melted, stir into it a tablespoonful of flour mixed with a teaspoonful
of curry powder. When these are thoroughly blended with the butter pour
slowly into the saucepan a cupful of veal, mutton or chicken stock,
half a teaspoonful of onion juice, and season with salt. Stir until
you have a smooth sauce, then lay in it six hard-boiled eggs cut into
slices about half an inch thick. Cook until the eggs are thoroughly
heated.
A simple omelet
(Contributed)
Beat the yolks and whites of six eggs separately, and stir three
tablespoonfuls of milk into the yolks. Melt a tablespoonful of butter
in a hot frying-pan. Stir the yolks and whites very lightly together;
pepper and salt them, and turn the frothed mass into the frying-pan.
Keep the omelet from sticking to the bottom and sides of the pan by
frequently slipping a knife or cake-turner around the sides and under
the bottom of the egg mixture. When the omelet is set, slip it off upon
a hot platter, and, as you do so, fold it over quickly and lightly.
Serve at once.
An English omelet
Break six eggs, and separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the yolks
until they are thick. Add a saltspoonful of salt to the whites, and
whip them until they are very stiff. Now, with quick strokes, lightly
stir the whites into the yolks. Have a tablespoonful of butter melted
in a frying-pan and turn the beaten eggs into this. With a knife keep
the omelet loosened from the sides and bottom of the pan, and take care
that it does not scorch on the bottom. When “set” slip the omelet upon
a hot platter, and, as it leaves the pan, fold it over upon itself,
sprinkle with salt, and send at once to the table.
Omelet with tomato sauce
Make what is known in cookery as a “white roux” by cooking in a
saucepan a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour, and, when they
bubble, pouring over them a cupful of strained and seasoned tomato
juice. Keep this sauce hot while you make an omelet by the foregoing
recipe; dish it, and after it is on the platter pour the tomato sauce
over and around it.
A bread omelet (baked)
Soak three tablespoonfuls of stale crumbs in a cupful of milk for two
hours. Beat six eggs—whites and yolks separately—very light. Into
the yolks stir the soaked crumbs, and season the mixture with salt and
pepper. Last of all, stir in with a few light strokes the stiffened
whites. Butter a deep pudding dish, pour the mixture into this, set it
on the lower grating of a quick oven and bake until light and brown.
Sift brown crumbs over the top and serve the omelet as soon as it is
removed from the oven.
Omelet aux fines herbes
Chop finely parsley, thyme, summer savory, chives, or any green herbs
you fancy; make two tablespoonfuls in all; season with paprika and
celery salt. Make an omelet in the usual way, pour into the pan, and,
before it forms, sprinkle the herbs over the surface, stirring gently
to mix them. Cook then as you would a plain omelet. A parsley omelet is
made according to this recipe, using no herbs except parsley.
Oyster omelet
Before putting your omelet over the fire, have ready the filling. Chop
a dozen oysters into tiny bits. Stir together over the fire a large
spoonful of butter and one of flour. When smooth and bubbling draw
to the side of the range and add gradually three tablespoonfuls of
cream (with a pinch of soda), and the same quantity of strained oyster
liquor. Set back over the fire and stir until it boils. Season with
paprika and salt; add the chopped oysters, and bring again to a boil.
Set in boiling water while you make the omelet. When this is ready to
fold over, cover with the cooked oysters, fold, and turn out upon a
very hot dish.
Clam omelet is made in the same way.
Baked mushroom omelet
Peel and cut into quarters a dozen fresh mushrooms and put them into a
saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and
a few drops of lemon juice. Cover the pan and simmer slowly for ten
minutes. Add one cupful of thickened chicken or veal stock, and cook
slowly ten minutes longer. Then stir in six eggs, well-beaten, turn
into a buttered bake-dish, sift browned crumbs over the top, and set
upon the upper grating of a quick oven until the eggs are “set.” Five
minutes should be enough. Serve at once in the bake-dish.
Daffodils
Chop the whites of six hard-boiled eggs fine, then run through a
vegetable press. Have ready a cup of drawn butter, seasoned with
pepper, salt and onion juice. Mix the whites with this, and keep hot
over boiling water. Have ready eight rounds of toast, buttered and
slightly moistened with gravy—chicken, veal or turkey. Arrange on a hot
platter and cover each round with the white mixture, flattening it on
top.
