Part 29

To make the gravy, rub the brains to a soft paste; pepper and salt, season with tomato catsup and onion juice, add enough of the liquor in which the head was boiled to make a boatful of gravy, thicken with butter rolled in flour, simmer five minutes and serve.

There is no more savory preparation of calf’s head than this. It goes to table in the bake-dish. The liquor from the pot in which it had the second boiling makes excellent soup stock.

Boiled calf’s head

Boil as directed in last recipe, but do not blanch or bone. When it has been cooked tender, dish, with the tongue (which should have been boiled with it), sliced and laid against the cheeks, and pour over it a brain gravy, made as for the baked head, with the addition of a great spoonful of minced olives.

Mock turtle

Boil and blanch a calf’s head, take out the bones and let the meat and tongue get cold in the liquor. Do not let it remain long enough to jelly. As soon as the meat is firm take it from the stock, wipe dry, and cut with the tongue into neat dice an inch long, and half as wide. Make a gravy of a large cupful of the pot liquor, thickened with butter rolled in browned flour and seasoned with lemon and onion juice, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a little salt and paprika. Put in the meat, and simmer fifteen minutes.

Have ready a sauce made by heating a cupful of cream (adding a pinch of soda) and pour it, stirring all the time, upon the beaten yolks of three eggs. Stir and beat for one minute, and add to the meat and gravy. Now add a glass of sherry and pour all into a deep dish, in which you have laid a pile of turtle eggs made by rubbing together the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs and the boiled brains of the calf, binding them with a raw egg and a little browned flour. They should be made into little marbles with floured hands and cooked in boiling butter for two minutes, then fished out and drained in a colander.

A delicious _entrée_!

Calf’s liver á la jardiniére

Lard a large liver with strips of fat salt pork. Cover the bottom of a large saucepan with a carrot and a young turnip (all cut into dice), six very small onions, a handful of green peas and the same of string beans cut into short lengths. Lay the liver upon these, pepper it and pour in a cupful of stock, or a cupful of hot water in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Cover closely and cook an hour and a half without opening. In a bake-pan cook four peeled tomatoes of medium size. Take up the liver and the vegetables, the latter with a split spoon. Lay the liver upon a hot dish, group the vegetables (the tomatoes included), each of a kind together, about it; keep hot in the oven while you strain the gravy into a saucepan, add a great spoonful of catsup and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet with cold water, and cook for one minute. Pour a few spoonfuls over liver and vegetables, the rest into a boat.

Casserole of calf’s liver

Wash and wipe a calf’s liver perfectly dry. Fry a few slices of fat bacon in a pan until the fat is all fried out. Strain and return the fat to the pan, lay in the liver and fry two minutes on each side, and then put into the casserole; add one pint of rich brown sauce, a cupful of button onions that have been browned in butter and three tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Fasten on the cover with a flour and water paste, put in a moderate, steady oven, and cook for two hours. Then remove the paste from the cover, put in potato balls that have been fried in hot fat, and send to the table in the casserole.

Fried brains for garnishing

Soak the brains in cold water for an hour, cover with fresh, cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for three minutes; drain, and set in a cold place for an hour. Cut in thick slices, sprinkle with salt and white pepper; dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker dust and set in a cold place long enough for the coating to stiffen. Fry in deep cottolene or other fat.

Scallop of calf’s brain

Soak brains in cold water for an hour, then boil for ten minutes. Drop into iced water, and when very cold cut into tiny dice. Butter a pudding dish, put in a layer of the brains, sprinkle with pepper, bits of butter and a few drops of onion juice; then put in a thin layer of minced ham. Add more brains, and proceed in this way until the dish is full. Sprinkle the top with buttered crumbs, pour a cupful of veal stock over all, and bake for twenty minutes.

Brain croquettes for garnishing

Prepare the brains as in the preceding recipe, chop and add to them butter, salt and pepper to taste. Into each cupful of the mixture stir a tablespoonful of crumbs and moisten all with cream. Heat in a double boiler, and when the boiling point is reached whip in slowly a beaten egg, and remove the mixture from the fire. Turn upon a dish to cool and stiffen before forming into small croquettes. Crumb these and set on the ice for two hours. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Any dish of liver or calf’s head—in fact of veal in any form—is made elegant by a garnish of brains, fried as croquettes, or in slices.

