pack-thread around their legs and wings, binding them close to their
bodies, and put on to boil in four quarts of cold water, a little
salted. They will require at least one hour’s boiling, if they are of
fair size. Do not cook fast, especially at first. Try with a fork if
they are tender, and if it pierces the breast easily, take them up,
butter well, and set in a warm place, covered. Take out a cupful of
liquor when they are three-quarters done, in which to cook your rice.
Strain the broth after taking out the fowls, season with pepper and
chopped parsley and put again over the fire. Take off the scum, as it
rises, and boil hard fifteen minutes. Then add a half cupful of rice,
previously stewed soft in a very little water. Simmer a quarter of an
hour; pour in a cup of milk in which has been stirred a tablespoonful
of rice-flour; bring to a slow boil, and pour a few spoonfuls upon two
beaten eggs. Return these to the soup, stir them in and take from the
fire. Have ready the giblets and one hard-boiled egg chopped fine in
the bottom of the tureen, and turn in the broth upon them.
CHICKENS AND RICE.
Parboil a cup of rice in a little water. When it has taken it up,
and is about half done, add the cupful of broth taken from the soup,
seasoned well. Cook the rice slowly in it until done. (Always cook
rice in a farina-kettle, and shake, instead of stirring.) It should
absorb all the gravy. At the last, stir in a beaten egg, mixed with a
tablespoonful of melted butter. It is best to do this with a fork, and
not a spoon. Make a low, flattened mound of the rice upon a hot dish;
remove the pack-threads from the chickens and lay them on the top. Pass
grated cheese with it.
POTATO CROQUETTES.
To each cupful of mashed potato, add half a raw egg, beaten light, a
little salt and pepper, and half a teaspoonful of butter. Beat well.
Make into oblong balls, or rolls, flour well and fry, a few at a time,
in boiling lard, or dripping. Drain off the fat and serve hot.
BOILED SWEET POTATOES.
Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and boil until a fork will
penetrate them easily. Skin, set in the oven a moment to dry, and send
to table.
COLD SLAW—CREAM DRESSING.
1 small head of white cabbage, shred fine.
1 cup of milk, scalding hot.
¾ of a cup of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 egg, beaten light.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
1 even tablespoonful of corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub butter and sugar together and pour over them the hot milk. Beat
into these the frothed egg. Put into a vessel set within another of hot
water, add the corn-starch wet up with cold water, boil slowly until
it thickens, and set aside. In another saucepan scald the vinegar; put
in the pepper and salt with essence of celery, and pour hot over the
cabbage. Mix up well; put back into the saucepan, and stir briskly over
the fire until it is smoking all through, but not until it boils. Turn
it into a bowl, stir into it the custard with a silver fork, until well
mixed; cover, to keep in the strength of the vinegar, and set it where
it will cool suddenly. It is very fine.
POOR MAN’S PLUM PUDDING.
3 eggs.
1 quart of milk.
Small loaf of stale bread.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
½ lb. seeded raisins, cut in two.
Cinnamon to taste.
A pinch of salt.
Butter.
Slice the bread and cut off all the crust. Butter thinly and lay in
order in a _well_-greased pudding-dish, strewing each layer with
raisins. Heat the milk, put in sugar and salt, and pour over the beaten
eggs. Lay a heavy saucer upon the top of the bread and soak with the
custard. Let all stand half an hour, then set in a dripping-pan of
boiling water, cover closely, and cook one hour, keeping the pan full
of water at a hard boil. Turn out and eat with liquid sauce.
Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Wednesday’s Soup.
Boiled Cod.
Chicken Patés. Cheese Fingers.
Mashed Potatoes. Mashed Turnips.
——
Sweet Potato Pudding.
——
WEDNESDAY’S SOUP.
The Julienne soup which, as I stated in the receipt for making it,
was sufficient for two days, will have kept perfectly well in the
refrigerator, or in any cold closet. You have now only to warm it
over—not quite to the boil, and it will be even better than upon the
first day. It is wise, sometimes, to skip a day with a _réchauffé_, for
fear of wearying those for whose comfort your bills-of-fare are made up.
