Part 32

Clean, lay in salt and water half an hour, then joint, cutting the back into two pieces. Put into a saucepan, sprinkle with minced onion, and cover with cold water. Cover closely and stew one hour before adding four tablespoonfuls of fat salt pork minced fine. Cook for another hour, or until tender. Take up the squirrels and keep hot. Stir into the gravy a great spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Have ready in another vessel half a cupful of cream, heated with a pinch of soda, into which has been beaten a raw egg. Pour the gravy over the squirrels, simmer one minute, add the cream and take at once from the fire.

Roast squirrels

Clean, wash and lay for one hour in salad oil and lemon juice. Have ready a large cupful of bread-crumbs soaked in enough cream to moisten them, add a cupful of minced mushrooms and pepper, salt and onion juice to your taste. Fill the animals with this stuffing, sew up and truss, rub all over with butter, lay in a baking-dish and nearly cover with weak stock. When done, make a piquante sauce from the gravy in the pan by adding the juice of half a lemon, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, paprika and salt to taste. Boil up and pour into a boat.

Virginia stew of squirrels

Clean, wash and joint three squirrels. Lay in salt and water for half an hour. Put then into a broad pot in this order: First, a layer of chopped fat salt pork, then one of minced onions; next, of parboiled potatoes, sliced thin; then follow successive layers of green corn cut from the cob, Lima beans and the squirrels. Proceed in this order, seasoning each layer with black, and more lightly, with cayenne pepper, until all the materials are used up. Cover with four quarts of boiling water, and put a tight lid on the pot. Stew gently for three hours before adding a quart of tomatoes, peeled and cut into bits, two teaspoonfuls of white sugar and a tablespoonful of salt. Cook an hour more; stir in four tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in two of flour, boil three minutes and turn into a tureen.

This is the genuine recipe, over a century old, for making the far-famed “Brunswick stew” eaten in perfection at Old Virginia races, “barbecues” and political dinners.

Chickens, lamb and veal may be used in place of squirrels, also “old hares.”

Barbecued squirrels

Broil, as already directed, lay upon a hot dish, ribs downward, and cover with a sauce made by heating together four tablespoonfuls of vinegar with two of butter; a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and made mustard, a half teaspoonful, each, of salt and pepper. Boil one minute; pour over the squirrels, and let them stand, covered, ten minutes before serving.

GAME PIES

Squirrel pie

Clean and joint the squirrels, cutting the backs into three pieces, each. Put six slices of fat salt pork into a saucepan, fry three minutes, then put in the squirrels and fry to a light brown in this fat, adding, as the meat begins to yellow, a chopped onion, some chopped parsley and a cupful of mushrooms; sprinkle over them two tablespoonfuls of flour; add a pint of stock and simmer slowly until the meat is tender, seasoning, at the last, with salt and pepper. Boil one minute; pour over the squirrels, and let them cool before putting into bakedish; pour in a gravy formed by stewing, add a few more mushrooms and a couple of hard-boiled eggs cut in slices; cover with a good crust and bake one hour.

Rabbit pie

Clean, wash and joint, cutting each back into three pieces. Leave in salt and water for half an hour; wipe, and rub well with lemon juice, salt and pepper; where the meat is thick, make several cuts with a knife that the seasoning may penetrate. Lay them in a saucepan, add cold water to cover, then put in a bay-leaf, eight peppercorns, a bit of mace and two sliced onions. Cook slowly till the meat is tender. Have ready a buttered bakedish and when the meat is cool lay within this, alternately with sliced boiled eggs, a few minced olives and a dozen tiny young onions which have been parboiled. Thicken with browned flour the liquor in which the rabbit was stewed, and add more salt if needed. Strain it over the meat, using enough to make it quite moist. Cover the dish with a rich pastry or baking-powder crust, make a wide cut in the center, and bake, covered, half an hour, then brown.

Squirrel or rabbit pot-pie

Proceed as with the preceding recipes, until you are ready to pack in the dish. Add, then, three potatoes parboiled and sliced, and tiny dumplings, like marbles, made of a good biscuit dough; cut round and boil ten minutes in the gravy before this goes into the pie.

