spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. Stuff the turkey as for
roasting; sew it up, neatly, in a thin cloth fitted to every part,
having dredged the cloth well inside with flour. Boil slowly,
especially at first, allowing fifteen minutes to a pound. The water
should be lukewarm when the turkey goes in. Salt and save the liquor in
which the fowl was boiled.
OYSTER SAUCE.
12 oysters, cut into thirds.
1 cupful of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
2 teaspoonfuls rice, or wheat flour.
Flavoring to taste.
Chopped parsley.
Drain the liquor from the oysters before you cut them up. Boil the
liquor two minutes, and add the milk. When this is scalding hot, strain
and return to the saucepan. Wet the flour with cold water and stir into
the sauce. As it thickens, put in the butter, then pepper and salt,
with a very little parsley. The juice of a half a lemon is a pleasant
flavoring. Stir it in after taking the sauce from the fire. Before
this, and so soon as the flour is well incorporated with the other
ingredients, add the oysters, each cut into three pieces. Simmer five
minutes and pour into a gravy-tureen. Some also pour a little over the
turkey on the dish. Garnish with slices of boiled egg and celery tops.
SAVORY RICE PUDDING.
1 teacupful of rice.
Giblets of the turkey.
A slice of fat salt pork, chopped very fine.
Half a _small_ onion, also minced.
1 small cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt.
Wash the rice thoroughly; clean the giblets; soak them an hour in
salted water, cut each into several pieces, and put on to stew with
the pork and rice in nearly a quart of cold water. Cook slowly until
the giblets are tender and the rice soft. The grains should be kept
as whole as possible, so do not use a spoon in stirring, but shake
up the saucepan, which should be set in another of boiling water.
The rice should, by this time, be nearly dry. Take out the giblets
and chop fine. Pour on the rice the milk, previously heated with the
minced onions, and then strained. When this is again scalding, stir in
the giblets, then the butter and seasoning. Cover and simmer for ten
minutes. Wet a round or oval pan with cold water; press the rice firmly
into it, so that it may take the shape, and turn out carefully upon a
flat dish. Set in the oven for two minutes before sending to table. It
should be stiff enough to take the mould, yet not dry.
POTATOES AU MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL.
Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a
saucepan containing enough milk, already heated, to cover them—barely.
When all are smoking hot, add a tablespoonful or more of butter,
pepper, salt, and minced parsley. Add a teaspoonful of flour wet in
cold water; heat quickly to a boil; put in the juice of half a lemon;
pour into a deep dish without further cooking.
CELERY AND GRAPE JELLY
Should flank the castor, or _épergne_, or whatever may be your
centre-piece.
MINCE PIE.
A receipt for mince-meat will be found in the proper order in the
_menu_ for next December. I take it for granted that, like the wise
woman you are, you have laid up in the store-room enough from your
Christmas supply to last for some weeks to come. If not, let me advise
you to get a box of “ATMORE’S CELEBRATED MINCE-MEAT,” and fill your
pastry-crusts, instead of repeating so soon the tedious operation so
lately performed. It comes in neat, wooden cans, and is really _good_.
If you like, you can add more sugar and brandy. N. B.—_My_ John has a
sweet tooth. Has yours?
Make the paste by rubbing into a quart of your best flour one-third
of a pound of sweet lard. Chop it in with a broad knife, if you have
plenty of time. Wet up with ice-water, roll out very thin, and cover
with “dabs” of butter, also of the best. Fold into a tight roll,
flatten with a few strokes of the rolling-pin, and roll out into a
sheet as thin as the first; baste again with the butter; roll up and
out into a third sheet hardly thicker than drawing-paper; a third time
dot with butter, and fold up closely. Having used as much butter for
this purpose as you have lard, set aside your last roll for an hour in
a very cold place. Then roll out, line your pie-plates with the paste,
fill with mince-meat; put strips, cut with a jagging-iron, across them
in squares or triangles, and bake in a steady, never a dull, heat.
