Part 7

Prepare the same measures of rice and milk, and in the same way as in the last receipt. Boil the rice very slowly after the milk is added, so that it may become very soft, and not get burned. Break six eggs, the yolks and whites separate; beat the yolks with a large cup of white sugar; and stir them, with salt, and a small bit of butter into the rice and milk. Then return the kettle to the fire two or three minutes, and see that it does not burn. Then put the mixture into a buttered dish, and cut the six whites and two large spoonfuls of fine sugar to a stiff froth. Flavor the froth with lemon, lay it over the pudding in folds like a turban, and set it into the oven long enough to brown the top. Ten minutes will be sufficient.

=Ground Rice.=

To a teacup of ground rice, allow a quart and a gill of milk, six eggs, a heaping teacup of sugar, a piece of butter the size of a small nut, one teaspoonful of salt, and any spice you prefer. Rose-water and nutmeg are generally considered best. Bake it from three quarters to one hour. The milk should be boiled, and the ground rice wet with a part of it reserved for the purpose. When the milk boils up, stir in the rice; mix it thoroughly with the milk, then let it boil up one or two minutes. When it has become a little thick, take it off, put in the butter and salt, add the eggs and sugar, and last of all, the spice. Bake it in one dish, in a moderately hot oven, an hour. If your family is small, bake it in two dishes, forty minutes. It is quite as good the second day as the first.

=Sago.=

A pint of milk, a table-spoonful and a half of _pearl_ sago, two eggs, two large spoonfuls of sugar, and half a teaspoon of salt. Wash the sago in warm, but not hot water, twice; then put it with the milk into a pail and set it into a kettle of hot water. Stir it very often, as it swells fast, and will else lie in a compact mass at the bottom. When it has boiled two or three minutes, take the pail from the kettle, add the salt, and the eggs beaten with the sugar. Flavor it with vanilla or a few drops of essence of lemon, put it into a dish, and grate nutmeg over it. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it about three quarters of an hour. If you make a quart of milk, three eggs answer very well. It should then bake an hour. With this number of eggs, the sago settles a little. To have it equally diffused take five eggs.

=Squash, or Pumpkin.=

A pint of milk, a large coffee-cup of strained pumpkin or squash, two eggs, three large spoonfuls of sugar, a teaspoonful of butter, a little salt, a small teaspoonful of cinnamon, half as much ginger, and some nutmeg.

To prepare it--first, stir the cinnamon and ginger into the squash, as, if they are added after the milk, they will float dry on the top; add salt, then the eggs beaten with the sugar; boil the milk and melt the butter in it, and add it slowly to the other ingredients, stirring fast meantime. Butter a cold dish with cold butter, and sprinkle the bottom and sides with sifted cracker, pour in the mixture, grate nutmeg over the top and then sprinkle it with pounded cracker, sift white sugar over, and bake it forty minutes.

To make a more economical pudding, use the same measure of milk, squash, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon, with but one egg. Stir a pounded and sifted cracker into the squash, before the boiled milk is added; simply butter a dish in the usual way; omit the nutmeg and also the sugar and cracker on the top.

The receipt for squash pies (see page 71) is a very nice rule for a pudding; omit the paste, and substitute the cracker crumbs in the dish. Such puddings, when made with a quart of milk, should be baked in two dishes, because if baked in one, the edges become too dry, before the centre is cooked.

=Tapioca.=

To a quart of milk, put two thirds of a cup of tapioca, five or six eggs, a dessert spoonful of butter, a cup of sugar, a teaspoonful of salt, and flavor with lemon, nutmeg, or extract of rose. Do not wash the tapioca, as the fine powder is the nicest part; but pick it over carefully, and soak it over night in half of the milk. If you have not done this, and need the pudding for dinner, it will soak in cold water (twice as much water as tapioca) in two or three hours. Boil it in the milk, set into a kettle of hot water; stir it often, beat the eggs and sugar thoroughly, together; stir them and all the other ingredients into the milk while it is yet hot. If the pudding is put immediately in the oven, it will bake in three quarters of an hour, or a little less. Three eggs to a quart of milk will make a very good tapioca pudding.

PUDDINGS WITHOUT EGGS.

=Berry.=

To a quart of washed whortleberries, put a pint of flour in which you have put a small teaspoonful of salt. Add a very little water. That which is upon the berries will be nearly enough. Boil it two hours in a cloth tied close, allowing no room to swell. To be eaten with melted sauce.

