Part 12

When cold, beat in the butter, melted, working out all the lumps and taking the skin from the top. Beat in the whipped eggs, working up fast and hard. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish; bake, covered, one hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

SPINACH IN A MOULD.

Pick over carefully, clip off the stems and put on the leaves in boiling water, with salt stirred in. Boil hard fifteen minutes. When done, drain, pressing out all the water. Chop fine; put back into the saucepan with a piece of butter—a large spoonful for a good dish—a little powdered sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir and toss until very hot; press hard into a mould wet with hot water, and turn out with care upon a heated dish. Lay round slices of hard-boiled eggs on the top.

TURRET CREAM.

1 quart of milk. 1 package Coxe’s gelatine. 1 heaping cup of white sugar. 3 eggs beaten light, whites and yolks separately. ½ lb. crystallized fruit. Vanilla flavoring. Juice of a lemon in which half the grated peel has been soaked, then strained out.

Soak the gelatine three hours in a large cup of cold water. Scald the milk, stir in the sugar, and when this has melted, the gelatine. Stir over the fire five minutes; pour out half of the mixture into a bowl, and add the whipped yolks to that left in the saucepan. Stir one minute, and take from the fire. Flavor the yellow gelatine with lemon—the white with vanilla. As soon as the yellow begins to congeal, whip one-half of the stiffened whites into it, a little at a time, with a Dover egg-beater. Add the rest to the white gelatine, in the same manner, whipping each in until it stiffens before adding more, and not ceasing until both are heaps of “sponge.” Wet the inside of a tall fluted mould with water, and arrange in the bottom, close to the outside of the mould, a row of crystallized cherries. Then, put in a layer of the white mixture; on this, close to the outside, strips of apricots or peaches; then a layer of yellow mixture, another border of cherries, and so on, until the materials are used up. Do this on Saturday. Next day, dip for one instant in hot water, and invert upon a flat dish.

Eat with brandied fruit. It will be a beautiful dessert.

COFFEE.

Pass with light cakes or sweet biscuits.

First Week. Monday. —— Tomato and Bean Soup. Ham and Eggs. Fricassee of Duck. Stewed Corn. Glazed Potatoes. —— Queen’s Pudding. ——

TOMATO AND BEAN SOUP.

Open a can of tomatoes; take out the hard and unripe portions, cut up the rest in small pieces, and heat to a boil before adding the bean soup set aside from Saturday. Simmer all together half an hour, season to taste, and pour over the dice of fried bread you have put in the bottom of the tureen.

HAM AND EGGS.

Pour a little hot water in a frying-pan, if you use smoked raw ham for this dish, and cook the slices in it ten minutes. Let them get perfectly cold. Fry in their own fat until tender throughout and crisp at the edges. Drain the fat from them and arrange them upon a hot dish. Strain the fat, return to the pan, and fry the eggs without turning. Cut the ham in neat slices, lay an egg upon each, and serve.

FRICASSEE OF DUCK.

Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, dividing the joints neatly, and slicing the breast, etc. Crack the skeleton to pieces, and put it, with the skin, stuffing, and gristly bits, into a saucepan. Cover with cold water, and stew until a cupful of good gravy is extracted. Strain and season this; put in the sliced duck. Set within a pot of hot water and bring the contents of the inner saucepan _almost to_ a boil. Add a couple of beaten eggs; stir up well and set aside in the hot water, covered, for five minutes. The meat must not actually boil once.

STEWED CORN.

Open a can of corn, an hour before cooking it. Put it into a saucepan when you are ready for it; cover with boiling water, and let it stand without cooking, for ten minutes. Drain off the water; cover the corn with hot milk, a little salted; set within a vessel of hot water, and cook for half an hour, or until tender. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into thirds, each rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes, pepper, and turn into a deep covered dish.

GLAZED POTATOES.

Parboil them in their skins; peel quickly and lay in the dripping-pan within a hot oven. As soon as they begin to “crust” over, baste with good dripping or butter. Repeat this three times until they are of a glossy brown. Eat hot.

QUEEN’S PUDDING.

10 fine pippins, pared and cored. ½ lb. macaroons, pounded fine. 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar. ½ teaspoonful cinnamon. ½ cup crab-apple or quince jelly. 1 tablespoonful of brandy. 1 pint of milk. 1 tablespoonful corn-starch. Whites of 3 eggs. A little salt.

