Part 12

EXCELLENT MINCED VEAL.--Take three or four pounds of the lean only of a fillet or loin of veal, and mince it very finely, adding a slice or two of cold ham, minced also. Add two or three small young onions, chopped small, a tea-spoonful of sweet marjoram leaves rubbed from the stalks, the yellow rind of a small lemon grated, and a tea-spoonful of mixed mace and nutmeg powdered. Mix all well together, and dredge it with a little flour. Put it into a stew-pan, with sufficient gravy of cold roast veal to moisten it, and a large table-spoonful or more of fresh butter. Stir it well, and let it stew till thoroughly done. If the veal has been previously cooked, a quarter of an hour will be sufficient. It will be much improved by adding a pint or more of small button mushrooms, cut from the stems, and then chopped small. Also, by stirring in two table-spoonfuls of cream about five minutes before it is taken from the fire.

VEAL WITH OYSTERS.--Take two fine cutlets of about a pound each. Divide them into several pieces, cut thin. Put them into a frying-pan, with boiling lard, and let them fry awhile. When the veal is almost done, add to it a pint of large, fine oysters,--their liquor thickened with a few grated bread-crumbs, and seasoned with mace and nutmeg powdered. Continue the frying till the veal and oysters are thoroughly done. Send it to table in a covered dish.

TERRAPIN VEAL.--Take some cold roast veal, (the fillet or the loin) and cut it into mouthfuls. Put it in a skillet or stew-pan. Have ready a dressing made of six or seven hard-boiled eggs, minced fine; a small tea-spoonful of tarragon mustard; a salt-spoonful of salt; and the same of cayenne pepper; a large tea-cupful (half a pint) of cream, and two glasses of sherry or Madeira wine. The dressing must be thoroughly mixed. Pour it over the veal, and then give the whole a hard stir. Cover it, and let it stew over the fire for ten minutes. Then transfer it to a deep dish, and send it to table hot.

Cold roast duck or fowl may be drest as above. Also, venison.

VEAL OLIVES.--Take some cold fillet of veal and cold ham, and cut them into thin square slices of the same size and shape, trimming the edges evenly. Lay a slice of veal on every slice of ham, and spread some beaten yolk of egg over the veal. Have ready a thin forcemeat, made of grated bread-crumbs, sweet marjoram rubbed fine, fresh butter, and grated lemon-peel, seasoned with nutmeg and a little cayenne pepper. Spread this over the veal, and then roll up each slice tightly with the ham. Tie them round securely with coarse thread or fine twine; run a bird-spit through them, and roast them well. For sauce, simmer in a small sauce-pan, some cold veal gravy with two spoonfuls of cream, and some mushroom catchup.

VEAL RISSOLES.--Take as much fine wheat bread as will weigh one pound, after all the crust is cut off. Slice it; put it into a pan and pour over it as much rich milk as will soak it thoroughly. After it has soaked a quarter of an hour, lay it in a sieve and press it dry. Mince as finely as possible a pound of veal cutlet with six ounces of veal suet; then mix in gradually the bread; adding a salt-spoonful of salt, a slight sprinkling of cayenne, and a small tea-spoonful of powdered mace and nutmeg mixed; also the yellow rind of a lemon grated. Beat two eggs, and moisten the mixture with them. Then divide it into equal portions, and with a little flour on your hands roll it into oval balls rather smaller than an egg. Strew over them some dry bread-crumbs; then fry them in lard or fresh butter--drain them well, and send them to table hot. For gravy (which should be commenced before the rissoles) put some bits and trimmings of veal into a small sauce-pan, with as much water as will cover them; a very little pepper and salt; and three or four blades of mace. Cover the sauce-pan closely, and let the meat stew till all the strength is extracted; skimming it well. Then strain it; return the liquor to the sauce-pan; add a bit of butter rolled in flour; and squeeze in the juice of a lemon. Give it a boil up, and then, at the last, stir in the beaten yolk of an egg. Serve up this gravy in a sauce-boat, to eat with the rissoles.

Instead of stewing meat for the purpose, you may make this gravy with the drippings of roast veal saved from the day before. You have then only to melt it over the fire; adding the seasoning; and giving it one boil.

Similar rissoles may be made of minced chicken or turkey.

