Part 41

POTATO CROQUETTES.

Mash soft with butter, salt, and milk. Beat light with two eggs (for a large dish). Heat in a greased saucepan, stirring all the while, until quite stiff. Let it get cold; make into croquettes; roll in raw egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry to a nice brown in plenty of dripping. Drain off the fat, and serve.

APPLE SAUCE.

See Wednesday, Second Week in November.

BATTER PUDDING.

1 liberal pint of milk; 4 eggs; 2 even cups of flour—_prepared_; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Beat the yolks; add milk and salt; then the flour; lastly, the whites. Bake at once in a buttered dish, forty-five minutes. Eat hot, with a good sauce.

Third Week. Thursday. —— Chicken Cream Soup. Ragoût of Rabbits. Parsnip Fritters. Stewed Celery. Glazed Sweet Potatoes. —— Orange Tartlets. ——

CHICKEN CREAM SOUP.

Boil an old fowl, with an onion, in four quarts of cold water, until there remain but two quarts. Take it out, and let it get cold. Cut off the whole of the breast, and chop very fine. Mix with the pounded yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and rub through a colander. Cool, skim, and strain the soup into a soup-pot. Season; add the chicken-and-egg mixture; simmer ten minutes, and pour into the tureen. Then add a small cup of boiling milk.

RAGOÛT OF RABBITS.

Pair of rabbits; ½ lb. of fat salt pork; 1 large onion; 1 tablespoonful of butter, and same of browned flour; pepper and salt; ½ lemon, peeled and sliced _thin_; glass of sherry; ½ cup of gravy.

Slice the onion; dredge with flour, and fry brown in the butter. Add half a cupful of gravy, and, when well mixed, turn all into a saucepan. Put in the rabbits, jointed as for fricassee, the sliced bacon, and lemon. Season; cover closely, and stew an hour, or until the meat is tender. Thicken with browned flour; boil once, and pour out.

PARSNIP FRITTERS.

Scrape and halve the parsnips. Boil tender in hot salted water. Mash smooth, picking out the woody bits. Add a beaten egg to every four parsnips, a teaspoonful of flour—pepper and salt at your discretion, and enough milk to make into a thick batter. Drop, by the spoonful, into hot lard, and fry brown. Drain in a hot colander, and dish.

STEWED CELERY.

Scrape, and cut into short bits. Cook tender in hot salted water. Pour this off; add enough cold milk to cover the celery. Heat to a boil; stir in a good spoonful of butter rolled in flour, pepper and salt. Stew five minutes longer.

GLAZED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil soft, peel carefully, and lay in a greased dripping-pan in a good oven. As they begin to crust over, baste with a little butter, repeating this several times, as they brown. When glossy, and of a golden russet, dish.

ORANGE TARTLETS.

2 fine oranges, juice of both, and grated peel of one; ¾ cup of sugar; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; juice of ½ a lemon; 1 teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet up with lemon-juice and a little cold water.

Beat all to a smooth cream, and bake in small paste shells.

Third Week. Friday. —— Egg Soup. Panned Oysters. Fowl and Rice Croquettes. Potatoes à l’Italienne. Canned Corn Pudding. —— Boiled Custards and Cake. ——

EGG SOUP.

Heat all your soup-stock, adding hot water, should there not be two quarts. Cook gently half an hour; strain, pressing all the strength out of the meat; cool, skim off the fat; season; return to the fire, and when it boils, pour upon six beaten raw eggs. Put back into the soup-kettle, and stir until it _begins_ to thicken. It must not boil. Put strips of crisp toast into the tureen, and pour on the soup.

PANNED OYSTERS.

Butter a number of small tins with upright sides, like those of muffin-rings. Cut rounds of bread to fit the bottoms; toast these, butter well, and fit each into its place. Wet with oyster-liquor; then lay in as many oysters as the tins will hold; dust with pepper and salt; put a bit of butter upon each, arrange the tins in a large dripping-pan; cover with another to keep in steam, and flavor, and cook eight minutes, or until the oysters “ruffle.” Send up in the tins—“hot and hot.”

