Chapter 3

The loin of veal is the best piece for roasting. The breast and rack are good roasted. The breast also is good made into a pot pie, and the rack cut into small pieces and broiled. The leg is nice for frying, and when several slices have been cut off for cutlets, the remainder is nice boiled with a small piece of salt pork. Veal for roasting should be salted, peppered, and a little butter rubbed on it, and basted frequently. Put a little water in the dripping pan, and unless the meat is quite fat, a little butter should be put in. The fillet is good baked, the bone should be cut out, and the place filled with a dressing, made of bread soaked soft in cold water, a little salt, pepper, a couple of eggs, and a table spoonful of melted butter put in--then sew it up, put it in your bake pan, with about a pint of water, cover the top of the meat with some of the dressing. When baked sufficiently, take it up, thicken the gravy with a little flour and water well mixed, put in a small piece of butter, and a little wine and catsup, if you like the gravy rich.

9. _Veal Cutlets._

Fry three or four slices of pork until brown--take them up, then put in slices of veal, about an inch thick, cut from the leg. When brown on both sides, take them up--stir half a pint of water into the gravy, then mix two or three tea spoonsful of flour with a little water, and stir it in--soak a couple of slices of toasted bread in the gravy, lay them on the bottom of the platter, place the meat and pork over it, then turn on the gravy. A very nice way to cook the cutlets, is to make a batter with half a pint of milk, an egg beaten to a froth, and flour enough to render it thick. When the veal is fried brown, dip it into the batter, then put it back into the fat, and fry it until brown again. If you have any batter left, it is nice dropped by the large spoonful into the fat, and fried till brown, then laid over the veal. Thicken the gravy and turn it over the whole. It takes about an hour to cook this dish. If the meat is tough, it will be better to stew it half an hour before frying it.

10. _Calf's Head._

Boil the head two hours, together with the lights and feet. Put in the liver when it has boiled an hour and twenty minutes. Before the head is done, tie the brains in a bag, and boil them with it; when the brains are done, take them up, season them with salt, pepper, butter, and sweet herbs, or spices if you like--use this as a dressing for the head. Some people prefer part of the liver and feet for dressing--they are prepared like the brains. The liquor that the calf's head is boiled in, makes a good soup, seasoned in a plain way like any other veal soup, or seasoned turtle fashion. The liquor should stand until the next day after the head is boiled, in order to have the fat rise, and skimmed off. If you wish to have your calf's head look brown, take it up when tender, rub a little butter over it, sprinkle on salt, pepper, and allspice--sprinkle flour over it, and put before the fire, with a Dutch oven over it, or in a brick oven where it will brown quick. Warm up the brains with a little water, butter, salt, and pepper. Add wine and spices if you like. Serve it up as a dressing for the head. Calf's head is also good, baked. Halve it, rub butter over it, put it in a pan, with about a quart of water; then cover it with a dressing made of bread soaked soft, a little butter, an egg, and season it with salt, pepper, and powdered mace. Slice up the brains, and lay them in the pan with the head. Bake it in a quick oven, and garnish it with slices of lemon, or force meat balls.

11. _Force Meat Balls._

Chop a pound or two of veal fine--mix it with one or two eggs, a little butter, or raw pork chopped fine--season it with salt and pepper, or curry powder. Do them up into balls about the size of half an egg, and fry them brown.

12. _Calf's Feet._

Boil them with the head, until tender, then split and lay them round the head, or dredge them with flour after they have been boiled tender, and fry them brown. If you wish for gravy for them, when you have taken them up, stir a little flour into the fat they were fried in; season it with salt, pepper, and mace. Add a little butter and wine if you like, then turn it over the feet.

13. _Calf's Liver and Heart._

Are good, broiled or fried. Some people like the liver stuffed and baked.

14. _Collops._

Cut part of a leg of veal into pieces, three or four inches broad--sprinkle flour on them, fry them in butter until brown, then turn in water enough to cover the veal. When it boils, take off the scum, put in two or three onions, a blade of mace, a little salt and pepper. When stewed tender, take up the meat, thicken the gravy with flour and water, mixed smoothly together, squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, then turn it over the collops. Garnish them with a lemon cut in thin slices.

