Part 4

Put the egg into the thickened milk when you have stirred in the butter and liquor; take from the fire, season, and let it stand in hot water three minutes, covered. Lastly, put in the lemon-juice and turn out immediately. Pour it all over and about the pudding. Cut the latter into slices when helping it out.

BEEFSTEAK.

First of all, let me recommend the plan of broiling a steak under, instead of over the grate. I have found so many and manifest advantages in the former method that I have had a gridiron made to fit beneath my range.

Wipe the steak dry, and broil upon a buttered gridiron, turning frequently, whenever it begins to drip. When done, which should be in twelve minutes, if your fire is clear and strong, lay upon a _hot_ dish—a chafing-dish is best—season with pepper and salt (not until then), and butter very liberally. Put over it a hot cover, and wait five minutes before sending to table, to draw the juices to the surface and allow the seasoning to penetrate the steak.

POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE.

Parboil a dozen potatoes at breakfast-time, and set aside, when you have peeled them, as they should get perfectly cold. When you are ready to cook them, heat some butter, or good dripping, in a frying-pan; fry in it one small onion, chopped fine, until it begins to change color—say about one minute. Then put in the potatoes, cut into dice, not too thick or broad. Stir well and cook five minutes, taking care the potatoes do not break to pieces. _They must not brown._ Put in some minced parsley just before taking them up. Drain dry by shaking in a heated colander. Serve very hot.

MACARONI WITH CHEESE.

Cook half a pound of pipe macaroni, broken into inch lengths, in boiling water until tender. Drain this off, and substitute a cupful of cold milk. When the macaroni has again come to a boil, season with pepper and salt and stir in a great spoonful of butter; lastly, two tablespoonfuls of dry, grated cheese. Turn into a deep dish, strew more cheese thickly over it, and it is ready for use.

SUSIE’S BREAD PUDDING.

1 quart of milk. 4 eggs. 3 cups very fine, dry bread-crumbs. 1 tablespoonful of melted butter. 1 teacupful white sugar. Juice and half the grated peel of a lemon.

Rub butter and sugar together. Beat the yolks of the four eggs and the white of one very light; mix the butter and sugar with these. Soak the crumbs in the milk, and beat in with the other ingredients, hard and fast. Add the lemon last. Bake in a buttered dish. When nearly done and fully “set,” even in the middle, spread with a _méringue_ made of the reserved whites, beaten stiff with a little sugar. It is good eaten warm—not really hot—or cold, especially if a little cream be poured over each saucerful.

Second Week. Wednesday. —— Bean Soup. Fillet of Veal, Stuffed. Baked Corn. Potato Cakes. Canned String-Beans. —— Baked Apple Dumplings. Brandy Sauce. ——

BEAN SOUP.

Soak a quart of dried beans all night in soft water. Throw this off next morning, and cover the beans for two hours in water a little more than lukewarm. Put over the fire with five quarts of cold water, and one pound of salt pork. A bone of veal or beef may be added, if you have it. Boil slowly for at least four hours; shred into it a small onion, four stalks of celery, pepper—the pork _may_ salt it sufficiently—simmer half an hour longer, rub through a colander until only husks and fibres remain, and send to table. Pass sliced lemon with it.

FILLET OF VEAL—STUFFED.

Make ready a force-meat of bread-crumbs, chopped thyme and parsley; pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg; a little dripping for shortening; moisten with warm water and bind with a raw egg.

If your butcher has not “put up” the fillet, remove the bone, pin the meat into a round with skewers; then bind firmly with a strip of muslin passed two or three times about it. Fill the cavity left by the bone with dressing, and thrust the same between the folds of the meat, besides making cuts with a sharp knife to receive more. Tuck in a strip of fat pork here and there. Baste three times with salt and water while roasting, afterwards with its own gravy. At last, dredge once with flour and baste with butter. Cut the bands, draw out the skewers carefully, and serve.

BAKED CORN.

To one can of corn allow a pint of milk (more if the corn be dry), three eggs, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one of white sugar, pepper and salt to taste. Beat the eggs very light, rub butter and sugar together and stir in hard; next, the corn and seasoning; finally, the milk. Beat hard, and bake in a buttered dish for half an hour, covered. Then brown by lifting the top. Send up in the bake-dish.

POTATO CAKES.

