Part 28

4 calf’s feet, cleaned carefully. 4 quarts of water. 1 pint of wine. 3 cups of sugar—or sweeten to taste. Whites of 3 eggs, well beaten. 2 teaspoonfuls of nutmeg. Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.

Boil the calf’s feet in the water until it is reduced one half; strain the liquor, and let it stand ten or twelve hours. Skim off every particle of the fat, and remove the dregs; melt slowly in a porcelain or bell-metal kettle, add the seasoning, sugar, and the whipped whites of the eggs, and boil fast about twelve minutes, skimming well. Strain through a double flannel bag suspended between the four legs of an upturned high stool or backless chair, the bowl set beneath. Do not squeeze or shake it, until the jelly ceases to run freely; then slip out the bowl, and put under another, into which you may gently press what remains. The first will be the clearer jelly, although the second dripping will taste quite as well. Wet your moulds, put in the jelly, and set in a cool place.

There are still some housekeepers who insist that the jellies made from the modern gelatine are not comparable in beauty and flavor to those prepared from the genuine feet. Seeing means taste as well as belief with them, and when they handle and behold the beloved feet, they know what they are about. Gelatine, they will darkly and disgustfully assert, is made of horn-shavings and hoofs and the like, and no more fit to be used for cooking purposes than so much glue.

Nevertheless, while gelatine is so clean, bright, and convenient, housewives who find the days now but half as long as did their mothers, despite labor-saving machines, will turn a deaf ear to these alarmists, and escape the tedious process above-described by using the valuable substitute.

WINE JELLY. ✠

3 cups of sugar. 1 pint of wine—pale Sherry or White. 1 cup of cold water. 1 package Coxe’s gelatine. Juice of two lemons and grated peel of one. 1 quart of boiling water. 1 good pinch of cinnamon.

Soak the gelatine in the cold water one hour. Add to this the sugar, lemons, and cinnamon; pour over all a quart of boiling water, and stir until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Put in the wine, strain through a double flannel bag, without squeezing, wet your moulds with cold water, and set the jelly away in them to cool.

CIDER JELLY. ✠

May be made by the receipt just given, substituting a pint of clear, sweet cider for the wine.

Fever patients may use cider jelly when wine is forbidden, and they will find this both refreshing and nutritious.

BIRD’S NEST IN JELLY. ✠

1 quart of jelly, made according to either of the receipts just given, but with a cup less of boiling water, that it may be very firm. 3 cups of white blanc-mange. 9 empty eggshells. Fresh rinds of two oranges. 1 cup of sugar.

Cut the rind from the oranges in long narrow strips, and stew these gently in enough water to cover them until they are tender. Add to them a cup of sugar, and simmer fifteen minutes longer in the syrup. Lay them out upon a dish to cool, taking care not to break them. If you have preserved orange-peel in the house, it will save you the trouble of preparing this.

The blanc-mange should be made the day before you want it, and the eggshells filled. The original contents, yolk and white, should be poured out through a hole, not larger than a half-dime, in the small end, and the interior washed with pure water, shaken around well in them. Then fill with blanc-mange and set in a pan of flour or sugar—the open end up—that they may not be jostled or overturned.

Next morning fill a glass dish two-thirds full of the jelly, which should be very clear, reserving a large cupful. Break the shells from about the blanc-mange, and lay the artificial eggs upon the jelly so soon as the latter is firm enough to bear them. Pile them neatly, but not too high in the middle, bearing in mind that what is the top now will be the bottom when the jelly is turned out. Lay the orange peel which represents _straw_, over these and around them. Warm the reserved jelly, so that it will flow readily, but do not get it hot; pour over the straw and eggs, and set away in a cold place to form. When firm, turn out upon a glass dish or salver.

This pretty and fanciful dish is yet easily made. The materials are so simple and inexpensive, and the effect of the work, if deftly done, so pleasing, that I have no hesitation in calling the attention even of novices to it.

WINE JELLY (_boiled._)

1 box Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 pint of cold water one hour. 1 quart of boiling water poured over this, and stirred until the gelatine is dissolved. 1½ lb. white sugar. 2 lemons—juice and peel. 1 pint of wine.

Put all over the fire, boil up once well, and strain through a double flannel bag into moulds.