These pies, like all others, must be made on Saturday, and warmed up
for Sabbath—unless you prefer to line your plates on Saturday, and set
them aside until next day, then fill the raw, crisp paste with the
mince-meat, and bake. The paste will be the better, instead of worse,
for standing overnight, and the trouble of baking scarcely exceed that
of warming over.
BANANAS AND ORANGES
May solace the disappointment of the dyspeptic or very juvenile members
of the family party, who “dare not touch mince pie.”
Fourth week. Monday.
——
Combination Soup.
Mince of Fowl. Turkey Salad.
Sweet Potatoes, Baked. Brussels Sprouts.
——
Sweet Macaroni, with Brandied Fruit.
Chocolate.
——
COMBINATION SOUP.
Put the remains of yesterday’s soup and of the stock reserved on
Saturday together, and heat almost to boiling. Split and toast crisp
half a dozen Boston crackers; butter while hot, set in the oven until
the butter has soaked in, when put on more. Lay in the bottom of your
soup-tureen, wet with a little boiling milk, and when they have soaked
this up, pour on the soup.
MINCE OF FOWL.
Set what was left of yesterday’s oyster-sauce over the fire to heat,
thinning, if necessary, with a little milk. Or, if you have no sauce,
substitute a cupful of drawn butter, made from the liquor in which the
turkey was boiled on Sunday, reserving the rest for another day’s
soup. Cut the meat closely from the bones of the turkey (saving these,
also). Set aside the white flesh for a nice little dish of salad. Cut
the rest, freed from skin and gristle, into pieces of nearly uniform
length, not more than an inch long. When your sauce boils, put in the
meat, simmer until smoking hot, then take off the saucepan, and pour
gradually over two beaten eggs. Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with
bread-crumbs, when you have greased it well; season the mince to taste;
fill up the dish with it; put another layer of bread-crumbs, on top,
and stick bits of butter over these. Bake covered, until bubbling hot,
then brown lightly. This will be found very delightful.
TURKEY SALAD.
The white meat of the turkey cut up in small pieces. An equal quantity
of blanched celery, also cut into lengths. Salt slightly, and when
dinner is nearly ready pour over them a dressing made of the yolks of
three hard-boiled eggs rubbed to a powder with a teaspoonful of sugar,
half as much salt, pepper and made mustard, when worked into a paste
with two tablespoonfuls of oil, and six of vinegar. Toss up the salad
well with a silver fork, and garnish with white of egg cut into rings.
SWEET POTATOES—BAKED.
Select those which are nearly of a size, and not too large, or so small
as to shrivel into dry husks. Wash, wipe, and bake in a moderate oven
until, by pinching, you find that they are soft at heart.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS.
Wash carefully, cut off the lower part of the stems, and lay in cold
water, slightly salted, for half an hour. Cook quickly, in boiling
water, with a very little salt, for fifteen minutes, or until tender.
Drain thoroughly, heap neatly upon a dish, and put a few spoonfuls of
melted butter, peppered to taste, upon them. Eat hot.
SWEET MACARONI.
½ lb. of macaroni.
1 pint of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
4 tablespoonfuls of cream.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Nutmeg and vanilla.
A little salt.
Break the macaroni into short pieces, put into a farina-kettle, cover
with the milk, put on the lid of the kettle, and cook with boiling
water in the outer vessel, until the milk is soaked up and the macaroni
looks clear, but has not begun to break. Add the butter, sugar, and
flavoring, and, if you have it, a few spoonfuls of cream. If you have
not, thicken a little milk slightly with corn-starch, and use instead.
Cover, and set in the boiling water for ten minutes longer. Serve in a
deep dish, and send around canned or brandied peaches with it.
CHOCOLATE.
To one pint of boiling water allow six tablespoonfuls of grated
chocolate wet up to a paste in cold water. Boil twenty minutes, put in
one pint of milk and boil ten minutes more. Stir often. It saves time,
if you know the tastes of those who are to drink it, if you sweeten it
in the saucepan.
Fourth Week. Tuesday.
——
Mother’s Soup.
Beefsteak and Onions. Sweet and Irish Potatoes, Chopped.
Mixed Pickles. Corn and Tomatoes, Stewed.
——
Crème du Thé, Café et Chocolat.
——
MOTHER’S SOUP.
Bones of yesterday’s turkey, with the stuffing.
A slice of lean ham.
The bone from your steak, and half a can of sweet corn.
1 onion, small.
1 stalk of celery.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Pepper and salt.
3 quarts of water.
Put on bones, ham (chopped), and the vegetables, cut up with the sweet
herbs, but not the corn, in a soup-kettle; cover well with the liquor
in which the turkey was cooked, and boil slowly, untouched, two hours.
Take out the bones, and strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through
the strainer, into a bowl. Return this to the fire and with it the corn
and turkey dressing. Bring to a gentle boil and keep it steady, for
fully half an hour. Season, and simmer a quarter of an hour longer. The
corn and dressing will thicken it sufficiently.
BEEFSTEAK WITH ONIONS.
While your steak is broiling, watched by some one else, fry three or
four sliced onions in a pan with some beef dripping or butter. Stir and
shake them until they begin to brown. Dish your steak, salt and pepper,
and lay the onions on top. Cover, and let all stand where they will
keep hot, for five minutes. Do not help onions to any one unless you
are sure that he likes them.
There is no dish so good for keeping a steak hot, yet juicy, as a
hot-water chafing-dish. No household can afford to be without one, if
no more.
MIXED PICKLES
Give the needed piquancy to steak. Home-made ones are best.
SWEET AND IRISH POTATOES—CHOPPED.
Chop cold boiled Irish potatoes and mix with them the cold sweet
ones left from Monday—in equal parts, if convenient—or, if you have
but two or three, make them do. There is philosophy, and religion,
too, sometimes, in “making things do.” Heating a little butter in a
saucepan, stir in the potatoes when it begins to “fizzle.” Shake and
toss them up with a wooden fork until they are very hot; season with
pepper and salt, and dish.
CORN AND TOMATOES STEWED.
To a can of tomatoes add the half can of corn left from your soup. Stew
together half an hour, with a little minced onion; then pepper and salt
to taste, and stir in a great spoonful of butter with a very little
sugar. Simmer ten minutes before turning out.
CRÈME DU THÉ, CAFÉ ET CHOCOLAT.
1 quart of milk.
1 package of Cooper’s gelatine.
1 cup of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls grated chocolate.
1 cup _strong_ tea.
1 cup of strong coffee.
Soak the gelatine for an hour in a cup of cold water. Heat the milk to
boiling and add the gelatine. So soon as this is dissolved, put in the
sugar, stir until melted, and take the saucepan from the fire. Strain
through thin muslin and divide into three parts. Into the largest stir
the chocolate, rubbed smooth in cold water; into another the tea, and
into a third equal to the second, the coffee. Return that containing
the chocolate to the farina-kettle, and heat scalding hot, stirring
all the while. Rinse out the kettle well with boiling water, and put
in, successively, those portions flavored with the tea and the coffee,
scalding the vessel between each. Wet several small cups or glasses
with cold water. Pour the chocolate into some, the tea into others,
and the coffee blanc-mange into the rest. When cold, turn out upon
a flat dish, and eat with sugar and sweet cream. It will “form” in
about six hours. This is a dessert by no means tedious or difficult of
preparation, and is worth trying, being both dainty and wholesome.
Fourth Week. Wednesday.
——
Lexington Soup.
Boiled Chickens and Macaroni. Whipped Potatoes.
Chow-chow. Parsnip Cakes.
——
Jam Roley-Poley with Wine Sauce.
Apples and Nuts.
——
LEXINGTON SOUP.
2 lbs. of veal.
1 lb. of mutton, with some bones.
1 onion.
1 carrot.
½ cup of rice.
1 cup of split peas.
4 quarts of water.
Sweet herbs, pepper and salt.
Mince the meat and vegetables and crack the bones. The peas should
have been soaked overnight in soft water, the rice washed and picked
over. Put all together in your soup-kettle, pour in the water and stew
gently, covered, five hours. Should the water waste too much, put in
more from the tea-kettle. At the end of this time, strain, rubbing the
vegetables through a colander. Return to the fire, season, and boil
slowly ten minutes, skimming carefully. Put sliced lemon, from which
the yellow rind has been pared, into the tureen, and pour the soup upon
it. Serve a slice in each plateful.
BOILED CHICKENS AND MACARONI.
Clean, wash, and stuff your chickens as for roasting; sew each up in a
piece of new tarlatan, fitted snugly to the shape. Boil, putting them
down in pretty hot, but not scalding water, allowing twelve minutes to
the number of pounds in _one_ of the pair, and that the larger. About
half an hour before they are to be served take out a large cupful of
the liquor from the pot and put into a saucepan. Season it, and boil
for five minutes with a small chopped onion. Strain, and when again
hot, drop in a double handful of macaroni, broken into short lengths.
Cook until tender, by which time the liquor should be absorbed by
the macaroni. The saucepan should be set in another, holding boiling
water, that there may be no danger of scorching while stewing. Make a
flattened mound of the macaroni upon a hot dish; lay the chickens upon
it, and anoint them well with melted butter, made more salt than usual.
Serve them out together, and have grated cheese for such as wish it.
CHOW-CHOW,
Or “picklette,” in American store-rooms—is a keen appetizer and
especially harmonious with boiled fowls. For receipt for making in
winter or summer, see “General Receipts, No. 1, Common Sense Series,”
page 491.
PARSNIP CAKES.
Scrape, wash, boil, and mash the parsnips. When cold, season with salt
and pepper, and, flouring your hands, make them into small, flat cakes.
Roll in flour and fry in boiling dripping. Drain dry and send up on a
hot dish.
WHIPPED POTATOES.
Instead of mashing the potatoes in the ordinary way, whip with a fork
until light and dry. Then whip in a little melted butter and some milk
with salt to taste, beating up fast until you have a creamy compound,
almost like a _méringue_. Pile as lightly and irregularly as you can
upon a hot dish.
JAM ROLEY-POLEY.
1 quart of _prepared_ flour.
1 tablespoonful of butter and the same of lard.
2 cups of milk, or enough to make soft dough.
1 large cup of fruit or berry jam.
Rub lard and butter into the flour, with a little salt, and wet with
cold milk into a soft paste. Roll out into a pretty thick crust—say
about a quarter of an inch—and trim into an oblong sheet. Spread this
generously with jam, leaving a margin at each end. Roll up closely,
the fruit inside. Pinch the open ends together, and baste neatly in a
floured bag fitted to the roll, but not so tightly as to interfere with
the swelling of the pudding. Boil an hour and a half in hot water that,
from first to last, is not once off the boil. Dip the cloth into cold
water before attempting to turn the roley-poley out—but for one hasty
second only.
WINE SAUCE.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
2 cupfuls of powdered sugar.
½ cup of wine.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
½ cupful of boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of corn-starch.
Nutmeg.
Cream the butter and sugar, adding the boiling water, a little at a
time, until you have used the half cupful. Put on in a saucepan, and
stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. When it has thickened,
put in the lemon-peel and nutmeg. Simmer one minute, add the wine, put
on the lid of the saucepan and set in hot water to keep warm until
wanted.
APPLES AND NUTS,
Being cheap and abundant at this season, should form the sequel of many
dinners.
Fourth Week. Thursday.
——
White Soup.
Langue de Bœuf, or Beef’s Tongue. Fried Brains and Green Peas.
Sauce Piquante. Hominy Croquettes.
Cold Slaw.
——
Brown Betty.
