apart. Wash them a moment in a little water, then shake off the water
and dry the leaves in a napkin by taking hold of the four corners and
shaking it. Examine them carefully, wipe off all grit, and reject all
bruised leaves; place them in a salad-bowl large enough to dress them in
nicely without scattering a part of them over the table. Mix one
salt-spoonful of salt, one salt-spoonful of fresh ground pepper, and a
dust of cayenne with a tablespoonful of oil in a salad spoon; pour this
over the lettuce, and add two more tablespoonfuls of oil; next toss the
salad lightly with a salad spoon and fork, and, lastly, add a
tablespoonful of vinegar; toss it gently once or twice and send to
table. _To be eaten at once._ Never cut lettuce. Should you wish to
divide the leaves tear them apart gently. But it is not always necessary
to tear the leaves, should they appear too large to eat gracefully. With
the assistance of your knife you can wrap the leaf round the end of your
fork so as to make a small ball of it, and eat it with a little more
elegance than your neighbor, who is trying his level best to get the
leaf into his mouth edgeways.
=Plain French Dressing.=—A plain French dressing is made of salt,
pepper, oil, and vinegar, and nothing else. Three tablespoonfuls of oil
to one of vinegar, salt-spoon heaping full of salt, an even
salt-spoonful of pepper mixed with a little cayenne.
=Plain English Dressing.=—Same as plain French dressing, with a
teaspoonful of made English mustard added.
=Bacon Dressing.=—Cut half a pound of bacon fat into slices, then into
very small pieces, and fry them until the oil extracted is a light
brown; remove the pan from the fire and add the juice of a lemon, one
wineglassful of strong vinegar, a salt-spoonful of pepper, and pour it
over the salad with the pieces of bacon. A very nice dressing when you
cannot get oil, etc.
=Summer Mayonnaise.=—Chop up the yolk and white of a hard-boiled egg
very fine, and sprinkle it over a salad. Mix a plain French dressing in
a cold soup-plate, and pour over the egg and salad, and mix all
together.
=Sauce Vinaigrette.=—Mix a plain French dressing, and add to it a
quarter of an onion chopped fine, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley or
pickle.
Don’t like the onion? Then add a few Godillot capers.
=Mayonnaise Sauce.=—Work the yolks of two raw eggs to a smooth paste,
and add two salt-spoonfuls of Royal Table Salt, half a salt-spoonful of
cayenne, a salt-spoonful of dry mustard, and a teaspoonful of oil; mix
these ingredients thoroughly and add the strained juice of half a lemon.
Take the remainder of half a pint of Virgin olive-oil and add it
gradually, a teaspoonful at a time, and every fifth teaspoonful add a
few drops of lemon-juice until you have used two lemons and the
half-pint of oil.
There are almost as many ways of making a Mayonnaise sauce as there are
of cooking eggs.
=Mayonnaise Sauce, No. 2.=—Rub the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs with
the yolk of one raw egg to a smooth paste; add a heaping teaspoonful of
salt, two salt-spoonfuls of white pepper, and two salt-spoonfuls of made
mustard; mix thoroughly and work a gill of oil gradually into the
mixture, alternated with a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar until you
have used three tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Should the sauce appear too
thick add a wineglassful of cream gradually.
=Lobster Salad.=—Tear the meat of the lobster into shreds with two
forks; remove the eggs (_if a hen lobster_) from the fins; scrape out
all the green fat from the shell and set it aside. Prepare for making a
Mayonnaise by working a tablespoonful of the fat into a smooth paste;
let this green fat, with the yolk of one raw egg and one hard-boiled
egg, be the basis of your Mayonnaise; in all other particulars follow
instruction for Mayonnaise sauce. When complete mix the lobster meat
with three tablespoonfuls of the sauce. Cover the bottom of a dish or
compot with lettuce (the large leaves tear in two), put a layer of
lobster upon it; next add a layer of celery cut into narrow-inch strips,
and another layer of lobster; arrange it neatly on the dish; sprinkle
the eggs or the chopped coral on the lettuce round the edges; pour the
sauce over the meat, garnish with lobster-legs, and serve.
