Part 21
3 lbs. veal knuckle, cracked to pieces. 1 old chicken, cut up as for fricassee. 1 onion. ¼ lb. of almonds blanched some hours before you use them, and when quite dry and brittle, pounded to a paste. Lump of white sugar. 1 pint of milk. 1 tablespoonful of butter, cut up in two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. 1 teaspoonful essence of celery. Pepper and salt. 5 quarts cold water. Soda.
Cut the meat from the knuckle; put this, the chicken, bones and onion, with the water, and boil slowly two hours. Take out the chicken, and put into a deep jar or bowl, sprinkling well with salt. Cook the soup an hour longer; strain back into the pot, pressing the meat hard. Take out half of the liquid, season well, and pour upon the chicken, cover, and set in a cold place for to-morrow’s “stock.” Season the soup in the kettle with pepper and salt. Boil and skim. Chop the veal-shreds very fine, and mix with the almonds. Have ready the milk, scalding hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in, and pour upon the veal-and-almond paste. Set over the fire in a saucepan, and stir in the butter and corn-starch, simmering five minutes. Add the sugar, and turn into the tureen, then pour in the soup. Stir all up well, and let them stand, covered, in hot water, a few minutes. Stir up again and send to table.
CALF’S LIVER, LARDED.
Cut half a pound of fat salt pork into lardoons, and thrust them, about half an inch apart, into a fresh liver, so that they will project on both sides. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with a small onion minced, pepper, and some sweet herbs chopped, also a few spoonfuls of strained tomato (left over from yesterday). Cover closely, and set in a frying-pan of boiling water for one hour, keeping the outer pan full all the time, and turning the liver twice. Then, take out the saucepan, and set over the fire, but cook _slowly_. When the liver is nicely browned below, turn it. At the end of forty minutes, boil up once sharply—and for the first time. Take out the liver, and keep hot. Add a little boiling water to the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and pour over the liver.
GREEN PEA PANCAKES.
Two cups of green peas, boiled, and mashed when hot. Season with butter, pepper, and salt, and when cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, half a teaspoonful of soda, and twice as much cream of tartar, sifted twice through half a cupful of flour. Beat well, and bake as you would griddle-cakes. Eat very hot.
ASPARAGUS IN AMBUSH.
The green tops of two bunches of asparagus. 8 or 9 stale biscuits, or small, light rolls. 2 cups of milk. 4 eggs. 1 great spoonful of butter, rolled in flour. Salt and pepper to taste.
Take out the crumb from the rolls, when you have cut off the tops to serve as covers, and set them open in the oven to crisp, laying the tops by them. Heat the milk, pour upon the beaten eggs; stir over the fire until they begin to thicken, when add the butter and flour. Lastly, put in the asparagus, boiled tender, and chopped fine. Fill the rolls with this mixture, put on the tops, and serve hot. _Good!_
BERMUDA POTATOES _en robe de chambre_.
Put on in boiling water, and cook until a fork will pierce them. Throw off the water and set back, uncovered, upon the range to dry off, strewing with salt at the same time, Send to table in a dish lined with a napkin, peeling as you eat them.
PINE-APPLE PIE.
1 large pine-apple, pared and grated. 1 cup of sugar. ½ cup of butter. 5 beaten eggs. A little nutmeg. Some good pie-paste.
Cream, butter and sugar. Beat in the yolks for three minutes; add pine-apple and spice; lastly, the whites. Bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.
Second Week. Thursday. —— Mulligatawny Soup. Chicken Patés. Sea-Kale. Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel. Lettuce and Cress Salad. —— Queen of Puddings with Strawberry Méringue. ——
MULLIGATAWNY SOUP.
Skim the stock set aside yesterday, and strain from the chicken into a soup-pot. Add a small onion and half a cupful of raw rice, and simmer forty minutes, or until the rice is tender. Wet up a tablespoonful of curry powder with the juice of a lemon, and stir in then a large spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil once and serve.
CHICKEN PATÉS.
Chop the meat of your cold chicken fine, and season well. Make a large cupful of rich drawn butter, and while it is on the fire, stir in two eggs boiled hard and minced very fine, also a little chopped parsley—then the chicken-meat. Let it almost boil. Have ready some _paté_ pans of good paste, baked quickly to a light brown. Slip while hot from the pans, fill with the mixture, and set in the oven to heat. Arrange upon a dish and send up hot.
SEA-KALE.
