Part 36

See Tuesday, Fourth Week in September.

POTATO RISSOLES.

Mash the potatoes fine, and whip with a fork, adding pepper, butter, and milk, lastly, a beaten egg. Have ready one-third as much chopped ham as you have potato; mix all together; make into round balls a little larger than an English walnut; dip in egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry quickly in plenty of good dripping. Drain upon paper, and serve hot.

RUBY’S PUDDING.

Some good puff-paste; ¼ lb. of stale sponge-cakes, pounded; 1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 1 teaspoonful corn-starch wet in milk; yolks of 2 eggs; 1 heaping spoonful of sugar; a little nutmeg; whites of 3 eggs; strawberry, or other sweet jam.

Line a pie-dish with the paste. Put a layer of jam at the bottom, then one, half an inch thick, of the pounded cakes. Heat the milk; stir in the butter and corn-starch; boil one minute. When cold, whip in the yolks and sugar, with nutmeg, and beat light. Fill the dish with this mixture, and bake about half an hour. Then cover with a _méringue_ made of the three whites, a little sugar, and the juice of half a lemon. Spread quickly, and shut the oven-door until it has “set” well. Do this on Saturday, and you will have a delightful Sunday pudding. It is also good warm.

First Week. Monday. —— Curry Soup. Breaded Mutton Chops, Baked. Spinach. Whipped Potatoes. Boiled Rice, with Sauce. —— Apple Charlotte. Coffee. ——

CURRY SOUP.

Add a pint of boiling water to your soup-stock, and cook, with the meat in, half an hour, at the back of the range. Strain, squeezing the meat to a tasteless mass in a coarse cloth. Return the soup to the fire, stir in a cup of rice, boiled as I shall presently direct, and season to taste. Finally, put in a teaspoonful of curry-powder, wet up with water, and bring to a boil; then pour out. If you do not like curry, you will find the soup very good without it.

BREADED MUTTON CHOPS—BAKED.

Trim off fat and skin; dip in egg, then in rolled cracker, mixed with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and powdered parsley. Lay upon a dripping-pan. Pour over each a teaspoonful of melted butter, and set in the oven. When they begin to hiss, baste with hot water, in which has been boiled a little onion, mixed with butter. If the oven be good, half an hour should be enough for them. They should be tender, juicy, and brown. Baste six or seven times. Strain the gravy, and thicken with browned flour. Add a little lemon-juice and tomato catsup, and send up in a boat. Lay the chops around your spinach.

SPINACH.

Boil twenty minutes in plenty of boiling salt water. Drain, and chop very fine. Return to the saucepan, with a little sugar, pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Stir until hot, and dry enough to be moulded. Turn out; shape into a flat-topped ridge upon a hot dish, and lay the chops at the base.

WHIPPED POTATOES.

Whip boiled potatoes to creamy lightness with a fork; beat in butter, milk, pepper, and salt; at last, the frothed white of an egg. Toss irregularly upon a dish; set in the oven two minutes, to re-heat, but do not let it color.

BOILED RICE, WITH SAUCE.

Dilute what gravy you have left from your duck fricassee with water, or make a weak broth of the duck bones, boiled with a little lean ham in a quart of water, until you have less than a pint left. Or, add hot water to the remains of yesterday’s soup, and strain it. But get a pint of weak gravy from _somewhere_, and, having soaked a cup of rice in just enough water to cover it, for an hour, put it over the fire in a farina-kettle, pour in the gravy, and cook until the rice is soft, shaking up from the bottom, now and then, but never stirring. Take out some for your soup. Heap the rest in a deep dish, and pour over it a cup of drawn butter, in which have been stirred a beaten egg and two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce. N. B.—The gravy should be well seasoned.

APPLE CHARLOTTE.

Beat two cups of nice apple sauce, well sweetened and flavored, to a high froth, with the whipped whites of three eggs. Make into a mound in a glass dish, and cover with lady’s-fingers, or other small sponge-cakes, fitted neatly together. Send around sugar and cream with it.

COFFEE.

Pass, while you are still at table, or afterward, in the library or sitting-room.

First Week. Tuesday. —— Barley Broth. Stewed Beef, with Macaroni. Mashed Turnips. Kidney Beans. —— Southern Rice Pudding. ——

BARLEY BROTH.

2 lbs. of lean mutton, cut into strips; ½ lb. lean ham, or a cracked ham-bone; 1 onion; 1 turnip; ½ cup of barley, soaked two hours in a little tepid water; 3 quarts of cold water; pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

Cook meat, bones, and the sliced vegetables together in the water three hours. Strain, cool, and skim the broth; season; put back over the fire, with the barley, and stew gently half an hour.

