Part 7

They may, for a change, be roasted whole, according to the receipt for roast pigeons.

PIGEON PIE.

Is best made of wild pigeons. (SEE GAME.)

MEATS.

ROAST BEEF.

The best pieces for roasting are the sirloin and rib pieces. The latter are oftenest used by small families. Make your butcher remove most of the bone, and skewer the meat into the shape of a round. If you roast in an oven, it is a good plan to dash a small cup of _boiling_ water over the meat in first putting it down, letting it trickle into the pan. This, for a season, checks the escape of the juices, and allows the meat to get warmed through before the top dries by said escape. If there is much fat upon the upper surface, cover with a paste of flour and water until it is nearly done. Baste frequently, at first with salt and water, afterward with the drippings. Allow about a quarter of an hour to a pound, if you like your meat rare; more, if you prefer to have it well done. Some, when the meat is almost done, dredge with flour and baste with butter—only once.

Remove the beef, when quite ready, to a heated dish; skim the drippings; add a teacupful of boiling water, boil up once, and send to table in a gravy-boat. Many reject made gravy altogether, and only serve the red liquor that runs from the meat into the dish as it is cut. This is the practice with some—indeed most of our best housekeepers. If you have made gravy in a sauce-boat, give your guest his choice between that and the juice in the dish.

Serve with mustard, or scraped horse-radish and vinegar.

ROAST BEEF WITH YORKSHIRE PUDDING. ✠

Set a piece of beef to roast upon a grating, or several sticks laid across a dripping-pan. Three-quarters of an hour before it is done, mix the pudding and pour into the pan. Continue to roast the beef, the dripping meanwhile falling upon the latter below. When both are done, cut the pudding into squares, and lay around the meat when dished. If there is much fat in the dripping-pan before the pudding is ready to be put in, drain it off, leaving just enough to prevent the batter from sticking to the bottom.

_Receipt for Pudding._

1 pint of milk. 4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately. 2 cups of prepared flour. 1 teaspoonful salt.

Be careful, in mixing, not to get the batter too stiff.

This pudding, which the cook who introduced it into my family persisted in calling “_Auction_ pudding,” is very palatable and popular, and not so rich as would be thought from the manner of baking. It should be a yellow-brown when done.

BEEF-STEAK.

It is not customary to fry beef-steaks for people who know what really good cookery is. To speak more plainly, a steak, _killed_ by heat and swimming in grease, is a culinary solecism, both vulgar and indigestible.

Cut the steak thick, at least three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and if you cannot get tender meat for this purpose, it is best to substitute some other dish for it. But since tender meat is not always to be had, if the piece you have purchased is doubtful, lay it on a clean cloth, take a blunt heavy carving-knife, if you have not a steak mallet, and hack _closely_ from one end to the other; then turn and repeat the process upon the other side. The knife should be so dull you cannot cut with it, and the strokes not the sixtieth part of an inch apart. Wipe all over on both sides with _lemon-juice_, cover, and leave it in a cool place for one hour. Lay on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, turning very often as it begins to drip. Do not season until it is done, which will be in about twelve minutes, if the fire is good and the cook attentive. Rub your hot chafing dish with a split raw onion, lay in the steak, salt and pepper on both sides, and put a liberal lump of butter upon the upper. Then put on a hot cover, and let it stand five minutes to draw the juices to the surface before it is eaten. If you have neither chafing-dish nor cover, lay the steak between two hot platters for the same time, sending to table without uncovering. A gridiron fitting _under_ the grate is better than any other. If a gridiron is not at hand, rub a little butter upon the bottom of a hot, clean frying-pan, put in the meat, set over a bright fire, and turn frequently. This will not be equal to steak cooked upon a gridiron, but it is infinitely preferable to the same fried.

I shall never forget the wondering distrust with which my first cook, a sable “professional,” watched me when I undertook to show her how to prepare a steak for the third breakfast over which I presided as mistress of ceremonies. And when, at the end of twelve minutes, I removed the meat, “rare and hot,” to the heated dish in readiness, her sniff of lofty contempt was as eloquent as indescribable.

“Call dat _cooked_! Folks ’bout here would ’a had dat steak on by day-break!”