Boil and mash the potatoes, working in salt and butter and an egg or two—beaten light. Let them get cold; make into cakes of size and shape to suit yourself; roll in raw egg, then in flour, or cracker-dust, and fry quickly in hot dripping. Take each up as soon as it is done, and drain with a wire spoon, before laying upon a hot dish.

CANNED STRING-BEANS.

Cook in their own liquor half an hour, or until very tender. First, however, cut them into neat lengths. The comeliness of the dish depends upon this. When almost done, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, with salt and pepper. Simmer ten minutes longer, and serve by draining off the liquid and heaping the beans upon a hot dish, with a bit of butter on the top. If the can does not contain liquor enough to cover the beans, add a little cold water in cooking them.

BAKED APPLE DUMPLINGS.

1 quart prepared flour. 1 tablespoonful of butter and the same of lard. 1 pint of milk. 1 saltspoonful of salt. Some ripe apples.

Chop the shortening into the flour when you have sifted and salted the latter. Wet up with milk and roll out quickly in a sheet less than half an inch thick. Cut into squares; lay in the centre of each a tart, juicy apple, pared and cored. Bring the corners of the square together and pinch to join them neatly. Lay in a baking-pan, the joined edges downward, and bake to a fine brown. When done, brush over with butter and shut the oven door for a minute more to glaze them. Sift powdered sugar over them, and eat hot.

These are more wholesome and more easily prepared than boiled dumplings. Eat with sweet sauce.

BRANDY SAUCE.

2 cups of powdered sugar. ½ cup of butter. 1 wineglass of brandy. That from brandied peaches—the _liqueur_, if you have it. 1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.

Warm the butter slightly, work in the sugar until they form a rich cream, when add brandy and spice. Beat hard; shape by putting into a mould made _very_ wet with cold water, and set in a cool place to harden. Should it not turn out readily by shaking gently, dip for a second in hot water.

Second Week. Thursday. —— Veal and Sago Soup. Jugged Rabbit. Scalloped Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes, Fried. Minced Celery with Egg Dressing. —— Macaroni and Almond Pudding. ——

VEAL AND SAGO SOUP.

3 lbs. veal. ¼ lb. pearl sago. 3 quarts of water. 4 eggs. 1 pint of milk.

Cut the meat into bits; put on with the water and boil very slowly, with the pot-lid laid on loosely, four hours, until the meat is in rags. Strain through coarse net, or a wire soup-strainer (which you ought to possess), season with pepper and salt, and return to the kettle when you have scalded it out.

Meanwhile, the sago should have been washed and soaked in lukewarm water, for an hour. Stir it into the broth and let them simmer, stirring often, half an hour. Heat the milk scalding hot in another vessel, beat the yolks of the eggs light, reserving the whites for your pudding; pour gradually over these a cupful of the hot milk, and stir carefully into the soup with all the milk. Taste, to see if it needs more seasoning; add a little chopped parsley, if you like; let it almost boil and pour into the tureen. It should be about as thick as boiled custard. Should the sago thicken it too much, add boiling water.

A relishful and wholesome soup.

JUGGED RABBIT.

1 full-grown but tender rabbit or hare. ½ lb. corned ham. 1 cup of good gravy, saved from yesterday’s roast. Dripping for frying. 1 onion, sliced. Juice of 1 lemon. 1 tablespoonful currant jelly. Parsley, pepper and salt, and browned flour.

Joint the rabbit, and lay for an hour in salted water. Wipe dry and fry in the dripping, with the onion, until brown. Put in the bottom of a tin pail, or farina-kettle, a layer of salt pork cut into strips; upon this one of rabbit. Sprinkle with pepper and a little salt. Scatter fried onion over the rabbit and proceed in this order until your meat is used up. Pour in the gravy; cover the vessel, and set it in another of cold water. Bring gradually to a boil and stew steadily one hour, or until tender. Arrange the meat upon a dish; strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour wet up with cold water; boil up once; stir in the jelly and lemon-juice, heat to boiling, and pour over the rabbit. If you have no gravy, use a little butter and water instead.

SCALLOPED POTATOES.

3 cups mashed potato. 3 tablespoonfuls of milk. 3 hard-boiled eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 handful very dry bread-crumbs. Salt.

