ice-cold. Rub all the salt off, and wipe dry. Grease your gridiron with
butter, and rub the fish on both sides with the same, melted. Then
broil quickly over a clear fire, turning with a cake-turner so as not
to break it. Lay upon a hot-water dish, and cover until the sauce is
ready.
Heat a small cup of milk to scalding. Stir into it a teaspoonful of
corn-starch, wet up with a little water. When this thickens, add two
tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Beat an
egg light, pour the sauce gradually over it, put the mixture again over
the fire, and stir one minute, not more. Pour upon the fish, and let
all stand, covered, over the hot water in the chafing-dish. Put fresh
boiling water under the dish before sending to table.
MASHED POTATOES,
Beaten light with milk and butter, and smoothed into a mound, should be
served with the fish. If you have a pretty butter-print, wet it, and
stamp the top of the mound.
Remember that _everything tastes better for looking well_.
LARDED SWEETBREADS, STEWED.
3 or 4 fine sweetbreads.
¼ lb. fat salt pork, cut into “lardoons,” or long narrow strips.
1 cup of gravy (saved from the roast calf’s head of yesterday).
1 tablespoonful of tomato or other catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Season with pepper.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should boil when
they are dropped in. Take out and lay at once in ice-cold water. This
makes them firm. Leave in this five minutes, wipe dry, and set aside
to get cold. Then lard with the strips of pork, passing them quite
through, so as to project on both sides. If you have no larding-needle,
use a long-bladed penknife. Put them into a saucepan; cover with
the gravy. If there is not enough, put in a few spoonfuls from the
boiling soup. The gravy should be cold, however, when poured over the
sweetbreads. Stew about twenty-five minutes after the boil begins. Take
out the sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add catsup,
lemon, and pepper, the lardoons having salted it sufficiently. Lay the
sweetbreads upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve; in
carving, cut perpendicularly.
STEWED CELERY.
2 bunches of celery, the white stalks only, scraped and cut into
short pieces.
2 beaten eggs.
1 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.
Pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender. Drain
off the water and put in the milk, cold. So soon as it boils, stir
in the butter, rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Add a few
spoonfuls of the hot milk to the beaten eggs that they may not curdle
in the saucepan; put with the celery and sauce over the fire; boil up
once, and dish.
OMELETTE SOUFFLÉ.
8 eggs.
5 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Vanilla or rose-water flavoring.
Whip the whites to a very stiff froth, thick enough to be cut with a
knife. Beat the yolks smooth and long; add to these the sugar, whip
up well, and flavor. Grease a neat pudding-dish _abundantly_ with the
tablespoonful of butter. The last thing before you take your seat
at the table, do all this; stir whites and yolks together, and put
into a steady, not _too_ hot, oven. If you have a teachable cook, let
her learn how to put the prepared ingredients together after dinner
has gone in. The oven-door should be opened as seldom as possible,
certainly not under fifteen minutes. By this time the omelette should
have risen high, and be of a golden brown. Partly close the oven-door,
to keep it hot, and let it be served as soon as possible in the
bake-dish.
Never attempt this or any other nerve-trying dish, for the first time,
for others than a family party. Yet it is easy enough when you have
once learned for yourself how long to cook it, and how soon it will
fall.
TEA AND TOASTED CRACKERS.
Split Boston crackers, toast, butter; put where they will keep hot, and
pass with an after-dinner cup of tea.
First Week. Saturday.
——
Gravy and Sago Soup.
Boiled Corned Beef. Baked Macaroni.
Cauliflower, with Sauce. Mashed Turnips.
——
Jelly Tartlets.
Apples and Nuts.
——
GRAVY AND SAGO SOUP.
4 lbs. coarse beef, cut into strips.
3 lbs. of bones.
1 slice of lean corned ham.
4 onions.
4 cloves.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
¼ lb. of German sago.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts of water.
2 stalks of celery, cut small.
