Part 8

To make the paste for a large pie:--Sift three pounds of flour into a pan, and make a hole in the centre. Cut up a pound of fresh butter, and two pounds of beef-suet, finely chopped. Put them into a clean pot, with as much boiling water as will cover them. Set them over the fire; and when the butter and suet are entirely dissolved, stir the whole with a spoon, and pour it into the hole in the middle of the flour; mix it with a spoon into a stiff paste, till it becomes cold enough for you to knead with your hands into a lump of dough. Sprinkle some flour on your paste-board, and on your hands; make the dough into the form of a cone or sugar-loaf, and with your hands smooth and flatten the sides of it. Then squeeze or press down the point of the cone; straighten the sides; and flatten the top, so as to give it the shape of a hat crown. Next, cut off from the top a thick, round slice, and lay it aside for the lid, and another slice for the ornaments. With one hand make a hollow in the large mass of dough, and with the other shape out and smooth the sides, leaving enough for a crust at the bottom. In this manner, hollow it into the shape of a straight-sided pan, leaving the wall or crust so thick that it will stand alone. Then fill it with the bones of the poultry or game, and some crusts of bread to keep it in shape. The portion of dough reserved for the lid must then be moulded on the inverted bottom of a deep plate, previously buttered. The lid may be a little larger than the top of the pie. The paste reserved for the ornaments should be rolled out, and cut with tin cutters into the form of leaves and flowers, or vine-leaves and grapes. These should be carefully placed in a wreath round the middle of the standing crust of the pie. A smaller wreath may be laid like a border round the lid, at the top of which place a large flower of paste, to look like a handle by which to lift it. Before you put on the ornaments, have ready the beaten yolks of two eggs; and dipping in a clean brush, glaze with it the whole outside of the pie, including the lid. Then stick on the decorations. Put the pie into a moderate oven, and bake it brown. The lid must be baked separately. When both are done, remove the bones, &c., from the inside of the pie, and fill it with the ingredients prepared, which must be previously stewed in their own gravy, with the addition of some bits of butter rolled in flour. Put on the lid, and cement the edges by glazing them with a little beaten egg. These pies are usually made with slices of ham or smoked tongue at the bottom; then partridges, pheasants, moor-fowl, and other large game, all boned; and the spaces between filled up with force-meat, or with mushrooms stewed and chopped. They may be made with venison, wild turkeys, or wild ducks. Whatever is put into these pies must have no bone about it, and should be well seasoned.

The ingredients may be put into the pie, and the lid laid on at once,--pinching the edges together. In this case, it must bake three or four hours, in proportion to its size.

PIGEONS WITH HAM.--Take fine fat tame pigeons. For stuffing, boil some chesnuts till quite soft; and having peeled them, mash or pound them smooth. Mix with them a little fat of cold ham, finely minced and pounded. For chesnuts, may be substituted boiled sweet potatoe, mashed with butter. Fill the pigeons with the stuffing, having first slightly peppered their insides. Cover them with very thin slices of cold ham, (fat and lean together,) and wrap them in fresh vine-leaves, tied round with twine. Put them on a spit, and roast them three quarters of an hour. When done, carefully remove the strings, and serve up the pigeons, still wrapped in the ham and vine-leaves. They will be found very nice.

Partridges and quails may be drest in this manner.

Wild pigeons are so seldom fat, and have so little meat upon their bones, that except for soups and gravies, they are scarcely worth buying. In places where they abound, they may be turned to good account by catching them in nets; clipping their wings; and keeping them in an enclosure till they are fattened by feeding them well with corn, or Indian meal moistened with water. When managed thus, they will be found quite equal, if not superior, to tame pigeons.

A GIBLET PIE.--Clean, very nicely, the giblets of two geese or four ducks. Put them into a stew-pan, with a sliced onion; a bunch of tarragon, or sweet-marjoram and sage; half a dozen pepper-corns; and four or five blades of mace. Add a very little water; cover the pan closely, and let them stew till the giblets are tender. Then take them out, and save all the gravy; having strained it from the seasoning articles. Make a rich paste, and roll it out into two sheets. With one sheet cover the bottom and sides of a deep dish. Put in the giblets,--mixing among them a few cold boiled potatoes sliced, the chopped yolks of some hard-boiled eggs, and some bits of butter rolled in flour. Pour the gravy over the giblets, &c. Cover the pie with the other sheet of paste, and notch the edges. Bake it brown, and send it to table hot.