TO PREPARE SWEETBREADS.--The sweetbread belonging to the breast of the calf is far superior to that which is found about the throat, being larger, whiter, more tender, and more delicate. Always buy them in preference. They should be set immediately on ice, and prepared for cooking as speedily as possible, for they spoil very soon. Soak them in warm water till all the blood is discharged. Then put them into boiling water, and boil them five minutes. After this, lay them immediately in a pan of very cold water. This sudden transition from hot water to cold, will blanch or whiten them. Dark-colored sweetbreads make a very bad appearance. Four are generally sufficient for a small dish. But as, if well cooked, they are much liked, it is best to have six; or else eight upon two dishes. If the sweetbreads are to be cut up before cooking, remove and throw away the gristle or pipe that pervades every one. If they are to be cooked whole, you may leave the pipe in, to be taken out by the eaters.

For company, it is usual to lard sweetbreads with slips of fat ham or bacon, or of cold smoked tongue.

Sweetbreads are used as side-dishes at dinners, or at nice breakfasts.

SWEETBREAD CROQUETTES.--Having trimmed some sweetbreads nicely, and removed the gristle, parboil them, and then mince them very fine. Add grated bread, and season with a very little salt and pepper; some powdered mace and nutmeg; and some grated lemon-rind. Moisten the whole with cream, and make them up into small cones or sugar-loaves; forming and smoothing them nicely. Have ready some beaten egg, mixed with grated bread-crumbs. Dip into it each croquette, and fry them slowly in fresh butter. Serve them hot; standing up on the dish, and with a sprig of parsley in the top of each.

Sweetbreads should never be used unless perfectly fresh. They spoil very rapidly. As soon as they are brought from market they should be split open, and laid in cold water. Never attempt to keep sweetbreads till next day, except in cold weather; and then on ice.

Similar croquettes may be made of cold boiled chicken; or cold roast veal; or of oysters, minced raw, and seasoned and mixed as above.

FRICASSEED SWEETBREADS.--Take half a dozen sweetbreads; clean them thoroughly, and lay them for an hour or two in a pan of water, having first removed the strings and gristle. Then put them into a stew-pan with as much rich milk or cream as will cover them well, and a very little salt. Stew them slowly, till tender throughout, and thoroughly done, saving the liquid. Then take them up; cover them; and set them near the fire to keep warm. Prepare a quarter of a pound of butter, divided into four pieces, and rolled in flour. Put the butter into the milk in which the sweetbreads were boiled, and add a few sprigs of parsley cut small; five or six blades of mace; half a nutmeg grated; and a very little cayenne pepper. Have ready the yolks of three eggs well-beaten. Return the sweetbreads to the gravy; let it just come to a boil; and then stir in the beaten egg _immediately before_ you take the fricassee from the fire, otherwise it will curdle. Serve it up in a deep dish with a cover.

Chickens, cut up, may be fricasseed in this manner.

TOMATO SWEETBREADS.--Cut up a quarter of a peck (or more) of fine ripe tomatos; set them over the fire, and let them stew with nothing but their own juice, till they go entirely to pieces. Then press them through a sieve, to clear the liquid from the seeds and skins. Have ready four or five sweetbreads that have been trimmed nicely, cleared from the gristle, and laid open to soak in warm water. Put them into a stew-pan with the tomato-juice, seasoned with a little salt and cayenne. Add two or three table-spoonfuls of butter rolled in flour. Set the sauce-pan over the fire, and stew the sweetbreads in the tomato-juice till they are thoroughly done. A few minutes before you take them off, stir in two beaten yolks of eggs Serve up the sweetbreads in a deep dish, with the tomato poured over them.

SWEETBREADS AND CAULIFLOWERS.--Take four large sweetbreads, and two fine cauliflowers. Split open the sweetbreads and remove the gristle. Soak them awhile in lukewarm water. Then put them into a sauce-pan of boiling water, and let them boil ten minutes over the fire. Afterwards, lay them in a pan of very cold water. The parboiling will render them white; and putting them directly from the hot water into the cold will give them firmness. Having washed and drained the cauliflowers, quarter them, and lay them in a broad stew-pan with the sweetbreads upon them, seasoned with a very little cayenne, four or five blades of mace, and some nutmeg. Add as much water as will cover them; put on closely the lid of the pan, and let the whole stew for about an hour. Then take a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and roll it in two table-spoonfuls of flour. Add it to the stew with a tea-cupful of rich milk or cream, and give it one boil up, not more, or the milk may curdle. Serve it hot in a deep dish; the sweetbreads in the middle with the gravy poured over them, and the quartered cauliflowers laid handsomely round. This stew will be found delicious.

