Chapter 3

A bunch of parsley, and a leaf Of ever verdant bay, Two cloves,--I make my language brief,-- Then add your peas you may; And let it simmer till it sings In a delicious strain; Then take your duck, nor let the strings For trussing it remain.

The parsley fail not to remove, Also the leaf of bay; Dish up your duck,--the sauce improve In the accustom'd way, With pepper, salt, and other things I need not here explain; And if the dish contentment brings, You'll dine with me again.

FOWL À LA HOLLANDAISE.

Our courtier walks from dish to dish, Tastes from his friends of _fowl_ and fish, Tells all their names, lays down the law, "Que ça est bon." "Ah! goutez ça." POPE.

Make a forcemeat of grated bread, half its quantity of minced suet, an onion, or a few oysters and some boiled parsley, season with pepper, salt, and grated lemon-peel, and an egg beaten up to bind it. Bone the breast of a good sized young fowl, put in the forcemeat, cover the fowl with a piece of white paper buttered, and roast it half an hour; make a thick batter of flour, milk, and eggs, take off the paper, and pour some of the batter over the fowl; as soon as it becomes dry, add more, and do this till it is all crusted over and a nice brown color, serve it with melted butter and lemon pickle, or a thickened brown gravy.

BOILED TURKEY.

But man, cursed man, on _turkeys_ preys, And Christmas shortens all our days. Sometimes with oysters we combine, Sometimes assist the savory chine. From the low peasant to the lord, The _turkey_ smokes on every board. GAY.

Make a stuffing of bread, salt, pepper, nutmeg, lemon-peel, a few oysters, a bit of butter, some suet, and an egg; put this into the crop, fasten up the skin, and boil the turkey in a floured cloth to make it very white. Have ready some oyster sauce made rich with butter, a little cream, and a spoonful of soy, and serve over the turkey.

DEVILLED TURKEY.

And something's here with name uncivil, For our cook christens it "_A Devil_," "_A Devil_, in any shape, sweet maid, A parson fears not," Syntax said; "I'll make him minced meat; 'tis my trade."

Take cold roast turkey legs, score them well, season them with salt and plenty of cayenne pepper and mustard, then broil them. Serve them _hot_.

CAPON.

In good roast beef my landlord sticks his knife, The _capon_ fat delights his dainty wife. GAY.

Take a quart of white wine, season the capon with salt, cloves, and whole pepper, a few shallots, and then put the capon in an earthen pan; you must take care it has not room to shake; it must be covered close, and done over a slow charcoal fire.

CHICKEN CROQUETTES.

Gargilius, sleek, voluptuous lord, A hundred dainties smoke upon his board; Earth, air, and ocean ransack'd for the feast, In masquerade of foreign olios dress'd. WARTON.

Reduce two spoonfuls of veloute or sauce tournée, and add to the yolks of four eggs; put to this the white meat of a chicken, minced very small, and well mixed with the sauce; take it out, and roll it into balls, about the size of a walnut; roll them in breadcrumbs, giving them an elongated form; then beat them in some well-beaten egg; bread them again, and fry them of a light brown.

LEG OF MUTTON.

But hang it, to poets, who seldom can eat, Your very good _mutton's_ a very good treat. GOLDSMITH.

Cut off the shank bone, and trim the knuckle, put it into lukewarm water for ten minutes, wash it clean, cover it with cold water, and let it simmer very gently, and skim it carefully; a leg of nine pounds will take two and a half or three hours, if you like it thoroughly done, especially in very cold weather.

The liquor the mutton is boiled in, you may convert into good soup in five minutes, and Scotch barley broth. Thus managed, a leg of mutton is a most economical joint.

TO CURE HAMS.

Or urged thereunto by the woes he endured, The way to be _smoked_, is the way to be _cured_. ANONYMOUS.

But to the fading palate bring relief, By the _Westphalian ham_ or Belgic beef. KING.

When the weather will permit, hang the ham three days; mix an ounce of saltpetre with one quarter of a pound of bay salt, ditto common salt, ditto of coarsest sugar, and a quart of strong beer; boil them together, and pour over immediately on the ham; turn it twice a day in the pickle for three weeks. An ounce of black pepper, ditto of pimento in finest powder, added to the above, will give still more flavor. Cover with bran when wiped, and smoke from three to four weeks, as you approve; the latter will make it harder, and more of the flavor of Westphalia. Sew hams in hessings, _i. e._ coarse wrapper, if to be smoked where there is a strong fire.

