PLAIN PUDDINGS AND PIES.
_General Directions in regard to Puddings and Custards._
Make pudding-bags of thick close sheeting, to shut out the water.
Before putting in the pudding, put the bag in water, and wring it out,
then flour the inside thoroughly. In tying it, leave room to swell;
flour and Indian need a good deal, and are hard and heavy if cramped.
Put an old plate in the bottom of the pot, to keep the bag from burning
to the pot. Turn the pudding after it has been in five minutes, to keep
the heavy parts from settling. Keep the pudding covered with water, and
do not let it stop boiling, as this will tend to make it water soaked.
Fill up with _boiling_ water, as cold would spoil the pudding. Dip the
bag a moment in cold water, just before turning out the pudding.
Avoid stale eggs. When eggs are used, the whites should be beat
separately, and put in the last thing. In many cases, success depends
upon this. Never put eggs into very hot milk, as it will poach them.
Wash the salt out of butter used to butter pans, as otherwise it
imparts a bad taste to the outside.
Put almonds in hot water till you are ready to blanch, or skin them,
and put orange, or rose water with them when you pound them, to prevent
adhesion. Boil custards in a vessel set in boiling water.
_Little Girl’s Pie._
Take a deep dish, the size of a soup plate, fill it, heaping, with
peeled tart apples, cored and quartered; pour over it one tea-cup
of molasses, and three great spoonfuls of sugar, dredge over this a
considerable quantity of flour, enough to thicken the syrup a good
deal. Cover it with a crust made of cream, if you have it, if not,
common dough, with butter worked in, or plain pie crust, and lap the
edge over the dish, and pinch it down tight, to keep the syrup from
running out. Bake about an hour and a half. Make several at once, as
they keep well.
_Little Boy’s Pudding._
One tea-cup of rice. One tea-cup of sugar. One half tea-cup of butter.
One quart of milk. Nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt to the taste.
Put the butter in melted, and mix all in a pudding dish, and bake it
two hours, stirring it frequently, until the rice is swollen.
This is good made without butter.
_Children’s Fruit Dumpling._
Invert a plate in a preserve kettle, or an iron or brass kettle. Put in
a quart or more of sliced apples or pears. Put in no water or sugar,
but simply roll out some common dough an inch thick, and just large
enough to cover them, and hang it over the fire fifteen or twenty
minutes. When the fruit is cooked the dough will have risen to a fine
puff, and also be cooked. There must not be any thing laid on the top
of the dough to prevent it from rising, but the kettle may be covered.
When it is done, take off the dough cover, with a fork and skimmer, put
it on to a plate, pour the fruit into a round dish, put the cover on,
and eat it with a sweet sauce. It is more healthful, and much better
than dumplings boiled the common way.
_Birth-day Pudding._
Butter a deep dish, and lay in slices of bread and butter, wet with
milk, and upon these sliced tart apples, sweetened and spiced. Then lay
on another layer of bread and butter and apples, and continue thus till
the dish is filled. Let the top layer be bread and butter, and dip it
in milk, turning the buttered side down. Any other kind of fruit will
answer as well. Put a plate on the top, and bake two hours, then take
it off and bake another hour.
_Children’s Boiled Fruit Pudding._
Take light dough and work in a little butter, roll it out into a very
thin large layer, not a quarter of an inch thick. Cover it thick with
strawberries, and put on sugar, roll it up tight, double it once or
twice and fasten up the ends. Tie it up in a bag, giving it room to
swell. Eat it with butter, or sauce not very sweet.
Blackberries, whortleberries, raspberries, apples, and peaches, all
make excellent puddings in the same way.
_English Curd Pie._
One quart of milk. A bit of rennet to curdle it.
Press out the whey, and put into the curds three eggs, a nutmeg, and a
tablespoonful of brandy. Bake it in paste, like custard.
_Fruit Fritters._
A pint of milk. A pint and a half of flour. Two teaspoonfuls of salt.
Six eggs, and a pint of cream if you have it; if not, a pint of milk
with a little butter melted in it.
