Part 32

Cut up the cold calf’s head—or the remains of it set by for the second time on yesterday—into dice. Save half to be added as a final touch to your soup. Put the rest with the skeleton of your ducks into the soup-pot, and cover with three quarts of water. When it has simmered three hours and boiled down one-third, strain and return to the fire, with half a cup of green peas, and the same of tomato-sauce—or you can put in, if more convenient, the remnants of the succotash and squash left from Sunday’s dinner. If you use the raw peas, simmer half an hour; if the cooked vegetables, but ten minutes. Add the meat-dice, boil up once, and serve.

CASSEROLE OF DUCKS AND MACARONI.

Make according to directions given for “Dijon Paté,” on Monday of Third Week in August, substituting macaroni boiled twenty minutes in hot salted water, then cut into quarter-inch lengths, for the boiled rice, and minced duck for the veal.

BROILED HAM.

Cut smooth slices of cooked ham, and broil five minutes over—or under—clear coals. Pepper and butter each, and give also a mere touch of French mustard.

STEWED ONIONS.

Top, tail, and skin the onions. Cook twenty minutes in boiling water; throw this off, and cover with milk. Simmer ten minutes, or until tender; stir in a lump of floured butter, season with pepper and salt; cook two minutes, and dish.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop coarsely cold boiled potatoes. Have ready in a saucepan a little good dripping, well flavored. As it heats, put in the potatoes, and stir until smoking hot all through.

WATERMELONS AND PEARS.

Keep the watermelons on ice for some hours before you send them to table. Lay upon a large flat dish, and serve the pears in a fruit-dish or basket.

Fourth Week. Tuesday. —— Farina Soup. Haricot of Mutton. Moulded Potato. Raw Tomatoes. —— Baked Berry Dumplings. Iced Tea. ——

FARINA SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean coarse beef; 2 lbs. of mutton-bones; 1 onion; 1 grated carrot, and 1 grated turnip; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; ½ cup of farina, soaked two hours in a cup of milk; 3 qts. of water.

Crack the bones and chop the meat and onion. Put these on with the other vegetables, the herbs, and water, and boil slowly three or four hours. Strain, cool, skim and season. Put in the farina with a pinch of soda, and simmer half an hour.

HARICOT OF MUTTON.

3 lbs. of lean mutton; 1 onion; 1 cup of gravy taken from your soup; 1 dessertspoonful of tomato catsup; 1 carrot; 1 cup of green peas; 1 glass of sherry; 2 spoonfuls of butter; browned flour for thickening the gravy; pepper and salt.

Cut the mutton into strips three inches long by one wide, and fry these, with the sliced onion, in the butter. Have ready the gravy in a saucepan, and put in the meat. Stew slowly nearly an hour. Then add the carrot, parboiled and sliced, and the peas. Stew twenty minutes; thicken the butter used for frying with browned flour, add pepper, salt, and the catsup; pour into the stew, and cook three minutes. Add the wine; boil up, and serve in a deep dish.

MOULDED POTATO.

Mash the potato smooth, working in a little milk, butter, and salt. Grease a pudding-mould; press the potato in firmly, and turn out upon a hot dish.

RAW TOMATOES.

See Friday of First Week in August.

BAKED BERRY DUMPLINGS.

1 quart of prepared flour; 2½ tablespoonfuls of lard and butter mixed; 2 cups of milk, or enough to make a soft dough.

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick; cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put blackberries or huckleberries in the middle, sprinkle with sugar, and bring the edges together, pinching them to keep them from parting. Put into the oven with the joined edges downward, and bake forty minutes. Glaze with butter just before taking them up.

Fourth Week. Wednesday. —— Squirrel Soup. Fricasseed Chicken. Boiled Rice. Scalloped Tomatoes. Lima Beans. —— Fruit. Iced Coffee and Ellie’s Cake. ——

SQUIRREL SOUP.

2 large fine gray squirrels, skinned, cleaned and cut up, 1 lb. lean corned ham, cut into dice; 1 onion; 2 blades of mace; a little cayenne; juice of a lemon; browned flour; 3 quarts of cold water; dripping; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Fry squirrel and onion in the dripping to a light brown. Drain off the fat and put them into the soup-pot with the water, ham, and mace. Cover closely, and stew until the meat is in rags, and the water reduced one-third. Strain, cool, and skim; season and put over the fire. When it boils, skim well, and stir in the butter, cut up in browned flour. When it has thickened, add the lemon-juice and serve.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN.

