Part 13

Boil the tongues in salted water into which has been squeezed the juice of half a lemon (for six tongues). Serve with _sauce Tartare_ (see page 128).

LAMB.

The best roasts are the fore and hind quarters.

ROAST LEG OF LAMB.

Professional cooks serve a roast or baked hind quarter of lamb rather rare, or well done on the outside and pink within. It is really better, although it must be served steaming hot. Serve a caper, pickle, or mint sauce with it. If it is neatly carved through the centre, it will present a good appearance served again the next day, by stuffing the cut-out space with boiled mashed potatoes, smoothing it evenly around, and placing it long enough in the oven to become thoroughly hot.

ROAST FORE QUARTER OF LAMB.

This may or may not be partly stuffed, a common veal stuffing answering the purpose very well. It should be well seasoned with pepper and salt, thoroughly cooked, and often basted.

LAMB CHOPS.

This is a favorite dinner-company dish, generally arranged in a circle around green pease. They should be neatly trimmed, the bones scraped, then rolled in a little melted butter, and carefully broiled. When done, rub more butter over them, and season them with pepper and salt. Slip little paper ruffles (see page 61) over the ends of the bones. They may be served with a centre of almost any kind of vegetable, such as a smooth hemisphere of mashed potatoes or spinach, or with beans, cauliflowers or stuffed baked tomatoes, or with a tomato-sauce.

SADDLE OF LAMB OR MUTTON.

This is considered a delicate roast. Roast it in the usual manner. Serve caper, mint, or any of the sauces or vegetables that are used with other dishes of lamb or mutton.

LAMB CROQUETTES

are made the same as chicken _croquettes_, only substituting cold cooked lamb for the chicken. Many prefer the lamb to the chicken _croquettes_, even for dinner or lunch parties.

SHEEP’S KIDNEYS.

The best manner of cooking is to _sauté_ them. They must be perfectly fresh (they spoil soon), _sautéd_ on a quick fire, never allowed to boil in the sauce (this would spoil the gravy), and served with a little wine in the sauce.

First cut them into slices; season, and _sauté_ them in a little hot suet, clarified drippings, or butter. When done, put them on a hot plate. Now take a second stew-pan, put in a piece of butter the size of a large hickory-nut; when it is hot, throw in a tea-spoonful of minced onion, two sprigs of parsley, minced also, and a tea-spoonful of flour; when they become red, pour in one and a half cupfuls of hot water or stock. Let it simmer a few moments, then season with pepper and salt, and strain it; now add a table-spoonful of sherry or port wine, and the pieces of kidney. A few drops of lemon-juice may or may not be added. Let the kidney remain a few moments in the sauce without boiling, and serve. Professional cooks generally add minced mushrooms; but the dish is quite good enough without them.

PORK.

A little salted pork or bacon should always be kept in the house. I confess to having a decided prejudice against this meat, considering it unwholesome and dangerous, especially in cities, unless used in the smallest quantities. Yet pork makes a delicious flavoring for cooking other meats, and thin, small slices of breakfast bacon are a relishing garnish for beefsteak, veal cutlets, liver, etc. In the country, perhaps, there is less cause for doubt about its use, where the animal is raised with corn, and where much outdoor life will permit the taking of stronger food.

TO CURE BACON.

For every three hundred pounds of pork use fourteen pounds of common salt, and one pound each of brown sugar and saltpetre. Rub them into the meat, and let it lie for three weeks, rubbing and turning it occasionally. Then wipe dry, rub again with dry fine salt, wrap it in a thick cloth (canvas) or paper, and hang it in a cool, dry place.

ROAST LITTLE PIG.

I _trust_ entirely to the following receipt. Any one who fancies can cook a little pig, not I.

The pig should be three weeks old, well cleaned, and stuffed with a dressing of this proportion: Two large onions, four times the quantity of bread-crumbs, three tea-spoonfuls of chopped sage, two ounces of butter, half a salt-spoonful of pepper, one salt-spoonful of salt, and one egg. Or it may be filled with a veal force-meat stuffing, if preferred; or, it may be stuffed with hot mashed potatoes. Sew it together with a strong thread, trussing its fore legs forward and its hind legs backward. Rub the pig with butter, flour, pepper, and salt. Roast it at first before a very slow fire, as it should be thoroughly done; or, if it is baked, the oven should not be too hot at first. Baste it very often. When done (in about three hours), place a cob or a potato in the mouth, having put something in at first to keep it open. Serve it with apple-sauce or tomato-sauce.

