[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER]
VOL. VIII.—NO. 374.] FEBRUARY 26, 1887. [PRICE ONE PENNY.
A FAMILY LIKENESS.
BY ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.
[Illustration:
“I TELL THEM ALL THE HOUSE IS FREE,
AND BID THEM MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME.”]
_All rights reserved._]
My parlour is a pleasant place,
I love its silence and its shade,
’Tis like some sweet, accustomed face
So dear, it need not fear to fade:
And here I sit with folded hands,
To welcome John from foreign lands.
You see that portrait in the room?
My great aunt’s—long ere she was wed.
Once, when my mother praised its bloom,
John turned to me and softly said
(And then at least he thought it true),
“A very lovely face—like you!”
Don’t blame him. No. I had no wealth:
His fortune, too, was all to seek.
Though love might enter in by stealth,
He thought it was no time to speak.
So silently John went away,
And now he brings his wife to-day.
And there they are! And this is he
(I’d know his voice if I were blind!);
And in his smiling spouse I see
A gracious beauty, fair and kind,
A stately lady—not at all
Like yon quaint picture on the wall!
And now for all the boys and girls
Who make my old friend’s household bliss;
Oh, Johnnie, with the chestnut curls,
I’m sorry he’s too old to kiss!—
I only say, “How like his father!”
And take his hand and press it rather.
I tell them all the house is free,
And bid them make themselves at home,
And so, with peals of laughing glee,
About the stairs and rooms they roam:
But Johnnie joins not in their rout;
He stays with us, and peers about.
He sees that portrait on the wall
(Still hanging in the same old place);
He turns about before us all,
And says, “That is a lovely face.”
His mother rises up to see;
His father smiles, and looks at me.
“It ought to be restored,” says he,
“It’s piteous how these beauties fade”
(Ah, the old dream is safe with me).
John has forgotten what he said!
Old picture, we’ll forget it too—
Come, Johnnie, here’s a seat for you!
[Illustration:
“HE SEES THE PORTRAIT ON THE WALL
STILL HANGING IN THE SAME OLD PLACE.”
[_See page 338._]
TINNED MEATS: THEIR VALUE TO HOUSEKEEPERS.
BY A. G. PAYNE, Author of “Common-sense Cookery,” “Choice Dishes at
Small Cost,” “The Housekeeper’s Guide,” &c.
PART III.
There is no doubt that in this country the present generation is far
more luxurious than the one that preceded it. Living is to a great
extent a question of habit. At the present moment a Russian soldier
is paid at the rate of a shilling a month, and his only ration is
rye-bread baked into biscuit, washed down with a draught of water. The
British workman of the day requires a hot meat dinner, cooked from
fresh meat expressly for him alone. Were his wife to supply him with
cold meat, he would probably grumble. In the last century a labourer
was content with a piece of fat pork boiled on Sunday. Possibly in the
next century we shall have our soup kitchens for the poor altered into
turtle soup kitchens; for it is a fact that the luxuries of one century
become the necessities of the next.
It is a question worthy of consideration whether this country has not
reached that pitch of luxury and self-indulgence which all history
teaches us is the turning-point in a nation’s greatness. Ananius,
Azarius, and Misael have told us that we thrive better on pulse and
water than on the king’s meat. Let us hope as a nation that, unlike the
king in question, seven times may not pass over us to cure us of our
luxury and pride.
I will not enter into a description of the various uses of the more
expensive luxuries now sold in tins. I refer to truffles, cocks’
combs, _fina cière_, _ragout_, _foie gras_, etc. Mushrooms, however,
are exceptions. They seem like gifts of nature, and, like the manna
of old, they require us to rise early and gather in our harvest
fresh, not forgetting that, like manna, they will not properly keep
till the morrow. It is, however in cases like this, when the food is
of a perishable nature, that the invention of preserving in tins is
so useful. There are probably few of what may be called accessories
to food more useful or more delicious than mushrooms. Mushrooms are
preserved in tins in two forms, by far the most common one being quite
plain in water. Were I to give a list of all the various dishes in the
composition of which mushrooms enter, I should require as many volumes
as I am allowed columns. I would, however, remind housekeepers that
small tins of mushrooms can now be obtained at sixpence each from all
respectable grocers.
I will give one or two simple cases to illustrate the various uses to
which mushrooms can be applied.
