Part 3

Prick “link” sausages—that is, those done up in skins, in fifteen or twenty places, with a large needle; put them in a clean frying-pan in which is a half a teacup full of hot water. Roll the sausages over in this several times and cover _closely_. If you have not the lid of a pot or of a tin-pail that fits the frying-pan, use a pie-dish turned upside down. Set the pan where the water will bubble slowly, for ten minutes. Lift the cover then, and roll the sausages over again two or three times, to wet them thoroughly, leaving them with the sides up that were down. Cover again and cook ten minutes longer. Turn them twice more, at intervals of five minutes, cover, and let them steam four minutes before taking them up. They will be plump, whole, tender and well-done, and the bottom of the pan be almost dry. Lay in neat rows on a hot dish.

Fish Balls.

Soak a pound of cod-fish all night in cold water. Change it in the morning, and cover with lukewarm water for three hours more. Wash it, scraping off the salt and fat; put it into a sauce-pan, cover it well with water just blood-warm, and let it simmer—that is, not _quite_ boil, two hours. Take it up, pick out the bones and remove the skin, and set the fish aside to cool.

When perfectly cold chop it fine in a wooden tray. Have ready, for a cupful of minced fish, nearly two cupfuls of potato boiled and mashed very smooth.

A tablespoonful of butter.

Half a teaspoonful of salt.

Two tablespoonfuls of milk worked into the fish while hot.

Add also, when the potato has been rubbed until free from lumps, the beaten yolk of an egg. Work this in well with a wooden or silver spoon.

Now stir in the chopped fish, a little at a time, mixing all together until you have a soft mass which you can handle easily.

Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture on a floured pastry board, or a floured dish. Flour your hands, roll the fish and potato into a ball, and pat it into a cake, or make it as round as a marble. Lay these as you form them on a dish dusted with flour, and when all are made out, set in a cool place until morning.

Half an hour before breakfast, have five or six great spoonfuls of sweet lard hissing hot in a frying-pan or doughnut-kettle. Put in the balls a few at a time; turn as they color; take them out when they are of a tanny brown, lay them in a hot colander set in a plate, and keep warm in the open oven until all are fried.

A Breakfast Stew (very nice).

Two pounds of lean beef. (The “second best cuts” may be used here.)

A quarter of a medium-sized onion.

A tablespoonful of browned flour.

Half a teaspoonful each of minced parsley, summer savory, and sweet marjoram.

As much allspice as will lie on a silver dime.

One teaspoonful of Halford sauce.

One saltspoonful of made mustard.

One saltspoonful of pepper.

Strained juice of half a lemon.

Cut the meat into pieces an inch square. Put it with the chopped onion into a saucepan with a pint of lukewarm water; cover closely and cook slowly, _at least_ two hours and a half. The meat should not be allowed to boil hard at any time, and when done, be so tender that it is ready to fall to pieces.

Pour the stew into a bowl, add the salt and pepper, cover it and set in a cool place until next morning.

Then put it back into the sauce-pan, set it over a quick fire, and when it begins to boil, stir in the spice and herbs. (The latter may be bought dried and powdered at the druggist’s if you cannot get them fresh.)

Boil up sharply five minutes.

The flour should be browned the day before, by spreading it on a tin plate and setting this on the stove, stirring constantly to keep it from burning black. Or a better way is, to set the tin plate in a hot oven, opening the door now and then to stir it. It is a good plan to brown a good deal—say a cupful of flour—at a time, and keep it in a glass jar for thickening gravies, etc.

Wet up a heaping tablespoonful of this with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, the lemon-juice, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Rub smooth and stir well into the stew. Boil two minutes longer to thicken the gravy and turn out into a deep covered dish.

This is a good dinner, as well as breakfast dish. A teaspoonful of catsup is an improvement.

8

WHAT TO DO WITH “LEFT-OVERS.”

A VOLUME, instead of a single chapter, might be written upon the various methods of preparing what the French call “_rechauffés_,” and we speak of, usually contemptuously, as “warmed-over” meats. Cold meat is seldom tempting except to the very hungry. Cold tongue, ham and poultry are well enough on picnics and as a side-dish at tea. At breakfast they are barely admissible; for a simple luncheon tolerable; for dinner hardly excusable. At the first and last meal of the day, the stomach craves something hot and relishable.

