Part 34

1 quart of broth in which the feet and giblets of the chickens have been boiled; all that you have left of yesterday’s soup, strained; 4 beaten eggs; parsley, salt and pepper; dice of stale bread.

Cool and skim the quart of water in which have been boiled for one hour the cleaned feet and giblets of your chickens. (Salt the giblets and put them in the refrigerator.) Set this broth over the fire, and season. When it boils, take it off, pour it upon the beaten eggs; put all into a jar and set in boiling water, stirring until it thickens. Heat in another saucepan the remains of yesterday’s soup—or, if you have none, a scant quantity of milk, thickened with floured butter; pour into a tureen, add the egg-broth, and throw in a good handful of stale bread-dice. Stir well and serve.

SMOTHERED CHICKENS WITH MUSHROOMS.

Split a pair of young, full-grown chickens down the back. Lay them, breasts upward, in a dripping-pan; pour over them a great cupful of boiling water in which have been melted two tablespoonfuls of butter. Invert another pan over them, covering closely, and cook in a steady oven until they are tender and of a mellow russet hue. An hour is generally sufficient. Baste very often, twice at the last with butter. Keep the fowls hot upon a chafing-dish while you add the rest of the can of mushrooms opened yesterday—each mushroom sliced into thirds—to the gravy, with browned flour and pepper. Simmer ten minutes; pour a little upon the chickens, the rest into a boat.

SCALLOPED CAULIFLOWER.

Small, and therefore cheap, cauliflowers will do for this purpose. Boil them in hot salted water twenty minutes. Drain, cool, and chop. Beat into them a couple of eggs, a spoonful of melted butter, a half cup of milk, and season. Pour into a buttered bake-dish; cover with drawn butter, then with fine crumbs, and bake half an hour.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Loosen the skins with boiling water; peel, slice, and stew twenty minutes. Season with sugar, pepper, salt, a good piece of butter cut up in flour, and stew five minutes more.

BEET-ROOT SALAD.

Arrange the cold beets left from yesterday in a salad-dish. Pour a little salad-oil over them, season with sifted sugar, salt, a little cayenne, and vinegar at discretion.

PEACHES AND CREAM.

See Monday of First Week in September.

Second Week. Friday. —— Oberlin Soup. Cream Pickerel. Giblet Omelette. Mashed Potatoes. Boiled Corn. Cucumbers. —— Diplomatic Pudding. ——

OBERLIN SOUP.

3 onions; 3 turnips; 3 carrots; ½ cabbage; bunch of herbs; 8 tomatoes, sliced; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 teaspoonful of corn-starch; pepper, sugar, and salt; 1 cup of boiling milk; 3 quarts of cold water.

Chop the vegetables, and put all except the tomatoes and cabbage over the fire, with the water. Simmer one hour. Then add the cabbage, previously parboiled. Ten minutes later, put in the tomatoes and herbs. Stew rather fast for half an hour. Rub through a colander; put over the fire; stir in the butter and corn-starch. Cook five minutes; season well. Let all stand together at the side of the range, covered, five minutes, and pour out. Stir in the boiling milk (with a pinch of soda in it) after the soup is in the tureen.

CREAM PICKEREL.

If you cannot get pickerel, pike, or salmon-trout, use rock-fish or bass for this dish. Clean the fish, and, if large, score the back-bone in several places. Bake slowly, pouring a cup of boiling water over him at first, afterward basting often with butter and water. When done, lay upon a hot-water dish; add to the gravy in the dripping-pan a cup of milk (with a pinch of soda stirred in), and, when this heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, one teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet in water, and a little chopped parsley. Boil up once, to thicken, add pepper and salt to taste, and pour over the fish.

GIBLET OMELETTE.

7 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls of cream; yesterday’s giblets, chopped very fine and seasoned; 1 good spoonful of butter.

Beat yolks and whites together; then add the cream. Heat the butter in the frying-pan; put in the giblets; shake hard for a moment, and pour in the eggs. Keep them free from the bottom by shaking, and loosening with a cake-turner; and, when quite “set,” fold in the middle. Invert a hot dish over the pan, turn out, and serve at once.

MASHED POTATOES.

Mash soft, heap upon a hot dish, and serve without browning.

BOILED CORN.

See Sunday, First Week in September.

CUCUMBERS.

Pare; lay in ice-water an hour; slice, and dish, with pounded ice strewed over and among them. Pass condiments with them.

DIPLOMATIC PUDDING.

1 quart of milk; 4 eggs; 1 cup _very_ fine bread-crumbs; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet with cold milk; ¼ lb. of currants, washed, dried, and dredged; 1 cup of sugar.

Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk, setting the vessel containing them in one of hot water, and heating milk and crumbs to scalding. Pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar; add corn-starch; lastly, the dredged currants. Pour into a buttered mould, and boil an hour and a quarter. Turn out, and pour a cup of hot custard over it for sauce, flavored with vanilla, or other essence.

Second Week. Saturday. —— Mutton Noodle Soup. Baked Sheep’s Head à la Russe. Sweet Potatoes. Squash. Tomatoes Stuffed with Corn. —— Cream Peach Pie. ——

MUTTON NOODLE SOUP.

1 perfectly clean sheep’s head, cleaned with the skin left on; 3 lbs. scrag of mutton, broken to pieces; 2 onions; 2 carrots; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; a large handful of noodles (see Receipt, Wednesday, First Week in August); 7 quarts water.

Slice the vegetables, put with the head and scrag into a soup-kettle, add four quarts of water, and simmer two hours, or until the sheep’s head is so tender that the bones will slip out. Skim well, pour in three quarts of cold water, and after three minutes take out the head carefully. Lay in a greased bake-dish; as carefully, pull out the bones through the under side, and put these back into the soup-kettle. Add the vegetables and herbs; bring again to a slow boil, and cook three hours longer. Take out meat and bones; salt highly; put into your stock-jar, and pour half the broth over them. Season this also, and put by for another day. Rub the vegetables through the sieve into the broth left for to-day. Cool, skim; season, and set over the fire. Boil and skim for two minutes; add the noodles; simmer twenty minutes, and pour out.

BAKED SHEEP’S HEAD À LA RUSSE.

Let the boiled and boned sheep’s head get cold in the bake-dish. Then brush over with raw egg, and sift over it a mixture of fine crumbs, a dust of flour and some minced parsley (dried and powdered is better), seasoned with pepper and salt. Set in the oven; baste well with butter, as it browns. Serve in the dish, and send with it a boat of drawn butter, based upon a cupful of the soup and seasoned with French mustard, the juice of half a lemon, and some onion pickle minced very fine.

SWEET POTATOES.

See Wednesday of First Week in September.

SQUASH.

Pare, slice, cook soft in boiling salt water. Drain and mash smooth in a hot colander. Season with butter, salt, and pepper.

TOMATOES STUFFED WITH CORN.

Set large, smooth tomatoes in a greased pudding-dish. Cut a slice from the top of each. Scoop out the seeds, leaving the walls thickly lined with pulp. Have ready a cupful of corn grated from the cob, and seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt. Fill the tomatoes with this; put on the upper slices, and pour a little gravy over all. Bake, covered, in a moderate oven, one hour. Serve in the dish.

CREAM PEACH PIE.

Make as directed in Saturday, Fourth Week in August; but lay the upper crust on lightly, slightly buttering the lower at the point of contact. When the pie is done, lift the cover and pour in a cream made thus: 1 cup (small) of rich milk, heated; whites of 2 eggs, whipped and stirred into the milk; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; ½ teaspoonful of corn-starch wet up in milk. Boil three minutes. The cream must be cold when it goes into the hot pie. Replace the crust, and set by to cool. Eat fresh.

Third Week. Sunday. —— Rice and Tomato Soup. Boiled Chickens and Tongue. Breaded Egg-plant. Boiled Cauliflower. Lima Beans. —— Frozen Custard and Cake. ——

RICE AND TOMATO SOUP.

Skim the soup in your stock-pot. Strain from the meat and bones; heat and add a pint of tomatoes, stewed, strained, and seasoned, and a cup of boiled rice with the cup of water in which it has been cooked. Season to taste; simmer fifteen or twenty minutes after it begins to boil, and turn out.

BOILED CHICKENS AND TONGUE.

Tie the stuffed and trussed chickens in netting, fitted to their shape, and cook in plenty of boiling water, a little salt. An hour and a quarter should suffice, if the fowls are tender. Soak a tongue over night. In the morning, wash it well and boil eighteen minutes to the pound. Trim and skin it. Lay in the middle of the dish, with a chicken on each side, and pour over them drawn butter, based upon a cupful of the liquor in which the chickens were boiled, mixed with a little minced parsley. Save the rest of the liquor.

BREADED EGG-PLANT.

Slice, and pare each slice. Lay in salt and water one hour, with a plate on top, to keep the slices under water. Wipe dry; salt and pepper; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry to a fine brown in lard or dripping. Drain, and serve.

BOILED CAULIFLOWER.