Somebody sent to the Washington _Republic’s_ correspondent, “G. H. B.,”
while he was laid up in Providence hospital with the gout, a very fine
lobster, and this is what he did with it: “Now, I’ll tell you about that
lobster. I had him laid away tenderly in the ice-chest, and directed him
to appear at dinner with some leaves of lettuce and a raw egg. The yolk
of that egg I mingled, with slow, deliberate revolutions of a fork, with
mustard, red pepper, salt, and oil. When the paste was thick enough to
take up on the end of the fork like dough I thinned it—‘cut it’ is
technical—with vinegar, and there was my dressing. I planted a table
facing the snow-storm, at which I mocked and jeered in a temperature of
seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Then did I disrobe the ‘Cardinal of the
Seas’ (you remember the Frenchman who applied that to lobsters, thinking
they came from the ocean red?) of his vestments, and by the aid of a
long pickle-spoon placed all that was in him on the plate. His legs I
chewed up. Then I ate him, and watched the many industrious,
hard-working fathers of families trudging by in the snow, who had no
lobster, and couldn’t have dressed him if they had. Then I finished up
on some sponge-cake and custard, ate two apples with a sprinkle of salt,
lit my pipe, and in its smoke framed beautiful porcelain figures
engraven with Chinese characters and Hindoo idols. That’s what I did
with that lobster. He was a prime one and very much interested the
Sisters.”
=Chicken Salad.=—Cut up a cold boiled chicken into neat strips or
pieces, and mix with it an equal quantity of celery. Cut the
celery-stalks into inch pieces, and cut each piece into long strips; mix
them together with a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise; arrange neatly upon a
dish garnished with lettuce, parsley, or hard-boiled egg, pour the
remainder of the sauce over the meat, and serve.
=Veal Salad.=—Boil a nice lean piece of veal with a chicken or turkey,
saving the water in which they were boiled to make a soup, and serving
the fowl for dinner with egg or oyster sauce. When cold cut it up into
neat strips, mix it with celery or lettuce, pour Mayonnaise over it, and
serve.
The custom of pickling the pieces, etc., of fowl before mixing them in a
salad does not take well with Americans.
=Herring Salad.=—Soak four Holland herrings in water or milk for three
hours; then cut them up into neat, square pieces and set them aside; cut
up into slices nearly three quarts of boiled potatoes while they are
hot, and pour over them Rhine wine enough to moisten them; cover close,
and when cold add the herrings and the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs
chopped fine; crush a dozen whole peppers in a napkin, add to the salad,
and mix. If milt herrings are used pound the milt to a paste, moisten it
with vinegar, and pour over the salad.
If roe herring are used, separate the eggs neatly and sprinkle them over
the salad, and serve.
I know a number of my German friends who will say, “Ah! that is not a
herring salad.” Where are the apples, the capers, beets, pickles, etc.?
But the only answer I can make them is that the majority of our German
brethren make an Italian or a Russian salad and call it a herring salad.
=Potato Salad.=—Cut up three quarts of boiled potatoes, _while hot_,
into neat pieces, and add to them a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a
tablespoonful of chopped onion, a teaspoonful of pepper, and one of
salt; add a cupful of oil, and mix; then add a cupful of warm stock, a
wineglassful of vinegar (from the mixed-pickle bottle), mix the
ingredients together carefully, and do not break the potato any more
than is absolutely necessary; set it in the ice-box, and when cold serve
by placing a leaf of lettuce on a side-dish, and put two spoonfuls of
the salad upon the lettuce. The onion and parsley may be omitted, and
boiled root celery added, or a little stalk celery chopped fine. You
cannot make a perfect potato salad with cold boiled potatoes. Most
cook-books recommend them, but that soggy, peculiar taste cannot be
removed or destroyed by all the condiments in the cruet-stand. A salad
prepared while the potatoes are hot will look more appetizing and will
keep three or four days, while cold boiled potatoes will turn a black,
uninviting color, and turn sour the second day.
