Part 7

Take up the head when it is sufficiently boiled, score it in diamonds, brush it all over with beaten egg, and strew it with a mixture of grated bread-crumbs, and chopped sage and parsley. Stick a few bits of butter over it, and set it in a Dutch oven to brown. Serve it up with the brains laid round it. Or you may send to table the brains and the tongue in a small separate dish, having first trimmed the tongue and cut off the roots. Have also parsley-sauce in a boat. You may garnish with very thin small slices of broiled ham, curled up.

If you get a calf's head with the hair on, sprinkle it all over with pounded rosin, and dip it into boiling water. This will make the hairs scrape off easily.

CALF'S HEAD HASHED.

Take a calf's head and a set of feet, and boil them until tender, having first removed the brains. Then cut the flesh off the head and feet in slices from the bone, and put both meat and bones into a stew-pan with a bunch of sweet herbs, some sliced onions, and pepper and salt to your taste; also a large piece of butter rolled in flour, and a little water. After it has stewed awhile slowly till the flavour is well extracted from the herbs and onions, take out the meat, season it a little with cayenne pepper, and lay it in a dish. Strain the gravy in which it was stewed, and stir into it two glasses of madeira, and the juice and grated peel of a lemon. Having poured some of the gravy over the meat, lay a piece of butter on the top, set it in an oven and bake it brown.

In the mean time, having cleaned and washed the brains (skinning them and removing the strings) parboil them in a sauce-pan, and then make them into balls with chopped sweet herbs, grated bread-crumbs, grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, and beaten yolk of egg. Fry them in lard and butter mixed; and send them to table laid round the meat (which should have the tongue placed on the top) and garnish with sliced lemon. Warm the remaining gravy in a small sauce-pan on hot coals, and stir into it the beaten yolk of an egg a minute before you take it from the fire. Send it to table in a boat.

CHITTERLINGS OR CALF'S TRIPE.

See that the chitterlings are very nice and white. Wash them, cut them into pieces, and put them into a stew-pan with pepper and salt to your taste, and about two quarts of water. Boil them two hours or more. In the mean time, peel eight or ten white onions, and throw them whole into a sauce-pan with plenty of water. Boil them slowly till quite soft; then drain them in a cullender, and mash them. Wipe out your sauce-pan, and put in the mashed onions with a piece of butter, two table-spoonfuls of cream or rich milk, some nutmeg, and a very little salt. Sprinkle in a little flour, set the pan on hot coals (keeping it well covered) and give it one boil up.

When the chitterlings are quite tender all through, take them up and drain them. Place in the bottom of a dish a slice or two of buttered toast with all the crust cut off. Lay the chitterlings on the toast, and send them to table with the stewed onions in a sauce-boat. When you take the chitterlings on your plate season them with pepper and vinegar.

This, if properly prepared, is a very nice dish.

TO FRY CALF'S FEET.

Having first boiled them till tender, cut them in two, and (having taken out the large bones) season the feet with pepper and salt, and dredge them well with flour. Strew some chopped parsley or sweet marjoram over them, and fry them of a light brown in lard or butter. Serve them up with parsley-sauce.

TO FRY CALF'S LIVER.

Cut the liver into thin slices. Season it with pepper, salt, chopped sweet herbs, and parsley. Dredge it with flour, and fry it brown in lard or dripping. See that it is thoroughly done before you send it to table. Serve it up with its own gravy.

Some slices of cold boiled ham fried with it will be found an improvement. If you use ham, add no salt.

You may dress a calf's heart in the same manner.

LARDED CALF'S LIVER.

Take a calf's liver and wash it well. Cut into long slips the fat of some bacon or old ham, and insert it all through the surface of the liver by means of a larding-pin. Put the liver into a pot with a table-spoonful of lard, a few sliced tomatas, or some tomata catchup; adding one large or two small onions minced fine, and some sweet marjoram leaves rubbed very fine. The sweet marjoram will crumble more easily if you first dry it before the fire on a plate.

Having put in all these ingredients, set the pot on hot coals in the corner of the fire-place, and keep it stewing, regularly and slowly, for four hours. Send the liver to table with the gravy round it.

TO ROAST SWEET-BREADS.