ORANGE JELLY. ✠

2 oranges—juice of both and grated rind of one. 1 lemon—juice and peel. 1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a very little water, one hour. 1 quart boiling water. 1½ cup sugar, and 1 small cup of wine. 1 good pinch of cinnamon.

Squeeze the juice of the fruit into a bowl, and put with them the grated peel and the cinnamon. Pour over them the boiling water, cover closely, and let them stand half an hour. Strain, add the sugar, let it come to a boil, stir in the gelatine, and, when this is well dissolved, take the saucepan from the fire. Strain through a double flannel bag into moulds.

VARIEGATED JELLY. ✠

1 quart of clear jelly. ½ teaspoonful prepared cochineal or red currant juice. 1 cup white blanc-mange.

Divide the jelly into two equal portions, and color one with a _very_ little prepared cochineal, leaving the other as it is, of a pale amber. Wet a mould with cold water and pour in a little of the latter. Set the mould in the ice, that the jelly may harden quickly, and so soon as it is firm pour in carefully some of the red. Set back upon the ice to get ready for the amber, adding the two colors in this order until you are ready for the base, which should be wider than the other stripes, and consist of the white blanc-mange. Keep both jelly and blanc-mange near the fire until you have filled the mould—I mean, of course, that intended for the latest layers. Let all get very firm before you turn it out.

You may vary two moulds of this jelly by having the blanc-mange base of one colored with chocolate, a narrow white stripe above relieving the grave effect of the brown.

ICE-CREAM AND OTHER ICES.

If you wish to prepare ice-cream at an hour’s notice, you cannot do better than to purchase the best patent freezer you can procure. I had one once which would freeze cream admirably in half an hour. I have forgotten the patentee’s name, and perhaps this is well for him, since truth would oblige me to record an unlucky habit his machine had of getting out of order just when I wanted it to do its best. My earliest recollections of ice-cream are of the discordant grinding of the well-worn freezer among the blocks of ice packed about it—a monotone of misery, that, had it been unrelieved by agreeable associations of the good to which it was “leading up,” would not have been tolerated out of Bedlam. For one, two, three, sometimes four hours, it went on without other variety than the harsher sounds of the fresh ice and the rattling “swash” as the freezer plunged amid the icy brine when these were nearly melted; without cessation save when the unhappy operator nodded over his work, or was relieved by another predestined victim of luxury and ennui—a battalion of the laziest juveniles upon the place being detailed for this purpose. I verily believed in those days that the freezing could not be facilitated by energetic action, and used to think how fortunate it was that small darkies had a predilection for this drowsy employment. I shall never forget my amazement at seeing a brisk Yankee housewife lay hold of the handle of the ponderous tin cylinder, and whirl it with such will and celerity, back and forth, back and forth, that the desired end came to pass in three-quarters of an hour.

That day has gone by. Time has grown too precious now even to juvenile contrabands for them to sit half the day shaking a freezer under the locust-tree on the old plantation lawn. Machines that will do the work in one-tenth of the time, with one-fiftieth of the labor, are sold at every corner. But, so far as I know, it was reserved for a nice old lady up in the “Jersey” mountains—the tidiest, thriftiest, most cheerful bee I ever knew—to show her neighbors and acquaintances that ice-cream could be made to freeze itself. For twelve years I have practised her method, with such thankfulness to her, and such satisfaction to my guests and family, that I eagerly embrace the opportunity of circulating the good news.

SELF-FREEZING ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart rich milk. 8 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very light. 4 cups sugar. 3 pints rich sweet cream. 5 teaspoonfuls vanilla or other seasoning, or 1 vanilla bean, broken in two, boiled in the custard, and left in until it is cold.

Heat the _milk_ almost to boiling, beat the eggs light, add the sugar, and stir up well. Pour the hot milk to this, little by little, beating all the while, and return to the fire—boiling in a pail or saucepan set within one of hot water. Stir the mixture steadily about fifteen minutes, or until it is thick as boiled custard. Pour into a bowl and set aside to cool. When quite cold, beat in the cream, and the flavoring, unless you have used the bean.