A pigeon pie may be made in a similar manner: also, a rabbit pie.

MOOR-FOWL OR GROUSE PUDDING.--Having skinned the moor-fowls, cut them up as for carving, and season them slightly with salt and pepper. Have ready a sufficient quantity of paste, made in the proportion of a pound of fresh butter to two pounds of sifted flour. Roll it out thick, and line with it a pudding mould, which must first be buttered; reserving sufficient paste for the lid. Then put in the pieces of moor-fowl, and place between each layer a layer of small mushrooms, or of fresh oysters cut small. Next pour in a little water, (about half a pint,) and add a piece of fresh butter rolled in flour. Then cover it with the remaining paste, pressing it down very closely round the edge. Dip a strong clean cloth into boiling water, dredge it with flour, and tie it tightly over the mould or pudding-basin. Put it into a pot of boiling water, and boil it three hours or more, according to its size.

A similar pudding may be made of pheasants, partridges, or quails; and is a delicious way of cooking game of any sort: rabbits, also, are very nice, cut up and put into a crust for boiling.

A BONED TURKEY.--For this purpose you must have a fine, large, tender turkey; and after it is drawn, and washed, and wiped dry, lay it on a clean table, and take a very sharp knife, with a narrow blade and point. Begin at the neck; then go round to the shoulders and wings, and carefully separate the flesh from the bone, scraping it down as you proceed. Next loosen the flesh from the breast, and back, and body; and then from the thighs. It requires care and patience to do it nicely, and to avoid tearing or breaking the skin. The knife should always penetrate quite to the bone; scraping loose the flesh rather than cutting it. When all the flesh has been completely loosened, take the turkey by the neck, give it a pull, and the whole skeleton will come out entire from the flesh, as easily as you draw your hand out of a glove. The flesh will then fall down, a flat and shapeless mass. With a small needle and thread, carefully sew up any holes that have accidentally been torn in the skin.

Have ready a large quantity of stuffing, made as follows:--Take three sixpenny loaves of stale bread; grate the crumb; and put the crusts in water to soak. When quite soft, break them up small into the pan of grated bread-crumbs, and mix in a pound of fresh butter, cut into little pieces. Take two large bunches of sweet-marjoram; the same of sweet-basil; and one bunch of parsley. Mince the parsley very fine, and rub to a powder the leaves of the marjoram and basil. You should have two large, heaping table-spoonfuls of each. Chop, also, two very small onions or shalots, and mix them with the herbs. Pound to powder a quarter of an ounce of mace; a quarter of an ounce of cloves; and two large nutmegs. Mix the spices together, and add a tea-spoonful of salt and a tea-spoonful of ground black pepper. Then mix the herbs, spice, &c., thoroughly into the bread-crumbs; and add, by degrees, four beaten eggs to bind the whole together.

Take up a handful of this filling; squeeze it hard, and proceed to stuff the turkey with it,--beginning at the wings; next do the body; and then the thighs. Stuff it very hard, and as you proceed, form the turkey into its natural shape, by filling out, properly, the wings, breast, body, &c. When all the stuffing is in, sew up the body, and skewer the turkey into the usual shape in which they are trussed; so that, if skilfully done, it will look almost as if it had not been boned. Tie it round with tape, and bake it three hours or more; basting it occasionally with fresh butter. Make a gravy of the giblets, chopped, and stewed slowly in a little water. When done, add to it the gravy that is in the dish about the turkey, (having first skimmed off the fat,) and enrich it with a glass of white wine, and two beaten yolks of eggs, stirred in just before you take it from the fire.

If the turkey is to be eaten cold at the supper-table, drop table-spoonfuls of currant or cranberry jelly all over it at small distances, and in the dish round it.

A very handsome way of serving it up cold is, after making a sufficiency of nice clear calves’-foot jelly, (seasoned, as usual, with wine, lemon, cinnamon, &c.,) to lay the turkey in the dish in which it is to go to table, and setting it under the jelly-bag, let the jelly drip upon it, so as to form a transparent coating all over it; smoothing the jelly evenly with the back of a spoon, as it congeals on the turkey. Apple jelly may be substituted.