Choose fresh, and pick over carefully; cook twenty-five minutes in boiling, salted water; drain and press well. Chop fine; put back in the saucepan with a great lump of butter, pepper, salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir and beat, and heap upon slices of buttered crustless toast laid upon a hot dish.
POTATOES AU MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL.
Put a cup of milk into a saucepan, and when it heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley; then about two cupfuls cold boiled potatoes, sliced rather thick. Heat scalding hot, take from the fire and add a pinch of grated lemon-peel with the juice of half a lemon. Serve in a deep dish.
LETTUCE AND CRESS SALAD.
Cut up lettuce and cresses, having washed both well, and pile in a salad bowl; then pour over them a dressing made by beating together four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar, half as much mustard, and when these are well mixed, adding, gradually, two tablespoonfuls of best salad oil. Toss with a silver fork, and serve.
QUEEN OF PUDDINGS WITH STRAWBERRY MÉRINGUE.
1½ cups of sugar. 5 eggs. 2 cups fine bread-crumbs. 1 tablespoonful of butter. Lemon flavoring. 1 quart fresh milk. 1 pint fresh strawberries.
Cream the butter, and a cup of sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks; the crumbs, soaked in the milk; lastly, the seasoning. Fill a pudding-dish two-thirds full and bake until the custard is “set.” Draw to the mouth of the oven, and cover with the strawberries, rolled in sugar, then with a _méringue_ made of the whipped whites and the half-cup of sugar. Bake until the _méringue_ begins to color. Eat cold with cream.
Second Week. Friday. —— A Soup Maigre. Fried Shad. Roe Croquettes. Mashed Potatoes. Stewed Tomatoes with Onion and Bread. —— Cup Custards, Baked. Corn-Starch Cake. ——
A SOUP MAIGRE.
2 carrots. 2 onions. 1 large potato. 1 pint of green peas. ½ cup of raw rice. 1 tablespoonful of white sugar. 2 great spoonfuls of butter rolled in flour. Pepper and salt. 4 quarts of cold water. Dripping for frying. Bunch of sweet herbs.
Slice the vegetables, with the exception of the peas, and fry them in dripping until brown. Put with the herbs into a kettle and cover with the water. Cook slowly two hours, reducing the liquid one-third. Pulp the vegetables through a colander, return the soup to the fire with the rice and peas, and stew half an hour. Season, stir in the butter and flour with the sugar. Simmer five minutes and serve.
FRIED SHAD.
Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad. Split it and cut each side into four or five pieces, leaving out the head and tail, and cutting off the fins: Sprinkle with salt and pepper; roll in flour and fry to a fine brown in plenty of lard or dripping, turning as each piece browns. Drain well, and serve hot. Garnish with sliced cucumber, pickle and parsley, and pass sliced lemon with it. Send around mashed potatoes with this dish.
ROE CROQUETTES.
The roes of your shad, parboiled, cooled, and rubbed into a loose, granulated mass. One fourth as much mashed potato as you have roes. ½ cup of drawn butter with a raw egg beaten in it. Chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and ½ teaspoonful of anchovy paste for seasoning. Beaten egg and cracker-crumbs. Dripping.
Work roes, potato, drawn butter, and seasoning together; put over the fire in a saucepan and stir well until hot. When almost cold, make into short rolls, dip in raw egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a nice brown. Drain in a heated colander, and pile upon a hot dish.
MASHED POTATOES.
Proceed with this oft-repeated and ever-welcome dish as I have directed upon other pages.
STEWED TOMATOES WITH ONION AND BREAD.
Empty a can of tomatoes into a saucepan, and when hot, add a small onion, sliced, with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Stew twenty minutes, and add a tablespoonful of butter and a good handful of bread-crumbs. Simmer five minutes more and pour out.
CUP CUSTARDS—BAKED.
1 quart of milk. 5 eggs. 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar. Nutmeg and vanilla. Powdered sugar for _méringue_.
Scald the milk, and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Add to this, when you have flavored it, the whites of two eggs. Fill small stone-ware cups and set in a dripping-pan of boiling water. Bake until “set,” cover with a _méringue_ made of the whisked whites (reserved) and a little powdered sugar. Bake until they begin to be tinged. Eat cold from the cups.
CORN-STARCH CAKE.
Please see “COMMON-SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 333.
Second Week. Saturday. —— Sweetbread Soup. Beefsteaks. Green Peas. Baked Rice. Roast Potatoes. —— Omelette aux Confitures. Tea and Albert Biscuits. ——
SWEETBREAD SOUP.