ROAST PORK.

The roasting pieces are the spare rib, the leg, the loin, the saddle, the fillet, and the shoulder. They may be stuffed with a common well-seasoned sage stuffing. The skin, if left on, should be cut in lines forming little squares; if the skin is taken off, sprinkle a little pounded sage over all, and put over it a buttered paper. Be careful, in roasting pork, to put the meat far enough from the fire at first, as it must be thoroughly done. The rule for the time of roasting pork is twenty minutes for each pound. Baste it at first with butter, and afterward with its own drippings. A roast loin of pork is very nice (allowing it to remain well sprinkled with salt an hour or two before roasting) served with cabbage cooked with a little vinegar, or served with sauer-krout.

BROILED PORK CUTLETS (_Dubois_).

Take a fresh neck of pork (free from fat); shorten the bones of the ribs, and remove those of the chine; cut six cutlets off each neck, taking them a little obliquely; trim them, season, and roll them in melted butter and bread-crumbs. Broil them. Pour into a stew-pan four or five table-spoonfuls of vinegar, and double its volume of stock or gravy; let it boil, and thicken it with a little flour. Pass it through a sieve, and add to it pepper and some spoonfuls of chopped pickles. Dish the cutlets in a circle, and pour over them the sauce; or pork cutlets may be fried or _sautéd_ in a stew-pan, in a little hot lard, and served with the same sauce.

PORK AND BEANS.

Soak a quart of beans overnight. The next day boil them with a sliced onion, one large onion to a quart of beans (they will not taste of the onion), and when they are almost done, put them into a baking-dish, taking out the onions. Almost bury in the centre of the beans a quarter of a pound of salt pork; pour in some of the water in which the beans were boiled, and bake about an hour.

Another way is to omit the onions, and after parboiling the beans put them into the bake-pan with one large spoonful of molasses and a quarter of a pound of pork, and bake them two hours.

BOSTON BAKED BEANS.

Put one and one-half pints of medium-sized navy beans into a quart bean-pot; fill it with water, and let it stand overnight. In the morning, pour off the water, and cover the beans with fresh water in which is mixed one table-spoonful of molasses. Put a quarter of a pound of pickled pork in the centre, leaving a quarter of an inch of pork above the beans. Bake them eight hours with a steady fire, and, without stirring the beans, add a cupful of hot water every hour but the last two. Earthen pots with narrow mouths are made expressly for baking beans. Cooking them in this manner, without first boiling them, renders each bean perfectly whole and at the same time thoroughly cooked. When done, place the pork in the centre of a platter, with the beans around it.

ENTRÉE OF APPLES AND PORK.

Cut sour apples (pippins) into slices without skinning them; fry or _sauté_ them with small strips of pork. Serve both, tastefully arranged, on the same dish.

SAUSAGES (_Warne_).

“Two pounds and a half of pork, fat and lean mixed (three times as much lean as fat), one ounce of fine salt, a quarter of a pound of pepper, two tea-spoonfuls of powdered sage, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of allspice, and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of cloves. Chop the meat as fine as possible: there are machines for the purpose. Mix the seasoning well through the whole; pack the sausage-meat down hard in stone jars, which should be kept in a cool place, well covered. When wanted for use, form them into little cakes, dip them in beaten egg, then in wheat flour, and fry them in hot lard.”

Always serve apple-sauce with pork sausages. Two dishes never suited better. For breakfast, it would be well to have a centre of apple-sauce on a platter, with sausages around, or vice versâ. They are a fine garnish for a roast turkey.

It is said that sausages will keep forever, by frying them and putting them in little jars, with a cover of hot lard.

TO CURE HAMS (_Mrs. Lestlie_).

For one hundred pounds of fine pork take seven pounds of coarse salt, five pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of soda, and four gallons of water. Boil all together, and skim the pickle when cold. Pour it on the meat, which should first be rubbed all over with red pepper. Let hams and tongues remain in the pickle eight weeks. Before they are smoked, hang them up, and dry them two or three days. Then sew the hams in cases.

TO BOIL HAM.

