pork (chopped) and when it begins to crisp add a minced onion and cook
to a light brown. Pack potatoes, pork and onion in a soup kettle,
sprinkling each layer with pepper and minced parsley. Add the hot fat;
cover with a pint of boiling water and simmer thirty minutes. Turn
into a colander and drain the liquor back into the kettle. Have ready
a pint of hot milk into which has been stirred a tablespoonful of
butter rolled in flour; add to the liquor, cook one minute, return the
potatoes to the kettle and serve.
VEGETABLE SOUPS WITHOUT MEAT
Split pea soup
Soak a large cup of split peas all night, then put them over the fire
with two quarts of water and bring to a boil. Simmer gently until the
peas are soft. Rub through a colander, return to the fire, thicken with
a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into two of butter and season with
pepper, celery salt and onion juice. Stir to a smooth purée, pour into
the tureen and throw a handful of dice of fried bread upon the surface
of the soup.
Green pea broth (No. 1)
Drain the liquor from a can of peas, cook them until very soft, then
rub through a colander. Thicken a quart of milk with a tablespoonful
of flour rubbed into two of butter, stir the mashed peas into this,
boil up once, stirring steadily; season with salt and a teaspoonful of
sugar, and serve.
Green pea broth (No. 2)
Drain a can of peas and lay the peas in cold water for one hour. Add
two cupfuls of cold water, one teaspoonful of sugar, and one slice of
onion; boil twenty minutes and rub through a vegetable press. Heat two
tablespoonfuls of butter, add one of flour, mixed with one teaspoonful
of salt and one-eighth of a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir into the
boiling mixture and add two cupfuls of scalded milk heated with a bit
of soda. Strain before serving.
“Linsen,” or lentil soup
Pick over and wash one cupful of lentils, soak three hours, and put
them on to cook in one quart of boiling water. Let them cook very
slowly until soft, and the water reduced one-half. Rub the pulp through
a strainer, add one pint of milk and when boiling thicken with one
tablespoonful of flour cooked in a tablespoonful of butter. Season with
paprika, salt and a little sugar, and serve with croutons.
A good green pea soup
One quart of shelled peas, two cupfuls of milk, two tablespoonfuls of
butter and one of flour, one-half teaspoonful, each, of salt and white
sugar, and half as much white pepper, one quart of boiling water.
Wash the pods well when you have shelled the peas and put the pods
over the fire in the boiling water; cook fifteen minutes, strain and
press the softened pods into the water and return to the fire with the
raw peas. Cook until soft, when run through your vegetable press back
into the saucepan with the water. Have ready a roux made by heating
the butter and stirring into it in the frying-pan the flour. Have the
milk hot in another vessel, add the roux, cook two minutes. Season the
pea-broth and pour into the tureen. Stir in the thickened milk and
serve, pouring upon croutons of fried bread.
Squash soup
One cupful of cold boiled squash, run through a colander, one quart
of milk, heated, with a pinch of soda, one teaspoonful, each, of
salt and of sugar, a quarter as much pepper and a pinch of mace, two
tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, one tablespoonful of onion
juice and two of minced celery.
Make a roux of butter and flour, and stir into the hot milk. Beat
together the squash, celery and seasoning until light; heat quickly in
a saucepan, stirring all the time. When very hot, put into the tureen,
turn in the milk, stirring all well together, and serve.
Turnip soup
Make as directed in last recipe.
Rice and tomato soup
Peel and cut up a dozen ripe tomatoes and boil to a pulp in a quart of
salted water. Strain, return to the fire, and add two tablespoonfuls of
butter rubbed to a paste with the same quantity of flour; pepper, salt
and sugar to taste, a tablespoonful of minced parsley and a teaspoonful
of onion juice. Cook for ten minutes, then stir in a cupful of boiled
rice.
Corn and tomato soup
Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan, put into it two
fine-cut onions, one bay leaf and six whole black peppers; cook five
minutes without browning; add one tablespoonful of flour, stir and cook
two minutes; then one can of tomatoes, one tablespoonful of sugar, one
teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of white pepper; stir
often and cook ten minutes. Next comes one pint of boiling water; cook
five minutes, rub the tomatoes through a sieve into a clean saucepan
and add one can of corn, put it into the soup and boil fifteen minutes;
mix the yolks of two eggs with a half cupful of cream or milk, stir
into the soup, and serve at once.