HAM PIES.

Each mortal has his pleasure; none deny Scarsdale his bottle, Darby his _ham pie_. DODSLEY.

Take two pounds of veal cutlets, cut them in middling sized pieces, season with pepper and a very little salt; likewise one of raw or dressed ham, cut in slices, lay it alternately in the dish, and put some forced or sausage meat at the top, with some stewed mushrooms, and the yolks of three eggs boiled hard, and a gill of water; then proceed as with rumpsteak pie.

N. B. The best end of a neck is the fine part for a pie, cut into chops, and the chine bone taken away.

ROASTED HARE.

Turkey and fowl, and ham and chine, On which the cits prefer to dine, With partridge, too, and eke a _Hare_, The luxuries of country fare, She nicely cooked with bounteous care.

Cut the skin from a hare that has been well soaked, put it on the spit, and rub it well with Madeira, pricking it in various places that it may imbibe plenty of wine; cover it entirely with a paste, and roast it. When done, take away the paste, rub it quickly over with egg, sprinkle breadcrumbs, and baste it gently with butter (still keeping it turning before the fire), until a crust is formed over it, and it is of a nice brown color; dish it over some espagnole with Madeira wine boiled in it; two or three cloves may be stuck into the knuckles, if you think proper.

FRICASEED RABBITS.

Your _rabbits fricaseed_ and chicken, With curious choice of dainty picking, Each night got ready at the Crown, With port and punch to wash 'em down. LLOYD.

Take two fine white rabbits, and cut them in pieces; blanch them in boiling water, and skim them for one minute; stir a few trimmings of mushrooms in a stewpan over the fire, with a bit of butter, till it begins to fry, then stir in a spoonful of flour; mix into the flour, a little at a time, nearly a quart of good consommé, which set on the fire, and when it boils put the rabbits in, and let them boil gently till done; then put them in another stewpan, and reduce the sauce till nearly as thick as paste; mix in about half a pint of good boiling cream, and when it becomes the thickness of bechamelle sauce in general, squeeze it through the tammy to the rabbits; make it very hot, put in a few mushrooms, the yolk of an egg, a little cream, and then serve it to table.

BIRDS.

TO ROAST PHEASANTS.

Little birds fly about with the _true pheasant taint_, And the geese are all born with the liver[56-*] complaint. MOORE.

Chop some fine raw oysters, omitting the head part, mix them with salt and nutmeg, and add some beaten yolk of egg to bind the other ingredients. Cut some very thin slices of cold ham or bacon, and cover the birds with them, then wrap them in sheets of paper well buttered, put them on the spit, and roast them before a clear fire.

TO ROAST ORTOLANS.

With all the luxury of statesmen dine, On daily feasts of _ortolans_ and wine. CAWTHORN.

Put into every bird an oyster, or a little butter mixed with some finely sifted breadcrumbs. Dredge them with flour. Run a small skewer through them, and tie them on the spit. Baste them with lard or fresh butter. They will be done in ten minutes. Reed birds are very fine made into little dumplings with a thin crust of flour and butter, and boiled about twenty minutes. Each must be tied in a separate cloth.

WOODCOCKS.

And as for your juries--who would not set o'er them A jury of tasters, with _woodcocks_ before them? MOORE.

Woodcocks should not be drawn, as the trail is by the lovers of "haut gout" considered a "bonne bouche." Truss their legs close to the body, and run an iron skewer through each thigh, and put them to roast before the fire; toast a slice of bread for each bird, lay them in the dripping-pan under the bird to catch the trail; baste them with butter, and froth them with flour; lay the toast on a hot dish, and the birds on the toast; pour some good beef gravy into the dish, and send some up in a boat. Twenty or thirty minutes will roast them. Some epicures like this bird very much underdone, and direct that the woodcock should be just introduced to the cook, for her to show it to the fire, then send it to table.

BIRDS POTTED.

"It tastes of the _bird_, however," said the old woman, "and she cooked the _rail of the fence_ on which the crow had been sitting."

