Part 2

When cool, wrap in a thick cloth to keep fresh.

First Week. Monday. —— Soup à l’Italienne. Breaded Mutton Chops. Baked Macaroni, with Tomato Sauce. Potato Puff. Apple Sauce. —— Corn Starch Hasty Pudding. Coffee. ——

Said an irascible householder to a friend from another city, whom he chanced to meet in the street one day, “Come and dine with me! But I give you warning we shall have nothing for dinner but a confounded dressmaker!” Few of the great middle class, who are the strength and glory of our land, would dare take an unexpected guest home on washing-day, although fewer still would dare reveal, as frankly as did our blunt citizen, the cause of their reluctance to unveil the penetralia of what are, upon all days save Black Monday and Blue Tuesday, orderly and brightsome households.

Don’t interrupt me, please, my much-tried and much-trying sister, upon whose brow the plaits of Monday’s tribulations have left enduring traces! I know Bridget is always cross on wash-day, and that Katy wears an aggrieved air from morning until night; that dusting, china-washing, and divers other unaccustomed tasks are appointed unto your already busy self; that John and the boys hate “pick-up dinners;” that the modest bills of fare set down in this book for the second and third days of the week will, at the first glance, seem preposterous and unfeeling. You will survey them with very much the same feeling as moved Pope to exclaim, with tears in his eyes, “From an old friend I had not expected this!” when his host, having allowed him to eat to repletion of less savory viands, had brought on, without a note of preparation, the poet’s favorite dish, a fine hare roasted with truffles. But the fact remains that people cannot swallow enough on Sunday to support Nature through the two days’ journey into the wilderness of making-clean that follows the season of rest and devotion. It is also true that your husband and yourself, with school-children and servants, work harder on Monday than upon any other one day of the seven, and that your food should be nourishing. Should Bridget protest against “hot mate and soup” as unprecedented and “onfaling,” Bridget’s mistress (by courtesy) must bring another unknown commodity to the obstinate Celt, to bear upon the subject—to wit, BRAINS. As I shall try to show, an hour given by yourself to the lower regions—too often an inferno on that direful day—will put such a repast before unexpectant John as shall have for his eye and taste none of the characteristics of a “pick-up dinner.”

SOUP À L’ITALIENNE.

The stock of Sunday’s soup strained from the carrots. Half a cup of grated cheese and a cup of milk. 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up with water. 2 eggs beaten light.

Put the soup on fifteen minutes before dinner, where it will heat quickly. The moment it boils, draw it to one side, stir in the corn-starch and milk and heat anew, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Set it again upon the side of the range, and add the beaten eggs. Cover and leave it where it will keep hot, but not cook, while you scald the tureen and put the grated cheese in the bottom. In five minutes pour the soup upon the cheese, stir all up well, and it is ready for the table.

This is a delicious soup and easily made.

BREADED MUTTON CHOPS—BAKED.

Trim the chops neatly and put aside the bones and bits of skin for the sauce for macaroni. Pour a little melted butter over the meat. Do this as early in the day as convenient, cover them and let them stand until an hour before they are to be served. Then, roll each in beaten egg, next, in fine cracker-dust, (you can buy it ready powdered) and lay them in your dripping-pan with a very little water in the bottom—just enough to keep them from burning. Bake quickly—covering the dripping-pan with another—for half an hour. Then remove the upper, baste the chops with butter and hot water, and let them brown. When done, lay them upon a hot dish and set in the open oven to keep warm. Add to the gravy in the dripping-pan a little hot water, a teaspoonful of browned flour, a tablespoonful of catsup, a _small_ quantity of minced onion, pepper and salt. Boil up once, strain, and pour over the chops.

MACARONI WITH TOMATO SAUCE.

Break the macaroni into short pieces and set over the fire with enough boiling water to cover it well, as it swells to treble its original dimensions. In twenty minutes it should be tender. Drain off the water carefully, not to break the macaroni, and stir lightly into it pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of butter. Turn it into a deep dish and pour over it a sauce made as follows: To the bones and refuse bits left from trimming the chops, add a pint of cold water, and stew slowly upon the back of the range, (lest Bridget should be inconvenienced thereby,) until you have less than a cupful of good gravy. Strain out the bones, etc., season to taste, and add what was left from the stewed tomatoes of yesterday. Having had the provision for to-day’s dinner in mind, you will have acted wisely in seeing for yourself that it did not go into the swill-pail under the head of “scraps.” Cook tomatoes and gravy together for three minutes after they begin to simmer, and pour, smoking hot, over the macaroni. Let it stand covered a few minutes before serving.

