Part 24

Wash a large, perfectly fresh tongue in three waters. Then cover well with boiling water, a little salt—plenty of it—and cook about twelve minutes to the pound. Strip off the skin; dish, when you have trimmed away the root, and pour over it the following sauce: Strain a cup of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled; set over the fire, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in flour, pepper to taste; the juice of a lemon, and when this has thickened, two small pickled cucumbers, chopped. This is a dish whose merits deserve to be better known. (Save the liquor.)

SQUEEZED POTATOES.

Put on in cold water, and bring quickly to a boil. When soft enough to be pierced by a fork, turn off the water; throw in a little salt, and dry on the range. Tear off the skins quickly, and as soon as each is bare, envelop it in the corner of a dry, hot towel and twist the same tightly around it for a second, but not _quite_ breaking it. Pile within a napkin-lined dish, and send up hot.

FRENCH BEANS—SAUTÉS.

Top, tail, and “string” with care. Cut into short pieces. Cook in boiling water, a little salt, until tender—say thirty minutes, if they are full-grown. Drain well; return to the saucepan with two great spoonfuls of butter, salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of vinegar. Toss until very hot, and turn into a hot, deep dish.

YOUNG BEETS.

Boil in hot, salt water one hour. When done, rub off the skins; split the beets lengthwise and lay upon a hot dish. Have ready a great spoonful of melted butter, mixed with two of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, heated to boiling, and pour over the beets. Be careful not to break the skin of raw beets, or they will lose their color in the hot water while cooking.

CHERRY PIE.

Line your pie-dish with a good paste; fill with a mixture of sour and sweet cherries; sweeten plentifully; cover with paste printed at the edge and slit in the middle, and bake until nicely colored. Eat fresh, but not warm, with white sugar sifted over the top.

Second Week. Sunday. —— Tomato and Pea Soup. Stewed Lamb with Mushroom Sauce. Lima Beans. Green Peas. Stewed Turnips. —— Lemon Blanc-Mange. Coffee and Cake. ——

TOMATO AND PEA SOUP.

Take the fat from the liquor in which the tongue was boiled yesterday; set it over the fire, and, when boiling, put in the empty pods of two quarts of peas. Boil half an hour; take from the fire and strain out the pods. About half an hour before dinner, take the fat from the “stock” set aside yesterday, and pour off from the meat and sediment into the soup-pot. While it is slowly heating, put on the water in which the pods were boiled, with the peas and two quarts of peeled and sliced tomatoes, in another pot, and bring more rapidly to the boil. Cook twenty-five minutes, then stir in two lumps of white sugar, two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, pepper well, boil up, and rub through a colander into the main soup-kettle. Simmer all together three minutes, and it is fit for use. Pour half into the tureen; cool the rest and remand to the refrigerator.

STEWED LAMB WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE.

Let your butcher take out the bones from the lower side of a shoulder of lamb, leaving in the shank. Fill the cavity thus left with a good force-meat of crumbs, chopped pork, and sweet herbs, and sew the meat edges together to hold it in. If you have no gravy ready make a pint on Saturday of the lamb trimmings and a few veal-bones, with seasoning. It need not be strong. Put the lamb into a broad pot, with some thin slices of fat pork laid in the bottom; pour in the gravy, cover tightly, and stew gently one hour. Turn the meat then, and cook twenty minutes longer. Lay the lamb upon a hot dish, and butter it all over. Cover, and keep warm over hot water while you make the sauce. Have ready half a can of mushrooms, boiled and chopped. Strain the gravy left in the pot, add the mushrooms, and stew five minutes; thicken with browned flour; boil up and pour over the lamb. Garnish with alternate slices of green pickle and boiled beets.

LIMA BEANS.

Shell; lay in cold water twenty minutes, and cook in slightly salted boiling water _about_ half an hour, or until tender. The time depends much upon age and size. Drain well; pour into a deep dish; pepper, salt, and butter.

GREEN PEAS.

Receipt given on Sunday of First Week in this month.

STEWED TURNIPS.

Peel and slice young turnips. Boil fifteen minutes in hot, salted water; throw this off, and add half a cup of milk and as much boiling fresh water. When this heats, stir in a generous lump of butter, rolled in a teaspoonful of flour, with pepper and salt to taste. Simmer ten minutes longer, or until tender, and pour into a deep dish. Eat very hot.

LEMON BLANC-MANGE.

1 large lemon, or two small ones—all the juice and half the grated peel. Whisked whites of 4 eggs. 1 package of gelatine soaked two hours in one cup of cold water. 1 pint and 1 cup of _boiling_ water. 2 cups of powdered sugar—even ones. ½ teaspoonful of nutmeg. 1 glass of good claret.