FOWL AND RICE CROQUETTES.

Cut the meat from the skeleton of your cold chicken. Break up the bones, and cover with a quart of cold water, adding skin and gristle. Boil down to a pint, cool, take off the fat; return to the fire; salt, and put in half a cupful of raw rice. Cook in a farina-kettle until the rice is soft and dry; stir in, then, a tablespoonful of butter, and turn upon a flat dish, to cool. Meanwhile, put the minced chicken into a saucepan with a little of yesterday’s soup; season, and stir over the fire until very hot. Beat a raw egg into the cold rice; flour your hands, and make into oblong flat cakes. Put a great spoonful of mince in the hollowed centre of each; enclose by folding the rice upon it; roll each in flour; then in raw egg; lastly in pounded cracker, and fry to a fine yellow brown.

POTATOES À L’ITALIENNE.

Whip the boiled potatoes to a dry meal with a fork; still using the fork, beat in butter, salt, pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of cream. Pile, like rock-work, upon a stone-china dish, or within a pudding-dish that has a silver stand for the table, and brown delicately and quickly upon the upper grating of the oven.

CANNED CORN PUDDING.

Drain and chop the corn; add a cupful of milk, 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and 1 of sugar; pepper, salt, and 2 beaten eggs. Beat all light; pour in a greased bake-dish; bake, covered, half an hour; then brown.

BOILED CUSTARDS AND CAKE.

1 quart of milk; yolks of 5 eggs and the whites of 2, reserving 3 for the _méringue_; 6 tablespoonfuls of sugar; flavoring extract, 1 teaspoonful to the pint.

Heat the milk to scalding; pour gradually, upon the beaten yolks and two whites, whipped light with the sugar. Return to the custard-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken. When cold, flavor; pour into glass or china cups; whip the whites to a froth with a little sugar, and pile upon the top. Lay a preserved berry, or a bit of bright jelly, upon the top of each snowy heap. Eat with cake.

Third Week. Saturday. —— Good Beef Soup. Breaded Lamb Chops. Fried Potatoes. Scalloped Tomatoes. Baked Onions. —— Suet Dumplings. ——

GOOD BEEF SOUP.

6 lbs. of shin beef, cut in strips; 2 lbs. of bones, cracked; 4 stalks of celery; 1 onion; 3 carrots; 2 turnips; bunch of sweet herbs; pepper and salt; 7 quarts of water.

Put on the meat and bones in the water, and cook slowly, skimming often, for two hours. Add the herbs and all the sliced vegetables except one carrot, and cook two hours more. Strain off the liquor; put bones and meat, well seasoned, into your stock-pot; add the soup (there should be at least five quarts in all) except what is needed for to-day, and put away for future use. Pulp the vegetables into to-day’s soup; cool, take off the fat; season; put back over the fire; add the reserved carrot, which should have been cut into dice and cooked by itself in a little water; simmer ten minutes, and pour out.

BREADED LAMB CHOPS.

Trim neatly; flatten with the side of a hatchet; pepper and salt; dip into beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry in good dripping, turning when the lower side is done. Drain off the fat, and lay upon a dish, overlapping each other, with a wall of fried potatoes around them.

FRIED POTATOES.

Pare; slice thin; lay in cold water half an hour; dry between two towels, and fry to a light brown in nice dripping or salted lard. Shake off all the fat in a hot colander, and pile around the chops.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

Drain off most of the liquid from a can of tomatoes into the boiling soup-kettle. Put a layer of crumbs in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish; butter them, and lay in the tomatoes, seasoned with pepper, salt, and sugar. Cover with buttered crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour—then brown.

BAKED ONIONS.

Cook in two waters—the second, salted and boiling. When tender, drain; set closely together in a bake-dish. Pepper, salt, and butter liberally; pour over them a little of your soup-stock, strained through a cloth; brown in a good oven; lay in a deep dish, and pour over them the gravy thickened with browned flour, and cooked one minute.

