Part 19

TOMATO CATCHUP.--Take a peck of large ripe tomatos. In the middle States they are in perfection the last of August. Late in the autumn they are comparatively insipid and watery. Cut a slit down the side of every tomato. Put them into a large preserving kettle without any water. Their own juice is sufficient. On no account boil tomatos in brass or copper, their acid acting on those metals produces verdigris, and renders them poisonous. Boil them till they are quite soft, and easily mashed, stirring them up frequently from the bottom. Press and mash them through a hair sieve, till all the pulp has run out into the pan below, leaving in the sieve only the skins and seeds. Season the liquid with a little salt, some cayenne, and plenty of powdered nutmeg and mace. Mix it well, and when cold put up the catchup in small jars, the covers pasted all round with bands of white paper. This catchup, when done, should be very thick and smooth.

LEMON CATCHUP.--Take six fine large ripe lemons, and roll them under your hand to increase the quantity of juice. Grate off all the yellow rind, and squeeze the juice into a pitcher, removing all the seeds. Prepare two ounces of finely scraped horse-radish, and two ounces of minced shalots, or very small onions. Put them into a pint of boiling vinegar, in which half an ounce of bruised ginger and a quarter of an ounce of mace have been simmered for five minutes. Add to this the lemon-juice and the grated peel, and two grated nutmegs. Boil all together for half an hour, and then transfer it with all the ingredients to a glass jar with a lid. Paste a band of strong white paper round the lower part of the lid. Set it in a dry cool place, and leave it undisturbed for three months. Then, through a funnel, pour off the liquid into small bottles, putting a tea-spoonful of salad oil at the top of each. Cork and seal them.

CUCUMBER CATCHUP.--For a small quantity of this catchup, take twelve fine full-grown cucumbers, and lay them an hour in cold water. Then pare them, and grate them down into a deep dish. Grate also two small onions, and mix them with the grated cucumber. Season the mixture to your taste with pepper, salt, and vinegar, making it of the consistence of very thick marmalade or jam. When thoroughly amalgamated, transfer it to a glass jar. Cover it closely, tying over it a piece of bladder, so as to render it perfectly air-tight.

It will be found very nice, (when fresh cucumbers are not in season,) to eat with beef or mutton. And if properly made, and securely covered, will keep well. It should be grated very fine, and the vinegar must be of very excellent quality--real cider vinegar.

CAMP CATCHUP.--Take a pint or quart of strong ale or porter, and a pint of white wine; half a dozen shalots, or very small onions, peeled and minced; half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of nutmeg, broken up; and two large roots or races of ginger, sliced. Put all together, over a moderate fire, into a porcelain-lined kettle, and boil it slowly till one-third of the liquid is wasted. Next day transfer it to small bottles, putting a portion of the seasoning in the bottom of each, and filling them to the top with the liquid. Finish with a tea-spoonful of salad oil at the top. Cork the bottles with good corks, and seal them. In a dry place this catchup will keep for years.

TARRAGON VINEGAR.--The fresh leaves of the tarragon plant are in perfection in July and August, and impart a new and pleasant taste to soups, hashes, gravies, &c. To use it fresh, wash a bunch of tarragon in cold water. Afterwards strip off the green leaves, chop or mince them, and boil a tea-spoonful or more in the dish you intend to flavor. The best way of keeping tarragon is to strip off as many fresh leaves as will half fill a glass jar that holds a quart. Pour on as much _real_ cider vinegar as will fill up the jar. Cover it closely, and let the tarragon infuse in it for a week, shaking the jar every day. Then pour off that vinegar carefully, and throw away the tarragon leaves that have been steeping in it. Wash that jar, or take another clean one, put into it the same quantity of fresh tarragon leaves, and fill up with the same vinegar in which you have infused the first supply. Let the second leaves remain in the jar of vinegar. A tarragon bush is well worth planting; even in a small city garden.

Tarragon is the chief ingredient of French mustard.