4 lbs. of lean, coarse veal. ½ lb. corned ham. 2 lbs. beef bones. 2 fine sweetbreads. Bunch of parsley. 1 onion. 2 tablespoonfuls of tapioca, soaked in cold water one hour. Pepper and salt. 5 quarts of cold water.
Cut the meat into strips; crack the bones; mince the onion and parsley, and put on with the water. Cook slowly four hours. Strain; set aside some bits of “ragged” veal and ham for your dish of rice. Put the rest into a crock; season highly and pour on half your soup stock—setting this by, as usual, in a cool place for Sunday. Season the remainder of the broth; boil and skim; put in the sweetbreads, and cook half an hour. Take them out and drop into cold water. Add the tapioca to the soup; simmer ten minutes; chop the sweetbreads, and put them back; boil one minute and serve.
BEEFSTEAKS.
Flatten your steaks with the side of an axe or hatchet, taking out the bones for your soup. Butter a gridiron—if you have no “broiler”—and cook the steaks quickly over a bright fire, turning often as they drip. Lay upon a hot dish; butter abundantly and season. Cover with another heated platter, and let them stand five minutes before serving.
BAKED RICE.
Wash a cup of rice well. Take a cupful of broth from your soup-pot; strain through a thin cloth, and add twice as much boiling water, with a little salt. Put in the rice and cook slowly until it has taken up all the water and is soft. Pour in a large cup of hot milk in which have been mixed two eggs (raw), two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, and a tablespoonful of butter. Stir up well; add about half a cupful of minced veal and ham, taken from your soup; turn into a greased mould; cover and bake one hour in a dripping-pan of hot water. Dip in cold water, and invert upon a flat dish.
GREEN PEAS.
See receipts for last Sunday week.
ROAST POTATOES.
Roast in a moderate oven until soft. Cut a piece _nearly_ off the top of each; thrust a thin-bladed knife into the heart, and slip in a bit of butter. Replace the skin and send up hot.
OMELETTE AUX CONFITURES.
7 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar. ½ cup of milk (or cream). Grated peel of ½ lemon. ½ cup of marmalade or jam.
Beat yolks and whites apart and very stiff. Add sugar, lemon, and milk to the yolks; then, with a few rapid whirls of your “beater,” the whites. Put the marmalade in the bottom of a neat bake-dish (buttered), pour on the omelette, and bake until it has puffed up high and begins to “crust” well. Serve at once, or it will fall. Eight minutes should suffice to cook it—at the outside.
TEA AND ALBERT BISCUITS
May be partaken of at the same time with the omelette, or afterwards.
Third Week. Sunday. —— Sago Soup. Stuffed Shoulder of Mutton with Potato Edging. Boiled Asparagus. Purée of Peas. —— Neapolitan Blanc-Mange. ——
SAGO SOUP.
The stock made on yesterday. Little more than ½ cup of pearl sago. 3 eggs. 1 cup of milk. Pepper and salt.
Take the fat from your cold stock; pour off carefully from the sediment and strain. Heat to boiling. Wash the sago well; soak in warm water half an hour; put into the soup, and simmer twenty-five minutes. Meanwhile, heat the milk in another vessel, and pour upon the eggs. Heat this until it begins to thicken, pour into the tureen, season with a little salt and pepper, and turn in the boiling soup. It should be about as thick as hot custard when all the ingredients are in.
STUFFED SHOULDER OF MUTTON.
Get your butcher to take out the bone. (It will help out to-morrow’s soup.) Fill the hole from which it was taken with a good force-meat of crumbs, minced pork, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and one raw egg. Sew up the edges of the skin to keep in the stuffing, and roast about fifteen minutes—not more—for each pound, basting often, at first with the boiling water you have poured upon it, at the last twice with butter. When done, brush with beaten egg; sift crumbs all over it; put into a stout stone-ware dish—or one of block-tin—surround with the potato-edging, and brown in a quick oven. Pour off the fat from the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and serve in a boat.
POTATO EDGING.
Mash the potatoes very soft with milk and butter; beat in two eggs; return to the saucepan and stir until smoking hot all through. Let them get quite cool; then, mould by pressing firmly into a wet egg-cup, and turning out each form upon the mutton-dish. Arrange the little cones side by side until you have a barricade about the meat. Set in the oven and brown, glazing with butter just before you take the dish out. Serve a cone with each slice of mutton.
BOILED ASPARAGUS.
See receipt on first Sunday in May.