When birds have come a great way, they often smell so bad that they can scarcely be borne from the rankness of the butter, by managing them in the following manner, they may be as good as ever. Set a large saucepan of clean water on the fire, when it boils take off the butter at the top, then take the fowls out one by one, throw them in the saucepan of water half a minute, whip it out, and dry it in a cloth inside and out, continue till they are all done; scald the pot clean, when the birds are quite cold, season them with mace, pepper, and salt according to taste, put them down close in a pot, and pour clarified butter over them.

LARKS.

What say you, lads? is any spark Among you ready for a _lark_? MOORE.

These delicate little birds are in high season in November. When they are thoroughly picked, gutted, and cleansed, truss them; do them over with the yolk of an egg, and then roll them in breadcrumbs; spit them on a lark spit; ten or fifteen minutes will be sufficient time to roast them in, before a quick fire; whilst they are roasting, baste them with fresh butter, and sprinkle them with breadcrumbs till they are well covered with them. Fry some grated bread in butter. Set it to drain before the fire, that it may harden; serve the crumbs in the dish under the larks, and garnish with slices of lemon.

FOOTNOTES:

[56-*] The process by which the liver of the unfortunate goose is enlarged, in order to produce that richest of all dainties, _the foie gras_, of which such renowned pâtés are made at Strasbourg and Toulouse, is thus described in the "Cours Gastronomique:" "On deplumes l'estomac des oies; on attache ensuite ces animaux aux chenets d'une cheminée, et on le nourrit devant le feu. La captivité et la chaleur donnent a ces volatiles une maladie hepatique, qui fait gonfler leur foie."

MISCELLANEOUS.

STUFFING FOR VEAL.

Poor Roger Fowler, who'd a generous mind, Nor would submit to have his hand confined, But aimed at all,--yet never could excel In anything but _stuffing of his veal_.

Good stuffing has always been considered a chief thing in cookery. Mince a quarter of a pound of beef suet or marrow, the same weight of breadcrumbs, two drachms of parsley leaves, a drachm and a half of sweet marjoram or lemon thyme, and the same of grated lemon-peel and onion chopped as fine as possible, a little pepper and salt; pound thoroughly together with the yolk and white of two eggs, and secure it in the veal with a skewer, or sew it in with a bit of thread.

FORCEMEAT BALLS.

And own they gave him a lively notion, What his own _forced meat balls_ would be. MOORE.

Take an equal quantity of lean veal scraped, and beef suet shred, beat them in a marble mortar, add pepper, salt, cloves, pounded lemon-peel, and nutmeg grated, parsley, and sweet herbs chopped fine, a little shallot and young onion, a few breadcrumbs grated fine, and yolk of egg, sufficient to work it light; roll this into balls with a little flour, and fry them.

VOL AU VENT.

Boy, tell the cook I love all nicknackeries, Fricasees, _vol au vents_, puffs, and gimcrackeries. MOORE.

Roll off tart paste till about the eighth of an inch thick, then with a tin cutter made for that purpose cut out the shape (about the size of the bottom of the dish you intend sending to table), lay it on a baking-plate with paper, rub the paste over with the yolk of an egg. Roll out good puff paste an inch thick, stamp it with the same cutter, and lay it on the tart paste; then take a cutter two sizes smaller, and press it in the centre nearly through the puff paste; rub the top with yolk of egg, and bake it in a quick oven about twenty minutes, of a light-brown color when done; take out the paste inside the centre mark, preserving the top, put it on a dish in a warm place, and when wanted fill it with a white fricasee of chicken, rabbit, ragout of sweetbread, or any other entree you wish. Serve hot.

OYSTER PATTIE.

_De Beringhen._ In the next room there's a delicious pâté, let's discuss it.

_Baradas._ Pshaw! a man filled with a sublime ambition has no time to discuss your pâtés.

_De Beringhen._ Pshaw! and a man filled with as sublime a pâté has no time to discuss ambition. Gad, I have the best of it. BULWER'S RICHELIEU.

