quails and wash out very carefully with cold water in which
been dissolved a little soda. Cleanse finally with pure water and wipe
dry, inside and out. Place within the body of each bird a couple of
oysters or one very large one, sew it up and range all, side by side,
in a baking-pan. Pour a very little boiling water over them to harden
the outer skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, about half
an hour. Then uncover and baste frequently with butter while they are
browning. Serve upon rounds of fried bread, laid on a hot dish. Put a
spoonful of gravy upon each, and send up the rest in a boat, when you
have thickened and strained it.
If you like, you may add a glass of claret and a table-spoonful of
currant jelly to the gravy after the quails are taken up.
Be careful to sew up small game with fine cotton that will not tear the
meat when it is drawn out.
FRICASSEED CHICKEN _à l’Italienne_ (_Fine_).
Pair of chickens.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into strips.
2 sprigs of parsley.
1 sprig thyme.
1 bay leaf.
A dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion.
1 clove.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful of salad oil.
2 glasses wine—white, or pale sherry.
Cut the chickens into joints; put them with the pork into a saucepan
with a very little water, and stew, covered, until tender. Remove the
chicken to a hot-water chafing-dish and keep warm while you prepare
the gravy. Turn the liquor in which the chickens were cooked into a
frying-pan, thicken with browned flour; put into it the herbs, onion,
clove and the mushrooms chopped very fine. Boil up sharply; add the
butter and stew fast half an hour. Then add the wine and oil. Simmer a
few minutes, and strain through a coarse cullender over the chicken.
I have understated the merits of this admirable fricassee by styling
it “fine.” The dear friend upon whose table I first saw it, will, I am
sure, earn the thanks of many other housewives, with my own, by giving
the receipt.
MINCED CHICKEN AND EGGS. +
Remains of roast or boiled chicken.
Stuffing of the same.
1 onion cut fine.
½ cup of cream.
1 table-spoonful flour or corn-starch.
Parsley, salt, and pepper.
6 or 8 eggs.
½ cup gravy, and handful of bread-crumbs.
Cut the meat of the fowls into small, neat squares. Put the bones, fat,
and skin into a saucepan, with the onion and enough cold water to cover
them, and stew gently for an hour or more. Strain, let it stand for a
little while that the fat may rise, skim, and return to the saucepan.
When hot to boiling, add the cream and thickening, with the seasoning.
When it thickens, put in the chicken, after which it must not boil.
Butter a deep dish; cover the bottom with the stuffing of the fowls,
crumbled or mashed up; wet with gravy; pour in the mince; strew fine,
dry bread-crumbs over this, and break the eggs carefully upon the
surface. More, and if possible, finer crumbs should cover these; put a
bit of butter on each egg, pepper and salt, and bake in a quick oven
until the top begins to bubble and smoke. The whites of the eggs should
be well “set,” the yolks soft.
I can safely recommend this receipt. Few “pick-up” dishes are more
popular with those for whom it is my duty and delight to cater.
A mince of veal can be made in the same way, in which case a little ham
is an improvement, also two or three hard-boiled eggs, cut into dice,
and mixed with the meat.
QUENELLES. +
Some cold, white meat of fowls or veal.
1 cup fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls cream or milk.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 egg, well beaten.
1 cup well-flavored gravy.
Pepper and salt.
Chop the meat very fine. Wet the crumbs with milk, and drain as dry as
you can. Work into this paste the meat and egg, seasoning well. Flour
your hands, and make the mixture into round balls, rolling these in
flour when formed. Have ready the gravy hot in a saucepan; drop in the
quenelles, and boil fast five minutes. Take them up and pile upon a hot
dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour; boil up once and pour over
them.
_Or,_
After making out the quenelles, roll them in beaten egg, then in
cracker-crumbs, and fry in good dripping seasoned with onion. Dry every
drop of grease from them by rolling them upon paper, and serve with the
gravy poured over them.
These quenelles are nice served up with fricasseed sweetbreads, or as a
garnish for them, or game.
RECHAUFFÉE OF VEAL AND HAM.
Cold veal (if underdone all the better) and ham.
2 eggs, beaten light.
Handful of very fine bread-crumbs.
A little tart jelly.
Dripping or butter for frying.
Pepper, salt, and made mustard, or catsup.
Cut the veal and ham into rather thick slices of exactly the same size.