Add to the soaked gelatine the lemon-juice and peel, sugar and spice. Leave standing one hour. Then pour on the boiling water. Stir until clear, add the wine, and strain through double tarlatan. While it is cooling, whip the whites very stiff. When the gelatine begins to coagulate around the edge of the dish, whip it, little by little, into the frothed whites until it is stiff. Put into a wet mould, and set upon the ice. On Sunday turn it out, and pour a rich liqueur—that from brandied peaches is best—about the base. Preserved strawberries are also very nice with it if you have no liqueur.

COFFEE AND CAKE.

If you prefer, you can give the cake with the blanc-mange, and drink the coffee afterwards.

Second Week. Monday. —— “Once-Again” Soup. Cold Lamb. Cheese Fondu. Raw Tomatoes. Potatoes en Robe de Chambre. —— Floating Island. ——

“ONCE-AGAIN” SOUP.

A good soup, founded upon such stock as you made on Saturday, is better the third day than the first. Therefore, take off the fat from the portion kept on the ice since yesterday’s providential division, and warm it slowly, _almost_ to a boil. If you have time, cut some fried bread into dice and put into the tureen before you pour in the soup.

COLD LAMB.

Do not murder the well-cooked, juicy innocent of yesterday by hashing and reheating. A nice dish of cold lamb, trimmed and garnished with cresses and cool, white lettuce, is goodly to the eyes—and taste—on a sultry June day.

CHEESE FONDU.

2 cups milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in. 1 cup very dry, fine crumbs. ½ lb. of dry cheese, grated. 4 beaten eggs. 1 tablespoonful of melted butter. Pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Butter a pudding-dish; put in the mixture; strew the top with fine crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown quickly. Eat soon, as it will fall in cooling.

RAW TOMATOES.

See receipt for Tuesday of first week in this month for dressing lettuce, when you have peeled and sliced the tomatoes.

POTATOES EN ROBE DE CHAMBRE.

If you use Bermuda potatoes, cook in boiling water. If you take old potatoes, put on in cold and bring rapidly to a boil. Throw off the water when they are done, set back on the range, uncovered, to dry out, and send to table with the skins on.

FLOATING ISLAND.

1 quart of milk. 4 beaten eggs. 4 heaping tablespoonfuls of sugar. 2 teaspoonfuls extract of bitter almond. ½ cup of currant jelly.

Beat yolks and sugar light, and pour on, by degrees, the boiling milk. Pour back into the farina-kettle, and heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. When cold, flavor, and pour into a glass dish. Pile with a _méringue_ of the whites beaten up with half a cup of currant jelly. Ornament with dots of jelly.

Second Week. Tuesday. —— A Summer Mélange Soup. Rolled Beef. Boiled Onions. Stuffed Tomatoes. Baked Omelettes aux Fines Herbes. —— Strawberries and Cream. Orange Cake. ——

A SUMMER MÉLANGE SOUP.

2 lbs. lean beef, chopped fine. 1 quart green peas. 1 quart tomatoes, peeled and sliced. 1 cucumber, sliced thin. 1 sliced onion. 1 pint of small string-beans, cut into pieces. 3 great spoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour. Pepper and salt. 4 quarts of cold water.

Put on the meat in the water, and cook, slowly, three hours, to extract every particle of nourishment from the beef. Peel and slice the vegetables, and lay all, except the tomatoes, in cold water for half an hour. At the end of the three hours, strain the soup; return to the pot and put in all the vegetables with salt and pepper. Stew for one hour, covered; stir in the butter and simmer half an hour longer before turning it out.

ROLLED BEEF.

Make your butcher take _all_ the bones out of a rib-roast. (Keep them for to-morrow’s soup.) Make him also roll the meat into a round, and skewer it securely. Wash it all over with vinegar, then rub with hot butter mixed with minced onion and pepper, working this well between the folds of meat. Put into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of gravy from the boiling soup—before the vegetables are added—about the base, and a few spoonfuls of butter and water upon the top. Roast twelve minutes to the pound, basting freely and often. Towards the last, dredge with flour, and rub over with butter to make a brown froth. Pour off the fat from the gravy, strain what is left; add, if needed, a little boiling water; thicken with browned flour, and serve in a boat.

BOILED ONIONS.

Top and tail; skin and cook fifteen minutes in boiling _fresh_ water. Throw this off, add more from the boiling tea-kettle; salt slightly, and boil until tender all through. Drain, butter well, and pepper and salt.