BOILED COD.
Sew up the piece of fish in a thin cloth, fitted neatly to the shape,
and boil in salted water (boiling from the first), allowing about
fifteen minutes per pound. Unwrap carefully and pour over it a sauce
made thus:
Heat half a cup of milk and as much water together; stir in a
tablespoonful of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour, and when
it has thickened, pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Put back into
the saucepan and stir for one minute; add salt, chopped parsley, and a
dozen capers or nasturtium seeds. Take at once from the fire.
CHICKEN PATÉS.
Line your paté-pans with a good paste, made according to either of the
receipts already given this month, and bake in a brisk oven.
Mince the chicken left from yesterday. Put the bones and stuffing into
a saucepan with two cups of cold water, and stew down to one cup of
gravy. Season this well, add three tablespoonfuls of milk when you
have strained out the bones, a tablespoonful of butter, and a very
little parsley. The stuffing should thicken it sufficiently. Stir
in the chicken, warm until hot, but do not let it boil, or it will
be spoiled. Fill the paste-shells, having taken them from the tins;
arrange upon a _hot_ dish and set within an open oven until they are
sent to table.
CHEESE FINGERS.
Cut good pastry, left from your patés, into strips three inches long
and two inches wide. Strew with grated cheese, season with pepper and
salt; double the paste upon this lengthwise, and bake in a quick oven.
Brush over with beaten egg just before taking them up, and sift a
little powdered cheese upon them.
Pile, log-cabin-wise, upon a folded napkin laid within a flat dish, and
eat without delay, as they are not good cold.
MASHED POTATOES AND MASHED TURNIPS.
The receipts for these standard dishes having been already given this
month, it is scarcely necessary to repeat them here. Bear in mind,
always, that they must be served hot, and the turnips be well drained.
SWEET POTATO PUDDING.
1 lb. parboiled sweet potatoes.
½ cup of butter.
¾ cup of white sugar.
1 tablespoonful of cinnamon.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
1 lemon, juice and grated rind.
1 glass of brandy.
Let the potatoes get entirely cold, and grate them. Cream the butter
and sugar; add the yolks, spice and lemon. Beat the potato in by
degrees, to a light paste; then the brandy, lastly the whites. Bake in
a buttered dish, and eat cold.
Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Bean and Celery Soup.
Jugged Pigeons. Shred Macaroni.
Currant Jelly. Brussels-Sprouts.
——
Sponge-Cake Fritters.
——
BEAN AND CELERY SOUP.
1 quart of dried beans, soaked all night.
1 bunch of celery—the blanched stalks only.
1 lb. of salt pork, cut into strips.
1 lb. of beef—lean, also cut up.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Pepper.
5 quarts of water—cold.
1 onion, minced.
Cover beans, meat, onions, and half the celery cut into bits, with the
water, and boil to pieces, and until the liquid is reduced one-third.
Rub the beans and celery through a fine colander into the soup. Return
to the fire, season with pepper, put in the rest of the celery, cut
into inch-lengths, and simmer half an hour, stirring often, that it may
not “catch” on the bottom. Set aside a quart of it, if you can spare as
much, for Monday’s soup.
JUGGED PIGEONS.
Clean and wash well, and stuff with a dressing made of the giblets
boiled and chopped, a slice of fat pork also minced fine; the yolks
of two hard eggs rubbed to powder, some bread-crumbs, pepper and
salt, bound with a beaten raw egg. Tie the legs and wings close to
their bodies, and pack the pigeons in a tin pail with a _tight_ top.
Plunge this into a pot of boiling water; put a weight on top to keep
it steady, and cook two hours and a half. The water should not boil
over the top. Drain off the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with a
tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Season, boil up, pour over
the pigeons. Cover again, and leave in the hot water ten minutes before
serving.
SHRED MACARONI.
Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into pieces two inches long, and
cook in boiling water, a little salted, ten minutes. Drain off the
water, and spread the macaroni out to cool upon a dish. When cold, take
a sharp knife or a pair of scissors, and split each piece in half,
lengthwise. Put on in a farina-kettle with a cup of hot milk and a
tablespoonful of butter, seasoning with pepper and salt. Cover and stew
tender, but not to breaking. Ten minutes after the boil should do this.
Then stir in three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Serve in a deep
dish.
BRUSSELS-SPROUTS.
Wash and pick over very carefully. Put on in plenty of boiling water
with a little salt, and cook fifteen minutes after the water begins to
boil anew. Drain well and pile upon a dish, with drawn butter poured
over them.
SPONGE-CAKE FRITTERS.
8 penny sponge-cakes—very stale.
1 cup of boiling milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
4 eggs whipped light.
1 tablespoonful of flour wet up in cold milk.
¼ lb. currants, washed and dried.
Roll the cakes into fine crumbs; pour over them the hot milk, with the
soda and flour stirred into it. Cover for fifteen minutes, then beat
until cold. Add the whipped eggs—the yolks first, then the whites;
finally, the currants dredged with flour. Beat all well. Drop in great
spoonfuls in boiling lard, trying one first to be sure that the batter
is of the right consistency; drain quickly in a hot colander; sprinkle
with powdered sugar mixed with nutmeg, and serve hot.
MARCH.
First Week. Sunday.
——
Mushroom Soup.
Roast Ducks. Savory Scotch Pudding.
Spinach in a Mould. Grape Jelly.
Green Peas.
——
Turret Cream.
Coffee.
——
MUSHROOM SOUP.
3 lbs. of knuckle of veal, well cracked.
1 onion.
Bunch of parsley.
A slice of ham, or some ham or salt-pork bones.
1 can of French mushrooms.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of flour.
2 beaten eggs.
Pepper and salt.
1 cup of milk.
4 quarts of cold water.
Crack the bones and mince the meat, onion, and parsley. Cover with the
water, and boil gently three hours, or until the stock has diminished
one-half. Strain, season, boil up and skim. Add the mushrooms, drained
from the can liquor, and sliced. Stew twenty minutes; put in the milk,
the flour, wet up in cold water, and when it thickens, beat a cupful
into the whipped eggs. Stir into this the butter, return to the soup,
let it almost boil, and pour out.
To the lovers of mushrooms this is a delicious soup.
ROAST DUCKS.
Draw, clean and wash a pair of ducks. Stuff _one_ only with a dressing
made of bread-crumbs, the hard-boiled yolk of an egg, a little minced
sage and onion. Rub the inside of the other with melted butter, pepper
and salt. Many do not like the taste of onion and sage, while others do
not enjoy roast duck without the flavor of these condiments. Put the
fowls into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over them,
and roast about an hour, basting frequently. At the last, dredge with
flour, and baste with butter; then brown. Chop the giblets fine, pour
the fat from the top of the gravy in the dripping-pan, thicken with
browned flour that which is left, and stir in the giblets.
GREEN PEAS
Have, from time immemorial, been the adjunct of roast ducks. As the
best substitute to be had at this season, open a can of preserved green
peas—the French cans are best; let them stand an hour to get rid of the
airless taste that is apt to cling to canned vegetables; pour off the
liquor; cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt; drain dry,
and stir up in them a teaspoonful of butter, with pepper to your liking.
SAVORY SCOTCH PUDDING.
1 quart of milk.
1 cup of best oatmeal, soaked all night in cold water.
1 cup of gravy.
4 tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
3 eggs.
Pepper and salt.
When your soup is ready to strain, dip out a cupful and set by to cool.
Take off the fat and stir into the soaked oatmeal. Mix up well; put in
a farina-kettle with boiling water around it, and add by degrees, as it
thickens, the milk heated to scalding. When all is in, salt and pepper
to taste and cook fast, stirring often, ten minutes. Take from the
fire, and let it cool.
N.B. If you have the gravy, all this can be done on Saturday.