Mix with this, either blackberries, raspberries, currants,
gooseberries, or sliced apples or peaches, and fry it in small cakes in
sweet lard. Eat with a sauce of butter beat with sugar, and flavored
with wine or nutmeg, or grated lemon peel.
_Common Apple Pie._
Pare your apples, and cut them from the core. Line your dishes with
paste, and put in the apple; cover and bake until the fruit is tender.
Then take them from the oven, remove the upper crust, and put in sugar
and nutmeg, cinnamon or rose water to your taste; a bit of sweet butter
improves them. Also, to put in a little orange peel before they are
baked, makes a pleasant variety. Common apple pies are very good to
stew, sweeten, and flavor the apple before they are put into the oven.
Many prefer the seasoning baked in. All apple pies are much nicer if
the apple is grated and then seasoned.
_Plain Custard._
Boil half a dozen peach leaves, or the rind of a lemon, or a vanilla
bean in a quart of milk; when it is flavored, pour into it a paste made
by a tablespoonful of rice flour, or common flour, wet up with two
spoonfuls of cold milk, and stir it till it boils again. Then beat up
four eggs and put in, and sweeten it to your taste, and pour it out for
pies or pudding.
_A Richer Custard._
Beat to a froth six eggs and three spoonfuls sifted sugar, add it to a
quart of milk, flavor it to your taste, and pour it out into cups, or
pie plates.
_Another Custard._
Boil six peach leaves, or a lemon peel, in a quart of milk, till it
is flavored; cool it, add three spoonfuls of sugar, and five eggs
beaten to a froth. Put the custard into a tin pail, set it in boiling
water, and stir it till cooked enough. Then turn it into cups, or, if
preferred, it can be baked.
_Mush, or Hasty Pudding._
Wet up the Indian meal in cold water, till there are no lumps, stir
it gradually into boiling water which has been salted, till so thick
that the stick will stand in it. Boil slowly, and so as not to burn,
stirring often. Two or three hours’ boiling is needed. Pour it into a
broad, deep dish, let it grow cold, cut it into slices half an inch
thick, flour them, and fry them on a griddle with a little lard, or
bake them in a stove oven.
_Stale Bread Fritters_ (_fine_).
Cut stale bread in thick slices, and put it to soak for several hours
in cold milk.
Then fry it in sweet lard, and eat it with sugar, or molasses, or a
sweet sauce. To make it more delicate, take off the crusts.
_To prepare Rennet._
Put three inches square of calf’s rennet to a pint of wine, and set it
away for use. Three tablespoonfuls will serve to curdle a quart of milk.
_Rennet Custard._
Put three tablespoonfuls of rennet wine to a quart of milk, and add
four or five great spoonfuls of white sugar, flavor it with wine, or
lemon, or rose water. It must be eaten in an hour or it will turn to
curds.
_Bird’s Nest Pudding._
Pare tart, well-flavored apples, scoop out the cores without dividing
the apple, put them in a deep dish with a small bit of mace, and a
spoonful of sugar in the opening of each apple. Pour in water enough to
cook them; when soft, pour over them an unbaked custard, so as just to
cover them, and bake till the custard is done.
_A Minute Pudding of Potato Starch._
Four heaped tablespoonfuls of potato flour. Three eggs, and half a
teaspoonful of salt. One quart of milk.
Boil the milk, reserving a little to moisten the flour. Stir the flour
to a paste, perfectly smooth, with the reserved milk, and put it into
the boiling milk. Add the eggs well beaten, let it boil till very
thick, which will be in two or three minutes, then pour into a dish
and serve with liquid sauce. After the milk boils, the pudding must be
stirred every moment till done.
_Tapioca Pudding._
Soak eight tablespoonfuls of tapioca in a quart of warm milk till soft,
then add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, five eggs well beaten,
spice, sugar, and wine to your taste. Bake in a buttered dish, without
any lining.
_Sago Pudding._
Cleanse the sago in hot water, and boil half a pound in a quart of milk
with a stick of mace or cinnamon, stirring very often, lest it burn.
