Part 17

Have the fillet rolled and skewered by your butcher. Stuff a good force-meat of crumbs and minced fat ham between the folds of meat, and lay sliced ham over the top and sides, binding it in place with packthread. Put into a dripping-pan with a cup of boiling water, and roast twelve minutes for each pound. Baste very often. Half an hour before you take it up, remove the ham, and lay on one side of the pan; dredge the meat with flour and baste abundantly and frequently until well browned. Dish with the ham cut into strips and laid next the edge of the dish—the potato balls close to the meat. Send around sweet pickles with it. Strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour, add pepper and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup; boil up and pour into a boat.

POTATO BALLS.

To one cup of mashed potato add a beaten egg, pepper, and salt, and work smooth. Make into balls; roll them in flour. When the veal is half done, skim off the fat from the gravy, lay the balls in the pan, basting, now and then, and turning until they are browned all over. Drain well, and lay about the dished veal.

STUFFED CABBAGE.

Boil a large, firm cabbage, whole, on Saturday, tying coarse net over it to keep it in shape. Do not remove the net until next day. Then, bind a broad strip of muslin about it that it may not crack in the stuffing. Extract the stalk with a thin, sharp knife. Without making a wide external aperture, “dig out” the heart, until you have room for nearly a cupful of force-meat. Chop the bits you have taken out, mix with cooked sausage-meat, a very little onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme and bread-crumbs. Stuff the cabbage with this, remove the band, tie up firmly again in a net bag, and put it into a pot, covering with the liquor in which your ham was boiled yesterday, having first again skimmed the latter. Stew gently one hour. Take out the cabbage, unbind, with care, and pour a cup of drawn butter over it. Strain the useful “pot liquor,” and put away heedfully.

FRENCH BEANS.

Cut into short lengths, when you have poured off the can liquor; cook half an hour in boiling water, salted. Drain well, stir up with a tablespoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste.

CHARLOTTE CACHÉE.

1 thick loaf of sponge or plain cup cake. 2 kinds of fruit-jelly, tart and sweet. Whites of 5 eggs. 1 heaping cup of powdered sugar. Juice of 1 lemon.

Cut the cake into horizontal slices of uniform width. Spread each with jelly—first, the tart, then the sweet, and fit into their former places. Ice thickly with a frosting made of the whites, sugar, and lemon-juice. Set in a sunny window, or slow oven, to harden. The former is the better plan.

BIRD’S NEST IN JELLY.

1 quart of wine jelly—not too thin. 3 cups of white blanc-mange. 9 empty egg-shells. Rind of 2 oranges cut into strips and stewed in water, until tender, then in syrup until clear, or, if you have it, use preserved orange-peel.

Empty the eggs carefully through a hole in the small end; wash them out with cold water, and while wet inside set firmly in a pan of bran or meal, to keep them steadily upright. Fill them with blanc-mange. Next morning, fill a glass dish two-thirds full with clear jelly, reserving a large cupful. So soon as the jelly is firm enough to bear their weight, break the shells, with care, from the blanc-mange eggs, and pile them upon the jelly. Lay the “straw”—_i. e._, the orange-peel—over and about them; pour the rest of the half congealed jelly over all, and set in a _very_ cold place.

A beautiful variation of this dessert can be made for Easter Sunday, by coloring part of the blanc-mange brown with chocolate, part pink with currant jelly or cranberry juice, part yellow with yolk of egg, and leaving the rest white.

Second Week. Monday. —— Ham and Egg Soup. Veal Patés. Creamed Parsnips. Salad of Lettuce and Veal. Mashed Potatoes. —— Corn-Starch Hasty Pudding. ——

HAM AND EGG SOUP.

Skim once more and re-heat the liquor in which your ham was cooked, and, when boiling, take off the scum; stir in two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, wet in a half cup of milk. Take out a pint of the soup, and pour slowly, stirring well, upon four beaten eggs. Return to the soup, with a handful of very finely minced parsley. Stir one minute, without letting it boil, and pour upon half a dozen split Boston crackers, lining the tureen.

VEAL PATÉS.

Chop up the meat left from Sunday’s fillet—reserving some for salad—also the crisped ham. Season well, warm up the gravy, when you have removed the fat; mix a little oyster liquor with it, and stir in the mince. Heat _almost_ to boiling, and set by, covered, where it will keep warm. Line _paté_-pans with the paste reserved for this purpose from Saturday. If kept in the refrigerator or cool cellar, it will be perfectly good. Bake these “shells,” buttering the tins well; slip out while hot; arrange on a warm dish; fill with the mince, sprinkling the top of each with fine, dry crumbs; set upon the upper grating of your oven for a minute or so, and send to table.