A wife told me, once, with strong disgust in the remembrance, that when her husband took her on the wedding-trip to visit his mother, a frugal Massachusetts matron, they were set down within half an hour after their arrival, to lunch on a cold eel-pie left from the day before. The daughter-in-law, forty years later, spoke feelingly of the impression of niggardliness and inhospitality made on her mind by the incident.

“If she had even warmed it up, I should not have felt so forlornly homesick,” she said. “But cold eel-pie! Think of it!”

I confess to heartfelt sympathy with the complainant. There is a suggestion of friendliness and home-comfort in the “goodly smell” of a steaming-hot _entrée_ set before family or guest. It argues forethought for those who are to be fed. We have the consciousness that we are expected and that somebody has cared enough for us to make ready a visible welcome. Pale slices of cold mutton, and thin slabs of corned beef cannot, with the best intentions on the part of the caterer, convey this.

The summing up of this lecture, is: Neither despise unlikely fragments left over from roast, baked or boiled, nor consider them good enough as they are without “rehabilitation.”

We will begin with a dish the mention of which provokes a sneer more often than any other known to civilization.

Hash.

Rid cold corned or roast beef of fat, skin and gristle, and mince it in a wooden tray with a sharp chopper until the largest piece is not more than an eighth of an inch square.

With two cupfuls of this mix a cupful of mashed potato rubbed smooth with a potato beater or wooden spoon.

Season well with pepper and salt if the beef be fresh, if corned use the salt sparingly and pepper well.

Set a clean frying-pan on the stove with a cupful of beef gravy in it from which you have skimmed all the fat. Clear soup will do if you have no gravy. If you have neither, pour into the pan a half-pint of boiling water and stir into this three tablespoonfuls of butter. When the butter-water (or gravy) reaches the boil, add a half-teaspoonful of made mustard.

Then put in the meat and potato and stir—scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking—for five minutes, or until you have a bubbling-hot mass, not stiff, nor yet semi-liquid. It must have been brought to boiling heat and kept at it about five minutes, cooking so fast that you have to stir and toss constantly lest it should scorch.

Heap on a hot dish, and eat from hot plates.

Hash Cakes.

Having prepared the hash as above set it aside until cold, when mould into flat cakes as you would sausage meat, and roll in flour. Heat nice beef-dripping to a boil in a frying-pan, lay in the cakes, and fry to a light brown on both sides.

Beef Croquettes.

You can make these of the cold hash by moulding it into rolls about three and a half inches long, and rather more than an inch in diameter. Roll these over and over on a floured dish or board to get them smooth and regular in shape; flatten the ends by setting each upright on the floury dish, and put enough dripping in the pan to cover them as they lie on their sides in it. It should be _very_ hot before they go in.

Roll over carefully in the fat as they brown, not to spoil the shape. Do not put too many in the pan at once; as fast as they are done take them up and lay in a hot colander until all are ready. Arrange neatly on a heated flat dish and serve.

A Mutton Stew.

Cut slices of cold mutton half an inch thick, trim away fat and skin and divide the lean meat into neat squares about an inch across.

Drop a piece of onion as large as a hickory-nut in a cupful of water and boil fifteen minutes. Strain the water through a bit of muslin, squeezing the onion hard to extract the flavor. Allow this cupful of water to two cupfuls of meat. If you have less mutton use less water; if more increase the quantity of liquid.

Pour the water into a clean saucepan and when it boils add two full tablespoonfuls of butter cut into bits and rolled over and over in browned flour until no more will adhere to the butter.

Stir this in with a little pepper and salt, a pinch of mace and a teaspoonful of lemon-juice. Boil up once and drop in the meat. Cover closely and let it simmer at one side of the stove, almost, but never _quite_ boiling, for ten minutes.

Turn into a deep dish and serve very hot.

Minced Mutton on Toast.

Trim off skin and fat from slices of cold mutton and mince in a chopping-tray. Season with pepper and salt.

