Part 19

GREEN PEAS.

Open a can of green peas, drain, and cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Strain off the water; dish the peas, stir in butter, pepper, and if needed, salt.

CHEESE FONDU.

1 cup of bread-crumbs, very dry. 2 cups of fresh milk. ½ lb. of dry cheese, grated. 3 eggs. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Pepper and salt. A pinch of soda dissolved in boiling water, and stirred into the milk.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, butter, seasoning, and at last, the cheese. Butter a bake-dish; pour in the _fondu_; cover with crumbs, and bake in a brisk oven. Serve at once, as it soon falls.

FARINA HASTY PUDDING WITH SAUCE.

1 quart of milk. 4 tablespoonfuls of farina. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Heat the milk, when the farina has soaked two hours in just enough water to cover it, and has absorbed it all. Salt the milk and stir in the farina. Boil half an hour, steadily stirring now and then, from the bottom. Add the butter; and let the pudding stand in hot water three minutes after you cease to stir, before turning out into an open, deep dish. Make a good sauce of butter, sugar, and nutmeg, and eat with it.

Fourth Week. Tuesday. —— Crust Soup. Mock Pigeons with Mushroom Sauce. Baked Potatoes. Cabbage Sprouts and Eggs. Mixed Pickles. —— Bread and Raisin Pudding. ——

CRUST SOUP.

1 quart of dry crusts, the more stale the better, if sweet. 2 cups of yesterday’s soup. 2 cups of boiling water. 1 onion. 3 great spoonfuls of butter. 2 eggs. Salt and pepper. A little chopped parsley.

Pour the boiling water upon the crusts, which should be broken small. Set in a pot of boiling water for one hour, with a small onion minced fine, and the seasoning. Meanwhile skim the cold soup (or any good gravy) and heat to a boil. At the end of the hour, add the butter to the bread, and cover ten minutes longer. Then turn into the soup; beat up the bread and stir in the parsley. Simmer fifteen minutes, beat the eggs light, pour a little of the soup upon them to heat them before stirring them well into the contents of the kettle. Take from the fire at once, lest the eggs should curdle.

MOCK PIGEONS WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE.

2 fillets of veal. Force-meat of crumbs and chopped salt pork, well seasoned. ½ cup of mushrooms and a little minced onion. 1 sweetbread. 12 oysters. Pepper and salt.

The fillets must be boneless. Sprinkle with pepper and spread with force-meat. Roll up closely and wind with packthread. Put into a dripping-pan with enough water to half cover them. Invert a pan over them, and bake from forty-five minutes to one hour in proportion to their size. Boil, then blanch the sweetbread, by dropping it into cold water. Cut into dice, put into a cup of oyster liquor with a spoonful of butter, and simmer fifteen minutes. Baste the “pigeons” four times—twice with butter, and when tender, lay on a hot dish, clip and carefully withdraw the threads, and cover to keep warm. Add the gravy from the dripping-pan to the sweetbread; thicken with browned flour; boil once; put in the oysters and mushrooms, chopped, and stew five minutes quite fast. Pour a few large spoonfuls, taking up the thickest part, over the “pigeons;” send the rest up in a sauce-boat. You will find this a very nice dish.

BAKED POTATOES.

Parboil and skin while hot. Lay in a pan and anoint with beef-dripping or butter, from time to time, as they brown. Drain off the grease and serve hot, after peppering and salting.

CABBAGE SPROUTS AND EGGS.

Boil the sprouts tender, drain well, pepper and salt. Lay some slices of crustless toast in a deep dish, and soak in boiling water; drain them and cover with a soft omelette made of three or four eggs, “stirred” up in a pan in which has been heated a spoonful of butter. Lay the sprouts upon this, butter well and eat hot.

BREAD AND RAISIN PUDDING.

1 quart of milk. 1 loaf of stale _light_ bread, pared and sliced. Butter to spread the bread. 4 eggs. ½ cup of sugar. ¾ lb. of raisins, seeded and cut into thirds.

Butter the bread. Make a raw custard of eggs, sugar and milk. Line the bottom of a buttered dish with the bread. Wet with custard; strew with raisins, and lay in more bread. Go on in this order until the dish is full. The uppermost layer should be of bread, well buttered and soaked. Cover the dish; set in boiling water, and bake one hour, keeping the water at a fast boil. Turn out carefully, and pour hot, sweet sauce over it. The liquor from brandied peaches, made hot, with a little butter, makes a delicious sauce for it.