First, mushroom sauce.
You can have brown mushroom sauce and white mushroom sauce.
To make brown mushroom sauce from tinned mushrooms, open the tin of
mushrooms and add the contents, liquid and all, to about an equal
quantity of good, thick, rich, brown gravy. The mushrooms should be
chopped small, and served in the gravy just as they are.
White mushroom sauce, which is so delicious with boiled fowl, can be
made by adding a tin of mushrooms to some good béchamel sauce. Béchamel
sauce is some very strong stock, mixed with some boiling milk, or,
still better, boiling cream, thickened with a little butter and flour.
When the tin of mushrooms is added to the white sauce, the whole should
be rubbed through a wire sieve with a wooden spoon. This helps to
thicken the sauce, and greatly adds to the flavour.
Another simple instance of the use of mushrooms is some kind of fish
_au gratin_. Take, for instance, a sole. Dry it, flour it, and egg
and breadcrumb it in the usual manner. Next take a sixpenny tin of
mushrooms, strain off the liquor, and chop up the mushrooms finely with
a piece of onion as big as the top of the thumb down to the bottom of
the nail, a piece of lemon peel, say about the size of the thumbnail
and as thick; that is, you only use the yellow part, and not the white.
Add also sufficient chopped parsley to fill a teaspoon, as well as a
little pepper and salt. Fry all these in a frying-pan with some butter
for a few minutes, and when it is partially cooked place about half
of it in a tin sufficiently long to hold the sole. Place the sole on
the top of these chopped ingredients, and place the remainder on the
top of the sole. Pour all the butter in the frying-pan on it, and, if
necessary, add a little more butter, so as to keep the sole moist,
and bake it in the oven till the sole is done. Of course the time for
baking varies with the size of the sole and the fierceness of the oven.
When it is finished, a little finely-grated Parmesan cheese may be
shaken over the whole. Parmesan cheese can now be obtained in bottles,
the price of a small bottle being about eightpence or ninepence. The
Parmesan cheese is, however, not absolutely necessary. Also a few bread
raspings shaken over the whole gives it a finished appearance. This
dish looks a great deal better if the tin is the same shape as the
sole, and the fish served in the tin in which it is baked. Long oval
tins are sold on purpose.
Almost any kind of fish can be served in this way, such as lemon soles,
fresh haddock, filleted brill, filleted plaice, etc. Just before the
sole _au gratin_ is sent to table many persons add about a teaspoonful
of sherry to the sauce by which it is surrounded. To my mind it is a
doubtful improvement.
Another very excellent form of preserved mushrooms of which I cannot
speak too highly, is what is known as black Leicestershire mushrooms,
preserved in gravy. These are quite different from the ones usually
sold in tins. They are round and flat in shape, and are much more like
the ordinary mushrooms that we are accustomed to gather in the country,
being white on one side and black on the other. The way to use them
is to make the tin hot in boiling water, and then add the contents to
either a well cooked steak or chop, taking care that the red gravy that
runs out of the steak or chop is added to the gravy in the mushrooms.
It is an improvement if you have some good thick gravy, to add a
little of it to the gravy in the tin. One of these tins very greatly
improves the flavour of a dish of hash or stewed steak. I would
strongly recommend you to try the experiment of using one of these tins
the next time you have a chop or steak. They can be served just as they
are, after being made hot, in a sauce tureen, and will be found far
superior to any mushroom sauce generally met with, even when made from
freshly gathered mushrooms. The cost of a small tin of these excellent
mushrooms preserved in gravy is about sevenpence.
We will now consider tomatoes in tins. Fresh tomatoes are now preserved
whole, and will often be found very useful. Suppose, for instance, as
we mentioned in our first article, that we are taken by surprise in a
country house far away from all shops, and we want a delicious little
entrée in a hurry. We will suppose the store cupboard to contain a tin
of tomatoes preserved whole, and also a tin of mushrooms. The dish we
are going to send to table is called tomatoes _au gratin_. We will
suppose the larder to contain a piece of cold boiled bacon, but raw
bacon would serve our purpose equally well. Take the piece of cold
boiled bacon, and with a blunt knife scrape off about two or three
tablespoonfuls of fat. Chop up very finely a tin of mushrooms with a
piece of onion, lemon peel and parsley, exactly as if we were making a
sole _au gratin_. Add a small saltspoonful of dried thyme. If the thyme
is fresh, less than half that quantity will be ample. Fry all these
ingredients in a frying-pan with the fat bacon, and then add sufficient
bread-crumbs to make the whole into the consistency of a pudding. Now
take the tomatoes very carefully out of the tin without breaking them,
and I would warn you that they require very delicate handling. Give the
tomatoes a gentle squeeze so as to get rid of any of the pips inside.