Broccoli may be thus stewed with sweetbreads.

SWEETBREAD OMELET.--For an omelet of six or seven eggs, take two fine sweetbreads. Split them, take out the gristle, and soak them in two lukewarm waters, to extract all the blood. Then put them into very hot water, boil them ten minutes, take them out, set them away to cool, and afterwards mince them small, and season them with _a very little salt_ and cayenne pepper, and some grated nutmeg. Beat the eggs (omitting the whites of two) till very light. Then mix in the chopped sweetbreads. Put three ounces or more of fresh butter into a small frying-pan, and place it over the fire. Stir the butter with a spoon, as it melts, and when it comes to a boil put in the mixture, stirring it awhile after it is all in. Fry it a rich brown. Heat the plate or dish in which you turn it out of the pan. An omelet should never be turned while frying. The top may be well browned by holding above it a salamander or red-hot shovel.

If you wish it very thick, have _three_ sweetbreads.

While frying the omelet, lift the edge occasionally by slipping a knife-blade under it, that the butter may get well underneath.

If omelets are cooked too much they will become tough, and leather-like. Many persons prefer having them sent to table as _soft omelets_, before they have set, or taken the form of a cake. In this case, serve up the omelet in a deep dish, and help it with a spoon.

SWEETBREADS AND OYSTERS.--Take four sweetbreads, and when they have been soaked and blanched, quarter them, and remove the pipe. Strain the liquor from three dozen large fresh oysters, season it with powdered nutmeg and mace, and a little cayenne. Put the quartered sweetbreads into a stew-pan, and pour over them enough of the oyster-liquor to cover them well, adding, if you have it, three large spoonfuls of the gravy of roast veal, and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, cut into four bits; each bit rolled or dredged in flour. When the sweetbreads are done, put in the oysters, (first removing their gristle or hard part,) and take them out again as soon as they are plumped, which should be in five minutes. If allowed to boil, the oysters will shrivel, and become hard and tasteless. Add, at the last, two wine-glasses of cream, and shake the pan about, for a few minutes. Serve up in a deep dish.

SWEETBREAD PIES.--Make shells of puff-paste, and bake them empty. When done, fill them to the top with the above mixture. Have ready a lid for each pie, baked on a flat plate, and lay it on the top of the filling.

STEWED SWEETBREADS.--After blanching them, extract the pipe very carefully, and fill its place with a stuffing made of cold minced chicken or veal, minced ham or tongue sweet marjoram, nutmeg, grated lemon-peel, and the crumbled yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Fasten the openings with small wooden skewers, and put the sweetbreads into a broad stew-pan with a thin slice of ham under each, and another on the top of each, kept in place by a splinter-skewer. Stew the sweetbreads in the gravy of roast veal, and before you send them to table take out the skewers.

Or make a gravy of uncooked trimmings of veal or beef, stewed slowly in as much water as will cover them well, and seasoned with pepper and salt--or, stew with the fresh meat, as much ham or bacon as will flavor the gravy, (using no other salt.) When all the essence is extracted from the meat, stir in a bit of butter dredged with flour. The flour for gravies should be browned. Strain the gravy, and add any other flavoring you like.

To brown flour, spread it evenly on a large dish or flat tin, and place it before the fire, or in a rather cool oven. Scrape it up from the edges where it will get the brownest. Take care it burns or blackens nowhere. Keep it for use in a dry tin box.

BAKED SWEETBREADS.--Parboil four large sweetbreads, having first blanched them. When cold, lard them all over the surface, with slips of bacon the size of small straws. Lay them in a shallow pan, putting under each sweetbread a piece of nice fresh butter with a very little flour mixed into it. Pour into the pan a glass of nice white wine, mixed with the juice and grated yellow rind of a lemon. Season also with grated nutmeg. Or for sauce, you may use mushroom catchup, with a little salad oil stirred into it.