15. _Plaw._

Boil a piece of lean veal till tender. Take it up, cut it into strips three or four inches long, put it back into the pot, with the liquor it was boiled in, with a tea cup of rice to three pounds of veal. Put in a piece of butter, of the size of a hen's egg; season it with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs if you like; stew it gently till the rice is tender, and the water nearly stewed away. A little curry powder in this, converts it into a curry dish.

16. _A Fillet of Veal._

Cut off the shank of a leg of veal, and cut gashes in the remainder. Make a dressing of bread, soaked soft in cold water, and mashed; season it with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs; chop a little raw pork fine, put it in the dressing, and if you have not pork, use a little butter instead. Fill the gashes in the meat with part of the dressing, put it in a bake pan, with just water enough to cover it; put the remainder of the dressing on top of the meat, and cover it with a heated bake pan lid. For six pounds of veal, allow two hours' steady baking. A leg of veal is nice prepared in this manner, and roasted.

17. _Lamb._

The fore and hind quarters are good roasting pieces. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the lamb, turn the bony side towards the fire first; if not fat, rub a little butter on it, and put a little in the dripping pan; baste it frequently. These pieces are good stuffed like a fillet of veal, and roasted. The leg is also good, cooked in the same manner; but it is better boiled with a pound of salt pork. Allow fifteen minutes boiling to each pound of meat. The breast of lamb is good roasted, broiled, or corned and boiled; it is also good made into a pot pie. The fore quarter, with the ribs divided, is good broiled. The bones of this, as well as all kinds of meat, when put down to broil, should first be put towards the fire, and browned before the other side is broiled. A little salt, pepper, and butter, should be put on it when you take it up. Lamb is very apt to spoil in warm weather. If you wish to keep a leg several days, put it in brine. It should not be put with pork, as fresh meat is apt to injure it. Lamb's head, feet, and heart, are good, boiled till tender, then cut off the flesh from the head, cut up the heart, and split the feet in two; put the whole into a pan, with a pint of the liquor they were boiled in, together with a little butter, pepper, salt, and half a tea cup of tomato catsup; thicken the gravy with a little flour; stew the whole for a few moments. Pepper-grass, or parsely, are a pretty garnish for this dish.

18. _Shoulder of Lamb Grilled._

The shoulder of lamb is good roasted plain, but is better cooked in the following manner. Score it in checkers, about an inch long, rub it over with a little butter, and the yelk of an egg; then dip it into finely pounded bread crumbs; sprinkle on salt, pepper, and sweet herbs; roast it till of a light brown. This is good with plain gravy, but better with a sauce, made in the following manner. Take a quarter of a pint of the drippings from the meat, mix it with the same quantity of water, set it on the fire; when it boils up, thicken it with a little flour and water mixed, put in a table spoonful of tomato catsup, the juice and grated rind of a lemon; season it with salt and pepper.

19. _Lamb's Fry._

The heart and sweet bread are nice fried plainly, or dipped into a beaten egg and fine bread crumbs. They should be fried in lard.

20. _Turkey._

Take out the inwards, wash both the inside and outside of the turkey. Prepare a dressing made of bread, soaked soft in cold water, (the water should be drained from the bread, and the bread mashed fine.) Melt a small piece of butter, and mix it with the dressing, or else put in salt pork, chopped fine; season it with salt and pepper; add sweet herbs if you like. An egg in the dressing, makes it cut smoother. Any kind of cooked meat is nice minced fine, and mixed with the dressing. If the inwards are used, they ought to be boiled very tender, as it is very difficult to cook them through while the turkey is roasting. Fill the crop and body of the turkey with the dressing, sew it up, tie up the legs and wings, rub on a little salt and butter. Roast it from two to three hours, according to its size; twenty-five minutes to every pound, is a good rule. The turkey should be roasted slowly at first, and basted frequently. A little water should be put into the dripping pan, when the meat is put down to roast. For a gravy to the turkey, take the liquor that the inwards are boiled in, put into it a little of the turkey drippings, set it where it will boil, thicken it with a little flour and water, previously mixed smooth. Season it with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs if you like. Drawn butter is used for boiled turkey. A turkey for boiling should be prepared in the same manner as one for roasting. If you wish to have it look white, tie it up in a cloth, unless you boil rice in the pot. If rice is used, put in two-thirds of a tea cup. A pound or two of salt pork, boiled with the turkey, improves it. If you wish to make a soup of the liquor in which the turkey is boiled, let it remain until the next day, then skim off the fat. Heat and season it.