Then with a teaspoon carefully fill the tomatoes with the mixture we
have just made. The more mixture you can get into each tomato the
better. Next pour a very little salad oil into a tin—oiled butter will
do—and place the tomatoes one by one on the tin without breaking them,
and bake them in the oven. When they are hot through, they may be
served. In taking them out of the tin and placing them on the dish, use
a slice similar to that for taking out fried eggs.
The only difficulty I know of in making this delicious dish is to avoid
breaking the tomatoes, which are more liable to give way when they
are hot than when they were first taken out of the tin. Shake a few
bread-raspings over the top of each tomato before serving—that is,
cover the top of the mushroom mixture with the bread raspings to make
it a nice brown, but do not shake the bread raspings over the tomato
itself. If the tomatoes are placed in a silver dish and surrounded with
a little bright-green fried parsley, it has a very pretty appearance.
If you have some good brown gravy in the house, the tomatoes can be
served in a little gravy; only do not pour the gravy over the tomatoes,
as it would utterly spoil their appearance, but pour a little gravy
into the dish first, and then place the stuffed tomatoes carefully
in it. The gravy should be rich, thick, and of a good brown colour;
otherwise the tomatoes _au gratin_ are best served as they are.
Tomatoes preserved whole will be found useful to ornament a large
variety of dishes, such as _tête de veau en tortue_, _poulet à la
Marengo_, etc. For instance, a simple dish, but very bright-looking,
can be made as follows:—From the remains of some cold boiled potatoes
make some ordinary mashed potatoes; and if you live in the country,
where cream is cheap, remember a very little boiling cream added is
a very great improvement, both in appearance and flavour. Mashed
potatoes, to be really good, should be rubbed through a wire sieve.
Pile the mashed potatoes up in the middle of a vegetable dish, and
place round the outside alternately a mutton cutlet and a whole tomato.
The cutlets can be cooked perfectly plain—that is, simply grilled on
the gridiron like a mutton chop—or they can be fried after being egged
and bread-crumbed. The tomatoes simply want being made hot by being
placed on a greasy tin and warmed up in the oven. Place the cutlets
round the mashed potatoes, first leaving room for the tomatoes between
each. Then take out the tomatoes with a slice, and make a bed in the
mashed potatoes, in which they can quietly repose; otherwise they are
apt to smash and run, and make the dish look untidy.
We will next consider the best way of utilising the various vegetables
that can be obtained in tins, such as asparagus, green peas, French
beans, and last, but not least, _macédoines_.
First with regard to asparagus. Of all the vegetables preserved in tins
I think this is the best. It requires no preparation whatever. Make a
piece of toast, and place it at the bottom of a vegetable dish; then
make the asparagus hot in the tin, and when the water in which the tin
has been placed has boiled for some four or five minutes the tin can
be taken out and opened. In opening a tin of asparagus, cut the tin
right round the edge, so that the sticks of asparagus can be taken out
without breaking them, and take out any tops that may be left in the
tin, and add them to the rest. Strain off the liquid, and place the
asparagus on the toast, the white part resting on the edge of the dish.
The asparagus should therefore be divided into two parts, so that the
green parts meet on the toast and half the white sticks rest on one end
of the vegetable dish and half on the other. A little ordinary melted
butter or white sauce is generally served with them. For my part, I
prefer the asparagus quite plain.
Tinned asparagus differs in one respect from ordinary asparagus,
inasmuch as you can nearly eat the whole of it. Asparagus can be eaten
cold as a salad, and a very delicious salad it makes. Open a tin just
as it is, strain off the contents, dry the asparagus on a cloth, and
place it as I have described before on a dish, but without any toast.
