Part 13

4 ounces butter. 1 tablespoonful flour. 2 anchovies. 1 teaspoonful chopped capers, or nasturtium seed, or green pickle. 1 shallot. Pepper and salt to taste. 1 tablespoonful vinegar. 1 teacupful hot water.

Put the water into the inner saucepan, chop the anchovies and shallot, and put in with the pepper and salt. Boil two minutes, and strain back into the saucepan when you have rinsed with hot water. Now add the flour wet smooth with cold water, and stir until it thickens; put in the butter by degrees, and when it is thoroughly melted and mixed, the vinegar; lastly, the capers and a little nutmeg.

WHITE SAUCE FOR FISH. ✠

Make drawn butter by receipt No. 2, but with double the quantity of flour, and use, instead of water, the liquor in which the fish was boiled. Add four tablespoonfuls of milk, in which a shallot and a head of celery or a pinch of celery-seed has been boiled, then strained out. Boil one minute, and stir in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

OYSTER SAUCE. ✠

1 pint oysters. Half a lemon. 2 tablespoonfuls butter. 1 tablespoonful flour. 1 teacupful milk or cream. Cayenne and nutmeg to taste.

Stew the oysters in their own liquor five minutes, and add the milk. When this boils, strain the liquor and return to the saucepan. Thicken with the flour when you have wet it with cold water; stir it well in; put in the butter, next the cayenne (if you like it), boil one minute; squeeze in the lemon-juice, shake it around well, and pour out.

_Or,_

Drain the oysters dry without cooking at all; make the sauce with the liquor and other ingredients just named. Chop the raw oysters, and stir in when you do the butter; boil five minutes, and pour into the tureen. Some put in the oysters whole, considering that the sauce is handsomer than when they are chopped.

Oyster sauce is used for boiled halibut, cod, and other fish, for boiled turkey, chickens, and white meats generally.

CRAB SAUCE.

1 crab, boiled and cold. 4 tablespoonfuls of milk. 1 teacupful drawn butter. Cayenne, mace, and salt to taste.

Make the drawn butter as usual, and stir in the milk. Pick the meat from the crab, chop very fine, season with cayenne, mace, and salt to taste; stir into the drawn butter. Simmer three minutes, but do not boil.

Lobster sauce is very nice made as above, with the addition of a teaspoonful of made mustard and the juice of half a lemon. This is a good fish sauce.

ANCHOVY SAUCE.

6 anchovies. A teacupful drawn butter. A wineglass pale Sherry.

Soak the anchovies in cold water two hours; pull them to pieces, and simmer in just enough water to cover them for half an hour. Strain the liquor into the drawn butter (No. 3), boil a minute, add the wine; heat gradually to a boil, and stew five minutes longer. You may substitute two teaspoonfuls of anchovy paste for the little fish themselves.

Serve with boiled fish.

SAUCE FOR LOBSTERS.

5 tablespoonfuls fresh butter. Teacupful vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste, with a heaping teaspoonful white sugar. 1 teaspoonful made mustard. Minced parsley.

Beat the butter to a cream, adding gradually the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Boil a bunch of parsley five minutes, chop small; beat into the butter; lastly the sugar and mustard. The butter must be light as whipped egg.

BREAD SAUCE.

1 pint milk. 1 cup bread-crumbs (very fine). 1 onion, sliced. A pinch of mace. Pepper and salt to taste. 3 tablespoonfuls butter.

Simmer the sliced onion in the milk until tender; strain the milk and pour over the bread-crumbs, which should be put into a saucepan. Cover and soak half an hour; beat smooth with an egg-whip, add the seasoning and butter; stir in well, boil up once, and serve in a tureen. If it is too thick, add boiling water and more butter.

This sauce is for roast poultry. Some people add some of the gravy from the dripping-pan, first straining it and beating it well in with the sauce.

WHITE CELERY SAUCE.

2 large heads of celery. 1 teacupful of broth in which the fowl is boiled. 1 teacupful cream or milk. Salt and nutmeg. Heaping tablespoonful flour, and same of butter.

Boil the celery tender in salted water; drain, and cut into bits half an inch long. Thicken the gravy from the fowl—a teacupful—with the flour; add the butter, salt, and nutmeg, then the milk. Stir and beat until it is smooth; put in the celery; heat almost to boiling, stirring all the while; serve in a tureen, or, if you prefer, pour it over the boiled meat or fowls.