Into a clean frying-pan, pour a cupful of mutton-gravy which has been skimmed well, mixed with a little hot water and strained through a bit of coarse muslin.

When this boils, wet a teaspoonful of browned flour with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, and a teaspoonful of tomato or walnut catsup, or half a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce. Rub out all the lumps and stir into the gravy in the frying-pan. Boil up once well before putting in the mutton.

As soon as the mixture bubbles and smokes all over, draw it to one side of the range where it will keep hot, but not quite boil; cover it closely, and let it stand five minutes. Warmed-over mutton becomes insipid when cooked too much.

Before the mince is put into the pan, toast the bread. Cut thick slices from a stale loaf, and trim off the crust. If you would have them look particularly nice, cut them round with a cake or biscuit-cutter. Toast to a light-brown, and keep hot until the mince is cooked.

Then lay the toast on a heated platter; butter the rounds well on both sides, and pour on each a tablespoonful of _boiling_ water. Heap a great spoonful of the minced mutton on each piece.

The mince should not be a stiff paste, nor yet so soft as to run all over the dish. A cupful of gravy will be enough for three cupfuls of meat.

Some people fancy a little green pickle or chow chow chopped very fine and mixed in with the mince while cooking. Others think the dish improved by the addition of a teaspoonful of lemon-juice put in just before taking it from the fire.

Devilled Mutton.

Cut even slices of cold mutton, not too fat.

Stir together and melt in a clean frying-pan two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of currant or grape jelly.

When it hisses lay in the mutton and heat slowly—turning several times—for five minutes, or until the slices are soft and very hot, but not until they begin to crisp.

Take out the meat, lay on a warmed dish, cover and set over boiling water.

To the butter and jelly left in the pan add three tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

A small teaspoonful of made mustard.

A quarter spoonful of salt.

Half as much pepper as you have salt.

Stir together over the fire until they boil, and pour on the meat. Cover three minutes over boiling water, and serve.

Devilled, or Barbecued Ham.

Slice cold Ferris & Co.’s “Trade Mark” ham, lean and fat together, and lay in a clean frying-pan. Fry gently in the grease that runs from it as it heats, until the lean is soft, the fat clear and beginning to crisp at the edges.

Take out the slices with a fork, lay on a warmed dish; keep hot over boiling water.

Add to the fat left in the frying-pan:

Four tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

A small teaspoonful of made mustard.

As much pepper as will lie _easily_ on a silver half-dime.

Stir until it boils, then pour on the ham. Let it stand covered over the boiling water for five minutes before sending to the table.

Chicken Croquettes.

One cup of cold chicken, minced fine.

One quarter cup of pounded cracker.

One teaspoonful of cornstarch, wet up in a _little_ cold water.

One egg.

One tablespoonful of butter.

Half a tablespoonful of salt.

A good pinch of pepper.

Half a cupful of boiling water.

Mix minced chicken and crumbs together in a bowl with salt and pepper.

Put the boiling water in a clean saucepan, add the butter and set over the fire. When the butter is melted stir in the wet corn starch. Boil and stir until it thickens.

Have the egg beaten light in a bowl and pour the hot mixture upon it. Beat well, and mix with the minced chicken. Let it get perfectly cold and make into croquettes as directed for beef croquettes.

But roll these in a well-beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs instead of flour, and fry, a few at a time, in a mixture half-butter, half-lard enough to cover them well. Drain off every drop of fat from each croquette as you take it up, and keep hot until all are done.

Serve hot and at once.

9

DINNER DISHES.

I AM amused and yet made thoughtful by the fact that so many young housekeepers write to me of their pleasure in cake-making and their desire to learn how to compound what are usually known as “fancy-dishes,” some sending excellent receipts for loaf-cake, cookies and doughnuts, while few express the least interest in soups, meats and vegetables. The drift of the dear creatures’ thoughts reminds me of a rhymed—“If I had!” which I read years ago, setting forth how a little boy would have if he could, a house built of pastry, floored with taffy, ceiled with sugar-plums, and roofed with frosted gingerbread. In engaging a cook one does not ask, first of all, “Can you get up handsome desserts?” but, “Do you understand bread-making and baking, and the management of meats, soups, and other branches of plain cookery?”