Now make a little sauce to pour over the tips as follows:—Take, say,
a couple of ounces of butter, and dissolve it in the oven in a teacup
till it runs to oil. Now take it out, and add to it three brimming
teaspoonfuls of freshly-made mustard, a dessertspoonful of vinegar,
and a saltspoonful of pepper and another of salt. Stir this up with
the oiled butter. As the butter begins to get cold the sauce commences
to get thick, and as soon as it has got into that state in which it
resembles custard, pour it over the asparagus, of course leaving
the ends of each stick free from the sauce, as it is now customary
to eat asparagus with the fingers. This sauce, to be good, requires
real butter, which is a substance now rarely met with, even at
respectable grocers, the adulteration of butter with fat being almost
universal—this universal adulteration being the chief cause of the
depression of trade throughout the country. The salad should not be
served till the sauce is quite cold and sticks to the asparagus.
Green peas are now to be had preserved in tins, not only very good but
very cheap. Good preserved peas should be small and of a light green.
When the peas are large and high coloured, they are inferior. The fact
is that the former are young and the latter old. Preserved peas are
best served in a course by themselves, though, of course, they can be
handed round with ordinary joints. The art of sending preserved peas
to table is to make them look and taste as much as possible like green
peas freshly gathered. For this purpose you should act as follows:—Make
the peas hot in the tin and take, say, a dozen fresh mint leaves and
scald them in the water in which the tin is being made hot. Next take
these hot mint leaves and put them in a vegetable dish. Open the tin of
peas, strain off the liquor, and pour the peas on to the mint leaves.
Now add a small saltspoonful of powdered sugar, half a saltspoonful
of salt, and a small pat of butter as big as a five-shilling piece.
Toss the peas for a minute or so lightly together, so that the butter
is dissolved and the sugar and salt melted, and the fresh mint leaves
brought to the surface. Now send the dish to table. The fresh mint
leaves help to convey the idea that the peas are fresh. In everything
we eat and drink imagination goes a long way. Who, for instance, would
care to drink port wine out of the spout of a teapot, even if the
teapot were solid silver?
I might here mention in passing that a small sixpenny tin of peas
will be found very useful in ornamenting a boiled leg of mutton. If
you want to make a boiled leg of mutton look really nice, proceed
as follows:—Of course you have boiled turnips and carrots with it.
Boil the turnips whole, and when they are tender take them out of the
water and cut each turnip in half and scoop out the centre, so as to
make it like a cup. Now take the outside part of the carrot, which
is a brighter red than the inside part, and chop it up into small
pieces. Place the leg of mutton in the centre of the dish, and pour
over it either some of the water in which it is boiled or some thick
caper sauce. Now fill up these cups made out of the scooped turnips
cut in half with a tablespoonful of green peas and a tablespoonful of
chopped-up carrot alternately. It is a very simple garnish, and gives
but little trouble; but what a difference it makes in the appearance!
We will next take French beans, or, as they are properly called,
_haricots verts_. I think these deserve to be served in a course by
themselves, even more than peas. If they are served with a joint they
must simply be made hot in a tin, then drained and allowed to dry,
and handed round just as they are. French beans go best with a haunch
of venison or roast mutton. If, however, you serve the beans as a
course by themselves, you must, after making them hot and draining
off the liquid, add a couple of tablespoonfuls of good white sauce,
that is _béchamel sauce_, or if you have none, add to a tin of beans
about enough fresh butter to fill a dessertspoon; add also about a
saltspoonful of finely chopped fresh parsley, a little pepper and salt,
and about a teaspoonful or rather more of lemon-juice, as well as a
little powdered sugar. The beans should be tossed lightly together
until the butter is dissolved, and then served.
Last, but not least, come _macédoines_. _Macédoines_ in tins are simply
mixed preserved vegetables, the chief ingredients being green peas,
chopped carrot, and turnip.
_Macédoines_ are one of the most useful kind of tinned goods to have
in the house, as you can always make a pretty dish at a few moments’
notice. A spoonful of _macédoines_ will turn some clear soup into a
bright-looking spring soup. A tin of _macédoines_ made hot and placed
in the centre of a dish of mutton cutlets always has a bright and
appetising appearance. _Macédoines_ can also be added to the remains of
some cold potatoes, and used to make a German salad; while, with a few
hard-boiled eggs and a small pot of _caviare_, we can make with their
assistance that excellent supper dish known as a Russian salad.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration]
THE BROOK AND ITS BANKS.
BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A., Author of “The Handy Natural History.”