When cold, beat in the butter, melted, working out all the lumps and
taking the skin from the top. Beat in the whipped eggs, working up
fast and hard. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish; bake, covered, one
hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.
SPINACH IN A MOULD.
Pick over carefully, clip off the stems and put on the leaves in
boiling water, with salt stirred in. Boil hard fifteen minutes. When
done, drain, pressing out all the water. Chop fine; put back into the
saucepan with a piece of butter—a large spoonful for a good dish—a
little powdered sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir and toss until
very hot; press hard into a mould wet with hot water, and turn out with
care upon a heated dish. Lay round slices of hard-boiled eggs on the
top.
TURRET CREAM.
1 quart of milk.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine.
1 heaping cup of white sugar.
3 eggs beaten light, whites and yolks separately.
½ lb. crystallized fruit.
Vanilla flavoring.
Juice of a lemon in which half the grated peel has been soaked,
then strained out.
Soak the gelatine three hours in a large cup of cold water. Scald
the milk, stir in the sugar, and when this has melted, the gelatine.
Stir over the fire five minutes; pour out half of the mixture into a
bowl, and add the whipped yolks to that left in the saucepan. Stir
one minute, and take from the fire. Flavor the yellow gelatine with
lemon—the white with vanilla. As soon as the yellow begins to congeal,
whip one-half of the stiffened whites into it, a little at a time,
with a Dover egg-beater. Add the rest to the white gelatine, in the
same manner, whipping each in until it stiffens before adding more,
and not ceasing until both are heaps of “sponge.” Wet the inside of a
tall fluted mould with water, and arrange in the bottom, close to the
outside of the mould, a row of crystallized cherries. Then, put in a
layer of the white mixture; on this, close to the outside, strips of
apricots or peaches; then a layer of yellow mixture, another border
of cherries, and so on, until the materials are used up. Do this on
Saturday. Next day, dip for one instant in hot water, and invert upon a
flat dish.
Eat with brandied fruit. It will be a beautiful dessert.
COFFEE.
Pass with light cakes or sweet biscuits.
First Week. Monday.
——
Tomato and Bean Soup.
Ham and Eggs. Fricassee of Duck.
Stewed Corn. Glazed Potatoes.
——
Queen’s Pudding.
——
TOMATO AND BEAN SOUP.
Open a can of tomatoes; take out the hard and unripe portions, cut up
the rest in small pieces, and heat to a boil before adding the bean
soup set aside from Saturday. Simmer all together half an hour, season
to taste, and pour over the dice of fried bread you have put in the
bottom of the tureen.
HAM AND EGGS.
Pour a little hot water in a frying-pan, if you use smoked raw ham
for this dish, and cook the slices in it ten minutes. Let them get
perfectly cold. Fry in their own fat until tender throughout and crisp
at the edges. Drain the fat from them and arrange them upon a hot dish.
Strain the fat, return to the pan, and fry the eggs without turning.
Cut the ham in neat slices, lay an egg upon each, and serve.
FRICASSEE OF DUCK.
Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, dividing the joints
neatly, and slicing the breast, etc. Crack the skeleton to pieces, and
put it, with the skin, stuffing, and gristly bits, into a saucepan.
Cover with cold water, and stew until a cupful of good gravy is
extracted. Strain and season this; put in the sliced duck. Set within a
pot of hot water and bring the contents of the inner saucepan _almost
to_ a boil. Add a couple of beaten eggs; stir up well and set aside in
the hot water, covered, for five minutes. The meat must not actually
boil once.
STEWED CORN.
Open a can of corn, an hour before cooking it. Put it into a saucepan
when you are ready for it; cover with boiling water, and let it stand
without cooking, for ten minutes. Drain off the water; cover the corn
with hot milk, a little salted; set within a vessel of hot water, and
cook for half an hour, or until tender. Stir in a tablespoonful of
butter, cut into thirds, each rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes,
pepper, and turn into a deep covered dish.
GLAZED POTATOES.