21. _Goose._

If a goose is tender under the wing, and you can break the skin easily by running the head of a pin across the breast, there is no danger of its being tough. A goose should be dressed in the same manner, and roasted the same length of time as a turkey.

22. _Chickens._

Chickens for roasting or boiling should have a dressing prepared like that for turkies. Half a tea cup of rice boiled with the chickens makes them look white. They will be less liable to break if the water is cold when they are put in. A little salt pork boiled with the chickens, improves them. If you do not boil pork with them they will need salt. Chickens for broiling should be split, the inwards taken out, and the chicken washed inside and out. Put the bony side down on the gridiron, and broil it very slowly until brown, then turn it, and brown it on the other side. About forty minutes is required to broil a common sized chicken. For roast chicken, boil the liver and gizzards by themselves, and use the water for gravy to the chickens--cut the inwards in slices, and put them in the gravy.

23. _Fricassee._

The chickens should be jointed, the inwards taken out, and the chickens washed. Put them in a stew pan with the skin side down; on each layer sprinkle salt and pepper; put in three or four slices of pork, just cover them with water, and let them stew till tender. Then take them up, mix a little flour and water together, and thicken the liquor they were stewed in, add a piece of butter of the size of a hen's egg, then put the chickens back in the stew pan, and let them stew four or five minutes longer. When you have taken up the chickens, soak two or three slices of toast in the gravy, then put them in your platter, lay the chickens over the toast, and turn the gravy on them. If you wish to brown the chickens, stew them without the pork, till tender, then fry the pork brown, take it up, put in the chickens, and then fry until a light brown.

24. _Pigeons._

Take out the inwards, and stuff the pigeons with a dressing prepared like that for turkeys, lay them in a pot with the breast side down. Turn in more than enough water to cover them. When stewed nearly tender, put in a quarter of a pound of butter to every dozen of pigeons--mix two or three tea spoonsful of flour, with a little water, and stir into the gravy. If you wish to brown them, put on a heated bake pan lid, an hour before they are done, or else take them up when tender, and fry them in pork fat. They are very good split open and stewed, with a dressing made and warmed up separately with a little of the gravy. Tender pigeons are good stuffed and roasted. It takes about two hours to cook tender pigeons, and three hours tough ones. Roast pigeons should be buttered when put to the fire.

25. _Ducks._

Are good stewed like pigeons, or roasted. Two or three onions in the dressing of wild ducks, takes out the fishy taste they are apt to have. If ducks or any other fowls are slightly injured by being kept long, dip them in weak saleratus water before cooking them.

26. _Baked or Roast Pig._

A pig for roasting or baking should be small and fat. Take out the inwards, and cut off the first joint of the feet, and boil them till tender, then chop them. Prepare a dressing of bread soaked soft, the water squeezed out, and the bread mashed fine, season it with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs, add a little butter, and fill the pig with the dressing. Rub a little butter on the outside of the pig, to prevent its blistering. Bake or roast it from two hours and a half, to three hours. The pan that the pig is baked in should have a little water put in it. When cooked, take out a little of the dressing and gravy from the pan, mix it with the chopped inwards and feet, put in a little butter, pepper, and salt, and use this for a sauce to the pig. Expose the pig to the open air two or three minutes, before it is put on the table, to make it crispy.

