Larded Liver.
THE butcher will slice the liver, or show you how to do it. When it is
cut up, lay it in cold water in which has been stirred a teaspoonful of
salt. This will draw out the blood.
Cut fat, raw salt pork into strips a finger long and a quarter of an
inch thick and wide.
In half an hour’s time take the liver from the water, spread it out on
a clean dry cloth, lay another cloth over the slices and pat gently
to dry them thoroughly. Make holes an inch apart in the liver with a
pen-knife or sharp skewer, and stick in the pork strips. They should
protrude an equal distance on both sides.
As fast as they are ready, lay them in a clean, warm (_not_ hot)
frying-pan. When all are in, set it over the fire, and let it fry
rather slowly in the fat that will run out from the pork “lardoons.”
In five minutes turn the slices, and again ten minutes later. Let the
liver heat quite slowly for the first ten minutes. If cooked fast it is
hard and indigestible. Allow about twenty-five minutes for frying it.
Take it up with a fork, draining off every drop of grease against the
side of the pan as you remove each piece, and dish on a hot platter.
Put a half a teaspoonful of tomato sauce on each slice. Serve without
gravy and very hot.
Veal Cutlets (Breaded).
Whip two eggs light and pour them into a pie-plate. Turn the cutlets,
one by one, over in this until every part is coated. In another dish
spread evenly a cupful of rolled or pounded cracker, very fine and dry.
Turn the “egged” cutlets over in this to encrust them well.
Meanwhile four large spoonfuls of sweet lard or nice beef-dripping
must be melting in a clean frying-pan at one side of the range. When
the cutlets are all breaded, move the pan directly over the fire. As
the fat begins a lively hiss, put in as many cutlets as can lie in it
without crowding. In five minutes turn them with care, not to loosen
the crumb-coating. After another five minutes of rapid frying, pull the
pan to a spot where the cooking will go on slowly, but regularly. In
ten minutes turn the cutlets a second time. In another ten minutes they
should be done.
Understand! The first fast cooking sears the surface of the meat and
forms the breading into a firm crust that keeps in the juices. The
slower work that follows cooks the veal thoroughly without hardening
the fibres.
Lift the cutlets carefully from the pan, draining all the grease from
each, and keep hot in a covered dish set over a pot of boiling water
until all are done.
Always put tomato catsup or tomato sauce, in some form, on the table
with veal cutlets.
Sausage Cakes.
Break off bits of sausage meat of equal size, roll them in the palms of
clean hands into balls and pat them into flat cakes. Arrange them in a
frying-pan and cook (not too fast) in their own fat, turning them twice
until they are nicely and evenly browned. The time allowed for frying
them depends on the size of the cakes. If they are not large, fifteen
minutes should be enough.
Serve on a hot dish, without gravy.
Smothered Sausages.
Prick “link” sausages—that is, those done up in skins, in fifteen or
twenty places, with a large needle; put them in a clean frying-pan in
which is a half a teacup full of hot water. Roll the sausages over in
this several times and cover _closely_. If you have not the lid of a
pot or of a tin-pail that fits the frying-pan, use a pie-dish turned
upside down. Set the pan where the water will bubble slowly, for ten
minutes. Lift the cover then, and roll the sausages over again two or
three times, to wet them thoroughly, leaving them with the sides up
that were down. Cover again and cook ten minutes longer. Turn them
twice more, at intervals of five minutes, cover, and let them steam
four minutes before taking them up. They will be plump, whole, tender
and well-done, and the bottom of the pan be almost dry. Lay in neat
rows on a hot dish.
Fish Balls.
Soak a pound of cod-fish all night in cold water. Change it in the
morning, and cover with lukewarm water for three hours more. Wash it,
scraping off the salt and fat; put it into a sauce-pan, cover it well
with water just blood-warm, and let it simmer—that is, not _quite_
boil, two hours. Take it up, pick out the bones and remove the skin,
and set the fish aside to cool.
When perfectly cold chop it fine in a wooden tray. Have ready, for a
cupful of minced fish, nearly two cupfuls of potato boiled and mashed
very smooth.
A tablespoonful of butter.
Half a teaspoonful of salt.
Two tablespoonfuls of milk worked into the fish while
hot.
Add also, when the potato has been rubbed until free
from lumps, the beaten yolk of an egg. Work this in
well with a wooden or silver spoon.
Now stir in the chopped fish, a little at a time,
mixing all together until you have a soft mass which
you can handle easily.
Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture on a floured pastry board, or a
floured dish. Flour your hands, roll the fish and potato into a ball,
and pat it into a cake, or make it as round as a marble. Lay these as
you form them on a dish dusted with flour, and when all are made out,
set in a cool place until morning.
Half an hour before breakfast, have five or six great spoonfuls of
sweet lard hissing hot in a frying-pan or doughnut-kettle. Put in the
balls a few at a time; turn as they color; take them out when they are
of a tanny brown, lay them in a hot colander set in a plate, and keep
warm in the open oven until all are fried.
A Breakfast Stew (very nice).
Two pounds of lean beef. (The “second best cuts” may be
used here.)
A quarter of a medium-sized onion.
A tablespoonful of browned flour.
Half a teaspoonful each of minced parsley, summer
savory, and sweet marjoram.
As much allspice as will lie on a silver dime.
One teaspoonful of Halford sauce.
One saltspoonful of made mustard.
One saltspoonful of pepper.
Strained juice of half a lemon.
Cut the meat into pieces an inch square. Put it with the chopped onion
into a saucepan with a pint of lukewarm water; cover closely and cook
slowly, _at least_ two hours and a half. The meat should not be allowed
to boil hard at any time, and when done, be so tender that it is ready
to fall to pieces.
Pour the stew into a bowl, add the salt and pepper, cover it and set in
a cool place until next morning.
Then put it back into the sauce-pan, set it over a quick fire, and
when it begins to boil, stir in the spice and herbs. (The latter may
be bought dried and powdered at the druggist’s if you cannot get them
fresh.)
Boil up sharply five minutes.
The flour should be browned the day before, by spreading it on a tin
plate and setting this on the stove, stirring constantly to keep it
from burning black. Or a better way is, to set the tin plate in a hot
oven, opening the door now and then to stir it. It is a good plan to
brown a good deal—say a cupful of flour—at a time, and keep it in a
glass jar for thickening gravies, etc.
Wet up a heaping tablespoonful of this with three tablespoonfuls of
cold water, the lemon-juice, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Rub
smooth and stir well into the stew. Boil two minutes longer to thicken
the gravy and turn out into a deep covered dish.
This is a good dinner, as well as breakfast dish. A teaspoonful of
catsup is an improvement.
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