Parboil them in their skins; peel quickly and lay in the dripping-pan
within a hot oven. As soon as they begin to “crust” over, baste with
good dripping or butter. Repeat this three times until they are of a
glossy brown. Eat hot.
QUEEN’S PUDDING.
10 fine pippins, pared and cored.
½ lb. macaroons, pounded fine.
2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ cup crab-apple or quince jelly.
1 tablespoonful of brandy.
1 pint of milk.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch.
Whites of 3 eggs.
A little salt.
Put the apples into a buttered pudding-dish. Fill this half full of
cold water; cover _closely_ and bake until a straw will pierce them.
Let them stand, covered, until cold. (Do this on Saturday.) Drain off
the water the day you mean to use them. Put a spoonful of jelly and
a few drops of brandy into each apple. Strew with cinnamon and sugar.
Cover and let them stand while you scald the milk, and stir in the
macaroons, the salt and the corn-starch wet up in cold milk. Boil for
one minute. Take from the fire, beat up well, and let it cool before
whipping in the frothed whites. Pour this mixture over the apples and
bake half an hour in a brisk oven. Eat warm with a sauce made of the
water in which the apples were stewed, well sweetened and spiced, a
tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour and the beaten yolk of an egg.
Heat the liquor, sweeten and season; thicken with butter and flour;
boil up; pour gradually over the egg, and set in hot water until it is
needed.
First Week. Tuesday.
——
German Sago Broth.
Beefsteak and Onions. French Beans Garnis with Sausages.
Hot Slaw.
——
Hasty Farina Pudding.
——
GERMAN SAGO SOUP.
3 lbs. knuckle of veal, well cracked.
1 onion.
2 stalks of celery.
Some pork bones, if you have them.
Bunch of sweet herbs, minced.
4 quarts of cold water.
Pepper and salt.
¾ of a cup of German sago, soaked two hours in cold water.
Chop the meat, celery, herbs, and onion, and crack the bones. Cover
with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until the meat is
boiled to shreds. Strain, season, boil up and skim well, put in the
soaked sago and cook slowly half an hour. The sago should be entirely
dissolved.
BEEFSTEAK AND ONIONS.
Broil your steak as usual. Fry in a little butter one onion, sliced,
until brown. Strain it out, and when your steak is done, and laid upon
a hot dish, pour the butter in which the onion was fried over it. Add
pepper and salt, and the faintest suspicion of made mustard, turn over
it a hot cover and let it stand five minutes before serving.
FRENCH BEANS GARNIS WITH SAUSAGES.
Open a can of “string” beans, cut in short pieces, cover with boiling
water, slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain well, stir in a
tablespoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and heap upon a hot
dish. Surround with sausages, in cakes or in cases, fried in their own
fat, and drained from the grease. Serve hot.
HOT SLAW.
1 small, firm head of cabbage, shred fine.
1 cup of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of sour cream.
½ teaspoonful of made mustard.
1 saltspoonful of pepper and the same of salt.
Put the vinegar, and all the other ingredients for the dressing, except
the cream, in a saucepan, and heat to a boil. Pour scalding hot over
the cabbage; return to the saucepan, and stir and toss until all is
smoking again. Take from the fire, stir in the cream, turn into a
covered dish and set in hot water ten minutes before you send to the
table.
HASTY FARINA PUDDING.
1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls (heaping) of farina, previously soaked in a little
cold water for one hour.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
2 eggs, beaten.
Scald the milk; stir in the salt, then the soaked farina, and cook
steadily (always in a farina-kettle) three quarters of an hour. Add the
butter; take a cupful of the boiling mixture, and beat into the whipped
eggs. Put back into the saucepan, stir for two minutes and pour into a
deep, open dish. Eat with milk, or cream, and sugar.
First Week. Wednesday.
——
Baked Soup.
Devilled Lobster. Calf’s Liver à la Mode.
Baked Celery. Potatoes au Gratin, with Vermicelli.
——
Lemon Pudding.
——
BAKED SOUP.