Put the apples into a buttered pudding-dish. Fill this half full of cold water; cover _closely_ and bake until a straw will pierce them. Let them stand, covered, until cold. (Do this on Saturday.) Drain off the water the day you mean to use them. Put a spoonful of jelly and a few drops of brandy into each apple. Strew with cinnamon and sugar. Cover and let them stand while you scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons, the salt and the corn-starch wet up in cold milk. Boil for one minute. Take from the fire, beat up well, and let it cool before whipping in the frothed whites. Pour this mixture over the apples and bake half an hour in a brisk oven. Eat warm with a sauce made of the water in which the apples were stewed, well sweetened and spiced, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour and the beaten yolk of an egg. Heat the liquor, sweeten and season; thicken with butter and flour; boil up; pour gradually over the egg, and set in hot water until it is needed.

First Week. Tuesday. —— German Sago Broth. Beefsteak and Onions. French Beans Garnis with Sausages. Hot Slaw. —— Hasty Farina Pudding. ——

GERMAN SAGO SOUP.

3 lbs. knuckle of veal, well cracked. 1 onion. 2 stalks of celery. Some pork bones, if you have them. Bunch of sweet herbs, minced. 4 quarts of cold water. Pepper and salt. ¾ of a cup of German sago, soaked two hours in cold water.

Chop the meat, celery, herbs, and onion, and crack the bones. Cover with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until the meat is boiled to shreds. Strain, season, boil up and skim well, put in the soaked sago and cook slowly half an hour. The sago should be entirely dissolved.

BEEFSTEAK AND ONIONS.

Broil your steak as usual. Fry in a little butter one onion, sliced, until brown. Strain it out, and when your steak is done, and laid upon a hot dish, pour the butter in which the onion was fried over it. Add pepper and salt, and the faintest suspicion of made mustard, turn over it a hot cover and let it stand five minutes before serving.

FRENCH BEANS GARNIS WITH SAUSAGES.

Open a can of “string” beans, cut in short pieces, cover with boiling water, slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain well, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and heap upon a hot dish. Surround with sausages, in cakes or in cases, fried in their own fat, and drained from the grease. Serve hot.

HOT SLAW.

1 small, firm head of cabbage, shred fine. 1 cup of vinegar. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of sour cream. ½ teaspoonful of made mustard. 1 saltspoonful of pepper and the same of salt.

Put the vinegar, and all the other ingredients for the dressing, except the cream, in a saucepan, and heat to a boil. Pour scalding hot over the cabbage; return to the saucepan, and stir and toss until all is smoking again. Take from the fire, stir in the cream, turn into a covered dish and set in hot water ten minutes before you send to the table.

HASTY FARINA PUDDING.

1 quart of milk. 4 tablespoonfuls (heaping) of farina, previously soaked in a little cold water for one hour. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 2 eggs, beaten.

Scald the milk; stir in the salt, then the soaked farina, and cook steadily (always in a farina-kettle) three quarters of an hour. Add the butter; take a cupful of the boiling mixture, and beat into the whipped eggs. Put back into the saucepan, stir for two minutes and pour into a deep, open dish. Eat with milk, or cream, and sugar.

First Week. Wednesday. —— Baked Soup. Devilled Lobster. Calf’s Liver à la Mode. Baked Celery. Potatoes au Gratin, with Vermicelli. —— Lemon Pudding. ——

BAKED SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean beef, cut into dice. 3 stalks of _blanched_ celery. 2 turnips. Handful of chopped cabbage. 1 onion. 1 carrot. 2 roots of salsify, cut small. Chopped parsley. ½ cup of rice, previously boiled for fifteen minutes. ½ can of tomatoes, cut up. Pepper and salt. 1 quart cold water.

Prepare beef and vegetables early in the day; mix all up well, and put into a strong earthenware jar, with a good cover of the same material. Coat this top thickly with a stiff paste of flour and water to exclude the air, and set in the oven for six hours. Once in a while, grease the paste to prevent it from scorching or cracking. It is also well to set the jar in a dripping or bake pan of boiling water. Serve without straining.

DEVILLED LOBSTER.

1 can of preserved lobster. 3 tablespoonfuls of butter. 4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. ½ teaspoonful of made mustard. A good pinch of cayenne pepper. Boiled eggs for garnishing. Salt.

