stuffing of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a dozen raw oysters, chopped
fine, two tablespoonfuls of butter, melted, one tablespoonful of
chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of onion juice, one-half teaspoonful
of paprika. Roast in a quick oven. Into two tablespoonfuls of softened
butter mix one tablespoonful, each, of chopped parsley, onion and lemon
juice, and kitchen bouquet. Draw the meat, when done, from the oven,
spread it with this prepared sauce, and return to the oven for four
minutes. Garnish with small, round, fried potatoes.
Send around green peas with it.
Hotch-potch
Cut two pounds of _lean_ mutton into neat pieces an inch square. Peel
and slice six medium-sized potatoes, cut into dice, and parboil for
five minutes. Parboil also a dozen small, young onions, no larger than
the end of your thumb. Have a couple of kidneys—calf’s or lamb’s—cut
into dice, and drain the liquor from fifteen small oysters. Put a layer
of meat dice in the dish, then a layer of onions, kidneys and potatoes.
Season each layer of vegetables with pepper and salt. Then another
layer of meat, onions and kidneys, and the remaining potatoes. Pour on
a cupful of hot water, cover the pan closely and bake it in a moderate
oven for three hours. Look at it occasionally and add more water if it
seems dry.
When nearly ready to serve take up the mixture with a skimmer, arrange
it in a deep hot dish. Add the oysters to the gravy left in the pan,
cook till they ruffle, add more seasoning if needed, and pour it over
the whole.
Family stew of lamb and peas
Cut two pounds of coarse _lean_ lamb into dice. There must be neither
fat nor bone in it. Fry a sliced onion brown in two tablespoonfuls of
dripping or butter. Strain the fat back into the pan, dredge the meat
with flour and fry for three minutes in it, turning to sear both sides.
Turn meat and fat into a saucepan, add a cupful of stock or of butter
and water, cover closely and stew for an hour, or until the lamb is
tender. Put in then a cupful of green peas with three leaves of green
mint. Cover again and cook until the peas are tender, but not until
they break. Have ready a broad dish lined with slices of toast soaked
in tomato sauce. Take up meat and peas in a perforated skimmer and lay
upon the toast. Keep hot, while you thicken the gravy left in the pot
with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of browned flour; season,
boil up and pour over the stew. Let it stand one minute and serve.
Casserole of lamb chops
Trim two pounds of lean chops and proceed as with the meat in last
recipe until they have been browned in the fat.
Now turn meat and fat into your casserole, in the bottom of which is
a layer of pared and sliced tomatoes. Have ready half a cupful of
potato balls cut with a “gouge” and parboiled for five minutes, a
dozen button onions, also parboiled, and half a can of champignons
(mushrooms). Sprinkle these over and between the chops. Pour in a
cupful of good stock, or gravy, well seasoned; lastly, another layer of
sliced tomatoes, salted, peppered, sprinkled with sugar and dotted with
butter. Cover the casserole and set in a moderate oven for two hours.
Drain off all the gravy without disturbing the rest of the contents of
the casserole. Skim, thicken with browned flour, add the juice of half
a lemon, boil up, pour in a glass of sherry, pour gently back into the
casserole, cover, set in the oven for three minutes and send to table,
covered.
If you once try this recipe you will not be satisfied until the dish it
represents becomes a frequent visitor to your table.
MEAT AND POULTRY PIES
Chicken pie
Cut at every joint a pair of _young_ chickens. Lay on ice while you
make a gravy of the pinions, necks and feet—scalding and skinning the
feet before putting with the rest over the fire, covering deep with
cold water and bringing slowly to the boil. Cook until the flesh is in
rags, and the liquor reduced by one-half. Strain, season highly with
onion juice, salt and paprika, thicken with browned flour and let the
gravy get cold.
Meanwhile, arrange your chicken in a bake-dish; lay among the pieces
either well-seasoned forcemeat balls no larger than marbles, made of
bread-crumbs and hard-boiled yolks, bound with a raw egg, or canned
mushrooms. Of course, fresh mushrooms are better if you can afford
them. Put in a cupful of cold water, cover with a good crust, half an
inch thick, and bake for an hour and a half. Lay a piece of stout paper
over the pie to keep it from browning too fast. When you remove this at
the end of an hour draw the pie to the door of the oven, fit a funnel
into a slit left in the center of the crust and pour in all the gravy
it will hold. Do this very quickly, shut up the oven and leave the pie
in until done. Remove the paper ten minutes before the time is up and
brown lightly.