Cook in boiling salted water twenty-five minutes, having tied the cauliflower up in white netting. Drain; untie; lay in a deep dish, the blossom upward, and deluge with a white sauce made of drawn butter, with the juice of a lemon squeezed in.

LIMA BEANS.

See Thursday, First Week in September.

FROZEN CUSTARD AND CAKE.

Please refer to Sunday, Second Week in July.

Third Week. Monday. —— Chicken and Corn Soup. Casserole of Rice, Chicken, and Tongue. Onions Stewed Brown. Baked Sweet Potatoes. Cold Slaw. —— Corn-starch Hasty Pudding. Tea and Fancy Crackers. ——

CHICKEN AND CORN SOUP.

Skim the liquor in which the chickens were boiled yesterday. Put over the fire, with the grated corn from twelve ears. Boil one hour; rub through a colander; season, heat, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, a little finely cut parsley, and a teaspoonful essence of celery. Simmer five minutes; add a cup of boiling milk, and pour out.

CASSEROLE OF RICE, WITH CHICKENS AND TONGUE.

Chop the remains of yesterday’s chickens and tongue fine, with the giblets. Season, and put over the fire, with a cup of yesterday’s soup, and, when almost on the boil, add two beaten eggs. Boil a cup of rice in a little of the chicken-liquor used for your soup, until the rice is soft, and the liquor absorbed. Beat two eggs into half a cup of milk, in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Stir and beat this into the rice. Let it get cold, and then line a greased mould with it—one with a cylinder in the middle will not do. Make the walls of rice-paste an inch thick; then fill with the mince, which should not be too soft. Cover with the rice; put the top on the mould; set in a pot of boiling water, and cook one hour and a half. Turn out with great care, and pour a little of the pot-liquor, thickened and seasoned, over it.

ONIONS STEWED BROWN.

Top and tail them; skin, and dredge them with flour. Then fry to a good brown in dripping. Put into a pot, cover with a little of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled, and stew slowly two hours, or until tender. Take up the onions; thicken the sauce with browned flour, add a tablespoonful of butter, with pepper; boil up, and pour over the onions.

BAKED SWEET POTATOES.

Wash, wipe, and lay in a moderate oven. Bake until the largest is soft between your testing fingers. Wipe off, and serve in their jackets.

COLD SLAW.

Shred the heart of a firm white cabbage. Put into a salad-bowl, and season with sugar, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar. Stir up and toss thoroughly.

CORN-STARCH HASTY PUDDING.

1 quart fresh milk; 3 tablespoonfuls corn-starch, wet up in cold milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Scald and salt the milk, and stir into it the corn-starch. Boil steadily, stirring now and then, for fifteen minutes. Add the butter; let the pudding stand in hot water, uncovered, after you have ceased to stir, until you are ready for it; then serve in an open, deep dish. Eat with cream and sugar.

TEA AND FANCY BISCUITS.

If the weather be hot, have iced tea; if cool, and suggestive of early frosts, or equinoctial storms, introduce the bright tea-pot and pretty “cozy.”

Third Week. Tuesday. —— St. Rémo Broth. Beefsteak. Potatoes au Naturel. Kidney-Beans. Raw Tomatoes. —— Fruit Dessert. Coffee and Cake. ——

ST. RÉMO BROTH.

3 lbs. of veal—lean and cut into strips; 2 onions, sliced and fried; 3 quarts of water; 1 tablespoonful of minced parsley; ½ cupful of raw rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of grated cheese; salt and pepper.

Fry the onions in dripping; put in the meat, and fry to a light brown. Put into the soup-pot with the water, and boil slowly three hours, or until brought down to two quarts. The meat should be in rags. Strain; cool, skim, and season. Put back into the kettle with the rice, which must have soaked one hour in a little water. This water, also, must go into the soup. Simmer half an hour. Put the grated cheese into the tureen, and when the rice has boiled soft, pour upon the cheese, stir up and serve.

BEEFSTEAK.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet, and broil quickly upon a greased gridiron. Ten minutes should be enough if you like it rare. Lay upon a hot dish, turn another over it, having salted, buttered, and peppered it, and let it stand five minutes before sending to table.

POTATOES AU NATUREL.

Cook, without paring, in boiling salted water, until a fork will enter easily the largest. Pour off the water; set the pot, uncovered, upon the range for a moment, to dry off the moisture; peel rapidly, and dish.

KIDNEY-BEANS.

Shell; cook in boiling water, a little salt, half an hour, or until tender. Drain, salt, pepper, and butter, and serve in a deep dish.

RAW TOMATOES.