POTATO PUFF.

To two cupfuls of cold mashed potato (more of yesterday’s leavings), add a tablespoonful of melted butter, and beat to a cream. Put with this two eggs whipped light, and a cupful of milk, salting to taste. Beat all well; pour into a greased baking-dish, and bake quickly to a light brown. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked.

CORN-STARCH HASTY PUDDING.

1 quart of fresh milk. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up with water. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Heat the milk to scalding, and stir into it the corn-starch until it has boiled ten minutes and is thick and smooth throughout. Add salt and butter, let the pudding stand in the farina-kettle in which it has been boiled—the hot water around it—for three minutes before turning it into a deep _open_ dish.

Eat with butter and sugar, or with powdered sugar and cream, with nutmeg grated over it.

COFFEE.

A French coffee-pot is a convenience on Monday. If you have one, you know how to use it. If not, put a quart of boiling water into your coffee-pot; wet up a cupful of ground coffee with the white of an egg, adding the egg-shell, and a little cold water. Put this into the boiling hot water, and boil fast ten minutes. Then, add half a cup of cold water, and set it upon the hearth or table to “settle” for five minutes. Pour it off carefully into your metal or china coffee-pot or urn.

First Week. Tuesday. —— Scotch Broth. Rolled Beefsteaks. Cabbage Salad. Browned Potatoes. Baked Beans. —— Apple and Tapioca Pudding. Hard Sauce. ——

SCOTCH BROTH.

3 lbs. of veal and bones from neck or knuckle. 3 quarts of water. 1 onion. 1 turnip. 3 stalks of celery. 1 cupful pearl barley. Salt and pepper to taste.

Crack the bones and mince the meat early in the day, if you dine near midday, and put on with the cold water. Soak the barley in lukewarm water, after washing it well, and when it has lain in the tepid bath for two hours, put it in the same over the fire to cook slowly, keeping it covered fully by adding hot water from the kettle. Wash, scrape and chop the vegetables; cover with cold water, and stew in a saucepan by themselves. When they are very soft, rub them through a colander; add the water in which they were cooked, and keep hot until the meat in the soup-kettle has boiled to rags. For this purpose four hours are better than three. Strain out bones and meat; put soup-stock, barley (with the water in which it has boiled), vegetable broth, pepper, and salt, into one kettle and boil slowly for thirty minutes. A little chopped parsley is an improvement.

ROLLED BEEFSTEAKS.

2 good sirloin steaks. Bread-crumbs. A slice of fat salt pork. Seasoning, a little minced onion, pepper and salt.

Take out the bones from the steak and throw them into the soup-pot. If your butcher has not already done so, beat the meat flat with the broad side of a hatchet, and cover it with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs, minced pork, and half an onion. Moisten this slightly with water, and season to taste. Roll each steak up, closely enclosing the stuffing; bind with twine into two compact bundles and lay in a dripping-pan. Dash a cupful of boiling water over each, cover with an inverted pan, and bake about three-quarters of an hour, in their own steam. At the end of this time remove the cover, baste with butter and dredge with flour to brown the meat. When they are of a fine color, lay upon a hot dish. Thicken the gravy with a little browned flour, boil up and send to table in a boat. In removing the strings from the rolled beef prior to serving, clip them in several places, that the form of the meat may not be disturbed.

CABBAGE SALAD.

1 small head of cabbage, chopped fine, or cut into shreds. 1 cup of boiling milk. ¾ of a cup of vinegar. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 tablespoonful of white sugar. 2 eggs well beaten. 1 teaspoonful essence of celery. Pepper and salt.

Heat milk and vinegar in separate vessels. To the boiling vinegar add butter, sugar, and seasoning, lastly the chopped cabbage. Heat to scalding, but do not let it boil. Stir the beaten eggs into the hot milk. Cook one minute together after they begin to boil. Turn the hot cabbage into a bowl; pour the custard over it; toss up and about with a wooden or silver fork, until all the ingredients are well mixed. Cover and set in a very cold place for some hours.