CREAMED PARSNIPS.

Boil, scrape, and slice lengthwise. Have ready in a saucepan a great spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. Put in the parsnips, shake and turn until very hot; lay the parsnips upon a dish; add to the sauce three tablespoonfuls of cream, or four of milk, in which has been rubbed a teaspoonful of flour. Boil up briskly, and pour over the sliced vegetable.

SALAD OF LETTUCE AND VEAL.

Cut half a pound of your cold veal into inch-long strips, and strew with salt and pepper. Shred a head of lettuce, and chop two boiled eggs—not too finely. Mix these together in a bowl. Prepare a dressing thus: Beat the yolks of two eggs (add the whites to the soup); salt lightly, and beat in, a few drops at a time, four tablespoonfuls of oil; then, as gradually, three teaspoonfuls of best vinegar, and half a teaspoonful of celery essence—Colgate’s, if you can get it. The mixture should be thick as cream. Pour over the meat and lettuce, toss up with a silver fork, and transfer to a glass dish.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as often before directed.

CORN-STARCH HASTY PUDDING.

1 quart of fresh milk. 3 full tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Scald the milk, and stir in the corn-starch, previously wet in cold water to a white liquid. Boil steadily, stirring constantly, ten minutes. Salt and butter. Let the pudding stand three minutes in hot water, after you take it from the fire, and turn out into a deep, open dish. Cook, of course, in a farina-kettle.

Second Week. Tuesday. —— Mélange Soup. Ragoût of Mutton. Canned Corn Pudding. Baked Tomatoes. Damson, or Plum Pickles. —— Peach Batter Pudding. ——

MÉLANGE SOUP.

1 cup of rice (scant). 3 lbs. of coarse, lean beef. Some mutton bones. 2 carrots. 2 turnips. 1 onion. Essence of celery, two teaspoonfuls. Pepper and salt. 4 quarts of cold water. 1 cup of tomato-juice.

Cut the meat into dice, and put on in the water. Boil gently two hours, when add the rice, tomato-juice, and the vegetables cut into small squares, and already cooked five minutes in hot water, to take off the rank taste. Stew half an hour, or until the vegetables and rice are tender, but not a pulp; season; boil up once and pour out—meat, vegetables, and all—into the tureen.

Ragoût of Mutton.

3 lbs. of mutton—lean and boneless—cut into strips four inches long by one inch wide. 1 cup of gravy, made of bones, etc. A tablespoonful of walnut catsup. Browned flour. Salt and pepper. 1 slice of lemon. Parsley. A slice of ham or fat pork, cut small. Dripping.

Fry the mutton to a nice brown, quickly, in the dripping. Lay in a saucepan, the chopped ham upon it, and cover with the gravy, highly seasoned. Stew slowly until very tender; take up, and keep hot, while you add the lemon to the gravy, with the catsup. Boil five minutes; strain, and return the gravy to the saucepan. Thicken, and put in the parsley minced fine. Boil up, and pour over the meat in a flat dish. Put sippets of fried bread around the edge of the dish.

CANNED CORN PUDDING.

1 can of corn, drained. 3 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. A little salt. 2 cupfuls of milk. 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet up in the milk.

Beat eggs, sugar, and butter together; then add the corn. Salt the milk, and dissolve the corn-starch well in it, and pour, by degrees, upon the rest, mixing well. Bake in a greased bake-dish three-quarters of an hour. Keep covered until nearly done; then, brown.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Drain off the liquor from a can of tomatoes, and put it into your soup. Pare the crust from some slices of bread, cut them to fit the bottom of a greased pie-dish, and fry to a light brown in dripping. Dip each in boiling, salted milk, fit to their places in the dish, pour the tomatoes upon them, season with pepper, salt, butter, and a little sugar. Strew thickly with crumbs, and bake, covered, twenty minutes; then, brown.

PEACH BATTER PUDDING.

1 quart of milk. 2 cups of prepared flour, or enough for _soft_ batter. 4 beaten eggs. 1 tablespoonful of butter, slightly warmed. 1 saltspoonful of salt. 1 can of peaches, drained.