Pie of small birds

I wish I could preface the recipe with the information that English sparrows are available for this purpose. If not suppressed they are likely to lessen the supply of edible small birds and of warblers of all kinds to a degree inconceivable by those who have not watched their achievements in this line.

Blackbirds, ricebirds and snipe may be used in families or as neighbors in the manufacture of our dish.

Clean and stew the birds for half-an-hour in weak stock. Let them get perfectly cold in this gravy; take out, put an oyster in the body of each. Arrange around the inside of your bake-dish, the necks all against the rim, the tails pointing toward the center. Put a bit of butter upon each breast and sprinkle very finely minced salt pork over all. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, season well and pour upon the birds. Cover with a good crust, cut a slit in the middle, and bake, covered, half-an-hour. Then brown.

Quail pie

Joint as you would a chicken for fricassee, cover the baking-dish bottom with thin slices of streaky bacon, first partially boiled to extract the salt; cover with a good white sauce, a few mushrooms, or a little mushroom catsup, and some chopped parsley, then with puff-paste. Cut a slit in the middle; bake, covered, and slowly, one hour. Uncover and brown.

A combination game pie

Wild pigeons and quails, ricebirds, snipe, woodcock—in fact, any small edible birds—may be blended in this. Clean the birds and, if tough, stew them in weak stock. If they are large—that is, too large for a whole bird to be served for one portion—cut them in halves through the breastbone. If the birds are young and tender they may be browned in hot butter; first dredging them with flour, instead of parboiling. Arrange them in a deep, round baking-dish with the breasts up and the feet all pointing toward the center.

Make a gravy of the stock in which they were parboiled, season well with salt, pepper, onion juice and the juice of half a lemon; thicken with a roux of butter and browned flour. Fill in the central space left by the feet of the game with mushrooms, a cupful of small drained oysters, two kidneys, cut into quarters, half a cupful of pimolas, or with plain olives, stoned, and three hard-boiled eggs minced fine with one dozen button onions, parboiled. Pour the rich gravy over all. Cover with a good puff-paste; make a slit in the middle and bake, covered, half-an-hour, then brown.

Pigeon pie

Clean and joint the pigeons and wipe each piece with a damp cloth. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and sauté in shallow dripping in which an onion has first been fried. Grease a pudding dish and put a layer of the fried pigeons in the bottom; cover this with minced salt pork, sliced hard-boiled eggs, and the minced pigeon giblets. Each piece of pigeon should have been rolled in browned flour before going into the dish. Arrange the layers as directed, until the dish is full—having the top layer of the minced salt pork. Pour a cupful of good stock over all; cover the pie with puff-paste; cut a slit in this to allow the steam to escape, and bake in a steady oven for an hour.

Venison pie

Stew gently until tender some small pieces of fresh venison, and some slices of sweet potato; season with salt and pepper. Put into a baking-dish and cover with a paste made from the drippings from a roast of venison, allowing one-half pound of fat to one pound of flour.

DINNER VEGETABLES

THE ARISTOCRATIC ASPARAGUS

A writer upon dietetics says—whether truthfully or not each of us can judge for himself—“Asparagus has nothing plebeian about it, as has the onion, the potato, the cabbage, turnip or parsnip. It is essentially a gentleman’s vegetable, and is an aristocrat from tip to stalk.”

It is becoming more and more customary to serve certain vegetables as a course by themselves, instead of with the meat and its attendant vegetables, as in days gone by. The housekeeper, who is often sorely perplexed as to what _entrée_ she shall serve with a dinner, eagerly welcomes this custom. Asparagus, artichokes and cauliflower may be sent in as separate courses.

Boiled asparagus

Cut off the tough lower part of your asparagus-stalks and save them to stew for flavoring your next soup. Lay the asparagus in cold water for fifteen minutes, then tie carefully into a bundle with a piece of soft string. Put into a saucepan large enough for them to lie at full length. Cover with salted, boiling water and boil until tender. If young, twenty minutes should suffice. Drain carefully and lay neatly on a hot dish. Pass drawn butter with the asparagus.