This is a very delightful salad, quite repaying the trouble of cooking the dressing.

BROWNED POTATOES.

Boil large potatoes with their skins on; peel them, and, when you uncover your beef for browning, lay the potatoes in the dripping-pan about the meat. Dredge and baste them as well as the beef. If not quite brown when the meat is ready, leave them in the gravy for awhile, before thickening the latter. Drain in a hot colander, and arrange neatly around the steaks in the dish.

BAKED BEANS.

Soak dried beans all night in soft water, exchanging this in the morning for lukewarm, and this, two hours later, for still warmer. Let them lie an hour in this, before putting them on to boil in cold water. When they are soft, drain and turn them into a bake-dish. Season with pepper and salt, with a liberal spoonful of butter. Add enough boiling water to prevent them from scorching and bake, covered, until they smoke and bubble. Remove the cover, and brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

APPLE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING.

1 teacupful tapioca, soaked for five hours in 3 teacupfuls of warm (not hot) water. 8 juicy pippins, pared and cored. 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar and a saltspoonful of salt, with a few whole cloves.

Arrange the apples in a deep dish; add a cup of cold water; cover, and steam in a moderate oven until tender all through, turning them once or twice. Turn off half the liquid and pour the tapioca, which should have been soaked in a warm place, over the apples, when you have filled the hollows left by the cores with sugar and put a clove in each. The tapioca should be _slightly_ salted. Bake one hour, or until the tapioca is clear and crusted on top. Serve in pudding-dish.

HARD SAUCE.

To two cups of powdered sugar add half a cup of butter, slightly warmed, so that the two can be worked up together. When they are well mixed, beat in half a teaspoonful of nutmeg and the juice of a lemon. Whip smooth and light, mound neatly upon a butter-plate, and set in the cold to harden.

First Week. Wednesday. —— Split Pea Soup. Halibut Steaks. Boiled Leg of Mutton. Caper Sauce. Spinach. Stewed Potatoes. —— Cottage Pudding with Liquid Sauce. ——

SPLIT PEA SOUP.

1 pint of split peas. 4 quarts of water. 2 lbs. of beef and some bones. ¼ lb. of lean bacon or ham. 3 stalks of celery, the white part only, cut fine. Juice of a lemon. Stale bread cut into dice and fried.

Soak the peas all night in soft water, changing it in the morning for warm—not hot. Throw this off after an hour and cover the peas with four quarts of cold water. Boil in this—adding the meat, cut small, the bones well cracked and the celery—four hours. _Always boil soups slowly._ The neglect of this rule leaves in the kettle a mass of toughened meat and an ocean of dish-water.

When you are ready to take up your soup, strain in a colander, picking out and casting aside bits of bones and shreds of meat. Rub the peas and celery through the holes of the strainer until nothing more will pass. Season with pepper and salt; add the juice of a small lemon, and return to the kettle, which must first be rinsed with hot water. Let all boil together two minutes. Should it not seem so thick as you would like, you can put in, while it is boiling, a little corn-starch wet up with cold water. Put a couple of slices of stale bread, cut into dice and fried crisp in dripping, in the heated tureen, and pour the soup upon them.

HALIBUT STEAKS—FRIED.

Wash and wipe the steaks. Roll each in flour, and fry upon a buttered griddle, turning carefully with a spatula, or cake-turner, when the lower side is done. They should be of a nice brown, and tender throughout. Remove to a hot dish and garnish with sliced lemon; in carving, see that a bit of the lemon goes to each person, as many prefer it to any other sauce for fish. Send around potatoes with the steak. Worcestershire is a good store-sauce for fish and game. Anchovy is pre-eminently a fish sauce, but many do not like it.

LEG OF MUTTON—BOILED.

Do not have the mutton too fat or too large. Cut off the shank, which the butcher will have nicked for you, leaving about two inches beyond the ham. Wash and wipe carefully and boil in hot water, with a little salt, until a fork will readily pierce the thickest part. About ten or twelve minutes to the pound is a good rule in boiling _fresh_ meat. Serve with caper sauce. Since you intend to use the liquor in which the meat is boiled for to-morrow’s soup, do not oversalt it. But sprinkle, instead, salt over the leg of mutton after it is dished; rub it all over with butter and set in a hot oven for a single minute.