Lay the drained peaches in a buttered bake-dish. Salt the flour, and sift into a pan. Beat eggs and butter together, stir in the milk, and pour, by degrees, into a hole in the middle of the flour, until you have a smooth batter. Pour upon the peaches, and bake in a brisk oven. Add a glass of brandy to the peach syrup; sweeten to taste; stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, and set in boiling water until the butter is melted. Serve the pudding in the bake-dish and eat with this sauce.

Second Week. Wednesday. —— Eel Soup. Boiled Chicken. Potatoes à la Crème. Egg Sauce. Rice Croquettes. —— Steamed Corn-Meal Pudding. ——

EEL SOUP.

4 lbs. of eels. 1 onion. 12 whole peppers. 3 tablespoonfuls of butter. Tablespoonful of chopped parsley. 1 cup of milk. 2 tablespoonfuls of flour, rubbed into the butter. 2 quarts of water. 2 slices of toast cut into strips. Dripping.

Clean the eels with care, removing all the fat; cut them into short pieces, and fry for five minutes in dripping. Drain, put into a saucepan with the water, onion, and pepper, and stew slowly one hour, or until they are tender, without breaking. Strain through a colander; pick out the eels and cover in a tureen, the bottom of which is lined with strips of buttered toast. Strain the soup, through a soup-sieve, back into the saucepan; heat, and stir in butter, flour, and parsley. Boil up, add the milk, already heated, and pour over the eels and toast.

BOILED CHICKEN.

Clean and stuff as for roasting. Bind legs and wings to the sides; tie in a net, and put on in boiling water—if tender. If doubtful, use cold water, and cook very slowly. When the fork-test shows that it is done, unwrap and lay on a dish. Salt, pepper, and butter well, and cover while preparing the sauce. Take out a cup of the liquor, cool, and skim, put on in a saucepan; put in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, and stir to a boil. Take off, and pour gradually over two beaten eggs. Return to the fire, with minced parsley, _almost_ boil, and pour over the fowl.

Salt the liquor and set aside for soup.

POTATOES À LA CRÈME.

Mash thin, whip up with a fork, at first, with butter, salt, and milk; at last, with the frothed white of an egg. Heap roughly upon a dish, set upon the upper grating of the oven until they begin to color, and serve.

RICE CROQUETTES.

2 cups cold boiled rice. 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter. 2 beaten eggs. 1 tablespoonful of flour. 1 raw egg, and some cracker dust. 2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. A pinch of grated lemon peel, and the same of nutmeg. Lard for frying.

Work the butter into the rice, then the seasoning, lastly, the beaten eggs. Make into long balls, roll in egg, then in powdered cracker, and fry, a few at a time, in hot lard.

STEAMED CORN-MEAL PUDDING.

2 cups Indian meal. 1 cup of flour. 2 tablespoonfuls of white sugar. 2½ cups of “loppered” milk, or buttermilk. 1 teaspoonful of soda, sifted twice through the flour. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 1 heaping tablespoonful of butter, melted.

Put meal, flour, salt, sugar, and soda in a bowl; mix thoroughly; make a hole in the middle and work in the milk and butter. Beat hard and long when all are in; put into a buttered mould with a tight top, and steam one hour and a half. If you have no regular steamer, fit the mould in the top of a pot of boiling water, taking care it does not hang into the water. Lay a thick wet towel, folded, over the top of the mould to keep in all the heat. Or, you may simply boil it. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.

Second Week. Thursday. —— Cream Almond Soup. Beefsteak. Chopped Potatoes. Chicken Salad. Moulded Spinach. —— Soft Gingerbread and Chocolate. ——

CREAM ALMOND SOUP.

Broth in which yesterday’s chickens were boiled. ½ lb. of almonds. 1 cup rich milk—half cream, if you can get it. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rubbed up with two of flour. Pepper and salt. 3 boiled eggs. 2 blades of mace.

Skim and heat the soup. Meanwhile, blanch (that is, scald and skin) the almonds, and pound in a mortar. Rub to a powder the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and work up, with the butter, flour, and almonds, to a paste. When the soup boils, pepper and salt, and put in the mace. Skim clean, strain out the mace; return to the pot and stir in the paste of almonds, etc. Boil up gently, have the milk scalding hot in the tureen, and pour in the soup, mixing all up well. Serve at once.