Beard a quart of fine oysters, strain the liquor and add them to it. Cut into thin slices the kidney-fat of a loin of veal; season them with white pepper, salt, mace, and grated lemon-peel; lay them on the bottom of a pie-dish, put in the oysters and liquor, with a little more seasoning; put over them the marrow of two bones. Lay a border of puff paste around the edge of the dish, cover it with paste, and bake it nearly three quarters of an hour.

PATTIES FOR FRIED BREAD.

Seducing young pâtés, as ever could cozen One out of one's appetite, down by the dozen. MOORE.

Cut the crumb of a loaf of bread into square or round pieces, nearly three inches high, and cut bits the same width for tops. Mark them neatly with a knife; fry the bread of a light-brown color in clarified beef-dripping or fine lard; scoop out the inside crumb; take care not to go too near the bottom; fill them with mince-meat prepared as for patties, with stewed oysters or with sausage meat; put on the tops, and serve them on a napkin.

MACARONI GRATIN.

Where so ready all nature its cookery yields, _Macaroni au Parmesan_ grows in the fields. MOORE.

Lay fried bread pretty closely round a dish; boil your macaroni in the usual way, and pour it into the dish; smooth it all over, and strew breadcrumbs on it, then a pretty thick layer of grated Parmesan cheese; drop a little melted butter on it, and put it in the oven to brown.

TRUFFLES.

What will not _Luxury taste_? _Earth_, sea and air Are daily ransacked for the bill of fare. GAY.

The truffle, like the mushroom, is a species of fungus, common in France and Italy; it is generally about eight to ten inches below the surface of the ground. As it imparts a most delicious flavor, it is much used in cookery.

Being dug out of the earth, it requires a great deal of washing and brushing. It loses much of its flavor when dried.

TO STEW MUSHROOMS.

Muse, sing the man that did to Paris go, That he might taste their soups and _mushrooms_ know. KING.

Take a pint of white stock; season it with salt, pepper, and a little lemon pickle, thicken it with a bit of butter rolled in flour; clean and peel the mushrooms, sprinkle them with a very little salt, boil them for three minutes; put them into the gravy when it is hot, and stew them for fifteen minutes.

SAUCES.

MUSHROOM KETCHUP.

If you please, I'll taste your tempting toasted cheese, Broiled ham, and nice _mushroom'd ketchup_.

If you love good ketchup, gentle reader, make it yourself, after the following directions, and you will have a delicious relish for made dishes, ragouts, soup, sauces, or hashes. Mushroom gravy approaches the nature and flavor of made gravy, more than any vegetable juice, and is the superlative substitute for it; in meagre soups and extempore gravies, the chemistry of the kitchen has yet contrived to agreeably awaken the palate and encourage the appetite.

A couple quarts of double ketchup, made according to the following receipt, will save you some score pounds of meat, besides a vast deal of time and trouble, as it will furnish, in a few minutes, as good sauce as can be made for either fish, flesh, or fowl. I believe the following is the best way for preparing and extracting the essence of mushrooms, so as to procure and preserve their flavor for a considerable length of time.

Look out for mushrooms, from the beginning of September. Take care of the right sort and fresh gathered. Full-grown flaps are to be preferred. Put a layer of these at the bottom of a deep earthen pan, and sprinkle them with salt; then another layer of mushrooms, and some more salt on them, and so on, alternately, salt and mushrooms; let them remain two or three hours, by which time the salt will have penetrated the mushrooms, and rendered them easy to break; then pound them in a mortar, or mash them well with your hands, and let them remain for a couple of days, not longer, stirring them up, and mashing them well each day; then pour them into a stone jar, and to each quart add an ounce and a half of whole black pepper, and half an ounce of allspice; stop the jar very close, and set in a stewpan of boiling water, and keep it boiling for two hours at least.

Take out the jar, and pour the juice, clear from the settlings, through a hair sieve (without squeezing the mushrooms), into a clean stewpan; let it boil very gently for half an hour. Those who are for superlative ketchup, will continue the boiling till the mushroom juice is reduced to half the quantity. There are several advantages attending this concentration: it will keep much better, and only half the quantity required; so you can flavor sauce, &c., without thinning it; neither is this an extravagant way of making it, for merely the aqueous part is evaporated. Skim it well, and pour it into a clean dry jar or jug; cover it close, and let it stand in a cool place till next day; then pour it off as gently as possible (so as not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the jug), through a tamis or thick flannel bag, till it is perfectly clear; add a tablespoonful of good brandy to each pint of ketchup, and let it stand as before; a fresh sediment will be deposited, from which the ketchup is to be quietly poured off and bottled in pints or half pints (which have been washed in brandy or spirits). It is best to keep it in such quantities as are soon used.