Have ready a quantity of ice, cracked in pieces not larger than a pigeon egg—the smaller the better. You can manage this easily by laying a great lump of ice between two folds of coarse sacking or an old carpet, tucking it in snugly, and battering it, through the cloth, with a sledge-hammer or mallet until fine enough. There is no waste of ice, nor need you take it in your hands at all—only gather up the corners of the carpet or cloth, and slide as much as you want into the outer vessel. Use an ordinary old-fashioned upright freezer, set in a deep pail; pack around it closely, first, a layer of pounded ice, then one of rock salt—_common salt will not do so well_. In this order fill the pail; but before covering the freezer-lid, remove it carefully that none of the salt may get in, and, with a long wooden ladle or flat stick (I had one made on purpose), beat the custard as you would batter, for five minutes, without stay or stint. Replace the lid, pack the ice and salt upon it, patting it down hard on top; cover all with several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it for one hour. Then remove the cover of the freezer when you have wiped it carefully outside. You will find within a thick coating of frozen custard upon the bottom and sides. Dislodge this with your ladle, which should be thin at the lower end, or with a long carving-knife, working every particle of it clear. Beat again hard and long until the custard is a smooth, half-congealed paste. The smoothness of the ice-cream depends upon your action at this juncture. Put on the cover, pack in more ice and salt, and turn off the brine. Spread the double carpet over all once more, having buried the freezer out of sight in ice, and leave it for three or four hours. Then, if the water has accumulated in such quantity as to buoy up the freezer, pour it off, fill up with ice and salt, but do not open the freezer. In two hours more you may take it from the ice, open it, wrap a towel, wrung out in boiling water, about the lower part, and turn out a solid column of cream, firm, close-grained, and smooth as velvet to the tongue.

Should the ice melt very fast, you may have to turn off the water more than twice; but this will seldom happen except in very hot weather. You need not devote fifteen minutes in all to the business after the custard is made. You may go into the cellar before breakfast, having made the custard overnight, stir in the cold cream and flavoring, get it into the freezer and comfortably packed down before John has finished shaving, and by choosing the times for your stolen visits to the lower regions, surprise him and the children at a one-o’clock dinner by the most delicious dessert in the world. I have often laughed in my sleeve at seeing _my_ John walk through the cellar in search of some mislaid basket or box, whistling carelessly, without a suspicion that his favorite delicacy was coolly working out its own solidification under the inverted barrel on which I chanced to be leaning at his entrance.

Any of the following receipts for _custard_ ice-cream may be frozen in like manner. Do not spare salt, and be sure your ice is finely cracked, and after the second beating do not let the air again into the freezer. If you cannot get dry rock salt, that which settles at the bottom of fish-barrels will do just as well. Keep the freezer hidden, from first to last, by the ice heaped over it, except when you have to lift the lid on the occasions I have specified.

CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart of cream. 1 pint new milk. 2 cups sugar. 2 eggs beaten very light. 5 tablespoonfuls chocolate rubbed smooth in a little milk.

Heat the milk almost to boiling, and pour, by degrees, in with the beaten egg and sugar. Stir in the chocolate, beat well three minutes, and return to the inner kettle. Heat until it thickens well, stirring constantly; take from the fire and set aside to cool. Many think a little vanilla an improvement. When the custard is cold, beat in the cream. Freeze.

ALMOND ICE-CREAM.

3 oz. sweet almonds and 1 oz. of bitter, blanched, and, when cold, pounded to a paste, a few at a time, in a Wedgewood mortar, adding 2 tablespoonfuls of rose-water to prevent oiling. 3 pints cream—fresh and sweet. Nearly 2 cups of sugar. 1 tablespoonful of arrowroot, wet up with cold water.

Heat one pint cream almost to boiling, add the sugar, and when this is melted, the almonds. Simmer ten minutes, stirring often, remove from the fire, and let it stand together ten minutes longer in a covered vessel. Strain the cream, pressing the bag hard to get the full flavor of the almonds, return to the inner saucepan and stir in the arrowroot until the cream thickens—say five minutes. When cold, beat very light with an egg-whip, adding gradually the rest of the cream. It should be light in half an hour. Then freeze.

If you wish to mould your cream in fancy shapes, open your freezer two hours after the second stirring and transfer the cream to a tight mould, having given it a third vigorous beating. Pack this down in ice and salt, and let it stand two hours longer than you would have done had it remained in the freezer.