BEEFSTEAK.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet; broil over (or under) a clear fire upon a buttered gridiron—turning often. Lay upon a hot dish; salt, pepper, and butter, plentifully. Cover with a hot dish or lid, and let it stand five minutes to draw out the juices.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop cold boiled potatoes into dice. Put some butter or nice dripping into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the potatoes. Shake to prevent them from sticking to the pan, and when very hot, and glazed with the butter, pepper and salt, and turn into a hot colander. Shake and toss for a moment, and pour into a deep dish.

CHICKEN SALAD.

Cut the meat from the “carcasses” of yesterday’s chickens. If you have but a little it may be worth while to give John a piquant side-dish. Add an equal quantity of shred lettuce, when you have cut your chicken into narrow strips, two inches long. Mix in a bowl; prepare a dressing according to the receipt given on Monday; pour over it, mix well and lightly; put into a salad-dish, and lay sections of two hard-boiled eggs on top, with a chain of sliced whites—left from the yolks used for the soup—around the outer edge.

MOULDED SPINACH.

Boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water; drain, pressing hard. Chop _fine_, and put into a saucepan, with a good lump of butter, a little pepper, salt and sugar. Beat and toss until nearly dry. Press hard into an oblong pan or mould. Invert this upon a hot dish. Lay slices of egg upon the top.

SOFT GINGERBREAD.

1 cup of sugar. 1 cup of molasses. 1 cup of butter. 1 cup of sweet milk. 4 cups of flour. 4 eggs. 1 tablespoonful mixed ginger and mace. 1 small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in the milk.

Beat molasses, butter, sugar, and spice to a cream; whip in the beaten yolks, the milk, and lastly, the whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in two loaves, or in round tins or cups.

CHOCOLATE.

6 tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate. 2 cups of boiling water and the same of milk.

Wet the chocolate in cold water; stir into the hot. Boil fifteen minutes; add the milk, and simmer ten minutes longer. Sweeten upon the fire, or as you pour it out.

Second Week. Friday. —— Oyster Soup. Fillets of Halibut. Potato Marbles. Paté of Sweetbreads. Lima Beans. —— Boston Cream Cakes. ——

OYSTER SOUP.

2 quarts of oysters. 1 quart of milk. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 teacupful of water. 2 eggs. Cayenne pepper, salt, mace. 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, mixing in the water. Season and spice to taste. When the liquor boils, add a quarter of the oysters chopped fine. Boil five minutes; strain through muslin and put back into the saucepan. Thicken with the butter rubbed up in a tablespoonful of corn-starch. When this boils, drop in the whole oysters. Cook until they “ruffle.” Meanwhile, make a sugarless custard by heating and salting the milk, adding the beaten eggs, and stirring four minutes over the fire. Put some split crackers into the tureen; pour on the custard, then the oyster-soup, stirring all up well. Send around oyster crackers and sliced lemon with it.

FILLETS OF HALIBUT.

Cut a tolerably thick halibut steak into strips four inches long by two wide. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter, with pepper and salt, into a saucepan, and simmer gently—not frying—until tender. Then drain, and put upon a hot water dish to keep hot. Cut some potatoes into small balls. There is a little instrument for this purpose, like a rounded gouge, which turns them out rapidly and neatly. A _small_ iron spoon will give you oval balls. Or, if you find it easier, cut the potatoes into equal cubes; lay in cold water half an hour, then cook fifteen minutes in boiling water. Drain and dry, and after taking your fish from the butter, strain the latter, put in the potatoes, and shake over a hot fire until they begin to brown. Drain, and lay about the fish-fillets. Add a tablespoonful of butter to that in the pan (previously cut up in flour), a teaspoonful of anchovy-sauce, and the juice of a lemon, with a little minced parsley. Boil once, and pour over fish and potatoes.

PATÉ OF SWEETBREADS.

Cut good puff-paste into rounds a quarter of an inch thick. Reserve one of these for the bottom of each paté. With a smaller cutter take out the centre of three others and pile upon this, making a deep well over an inch across. Bake quickly, glazing with white of egg when nearly done.

Boil three sweetbreads ten minutes, leave in cold water as long; cut into dice, put into a saucepan with a great spoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and a few spoonfuls of boiling water, and stew twenty minutes. Stir, meanwhile, into half a cup of boiling milk a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in as much flour. Add to the sweetbreads with a little minced parsley. Boil up. Fill the patés, and arrange upon a heated dish.

LIMA BEANS.

If dried, soak over night, put on next day in cold water, salted, and cook gently until soft. Drain, stir in butter and pepper. If you use the canned beans, put on in boiling water, then proceed as above directed.