——
WHITE SOUP.
Skeletons of yesterday’s chickens.
3 or 4 lbs. of veal bones, cracked to pieces.
1 lb. of lean veal, cut small.
1 pint of milk.
1 egg.
1 small cup of _boiled_ farina.
Salt, pepper, minced onion and parsley for seasoning.
1 quart of water, and liquor in which chickens were boiled.
Cover the broken chicken and veal bones, the minced veal, parsley, and
onion with the cold water and chicken liquor and simmer three hours,
until the three quarts are reduced to two. Strain the liquor; put back
into the pot; salt and pepper; boil gently and skim for ten minutes
before adding the milk and boiled farina. Simmer another ten minutes;
take out a cupful and pour over the beaten egg. Mix well, and put with
the soup; let all stand covered, off the fire, two minutes, and serve.
LANGUE DE BŒUF, OR BEEF’S TONGUE.
Get your butcher to save you a fresh, large beef’s tongue, the finest
he can get. Soak, in cold water, a little salt, six hours—overnight,
if you choose—changing the water before you go to bed. Wipe it, trim
and scrape it, and plunging into boiling water, keep it at a slow boil
for an hour and a half. Take it up, pepper and salt; brush over with
beaten egg and coat thickly with bread-crumbs; lay in your dripping-pan
and bake, basting often with butter melted in a _little_ water. Half an
hour in a good oven should suffice. Put on a hot dish and cover while
you prepare the sauce.
SAUCE PIQUANTE.
1 cupful of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of made mustard.
A little salt and pepper.
1 heaping tablespoonful of browned flour.
1 teaspoonful mixed parsley and sweet marjoram.
1 tablespoonful of onion vinegar.
Brown the butter by shaking it over a clear fire in a saucepan. Heat
the cupful of liquor to a boil, skim and season it with salt and
pepper. Skim again before stirring in the flour wet up with cold water.
As it thickens, put in the butter, herbs, mustard, and vinegar. Boil
up, pour half over the tongue, the rest into a sauce-boat.
FRIED BRAINS AND GREEN PEAS.
Open a can of green peas an hour before cooking them, and turn into a
bowl. If there is not liquor in the can to cover them, add a little
water, slightly salted, and cook over twenty minutes after they boil.
Drain, pepper and salt; stir in a lump of butter nearly as large as an
egg, and put into a vegetable dish, the fried brains arranged along the
base of the mound.
Wash a calf’s brains in several waters; scald in boiling, then lay in
ice-cold water, for half an hour. Wipe, and beat them into a paste;
season, work in a little butter, a beaten egg, and enough flour to hold
the paste together. Fry upon a griddle in small cakes. Drain off every
drop of fat. Eat hot.
A nice and savory garnish.
HOMINY CROQUETTES.
2 cups fine hominy, boiled and cold.
2 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Salt to taste.
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
Work the butter into the hominy until the latter is smooth; then the
eggs, salt and sugar. Beat hard with a wooden spoon to get out lumps
and mix well. Make into oval balls with floured hands. Roll each in
flour, and fry in sweet dripping or lard, putting in a few at a time
and turning over with care as they brown. Drain in a hot colander.
COLD SLAW.
Chop or shred a small white cabbage. Prepare a dressing in the
proportion of one tablespoonful of oil to four of vinegar, a
teaspoonful of made mustard, the same quantity of salt and sugar, and
half as much pepper. Pour over the salad, adding, if you choose, three
tablespoonfuls of minced celery; toss up well and put into a glass bowl.
BROWN BETTY.
2 cups chopped apples, tart ones.
½ cup of sugar.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
Put a layer of chopped apple in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish.
Sprinkle well with sugar, stick bits of butter here and there and add
a pinch or two of nutmeg. Cover with bread-crumbs, then more apple. In
this order of alternation fill the dish, spreading the surface with
bread-crumbs. Cover, steam nearly an hour in a moderate oven; then
brown quickly.