Work butter, milk, and salt into the hot mashed potatoes. Put a layer in the bottom of a pudding-dish well greased; cover this with thin slices of egg; salt and pepper; another stratum of potato, and so on, until the dish is full. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over the uppermost layer of potatoes. Stick bits of butter over this and bake, covered, until hot throughout; then brown quickly. Send up in the pudding-dish.

A simple and nice side-dish.

SWEET POTATOES—FRIED.

Boil, peel, and when cold, slice the potatoes neatly. Fry in good dripping until they are of a light brown. Drain from the fat and eat hot.

MINCED CELERY WITH EGG DRESSING.

Scrape and wash the celery and cut into half-inch lengths, having first crisped it in cold water. Rub the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs to a paste with a tablespoonful of oil; add salt, pepper, a little powdered sugar, vinegar to make the mixture liquid, and pour over the celery. Serve in a salad-bowl and eat at once, lest the celery should toughen in the vinegar.

MACARONI AND ALMOND PUDDING.

½ lb. macaroni. 3 pints of milk. 1 cup of white sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 5 eggs. ½ lb. sweet almonds, blanched and chopped. Rose-water and bitter almond flavoring. A little salt and nutmeg.

Simmer the macaroni half an hour in a pint of the milk. When tender, but not broken, put in butter and salt. Take the saucepan from the fire and turn out the contents to cool while you make a custard of the rest of the milk, the eggs and sugar. Add the latter to the scalding milk, but do not boil the custard. Chop the almonds when you have blanched them, _i. e._, taken off the skins with boiling water. As you chop, put in a few drops of rose-water from time to time, to prevent oiling. When the macaroni is almost cold, mix it with the custard, breaking it as little as may be. Season, and last of all, stir in the chopped almonds. Bake in a well-buttered pudding-dish. Spread with the _méringue_ made from the whites of the eggs reserved from the soup. Eat warm with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Second Week. Friday. —— Fish Chowder. Fricasseed Chicken, White. Potatoes à l’Italienne. Tomatoes Stewed with Onion. Cheese Fondu. —— Sponge Gingerbread. Chocolate. ——

FISH CHOWDER.

3 lbs. of cod, cut into strips an inch thick and four inches long, and freed from bone so far as is possible without breaking the fish. 1 pint of oysters. 2 large onions cut into thin slices. _About_ ½ lb. Boston crackers, split, and buttered thickly. Pepper and salt. 1 cup of milk. Parsley.

Cover the bottom of your soup-kettle with the fish; pepper and salt; strew with sliced onion, and this with the split crackers, buttered sides down. Follow this order until your ingredients are all in the pot, and cover them with cold water. Stew gently for an hour, keeping the water at the original level by replenishing from the tea-kettle. By this time the fish should be thoroughly done, if it has cooked steadily. Take it up with a perforated skimmer, and cover in the tureen to keep hot, while you strain the chowder to get out the bones, returning the crackers with the liquor to the soup-kettle, when you have rinsed it out. Thicken with two teaspoonfuls of corn-starch wet up in a cup of milk, and when this has boiled, add the oysters, cut small, two great spoonfuls of butter, and a little chopped parsley. Stew for three minutes, pour slowly over the fish in the tureen. Send sliced lemon around with it.

This is a most palatable chowder when properly prepared. You can use fewer crackers, if you dislike a thick soup.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN—WHITE.

One pair of full-grown fowls. ½ lb. salt pork cut into strips. 2 eggs. 1 cupful of milk. 2 tablespoonfuls of flour and the same of butter. 1 onion. Parsley, pepper and salt.

Joint the fowls neatly, and cut the back, neck, and breast apart from each other, the latter into two pieces. Lay them in salt water for half an hour. Put them into a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and the pork cut into thin strips. Cover and heat _very_ slowly. Stew constantly, but never fast, for one hour after it comes to a boil, or until the chickens are tender. The time will depend upon their age. If they are tough, put them on early and cook all the more slowly. Add now the onion, parsley, and pepper, with salt, if needed. Heat again, and stir in the flour wet up in the cup of milk. Beat the eggs and pour upon them a cupful of hot gravy; mix well, and put back into the soup with the butter. Just as the stew begins to simmer again, remove from the fire. Take out and pile the chicken upon a dish; then pour the gravy over all.

POTATOES À L’ITALIENNE.