Take four fine sweet-breads, and having trimmed them nicely, parboil them, and then lay them in a pan of cold water till they become cool. Afterwards dry them in a cloth. Put some butter into a sauce-pan, set it on hot coals, and melt and skim it. When it is quite clear, take it off. Have ready some beaten egg in one dish, and some grated bread-crumbs in another. Skewer each sweet-bread, and fasten them on a spit. Then glaze them all over with egg, and sprinkle them with bread-crumbs. Spread on some of the clarified butter, and then another coat of crumbs. Roast them before a clear fire, at least a quarter of an hour. Have ready some nice veal gravy flavoured with lemon-juice, and pour it round the sweet-breads before you send them to table.

LARDED SWEET-BREADS.

Parboil four or five of the largest sweet-breads you can get. This should be done as soon as they are brought in, as few things spoil more rapidly if not cooked at once. When half boiled, lay them in cold water. Prepare a force-meat of grated bread, lemon-peel, butter, cayenne, and nutmeg mixed with beaten yolk of egg. Cut open the sweet-breads and stuff them with it, fastening them afterwards with a skewer, or tying them round with packthread. Have ready some slips of bacon-fat, and some slips of lemon-peel cut about the thickness of very small straws. Lard the sweet-breads with them in alternate rows of bacon and lemon-peel, drawing them through with a larding-needle. Do it regularly and handsomely. Then put the sweet-breads into a Dutch oven, and bake them brown. Serve them up with veal gravy flavoured with a glass of Madeira, and enriched with beaten yolk of egg stirred in at the last.

MARBLED VEAL.

Having boiled and skinned two fine smoked tongues, cut them to pieces and pound them to a paste in a mortar, moistening them with plenty of butter as you proceed. Have ready an equal quantity of the lean of veal stewed and cut into very small pieces. Pound the veal also in a mortar, adding butter to it by degrees. The tongue and veal must be kept separate till both have been pounded. Then fill your potting cans with lumps of the veal and tongue, pressed down hard, and so placed, that when cut, the mixture will look variegated or marbled. Close the cans with veal; again press it down very hard, and finish by pouring on clarified butter. Cover the cans closely, and keep them in a dry place. It may be eaten at tea or supper. Send it to table cut in slices.

You may use it for sandwiches.

To clarify butter, cut it up, melt it in a sauce-pan over the fire, and skim it well.

MUTTON AND LAMB.

GENERAL REMARKS.

The fore-quarter of a sheep contains the neck, breast, and shoulder; and the hind-quarter the loin and leg. The two loins together are called the chine or saddle. The flesh of good mutton is of a bright red, and a close grain, and the fat firm and quite white. The meat will feel tender and springy when you squeeze it with your fingers. The vein in the neck of the fore-quarter should be of a fine blue.

Lamb is always roasted; generally a whole quarter at once. In carving lamb, the first thing done is to separate the shoulder from the breast, or the leg from the loin.

If the weather is cold enough to allow it, mutton is more tender after being kept a few days.

TO ROAST MUTTON.

Mutton should be roasted with a quick brisk fire. Every part should be trimmed off that cannot be eaten. Wash the meat well. The skin should be taken off and skewered on again before the meat is put on the spit; this will make it more juicy. Otherwise tie paper over the fat, having soaked the twine in water to prevent the string from burning. Put a little salt and water into the dripping-pan, to baste the meat at first, then use its own gravy for that purpose. A quarter of an hour before you think it will be done, take off the skin or paper, dredge the meat very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. Skim the gravy and send it to table in a boat.

A leg of mutton will require from two hours roasting to two hours and a half in proportion to its size. A chine or saddle, from two hours and a half, to three hours. A shoulder, from an hour and a half, to two hours. A loin, from an hour and three quarters, to two hours. A haunch (that is a leg with part of the loin) cannot be well roasted in less than four hours.

Always have some currant jelly on the table to eat with roast mutton. It should also be accompanied by mashed turnips.

Slices cut from a cold leg of mutton that has been under-done, are very nice broiled or warmed on a gridiron, and sent to the breakfast table covered with currant jelly.

Pickles are always eaten with mutton.

In preparing a leg of mutton for roasting, you may make deep incisions in it, and stuff them with chopped oysters, or with a force-meat made in the usual manner; or with chestnuts parboiled and peeled. The gravy will be improved by stirring into it a glass of port wine.