Fourth Week. Wednesday. —— Bouillon of Beef. Tomato Omelette with Cheese. Savory Rice Pudding. —— Corn-Starch Custard Pie. ——

BOUILLON OF BEEF.

6 lbs. of brisket or round of beef, all in one piece. 4 turnips. 3 carrots. 2 Bermuda onions. A good handful of cabbage sprouts. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in flour. Bunch of sweet herbs. 1 teaspoonful of made mustard. 4 quarts of water.

Cover the beef with the water and cook slowly one hour. Meanwhile, cut the vegetables into long strips—not too thin—leaving the sprouts whole. Cook them all in boiling, salted water twenty minutes. Throw this water away, and at the end of the hour, skim the soup well, and put in the vegetables. Stew all very slowly two hours longer. There must never be a fast boil. Take out the beef; put into a dripping-pan; pour a cup of the soup (strained), seasoned well with pepper, salt, and mustard, over it; dredge thickly with flour and brown in a good oven, basting every few minutes. Take half the vegetables from the pot and keep hot. Rub the rest through a colander; season the soup and pulp, add the herbs and return to the saucepan; boil sharply five minutes; stir in butter and flour; simmer five minutes, and the soup is ready for the tureen. Season the reserved vegetables, and having dished your beef, lay them, very hot, around it. Serve with each slice.

TOMATO OMELETTE WITH CHEESE.

Break six eggs into a bowl and give about a dozen whirls of the beater, just enough to mingle whites and yolks well. Have ready in a frying-pan a great spoonful of butter. When it begins to hiss, run it quickly over the bottom of the pan, and pour in your eggs. Take the handle of the pan in one hand, a cake-turner in the other, and with the latter, loosen all around the edges of the omelette, while with the other hand you shake the pan to keep the eggs free from the bottom. In about three minutes, the eggs should be “set,” but still soft. Let an assistant lay upon one-half of the omelette five or six slices of canned tomatoes. Fold the other half over this by a dexterous motion of the turner; invert a hot dish upon the pan; upset the latter, and dish the omelette. Have at hand a handful of _dry_ cheese, grated and seasoned with pepper and salt. Strew the omelette thickly, singe with a red-hot shovel held very close to the cheese, and serve hot.

N. B.—Teach your cook the art of omelette-making at breakfasts, and she will soon be capable of managing this very delightful _entrée_.

SAVORY RICE PUDDING.

1 teacupful of raw rice. 1 small onion. 1 cup of weak broth. Steal from your soup before the vegetables go in, if you have no other. 1 cup of milk. 1 egg. Nearly a cupful of chopped cold meat—left from yesterday. Pepper and salt.

Boil the rice with the whole onion in the broth, adding more, or hot water, as it swells. When the rice is soft and has soaked up the broth, remove the onion and add a raw custard made of the milk, egg, pepper, and salt. Mix well with the meat, put into a greased mould, set in a pan of boiling water, and bake, covered, until firm. Keep the water boiling hard. About forty-five minutes should be ample time. Turn out and eat with meat.

CORN-STARCH CUSTARD PIE.

6 eggs. 3 pints of milk. 6 tablespoonfuls of white sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. 2 teaspoonfuls essence bitter almonds.

Boil the milk, stir in the corn-starch wet with milk. Boil one minute and cool. When cold, beat in the sugar, the yolks and _two_ whites. Flavor, and bake in open shells of paste. When the custard is “set,” draw to the door of the oven, and cover with a _méringue_ made of the reserved whites whipped stiff with two tablespoonfuls of white sugar and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Do this quickly and close the oven until the whites begin to color. Eat cold.

Fourth Week. Thursday. —— Frugal Soup. Calf’s Liver à l’Anglaise. Potato Croquettes. Spinach and Eggs. Cucumber Pickles. —— Cocoanut Pudding. ——

FRUGAL SOUP.

3 lbs. of bones. ½ lb. of liver. 1 slice of corned ham. 2 turnips. 2 carrots. Nearly a can of tomatoes. ½ cup of sago. Pepper and salt. Sweet herbs. 3 quarts cold water.

Break the bones, chop the meat, vegetables, and herbs, and cook slowly three hours in the water. Soak the sago, all this time, in a little cold water. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables and liver through the colander; season, boil, and skim; put in the sago and cook half an hour more.

CALF’S LIVER À L’ANGLAISE.

2 lbs. liver—sliced. ½ lb. fat salt pork. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 small onion, minced fine. 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley. Pepper and browned flour.