FINE FRENCH MUSTARD.--Take a jill or two large wine-glasses of tarragon vinegar, (strained from the leaves,) and mix with it an equal quantity of salad oil, stirring them well together. Pound in a mortar, two ounces of mustard seed till it becomes a fine smooth powder, and mix it thoroughly. Add to it one clove of garlic (not more) peeled, minced and pounded. Make the mixture in a deep white-ware dish. If the mustard affects your eyes, put on glasses till you have finished the mixture. When done, put it up in white bottles, or gallipots. Cork them tightly, and seal the corks. Send it to table in those bottles.

This mustard is far superior to any other, the tarragon imparting a peculiar and pleasant flavor.

It is excellent to eat with any sort of roast meat, particularly beef or mutton, and an improvement to almost all plain sauces, stews, soups, &c.

French mustard is to be purchased very good, at all the best grocery stores.

SAUCE ROBERT.--Peel five large onions, and parboil them to take off some of the strength. Cut them into small dice, and put them into a stew-pan with a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, divided into four, and dredged with flour. When they are well browned, pour on them half a pint of beef or veal gravy, and let it simmer for a quarter of an hour. Season it slightly with cayenne. Just before it goes to table, stir in a table-spoonful of French mustard.

This is a good sauce for any sort of roast meat, or poultry.

GREEN MAYONNAISE.--This is a fine accompaniment to cold poultry, which must be cut into small pieces as for chicken salad, using only the white meat. To begin the mayonnaise. Put into a shallow pan the yolks only of three fresh eggs, having strained out the specks. Having beaten them till light and thick, add, by degrees, a half pint of salad oil, stirring it in gradually, so that no oil whatever is to be seen on the surface. Then add two table-spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar. Next a few drops of shalot vinegar, or a _very small_ onion minced as finely as possible. If you have at hand any clear meat gravy (for instance, veal,) stir in two or three table-spoonsful. Add the grated yellow rind, and the juice of a lemon. Pound as much spinach as will yield a small tea-cupful of green juice. Give it a short boil up, to take off the rawness, and mix it with the mayonnaise. When cool, pour it over the dish of cold poultry.

EPICUREAN SAUCE.--Pound in a mortar five or six anchovies; a heaped table-spoonful of minced tarragon leaves; a shalot, or very small onion, two or three pickled gherkins, finely minced; the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a large table-spoonful of French mustard. If you have no good butter, mix a sufficient portion of olive oil to moisten it well. Let the whole be thoroughly mixed. Put it into a bowl, and set it on ice till wanted. Then mould it into pats of equal size. Arrange them on small glass or china plates, and send them to table for dinner company, to eat with the cheese.

EAST INDIA SAUCE FOR FISH.--Mix well together a jill of India soy; a jill of chili vinegar; half a pint of walnut catchup, and a pint of mushroom-catchup. Shake the whole hard, and transfer it to small green bottles, putting a tea-spoonful of sweet oil at the top of each, and keep the sauce in a cool dry place. If you have not a fish castor, bring the store sauces to table in the small bottles they are kept in. When eating fish, mix a little of this with the melted butter on your plate.

CURRY POWDER.--Curry powder originates in India, where it is much used as a peculiar flavoring for soups, stews, and hashes. With curry dishes, boiled rice is always served up, not only in a separate dish, but also heaped round the stew in a thick even border. To make curry powder, pound in a marble mortar three ounces of turmeric, three ounces of coriander seed, and a quarter of an ounce of cayenne; one ounce of mustard, one ounce of cardamoms, a half ounce of cummin seed, and half an ounce of mace. Let all these ingredients be thoroughly mixed in the mortar, and then sift it through a fine sieve, dry it for an hour before the fire, and put it into clean bottles, securing the corks well. Use from two to three table-spoonfuls at a time, in proportion to the size of the dish you intend to curry.

It may be mixed into the gravy of any of the preceding receipts for stews. Two ounces of finely grated cocoa-nut is a pleasant improvement to curried dishes, and is universally liked.

The curry powder you buy is frequently much adulterated with inferior articles. The best curry powder imported from India is of a dark green color, and not yellow or red. It has among its ingredients, tamarinds, _not_ preserved, as we always get them--but raw in the shell. These tamarinds impart a pleasant acid to the mixture. For want of them use a lemon.