Corn chowder
Cut the kernels from a dozen ears of green corn. Peel and mince two
onions and fry them brown in three tablespoonfuls of butter in a deep
saucepan. Now put in the corn, four broken pilot biscuits and half a
dozen parboiled and sliced potatoes. Season with pepper, salt and a
tablespoonful of minced parsley, and cover with a quart of boiling
water. Let all cook gently for three-quarters of an hour, then stir
in slowly a cupful of boiling milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of
flour rubbed into one of butter. Turn at once into a heated tureen. A
delightful summer soup.
Artichoke soup
Wash, pare and quarter one dozen large Jerusalem artichokes and lay
in cold water for an hour. Put over the fire with enough cold water
to keep them from burning and cook five minutes after they begin to
boil. Drain off the water, put the artichokes into the inner vessel of
the double boiler with one quart of milk and a pinch of soda, and cook
until tender. Press the pulp through your vegetable press; put it again
into the boiler and thicken with one tablespoonful, each, of butter
and flour, first cooked together to a white roux. Season with salt and
cayenne and serve with fried bread dice.
Vermicelli soup
(Contributed)
Bring to a boiling point two quarts of soup stock. Add four ounces of
vermicelli and boil hard for twenty minutes. Season with pepper and
salt and serve at once.
Macaroni soup
(Contributed)
Cook one ounce of macaroni in boiling water for twenty minutes. Drain
and cut into little rings. Bring one quart of stock to the boiling
point. Add the macaroni and let simmer five minutes. Salt and pepper to
taste.
Lima bean soup
(Contributed)
Cook the beans in thin soup stock until they fall to pieces. Pass
through the purée strainer. Add enough thin cream or rich milk to make
the soup the proper consistency. Season to taste, reheat and serve at
once.
Noodles for soup
Beat an egg with a pinch of salt, then stir into it gradually enough
flour to enable you to knead it to a firm dough. Lay this on the
floured pastry board, roll very, very thin, and cut into strips of a
half-inch in width. Leave these long strips on the board for a few
minutes until so dry that they may be rolled up loosely, as tape is
rolled. These can be dried in a colander near the range and kept for
soup. They are to be dropped into the boiling soup and cooked for
fifteen minutes. You may keep them in a tin box in a dry place for
days.
Croutons
Cut stale bread into dice less than half an inch square; fry in hot
dripping or butter to a delicate brown; take up with a split spoon and
shake free of fat in a colander.
Egg soup
In a double boiler heat a quart of milk into which you have stirred a
pinch of soda and a minced onion. Rub to a paste a tablespoonful, each,
of butter and flour and stir into the milk. Season with pepper and salt
to taste.
Lay six poached eggs in the bottom of a tureen and when the white soup
is smooth and cream-like, pour it carefully upon the eggs.
FISH SOUPS
Red snapper soup
Heat a quart of white stock to a boil. Stir in two cupfuls of the cold
cooked fish, freed of skin and bones, and minced finely. Add pepper,
salt, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and a great spoonful of
butter. Heat a cupful of milk to boiling, thicken it with a white roux
and a half cupful of fine cracker crumbs. When the fish has cooked in
the soup for five minutes, stir the liquid into the thickened milk and
serve.
Clam chowder
Chop a half-pound of fat salt pork; put a layer of the pork in the
bottom of the pot, cover with a layer of clams, sprinkle with a little
minced onion and parsley, and put in a layer of split and soaked Boston
crackers. Proceed in this way until seventy-five clams are used, then
sprinkle with pepper and salt and cover with cold water. Bring slowly
to the boil and simmer for an hour. Drain off the liquid and return to
the fire. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in flour, and add a
cupful of tomato juice. Return the other ingredients to the pot, bring
to the boil, and send to the table.
“Long” clam chowder
Chop a quart of “long,” or soft clams, peel six potatoes and slice
thin; mince a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork fine; tie up in
a cheese-cloth bag six whole allspice and the same number of whole
cloves. Put the minced pork into the pot and fry it crisp; remove the
pork and fry a small sliced onion in the pot to a light brown. Now put
in the potatoes and a can of tomatoes, the spice bag, a quart of cold
water and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Cook for four hours. At the end of
three and a half hours add the clams and four pilot biscuits that have
been soaked in milk. Serve very hot.
Scallop chowder
Scallops treated as directed in the foregoing recipe make a delicious
chowder. Add more cayenne than when clams are used, scallops being the
richer fish of the two.
Clam soup
Fifty fine clams, with the liquor that runs from them. One quart of
water. One cupful of milk and two well-beaten eggs. Pepper and salt to
taste. Pinch of soda in the milk. Two tablespoonfuls of butter.