If you do not live in a place where nice fresh butter is to be obtained, endeavor to do without butter at all, rather than use that which is strong, rancid, or too salt. Bad butter tastes through every thing--spoils every thing, and is also extremely unwholesome, as decomposition (or in plain terms _putrefaction_,) has already commenced. Rather than use what makes all your food taste worse instead of better, try to substitute something else--such as beef or fresh pork drippings, suet, lard, or olive oil; or, molasses, honey, or stewed fruit. _We know_ that with these it is possible to live in health for years, without tasting butter. Nevertheless, good butter is a good thing, and an improvement to all sorts of cookery.

PORK.

PORK.--Young pork has a thin rind or skin, easily indented by pressing with the finger, and the lean will break by pinching. If fresh, the meat is smooth and dry; but if damp and clammy, it is tainted. If the fat is rough with little kernels, the pig has had a disease resembling the measles, and to eat it is poisonous. Pigs that have short legs, and thick necks, are the best. Pigs fed entirely on slop make very bad pork. They should be kept up for at least two months, fed with corn, and not allowed during the time of fattening to eat any sort of trash. No animal tastes more of its food than a pig. If allowed to eat the garbage of fish, they will not only have a fishy taste, but a smell of fish so intolerable, when cooking, that such pork cannot be endured in the house. During the two months that they are kept up to fatten, all their food must be wholesome as well as abundant, and it does them much good to have soap-suds given to them occasionally. Let them have plenty of corn, and plenty of fresh water. They will thrive better and make finer pork, if their pens are not allowed to be dirty. No animal actually likes dirt, and even pigs would be clean if they knew how. It is very beneficial to young pigs to wash them well in soap and water. We have seen this often done with great care.

The pork in Spain and Portugal is delicious, from being fed chiefly on the large chestnuts, of which there is great abundance in those countries. These pigs are short-legged and thick-bodied--a profitable species. The best pieces of a pig are the hind-leg and loin; the next is the shoulder, or fore-leg. The spare-rib, (pronounced sparrib by the English,) affords so little meat, and the bones are so tedious to pick, that it is seldom seen on good American tables, nothing being popular with us that cannot be eaten fast or fastish.

Pork must be thoroughly cooked; done well, and completely to the very bone. Who ever asked for a slice of pork _done rare_? Who could eat pork with the blood appearing, when served? So it is with veal. Underdone veal, or underdone chicken, is not to be thought of without disgust.

Pork, for boiling, is always previously salted or corned. Fresh pork, however, is very good _stewed_ or cooked slowly in a very little water, and with plenty of vegetables in the same pot. The vegetables should be potatos, (either sweet or white,) pared and cut into pieces--parsnips the same, or yams in thick slices. For corned pork cook the vegetables separately from the meat, or they will taste too salt and fat. They should be cabbage, or green sprouts, green beans or peas, green corn, young poke, squash, pumpkin, or cashaw, (winter squash,) boiled, mashed, and squeezed.

For salt pork, in winter, have dried beans or dried peas; first boiled, and then baked.

TO ROAST PORK.--The roasting pieces are the loin, the leg, the saddle, the fillet, the shoulder and the spare-rib, (which last is found between the shoulder or fore-leg,) and the griskin or back-bone. All roast pork should be well seasoned; rubbed with pepper, salt, or powdered sage or marjoram. Score the skin with a sharp knife, making deep lines at regular distances, about an inch apart. Cross these lines with others, so as to form squares or diamonds. Make a stuffing of minced sage or marjoram leaves; bread-crumbs; if liked, a very little minced onion previously boiled; and some powdered mace. Introduce this stuffing profusely wherever it can be inserted, loosening a piece of the skin, and fastening it down again with a small skewer. In a leg or shoulder you can put in a great deal at the knuckle. In a fillet or large end of the leg, stuff the place from whence you have taken the bone. Put the pork down to roast not very close to the fire, but place it nearer when the skin begins to brown. You can soon baste it with its own gravy; and see that it is thoroughly cooked, before removing it from the spit. After taking up the meat, skim the fat from the gravy, and stir in a little flour to thicken it.

The crackling or skin will be much more crisp and tender if you go all over it with sweet oil, or lard, before you put it to the fire.