A remark that has been recalled to my mind hundreds of times since at the tables of so-called capital housewives.

The best—nay, the only pieces for steak are those known as porter-house and sirloin. The former is the more highly esteemed by gourmands; but a really tender sirloin is more serviceable where there are several persons in the family, the porter-house having a narrow strip of extremely nice meat lying next the bone, while the rest is often inferior to any part of the sirloin. If the meat be tender omit the hacking process and lemon-juice.

BEEF-STEAK AND ONIONS.

Prepare the steak as above directed. While it is broiling put three or four chopped onions in a frying-pan with a little beef-dripping or butter. Stir and shake them briskly until they are done, and begin to brown. Dish your steak and lay the onions thickly on top. Cover and let all stand five or six minutes, that the hot onions may impart the required flavor to the hot meat. In helping your guests, inquire if they will take onions with the slices of steak put upon their plates. I need hardly remind the sensible cook how necessary it is to withdraw the gridiron from the fire for an instant, should the fat drip upon the coals below, and smoke or blaze. Yet those who have eaten steaks flavored with creosote may thank me for the suggestion.

BEEF À-LA-MODE. ✠

Take a round of beef; remove the bone from the middle, and trim away the tougher bits about the edges, with such gristle, &c., as you can reach. Set these aside for soup-stock.

Bind the beef into a symmetrical shape by passing a strip of stout muslin, as wide as the round is high, about it, and stitching the ends together at one side. Have ready at least a pound of fat salt pork, cut into strips as thick as your middle finger, and long enough to reach from top to bottom of the trussed round. Put a half pint of vinegar over the fire in a tin or porcelain saucepan; season with three or four minced shallots or button onions, two teaspoonfuls made mustard, a teaspoonful nutmeg, one of cloves, half as much allspice, half-spoonful black pepper, with a bunch of sweet herbs minced fine, and a tablespoonful brown sugar. Let all simmer for five minutes, then boil up once, and pour, while scalding hot, upon the strips of pork, which should be laid in a deep dish. Let all stand together until cold. Remove the pork to a plate, and mix with the liquor left in the dish enough bread-crumbs to make a tolerably stiff force-meat. If the vinegar is very strong, dilute with a little water before moistening the crumbs. With a long, thin-bladed knife, make perpendicular incisions in the meat, not more than half an inch apart, even nearer is better; thrust into these the strips of fat pork, so far down that the upper ends are just level with the surface, and work into the cavities with them a little of the force-meat. Proceed thus until the meat is fairly riddled and plugged with the pork. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with the dressing and bits of pork; rub the upper side of the beef well with the spiced force-meat. Put into a baking-pan; half-fill this with boiling water; turn a large pan over it to keep in the steam, and roast slowly for five or six hours, allowing half an hour to each pound of meat. If the beef be tough, you had better stew the round by putting it in a pot with half enough cold water to cover it. Cover tightly and stew very slowly for six hours; then set in the oven with the gravy about it, and brown half an hour, basting frequently.

If you roast the round, do not remove the cover, except to baste (and this should be done often), until fifteen minutes before you draw it from the oven. Set away with the muslin band still about it, and pour the gravy over the meat.

When cold, lift from the gravy,—which, by the way, will be excellent seasoning for your soup-stock,—cut the stitches in the muslin girdle, remove carefully and send the meat to table, cold, garnished with parsley and nasturtium blossoms. Carve horizontally, in slices thin as a shaving. Do not offer the outside to any one; but the second cut will be handsomely marbled with the white pork, which appearance should continue all the way down.

I cannot too highly commend this as a side-dish at dinner, and a supper and breakfast stand-by. In winter it will keep a week and more, and as long in summer, if kept in the refrigerator—except when it is on the table.

BREAKFAST STEW OF BEEF. ✠

Cut up two pounds of beef—not too lean—into pieces an inch long; put them into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, and stew gently for two hours. Set away until next morning, when season with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram or summer savory, chopped onion, and parsley. Stew half an hour longer, and add a teaspoonful of sauce or catsup, and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold water; finally, if you wish to have it very good, half a glass of wine. Boil up once, and pour into a covered deep dish.