=Turnip Tops.=—When turnips placed in the cellar begin to sprout they
are usually thrown away, but the housekeeper of experience will tell you
that a bushel of turnips will furnish her family with a salad all
winter, and a very good one if properly prepared.
Place the bushel of turnips in a dark, warm cellar to sprout, and when
the sprouts are three or four inches long cut them off; pick the leaves
from the stems, and pour hot water over them; let them remain in the hot
water a moment, then plunge them into cold water; place the sprouts in
the colander to drain off all the water, and send to table with a plain
dressing or bacon dressing poured over them.
=Asparagus Salad.=—Boil the asparagus, and take it from the hot water
and plunge it into cold water to give it firmness; drain off the water,
and send to table with sauce Vinaigrette or plain French dressing.
=Hop Sprouts.=—The hop-growers pull up all but two or three sprouts from
a hill of hops, and throw them away; the few that remain in the hill are
supposed to do duty as pole-climbers. Gather a small basketful of the
rejected sprouts; take them home; boil them in salted water a few
minutes, then plunge them into cold water; drain off all the water, and
serve with a plain French dressing, bacon dressing, or sauce
Vinaigrette.
If you eat asparagus you will like hop sprouts.
=Cucumber Salad.=—Peel and slice the cucumbers as thin as possible; put
the slices in salted water five minutes, then draw off the water; cover
them with vinegar, half a teaspoonful of pepper, and salt if necessary.
=Cucumber and Tomato Salad.=—Peel and slice a five-inch cucumber into
very thin slices; put them in a bowl with half a teaspoonful of salt and
two tablespoonfuls of vinegar; set it aside and mix a plain English
dressing.
Take one large or two small-sized tomatoes, scald them a moment, remove
the skin and put them in cold water a few minutes to cool; line the
salad-bowl with lettuce, drain the cucumbers from the pickle and put
them in the bowl; wipe the tomatoes and cut them into slices; put them
on top of the cucumber, pour the dressing over it, and serve.
OFFICE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, }
HARRISBURG, PENN., April 16, 1879. }
_Mr. Murrey, Caterer Continental Hotel, Philadelphia_:
Send by express, to-morrow, one hundred Murrey salad sandwiches.
HENRY M. HOYT, _Governor_.
=Murrey’s Salad Sandwich.=—Cut up four ounces of breast of boiled
chicken and four ounces of tongue, place them in a mortar, and pound
them to a paste; add two salt-spoonfuls of celery-salt, a pinch of
cayenne, a teaspoonful of anchovy paste, and four tablespoonfuls of
Mayonnaise; put the mixture on a cold dish, and set it aside.
Take a few neat leaves of lettuce, dip each leaf in a little tarragon
vinegar, shake it, and place it on a slice of bread; spread a layer of
the prepared meat over the lettuce, then another leaf of lettuce over
the meat, and the other slice of bread, and your sandwich is made. Trim
off the crust, cut each sandwich in two, and fold each piece neatly in
confectionery (oiled) paper.
Ham and veal make a nice salad sandwich. The meat may be spread on the
bread and the lettuce in the centre, if preferred.
=Muskmelon Salad.=—Should you be so unfortunate as to receive an
insipid, over-ripe melon, do not send it from the table, but scoop it
out on your plate with a spoon, pour a French dressing over it, and you
will thank me for the suggestion.
=Alligator-Pear Salad.=—This tropical fruit, that tastes something like
our chestnuts, is beginning to find favor among us, but care should be
used in selecting the fruit. The green colored fruit is the best; the
black, over-ripe fruit is useless. Cut the pear in two, remove the large
seed, cut away the outer rind, then cut the fruit into strips and season
with a salt-spoonful of salt, two tablespoonfuls best Virgin olive-oil,
a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar—nothing else.