SUET DUMPLINGS.

2 cups fine crumbs soaked in a cup of hot milk; 1 cup powdered suet; 4 beaten eggs; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; 1 teaspoonful cream-tartar mixed with 1 tablespoonful of flour; ½ teaspoonful of soda dissolved in the milk; a little salt.

Beat the eggs into the soaked crumbs; add salt, suet, sugar, lastly, the flour. Beat and knead hard, make into balls; put into floured cloths; leave room to swell; tie tightly, and boil one hour. Eat hot, with sauce.

Fourth Week. Sunday. —— Macaroni Soup. Roast Goose. Apple Sauce. Sweet Potatoes. Canned String-Beans. Cauliflower. —— Chocolate and Cocoanut Blanc-Mange. White Cake. Coffee. ——

MACARONI SOUP.

Skim your stock; pour off and strain two quarts; heat to a slow boil; add a tablespoonful of walnut catsup; skim well, and drop in half a cupful of fancy macaroni, which has been cooked ten minutes in a little boiling water. Simmer five minutes, and serve.

ROAST GOOSE.

Be wary in the selection of even what the poulterer assures you is a “green goose,” and should you be “sold,” as well as the bird, take the disappointment good-naturedly. Wash out and wipe dry the body of the goose; add to the usual dressing of crumbs, pepper, salt, etc., a tablespoonful of melted butter; a tablespoonful of minced onion; half as much powdered sage, some bits of fat pork, and the yolks of two eggs. Put into the dripping-pan with two cupfuls of boiling water, and roast, if of fair size, two hours, basting often and very copiously. When half done, cover the breast with a stiff paste of flour and water, removing when you are ready to brown it. Take the fat from the gravy; thicken with browned flour, add a glass of sherry, salt, and pepper; boil and serve in a boat.

APPLE SAUCE.

See Wednesday, Second Week in November.

SWEET POTATOES.

Cook as directed on Sunday, Third Week in November.

CANNED STRING-BEANS.

See “French Beans,” Tuesday, Third Week in November.

CAULIFLOWER.

Tie in a net, and cook about forty-five minutes in boiling, salted water. Drain; lay in a deep dish, blossom upward, and pour on a cupful of rich drawn butter, with the juice of a lemon stirred in.

CHOCOLATE AND COCOANUT BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk; 3 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch—heaping; 1 cup of sugar; whites of 4 eggs; vanilla flavoring; 3 tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate; 1 grated cocoanut.

Heat the milk; rub the corn-starch smooth with a little cold milk; stir into the hot milk, first the sugar, then the corn-starch. When it is a smooth paste, whip in the frothed whites; cook one minute, and pour off half of the mixture into a bowl upon half the grated cocoanut. Beat in well. Add to that on the fire the chocolate, rubbed smooth in a little milk, and stir until the blanc-mange is colored. Wet a mould; when the chocolate-mixture is cold, pour half into the mould, and set where it will get cold fast. After half an hour, or so soon as it will bear the weight, put the cocoanut in carefully, and when this is quite firm, add the rest of the chocolate. Next day turn it out upon a dish, and heap the other half of the cocoanut—newly grated—over it. Send around a good boiled custard cold with it. Do this on Saturday.

WHITE CAKE.

Please refer to “General Receipts,” Series No. 1, of “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,” page 334.

Fourth Week. Monday. —— Medley Soup. Réchauffé of Goose. Stewed Salsify. Potato Cones, Baked. Cranberry Sauce. —— Apple Méringue. ——

MEDLEY SOUP.

When you have cut the meat from the carcass of the goose, break up the bones; put on with the stuffing in two quarts of water, and boil down to one. Strain; skim; add what stock remains in your stock-jar, and simmer half an hour. The stuffing should thicken the soup sufficiently, and almost season it. Pour out into the tureen.