The same “plain cookery” is the pivot on which the family health and comfort rest and turn. If you would qualify yourselves to become thorough housewives, it is as essential that you should master the principles of this, as that a musician should be able to read the notes on the staff. Some people do play tolerably by ear, but they are never ranked as students, much less as professors of music. “Fancy” cookery is to the real thing what embroidery is to the art of the seamstress. She who has learned how to use her needle deftly upon “seam, gusset and band,” will find the acquisition of ornamental stitches an easy matter. Skill in Kensington and satin stitch is of little value in fitting one to do “fine,” which is also useful sewing.

I am sorry to add that my observation goes to prove that more American housekeepers can make delicate and rich cake than excellent soups.

Soup Stock.

Two pounds coarse lean beef, chopped almost as fine as sausage-meat.

One pound of lean veal—also chopped.

Two pounds of bones (beef, veal, or mutton) cracked in several places.

Half an onion chopped.

Two or three stalks of celery, when you can get it.

Five quarts of cold water.

Meat and bones should be raw, but if you have bones left from underdone beef or mutton, you may crack and add them. Put all the ingredients (no salt or pepper) in a large clean pot, cover it closely and set at one side of the range where it will not get really hot under two hours. This gives the water time to draw out the juices of the meat. Then remove to a warmer place, stir up well from the bottom, and cook slowly five hours longer.

It should never boil hard, but “bubble-bubble” softly and steadily all the while. Fast boiling toughens the fibres and keeps in the juice of the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up, lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your “stock-pot.” This should be a stout stone crock or jar, with a cover, and be used for nothing else.

See that it is free from grease, dust and all smell, scald out with hot water and soda, then with clean boiling water just before pouring in the soup, or the hot liquid may crack it.

Put on the cover and set in a cold place until next day.

Then take off every particle of the caked fat from the top. You can use this as dripping for frying. Soup that has globules of grease floating on the surface is unwholesome and slovenly.

Strain the skimmed liquid through a colander, squeezing the meat hard to extract every drop of nutriment. Throw away the tasteless fibres and bones when you have wrung them dry.

This process should give you about three quarts of strong “stock.”

Rinse your jar well and pour back the strained stock into it to be used as the foundation of several days’ soups. Season it highly and keep in a cold place—in warm weather on the ice.

I hope you will not fail to set up a “stock-pot.” Every family should have one. It makes the matter of really good soups simple and easy.

Clear Soup with Sago or Tapioca.

Soak half a cup of German sago or pearl tapioca four hours in a large cup of cold water. An hour before dinner put a quart of your soup-stock on the stove and bring quickly almost to a boil. When it is hot, stir in the raw white and the shell of an egg, and, stirring frequently to prevent the egg from catching on the bottom of the pot, boil fast ten minutes.

Take off and strain through a clean thick cloth, wrung out in hot water and laid like a lining in your colander. Do not squeeze the cloth, or you will muddy the soup.

Return the liquid, when strained, to the saucepan, which must be perfectly clean; stir in the soaked tapioca and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, and simmer half an hour on the side of the range.

If necessary, add a little more seasoning.

When you have made nice clear soup once, you may, if you like, color the second supply with a little “caramel-water.”

This is made by putting a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup and setting it over the fire until it breaks up into brown bubbles, then pouring a few tablespoonfuls of boiling water on it and stirring it until dissolved. A tablespoonful of this in a quart of clear soup will give a fine amber color and not injure the flavor. Send all soups in to table very hot.

Julienne Soup.

One quarter of a firm white cabbage, shred as for cold slaw.

One small turnip, peeled and cut into thin dice.

One carrot, peeled and cut into strips like inch-long straws.

One teaspoonful of onion shred fine.

Three raw tomatoes, peeled and cut into bits.

One tablespoonful of minced parsley, and, if you can get it, three stalks of celery cut into thin slices.

Use a sharp knife for this work and bruise the vegetables as little as possible.

When all are prepared, put them in hot water enough to cover them, throw in a teaspoonful of salt and cook gently half an hour.

