Part 44

Trim off the hard skin, and flatten each steak with the side of a hatchet. Butter the gridiron well, and have the fire clear and hot. Turn often, not to lose a drop of the juice. Cook three or four minutes longer than you would beefsteaks. The Vertical Broiler is admirably adapted for broiling venison. Have ready, in a hot chafing-dish, a tablespoonful of butter for each pound of venison, a pinch of salt, a little pepper, a tablespoonful of currant jelly for each pound, and a glass of wine for every four pounds. This should be warmed by the hot water beneath the dish, by the time the venison is laid in it. Turn the steaks twice in it; cover; put fresh boiling water below, or light the lamp, and let it stand five minutes before serving.

OYSTER SALAD.

1 quart of oysters—cut, not chopped, to pieces; 1 bunch of celery, also cut small; 2 tablespoonfuls best salad oil; 1 teaspoonful of powdered sugar; ½ teaspoonful of salt, and the same of pepper and of made mustard; yolks of 2 raw eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls cider vinegar.

Beat the yolks light, with sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard. Whip in, gradually, the oil until the mixture is thick; add the vinegar—beating still—a little at a time. Put the oysters, drained and cut up, with the celery, into a salad-dish; pour over them the dressing; stir in well; garnish with a fringe of delicate celery-tops, and serve as soon as possible.

STEWED CELERY.

Scrape, and cut the stalks into rather short pieces. Cook tender in boiling salted water; drain this off, and add a cupful of drawn butter, well seasoned. Simmer in this five minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE.

12 parboiled and cold potatoes; 1 chopped onion; chopped parsley, pepper, and salt; butter, or dripping, for frying.

Slice, or chop the potatoes. Heat the dripping in a frying-pan. Put in the onion, and fry one minute; then cook the potatoes, adding the parsley and seasoning. Shake and stir constantly lest the potatoes should stick to the pan, or brown. They should be done in five minutes. Drain off the fat by shaking to and fro in a hot colander—then dish.

COTTAGE PUDDING.

1 cup of sugar; 1 tablespoonfuls of butter, creamed with the sugar; 2 eggs; 1 cup of milk; 3 cups of prepared flour; 1 teaspoonful—scant—of salt.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat up with the yolks; add the milk, the whipped whites—lastly, the flour. Bake in a buttered cake-mould. Turn out, when done, upon a hot plate. In serving, cut in slices, and eat with liquid sauce.

Third Week. Thursday. —— Vermicelli Soup. Veal Cutlets à la Milanaise. Stewed Beans. Hominy Pudding. Hot Slaw. —— Pumpkin Pie. ——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

4 lbs. knuckle of veal; 1 lb. lean ham; 2 carrots; 1 onion; 4 stalks of celery; bunch of herbs; 1 great spoonful of butter; 6 quarts of water; 4 tablespoonfuls of vermicelli, broken small, and boiled ten minutes in hot salted water.

Cut up the veal and ham into small pieces; slice the vegetables; put into a soup-pot in which you have melted a great spoonful of butter. Set where it will heat slowly; cover closely, and leave it for one hour, stirring now and then. Pour in, then, the cold water, and cook gently four hours. Drain off the liquid, pick out meat and bones, and put into the stock-jar; pour on all the soup not wanted for to-day’s use, season, and set away. Pulp the vegetables into to-day’s soup; season; cool, and remove the fat. Put over the fire, and boil and skim five minutes. Add the vermicelli—simmer one minute, and pour out.

VEAL CUTLETS À LA MILANAISE.

Make your butcher cut the cutlets very thin—about half the thickness of those usually sold. Flatten with the side of a hatchet; dip in beaten yolk of egg, then in cracker-dust, mixed with pepper and salt. Fry to a fine brown in hot dripping. Drain off the fat; lay upon a hot dish, and put upon the middle of each slice (they should not be more than four inches long by three wide) a spoonful of the following sauce: Make a half-cup of drawn butter; stir in the stiffened white of an egg, with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and the juice of half a lemon. Beat light with your egg-whisk; heat very hot, and pour out.

STEWED BEANS.

Soak white beans all night. Put them on in the morning in cold water, and cook soft. Drain, and pour over them some nice gravy—soup-stock, if you have no other; add a little finely-minced onion, and simmer ten minutes. Turn out without draining.

HOMINY PUDDING.

1 cupful of cold boiled hominy (the small-grained); 2 cups of milk; 1 heaping teaspoonful of butter-warmed; 1 teaspoonful of sugar; 3 eggs; a little salt.

Mix all together in a smooth batter, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat hot.

HOT SLAW.