Asparagus on toast

Cut the woody part from a bunch of asparagus, and with a soft piece of twine tie it into a loose bundle. Have ready, boiling, enough salted water to cover the asparagus. The saucepan containing this should be large enough to allow the asparagus to lie at full length. Boil until tender, but not until the green tips begin to break. Spread upon a platter crustless slices of buttered toast; drain the asparagus, and lay it in a neat pile upon the toast. Of course the string must be removed from the bundle. Just before sending to the table pour a white sauce over the asparagus. An excellent plan is to pour this sauce only over the green ends of the stalks, leaving the white ends uncovered, that the fingers need not be soiled in handling the vegetable.

Baked asparagus

Cut the tender halves of the asparagus-stalks into inch-lengths. Cook for fifteen minutes in salted boiling water, then drain. Grease a pudding dish and put in the bottom a layer of the asparagus. Sprinkle this with fine bread-crumbs, bits of butter, pepper and salt and small pieces of hard-boiled egg. Now put in another layer of asparagus, more crumbs, etc., and so on until the dish is full. The last layer must be sprinkled with crumbs and bits of butter. Bake for half an hour, and serve in the dish in which it is cooked.

Asparagus tips cachés

Cut the tops from square breakfast-rolls, and scoop the crumbs from the insides, leaving box-like crusts. Butter the outside and inside of these hollowed rolls and set them with the tops beside them in the oven to dry and brown lightly.

Boil asparagus tips tender in salted water and drain. Have ready on the stove a white sauce made by cooking together a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour, and adding to them a cup and a half of milk. Stir into this sauce the asparagus tips, and pepper and salt to taste. Fill the hollowed rolls with the mixture, replace the tops and set in the oven just long enough to become very hot.

Creamed asparagus

Reject the lower halves of your asparagus stalks and boil the upper halves until they are very tender. Then drain and chop. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour until they bubble, pour on them a pint of milk with a bit of soda dissolved in it. Stir until smooth and of the consistency of cream, add the minced asparagus, with salt and pepper to taste. Set this mixture aside until cool, then beat into it three well-whipped eggs and two tablespoonfuls of cream. Pour into a greased pudding dish and bake covered for twenty minutes; uncover and brown.

Asparagus á la vinaigrette (No. 1)

Boil the asparagus according to the directions given in the preceding recipe. When done, drain and set aside until cold, then place in the ice-box until wanted. Lay upon a chilled platter and pour over the stalks the following dressing:

Put three tablespoonfuls of salad oil into a bowl and stir into it a tablespoonful of vinegar, a saltspoonful, each, of salt and sugar, and a dash of paprika.

The asparagus and the dressing that accompany it should be served very cold.

Asparagus á la vinaigrette (No. 2)

Cook as directed in recipe for boiled asparagus. While the vegetable is cooking make a hot French dressing by putting together in a saucepan over the fire half-a-dozen tablespoonfuls of salad oil, two of vinegar, two teaspoonfuls of French mustard, half a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste. When the asparagus is tender, drain, lay it in a deep dish, and pour over it the hot dressing. Cover and set aside to cool, then stand in the ice-chest for an hour or two before serving.

Asparagus loaf

Cook three cupfuls of the asparagus tips until tender, then drain. Put into a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and one tablespoonful of flour; cook together one minute. Add one cupful of milk, one-half teaspoonful of salt and one-fourth teaspoonful of paprika. Add the milk slowly, stirring all the time, and let it cook five minutes. Take from the fire and add four well-beaten eggs, one cupful of asparagus tips and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Line a well-buttered baking dish with the remainder of the asparagus tips; pour in the asparagus and sauce, and cook with the dish in water in the oven for fifteen minutes. Serve with egg sauce.

ARTICHOKES

The American artichoke, indigenous to this country, has received, nobody living can say why, the absurd name of “Jerusalem artichoke.” It is a tuber, resembling in appearance a turnip when cooked, but far more agreeable in flavor.

The Italian artichoke _articiocco_ was introduced into this country some years ago, and speedily became a fashionable edible. The part eaten is the succulent bud, cut before it expands into a flower.