Put the minced clams, liquor and water in a saucepan; simmer gently
(but not boil) about one and a half hours. The clams should be so
well-cooked that you seem to have only a thick broth; season with
butter, pepper and salt, and pour into a tureen in which a few slices
of well-browned toast have been placed. Beat the eggs very light, add
slowly the milk, scalding hot, beat hard a minute or so, and when the
soup is removed from the fire stir the egg and milk into it.
Oyster soup
Three dozen oysters and one quart of their juice. One quart of milk.
Two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in one of flour. Paprika, or
cayenne, and salt to taste. A pinch of mace. Pinch of soda in the milk.
Scald the liquor in one saucepan and the milk in another. Make a roux
of butter and flour and add the scalding milk gradually, stirring to a
smooth mixture. Now put this with the hot oyster juice; add the oysters
and cook until they “ruffle,” not an instant afterward.
Send crackers and sliced lemon around with it.
A fine crab soup
(A Maryland recipe.)
Boil one dozen large crabs; let them get cold, and extract the meat.
Meanwhile chop a pound of salt pork and boil half an hour, _fast_. Cool
suddenly, take off the grease from it, turn the liquor into a saucepan
and heat. Put the crab-meat into this and simmer thirty-five minutes.
Have ready a pint of rich, unskimmed milk, scalding hot. Beat the yolks
of three eggs light and pour the milk gradually upon them, stirring all
the time. Turn into the inner vessel of a double-boiler, and when the
boiling point is reached add the crabs and the liquor in which they
were cooked.
Remove from the fire, but leave the inner vessel in the boiling water
for five minutes after you have added a tablespoonful of finely-minced
parsley.
Eel soup
Two pounds of eels, cleaned and cut into inch-lengths; two
tablespoonfuls of butter cooked to a roux with one of flour; three
pints of water, one sliced onion, a pinch of mace and a larger of
cayenne; salt to taste; dripping for frying; one tablespoonful of
minced parsley. Juice of a lemon.
Heat the dripping hissing hot and fry the sliced onion in it. Now put
in the eels when you have wiped them dry, and fry on both sides to a
light brown. Turn all into a covered saucepan, pour in the cold water
and cook slowly for an hour. Season then, stir in the roux; simmer
three minutes, put in the lemon juice and serve.
Catfish soup
May be made in the same way.
Chicken broth
Cover a jointed fowl with cold water and boil until tender. Set aside
the liquor in which the fowl was boiled until very cold. Remove meat
and bones, and skim, removing every particle of fat. Put two quarts of
this chicken-stock on the fire, season with salt and a little white
pepper, bring to a boil and stir in six tablespoonfuls of rice that
has been soaked for an hour in cold water. Add a little onion juice
and cook until the rice is soft. Now stir in a tablespoonful of minced
parsley and cook for ten minutes longer. Heat a pint of milk into
which a pinch of baking soda has been stirred. Cook together a heaping
tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when they bubble, pour
upon them the pint of heated milk, stirring until you have a smooth
white sauce. Into this beat gradually two well-whipped eggs. Stir over
the fire for half-a-minute, and pour the egg and milk mixture into a
heated tureen. Into this pour slowly, beating steadily, the chicken
soup. Season to taste and serve at once.
A “left-over” fish bisque
Rid cold baked or boiled or broiled fish of bones and skin. Pick into
fine bits with a silver fork. Get from your fish-merchant for a few
cents a pint of oyster liquor. Put over the fire with a generous lump
of butter, pepper and salt. Bring to a boil, add the fish, cook one
minute and stir in a scant cupful of crumbs soaked in milk. Simmer for
three minutes and serve. Pass sliced lemon with it.
[Illustration]
FISH
Baked red snapper
A fish that is earning, and honestly, much popularity. It would have
all it deserved if it were always cooked properly. It is not a fish
with which one can take liberties.
Draw, clean and wipe a five-pound red snapper and wash inside and out
with salad oil and lemon. Make a stuffing as follows: One well-beaten
egg, one-half cupful of powdered cracker and one cupful of oysters,
drained and chopped. Season with one teaspoonful of onion juice,
one tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of salt, one-eighth
teaspoonful of paprika and one tablespoonful of minced parsley, and
moisten with cream and oyster liquor. It should be quite moist. Fill
the fish and sew the edges together with fine white cotton.
Put a layer of minced fat pork on the grating of your covered roaster,
lay a few slices of tomato and onion on the pork, then the fish on
this. Dredge the top with salt and flour, and put on more minced pork.
Place it in a hot oven, add a cupful of boiling water, and cover. Baste
often, and add more water after each basting. Bake about one hour.
Remove to a hot dish and serve with sauce Hollandaise.