27. _Sweet Bread, Liver, and Heart._

A very good way to cook the sweet bread, is to fry three or four slices of pork till brown, then take them up and put in the sweet bread, and fry it over a moderate fire. When you have taken up the sweet bread, mix a couple of tea-spoonsful of flour with a little water, and stir it into the fat--let it boil, then turn it over the sweet bread. Another way is to parboil them, and let them get cold, then cut them in pieces about an inch thick, dip them in the yelk of an egg, and fine bread crumbs, sprinkle salt, pepper, and sage on them, before dipping them in the egg, fry them a light brown. Make a gravy after you have taken them up, by stirring a little flour and water mixed smooth into the fat, add spices and wine if you like. The liver and heart are good cooked in the same manner, or broiled.

28. _Pressed Head._

Pig's head is good baked with beans, or corned and smoked. It is also nice prepared with spices in the following manner. Boil the ears, forehead, and rind, (the cheek is good, but it is better corned and smoked,) till the meat will almost drop from the bones; take them up; when cold cut the meat in strips about an inch long, warm it in a little of the liquor in which the meat was boiled, season it with salt, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Put it while hot in a strong bag, put a heavy weight upon it, and let it remain till perfectly cold. When you wish to eat it, cut it in thin slices.

29. _Souse._

Take pig's ears and feet, clean them thoroughly, then soak them in salt and water, for several days. Boil them tender, and split them, they are then good fried. If you wish to souse them when cold, turn boiling vinegar on them, spiced with pepper-corns, and mace. Cloves improve the taste, but it turns them a dark color. Add a little salt. They will keep good pickled five or six weeks. Fry them in lard.

30. _Tripe._

After being scoured, should be soaked in salt and water seven or eight days, changing the water every other day, then boil it till tender, which will take eight or ten hours. It is then fit for broiling, frying, or pickling. It is pickled in the same manner as souse.

31. _Sausages._

Chop fresh pork very fine, the lean and fat together, (there should be rather more of the lean than the fat,) season it highly with salt, pepper, sage, and other sweet herbs, if you like them--a little salt-petre tends to preserve them. To tell whether they are seasoned enough, do up a little into a cake, and fry it. If not seasoned enough, add more seasoning, and fill your skins, which should be previously cleaned thoroughly. A little flour mixed in with the meat, tends to prevent the fat from running out when cooked. Sausage-meat is good, done up in small cakes and fried. In summer, when fresh pork cannot be procured, very good sausage-cakes may be made of raw beef, chopped fine with salt pork, and seasoned with pepper and sage. When sausages are fried, they should not be pricked, and they will cook nicer, to have a little fat put in the frying-pan with them. They should be cooked slowly. If you do not like them very fat, take them out of the pan when nearly done, and finish cooking them on a gridiron. Bologna sausages are made of equal weight each, of ham, veal, and pork, chopped very fine, seasoned high, and boiled in casings, till tender, then dried.

32. _Ham._

A ham that weighs ten pounds, should be boiled four or five hours; if very salt, the water should be changed. Before it is put on the table, take off the rind. If you wish to ornament it, put whole cloves, or pepper, in the form of diamonds, over it. The Virginia method of curing hams, (which is considered very superior), is to dissolve two ounces of salt-petre, two tea spoonsful of saleratus, in a salt pickle, as strong as possible, for every sixteen pounds of ham, add molasses in the proportion of a gallon to a hogshead of brine, then put in the hams, and let them remain three or four weeks. Then take them out of the brine, and smoke them with the hocks downwards, to preserve the juices. They will smoke tolerably well, in the course of a month, but they will be much better, to remain in the smoke-house two or three months. Hams cured in this manner are very fine flavored, and will keep good a long time.