BOSTON CREAM CAKES.

½ lb. of butter. ¾ lb. of flour. 6 eggs. 1 pint water—warm—not scalding.

Stir the butter into the warm water, and heat slowly to a boil. Then put in the flour, boil and stir one minute; empty into a dish to get cold. Beat the eggs light, and whip, first the yolks, then the whites, into the cooled paste. Drop in great spoonfuls, upon buttered paper, not letting them touch each other, and bake, in a quick oven, ten minutes. They should puff up to quadruple their original size. Pass a sharp knife lightly around each, split, and fill with the following mixture:

1 quart of milk. 4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. 2 eggs. 2 cups of sugar. 1 teaspoonful butter. Vanilla.

Heat three cups of milk, and stir in the corn-starch wet with the other cupful. Beat the eggs and sugar together, and add the boiling mixture, by degrees. Put in the butter; mix well and cool before adding the vanilla.

Second Week. Saturday. —— Soup Verte. Baked Mutton Cutlets. Hominy Pudding. Potato Cakes. Lettuce. —— Tapioca Pudding. ——

SOUP VERTE.

2 lbs. coarse beef, chopped fine. 1 turnip. 1 onion. Celery-seed tied in a bag. 1 grated carrot. Nearly a quart of spinach leaves. 2 lumps of sugar. 1 tablespoonful of butter, rubbed in flour. Bunch of parsley. Pepper and salt. A little of yesterday’s pastry, cut into strips—like “noodles.” 2 quarts of cold water.

Stew the beef with the celery-seed in a quart of water for two hours, or until the meat is in rags. Strain _hard_ in a bag. Add the other quart of water in which have been simmering, for half an hour, the grated carrot, the spinach cut small, and the other vegetables sliced. Stew all together fifteen minutes; rub _entirely_ through a colander; return to the fire, season; add sugar, chopped parsley, butter and flour; boil up and drop in the noodles, one by one. Simmer ten minutes, and pour out. It is a very good and wholesome soup for the spring-time.

BAKED MUTTON CUTLETS.

Trim neatly and put the bits of bone, skin, etc., on in a pint of cold water to stew down into gravy. Pour a little melted butter upon the cutlets and set over hot water, fifteen minutes. Then dip each in egg, next in rolled cracker, and lay in your dripping-pan with a very little water. Bake rapidly, basting with butter and water. When the gravy has boiled down to one cupful, strain into a saucepan; season with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Thicken with browned flour; strain into it the gravy from the dripping-pan; lay the chops carefully in a frying-pan, as being broad and easily managed. Pour over them the gravy, simmer ten minutes; arrange the chops upon a dish, and serve the gravy in a boat.

HOMINY PUDDING.

1 cupful cold boiled hominy—the small-grained kind. 2 cups of milk. 1 great spoonful of melted butter. 1 teaspoonful of white sugar. 3 eggs. A little salt.

Work the butter into the hominy; then the beaten yolks and sugar; then, by degrees, the milk, and when all are smoothly mixed, the whites. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish.

POTATO CAKES.

Make cold mashed potatoes into flat cakes, seasoning well, and flouring all over. Fry to a good brown in dripping. Take up and drain as soon as they are done, and serve hot.

LETTUCE.

Wash and pile the best parts in a salad-dish. Pass oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar to each one and let him season for himself. It is well to do this, once in a while, that the children may learn how to prepare their own salad.

TAPIOCA PUDDING.

1 cup of tapioca. 1 quart of milk. 5 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and the same of sugar.

Soak the tapioca in cold water three hours; drain off the water, if it be not all absorbed. Soak another hour in the warmed milk. Then, beat eggs and sugar up with the butter, add the milk and tapioca, stir up well from the bottom, after it goes into the oven, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until firm and nicely browned. Eat warm with sweet sauce. It is also good cold, eaten with sugar and cream.

Third Week. Sunday. —— Calf’s Head Soup. Imitation Turtle. Chopped Macaroni. Bermuda Potatoes. String-Beans and Fried Brains. —— Alice’s Pudding. Coffee and Whipped Cream. ——

CALF’S HEAD SOUP.

The liquor in which a calf’s head has been boiled. 1 lb. of lean beef cut into dice and fried brown. 3 sliced and fried onions. 1 grated carrot. Bunch of sweet herbs. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed warm into the same quantity of browned flour. 1 tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce. 1 glass brown sherry. Dice of meat from the head. Pepper and salt.