ONION SAUCE.

4 white onions. 1 teacupful hot milk. 3 tablespoonfuls butter. Salt and pepper to taste.

Peel the onions, boil tender, press the water from them, and mince fine. Have ready the hot milk in a saucepan; stir in the onions, then the butter, salt, and pepper. Boil up once.

If you want to have it particularly good, make nice melted or drawn butter (No. 3); beat the mashed onion into it; add a teacupful of cream or new milk, season, boil up, and serve.

MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL SAUCE. ✠

1 teacupful drawn butter. 1 teaspoonful minced parsley. 1 lemon. Cayenne and salt to taste.

Draw the butter (No. 2); boil the parsley three minutes; take it out and lay in cold water five minutes, to cool; chop and stir into the butter; squeeze in the lemon-juice, the pepper and salt; beat hard with an egg-whip, return to the fire, and boil up once.

This is a “stock” sauce, being suitable for so many dishes, roast or boiled.

MINT SAUCE FOR ROAST LAMB.

2 tablespoonfuls green mint, chopped fine. 1 tablespoonful powdered sugar. Half a teacupful cider vinegar.

Chop the mint, put the sugar and vinegar in a sauce boat, and stir in the mint. Let it stand in a cool place fifteen minutes before sending to table.

MUSHROOM SAUCE.

1 teacupful young mushrooms. 4 tablespoonfuls butter. 1 teacupful cream or milk. 1 teaspoonful flour. Nutmeg, mace, and salt to taste.

Stew the mushrooms in barely enough water to cover them until tender. Drain, but do not press them, and add the cream, butter, and seasoning. Stew over a bright fire, stirring all the while until it begins to thicken. Add the flour wet in cold milk, boil up and serve in a boat, or pour over boiled chickens, rabbits, etc.

CAULIFLOWER SAUCE.

1 small cauliflower. 3 tablespoonfuls butter, cut in bits, and rolled in flour. 1 onion. 1 small head of celery. Mace, pepper, and salt. 1 teacupful water. 1 teacupful milk or cream.

Boil the cauliflower in two waters, changing when about half done, and throwing away the first, reserve a teacupful of the last. Take out the cauliflower, drain and mince. Cook in another saucepan the onion and celery, mincing them when tender. Heat the reserved cupful of water again in a saucepan, add the milk; when warm put in the cauliflower and onion, the butter and seasoning—coating the butter thickly with flour; boil until it thickens.

This is a delicious sauce for boiled corned beef and mutton.

ASPARAGUS SAUCE.

A dozen heads of asparagus. 2 teacupfuls drawn butter. 2 eggs. The juice of half a lemon. Salt and white pepper.

Boil the tender heads in a very little salted water. Drain and chop them. Have ready a pint of drawn butter, with two raw eggs beaten into it; add the asparagus, and season, squeezing in the lemon-juice last. The butter must be hot, but do not cook after putting in the asparagus heads. This accompanies boiled fowls, stewed fillet of veal, or boiled mutton.

APPLE SAUCE.

Pare, core, and slice some ripe tart apples, stew in water enough to cover them until they break to pieces. Beat up to a smooth pulp, stir in a good lump of butter, and sugar to taste.

Apple sauce is the invariable accompaniment of roast pork—or fresh pork cooked in any way. If you wish, you can add a little nutmeg.

PEACH SAUCE.

Soak a quart of dried peaches in water four hours. Wash them, rubbing them against one another by stirring around with a wooden spoon. Drain, and put into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Stew until they break to pieces. Rub to a soft smooth pulp, sweeten to taste with white sugar. Send to table cold, with roast game or other meats.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Wash and pick a quart of ripe cranberries, and put into a saucepan with a teacupful of water. Stew slowly, stirring often until they are thick as marmalade. They require at least an hour and a half to cook. When you take them from the fire, sweeten abundantly with white sugar. If sweetened while cooking, the color will be bad. Put them into a mould and set aside to get cold.

_Or,_ ✠

And this is a nicer plan—strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve, or coarse mosquito-net, into a mould wet with cold water. When firm, turn into a glass dish or salver. Be sure that it is sweet enough.

Eat with roast turkey, game, and roast ducks.

TO BROWN FLOUR.

Spread upon a tin plate, set upon the stove, or in a _very_ hot oven, and stir continually after it begins to color, until it is brown all through.