=Salt.=—Of all the condiments now in use salt is the most essential. The
health of every individual depends upon it, and it is as much required
as food or drink; therefore the salt question is an important one to
families. Do not buy salt so fine as to cake in the salt-cellar, for it
is almost useless; nor use a very coarse salt; a happy medium is the
thing. What is known to the trade as Royal Table Salt is the proper
fineness and best adapted for hotels and family use.
=Mushrooms.=—I have purposely avoided introducing mushrooms into my
receipts on account of the expense attached, but where the expense is
only a secondary consideration they may be used indiscriminately. Of the
French canned mushrooms the A. Godillot’s brand gives the best
satisfaction, being put up and sealed at the source of supply, and,
therefore, their natural flavors are preserved. Our field mushrooms are
very nice when fresh, cooked in any form. To distinguish them from the
poisonous fungi, “A Constant Reader,” writing to the London _Times_,
says: “I venture to send you a simple test of the mushroom, which I have
practised for many years, and for which I am indebted to an old
herbalist. Before peeling the mushroom pass a gold ring backwards and
forwards on the skin of the mushroom; should the bruise thus caused turn
yellow or orange color the mushroom is poisonous, but otherwise it is
quite safe. I have tried repeated baskets of mushrooms in this way, some
turning yellow and others retaining the usual color, though in all other
respects to all appearance the same.”
Forney’s _Progress_ on mushrooms:
He saw a fellow gathering mushrooms, and he knew they were the poisonous
kind.
“Take care,” he said, “those mushrooms are poisonous.”
“Oh! that makes no difference,” replied the man. “I am not going to eat
them; I’m gathering them for market.”
=The Mystery of making Loaf Bread—A Trustworthy Receipt.=—“Loaf bread,”
once said an experienced housekeeper to us, “interferes with the
salvation of more housekeepers than any other one thing in the world.”
This was probably an extravagant statement, yet to the country housewife
who cannot turn to a convenient bakery the duty of breadmaking is too
often a heavy cross—a sort of hit-or-miss experiment. Heavy, sour bread
is far more general than the opposite, and this is trying to both the
digestions and to the tempers of the family who eat it. Yet there is no
reason for this; there is a philosophy of breadmaking as of everything
else, and certain causes accomplish certain results. Therefore we are
glad to be able to give a receipt from a practical housekeeper whose
bread _never_ fails: To make two quarts of bread or rolls take four or
five nice, large Irish potatoes, peel and cut them up, and put them to
boil in just enough water to cover them. When done mash smooth in the
same water, and when _cool_, not _cold_, add a half-teacupful of
yeast—or, if you use compressed yeast, the sixth part of a cake
dissolved in tepid water—a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a little salt, a
tablespoonful of lard, and a pint of flour. Mix together lightly. This
should be very soft and quite sticky. Set by in a covered vessel in a
warm place to rise. In two or three hours it will be risen, and should
look almost like yeast, full of bubbles. Now work in the rest of your
two quarts of flour, and, if necessary, add a little cold water. The
dough should be rather soft and need not be kneaded more than half an
hour. Set to rest in a moderately warm place for four hours or
thereabouts. It can be baked now if wanted at once, but, if not, take a
spoon and push the dough down from the top and sides of the vessel
containing it, and let it rise again. The oftener the bread rises the
lighter it will be—three times is, however, sufficient. After it rises
the last time take it out of the vessel and knead it with your hands
until it is smooth. If too soft add a little more flour. For rolls, roll
out and cut as if for biscuit. If you prefer doubled rolls give each a
touch with the rolling-pin to make it oblong, and then double it over.
The baking-pan must be greased and the rolls must not touch each other.