Cut the beef into narrow strips, the onions into slices. Fry the latter
brown in dripping, strain them out, and set aside. Return the dripping
to the pan, and fry the meat until it is nicely browned, but not crisp.
Lastly, fry the bones in the same fat. They should be broken up small.
Put meat, bones, celery, spice, and onions into a pot with a quart of
cold water; cover closely, and put where it will not boil under an
hour, but will heat all the time. This is to draw out color and open
the pores (so to speak) of the meat. So soon as it boils add four
quarts more of cold water. Set where it will boil steadily, but never
fast, for five hours. Strain, and cool sufficiently to make the fat
rise. Take it off, put back over the fire, season, boil up and skim;
put in the sago, which should have been soaked two hours in a little
water, simmer fifteen minutes and serve.
Save all that is left from dinner, for Monday.
BOILED CORNED BEEF.
Wash well, and put over the fire in hot water—plenty of it—and boil
twenty minutes for each pound of meat. Turn three times while cooking.
Drain dry, and serve with drawn butter in a boat. “Draw” the butter in
liquor taken from the pot. Keep the rest of the liquor for the base of
Sunday’s soup.
MASHED TURNIPS.
Pare, quarter, and lay in cold water half an hour. Put on in boiling
water, and cook until tender. Drain, mash, and press to get out the
water, work in pepper, salt, and a generous lump of butter. Do all this
quickly not to cool the turnips, and pile smoothly in a hot, deep dish.
CAULIFLOWER, WITH SAUCE.
Pick off the leaves and cut the stem close. Do not cut the cauliflower
unless very large. Lay in cold water for thirty minutes, tie in coarse
bobbinet lace or mosquito net, and cook in boiling water, slightly
salted, until tender. Lay the cauliflower, flower upward, within a hot
dish, and pour the sauce over it.
SAUCE FOR THE ABOVE.
Stir into a cup of boiling water a tablespoonful of flour, wet up with
cold. When it has boiled two minutes, add two tablespoonfuls of butter,
the white of an egg whipped stiff, pepper and salt, and the juice of a
lemon. Boil one minute, and pour over the cauliflower.
BAKED MACARONI.
Break half a pound of macaroni into pieces an inch long, and cook
in boiling water, slightly salted, twenty minutes. Drain, and put a
layer in the bottom of a greased bake-dish, upon this some grated
cheese—Parmesan, if you can get it—and tiny bits of butter. Then more
macaroni, and so on, filling the dish, with grated cheese on top. Wet
with a little milk, and salt lightly. Bake, covered half an hour, then
brown. Serve in the bake-dish.
JELLY TARTLETS.
1 lb. of flour.
½ lb. of butter.
¼ lb. of lard.
Yolk of an egg.
Ice-water.
Wash the butter in three waters, working it over well to get out the
salt. Melt it in a tin cup set in boiling water, take the scum from the
top, and let it get almost cold, when beat, little by little, into the
whipped egg. Work these into the flour, adding just enough ice-water
to make the paste soft enough to roll out. When you have rolled it
into a thin sheet, spread all over with the lard, put on with a knife.
Sprinkle lightly with flour, roll up, and flatten with three or four
strokes of the rolling-pin. Roll again into a yet thinner sheet; again
lubricate with the lard and sprinkle with flour, and, once more, make
into a tight roll. Set for an hour in a cold place. Cut in two. Set
aside enough for your Monday’s dessert; line small “patty-pans” with
the rest, pricking the paste on the bottom to keep it from puffing too
high. Bake in a quick oven, and when cold put a tablespoonful of sweet
jelly or jam in each.
APPLES AND NUTS,
Especially the former, are better for very young stomachs than pastry.
Second Week. Sunday.
——
Mock Turtle Bean Soup.
Haunch of Venison. Moulded Potatoes.
Lima Beans. Sweet Potatoes, Browned.
——
Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream.