Pare and slice. Put into a salad-dish, and pour over them a dressing made of two tablespoonfuls of oil rubbed with one teaspoonful of sugar, and half as much, each, of made mustard, salt, and pepper; then with five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, whipped in, a little at a time.

FRUIT DESSERT.

Use your own discretion and consult your own convenience in devising a tasteful and acceptable dessert of fruits, such as should now be plenty and cheap. Late peaches, melons, bananas, pears, and apples, are, some or all of them, within reach of housekeepers of moderate means. Arrange in dishes or baskets decorated with green sprays and flowers.

COFFEE AND CAKE.

Consult, also, your discretion and the weather in the question of hot or iced coffee.

Third Week. Wednesday. —— Ox-Cheek Soup. Stewed Calf’s Hearts. Lima Beans. Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel. Stewed Tomatoes with Onion. —— Stewed Pears with Rice. ——

OX-CHEEK SOUP.

2 ox-cheeks; 3 onions; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 12 whole black peppers; 6 cloves; salt; 5 quarts of water; ½ cup of German sago.

Break the bones of the cheeks, and wash well with salt and water. Cover with cold water; bring to a boil, and throw off the water. Fry the sliced onions, and put into the pot with the meat, also the sliced carrots, onions, and spice. Cover with a gallon and a quart of water. Bring to a slow boil, and keep this up, skimming often, for four hours. Strain off the liquor; pick out the meat and bones; salt highly; put into your stock-pot with nearly half the broth. Set in a cold place for to-morrow. Pulp the vegetables into that meant for to-day; let it cool; take off the fat, and put back over the fire. Season to your liking; add the sago, which should have been soaking for two hours in a little water, and simmer until it is clear.

STEWED CALF’S HEARTS.

Wash two fresh calf’s hearts; stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, chopped salt pork, a little thyme, sage and onion. Tie up snugly in clean mosquito-netting; put into a broad saucepan; half cover with broth from your soup from yesterday or to-day. Cover and stew an hour and three-quarters gently, turning several times. Take out the hearts, and keep them hot, while you thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of butter cut up in flour. Boil up, add pepper, salt, a little grated lemon-peel, and the juice of half a lemon, with a small glass of wine. Pour over the hearts.

LIMA BEANS.

See Thursday, First Week in September.

POTATOES AU MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL.

Slice cold boiled potatoes rather thick. Have ready in a saucepan four or five tablespoonfuls of milk, a good lump of butter, with salt, pepper and minced parsley. Heat quickly; put in the potatoes, and stir until almost boiling. Stir in a little flour, wet with cold milk; cook a moment to thicken it; add the juice of half a lemon, and pour out into a deep dish.

STEWED TOMATOES AND ONION.

Peel, slice, and stew a dozen tomatoes ten minutes. Then add a small parboiled onion, cut up small; cook twenty minutes; stir in sugar, salt and pepper, with a good spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

STEWED PEARS WITH RICE.

Pare and halve eight large pears. Put into a saucepan with eight tablespoonfuls of sugar and a cup of claret—or if you prefer, clear water. Stew slowly until tender and clear. Take out the pears and boil down the syrup to one-half, flavoring, then, with essence of bitter almond. Have ready two cupfuls of boiled rice, cooked in milk, and sweetened. Spread upon a flat dish; lay the pears upon it, and pour on the syrup. Eat very cold.

Third Week. Thursday. —— Rissole Soup. Lamb Chops. Potato Mound. Fried Egg-Plant. Ladies’ Cabbage. —— Damson Tart. ——

RISSOLE SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of your cold stock. Pick out some of the best pieces of meat—about a cupful—and set aside. Add a pint of boiling water to the stock, and boil slowly, with the bones and the rest of the meat, for nearly an hour. Chop the meat reserved from the stock; make into force-meat with fine crumbs, seasoning with onion, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and binding with beaten egg. Flour your hands and make this into round balls. Roll them in flour; set in a floured pie-dish, not touching each other, and leave in a quick oven until crusted over. Let them cool. Strain your soup; add such seasoning as you desire; heat to a boil; drop in the force-meat rissoles, and heat, without boiling, three minutes.

LAMB CHOPS.

Trim off fat and skin, leaving a bare bit of bone at the end of each. Broil quickly over a clear fire; butter, salt, and pepper each, and stand them on the larger ends, just touching each other, around your mound of potato.

POTATO MOUND.

Mash smooth, with butter, milk, salt, and pepper; make into a smooth mound upon a hot dish, and arrange the chops around it.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

See Sunday, First Week in September.