MUTTON

Roast leg of mutton with sorrel sauce

Wipe a leg of young mutton with a damp cloth, then with a dry. Put into a covered roaster, dash a cupful of boiling water over it and roast at the rate of twelve minutes to each pound of the meat. Fifteen minutes before serving remove the cover and brown. If you do not use a covered roaster baste the meat every fifteen minutes, while cooking, with the gravy in the pan.

Do not send made mutton gravy to the table with it. Pass currant jelly with it and such a sauce as this:

Mince a cupful of field sorrel—young and tender—and stir two tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed into one of browned flour into a cupful of boiling water. Add the sorrel, a dash of paprika and salt. Cook for one minute, take from the fire and beat into it, a very little at a time, the well-whipped yolk of an egg. Set in boiling water until the mutton is served. It must not cook.

Boiled leg of mutton

Carefully trim the meat, cutting off all loose or gristly portions, and wipe with a damp cloth. Have a kettle of boiling water and put in the meat, boiling fast for about ten minutes, when it may simmer until done. Do not put in salt or pepper until nearly cooked. Eat with caper sauce.

The water in which the mutton is boiled makes excellent Scotch broth, or plain mutton soup.

Roast shoulder of mutton

Carefully remove the bone, or shoulder blade, and fill the place with this forcemeat: One cupful of fine bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste, a half-dozen chopped mushrooms—canned or fresh—and melted butter to moisten the mixture. Sew up the slit left by the bone, and place in the covered roaster with a cupful of water or weak stock. Cook quickly at first, basting often, and allowing for cooking about fifteen minutes to the pound. Serve with sorrel or other meat sauce, never with made gravy.

Pass string-beans, tomatoes, green peas or young turnips with it.

Stuffed shoulder of lamb

Have the bone extracted neatly, and fill the cavity left with a stuffing of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a dozen raw oysters, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of butter, melted, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of onion juice, one-half teaspoonful of paprika. Roast in a quick oven. Into two tablespoonfuls of softened butter mix one tablespoonful, each, of chopped parsley, onion and lemon juice, and kitchen bouquet. Draw the meat, when done, from the oven, spread it with this prepared sauce, and return to the oven for four minutes. Garnish with small, round, fried potatoes.

Send around green peas with it.

Hotch-potch

Cut two pounds of _lean_ mutton into neat pieces an inch square. Peel and slice six medium-sized potatoes, cut into dice, and parboil for five minutes. Parboil also a dozen small, young onions, no larger than the end of your thumb. Have a couple of kidneys—calf’s or lamb’s—cut into dice, and drain the liquor from fifteen small oysters. Put a layer of meat dice in the dish, then a layer of onions, kidneys and potatoes. Season each layer of vegetables with pepper and salt. Then another layer of meat, onions and kidneys, and the remaining potatoes. Pour on a cupful of hot water, cover the pan closely and bake it in a moderate oven for three hours. Look at it occasionally and add more water if it seems dry.

When nearly ready to serve take up the mixture with a skimmer, arrange it in a deep hot dish. Add the oysters to the gravy left in the pan, cook till they ruffle, add more seasoning if needed, and pour it over the whole.

Family stew of lamb and peas

Cut two pounds of coarse _lean_ lamb into dice. There must be neither fat nor bone in it. Fry a sliced onion brown in two tablespoonfuls of dripping or butter. Strain the fat back into the pan, dredge the meat with flour and fry for three minutes in it, turning to sear both sides. Turn meat and fat into a saucepan, add a cupful of stock or of butter and water, cover closely and stew for an hour, or until the lamb is tender. Put in then a cupful of green peas with three leaves of green mint. Cover again and cook until the peas are tender, but not until they break. Have ready a broad dish lined with slices of toast soaked in tomato sauce. Take up meat and peas in a perforated skimmer and lay upon the toast. Keep hot, while you thicken the gravy left in the pot with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of browned flour; season, boil up and pour over the stew. Let it stand one minute and serve.