CAPER SAUCE.

1 cup of the liquor in which the meat has been boiled. 2 teaspoonfuls of flour rubbed smooth in a little water. Salt to taste. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. About two dozen capers or green nasturtium-seed.

Heat the liquor to boiling, and skim before stirring in the flour, which must be perfectly free from lumps, and rubbed smooth in cold water. Stir until the sauce thickens evenly. It is best to cook all sauces in a vessel set within a larger one of hot water. When it has boiled about a minute, add the butter gradually, stirring each bit in well before putting in more. Salt, and drop in the capers. Let it just boil, and turn into a sauce-boat.

SPINACH.

Pull the spinach from the stalks, leaf by leaf; wash carefully, and leave in cold water one hour. Boil in hot water fifteen minutes. Drain very dry in a colander; chop extremely fine in a wooden bowl, then return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, and a teaspoonful of white sugar. As it heats beat it up with a wooden spoon until it is a soft paste. Let it bubble up once, and dish. Lay a hard-boiled egg or two, cut in thin slices, upon the surface. Few vegetables are more often ruined in the cooking than spinach. The above receipt is simple and good.

STEWED POTATOES.

Pare and cut into large dice some good potatoes. Lay in cold water half an hour. Stew in cold water, a little salted. There should be enough water to cover them well. When they are tender and begin to crumble at the edges, drain off half the water, and pour in as much milk. When they are again scalding hot, stir in a lump of butter the size of an egg (for a large dish) rolled in flour, salt, pepper and chopped parsley to taste. Boil up once and serve in a covered dish.

COTTAGE PUDDING.

1 cup of powdered sugar. 1 cup of sweet milk. 1 tablespoonful of butter. 2 eggs, beaten light, yolks and whites separately. Saltspoonful of salt. _About_ 3 cups of Hecker’s prepared flour, enough for cake-batter.

Rub the butter well into the sugar; add beaten yolks; the milk, salt, then whipped whites and yolks alternately. Bake in a buttered mould. When you can bring out the testing-straw clean from the middle of the loaf, turn it out upon a dish. Cut in slices while hot, as it is wanted.

One who has never tried it can hardly believe that the result of a receipt which may be tried fearlessly by a novice in cookery, could be the really elegant pudding just described.

It is also as economical as toothsome.

SAUCE FOR COTTAGE PUDDING.

2 cups of powdered sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 cup of boiling water. 1 glass sherry wine. Nutmeg or cinnamon to taste.

Rub the butter into the sugar; add hot water gradually; then spice and wine. Cover tightly to keep in the strength of the wine, and set for twenty minutes in a saucepan of boiling water. Stir up and send to table.

First Week. Thursday. —— Vermicelli Soup. Scalloped Oysters. Mince of Mutton with Potato Frill. Baked Tomatoes. Celery. —— Tipsy Trifle. Apples and Nuts. ——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

Take off all the fat from the broth in which your mutton was cooked yesterday, and boil it down slowly to two-thirds of the original quantity. Stew to pieces, in another vessel, a stalk of celery, one small onion, a carrot, and a bunch of sweet herbs—all cut up fine. A ham-bone, if you have it, or a couple of slices of lean ham, will be an improvement to the broth. Strain the soup; rub the vegetables through a fine colander with the water in which they were boiled; return to the fire with a double handful of vermicelli broken into short pieces; boil for ten minutes; add a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; boil up and serve.

Send around a saucer of grated cheese with vermicelli and macaroni soups. It is a great improvement to the flavor and consistency. Each person may take as much or as little as he likes.

SCALLOPED OYSTERS.

1 quart of fine oysters. 1 coffee-cupful of pounded cracker. 2 great spoonfuls of butter. ½ cupful of cream or rich milk. Pepper and salt to taste.