Clean, wash and cut up a pair of full-grown chickens. Wash, but do not soak. Put into a pot with half a pound of fat salt pork, cut very thin, and enough cold water to cover them. Heat very slowly, and cook until tender. When done add a chopped onion, with chopped parsley and pepper. Cover again, and five minutes later, stir in a great tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Heat in another saucepan a cup of milk; add two beaten eggs; boil one minute. Arrange the chickens upon a dish; strain the gravy; stir in the milk and eggs, and without putting again over the fire, pour over the fowls.

BOILED RICE.

Wash well in several waters. Strain a half cupful of your chicken gravy with an equal quantity of soup; add a little boiling water, and put on with the rice in a farina-kettle. When it is quite soft, and has absorbed all the broth, salt it, and stir in a little boiling milk in which has been melted a teaspoonful of butter, and a little minced parsley. Turn into a hot dish, when it has soaked up the milk, and pass grated cheese with it.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

Pare and slice fine ripe tomatoes. Put into a bake-dish with alternate layers of buttered bread-crumbs. Season each stratum of tomato with pepper, salt and sugar. Bake covered, until very hot—then, brown. The uppermost layer should be of crumbs.

LIMA BEANS.

See Wednesday, First Week in August.

FRUIT.

Dispose to the best advantage in baskets or dishes, with a garnishing of green leaves.

ICED COFFEE AND ELLIE’S CAKE.

See Monday, Second Week in August, for Iced Coffee. For Ellie’s Cake, please consult “GENERAL RECEIPTS, NO. 1, OF COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD SERIES,” page 326.

Fourth Week. Thursday. —— Ham and Veal Soup. Beefsteak Pudding. Stuffed Egg-plant. Mashed Potatoes. Summer Salad. —— Peach Trifle. ——

HAM AND VEAL SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean ham—that near the hock will do—cut into strips; 2 lbs. of lean veal; 2 carrots; 2 onions; 1 blade of mace; ¼ of a cabbage heart, minced and parboiled; 2 lemons; pepper; 4 quarts of water; 1 tablespoonful of flour wet up in cold water.

Put on meat, chopped vegetables, and water, and cook for four hours. Strain, cool, and take off the fat. The vegetables should be pulped through the colander. Return to the fire, boil and skim for five minutes; having seasoned with pepper, stir in the flour; boil three minutes, and pour out.

BEEFSTEAK PUDDING.

2½ lbs. of rumpsteak; 1 quart of prepared flour; ¼ lb. powdered suet, chopped with the flour; pepper; salt; a very little minced parsley; 1 small pickled onion, chopped; nearly a cupful of broth, taken from the soup, cooled and skimmed.

Make a paste of the suet and salted flour mixed with a little ice-water. Roll it out and line a round bowl with it. Cut the meat into dice; pepper and salt each piece, and roll in flour. Put them inside of the paste; strew over them the parsley and pickle, and pour in the _cold_ gravy. Cover the top with a paste-crust, overlapping the greased edges of the bowl; press this down firmly all around; envelop all in a stout cloth, tied tightly under the bottom of the bowl; plunge into boiling water and cook, at a steady boil, two hours and a quarter. Untie the cloth, invert the bowl with care over a hot dish; turn out the pudding, and serve at once.

STUFFED EGG-PLANT.

Parboil for ten minutes. Slit down the side, and take out the seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood, and lay in salt and water for one hour. Stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, fat salt pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and a bit of onion, all chopped. Moisten with a good gravy. Wind soft string about the egg-plant, to keep the cut closed, and bake, putting a cupful of weak broth in the dripping pan. Baste frequently; at first, with butter and water, then with the gravy. Baste twice with butter at the last. Lay the egg-plant in a deep dish; add to the gravy a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, and, when this boils, two or three spoonfuls of milk or cream. Just boil, and pour upon the egg-plant.

MASHED POTATOES.

Whip boiled potatoes light with a fork; beat in milk, butter, and salt, and heap like rock-work upon a hot dish.

SUMMER SALAD.

2 heads of lettuce; a handful of water-cresses; 5 very tender radishes, scraped and cut up; 1 cucumber, pared, laid in ice-water for an hour, then sliced; 3 hard-boiled eggs; 2 teaspoonfuls of white sugar, and 1, each, of salt, pepper, and made mustard; 2 tablespoonfuls of salad oil, and 6 of vinegar.