When soft, take out the spice and add half a cup of melted butter, four
heaping spoonfuls of sugar, six eggs, and, if you like, some Zante
currants, strewed on just as it is going into the oven.
_Cocoanut Pudding_ (_Plain_).
One quart of milk.
Five eggs.
One cocoanut, grated.
The eggs and sugar are beaten together, and stirred into the milk when
hot. Strain the milk and eggs, and add the cocoanut, with nutmeg to the
taste. Bake about twenty minutes like puddings.
_New England Squash, or Pumpkin Pie._
Take a pumpkin, or winter squash, cut in pieces, take off the rind
and remove the seeds, and boil it until tender, then rub it through a
sieve. When cold, add to it milk to thin it, and to each quart of milk
three well-beaten eggs. Sugar, cinnamon, and ginger to your taste. The
quantity of milk must depend upon the size and quality of the squash.
These pies require a moderate heat, and must be baked until the centre
is firm.
_Ripe Fruit Pies._
_Peach, Cherry, Plum, Currant, and Strawberry._--Line your dish with
paste. After picking over and washing the fruit carefully (peaches must
be pared, and the rest picked from the stem), place a layer of fruit
and a layer of sugar in your dish, until it is well filled, then cover
it with paste, and trim the edge neatly, and prick the cover. Fruit
pies require about an hour to bake in a thoroughly heated oven.
_Batter Pudding._
One quart of milk.
Twelve tablespoonfuls of flour.
Nine eggs.
A teaspoonful of salt.
Beat the yolks thoroughly, stir in the flour, and add the milk slowly.
Beat the whites of the eggs to a froth and add the last thing. Tie in
a floured bag, and put it in boiling water, and boil two hours. Allow
room to swell.
_Mock Cream._
Beat three eggs well, and add three heaping teaspoonfuls of sifted
flour. Stir it into a pint and a half of boiling milk, add a salt
spoon of salt, and sugar to your taste. Flavor with rose water, or
essence of lemon.
This can be used for cream cakes, or pastry.
_Bread Pudding._
Three pints of boiled milk.
Eleven ounces of grated bread.
Half a pound of sugar.
A quarter of a pound of butter.
Five eggs.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread, stir the butter and sugar well
together, and put them into the bread and milk. When cool enough, add
the eggs, well beaten. Three quarters of an hour will bake it.
A richer pudding may be made from the above recipe by using twice as
much butter and eggs.
_Sunderland Pudding._
Six eggs.
Three spoonfuls of flour.
One pint of milk. A pinch of salt.
Beat the yolks well, and mix them smoothly with the flour, then add the
milk. Lastly, whip the whites to a stiff froth, work them in, and bake
immediately.
To be eaten with a liquid sauce.
_An Excellent Apple Pie._
Take fair apples; pare, core, and quarter them.
Take four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar to a pie.
Put into a preserving pan, with the sugar, water enough to make a thin
syrup; throw in a few blades of mace, boil the apple in the syrup until
tender, a little at a time, so as not to break the pieces. Take them
out with care, and lay them in soup dishes.
When you have preserved apple enough for your number of pies, add to
the remainder of the syrup, cinnamon and rose water, or any other
spice, enough to flavor it well, and divide it among the pies. Make
a good paste, and line the rim of the dishes, and then cover them,
leaving the pies without an under crust. Bake them a light brown.
_Boiled Apple Pudding._
One quarter of a pound of butter.
One pound of flour.
Two dozen apples.
Make a plain paste of the flour and butter. Sprinkle your pudding-bag
with flour, roll the paste thin, and lay inside of the bag, and fill
the crust with apples nicely pared and cored. Draw the crust together,
and cut off any extra paste about the folds; tie the bag tight, and
put it into boiling water. Boil it two hours. A layer of rice, nicely
picked and washed, sprinkled inside the bag, instead of crust, makes a
very good pudding, called an _Avalanche_.