Boil the cabbage in two waters. Drain, when tender; chop quickly, press out all the water, and put into a deep dish. Heat in a saucepan half a cup of vinegar, one tablespoonful of butter, one tablespoonful of sugar, pepper and salt at discretion. When scalding, add a half teaspoonful of flour wet with water. Boil one minute, and pour upon the cabbage. If you have celery vinegar at hand, use for this dressing.

PUMPKIN PIE.

See Friday, Fourth Week in November.

Third Week. Friday. —— Corn and Tomato Soup. Baked Halibut. Stewed Pigeons. Mashed Potatoes. Fried Salsify. —— Dorchester Cracker Plum-Pudding. ——

CORN AND TOMATO SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of your stock. Drain off the soup, and add a can of corn, chopped fine, and the same of tomatoes, rubbed through a colander. Cook all slowly one hour; add what seasoning is required, and pour out.

BAKED HALIBUT.

Get a cut of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay for two hours in salt and water. Wipe dry, and score the outer skin. Set in the baking-pan; pour a cupful of boiling water, in which has been mixed a tablespoonful of butter, over it, and bake one hour, basting often with butter-and-water. When a fork will penetrate it easily, it is done. Lay upon a hot dish; add a little boiling water to the gravy, stir in a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, the juice of half a lemon, and a little browned flour, wet up with cold water. Serve in a boat when you have boiled it one minute.

STEWED PIGEONS.

Clean the pigeons, tie them in shape, and cook precisely as you did the grouse on Friday, First Week in December.

MASHED POTATOES.

Serve with the halibut.

FRIED SALSIFY.

Scrape, and boil until tender. Drain and cool. Mash to a paste, picking out the fibres. Add a very little milk, a spoonful of butter and a beaten egg and a half for each cupful of mashed salsify. Make into flat, round cakes; roll in flour, and fry brown.

DORCHESTER CRACKER PLUM-PUDDING.

2 quarts of milk; 6 Boston crackers, split and buttered; 8 eggs, beaten very light; 2 cups of sugar; nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to taste; 1 lb. of raisins, seeded and cut in two; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Heat the milk almost to boiling, and pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar, with the seasoning. Do not boil it again. Butter a pudding-dish; put a layer of buttered crackers in the bottom, buttered side up, and moisten with a few spoonfuls of custard. Cover thickly with raisins, and these with crackers, buttered side downward. Moisten with hot custard, and repeat the order given, until crackers and fruit are all in the dish. Pour in custard until only the surface of the upper layer is visible, but not enough to float them. Cover, and leave all night in a cold place. Add the rest of the custard in the morning, at intervals of five or six minutes between the cupfuls. Bake, covered, two hours in a moderate oven; then brown. Eat hot, with sauce.

Third Week. Saturday. —— Sheep’s Head and Barley Soup. Bacon and Eggs. Cheese Fondu. Canned String-Beans. Mashed Turnips. —— Lemon Tartlets. ——

SHEEP’S HEAD AND BARLEY SOUP.

1 sheep’s head, _carefully_ cleaned, with the skin on; 4 pig’s feet, also cleaned nicely; 2 onions; 2 turnips; 2 carrots; bunch of sweet herbs; 1 can of tomatoes; ½ cup of soup-barley, soaked two hours in a little water; 7 quarts of water; pepper, salt, mace, and sugar.

Crack the bones of the head and feet; wash very well; put the sliced vegetables and the herbs into a pot with the water, and cook gently five hours. At the end of three hours add the tomatoes. Should the liquid boil down to less than five quarts by the time you are ready to add the tomatoes, replenish from the tea-kettle. When the five hours are up, strain off the soup. Put bones and meat into the stock-jar, and add all the clear soup you do not want to-day. Season, and set aside. Now pulp the vegetables into the soup left out for Saturday’s dinner, season, cool, and skim off the fat. Return to the fire with the barley, and simmer half an hour.

BACON AND EGGS.

Cut one pound of streaked bacon into thin long slices; put into a frying-pan and cook slowly, turning often, until quite crisp. Pour off and strain the fat, and pour two tablespoonfuls of it into a stone-china or block-tin dish. Add two larger spoonfuls of good gravy left from yesterday’s pigeons, with as much cream, in which have been mixed half a teaspoonful of flour and a pinch of soda. Set this in a dripping-pan, with boiling water in the bottom, but not enough to overflow the dish, and stir upon the top of the range until quite hot. Then break upon it seven or eight, or more eggs, and put into a quick oven to “set.” When firm, send to table with the bacon laid about them.

CHEESE FONDU.