PURÉE OF GREEN PEAS.
Take for half a peck of peas— 1 small onion. 3 tablespoonfuls of cream. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in one tablespoonful of flour. 1 lump of white sugar. Pepper and salt.
Boil the empty pods twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Strain these out, and put in the peas with the sugar. Boil gently until they are very soft. Rub through a fine colander. Add a cupful of the water in which they were cooked, pepper and salt, and put over the fire. When very hot, stir in the floured butter, and, when this is mixed, the cream. Stir three minutes and pour out into a dish lined with strips of fried bread.
NEAPOLITAN BLANC-MANGE.
1 quart of milk. 1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked two hours in a cup of cold water. ¾ of a cup of sugar. 1 great spoonful grated chocolate, wet in a little boiling water. Beaten yolk of an egg. 1 great spoonful currant jelly, or cranberry jam. Rose-water for flavoring.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the sugar, then the gelatine. Cook about five minutes, and strain through thin muslin. Divide the blanc-mange into four equal portions. Beat the chocolate well into one; heat for one minute, and put by in a cup or bowl. Do the same with the egg to a second, and the currant jelly for the third. This last must be heated carefully, and a little sugar added, that the milk may not curdle. Leave the fourth white, and flavor with rose-water. When cold and a little stiff, pour into a wet mould—the white first; when this is so firm as to bear the weight of the next without mixing, the pink; then, the yellow; lastly, the brown. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday dip the mould in warm water, work the surface free with your fingers, and turn out upon a flat dish. Eat with cream and sugar, or brandied fruit.
Third Week. Monday. —— Clam Soup. Cold Mutton. Brussels-Sprouts. Raw Tomatoes. Stewed Potatoes. —— Oranges and Bananas. Coffee and Cake. ——
CLAM SOUP.
Early in the morning crack your mutton-bone, and put on in a quart of cold water, at the back of the range. When little more than a large cupful of liquor remains, take it off and strain into a bowl to cool. When perfectly cold take off the fat, put in a quart of clam liquor and the hard parts of fifty clams. Season with a teaspoonful of minced onion, as much chopped parsley, a pinch of mace, pepper and salt to taste, and cook, covered, half an hour after the boil begins. Heat in another vessel two cups of milk; when hot, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a heaping tablespoonful of flour, and set in boiling water to keep hot, after it has boiled two minutes. Strain the soup back into the pot, put in the soft parts of the clams—the only digestible portions—and simmer five minutes. Pour the thickened milk into the tureen, stir in the soup, and serve.
This is a delightful and nutritious soup, and since you are to have cold meat for dinner, you need not grudge the care of preparing it, even on Job’s birthday.
COLD MUTTON.
Your stuffed shoulder will be nearly as nice cold as hot. Garnish it tastefully with curled parsley and bleached lettuce-leaves.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS.
Cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes; drain well; add a liberal lump of butter, with pepper and salt to taste, and put into a deep dish.
RAW TOMATOES.
Peel with a sharp knife; slice, and lay in a salad-bowl. Season with a dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the proportions given on last Thursday.
STEWED POTATOES.
Boil whole until a fork will pierce them. Peel quickly; crack, without breaking, each, by pressing it, and drop into a saucepan containing a large cup of milk, almost on the boil. When all the potatoes are in, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, with salt and pepper. Cover and heat—below the boiling point—until the potatoes begin to crumble. Pour into a deep dish.
ORANGES AND BANANAS.
Serve whole, upon china plates, with a knife for each.
COFFEE AND CAKE.
You need not be ashamed of “cold meat on Monday,” even should John have “picked up” his unexpected friend on the street, when your bright coffee-urn, with the fragrant contents, flanked by a basket of sliced home-made cake, comes in as a reserved force.
Third Week. Tuesday. —— Brown Beef Soup. Veal Cutlets with Ham. String Beans. Chopped Potatoes. Lettuce. —— Graham Hasty Pudding. ——
BROWN BEEF SOUP.
3 lbs. of coarse, lean beef, cut into strips. 3 onions—small ones. 3 quarts of cold water. 1 teaspoonful mixed allspice and mace. Bunch of sweet herbs chopped. 1 teaspoonful Colgate’s essence of celery. Glass of brown sherry. Dripping. Toasted bread.
Fry the sliced onion brown in good dripping; then the beef, quickly. Put into a soup-pot, cover with the water; put on a tight lid, and stew four hours. Strain and press hard. Let the soup cool to throw up the fat. Skim, and return to the pot, with the salt, pepper, herbs, and spice. Simmer fifteen minutes; add wine and celery, and pour into a tureen upon dice of crisp, buttered toast.
