_“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES._
THE
DINNER YEAR-BOOK
BY
MARION HARLAND,
AUTHOR OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,”
“BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,” ETC.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1883.
COPYRIGHT BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
1878.
TROW’S
PRINTING & BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
Familiar Talk with the Reader.
“Do not laugh when I tell you that one of the most serious perplexities
of my every-day life is the daily recurring question, ‘What shall we
have for dinner?’” writes a correspondent.
I do not smile at the naïve confession. I feel more like sighing as
I recollect the years during the summers and winters of which the
same query advanced with me into the dignity of a problem. There were
several important ends to be compassed in the successful settlement
of the question. To accomplish an agreeable variety in the family
bill of fare; to accommodate appetites and individual preferences
to the season and state of the local market; to avoid incongruous
associations of meats, vegetables, sauces, _entrées_ and desserts; to
build fragments into a structure about which should linger no flavor
of staleness or sameness; so to manage a long succession of meals
that yesterday’s repast and the more frugal one of to-day should not
suggest the alternation of fat and lean in the Hibernian’s pork, or
the dutiful following of penance upon indulgence; to shun, with equal
care, the rock of parsimony and the whirlpool of extravagance;—but
why extend the list of dilemmas? Are they not written in the mental
chronicles of every housewife whose conscience—be her purse shallow or
deep—will not excuse her from a continual struggle with the left-overs?
Such uncompromising bits of facts do these same “left-overs” appear
in the next day’s survey of ways, means, and capabilities, that timid
mistresses are the less to blame for often winking at the Alexandrine
audacity with which the cook has disposed of the knotty subject by
emptying platters and tureens into the swill-pail,—which should stand
for the armorial bearings of her tribe wherever found,—or satisfied
indolence, and what goes with her for humanity, by tossing crusts,
bones, and “cold scraps” into the yawning basket of the beggar at the
basement door.
One of these days I mean to write an article, scientific and practical,
upon the genus, “basket-beggar.” For the present, take the word of one
who has studied the species in all its varieties,—who has suffered
long, and certainly not been _un_kind in the acquisition of experience
upon this head,—and prohibit their visits entirely, and at all seasons.
“Cold cuts” and the “heels” of loaves belong to you as certainly as do
hot joints and unmutilated pies. Issue your declaration of independence
to the effect that you choose to dispense charity in your own way,
and that, as an intelligent Christian woman, you can better judge by
what methods to relieve want and aid the really worthy poor, than
can the ignorant, irresponsible creature who lavishes what costs her
nothing upon every chance speculator whose lying whine excites her
pity. Sympathy which, by the way, would generally lie dormant, were the
listener to the piteous tale obliged to satisfy the petitioner from her
own purse or wardrobe.
Returning from what is not, although it may seem to be a digression,
let us talk together more briefly than is our wont in these familiar
conferences, of the considerations that have moved and sustained me
in the preparation of this volume, and which will, I hope, make it a
welcome and useful counsellor to you. First, then, the suggestion
and interrogation of sincere seekers for helpful advice pertaining to
that most important of the triad of daily meals—“THE FAMILY DINNER,”
superadded to my own observation and experience of the difficulties
that beset the subject. Secondly, the discovery, that so far as I have
been able to push my investigations—and my searching has been keen and
extensive—no directory upon this particular branch of culinary endeavor
has been published, at least none in the English language. We have
had books, some of them admirable helps to skilful, no less than to
inexperienced housekeepers, upon dinner-giving, and company dinners,
and “little dinner” parties, not to refer to the mighty mountain of
manuals upon cookery in general; but, up to the time of the present
writing, I have found nothing that, to my appreciation, meets the case
stated by the friend whose plaint heads this chapter.
My aim has been to write out, for seven days of four weeks in each
month, a _menu_ adapted, in all things, to the average American
market; giving meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits in their season,
and, so far as I could do so upon paper, rendering a satisfactory
account of every pound of meat, etc., brought, by my advice, into the
kitchen. I have taken the liberty accorded me by virtue of our long
and intimate acquaintanceship, of inspecting not only the contents
of your market-basket, but each morning the treasures of larder and
refrigerator; of offering counsel concerning crumbs, bones, and such
odds-and-ends as are held in contempt by many otherwise thrifty
managers—to wit, other cold vegetables than potatoes, and dry crusts of
bread and cake, while of gravy and dripping I have made specialties. I
have tried, moreover, to inspire such respect for made-over dinners,
as we feel for the pretty rugs made of the ravellings of Axminster
carpets. We do not attempt to impose them upon ourselves or our friends
as “pure Persian.” But neither do we blush for them because Mrs.
Million Aire across the way would scorn to give them house-room. Let
“CONSISTENCY” be stamped upon every appointment of your household,
and even the _parvenue_ opposite cannot despise you. Once learn the
truth that moderate, or even scanty means do not make meanness or
homeliness a necessity, and act upon the lesson, and you can set
criticism at defiance. Apropos to this point of consistency, let me
say, in explanation, not apology, for the small space devoted to
company-dinners, that I have dealt with them upon the principle that
ten times one makes ten. Having, in emulation of the Eastern beauty,
carried the calf with ease for four weeks, you will hardly appreciate
the difference in the weight of the cow you lift upon the fifth. In
plainer phrase, give John and the children good dinners, well-cooked,
and daintily served, every day, and the entertainment of half-a-dozen
friends in addition to the family party will cease to be a stupendous
undertaking. They have a saying in the Southern States that aptly
expresses the labor and excitement attendant upon such an event in
too many families; the straining after Mrs. Million Aire’s _diners à
la Russe_, which presuppose the despotism of a _chef_ in the kitchen,
and the solemn pomp of a Chief Butler in the _salle à manger_. The
Southern description of the frantic endeavor is—“Trying to put the big
pot into the little one,” and it is invariably used with reference to
preparations for company. Be content, my dear sister, to put into your
little pot only so much as it will decently hold, and be thankful that
you have in it a sure gauge of responsibility.