Common dough rolled out makes a fine crust for the above, especially
with a little butter worked in it. It is more healthful than the
unleavened crust.
_Spiced Apple Tarts._
Rub stewed or baked apples through a sieve, sweeten them, and add
powdered mace and cinnamon enough to flavor them. If the apples are
not very tart, squeeze in the juice of a lemon. Some persons like the
peel of the lemon grated into it. Line soup dishes with a light crust,
double on the rim, and fill them and bake them until the crust is done.
Little bars of crust, a quarter of an inch in width, crossed on the top
of the tart before it is baked, is ornamental.
_Boiled Indian Pudding._
Three pints of milk.
Ten heaping tablespoonfuls of sifted Indian meal.
Half a pint of molasses.
Two eggs.
Scald the meal with the milk, add the molasses, and a teaspoonful of
salt. Put in the eggs when it is cool enough not to scald them. Put
in a tablespoonful of ginger. Tie the bag so that it will be about
two-thirds full of the pudding, in order to give room to swell. The
longer it is boiled the better. Some like a little chopped suet with
the above.
_Baked Indian Pudding._
Three pints of milk.
Ten heaping tablespoonfuls of Indian meal.
Three gills of molasses.
A piece of butter, as large as a hen’s egg.
Scald the meal with the milk, and stir in the butter and molasses, and
bake four or five hours. Some add a little chopped suet in place of the
butter.
_Rice Balls, or German Pudding._
Two tea-cups of rice.
One quart of milk.
Four ounces of sugar.
One wine-glass of wine.
Spice to the taste.
Wash the rice carefully, and throw it in a pan of boiling salted water.
Let it boil very fast seventeen minutes, then pour off the water, and
in its place put one-third of the milk, and a stick of cinnamon. Let
it boil till it is as thick as very stiff hasty pudding, then put in
half the sugar; fill small tea-cups with this rice, and set them to
cool. When cool, turn out the rice on to a large dish, pour over it
a syllabub (not whipped), made of the remaining milk and sugar, with
the wine. It is still better made with a syllabub of rich cream, and
whipped.
_Apple Custard._
Take half a dozen very tart apples, and take off the skin and cores.
Cook them till they begin to be soft, in half a tea-cup of water. Then
put them in a pudding dish, and sugar them. Then beat eight eggs with
four spoonfuls of sugar, mix it with three pints of milk; pour it over
the apples, and bake for about half an hour.
_Rhubarb Pie._
Cut the stalks of the rhubarb into small pieces, and stew them with
some lemon peel till tender. Strain them, sweeten to your taste, and
add as many eggs as you can afford. Line pie plates with paste, and
bake it like tarts, without upper crust.
_Plain Macaroni or Vermacelli Puddings._
Put two ounces of macaroni, or vermacelli, into a pint of milk, and
simmer until tender. Flavor it by putting in two or three sticks of
cinnamon while boiling, or some other spice when done. Then beat up
three eggs, mix in an ounce of sugar, half a pint of milk, and a glass
of wine. Add these to the macaroni or vermacelli, and bake in a slow
oven.
_Green Corn Pudding._
Twelve ears of corn, grated. Sweet corn is best.
One pint and a half of milk.
Four well-beaten eggs.
One tea-cup and a half of sugar.
Mix the above, and bake it three hours in a buttered dish. More sugar
is needed if common corn is used.
_Bread Pudding for Invalids, or Young Children._
Grate half a pound of stale bread, add a pinch of salt, and pour on a
pint of hot milk, and let it soak half an hour. Add two well-beaten
eggs, put it in a covered basin just large enough to hold it, tie it in
a pudding cloth, and boil it half an hour; or put it in a buttered pan
in an oven, and bake it that time. Make a sauce of thin sweet cream,
sweetened with sugar, and flavored with rose water or nutmeg.
_Plain Rice Pudding, without Eggs._
Mix half a pint of rice into a quart of rich milk, or cream and milk.
Add half a pint of sugar and nutmeg, and powdered cinnamon. Bake it
two hours or more, till the rice is quite soft. It is good cold.