VEAL CUTLETS AND HAM.
2 lbs. veal cutlets without bone. 1½ lbs. of ham. Grated lemon-peel. Pepper and salt. 1 raw, beaten egg. Rolled cracker. Dripping or lard.
Boil the slices of ham ten minutes; let them get cold, and cut of the same size and shape as the strips of veal, viz., about three inches long by one and a half wide. Salt and pepper the veal; sprinkle each cutlet with a pinch of lemon-peel; roll in egg, then cracker, and fry to a good brown. Fry the ham in its own fat in another pan, and lay upon a hot dish, alternately with the cutlets.
STRING-BEANS.
If fresh, top and tail, and, with a sharp knife, take off the strings on both sides. Cut into short pieces, and cook tender in boiling water, and a little salt. Drain well, heap upon a hot dish; butter freely, and season to taste.
CHOPPED POTATOES.
Chop cold boiled potatoes rather coarsely. Have ready a great spoonful of butter in a saucepan, with a little grated lemon-peel, pepper and salt. Stir in the potatoes until very hot, but do not let them brown. Serve in a deep dish, after draining.
LETTUCE.
Pick out and pull apart the hearts and best blanched leaves. Pour over it a dressing such as was directed on last Thursday.
GRAHAM HASTY PUDDING.
2 eggs. 1 quart of milk. 2 even cups of Graham flour. ½ teaspoonful of salt. 1 tablespoonful of butter.
Heat half the milk in a _greased_ saucepan or farina-kettle. Wet the flour with the rest, and beat very light with the butter—melted—the eggs and salt. Stir this into the hot milk—or, better still—pour the milk upon it. When thoroughly mixed, return to the fire, and stir fifteen minutes, surrounded by boiling water at its highest bubble. Take from the range, leave in the water five minutes; stir up again, and serve in a deep, uncovered dish. Eat with butter, sugar, and nutmeg.
Third Week. Wednesday. —— Green Asparagus Soup. Stewed Chicken. Scalloped Tomatoes. Corn Fritters. Grape Jelly. Marmalade Roll. ——
GREEN ASPARAGUS SOUP.
3 lbs. knuckle of veal. ½ lb. streaked salt pork. 3 bunches of asparagus. 4 quarts of water. 1 pint of spinach leaves. Pepper and salt. 1 small onion, sliced. Butter and sugar.
Put the veal, pork, onion, and the hard parts of the asparagus-stalks—all cut up fine—on in the water, and boil gently four hours. Meanwhile cook the spinach tender in a little water; chop and squeeze it through double tarlatan back into the cupful of water in which it was boiled. Add a lump of sugar to the green liquid. Strain the soup; season, boil once, and skim; put in the green heads of the asparagus (kept until now in cold water) and boil slowly twenty minutes. Stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, and when this has boiled a minute, the green water. Simmer five minutes more, and pour out. Dip up from the bottom with each ladleful in helping the soup.
STEWED CHICKEN.
Cut into joints, leaving none of the pieces large. Put the scrags, feet (having scalded off the skin), and giblets into two cupfuls of water, and stew until the meat is in rags. Put a quarter of a pound of pork, cut as fine as shavings, in the bottom of a saucepan; lay on this a teaspoonful of minced onion, and then the uncooked chicken. Strain, and partly cool the gravy, which should have boiled down to one cupful—setting by the giblets. Pour this over the chicken, pepper and salt; put on a tight top, and cook very slowly one hour. Then increase the heat, but still do not let it boil hard, for half an hour longer. Open the saucepan at the end of the first hour to change the upper pieces to lower places—and again when the half hour is up, to see if they are all tender. If not, cover and cook until they are. Take out the chicken, lay in order upon a hot-water dish, and add to the gravy the giblets, minced fine, and a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Boil one minute, and pour upon a half cup of milk in which have been beaten two eggs. Set over the fire, and stir one minute, but do not let the gravy boil. Pour upon the chicken.
SCALLOPED TOMATOES.
If raw tomatoes are dear still, drain off most of the liquor from a can of the vegetable. Cover the bottom of a pie-dish with bread-crumbs, lay in the tomatoes, well seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, and sugar; cover thickly with fine, dry crumbs; put dots of butter, with pepper and salt, over all, and bake, covered, half an hour—then, brown quickly.
CORN FRITTERS.