This is an economical dish, for it can be made of the commoner parts of the beef, and exceedingly nice for winter breakfasts. Eaten with corn-bread and stewed potatoes, it will soon win its way to a place in the “stock company” of every judicious housewife.

ANOTHER BREAKFAST DISH.

Cut thin slices of cold roast beef, and lay them in a tin saucepan set in a pot of boiling water. Cover them with a gravy made of three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, a spoonful of currant jelly, a teaspoonful made mustard, and some warm water. Cover tightly, and steam for half an hour, keeping the water in the outer vessel on a hard boil.

If the meat is underdone, this is particularly nice.

BEEF HASH.

To two parts cold roast or boiled corned beef, chopped fine, put one of mashed potatoes, a little pepper, salt, milk, and melted butter. Turn all into a frying-pan, and stir until it is heated through and smoking hot, but not until it browns. Put into a deep dish, and if stiff enough, smooth as you would mashed potato, into a hillock.

Or, you can cease stirring for a few minutes, and let a brown crust form on the under side; then turn out whole into a flat dish, the brown side uppermost.

Or, mould the mixture into flat cakes; dip these in beaten egg flour, and fry in hot drippings.

The remains of beef _à-la-mode_ are very good prepared in any of these ways. A little catsup and mustard are an improvement to plain cold beef, thus hashed.

BEEF-STEAK PIE.

Cut the steak into pieces an inch long, and stew with the bone (cracked) in just enough water to cover the meat until it is half-done. At the same time parboil a dozen potatoes in another pot. If you wish a bottom crust—a doubtful question—line a pudding-dish with a good paste, made according to the receipt given below. Put in a layer of the beef, with salt and pepper, and a very little chopped onion; then one of sliced potatoes, with a little butter scattered upon them, and so on, until the dish is full. Pour over all the gravy in which the meat is stewed, having first thrown away the bone and thickened with browned flour. Cover with a crust thicker than the lower, leaving a slit in the middle.

CRUST FOR MEAT-PIES. ✠

1 quart of flour. 3 tablespoonfuls of lard. 2½ cups milk. 1 teaspoonful of soda wet with hot water, and stirred into the milk. 2 teaspoonfuls of cream-tartar sifted into the dry flour. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Work up very lightly and quickly, and do not get too stiff.

If you can get prepared flour, omit the soda and cream-tartar.

BEEF PIE, WITH POTATO CRUST. ✠

Mince some rare roast beef or cold corned beef, if it is not too salt; season with pepper and salt, and spread a layer in the bottom of a pudding-dish. Over this put one of mashed potato, and stick bits of butter thickly all over it; then another of meat, and so on until you are ready for the crust.

To a large cupful of mashed potato add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a well-beaten egg, two cups of milk, and beat all together until very light. Then work in enough flour to enable you to roll out in a sheet—not too stiff—and, when you have added to the meat and potato in the dish a gravy made of warm water, butter, milk, and catsup, with what cold gravy or dripping remains from “roast,” cover the pie with a thick, tender crust, cutting a slit in the middle.

You can use the potato crust, which is very wholesome and good, for any kind of meat-pie. It looks well brushed over with beaten white of egg before it goes to table.

BEEF’S HEART—STEWED.

Wash the heart well, and cut into squares half an inch long. Stew them for ten minutes in enough water to cover them. Salt the water slightly to draw out the blood, and throw it away as it rises in scum to the top. Take out the meat, strain the liquor, and return the chopped heart to it, with a sliced onion, a great spoonful of catsup, some parsley, a head of celery chopped fine, and cayenne pepper, with a large lump of butter. Stew until the meat is very tender, when add a tablespoonful of browned flour to thicken. Boil up once, and serve.

TO CORN BEEF.

Rub each piece of beef well with salt mixed with one-tenth part of saltpetre, until the salt lies dry upon the surface. Put aside in a cold place for twenty-four hours, and repeat the process, rubbing in the mixture very thoroughly. Put away again until the next day, by which time the pickle should be ready.

5 gallons of water. 1 gallon of salt. 4 ounces saltpetre. 1½ lb. brown sugar.

Boil this brine ten minutes; let it get perfectly cold; then pour over the beef, having wiped the latter entirely dry.