TO BOIL MUTTON.

To prepare a leg of mutton for boiling, wash it clean, cut a small piece off the shank bone, and trim the knuckle. Put it into a pot with water enough to cover it, and boil it gently for three hours, skimming it well. Then take it from the fire, and keeping the pot well covered, let it finish by remaining in the steam for ten or fifteen minutes. Serve it up with a sauce-boat of melted butter into which a tea-cup full of capers or nasturtians have been stirred.

Have mashed turnips to eat with it.

A few small onions boiled in the water with the mutton are thought by some to improve the flavour of the meat. It is much better when sufficient time is allowed to boil or simmer it slowly; for instance, four hours.

A neck or a loin of mutton will require also about three hours slow boiling. These pieces should on no account be sent to table the least under-done. Serve up with them carrots and whole turnips. You may add a dish of suet dumplings to eat with the meat, made of finely chopped suet mixed with double its quantity of flour, and a little cold water.

MUTTON CHOPS.

Take chops or steaks from a loin of mutton, cut off the bone close to the meat, and trim off the skin, and part of the fat. Beat them to make them tender, and season them with pepper and salt. Make your gridiron hot over a bed of clear bright coals; rub the bars with suet, and lay on the chops. Turn them frequently; and if the fat that falls from them causes a blaze and smoke, remove the gridiron for a moment till it is over. When they are thoroughly done, put them into a warm dish and butter them. Keep them covered till a moment before they are to be eaten.

When the chops have been turned for the last time, you may strew over them some finely minced onion moistened with boiling water, and seasoned with pepper.

Some like them flavoured with mushroom catchup.

Another way of dressing mutton chops is, after trimming them nicely and seasoning them with pepper and salt, to lay them for awhile in melted butter. When they have imbibed a sufficient quantity, take them out, and cover them all over with grated bread-crumbs. Broil them over a clear fire, and see that the bread does not burn.

CUTLETS À LA MAINTENON.

Cut a neck of mutton into steaks with a bone in each; trim them nicely, and scrape clean the end of the bone. Flatten them with a rolling pin, or a meat beetle, and lay them in oiled butter. Make a seasoning of hard-boiled yolk of egg and sweet-herbs minced small, grated bread, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; and, if you choose, a little minced onion. Take the chops out of the butter, and cover them with the seasoning. Butter some half sheets of white paper, and put the cutlets into them, so as to be entirely covered, securing the paper with pins or strings; and twisting them nicely round the bone. Heat your gridiron over some bright lively coals. Lay the cutlets on it, and broil them about twenty minutes. The custom of sending them to table in the papers had best be omitted, as (unless managed by a French cook) these envelopes, after being on the gridiron, make a very bad appearance.

Serve them up hot, with mushroom sauce in a boat, or with a brown gravy, flavoured with red wine. You may make the gravy of the bones and trimmings, stewed in a little water, skimmed well, and strained when sufficiently stewed. Thicken it with flour browned in a Dutch oven, and add a glass of red wine.

You may bake these cutlets in a Dutch oven without the papers. Moisten them frequently with a little oiled butter.

STEWED MUTTON CHOPS.

Cut a loin or neck of mutton into chops, and trim away the fat and bones. Beat and flatten them. Season them with pepper and salt, and put them into a stew-pan with barely sufficient water to cover them, and some sliced carrots, turnips, onions, potatoes, and a bunch of sweet herbs, or a few tomatas. Let the whole stew slowly about three hours, or till every thing is tender. Keep the pan closely covered, except when you are skimming it.

Send it to table with sippets or three-cornered pieces of toasted bread, laid all round the dish.

HASHED MUTTON.

Cut into small pieces the lean of some cold mutton that has been underdone, and season it with pepper and salt. Take the bones and other trimmings, put them into a sauce-pan with as much water as will cover them, and some sliced onions, and let them stew till you have drawn from them a good gravy. Having skimmed it well, strain the gravy into a stew-pan, and put the mutton into it. Have ready-boiled some carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions. Slice them, and add them to the meat and gravy. Set the pan on hot coals, and let it simmer till the meat is warmed through, but do not allow it to boil, as it has been once cooked already. Cover the bottom of a dish with slices of buttered toast. Lay the meat and vegetables upon it, and pour over them the gravy.