33. _Tongues._

Cut off the roots of the tongues, they are not good smoked, but they make nice pies. Take out the pipes and veins, boil them till tender, mince them fine, season the meat with salt, cloves, mace, and cinnamon, put in a little sugar and molasses, moisten the whole with brandy, put it in a cool place, and it will keep good several months in cold weather, and is good to make pies of at any time, with the addition of apples chopped fine, and a little butter melted. For the remainder of the tongues, make a brine in the following manner--to a gallon of cold water, put a quart of rock salt, an ounce of salt-petre, quarter of a pound of sugar, and a couple of table spoonsful of blown salt. Put in the tongues, let them remain in it a week, and then smoke them eight or ten days.

34. _Curries._

Chickens, pigeons, mutton chops, lobsters and veal, all make good curries. If the curry dish is to be made of fowls, they should be jointed. Boil the meat till tender, in just sufficient water to cover it, and add a little salt. Just before the meat is boiled enough to take up, fry three or four slices of pork till brown--take them up, and put in the chickens. Let them brown, then add part of the liquor in which they were boiled, one or two tea spoonsful of curry powder, and the fried pork. Mix a tea spoonful of curry powder with a tea cup of boiled rice, or a little flour and water mixed--turn it on to the curry, and let it stew a few minutes.

35. _Chicken Pie._

Joint the chickens, which should be young and tender--boil them in just sufficient water to cover them. When nearly tender, take them out of the liquor, and lay them in a deep pudding dish, lined with pie crust. To each layer of chicken, put three or four slices of pork--add a little of the liquor in which they were boiled, and a couple of ounces of butter, cut into small pieces--sprinkle a little flour over the whole, cover it with nice pie crust, and ornament the top with some of your pastry. Bake it in a quick oven one hour.

36. _Beef and Mutton Pie._

Take tender meat, pound it out thin, and broil it ten minutes--then cut off the bony and gristly parts, season it highly with salt and pepper, butter it, and cut it into small pieces. Line a pudding dish with pastry, put in the meat, and to each layer add a tea spoonful of tomato catsup, together with a table spoonful of water--sprinkle over flour, and cover it with pie crust, and ornament as you please with pastry. Cold roast, or boiled beef, and mutton, make a good pie, by cutting them into bits, and seasoning them highly with salt and pepper. Put them into a pie dish, turn a little melted butter over them, or gravy, and pour in water till you can just see it at the top.

37. _Chicken and Veal Pot Pie._

If the pie is to be made of chickens, joint them--boil the meat until about half done. Take the meat out of the liquor in which it was boiled, and put it in a pot, with a layer of crust to each layer of meat, having a layer of crust on the top. The meat should be seasoned with salt and pepper--cover the whole with the boiled meat liquor. If you wish to have the crust brown, keep the pot covered with a heated bake pan lid. Keep a tea kettle of boiling water to turn in as the water boils away--cold water makes the crust heavy. The crust for the pie is good like that made for fruit pies, with less shortening, but raised pie crust is generally preferred to any other. It is made in the following manner--mix together three pints of flour, a tea cup of melted butter, a tea spoonful of salt, then turn in half a tea cup of yeast--add cold water to make it sufficiently stiff to roll out. Set it in a warm place to rise, which will take seven or eight hours, unless brewer's yeast is used. When risen, roll it out, and cut it into small cakes. Potatoe pie crust is very nice. To make it, boil eight or nine small potatoes, peel and mash them fine, mix with them a piece of butter, of the size of a hen's egg, a tea spoonful of salt, a tumbler full of milk, and flour to render it of the right consistency to roll out. When rolled out, cut them into cakes, and put them with the meat. If you happen to have unbaked wheat dough, very good crust may be made of it, by working into it a little lukewarm melted butter. Let it remain, after you have rolled and cut it into cakes, about ten or fifteen minutes, before putting it with the meat.

38. _To Frizzle Beef._

Take beef that is fresh smoked and tender--shave it off thin, put it in a stew pan, with water enough to cover it--let it stew ten or fifteen minutes. Three or four minutes before it is taken up, mix a little flour and water together, and stir in, to thicken the water; add a little butter and pepper. This makes a good dish for breakfast--eggs are a nice accompaniment to it.

39. _Warmed Over Meats._