Examine the pickle from time to time to see if it keeps well; if not, take out the meat without delay, wipe it, and rub in dry salt, covering it well until you can prepare new and stronger brine.

BOILED CORNED BEEF.

If your piece is a round, skewer it well into shape, and tie it up with stout tape or twine when you have washed it in three or four waters and removed all the salt from the outside. Put into a pot, and cover with cold water. Allow, in boiling, about twenty minutes to a pound. Turn the meat three times while cooking.

When done, drain very dry, and serve with drawn butter in a sauce-boat. Send around mashed turnips with the meat. They should be boiled in a separate pot, however, or they will impart a disagreeable taste to the beef.

The brisket is a good piece for a family dinner.

BEEF TONGUE.

Soak over night in cold water when you have washed it well. Next morning put into a pot with plenty of cold water, and boil slowly until it is tender throughout. This you can determine by testing it with a fork. Leave in the liquor until quite cold.

Pare off the thick skin, cut in round slices, and dish for tea, garnishing with fresh parsley.

Tongue sandwiches are generally held in higher esteem than those made of ham.

DRIED BEEF.

The most common way of serving dried or smoked beef is to shave it into thin slices or chips, raw; but a more savory relish may be made of it with little trouble.

Put the slices of uncooked beef into a frying-pan with just enough boiling water to cover them; set them over the fire for ten minutes, drain off all the water, and with a knife and fork cut the meat into small bits. Return to the pan, which should be hot, with a tablespoonful of butter and a little pepper. Have ready some well-beaten eggs, allowing four to a half-pound of beef; stir them into the pan with the minced meat, and toss and stir the mixture for about two minutes. Send to table in a covered dish.

MUTTON AND LAMB.

ROAST MUTTON.

The parts which are usually roasted are:—

The shoulder, The saddle, or chine, and The loin and haunch (a leg and part of the loin).

The leg is best boiled, unless the mutton is young and very tender. To roast—wash the meat well, and dry with a clean cloth. Let your fire be clear and strong; put the meat on with a little water in the dripping-pan. If you think well of the plan (and I do), let there be a cupful of boiling water dashed over the meat when it is first put down to roast, and left to trickle into the pan. I have elsewhere explained the advantages of the method. Allow, in roasting, about twelve minutes per pound, if the fire is good. Baste often—at first with salt and water, afterward with the gravy. If it is in danger of browning too fast, cover with a large sheet of white paper. Roast lamb in the same manner, but not so long. Skim the gravy well, and thicken very slightly with browned flour. Serve with currant jelly.

ROAST MUTTON _à la Venison_.

A Christmas saddle of mutton is very fine prepared as follows: Wash it well, inside and out, with vinegar. Do not wipe it, but hang it up to dry in a cool cellar. When the vinegar has dried off, throw a clean cloth over it, to keep out the dust. On the next day but one, take down the meat and sponge it over again with vinegar, then put it back in its place in the cellar. Repeat this process three times a week for a fortnight, keeping the meat hung in a cold place, and covered, except while you are washing it. When you are ready to cook it, wipe it off with a dry cloth, but do not wash it. Roast—basting for the first hour with butter and water; afterward with the gravy, and keeping the meat covered with a large tin pan for two hours. A large saddle of mutton will require four hours to roast. When it is done, remove to a dish, and cover to keep it hot. Skim the gravy, and add half a teacupful of walnut, mushroom or tomato catsup, a glass of Madeira wine, and a tablespoonful of browned flour. Boil up once, and send to table in a sauce-boat. Always send around currant or some other tart jelly with roast mutton. If properly cooked, a saddle of mutton, prepared in accordance with these directions, will strongly resemble venison in taste. An old Virginia gentleman whom I used to know, always hung up the finest saddle his plantation could furnish _six weeks_ before Christmas, and had it sponged off with vinegar every other day, until the morning of the important 25th; and the excellence of his mutton was the talk of the neighborhood. It can certainly be kept a fortnight anywhere at that season.

BOILED MUTTON.