COFFEE ICE-CREAM.

3 pints of cream. 1 cup of black coffee—very strong and clear. 2 cups sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls arrowroot, wet up with cold water.

Heat half the cream nearly to boiling, stir in the sugar, and, when this is melted, the coffee; then the arrowroot. Boil all together five minutes, stirring constantly. When cold, beat up very light, whipping in the rest of the cream by degrees. Then freeze.

I cannot say certainly that this can be frozen without turning, although I see no reason why it should not, since the arrowroot gives it the consistency of custard.

ITALIAN CREAM. ✠

2 pints of cream. 2 cups of sugar. 2 lemons—juice and grated peel. 2 tablespoonfuls of brandy.

Sweeten the cream and beat in the lemons gradually, not to curdle it; add the brandy and freeze in a patent freezer, or by turning quickly. In turning the freezer, open twice during the operation, to stir and beat the contents smooth.

LEMON ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart cream. 2 lemons—the juice of one and the grated peel of one and a half. 2 cups of sugar.

Sweeten the cream, beat the lemon gradually into it, and put at once into the freezer. Freeze rapidly in a patent freezer, or the acid is apt to turn the milk.

You may make orange ice-cream in the same way.

PINE-APPLE ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart of cream. 1 large ripe pine-apple. 1 lb. powdered sugar.

Slice the pine-apple thin, and scatter the sugar between the slices. Cover it, and let the fruit steep three hours. Then cut, or chop it up in the syrup, and strain it through a hair sieve or bag of double coarse lace. Beat gradually into the cream, and freeze as rapidly as possible.

You may, if you like, reserve a few pieces of pine-apple, unsugared, cut into square bits, and stir them through the cream when half frozen.

PEACH ICE-CREAM ✠

Is very nice made after the preceding receipt, with two or three handfuls of freshly cut bits of the fruit stirred in when the cream is half frozen.

RASPBERRY OR STRAWBERRY ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart ripe sweet berries. 1 lb. sugar. 1 quart fresh cream.

Scatter half the sugar over the berries and let them stand three hours. Press and mash them, and strain them through a thin muslin bag. Add the rest of the sugar, and when dissolved beat in the cream little by little. Freeze rapidly, opening the freezer (if it is not a patent one) several times to beat and stir.

_Or,_

You may have a pint of whole berries, unsugared, ready to stir in when the cream is frozen to the consistency of stiff mush. In this case add a cup more sugar to the quart of crushed berries.

FROZEN CUSTARD WITH THE FRUIT FROZEN IN. ✠

1 quart milk. 1 quart cream. 6 eggs, and three cups of sugar beaten up with the yolks. 1 pint fresh peaches, cut up small, or fresh ripe berries.

Heat the quart of milk almost to boiling, and add gradually to the beaten yolks and sugar. Whip in the frothed whites, return to the custard-kettle, and stir until it is a thick, soft custard. Let it get perfectly cold, beat in the cream and freeze. If you let it freeze itself, stir in the fruit after the second beating; if you turn the freezer, when the custard is like congealed mush.

TUTTI FRUTTI ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 pint of milk. 1 quart of cream. Yolks of 5 eggs—beaten light with the sugar. 3 cups of sugar. 1 lemon—juice and grated peel. 1 glass of pale Sherry, and ½ lb. crystallized fruits, chopped.

Heat the milk almost to boiling; pour by degrees over the eggs and sugar, beating all together well. Return to the fire, and _boil_ ten minutes, or until set into a good custard. When cold, beat in the cream, and half freeze before you stir in half a pound of crystallized fruit—peaches, apricots, cherries, limes, etc., chopped very fine. Beat in with these the lemon and wine; cover again, and freeze hard.

In all fruit ice-creams the beating of the custard should be very hard and thorough, if you would have them smooth.

LEMON ICE. ✠

6 lemons—juice of all, and grated peel of three. 1 large sweet orange—juice and rind. 1 pint of water. 1 pint of sugar.

Squeeze out every drop of juice, and steep in it the rind of orange and lemons one hour. Strain, squeezing the bag dry; mix in the sugar, and then the water. Stir until dissolved, and freeze by turning in a freezer—opening three times to beat all up together.