Tomatas will be found an improvement.

If green peas, or Lima beans are in season, you may boil them, and put them to the hashed mutton; leaving out the other vegetables, or serving them up separately.

A CASSEROLE OF MUTTON.

Butter a deep dish or mould, and line it with potatoes mashed with milk or butter, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Fill it with slices of the lean of cold mutton, or lamb, seasoned also. Cover the whole with more mashed potatoes. Put it into an oven, and bake it till the meat is thoroughly warmed, and the potatoes brown. Then carefully turn it out on a large dish; or you may, if more convenient, send it to table in the dish it was baked in.

MUTTON HARICO.

Take a neck of mutton, cut it into chops, and fry them brown. Then put them into a stew-pan with a bunch of sweet herbs, two or three cloves, a little mace, and pepper and salt to your taste. Cover them with boiling water, and let them stew slowly for about an hour. Then cut some carrots and turnips into dice; slice some onions, and cut up a head of celery; put them all into the stew-pan, and keep it closely covered except when you are skimming off the fat. Let the whole stew gently for an hour longer, and then send it to table in a deep dish, with the gravy about it.

You may make a similar harico of veal steaks, or of beef cut very thin.

STEWED LEG OF MUTTON

Take a leg of mutton and trim it nicely. Put it into a pot with three pints of water; or with two pints of water and one quart of gravy drawn from bones, trimmings, and coarse pieces of meat. Add some slices of carrots, and a little salt. Stew it slowly three hours. Then put in small onions, small turnips, tomatas or tomata catchup, and shred or powdered sweet marjoram to your taste, and let it stew three hours longer. A large leg will require from first to last from six hours and a half to seven hours stewing. But though it must be tender and well done all through, do not allow it to stew to rags. Serve it up with the vegetables and gravy round it. Have mashed potatoes in another dish.

TO ROAST LAMB.

The best way of cooking lamb is to roast it; when drest otherwise it is insipid, and not so good as mutton. A hind-quarter of eight pounds will be done in about two hours; a fore-quarter of ten pounds, in two hours and a half; a leg of five pounds will take from an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half; a loin about an hour and a half. Lamb, like veal and pork, is not eatable unless thoroughly done; no one preferring it rare, as is frequently the case with beef and mutton.

Wash the meat, wipe it dry, spit it, and cover the fat with paper. Place it before a clear brisk fire. Baste it at first with a little salt and water, and then with its own drippings. Remove the paper when the meat is nearly done, and dredge the lamb with a little flour. Afterwards baste it with butter. Do not take it off the spit till you see it drop white gravy.

Prepare some mint-sauce by stripping from the stalks the leaves of young green mint, mincing them very fine, and mixing them with vinegar and sugar. There must be just sufficient vinegar to moisten the mint, but not enough to make the sauce liquid. Send it to table in a boat, and the gravy in another boat. Garnish with sliced lemon.

In carving a quarter of lamb, separate the shoulder from the breast, or the leg from the ribs, sprinkle a little salt and pepper, and squeeze on some lemon juice.

It should be accompanied by asparagus, green peas, and lettuce.

MUTTON HAMS.

Take large fine legs of mutton freshly killed, and wipe them dry with a clean towel. Allow to each ham half a pound of salt, and an ounce of saltpetre, and half a pound of brown sugar, all mixed together, slightly heated over the fire, and then well rubbed into the meat. Put the hams into a salting-tub, and keep them there two or three days, turning and rubbing them frequently. Then make a mixture, (allowing to each ham half a pound more of brown sugar, the same of salt, and an ounce of saltpetre, pounded fine, with an ounce of black pepper, and an ounce of cloves,) and heat this mixture a few minutes. Take the hams out of the tub, wipe them dry, and then rub into them this second mixture. Clean the salting-tub, and return the hams to it. Cover them, and let them lie for a fortnight, turning them several times, and basting them with the liquid. Then smoke them a fortnight, using for the fire green birch, oak, hickory, or corn-cobs.

Sow them up in new cloths and white-wash the outside of the covers.

PORK, HAM, &c.