Boiled Jerusalem artichokes

Wash the artichokes thoroughly, pare and slice or trim them into an oblong shape. Cook in slightly salted boiling water until tender, but not broken, and pour melted butter over them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and when turned into the dish, add a sprinkling of minced parsley and a few drops of lemon juice.

Baked Jerusalem artichokes

Wash and pare the artichokes, and cook tender. Then cut into neat slices. Put them into a baking-dish, sprinkle on a layer of grated Parmesan cheese and cover with a white or cream sauce. Sprinkle buttered crumbs over the top and bake until the crumbs are brown.

Boiled Italian artichokes

Cut off the stems, put the vegetables into boiling salted water, and boil for half-an-hour. Cut in half from top to bottom and serve half-an-one to each person. Pass with them a Hollandaise sauce. The stems are stripped off by the person eating the artichoke, the soft end dipped in the sauce and eaten. The fuzzy part should be scraped off and the bottom of the artichoke, which is really the most delicate portion, eaten with a fork.

Italian artichokes with sauce tartare

Remove the stems and outer leaves from the artichokes, and with a sharp knife remove the cores or centers. Lay these in cold, salted water for half-an-hour, drain and put into a saucepan with enough salted, boiling water to cover them. Cook until tender, drain thoroughly, put into a heated vegetable dish, and pour over them a sauce made of a half-cupful of melted butter, into which you have beaten a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a few drops of onion juice, a saltspoonful of French mustard, a pinch, each, of salt and paprika, and a teaspoonful of salad oil. Beat this sauce all together over the fire, remove from the range, and stir it, very slowly, into one beaten egg. Unless this is done gradually, the hot liquid will curdle the egg. Beat hard for a minute before pouring over the artichokes.

Fried Italian artichokes

Cut off the leaves and trim away the wool from the stalks. Cook tender, but not until broken, in salted water; drain and set on ice until perfectly cold. Make a good batter of half a cupful of flour sifted twice with a quarter teaspoonful of baking-powder and a little salt, wet up with half a cupful of milk into which has been beaten one egg.

Cut each artichoke, perpendicularly, into halves, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip into the batter and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. Drain off every drop of fat and serve hot with a tart sauce.

BANANAS

Bananas sautés

Peel, cut lengthwise into thirds; roll in flour, slightly salted and peppered. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter, or clarified dripping in a frying-pan; put in the bananas and fry to a golden brown, turning several times. Serve upon buttered toast.

Bananas fried whole

Peel and cut off the tip at each end; sprinkle with pepper and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs, again in egg, and again crumb them. Leave them upon ice for an hour or two, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat to a delicate brown. Serve very hot.

Baked bananas

Strip off one-third of the skin of each, and with a silver knife loosen the skin around the fruit. Arrange in a baking-pan with the stripped side uppermost. On each banana place a quarter teaspoonful of butter, sprinkle with one teaspoonful of sugar and a half teaspoonful of water for each banana, and bake about twenty minutes.

Scalloped bananas

Peel, slice and arrange in a buttered bake-dish, alternately with fine crumbs. Sprinkle each layer with salt, pepper and butter, also with a little cream. Let the uppermost layer be crumbs, well-buttered and wet with cream. Bake, covered, half-an-hour, then brown.

BEANS

Boston baked beans (No. 1)

Soak a quart of beans in cold water all night. In the morning soak them for two hours in warm water. Drain, put into a pot with enough water to cover them, and bring them slowly to a boil. When they are tender, turn then into a deep bake-dish; first pouring off the surplus water. Cut gashes in a half-pound piece of parboiled salt pork, and place this in the center of the dish. To a pint of the water in which the beans were boiled add a gill of molasses and a saltspoonful of French mustard. Mix well, and pour this over the beans and pork. Cover the dish and bake in a steady oven for six hours.

Boston baked beans (No. 2)

Wash a quart of beans, let them stand over-night in a gallon of cold water. In the morning, pour off the water and wash again. Then place in a pot, cover with plenty of water, and set over the fire.