RÉCHAUFFÉ OF GOOSE.

Cut the meat into neat slices, and lay in a saucepan with minced ham, and a little onion between the slices. Cover with gravy, and heat slowly until near the boiling-point. Take up the meat; lay upon a dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour; add a spoonful of currant jelly; boil up, and pour over the meat.

STEWED SALSIFY.

Scrape, and cut each root in two, dropping into water as you scrape them. Stew in boiling water, a little salt, until tender; pour off the water; add enough milk to cover the roots; when it boils, stir in a piece of butter rolled in flour; pepper and salt; simmer five minutes, and pour out.

POTATO CONES—BAKED.

Mash or whip boiled potatoes light; mix with a little very finely minced parsley a little butter, a great spoonful of cream, and the yolks of two beaten eggs. Make into cone-shaped loaves, about as large as an egg; set in a greased baking-pan; wash over with beaten egg, and brown in a quick oven.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.

See Sunday, Third Week in November.

APPLE MÉRINGUE.

Sweeten and spice some nice apple sauce; beat in two or three eggs. Pour into a pudding-dish, and bake quickly. When well crusted over, cover with a _méringue_ made by whipping stiff the whites of three eggs with a little sugar. Shut the oven-door, and tinge slightly.

Fourth Week. Tuesday. —— Baked Bean Soup. Veal Cutlets. Fried Parsnips. Sausage and Cabbage. Celery Salad. —— Macaroni Pudding. ——

BAKED BEAN SOUP.

On Monday morning put a quart of beans in soak. By evening, put them to boil at the back of the range, and cook until soft. Early on Tuesday morning put them into a pudding-dish with a pound of parboiled streaked pork, and bake brown. Cut the bacon into strips; put into a soup-pot with the beans, a sliced onion, and three stalks of celery. Pour on three quarts of cold water, and boil down to two. Rub through a colander; return to the fire; season to taste; add a teaspoonful of flour into which a tablespoonful of butter has been rubbed. Simmer ten minutes, and pour upon dice of fried bread placed in the tureen.

VEAL CUTLETS.

Flatten with side of a hatchet; pepper, salt, dip in raw egg, then in cracker-dust; fry in a little butter, turning as they brown. Dish, and pour over them some drawn butter in which has been cooked a great spoonful of tomato catsup.

FRIED PARSNIPS.

Boil tender in a little hot water, salted. Scrape, cut into long slices; dredge with flour and fry in hot lard or dripping. Drain off the fat, and serve.

SAUSAGE AND CABBAGE.

Quarter and parboil a fine, white cabbage, and put on to boil in hot water with six or eight “link” sausages, having previously pricked these slightly. When the cabbage is tender, drain and chop, adding pepper, salt, a little butter and vinegar heated together. Pile upon a hot dish, laying the sausages about the cabbage.

CELERY SALAD.

Scrape and cut blanched celery into inch lengths. Put into a glass dish, and pour over it a dressing made by rubbing a teaspoonful of sugar with half as much, each, of pepper, salt, and made mustard, with two tablespoonfuls of oil, and twice the quantity of vinegar, added gradually.

MACARONI PUDDING.

1 cup macaroni broken into equal lengths; 1 quart of milk; 4 eggs; ½ lemon; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; ¾ cup of sugar, a little mace.

Simmer the macaroni in half the milk until tender. Heat and add the other pint. While hot stir in the butter, the yolks beaten up with sugar, the mace, lemon-juice and peel—finally the whisked whites. Bake half an hour in a buttered mould—covered—then brown.

Fourth Week. Wednesday. —— Venison Soup. Boiled Leg of Mutton. Mashed Turnips. Stewed Tomatoes. Stuffed Potatoes. —— Pancakes. ——

VENISON SOUP.

3 lbs. of venison, the coarser parts of the meat will do; 1 lb. lean ham; 1 onion sliced; 3 stalks of celery; 5 quarts of water; 1 can of corn, drained and chopped, pepper and salt; butter and flour.