Always accompany roast pork with apple sauce, served in a deep dish or a sauce-tureen.

Cold roast pork is very good sliced at tea or breakfast.

SWEET POTATO PORK.--Boil, peel, and mash a sufficiency of sweet potatos, moistened with butter and egg. Cover with them the bottom of a deep dish; then put on a layer of slices of fresh pork, sprinkled with minced sage or marjoram. Next, another thick layer of mashed sweet potatos; then another layer of pork cutlets, and so on till the dish is full, finishing with mashed sweet potatos. Bake it brown on the surface.

CHESTNUT PORK.--Where the large Spanish chestnuts abound, a similar dish may be made of layers of chestnuts boiled, peeled, and mashed, and layers of fresh pork in thin slices.

ROASTED SPARE-RIB.--This will do for a second dish at the table of a very small family. Rub it all over with powdered sage, pepper, and salt, and having put it on the spit, lay the thickest end to the fire. Dredge it with powdered sage and baste it with a little butter. When dished, have ready some mashed potatos made into flat cakes, and browned on the top, and laid all round the pork, with some in another dish. Send to table apple sauce also.

When apples are difficult to procure, substitute dried peaches, stewed very soft, and in no more water than remains about them after being washed. Sweeten them while hot, as soon as you take them from the fire, mashing them smoothly.

TO DRESS A YOUNG PIG.--The pig should not be more than three weeks old. If not fat, it is unfit to eat. To be in perfection, a sucking pig should be eaten the day it is killed, or its goodness and tenderness is impaired every hour. It requires great care in roasting, and constant watching. The custom of _roasting_ a very young pig has now gone much, into disuse, it being found that baking answers the purpose equally well or better, and is far less troublesome.

The pig should be washed perfectly clean, inside and out, and wiped very dry. Have ready a stuffing made of slices of bread, thickly buttered and soaked in milk, seasoned with powdered nutmeg and mace, and the grated yellow rind of a lemon, with the _hard-boiled_ yolk of an egg, crumbled, and a large handful, or more, of fine bloom raisins, seeded and cut in half, mix all these ingredients well, and fill with them the body of the pig, sewing it up afterwards. Or you may make a plain stuffing of chopped sage and onions, boiled together, with marjoram; and mixed with bread-crumbs and butter. Having trussed the pig, with the fore-legs bent back, and the hind-legs forward, rub it _all over_ with sweet oil, or with fresh butter tied in a rag. Lay it in a baking-pan, with a little water in the bottom. Then set it in an oven, not too hot, and bake it well, basting it frequently with butter. When done, dish it whole. Skim the gravy in the pan, and mix in some flour. Give it one boil up, having first put into it the chopped liver and heart of the pig, taken out after it was cooked, and stir in the beaten yolk of an egg.

The practice is now obsolete of dissecting a pig before it goes to table, splitting it down the back, and down the front, and laying the two halves in reverse positions, or back to back, with one half the split head at each side, and one ear at each end, the brains being taken out to enrich the gravy. All these disgusting things have been discarded by the better taste of modern epicures. And the pig is baked and comes to table whole. We have always thought it a most unfeminine fancy for a lady to enjoy eating the head of any thing, and the brain particularly.

PORK STEAKS, STEWED.--Take some nice fresh pork steaks, cut either from the leg or the loin. Trim off the superfluous fat. Season them with a little salt and pepper, and plenty of minced sage. Put in with them, minced onions, sliced sweet potatos, parsnips, and white potatos cut into pieces, also some lima beans. Pour in barely sufficient water to cover them; or else stew the pork in a very little lard. Apples cored, pared, and baked whole; the core-place filled with sugar, moistened with a very little water, to put in the bottom of the baking-dish, are a very nice accompaniment to pork steaks.

PORK AND APPLES.--Take nice steaks, or cutlets, of fresh pork. Season them with a little pepper, and a very little salt. Pare, core, and quarter some fine juicy apples. Flavor them with the grated yellow rind and the juice of one or two lemons, and strew among them plenty of sugar. Stew them with merely sufficient water to prevent their burning; or else a little lard without water. When thoroughly done, serve all up in the same dish. If you cannot procure lemons, flavor the apple with rose-water, or nutmeg, _after_ it is cooked. Rose-water evaporates much in cooking.