Run the yolks through the press, reducing them to a yellow powder,
season with salt and pepper, and put a spoonful in the center of each
white round.
Nesting eggs
Boil six eggs hard, and throw into cold water. When cold, strip off
the whites and shred them into long straws. Heat a flat dish—one that
will bear fire—and arrange the shreds around the inner edge. Have ready
a handful of celery (shredded like the eggs), which has been stewed
tender in a little milk, then seasoned. Lay this inside of the lines of
white shavings, and put a few spoonfuls of melted butter over both. Set
in the oven until very hot.
Pick to pieces a cupful of cold boiled or baked fish, and run the yolks
of the eggs through the colander or vegetable press. Mix with the fish,
moisten with drawn butter, and mold into egg-shaped balls. Dispose
these neatly within the “nest,” and pour over them a cupful of drawn
butter to give the desired whiteness. Shut up in the oven for a few
minutes to get them heated through, and serve.
This is a less elaborate dish than would seem at first reading.
[Illustration: DAFFODILS
SCALLOPED OYSTERS
CHICKEN OMELET]
If you have stewed celery left from yesterday’s dinner, and cold fish,
the rest is easy enough.
Chicken or other meat may be substituted for the fish.
Cheese omelet
Make a plain omelet, and when nearly done, strew powdered Parmesan
cheese over it. Fold, transfer to a hot dish, strew more cheese on top,
and hold a red-hot shovel near enough to scorch the cheese.
Baked soufflé of eggs (No. 1)
Scald a cup of milk, putting in a tiny pinch of soda. Beat the yolks
of six eggs until light and creamy, and the whites till stiff enough
to stand alone. Add one-half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and
one rounded tablespoonful of butter to the milk and stir it into the
yolks; then beat in the whites very quickly. Pour into a deep, buttered
pudding dish and bake in a moderate oven ten minutes, or to a delicate
brown. Serve immediately in the bake-dish.
Baked eggs soufflé (No. 2)
Beat six eggs light, whites and yolks separately. Heat one cupful of
milk, add one teaspoonful of corn-starch, one-half teaspoonful of
salt, and the whipped yolks of the eggs. Cook in a saucepan until as
thick as cream, add the whites, beaten stiff, put into a well-buttered
frying-pan, set in a hot oven and bake well until browned slightly,
then slide off upon a hot platter.
Eggs and tomatoes
Cook a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour together in a saucepan
until smooth and hot. Add a cupful of tomatoes, canned or raw, chopped
fine, and strained from the juice. Season with paprika, celery salt,
a half teaspoonful of sugar, and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Cook
five minutes. Have ready on a bowl six eggs, beaten—whites and yolks
together; take the saucepan from the fire and add the contents
gradually to the eggs. Set back over the fire, stir for one minute, or
until the eggs are set, and serve in a hot, deep dish.
Olla podrida omelet
Make a roux of one tablespoonful of butter and the same of browned
flour in a deep frying-pan. When hissing hot stir in one cupful of
canned tomato, one-half cupful of canned mushrooms, sliced fine, the
same quantity of minced ham, tongue or chicken. Season with onion
juice, paprika and salt to taste. Let it simmer five or eight minutes,
then stir in four beaten eggs. Stir carefully as it thickens, and when
the eggs are set serve on buttered toast.
Scrambled eggs with cheese
(Contributed)
Break ten eggs and slip them into a saucepan. Beat them with one-fourth
of a pound of butter, one-fourth of a pound of grated cheese and
salt and pepper to taste. Butter a saucepan and when hot, pour in
the mixture and allow it to cook for five minutes over a light fire,
stirring all the while. When the mixture becomes quite thick, pour into
a deep dish, and serve with fried toast.
Scrambled eggs with asparagus tops
(Contributed)
Cut the tender tops of asparagus into pieces one-half inch long. Cook
them in salted water for about ten minutes, then let them drain.
Scramble the eggs and when they are cooked add the asparagus tops and
serve on toast. Lobsters, cooked and cut into dice, may be substituted
for the asparagus tops.
Rice omelet
(Contributed)
To one cupful of cold boiled rice add one cupful of warm milk, one
tablespoonful of melted butter, one teaspoonful of salt and a dash of
pepper; mix well and add three well-beaten eggs. Heat a tablespoonful
of butter in a frying-pan and when hot pour in the omelet and set the
pan in a hot oven. When it is thoroughly cooked fold it double, turn
out on a hot dish and serve at once.