Spread one side of a slice of veal with jelly, one side of the ham
with mustard or thick catsup. Press these firmly together, that they
may adhere closely, dip in the beaten egg, and roll in the bread (or
cracker) crumbs, which should be seasoned with pepper and salt. Fry
very quickly; dry off the grease by laying them on soft paper, and pile
upon a dish.
ROULADES OF BEEF.
Some slices of rare roast beef.
Some slices of boiled ham.
2 eggs, beaten light.
Butter or dripping for frying.
Pepper and mustard.
A little thick gravy.
Cut the beef into even, oblong slices, the ham rather thinner and
smaller. Spread one side of the beef with mustard, and pepper the ham.
Lay the ham upon the beef and roll up together as tightly as possible;
roll in the egg, then the cracker, and pierce with a slender steel, tin
or wooden skewer in such a manner as to keep the roll pinned together.
Put several on each skewer, but do not let them touch one another. Fry
brown; lay on a dish, and gently withdraw the skewers. Pour the gravy
boiling hot over them.
Small _roulades_ are a convenient and toothsome garnish for game and
roast poultry.
ROULADES OF MUTTON.
Can be made in the same way, but leaving out the ham, and spreading the
inside of each slice with currant jelly.
FRIED CHICKEN. +
1 tender young chicken, cut into joints.
2 eggs, beaten light.
½ cup of cracker-crumbs.
Sweet lard, dripping, or the best salad-oil for frying.
Lay the chicken in salt-and-water fifteen minutes; wipe dry, pepper and
salt, dip in the egg, then in the cracker-crumbs, and fry slowly in
hot lard or dripping. Drain dry, pile on a hot dish, and lay sprigs of
parsley over it.
CHICKEN FRIED WHOLE.
1 young, tender chicken, trussed as for roasting, but not stuffed.
Butter or _very_ nice dripping for frying.
Clean the chicken, wash out well, and dry, inside and out. Put it in
your steamer, or cover in a cullender over a pot of boiling water,
keeping it at a fast boil for fifteen or twenty minutes. Have ready the
boiling hot fat in a deep frying-pan, or cruller-kettle. It should half
cover the chicken, when having floured it all over, you put it in. When
one side is a light brown, turn it. When both are cooked, take up, put
into a covered kettle or tin pail, and set in a pot of hot water, which
keep at a _slow_ boil, half an hour. If you like a delicate flavor of
onion, put a few slices in the bottom of the kettle before the chicken
goes in. Anoint the chicken plentifully, after laying it on a hot dish,
with melted butter in which you have stirred pepper and chopped parsley.
This is a new and attractive manner of preparing chickens for the
table. None but tender ones should be fried in any way.
“SMOTHERED” CHICKEN. +
2 tender chickens, roasting size, but not very large.
Pepper, salt and browned flour for gravy.
Clean and wash the chickens, and split down the back as for broiling.
Lay flat in a baking-pan, dash a cupful of boiling water upon them;
set in the oven, and invert another pan over them so as to cover
_tightly_. Roast at a steady, but moderate heat, about half an hour,
then lift the cover and baste freely with butter and a little of the
water in which the fowls are cooking. In ten minutes more, baste again
with gravy from the baking-pan. In five more, with melted butter and
abundantly, going all over the fowls, which should now begin to brown.
Increase the heat, still keeping the chickens covered. A few minutes
before dishing them, test with a fork to ascertain if they are tender.
When done they should be of a mellow brown hue all over the upper
part—a uniform and pleasing tint. Dish, salt and pepper them; thicken
the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, adding a little water, if
necessary, season with pepper, salt and parsley, and send up in a gravy
boat.
The flavor of “smothered” chicken—so named by the Virginia housewife of
the olden time—is peculiar, and to most palates delightful.
SMOTHERED CHICKEN WITH OYSTERS. +
1 fine, fat chicken.
1 pint of oysters, or enough to fill the chicken.
Dressing of chopped oysters, parsley and crumbs.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 table-spoonfuls cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley for sauce.
Clean the chicken, washing it out with two or three waters. Fill the
“craw” with the prepared stuffing, tying up the neck very securely.
Then, pack the main cavity of the body with oysters and sew up the
vent. Have ready a clean tin pail with a closely-fitting top. Put the
fowl, neatly trussed, into it, cover and set in a pot of cold water.