Take especial care that it is closely corked and sealed down. If kept in a cool dry place, it may be preserved for a long time; but if it be badly corked, and kept in a damp place, it will soon spoil.

Examine it from time to time, by placing a strong light behind the neck of the bottle, and if any pellicle appears about it, boil it up again with a few peppercorns.

SUPERLATIVE SAUCE.

Who praises, in this _sauce enamor'd_ age, Calm, healthful temperance, like an Indian sage? WARTON.

Claret or Port wine and mushroom ketchup, a pint of each; half a pint of walnut or other pickle liquor; pounded anchovies, four ounces; fresh lemon-peel, pared very thin, an ounce; peeled and sliced eschalots, the same; scraped horseradish, ditto; allspice and black pepper, powdered, half an ounce each; cayenne, one drachm, or curry powder, three drachms; celery seed, bruised, one drachm; all avoirdupois weight. Put these into a wide-mouthed bottle, stop it close, shake it every day for a fortnight, and strain it (when some think it improved by the addition of a quarter of a pint of soy or thick browning), and you will have "a delicious double relish." Dr. Kitchener says, this composition is one of the chefs d'oeuvres of many experiments he has made, for the purpose of enabling good housewives to prepare their own sauces; it is equally agreeable with fish, game, poultry, or ragouts, &c.; and as a fair lady may make it herself, its relish will be not a little augmented, that all the ingredients are good and wholesome.

_Obs._ Under an infinity of circumstances, a cook may be in want of the substances necessary to make sauce; the above composition of the several articles from which the various gravies derive their flavor, will be found a very admirable extemporaneous substitute. By mixing a large tablespoonful with a quarter of a pint of thickened melted butter, or broth, five minutes will finish a boat of very relishing sauce, nearly equal to drawn gravy, and as likely to put your lingual nerves into good humor as anything I know.

MINT SAUCE.

"Live bullion," says merciless Bob, "which I think Would, if coined with a little _mint sauce_, be delicious." MOORE.

Wash half a handful of nice, young, fresh-gathered green mint (to this add one-third the quantity of parsley), pick the leaves from the stalks, mince them very fine, and put them into a sauce-boat, with a teaspoonful of moist sugar and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Our fathers most admired their _sauces sweet_, And often asked for sugar _with their meat_. KING.

Wash a quart of ripe cranberries, and put them into a pan with just about a teacup of water; stew them slowly and stir them frequently, particularly after they begin to burst. They require a great deal of stewing, and should be like marmalade when done. When they are broken and the juice comes out, stir in a pound of white sugar. When they are thoroughly done, put them into a deep dish, and set them away to get cold. You may strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve into a mould, and when it is a firm shape send it to table.

Cranberry sauce is eaten with roast fowl, turkey, &c.

CAPER SAUCE.

Along these shores Neglected trade with difficulty toils, Collecting slender stores; the sun-dried grape, Or _capers_ from the rock, that prompt the taste Of luxury. DYER.

To make a quarter of a pint, take a tablespoonful of capers and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. The present fashion of cutting capers is to mince one-third of them very fine, and divide the others in half; put them into a quarter of a pint of melted butter, or good thickened gravy; stir them the same way as you did the melted butter, or it will oil. Some boil and mince fine a few leaves of parsley or chevrel or tarragon, and add to the sauce; others, the juice of half a Seville orange or lemon.

VEGETABLES.

Grateful and salutary Spring! the _plants_ Which crown thy numerous gardens, and invite To health and temperance, in the simple meal, Unstain'd with murder, undefil'd with blood, Unpoison'd with rich sauces, to provoke The unwilling appetite to gluttony. For this, the _bulbous esculents_ their roots With sweetness fill; for this, with cooling juice The green herb spreads its _leaves_; and opening _buds_ And _flowers_ and _seeds_ with various flavors tempts Th' ensanguined palate from its savage feast. DODSLEY.