Casserole of lamb chops

Trim two pounds of lean chops and proceed as with the meat in last recipe until they have been browned in the fat.

Now turn meat and fat into your casserole, in the bottom of which is a layer of pared and sliced tomatoes. Have ready half a cupful of potato balls cut with a “gouge” and parboiled for five minutes, a dozen button onions, also parboiled, and half a can of champignons (mushrooms). Sprinkle these over and between the chops. Pour in a cupful of good stock, or gravy, well seasoned; lastly, another layer of sliced tomatoes, salted, peppered, sprinkled with sugar and dotted with butter. Cover the casserole and set in a moderate oven for two hours.

Drain off all the gravy without disturbing the rest of the contents of the casserole. Skim, thicken with browned flour, add the juice of half a lemon, boil up, pour in a glass of sherry, pour gently back into the casserole, cover, set in the oven for three minutes and send to table, covered.

If you once try this recipe you will not be satisfied until the dish it represents becomes a frequent visitor to your table.

MEAT AND POULTRY PIES

Chicken pie

Cut at every joint a pair of _young_ chickens. Lay on ice while you make a gravy of the pinions, necks and feet—scalding and skinning the feet before putting with the rest over the fire, covering deep with cold water and bringing slowly to the boil. Cook until the flesh is in rags, and the liquor reduced by one-half. Strain, season highly with onion juice, salt and paprika, thicken with browned flour and let the gravy get cold.

Meanwhile, arrange your chicken in a bake-dish; lay among the pieces either well-seasoned forcemeat balls no larger than marbles, made of bread-crumbs and hard-boiled yolks, bound with a raw egg, or canned mushrooms. Of course, fresh mushrooms are better if you can afford them. Put in a cupful of cold water, cover with a good crust, half an inch thick, and bake for an hour and a half. Lay a piece of stout paper over the pie to keep it from browning too fast. When you remove this at the end of an hour draw the pie to the door of the oven, fit a funnel into a slit left in the center of the crust and pour in all the gravy it will hold. Do this very quickly, shut up the oven and leave the pie in until done. Remove the paper ten minutes before the time is up and brown lightly.

Cold chicken pie

Make precisely as in last recipe, but add to the gravy while hot a tablespoonful of gelatine soaked for two hours in cold water enough to cover it. Pour into the pie as already directed. Let the pie get cold before eating it. The gravy will be jellied.

This is a nice dish for Sunday dinners in hot weather.

Fowl pie

Cut an old fowl into joints, splitting the back and dividing the breast into quarters. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water, season with onion juice and the juice of half a lemon. No salt and no pepper. Cover closely and simmer very gently for several hours until you find it tender. Strain off the gravy and season with onion juice, celery salt, a bay-leaf, minced parsley, paprika and salt. Return the gravy to the fire, stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook one minute. Arrange the chicken in a deep bake-dish, pour in the gravy, lay over the top two hard-boiled eggs cut into thin slices, cover with a good crust, and bake.

Chicken pot pies

For these have several stoneware or other fire-proof deep dishes, about the size of a bird bath. Cut up a young fowl into joints, cover with cold water and cook tender, but not until the meat leaves the bones. Lay a piece of dark meat and one of light in each dish; sprinkle with minced salt pork, and drop in each dish potato marbles which have been parboiled for ten minutes. Add small cubes of pastry, three to each dish, and two small young onions, no bigger than the end of your thumb. Unless they are mere infants, parboil them five minutes before they go in. Have ready two cupfuls of the liquor in which the chicken was cooked. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in browned flour; season with paprika and minced parsley. The pork should salt it sufficiently. Fill the dishes, cover each with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake, covered with paper, half an hour. Then brown.

You may, if you like, make one dish of this, but many prefer the individual “portions.”