[Illustration: GAME PIE IN NAPKINED DISH
SMALL CHICKEN PIE
CHICKEN PIE IN SILVER STAND]
Cold chicken pie
Make precisely as in last recipe, but add to the gravy while hot a
tablespoonful of gelatine soaked for two hours in cold water enough to
cover it. Pour into the pie as already directed. Let the pie get cold
before eating it. The gravy will be jellied.
This is a nice dish for Sunday dinners in hot weather.
Fowl pie
Cut an old fowl into joints, splitting the back and dividing the breast
into quarters. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water, season with
onion juice and the juice of half a lemon. No salt and no pepper. Cover
closely and simmer very gently for several hours until you find it
tender. Strain off the gravy and season with onion juice, celery salt,
a bay-leaf, minced parsley, paprika and salt. Return the gravy to the
fire, stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook one
minute. Arrange the chicken in a deep bake-dish, pour in the gravy, lay
over the top two hard-boiled eggs cut into thin slices, cover with a
good crust, and bake.
Chicken pot pies
For these have several stoneware or other fire-proof deep dishes, about
the size of a bird bath. Cut up a young fowl into joints, cover with
cold water and cook tender, but not until the meat leaves the bones.
Lay a piece of dark meat and one of light in each dish; sprinkle with
minced salt pork, and drop in each dish potato marbles which have been
parboiled for ten minutes. Add small cubes of pastry, three to each
dish, and two small young onions, no bigger than the end of your thumb.
Unless they are mere infants, parboil them five minutes before they
go in. Have ready two cupfuls of the liquor in which the chicken was
cooked. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in browned flour; season
with paprika and minced parsley. The pork should salt it sufficiently.
Fill the dishes, cover each with a good crust, make a slit in the
middle and bake, covered with paper, half an hour. Then brown.
You may, if you like, make one dish of this, but many prefer the
individual “portions.”
Chicken and ham pie
Cut up and stew the chickens, as in last recipe. Have ready four
good-sized slices of corned ham (not smoked), boiled and cold, and cut
into strips. Put a layer of ham in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish,
season with chopped mushrooms and parsley, salt and pepper, and add
a layer of white sauce, the base of which is the liquor in which the
chickens were cooked. Next, place in the dish the pieces of chicken in
regular order, and upon these the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Repeat
the seasoning and the sauce, lay a few strips of ham over the top,
cover with a good paste, wash the pie with beaten egg, and bake for an
hour and a half. If you have no mushrooms you may substitute a little
mushroom catsup.
Veal pie (No. 1)
Cut three pounds of lean veal into inch-square cubes; put into a
saucepan with a cupful of cold water, and heat slowly. Remove the scum
as it begins to boil; add two small onions, sliced, two tablespoonfuls
of carrot cubes, and one teaspoonful of salt. Let it simmer until very
tender. Put the meat then into a deep baking-dish.
Let the liquor boil down to one cupful and a half, strain it and remove
most of the fat. Add one-half cupful of cream or of rich milk, and
pepper to taste. Thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed in
one of butter; cook it five minutes, and strain it over the meat. If
you have any cold boiled ham you may add a little of it to the veal,
cutting it into tiny pieces.
Cover with a rich biscuit dough, half an inch thick, and bake one hour,
covered with thick paper. Uncover and brown.
Veal pie (No. 2)
Cut two pounds of coarse lean veal into cubes and cook tender in enough
cold water to cover it. Have ready half a pound of finely-minced pork,
an onion, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of finely-minced olives, a
stalk of celery cut fine, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Put
a stratum of veal in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish; cover with
this mixture and sprinkle with paprika and with butter. When all the
materials are used up in this order fill the dish with gravy made by
thickening the liquor in which the veal was stewed with browned flour,
adding a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and boiling one minute. Cover
with a good crust; make a slit in the top and bake, covered, one hour;
then brown.
Beef and tomato pie
Cut a pint of cold roast beef into small dice of uniform size, and mix
with it two or three slices of bacon, also cut small. Line a deep dish
with good puff paste, put a layer of the beef and bacon in the bottom
of the dish, season with pepper and salt, cover with a layer of peeled
and sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dots of butter
rolled in flour; add more meat and more tomatoes, until the dish is
full. Cover the top layer with bits of butter, then with a crust of
puff paste, making holes in this for the escape of steam. Bake until
brown.