_Another Sago Pudding._
Six tablespoonfuls of sago, soaked two hours in cold water, and then
boiled soft in a quart of milk. Add four spoonfuls of butter, and
twenty spoonfuls of sugar beaten into the yolks of six or eight eggs.
Add currants or chopped raisins dredged with flour, and nutmeg, and
cinnamon, or a grated lemon peel and juice. Bake it in a buttered dish
three quarters of an hour. It is good cold.
* * * * *
NOTE.--All custards are much improved by a little _salt_, say a small
half teaspoonful to a quart of milk. In all the preceding receipts,
where no butter is used, a little salt must be put in, say a small
half teaspoonful to each quart. Many puddings are greatly injured by
neglecting it.
_Oat Meal Mush._
This is made just like Indian mush, and is called Bourgoo.
_Modes of Preparing Apples for the Table._
Pippins are the best apples for cooking.
1. Put them in a tin pan, and bake them in a reflector or stove, or
range oven, or a Dutch oven. Try them with a fork, and when done, put
them on a dish, and if sour fruit, grate white sugar over them. Sweet
ones need to bake much longer than sour. Serve them in a saucer with
cream, or a thin custard.
2. Take tart and large apples, and peel them; take the cores out with
an apple corer, put them in a tin, and fill the openings with sugar,
and a small bit of orange or lemon peel, or a bit of cinnamon. Scatter
sugar over the top, and bake till done, but not till they lose their
shape. Try with a fork.
3. Peel large tart apples, and take out the cores with the apple corer.
Put them in a Dutch oven, or preserving kettle, and simmer them till
cooked through. Then take them out and put into the kettle a pint of
the water in which they were boiled, and beat the white of an egg and
stir in. Then throw in three or four cups of nice brown sugar, and let
it boil up, and skim it till clear. Then put in the apples, and let
them boil up for five minutes or more. Then put them in a dish for tea,
and serve with cream if you have it; if not, take a pint or pint and a
half of rich milk in a sauce-pan, and beat up two eggs, and stir in and
cook it in a tin pail in boiling water, and serve it like cream to eat
with the apple.
4. Peel large tart apples, put them in a tin pan with sugar in the
openings, and bits of lemon or orange peel, or cinnamon, to flavor and
scatter sugar over. Bake till soft, then put them in a dish, and pour
over them a custard made of four eggs and a quart of milk.
5. Peel tart apples, and grate them in a dish, and grate in as much
stale bread. Beat up two eggs in a pint or pint and a half of milk, and
make it quite sweet, and flavor with rose water, or grated lemon, or
orange peel, and pour it in and mix it well. Then bake it, and eat it
either as a pudding for dinner, or as an article for the tea-table, to
be eaten cold and with cream. If you have quinces, grate in one-third
quince, and add more sugar, and it is a great improvement. Various
berries can be stewed and mixed with bread crumbs, and cooked in this
way.
6. Peel apples (or prepare any other fruit), and put them in layers in
a stone or earthen jar with a small mouth. Intermix quinces if you have
them. Scatter sugar between each layer in abundance. Cover the mouth
with wheat dough, and set the jar in with the bread, and let it remain
all night, and it makes a most healthful and delicious dish. Some place
_raw_ rice in alternate layers with the fruit. Children are very fond
of this dish thus prepared with rice, and it is very little trouble,
and nothing can be more healthful.
7. Peel and core apples (or take peaches, or pears, or damsons), and
allow half a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit. Clarify the sugar, by
adding water and the beaten white of an egg, and stirring and skimming
it. Boil the fruit in the syrup all day very slowly, mashing and
stirring often, till it is a thick, smooth paste. If it has skins in
it, it must be strained through a colander. Put it in buttered pans to
cool. Then lay it in a dry, cool place. It can be cut in slices for the
tea-table. Quinces make the best. Apples, with the juice and some of
the peel of lemons or oranges, are fine. This is called _Fruit Cheese_.