Large fowls may be boned and stuffed in the above manner: also a young roasting pig.

PUDDINGS, ETC.

COLUMBIAN PUDDING.--Tie up closely in a bit of very thin white muslin, a vanilla bean cut into pieces; and a broken-up stick of cinnamon. Put this bag with its contents into half a pint of rich milk, and boil it a long time till very highly flavoured. Then take out the bag; set the milk near the fire to keep warm in the pan in which it was boiled, covering it closely. Slice thin a pound of almond sponge-cake, and lay it in a deep dish. Pour over it a quart of rich cream, with which you must mix the vanilla-flavoured milk, and leave the cake to dissolve in it. Blanch, in scalding water, two ounces of shelled bitter almonds or peach-kernels; and pound them (one at a time) to a smooth paste in a marble mortar; pouring on each a few drops of rose-water or peach-water to prevent their oiling. When the almonds are done, set them away in a cold place till wanted. Beat eight eggs till very light and thick; and having stirred together, hard, the dissolved cake and the cream, add them, gradually, to the mixture in turn with the almond, and half a pound of powdered loaf sugar, a little at a time of each. Butter a deep dish, and put in the mixture. Set the pudding into a brisk oven and bake it well. Have ready a star nicely cut out of a large piece of candied citron, a number of small stars all of equal size, as many as there are states in the Union: and a sufficiency of rays or long strips also cut out of citron. The rays should be wide at the bottom and run to a point at the top. As soon as the pudding comes out of the oven, while it is smoking, arrange these decorations. Put the large star in the centre, then the rays so that they will diverge from it, widening off towards the edge of the pudding. Near the edge place the small stars in a circle.

Preserved citron-melon will be still better for this purpose than the dry candied citron.

This is a very fine pudding; suitable for a dinner party, or a Fourth of July dinner.

A MARIETTA PUDDING.--Take a teacup-full of loaf-sugar broken up. On some of the largest lumps rub off the yellow rind of a large lemon. Then put all the sugar into a pint of rich cream; when the sugar is melted, set it over the fire, and when it comes to a boil, pour it hot over half a pound of fresh savoy biscuits or lady-fingers, (maccaroons will be still better,) laid in a deep dish. Cover the dish, and when the cakes are quite dissolved, stir the cream well among them. Beat eight eggs very light; and when the mixture is quite cold, stir the beaten eggs gradually into it. Add, by degrees, four peels of candied citron, cut into slips, and dredged with flour to prevent their sinking to the bottom. Put the mixture into a deep dish, and bake it. When done, sift sugar over the top. It may be eaten warm or cold. Send to table with it a sauce, made of fresh butter and white sugar, beaten together till very light, and flavoured with the juice of the lemon, whose rind was rubbed on the lumps of sugar, and also with some grated nutmeg.

Instead of citron you may put into this pudding a pound of Zante currants, (picked, washed, dried, and floured,) stirred gradually in at the last.

AN ORLEANS PUDDING.--Half fill a deep dish with almond sponge-cake sliced thin, or with sliced lady-cake. Grate the yellow rind of a lemon, and mix it among the cake; adding also the juice of the lemon, and sufficient white wine to moisten the cake, so that after standing awhile it can be easily mashed. For wine you may substitute brandy; or wine and brandy mixed. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a pint of cream or rich milk; adding four table-spoonfuls of powdered white sugar, and half a nutmeg grated. Mix the eggs, &c., by degrees, with the dissolved cake; stirring it very hard. The dish should be full. Set it into the oven, and bake it brown. When cold, have ready a meringue, made of beaten white of egg thickened with powdered loaf-sugar, and flavoured with lemon-juice or rose-water. Spread this evenly over the top of the pudding, putting one layer of the meringue over another till it is very thick. Then set it for a few minutes into the oven to brown slightly on the top.

Any very nice baked pudding will be improved by covering the surface with a meringue.