I have spoken of dinners for four weeks in each month. I have written
receipts for this number, not in forgetfulness of the fact that
there is but one February per annum, but because the need of adapting
the bills of fare to the days of the week, instead of the month, was
absolute, and if I wished the Dinner Year-Book to be a perpetual
calendar, I must say nothing of the broken week that sometimes ends and
sometimes begins the month. The difficulty of disposing satisfactorily
of the two or three odd days brought to my mind, while blocking out my
work, the summary manner in which one of my baby-girls once dismissed a
somewhat analogous difficulty.
“My dear,” I said to her one night as she concluded her prayer at my
knee, “you have forgotten to pray for your little cousins. How did that
happen? Don’t you want our Heavenly Father to take care of them?”
She made a motion of again bending her knees, yawned sleepily, and
tumbled into bed.
“Can’t help it, mamma! Baby is too tired! Horace and Eddie _must
scuffle for themselves_ just this one night!”
I have given you twenty-eight—nay, counting your possible
company-meal—twenty-nine dinners in succession to little purpose if you
cannot collate from previous receipts one or two for yourself, and be
the better for the practice. I need hardly say that I do not anticipate
or desire slavish adherence to the plan sketched for your day or week.
I _have_ sketched—that is all—not worked out a sum in which addition
or subtraction would materially affect the sum-total. The framework
is, I would fain hope, symmetrical. I expect you to build thereupon as
convenience or discretion may dictate.
Touching Saucepans.
WHILE it is true that the finest tools will not impart skill to the
untrained workman, it is equally a matter of fact that the best artisan
is he who cares most jealously for the quality and condition of his
instruments as well as for the finish of his workmanship.
A visitor once asked permission to witness the operation of cooking a
beefsteak in my kitchen, saying that her husband had spoken in terms
of commendation of those he had eaten at my table. Like the good wife
she was, she desired to “catch the trick,” whatever it might be, of
preparing them to his liking. I willingly acceded to her request, and
upon her return to the parlor her husband inquired eagerly: “Did you
learn the secret?”
“Yes,” was the smiling answer. “You must buy me a gridiron!”
Up to that time, she then explained, fried steaks had been the rule in
her house, and gridirons a thing unheard or unthought of.
A fried beefsteak being, as I have elsewhere stated, a culinary
solecism, I have, perhaps, selected an extreme case as the test of
my discourse upon the necessity of a supply of fitting utensils for
the proper prosecution of home-cookery. Mrs. Whitney’s idea of the
“art-kitchen,” so charmingly set forth in “We Girls,” may not be so
chimerical (with limitations) as most practical housewives—practised
in nothing more than in the exercise of patience—are apt to suppose.
They tell us the tale—known already too sadly well to each of us—of the
impossibility of inducing “girls” who are tractable and respectful in
most things, to accept labor-saving machines, and the thousand-and-one
ingenious contrivances for making cooking easier and even graceful;
of the hard usage to which expensive implements are subjected in rude
hands, the motive-power of which is the untilled brain, unrestrained
by the conscienceless will; of how innovations are openly flouted,
or secretly sneered at, “until,” say they, “we find it easier to let
the cook have her own way down-stairs, and reconcile ourselves, as
best we may, to obstinate stupidity and unmerciful breakages. As to
art-kitchens”—a shrug and a groan,—“we are thankful if our tenderest
care can keep the upper stories free from the vandalism that rages
below.”
Nevertheless, acknowledging, as I have, personally, reasons for
doing—the truth of all these things—I make answer, “Have an art-kitchen
for yourself!” First, give your cook, or maid-of-all-work, a fair
trial. It is a duty you owe to humanity and to her to prove,
conclusively, whether her careless or destructive habits be ingrain
and wilful, or merely the result of ignorance and bad training.
There are bad mistresses, let us remember,—and more still who are
indifferent or incompetent. If “our girl” has a heart or a conscience,
let us find it. Make her understand the value and usefulness of the
appliances you have furnished for her work, where and how they are to
be kept, and set her the example of always looking for and putting
them in their proper places. If they are misused, show your regret
decidedly, but still kindly. Should all means of civilizing her taste
up to your standard fail, make, as I have advised, an art-kitchen
for your own use. Appropriate one corner of the room, where cooking
is done, for your operations, and arrange there your pet tools. Have
your scoop flour-sifter; your patent pie-lifter and oyster-broiler;
your star-toaster; your pie-crimper, vegetable and nutmeg graters;
gravy-strainer, colander, biscuit-cutter, skimmers, larding needles,
wire, and perforated, and slit and fluted spoons; your weights and
measures, and the tidy, serviceable tinned and enamelled saucepans,
Scotch kettles, frying-pans, etc., that will retain tidiness and
serviceable qualities so long in your care, and so soon come to grief
in boorish clutches. Set all these, and as many others as you like
and can afford to buy—always including the Dover egg-beater and its
“Baby” (made for whipping one egg to more purpose than one egg, or
anything else as small was ever whipped before)—in array upon walls
and shelves,[A] and let the logic of daily events prove how far they
will deprive work of the wearing vexations attendant upon long searches
for the right article, and its wrong condition when found. Make your
helpers—one and all—comprehend that these are your especial property,
to be used—_and kept clean_—by no one else. Let them be looked down
upon as the toys of a would-be-busy woman by the superior intellects
about you, should they see fit thus to do, and provide such tools as
are suited to coarser fingers for them to use. The chances are many
to one that your dexterous manipulation of your instruments; the
excellence of the products achieved by yourself and them; even the
attractive neatness of the display and your corner, will win skeptics,
first, to indulgence, then, admiration, then, to imitation. If you
can afford the great luxury of a pastry or mixing-room, adjoining
the kitchen, so much the better for you and your pious undertaking.