Melt, but not heat the butter in a saucepan; lay in the liver, then the pork, next the minced parsley and onion, with a little salt and pepper. Cover closely, and set where it will heat very slowly _without boiling_, for one hour and a half. Then increase the heat gradually until the gravy begins to bubble. Remove from the fire; cover the liver in a hot water dish, thicken the gravy in the saucepan and pour over it when it has boiled one minute. Please obey these directions implicitly.

POTATO CROQUETTES.

2 cups cold mashed potato, free from lumps. 2 beaten eggs. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. Salt and pepper to taste. 1 raw egg, beaten alone. Cracker-crumbs.

Mix soft, as for hominy croquettes, roll in egg and cracker, and fry in hot lard or dripping. You can make into long rolls, or round balls. Drain, and serve hot.

SPINACH AND EGGS.

Pick the leaves from the stems; cook twenty minutes in plenty of boiling, salted water; drain, chop fine, return to the fire with butter, a little sugar, pepper, and salt. Beat until nearly dry, and very smooth; mould in a hot, oblong pan; turn out and garnish with sliced egg.

COCOANUT PUDDING.

1 large cup bread-crumbs. 1 cocoanut, pared and grated. 1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet with cold water. ½ cup of butter. 1 cup of sugar. 2 cups of milk. 5 eggs. Nutmeg and rose-water to taste.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; cream butter and sugar, and beat in the yolks, then add to the soaked crumbs. Stir in corn-starch, beaten whites and flavoring—at last, cocoanut. Beat hard and bake forty-five minutes in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat cold.

Fourth Week. Friday. —— Onion Soup. Salmon Croquettes. Mutton Chops, Broiled. Parsnip Fritters. Squeezed Potatoes. Almond Blanc-Mange. —— White Cake. ——

ONION SOUP.

3 sliced onions. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, and twice as much flour. 1 quart of milk. 2 cups of boiling water. 1 cup of mashed potato. Pepper, salt, and fried bread. 1 teaspoonful essence of celery. Soda.

Fry the onions in the butter; strain the latter; return to the frying-pan and stir in the flour gradually, cooking until it is a light bistre color. Thin with boiling water, added slowly. Meanwhile, heat the milk, and work by degrees, into the potato. Then strain through a colander into a saucepan; add a piece of soda the size of a pea, and set within a pot of boiling water. Cook ten minutes, season well, put in the flour and butter. Then mince the onions _very_ fine, and stir in. Let all stand in the hot water ten minutes; add celery. Flavor and pour upon the fried bread, cut into dice and put into the tureen.

SALMON CROQUETTES.

1 can preserved salmon. 2 raw eggs. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Yolks of 2 hard boiled eggs. 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce. Juice of ½ lemon. Season with salt, pepper, a little mace and nutmeg. ½ cup crumbs.

Mince the fish; work in the butter, slightly warmed; the _powdered_ yolks, the seasoning, raw eggs—finally, the crumbs. Make into rolls; shape well by rolling in a dish covered thickly with flour. Fry quickly in sweet lard. Roll each, when done, for one instant, upon a clean cloth to take off the grease. Lay a square of treble tissue-paper, red, green, and white, upon a dish (fringing the ends), and serve.

MUTTON CHOPS—BROILED.

If you have not a “vertical broiler,” lay upon a hot gridiron—greased—and turn often over a clear fire, until nicely browned. Butter, salt, and pepper each one as it is taken from the fire.

SQUEEZED POTATOES.

Put old potatoes on in cold water, and cook soft. Skin rapidly, set over the fire for one minute; then, twist a soft, dry cloth around each one until you feel it crush but not quite break open. Lay each, as you squeeze it, within a hot dish, lined with a napkin. When all are in, turn the four corners of the napkin over the top to keep in the heat.

PARSNIP FRITTERS.

Boil, scrape, and mash; take out fibres and hard bits. Work into four large parsnips one beaten egg, a teaspoonful of flour, with pepper and salt. Make into small, round cakes, roll in flour and fry in good dripping. Drain well, and serve hot.

ALMOND BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk. 1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine. ¼ lb. of almonds, blanched and pounded, with 1 tablespoonful of rose-water to prevent oiling. ¾ cup of sugar.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of the milk. Heat the rest; add the almond-paste, and stir over the fire three minutes, then put in the sugar and gelatine, and stir five minutes more. Strain through thin muslin, pressing hard. When cool, pour into a wet mould, and set upon ice, or in cold water to form. Eat with cream and sugar. It is a good plan to blanch the almonds the day before they are to be pounded.

WHITE CAKE.

Please see “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” Series No. 1., “General Receipts,” page 334.