1 cup dry and fine bread-crumbs; 2 scant cups of milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; ½ lb. dry cheese, grated; 3 beaten eggs; 1 small tablespoonful of melted butter; pepper and salt.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in eggs, butter, seasoning—finally the cheese. Butter a pudding-dish; pour in the mixture, strew crumbs on the top, and bake in a rather quick oven to a light brown. Serve at once, as it soon falls.

CANNED STRING-BEANS.

Cut into short lengths; cover with hot, salted water, and cook forty minutes. Drain; dish, and stir in pepper, salt, and butter.

MASHED TURNIPS.

See Sunday, Second Week in December.

LEMON TARTLETS.

5 eggs; 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 1 quart of milk; ⅓ cup of prepared flour; 1 lemon, a large one—juice and grated peel; a pinch of salt.

Heat the milk; stir in the flour wet with a little cold milk, and heat again, stirring all the while. Pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar; cook for one minute. Take from the fire, and beat in the lemon-juice and grated rind. Have ready, baked and hot, some shells of puff-paste lining “patty-pans.” Fill with the mixture and cover each with a _méringue_ made of the whipped whites and a little powdered sugar. Put into the oven to set, and lightly color the _méringue_. Eat fresh, but not hot.

Fourth Week. Sunday. —— Clear Sago Soup. Roast Beef. Potato Balls. Fried Sweet Potatoes. Apple Sauce. Celery. —— Ribbon Blanc-Mange. Coffee and Cake. ——

CLEAR SAGO SOUP.

Remove the fat from your soup-jelly. Pour off as much as you need for to-day, without disturbing the sediment. Heat, simmer and skim until the scum ceases to rise; put in half a cup of German sago which has been soaking one hour in a little water. Cook gently until clear.

ROAST BEEF.

Lay in a dripping-pan and pour a cup of boiling water over it. Roast about ten minutes per pound, basting frequently and copiously. When done, dish; pour the strained gravy into a bowl and set in ice-water to throw up the fat. Remove this, return the gravy to the fire, pepper, salt, and thicken with browned flour. Boil once, and serve in a boat.

POTATO BALLS.

Mash potatoes very light with butter, milk and salt, and beat in two raw eggs. Put into a buttered saucepan, and stir until hot and stiff. Turn out and let the paste get cold. Then make into balls; roll each in flour; half an hour before taking up the roast beef, pour off nearly all the gravy, and lay the balls about the meat in the dripping-pan. Baste them whenever you baste the meat, and cook to a fine brown. Drain off the grease, and serve as a garnish to the beef, when dished.

FRIED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil, peel, and let them get cold. Then slice lengthwise; pepper, salt, flour, and fry quickly in good dripping. Drain well and serve hot.

APPLE SAUCE.

See Wednesday, Second Week in November.

CELERY.

See Monday Second Week in December.

RIBBON BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk; 1 package Cooper’s gelatine; ¾ cup of sugar; 1 great spoonful of grated chocolate, wet in a very little cold milk; beaten yolk of one egg; 1 great spoonful of cranberry juice; vanilla extract.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of the milk. Heat the rest to scalding; add sugar and soaked gelatine, and stir eight minutes over the fire. Strain through a muslin bag into four bowls, putting equal portions in all. Color one brown by stirring in the wet chocolate; another yellow, by beating in the yolk; a third, pink with cranberry juice, or currant jelly. Leave the fourth white. Return each portion, excepting this last, to the fire in its turn, and stir until very hot. When all are cold and beginning to congeal, wet a mould, and pour in, first, half of the white; next, half of the pink; thirdly, half of the yellow; fourthly, half of the brown. Upon this brown empty the rest of the white, and let the pink, yellow, and brown follow in course. Let each of the eight courses get firm enough to bear the next before adding more. Do all this on Saturday. On Sunday, turn out and pass with light cake, followed by coffee. The vanilla extract is intended for the chocolate only.

This is a beautiful dish, easy and safe.

Fourth Week. Monday. —— Cream Soup. Larded Beef. Mashed Potatoes. Baked Tomatoes. French Mustard. —— Apples, Oranges, and Nuts. Tea and Crackers. ——

CREAM SOUP.

Put the contents of your stock-pot over the fire; add as much boiling water as is needed to make soup for to-day. First, however, take out the sheep’s tongue, and lay it aside. Simmer the soup for one hour; strain and season; return to the fire, and when it is hot, add a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; next, the sheep’s tongue, skinned and cut into dice. Boil up; pour into the tureen, and stir in a cup of hot milk in which two beaten eggs have been cooked one minute.

LARDED BEEF.