Boiled red snapper
Clean, wash, wipe dry and sew up in coarse white mosquito netting. Put
it into boiling water deep enough to cover the fish, and which has been
salted and flavored with lemon juice. Let the water come to the boiling
point, then reduce the heat so it will merely bubble. Simmer about half
an hour. Lift carefully from the water, drain and unwrap; put it into
a hot dish. Garnish with parsley and serve with tomato sauce or with
sauce Hollandaise.
Steamed red snapper
Cover the bottom of your steamer with sliced tomatoes, and on these
strew minced onion. Clean, wash and dry the fish; lay upon the prepared
bed and steam slowly at least one hour for a fish weighing four pounds.
Open the steamer once, and turn the fish very carefully. Serve with
oyster sauce or with sauce tartare.
Baked bluefish
Clean, wash and wipe a large bluefish. Lay it in a baking-pan, dash
over it a cupful of boiling salted water, and bake, covered, for an
hour, basting it often to prevent burning. When tender and brown,
transfer the fish to a hot dish, and keep it warm while you set the pan
containing the gravy in which it was cooked on the range and thicken it
with browned flour, adding to flavor it a pinch of salt, one of pepper,
a tablespoonful of catsup and a little good table sauce. Lay slices
of lemon about the fish on the platter, and serve the sauce from a
gravy-boat.
Broiled bluefish
Clean, wash, wipe and split down the back; dust with salt and pepper
and broil over a clear fire. Transfer to a hot dish and cover with a
mixture of butter, lemon juice and very finely-minced parsley, rubbed
to a cream. Cover and set over hot water for five minutes before
serving.
Pass Parisienne potatoes with it.
Boiled black bass with cream gravy
Put in a pot enough slightly salted water to cover the fish, add a
gill of vinegar, an onion, eight whole peppers and a blade of mace.
Sew up the fish in a piece of thin cheese-cloth fitted snugly to it.
Lay in the water; bring very slowly to the simmering point, and then
boil steadily, allowing twelve minutes to each pound of the fish. When
done remove the cloth, lay the fish on a platter garnished with sliced
lemon, and serve with the cream gravy given below.
Cream gravy for black bass
Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when
blended strain slowly upon them a cupful of the water in which the
bass was boiled, and stir until smooth and thick. Season to taste with
celery salt and white pepper, and stir in a gill of cream to which a
pinch of baking-soda has been added. Make very hot, but do not boil,
and as soon as hot remove from the fire.
Baked sea bass with shrimp sauce
Clean, wipe and anoint abundantly, inside and out, with a mixture of
salad oil and vinegar. Set on ice for an hour to let the “marinade”
mellow the fish.
Have ready half a pound of rindless fat pork, cut as thin as shavings.
Lay half upon the bottom of your covered bakepan, put the fish upon
them, and spread the upper side with the rest. Pour a little hot water
in the pan to generate steam; cover and bake one hour, if the fish be
large, basting three times with butter and water. Transfer to a hot
dish, and set over hot water while you make the sauce.
Shrimp sauce for baked bass
Strain the gravy left in the pan, and stir in a brown roux made by
heating a great spoonful of butter in a frying-pan and working in a
tablespoonful of browned flour. Add four tablespoonfuls of boiling
water to gravy and roux, or enough to bring it to the consistency of
cream, then the juice of half a lemon, cayenne or paprika to taste;
lastly, half a can of shrimps, chopped fine. Boil one minute, pour some
over the fish, the rest into a gravy-boat.
Stuffed sea bass
Clean, wipe and lay for an hour in a marinade of salad oil and vinegar.
Fill with a forcemeat of minced salt pork and chopped champignons.
Fresh mushrooms are, of course, better, if you can get them. Bake upon
shavings of fat salt pork as directed in last recipe. When it has
baked forty minutes, cover with fresh tomatoes, peeled and sliced thin,
and half a sweet green pepper, minced. Drop bits of butter upon the
tomatoes, and bake twenty minutes longer.
Take up the fish and keep hot while you strain the gravy left in the
pan, rubbing the tomatoes and pepper through a colander; stir in a
tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, add a teaspoonful of sugar
and two of onion juice, with hot water if too thick; boil one minute;
pour half over the fish, the rest into a sauce-boat.
Muskelonge
The coarse pickerel of the northern rivers and lakes are very nice,
cooked as above directed. Bluefish may be treated in the same way.
Baked shad
[Illustration]
Wash and wipe a large shad. Make a stuffing of fine breadcrumbs mixed
with melted butter, a little minced onion, pepper and salt to taste.