But without regard to what may be the effect upon others, have
your saucepans, of whatever designs and in whatever quantities you
like—taking “saucepan” as a generic term for every description of mute
helpers in the task of elevating cookery into a fine art, or, at the
least, in redeeming it from the stigma of coarseness and vulgarity.
Have, also, as an indispensable adjunct of saucepans, appliances for
cleansing them. There is nothing inherently degrading in dish-washing.
Provide plenty of towels and hot water; a mop with a handle and a loop
by which to hang it up when it has been squeezed and shaken after use;
a soap-shaker—a neat wire cup, enclosing the soap, and furnished with
a handle of tinned wire, and a dish-pan, with a partition running
across the middle, that the soiled articles may be rinsed from grease
in one of the compartments before they are purified thoroughly in the
other. Have, also, at hand a can or box of washing soda, and a bottle
of ammonia for taking off the grease more effectually; a cake of
Indexical silver soap in a cup, with a brush, for restoring lustre to
tins, Britannia or plated, or silver ware. Thus armed, the cleansing of
your implements will be a matter of brief moment, and your work in the
kitchen be, in no sense, a hindrance to the stated duties of the day,
while your methods and occasional presence cannot fail to be a refining
influence upon all except the very common and spiritually unclean.
Ladyhood, _if thorough_, will assert itself, even behind a scullion’s
apron.
JANUARY.
First Week. Sunday.
——
Beef Soup.
Chicken smothered with Oysters. Celery Salad.
Mashed Potatoes. Cauliflower au gratin.
Stewed Tomatoes.
——
Blanc Mange and Cream.
Sponge Cake.
Cocoa.
——
BEEF SOUP.
3 lbs. of lean beef, with a marrow-bone.
½ lb. lean ham (or a ham-bone, if you have it).
1 turnip.
1 onion.
1 carrot.
¼ of a cabbage.
3 stalks of celery.
3 quarts of water—cold, of course.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Cut the meat very fine, and crack the bones well. Put these on in a pot
with a close top; cover with a quart of water, and set where they will
come _very slowly_ to a boil. If they do not reach this point in less
than an hour, so much the better. When the contents of the pot begin
to bubble, add the remaining two quarts of cold water, and let all
boil slowly for three hours: for two hours with the top closed, during
the last with it slightly lifted. Wash and peel the turnip, carrot,
and onion, scrape the celery, and wash with the cabbage. Cut all into
dice and lay in cold water, a little salted, for half an hour. Put the
carrot on to stew in a small vessel by itself; the others all together,
with enough water to cover them. Some think the carrot keeps color
and shape better if hot, instead of cold water be used for it. Let it
stew until tender, then drain off the water and set it aside to cool.
The other vegetables should be boiled to pieces. Half an hour before
the soup is to be taken up, strain the water from the cabbage, etc.,
pressing them to a pulp to extract all the strength. Return this to
the saucepan, throw in a little salt, let it boil up once to clear it;
skim and add to the soup. Put in pepper, and salt—unless the ham has
salted it sufficiently—and boil, covered, twenty minutes. Strain into
an earthenware basin; let it get cool enough for the fat to arise to
the surface, when take off all that will come away. Return to the pot,
which should have been previously rinsed with hot water, boil briskly
for one minute, and throw in the carrot. Skim and serve.
This is a good, clear soup. If you like it thicker, dissolve a
tablespoonful of gelatine in enough cold water to cover it well—this
may be done by an hour’s soaking—and add to the soup after the latter
is strained and cleared of the fat.
When practicable, make Sunday’s soup on Saturday, so far as to prepare
the “stock,” or meat base. Set it away in an earthenware crock, adding
a little salt. This not only lessens Sunday’s work, but the unstrained
soup gathers the whole strength of the meat, and the fat can be removed
in a solid cake of excellent dripping. Indeed, it is a good rule
_always to prepare soup stock at least twenty-four hours before it is
to be used for the table_.
Try, likewise, to make enough soup for Sunday to last over Monday as
well. A little forethought on Saturday will lessen the labors and
increase the comfort of what has been somewhat profanely named “Job’s
birthday,” the anniversary which was to be accursed for evermore.
CHICKEN SMOTHERED WITH OYSTERS.
1 full-grown, tender chicken.
1 pint of oysters.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
3 “ “ cream.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.
Yolks of three hard-boiled eggs.
1 scant cup bread-crumbs.
Pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.
Prepare the chicken as for roasting. Stuff with a dressing of the
oysters chopped pretty fine, and mixed with the bread-crumbs, seasoned
to taste with pepper and salt. Tie up the neck securely. (This can be
done on Saturday, if the fowl be afterwards kept in a very cold place.)
Put the chicken thus stuffed and trussed, with legs and wings tied
close to the body with soft tape, into a tin pail with a _tight_ top.