Butter a baking-dish and cover the bottom pretty thickly with pounded cracker. Wet with oyster liquor and a few spoonfuls of cream. Next, lay oysters, one deep, closely over these. Pepper and salt, and stick a bit of butter upon each. Another layer of crumbs, wet as before; more oysters, and proceed in like order until your dish is full, making the top layer of crumbs with butter dotted over it. Set in the oven, invert a plate or tin pan over the dish, and bake until the juice bubbles up to the top. Uncover; set upon the upper grating of the oven to brown, and send to table in the bake-dish. Pass around sliced lemon with it.

Oysters, like fish, follow immediately after soup, and are a course by themselves.

MINCE OF MUTTON WITH POTATO FRILL.

The remains of yesterday’s mutton, minced, but not very fine. 1 cupful of drawn butter. 2 tablespoonfuls of cream, or rich milk. Pepper, salt, and mace to taste, also chopped parsley. 1 button onion. 2 eggs, well beaten.

Heat the sauce to a boil, add the seasoning and the onion, chopped very fine; then, the meat. Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, and let it stand, closely covered, in _boiling_ water for ten minutes. Set again over the fire and bring to boiling point. Add the eggs and milk and set back at the side for five minutes, still covered. The mince should never really boil after the meat goes in.

POTATO FRILL.

Boil and mash some potatoes; working in a little milk and butter, but not so much as to make the paste very soft. Season with salt, and, while still hot, knead in a beaten egg. Shape this paste into a fence, on the inside round of a shallow dish; fluting it regularly with the round handle of a knife. Set for one minute in a hot oven, but not long enough to cause the fence to crack. Glaze quickly with butter, and pour the meat carefully within the wall. The mince should not be so thin as to wash away the “frill.” If well managed this is a pretty and a savory dish.

BAKED TOMATOES.

1 can of tomatoes. Stale bread, crumbed fine. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Pepper, salt, a little chopped parsley, and white sugar.

Drain off two-thirds of the liquor from the tomatoes; salt it and set aside for another day’s soup. One has no excuse for waste whose “stock-pot” is always near at hand. Little comes amiss to it. Cover the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; lay the tomatoes evenly upon this bed; season with pepper, salt, sugar, and parsley, with bits of butter here and there. Strew bread-crumbs over all, a thicker layer than at the bottom; put tiny pieces of butter upon this, and bake, covered, about thirty-five minutes. Take off the cover and brown upon the upper shelf of the oven. Do not let it stay there long enough to get dry.

CELERY—RAW.

Wash, trim, and scrape the stalks, selecting those that are white and tender. Crisp by leaving them in very cold water until they are wanted for the table. Arrange neatly in a celery-stand. Pass between the oysters and meat.

TIPSY TRIFLE.

1 quart of milk. 3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately. 1 stale sponge-cake. 1 cup of sugar. Flavoring of vanilla. 1 cup of sherry wine. A few spoonfuls of currant jelly.

Make a custard of the milk, sugar, the yolks of the eggs and the whites of _two_. Put in the latter ingredients when the milk _almost_ boils, and stir until it begins to thicken. Flavor when cold. Put a layer of sliced cake in the bottom of a glass bowl. Wet with the wine and a few spoonfuls of custard, and when it is quite soaked, put on more cake. Proceed in this manner until the cake and wine are used up, when pour on, a little at a time, the remainder of the custard; holding down the cake with a bread spoon as you do this to keep it from floating. Lay a heavy plate upon it, for the same purpose, while you prepare a méringue by whipping stiff the rest of the whites, and then beating in the currant jelly. Cover the trifle with this just before dinner-time.

APPLES AND NUTS.

Polish the apples, and crack the nuts, unless you have plenty of nut-crackers. Give a knife to each apple-plate, and teach the children to pare them neatly for themselves, instead of “munching” like rabbits at family dinners, and being awkwardly ill at ease when “company” is present. Silver or ivory knives are better for fruit than steel.

First Week. Friday. —— Soupe Maigre. Boiled Cod. Roast Duck with Bread Sauce. Mashed Potatoes. Rice Croquettes. Stewed Celery. —— Apple Pie. ——

SOUPE MAIGRE.

1 quart of milk. 3 pints of water. 1 onion. 1 turnip. 3 stalks of celery. 1 potato (large). Quarter of a small cabbage, sliced. ½ cup of bread-crumbs, very dry. 2 eggs, beaten light. Parsley, pepper, and salt to taste. 4 tablespoonfuls of butter.