8. Boil down new sweet cider to one half the original quantity. Stew
peeled and cored apples, with one quarter as many quinces, in this
cider, till it is a very dark color. If well boiled, it will keep a
year in jars, and is called _Apple Butter_.
9. The following mode of cooking _dried fruits_ is the best. Take dried
peaches, quinces, or apples, and put them to swell in cold water for
several hours. Peaches must be _very_ thoroughly washed. Then put them
into a stewing kettle, with a _great deal_ of water, and a pint of
brown sugar to each pound of fruit. Cover them, and let them simmer
_very slowly_ for several hours, till the water is boiled down to as
much liquid as you wish.
Peaches have a finer flavor when dried with the skin on, as _fully_
ripe peaches cannot be pared and dried. When finely flavored, peaches
have a solid pulp; when ripe they should be _pared_ and then dried, and
such are much the best for cooking in the above way.
They will, when cooked thus, be preferred by every body to the finest
and most expensive sweetmeats.
10. The following is the best and cheapest method of making the finest
_Apple Jelly_. Grapes and damsons can be made the same way.
Take the best pippins, and wipe them, taking out stem and eye. Cut them
in thin slices, without paring or quartering, as the chief flavor is in
the peel, and the jelly part is in the cores.
Put them in a preserving kettle, and put in just water enough to cover
them, and boil them very soft. Then mash and strain through a jelly-bag
made of coarse flannel. Put the liquid into the kettle, with a pint of
brown sugar to each pint of the liquid, and add the juice and rind of
a lemon cut in slices. Beat up the white of one egg, and stir in very
thoroughly. Boil up three times, throwing in some cold water to stop it
from running over. Then let it stand quiet on the hearth half an hour.
Try it, and if not hard enough, let it boil till it will turn to jelly
on cooling. Then skim off the scum, and pour off the clear jelly, and
strain the sediment through the jelly-bag. Then put it in glasses. It
can be boiled down, and make elegant apple candy.
Grapes and damsons should have water put in when first boiled, as the
flavor is thus more perfectly extracted. Frost grapes make an elegant
jelly, as do the wild plum, by this method. In summer these jellies are
fine for effervescing drinks, with some good wine vinegar mixed with
them.
_Fruit Custards._
A pint and a half of fruit stewed and strained, cooled and sweetened.
Six eggs well beaten, and stirred into a quart of milk.
Mix the above and flavor with spice, and bake in cups or a deep dish
twenty minutes, or half an hour, according to the size. It is good cold.
It may be boiled in a tin pail in boiling water.
_Modes of preparing Rice for the Dinner or Tea Table._
Pick over and wash the rice, and boil it _fifteen minutes_ in water
with salt in it. Rice is very poor unless the salt is _cooked_ into it.
Then pour off the water, and pour in good rich milk, and let it simmer
slowly till the rice is soft. There should be milk just sufficient to
make the rice of a _pudding_ consistency, so that it can be put in cups
and turned out without losing its form.
1. Fill a tea-cup with this rice, and invert it in a platter or shallow
large pudding dish, and fill the dish with cups of rice inverted. On
the summit of each mound thus made, make an opening with a teaspoon,
and lay a pile of jelly or sweetmeats. Then pour into the dish a
custard made of two eggs and a pint of milk, boiled in a tin pail in
boiling water. This looks very pretty, and is excellent.
If you have cream, take half milk and half cream, and pour into the
dish, instead of the custard.
2. Put the rice into a large bowl, and press it down hard. Then invert
the bowl in a pudding dish, and empty the rice, so as to leave it in
the shape of the bowl. Make, at regular distances, openings in the
rice, and lay in them jelly, or sweetmeats. Help some of the rice and
sweetmeats to each person in a saucer, and have a small pitcher of
sweetened cream, flavored with wine and nutmeg, and pour some into
each saucer. Or prepare a thin custard of two eggs to a pint of milk,
boiling it in a tin pail in boiling water.