STEWED BEEF.

Have a piece of beef cut from what is known as the “roll” of the shin. It should weigh between three and four pounds. Put into a large saucepan, with a minced onion, and cover completely with water, in which pour a cup of your soup, so as to make a weak broth. Pepper and salt the meat all over before it goes in. Cover, and cook very slowly an hour and a half. Turn the beef, and cook as long again, making three hours in all. It should have been so slowly cooked as to be tender as butter, yet not broken at the edges. Dish, wash all over with melted butter, and set in the oven three minutes. Then arrange the macaroni about it.

MACARONI.

Boil half a pound of macaroni, broken into short pieces, in hot salted water, ten minutes; drain, pepper and salt, and lay about the beef. Cool and skim the gravy after taking out the beef; strain into a saucepan, thicken with browned flour, add a little French mustard; boil once, pour half over the beef, the rest into a boat.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Pare, quarter, and cook tender, in boiling salted water. Mash in a colander, pressing hard. Stir in butter, pepper and salt, and turn into a deep dish.

KIDNEY BEANS.

Shell; put on in boiling water with an inch or so of fat salt pork, and cook tender. Drain well, salt, pepper, and butter.

SOUTHERN RICE PUDDING.

1 quart fresh, sweet milk; 1 cup of raw rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 cup of sugar; 5 beaten eggs; 1 teaspoonful of grated lemon-peel; a pinch of cinnamon and same of mace.

Soak the rice in the milk two hours. Heat in a farina-kettle until the rice is soft. Cream butter and sugar; stir in the beaten eggs and whip hard. When the rice is lukewarm, put all together, and bake in a buttered mould about forty-five minutes. Eat warm with sauce, or cold with sugar and cream.

First Week. Wednesday. —— Squirrel Soup. Fricassee of Calf’s Tongues. Fried Egg-plant. Squash. Stripped Potatoes, Stewed. —— Jelly Custards and Cake. ——

SQUIRREL SOUP.

Skin, clean, and cut into quarters a pair of fine gray squirrels. Fry a large onion, sliced, in dripping; take it out, and fry the squirrels in the same fat. Put them then into a soup-pot with the onion, a sliced turnip, a sliced carrot, a slice—thick—of lean ham, some parsley, and two blades of mace; add three quarts of water; cover closely and boil gently three hours; take out the pieces of squirrel, and put away for a breakfast dish. A tolerable fricassee can be made by warming it up in drawn butter, then adding a beaten egg.

_Revenons à nos moutons_—in this case, our soup. Rub the vegetables through the colander; cool, skim and season the broth. Heat again; add a tablespoonful of butter cut up in flour, a tablespoonful of catsup, the juice of half a lemon, a glass of claret, boil up and pour into the tureen.

FRICASSEE OF CALF’S TONGUES.

Boil the tongues one hour. Pare, and cut into thick slices. Roll these in flour, and fry in dripping five minutes. Put the tongues into a saucepan; add sliced onion, thyme and parsley. Cover with a cupful of your soup or other gravy. Simmer half an hour, covered tightly. Take up the tongues and keep them warm; strain the gravy; thicken, put in four or five _thin_ slices of lemon, from which the peel has been taken; boil one minute, and pour over the fricassee.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

1 fine egg-plant; 2 eggs; ½ cup of milk; flour for thin batter, salt, and fat for frying.

Slice, and pare each slice. Lay in salt and water one hour; dry between two towels and dip each slice in a batter made of the materials above given. Fry in hot fat to a good brown. Drain well.

SQUASH.

Pare, quarter, and cook soft in boiling salted water. Drain, mash smooth in a heated colander, work in butter, pepper and salt, and serve in a deep dish.

STRIPPED POTATOES, STEWED.

Pare, and cut into lengthwise strips; cover with boiling water, and stew twenty minutes. Turn off nearly all the water; put in a cupful of cold milk, with salt and pepper. When this boils, stir in a spoonful of butter, rolled in flour, with a little chopped parsley. Cook two minutes, and serve.

JELLY CUSTARDS AND CAKE.

1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 1 cup of sugar; vanilla or other flavoring; crab-apple and currant jelly.

Heat the milk; pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Heat and stir until it begins to thicken. When cold, flavor; fill your custard-cups nearly to the tops, and lay a slice of firm, bright jelly upon each—tart upon some, sweet upon the rest. Eat with cake.