Chicken and ham pie

Cut up and stew the chickens, as in last recipe. Have ready four good-sized slices of corned ham (not smoked), boiled and cold, and cut into strips. Put a layer of ham in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish, season with chopped mushrooms and parsley, salt and pepper, and add a layer of white sauce, the base of which is the liquor in which the chickens were cooked. Next, place in the dish the pieces of chicken in regular order, and upon these the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Repeat the seasoning and the sauce, lay a few strips of ham over the top, cover with a good paste, wash the pie with beaten egg, and bake for an hour and a half. If you have no mushrooms you may substitute a little mushroom catsup.

Veal pie (No. 1)

Cut three pounds of lean veal into inch-square cubes; put into a saucepan with a cupful of cold water, and heat slowly. Remove the scum as it begins to boil; add two small onions, sliced, two tablespoonfuls of carrot cubes, and one teaspoonful of salt. Let it simmer until very tender. Put the meat then into a deep baking-dish.

Let the liquor boil down to one cupful and a half, strain it and remove most of the fat. Add one-half cupful of cream or of rich milk, and pepper to taste. Thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed in one of butter; cook it five minutes, and strain it over the meat. If you have any cold boiled ham you may add a little of it to the veal, cutting it into tiny pieces.

Cover with a rich biscuit dough, half an inch thick, and bake one hour, covered with thick paper. Uncover and brown.

Veal pie (No. 2)

Cut two pounds of coarse lean veal into cubes and cook tender in enough cold water to cover it. Have ready half a pound of finely-minced pork, an onion, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of finely-minced olives, a stalk of celery cut fine, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Put a stratum of veal in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish; cover with this mixture and sprinkle with paprika and with butter. When all the materials are used up in this order fill the dish with gravy made by thickening the liquor in which the veal was stewed with browned flour, adding a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and boiling one minute. Cover with a good crust; make a slit in the top and bake, covered, one hour; then brown.

Beef and tomato pie

Cut a pint of cold roast beef into small dice of uniform size, and mix with it two or three slices of bacon, also cut small. Line a deep dish with good puff paste, put a layer of the beef and bacon in the bottom of the dish, season with pepper and salt, cover with a layer of peeled and sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dots of butter rolled in flour; add more meat and more tomatoes, until the dish is full. Cover the top layer with bits of butter, then with a crust of puff paste, making holes in this for the escape of steam. Bake until brown.

Beef and potato pie

Moisten three cupfuls of minced roast beef with a little stock, season to taste, and put it into a greased pudding-dish. Into a large cupful of mashed potatoes beat a little milk and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season this potato and spread it over the top of the minced beef. Set it in the oven and bake, covered, for twenty minutes; uncover, wash over with beaten white of eggs and cook for fifteen minutes longer, or until it is lightly browned.

Beefsteak pie

Cut two pounds of round steak into small squares. Cover (barely) with cold water and cook tender, very slowly. Cut two veal kidneys into cubes and (if you can get it) a sweetbread, blanched by throwing it into cold water, after parboiling it. Drain the liquor from the beef, and let both get almost cold. Make a good gravy by thickening this liquor with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in browned flour, seasoning well with kitchen bouquet, onion juice, salt and pepper. Let it simmer two minutes. Arrange the beef, kidneys and sweetbread in neat layers in the dish, interspersing these with a dozen small oysters. Pour in the gravy, cover with a good crust, half an inch thick, and cook, covered, one hour; then brown.

Kidney pie

Cut four kidneys into neat squares and stew gently in weak stock for half an hour. Cook a quarter-pound of macaroni till tender, and cut it into inch lengths. Butter a baking-dish and put in a layer of macaroni; over that spread a layer of sliced kidneys, seasoned with pepper, salt and made mustard. Sprinkle over a little flour, and add a layer of tomatoes. Repeat these layers and cover with fine bread-crumbs when the dish is filled. Pour in a rich gravy made from the stock in which the kidneys were stewed; put small bits of butter over the crumbs on top, and bake steadily for one hour.