Cover closely and set, with a weight on the top, in a pot of cold
water. Bring gradually to a boil, that the fowl may be heated evenly
and thoroughly. Stew steadily, never fast, for an hour and a half after
the water in the outer kettle begins to boil. Then open the pail and
test with a fork to see if the chicken be tender. If not, re-cover _at
once_, and stew for half or three-quarters of an hour longer. When the
chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay upon a hot dish,
covering immediately. Turn the juices left in the pail into a saucepan,
thicken with the corn-starch, which should first be wet up with a
little cold milk, then the chopped parsley, butter, pepper and salt,
and the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs chopped fine. Boil up once, stir
in the cream, and take from the fire before it can boil again. Pour a
few spoonfuls over the chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce-tureen.
CELERY SALAD.
2 bunches of celery.
1 tablespoonful of salad oil.
4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
1 small teaspoonful fine sugar.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Wash and scrape the celery, lay in ice-cold water until dinner-time,
when cut into inch-lengths, season, tossing all well up together, and
serve in a salad bowl.
CAULIFLOWER _au gratin_.
1 large cauliflower.
4 tablespoonfuls grated cheese.
1 cup drawn butter.
Pepper and salt.
A pinch of nutmeg.
Boil the cauliflower until tender (about twenty minutes), having first
tied it up in a bag of coarse lace or tarlatan. Have ready a cup of
good drawn butter, and pour over the cauliflower, when you have drained
and dished the latter. Sift the cheese thickly over the top, and brown
by holding a red-hot shovel so close to the cheese that it singes and
blazes. Blow out the fire on the instant, and send to the table.
MASHED POTATOES.
Pare the potatoes very thin, lay in cold water for an hour, and cover
well with boiling water. (“Peach-blows” are better put down in _cold_
water.) Boil quickly, and when done, drain off every drop of water;
throw in a little salt; set back on the range for two or three minutes.
Mash soft with a potato-beetle, or whip to a cream with a fork, adding
a little butter and enough milk to make a soft paste. Heap in a smooth
mound upon a vegetable dish.
STEWED TOMATOES.
Open a can of tomatoes an hour before cooking them. Leave out the cores
and unripe parts. Cook always in tin or porcelain saucepans. Iron
injures color and flavor. Stew gently for half an hour; season to taste
with salt, pepper, a little sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Cook
gently, uncovered, ten minutes longer, and turn into a deep dish.
BLANC MANGE.
1 liberal quart of milk.
1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine.
¾ of a cup of white sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.
Soak the gelatine for two hours in a breakfast-cup of cold water. Heat
the milk to boiling in a farina-kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot
of hot water. Add the soaked gelatine and sugar, stir for ten minutes
over the fire, and strain through a thin muslin bag into a mould wet
with cold water. Flavor and set in a cold place to form. To loosen it,
dip the mould for one instant in hot water, detach the surface from
the sides by a light pressure of the fingers, and reverse over a glass
or china dish. Serve with powdered sugar and cream.
By all means have Sunday desserts prepared upon the preceding day. To
this end, I have endeavored to give such receipts for the blessed day
as can be easily made ready on Saturday.
COCOA.
6 tablespoonfuls of cocoa to each pint of water.
As much milk as you have water.
Sugar to taste.
Rub the cocoa smooth in a little cold water. Have ready on the fire
the pint of boiling water. Stir in the grated cocoa-paste. Boil twenty
minutes; add the milk and boil five minutes more, stirring often.
Sweeten in the cups to suit different tastes.
There is a preparation of cocoa, already powdered, called “cocoatina,”
which needs no boiling. It is very good, and saves the trouble of
grating and cooking. I regret that, although I have used it frequently
and with great satisfaction, I have forgotten the name of the
manufacturer. It is put up in round boxes, like mustard, and is quite
as economical for family use as the cakes of cocoa.
SPONGE CAKE.
6 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in sugar.
Half their weight in flour.
1 lemon, juice and rind.
Beat yolks and whites very light, separately of course, the powdered
sugar into the yolks when they are smooth and thick; next, the juice
and grated peel of the lemon; then the whites with a few swift strokes;
at last, the flour, in great, loose handfuls. Stir in lightly, but
thoroughly. Too much beating after the flour goes in makes sponge cake
tough. Bake in round tin moulds, buttered. Your oven should be steady.
When the cakes begin to color on top, cover with paper to prevent
burning.
When cool, wrap in a thick cloth to keep fresh.
First Week. Monday.
——
Soup à l’Italienne.
Breaded Mutton Chops. Baked Macaroni, with Tomato Sauce.
Potato Puff. Apple Sauce.
——
Corn Starch Hasty Pudding.
Coffee.
——
Said an irascible householder to a friend from another city, whom he
chanced to meet in the street one day, “Come and dine with me! But I
give you warning we shall have nothing for dinner but a confounded
dressmaker!” Few of the great middle class, who are the strength
and glory of our land, would dare take an unexpected guest home on
washing-day, although fewer still would dare reveal, as frankly as
did our blunt citizen, the cause of their reluctance to unveil the
penetralia of what are, upon all days save Black Monday and Blue
Tuesday, orderly and brightsome households.