STUFFED TOMATOES.

Select large, smooth tomatoes; cut a piece from the top of each, and scoop out seeds and pulp. Chop fine what you have removed; season with butter, pepper, salt and sugar; add one-third as much bread-crumbs; work all well together, and fill the skins with the mixture. Replace the tops; put the rest of the stuffing between the tomatoes when you have set them close together in a bake-dish. Bake, covered, half an hour, in a moderate oven; then uncover and cook ten minutes longer, or until browned and soft.

BAKED OMELETTE AUX FINES HERBES.

Make this a course between soup and meat, passing bread and butter with it.

6 eggs. 1 cup of boiling milk. 1 teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet with cold milk. 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram, mixed. Pepper and salt. Butter for the dish.

Beat the yolks light, and pour upon them the hot milk. Stir in the corn-starch, season, whip in the frothed whites, lastly, the herbs. Have ready a nice pudding-dish, well buttered. Set in the oven until hot; butter again, and pour in the omelette. Bake about twelve minutes, or until “set” in the middle, but not longer, or it will be a leathery puff. It should be very light. Send up—instantly.

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM.

ORANGE CAKE.

Serve as directed on Monday of last week.

The orange cake, if made on Friday or Saturday, will have kept perfectly well, if the cake-box—a tight one—containing it has been set in the refrigerator. For directions for making it please consult “BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,” page 318.

Second Week. Wednesday. —— Broiled Bones Soup. Boiled Chickens. Rice Croquettes. Asparagus upon Toast. Potato and Beet Salad. —— Raspberry Shortcake, Hot. ——

BROILED BONES SOUP.

3 lbs. of beef bones, not scraped _too_ clean. 2 lbs. of veal, ditto. ½ lb. salt pork, fat, for frying. 2 onions, sliced. Bunch of sweet herbs. ½ cup of granulated tapioca. 3 quarts of water. Pepper and salt. 1 tablespoonful walnut catsup.

Crack the bones well, and lay upon a gridiron above the coals until they are hot, and the bits of meat adhering to them are frizzled. Meanwhile, fry the pork and onions together in a frying-pan until the latter are a fine brown. Strain out the pork and onions; put back the fat into the pan and fry the bones five minutes. Lay the onions in the soup-pot with the chopped herbs, then the bones. Cover with the water and boil slowly three hours. Strain; cool, and take off the fat. Set over the fire; season, boil once to throw up the scum; skim, and put in the tapioca, which should have soaked two hours in a little cold water. Simmer until the tapioca is clear; put in the catsup, and serve.

BOILED CHICKENS.

Clean, wash, and stuff as for roasting. Sew each up in thin muslin, or tarlatan, fitted closely to the shape, and put on in plenty of boiling water, a little salt. Boil twelve minutes to the pound (taking the heavier chicken as the standard) if they are tender. If doubtful, take a longer time, and cook more slowly. When done, lay upon a heated dish, and pour over them a cupful of drawn butter, made from the pot liquor, thickened with butter rolled in flour, and with an egg beaten up in it with a little chopped parsley. See “Drawn Butter, No. 3,” in “General Receipts,” page 184.

RICE CROQUETTES.

Boil a cup of rice soft in weak broth, made from a cupful of the chicken pot-liquor, mixed with boiling water and salted. Drain, and stir in a couple of beaten eggs; a teaspoonful of butter, a mere dust of flour, pepper, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel. Stir up in a saucepan until thick and hot, and spread out to cool. When cold, flour your hands; make the paste into long balls; roll each in raw egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry carefully to a yellow-brown.

ASPARAGUS UPON TOAST.

Tie the bunch of asparagus up with soft string, when you have cut away the wood, and cook about twenty-five minutes in salted boiling water. Have ready some slices of crustless toast; dip each in the asparagus-liquor; butter well while hot and lay upon a heated dish. Drain the asparagus, and arrange upon the toast. Pepper, salt, and butter generously.

POTATO AND BEET SALAD.

Slice a cupful of cold boiled potatoes. Chop a red beet, also boiled, but lukewarm, and pour over it four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Let it stand while you rub together a teaspoonful of salt, half as much each of pepper, sugar and made mustard, with a full tablespoonful of oil, and a very little green pickle, minced fine. When this is ready, take out a tablespoonful of chopped beet, and strew among the sliced potatoes. Put them into a salad-bowl. Squeeze beets and vinegar through muslin into oil, etc. Beat up well, and pour over the cold potatoes.

RASPBERRY SHORTCAKE—HOT.

1 quart of flour. 2 tablespoonfuls of lard, and the same of butter, chopped up in the salted flour. 2½ cups “loppered” milk, or of buttermilk. Yolks of 2 eggs, well beaten. 1 teaspoonful of soda, sifted _three times_ through the flour. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 1 quart “black caps” or wild raspberries.

Make these ingredients into a soft paste. Roll lightly into two sheets—that intended for the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower, less. Lay the bottom crust in a greased square pan. Strew thickly with the berries, sprinkle with sugar, and cover with the upper crust. Bake about twenty-five minutes, until browned, but not dry. Cut in squares, and send, piled upon a flat dish, to table. Split and eat with butter and sugar. It is good.

Second Week. Thursday. —— Chicken Panada Soup. Larded Mutton Chops. Green Pea Cakes. Stewed Tomatoes. String-Beans. —— Strawberry Trifle. ——

CHICKEN PANADA SOUP.

The liquor in which your chickens were boiled yesterday. 1 large cup of minced cold chicken, _very_ fine. ½ cup fine crumbs. 2 beaten eggs stirred into a cup of boiling milk. Pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace. 1 tablespoonful of butter.

Take the fat from the cold “stock.” Heat the latter to boiling and add the chicken, minced as finely as it can be cut. Pepper and salt to taste, and simmer one hour. Make ready your hot milk, at the end of that time, pour upon the beaten eggs; stir over the fire two minutes and add the butter, and when this is melted, the crumbs. Take at once from the fire; put into the tureen and pour in the soup through a colander, rubbing into it all the meat that will pass the holes. Stir well, and serve. This soup is very nice.

LARDED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim off all the fat and skin, and lard closely with strips of fat salt pork. Pepper, and put into a hot frying-pan. Fry them in the lardoon fat as it flows out in heating, and turn several times to cook both sides equally. Arrange upon a hot dish, one overlapping the next.

GREEN PEA CAKES.

2 cups of green peas, mashed while hot, with butter, pepper, and salt. 2 beaten eggs. 1 cup of milk. Half a cupful (a small cup) of prepared flour.

When the peas are cold beat in the eggs, milk, and, at last, the flour. The batter should not be thick. Fry as you would griddle-cakes.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Pour boiling water over them to loosen the skins. When peeled, cut up small, leaving out the unripe and hard parts. Put over the fire with pepper, salt, and sugar to taste; at the end of twenty minutes’ stewing add a good piece of butter, and simmer ten minutes more.

STRING-BEANS.

Cut off the stem and blossom ends; “string” with a sharp knife. Cut into short pieces and cook tender in boiling salted water. Drain, pepper, salt, and butter.

STRAWBERRY TRIFLE.

1 quart of milk. 5 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately. 1 stale sponge-cake. 1 cup of sugar. 1 cup of sweet cream. Ripe strawberries.

Heat the milk; beat in yolks and sugar. Cook and stir until the custard begins to thicken. Slice your cake, and put a layer in a glass dish. Wet with the cream; cover with fresh, ripe berries, sprinkled with sugar, then more cake, cream, and berries, until the dish is three-quarters full. Pour the custard, gradually, over all. Beat the whites stiff with a little sugar and strawberry-juice, and heap roundly on the top. Lay rows of bright berries upon the _méringue_.

Second Week. Friday. —— Purée of Potatoes. Salmon Scallops. Fricassee of Sweetbreads. Raw Tomatoes. Roasted Potatoes. —— Baked Cherry Dumplings. ——

PURÉE OF POTATOES.

8 large potatoes, peeled, boiled, and rubbed through a colander. 2 quarts of boiling water. 1 cup of hot milk. 3 tablespoonfuls of butter, rubbed in flour. 1 tablespoonful of minced parsley, with salt and pepper.

Pour the water upon the potato, season with pepper and salt, and boil gently one hour, taking care that it does not burn. Then stir in the butter, and when this is melted, the hot milk. Let it begin to boil, and pour out.

SALMON SCALLOPS.

1½ lbs. of cold salmon, left from steaks, or a can of preserved salmon. 2 beaten eggs. ½ cup good drawn butter. ½ cup bread-crumbs. Pepper, salt, and minced parsley.

Chop the fish fine; rub the butter and seasoning into it, and stir into the hot, drawn butter. Butter scallop-shells, or paté-pans, fill with the mixture, and strew it with fine crumbs. Bake a few minutes in a quick oven to brown them lightly. Serve in the shells.

FRICASSEE OF SWEETBREADS.