Keep it always on hand. Make it at odd minutes, and put away in a glass jar, covered closely. Shake up every few days to keep it light and prevent lumping.

TO BROWN BUTTER.

Put a lump of butter into a hot frying-pan, and toss it around over a clear fire until it browns. Dredge browned flour over it, and stir to a smooth batter until it begins to boil. Use it for coloring gravies, such as brown fricassees, etc.; or make into sauce for baked fish and fish-steaks, by beating in celery or onion vinegar, a _very_ little brown sugar and some cayenne.

CATSUPS AND FLAVORED VINEGARS.

MADE MUSTARD. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls best English mustard. 2 teaspoonfuls salt. 2 teaspoonfuls white sugar. 1 teaspoonful white pepper. 2 teaspoonfuls salad oil. Vinegar to mix to a smooth paste—celery or Tarragon vinegar if you have it. 1 small garlic, minced very small.

Put the mustard in a bowl and wet with the oil, rubbing it in with a silver or wooden spoon until it is absorbed. Wet with vinegar to a stiff paste; add salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic, and work all together thoroughly, wetting little by little with the vinegar until you can beat it as you do cake-batter. Beat five minutes very hard; put into wide-mouthed bottles—empty French mustard bottles, if you have them—pour a little oil on top, cork tightly, and set away in a cool place. It will be mellow enough for use in a couple of days.

Having used this mustard for years in my own family, I can safely advise my friends to undertake the trifling labor of preparing it in consideration of the satisfaction to be derived from the condiment. I mix in a Wedgewood mortar, with pestle of the same; but a bowl is nearly as good. It will keep for weeks.

HORSE-RADISH.

Scrape or grind, cover with vinegar, and keep in wide-mouthed bottles. To eat with roast beef and cold meats.

WALNUT CATSUP.

Choose young walnuts tender enough to be pierced with a pin or needle. Prick them in several places, and lay in a jar with a handful of salt to every twenty-five, and water enough to cover them. Break them with a billet of wood or wooden beetle, and let them lie in the pickle a fortnight, stirring twice a day. Drain off the liquor into a saucepan, and cover the shells with boiling vinegar to extract what juice remains in them. Crush to a pulp and strain through a cullender into the saucepan. Allow for every quart an ounce of black pepper and one of ginger, half an ounce of cloves and half an ounce of nutmeg, beaten fine. Put in a pinch of cayenne, a shallot minced fine for every _two_ quarts, and a thimbleful of celery-seed tied in a bag for the same quantity. Boil all together for an hour, if there be a gallon of the mixture. Bottle when cold, putting an equal quantity of the spice in each flask. Butternuts make delightful catsup.

MUSHROOM CATSUP.

2 quarts of mushrooms. ¼ lb. of salt.

Lay in an earthenware pan, in alternate layers of mushrooms and salt; let them lie six hours, then break into bits. Set in a cool place, three days, stirring thoroughly every morning. Measure the juice when you have strained it, and to every quart allow half an ounce of allspice, the same quantity of ginger, half a teaspoonful of powdered mace, a teaspoonful of cayenne. Put into a stone jar, cover closely, set in a saucepan of boiling water over the fire, and boil five hours _hard_. Take it off, empty into a porcelain kettle, and boil slowly half an hour longer. Let it stand all night in a cool place, until settled and clear. Pour off carefully from the sediment, and bottle, filling the flasks to the mouth. Dip the corks in melted rosin, and tie up with bladders.

The bottles should be very small, as it soon spoils when exposed to the air.

IMITATION WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE.

3 teaspoonfuls cayenne pepper. 2 tablespoonfuls walnut or tomato catsup (strained through muslin). 3 shallots minced fine. 3 anchovies chopped into bits. 1 quart of vinegar. Half-teaspoonful powdered cloves.

Mix and rub through a sieve. Put in a stone jar, set in a pot of boiling water, and heat until the liquid is so hot you can not bear your finger in it. Strain, and let it stand in the jar, closely covered, two days, then bottle for use.

OYSTER CATSUP.

1 quart oysters. 1 tablespoonful salt. 1 teaspoonful cayenne pepper, and same of mace. 1 teacupful cider vinegar. 1 teacupful sherry.

Chop the oysters and boil in their own liquor with a teacupful of vinegar, skimming the scum as it rises. Boil three minutes, strain through a hair-cloth; return the liquor to the fire, add the wine, pepper, salt, and mace. Boil fifteen minutes, and when cold bottle for use, sealing the corks.