If it is quite salt, let it soak twenty-four hours. Cut off the end of the knuckle-bone; put it into a pot with cold water at the back of the range to simmer slowly for eight hours; then take it off the fire, and let it remain in the water until nearly cold; then peel off the skin carefully, make spots at uniform distances with pepper, and wind fringed paper around the bone. Mrs. Lestlie boils her hams with a bed of hay in the bottom of the pot. Some sprinkle grated bread or crackers over the ham when trimmed, and brown it in the oven; others brush it thickly over with glaze. However well cooked, it would be utterly ruined if it were not cut into thin, neat slices for eating.

HAM AND EGGS.

The ham, cut into thin slices, can be broiled or _sautéd_. If broiled, spread over a little butter when cooked. The eggs can be fried; but they are more wholesome poached in salted water. In both cases they should be carefully cooked, neatly trimmed, and an egg served on each slice of ham.

TO FRY OR SAUTÉ HAM.

The ham should be cut into thin, neat slices, and _sautéd_ only for a minute in a hot _sauté_ pan. If it is much more than thoroughly heated, it will become tough and dry.

PORK FRIED IN BATTER, OR EGGED AND BREAD-CRUMBED.

Roll very thin slices of breakfast bacon or fat pork in fritter batter, or egg and bread-crumb them, and fry them in boiling lard. Serve on toast or fried mush as a dish by itself, or as a garnish for beefsteak, fried chickens, breaded chops, etc.

MRS. TROWBRIDGE’S BREAKFAST-BACON DISH.

Soak slices of bacon or pork in milk for fifteen minutes; then dip them into flour, and fry them in the _sauté_ pan. When done, _sauté_ some slices of potato in the same hot fat, and serve them in the centre of a hot dish, with a circle of the slices of pork around them.

RASHERS OF PORK (_to serve with Beefsteak, Roast Beef, etc._).

Breakfast bacon should be cut very thin (one-eighth of an inch thick), and in strips three or four inches long. It should be fried in the _sauté_ pan only long enough to become transparent, or thoroughly hot; if cooked crisp, it is ruined. The French usually serve these strips of bacon laid over beefsteak, roast beef, game, etc.

SANDWICHES (_Mrs. Geo. H. Williams_), No. 1.

Cut some fresh bread very thin, and of square equal shapes. Chop some cold boiled ham very fine, and mix with it the yolks of one or two uncooked eggs, a little pepper and mustard. Spread some of this mixture over the buttered slices of bread; roll them, pinching each roll at the end to keep it in shape.

If there is difficulty in cutting fresh bread, use that which is a day old, then cut it in very thin slices, buttering it on the loaf before it is cut; cut the slices into little even squares or diamonds (the crust being all removed), spread with the chopped ham mixture before mentioned, and fit two squares together.

SANDWICHES (_New York Cooking-school_), No. 2.

Chop fine half a pound of boiled ham, and season it with one table-spoonful of olive-oil, one table-spoonful of lemon-juice, a little cayenne or mustard, and rub it through a sieve. Butter the bread on the loaf before cutting it, and spread the ham between the slices.

SMALL ROLLS, WITH SALAD FILLING.

Cut off a little piece of the top of a French roll, and remove carefully the crumb from the inside. Prepare a stuffing of cold chicken, tongue, and celery (cut in dice), mixed in _Mayonnaise_ dressing, and fill the roll, covering the top with the small piece cut off.

This makes a very nice lunch dish, or a lunch for traveling. The rolls may be filled with cold cooked lobster, cut into little dice, and covered with a _Mayonnaise_ dressing.

POULTRY.

If care is taken in picking and dressing fowls or birds, there is no need of washing them. In France it is never done, unless there is absolutely something to wash off; then it is done as delicately as possible. In expostulating once with an old negro auntie for soaking all the blood and flavor out of a fowl, she quickly replied, “Bless my soul, child! haven’t I cooked chickens for fifty years?”

When you buy a goose or a duck, be sure that it is young. Never buy an old duck. The first I ever bought were from a penful at market. I thought myself very clever in choosing the largest, all being one price; not so clever at dinner, when my husband tried to carve those tough and aged drakes.

ROAST TURKEY.

The secret in having a good roast turkey is to baste it often, and to cook it long enough. A small turkey of seven or eight pounds (the best selection if fat) should be roasted or baked three hours at least. A very large turkey should not be cooked a minute less than four hours; an extra hour is preferable to a minute less. If properly basted, they will not become dry.