Cut up the meat and put on with the onion, celery, and water. Stew slowly three and a half hours. Strain, pressing hard; cool, skim, and return the soup to the fire with the chopped corn. Stew half an hour; add the seasoning, a lump of butter rolled in flour, a half-cup of tomato-juice, and simmer ten minutes more.

If you cannot get venison use mutton for this soup.

BOILED LEG OF MUTTON.

Put on in plenty of boiling water, a little salt. Cook fifteen minutes to the pound. When done, wipe dry and rub all over with butter. Make a boat of drawn butter, using as a base a cup of the strained pot-liquor, and, when made, add a great spoonful of chopped cucumber pickle.

Of course you will pour the pot-liquor into the stock-jar.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Pare, quarter, and cook the turnips tender in boiling salted water. Mash in a hot colander; add butter, pepper, and salt, and serve in a hot dish.

STEWED TOMATOES.

See Thursday, Second Week in November.

STUFFED POTATOES.

Bake large potatoes soft, and cut a round piece from the top of each. Scrape out the insides carefully and mash smooth with butter, cream, and a little grated cheese.

Beat soft with milk, season with pepper and salt, and heat in a greased saucepan, stirring all the time. Fill the skins with the mixture, put on the caps and set in the oven for three minutes. Serve upon a dish lined with a napkin.

PANCAKES.

2 cups of prepared flour; 6 eggs; 1 saltspoonful of salt; milk to make a _thin_ batter.

Beat the eggs light; add salt, two cups of milk, then, the whites and flour alternately with milk, until the batter is of the right consistency. Run a teaspoonful of lard over the bottom of a hot frying-pan, pour in a large ladleful of batter, and fry quickly. Roll the pancake up like a sheet of paper; lay upon a hot dish; put in more lard, and fry another pancake. Keep hot over boiling water, sending half a dozen to the table at a time. Eat with sauce.

Fourth Week. Thursday. —— Mutton and Rice Soup. Chickens à la Viennoise. Hominy Croquettes. Spinach. Lima Beans. —— Bread and Custard Pudding. ——

MUTTON AND RICE SOUP.

Take all the fat from the liquor in which your mutton was boiled; put it over the fire with a cup of raw rice, and cook slowly until the latter is boiled to pieces. Strain through the soup-sieve, add seasoning to taste, and some finely minced parsley. Heat to boiling, and pour into the tureen. Add a cup of hot milk, in which have been beaten two raw eggs—the milk having cooked for a minute to thicken them.

CHICKENS À LA VIENNOISE.

Clean, wash, and wipe a pair of chickens. Parboil the giblets; chop them fine, with a very little onion, the pounded yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and seasoning to your taste. Add a handful of crumbs, and stuff the chickens with this force-meat. Boil in plenty of hot water, slightly salt, three-quarters of an hour, having sewed up each in coarse netting. Put them into a broad saucepan, in which have been melted two tablespoonfuls of nice dripping, and the same of butter. The fowls should have been wiped dry, and the fat be hot when you put them in. Turn twice while you brown them over a quick fire. When russet-colored all over, dish, and pour over them a few spoonfuls of butter, heated with a tablespoonful of tomato catsup. Save the liquor in which the fowls were boiled.

HOMINY CROQUETTES.

2 cups of fine-grained hominy, boiled, and cold; 2 beaten eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; salt to taste.

Rub butter and sugar into the hominy until the latter is smooth; then beat in the eggs. Make into rolls with floured hands; roll in flour, and fry to a good color. Drain well.

SPINACH.

Pick off the leaves. Boil in hot salted water twenty minutes. Drain, chop fine, and return to the saucepan, with a piece of butter, salt, sugar, pepper, and a pinch of mace. Beat in two tablespoonfuls of cream, and, when smooth and hot, turn out.

LIMA BEANS.