Beef and potato pie
Moisten three cupfuls of minced roast beef with a little stock, season
to taste, and put it into a greased pudding-dish. Into a large cupful
of mashed potatoes beat a little milk and a tablespoonful of melted
butter. Season this potato and spread it over the top of the minced
beef. Set it in the oven and bake, covered, for twenty minutes;
uncover, wash over with beaten white of eggs and cook for fifteen
minutes longer, or until it is lightly browned.
Beefsteak pie
Cut two pounds of round steak into small squares. Cover (barely) with
cold water and cook tender, very slowly. Cut two veal kidneys into
cubes and (if you can get it) a sweetbread, blanched by throwing
it into cold water, after parboiling it. Drain the liquor from the
beef, and let both get almost cold. Make a good gravy by thickening
this liquor with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in browned flour,
seasoning well with kitchen bouquet, onion juice, salt and pepper. Let
it simmer two minutes. Arrange the beef, kidneys and sweetbread in neat
layers in the dish, interspersing these with a dozen small oysters.
Pour in the gravy, cover with a good crust, half an inch thick, and
cook, covered, one hour; then brown.
Kidney pie
Cut four kidneys into neat squares and stew gently in weak stock for
half an hour. Cook a quarter-pound of macaroni till tender, and cut it
into inch lengths. Butter a baking-dish and put in a layer of macaroni;
over that spread a layer of sliced kidneys, seasoned with pepper, salt
and made mustard. Sprinkle over a little flour, and add a layer of
tomatoes. Repeat these layers and cover with fine bread-crumbs when the
dish is filled. Pour in a rich gravy made from the stock in which the
kidneys were stewed; put small bits of butter over the crumbs on top,
and bake steadily for one hour.
Sweetbread pie
Blanch two sweetbreads by parboiling for ten minutes, then leaving
in ice-cold water for the same length of time. When firm cut into
half-inch squares. Make a white roux by cooking in a saucepan two
tablespoonfuls of flour in two of butter, add gradually a cupful of
cream heated with a pinch of soda, season with half a teaspoonful
of salt and half a saltspoonful of white pepper, a few grains of
cayenne, and two tablespoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato. Put the
sweetbreads and sauce into a deep dish, cover with a rich crust, make a
slit in the center; bake, covered, half an hour, then brown. Beat one
egg, add half a cupful of hot cream, and pour into the opening in the
crust just before serving.
Mutton chop pie
Trim two pounds of tender chops by cutting away skin, fat, and two
inches of the rib bone. With the refuse trimmings make a gravy by
cooking slowly three hours in just enough water to cover them. Let it
cool, skim off all the fat, season highly, thicken well with browned
flour, boil up once and again let it cool.
Arrange the chops on the inside of a bake-dish, overlapping one
another; fill the central space with chopped mushrooms, a chopped
tomato, six small button onions and a pint of green peas. Pour in the
gravy; cover with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake,
covered, half an hour; then brown.
Veal chop pie
May be made as above, substituting chopped tomatoes for the green peas.
In this case have the gravy very thick, as the tomato juice will thin
it.
Small pork pies
(A Devonshire recipe.)
Chop fine a quarter of a pound of beef kidney suet and mix with it
an equal quantity of butter. Rub both into a pound of flour and set
all over the fire in a saucepan until the butter and suet are melted
and the flour very hot. Knead together then into a stiff paste, cover
with the cloth and put it near the fire while you make ready the meat.
There should be about two pounds of the neck of pork, and this should
be cut into very small pieces, seasoned liberally with salt, pepper
and a teaspoonful of powdered sage, and cooked gently for twenty-five
minutes before it goes into the pie. The paste must then be divided
into as many pieces as you wish to have pies, and these must be made
into round shapes—“built up” into the shape of round pies. The way to
do this must be studied carefully, for it is a knack in itself. The
fist is put into the middle of the piece of dough from which the pie
is to be raised, and by working it in a circular fashion the hollow is
formed which is to receive the meat. The process should really be seen
to be adequately understood. When the pie is “raised” the meat is put
into it, a round of paste laid on the top and its edge pinched to that
of the lower crust. It is then baked in a steady, rather slow, oven.
An English pork pie
Cook two pounds of lean pork for half an hour in enough weak stock to
cover it. Let it get cold in the liquor (which reserve for the gravy).
Take out the cold meat and cut into neat dice. Butter a deep dish
and lay in some of the meat. Cover with a layer of hard-boiled eggs,
chopped coarsely; season with onion juice, pepper, salt and a pinch of
nutmeg. Stick bits of butter here and there. Dust with browned flour.