Have the pork all fat if possible, unless lean is preferred. Score the rind deeply. Put the beans and pork over the fire and simmer until the beans begin to crack open, not any longer. Drain all the water from them and rinse again with cold water. Put about half the beans in the pot, and then the pork, rind-side up. Next, put in the remainder of the beans. Mix a teaspoonful, each, of mustard and sugar with pepper, and a great spoonful of molasses with a pint of boiling water and pour over the beans. Cover the pot, set in a slow oven and bake ten hours, adding boiling water whenever the beans look dry. Do not have the fire so hot that the water on the beans bubbles, and have no more water than will barely come to the top of the beans. Use an earthen pot.

New Jersey baked beans

Soak and boil the beans in the same way as before described—only change the water in which they are boiled an hour before they are done—and boil the pork with the beans; a slice of onion and a tiny piece of bay-leaf may be added to the first water. When they are ready for baking fill a shallow basin with them; place the pork in the center with the scored rind exposed, with one or two tablespoonfuls of molasses, some white pepper, and one tablespoonful of butter in small bits sprinkled all over the beans; bake, covered, about two hours. Enough of the water in which they were boiled should be poured in to make them soft, and about an hour before they are done one cupful of sweet cream, heated, with a pinch of soda, may be poured in upon the beans, loosening them with a fork that the cream may soak in.

Sunnybank baked beans

Soak over night and boil tender as already directed. Parboil half a pound of pork and chop fine. Have ready a large cupful of strained tomato sauce, well seasoned with onion juice, butter, salt and a good deal of sugar. Put a layer of minced pork in the bottom of your dish; then one of beans, next tomato sauce. Proceed in this way until the dish is full; add a very little hot water; cover closely and bake two hours, then brown.

It will be found very good, a vast improvement upon the conventional pork and baked beans. The top layer should be of tomato sauce.

Baked beans with tomato sauce

Soak white beans over night in cold water, and in the morning put over the fire in boiling water, slightly salted. Cook until tender. Drain and put into a deep dish. Cover with a tomato sauce, made by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble, and then pouring upon them a cupful of strained tomato liquor. Season to taste, and rather highly, unless you have previously added salt and pepper to the beans. Stir the sauce in with these and bake, closely covered, for two hours.

Beans sautés

Soak beans over night and boil until tender. Drain very dry and sprinkle with salt. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a frying pan, and when this has melted fry in it a large onion sliced. When the onion has browned remove it with a perforated spoon, and stir into the butter a tablespoonful of minced parsley. Now add the beans and turn them over and over in the hissing butter until very hot. Sprinkle lightly with salt (if needed) and pepper. Turn into a colander, then into a hot dish.

Stewed beans

Soak over night. In the morning parboil for one hour, drain, put them over the fire in enough weak stock to cover them and stew two hours, slowly. For the last hour set in a pan of boiling water to prevent scorching. All the stock should be absorbed, yet the beans should not be dry. At the end of two hours stir in a sauce made of one tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of mustard and the same of molasses, with twice as much onion juice and the juice of half a lemon, mixed in half a cupful of boiling water. Leave, covered, upon the fire for ten minutes (still in boiling water) and turn out.

Lima beans

Shell, lay in cold water for half an hour, and cook half an hour in boiling water, a little salted. Drain, dish, toss about over a lump of butter, and salt and pepper to your liking.

Lima beans with white sauce

Cook as directed in last recipe, but instead of dishing after draining, return to the saucepan with a good white sauce into which you have stirred a little chopped parsley. Simmer three minutes and serve.

Boiled string beans

You can not destroy this dish more effectually than by “stringing” the beans in the slovenly manner practised by at least one-half of American cooks, or those who represent the American kitchen. The neatest way of ridding beans of backbones is to pare each the whole length with a sharp knife. The flavor is more delicate when this is done.

Lay a handful of the pods upon a board with the ends even, and cut through all into inch-pieces. Wash and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, season with butter, salt and pepper, and serve.

Full-grown beans demand much more time for cooking than young. Underdone beans have a rank taste and are unwholesome.

Steamed cream string beans