Chapter 3

=Kidney, Sautéed.=--Cut up half an onion; brown it in a pan with an ounce of butter. Slice a calf's kidneys; toss about over a slow fire in the pan; add salt and pepper, a pint of red or white wine, and one piece of cut sugar. Simmer until tender; dissolve a teaspoonful of flour in cold water; add to the dish. Toast a few slices of bread; trim them neatly; place them on a dish; pour the kidneys over them, and serve.

A few mushrooms cut up and strewn over the dish will be appreciated by many.

=Lamb Chops with French Peas.=--Dainty lamb chops require but a moment's cooking, and, unless care be taken, will dry quickly over the fire; they should be turned repeatedly, and, when done, seasoned with pepper, salt, and the sweetest of sweet butter.

Arrange a mound of peas in the centre of a dish; place the chops around this, and serve. The peas should be cooked as follows: Open a small can of imported peas; drain off the liquid; melt an ounce of butter in a pan, and when it creams, add the peas: shake the pan to prevent burning; add pepper and salt. When the peas are heated through they require no longer cooking, and should be served at once.

The great mistake made by many cooks in cooking canned peas is that they allow them to remain too long on the fire, which spoils them, as they are already cooked, and simply require heating.

=Minced Turkey with Poached Eggs.=--A very appetizing dish is made of cold boiled or roast turkey. Trim off all skin and most of the fat, especially on the back; pick out the little tid-bits in the recesses; cut off all that will not look neat when sliced cold. Season with salt and pepper, and a tablespoonful or two of minced celery; chop up the meat; put it in a pan with a little butter or turkey fat, to prevent burning, and just a suspicion of onion; moisten with a little broth made from the turkey bones. Poach one or two eggs for each person; arrange the minced meat neatly on slices of buttered toast; place the egg on top, and serve.

The above mode of preparing a breakfast dish is not only economical, but is one of the most delightful dishes that can be produced; almost any kind of boiled or roast meat, poultry, or game can be utilized in this way.

=Mushrooms on Toast.=--Peel a quart of mushrooms; cut off a little of the root end; now take half a pound of round steak, and cut it up fine and fry it in a pan with a little butter, to extract the juice, which, being done, remove the pieces of steak. When the gravy is very hot add the mushrooms; toss them about for a moment, and pour the contents of the pan on buttered toast; season with salt and cayenne. Some add a little sherry to the dish before removing from the range.

=Mutton Chops with Fried Tomatoes and Sauce.=--Select four nice rib chops; have them trimmed neatly by the dealer; take hold of the end of the rib, and dip the chops a moment in hot fat, in which you are to fry them; now roll them in fine cracker crumbs, and shake off the surplus; dip them in egg, again in the crumbs, and drop them into boiling fat. Remove when brown.

=Fried Tomatoes.=--Select three smooth, medium-sized, well-filled tomatoes; cut into slices half an inch thick; dredge them with flour or roll in egg and crumbs, and fry (or, rather, _sautée_) in a small quantity of hot fat, turning and cooking both sides evenly. Have prepared the following sauce: Add to a pint of milk a tablespoonful of flour, one beaten egg, salt, pepper, and a very little mace. Cream an ounce of butter; whisk into it the milk, and let it simmer until it thickens; pour the sauce on a hot side dish; arrange the tomatoes in the centre, and add the chops opposite each other, and serve.

Plain broiled or papered chops may be served in this way.

=Oysters, Broiled.=--Rub the bars of a wire broiler with a little sweet butter; dry twelve large, plump oysters in a napkin, and place them on the broiler; brush a little butter over them, and broil over a fire free from flame and smoke. When done on both sides, arrange them neatly on toast; pour a little well-seasoned melted butter over them, and serve.

Do not bread-crumb oysters intended for broiling.

=Pork and Beans.=--To call this homely Yankee dish a "dainty" may surprise many; but, when properly prepared, it may well be called so.

Wash a quart of small white beans in cold water; pick them over while in the water; reject all imperfect beans; drain; cover with fresh cold water, and let them soak over night. Next morning change the water twice; then put them in a large iron pot; add a liberal quantity of cold water, and simmer them slowly for four hours. Pour them into a colander carefully to drain. Heat an old-fashioned beanpot with hot water, and wipe it dry; place a small piece of pork in the pot, and add the beans to within two inches of the top; now place a small piece of pork (properly scored on its rind) on the beans. Dissolve a tablespoonful of black molasses in a pint of warm water; add half a teaspoonful of salt and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, and pour this over the beans; place the pot in a moderate oven, and bake for three hours, at the end of which time take them out, and add a little more warm water, to prevent them from becoming too dry. Bake for three hours longer, and serve with hot Boston brown bread.

The old-fashioned manner of preparing this dish was to place all the pork on top, the result being that the first few spoonfuls of beans contained all the pork fat, while the remainder had not been seasoned by it.

The above recipe distributes the pork fat evenly through the beans, as it is lighter than water, and naturally rises; and for this reason only half the usual quantity of pork is required to produce the desired result.

=Reed Birds.=--The average French cook cannot understand why these "lumps of sweetness" do not require long cooking and elaborate sauces to make them palatable, and these cooks invariably spoil them. Pluck and draw the birds, leaving the heads on. Put into a frying-pan an ounce of sweet butter; when hot, add six birds; toss them about to cook evenly; add a little salt and pepper; let them remain over the fire for about three minutes, and serve on a hot dish.

To cook them in large quantities, as they are prepared by the gunners at their club-houses along the Delaware, proceed as follows: Clean them properly; arrange them in a baking-tin; add a liberal quantity of butter, salt, and pepper; put the pan in the oven. At the end of five minutes turn them with a long-handled spoon, let them cook five minutes longer, and serve.