HANOVER PUDDING.--Cut up half a pound of fresh butter in half a pint of milk. Set them over the fire till the butter is soft enough to mix thoroughly with the milk. Then take it off, and let it stand till lukewarm. Have ready four well-beaten eggs. Stir them hard into the butter and milk. Then add very gradually a pound of sifted flour. Last stir in two large table-spoonfuls of strong fresh yeast. Beat the whole very hard. Cover the pan, and let it stand near the fire for three hours or till the mixture is quite light. Have ready half a pound of Zante currants, picked, washed, and dried; or half a pound of fine raisins, seeded and cut in half. Dredge the fruit thickly with flour to prevent its sinking. Then mix it, gradually, into the pudding with two large table-spoonfuls of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon; and a salt-spoon of sal-eratus, or small tea-spoonful of bi-carbonate of soda, dissolved in a very little lukewarm water. Stir the whole very hard. Transfer it to a deep tin pan, well-buttered, and bake it thoroughly. Before it goes to table, turn it out on a dish, and serve it up warm with any sort of nice sweet sauce.

TURKISH RICE PUDDING.--Pick and wash half a pound of rice. Prepare also half a pound of Zante currants, which must be carefully picked clean, washed through two waters, drained well, and then spread out to dry on a flat dish before the fire. Put the rice into a sauce-pan, with a quart of rich milk. Having dredged the currants with flour, stir them a few at a time into the rice and milk. Then add four ounces of broken up loaf-sugar, on which you have rubbed off the yellow rind of a large ripe lemon or orange, and squeezed the juice. Stir in two ounces of fresh butter divided into bits. When the rice is well swollen and quite soft, take it from the fire, and mix with it gradually eight well-beaten yolks of eggs. Transfer it to a deep china dish, and put it into an oven for half an hour. Then sift powdered sugar thickly over the top, and brown it by holding above it a red-hot shovel or salamander. Serve it up warm.

This pudding may be made with ground rice, or rice flour.

CREAM COCOA-NUT PUDDING.--Take two cocoa-nuts of large size. Break them up, and pare off the brown skin from the pieces. Then grate them very fine. Stir together a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of finely-powdered loaf-sugar, till perfectly light. Beat six eggs till very thick and smooth: afterwards mix them, gradually, with a pint of rich cream. Add this mixture, by degrees, to the beaten butter and sugar, in turn with the grated cocoa-nut; a little at a time of each, stirring very well as you proceed. Then give the whole a hard stirring. Put the mixture into a deep white dish and bake it well. Send it to table _cold_, with loaf-sugar sifted over the top.

You may season the mixture by stirring in, at the last, a tea-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and cinnamon finely powdered. And you may add a table-spoonful of rose-brandy.

This pudding may be baked in puff-paste in two deep plates, with a broad border of paste round the edge, handsomely notched. Or it may be done without any paste _beneath_ the mixture; but merely a paste border round the edge of the dish, which last is the better way. Paste at the bottom of these soft pudding-mixtures is usually tough and clammy, from the almost impossibility of getting it thoroughly done; and therefore it is best omitted, as is now generally the case. If there is no paste under it, the pudding should be baked in the dish in which it is to go to table. Unless the oven is so hot as to burn the pudding, no dish will be injured by baking. No pie or pudding should be sent to table in any thing inferior to white-ware.

PINE-APPLE PUDDING.--Take half a pound of grated pine-apple; half a pound of powdered white sugar, and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Put the sugar into a deep pan, cut up the butter among it, and stir them together till very light. Then add, by degrees, the grated pine-apple. Grate a small two-penny sponge-cake, and mix it with a large tea-cup of rich cream, and grate into it a small nutmeg, or half a large one. Add this to the pine-apple mixture in the pan. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them in gradually a little at a time. Stir the whole very hard, after all the ingredients are put together. Butter a deep dish, put in the mixture, and bake it well.

If your dish has a broad rim, lay round the edge a border of puff-paste, cut into leaves resembling a wreath.

AN ALMOND RICE PUDDING.--Blanch, in boiling water, three ounces of shelled bitter almonds, afterwards throwing them into cold water. Pound them, one at a time, in a mortar, till they become a smooth paste; adding frequently, as you pound them, a few drops of rose-water, to make them white and light, and to prevent their oiling. Take a quart of rich, unskimmed milk, and stir into it, gradually, three large, heaping table-spoonfuls of ground rice flour, alternately with the pounded almonds, and four heaping table-spoonfuls of powdered loaf-sugar. Set the mixture over the fire, and boil and stir it till very thick. Then put it into a deep dish, and set it away to cool. When cold, have ready the whites of two eggs beaten to a stiff froth, and thickened with powdered sugar, that has been melted in rose-water. Cover with this the surface of the pudding. Set it in an oven just long enough to be slightly coloured of a light brown. Send it to table cold.