Instead of mashing the potatoes with a beetle or spoon, whip them up light with a silver fork. When they are fine and mealy, beat in a few spoonfuls of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of two eggs, pepper and salt. Whip into a creamy heap before adding, with a few dexterous strokes, the stiffly-frothed whites. Pile roughly up on a buttered pie-dish; brown quickly in the oven, and transfer, with the help of a cake-turner, to a flat dish.

Make a rather too abundant dish, according to this receipt, as the residue will be found useful in to-morrow’s bill of fare.

TOMATOES STEWED WITH ONION.

Stew in the usual manner, adding a small onion minced fine. When they have cooked half an hour, season with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a good spoonful of butter. Simmer ten minutes more, uncovered, and turn out.

CHEESE FONDU.

1 cup of bread-crumbs, dry and fine. 2 scant cups of _fresh_ milk. ½ lb. dry, rich cheese, grated. 3 eggs, whipped light. 1 tablespoonful of melted butter. Pepper and salt. A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, the butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Pour into a neat pudding-dish, strew dry bread-crumbs over the top, and bake in a quick oven until delicately browned. Serve in the pudding-dish, and at once, as it _falls_ in cooling.

Very good!

SPONGE GINGERBREAD.

5 cups of flour, dried and sifted. Measure _after_ sifting. 1 cup of molasses. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 cup of sugar. 1 rather larger cup of sour, or buttermilk. 2 teaspoonfuls of saleratus (not soda), dissolved in hot water. 2 teaspoonfuls ginger. 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.

Mix molasses, sugar, butter, and spice together. Warm slightly, and beat hard for five minutes. Add the milk, then the soda, lastly the flour. Beat three minutes, and bake in a broad, shallow pan. Take heed that it does not burn. Eat warm.

CHOCOLATE.

6 tablespoonfuls of chocolate to each pint of boiling water. As much milk as you have chocolate. Sweeten to taste.

Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water, and stir into the hot. Boil twenty minutes; put in the milk, and boil five minutes more, stirring often. Sweeten at pleasure, while boiling, or in the cups. Send around with the warm gingerbread and some slices of mild cheese. You will not regret not having prepared a more pretentious dessert.

Second Week. Saturday. —— Clear Gravy Soup. Oyster Salad. Calf’s Liver à la Mode. Salsify Fritters. Potatoes à la Duchesse. —— Corn-meal Fruit Pudding. ——

CLEAR GRAVY SOUP.

5 lbs. lean beef, the coarser parts, of course. Some bones. 2 slices of lean corned ham. 2 carrots. 2 turnips. 6 stalks of celery. ¼ package Coxe’s gelatine. Pepper and salt. A bunch of sweet herbs. Dripping. 5 quarts of cold water.

Cut the meat into dice and slice the onions. Fry the latter brown in some good dripping. Take them out, and fry the meat in the same fat, turning often, until it has a thick brown coat. Put it, drained from the fat, into the soup-kettle, with two quarts of cold water, and set where it will come to a boil in about an hour. The bones should also be fried, and put into the pot with the meat. When these fairly boil, skim, add three quarts of cold water, and stew gently four hours. If you dine early, the soup should go on before breakfast. Put herbs and vegetables, including the fried onions, all chopped up, into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them, and boil to pieces. Strain the soup half an hour before dinner; season, return to the pot; boil and skim. Strain the vegetable liquor into it, without squeezing or rubbing. Boil up once more, skim well, and put in the gelatine, which should have soaked one hour in a little cold water. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

The soup should be of a clear, light brown. Should the color not suit you, burn a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup, add three or four spoonfuls of boiling water, stir until you get a deep color, and turn off the water into the soup. It will not injure the flavor.

Please never lose sight of the cardinal principle that all the essence, strength, and taste should be extracted from meat, vegetables, etc., in soup-making, and that the _soup which boils fast is lost_. Take plenty of time, and cast an eye into the kitchen from hour to hour until you have educated your cook up to a glimmering appreciation of this law of enlightened cookery.

OYSTER SALAD.

1 quart of oysters, cut, not chopped, into small pieces. 1 bunch of celery, also _cut_ small. 1 tablespoonful best oil. 1 small spoonful of salt, and the same of pepper, likewise of mustard (made). ⅛ cup cider vinegar. Saltspoonful of powdered sugar.