MADRAS CURRY POWDER.--Pound separately, and sift, six ounces of coriander seed, three of turmeric, one of black pepper, two of cummin, one of fennel seed, and half an ounce of cayenne. Mix all together, put them into a glass jar or bottle, and seal the cover.

With less turmeric, you may use ginger or sassafras.

Curry powder may be added to any stew of meat, poultry, or game. Boiled rice must always accompany a dish of curry.

The ingredients indispensable to all curries (and you may make a curry of any nice meat, or poultry, or even of oysters) is a very pungent powder, prepared for the purpose with turmeric. Also onions and boiled rice. In India there is always something acid in the mixture, as lemons, sour apple juice, or green tamarinds. The turmeric has a peculiar flavor of its own.

STORE SAUCES.--The celebrated English sauces, for fish and game, Harvey's sauce, (which is the best,) Quin's, Reading's, Kitchener's, Soyer's, &c., are all very good, and keep well, if genuine. They are imported in small sealed bottles, and are to be had of all the best grocers. To make them at home, is so troublesome and expensive, that it is better to buy them. They are, however, very nice, and are generally introduced at dinner parties; a little being mixed on your plate with the melted butter. If you have no fish castors, bring these sauces to table in their own bottles, to be carried round by a servant.

FINE PINK SAUCE.--Take a pint of excellent port wine, the juice and grated yellow rinds of four large lemons, two dozen blades of mace and a large nutmeg, broken up; with a quarter of an ounce of prepared cochineal, or a small tea-spoonful of alkanet chips. Add a table-spoonful of fresh salad oil. Mix the whole well in a wide-mouthed glass jar with a lid. Let the ingredients infuse a fortnight; stirring it several times a day. Then strain it, pour it through a funnel into small bottles, and seal the corks. It will give a fine pink color to drawn butter. Eat it with any sort of fish or game.

Alkanet produces a much finer color than cochineal, but it must unite with some substance of an oily nature to give out its color to advantage. It is very cheap, and very beautiful, and to be had at the druggist's. Infuse it tied in a thin muslin bag.

WINE SAUCE FOR VENISON OR GAME.--Take the half of a sixpenny loaf of bread. Cut off all the crust. Put the crumb (or soft part) into a bowl, and pour on sufficient good port wine to steep it. Soak the bread in the wine till dissolved. Then add two heaped table-spoonsful of fresh butter, and two heaped spoonsful of sugar; seasoning with powdered mace and nutmeg, and the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon. Beat all together till very smooth. Put it into a sauce-pan, and give it one boil up; taking it off as soon as it comes to a boil. Send it to table hot. It is a fine company sauce for venison, or hare, or any sort of game.

FINE PUDDING SAUCE.--Take a large half-pint cup of the best fresh butter, and the same quantity of powdered loaf-sugar. Put them together in an earthen pan, and beat them to a light thick cream. Then mix a jill or wine-glass of boiling water, and a large wine-glass of the best brandy, with the grated yellow rind and juice of a large lemon or orange; and a small nutmeg, grated. Mix these ingredients, gradually, with the beaten butter and sugar; and transfer the sauce to a small tureen, putting a spoon or ladle into it.

If designed for sauce to a plum-pudding or any other large one, you will require a pint of butter, a pint of sugar, half a pint of boiling water with half a pint of brandy, two lemons or oranges, and a _large_ nutmeg, or two small ones. Divide the sauce in two tureens. A boiled pudding for company requires no finer sauce than this.

Where _real_ cream is plenty, a bowl of it well sweetened with sugar, and flavored with nutmeg, is nice for any boiled pudding. If you add wine or lemon juice to cream sauce, previously mix the acid with the sugar, and make it very sweet before you put them to the cream, lest it should curdle.

VANILLA SAUCE.--Split and break up a small stick of vanilla, and boil it in a very little milk, till all the vanilla flavor is extracted. Then strain it through very fine muslin, and stir it into the cream. Give it one boil up in a small porcelain sauce-pan; and sweeten it well with white sugar.