With much experience in hotel life, where turkeys are ruined by the wholesale, I have never seen a piece of turkey that was fit to eat. Besides being tasteless, they are almost invariably undercooked. First, then, after the turkey is dressed, season it well, sprinkling pepper and salt on the inside; stuff it, and tie it well in shape; either lard the top or lay slices of bacon over it; wet the skin, and sprinkle it well with pepper, salt, and flour. It is well to allow a turkey to remain some time stuffed before cooking. Pour a little boiling water into the bottom of the dripping-pan. If it is to be roasted, do not put it too near the coals at first, until it gets well heated through; then gradually draw it nearer. The excellence of the turkey depends much upon the frequency of basting it; occasionally baste it with a little butter, oftener with its own drippings. Just before taking it from the fire or out of the oven, put on more melted butter, and sprinkle over more flour; this will make the skin more crisp and brown. While the turkey is cooking, boil the giblets well; chop them fine, and mash the liver. When the turkey is done, put it on a hot platter. Put the baking-pan on the fire, dredge in a little flour, and when cooked stir in a little boiling water or stock; strain it, skim off every particle of fat; add the giblets; season with salt and pepper. If chestnut stuffing is used, add some boiled chestnuts to the gravy; this is decidedly the best sauce for a turkey. Besides the gravy, always serve cranberry (see receipt, page 204), currant, or plum jelly with turkey. These are more attractive molded the day before they are served. The currant or plum jelly is melted and remolded in a pretty form. Roast turkeys are often garnished with little sausage-balls.

STUFFING FOR BAKED TURKEY, CHICKEN, VEAL, AND LAMB (_New York Cooking-school_).

Soak half a pound of bread (with the crust cut off) in tepid water, then squeeze it dry. Put three ounces of butter into a stew-pan, and when hot stir in a small onion minced (one and a half ounces), which color slightly; then add the bread, with three table-spoonfuls of parsley (half an ounce) chopped fine, half a tea-spoonful of powdered thyme, a little grated nutmeg, pepper, salt, and a gill of stock. Stir it over the fire until it leaves the bottom and sides; then mix in two eggs.

STUFFING FOR ROAST TURKEYS, CHICKENS, DUCKS, AND GEESE.

The commonest stuffing is this: Two onions, five ounces of soaked and squeezed bread, eight sage leaves, an ounce of butter, pepper, salt, one egg, a little piece of pork minced. Mince the onions, and fry them in the _sauté_ pan before adding them to the other ingredients. Some chopped celery is always a good addition.

CHESTNUT, POTATO, VEAL, AND OYSTER STUFFINGS.

The chestnut stuffing is made by adding chestnuts to the ordinary stuffing. They are put on the fire in a saucepan or spider to burst the skins; they are then boiled in very salted water or stock; some are also put into the sauce. Or turkeys, etc., may be stuffed with boiled, mashed, and seasoned sweet-potatoes or Irish potatoes.

The great cooks make extra trouble and expense in preparing a force-meat stuffing of cold veal, cold ham, bacon, and a few bread-crumbs, mixed and seasoned with cayenne, salt, lemon-juice, summer savory, parsley, or any sweet herbs. Then they often add truffles cut into little balls; or, an oyster stuffing is made by merely adding plenty of whole oysters (not chopped) to the ordinary turkey bread stuffing. It should be well seasoned, or the oysters will taste insipid.

BOILED TURKEY.

If a boiled turkey is not well managed, it will be quite tasteless. Choose a hen turkey. If not well trussed and tied, the legs and wings of a boiled fowl will be found pointing to all the directions of the compass. Cut the legs at the first joint and draw them into the body. Fasten the small ends of the wings under the back, and tie them securely with strong twine. Sprinkle over plenty of salt, pepper, and lemon-juice, and put it into _boiling_ water. Boil it slowly two hours, or until quite tender. It is generally served in a bed of rice, with oyster, caper, cauliflower, parsley, or _Hollandaise_ sauce. Pour part of the sauce over the turkey. Reserve the giblets for giblet soup. It can be stuffed or not, the same as for roasting.

TURKEY OR CHICKEN HASH

is made like beef hash, only substituting turkey or chicken for beef.

TURKEY BRAISED.

If you have an old turkey unfit for roasting or boiling, braise it for four or five hours, adding a little wine (toward the last) to the stock, if you choose.