An excellent way to serve them at late breakfast-parties is as follows: Pluck and draw the birds, and remove their heads. Take a few large long potatoes; cut them in two crosswise; scrape out part of the inside; place a bird in each half of potato; press the halves together, tie them with twine, and bake until the potatoes are done. Remove the common twine and tie them up again with narrow tape or ribbon. Send to table on a napkin.

=Salt Codfish, Broiled.=--Cut from a medium-sized salt codfish three pieces about two inches square; split each piece in two, and soak in water over night; change the water two or three times. Next morning rinse the pieces in fresh cold water, and drain and dry in a napkin; brush a little butter over each, and broil. When done, pour over them melted butter seasoned with pepper and lemon juice.

=Sardines, Broiled.=--Open a can of sardines, and remove the fish without breaking them; scrape off the skin and split them, if large; put them between a double wire broiler, and broil both sides nicely. Squeeze a little lemon and orange juice over them before serving.

=Sauce Tartare.=--Chop together one small pickle, a dozen capers, and a few sprigs of parsley and a very small piece of onion; to these add half a pint of Mayonnaise and a teaspoonful of French mustard.

=Sausages.=--A disagreeable feature of sausages, when cooked in the ordinary manner, is that the spattering fat covers the range, and the ascending smoke pervades the whole house. This may be avoided by putting them in a baking-pan and cooking them in the oven. Ten minutes is sufficient to cook a pound of country sausages, provided the oven be quite hot. They are excellent when split in two and broiled; serve hot or cold apple sauce with them. Apple fritters also are acceptable with sausages.

=Smelts, Broiled.=--Clean thoroughly six medium-sized smelts; split them down the back; rub a little oil over them; place them on a double broiler, and broil. When done, serve with _sauce tartare_ (which see).

=Smelts, Fried.=--Thoroughly clean the smelts, leaving the heads on; dip them in beaten egg; roll them in fine cracker dust, and fry in very hot fat; garnish with parsley and lemons, quartered, and send to table with =sauce tartare= (which see).

=Squabs= are very nice broiled, but are at their best served as follows;--Select a pair of plump birds; clean them, cut off the legs, and remove the heads without breaking or tearing the neck skin; insert the forefinger in it, and separate the skin over the breast from the flesh; fill this with a nicely-seasoned bread stuffing, and fasten the loose end of the neck to the back. Place a thin wide slice of bacon over the breast, and fasten the ends with wooden toothpicks; put them in a pan; dredge with a little flour, and bake to a delicate brown; serve with fresh green peas.

Spring chicken may be treated in the same way.

=Steak, Tenderloin; Sauce Bearnaise.=--Cut a thick steak off the large end of a beef tenderloin; flatten it out a little; rub olive-oil or butter over it, and broil over a charcoal fire; place it on a hot dish, add a little pepper and salt, and serve with sauce Bearnaise.

=Sauce Bearnaise.=--Reduce a gallon of strong, clear soup to a quart by constant boiling. Beat up the yolks of four eggs; pour them into a buttered saucepan, and add gradually--whisking all the time--the reduced soup, a tablespoonful of strong garlic vinegar (or, if preferred, plain vinegar, and the expressed juice of garlic or shallots), pepper, salt, and a little lemon juice. Stir with a wooden spoon.

Care must be exercised not to add the soup while hot to the eggs, or it will curdle, and yet do not add it cold.

=Steak, Sirloin; Sauce Bordelaise.=--Select a steak cut from the best part of the sirloin; trim it neatly; rub a little oil over it, and broil over a charcoal fire; serve with the following sauce:

=Sauce Bordelaise= is easiest made as follows: Chop up one medium onion, or, better still, two shallots; fry them in butter until brown; add a pint of strong clear soup or beef gravy, half a pint of claret or white wine, salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; simmer, and if not quite thick enough add a little browned flour.

=Tomato Sauce.=--Open a can of Baldwin tomatoes, which contain but little liquid; simmer them gently for three quarters of an hour; season with salt, cayenne, a clove of garlic, bruised, and very little mace. Press them through a fine sieve; put the pulp in a clean, hot stewpan, with a little butter; stir to prevent burning, and, when quite thick, serve.

A most excellent tomato sauce is made of a brilliant red ketchup, known to dealers under the name of "Connoisseur Ketchup." Take half a pint of it; heat it gently; add a gill of rich soup-stock and a teaspoonful of flour dissolved in a little cold water; simmer until it thickens, and serve.

Ordinary ketchups do not have the proper color, and are likely to sour when heated.

=Tripe with Oysters.=--Tripe, when properly prepared by a simple process, is very nutritious and easily digested.

Cut up half a pound of well-washed tripe; simmer for three quarters of an hour in water slightly salted; take out the tripe; add to the broth a little butter rolled in flour, salt, and pepper; add a little more flour if not thick enough. Return the tripe and a dozen oysters; simmer for a few minutes longer, and serve.

=Tripe Lyonnaise.=--Cut up half a pound of cold boiled tripe into neat squares. Put two ounces of butter and a tablespoonful of chopped onion in a pan, and fry to a delicate brown; add the tripe, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, one of strong vinegar, salt, and cayenne; stir the pan to prevent burning. When done, cover the bottom of a hot dish with tomato sauce, add the contents of the pan to it, and serve.

=Veal Cutlet, Sauce Robert.=--Select two medium-sized veal steaks, or cut one large one in two; dip in beaten egg; roll in bread crumbs, and fry very well done in the hottest of hot fat; serve with _sauce Robert_, made as follows;--Fry a small onion brown; add to it a gill each of clear soup and white wine; simmer until brown; strain; return to the pan, and add a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar, half a teaspoonful of browned flour, and a tablespoonful of French mustard.

Cutlets or veal chops, broiled, may also be served with this sauce.

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