Set down to rise; this will take half or three-quarters of an hour. Then
put in the oven and bake as you would biscuit. Unless the oven is _hot_
the rolls will spread and the crust be hard.—_Col. McClure’s
Philadelphia Times._
=Wheat Bread.=—Put seven pounds of flour into a bread-pan, hollow out
the centre, and add a quart of lukewarm water, a teaspoonful of salt,
and a wineglassful of yeast. Have ready more warm water, and add
gradually as much as will make a smooth, soft dough. Knead it well; dust
a little flour over it, cover it with a cloth, and set it in a warm
place for four hours; then knead it again for fifteen minutes and let it
rise again. Divide it into loaves and bake in a quick oven.
=Corn Bread.=—Sift three quarts of corn meal, add a tablespoonful of
salt, and mix sufficient water with it to make a very thin batter. Cover
it with a bread-cloth and set it to rise. When ready to bake stir it
well, pour it into a baking-pan, and bake slowly. Use cold water in
summer and hot water in winter.
=Continental Hotel Corn Bread.=—Sift together a pound and a half wheat
flour, one pound Indian meal, two ounces Royal Baking Powder, and a
tablespoonful salt. Beat together three ounces of sugar, three ounces of
butter, and four eggs; add the mixture to the flour, and make a stiff
batter by adding warm milk if in winter, cold milk in summer. Bake in
small square moulds.
=Continental Hotel Muffins.=—Mix two and a half pounds flour, three
ounces Royal Baking Powder, and tablespoonful salt. Beat up three ounces
of sugar, three ounces butter, and four eggs together; add to the flour,
make a batter with milk, half fill the muffin-rings, and bake in a quick
oven.
=Boston Brown Bread.=—Sift together thoroughly half a pint of flour, one
pint corn meal, half a pint rye flour, one teaspoonful salt, one
tablespoonful brown sugar, and two teaspoonfuls baking powder. Peel,
wash, and boil two mealy potatoes; rub them through the sieve, diluting
with half a pint of water. When this is quite cold use it to make a
batter and pour it into a well-greased mould having a cover. Place it in
a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer one hour without the water getting
into it; take it out of the water, remove the cover, and finish cooking
by baking about thirty minutes.
=Steamed Brown Bread.=—One quart each of milk and Indian meal, one pint
of rye meal, one cup of molasses, two teaspoonfuls of soda. Add a little
salt and steam four hours.
M. G. H.
=Milk Biscuit.=—Take one-fourth of a pound butter, one quart lukewarm
milk, two wineglassfuls yeast, salt to taste, and as much flour as will
form the dough. Stir flour into the milk to make a thick batter, and add
the yeast. This should be done in the evening. Next morning melt the
butter and pour it into the sponge; add flour enough to make a stiff
dough; knead it well and set it aside to rise. When perfectly light roll
it out an inch thick and cut the biscuits, set them in shallow
baking-pans, and set them in a moderately warm place to rise. When they
are light brush beaten egg over them and bake in a quick oven.
=Corn Cakes.=—Scrape twelve ears of corn, use two eggs, one and one-half
cups of milk, salt and pepper to taste, and flour enough to hold all
together. Fry in hot fat.
M. G. H.
=Fried Bread Cakes.=—Add half a cupful of melted butter, three of “A”
sugar, four eggs, teaspoonful of salt, and a little grated nutmeg to
five cupfuls of dough. Knead these well together with flour, and set it
before the fire to rise until very light. Knead the dough again after it
rises, and cut it into diamond or crescent shaped cakes; let them rise,
and fry them in boiling fat.