PLAIN SAUCE FOR PUDDING.--Stir together (as in making pound cake) equal quantities of fresh butter and white sugar. This is the usual proportion; but if you can stir or beat it easily, try a little less butter, and a little more of the sugar. Grate in some nutmeg, and the yellow rind of a fresh lemon, and send it to table heaped on a small plate, with a tea-spoon near it.[E]

[E] The butter and sugar sauce is very nice flavored and colored with the juice of strawberries or raspberries.

Many persons prefer, with plain puddings, cold butter on a butter plate, and sugar from the sugar-bowl; mixing it for themselves on their own plate. This is best for boiled fruit pudding or dumplings; and for egg or batter puddings, molasses or syrup is very good; and costs but little.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.--Pick the cranberries clean, seeing that no stems, sticks, or dead leaves are left among them. Put them into a cullender, or sieve, and wash them through two waters. Cook them in a porcelain-lined, or enameled stew-pan, without any additional water. The water that remains about them after washing is quite sufficient for stewing them properly. No stewed fruit should be too thin or liquid. Keep a steady heat under the cranberries, stirring them up from the bottom frequently: and when they are soft, mash them with the back of the spoon. When they are quite shapeless, take them off the fire, and while they are very hot, stir in, gradually, an ample quantity of nice _brown_ sugar. They require much sweetening. Season them with nothing else. Their natural flavor is sufficient (if well sweetened) and cannot be improved by spice, lemon, or any of the usual condiments. Always buy the largest and ripest cranberries. The best things are cheapest in the end.

In stewing any sort of fruit, do not add the sugar till the fruit is done, and taken from the fire. If sweetened at the beginning, much of the strength of the sugar evaporates in cooking; besides rendering the fruit tough and hard, and retarding the progress of the stew.

In America, sweet sauce is eaten with any sort of roast meat. Send it to table cold. For company, put it into a blanc-mange mould, and turn it out in a shape, first dipping the mould, for a minute, in warm water to loosen it.

APPLE SAUCE.--Get fine juicy apples--bellflowers are the best for cooking. Sweet apples cook very badly--becoming tough, dry and tasteless. Green apples, if full grown, cook well, and have a pleasant acid.

For sauce, pare, core, and quarter or slice the apples. Wash the pieces in a cullender, and put them to stew, with only water enough to wet them a little. Apple stews that are thin and watery are disgraceful to the cook, or to the cook's mistress. Let them stew till you can mash them easily all through. Then take them off the fire, and sweeten them, adding the seasoning while the apples are warm. Season with rose-water, lemon juice, nutmeg; or with all these if for company. If you can get fresh lemon-peel, cut it into very thin slips, and put it in to stew with the apples at first. It is still better, and little more trouble, to grate the lemon-peel.

Fruit for pies should be stewed in the same manner as for sauce, and not sweetened till taken from the fire. Let the paste be baked empty in large deep plates, and when cool, filled to the brim with stewed fruit. A pie, (as we have seen them,) only half or one third full, looks very meanly--and tastes so.

All these fruit-sauces are good receipts for stewing fruit for pies or any other purpose.

We advise all families to have, among their kitchen utensils, _bain maries_, or double-kettles, putting the article to be stewed in the inner kettle, and the boiling water in the outside one. They are to be had of all sizes at the furnishing stores. They are also excellent for custards and boiled puddings.

BAKED APPLE SAUCE.--Core very nicely as many fine juicy apples as will fill a large baking-pan. All coring of apples should be done with a tin cover. This you can buy at a tinman's for a quarter dollar, and it is invaluable for the purpose. After coring the apples, pare them smooth and evenly. Put a large table-spoonful of cold water in the bottom of the baking-pan, and then put in the apples first, filling, with fine brown sugar, the hole from whence the core was taken out. To have them very nice, add some grated lemon-peel, or some rose-water. Set the pan into an oven, (not too hot,) close the oven, and bake till the apples are all broken and can be easily mashed. This way of making apple sauce, by baking in a close oven, will be found far superior to boiling or stewing them. They require no more water than is barely sufficient to give them a start at the bottom.

The flavoring (sugar, lemon, or rose,) may be deferred till the apples are baked, taken out of the oven and mashed. Then mix it in while hot.

Boiled apple sauce is usually spoiled with too much water, rendering it the consistence of thin pap, weak, washy, and mean.