Coffee and Fancy Cakes.
——
MOCK TURTLE BEAN SOUP.
1 quart of mock turtle soup beans.
2 onions, chopped.
4 stalks of celery, cut small.
Liquor in which the corned beef of yesterday was boiled.
Pepper.
Dice of fried bread.
1 quart of cold water.
1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.
Soak the beans overnight. In the morning, pour on a quart of cold
water, and set them where they will heat for an hour, without burning.
Stir up often from the bottom. At the end of this time add the beef
liquor (after taking off the fat), the onions, and celery. Cook gently
three hours, until the beans are boiled to pieces. Strain, season, put
back into the kettle, boil up, season with pepper, stir in the butter
rolled in flour. Simmer five minutes, and pour upon the fried bread in
the tureen.
If you cannot get the purple “mock turtle soup beans,” use the common
white ones.
HAUNCH OF VENISON.
Wash all over with lukewarm vinegar and water; then rub well with
butter or lard to soften the skin. Cover the top and sides with
foolscap paper, well greased, and coat it with a paste of flour
and water, half an inch thick. Lay over this a large sheet of thin
wrapping-paper, and over this another of stout foolscap. Tie all down
in place by greased pack-thread. The papers should also be thoroughly
greased.
Thus much on Saturday—and set the venison in a very cold place.
Next day, about three hours before it will be needed, put into the
dripping-pan, with two cups of boiling water in the bottom. Invert
another pan over it to keep in the steam; be sure that the fire is
good, and leave it to itself for an hour. Then see that the paper
is not scorching; wet it all over with hot water and a ladleful of
gravy; cover and let it alone for an hour and a half more. Remove
the papers and paste, and test with a skewer in the thickest part.
If it goes in readily, close the oven, and let it brown for half an
hour. Baste freely four times with claret and butter; at last dredge
with flour and rub over with butter to make a froth. Take it up, put
upon a hot dish. Skim the gravy left in the dripping pan, strain it,
thicken with browned flour; add two teaspoonfuls of currant-jelly, a
glass of claret, pepper and salt. Boil up for an instant, and serve
in a gravy-boat. Allow a quarter of an hour to the pound in roasting
venison. The neck can be roasted in the same way as the haunch.
MASHED POTATOES—MOULDED.
Having mashed and seasoned them as usual, grease _well_ the inside of
a fluted pudding or cake mould, put in the potato, cover, and set for
half an hour in a dripping-pan half full of boiling water, within a
moderate oven. Then remove the lid, dip, for a moment, the mould in
cold water, and turn the potato out upon a flat dish.
LIMA BEANS.
You can get them canned, but they are nearly, if not quite as good
dried. In this case soak them overnight in soft water. Change this in
the morning for fresh, and put them on to boil in hot water, a little
salted. Cook slowly until soft. Do not boil so fast as to break the
skins. Drain well, stir in a good piece of butter, a little pepper and
salt, and eat very hot.
SWEET POTATOES—BROWNED.
Boil in their skins, peel while hot, and set them in a quick oven.
Glaze presently with butter, repeating the process, several times, as
they brown.
WINE JELLY WITH WHIPPED CREAM.
1 package of Coxe’s gelatine, soaked for two hours in a large cup of
cold water.
2 cups of white wine, or pale sherry.
1 lemon, all the juice and half the grated peel.
1 teaspoonful of bitter almond extract.
2 cups of white sugar.
2 cups of _boiling_ water.
Put soaked gelatine, lemon, sugar, and flavoring extract together, and
cover closely for half an hour. Pour on boiling water, stir and strain.
Add the wine, strain again through a flannel bag, without squeezing,
and leave in a mould wet with cold water, until just before the Sunday
dinner.
Whip a cup of rich cream to a thick froth in a syllabub-churn. The
jelly should have been formed in an open mould—one with cylinder in the
middle. Fill the hollow left by this with the whipped cream; or, if
your jelly be a solid mass, heap the cream about the base.