Fill the fish with this and sew it up. Lay it in a baking-pan and pour
over it a cupful of salted boiling water in which two tablespoonfuls
of butter have been melted. Sprinkle the fish with flour and bake in
a steady oven. Baste with the drippings every ten minutes. At the end
of three-quarters of an hour try the fish with a fork to see if it is
done. It should be very tender. Transfer carefully to a hot platter,
cut and remove the strings. Keep the fish hot while you make the sauce.
Set on the top of the range the pan in which the fish has been baked.
Thicken the fish drippings with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour wet
up with cold water. Stir until smooth, then add a cupful of boiling
water, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of good table sauce and
a teaspoonful of good kitchen bouquet. Unless the sauce is perfectly
smooth, strain through a wire sieve. Pour into a heated gravy-boat.
Boiled fresh codfish
Lay the fish in salt and water for an hour before cooking. Choose a
“chunky” piece, as nearly square as you can get it. Sew up in white
mosquito netting fitted to the shape of the fish. Put on in enough
boiling water to cover it, adding four tablespoonfuls of vinegar,
and cook steadily ten minutes to the pound. Unwrap the fish and pour
over it half of the sauce described below, putting the rest into a
gravy-boat.
Egg sauce for boiled codfish
Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter
and of flour until they bubble, pouring upon them a half pint of milk
and stirring until thick and smooth. To this add one hard-boiled egg,
chopped fine, one raw egg, beaten light, putting it in slowly, and
salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the fish in the dish or serve in a
sauce-tureen.
Baked fresh codfish with cheese sauce
Cut a neat square or oblong of codfish, lay in salt and water for
half an hour; wipe dry and rub all over with melted butter and lemon
juice. In the bottom of your baking-pan under the grating and just
_not_ touching the fish, have a cupful of veal stock, or weak gravy,
strained. Pepper and salt the fish, cover and bake ten minutes to the
pound. Take up then and sift dry, fine crumbs thickly all over it. Put
dots of butter on these. Set in the oven, uncovered, to brown while you
strain the gravy from the pan, thicken with butter rolled in browned
flour, add the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of grated
Parmesan cheese and a little onion juice. Boil one minute, pour a few
spoonfuls carefully upon the crumb-crust of the fish, the rest into a
boat.
This is an elegant company dish of fish, and easy of preparation.
Baked fillets of halibut
Cut slices of halibut, weighing a pound each, and an inch thick. Cut
each into three strips, two fingers wide, lay in lemon juice and salad
oil for an hour; then cook precisely as directed above. When you sift
the crumbs over the fillets, cover all sides; then proceed as with the
baked cod, taking care to arrange the fillets for browning so that they
will not touch one another.
Baked halibut
Lay a piece of halibut weighing about four pounds in cold water
(salted) for half an hour, then wipe dry and lay in a covered roaster.
Pour over it a cupful of boiling water, in which have been melted two
tablespoonfuls of butter. Bake until tender and keep hot on a platter
while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour and
butter, and season with a teaspoonful, each, of lemon and onion juice,
a little celery salt and a wineglassful of claret. Strain, and send to
the table in a gravy-boat.
Baked halibut steak (No. 1)
Lay the steak in salted water for fifteen minutes; wipe and put into a
baking-pan. Rub the steak with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper,
and pour over and around it a cupful of milk. Bake, basting every ten
minutes until the milk is absorbed. Serve with drawn butter.
Send around fried potatoes with it.
Baked halibut steak (No. 2)
Wash, wipe and lay in marinade of olive oil and lemon juice for one
hour. Sprinkle, then, liberally, with minced onion, parsley and lemon
juice, turning over and over that the steak may be covered. Now, lay
upon the grating of your bakepan. Make a white sauce by stirring one
cupful of hot milk into one tablespoonful of butter cooked into a roux
with one of flour. Season it with salt and pepper, and pour it over the
fish. Cover the surface with fine crumbs moistened in melted butter and
bake until the fish is done, about twelve minutes to the pound.
Halibut steak baked with tomatoes
(A Creole recipe.)
Make a rich sauce of tomatoes, fresh or canned, seasoning with butter
rolled in flour, sugar, pepper, onion juice and salt, adding, if you
have it, a sweet green pepper, seeded and minced. Cook fifteen minutes,
strain, rubbing through a colander, and cool. Lay the halibut in oil
and lemon juice for an hour, place upon the grating of your covered
roaster, pour the sauce over it; cover and bake twelve minutes to the
pound if the oven be good. Sift Parmesan cheese over the fish, and cook
five minutes longer. Serve upon a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.
Baked fillets of flounder