Fourth Week. Saturday. —— Okra and Tomato Soup. Beef’s Heart. Ramakins. Potatoes à la Crème. Lima Beans. —— Newark Pudding. ——

OKRA AND TOMATO SOUP.

6 lbs. of coarse beef. 2 lbs. of mutton bones. Two slices of corned ham, or a ham bone, or bones of salt pork. 1 can okra and tomatoes. 6 quarts of cold water. Large bunch of sweet herbs. Pepper and salt. 1 lump of white sugar.

Crack the bones into splinters. Cut the meat into strips and mince the herbs. Put on in the water, and cook _slowly_, four hours. Strain off the liquor, and divide into two portions. Season the meat, bones, etc., highly, put them back into that portion designed for Sunday, and set aside in a cold place. Pour the stock for to-day’s soup back into the pot; season with salt and pepper; boil up, and skim, and add the okra, tomatoes, and sugar. Simmer half an hour, boil briskly one minute. Skim and serve.

BEEF’S HEART.

Choose a fine, fresh one. Wash well, lay in salt and water an hour, then wipe dry. Stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, minced salt pork, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley with a little onion. Pack this in tightly, sew the heart up in coarse net, fitted well to it, and stew one hour and a half in weak broth. (A cupful can be taken from your soup stock.) At the end of this time, take it out, undo the cloth, and return the heart to the saucepan with enough gravy to half cover it. Add to this a tablespoonful of butter cut up in as much flour; pepper and salt to taste. Cover closely, and simmer half an hour, turning the heart as it browns. Dish it; add the juice of half a lemon to the gravy, boil once, and pour over the heart.

RAMAKINS.

Rounds of lightly toasted bread. 3 tablespoonfuls grated cheese. 2 eggs, beaten light. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce. 1 teaspoonful of flour, wet with cream. A little salt and cayenne.

Beat eggs, butter, and seasoning together; then the cheese, lastly, the flour. Work all to a cream; spread thickly upon the bread, and brown lightly.

POTATOES À LA CRÈME.

Heat a cupful of milk; stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter cut up in as much flour. Stir until smooth and thick; pepper and salt, and add two cupfuls of cold boiled potatoes, sliced, and a little very finely chopped parsley. Shake over the fire until the potatoes are hot all through, and pour into a deep dish.

LIMA BEANS.

Open the can an hour before it is needed, and empty into a bowl. When ready for the beans drain off the liquor and cook in boiling water twenty-five minutes. Drain, butter, pepper and salt, and serve.

NEWARK PUDDING.

1 quart of milk. 5 eggs. 1 large cup fine crumbs. 2 tablespoonfuls of rice-flour. ½ lb. of raisins cut in two, seeded and dredged with flour. 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla, or other extract. (If possible get your flavoring extracts from COLGATE & CO., 53 AND 55 JOHN STREET, NEW YORK. They are good from first _to last_, which is more than I can say for many others.) 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter. ½ teaspoonful of soda.

Beat the yolks. Add the crumbs soaked in a pint of the milk. Stir in the rice-flour, wet in cold milk; the reserved pint of milk; the butter, flavoring, the fruit, and lastly, the whisked whites. Bake one hour in a well-greased mould; turn out and eat with hard sauce.

MAY.

First Week. Sunday. —— Clear Soup. Roast Lamb. Green Peas. Mint Sauce. Asparagus on Toast. Potato Eggs. —— Rice and Tapioca Pudding. ——

CLEAR SOUP.

Take _all_ the fat from the stock reserved for to-day, and pour the liquid carefully off from the meat and bones, not disturbing the sediment in the bottom. (_Mem._ Take out a little of the meat, beef, and ham, for a purpose of which we shall speak presently—add boiling water—about a quart—to the rest of the residuum with more seasoning, and the remains of your okra and tomato soup. Stew gently half an hour, and set aside in a cool place for to-morrow. The growing heat of the weather makes this a necessary precaution.) Put then the clear stock upon the fire with a whole onion, and simmer thirty minutes. Skim well, take out the onion, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of gelatine previously soaked one hour in cold water, with a tablespoonful (scant) of Harvey’s sauce. Cook five minutes and pour out.

ROAST LAMB.

Lay in the dripping-pan; dash a cupful of boiling water over it and roast in a good oven, allowing about ten minutes—not more—to the pound. Baste often and freely, and after half an hour, cover with a sheet of thick paper. Five minutes before taking it up, remove this, dredge with flour, and as this browns, bring to a froth with butter. Do not send the gravy to table if you use mint sauce.