3. Set the rice away till cold. Then cut it into slices half an inch
thick. Put a layer of rice in the bottom of a soup plate, and cover it
with stewed apple, or jelly, or sweetmeats half an inch thick. Continue
thus, with alternate layers of rice and jelly (or other cooked fruit)
till it is as high as you wish. Then cut the edges around smooth and
even, so as to show the stripes of fruit and rice, smooth it on the
top, and grate on white sugar, or nutmeg.
Help it in saucers, and have cream, or a thin boiled custard, to pour
on to it. If you wish to ornament it a good deal, get colored sugar
plums of various sizes, and put them in fanciful arrangements on the
top.
4. Set away boiled rice till it is cold, and so solid as to cut in
slices. Then lay in a buttered deep pudding dish alternate layers of
this rice, half an inch thick, and stewed or grated apple. Add sugar
enough to sweeten it, and spice grated or sifted on each layer of
fruit. When piled up as high as you wish, cover with rice, smooth it
with a spoon dipped in milk, and bake it from half to three quarters of
an hour. If the apples are grated raw, you must bake three quarters of
an hour. When it is done, grate white sugar over the top, and eat it
for a pudding.
Pears, plums, peaches, quinces, and all the small berries can be stewed
and used with rice in this way.
Rice can be made into rice _avalanches_ and _snow-balls_, by taking a
pudding cloth and flouring it, and laying _raw_ rice over it an inch
thick, and then put pared and cored fruit on it and draw it up and tie
it so that the rice will cook around the fruit. Tie it tight, allowing
_a little_ room for the rice to swell. Make several small ones in this
way, and they are called _snow-balls_. These are eaten with cream
sweetened and spiced, or with hard or soft pudding sauces.
_Rice and Meat Pudding._
Take any kind of cold meat, and chop it fine, with cold ham, or cold
salt pork. Season it to your taste with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs,
a little butter, and stir in two eggs. Then make alternate layers of
cold boiled rice and this mixture, and bake half an hour. Or make it
into cakes with the rice and fry it.
_Modes of preparing Dishes with Dry Bread, or Bread so old as to be not
good for the table._
Put all dry bits of crust and crumbs, and leavings of the table, in a
tin pan. When the bread is drawn, set it in the oven, and let it stand
all night. It is, when pounded, called _rusk crumbs_, and is good to
eat in milk, and also in these ways.
1. Take apple sauce or stewed pears, or peaches, or any kind of small
berries, and mix them with equal quantities of rusk crumbs. Make a
custard of four eggs to a quart of milk, sweetening it very sweet. Mix
it with the bread crumbs and fruit, and bake it twenty minutes, as a
pudding.
2. Make a custard with four eggs to a quart of milk, thicken it with
rusk crumbs, and bake it twenty minutes, and eat it with pudding sauce,
flavored with wine and nutmeg.
3. Take any kind of cold meats, chop them fine with cold ham, or cold
salt pork. Season with salt and pepper, and mix in two eggs and a
little butter. Mix this up with bread crumbs or rusk crumbs, and bake
it like a pudding. Or put it in a skillet, and warm it like hash. Or
put it into balls, and flatten it and fry it like forced meat balls.
4. Soak dry bread crumbs in milk till quite soft. Then beat up three
eggs and stir in, and put in sliced and peeled apples, or any kind of
berries. Flour a pudding cloth, and tie it up and boil it half or three
quarters of an hour, according to the size.
This pudding does not swell in boiling. Eat with sauce.
5. Take stale bread and crumble it fine, and mix it with egg and a
little milk, and boil it in a large pudding cloth, or put it around
small peeled apples, and boil it for dumplings in several smaller
cloths.
6. Take bread crumbs, or rusk crumbs, and mix them with eggs and milk,
and bake them for griddle cakes. If you have raspberries, blackberries,
whortleberries, strawberries, or ripe currants, put them in and then
thicken with a little flour, so as to make _drop cakes_, and bake them
(a large spoonful at a time), on a griddle, as drop cakes. Or put them
in muffin rings, and bake them. Eat with butter and sugar, or with
pudding sauces.