TURKEY GALANTINE, OR BONED TURKEY.

Choose a fat hen turkey. When dressing it, leave the crop skin (the skin over the breast) whole; cut off the legs, wings, and neck. Now slit the skin at the back, and carefully remove it all around. Cut out the breasts carefully; cut them into little elongated pieces, about a quarter of an inch square and an inch long (parallelograms); or cut them any way you like. Season them with pepper, salt, a little nutmeg, mace, pounded cloves, sweet basil, and a little chopped parsley, all mixed. Now make a force-meat, with a pound and a quarter of lean veal or fresh pork, well freed from skin and gristle. Mix this with the meat of the turkey (all but the breasts); chop it well. Then chop an equal volume of fresh bacon, which mix with the other chopped meat: season this with the condiments last mentioned. Now pound it in a mortar to a paste. Cut one pound of truffles, half a pound of cooked pickled tongue, and half a pound of cooked fat bacon, into three-quarter-inch dice. Season these also.

Spread the turkey skin on a board. Make alternate layers on it, first of half of the force-meat, then half of the turkey breasts, then half of the dice of tongue, truffles, and bacon, then, turkey fillets and dice again: save some of the force-meat to put on the last layer. Now begin at one side and roll it over, giving it a round and long shape; sew up the skin; wrap it, pressing it closely in a napkin; tie it at the extremities, and also tie it across in two places, to keep it in an oval shape with round ends.

Boil the galantine gently for four hours in boiling water (or, better, in stock), with the bones of the turkey thrown in. At the end of that time, take the stew-pan off the fire. Let the galantine cool in the liquor one hour; then drain it, and put it on a dish with a seven-pound weight on it.

When cold, take the galantine out of the napkin; put it at the end of an open oven for some minutes to melt the fat, which wipe off with a cloth; glaze it, or sprinkle it with a little egg and fine bread-crumbs, and bake it a few minutes. It is, of course, to be sliced when eaten. It is generally served placed on a wooden standard, as described for a _Mayonnaise_ of salmon.

A boned turkey, or galantine, is seen at almost all large parties. It is convenient to have one in the house, as it will keep for a long time, and is very nice for lunch or tea. It costs ten dollars to buy one, and about half of the amount to make it. Of course, it is some trouble to make; yet if one’s time is worth less than one’s money, there is plenty of time for the purpose, as it can be made three or four days before an entertainment. Chicken and game galantines are made in the same way. The figure on page 169 is a boned turkey or chicken prepared for boiling.

MIXED SPICES FOR SEASONING.

In cities, mixed spices can be purchased, which are prepared by professional cooks, and which save much trouble to inexperienced compounders. This is one of their receipts: “Take of nutmegs and mace, one ounce each; of cloves and white pepper-corns, two ounces each; of sweet basil, marjoram, and thyme, one ounce each, and half an ounce of bay leaves: these herbs should be previously dried for the purpose. Roughly pound the spices, then place the whole of the above ingredients between two sheets of white paper, and after the sides have been folded over tightly, to prevent the evaporation of the volatile properties of the herbs and spices, place them in a warm place to become perfectly dry. They must then be pounded quickly, put through a sieve, corked up tightly in bottles, and kept for use.”

A SIMPLE WAY OF PREPARING BONED TURKEY OR CHICKEN.

Boil a turkey or chicken in as little water as possible, until the bones can easily be separated from the meat. Remove all of the skin; slice and mix together the light and dark parts; season with pepper and salt. Boil down the liquid in which the turkey or chicken was boiled; then pour it on the meat. Shape it like a loaf of bread; wrap it tightly in a cloth; press it with a heavy weight for a few hours. When served, it is cut into thin slices.

CHICKENS.

One is absolutely bewildered at the hundred dishes which are made of chickens. Most of the _entrées_ are prepared with the breasts alone, called fillets. There are _boudins_ and _quenelles_ of fowls, and fillets of fowls _à la Toulouse_, _à la maréchale_, etc., etc., and supreme of fillets of fowls _à l’écarlate_, etc., and aspics of fowls; then, chickens _à la Marengo_, _à la Lyonnaise_, _à la reine_; then, _marinades_ and _capitolades_ of chickens, and fricassees of chickens of scores of names. I would explain some of these long-sounding terms if this book were not already too long, and if at last they were any better than when cooked in the more simple ways.

SPRING CHICKENS.