BOILED ALMOND PUDDING.--Blanch, in boiling water, a quarter of a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and two ounces of shelled bitter almonds. Throw them into a pan of cold water, as you blanch them. Afterwards pound them, one at a time, in a mortar; adding to them, as you proceed, the beaten whites of two or three eggs, a little at a time. They must be pounded till they become a smooth paste; mixing together the sweet and the bitter almonds, and removing them, as you go on, from the mortar to a plate. Then set them in a cool place. Boil slowly a quart of cream, or rich, unskimmed milk, with half a dozen blades of mace, whole; and half a nutmeg, powdered. It may simmer half an hour, and when it comes to a boil, take it off, remove the mace, and set the milk to cool. Beat eight eggs very light, (omitting the whites of three,) and then add to them a heaped table-spoonful of flour. Stir the beaten eggs and the pounded almonds, alternately, into the pan of milk, (after it has become quite cold,) add a table-spoonful of orange-flower or rose-water, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready, over the fire, a pot of boiling water. Dip into it a thick pudding-cloth, shake it out, spread it open in a large empty pan, dredge it well with flour, and pour the pudding-mixture into it. Tie it very closely, leaving sufficient space for the pudding to swell, and plug the tying-place with a small lump of flour-and-water dough. Lay an old plate in the bottom of the pot of boiling water. Put in the pudding, and turn it over in a quarter of an hour. Boil it very fast for an hour, or more, after it has commenced boiling; replenishing the pot from a kettle of _boiling_ water. When the pudding is done, dip it a moment into cold water; then turn it out on a dish. Send it to table immediately, with a sauce of sweetened cream, flavoured with rose or orange-flower water.

BISCUIT PUDDINGS.--Grate some stale milk-biscuits, till you have six heaping table-spoonfuls of fine crumbs. Then sift them through a coarse sieve. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them into a pint of cream, or rich, unskimmed milk, alternately with the biscuit crumbs, a little of each at a time. Beat the mixture very hard, and then butter some large breakfast-cups, such as hold near half a pint. Nearly fill them with the batter. Set them immediately into a brisk oven, and bake them half an hour, or more. This quantity will make five puddings. Serve them up hot in the cups, and eat them with wine-sauce, or with sauce of butter and sugar, stirred to a cream, and flavoured with nutmeg and lemon.

MARMALADE PUDDINGS.--Make the above mixture, and, when they are baked, turn the puddings out of the cups, make a slit or opening in the side of each, and fill up the inside or cavity of each pudding with any sort of nice marmalade or jam; taking care to fill them well. Then close the slit with your fingers. They may be eaten warm or cold, and require no other sauce than sweetened cream.

AN EXCELLENT CORN-MEAL PUDDING.--Boil a quart of rich milk, and pour it scalding hot into a large pan. Stir in, gradually, a quart of sifted Indian meal, and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter; adding the grated yellow rind of a lemon or orange. Squeeze the juice upon a quarter of a pound of brown sugar, and stir that in also. Add a large tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Have ready a pound of raisins, seeded, and cut in half, and dredged thickly with wheat flour, to prevent their sinking. Beat six eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture. Lastly, stir in the raisins, a few at a time, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready a large pot of boiling water; dip into it a square pudding-cloth, shake it out, and dredge it with flour. Spread out the cloth in a deep, empty pan, and pour into it the pudding-mixture. Tie it firmly, leaving room for the pudding to swell. Put it into the pot of hot water, and boil it four hours, or five; turning it several times, while boiling; and replenishing the water, as it boils away, with water kept hot, for the purpose, in a kettle. When done, take out the pudding from the pot; dip it, for a minute into cold water, before you untie the cloth; then turn it out into a dish, and send it to table. It should not be taken out of the pot till a minute or two before it is wanted.

Eat it with wine-sauce; or with butter, white sugar nutmeg, and lemon or orange-juice, beaten together to a light cream.