Fish omelet
(Contributed)
Make about a half pint of white roux, add a piece of butter about the
size of an egg, twelve shelled and cooked shrimps; season with salt and
pepper; let it cook for two or three minutes, stirring all the time,
then add half of a green sweet pepper, chopped fine, and cook for one
minute. Make an omelet of six eggs; when brown, turn up and fill with
this mixture. Serve at once on a hot platter.
Frizzled beef and eggs
(Contributed)
To every half pound of chipped beef allow half a pint of milk, one
tablespoonful of butter and one tablespoonful of flour. Put the butter
into a frying-pan; when hot add the beef and stir for about two
minutes, or until the butter begins to brown, then dredge in the flour.
Stir well, add the milk and a little pepper, and just before taking
from the fire whip in two well-beaten eggs.
Ham omelet
(Contributed)
Make an omelet in the usual way; pour into an omelet pan and before the
egg sets sprinkle over the top one teacupful of finely minced, cold,
cooked ham.
Egg croquettes
(Contributed)
Cut hard-boiled eggs into one-quarter inch dice. Add one-fourth as many
chopped mushrooms and turn into a thick white sauce. When cold, mold
into croquettes, dip into egg, then in bread crumbs and fry in deep fat.
Eggs in cases
(Contributed)
Make little paper cases of buttered writing paper; put a small piece of
butter in each and a little chopped parsley or onion; pepper and salt.
Put the cases upon a gridiron over a moderate fire of bright coals, and
when the butter melts break a fresh egg into each case. Strew over them
a few buttered bread-crumbs, and when almost done glaze the tops with a
hot shovel.
Minced eggs
(Contributed)
Chop up, but not too fine, four or five hard-boiled eggs. Put over the
fire, in a saucepan, one tablespoonful of butter, and when it begins
to bubble, stir into it one tablespoonful of flour; cook one minute,
then add one cupful of hot milk. When it cooks thick like cream, put in
the minced eggs. Stir it for a few minutes, and serve garnished with
sippets of toast.
Scalloped eggs
(Contributed)
Slice in rings twelve hard-boiled eggs. Cover the bottom of a
well-buttered baking dish with fine bread-crumbs; over this put a layer
of eggs, some small pieces of butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Alternate in this way until the dish is filled, being careful to have
bread-crumbs on top. Add two tablespoonfuls of rich milk or cream and
bake in a moderate oven.
Shirred eggs
Butter small “nappies” and drop an egg carefully into each, taking care
not to break the yolk. Set the nappies in a pan of boiling water on
the range, and cook until the white is set. Put on each egg a bit of
butter, and a dash each of pepper and salt. Serve at once.
FAMILIAR TALK
WHO RULES THE HOME?
The question is seldom put so baldly. Indulgent husbands yield the
point in verbal gallantry. Politic wives make it a point of conscience
and etiquette to speak of their husbands as owners of house and
contents and lawful directors in all pertaining thereunto. At heart,
the complaisant Benedict knows his will to be potent, if not supreme,
in home and family. The wedded Beatrice is secretly conscious that she
can wind her boastful Benedict about her taper finger, and he will not
suspect.
An old, old ballad, warbled with sly smiles by our foremothers, thus
sums up her view of the matter:
“Now, sisters, since we’ve made it plain
That the case is really so,
We’ll even let them hold the rein,
But _we’ll_ show them the way to go!”
Honest John, while his sinewy fingers feel the taut rein between them,
believes himself master of the situation. He pays for house, food and
servants, and often works hard for the money that secures these for his
family. Upon general principles he has a right to know that the money
is wisely spent and husbanded; a right to be well lodged and fed and
made as comfortable when at home as his means will allow. If he sees
furniture abused, food badly—hence unwholesomely—cooked, and needless
waste in any department, he has an unquestionable right to direct his
wife’s attention to the existing state of things, and insist that it
be amended. On the other hand, in giving his wife his name, he has
made her the managing, as he is the financial, partner of the firm
matrimonial.
She is not his hireling.
Failure to comprehend this vital truth wrecks the happiness of more
married couples than incompatibility of temper, fickleness and
intemperance, all put together.
A reasonably good wife earns so much more than her own living that
the surplus ought to go to her credit. If not in money, in a hundred
other ways. When John stoops to captious surveillance of her methods,
and personal inspection of her work, he degrades her to the position
of a suspected menial, and sinks his manhood into Bettyishness.