Bring to a boil, and cook slowly for more than an hour after the water
in the outer vessel begins to boil. If the fowl be not young, it may
be needful to keep it in two hours. _Do not open the inner vessel in
less than an hour._ Having ascertained that the chicken is tender
throughout, take it out and lay on a hot dish, covering immediately.
Turn the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, add the
cream, parsley, seasoning and the boiled yolks chopped fine. Boil
up once; pour a little over the chicken, and serve the rest in a
sauce-boat.
FONDU OF CHICKEN OR OTHER WHITE MEAT.
Some cold chicken, veal, or turkey minced fine.
1 cupful bread-crumbs—baker’s bread is best.
1 cupful boiling milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 slice cold boiled ham—minced.
½ onion boiled in, and then strained out of the milk.
2 eggs, beaten very light.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in the milk.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Soak the crumbs in the boiling milk, stir in the batter, and beat very
light. Let the mixture cool, while you mince the meat and whip the
eggs. Stir in the meat first when the bread is nearly cold, season,
and lastly put in the beaten eggs. Beat all up well and pour into a
well-greased baking-dish. Set in a brisk oven. When the fondu is a
light, delicately-browned puff, send at once to table in the dish in
which it was baked.
GALANTINE. +
“A sort of glorified head-cheese—isn’t it?” said a blunt collegian at
the height of his vacation-appetite, in passing his plate for a third
reinforcement from the dish in front of his hostess.
The phrase always recurs to me, when I taste or see a galantine, for
this was the foreign name of the spicy relish aptly characterized by
the youth. If spicy and appetizing, it is also a convenient stand-by
for the lunch or supper-table, since it keeps well and pleases most
people, even those who do not affect “head-cheese” proper.
A rind of fat salt pork, about six inches wide and eight long.
A little sausage, some minced ham, and odds and ends of game and
poultry, with giblets of all kinds, chopped up.
Salt, pepper, cloves, allspice, mace and cinnamon; sweet marjoram,
savory, thyme, a little grated lemon-peel; a pinch of cayenne.
1 small onion, minced very fine.
1 cup rich gravy, thick and savory.
A little butter and bits of fat meat cut into dice.
A pint of weak broth, seasoned with pepper, salt and onion.
Cut from a piece of fat salt pork (the loin or sides) the rind in one
piece, leaving on about a half-inch of fat. Soak in water over night
to make it more pliable. Spread, next day, upon a flat dish, and lay
on it layers of sausage (_or_, if you have it, potted ham or tongue),
game, poultry, giblets—minced meat of almost any kind, although
these named are most savory—well seasoned with the condiments above
enumerated, and sprinkled sparsely with onion. Moisten as you go on,
with the rich broth; put in occasional bits of butter and fat meat,
else it will be dry. Fold all up in the pork rind, joining the edges
neatly.
About the roll wrap a stout cloth, fitting closely and sew it up
on all sides. Bind, for further security, stout tape all about the
bundle. Put the weak broth into a pot, and while it is still cold,
drop the galantine into it, and boil slowly for five hours. The broth
should cover it entirely all the time. Let it get perfectly cold in
the liquor; then take it out, and without removing tape or cloth, put
it under heavy weights between two plates, and do not touch it for
twenty-four hours. At the end of that time, cut tape and threads,
remove the cloth carefully, trim the ragged edges of the galantine,
and send to table whole. Cut as it is asked for, with a keen knife, in
smooth, thin slices.
JELLIED TONGUE. +
1 large boiled tongue (cold).
2 ounces of gelatine dissolved in
½ pint of water.
1 tea-cup of browned veal gravy.
1 pint of liquor in which the tongue was boiled.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
1 table-spoonful burnt sugar for coloring.
3 table-spoonfuls of vinegar.
1 pint boiling water.
Put together the gravy, liquor, sugar, vinegar and a table-spoonful of
burnt sugar dissolved in cold water.
Add the dissolved gelatine and mix well—then the boiling water, and
strain through flannel. Cut the tongue in slices as for the table. Let
the jelly cool and begin to thicken. Wet a mould with cold water, put a
little jelly in the bottom, then a layer of tongue, more jelly, and so
on, until the mould is full. Cover and set in a cool place.
To turn it out, dip the mould in hot water for an instant, invert upon
a dish, and garnish with celery-sprigs, and nasturtium-flowers. Cut
with a thin, sharp knife, perpendicularly.
This is a handsome and delicious dish, and easily made.