GOOSEBERRY SAUCE.--Get fine full-grown green gooseberries. Pick them over, and top and tail them. Wash them in a cullender or sieve through two waters. Put them into an enameled stew-pan, with only the water remaining on them after washing, and no sugar till after they are stewed to a mash, and taken from the fire. Then while hot, stir in brown sugar enough to make them very sweet. Serve them up cold. For company, before they are sweetened, press them through a sieve, using only the pulp. Then add the sugar; and mould the whole in a form.

CURRANT SAUCE.--Take fine ripe currants, and strip them from the stems. Put them into a pan, and mash them with a large spoon, or a wooden beetle. Stew them in their own juice (no water,) and sweeten them when they are taken from the fire. For company, press the fruit through a sieve before you add the sugar, and shape it in a mould.

It will answer every purpose of regular currant jelly, to eat with game, venison, &c.

RIPE PEACH SAUCE.--Take juicy freestone peaches; pare and stone them, and cut them up. Save all the juice, and stew them in it. When quite soft, take them off the fire, and sweeten them. The flavor will be much improved by stewing with them a bunch of fresh peach leaves, to be taken out when the peaches are done. Or, if you cannot readily obtain the leaves, a handful of the fresh peach kernels, stewed with the fruit, (and to be taken out afterwards,) will answer the purpose.

It is well, even in the sunny side of a city garden, to plant two peach stones; so that when they grow into trees, you may have peach leaves at hand for improving the flavor of custards, and other things. Unless the trees are perfectly healthy, and the leaves green, do not use them.

DRIED PEACH SAUCE.--The richest and best dried peaches, are those that are dried with the skins on. The skins (however thick,) entirely dissolve in cooking, and become imperceptible when the fruit is well stewed. It is a great error to pare peaches for drying. Apples _must_ be pared, for the skin is tougher than that of peaches, and does not dissolve in cooking.

To prepare dried peaches for stewing, pick them over carefully, throwing away all the imperfect pieces. Wash them in two cold waters, and then put them into a stew-pan, (_adding no water_,) and stew them till they are quite soft, and shapeless, and mash easily and smoothly in the pan. Sweeten them with plenty of brown sugar, as soon as they come off the fire.

DRIED APPLE SAUCE.--Wash the dried apples through a cullender, and put _a very little water_ with them in the stew-pan. Being rather insipid, they require some additional flavor. Add cinnamon, or other spice of any sort you like, and the yellow rind of a fresh lemon or orange, pared very thin and cut into slips. When these apples are well stewed and mashed, sweeten them.

We believe, that when dried peaches can be procured, few will buy dried apples; they are so far inferior; being the poorest of dried fruit.

Dried cherries also are scarcely worth cooking, even if they _have_ been stoned. Being tough and indigestible, they are very unwholesome, except for rough, hard-working people. If the stones are left in, dried cherries are fit for nothing.

DAMSON SAUCE.--Having stewed the damsons in their own juice, till all the stones slip out, (and can be easily removed with a spoon, when taken from the fire,) make them very sweet by stirring in a large portion of brown sugar.

Damsons, cranberries, and gooseberries require more sugar than any other fruit.

FINE PRUNE SAUCE.--Wash a pound of prunes, and stew them in orange juice, adding the yellow rind of an orange, pared so fine as to be transparent--or grate it. Stir them up frequently, and when quite done, and the stones are all loose, sweeten the prunes with plenty of sugar.

Prune sauce is eaten with venison, or any sort of game; or with roast kid or fawn--or with roast pig.

CHESTNUT SAUCE.--Take the large Spanish chestnuts. Cut a slit in the side of each, and roast them well. Peel them, and put them into a saucepan of very rich melted butter. If you use American chestnuts, boil them till quite soft, (trying two or three to ascertain,) then peel, and thicken your melted butter with them. American chestnuts are too small to roast.

PEA-NUT SAUCE.--Having roasted and shelled a pint of pea-nuts, or ground-nuts, remove the thin brown skin, and simmer the nuts in melted or drawn butter; adding some fine fresh oysters, omitting the gristle.

VEGETABLES.