“Bettyishness,” according to lexicographers, is the synonym for
“womanishness,” and for John to be “womanish” is to be unmanly; Mary
would rather have him savage, now and then.
I saw a spotless reputation discounted the other day, and many rare,
amiable traits of disposition shrivel as waste paper in the fire, under
a single sarcastic utterance of a society woman who had her own reasons
for disliking the person under discussion.
“Yes!” she said, dubiously, to the praise an elderly matron had given
an excellent son and brother. “But, then, he is such a _ladylike_
person!”
The epithet was apt. Not one of us could deny it. Every woman present,
while she laughed, would have preferred to have her husband called a
brute.
John takes ugly risks when he tempts his hitherto loyal spouse to
name him to her confidential self as “Bettyish,” “Miss Nancy-ish” or
a “Mollycoddle.” They all mean the same thing. As a sloven he may be
forgiven in consideration of the solid manliness back of personal
carelessness. We wink at rusty shoes, and collars awry, and tousled
hair, and missing sleeve-links. For the same reason we condone
crossness, and even a touch of savagery. When he comes home “in a
temper,” he has had a trying day down town, or he is hot, or headachy,
or hungry. Womanly ingenuity is set to work to soothe down the
inclement mood, and womanly love glides to the front with the mantle of
tenderest charity to hide the fault from others, and put it out of our
own minds when it is past.
I know a man—squarely-built, robust and keen-eyed—who carries the keys
of the store-room, and lends them to his wife at night and morning
to give out the supplies needed for the daily meals. He registers in
day-book and ledger every pound of butter and box of crackers and quart
of vinegar brought into the house, with the date of purchase.
I knew another (who ceased from his labors ten years ago), who visited
kitchen, pantries and store-room several times every week to see that
everything was clean and orderly. He used to smell milk-pans, run a
critical finger around the insides of kettles and pots and inquire into
the destination of scraps—and all without a blush or misgiving. In each
case it was, of course, impossible to keep servants who could get any
other place. Wives belong to the class that can not give warning.
If either of these men would have tolerated the apparition in his
counting-room or office, at stated, or irregular, periods of his
wife—bent upon inspection of accounts and sales, the clerks undergoing
examination, or standing as witnesses of his humiliation—then he was
justified to his conscience for his policy of home rule.
Mary would go to prison _for_ her John, and to the scaffold _with_
him. She springs to arms in his defense if her nearest of kin dare to
intimate that he is not the pink of perfection she would have them
believe. His grossest eccentricities are graces so long as they are
masculine.
But let him prowl into the pantry, peep into the bread-box, criticize
the arrangement or _de_rangement of china-shelves, pull open linen
drawers, spy out dusty rungs of chairs, take down, sort, and hang
in better order the contents of clothes-hooks and hat-racks—and he
may shift for and shield himself. With lofty scorn the wife of his
immaculate shirt bosom leaves him to the fate he deserves.
In which course there is some reason and a little unreason. For which
of us does not draw upon John’s sympathies in her domestic distresses?
He must not undertake the management of Bridget, or Daphne, or Marie.
These be womanish matters, in which a man should not intermeddle.
It may be the most temperate of suggestions, such as, “My dear, I
don’t like to find fault, but if you _would_ speak to Margaret about
meddling with the papers upon my table when she dusts the library?”
It is a distinct trespass upon wifely preserves. Margaret is under the
protection of her mistress’ wing. The interests and credit of the two
are identical. But there comes a day when the league snaps in two, like
scorched twine. The maid gives warning, and company is expected, and
the mistress “did think she had a right to expect better things from
Margaret, after all the kindness she has shown her in sickness and in
health, and the excellent wages she has given her, and here, at the
most inconvenient time she could have chosen, the creature is deserting
her!”
Thus runs the torrent of talk into the ears of a man who left a much
worse complication behind him in his office when he set his face
toward home and imaginary peace. Had he found fault with Margaret a
week ago, he would have been a “Molly.” Should he withhold sympathy
from the mistress to-day, to the extent of commending the ingrate’s
past services, and wondering if there may not be possible palliation
somewhere for her present behavior—he is unfeeling, and—“a MAN!” When a
woman brings out the monosyllable in that accent, she may as well go a
semi-tone higher and say, “Monster!”