Wash a leg of mutton clean, and wipe dry. Do not leave the knuckle and shank so long as to be unshapely. Put into a pot with hot water (salted) enough to cover it, and boil until you ascertain, by probing with a fork, that it is tender in the thickest part. Skim off all the scum as it rises. Allow _about_ twelve minutes to each pound. Take from the fire, drain perfectly dry, and serve with melted butter, with capers, or nasturtium seed; or, if you have neither of these, some cucumber or gherkin-pickle stirred into it. If you wish to use the broth for soup, put in very little salt while boiling; if not, salt well, and boil the meat in a cloth.

MUTTON STEW. ✠

Cut up from three to four pounds of mutton,—the inferior portions will do as well as any other,—crack the bones, and remove all the fat. Put on the meat—the pieces not more than an inch and a half in length—in a pot with enough cold water to cover well, and set it where it will heat gradually. Add nothing else until it has stewed an hour, closely covered; then throw in half a pound of salt pork cut into strips, a little chopped onion, and some pepper; cover and stew an hour longer, or until the meat is very tender. Make out a little paste, as for the crust of a meat-pie; cut into squares, and drop in the stew. Boil ten minutes, and season further by the addition of a little parsley and thyme. Thicken with two spoonfuls of flour stirred into a cup of cold milk. Boil up once, and serve in a tureen or deep covered dish.

If green corn is in season, this stew is greatly improved by adding, an hour before it is taken from the fire, the grains of half a dozen ears, cut from the cob.

Try it for a cheap family dinner, and you will repeat the experiment often. Lamb is even better for your purpose than mutton.

MUTTON CHOPS.

If your butcher has not done it,—and the chances are that he has not, unless you stood by to see it attended to,—trim off the superfluous fat and skin, so as to give the chops a certain litheness and elegance of shape. Dip each in beaten egg, roll in pounded cracker, and fry in hot lard or dripping. If the fat is unsalted, sprinkle the chops with salt before rolling in the egg. Serve up dry and hot.

_Or,_

You may omit the egg and cracker, and broil on a gridiron over a bright fire. Put a little salt and pepper upon each chop, and butter them before they go to table. Cook lamb chops in the same way.

MUTTON CUTLETS. (_Baked_).

Cut them from the neck, and trim neatly. Lay aside the bits of bone and meat you cut off, to make gravy. Pour a little melted butter over the cutlets, and let them lie in it for fifteen minutes, keeping them just warm enough to prevent the butter from hardening; then dip each in beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and lay them in your dripping-pan with a _very_ little water at the bottom. Bake quickly, and baste often with butter and water. Put on the bones, etc., in enough cold water to cover them; stew, and season with sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, with a spoonful of tomato catsup. Strain when all the substance is extracted from the meat and bones; thicken with browned flour, and pour over the cutlets when they are served.

MUTTON HAM.

For a leg of mutton weighing 12 lbs., take—

1 ounce of black pepper, or ½ ounce of cayenne, ¼ lb. brown sugar, 1 ounce saltpetre, 1¼ lb. salt.

The day after the sheep is killed, mix the sugar, pepper, and saltpetre, and rub well into the meat for nearly fifteen minutes, until the outer part of it is thoroughly impregnated with the seasoning. Put the ham into a large earthenware vessel, and cover it with the salt. Let it remain thus for three weeks, turning it every day and basting it with the brine; adding to this, after the first week, a teacupful of vinegar. When the ham is removed from the pickle, wash with cold water, then with vinegar, and hang it up in a cool cellar for a week, at least, before it is used.

Soak an hour in fair water before boiling.

Or if you choose to smoke it for several days after it is corned, it can be chipped and eaten raw, like jerked venison or dried beef.

Most of the receipts above given will apply as well to lamb as to mutton. There are several exceptions, however, which you will do well to note. Lamb should never be boiled except in stews. It is tasteless and sodden cooked in this manner, on account of its immaturity. But, on the other hand, a lamb-pie, prepared like one of beef or venison, is excellent, while mutton-pies have usually a strong, tallowy taste, that spoils them for delicate palates.

Roast lamb should be eaten with mint sauce (if you fancy it), currant jelly, and asparagus or green peas. Lettuce-salad is likewise a desirable accompaniment.

MUTTON OR LAMB RÉCHAUFFÉ. ✠