2 lbs. of lean beef, cut into dice.
3 stalks of _blanched_ celery.
2 turnips.
Handful of chopped cabbage.
1 onion.
1 carrot.
2 roots of salsify, cut small.
Chopped parsley.
½ cup of rice, previously boiled for fifteen minutes.
½ can of tomatoes, cut up.
Pepper and salt.
1 quart cold water.
Prepare beef and vegetables early in the day; mix all up well, and put
into a strong earthenware jar, with a good cover of the same material.
Coat this top thickly with a stiff paste of flour and water to exclude
the air, and set in the oven for six hours. Once in a while, grease
the paste to prevent it from scorching or cracking. It is also well to
set the jar in a dripping or bake pan of boiling water. Serve without
straining.
DEVILLED LOBSTER.
1 can of preserved lobster.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
½ teaspoonful of made mustard.
A good pinch of cayenne pepper.
Boiled eggs for garnishing.
Salt.
Open the lobster-can and empty it into a bowl an hour before using it.
Mince evenly. Put vinegar, butter and seasoning into a saucepan, and
when it simmers, add the lobster. Cook slowly, covered, half an hour,
stirring occasionally. Turn into a deep dish, and garnish with slices
of egg. Eat hot with buttered Boston crackers.
CALF’S LIVER À LA MODE.
1 fine, fresh liver.
½ lb. salt pork, cut into lardoons.
3 tablespoonfuls good dripping.
2 sliced onions, small ones.
1 tablespoonful Harvey’s Sauce.
2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
1 teaspoonful mixed spices.
1 tablespoonful sweet herbs, chopped.
Pepper.
Wash the liver, and soak half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe dry
and lard with the fat pork, allowing it to project on both sides. Heat
dripping, onion, herbs, and spice in a frying-pan. Put in the liver
and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, add the
vinegar, and water enough to cover it; put on a close lid and stew
gently one hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, add the sauce
to the gravy, strain it, thicken with browned flour, boil up; pour half
over the liver, and send the rest up in a sauce-boat.
BAKED CELERY.
Cut two bunches of celery, the best stalks only, into inch-lengths, and
stew in boiling water, a little salt, for ten minutes. Drain off the
water, and add a cup of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled thickly
in flour, a little pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes after heating,
and pour into a shallow bowl to cool. Butter a bake-dish, strew the
bottom with fine bread-crumbs. When the celery is almost or quite
cold, beat into it two eggs, and pour into the dish. Strew bread-crumbs
thickly over the top, turn a tin plate over all, and bake twenty
minutes. Remove the cover and brown.
POTATOES AU GRATIN, WITH VERMICELLI.
Mash the potatoes as usual, with butter, milk, and salt. Smooth into
a hillock upon a pie-plate, and strew with a handful of vermicelli
broken small, cooked soft in boiling water, a little salt, then drained
perfectly dry and spread out to cool. Brown all in a quick oven, glaze
with butter, slip to a hot dish, and it is ready.
LEMON PUDDING.
6 butter crackers, soaked in water, and beaten smooth.
Juice of three lemons and half the grated peel.
1 cup of molasses.
A pinch of salt.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Pie-paste for shells.
Chop the pulp of the lemons, leaving out the thick white peel, _very_
fine; stir into the crushed crackers, with the butter and salt. Beat
the molasses into this, gradually, with the grated peel. Line two
pie-dishes with good paste, fill with the mixture and bake, without
upper crusts. Eat warm, or cold. They are best fresh.
First Week. Thursday.
——
Beef Soup with Barley.
Stuffed Loin of Veal.
Baked Tomatoes. Kidney Beans with Sauce.
——
Plain Boiled Pudding.
Hard Sauce.
——
BEEF SOUP WITH BARLEY.
3 lbs. of beef from the shin.
2 lbs. of bones.
1 onion stuck with cloves.
2 stalks of celery.
The half can of tomatoes left from yesterday’s soup.
2 turnips.
Nearly a cup of pearl barley.
4 quarts of water.
Pepper and salt.