Open the lobster-can and empty it into a bowl an hour before using it. Mince evenly. Put vinegar, butter and seasoning into a saucepan, and when it simmers, add the lobster. Cook slowly, covered, half an hour, stirring occasionally. Turn into a deep dish, and garnish with slices of egg. Eat hot with buttered Boston crackers.

CALF’S LIVER À LA MODE.

1 fine, fresh liver. ½ lb. salt pork, cut into lardoons. 3 tablespoonfuls good dripping. 2 sliced onions, small ones. 1 tablespoonful Harvey’s Sauce. 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. 1 teaspoonful mixed spices. 1 tablespoonful sweet herbs, chopped. Pepper.

Wash the liver, and soak half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe dry and lard with the fat pork, allowing it to project on both sides. Heat dripping, onion, herbs, and spice in a frying-pan. Put in the liver and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, add the vinegar, and water enough to cover it; put on a close lid and stew gently one hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, add the sauce to the gravy, strain it, thicken with browned flour, boil up; pour half over the liver, and send the rest up in a sauce-boat.

BAKED CELERY.

Cut two bunches of celery, the best stalks only, into inch-lengths, and stew in boiling water, a little salt, for ten minutes. Drain off the water, and add a cup of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled thickly in flour, a little pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes after heating, and pour into a shallow bowl to cool. Butter a bake-dish, strew the bottom with fine bread-crumbs. When the celery is almost or quite cold, beat into it two eggs, and pour into the dish. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over the top, turn a tin plate over all, and bake twenty minutes. Remove the cover and brown.

POTATOES AU GRATIN, WITH VERMICELLI.

Mash the potatoes as usual, with butter, milk, and salt. Smooth into a hillock upon a pie-plate, and strew with a handful of vermicelli broken small, cooked soft in boiling water, a little salt, then drained perfectly dry and spread out to cool. Brown all in a quick oven, glaze with butter, slip to a hot dish, and it is ready.

LEMON PUDDING.

6 butter crackers, soaked in water, and beaten smooth. Juice of three lemons and half the grated peel. 1 cup of molasses. A pinch of salt. 1 tablespoonful of melted butter. Pie-paste for shells.

Chop the pulp of the lemons, leaving out the thick white peel, _very_ fine; stir into the crushed crackers, with the butter and salt. Beat the molasses into this, gradually, with the grated peel. Line two pie-dishes with good paste, fill with the mixture and bake, without upper crusts. Eat warm, or cold. They are best fresh.

First Week. Thursday. —— Beef Soup with Barley. Stuffed Loin of Veal. Baked Tomatoes. Kidney Beans with Sauce. —— Plain Boiled Pudding. Hard Sauce. ——

BEEF SOUP WITH BARLEY.

3 lbs. of beef from the shin. 2 lbs. of bones. 1 onion stuck with cloves. 2 stalks of celery. The half can of tomatoes left from yesterday’s soup. 2 turnips. Nearly a cup of pearl barley. 4 quarts of water. Pepper and salt.

Cut up the meat and crack the bones. Cut up celery, turnips, and tomatoes. Put all these, with the onion, into the soup-pot, with the gallon of cold water, and boil gently three hours. The liquor should be reduced one-third. Wash the barley and boil fifteen minutes in a very little water. Strain the soup, pressing hard. Season; let it boil up once, and skim before adding the barley and the water in which it has boiled. Simmer half an hour, and serve.

STUFFED LOIN OF VEAL.

Prepare a dressing of bread-crumbs, a little chopped _corned_ ham, parsley, pepper and salt, moistened with milk. Have the bones taken out of the meat, and fill the holes thus left with the stuffing. Secure the meat into a good shape with skewers, and cover the top and sides with thick foolscap paper, binding it with strings. Grease paper and strings, put the veal into your dripping-pan with a cup of hot water, and bake, basting the paper now and then with dripping, to prevent scorching. At the end of an hour, take out the meat and remove the paper. Pour off the gravy, carefully setting it by; return the meat to the oven with a cupful of _milk_ in the pan instead of the gravy. Baste with butter, lavishly, once,—afterwards, and often with the milk as it heats. Roast, not too fast, nearly an hour more, or until your meat is tender. Should the milk evaporate too rapidly, add a little hot water. Indeed, this is a wise precaution against scorching. Take up the veal, thicken the gravy left in the oven, with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, salt, and pepper, heat carefully that the milk may not “catch,” and pour some over the meat, serving the rest in a boat. Veal cooked in this way is very nice, but requires much attention at the last.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Strew the bottom of a pie-dish with fine crumbs, having greased it first. Drain off much of the liquor from a can of tomatoes, add it to the soup, pour the tomatoes upon the crumbs, season with pepper, salt, and butter; strew more crumbs thickly over the top. Bake, covered, twenty minutes; then brown.