GAME OR POULTRY IN SAVORY JELLY. +
A knuckle of veal, weighing 2 pounds.
1 slice of lean ham.
1 shallot, minced.
Sprig of thyme and one of parsley.
6 pepper-corns (white), and one teaspoonful salt.
3 pints of cold water.
Boil all these together until the liquor is reduced to a pint, when
strain without squeezing, and set to cool until next day. It should
then be a firm jelly. Take off every particle of fat.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in
1 cup cold water for 3 hours.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls strained lemon-juice.
2 table-spoonfuls currant jelly, dissolved in cold water, and strained
through a muslin cloth.
Nearly a quart of _boiling_ water.
Pour the boiling water over the gelatine, stir swiftly for a moment;
add the jellied “stock,” and when this is dissolved, the sugar,
lemon-juice and coloring. Stir until all are mixed and melted together.
Strain through a flannel bag until quite clear. Do not shake or squeeze
the bag.
Have ready—4 or 5 hard-boiled eggs.
The remains of roast game, roast or boiled poultry, cut in neat thin
slices, with no jagged edges, and salted slightly.
Wet a mould with cold water, and when the jelly begins to congeal, pour
some in the bottom. Cut the whites of the eggs in pretty shapes—stars,
flowers, leaves, with a keen penknife. If you have sufficient skill,
carve the name or initials of some one whom you wish to honor. Unless
you can do this, however, content yourself with smooth thin rings
overlapping one another, like a chain, when they are arranged on the
lowest stratum of jelly, which, by the way, should be a thin one, that
your device may be visible. Pour in more jelly, and on this lay slices
of meat, close together. More jelly, and proceed in this order until
the mould is full, or all the meat used up.
Set in a cool place until next day, when turn out upon a flat dish.
An oblong or round mould, with smooth, upright sides, is best for this
purpose.
There is no need for even a timid housekeeper to be appalled at the
suggestion of attempting a task such as is described above, or
below. The very minuteness with which I have detailed the by-no-means
difficult process should encourage, not daunt the tyro. “Nothing
venture, nothing have,” is a telling motto, in this connection.
A TONGUE JELLIED WHOLE.
Make the jelly and stock as in preceding receipt, leaving out the
currant jelly, and coloring with a little burnt sugar, dissolved in
cold water. This gives an amber tinge to the jelly. Should it not be
clear after first straining, run it through the bag—a clean one—again.
Trim a small tongue—boiled and perfectly cold—neatly, cutting away the
root and paring it skilfully from tip to root with a sharp, thin-bladed
knife. Wet an oblong mould (a baking-pan used for “brick” loaves of
bread will do) with cold water, and put a thin layer of the congealing
jelly in the bottom. Upon this lay the tongue, bearing in mind that
what is the bottom now will be the top when the jelly is turned out.
Encircle it with a linked chain made of rings of white of egg, or, if
you prefer, let the rings barely touch one another, and fit in the
centre of each a round of bright pickled beet. The effect of this is
very pretty. Fill up the mould with jelly; cover and set in a cold
place for twelve hours.
This is a beautiful show-piece for luncheon or supper, and when it has
served the end of its creation in this respect, can easily be carved
with a sharp knife and remain, even in partial ruin, a thing of beauty.
GRAVY.
“PRESIDING over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the
features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,” said Mrs. Todgers. “The gravy alone
is enough to add twenty years to one’s age. The anxiety of that one
item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch.”
Without following the worthy landlady further into the depths of her
dissertation upon the fondness of commercial gentlemen for the “item,”
I would answer a question addressed to me by a correspondent who
“believes”—she is so kind as to inform me—“in Common Sense.”
“I notice that many of your made dishes are dependent for savoriness
upon ‘a cup of good broth,’ or, ‘half a cup of strong gravy.’ Let me
ask, in the spirit of sincere desire for useful information, where is
the gravy or broth to come from?”
In return I plagiarize the words of a lady who accomplishes more with
less noise and fretting than any other person I ever saw.
“I don’t see how you find time for it all!” exclaimed an admiring
visitor.
“I _make_ it, if I can get it in no other way,” was the rejoinder.
Never throw away so much as a teaspoonful of gravy of any kind. Season
it rather highly, and set it away in a cool place until it is wanted.