Don’t interrupt me, please, my much-tried and much-trying sister, upon
whose brow the plaits of Monday’s tribulations have left enduring
traces! I know Bridget is always cross on wash-day, and that Katy
wears an aggrieved air from morning until night; that dusting,
china-washing, and divers other unaccustomed tasks are appointed
unto your already busy self; that John and the boys hate “pick-up
dinners;” that the modest bills of fare set down in this book for
the second and third days of the week will, at the first glance,
seem preposterous and unfeeling. You will survey them with very much
the same feeling as moved Pope to exclaim, with tears in his eyes,
“From an old friend I had not expected this!” when his host, having
allowed him to eat to repletion of less savory viands, had brought
on, without a note of preparation, the poet’s favorite dish, a fine
hare roasted with truffles. But the fact remains that people cannot
swallow enough on Sunday to support Nature through the two days’
journey into the wilderness of making-clean that follows the season
of rest and devotion. It is also true that your husband and yourself,
with school-children and servants, work harder on Monday than upon any
other one day of the seven, and that your food should be nourishing.
Should Bridget protest against “hot mate and soup” as unprecedented and
“onfaling,” Bridget’s mistress (by courtesy) must bring another unknown
commodity to the obstinate Celt, to bear upon the subject—to wit,
BRAINS. As I shall try to show, an hour given by yourself to the lower
regions—too often an inferno on that direful day—will put such a repast
before unexpectant John as shall have for his eye and taste none of the
characteristics of a “pick-up dinner.”
SOUP À L’ITALIENNE.
The stock of Sunday’s soup strained from the carrots.
Half a cup of grated cheese and a cup of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up with water.
2 eggs beaten light.
Put the soup on fifteen minutes before dinner, where it will heat
quickly. The moment it boils, draw it to one side, stir in the
corn-starch and milk and heat anew, stirring constantly until it begins
to thicken. Set it again upon the side of the range, and add the beaten
eggs. Cover and leave it where it will keep hot, but not cook, while
you scald the tureen and put the grated cheese in the bottom. In five
minutes pour the soup upon the cheese, stir all up well, and it is
ready for the table.
This is a delicious soup and easily made.
BREADED MUTTON CHOPS—BAKED.
Trim the chops neatly and put aside the bones and bits of skin for
the sauce for macaroni. Pour a little melted butter over the meat.
Do this as early in the day as convenient, cover them and let them
stand until an hour before they are to be served. Then, roll each in
beaten egg, next, in fine cracker-dust, (you can buy it ready powdered)
and lay them in your dripping-pan with a very little water in the
bottom—just enough to keep them from burning. Bake quickly—covering the
dripping-pan with another—for half an hour. Then remove the upper,
baste the chops with butter and hot water, and let them brown. When
done, lay them upon a hot dish and set in the open oven to keep warm.
Add to the gravy in the dripping-pan a little hot water, a teaspoonful
of browned flour, a tablespoonful of catsup, a _small_ quantity of
minced onion, pepper and salt. Boil up once, strain, and pour over the
chops.
MACARONI WITH TOMATO SAUCE.
Break the macaroni into short pieces and set over the fire with enough
boiling water to cover it well, as it swells to treble its original
dimensions. In twenty minutes it should be tender. Drain off the water
carefully, not to break the macaroni, and stir lightly into it pepper,
salt, and a tablespoonful of butter. Turn it into a deep dish and pour
over it a sauce made as follows: To the bones and refuse bits left from
trimming the chops, add a pint of cold water, and stew slowly upon the
back of the range, (lest Bridget should be inconvenienced thereby,)
until you have less than a cupful of good gravy. Strain out the bones,
etc., season to taste, and add what was left from the stewed tomatoes
of yesterday. Having had the provision for to-day’s dinner in mind,
you will have acted wisely in seeing for yourself that it did not go
into the swill-pail under the head of “scraps.” Cook tomatoes and
gravy together for three minutes after they begin to simmer, and pour,
smoking hot, over the macaroni. Let it stand covered a few minutes
before serving.
POTATO PUFF.
To two cupfuls of cold mashed potato (more of yesterday’s leavings),
add a tablespoonful of melted butter, and beat to a cream. Put with
this two eggs whipped light, and a cupful of milk, salting to taste.
Beat all well; pour into a greased baking-dish, and bake quickly to a
light brown. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked.
CORN-STARCH HASTY PUDDING.
1 quart of fresh milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up with water.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Heat the milk to scalding, and stir into it the corn-starch until it
has boiled ten minutes and is thick and smooth throughout. Add salt and
butter, let the pudding stand in the farina-kettle in which it has been
boiled—the hot water around it—for three minutes before turning it into
a deep _open_ dish.
Eat with butter and sugar, or with powdered sugar and cream, with
nutmeg grated over it.
COFFEE.
A French coffee-pot is a convenience on Monday. If you have one, you
know how to use it. If not, put a quart of boiling water into your
coffee-pot; wet up a cupful of ground coffee with the white of an
egg, adding the egg-shell, and a little cold water. Put this into the
boiling hot water, and boil fast ten minutes. Then, add half a cup of
cold water, and set it upon the hearth or table to “settle” for five
minutes. Pour it off carefully into your metal or china coffee-pot or
urn.
First Week. Tuesday.
——
Scotch Broth.
Rolled Beefsteaks. Cabbage Salad.
Browned Potatoes. Baked Beans.
——
Apple and Tapioca Pudding.
Hard Sauce.
——
SCOTCH BROTH.
3 lbs. of veal and bones from neck or knuckle.
3 quarts of water.
1 onion.
1 turnip.
3 stalks of celery.