=Pies.=—Pie, and the extent to which it is consumed in this country,
have long been a subject upon which Europeans travelling here have
exercised their descriptive and imaginative powers. It seems to be a
cardinal belief on the other side that no meal is furnished here without
a superabundance of pie; that, even at the best inns and restaurants in
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, pie is devoured at breakfast,
luncheon, dinner, and supper; that no American would sit down to a table
where he could not see plenty of pie; that all the States are closely
connected and bound together by a prejudice in favor of pie; that it was
love of pie rather than force of patriotism which, in the civil war,
preserved the Union. Sala is one of the latest Englishmen to descant on
the omnipresence and national omnivorousness of pie. He devotes ample
space to it in one of his recent letters to the London _Telegraph_;
admits that he has eaten it, and that it is so very toothsome that it is
difficult to resist its temptations. He has done what a great many of
our own people never do. Hundreds of families in this and in other
cities do not see a pie from beginning to end of the year. Thousands of
natives have never tasted pie. In the large towns of the Middle States
it is but seldom put on the table. New England, indeed, is the region to
which pie is indigenous, though even there it is confined mainly to the
rural districts. It appears odd, however, that Englishmen should so
animadvert on our pies, as if they had never tasted or heard of such
things. They have any quantity of pies at home, but these are meat pies,
commonly of pork and mutton, and as hostile to gastric conditions as bad
pastry and poor baking can conveniently make them. They have, too, any
number of fruit pies, giving them the name of tarts, not to be compared
with our pies. The gooseberry tart, almost as much a British dish as
plum-pudding, is eaten from Cornwall to Northumberland, and that its
eaters survive it proves the strength and elasticity of the national
stomach. It is usually as heavy as lead and a guarantee of indigestion.
The French also have numberless pies under the disguise of _tartes_, but
no better than, often not so good as, ours. In truth, the American pie
is widely prevalent in the Old World, where, as a rule, it is inferior
to the native article.
NEW YORK TIMES.
=Puff Paste.=—Good sweet, salt butter, which has been washed in cold
water, squeezed between the hands to free it from the salt, and
afterwards wrung in a cloth to take away all the moisture, is the best
material that can be used. The consistency of the butter is of much
importance. If it is too hard it will not easily mix with the flour, but
if it is too soft the paste will be entirely spoilt in consequence of
the butter breaking through the edges while it is being rolled. As the
difficulty experienced is generally to get the butter sufficiently cool,
it is a good plan to place it upon ice before using it for the pastry.
In hot weather the paste should be placed in a cool place a few minutes
between each turn. If very flaky pastry is required, the paste may be
brushed lightly over each time it is rolled with white of egg. Sift one
pound of flour; put it on the pastry-board. Make a hole in the centre;
add half a teaspoonsful salt and little less than half a pint of
ice-water. The exact quantity of water cannot be given, owing to the
difference in flour, but experience will soon enable you to determine
when the paste is sufficiently stiff. Mix it in gradually with a knife,
then work it lightly with the hands to form a smooth paste. Have ready
three-quarters of a pound of butter. Flatten the paste till it is an
inch thick; lay the butter in the centre, and fold over the four sides
of the paste so as to form a square and completely hide the butter.
Leave this to cool a few minutes, then dredge the board and the paste
with flour, and roll the paste out very thin, and be especially careful
that the butter does not break through the flour. Fold over a third of
the length from one end, and lay the other third upon it. This folding
into three is called giving one turn. Let the paste rest for a few
minutes, then give it two more turns; rest again, and give it two more.
This will be in all five turns, and these will generally be found
sufficient. If, however, the pastry is to be used for patties, etc., six
or seven turns will be required. Gather the paste together, and it is
ready for use, and should be baked as soon as possible; and remember to
dredge a little flour over it, the board, and rolling-pin every time it
is rolled, to keep it from sticking. French cooks mix the yolks of two
eggs with flour and water in the first instance. If a very rich paste is
required a pound of butter to a pound of flour may be used.
CASSELL.
=Paste.=—One pound of flour, half a pound of butter, half a pound of
lard. With a little water make a dough of the flour and lard; then roll
it; spread a portion of the butter over it; fold and roll again; add
more butter, and so on until you have used the half pound all up.