=Another.=

A pint of berries, a pint of flour, a pint of sour milk, a teaspoonful of salt, and one of saleratus. Boil it two hours. All boiled fruit puddings should be turned often in the pot, to prevent the fruit from settling on one side. Make a sweet sauce.

=Baked Indian.=

Boil a pint of milk, and set it off from the fire. Then stir in a large teacup of Indian meal, a cup of finely chopped suet, half a cup of white flour, the same of molasses, and a teaspoonful each of salt, ginger, and cinnamon. Grease thick a deep fire-proof patty pan, or a brown earthen one with a small top, such as are made for baking beans, and pour in the mixture; then stir in half a pint of cold milk. Bake it in a moderate heat two hours. If you object to using suet, substitute two eggs well beaten. An excellent sauce for this, and all kinds of Indian pudding, is made by mixing sour cream and sugar, seasoned with nutmeg.

The modern ovens do not bake this kind of pudding as well as a brick oven.

=Another (with Sweet Apples).=

Pare twelve sweet apples and slice them, or take out the cores with a tap-borer. Stir up a pudding of a quart of milk, and almost a quart of Indian meal; the measure may be filled quite full by using a spoonful or two of wheat flour. Add some salt, a teacup of molasses, and a little chopped suet. The milk should be boiled, and after it is taken from the fire, the meal and other ingredients stirred in. Then pour the whole over the apples. Bake three hours.

=Boiled Plum.=

Put to a quart of boiled milk twelve pounded crackers, a quarter of a pound of suet, a pound of currants, half a pound of raisins, a little salt, and a teacup of molasses. Steam in a pudding-pan, or boil it three hours and a half in a cloth or buttered bowl. To be eaten with sauce.

=Railroad.=

One cup of molasses, one of sweet milk, one of suet or of salt pork chopped fine; four cups of flour, one teaspoonful of saleratus, and if suet is used, one of salt, one cup of chopped raisins, one of currants. Warm the molasses and stir the saleratus into it; mix the suet or pork with the flour, then stir all together, and steam it four hours, according to the directions for Steamed Brown Bread (see page 31). Make a melted sauce, or the sour cream sauce.

=Rice.=

Wash a small coffee-cup of rice and put it into three pints of milk over night. In the morning add a piece of butter half as large as an egg, a teacup of sugar, a little salt, cinnamon, or nutmeg. Bake very slowly two hours and a half in a stove or brick oven. After it has become hot enough to melt the butter, but not to brown the top, stir it (without moving the dish if you can) from the bottom. If raisins are to be used, put them in now. They add much to the richness of the pudding. It is a very good pudding for so plain a kind, and is very little trouble. For a Sunday dinner, where a cooking stove is used, it is very convenient, as it employs but a few minutes to prepare it in the morning.

=Sago.=

Wash six table-spoonfuls of pearl sago and put it to soak in a large pint of warm water. Pare six good-sized, mellow, sour apples, and remove the cores with a tap-borer. Wash them, butter a deep pudding dish, and lay them in, with the open end up. Measure a teacup of sugar, fill the holes with it, and then grate half a nutmeg over the apples. Dissolve a little salt and the rest of the sugar, in the water with the sago; pour two thirds of the mixture over the apples, and set the dish in the oven or stove. After one hour take it out, pour the remainder of the sago and water into the dish, and press the apples down gently without breaking them. See that none of the sago lies above the water. Return the dish to the oven and bake it another hour. It is to be eaten with sugar and milk, or cream, and is a very delicate and healthful pudding.

=Salem.=

Three coffee-cups of flour, one of milk, one of chopped raisins, one of suet or salt pork chopped very fine, two thirds of a cup of molasses, a small teaspoonful of powdered cloves, half a nutmeg, a teaspoonful of saleratus, and if suet is used instead of pork, a little salt. Warm the molasses and dissolve the saleratus in it, mix the suet, flour, and raisins, then put all the ingredients together. Boil or steam it four hours. Make a melted sauce.

=Suet.=

A pint of suet chopped very fine, a pint of chopped apples, two gills of milk, a gill of molasses, a large teaspoonful of salt, and flour enough to make it rather stiff. Boil it four hours. This, and the last before it, should be boiled in a close tin pail or pudding pan, in a kettle of water.