LADIES’ CABBAGE.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters. When done, quarter it and let it get perfectly cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and three tablespoonfuls of milk. Stir all well; pour into a buttered pudding-dish, and bake, covered, until very hot, then brown. If your dish has been well buttered, turn the cabbage upon a hot dish, and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter.

DAMSON TART.

Fill a pie-dish, lined with good paste, with ripe, sound damsons; sweeten very plentifully; cover with crust and bake. Brush with beaten egg when done, and return to the oven one moment, to glaze.

Third Week. Friday. —— Potato Porridge. Devilled Crab. Roasted Sweetbreads. Potato Croquettes. Boiled Green Corn. —— Apple Soufflé Pudding. ——

POTATO PORRIDGE.

12 potatoes, peeled and sliced; 1 large onion, also pared and sliced; 2 quarts of boiling water; 1 cup of hot milk; 3 beaten eggs; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoonful celery essence; chopped parsley.

Fry potatoes and onions light brown in a little butter. Put into a soup-pot with the boiling water, and cook gently until soft. Rub through a colander to a smooth _purée_. Add the water in which they were boiled, and return to the fire. When the _purée_ begins to bubble, stir in the buttered flour, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley, and simmer five minutes. Heat the milk in another vessel; pour upon the beaten eggs; cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Add the _purée_; stir in the celery-essence, and it is ready.

DEVILLED CRABS.

Boil the crabs; cool; break the shells and pick out the meat. To eight tablespoonfuls of meat, add three of fine crumbs, the yolks (chopped) of three boiled eggs, the juice of a lemon, with salt and cayenne to taste. Work up to a soft mixture with drawn butter; fill scallop or clam shells, or paté-pans with it, sift cracker-dust over the top, and brown delicately in a quick oven.

ROASTED SWEETBREADS.

3 fine sweetbreads; 1 cup of gravy—a cup of your soup will do; 1 beaten egg; cracker-dust; 1 tablespoonful mushroom catsup; 1 small glass wine; a very little minced onion put into the gravy; 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter; fried bread.

Boil and blanch the sweetbreads. Wipe perfectly dry, roll in egg, then in the pounded cracker. Lay in a baking-pan; pour the melted butter slowly over them, that it may soak into the crumbs. Set in the oven, cover, and bake forty-five minutes, basting freely, from the time they begin to brown, with the gravy. Dish upon crustless slices of fried bread. Strain the gravy; add catsup and wine; boil up, and pour over the sweetbreads.

POTATO CROQUETTES.

Mash the potatoes, and beat in a raw egg, butter, milk, nutmeg, a little grated lemon-peel, with pepper and salt. Heat in a saucepan, stirring constantly, for three minutes. The saucepan should be buttered first. When cool enough to handle with comfort, make into croquettes, roll in flour, or dip in egg and cracker-crumbs, and fry—not putting too many into the pan at once—in boiling lard, or dripping. Drain in a hot colander, and serve.

BOILED GREEN CORN.

See Sunday, First Week in September.

APPLE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.

7 or 8 juicy apples; 4 eggs; 1 cup fine crumbs; 1 cup of sugar; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; nutmeg, and a little grated lemon-peel.

Pare, core, and slice the apples, and cook tender in a covered farina-kettle without adding water to them. Beat to a smooth pulp, and stir in butter, sugar, and seasoning. When cold, whip in the yolks of the eggs; then the frothed whites, alternately with the crumbs. Beat to a creamy batter; put into a buttered pudding-dish, and bake, covered, fifty minutes. Then brown quickly. Eat hot with custard sauce, or cold, with cream and sugar.

Third Week. Saturday. —— Rule of Three Soup. Veal and Ham Cutlets à la Polonaise. Stewed Potatoes. Cream Squash. Scalloped Tomatoes. —— Bavarian Cream. ——

RULE OF THREE SOUP.

3 lbs. of lean beef; 3 lbs. of marrow bones; 3 lbs. coarse mutton; 3 onions; 3 carrots; 3 turnips; 3 sprigs of parsley, and same of thyme and marjoram; 6 quarts of water; 3 blades of mace; 3 tomatoes; 3 ears of corn; 3 tablespoonfuls of rice; pepper and salt.

Chop the vegetables; cut up the meat and crack the bones. Put onions, carrots, turnips, herbs and mace into the soup-pot; cover with three quarts of water; stew gently three hours; strain off the broth into a bowl; pour the remaining three quarts of water, boiling hot, upon the meat, bones, and vegetables in the pot, and put back over the fire. Cool that which you have strained; take off the fat, and put on in another kettle, with the tomatoes, the corn cut from the cob, and the rice. Season, and cook gently for another hour, then pour out.