For a while you will have some difficulty in impressing the importance
of this rule upon your cook, especially if she is allowed to have all
the “soap-fat” she can save as one of her “perquisites.” This is a
ruinous leak in any household, whether the oleaginous “savings” be
exchanged for soap (hard or soft), or for money. It is so easy to “let
it go into the fat-crock,” and when the cook is to gain anything for
herself by the _laisser-aller_ the temptation is cruelly strong—even if
she have a conscience. I have known the pile of unclean fat collected
for the soap-man to be swelled not only by the bits of butter left
upon the plates after meals, but by quarter and half-pounds abstracted
bodily from butter tub or pot, and the abstraction never, in the
phraseology of the “conveyer,” to be “scrupled.” “The wise convey it
call!” said honest Pistol, and to no other ethical motto has heartier
response been made by the comptrollers of culinary treasuries.
In a family of ordinary size nothing should find its way into the
buckets of the unsavory caller at basement-door or back-gate. The
drippings from most kinds of roast meat, if settled, strained and
skimmed, and kept in a clean vessel, answer for many purposes quite
as well as butter, and better than lard. Even that from mutton should
be “tried out,” strained through muslin, slightly salted, and, if you
choose, perfumed with rose-water, in which shape it is better than cold
cream, or glycerine for chapped hands, and is a useful cerate for cuts,
scratches, etc. The oil-cake should be removed from the top of all
gravies before they are used upon the table; for, be it understood,
_grease is not gravy_.
How often I have wished, from the depths of a loathing stomach, that
certain well-meaning housekeepers—at whose boards I have sat as guest
or boarder—who fry beefsteak in lard, and send ham to table swimming in
fat; upon the surface of whose soups float spheroids of oil that encase
the spoon with blubber, and coat the lips and tongue of the eater
with flaky scales—that these dear souls who believe in “old-fashioned
cookery,” understood this simple law of digestive gravity!
A “rich gravy,” or “a strong broth,” is not of necessity, then, one
surcharged with fat. Beef-tea—which is the very essence of the meat,
and contains more nourishment in small bulk than any other liquid
used in the sick-room—should be made of lean, but tender beef, and
every particle of suet be removed from the cooled surface before it is
re-heated for the patient’s use.
If you have no gravy ready when you wish to prepare ragoût, or other
dish requiring this ingredient, “make it.” Crack up the bones from
which you have cut the flesh, and put them into a saucepan with the
refuse bits of meat, gristle, skin, etc.; cover with cold water,
and stew very gently until you have extracted all the nourishment,
and from two cups of liquid in the pot when the boiling commenced,
you have one cup of tolerable gravy. A few minutes of thought and
preparation in your kitchen after breakfast will enable you to have
anything of this kind in season for a luncheon dish, or an _entrée_
at the early dinner. Foresight in these matters is to be forearmed.
Teach your cook, furthermore, never to toss “that carcass” of fowl,
or the ham, or mutton-bone, “with next to nothing upon it,” to the
dogs, or into the scavenger’s barrel. It will not, by itself, make
good soup, unless it be very much underdone, and even then the broth
will not be equal to that made from raw meat or marrow bones. But,
seasoned and thickened—adding sweet herbs and a dash of catsup to the
flavoring—it will be useful as gravy in many ways; always remembering
that it must be skimmed before it is used. It is also well worth your
while to see for yourself, when the meat comes home from market, that
it has been properly trimmed for the table. Much goes into the oven or
upon the spit to be roasted, or upon the gridiron to be broiled, that
is unfit to be eaten after it has been baked or grilled. All bits of
tough skin—all gristly portions, soft bones, and the cartilage known
as “whitleather” should be removed before cooking from roasts, chops,
and steaks, when this can be done without injuring the shape of the
meat. The place for these is the stew-pot. Cover them with cold water;
put in no seasoning until they have simmered slowly for a long time
in a close vessel, and the liquid is reduced to at most one-half of
the original quantity; then season, boil up once hard, strain, and set
aside until you want to try a receipt in which “a little good gravy” is
a desideratum.
If you buy meat for gravy—which you need not do very often, if you
(and your cook) are reasonably careful about “scraps,” cooked and
raw—get the coarser pieces and marrow-bones pounded to bits. Cut up
the meat fine, also. You cannot, by never so long boiling; extract the
strength so completely from a solid “chunk” of flesh as from the same
quantity shred into strips or cut into dice. It should be reduced to
rags for gravies and soups, and invariably put on in _cold_ water. Fast
boiling hardens the meat and injures the flavor of the gravy. For the
first hour, it should barely simmer. After that, stew very slowly and
steadily. The best gravy is like jelly when cold.