Clear a quart of soup-stock as directed in the last receipt, and color it with a teaspoonful of Halford sauce, or walnut catsup.

When the vegetables are tender, turn them into a colander to drain, taking care not to mash or break them. Throw away the water in which they were boiled, and add the vegetables to the clear hot soup.

Taste, to determine if it needs more pepper or salt, and simmer all together gently twenty minutes before turning into the tureen.

White Chicken Soup (Delicious).

A tough fowl can be converted into very delicious dishes by boiling it first for soup and mincing it, when cold, for croquettes.

In boiling it, allow a quart of cold water for each pound of chicken, and set it where it will heat very slowly.

If the fowl be quite old do not let it reach a boil under two hours, then boil _very_ gently four hours longer.

Throw in a tablespoonful of salt when you take it from the fire, turn chicken and liquor into a bowl and set in a cold place all night.

Next day skim off the fat, strain the broth from the chicken, shaking the colander to do this well, and put aside the meat for croquettes or a scallop.

Set three pints of the broth over the fire with a teaspoonful of chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and let it boil half an hour. Line a colander with a thick cloth, and strain the liquid, squeezing the cloth to get the flavor of the onion.

Return the strained soup to the saucepan, with a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, scald in a farina kettle a cupful of milk, dropping into it a bit of soda the size of a pea.

Stir into this when hot, a tablespoonful of cornstarch wet up with cold milk. When it thickens scrape it out into a bowl in which you have two eggs whipped light. Beat all together well, and stir in, spoonful by spoonful, a cupful of the boiling soup.

Draw the soup pot to one side of the range, stir in the contents of the bowl, and let it stand—but not boil—three minutes before pouring into the tureen.

Chicken and Rice Soup

Is made as white chicken soup, but with the addition of four tablespoonfuls of rice, boiled soft, and added to the chicken liquor at the same time with the parsley. Then proceed as directed, with milk, eggs, etc.

Tomato Soup.

Add a quart of raw tomatoes, peeled and sliced, or a can of stewed tomatoes, and half a small onion to a quart of stock, and stew slowly one hour.

Strain and rub through a colander and set again over the fire.

Stir in a tablespoonful of butter cut up and rubbed into a tablespoonful of flour.

A tablespoonful of cornstarch wet up with cold water.

Season to taste with pepper and salt, boil once more and pour out.

Bean Soup.

Soak one pint of dried beans all night in lukewarm water. In the morning add three quarts of cold water, half a pound of nice salt pork, cut into strips, half an onion chopped, and three stalks of celery, cut small. Set at one side of the fire until it is very hot, then where it will cook slowly, and let it boil four hours. Stir up often from the bottom, as bean-soup is apt to scorch.

An hour before dinner, set a colander over another pot and rub the bean porridge through the holes with a stout wooden spoon, leaving the skins in the colander.

Return the soup to the fire, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a tablespoonful of flour, and simmer gently fifteen minutes longer.

Have ready in the tureen a double handful of strips or squares of stale bread, fried like doughnuts in dripping, and drained dry. Also, half a lemon, peeled and sliced very thin.

Pour the soup on these and serve.

A Soup Maigre (without Meat).

Twelve mealy potatoes, peeled and sliced.

One quart of tomatoes—canned or fresh.

One half of an onion.

Two stalks of celery.

One tablespoonful of minced parsley.

Four tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up and rolled in flour.

One tablespoonful of cornstarch wet and dissolved in cold water.

One lump of white sugar.

Three quarts of cold water will be needed.

Parboil the sliced potatoes fifteen minutes in enough hot water to cover them well. Drain this off and throw it away. Put potatoes, tomatoes, onion, celery and parsley on in three quarts of cold water, and cook gently two hours.

Then rub them all through a colander, return the soup to the pot, drop in the sugar, season to taste with pepper and salt, boil up once and take off the scum before adding the floured butter, and when this is dissolved, the cornstarch.

Stir two minutes over the fire, and your soup is ready for the table. Very good it will prove, too, if the directions be exactly followed.

When celery is out of season, you can use instead of it, a little essence of celery, or, what is better, celery salt.

10

MEATS.