1 cupful pearl barley.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Crack the bones and mince the meat early in the day, if you dine near
midday, and put on with the cold water. Soak the barley in lukewarm
water, after washing it well, and when it has lain in the tepid bath
for two hours, put it in the same over the fire to cook slowly, keeping
it covered fully by adding hot water from the kettle. Wash, scrape and
chop the vegetables; cover with cold water, and stew in a saucepan by
themselves. When they are very soft, rub them through a colander; add
the water in which they were cooked, and keep hot until the meat in the
soup-kettle has boiled to rags. For this purpose four hours are better
than three. Strain out bones and meat; put soup-stock, barley (with the
water in which it has boiled), vegetable broth, pepper, and salt, into
one kettle and boil slowly for thirty minutes. A little chopped parsley
is an improvement.
ROLLED BEEFSTEAKS.
2 good sirloin steaks.
Bread-crumbs.
A slice of fat salt pork.
Seasoning, a little minced onion, pepper and salt.
Take out the bones from the steak and throw them into the soup-pot. If
your butcher has not already done so, beat the meat flat with the broad
side of a hatchet, and cover it with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs,
minced pork, and half an onion. Moisten this slightly with water, and
season to taste. Roll each steak up, closely enclosing the stuffing;
bind with twine into two compact bundles and lay in a dripping-pan.
Dash a cupful of boiling water over each, cover with an inverted pan,
and bake about three-quarters of an hour, in their own steam. At the
end of this time remove the cover, baste with butter and dredge with
flour to brown the meat. When they are of a fine color, lay upon a hot
dish. Thicken the gravy with a little browned flour, boil up and send
to table in a boat. In removing the strings from the rolled beef prior
to serving, clip them in several places, that the form of the meat may
not be disturbed.
CABBAGE SALAD.
1 small head of cabbage, chopped fine, or cut into shreds.
1 cup of boiling milk.
¾ of a cup of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 tablespoonful of white sugar.
2 eggs well beaten.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt.
Heat milk and vinegar in separate vessels. To the boiling vinegar add
butter, sugar, and seasoning, lastly the chopped cabbage. Heat to
scalding, but do not let it boil. Stir the beaten eggs into the hot
milk. Cook one minute together after they begin to boil. Turn the hot
cabbage into a bowl; pour the custard over it; toss up and about with a
wooden or silver fork, until all the ingredients are well mixed. Cover
and set in a very cold place for some hours.
This is a very delightful salad, quite repaying the trouble of cooking
the dressing.
BROWNED POTATOES.
Boil large potatoes with their skins on; peel them, and, when you
uncover your beef for browning, lay the potatoes in the dripping-pan
about the meat. Dredge and baste them as well as the beef. If not quite
brown when the meat is ready, leave them in the gravy for awhile,
before thickening the latter. Drain in a hot colander, and arrange
neatly around the steaks in the dish.
BAKED BEANS.
Soak dried beans all night in soft water, exchanging this in the
morning for lukewarm, and this, two hours later, for still warmer. Let
them lie an hour in this, before putting them on to boil in cold water.
When they are soft, drain and turn them into a bake-dish. Season with
pepper and salt, with a liberal spoonful of butter. Add enough boiling
water to prevent them from scorching and bake, covered, until they
smoke and bubble. Remove the cover, and brown. Serve in the bake-dish.
APPLE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING.
1 teacupful tapioca, soaked for five hours in 3 teacupfuls of warm
(not hot) water.
8 juicy pippins, pared and cored.
3 tablespoonfuls of sugar and a saltspoonful of salt, with a few
whole cloves.
Arrange the apples in a deep dish; add a cup of cold water; cover, and
steam in a moderate oven until tender all through, turning them once
or twice. Turn off half the liquid and pour the tapioca, which should
have been soaked in a warm place, over the apples, when you have filled
the hollows left by the cores with sugar and put a clove in each.
The tapioca should be _slightly_ salted. Bake one hour, or until the
tapioca is clear and crusted on top. Serve in pudding-dish.
HARD SAUCE.
To two cups of powdered sugar add half a cup of butter, slightly
warmed, so that the two can be worked up together. When they are well
mixed, beat in half a teaspoonful of nutmeg and the juice of a lemon.
Whip smooth and light, mound neatly upon a butter-plate, and set in the
cold to harden.
First Week. Wednesday.
——
Split Pea Soup.
Halibut Steaks. Boiled Leg of Mutton.
Caper Sauce.
Spinach. Stewed Potatoes.
——
Cottage Pudding with Liquid Sauce.
——
SPLIT PEA SOUP.
1 pint of split peas.
4 quarts of water.
2 lbs. of beef and some bones.
¼ lb. of lean bacon or ham.
3 stalks of celery, the white part only, cut fine.
Juice of a lemon.
Stale bread cut into dice and fried.
Soak the peas all night in soft water, changing it in the morning for
warm—not hot. Throw this off after an hour and cover the peas with
four quarts of cold water. Boil in this—adding the meat, cut small,
the bones well cracked and the celery—four hours. _Always boil soups
slowly._ The neglect of this rule leaves in the kettle a mass of
toughened meat and an ocean of dish-water.
When you are ready to take up your soup, strain in a colander, picking
out and casting aside bits of bones and shreds of meat. Rub the peas
and celery through the holes of the strainer until nothing more will
pass. Season with pepper and salt; add the juice of a small lemon, and
return to the kettle, which must first be rinsed with hot water. Let
all boil together two minutes. Should it not seem so thick as you would
like, you can put in, while it is boiling, a little corn-starch wet up
with cold water. Put a couple of slices of stale bread, cut into dice
and fried crisp in dripping, in the heated tureen, and pour the soup
upon them.
HALIBUT STEAKS—FRIED.
Wash and wipe the steaks. Roll each in flour, and fry upon a buttered
griddle, turning carefully with a spatula, or cake-turner, when
the lower side is done. They should be of a nice brown, and tender
throughout. Remove to a hot dish and garnish with sliced lemon; in
carving, see that a bit of the lemon goes to each person, as many
prefer it to any other sauce for fish. Send around potatoes with the
steak. Worcestershire is a good store-sauce for fish and game. Anchovy
is pre-eminently a fish sauce, but many do not like it.
LEG OF MUTTON—BOILED.
Do not have the mutton too fat or too large. Cut off the shank, which
the butcher will have nicked for you, leaving about two inches beyond
the ham. Wash and wipe carefully and boil in hot water, with a little
salt, until a fork will readily pierce the thickest part. About ten
or twelve minutes to the pound is a good rule in boiling _fresh_ meat.
Serve with caper sauce. Since you intend to use the liquor in which the
meat is boiled for to-morrow’s soup, do not oversalt it. But sprinkle,
instead, salt over the leg of mutton after it is dished; rub it all
over with butter and set in a hot oven for a single minute.
CAPER SAUCE.
1 cup of the liquor in which the meat has been boiled.
2 teaspoonfuls of flour rubbed smooth in a little water. Salt to taste.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
About two dozen capers or green nasturtium-seed.
Heat the liquor to boiling, and skim before stirring in the flour,
which must be perfectly free from lumps, and rubbed smooth in cold
water. Stir until the sauce thickens evenly. It is best to cook all
sauces in a vessel set within a larger one of hot water. When it has
boiled about a minute, add the butter gradually, stirring each bit in
well before putting in more. Salt, and drop in the capers. Let it just
boil, and turn into a sauce-boat.
SPINACH.
Pull the spinach from the stalks, leaf by leaf; wash carefully, and
leave in cold water one hour. Boil in hot water fifteen minutes. Drain
very dry in a colander; chop extremely fine in a wooden bowl, then
return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt,
and a teaspoonful of white sugar. As it heats beat it up with a wooden
spoon until it is a soft paste. Let it bubble up once, and dish. Lay
a hard-boiled egg or two, cut in thin slices, upon the surface. Few
vegetables are more often ruined in the cooking than spinach. The above
receipt is simple and good.
STEWED POTATOES.
Pare and cut into large dice some good potatoes. Lay in cold water half
an hour. Stew in cold water, a little salted. There should be enough
water to cover them well. When they are tender and begin to crumble
at the edges, drain off half the water, and pour in as much milk. When
they are again scalding hot, stir in a lump of butter the size of
an egg (for a large dish) rolled in flour, salt, pepper and chopped
parsley to taste. Boil up once and serve in a covered dish.
COTTAGE PUDDING.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 cup of sweet milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 eggs, beaten light, yolks and whites separately.
Saltspoonful of salt.
_About_ 3 cups of Hecker’s prepared flour, enough for cake-batter.
Rub the butter well into the sugar; add beaten yolks; the milk, salt,
then whipped whites and yolks alternately. Bake in a buttered mould.
When you can bring out the testing-straw clean from the middle of the
loaf, turn it out upon a dish. Cut in slices while hot, as it is wanted.
One who has never tried it can hardly believe that the result of a
receipt which may be tried fearlessly by a novice in cookery, could be
the really elegant pudding just described.
It is also as economical as toothsome.
SAUCE FOR COTTAGE PUDDING.
2 cups of powdered sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 glass sherry wine.
Nutmeg or cinnamon to taste.
Rub the butter into the sugar; add hot water gradually; then spice and
wine. Cover tightly to keep in the strength of the wine, and set for
twenty minutes in a saucepan of boiling water. Stir up and send to
table.
First Week. Thursday.
——
Vermicelli Soup.
Scalloped Oysters. Mince of Mutton with Potato Frill.
Baked Tomatoes. Celery.
——
Tipsy Trifle.
Apples and Nuts.
——
VERMICELLI SOUP.
Take off all the fat from the broth in which your mutton was cooked
yesterday, and boil it down slowly to two-thirds of the original
quantity. Stew to pieces, in another vessel, a stalk of celery, one
small onion, a carrot, and a bunch of sweet herbs—all cut up fine. A
ham-bone, if you have it, or a couple of slices of lean ham, will be an
improvement to the broth. Strain the soup; rub the vegetables through a
fine colander with the water in which they were boiled; return to the
fire with a double handful of vermicelli broken into short pieces; boil
for ten minutes; add a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; boil up
and serve.
Send around a saucer of grated cheese with vermicelli and macaroni
soups. It is a great improvement to the flavor and consistency. Each
person may take as much or as little as he likes.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS.
1 quart of fine oysters.
1 coffee-cupful of pounded cracker.
2 great spoonfuls of butter.
½ cupful of cream or rich milk.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Butter a baking-dish and cover the bottom pretty thickly with pounded
cracker. Wet with oyster liquor and a few spoonfuls of cream. Next, lay
oysters, one deep, closely over these. Pepper and salt, and stick a
bit of butter upon each. Another layer of crumbs, wet as before; more
oysters, and proceed in like order until your dish is full, making the
top layer of crumbs with butter dotted over it. Set in the oven, invert
a plate or tin pan over the dish, and bake until the juice bubbles up
to the top. Uncover; set upon the upper grating of the oven to brown,
and send to table in the bake-dish. Pass around sliced lemon with it.
Oysters, like fish, follow immediately after soup, and are a course by
themselves.
MINCE OF MUTTON WITH POTATO FRILL.