COFFEE AND MACAROONS
Should be the final course. I make no apology for hot and good Sunday
dinners. There is a vast deal of straining out infinitesimal gnats and
swallowing gigantic camels upon this, as upon most other questions of
conscience. We have neither time nor space for their discussion. I
have simply tried to deal with the fact that most husbands, brothers,
and fathers expect a better dinner on Sabbath, and enjoy it more, than
upon other days, by showing, to the best of my ability, how they can be
gratified without imposing heavy duties upon mistress and servants at a
season when both mind and body need comparative rest.
Second Week. Monday.
——
“Second Thoughts” Soup.
Larded Venison. Scalloped Tomatoes.
Grape Jelly. Fried Sweet Potatoes.
——
Raspberry and Currant Jelly Tart.
——
“SECOND THOUGHTS” SOUP.
Heat Saturday’s soup to a boil; add two cups of milk, and when this
heats, pour a little of it upon two beaten eggs. Return these to the
soup, add whatever seasoning is necessary; simmer all together for one
minute, and pour upon three or four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese
placed in the bottom of the tureen. Stir up well, and it is ready.
LARDED VENISON.
Trim the remains of the roast haunch into a neat shape, and lard
with strips of fat pork, making incisions to receive it with a thin,
sharp-edged knife. Pour what gravy you have over it, or should there
be none, use butter and water instead. Put into a dripping-pan, turn
another over it and roast—or steam—for one hour. Meantime, make a
gravy of the trimmings, bits of bone, etc., by covering them well with
cold water, and adding half an onion, sliced. Stew until the gravy
is reduced one-half. Strain, season with pepper; a tablespoonful of
currant-jelly, one of catsup and two of claret. Thicken slightly with
browned flour, boil up to mix well, and pour gradually over the meat.
Baste abundantly with this for half an hour if the piece of meat be
large. Less time may suffice for a small roast. Never let it dry for
an instant. When done, it should seem to have been stewed rather than
roasted. Serve the gravy in a sauce-boat.
Like some other “second thoughts,” this dish will be even better than
at its first appearance.
SCALLOPED TOMATOES.
Turn nearly all the juice off from a can of tomatoes. Salt and pepper
this, by the way, and put aside in a cool place for some other day’s
soup. Put a layer of bread-crumbs in the bottom of a buttered pie-dish;
on them one of tomatoes; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and some bits
of butter, also a little sugar. Another layer of crumbs, another of
tomatoes—seasoned—then a top layer of very fine, dry crumbs. Bake
covered until bubbling hot, and brown quickly.
FRIED SWEET POTATOES.
Slice cold ones left from yesterday, or boiled this fore-noon; roll in
flour and fry in dripping. Drain well.
RASPBERRY AND CURRANT JELLY TART.
Roll out the raw paste reserved for to-day from Saturday, and line two
pie-dishes. Fill them nearly full of canned raspberries, sweetened to
your liking. Spread a coating of currant jelly over the top, and cover
with a lattice-work of pastry, cut with a jagging-iron. Watch your
chance of putting them into the oven, as they are better when not hot.
You will like them, I think.
Second Week. Tuesday.
——
Clam Soup.
Ragoût of Veal. Rice and Cheese.
Potato Puff. Celery Salad.
——
A Mere Trifle.
——
CLAM SOUP.
50 clams, ready opened.
1 quart of milk.
1 pint of water.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
12 whole peppers.
A few bits of red pepper pods.
6 blades of mace.
Salt to taste.
1 stalk of celery, cut small.
1 tablespoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.
Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire in a
large farina-kettle, with a pint of water, the peppers, mace, celery,
and salt. When it has boiled ten minutes, strain and put back into
the kettle with the clams. Shut the lid down closely, and boil, fast,
thirty minutes. Heat the milk in another vessel, stir into it the
rice-flour, wet up with cold water, and the butter. Pour into the
kettle with the clams, take at once from the fire, pour into the
tureen, in the bottom of which you have laid four or five Boston
crackers, split. Cover, and wait five minutes before serving.