For sauce, mix a teaspoonful of cinnamon with a cup of powdered sugar.
Butter the hot “Betty” as you fill each saucer, and strew with this
mixture. Or it is excellent, eaten warm, not hot, with cream and sugar.
Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Potato Soup.
Fried Oysters. Roast Mutton.
Spinach à la Crème. Potatoes Stewed Whole.
——
French Tapioca Custard.
——
POTATO SOUP.
1 dozen mealy potatoes.
1 can of tomatoes.
2 onions.
3 stalks of celery.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
1 lump of white sugar.
Salt and pepper to taste.
3 quarts of water.
Fried bread.
Parboil the potatoes; then slice and put them into the soup-pot with
the tomatoes, the onions, minced, and the celery and herbs chopped
small. Pour on three quarts of water, and stew for one hour, or until
the vegetables can be rubbed easily through the colander. Strain,
return to the pot, drop in the sugar, pepper and salt judiciously, boil
up and skim. Stir in the butter, and simmer, covered, for ten minutes.
Have dice of fried bread in the tureen, upon which pour the soup.
FRIED OYSTERS.
Select for this the finest oysters. Drain, and wipe them by spreading
them upon a cloth, laying another over them, and pressing lightly. Roll
each in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs with which have been mixed
a little salt and less pepper, and fry in a mixture of equal parts of
lard and butter.
Drain each in a wire spoon, and eat them hot, with bread and butter.
ROAST MUTTON.
Wash the meat well and wipe with a clean cloth. Put into the
dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over it, and roast, basting
often, for a while, with salt and water, afterwards with its own gravy.
Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat, and keep the fire at a
steady, moderate heat. Should it brown too fast, cover with a sheet of
paper. Take up the meat, put it on a hot dish; thicken the gravy with
browned flour, having first taken off _all_ the fat you can—season with
pepper and salt, boil up, skim and serve. Pass currant jelly with it.
SPINACH À LA CRÈME.
Pick over and wash the spinach, and cut the leaves from the stalks.
Boil in hot water, a little salted, about twenty minutes. Drain,
put into a wooden tray, or upon a board; chop _very_ fine, and rub
through a colander. Put into a saucepan; stir until it begins to smoke
throughout. Add then two tablespoonfuls of butter for a good-sized
dish, a teaspoonful of white sugar, three tablespoonfuls of milk, salt
and pepper to liking. _Beat_, as it heats, with a silver fork or wire
spoon. Some put in a little nutmeg, and most people like it. Cook thus
until it begins to bubble up as you beat it. Pour into a deep dish,
surround with sliced egg, and serve.
POTATOES STEWED WHOLE.
Pare the potatoes and boil in water which was cold when they went
in. When they are done, as is proved by piercing the largest with a
fork, turn off the water, and cover them barely with milk already
heated. Stew in this five minutes; take the potatoes out, and put into
a covered deep dish. Add to the milk in the saucepan a good lump of
butter, rolled in flour, some chopped parsley, pepper and salt. Boil
up once. Crack each potato as it lies in the dish, by pressing with
the back of a spoon; pour the hot milk over them; let them stand three
minutes in it, and send to table.
FRENCH TAPIOCA CUSTARD.
5 dessertspoonfuls of tapioca.
1 quart of milk.
1 pint of cold water.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
1 heaping cup of sugar.
A pinch of salt.
Soak the tapioca in the water five hours. Heat the milk to scalding;
add the tapioca, the water in which it was soaked, and the salt. Stir
to boiling, and pour gradually upon the yolks and sugar, which should
have been beaten together. Boil again, stirring constantly, about five
minutes, or until it begins to thicken well. Turn into a bowl and stir
gently into the custard the frothed whites and the flavoring. Eat cold.
Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Old Hare Soup.
Hot Pot. Turnips with White Sauce.
Boiled Rice, au Genève. Cucumber Pickle.
——
Cabinet Pudding.
Cabinet Pudding Sauce.
——
OLD HARE SOUP.