3 fine sweetbreads. 2 eggs. 4 tablespoonfuls of cream. 1 great spoonful of butter. 1 teaspoonful of chopped parsley. A pinch of nutmeg. 1 cup of gravy—a cup of yesterday’s soup, strained, will do. Pepper and salt to taste.

Wash the sweetbreads; boil five minutes; then lay in ice-cold water. Slice and cover them with the gravy, and stew three-quarters of an hour. Heat the cream—or milk—in another saucepan, putting in a pinch of soda. Pour upon the eggs, and returning these to the fire, cook one minute. Stir in the butter and the parsley. Take both saucepans from the fire and empty one into the other. Stir all together well, and pour into a hot deep dish.

RAW TOMATOES.

See receipt for last Monday.

ROASTED POTATOES.

Wash fair-sized potatoes and bake on the oven floor until soft to the grasp of thumb and forefinger. Wipe and send to table wrapped in a napkin.

BAKED CHERRY DUMPLINGS.

1 quart prepared flour. 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of lard. 2 cups fresh milk. A little salt. 2 cups of stoned cherries. ½ cupful of sugar.

Rub the lard into the salted flour, wet up with the milk; roll into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick; and cut into squares about four inches across. Put two great spoonfuls of cherries in the centre of each; sugar them; turn up the edges of the paste and pinch them together. Lay the joined edges downward, upon a floured baking-pan, and bake half an hour or until browned. Eat hot with a good sauce.

Second Week. Saturday. —— Ox-head Soup. Corned Beef. Mashed Turnips. Green Peas. Mashed Potatoes. —— Raspberries and My Lady’s Cake. ——

OX-HEAD SOUP.

1 well cleaned ox-head. 2 turnips. 1 carrot. 2 onions. Bunch of sweet herbs. Salt and pepper. 1 teaspoonful mixed allspice and mace. 6 quarts cold water.

Wash the head in three waters; break the bones with a few smart blows of a hammer. Put it on in the cold water; bring to a slow boil and skim well. Then add the sliced vegetables, and stew gently three hours. The liquor should be reduced to four quarts. Take out the head and set in the open air to cool. Strain the liquor, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp. Return half of it to the fire—season and skim as it boils, for five minutes; then add three-fourths of the meat from the head, cut into dice. Simmer half an hour, and serve. Put bones and the rest of the meat, well seasoned, into a jar; season the reserved “stock,” and pour it in, and keep in the refrigerator until to-morrow.

CORNED BEEF.

Boil in plenty of hot water, fifteen minutes—at least—to the pound. Serve drawn butter (made from the pot-liquor), with chopped cucumber-pickle stirred in it, in a sauce-boat. Save the liquor and set in a cool place.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Boil tender in hot salted water. Drain, mash and press, and stir in butter, salt and pepper.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and serve without browning.

GREEN PEAS.

See Sunday of First Week in this month.

RASPBERRIES AND MY LADY’S CAKE.

Send around powdered sugar with the berries. For directions for the cake-making, I beg to refer to “BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,” page 329.

Third Week. Sunday. —— Rice and Tapioca Soup. Smothered Chickens. Mashed Squash. String-Beans. Beets Sautés. —— Cream Pudding. ——

RICE AND TAPIOCA SOUP.

Take the fat from your stock; pour it from the bones and meat, and heat slowly. Have ready a cup of boiled rice—hot—and half a cup of granulated tapioca, which has been soaked two hours in a little cold water. When the soup boils, put them in, and simmer gently half an hour. Should it be too thick, add a little boiling water.

SMOTHERED CHICKEN.

Clean and split a pair of young chickens down the back as for broiling. Lay them in a dripping-pan; dash a cup of boiling water, in which have been stirred two tablespoonfuls of butter, over them, and, covering with another pan, cook until tender, and of an equal yellow-brownish tint all over. Lift the pan, now and then, to baste freely—four times with the gravy—twice, toward the last, with melted butter. Lay the chickens in a hot-water dish; add pepper, salt, a chopped boiled egg, _finely_ minced, and a little minced parsley, with browned flour, to the gravy. Boil up, and pour half over the chicken, the rest into a gravy-boat.

MASHED SQUASH.

Peel, seed, and slice fresh summer squashes. Lay in cold water ten minutes; put into boiling water, a little salt, and cook tender. Twenty minutes will suffice if the squash be young. Mash in a colander, pressing out all the water; heap in a deep dish, seasoning with pepper, salt and butter. Serve hot.

STRING-BEANS.

See Thursday of Second Week in this month.

BEETS SAUTÉS.