TOMATO CATSUP. ✠

1 peck ripe tomatoes. 1 ounce salt. 1 ounce mace. 1 tablespoonful black pepper. 1 teaspoonful cayenne. 1 tablespoonful cloves (powdered). 7 tablespoonful ground mustard. 1 tablespoonful celery seed (tied in a thin muslin bag).

Cut a slit in the tomatoes, put into a bell-metal or porcelain kettle, and boil until the juice is all extracted and the pulp dissolved. Strain and press through a cullender, then through a hair sieve. Return to the fire, add the seasoning, and boil _at least_ five hours, stirring constantly for the last hour, and frequently throughout the time it is on the fire. Let it stand twelve hours in a stone jar on the cellar floor. When cold, add a pint of strong vinegar. Take out the bag of celery seed, and bottle, sealing the corks. Keep in a dark, cool place.

Tomato and walnut are the most useful catsups we have for general purposes, and either is in itself a fine sauce for roast meat, cold fowl, game, etc.

LEMON CATSUP.

12 large, fresh lemons. 4 tablespoonfuls white mustard-seed. 1 tablespoonful turmeric. 1 tablespoonful white pepper. 1 teaspoonful cloves. 1 teaspoonful mace. 1 saltspoonful cayenne. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls grated horse-radish. 1 shallot, minced fine. Juice of the lemons. 2 tablespoonfuls table-salt.

Grate the rind of the lemons; pound or grind the spices, and put all together, including the horse-radish. Strew the salt over all, add the lemon-juice, and let it stand three hours in a cool place. Boil in a porcelain kettle half an hour. Pour into a covered vessel—china or stone—and let it stand a fortnight, stirring well every day. Then strain, bottle, and seal.

It is a fine seasoning for fish sauces, fish soups, and game ragoûts.

“EVER-READY” CATSUP. ✠

2 quarts cider vinegar. 12 anchovies, washed, soaked, and pulled to pieces. 12 small onions, peeled and minced. 1 tablespoonful mace. 3 tablespoonfuls fine salt. 3 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 tablespoonful cloves. 3 tablespoonfuls whole black pepper. 2 tablespoonfuls ground ginger. 1 tablespoonful cayenne. 1 quart mushrooms, minced, _or_ 1 quart ripe tomatoes, sliced.

Put into a preserving kettle and boil slowly four hours, or until the mixture is reduced to one-half the original quantity. Strain through a flannel bag. Do not bottle until next day. Fill the flasks to the top, and dip the corks in beeswax and rosin.

This catsup will keep for years. Mixed with drawn butter, it is used as a sauce for boiled fish, but is a fine flavoring essence for gravies of almost any kind.

A GOOD STORE SAUCE.

2 tablespoonfuls horse-radish (grated). 1 tablespoonful allspice. A grated nutmeg. 3 large pickled onions (minced fine). 2 dozen whole black peppers. A pinch of cayenne. 1 tablespoonful salt. 1 tablespoonful white sugar. 1 quart vinegar from walnut or butternut pickle.

Mix all the spices well together; crush in a stone jar with a potato-beetle or billet of wood; pour the vinegar upon these, and let it stand two weeks. Put on in a porcelain or clean bell-metal kettle and heat to boiling; strain and set aside until next day to cool and settle. Bottle and cork very tightly. It is an excellent seasoning for any kind of gravy, sauce, or stew.

MOCK CAPERS. ✠

Gather green nasturtium seed when they are full-grown, but not yellow; dry for a day in the sun; put into small jars or wide-mouthed bottles, cover with boiling vinegar, slightly spiced, and when cool, cork closely. In six weeks they will be fit for use. They give an agreeable taste to drawn butter for fish, or boiled beef and mutton.

CELERY VINEGAR.

A bunch of fresh celery, _or_ A quarter of a pound of celery seed. 1 quart best vinegar. 1 teaspoonful salt. 1 tablespoonful white sugar.

Cut up the celery into small bits, or pour the seed into a jar; scald the salt and vinegar, and pour over the celery stalks or seed; let it cool, and put away in one large jar tightly corked. In a fortnight strain and bottle in small flasks, corking tightly.

ONION VINEGAR.

6 large onions. 1 tablespoonful salt. 1 tablespoonful white sugar. 1 quart best vinegar.