Thrust lardoons of fat salt pork quite through your cold roast, when you have trimmed off the ragged parts. Put into a deep pan; strew with chopped herbs, and minced onion, pepper, salt, and four or five whole cloves; also, a tablespoonful of chopped green pickle. Half cover with broth made from yesterday’s skimmed gravy, and a little soup-stock. Cover the pan closely, set in a moderate oven, and cook one hour—more, if the piece be large. Turn, when the time is half gone. Dish the meat, strain, and thicken the gravy. Give it one boil; pour a little upon the meat, the rest into a boat.

MASHED POTATOES.

Mash, or whip up light with milk, butter and salt, and heap roughly upon a hot dish.

BAKED TOMATOES.

See Thursday of First Week in December. Save the surplus juice.

APPLES, ORANGES, AND NUTS.

Supply clean plates, fruit-knives, and nut-crackers with this course.

TEA AND CRACKERS.

Pass, without further change of plates.

Fourth Week. Tuesday. —— Baked Soup. Mock Pigeons. Spinach. Potato Puff. Stewed Corn. —— Arrowroot Pudding, Hot. ——

BAKED SOUP.

3 lbs. of beef, cut into small squares; ½ lb. lean ham, chopped; 1 lb. of veal, cut small; 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 tablespoonfuls German sago; can of green peas; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.

Put the chopped ham in the bottom of a broad jar that will go into your oven; cover with sliced vegetables, some of the peas and sago, and this with beef or veal. Pack vegetables and meat in alternate layers, seasoning each with pepper and salt. Pour in six quarts of water, if the jar will hold so much; fit on a close cover; spread a paste of flour and water around the edge to keep in the steam; set in a dripping-pan of hot water, and leave in a moderate oven six hours, replenishing the water in the pan, now and then. Dip out as much soup—just as it comes—as you want for to-day, at the end of this time; let it cool sufficiently to enable you to take off the fat; heat in a saucepan just to the boiling point, and pour into the tureen. Add a quart of boiling water and a little salt to the contents of the jar; cover, while hot, and set away in a cold place, as stock—and excellent stock it will be.

MOCK PIGEONS.

2 large cutlets of veal, cut rather thin, and beaten flat; ½ lb. of fat salt pork; yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; 1 cup of bread-crumbs; pepper, salt, and 1 tablespoonful of chopped onion pickle; a little sugar; powdered or minced parsley; a little oyster-liquor.

Lay the cutlets upon a dish, and spread the upper side with a force-meat made of the ingredients above enumerated; roll each up closely; bind in shape with soft string, and lay in a dripping-pan. Pour over them two cupfuls of boiling water, in which have been mixed two tablespoonfuls of butter, and the surplus tomato-juice saved from yesterday’s can of tomatoes. Cover with another pan of the same size—inverted—and set in a steady oven. Bake a little over an hour—half an hour more, should the “pigeons” be large. Take them up when tender, and brown, clip, and withdraw the strings, and keep hot while you strain, season, and thicken the gravy. Boil one minute, and pour into a boat.

SPINACH.

See Tuesday, Second Week in December.

POTATO PUFFS.

See Thursday, Second Week in December.

STEWED CORN.

Empty a can of corn into a saucepan; cover with boiling salted water, and stew half an hour. Drain off the water, and cover the corn with a cupful of drawn butter, well seasoned. Simmer, stirring often, fifteen minutes, and pour out.

ARROWROOT PUDDING—HOT.

3 even tablespoonfuls arrowroot; 1 quart fresh milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 4 eggs, beaten light; nutmeg and vanilla flavoring.

Scald the milk; wet the arrowroot with cold water, and stir into the hot milk, until the latter is well thickened. Cream the butter and sugar; beat up very light with the eggs, and stir into the thickened milk. Flavor; pour into a buttered mould; set in a pot of boiling water—not deep enough to float it—and boil steadily for one hour. Set in cold water one minute, and turn out upon a hot dish. Eat with brandy or wine sauce. It is very nice.

Fourth Week. Wednesday. —— Sweetbread Ball Soup. Chicken and Ham Pie. Rice Croquettes. Stewed Salsify. Creamed Potatoes. —— Cup Puddings. ——

SWEETBREAD BALL SOUP.

Boil, blanch, cool, and chop very fine two sweetbreads; mix with them one-third their bulk of fine crumbs, previously soaked, and rubbed smooth with a little cream. Beat up the yolk of a raw egg, and work all with pepper and salt to a paste. Make into small balls with floured hands, and set by for half an hour in a cold place. Strain off two quarts of soup from your stock-jar, when you have skimmed it. Heat and boil slowly five minutes, skimming it well. Drop in the balls very carefully—not to break them; simmer ten minutes very gently, to avoid the same catastrophe, and pour into the tureen.