KIDNEY BEANS WITH SAUCE.

Soak the beans overnight. The next day boil them until soft in salted water. Drain this off. Strain the first gravy taken from the roast veal—before the milk is substituted—into a saucepan; add a tablespoonful of butter, and half a small onion, minced. Boil five minutes, strain through a soup-sieve, pressing the onion hard; season with pepper, salt, and a little chopped parsley; pour over the beans, simmer fifteen minutes, closely covered, drain off half of the liquor, and serve in a covered dish.

PLAIN BOILED PUDDING.

3 cups—full ones—of good flour. 2 cups of “loppered” milk or buttermilk; sour cream is best of all. 1 _full_ teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water. A little salt. ½ cup finely-powdered suet.

Stir the milk and soda gradually into the flour, working it smooth. Put suet and salt in, and beat all thoroughly. Boil in a buttered mould an hour and a half.

HARD SAUCE.

1 cup of sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. ½ glass of wine. Juice of a lemon and half of the grated peel.

Warm the butter, and rub into the sugar, working into a light cream. Add lemon and wine. Mould as you like, and set aside to cool.

First Week. Friday. —— Oyster Soup. Brown Fricassee of Chicken. Ladies’ Cabbage. Potatoes au naturel. Grape Jelly. —— Sliced Apple Pie. ——

OYSTER SOUP.

Drain the liquor from the oysters through a colander. Put the liquor over the fire with half as much water, salt, pepper, and a large tablespoonful of butter for each quart of soup. Let it boil up well, and put in the oysters. Heat slowly, and as soon as they “ruffle,” which should be about five minutes after they reach the boil, strain off the soup. Have in another vessel as much boiling milk as there was oyster liquor. Pour the oysters into a hot tureen, put a large spoonful of butter upon them; when it melts entirely, turn in the milk. Stir in well, add the hot soup, cover, and serve with sliced lemon and crackers.

BROWN FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN.

Joint the chicken neatly, and lay in salted cold water half an hour. Cut a quarter of a pound of salt pork into strips, and fry in good dripping. Strain it out, skin the chicken as far as possible, and fry in the same fat, with a sliced onion. Chop the pork fine and put into a saucepan; next, the onion; at last, the fowl. Sprinkle a teaspoonful of mixed allspice and cloves over all, pour on cold water to cover them well, put on a tight lid, and stew gently for an hour or more, until the meat is tender. Arrange the fowl upon a hot dish; strain the gravy; season to taste with pepper, salt, and parsley; thicken with browned flour; boil up once; pour over the chicken; cover, and let all stand for five minutes before serving.

LADIES’ CABBAGE.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters. Drain, then set aside to get cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and three tablespoonfuls of milk. Stir all well, and bake brown in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat very hot.

POTATOES AU NATUREL.

Choose those of uniform size; put on in their skins, in boiling water. When about half done, check the boil suddenly by a cupful of cold water. This is said to make old potatoes mealy. Boil again until a fork will pierce them. Drain off the water; sprinkle with salt to make the skins crack, and dry out in the uncovered pot, on the range, for a few minutes before peeling.

SLICED APPLE PIE.

1 lb. of prepared flour. ¾ lb. of butter. Ice-water to make stiff dough.

Chop half of the butter into the flour. Work up with ice-water. Roll out thin; baste all over with butter, and sprinkle lightly with flour; fold closely into a long roll; flatten, and re-roll as thin as at first; then baste again. Repeat this three times. Set the last roll in a cold place for at least an hour. Roll out, and line two buttered pie-plates, reserving enough for upper crusts.

Pare, core and slice juicy pippins; put a layer within the crust; sprinkle sugar liberally over it, strew half a dozen whole cloves upon this; then more apples, etc., until the dish is full. Cover with crust and bake.

Eat barely warm, with sugar and cream.

First Week. Saturday. —— A Plain Soup. Breaded Mutton Chops. Milanaise Potatoes. Currant Jelly. Green Peas. —— Cocoanut Sponge Pudding. ——

A PLAIN SOUP.