Drain the liquor from the oysters and cut them up. Add the minced celery. Prepare the seasoning, putting in the vinegar last, and pour the mixture over the celery and oysters. Toss up well with a silver fork. Do this just before dinner, as the salad will be injured by lying long in the dressing.

CALF’S LIVER À LA MODE.

1 calf’s liver. ½ lb. fat salt pork. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, or dripping. 2 small onions. 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley and marjoram. 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. 1 teaspoonful mixed cloves, mace, and allspice. 1 tablespoonful Worcestershire sauce. Pepper and salt to taste.

Wash the liver thoroughly, and soak half an hour in salted water. Wipe, make incisions about an inch apart, and lard with strips of pork, projecting slightly on each side. Fry the onions and herbs in the dripping. Take them out, put in the liver, and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, with the vinegar and water to cover the liver—barely. Cover closely, and stew gently an hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, strain the gravy, return to the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour, put in the sauce and spice; boil up and pour some of it over the liver, the rest into a gravy-boat. What is left from dinner will be nice for luncheon or tea, cut horizontally in thin slices.

SALSIFY FRITTERS.

1 bunch salsify. 2 eggs. ½ cup milk. Flour for thin batter. Lard, or dripping. Salt to taste.

Scrape and grate the roots, and stir into a batter made of the beaten eggs, the milk, and flour. Grate the salsify directly into this, that it may not blacken by exposure to the air. Salt, and drop a spoonful into the boiling fat to see if it is of the right consistency. As fast as you fry the fritters, throw into a hot colander to drain. One great spoonful of batter should make a fritter.

POTATOES À LA DUCHESSE.

Cut the remnants of yesterday’s potatoes _à l’Italienne_ into rounds with a cake-cutter, dipped in cold water. Set like biscuits, but not so near as to touch one another, in a greased pan, and bake quickly, brushing top and sides with beaten egg when they begin to brown. Serve upon a heated napkin folded flat, on a platter.

CORN-MEAL FRUIT PUDDING.

1 _heaping_ cup white Indian meal. 3 pints of milk. 1 cup of flour. 4 beaten eggs. 1 cup of white sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter. ½ lb. of raisins, seeded and cut in two. 1 teaspoonful of salt, and same of mixed mace and cinnamon. 1 teaspoonful of soda, and two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, sifted _twice_ with the flour.

Scald a pint of milk and wet up the meal with it, stirring well. While it is cooling, add the flour, wet into batter with a pint of cold milk. Heat the remaining pint, and when scalding, add sugar and eggs. Beat this gradually, _hard_ and long, into the cooled paste. When well mixed, put in butter, spice, and the fruit dredged with flour. Beat fast and deep for two minutes. Bake in a buttered dish, in a tolerably brisk oven. Cover with paper as it browns. It ought to be done in three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.

Third Week. Sunday. —— Tomato Soup. Roast Beef, with Yorkshire Pudding. Macaroni al Napolitano. Potatoes au naturel. French Beans, Sauté. Apple Sauce. Made Mustard. —— Narcissus Blanc-mange. Coffee. ——

TOMATO SOUP.

Stew one can of tomatoes half an hour; strain and rub through a colander into the soup left from yesterday. Heat to a slow boil, and simmer together ten minutes before serving.

ROAST BEEF, WITH YORKSHIRE PUDDING.

Have your meat ready for roasting on Saturday, always. Roast upon a grating or several clean sticks (not pine) laid over the dripping-pan. Dash a cup of boiling water over the beef when it goes into the oven; baste often, and see that the fat does not scorch. About three-quarters of an hour before it is done, mix the pudding.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING.

1 pint of milk. 4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately. 2 cups of flour—prepared flour is best. 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Use less flour if the batter grows too stiff. Mix quickly; pour off the fat from the top of the gravy in the dripping-pan, leaving just enough to prevent the pudding from sticking to the bottom. Pour in the batter and continue to roast the beef, letting the dripping fall upon the pudding below. The oven should be brisk by this time. Baste the meat with the gravy you have taken out to make room for the batter.

In serving, cut the pudding into squares and lay about the meat in the dish. It is very delicious.

MACARONI AL NAPOLITANO.

½ lb. of macaroni. 2 nice sweetbreads. 1 small onion, minced. Parsley, pepper, and salt. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.