ORANGE ICE. ✠

6 oranges—juice of all, and grated peel of three. 2 lemons—the juice only. 1 pint of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water.

Prepare and freeze as you would lemon ice.

PINEAPPLE ICE.

1 juicy ripe pineapple—peeled and cut small. Juice and grated peel of 1 lemon. 1 pint of sugar. 1 pint water, or a little less.

Strew the sugar over the pineapple and let it stand an hour. Mash all up together, and strain out the syrup through a hair-sieve. Add the water and freeze.

CHERRY ICE.

1 quart cherries, with half the stones pounded in a Wedgewood mortar. 2 lemons—the juice only. 1 pint of water, in which dissolve 1 pint of sugar. 1 glass of fine brandy.

Squeeze out the bruised cherries and stones, in a bag over the sugar; add the water, then the brandy, and freeze.

It will require a longer time to freeze than other ices, on account of the brandy.

CURRANT AND RASPBERRY ICE (_Fine._)

1 quart red currants. 1 pint raspberries—red or white. 1 pint of water. 1½ pint of sugar.

Squeeze out the juice; mix in the sugar and water, and freeze.

STRAWBERRY OR RASPBERRY ICE.

1 quart berries. Extract the juice and strain. 1 pint sugar—dissolved in the juice. 1 lemon—juice only. ½ pint of water.

RIPE FRUIT FOR DESSERT.

ORANGES

May be put on whole in fruit-baskets, or the skin be cut in eighths half way down, separated from the fruit and curled inward, showing half the orange white, the other yellow. Or, pass a sharp knife lightly around the fruit, midway between the stem and blossom end, cutting through the rind only. Slip the smooth curved handle of a teaspoon carefully between the peel and body of the orange, and gently work it all around until both upper and lower halves are free, except at stem and blossom. Turn the rind, without tearing it, inside out, making a white cup at each end—the round white fruit between them.

SALADE D’ORANGE.

Pare and slice large sweet oranges; sprinkle powdered sugar thickly over each slice, and pour a couple of glasses of wine on the top. Sprinkle powdered sugar over all, and serve at once, or the fruit will lose its freshness.

You may omit the wine if you like.

Do not let any fruit intended to be eaten fresh for dessert lie in the sugar longer than is absolutely necessary. It extracts the flavor and withers the pulp.

AMBROSIA.

8 fine sweet oranges, peeled and sliced. ½ grated cocoanut. ½ cup powdered sugar.

Arrange the orange in a glass dish, scatter the grated cocoanut thickly over it, sprinkle this lightly with sugar, and cover with another layer of orange. Fill up the dish in this order, having cocoanut and sugar for the top layer. Serve at once.

APPLES.

Wash and polish with a clean towel, and pile in a china fruit-basket, with an eye to agreeable variety of color.

PEACHES AND PEARS.

Pick out the finest, handling as little as may be, and pile upon a salver or flat dish, with bits of ice between them, and ornament with peach leaves or fennel sprigs.

One of the prettiest dishes of fruit I ever saw upon a dessert-table was an open silver basket, wide at the top, heaped with rich red peaches and yellow Bartlett pears, interspersed with feathery bunches of green, which few of those who admired it knew for _carrot-tops_. Wild white clematis wreathed the handle and showed here and there among the fruit, while scarlet and white verbenas nestled amid the green.

Send around powdered sugar with the fruit, as many like to dip peaches and pears in it after paring and quartering them.

STRAWBERRIES, RASPBERRIES, AND BLACKBERRIES.

Never wash strawberries or raspberries that are intended to be eaten as _fresh_ fruit. If they are so gritty as to require this process, keep them off the table. You will certainly ruin the flavor beyond repair if you wash them, and as certainly induce instant fermentation and endanger the coats of the eaters’ stomachs, if, after profaning the exquisite delicacy of the fruit to this extent, you complete the evil work by covering them with sugar, and leaving them to leak their lives sourly away for one or two hours.

Put them on the table in glass dishes, piling them high and lightly, send around powdered sugar with them and cream, that the guests may help themselves. It is not economical perhaps, but it is a healthful and pleasant style of serving them—I had almost said the only decent one.

“But I don’t know who picked them!” cries Mrs. Fussy.