Strain and reheat the liquor in which the meat was cooked; stir in
a lump of butter rolled in browned flour, cook one minute, add a
teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce; pour into the pie, and let it cool
before covering with a good paste. Cut a slit in the middle of the
crust; bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour. Uncover, wash with
white of egg and brown.
Send around apple sauce with it.
A New England pork pie
Boil half a pound of “streaked” salt pork with a sliced onion and four
parsnips of moderate size. Put them on in enough cold water to cover
them, and boil until the parsnips are tender, the onion cooked to rags.
Have ready three fair-sized potatoes, sliced and parboiled. Slice the
parsnips. Cut the pork into very small, thin slices, and line a deep
dish with it. Put in a layer of sliced potatoes, sprinkle with flour,
salt and pepper, a layer of sliced parsnips, then another layer of
each. Add enough of the water in which the pork and parsnips were
boiled to fill the dish. Cover with a good crust, and bake in a good
oven one hour.
It is said by those who like parsnips to be very good—considering!
Pigeon pie
Dress, draw and singe carefully four young pigeons; stuff them with the
chopped livers, hearts and gizzards and fine crumbs, mixed with chopped
parsley, a good lump of butter, pepper and salt. Run a small wooden
skewer through the body of each, fastening the wings to the sides.
Cover the bottom of your bake-dish with thin strips of corned ham;
season with chopped parsley, mushrooms, pepper and salt; over these
lay the pigeons; between every two birds put the yolk of an egg boiled
hard, and two or three in the center also. Add to the dish sufficient
thick brown gravy to cover the pigeons, cover the pie with puff-paste,
and bake for an hour and a half.
PORK
Roast pig
Lay the pig, which has been prepared by the butcher, in cold water for
fifteen minutes, then wipe dry, inside and out. Make a stuffing as
for a turkey, and work into it two beaten eggs. Stuff the pig to his
original size and shape. Sew him up, bend his fore legs backward, and
his back legs forward under him, and skewer him thus. Dredge him with
flour and put it, with a little salted water, into a covered roaster.
Roast for an hour and a half; remove the cover, rub the pig well with
butter and return the cover, leaving the slide open. At the end of
twenty minutes remove the cover again, rub the pig once more with
butter, and brown him for ten minutes. Serve very hot with apple sauce.
A pig for roasting should not weigh over six or seven pounds after it
is cleaned. If larger, it is gross food. The meat should be as delicate
as chicken.
Roast pork
Score the skin until the knife touches the meat under it. Rub into
these lines or squares a mixture of fine crumbs seasoned with onion
juice, a little grated lemon-peel and the juice of half a lemon, with
pepper and salt to taste. Work in well until the stuffing stands out of
the cracks. Put into your roaster, with a cupful of hot water under it,
and after covering bring quickly to the point at which the water begins
to steam. Slacken the heat then, and cook twenty-five minutes to the
pound, basting often with its own gravy.
Pour off this gravy twenty minutes before taking the meat up, and set
in a bowl of ice to send all the fat to the top. Greasy pork gravy is
an offense to the educated palate. Thicken with browned flour.
A better plan is not to attempt to make gravy, but to send around apple
sauce alone with the roast.
Chine of pork braised with apples
Instruct your butcher to cut the chine with plenty of meat on both
sides of the bone. Sprinkle it well with pepper and salt, and lightly
with sage and sweet marjoram. Pare, core and cut into thick slices
three large, tart apples. Cover the grating of your roaster with them,
strew with sugar and lay the chine upon them. Dot the meat with butter;
cover and roast twenty-five minutes to the pound. At the end of that
time transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, turning it over that the side
which has lain upon the apples may be uppermost. Wash with butter,
cover thick with salted and peppered crumbs, and brown upon the upper
grating of a hot oven while you make the gravy.
To do this rub the cooked apple and the liquor with them through a
colander into a saucepan, add a little hot water, a lump of butter
rolled in flour, and, if very tart, a little sugar; pepper and salt to
taste, boil up and turn into a boat.
Serve peas, pudding or beans in some shape with the chine.
Pork tenderloins
Broil over a clear, steady fire, turning as often as they begin to
drip. Allow twenty minutes, if small; more when large. Lay upon a
heated dish, cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, onion juice,
pepper, salt and a dash of powdered sage. Turn over and over in this as
it melts; cover closely and leave over hot water several minutes to let
the seasoning sink into the meat.