Soak the dried beans all night; then proceed as with “Kidney Beans à l’Anglaise,” on Sunday, Second Week in November. Cook enough for a hot dish to-day, and bean salad to-morrow.

BREAD AND CUSTARD PUDDING.

1 quart of milk; 2 even cups of dried crumbs; 4 eggs; 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar; cinnamon; ½ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped; 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.

Soak the crumbs in a pint of the milk, and heat to scalding in a custard-kettle. Beat to a mush; put in the butter, and beat again one minute. Butter a pudding-dish; pour a half-cupful of the mush in the bottom; sprinkle with cinnamon, and strew with raisins, more batter, spice, and fruit, until all are in. Heat the other pint of milk; pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar; pour this custard, without boiling, over the pudding. Bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover, spread upon the custard—if fully “set”—a _méringue_ of the whites, whipped stiff with a little powdered sugar. Eat warm—not hot—with cream and sugar, or butter and sugar.

Fourth Week. Friday. —— Graham Soup. Fricassee of Canned Salmon. Chicken Dumplings. Salsify Sauté. Macaroni, with Bacon. Bean Salad. —— Pumpkin Pie. ——

GRAHAM SOUP.

3 onions; 3 carrots; 3 turnips; ½ cabbage; 6 stalks of celery; ½ can of tomatoes; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; ½ cup of milk (cream is better); pepper and salt; 3 quarts of water; a little sugar; sweet herbs.

Chop the vegetables, and put all over the fire in the water, excepting the cabbage and tomatoes. Parboil the cabbage, and add at the end of half an hour’s boil. Half an hour later, put in the tomatoes and chopped herbs. Boil sharply twenty minutes; add sugar, pepper, and salt. Rub the soup through a colander. Return to the fire; stir in the floured butter; simmer five minutes, turn into the tureen, and stir in the hot milk or cream.

FRICASSEE OF SALMON.

1 can fresh salmon; 2 beaten eggs; 1 cup of drawn butter; 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce; 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine; cayenne and salt to taste; capers, or minced green pickles.

Stew the fish—broken into rather coarse bits—in the can-liquor ten minutes. If there is not enough liquor, cook in a little water. Add the drawn butter, and, when these are well mixed, the beaten eggs. Stir five minutes; put in the chopped eggs and pickles. Heat one minute, and pour into a deep dish.

CHICKEN DUMPLINGS.

Meat from your cold fowls, minced fine; ½ cup of gravy; yolks of 3 raw eggs; 1 tablespoonful of flour; pepper and salt; batter made of 1 egg; ½ cup of milk, and a little flour; cracker-crumbs.

Put chopped meat and seasoning, with a little of the liquor in which the chickens were boiled, into a saucepan, and heat to a gentle boil. Stir in the flour wet in a little cold water, and a minute later the beaten yolks. Stir to thickening; pour out, and let it get cold and stiff. Flour your hands, and make the paste into flattened balls. Roll in cracker-dust, dip in the batter, again in the cracker, and fry in hot lard. Drain, and serve hot.

N.B.—Boil the skeletons and stuffing of the chickens in the rest of the pot-liquor, and put by, well seasoned, in the stock-jar.

SALSIFY SAUTÉ.

See Thursday, First Week in November.

MACARONI WITH BACON.

Boil half a pound of macaroni, broken up small, in a little weak “stock,” salted, twenty minutes. Drain; stir in a quarter of a pound of streaked bacon, boiled and minced _very_ fine; put into a buttered bake-dish; pour on a very little soup-stock; cover with rolled crackers, seasoned well; put bits of butter on top; bake, covered, half an hour—then brown.

BEAN SALAD.

Put the cold Lima beans into a salad-dish; and pour on such a dressing as was made for cold slaw on Monday, First Week in November.

PUMPKIN PIE.

1 quart milk; 1 pint stewed pumpkin, rubbed through a colander; 4 eggs; 1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace, and half as much nutmeg; 1 scant cup of sugar; a little salt. Beat all well together, and bake in open crust. Eat cold.