RAGOÛT OF VEAL.
5 lbs. of knuckle of veal.
1 onion.
2 stalks of celery.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of tomatoes set aside yesterday.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
¼ lb. of streaked fat pork.
Pepper and salt.
Crack the bones, when you have taken the meat off, and put them into
a saucepan with the minced onion, celery, and herbs, with a quart
of water. Stew slowly until the liquor has boiled down to a pint.
Meanwhile, cut the veal into neat slices, and fry until they begin to
brown, in some good dripping. Strain the gravy made from the bones and
vegetables over this, and put all on to stew, adding the tomato-juice,
pepper, and pork, the last cut up fine. Simmer, with the lid on, for
two hours. Then add the browned flour, wet up in cold water, salt, if
needed, the butter and lemon-juice. Boil up once, and dish.
RICE AND CHEESE.
Boil a cup of rice in a quart of water, slightly salted, and when
half-done add two tablespoonfuls of butter. By the time the rice is
soft, the water should have been soaked up entirely, and each grain
stand out whole in the mass. Never stir boiling rice, but shake
up the saucepan instead. Stir into the rice, at this point, three
tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Toss up with
a fork until the cheese is dissolved, and pour into a deep dish.
POTATO PUFF.
Mash the potatoes while hot. Beat in butter, milk, and two whipped
eggs, with salt to your liking, until you have a light, soft paste.
Bake in a buttered pudding-dish in a quick oven.
CELERY SALAD.
Cut up blanched stalks of celery into short pieces. Mix a dressing of
one tablespoonful of oil to one teaspoonful of sugar, one of salt,
half as much pepper, and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar with half a
teaspoonful of made mustard. Heat the vinegar to scalding, and pour
over a beaten egg, a little at a time, and beating it in well. To this
add the oil and other ingredients, whipping up the mixture with an
egg-beater. When cold, pour over the salad, toss up with a silver fork,
and put into a glass bowl.
A MERE TRIFLE.
1 quart of fresh milk.
5 eggs.
6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Vanilla, or other essence, 2 teaspoonfuls.
Heat the milk to boiling, and pour, gradually, upon the beaten yolks
and sugar. Put again over the fire, stir steadily for about ten
minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Take it off, and while still
very hot, stir in with a few light strokes half of the frothed whites.
Let it get cold before flavoring it. Pour into a glass bowl. Whip the
remaining whites to a _méringue_ with a little powdered sugar. Heap
upon the custard. Put bits of bright jelly, or preserved strawberries,
here and there upon the snowy mass.
Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Hotch-Potch.
Stewed Pigeons. Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.
Kidney Beans. Mixed Pickles.
——
English Tapioca Pudding.
——
HOTCH-POTCH.
2 lbs. of lean beef, without bones, and cut into mince-meat.
2 onions.
2 carrots.
2 turnips.
2 stalks of celery.
½ small cabbage, cut fine.
2 potatoes.
1 cup of corn.
Half a can of tomatoes.
Bunch of sweet herbs, chopped.
Pepper and salt.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Wash, scrape, and slice the vegetables, and put all except the tomatoes
into a pot; cover with hot water and boil gently ten minutes. Drain off
the water, put a handful of the mixed vegetables, including now the
tomatoes, in the bottom of a stone jar. Pepper and salt, strew thickly
with the minced raw beef, repeat the order until your materials are all
in the jar. Fit a top or a small plate over the mouth; tie down with
stout greased paper, set it within the oven, and let it alone for five
or six hours, except that you must look, now and then, to see that the
paper does not take fire. Prevent this by greasing it abundantly. At
the end of this time, turn out the hotch-potch; stir in the butter,
and, if needed, additional seasoning through it, and serve in a tureen.