Such a pudding as this is too hearty to be eaten after meat, and is substantial enough to constitute a dinner.

DUMPLINGS, FLUMMERIES, AND OTHER INEXPENSIVE ARTICLES FOR DESSERT.

=Apple Dumplings (boiled).=

The best and most healthful crust for them is made like cream tartar biscuit, or with potatoes, according to the directions under the head of _Pastry_. It is better to make one or two large dumplings, than many small ones; because in drawing up the crust, there must necessarily be folds which, when boiled, are thick; and thus, in small dumplings, the proportion of crust to apple, is too great. Make a large crust and let the middle be nearly a third of an inch thick; but roll the edges thin, for the reason above mentioned. Wring a thick, square cloth in water, sprinkle it with flour, and lay it into a deep dish; lay the crust into it, and fill it with sliced apples; put the crust together and draw up the cloth around it. Tie it tight with a strong twine or tape, allowing no room for it to swell, and be sure to draw the string so close that the water cannot soak in. Boil a dumpling holding three pints of cut apple, two hours. When taken out of the pot, plunge it for a moment into cold water, then untie it and turn it out into a dish. Eat with cold sauce, or butter and sugar. Molasses and butter boiled together make a very good sauce for apple dumplings. The process of boiling molasses takes away, in some degree, its strong taste; and improves it for this purpose, and for making gingerbread. All boiled dumplings and puddings should be put into boiling water. Some persons prefer to boil dumplings in a buttered bowl, with a cloth tied close over it. This is a very good way.

=Steamed.=

Fill a tin pudding pan or pail three quarters with sour, sliced apples, lay upon the top a plain crust about an inch thick. A piece of light bread dough, with a little butter rolled into it, or a crust made like cream of tartar biscuit, is better than pie crust for this purpose. See that there is room for the dough to swell. Shut the lid close, and set it on the top of the stove or range, an hour and a half before dinner time. If the apple juice boils over, move the pan to a cooler part of the stove. Make a sauce, or use instead, butter and sugar.

=Baked.=

Pare large, fair apples, and take out the cores, lay each one into a piece of plain pie crust, just large enough to cover it. Fill the centre of the apple with brown sugar, and add a little cinnamon, or small strips of fresh orange peel. Close the crust over the apple, and lay them, with the smooth side up, into a deep, buttered dish, in which they can be set on the table. Bake them in a stove an hour and a half. If, after an hour, you find that the syrup begins to harden in the bottom of the dish, put in half a gill of hot water. Make a cold, or melted sauce as you choose.

=Blackberry (baked or steamed).=

Put a small cup of berries and two teaspoonfuls of sugar into a crust large enough to contain them. To close the crust well, dip your fingers in water and then in flour, and thus paste the folds together. Lay as many dumplings as you wish to have into a deep patty-pan, because blackberries are a very juicy fruit. Bake them an hour and a quarter in a moderate heat. Make a cold sauce for them.

To steam them, put the fruit and crust into a tin pudding pan, exactly like steamed apple dumpling.

=Roley Poley.=

Make a potato crust, or a paste of light bread, with butter rolled in, or one of cream tartar biscuit, as you prefer; roll it narrow and long, about a third of an inch thick; spread it with raspberry jam or apple sauce; take care that this does not come too near the edge of the crust; roll it up and close the ends and side as tight as possible, to keep the sauce from coming out and the water from soaking it. Sew it up in a cloth, and boil it an hour and a half or two hours, according to its size. Make a sauce.

[The quart measure used in the following articles, and throughout this book, is the beer quart, except where a _small_ quart is specified. In cooking such dishes as those which immediately follow, the milk should always, as in making custards, be boiled in a pail set into a kettle of hot water. They are much more delicate than when it is boiled in a saucepan; and then there is no danger of its being burned.]

=Potato Starch Flummery.=

To one quart of boiled milk, put four beaten eggs and four spoonfuls of potato starch, wet in a little milk. Add the starch and a little salt first; then the eggs, and boil the whole a minute more. Take it up in a mould and eat it with sauce. Boil a few peach leaves in the milk if you like the flavor.

=Ground Rice.=

Measure a quart of milk, and then take out two cupfuls. Set the remainder into a kettle of hot water; then wet a teacupful of ground rice, and a teaspoonful of salt, with the reserved cold milk. When that which is in the kettle boils, add the ground rice mixture gradually, and continue to stir it, until it is well scalded, else it will be lumpy, or lie compactly at the bottom. Let it remain in the kettle eight or ten minutes, and stir it now and then. Just before you take it up, stir in a large table-spoonful of dry ground rice, and as soon as that is well mixed take the pail from the water-kettle, and put the mixture into a bowl, or blanc-mange mould, wet in cold water. If it is of the right consistency, it will turn out in good shape in fifteen or twenty minutes. To be eaten like blanc-mange with sugar and milk or cream. It is nice cold, and if it is made for the next day, a half a spoonful less of dry rice will be enough. It should be only stiff enough to retain the shape. For this and all similar milk preparations, peach leaves are better than any spice. Boil in the milk three or four fresh leaves from the tree. Remember to take them out before you stir in the rice. If you put in too many, they will give a strong flavor to the article. Experience will teach how many to use.

=Farina.=

Set a pail containing a quart of milk into a kettle of boiling water. Put in a few pieces of stick-cinnamon. When the milk boils, take out the cinnamon and add a teaspoonful of salt, and stir in, very gradually, four table-spoonfuls of dry farina; beat out the lumps, and stir it often during the first ten minutes, then leave it to boil half an hour or more, remembering to stir it repeatedly during that time. Put it in a mould till the next day. Serve it as blanc-mange.

Made thin, like gruel, it is excellent food for young children.

=Tapioca.=

Soak a cup of tapioca in a pint of cold water over night; then boil it in a pint of milk with a little salt. Add any essence you choose. It is very good without. Serve it warm, and use sugar and cream.

=Sago Apple.=

Wash a table-spoonful and a half of pearl sago, and put it into a teacup of cold water to soak. Pare and slice very thin two fair sour apples, and boil them very soft in a teacup of water; then add the sago and water with half a teaspoonful of salt, and stir it every minute or two. Boil it till the sago and apple are perfectly mixed, then add a large spoonful of white sugar, and boil it a minute more. Set it off and add lemon (the essence or juice as you prefer). Put it in a mould, and serve it like blanc-mange.

This is a very good article for an invalid, leaving out the essence.

The same preparation of sago, and two or three table-spoonfuls of currant jelly dissolved in it instead of the apple, is very pretty, and good.

SWEET DISHES.

[In making blanc-mange, custards, ice-creams, &c., do not boil the milk in a sauce-pan, but set it, in a tin pail, into a kettle of boiling water. The milk does not rise, when boiled thus, as it does in a sauce-pan, but when the top is covered with foam, it boils enough.

In making ice cream, it is an improvement to churn the cream until it becomes frothy, before adding the other ingredients.]

=Apple Island.=

Stew apple enough to make a quart, strain it through a sieve, sweeten it with fine white sugar, and flavor it with lemon or rose. Beat the whites of six eggs to a hard froth, and stir into the apple slowly; but do not do this till just before it is to be served. The apples should be stewed with as little water as possible. Put it into a glass dish. Serve a nice boiled custard, made of the yolks of the eggs, to eat with it.

=Apple Snow.=

Put twelve large apples, without paring, into cold water enough to stew them. Boil them slowly; when they are very soft strain them through a sieve; beat the whites of twelve eggs to a stiff froth, then add to them half a pound of fine white sugar, and when these are well mixed, add the apple, and beat all together, until white as snow. Then lay it in the centre of a deep dish, heap it high as you can, and pour around it a nice boiled custard made of a quart of milk, and eight of the yolks of the eggs.

=Floating Island.=

Put the juice of two lemons, the whites of two eggs, three spoonfuls of currant jelly, and a gill and a half of fine sugar together and beat to a stiff froth; then put it into the middle of the dish, dress it with sweetmeats, and just before it is served, pour into the dish cream enough to float it.

=Arrow-root Blanc-mange.=

To three large spoonfuls of pure Jamaica arrow-root, a quart of milk, a large spoonful of fine sugar, a spoonful of rose-water, and a little salt. Reserve a gill of milk to wet the arrow-root, and boil the rest. When it boils up, stir in the arrow-root, and boil it up again a minute or two; add the sugar, salt, and rose-water, and put it into the mould.

=Isinglass Blanc-mange.=

Wash an ounce and a half of calf's-foot isinglass, and put it into a quart of milk over night. In the morning add three peach leaves, and boil it, slowly, twenty minutes or half an hour. Strain it into a dish upon a small teacupful of fine sugar. If it is to be served soon, add two or three beaten eggs while it is hot. Put it into the mould and set in a cool place. In hot weather this should be made over night if wanted at dinner the next day, as it hardens slowly.

=Calf's Foot Blanc-mange.=

Put four calf's feet into four quarts of water; boil it away to one quart, strain it, and set it aside. When cool, remove all the fat, and in cutting the jelly out of the pan, take care to avoid the sediment. Put to it a quart of new milk, and sweeten it with fine sugar. If you season it with cinnamon or lemon peel, put it in before boiling; if with rose or peach-water, afterwards; or, if you choose, boil peach leaves in it. Boil it ten minutes, strain it through a fine sieve into a pitcher, and stir it till nearly cold. Then put it into moulds.

=Gelatine Blanc-mange.=

Allow a quart of milk. Take a quarter of a paper of English gelatine, and put it into a gill of the milk to soften. In a quarter of an hour, set the remainder of the milk in a tin pail into a kettle of hot water, with a few sticks of cinnamon in it. When the milk boils (or foams up) add a small teaspoon of salt, and stir in the cold milk and gelatine. Stir it steadily a few minutes, till the particles of gelatine are dissolved, then put it into moulds. If lemon or some other essence is preferred to the cinnamon, add it after the pail is taken out of the hot water. A beaten egg is an improvement.

=Moss Blanc-mange.=

In making this blanc-mange as little moss should be used as will suffice to harden the milk. If the moss is old, more is necessary than if it is fresh. Allow half a teacupful for a quart of milk. Wash it, and put it in soak over night; in the morning, tie it up in a piece of muslin, and boil it in the milk, with sticks of cinnamon, the rind of a lemon, or peach leaves. Boil it gently twenty minutes or half an hour. Then put in half a salt-spoonful of salt, strain it upon a large spoonful of crushed sugar, and put it into a mould immediately, as it soon begins to harden. Eat it with sugar and milk or cream.

=Charlotte Russe.=

Make a boiled custard of a pint of milk and four eggs; season it with vanilla, or any essence you prefer; make it very sweet, and set it away to cool. Put a half an ounce of isinglass or English gelatine into a gill of milk where it will become warm. When the gelatine is dissolved, pour it into a pint of rich cream, and whip it to complete froth. When the custard is cold, stir it gently into the whip. Line a mould that holds a quart with thin slices of sponge cake, or with sponge fingers, pour the mixture into it, and set it in a cold place.

=Calf's-foot Jelly.=

Scald four calf's feet only enough to take off the hair, (more will extract the juices). Clean them nicely. When this is done, put them into five quarts of water and boil them until the water is half wasted; strain and set it away till the next day, then take off the fat and remove the jelly, being careful not to disturb the sediment; put the jelly into a sauce-pan with sugar, wine, and lemon juice and rind to your taste. Beat the whites and shells of five eggs, stir them in, and set it on the coals, but do not stir it after it begins to warm. Boil it twenty minutes, then add one teacupful of cold water and boil five minutes longer; set off the saucepan, and let it stand covered close half an hour. It will thus become so clear that it will need to run through the jelly bag but once.

=Another (made of English Gelatine).=

To one of the papers of gelatine containing an ounce and a half, put a pint of cold water; after fifteen minutes, add a quart of boiling water, and stir till the gelatine is dissolved. Then add a coffee-cup of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and the grated rind, or any other spice or essence you prefer, and just boil it up a minute. If the jelly is for an invalid, and wine is a part of the appropriate regimen, omit the lemon and spices, and add two gills of wine, after it is boiled. The gelatine is so pure, that the jelly need not be passed through a jelly-bag. This will keep several weeks in winter, and is convenient for persons who are in the habit of providing little delicacies for the sick.

=Almond Custards.=

Blanch and beat in a marble mortar, with two spoonfuls of rose-water, a quarter of a pound of almonds; beat the yolks of four eggs with two table-spoonfuls of sugar, mix the almonds with the eggs and sugar, and then add the whole to a pint of cream, set into a kettle of hot water in a pail. Stir it steadily till it boils. Serve in little cups.