Sweetbread pie

Blanch two sweetbreads by parboiling for ten minutes, then leaving in ice-cold water for the same length of time. When firm cut into half-inch squares. Make a white roux by cooking in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of flour in two of butter, add gradually a cupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda, season with half a teaspoonful of salt and half a saltspoonful of white pepper, a few grains of cayenne, and two tablespoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato. Put the sweetbreads and sauce into a deep dish, cover with a rich crust, make a slit in the center; bake, covered, half an hour, then brown. Beat one egg, add half a cupful of hot cream, and pour into the opening in the crust just before serving.

Mutton chop pie

Trim two pounds of tender chops by cutting away skin, fat, and two inches of the rib bone. With the refuse trimmings make a gravy by cooking slowly three hours in just enough water to cover them. Let it cool, skim off all the fat, season highly, thicken well with browned flour, boil up once and again let it cool.

Arrange the chops on the inside of a bake-dish, overlapping one another; fill the central space with chopped mushrooms, a chopped tomato, six small button onions and a pint of green peas. Pour in the gravy; cover with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown.

Veal chop pie

May be made as above, substituting chopped tomatoes for the green peas. In this case have the gravy very thick, as the tomato juice will thin it.

Small pork pies

(A Devonshire recipe.)

Chop fine a quarter of a pound of beef kidney suet and mix with it an equal quantity of butter. Rub both into a pound of flour and set all over the fire in a saucepan until the butter and suet are melted and the flour very hot. Knead together then into a stiff paste, cover with the cloth and put it near the fire while you make ready the meat. There should be about two pounds of the neck of pork, and this should be cut into very small pieces, seasoned liberally with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of powdered sage, and cooked gently for twenty-five minutes before it goes into the pie. The paste must then be divided into as many pieces as you wish to have pies, and these must be made into round shapes—“built up” into the shape of round pies. The way to do this must be studied carefully, for it is a knack in itself. The fist is put into the middle of the piece of dough from which the pie is to be raised, and by working it in a circular fashion the hollow is formed which is to receive the meat. The process should really be seen to be adequately understood. When the pie is “raised” the meat is put into it, a round of paste laid on the top and its edge pinched to that of the lower crust. It is then baked in a steady, rather slow, oven.

An English pork pie

Cook two pounds of lean pork for half an hour in enough weak stock to cover it. Let it get cold in the liquor (which reserve for the gravy). Take out the cold meat and cut into neat dice. Butter a deep dish and lay in some of the meat. Cover with a layer of hard-boiled eggs, chopped coarsely; season with onion juice, pepper, salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Stick bits of butter here and there. Dust with browned flour.

Strain and reheat the liquor in which the meat was cooked; stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour, cook one minute, add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce; pour into the pie, and let it cool before covering with a good paste. Cut a slit in the middle of the crust; bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour. Uncover, wash with white of egg and brown.

Send around apple sauce with it.

A New England pork pie

Boil half a pound of “streaked” salt pork with a sliced onion and four parsnips of moderate size. Put them on in enough cold water to cover them, and boil until the parsnips are tender, the onion cooked to rags. Have ready three fair-sized potatoes, sliced and parboiled. Slice the parsnips. Cut the pork into very small, thin slices, and line a deep dish with it. Put in a layer of sliced potatoes, sprinkle with flour, salt and pepper, a layer of sliced parsnips, then another layer of each. Add enough of the water in which the pork and parsnips were boiled to fill the dish. Cover with a good crust, and bake in a good oven one hour.

It is said by those who like parsnips to be very good—considering!

Pigeon pie

Dress, draw and singe carefully four young pigeons; stuff them with the chopped livers, hearts and gizzards and fine crumbs, mixed with chopped parsley, a good lump of butter, pepper and salt. Run a small wooden skewer through the body of each, fastening the wings to the sides. Cover the bottom of your bake-dish with thin strips of corned ham; season with chopped parsley, mushrooms, pepper and salt; over these lay the pigeons; between every two birds put the yolk of an egg boiled hard, and two or three in the center also. Add to the dish sufficient thick brown gravy to cover the pigeons, cover the pie with puff-paste, and bake for an hour and a half.

PORK

Roast pig