Serve browned whole potatoes and apple sauce with them.
Boiled ham
Soak eight hours, and scrub it hard with a stiff brush or whisk to get
out salt and dirt. Cover with an abundance of cold water, and put into
it two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Heat very gradually. At the end of
the first hour it should not have reached the boiling point. Simmer
gently four or five hours. Allow twenty minutes to every pound for a
corned ham; twenty-five for a smoked. Let it get almost cold in the
liquor—entirely cold before you skin it.
Barbecued fresh ham
Score the rind with a sharp knife. Mix one tablespoonful of mustard
seed, half a teaspoonful, each, of celery seed and pepper corns with
one cupful of sugar, one cupful of vinegar and two cupfuls of water.
Let these stand ten minutes, then pour it over the ham. Turn it in this
pickle several times during the day. Next morning put the ham into your
covered roaster in a slow oven, fat side down, for the first hour.
Strain the pickle and keep it hot on the back of the stove. Baste the
ham frequently with it and bake four hours, or until tender.
All of the pickle should have been used in basting. Lay the ham upon a
heated dish and keep hot over boiling water while you make the gravy.
Strain the liquor, thicken with browned flour, add salt to taste,
simmer for five minutes and pour part over the meat, the rest into a
boat.
Those who are fond of hot fresh pork can not do better than to try
this. It is also delicious cold.
Breaded ham
Boil as directed in recipe for boiled ham. When cold, skin and rub all
over with flour. Next, brush with beaten egg, sift fine crumbs thickly
ever the egg, then more egg and another coat of crumbs. Dust with
pepper and brown gradually.
Eat cold, garnished with parsley.
Baked ham
Is seldom really “baked.” Boil a ham eighteen minutes to the pound;
leave it one hour in the liquor in which it was cooked; take it out and
let it get really cold and firm before stripping off the skin. Rub the
upper side with white of egg and sift over it bread dust a quarter of
an inch thick. Pepper lightly, and set in the oven for half an hour, or
until the coating is well shortened by the oozing fat, and of a nice
brown. Let it get cold to the very bone before serving it. If you like
a suspicion of onion flavoring, wash the surface to be breaded with
onion juice before going over it with the white of an egg.
Baked corned ham
Soak over night. In the morning scrub hard and pare away the underside
until the meat and fat show red and white. Wash well with vinegar and
do not wipe. Lay, skin downward, in your roaster, covering the side you
have pared with a thick paste of flour and water. Have ready a mixture
of one cupful of cold water and half as much vinegar, a tablespoonful
of molasses and one of onion juice. Pour around the ham; cover closely
and bake half an hour to the pound, after the water is hot. Baste six
times with the liquor in the pan.
Take up, scrape off the paste, remove the skin, dusting instantly and
thickly with fine cracker-crumbs to stop the escape of the juices.
There should be a cracker crust a quarter-inch thick. Set upon the
upper grating to brown.
Stuffed ham
Wash a ham and soak over night; then, with a narrow, sharp blade,
remove the bone. Fill the cavity thus left with a forcemeat of
bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper and moistened with a little water in
which a spoonful of butter has been melted. Sew the ham up closely in a
piece of cheese-cloth and boil until done, allowing twenty minutes to
the pound. Leave it in the water until cold, transfer to a platter and
put under a heavy weight for twelve hours. Now remove the cloth and the
skin, and sprinkle the ham with pepper before sending to the table.
To pickle pork
Mix together four and a half pounds of salt, a pound of brown sugar and
one ounce of saltpeter, stirred into three gallons of water. Boil for
half an hour, skimming every ten minutes. Set aside to cool, and when
cold pour over the meat packed in a crock or keg.
Virginia recipe for curing ham
Put the ham into pickle made by putting into one and one-half gallons
of water one-half pound of brown sugar, one-half ounce of saltpeter
and two and one-quarter pounds of salt. Boil this mixture for half
an hour, skimming frequently; then set aside to cool and pour over
the ham. Leave for two weeks, remove the ham, wash it in fresh water;
dip it, still wet, in bran, and coat thickly with it. Now take to the
smokehouse and hang, hock end down, in smoke from hickory chips and
sawdust for four weeks. Brush off the bran, wrap in brown paper and
hang up until needed.
POULTRY
ROAST TURKEY
Draw, with care not to break the gall-bag. Wash out the cavity three
times with cold water, adding a little soda to the second water. You
can not be too careful in this part of your task.