Mince the onions, strew on the salt, and let them stand five or six hours. Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved, pour over the onions; put in a jar, tie down the cover, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.

ELDERBERRY CATSUP.

1 quart of elderberries. 1 quart of vinegar. 6 anchovies, soaked and pulled to pieces. Half a teaspoonful mace. A pinch of ginger. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 teaspoonful salt. 1 tablespoonful whole peppers.

Scald the vinegar and pour over the berries, which must be picked from the stalks and put into a large stone jar. Cover with a pane of glass, and set in the hot sun two days. Strain off the liquor, and boil up with the other ingredients, stirring often, one hour, keeping covered unless while stirring. Let it cool; strain and bottle.

This is used for flavoring brown gravies, soups, and ragoûts, and, stirred into browned butter, makes a good piquant sauce for broiled or baked fish.

PEPPER VINEGAR.

6 pods red peppers broken up. 3 dozen black pepper-corns. 2 tablespoonfuls white sugar. 1 quart of best vinegar.

Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved; pour over the pepper, put into a jar, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.

This is eaten with boiled fish and raw oysters, and is useful in the preparation of salads.

HORSE-RADISH VINEGAR.

6 tablespoonfuls scraped or grated horse-radish. 1 tablespoonful white sugar. 1 quart vinegar.

Scald the vinegar; pour boiling hot over the horseradish. Steep a week, strain and bottle.

SALADS.

“The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more equally distributed throughout the salad.”—_Chaptal, a French chemist._

The Spanish proverb says, “that to make a perfect salad, there should be a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together.”

SYDNEY SMITH’S RECEIPT FOR SALAD DRESSING.

Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve, Softness and smoothness to the salad give; Of mordant mustard take a single spoon— Distrust the condiment that bites too soon; Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault, To add a double quantity of salt. Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town; True taste requires it, and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs. Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce suspected, animate the whole; And lastly, in the flavored compound toss A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce. Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat! ’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat. Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.

At least twenty-five years ago I pasted the above doggerel in my scrap-book, and committed it to memory. The first salad I was ever trusted to compound was dressed in strict obedience to the directions of the witty divine, and to this day these seem to me pertinent and worthy of note. The anchovy sauce can be omitted if you like, and a spoonful of Harvey’s or Worcestershire substituted. This is best suited for chicken or turkey salad.

LOBSTER SALAD. ✠

Pick out every bit of the meat from the body and claws of a cold boiled lobster. Lay aside the coral for the dressing, and mince the rest. For the dressing you will need—

4 eggs, boiled hard. 2 tablespoonfuls salad oil. 1 teaspoonful made mustard. 1 teaspoonful salt. 2 teaspoonfuls white sugar. ½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper. _Vinegar at discretion._ 1 teaspoonful of Harvey’s, Worcestershire, or anchovy sauce.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste in a mortar or bowl, with a Wedgewood pestle, a silver or wooden spoon, until _perfectly_ free from lumps. Add gradually, rubbing all the while, the other ingredients, the coral last. This should have been worked well upon a plate with a silver knife or wooden spatula. Proceed slowly and carefully in the work of amalgamating the various ingredients, moistening with vinegar as they stiffen. Increase the quantity of this as the mixture grows smooth, until it is thin enough to pour over the minced lobster. You will need a teacupful at least. Toss with a silver fork and do not break the meat. Some mix chopped lettuce with the salad; but unless it is to be eaten within a few minutes, the vinegar will wither the tender leaves. The better plan is to heap a glass dish with the inner leaves of several lettuce-heads, laying pounded ice among them, and pass with the lobster, that the guests may add the green salad to their taste.

When lettuce is out of season, the following dressing, the receipt for which was given me by a French gourmand, may be used.

Prepare the egg and coral as above, with the condiments there mentioned, but mix with the lobster-meat four tablespoonfuls of fine white cabbage, chopped small, with two small onions, also minced into almost invisible bits, a teaspoonful of anchovy or other sauce, and a tablespoonful of celery vinegar.

All lobster salad should be eaten as soon as possible after the dressing is added, else it becomes unwholesome. If you use canned lobster, open and turn out the contents of the can into a china dish several hours before you mix the dressing, that the close, airless smell may pass away.

Garnish the edges of the dish with cool white leaves of curled lettuce, or with a chain of rings made of the whites of the boiled eggs.

EXCELSIOR LOBSTER SALAD WITH CREAM DRESSING. ✠