To be explicit, John must dance when his spouse puts the pipes to her
lips, and not presume to mourn but at her lamenting. As her sister, my
sympathies topple dangerously toward her. As an impartial chronicler
I can not deny that much may be said in his defense, even when he
is convicted of womanish meddling. He is but a passenger upon the
domestic craft in fair weather, a paying passenger, who is expected,
nevertheless, to be smilingly content with his accommodations, to
eat as he is fed, sleep upon the bed as it is made, and to complain
of nothing until the sea gets rough, and another and a stout hand is
needed on deck and in the rigging.
The principle should work well both ways, or it will go to pieces of
its own weight.
[Illustration]
FISH FOR BREAKFAST
A modern Peter Magnus, always on the alert for coincidences, once
called my attention to the singular fitness of the height of the fish
season and the coming of Lent.
“It happens uncommonly convenient, at any rate. How very, very awkward
it would be if there were no fish in the market just when the Church
forbids meat!” prosed my interlocutor, whose nationality I need not
specify.
I might have replied, had there been any hope of his seeing the point
of the story, with the anecdote of one of his countrymen who invited me
to view the total eclipse of the moon through his telescope, and, while
I gazed, remarked upon the happy accident that this particular eclipse
“had taken place at the full of the moon.”
Dame Nature adjusts kindly and cleverly all seasons and happenings to
the need of her children. Fish, easily digested and rich in phosphates,
are in their delicious prime as winter suddenly relaxes her hold upon
our world and our systems. We needed fats to keep up animal fats in
cold weather. The first warmer days ease the taut running-gear of
muscles, nerves and digestive apparatus. She cries, “’Ware meat!”
peremptorily. However deaf we may be to the Church’s behest, we can not
afford to disregard the Great Mother’s.
The breaking up of winter, the general letting down of physical
energies and the abundant supply of food precisely adapted to the
season’s needs, form a “coincidence” that the most stupid must
perceive. The like principle of demand and supply might, one might
imagine, be recognized in the matter of breakfast foods. Fish, rightly
cooked, tempts the appetite and does not overload the stomach. Another
recommendation which should have weight with commuters and “hustlers,”
is that the yielding fibers require less strenuous mastication than
those of steaks, chops and rashers.
The truism that as a nation we are inordinate flesh-consumers is
tattered by much wear. Since vegetarianism comes as a hard lesson to
the mass of our race, and the exacting palate demands more definite
flavors than those of eggs in any form, resort to crustacean and finny
delicacies should follow as a matter of course and of common sense.
Shad
Sturgeon is known in England as the “Queen’s Own Fish.” Hiawatha names
him as the “King of Fishes.” The American epicure has transferred this
title to the more delicately flavored salmon. If a vote of native-born
gourmands of all ranks of society were taken, I think the shad would be
the elect favorite—the dainty queen of fishes, the more royal for the
wealth of roes that bespeak her prime.
Planked shad
Have your fish cleaned and split down the back. Wash and wipe dry. Have
ready a clean oak or hickory plank, about two and one-half inches in
thickness and of such a length that it will go easily into your oven.
Set it in the oven until it is heated through. Rub your shad on both
sides with an abundance of butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Lay it, open side up, on the hot plank and fasten it firmly into place
by putting a tin tack at each of the four corners. Lay the plank on
the upper grating of the oven, and rub the fish with butter every few
minutes until done. You can tell when this point is reached by testing
with a fork. Carefully withdraw the tacks and slip the fish upon a hot
platter. Serve with melted butter, and garnish with slices of lemon and
sprigs of parsley.
Broiled shad with sauce piquante
Split the fish down the back, wash, wipe dry, and lay it open on a
well-greased gridiron. Broil over clear coals, taking care to turn
the fish often, as it burns easily. If the shad is a thick one it will
take about twenty minutes to cook thoroughly. Remove carefully from
the gridiron, lay on a hot fish platter, butter well and sprinkle with
pepper and salt. Pass with the fish a sauce made in the following
manner:
Rub to a cream three tablespoonfuls of butter and two teaspoonfuls of
lemon juice. Whip into this two teaspoonfuls of finely minced parsley.
The sauce should be light green in color. Keep in a cold place until
time to serve it with the fish.
Fried shad
Mrs. S. T. Rorer, whose authority on culinary counsels few dare
dispute, says: “Shad, being rich in oils, should never be fried.”