Rub sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, to a paste with the oil. Pound the yolks fine, and work in. Then whip in, very gradually, the vinegar. Arrange the vegetables, all cut up neatly, in a salad-bowl, and _strain_ the dressing over it. Garnish with the whites, sliced, laid around in a chain, with a nasturtium flower in every two or three links.

PEACH TRIFLE.

12 fine peaches, pared and sliced very thin; 1 package Coxe’s gelatine; 2 cups white sugar; 1 pint of boiling and 1 cup of cold, water; 1 cup of rich, sweet cream, with a pinch of soda dissolved in it, then whipped light in a syllabub-churn.

Soak the gelatine two hours in the cup of cold water. Put it, with peaches and sugar, into a bowl; cover, and let stand an hour. Then pour on the boiling water; stir and mash the peaches, and strain through muslin. When cold and slightly congealed, beat in quickly, a spoonful at a time, the whipped cream. It should be thick and white, or faintly colored. Form in a wet mould set an ice. Eat with cake.

Fourth Week. Friday. —— Cauliflower Soup, without Meat. Fillets of Halibut, with Potatoes. Beef’s Tongue, with Peas. Green Corn Pudding. Raw Cucumbers. —— Melons, Peaches, and Pears. ——

CAULIFLOWER SOUP, WITHOUT MEAT.

1 fine cauliflower; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in 1 of flour; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 2 blades of mace; 2 quarts of water; 2 cups of milk; pepper and salt; a pinch of soda in the milk.

Cut the cauliflower into bunches, reserving about a cupful of small clusters to put whole into the soup. Chop the rest, also the onion and herbs, and put on in the water, with the mace. Cook an hour, and rub through a colander. Return the _purée_, thus obtained, to the pot, and season with pepper and salt. As it boils, stir in the whole clusters, previously boiled tender in hot, salted water, and left to cool. When the soup is again hot, put in the floured butter; stir until this has thickened; pour into the tureen, and add the boiling milk. Pass sliced lemon and cream crackers with it.

FILLETS OF HALIBUT, WITH POTATOES.

3 lbs. of halibut, cut into strips three inches long, one wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; pepper; salt; 1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste; a pinch of cayenne; a little boiling water; juice of a lemon.

Lay the slices of fish in salt and water for half an hour. Wipe them dry. Have ready the butter in a saucepan, with pepper and salt. When it is hot, put in the pieces of fish, and cook gently, without browning, until tender.

Meanwhile, cut some potatoes round with your “gouge,” or, if you have none, into neat squares; parboil and drain them, and simmer ten minutes in enough hot milk to cover them; then stir in a lump of butter; season with pepper and salt. Cook five minutes; drain the liquid into another saucepan, and keep the potatoes hot. Lay the fish in order upon a hot dish, the potatoes around it, and set over hot water, while you thicken the milk in which the potatoes were boiled (never omitting the pinch of soda), with a little flour. Boil up, add the butter used for cooking the fish, and the anchovy sauce. Squeeze a small lemon over the fish, and pour on the hot sauce.

BEEF’S TONGUE WITH GREEN PEAS.

Parboil a corned tongue. Take it from the water, trim off the root and pare away the skin. Put into a broad saucepan with a cup of yesterday’s soup, half a minced onion, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little parsley and pepper. Cover, and cook slowly one hour, or until tender. Slice round, and lay upon a hot dish. Heap each slice with a great spoonful of green peas boiled in hot salted water, drained well, and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper. Strain the gravy, add a little of the water in which the tongue was boiled, a small spoonful of made mustard—French mustard if you have it—the juice of half a lemon, and thicken with browned flour. Boil up and serve in a boat.

GREEN CORN PUDDING.

See Friday of First Week in August.

RAW CUCUMBERS.

Pare, lay in ice-water one hour; slice, and pile upon pounded ice in a glass dish, passing the condiments with them.

MELONS, PEACHES, AND PEARS.

Serve the melons upon flat dishes; the peaches and pears in fruit-salvers or in fancy baskets, with green leaves and flowers disposed tastefully among them. All would be the more refreshing for having lain in the ice-box or refrigerator awhile.

Fourth Week. Saturday. —— Beef Stock Soup. Boiled Ham. Onion Tomato Sauce. Squash au Gratin. Stripped Potatoes. —— Whole Peach Pie. ——

BEEF STOCK SOUP.

5 lbs. of beef, and as many of bones; 2 carrots; 2 onions, sliced and fried in dripping; 2 turnips; bunch of herbs; 7 quarts of water; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery, or 3 stalks of the green plant, with the tops cut off; pepper and salt; dice of fried bread; 1 large spoonful of tomato catsup.

Cut up the meat, and chop the vegetables. Put with the herbs and cracked bones into a pot, and pour on two quarts of water. Heat slowly, and after it has boiled one hour, skim well, and add the other five quarts—also cold. Cook steadily four or five hours longer, then strain, rubbing the vegetables to pieces. There should be at least five quarts of liquid. If, in the boiling, it has lost too much, you should have replenished the pot with boiling water. Take out two quarts for to-day’s soup. Return meat and bones to the fire, and pour the rest of the soup over them with another quart of cold water. Cover very closely and simmer at the back of the range two hours longer. Then set away in an earthenware vessel, having seasoned it, and when cold, put on ice. You will now have made soup-stock for three days.

Cool the portion kept out for to-day; take off all the fat, season and re-heat it. Boil gently and skim well. Stir in the catsup, and pour upon the fried bread already put into the tureen.

BOILED HAM.

Wash a ham thoroughly, scrubbing off all the rusty parts with the dust. Put on in plenty of cold water, and boil twenty minutes to the pound. Let it get almost cold in the water. If possible, do this on Friday, and do not skin until perfectly cold on Saturday. The fat will then be white and prettily pitted, and the skin leave it easily. Twist frilled paper about the shank, and lay in a bed of curled fresh parsley. Carve in thin slices.

ONION TOMATO SAUCE.

2 quarts of ripe tomatoes; 1 onion, chopped; 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley; 2 teaspoonfuls sugar; pepper and salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.

Pare the tomatoes, and slice thin. Stew with the onion half an hour; then pulp through a colander; return to the saucepan with the seasoning, and when again hot, stir in the parsley and floured butter. Boil gently three minutes.

SQUASH AU GRATIN.

Boil and mash, as usual, pressing out the water. Beat up with a good bit of butter, season with pepper and salt; finally whip in two or three tablespoonfuls of milk and a raw egg. Pour into a buttered pudding dish; strew thickly with fine crumbs and bake in a quick oven to a light brown.

STRIPPED POTATOES.

Peel and cut potatoes lengthwise into strips. Lay in ice-water half an hour. Dry between two clean towels, and fry to a pale brown in hot, salted lard. Shake in a heated colander to clear them of the fat, and turn into a dish lined with a napkin.

WHOLE PEACH PIE.

Pare ripe peaches without removing the stones. Have your pie-dishes ready lined with a good paste, fill with the peaches; strew these with sugar, and cover with crust. Bake in a steady oven. Sift sugar over it, and eat fresh, with cream poured upon each slice.

SEPTEMBER.

First Week. Sunday. —— Vermicelli Soup. Roast Beef and Browned Potatoes. Fried Egg-plant. Boiled Green Corn. Raw Tomatoes. —— Narcissus Blanc-Mange. Iced Coffee and Sliced Cake. ——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of your soup-stock; dip out rather more than half. Add a little seasoning to that which remains, and return to the ice. Should the weather be very warm it will be wise to heat all together, and then divide, returning the smaller portion to the ice. Warm the stock designed for to-day with the remains of yesterday’s tomato sauce; and when it begins to boil, strain through thin, coarse muslin. Put back over the fire, and take off all the scum that rises in ten minutes’ boil. Then put in a scant cupful of vermicelli, which has been broken up small, boiled five minutes in very hot water, and drained. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

ROAST BEEF AND BROWNED POTATOES.

Have all gristly parts of the beef cut away, and such bones removed as will injure the shape, or embarrass the carver. Put the beef into a dripping-pan, throw a cupful of boiling water over it, and roast ten minutes per pound, basting _very_ often and copiously. Just before taking it up, dredge with flour and baste once with butter. After dishing the meat, pour the top from the gravy; add a little boiling water; put it into a saucepan, and thicken with browned flour. Pepper, and serve after a brief boil.

BROWNED POTATOES.

Boil, and strip off the skins of large, fair potatoes. Half an hour before you take up the meat pour off the fat from the gravy; lay your potatoes in the dripping-pan, and cook brown, basting frequently. Lay about the meat when dished.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

Slice half an inch thick, and lay in salt water one hour, with a heavy plate on top to keep under the water. Pare each slice. Make a batter of two eggs, a cup of milk, a little salt, and flour for thin batter. Wipe the egg-plant perfectly dry; dip each slice in the batter, and fry in hot dripping. Drain well, and serve on a heated flat dish.

BOILED GREEN CORN.

Strip off all but the thin husk next the corn. Turn this down, and pick off the silk from the grains. Replace the husk, tie a thread about it to keep it smooth, and cook the corn from thirty to forty minutes, according to size and age. Pull off the husk; break the stalk close to the ear, and serve, wrapped in a napkin.

RAW TOMATOES.

Pare and slice; put into a salad dish, and dress as follows: Rub one teaspoonful of sugar, and half as much each of pepper, salt, and French or other made mustard, smooth with two tablespoonfuls of salad-oil. Beat in, a little at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and half a teaspoonful extract of celery. Pour over the tomatoes, and set on ice until wanted.

NARCISSUS BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk; 1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water; yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light; 2 cups white sugar; 1 large cup of sweet cream, whipped with a little powdered sugar, and flavored with vanilla; rose-water for the blanc-mange.

Heat the milk to scalding. Stir in the sugar and gelatine, and when these are dissolved, beat in the yolks, and cook two minutes. Turn out into a shallow dish to cool. When it begins to form, put, a few spoonfuls at a time, into a bowl, and whip vigorously, flavoring with rose-water. When it is a yellow sponge, put into a wet mould, with a cylinder in the centre. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday turn into a dish, and fill the hole in the middle with whipped cream, just churned. Lay more whipped cream about the base. Like all other preparations of gelatine, this should be kept upon ice until you are ready to use it.

ICED COFFEE AND SLICED CAKE.

Make the coffee at breakfast-time. It should be very strong. While hot add one-fourth as much boiling milk. When cool put on ice, and serve with more ice in the tumblers. Send around a basket of cake with it.

First Week. Monday. —— Ham and Egg Soup. Braised Larded Beef. Chopped Potatoes and Corn. Cucumbers and Onion Salad. Stewed Squash. —— Peaches and Cream. ——

HAM AND EGG SOUP.

A ham-bone broken to bits; 1 quart of cold water; 3 pints of good stock; as many poached eggs as you have people at table; a little pepper; ½ cup of rice.

Boil your ham-bone in a quart of water until the liquid is reduced one-half. Strain off the stock from the meat and bones in the jar or bowl; add the ham broth and half a cup of well-soaked rice. Simmer until this is soft, skimming often, and pour into the tureen. Lay the poached eggs, neatly trimmed, round upon the top.

BRAISED LARDED BEEF.

Lard yesterday’s cold roast with strips of fat salt pork; lay in a broad saucepan; half cover with gravy, and strew minced onion over it. Cover closely and stew slowly at back of the range one hour. Dish the meat; boil down the gravy fast for a few minutes, and pour over it.

CHOPPED POTATOES AND CORN.

Split each row of grain upon cobs of cold boiled corn, and cut them off clean. Add twice as much chopped cold boiled potatoes. Have a little good dripping hot in a frying-pan. Put in potatoes and corn and stir until very hot, but do not let them brown. Serve in a deep dish.

CUCUMBER AND ONION SALAD.

Pare the cucumbers and lay in ice-water one hour. Do the same with the onions in another bowl. Then slice them in the proportion of one onion to three large cucumbers, and arrange in a salad-bowl, and season with vinegar, pepper, and salt.

STEWED SQUASH.

Pare, quarter and boil the squash in hot salted water. Drain, mash very smooth, and put back over the fire with a few spoonfuls of milk, a little chopped parsley, and a good lump of butter, rolled in flour. Stew five minutes, after the boil begins, stirring well from the bottom most of the time. Pour into a deep dish.

PEACHES AND CREAM.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.

First Week. Tuesday. —— A Hash Soup. Kidneys Sautés with Wine. Baked Omelette aux Fines Herbes. String-Beans. Cauliflower au Gratin. —— Syllabub and May’s Cake. ——

A HASH SOUP.

The remains of your roast beef—bones cracked, and meat, skin, etc., chopped; 6 potatoes, boiled and mashed; bunch of herbs, chopped; 1 sliced onion; salt and pepper; 3 quarts of water; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; 1 tablespoonful of walnut catsup.

Put on meat, bones, herbs, onion, and water, and simmer two hours, until the nourishment is all drawn from them. Strain, cool, take off the fat; rub in the potatoes through a colander, and season. When it is again hot, stir in the floured butter, and after boiling one minute, the catsup. Pour into the tureen. If you have any soup left from yesterday, you may add it to this, when the potatoes go in.

KIDNEYS SAUTÉS WITH WINE.