First Week. Thursday. —— Marrow-bone Soup. Roast Chickens. Lima Beans. Broiled Potatoes. Raw Tomatoes. —— Squash Pie. ——

MARROW-BONE SOUP.

4 lbs. of marrow-bones, broken to pieces, and the marrow left in (beef-bones are best, but others may be used); 1 lb. salt pork, or ham-bones; 2 onions; 2 stalks of celery; 3 tomatoes; 4 parboiled potatoes, sliced; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; 5 quarts of water.

Put on the bones in the water, and cook slowly four hours, leaving three quarts of water. Strain into a bowl; surround this with cold water, to make the fat rise; take this off, and return the soup to the fire, with the parboiled potatoes and the sliced onions—which should have lain ten minutes in scalding water, to take off their strong taste—the tomatoes, and herbs. Boil slowly until you can rub the vegetables through a colander. Add them to the soup; season; heat almost to the third boil, and pour out.

ROAST CHICKENS.

Draw, wash, and stuff a pair of full-grown chickens. Truss, and lay in a dripping-pan. Dash a cup of boiling water over them, and roast one hour, or until tender and brown. Baste very often—twice, after they begin to brown, with butter. Sprinkle the giblets with salt, and set away for to-morrow. Pour the gravy, after the chickens are taken up, into a bowl, set in cold water, and take off the fat. Put into a saucepan, thicken with browned flour; season; boil once, and serve in a boat.

LIMA BEANS.

Shell; cook forty minutes in boiling salted water; drain, pepper, salt, and butter, and serve in a vegetable-dish.

BROILED POTATOES.

Slice cold boiled potatoes lengthwise, and rather thick. Lay between the wires of an oyster-broiler, and cook at a hot fire to a light brown on both sides. Sprinkle with pepper and salt; lay a bit of butter upon each, and eat hot.

RAW TOMATOES.

Pare, slice, and put into a salad-dish. Mix in a bowl a teaspoonful of sugar, half as much, each, of made mustard, pepper, and salt; add, gradually, two tablespoonfuls of salad-oil, and the yolk of an egg. Beat to a cream, and whip in, a little at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Pour over the tomatoes, and set the salad upon ice until needed.

SQUASH PIE.

1 pint of boiled, mashed, and strained squash; 2 cups of milk; 1 cup of sugar; 4 eggs, beaten light; ½ teaspoonful of ginger, and 1 teaspoonful mixed mace and cinnamon.

Beat all well together, and bake in open shells.

First Week. Friday. —— Cat-fish Soup. Scalloped Oysters. Roulettes of Chicken. Beets. Fried Sweet Potatoes. —— Amber Pudding. ——

CAT-FISH SOUP.

6 fresh-water cat-fish, in weight about half a pound each; 1 pint of milk; 4 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet with cold milk; 1 onion; 1 teaspoonful essence of celery, and same of anchovy sauce; 2 tablespoonfuls chopped celery; 2 beaten eggs; 3 quarts of cold water.

Cut up the fish, when you have skinned them and removed the heads. Put into a pot, with the onion and water, and boil until the fish are in rags. Strain, return to the pot, add the corn-starch, and, when this has thickened, the butter, a teaspoonful at a time. Season with pepper, salt, celery, and anchovy, and pour into the tureen. Have ready the hot milk, mixed and cooked one minute with the beaten eggs and parsley. Add this to the hot soup; stir well, and serve. Pass sliced lemon and oyster crackers with it.

SCALLOPED OYSTERS.

3 pints of oysters; 1 cup of rolled cracker; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; pepper; salt; juice of a lemon. (Cayenne pepper is best for this purpose.)

Butter a neat pudding-dish. Strain the oysters from their liquor; spread upon a cloth; take up, one by one, and put on a drop or so of lemon-juice; roll in cracker-dust, pepper, and salt, and lay in the dish. When the bottom is covered, drop bits of butter here and there, and proceed to put on another layer of crumbs and seasoned oysters. Having filled your dish, strew cracker-dust over all; stick bits of butter upon it, and wet well with a cup of oyster-liquor. Bake, covered, half an hour, or until the juice bubbles up at the edges; then brown upon the upper grating of the oven.

ROULETTES OF CHICKEN.