GENERAL REMARKS.

In cutting up pork, you have the spare-rib, shoulder, griskin or chine, the loin, middlings and leg; the head, feet, heart and liver. On the spare-rib and chine there is but little meat, and the pieces called middlings consist almost entirely of fat. The best parts are the loin, and the leg or hind quarter. Hogs make the best pork when from two and a half to four years old. They should be kept up and fed with corn at least six weeks before they are killed, or their flesh will acquire a disagreeable taste from the trash and offal which they eat when running at large. The Portuguese pork, which is fed on chestnuts, is perhaps the finest in the world.

If the meat is young, the lean will break on being pinched, and the skin will dent by nipping it with the fingers; the fat will be white, soft, and pulpy. If the skin or rind is rough, and cannot be nipped, it is old.

Hams that have short shank-bones, are generally preferred. If you put a knife under the bone of a ham, and it comes out clean, the meat is good; but quite the contrary if the knife appears smeared and slimy. In good bacon the fat is white, and the lean sticks close to the bone; if it is streaked with yellow, the meat is rusty, and unfit to eat.

Pork in every form should be thoroughly cooked. If the least under-done, it is distrusting and unwholesome.

TO ROAST A PIG.

Begin your preparations by making the stuffing. Take a sufficient quantity of grated stale bread, and mix it with sage and sweet marjoram rubbed fine or powdered; also some grated lemon-peel. Season it with pepper, salt, powdered nutmeg and mace; mix in butter enough to moisten it, and some beaten yolk of egg to bind it. Let the whole be very well incorporated.

The pig should be newly killed, (that morning if possible,) nicely cleaned, fat, and not too large. Wash it well in cold water, and cut off the feet close to the joints, leaving some skin all round to fold over the ends. Take out the liver and heart, and reserve them, with the feet, to make the gravy. Truss back the legs. Fill the body with the stuffing (it must be quite full) and then sew it up, or tie it round with a buttered twine. Put the pig on the spit, and place it before a clear brisk fire, but not too near lest it scorch. The fire should be largest at the ends, that the middle of the pig may not be done before the extremities. If you find the heat too great in the centre, you may diminish it by placing a flat-iron before the fire. When you first put it down, wash the pig all over with salt and water; afterwards rub it frequently with a feather dipped in sweet oil, or with fresh butter tied in a rag. If you baste it with any thing else, or with its own dripping, the skin will not be crisp. Take care not to blister or burn the outside by keeping it too near the fire. A good sized pig will require at least three hours' roasting.

Unless a pig is very small it is seldom sent to table whole. Take the spit from the fire, and place it across a large dish: then, having cut off the head with a sharp knife, and cut down the back, slip the spit out. Lay the two halves of the body close together in the dish, and place half the head on each side. Garnish with sliced lemon.

For the gravy,--take that from the dripping-pan and skim it well. Having boiled the heart, liver, and feet, with some minced sage in a very little water, cut the meat from the feet, and chop it. Chop also the liver and heart. Put all into a small sauce-pan, adding a little of the water that they were boiled in, and some bits of butter rolled in flour. Flavour it with a glass of Madeira, and some grated nutmeg. Give it a boil up, and send it to table in a gravy-boat.

You may serve up with the pig, apple-sauce, cranberry-sauce, or bread-sauce in a small tureen; or currant jelly.

If you bake the pig instead of roasting it, rub it from time to time with fresh butter tied in a rag.

TO ROAST A LEG OF PORK.

Take a sharp knife and score the skin across in narrow stripes (you may cross it again so as to form diamonds) and rub in some powdered sage. Raise the skin at the knuckle, and put in a stuffing of minced onion and sage, bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. Fasten it down with a buttered string, or with skewers. You may make deep incisions in the meat of the large end of the leg, and stuff them also; pressing in the filling very hard. Rub a little sweet oil all over the skin with a brush or a goose-feather, to make it crisp and of a handsome brown. Do not place the spit too near the fire, lest the skin should burn and blister. A leg of pork will require from three to four hours to roast. Moisten it all the time by brushing it with sweet oil, or with fresh butter tied in a rag. To baste it with its own dripping will make the skin tough and hard. Skim the fat carefully from the gravy, which should be thickened with a little flour.