5 lbs. shin of beef. 2 stalks of celery. 2 carrots. 2 onions. 2 turnips. 5 quarts of water. 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup. ½ cup coarse corn-meal. Pepper and salt. 1 cup of boiling milk.

Slice the meat and crack the bones. Cut the vegetables into strips and fry the onions in good dripping. Then put all, with meat and bones, into a soup-pot with the water. Cover and cook gently five hours. Strain the liquor from the shreds of meat and rub the vegetables through the colander. Season and set aside half the stock for to-morrow. Put that meant for to-day into a soup-kettle; season and boil up for a minute, that you may skim it; then add the corn-meal, previously scalded with a cup of boiling milk. Stir in well, and simmer half an hour before adding the catsup and pouring into the tureen.

BREADED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim the chops from fat and skin, leaving a bit of bone clean at the end of each. Beat up a raw egg; dip the chops in this—having peppered and salted them; roll in cracker-dust, and fry brown in good dripping or sweet lard. Drain, and arrange in rows upon a hot dish, the large end of each overlapping the small end of the next. Garnish with parsley.

MILANAISE POTATOES.

12 boiled potatoes. ¾ cupful of gravy left from yesterday’s fricassee. Juice of half a lemon. Yolks of 2 raw eggs. 4 tablespoonfuls of dry grated cheese. ½ cup stale bread-crumbs. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Pepper and salt.

Heat and strain your gravy. Put into a saucepan with the seasoning, butter, and lemon, bring to a boil, and stir it into the beaten egg. Slice the potatoes; lay a row within the outer round of a neat pie-plate. (I hope you have one with a silver stand for the table.) Pour a few teaspoonfuls of sauce upon these; lay another and smaller row inside of the first; more sauce, and so on, until you have a low cone of sliced potato; pour sauce over all, coat with the bread-crumbs and cheese, mixed together; pepper and salt, and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.

GREEN PEAS.

Open a can of green peas; turn off the liquor and cover with boiling water, a little salt. Boil fast until tender; drain well; stir in a tablespoonful of butter; pepper and salt, and serve in a deep dish.

COCOANUT SPONGE PUDDING.

2 cups of stale sponge-cake crumbs. 2 cups of milk. 1 cup of grated cocoanut. Yolks of two eggs and whites of four. 1 cup of white sugar. 1 tablespoonful rose-water. A little nutmeg.

Scald the milk and beat into this the cake-crumbs. When nearly cold add the eggs, sugar, rose-water, and lastly the cocoanut. Bake three-quarters of an hour in a buttered pudding-dish. Should it brown too fast, cover with white paper. Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over it.

Second Week. Sunday. —— Tapioca Soup. Roast Beef and Potato Balls. Sliced Sweet Potatoes. Gherkin Pickle. Cauliflower au Gratin. —— Southern Rice Pudding, méringued. ——

TAPIOCA SOUP.

Take the fat from the stock reserved for to-day. Bring the soup to a boil and stir in half a teacupful of “grained” tapioca, which has been soaked three hours in a little cold water. Add also seasoning, if needed; simmer half an hour and pour out. Send around grated cheese with it.

ROAST BEEF AND POTATO BALLS.

When your beef is about three-quarters done, pour nearly all of the gravy from the dripping-pan. Have ready some mashed potato worked smooth with a beaten egg, pepper and salt, then made into balls and rolled in flour. Place them in the pan around the meat and baste until well browned. Serve in the same dish with the beef.

SLICED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil in their skins until a fork will go easily into them. Pare and slice with a sharp knife lengthwise; fry lightly and quickly in good dripping, or butter; drain off the grease, and serve hot.

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.

Wash the cauliflower, cut off green leaves and stalks, and divide into neat bunches. Boil in hot water, salted, until tender. Drain well; dip each piece in melted butter, and strew thickly with fine, dry crumbs, mixed with pepper and salt. Arrange flower end uppermost, in a pudding-dish, and brown the crumbs upon the upper grating of an oven. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pass a boat of drawn butter with them.

SOUTHERN RICE PUDDING—MÉRINGUED.

1 qt. of fresh milk. 1 cup of raw rice. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 cup of sugar. 4 eggs beaten light. 1 teaspoonful grated lemon-peel. A pinch of cinnamon, and the same of mace.