Cut off the meat from the skeletons of your roast chickens. Put on the bones and stuffing in a quart of water, and stew down to one pint. Meantime, chop the chicken meat fine; mix with one-fourth as much fine crumbs, wet with yesterday’s gravy; add the gizzards, boiled and minced, and the boiled livers pounded; season to taste; bind all with beaten egg; make into balls, and dip into a batter made of three-quarters of a cup of milk, two eggs, about one scant cup of prepared flour, or just enough to make rather thin batter, salted to taste. Fry, as you dip each roulette, in hot lard, or dripping; drain off the fat, and pile them upon a dish. Cool, strain, and season the gravy from the bones; thicken, should it need it; boil once, and serve in a boat to go around with the roulettes. They are a nice _entrée_.

BEETS.

Cut off the tops and wash. Boil one hour in hot, salted water; scrape and slice. Dish and pour over them a mixture of one tablespoonful of melted butter heated, with one of vinegar, and seasoned with pepper and salt.

FRIED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil, and let them get cold. Then, scrape off the skins; slice lengthwise, and fry to a light brown in good dripping or salted lard.

AMBER PUDDING.

6 eggs beaten light; 1 cup of sugar, creamed with ½ cup of butter; juice of a lemon, and half the grated peel; a good pinch of nutmeg; puff paste.

Mix sugar, butter, eggs, together; put into a custard-kettle, set in hot water, and stir until it thickens. Stir in lemon and nutmeg, and let it get cold. Put a strip of paste around the edge of a pie-plate; print it prettily; pour in the cold mixture, and bake in a steady, not too hot oven. Eat cold.

First Week. Saturday. —— Ox-tail Soup. Corned Beef. Boiled Turnips. Mashed Potatoes. Horseradish Sauce. —— Bubble Pudding. ——

OX-TAIL SOUP.

2 ox-tails; 3 lbs. lean beef; 4 carrots; 3 onions; thyme and parsley; 8 quarts of cold water; 4 tablespoonfuls of butter for frying; pepper, salt, and browned flour.

Cut the tails into short pieces, and fry to a good brown. Take them from the pan, and fry two sliced carrots and two sliced onions in the same butter. Lay the meat, cut into strips, in the bottom of a soup-pot; upon them the fried onions and carrots, upon these the ox-tails. Grate the two whole carrots, and slice the whole onion; cover the tails with them. Put in the herbs, and pour in the water. It is a good plan to fry the tails, onions, and carrots overnight, as the soup should have at least six hours’ boil. There should be six quarts of soup. Strain it off. Put meat and tails into your stock-pot, season well, and pour on four quarts of the soup. Keep in a cold place for future use.

Rub the vegetables through the colander into the portion reserved for to-day; cool and skim; put back over the fire; bring to a boil; season and skim; then thicken with browned flour—about two tablespoonfuls—wet up with cold water. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

CORNED BEEF.

Cook in plenty of cold water at the back of the range. Fast boiling toughens meat. Boil eighteen or twenty minutes to the pound. Take out, wipe quickly, and rub all over with butter. Send horseradish sauce around with it. Save the pot-liquor.

BOILED TURNIPS.

Peel and quarter the turnips. Dip out a pint of pot-liquor from your boiling beef; strain, heat, and skim it, and while boiling hot, put in the turnips. Cook soft, but not to breaking; drain, and lay about the beef in its dish, with parsley sprigs or cresses, as an edging.

MASHED POTATOES.

Whip light with a fork until dry and mealy; then beat in butter, milk, and salt.

HORSERADISH SAUCE.

Heat and strain a cupful of the beef pot-liquor. Stir into it a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in a teaspoonful of flour. When it thickens, take from the fire and whip in the whisked white of an egg; then two tablespoonfuls of grated horseradish, and the juice of a lemon. Set in boiling water until wanted.

BUBBLE PUDDING.

1 quart of fresh milk; 5 eggs, well beaten; 3 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; nutmeg to taste; pinch of soda in the milk.

Scald the milk; stir in the corn-starch; cook one minute, and pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Season, whip up well; pour into a round-bottomed mould, well buttered; fit on the top; set in a pot of boiling water; boil three-quarters of an hour; turn out upon a dish, and eat with wine sauce. It will almost certainly break in two on the way to table, hence the name.

Second Week. Sunday. —— Clear Soup. Chickens and Mushrooms. Squash au Gratin. Creamed Potatoes. Breaded Egg-plant. —— Spanish Cream. ——

CLEAR SOUP.

Take the fat from your soup stock; dip out two quarts, or more, as you may need, warm it over the fire with an onion, simmer and skim until clear; strain; add two tablespoonfuls of sparkling gelatine soaked in a very little water; put in, also, a teaspoonful of essence of celery, the juice of a lemon, and a glass of good wine. Boil up once, take off the film from the top, and pour out.

CHICKENS AND MUSHROOMS.