The remains of yesterday’s mutton, minced, but not very fine.
1 cupful of drawn butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of cream, or rich milk.
Pepper, salt, and mace to taste, also chopped parsley.
1 button onion.
2 eggs, well beaten.
Heat the sauce to a boil, add the seasoning and the onion, chopped very
fine; then, the meat. Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, and
let it stand, closely covered, in _boiling_ water for ten minutes. Set
again over the fire and bring to boiling point. Add the eggs and milk
and set back at the side for five minutes, still covered. The mince
should never really boil after the meat goes in.
POTATO FRILL.
Boil and mash some potatoes; working in a little milk and butter, but
not so much as to make the paste very soft. Season with salt, and,
while still hot, knead in a beaten egg. Shape this paste into a fence,
on the inside round of a shallow dish; fluting it regularly with the
round handle of a knife. Set for one minute in a hot oven, but not long
enough to cause the fence to crack. Glaze quickly with butter, and pour
the meat carefully within the wall. The mince should not be so thin as
to wash away the “frill.” If well managed this is a pretty and a savory
dish.
BAKED TOMATOES.
1 can of tomatoes.
Stale bread, crumbed fine.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Pepper, salt, a little chopped parsley, and white sugar.
Drain off two-thirds of the liquor from the tomatoes; salt it and
set aside for another day’s soup. One has no excuse for waste whose
“stock-pot” is always near at hand. Little comes amiss to it. Cover the
bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; lay the tomatoes evenly upon this
bed; season with pepper, salt, sugar, and parsley, with bits of butter
here and there. Strew bread-crumbs over all, a thicker layer than at
the bottom; put tiny pieces of butter upon this, and bake, covered,
about thirty-five minutes. Take off the cover and brown upon the upper
shelf of the oven. Do not let it stay there long enough to get dry.
CELERY—RAW.
Wash, trim, and scrape the stalks, selecting those that are white and
tender. Crisp by leaving them in very cold water until they are wanted
for the table. Arrange neatly in a celery-stand. Pass between the
oysters and meat.
TIPSY TRIFLE.
1 quart of milk.
3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 stale sponge-cake.
1 cup of sugar.
Flavoring of vanilla.
1 cup of sherry wine.
A few spoonfuls of currant jelly.
Make a custard of the milk, sugar, the yolks of the eggs and the whites
of _two_. Put in the latter ingredients when the milk _almost_ boils,
and stir until it begins to thicken. Flavor when cold. Put a layer of
sliced cake in the bottom of a glass bowl. Wet with the wine and a few
spoonfuls of custard, and when it is quite soaked, put on more cake.
Proceed in this manner until the cake and wine are used up, when pour
on, a little at a time, the remainder of the custard; holding down
the cake with a bread spoon as you do this to keep it from floating.
Lay a heavy plate upon it, for the same purpose, while you prepare a
méringue by whipping stiff the rest of the whites, and then beating in
the currant jelly. Cover the trifle with this just before dinner-time.
APPLES AND NUTS.
Polish the apples, and crack the nuts, unless you have plenty of
nut-crackers. Give a knife to each apple-plate, and teach the children
to pare them neatly for themselves, instead of “munching” like rabbits
at family dinners, and being awkwardly ill at ease when “company” is
present. Silver or ivory knives are better for fruit than steel.
First Week. Friday.
——
Soupe Maigre.
Boiled Cod. Roast Duck with Bread Sauce.
Mashed Potatoes. Rice Croquettes.
Stewed Celery.
——
Apple Pie.
——
SOUPE MAIGRE.
1 quart of milk.
3 pints of water.
1 onion.
1 turnip.
3 stalks of celery.
1 potato (large).
Quarter of a small cabbage, sliced.
½ cup of bread-crumbs, very dry.
2 eggs, beaten light.
Parsley, pepper, and salt to taste.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Clean, scrape, and mince the vegetables, and put on to cook in cold
water, enough to cover them well. When they are scalding hot, drain,
and cover them with three pints of boiling water. Stew slowly in this
until they are reduced to pulp. Rub through a colander, season, and
heat again to boiling. Stir in the bread-crumbs; then the butter, very
gradually. Have the milk ready, heated in another vessel, and pour into
the soup-kettle at this juncture. Let the soup get very hot, but not
boil. Set upon the side of the range, and, dipping out a cupful, add
it, a little at a time, to the beaten eggs. When well mixed, return
eggs and liquor to the rest of the soup; stir over the fire for an
instant, but never to boiling, and serve in a hot tureen.
The eggs should not be allowed to curdle in the liquor; hence the need
of carefulness in following the directions above given. A little grated
cheese is a pleasant accompaniment to this soup, each person adding it
as pleases him.
BOILED COD.
Lay the fish in cold water, a little salt, for half an hour. Wipe dry,
and sew up in a linen cloth, coarse and clean, fitted to the shape
of the piece of cod. Have but one fold over each part. Lay in the
fish-kettle, cover with boiling water, salted at discretion. Allow
nearly an hour for a piece weighing four pounds.
SAUCE.
To one gill of boiling water allow as much milk; stir into this, while
boiling, two tablespoonfuls of butter, added gradually, a tablespoonful
of flour wet up with cold water, and, as it thickens, the chopped yolk
of a boiled egg and one raw egg, beaten light. Take directly from the
fire, season with pepper, salt, a little chopped parsley and the juice
of a lemon, and set, covered, in boiling water, but not over the fire,
for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour part of the sauce over
the fish when dished; the rest in a boat. Send around mashed potatoes
with it.
ROAST DUCK.