MINT SAUCE.

2 tablespoonfuls green mint, chopped very fine. 1 tablespoonful white sugar. About half a cupful best cider vinegar.

Put sugar and vinegar into a sauce-boat and stir in the mint. Let it stand fifteen minutes before serving.

GREEN PEAS.

I have purposely avoided too early an introduction of green vegetables and other spring dainties, through fear that the high prices demanded for them might make this part of my work useless for housekeepers of moderate means. By the first of May, however, even our Northern markets should be well supplied at reasonable rates with many delightful esculents which are, as yet, brought only from the South.

Shell the peas and wash well in cold water. Cook in boiling water—salted—for twenty-five minutes. A lump of sugar will be an addition, and a pleasant one, to market peas. Drain well, stir in a great lump of butter, and pepper and salt. Serve hot.

ASPARAGUS UPON TOAST.

Cut the stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody portions and scraping the whiter parts retained. Tie in a bunch with soft tape, and cook _about_ thirty minutes, if of fair size. Have ready six or eight slices of crustless bread, nicely toasted. Dip in the asparagus-liquor, butter well and lay upon a very hot dish. Drain the asparagus, untie, and arrange upon the toast, peppering and buttering to taste.

POTATO EGGS.

2 cups mashed potato. ½ cup minced meat. 2 beaten eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls hot milk. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 3 tablespoonfuls gravy. Pepper, salt, and dripping.

Work the potato _smooth_ with butter, milk, gravy, and beaten eggs. Put into a saucepan, and stir over the fire until smoking hot. Stir in the meat; let it get cool enough to handle. Flour your hands and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll in flour and fry in hot dripping. Pile upon a hot dish.

RICE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING.

½ cup rice. ½ cup tapioca. ¾ cup sugar. 3 pints of milk. Cinnamon to taste.

Soak the tapioca three hours in half of the milk. Wash the rice in three waters and soak in the rest of the milk the same length of time. Put them together, stir in the sugar by degrees, until all is melted; season with cinnamon and a pinch of salt; mix up well, and bake in a slow oven two hours. Make it on Saturday, and eat cold on Sunday with sugar and cream.

First Week. Monday. —— Yesterday’s Soup. Cold Lamb. Savory Macaroni. Sea Kale. Potato Salad. —— Coffee and Sister Mag’s Cake. ——

YESTERDAY’S SOUP.

Strain the stock heated up on Sunday with the remains of Saturday’s soup. Boil four tablespoonfuls of rice in a little water until soft. Add, with the water, to the soup, with additional seasoning, if necessary, and heat almost to a boil. If it has been kept in a cool place you will find it very good. Never throw away a spoonful of any soup. It will come into use if you can keep it from spoiling.

COLD LAMB.

Trim neatly, garnish with curled parsley, and pass mixed pickles with it. Few methods of preparing lamb for the table by warming over can compare with the easier way of setting it on cold, if it has been nicely roasted at first.

SAVORY MACARONI.

To a cup of yesterday’s soup add another of boiling water. Let them boil once; skim and put in half a pound of macaroni broken into inch lengths. While it is cooking tender, boil one sweetbread fifteen minutes; throw into cold water and let it cool, then cut into small dice. When the macaroni is tender, but not broken, mix with it a custard made of two eggs, one large cup of milk, and a little salt. Stir into the macaroni a very little minced onion, pepper to taste; add the chopped sweetbread; put into a greased mould, with a cover; put this into a dripping-pan full of boiling water and cook in a good oven a little over one hour. Turn out upon a hot dish, and send around grated cheese with it.

SEA-KALE.

Pick over carefully, tie up in bunches, and lay for half an hour in cold water. Put into salted boiling water and cook twenty-five minutes. Put buttered toast in the bottom of a deep dish; clip the threads binding the kale, and lay it upon the toast. Pepper, and pour a cupful of drawn butter over it.

POTATO SALAD.

Slice cold boiled potatoes, and put a layer in a salad dish. Cover with thin slices of hard boiled egg, and strew with bits of pickled onion. When the dish is full pour over them a dressing made in the proportion of one tablespoonful of vinegar to three of salad oil; one spoonful of salt to half as much pepper, and the same quantity of made mustard. Beat up well before pouring over the salad. Let all stand ten minutes—or more—before serving.

COFFEE AND SISTER MAG’S CAKE.

Let your coffee be strong and hot, with plenty of boiling milk.

For receipt for the delightful cake mentioned please see “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 321. Friday is a good cake-baking day.