Clean and wash a pair of fine fowls, and stuff their bodies with chopped mushrooms, in which a teaspoonful of onion has been mixed. Fill the craws with the usual dressing of seasoned crumbs with the addition of the pounded yolk of an egg. Lay the trussed chickens in a pot, and pour over them a large cupful of your soup-stock diluted with as much boiling water. Simmer until tender. Take up and keep the chickens hot. Strain the gravy; season to taste, skim off the fat; stir in a tablespoonful of flour wet with milk; boil and stir two minutes to thicken; add half a cup of hot milk; stir in well, and pour some over the chickens; the rest into a boat. Save the giblets for to-morrow.

SQUASH AU GRATIN.

Pare, quarter, and boil the squash; mash and press to get out the water; beat in a good spoonful of butter with pepper, salt, and a little cream. Pour into a bake-dish; strew with fine crumbs, and bake in a quick oven until these are slightly browned.

CREAMED POTATOES.

Put into a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little minced parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Stir to hissing, add a small cup of milk (with a pinch of soda), and, when hot, a teaspoonful of flour. Stir until it boils; chop cold boiled potatoes, put into the cream, and serve so soon as they begin to boil.

BREADED EGG-PLANT.

Slice, and pare the slices. Lay in strong salt water one hour; wipe dry; dip in beaten egg, and roll in pounded cracker. Fry to a good brown; drain well, and dish hot.

SPANISH CREAM.

½ box of gelatine; 1 quart of milk; yolks of 3 eggs; 1 small cup of sugar; flavor with vanilla, or other essence.

Soak the gelatine one hour in the milk. Put into a farina-kettle, and stir as it warms. When hot, pour over the beaten yolks and sugar; put back into the kettle, and heat to scalding. Strain through tarlatan; flavor and pour into a wet mould. Do this on Saturday, and set in a cold place. Eat with cream, or without.

Second Week. Monday. —— Vermicelli Soup. Mutton Chops. Baked Sweet Potatoes. Tomato Sauce. Savory Rice Pudding. —— Oranges, Bananas, and Pears. ——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

Add the remains of yesterday’s soup to what remains in your stock-pot. Dilute with a little boiling water, and heat all to a boil. Strain out the ox-tails, etc., which have done such good service. Although it _is_ Monday, make time to put them into a pot, by and by, with the skeletons of yesterday’s chickens. Cover them with the skimmed liquor in which the corned beef was cooked on Saturday, and warm slowly to a boil, then, put back into the stock-pot for to-morrow’s soup. As to to-day’s soup, add seasoning to taste; boil up and skim, and, ten minutes before serving, drop in a handful of vermicelli, broken small, and cooked ten minutes in boiling water. Boil up once and serve.

MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim off fat and skin; leave a bare piece of bone at the top of each; broil over or under a bright fire; salt, pepper, and butter each one, and lay upon a hot dish, the large end of each overlapping the small end of that beyond it.

BAKED SWEET POTATOES.

Wash, and lay in a moderate oven. When they are soft between the fingers, they are done. Serve in the skins.

TOMATO SAUCE.

Pare, slice, and stew twenty minutes. Then season with pepper, salt, and sugar; stir in a good lump of butter rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes, and serve.

SAVORY RICE PUDDING.

1 cup of boiled rice; ½ cup of gravy from yesterday’s chickens; the giblets, boiled and chopped; 2 eggs; 3 tablespoonfuls of milk; 1 teaspoonful of flour; pepper and salt.

Beat the eggs into the rice; add gravy, milk, seasonings, giblets; lastly, the flour wet up in milk. Beat well; pour into a mould; set in a dripping-pan of hot water, and cook one hour. Turn out, and eat hot.

ORANGES, BANANAS, AND PEARS.

Atone to the so-by-herself-considered queen of the lower realms for such a “quare lot of mussing on a washin’ day,” by serving a pretty fruit dessert, and seeing to it that it _is_ pretty and good.

Second Week. Tuesday. —— Green Bean Soup. Beef à la Reine. Purée of Turnips. Potato Cakes. Lettuce Salad. —— Custard Bread Pudding. ——

GREEN BEAN SOUP.

Take the fat from your soup-stock; add a quart of boiling water, and strain from the _débris_. Put over the fire; boil, and take off the scum; then put in a scant quart of fresh kidney or Lima beans. Boil slowly at the back of the range until the beans break to pieces. Rub through a colander; season as required; put in a teaspoonful of essence of celery, and pour upon dice of fried bread already in the tureen.

BEEF À LA REINE.