Part 28

Clean, wash, and stuff the ducks; adding sage and onion to the force-meat for _one_. Fill the other with the ordinary poultry dressing. Lay in the dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over them, and roast, basting often, about twelve minutes to the pound, unless they are very young and tender. Take them up; strain the gravy, and take off the fat. Season; thicken with browned flour, and pour into a boat.

MASHED POTATOES.

Whip boiled mealy potatoes to pieces with a fork, and, when they are a powdery pile, whip in butter, milk, and salt. They should be light and creamy. Pile roughly upon a hot dish.

GREEN PEAS.

Shell; lay in cold water fifteen minutes; put on in boiling salted water, with a lump of loaf-sugar, if they are market peas. Boil twenty minutes, if young; drain very dry; dish, and season with pepper, salt and plenty of butter.

RAW TOMATOES.

Peel with a keen knife. Slice, and lay in a glass bowl, and pour on a dressing made by rubbing together half a teaspoonful each of pepper, salt, sugar, and made mustard, with two tablespoonfuls of best oil, beating into this, a few drops at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and at last the yolk of a raw egg. Set the salad upon the ice for half an hour.

CURRANT AND RASPBERRY TART.

Mix together three cups of currants and one of raspberries. Sweeten abundantly; fill shells of good pie-paste with them; cover with crust, and bake. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over them.

Second Week. Saturday. —— Pea and Tomato Soup. Salmi of Ducks. Mashed Squash. String-Beans. Cucumbers. —— Almond Corn-Starch Blanc-Mange. ——

PEA AND TOMATO SOUP.

1 lb. of lean ham; 2 lbs. of lean beef; 2 lbs. of lean veal; 2 onions; bunch of sweet herbs; 12 tomatoes; 1 quart of green peas; 5 quarts of water; pepper and salt to taste; corn-starch; sugar.

Cook the meat, cut into strips, and the herbs and onions in the cold water four hours. Strain; put the meat and half the stock on the ice—after seasoning well—for Sunday. Season the rest, when you have cooled and skimmed it, and put over the fire with the sliced tomatoes and peas. Boil slowly half an hour. Pulp through a colander; stir in a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet with cold water, and a tablespoonful of white sugar. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

SALMI OF DUCKS.

Cut the meat neatly from the bones, having the slices as nearly as possible of uniform size. Make a gravy of the bones, stuffing, skin, etc., and a quart of water, boiling gently down to one large cupful. Skim and strain this into a saucepan. Add the juice of a lemon, and browned flour for thickening; stir smooth, and lay in the sliced duck. Warm slowly at one side of the range, but do not let it boil. When very hot, pour upon oblong slices of fried toast covering the bottom of a hot dish.

MASHED SQUASH.

Peel, quarter, and boil soft. Mash in a hot colander, pressing hard. Serve in a deep dish, with butter, pepper, and salt beaten in.

STRING-BEANS.

Cut off the strings from both sides; cut into short lengths, and cook tender in boiling salt water. They require twice as much time as peas. Drain, season with pepper, salt, and butter. Set aside half for to-morrow’s salad.

CUCUMBERS.

Peel and lay in ice-water one hour. Slice; put upon a lump of ice in a salad-dish, and season to taste upon saucers after they are helped out.

ALMOND CORN-STARCH BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk; 4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch; 3 eggs; ¼ lb. almonds, blanched, dried, and pounded; rose-water and bitter almond; ¾ cup of powdered sugar.

Scald the milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in. Have the almonds beaten to a paste with a teaspoonful of rose-water, and stir into the hot milk. Simmer five minutes; then strain through thin muslin, pressing hard upon the almonds. Add this, hot, to the beaten eggs and sugar; put upon the fire, and stir in, with the eggs, the corn-starch wet up in cold milk, never taking the spoon out until it is thick. Take off; flavor, and pour into a wet mould. Set in ice, and it will soon form. Eat with sugar and cream.

Third Week. Sunday. —— Rice Soup. Stuffed Veal with Garnish of Green Peas. Boiled Corn. New Potatoes. Bean Salad. —— Orange Snow. Iced Tea and Cake. ——

RICE SOUP.

Take the fat from your cold stock, and strain it from the meat. Boil up once and skim. Add half a cup of rice, and simmer until this is very tender. Add the water in which have been soaked two tablespoonfuls of burnt sugar, and pour out.

STUFFED VEAL WITH GARNISH OF GREEN PEAS.

Take the large bones from a piece of loin of veal; stuff the cavities thus made with a good force-meat of chopped pork crumbs and seasoning—a few chopped mushrooms are an improvement—cover the sides with greased sheets of thick writing-paper; put a cupful of soup stock or other gravy in the dripping-pan, and baste well, for one hour with butter and water, afterwards with the gravy. Cook fully twelve minutes to the pound. Take off the paper during the last half hour; dredge with flour, baste with butter, and brown nicely. Take up and keep hot while you skim the fat from the gravy, stir into it half a cupful of chopped mushrooms and a little browned flour. Serve this—having cooked it three minutes—in a boat. Have ready some green peas, boiled and seasoned, and make a fence of them about the veal when dished.

NEW POTATOES.

Refer to Thursday, Second Week in July.

BOILED CORN.

See Thursday, Fourth Week in June.

BEAN SALAD.

Cut the beans into inch-lengths, pile in a salad-dish and pour upon them such a dressing as you compounded for the raw tomatoes on Friday of Second Week in July. Garnish with curled lettuce.

ORANGE SNOW.

4 large sweet oranges, all the juice, and the grated peel of one; juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon; 1 package of Coxe’s gelatine soaked in a cup of cold water; whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff; 1 large cup of white sugar; 3 cups of boiling water.

Mix the juice, and peel of the fruit with the soaked gelatine, also the sugar. Leave them covered for one hour, then pour on the boiling water and stir clear. Strain through flannel, wringing hard. When quite cold, whip in the frothed whites very gradually until the mixture is a white sponge. Put into a wet mould on Saturday, and set on the ice.

ICED TEA AND CAKE.

Set the tea aside after breakfast in a pitcher, or bottle, which you can keep in ice. When you serve it, half fill each glass with ice, put in more sugar than you would use for hot tea, and pour on the cold liquid.

Third Week. Monday. —— Summer Squash, or “Cymbling” Soup. Scalloped Veal. Mashed Turnips. Stewed Tomatoes. Potatoes, Boiled Whole. —— Bananas, Oranges, and Cherries. Iced Coffee and Fancy Biscuits. ——

SUMMER SQUASH, OR CYMBLING SOUP.

The bones from your cold veal; 2 lbs. lean, raw veal, chopped fine; 1 onion; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed in flour; 1 cup of milk, with a pinch of soda; 1 tablespoonful of white sugar; 2 beaten eggs; 2 good-sized white squash pared and quartered; pepper and salt; fried bread; 4 quarts of water.

Boil bones, meat, and onions in four quarts of water until this is reduced to two. Strain, cool, and take off the fat. Cook the squash in one pint of the stock until soft enough to rub through a colander; pulp, and put this, with its liquor, in the remaining three pints of broth; also the sugar, seasoning, and floured butter, and cook slowly without boiling, five minutes. Heat the milk, pour upon the eggs, stir over the fire until it begins to thicken. Put dice of fried bread into the tureen; pour on the milk and eggs, then the soup, and stir up well.

SCALLOPED VEAL.

Chop the cold veal and stuffing; put a layer into a greased bake-dish; season, and wet with the cold gravy. Lay chopped mushrooms upon this; then bread-crumbs, with butter scattered over them. More meat seasoning, mushrooms and crumbs should fill the dish, with plenty of crumbs, profusely buttered, on top. Wet each layer of meat with gravy. Cover the dish, and bake until it bubbles on top. Brown lightly, and send to table in the dish in which it was cooked.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Peel, slice, and cook soft in boiling salted water. Mash in a hot colander, pressing well. Season with salt, pepper and butter; smooth into a heap in a root-dish, and put pats of pepper on top.

STEWED TOMATOES.

See Wednesday of Second Week in July.

POTATOES, BOILED WHOLE.

Peel as thin as possible. Put on in boiling water, a little salt, and cook fifteen minutes. Then, pour in a pint of cold water. This checks the boil and throws the meal, or starch, to the surface. Increase the heat, and boil until a fork will pierce the largest. Throw off the water; set the pot on the range, and let the moisture evaporate. Put the potatoes in a deep dish; pour upon them a few spoonfuls of melted butter mixed with chopped parsley, and serve.

BANANAS, ORANGES, AND CHERRIES.

Put bananas and oranges in one dish; the cherries, bestrewed with cracked ice, in another.

ICED COFFEE AND FANCY BISCUITS.

See Monday of Second Week in July.

Third Week. Tuesday. —— Bread-and-Cheese Porridge. Lamb Chops. Purée of Peas and Onion. Lima Beans. Moulded Potato. Currant Jelly. —— Currants and Raspberries. Unity Cake. ——

BREAD-AND-CHEESE PORRIDGE.

2 lbs. of beef-bones cracked; 2 lbs. coarse mutton—lean and chopped; 1 lb. stale bread-crusts, dried to crispness in the oven; 4 quarts of water; 4 tablespoonfuls fine grated cheese; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; pepper, salt, and chopped parsley; 1 onion.

Put on the bones, meat, and onion in the water, and boil three hours. Cool, and take off the fat. Season, and re-heat. Put in the crusts; cook very slowly until they are like a jelly. Take them from the fire; beat in a bowl until smooth; put back into the soup, and simmer fifteen minutes. Stir in the butter; cook five minutes, and pour upon the cheese in the tureen. Stir up well.

LAMB CHOPS.

Trim very neatly, and broil upon a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, turning often. Wind a strip of frilled tissue-paper about the bit of bare bone left upon each one.

PURÉE OF PEAS AND ONION.

Take a cupful of broth from your soup-pot, before adding the bread. Cool, and take off the fat, and return to the fire with two quarts of green peas and a sliced onion. Set the vessel containing it in a saucepan of boiling water, and cook, closely covered, until the peas begin to break. Put into a bowl; bruise the peas with a potato pestle, and return to the fire with the liquor in which they were stewed. Add a little parsley and a lump of sugar, with pepper, salt, and butter. Simmer five minutes, and turn out into a deep dish.

LIMA BEANS.

Shell, and cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes. Drain, season, and serve.

MOULDED POTATO.

Mash—or rather, beat up lightly with a fork. Work in butter and milk, but do not get it too soft. Fill small cups—wet with cold water—with the potato, pack down firmly and turn out upon a greased bake-pan. Brown in a quick oven until they are of a russet hue; glazing with butter, as they color. Transfer to a flat, hot dish.

CURRANTS AND RASPBERRIES.

Slightly mash the currants, leaving as many whole ones as you break. Sweeten plentifully, and, just before serving, mix with them an equal quantity of red or white raspberries, fresh and whole.

UNITY CAKE.

Make fresh for the day, according to directions given in “BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON, AND TEA,” page 333.

Third Week. Wednesday. —— Ox-tail Soup. Beefsteak with Wine Sauce. Cream Onions. Baked Squash. Raw Tomatoes. —— Ambrosia Custard. ——

OX-TAIL SOUP.

2 ox-tails; bunch of thyme and parsley; 1 large onion, sliced; 2 grated carrots; ½ lb. fat salt pork; 6 quarts of water; 1 small onion stuck with six cloves; browned flour; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Slice the pork, and fry. When the fat has covered the bottom of the pan, put in the large sliced onion and fry to a good brown. Then add the tails, cut at each joint. When they have been in five minutes, take them out and put into the soup-pot with the fried onion and water. Cover and cook slowly two hours. Then put in the carrots, herbs, and clove onion, and stew two hours more. Strain, pulping the vegetables; cool, take off the fat, and season the soup. Put over the fire, and when it again simmers, stir in the butter _melted_ and rubbed into the browned flour to form a paste. Boil up once and it is ready. Put the remnants of the tails into a jar, or bowl, and add to them half the soup. When cold put on ice for to-morrow.

BEEFSTEAK WITH WINE SAUCE.

Flatten and broil your steak as usual, but when you lay it upon the hot-water dish, have ready this sauce: 1 glass of brown sherry; 1 large spoonful of mushroom or walnut catsup; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a mere dust of flour; pepper and salt to taste. Heat to boiling—quickly—in a saucepan, and when it has been poured upon the steak, cover and let stand a few minutes before you serve.

CREAM ONIONS.

Boil in two waters. Drain, and if they are large, cut into quarters, and pour over them a cup of scalding milk—in which a pinch of soda has been stirred. Set over the fire, add a tablespoonful of butter, half a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet with milk, a little minced parsley, with pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes, and pour out.

BAKED SQUASH.

See Friday, First Week in July.

RAW TOMATOES.

See Friday, Second Week in July.

AMBROSIA CUSTARD.

1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar for custard and 2 for _méringue_; 1 grated cocoanut; bitter almond flavoring.

Heat the milk; pour upon the sugar beaten up with the yolks of all the eggs and the whites of two. Cook, stirring all the time, until it begins to thicken. Pour it hot upon one-third of the grated cocoanut. Stir up well; flavor, and when cold put into a glass dish. Cover it with grated cocoanut, and heap high upon this a _méringue_ made of the reserved whites and sugar.

Third Week. Thursday. —— Yesterday’s Soup. Roast Chickens. Stewed Potatoes. Stuffed Tomatoes. Green Corn Pudding. —— Lemon Méringue Pie. ——

YESTERDAY’S SOUP.

Take every particle of fat from the cake of soup jelly you will find in your refrigerator; add a cup of boiling water to thin it sufficiently to pour off from the meat; strain it into the soup-pot, boil gently once and skim; add seasoning if you find it needed, also a glass of wine and the juice of a lemon, and pour out.

ROAST CHICKENS.

Clean, wash out in several waters, and stuff with crumbs mixed in tepid water, then drained and put over the fire in a saucepan with a little hot butter in the bottom. Stir the crumbs until hot and almost dry, add chopped parsley, salt and pepper; take it off and beat in two frothed eggs. Fill the chickens, sew up the vents, and tie up the necks. Cover the breasts with very greasy writing-paper. Put a cup of boiling water into the dripping-pan and roast one hour, basting freely. Ten minutes before taking up the fowls, remove the papers and baste the breasts three times with butter while browning. Pour off the fat from the gravy; add the chopped yolks of two eggs, a little browned flour, with pepper and salt. Boil up and serve in a boat.

Salt the giblets slightly and keep upon ice for to-morrow’s soup.

STEWED POTATOES.

Pare and cut in rather large dice. Stew twenty minutes in boiling salted water. Pour nearly all of this off and put on as much cold milk. Stew ten minutes more; stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; a little minced parsley, pepper and salt. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

STUFFED TOMATOES.

Select enough large, smooth tomatoes to fill a bake-dish. Cut a piece from the top of each to serve as a cover. Scoop out the pulp, taking care not to injure the skin. Chop up a few spoonfuls of the meat from the soup; mix with it a little chopped pork and bread-crumbs. Add the tomato-pulp, pepper and sugar, and fill the skins. Put on the tops, and bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover and brown.

GREEN CORN PUDDING.

See Saturday, First Week in July.

LEMON MÉRINGUE PIE.

3 eggs; 1 great spoonful of butter; ¾ cup of white sugar. Juice and grated peel of 1 lemon.

Cream butter and sugar; beat in yolks and lemon, and fill one large open shell of paste, or two small ones. Beat the whites to a stiff _méringue_, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and a little rose-water. When the pies are done, draw to the door of the oven, spread quickly with this mixture, and shut them in again for three minutes. Eat cold.

Third Week. Friday. —— Giblet Soup. Halibut à la Royale. Chicken Cutlets. Mashed Potatoes. Lettuce Salad. Green Peas. —— Coffee Cream. ——

GIBLET SOUP.

Break up the skeletons of your roast chicken. Put bones, stuffing, and giblets into a soup-pot with four quarts of water. Boil one hour, and take out the giblets. Boil the rest an hour more; strain, cool, and skim. Then put back over the fire to simmer. Meanwhile, you should have fried an onion—sliced—in two tablespoonfuls of butter; then taking out the onion, have stirred in a _great_ spoonful of browned flour, and cooked it, stirring incessantly five minutes. Now thin this mixture with a few spoonfuls of your soup, and strain it into the soup-kettle. Lastly, add the chopped giblets; season well, and pour out.

HALIBUT À LA ROYALE.

6 lbs. of halibut in one piece; ½ cup of bread-crumbs; 2 tablespoonfuls chopped fat salt pork; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of anchovy; ¼ cup of melted butter; 1 cup of boiling water. Juice of 1 lemon. Pepper and salt.

Lay the halibut in salt and water two hours. Wipe it; make incisions on each side of the back-bone, and put in a dressing made of bread-crumbs, chopped pork, pepper, salt and a little anchovy. Pour into the bottom of a neat bake-dish the butter, hot water, lemon and anchovy essence. Lay in the fish; cover, and bake one hour, basting often. Send to table in the dish.

CHICKEN CUTLETS.

The meat of your cold fowls chopped very fine; 1 cupful of drawn butter or gravy; 4 eggs; ½ cupful of bread-crumbs; pepper and salt; beaten egg and rolled cracker.

Put the gravy into a saucepan, and when hot, stir in the meat, well seasoned, and the bread-crumbs. As they heat, add the beaten eggs, and mix all well together, stirring constantly for three minutes; then pour out upon a broad dish to cool. When cold and stiff, cut into oblong cakes, three inches long by two wide; dip in egg, then in cracker, and fry in hot lard. Drain, and pile upon a flat dish, log-cabin-wise, and serve.

MASHED POTATOES.

Serve with the fish.

GREEN PEAS.

See Friday of Second Week in July.

LETTUCE SALAD.

See Monday, Second Week in July.

COFFEE CREAM.

1 quart of rich milk; 1 cup of strong, made coffee; 1 pint of sweet cream, whipped in a syllabub churn; yolks of 3 beaten eggs; 1 cup of sugar; 1 package of Cooper’s Gelatine, soaked one hour in a little cold water.

Scald the milk; add a pinch of soda; put in the hot coffee, and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until it begins to thicken; when, add the gelatine, and take off. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved. When perfectly cold, whip in, by degrees, the frothed cream, and put in a wet mould to form. Keep upon the ice until wanted.

Third Week. Saturday. —— Julienne Soup. Mutton Stew with Peas. Potato Croquettes. Boiled Corn. Cucumbers. —— Cream Cake and Chocolate. ——

JULIENNE SOUP.

2 lbs. of beef, and the same of lean veal; 1 lb. of lean ham; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 2 onions; 1 cup of Lima beans; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; sweet herbs; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.

Cut the meat small, and cook with herbs in the water four hours. Strain. Put the meat and half of the stock, well seasoned, upon the ice. Cool the rest, skim, season, and put back into the pot. Prepare your vegetables in the following manner: Put the butter into a frying-pan, and when hot, fry the onion, sliced, in it; then, carrots and turnips cut into strips less than an inch long. When they have cooked five minutes, put them into the soup. Simmer half an hour; skim, and put in the beans. Cook gently half an hour more, and pour out.

MUTTON STEW WITH PEAS.

Take three pounds from the breast, and cut it into inch-square pieces. Dredge these with flour, and fry brown in good dripping; add a small, sliced onion, and a tablespoonful of chopped herbs. Cover well with cold water, put on the saucepan-lid, and stew gently until very tender. Take out the meat, and keep hot over boiling water; strain and season the gravy; put in a quart of young peas, and stew slowly until the peas are done. Put back the meat, boil up once, and serve.

POTATO CROQUETTES.

Mash two cups of potatoes light and smooth; season with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg, and beat in two eggs. Put a spoonful of dripping into a frying-pan, and when it hisses, stir in the potato mixture. Keep stirring until it is very hot. Spread upon a dish to cool. When cold, mould into croquettes; dip in beaten egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a fine yellow-brown. Drain well, and heap upon a dish.

BOILED CORN.

See Thursday, Fourth Week in June.

RAW CUCUMBERS.

See Saturday, Second Week in July.

CREAM-CAKE AND CHOCOLATE.

2 cups of powdered sugar; ⅔ cupful of butter; 4 eggs; ½ cupful of milk; 3 cups of prepared flour.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, the milk, finally the frothed whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in jelly-cake tins. When cold, spread the following mixture between them:

1 cup of milk; 2 small teaspoonfuls of corn-starch; 1 egg; 1 teaspoonful of vanilla; ½ cup of sugar.

Scald the milk; add the corn-starch, wet with a little cold milk; pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until quite thick. Flavor when cold. Make a good cup of chocolate, and pass with this delicious cake.

Fourth Week. Sunday. —— Chicken Soup with Eggs. Braised Beef. Stewed Onions. Whipped Potatoes. Cream Squash. Tomato Salad. —— Claret Jelly and Cake. ——

CHICKEN SOUP WITH EGGS.

1 large chicken; 4 quarts of water; 1 cup of milk; 1 cup of raw rice; pepper, salt, and chopped parsley; 6 eggs.

Put on the chicken, trussed, but not stuffed, in the water with the rice. Boil three hours, or until the bones are ready to slip from the meat. Take out the chicken, salt it and put by in a cool place for to-morrow. Cool and skim the soup; season it, and rub through a soup-sieve back into the pot, rice and all. The rice should be boiled to pieces, and pass freely through the sieve. Put in the parsley, and simmer, while you heat the milk in a separate vessel, and poach an egg for each person who is to partake of the soup. Trim each egg round when you have taken it from the water, and lay carefully upon a flat dish. Pour the hot milk into the tureen; then the soup. Stir well, and lay the eggs upon the top, one by one, taking pains not to break them.

BRAISED BEEF.

Lay a piece of beef-fillet, without bone, weighing five or six pounds, in a broad pot. Scatter sliced onion over it, salt slightly, and, if you have any good gravy, add this to the cupful of boiling water you pour over the meat. Cover tightly, and cook slowly an hour and a half, adding boiling water should the gravy sink too low. When done, dredge with flour, set in a hot oven, and, as the flour browns, baste with butter, to glaze. It should not remain longer than ten minutes in the oven. Strain the gravy; pour off the top fat; put into a saucepan with a little browned flour and a tablespoonful of catsup. Boil until thickened; pour a few spoonfuls over the meat, the rest into a boat.

STEWED ONIONS.

Cook as on Wednesday, Third Week in July.

WHIPPED POTATOES.