Are these details trivial to absurdity? If they seem so to you, pray
bear with my over-carefulness when I tell you how ignorant I was of
minute economies when I assumed the name, and, so far as I could, the
duties of a housewife, and how many others I have seen and talked with
who are as anxious as was I, to stop the deadly little drains from the
domestic system, yet know not where to begin.
SALADS.
THIS subject has been treated of so fully—so exhaustively, I
thought, then,—in No. 1 of the “Common Sense Series,”[A] that I have
comparatively few receipts to set down here. I can, however, heartily
endorse these as especially good of their kind. Indeed, the neatest
compliment ever paid any receipt in my _répertoire_ was when an
epicure—not a _gourmande_—styled the oyster salad made in obedience to
it, an “inspiration.”
OYSTER SALAD. +
1 quart oysters, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.
1 bunch celery, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
2 raw eggs, well whipped.
1 great spoonful salad oil.
1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.
1 small spoonful salt.
1 small spoonful pepper.
1 small spoonful made mustard.
Half cup best cider vinegar.
Drain the liquor well from the oysters and cut them with a sharp knife
into dice. Cut the celery, which should be white and crisp, into
pieces of corresponding size. Set them aside in separate vessels, in a
cold place while you prepare the dressing. Beat the eggs light (with
a “Dover” egg-beater, if you have one), mix in the sugar; then whip
in gradually the oil until it is a light cream. Have ready, rubbed
to a powder, the boiled yolks; add to _them_ the salt, pepper, and
lastly the mustard. Beat these into the oil and yolk, and then, two or
three drops at a time, the vinegar, whipping the dressing briskly, but
lightly for two or three minutes. It should, if properly managed, be
like rich yellow cream—or custard.
With a silver fork toss up the oysters and celery together in a glass
dish; pour half of the dressing over them; toss up—not stir it down—for
a minute, and pour the rest on the top.
Lay a border of light-green celery tufts close within the edge of the
bowl, with a cluster in the middle of the salad. Serve as soon as may
be, after it is mixed. Meanwhile, keep on the ice.
CABBAGE SALAD. (_Very good._) +
1 small firm head of cabbage—chopped or sliced fine.
1 cup of sweet milk, boiling hot.
A little less than a cup of vinegar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
2 eggs, well beaten.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Heat the milk and vinegar in separate vessels. When the vinegar boils,
put in the butter, sugar and seasoning. Boil up once and stir in the
chopped cabbage. Heat to scalding, but do not let it actually boil. To
the hot milk add the eggs; cook one minute after they begin to thicken.
Turn the scalding cabbage into a deep bowl; pour the custard over it,
stir in quickly, tossing up the mixture with a silver fork, until the
ingredients are thoroughly incorporated; cover to keep in the strength
of the vinegar, and set where it will cool suddenly.
Serve perfectly cold, and garnish with some slices of cold boiled eggs
and cresses.
This will be found a vast improvement upon the old-fashioned
“coldslaw,” however prepared, and is more wholesome.
LOBSTER SALAD—WITHOUT OIL. +
1 fine lobster—boiled thoroughly, and carefully picked out. Cut into
small pieces; put in a broad dish, and sprinkle with a teaspoonful of
salt and one of pepper. Set aside in a cold place.
2 bunches of white crisp celery, also cut into small pieces. Toss up
lightly with the lobster.
_Dressing._
2 large table-spoonfuls of butter.
1½ large table-spoonfuls of flour or corn-starch.
1 pint boiling water.
Stir the flour, previously wet, into the boiling water; let it boil two
minutes and add the butter. Boil one minute longer and set aside to
cool. Meantime, mix well and smoothly.
1 large table-spoonful of mustard.
1 teaspoonful of sugar—(powdered).
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 table-spoonful boiling water.
1 small cup of vinegar.
Beat this up well, then add to the drawn butter—beat to a cream and
pour over the lobster.
Garnish the dish with celery tops and hard-boiled eggs.
It gives me great pleasure to present this receipt to those who, from
prejudice or taste, do not like the presence of salad oil in any dish.
I have known many who would not knowingly partake of salad, fricassee,
or ragoût, that had oil, in however small quantity, as one of its
ingredients. And
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