CHICKEN AND HAM PIE.

1 chicken; 1 lb. of lean veal; ½ lb. corned ham; yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs; 1 cup of gravy or stock; ½ can of mushrooms; pepper and salt; good paste for cover.

Joint the chicken; cut the veal and ham into dice, slice the mushrooms and yolks; place in alternate layers, seasoned with pepper and salt, in a large pudding-dish; pour in the gravy, and cover with a thick crust of good pastry. Ornament the edges, and make a slit in the middle. Bake in a steady oven, and when almost done, wash over with beaten egg.

RICE CROQUETTES.

2 cups of cold boiled rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter; 3 beaten eggs; a little flour; 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar; a large pinch of grated lemon-peel, and salt to taste; raw egg and pounded cracker.

Beat eggs and sugar together, and work the butter into the rice. Stir all together; season; make into croquettes; roll in egg and cracker-crumbs, and fry, a few at a time, in sweet lard. Drain, by rolling them on soft white paper, and eat hot.

STEWED SALSIFY.

Scrape, dropping into cold water as you do it; cook tender in boiling salted water; drain this off; pour on a cupful of drawn butter, and stew five minutes. Serve in a hot, deep dish.

CREAMED POTATOES.

Boil, and, while hot, slice the potatoes. Make a sauce by heating a cup of milk, stirring into it a great spoonful of butter, a scant teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet in cold water, a little chopped parsley, and boiling until thickened. Beat in the frothed white of an egg, and pour upon the potatoes, which should first have been put into a deep dish and sprinkled with pepper and salt.

CUP PUDDINGS.

3 eggs; the weight of the eggs in flour, _prepared_; half their weight in sugar; one-quarter of their weight in butter; 2 tablespoonfuls of milk; a little nutmeg.

Rub butter and sugar together; add the beaten yolks, the milk; at last, the whisked whites and flour, alternately. Bake in small buttered tins, or cups. Eat warm, without or with sauce, according to your preference.

Fourth Week. Thursday. —— Noodle Soup. Roast Pig. Apple Sauce. Mashed Potatoes. Stewed Celery. —— Mince Pie. ——

NOODLE SOUP.

Empty your stock-jar into the soup-pot, adding as much boiling water as you may need, with additional seasoning, and any bones you may chance to have. Simmer one hour, or more; strain, return to the fire, and boil and skim for five minutes, before dropping in a generous handful of noodles—dried, or fresh. Simmer twenty minutes. For receipt for noodles, please consult Wednesday, First Week in August.

ROAST PIG.

See that your butcher has done his part well in cleaning the month-old pig. Rinse out with soda and water, then with fair water, wiping the pig dry, inside and out. Prepare a dressing of a cupful of crumbs, half a chopped onion, two teaspoonfuls powdered sage, three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a saltspoonful of salt, and as much pepper, half a grated nutmeg, and the yolks of two beaten eggs. Moisten with half a cup of soup-stock, and stuff the little fellow into his original size and shape. Sew him up, and place in a kneeling posture in a dripping-pan, skewering or tying his legs in the proper position. Dredge with flour. Pour a little hot salted water in the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water three times as the pig warms; afterward, with gravy from the dripping-pan. When he begins to smoke all over, rub every ten minutes with a rag dipped in melted butter. This will keep the skin from cracking. Roast in a moderate, steady oven two hours.

Put the innocent—still kneeling—upon a large hot dish; surround with parsley and blanched celery-tops. Put a wreath of green about his neck, and a sprig of celery in his mouth.

Skim and strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour; boil up, add a glass of wine and the juice of a lemon, and serve in a boat.

In carving, cut off the head first; then split down the back; take off hams and shoulders, and separate the ribs.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare and serve as usual.

STEWED CELERY.

See Wednesday, Third Week in December.

MINCE PIE.

2 lbs. lean fresh beef, boiled, and, when cold, chopped fine; 1 lb. beef suet, _powdered_; 5 lbs. of apples, pared, cored, and chopped; 2 lbs. of raisins, seeded and chopped; 1 lb. sultana raisins, washed, and picked over; 2 lbs. of currants, washed, and _carefully_ picked over; ¾ lb. of citron, cut up fine; 2 tablespoonfuls of cinnamon; 1 powdered nutmeg; 2 tablespoonfuls of mace; 1 tablespoonful of cloves, and the same, each, of allspice and fine salt; 2½ lbs. of brown sugar; 1 quart brown sherry; 1 pint best brandy.