STEWED PIGEONS.
Pick, clean, and wash the pigeons, and put into a pot with a cupful of
water to keep them from burning, and a tablespoonful of butter for each
one. Shut the lid down tightly, and subject to a slow heat until they
are of a nice brown—about nut-color. Once in a great while turn them,
and see that each is well wet with the liquor. Take them out and cover
in a warm place—a colander set over a pot of hot water is best—while
you make the gravy. Chop the giblets of the pigeon “exceeding small”
with a little onion and parsley. Put into the gravy, pepper and salt,
boil up and thicken with browned flour. Return the pigeons to the pot,
cover again tightly, and cook slowly until tender. If there should not
be liquor enough in the pot to make the gravy, add boiling water before
the giblets go in.
This is an admirable receipt.
POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE.
Cut parboiled potatoes into dice. Chop an onion and fry it, with a
little minced parsley, in good dripping or butter, for one minute. Then
put in the potatoes. Stir briskly until they have fried slowly for
five minutes. They must never stick to the bottom, nor brown. Sprinkle
with pepper and salt, drain free of fat by shaking them in a heated
colander, and send up hot.
KIDNEY BEANS.
Soak over night in soft water; next morning cover with lukewarm, and
cook slowly for one hour. Salt slightly and boil until tender, but
not to actual breaking. Drain very well, stir in a liberal spoonful of
butter, pepper, and serve.
ENGLISH TAPIOCA PUDDING.
1 cup of tapioca.
5 eggs.
3 pints of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
½ lb. of raisins.
Half the grated peel of a lemon.
A _little_ salt.
Soak the tapioca for one hour in a pint of the milk; pour into a
farina-kettle, surround with warm water, salt very slightly, and bring
to a boil. When soft throughout, turn out to cool, while you make the
custard. Heat a quart of milk to scalding; pour over the beaten eggs
and sugar, this last having been rubbed to a cream with the butter. Mix
with the tapioca—lemon-peel and raisins last. Dredge the fruit lightly
with flour, and beat all up hard. Bake in a buttered dish one hour—at
first covered.
Eat warm, with powdered sugar. It is better for not being too hot.
Second Week. Thursday.
——
Celery Soup.
Mutton Cutlets—Fried. Stewed Corn and Tomatoes.
Brussels Sprouts. Mashed Potatoes.
——
Apple Méringue Pie.
——
CELERY SOUP.
2 lbs. of veal.
1 slice of corned ham, or a ham-bone.
2 bunches of celery.
2 cups of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up in water.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
1 onion.
Dice of fried bread.
Pepper and salt.
3 quarts of water.
Chop the meat, onion, and herbs; cover with the water and put on to
stew early in the day. When the meat has boiled to rags and the liquid
reduced one-half, strain, and put in the celery, cut into small pieces.
Use the best parts only. Stew soft; rub through a colander and return
with the broth to the saucepan. Season, add the sugar, boil up and
skim, and put in the milk. Heat, and add corn starch. When it again
boils, you stirring all the while, put in the butter.
Take off so soon as this has melted, and pour over the fried bread in
the tureen.
MUTTON CUTLETS—FRIED.
Beat them flat with the broad side of a hatchet; season with pepper and
salt, dip first in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in lard or
dripping. Drain perfectly free from the fat, and arrange them, standing
on end and touching one another, around a mound of mashed potatoes.
MASHED POTATOES.
Prepare as usual, and shape with a knife into a smooth mound, with a
hedge of cutlets about the base.
STEWED CORN AND TOMATOES.
Take a half-can of tomatoes and the same of corn, the rest of that
which was opened for your “hotch-potch” yesterday, and, after mixing
them up well, season with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Set on
where they will cook slowly. At the end of twenty-five minutes, stir in
a great spoonful of butter. Put on the lid and stew _very_ gently ten
minutes more. Serve in a deep dish.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS.