suppose it to be _perfectly_ good and well kept,) wipe it thoroughly all
over with clean cloths, dipped in lukewarm water, and then go over it
with clean dry cloths. Trim off all unsightly parts. Lay over the fat a
large sheet of thick brown paper, well buttered, and securely tied on
with twine. Or else make a coarse paste of brown meal, and cover it with
that. Place it before a good steady fire, and let it roast from three to
four hours, according to its size. After roasting well for three hours,
remove the covering of paper or paste, and baste the meat well all over;
first with dripping or butter, and then with its own gravy, dredging it
very slightly with browned flour. Skim the fat off the gravy, and send
the venison to table plain, with sweet sauce of black currant jelly, or
raspberry jam, in a glass dish with a spoon in it.
VENISON STEAKS, BROILED.--Cut the steaks not quite an inch thick. Trim
them nicely, and season them with a little black pepper and salt. Have
ready, over a bed of clear bright hot coals from a wood fire, a gridiron
with grooved bars to catch the gravy. Put down the steaks, and when one
side is quite done turn the other, and broil that. Venison should always
be very thoroughly done. Before you take up the steaks, lay a bit of
nice fresh butter upon each. Take them up on a hot dish, and keep them
warm. Pour off the gravy into a small saucepan. Give it a boil over the
fire, and skim off all the fat from the surface. Stir into it some nice
wine, and serve up with the steaks a deep dish of cranberry, or peach
sauce, or a large cup of grape jelly.
STEWED VENISON STEAKS.--Take some fine steaks of _freshly killed_
venison. Cut them from the upper part of the leg. Make a forcemeat, or
stuffing, with bread soaked in milk, mixed with fresh butter, with
chopped sweet marjoram and sweet basil; or some boiled onions, minced
small, and mixed with chopped sage, which may be boiled _with_ the
onion, and seasoned with a very little salt and pepper. Spread the
stuffing thickly over the inside of the steaks. Then roll them up, and
tie them round with packthread, or secure them at the ends with wooden
skewers. Put the steaks into a stewpan with some fresh butter or lard,
or some drippings that have been left of roast venison--the day before.
Let them stew (keeping the pan covered) till thoroughly done. Then dish
them with the gravy round them. Serve up with them a sauce of stewed
cranberries, or stewed dried peaches.
You may stew lamb or mutton cutlets in the same manner, but do not use
mutton dripping. Water (a very small quantity) is best for them. Veal
cutlets may be stewed exactly like venison.
HASHED VENISON.--Take the remains of cold roast venison, from which
sufficient gravy or dripping has been saved to cook the meat again,
without any water at all. It would be well if this were done in all
hashes made from cold meat. For want of drippings, use butter or lard.
Cold meat stewed in water is weak and unpalatable.
Two or three large spoonfuls of mushroom, or tomato catchup, are
improvements to all hashes. If nothing better can be obtained use
onions, always previously boiled to render them less strong.
Minced sweet herbs are excellent seasoning for hashes. Also minced
tarragon leaves; they give a peculiar flavor that is very generally
liked. Fresh tarragon is in season in July, August, and September.
French mustard (to be obtained at all the best grocery stores) is a
great improvement to hashes and stews. Stir in at the last, one or two
large table-spoonfuls. The chief ingredient of French mustard is
tarragon.
A FINE VENISON PIE.--Cut steaks from a loin or haunch of venison, which
should be as freshly killed as you can get it. The strange and absurd
prejudice in favor of hard black-looking venison, (that has been kept
till the juices are all dried up,) is fast subsiding; and no one now
eats any sort of food in which decomposition has commenced. Those who
have eaten venison fresh from the forest, when the deer have fattened
on wild grapes, huckleberries, blackberries, cranberries, &c., will
never again be able to relish such as is brought in wagon loads to the
Atlantic cities, and which has been kept till full of those fine threads
that are in reality long thin whitish worms, and which are often seen in
very old hams.
Having removed the bones and cut the meat into steaks, and seasoned it
with salt and pepper, put the venison into a pot, with merely as much
water as will cover it well. Let it stew till perfectly tender, skimming
it occasionally. Then take it out, and set it to cool, saving the gravy
in a bowl. Make a nice puff paste; divide the paste into two equal
portions, and roll it out rather thick. Butter a deep dish, and line it
with one of the sheets of paste, rolled thin at the bottom. Then put in
the stewed venison. Season the gravy with a glass of _very good_ wine,
(either port or sherry,) a few blades of mace, and a powdered nutmeg.
Stir into it the crumbled yolks of some hard-boiled eggs. Pour the gravy
over the meat, and put on the other sheet of paste, as the lid of the
pie. Bring the two edges close together, so as to unite evenly, and
notch them handsomely. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it
well. If a steady heat is kept up, it will be done in an hour. Send it
to table hot.
Instead of wine, you may put into the gravy half a pint of _black_
currant jelly, which, for venison, is thought preferable to red. Either
will do.
Any sort of game, partridges, pheasants, grouse, wild ducks, &c., may
be made into a fine pie, exactly as above.
VERY PLAIN VENISON PIE.--Cut from the bone some good pieces of fine
_fresh_ venison, season them slightly with salt and pepper, and put them
into a pot with plenty of potatos, (either sweet or white,) split and
quartered, and only as much water as will cover the whole. Set it over
the fire, cover it, and let it stew slowly and steadily, till all is
tender, skimming it several times. Meanwhile, make a nice paste of flour
shortened with cold gravy, or drippings saved from roast venison, or of
nice lard. Allow half a pint of shortening to each quart of flour. Put
the flour into a pan, and rub the shortening into it as quickly as
possible, adding a _very little_ cold water, to make it into a lump of
paste. Then roll it out into a sheet, and spread over it with a broad
knife the remaining half of the shortening. Dredge lightly with flour,
fold it up, and roll it out in two sheets. With one of them line your
pie-dish, and put into it the stewed venison and potatos. Pour in the
gravy of the stew. The filling of this pie should be piled high in the
centre. Lay on, as a lid, the other sheet of paste, which should be
rather the largest. Pare off smoothly the edges of the two crusts, and
crimp them nicely. Set the pie in the oven, and bake it well. It may be
eaten either hot or cold, but is best hot.
The above quantity of paste is only sufficient for a very small pie.
For one of moderate size allow two quarts of flour, and a pound of
shortening.
VENISON POT-PIE.--Remove the bone from some fine venison steaks, cut
near an inch thick. Season them lightly with pepper and salt, and score
them each in several places. Stew them in a very little water till
tender. Have ready an ample portion of nice suet paste. If you cannot
obtain beef suet use cold venison fat, minced fine and made into a paste
with double its quantity in flour, and as little water as possible. Lay
some stewed venison at the bottom of the pot, and line the sides with
paste almost up to the top. Put in the meat, adding among it boiled
sweet potatos cut into pieces, or (if they are to be had in plenty,)
chestnuts, boiled and peeled. Mushrooms will be a great improvement.
Onion also, (if liked,) boiled and cut up. Intersperse the whole with
square pieces of paste. Fill the pot almost to the top with the meat and
other ingredients. Lay a thick paste over the whole, cut round to fit,
but not too closely. Pour in a pint of warm water to increase the gravy.
Make a cross slit in the middle of the upper crust. Cook the pie till
all is well done. Serve it up with the brown crust in pieces, and laid
on the top.
This pie, if well made, and with plenty of paste, will be thought
excellent whenever fresh venison is to be had.
VENISON HAM.--Take fine freshly-killed venison. Mix together an ounce of
saltpetre, a pound of coarse brown sugar, and a pound of salt. Let them
be very thoroughly mixed and pounded. Rub this well into the meat, and
continue rubbing hard till it froths. Keep the meat in the pickle for
two weeks, turning it every day. Then take it out, and roll it in
saw-dust, (which, on no account, must be the saw-dust of any species of
pine.) Hang it for two weeks longer in the smoke of oak wood or of corn
cobs. All hams, when being smoked, must be hung very high, and have the
large end downwards. If hung too low, the heat softens or melts the fat.
Venison hams, if well cured, require no boiling. They are always eaten
chipped or shaved like smoked beef, to which they are very superior. It
may be stewed in a skillet with fresh butter and beaten egg, and cut
into thin shavings, or very thin small slices--or, instead of butter,
with the drippings of cold roast venison. Season with pepper only.
RABBITS.--Rabbits should be young and tender, but full-grown and fat.
Two are required to make a dish. One rabbit, except for an invalid, is
scarcely worth the trouble of cooking; and, being naturally insipid, it
must have certain seasoning to make it taste well. The hare, so much
prized in England, owes its reputation entirely to their mode of
dressing it, which is troublesome, expensive, and in our country would
never become popular, unless the animal had in itself more to recommend
it. With all that can be done for a hare, it is, when cooked, black,
dry, hard; and if it has been kept long enough to acquire what they call
the "true game flavor," so much the worse. A fine fat well-fed tame
rabbit is much better. In Virginia, the negroes frequently call a large
rabbit "a hare"--or rather "a yar;" and though they know it to be young,
they generally term it "that old yar." We opine that _with them_ "yars"
are not admired. If a rabbit is really old his ears are tough, and his
claws blunt and rough with coarse hairs growing between them. A young
rabbit has short sharp claws, and ears so tender that on trying you can
easily tear them. Rabbits should be cooked the day they are killed.
Always cut off the head. A rabbit dished whole, with its head on, is, to
most persons, a disgusting sight. The head of no small animal is worth
eating, and always looks disagreeable when cooked.
The livers of rabbits should be added to the gravy.
ROASTED RABBITS.--Take a pair of fine well-fed young rabbits, and having
drawn or emptied them, lay them, for about ten minutes, in a pan of warm
water. Then dry them inside with a clean cloth, carefully wiping them
out. Truss them short, and neatly, having removed the heads. Line the
inside with very thin slices of fat bacon that has had most of the salt
soaked out. Make a plentiful stuffing or forcemeat of bread steeped in
milk, some fresh butter mixed with a very little flour; or, instead of
butter, some beef suet finely minced; some chopped sweet herbs; and some
crumbled yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Season with mace and nutmeg, and
grated lemon rind. Fill the rabbits well with this--or, you may stuff
them entirely with boiled potatos, mashed with plenty of nice butter, or
the drippings of roast veal or pork. Or (if liked) you may make the
stuffing entirely of minced onion, (previously boiled,) and minced sage
leaves, moistened with a very little lard or sweet oil, and seasoned
with powdered mace, nutmeg, and pepper. Having put in plenty of
stuffing, sew up the bodies of the rabbits, flour them well, and put
them on the spit and set them before a clear fire. Baste them with milk,
or with fresh butter, tied up in thin muslin. They will be done in an
hour or more. Thicken the gravy with flour, and pour it over them in the
dish. Roasted rabbits make a good second dish at a small dinner. Take
the livers of the rabbits, and chop them, to put into the gravy.
RABBITS WITH ONIONS.--Peel, boil, and slice six (or more) large onions,
and season them with nutmeg, and a very little cayenne. Cover them, and
set them aside till wanted. Cut two fine rabbits into pieces, and fry
them in fresh butter or lard. When browned, and nearly done, cover them
with the sliced onions, and brown _them_, having laid among them some
bits of fresh butter rolled in flour. Dish the rabbits, with the pieces
entirely hidden under the onions.
A plainer, and not so good a way, is to put the pieces of rabbit, and
the sliced onions, into a stew-pan with a little water, and stew the
whole together.
RABBIT POT-PIE.--Cut up the rabbits, and stew them in a little water.
When nearly done, put the pieces into a pot and intersperse them with
bits of cold ham. Add the gravy left from the stew. Season with pepper
and mace. Have ready sufficient paste, (made with minced suet, and
rather more than twice its quantity of flour.) There must be enough of
paste to line the sides of the pot all round, nearly up to the top, and
enough to make a thick lid, besides having plenty of extra pieces to lay
among the other contents. Also have ready a few onions boiled and
sliced. Cover the pie with the lid of paste, not fitting very closely.
Make a cross slit in the top, and pour in a little water. When done,
serve all up on one large dish.
This pie will be much improved by stewing with the rabbits a fresh beef
steak. A beef steak in any pot-pie thickens and enriches the gravy.
PULLED RABBITS.--Boil, very tender, a fine pair of nice young rabbits.
When cold, cut them in pieces as for carving, and peel off the skin.
Then with a fork pull all the meat from the bones, first loosening it
with a knife. Put it into a stew-pan with plenty of cream, or some bits
of fresh butter rolled in flour; some minced sweet herbs, some grated
fresh lemon rind, and some hard-boiled yolks of eggs crumbled. Season
with cayenne and nutmeg. Cover it, and let it simmer till it comes to a
boil. Then immediately take it off the fire, and transfer it to a deep
dish. Serve it up hot. This is a side dish at dinner.
FRICASSEED RABBITS.--Cut up the rabbits as for carving, and go over
every piece with lard or sweet oil. Lay them in a frying pan, and fry
them in nice fresh butter. If you cannot procure this, use lard. Season
them with a very little salt and cayenne, dredge them well with flour,
and sprinkle them thickly with parsley, or sweet marjoram. When they are
fried brown, take them up. Keep them warm in a heated dish with a cover.
Skim the gravy that remains in the pan, and add to it some cream, or
rich milk thickened with flour, enriched with the beaten yolk of an egg,
and flavored with nutmeg.
Rabbits may be cut up, and fried in batter made of bread-crumbs and
beaten egg. Dip every piece of rabbit twice into the batter.
A COATED HARE, OR LARGE RABBIT.--The hare, or rabbit, should be large
and fat. Save the liver and heart to assist in the gravy, which ought to
be made of some pieces of the lean of good fresh beef, seasoned with
pepper, salt, and nutmeg, stewed in a small sauce-pan, till all the
essence is extracted, adding the chopped liver and heart, and a bit of
fresh butter, rolled in flour. Cold fresh meat, or meat that has to be
recooked, is unfit for gravy, and so it is for soup. Line the inside of
the hare with small thin slices of fat ham, or bacon, and then fill the
cavity with a stuffing made of grated bread-crumbs, the grated yellow
rind and juice of a lemon, or orange, a piece of fresh butter, some
minced sweet marjoram, and the crumbled yolk of one or two hard-boiled
eggs. Season the stuffing with a little pepper and salt, and some
powdered nutmeg and mace. Fill the body of the hare with this mixture,
and sew it up, to keep in the stuffing. Spit the hare, and roast it
well, keeping it for a while at a moderate distance from the fire. To
baste it, while roasting, make a dressing of the beaten yolks of four
eggs, four spoonfuls of flour, a pint of milk, and three table-spoonfuls
of salad oil, all well-beaten together. Baste the hare with this till it
is thickly coated all over with the batter, taking care it does not
burn. Send the gravy to table in a sauce-boat, accompanied by currant,
or cranberry jelly.
A very young fawn, or a kid, may be drest in a similar manner. Kids are
not eaten after three months old. Till that age their meat is white and
delicate. Their flesh, _after_ that time, gradually becomes coarse and
dark-colored. A very young kid, before it is weaned, is very delicious;
but no longer. In the oriental countries, young kids are stuffed with
chopped raisins and almonds, or pistachio nuts, previous to roasting;
and basted with rich milk, or cream.
For sauce to a kid or fawn, use orange marmalade, or grape jelly.
POULTRY AND GAME.
Spring chickens bring a high price, and are considered delicacies, but
they are so insipid, and have so little on them, that we think the
purchase of them, when very young, a mere fashionable extravagance, and
a waste of money that might be better employed in something that had
really a fine flavor, and that when divided was more than a morsel for
each person. We wonder that any but invalids should care for spring
chickens. It is better to wait till the young chickens grow into nice
plump fowls, that were well fed, and have lived long enough to show it.
A fine full-grown young fowl, has a clear white skin, that tears easily
when tried with a pin. It has a broad fleshy breast, the legs are
smooth, and the toes easily broken when bent back. Fowls with whitish
legs are considered the best for boiling; those with dark legs the best
for roasting. The finest of all fowls are capons. They grow very large
and fat, and yet are as tender as young chickens, have a fine delicate
rich flavor of their own, and are well worth their cost. The great Bucks
county fowls are profitable because they are large; but they are never
very plenty in market, being difficult to raise. The best poultry feels
heavy in proportion to its size. Hen turkeys are best for boiling.
Ducks and geese (particularly the latter) are so tough when old, that it
is often impossible to eat them; therefore buy none that are not young.
Geese are generally kept alive too long, for the sake of their feathers,
which they always shed in August, and for which there is always a
demand. And geese are not expensive to keep, as in summer they feed on
grass, and will graze in a field like sheep. The feet and legs of an old
goose are red and hard. So is her bill. The skin is rough, coarse, and
tough, and full of hairs. Let nothing induce you to buy an old goose.
You would find it too tough to carve, and too tough to eat. And no
cooking can make her tender.
Poultry should be drawn, or emptied (taking care not to break the gall)
as soon almost as killed. Then let it be well washed, inside and out,
and wiped dry. In picking it, carefully remove every plug or vestige of
feathers, and singe off the hairs, by holding the bird to the fire, with
a lighted piece of writing paper. Brown paper will give it something of
an unpleasant taste. Newspaper is worse, on account of the printing-ink.
If poultry is brought from market frozen, you need not hasten to thaw
it, before it is actually wanted for use. Till then, put it in a cold
place, and let it remain frozen. It will keep the better. When you thaw
it, by all means use only _cold_ water. Any frozen poultry, or meat,
thawed in warm water, will most certainly spoil. Let it be remembered
that any food which has been frozen requires a much longer time to cook.
BOILED TURKEY.--For boiling, choose a fine fat hen turkey. In drawing
it, be careful not to break the gall, or a bitter taste will be
communicated to the whole bird. In picking, remove every plug and hair,
and then singe it with _writing-paper_. Wash it very clean, and then
wipe it dry, inside and out. In trussing, draw the legs into the body,
having cut them off at the first joint. Let the turkey look as round and
plump as possible. Fill the breast with a very nice forcemeat, or
stuffing, made of a quarter of a pound of grated bread-crumbs, mixed
with two large table-spoonfuls or two ounces of fresh butter, or finely
minced suet, seasoned with a little pepper and salt, a heaped
tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and mace mixed together, a
table-spoonful of sweet herbs[C] (sweet basil and sweet marjoram)
chopped small if green, and powdered if dry; and the crumbled yolks of
two hard-boiled eggs. Add the grated yellow rind, and the juice of a
fresh lemon, and mix the whole very well. Skewer the liver and gizzard
under the pinions, having first cut open the gizzard and cleared it of
sand or gravel.
[C] The herbs summer savory and thyme (like the spices cloves and
allspice) are now seldom used in good cookery.
It is no longer customary to mix stuffing or forcemeat with beaten raw
egg for the purpose of binding the ingredients together. Leave them
loose, without this binding, and the forcemeat will be much lighter,
better flavored, and more abundant. It will not fall out if a
packthread, or very _small_ twine is wound carefully round the body, (to
be removed before serving up,) and it may be secured by sewing it with a
needle and thread.
Put the turkey into a large pot with plenty of cold water, and boil it
gently, for two hours or more, in proportion to its size; carefully
removing all the scum as it rises. It will be whiter if boiled in a
large clean cloth, or in a coarse paste, (the paste to be thrown away
afterwards,) and take care that it is thoroughly done. Serve up boiled
turkey with oyster sauce, celery sauce, or cauliflower sauce. Sweet
sauce is rarely eaten with boiled things--unless with puddings.
Boiled turkey should be accompanied by a ham or tongue.
To ascertain if boiled poultry is done, try the thickest parts with a
large needle. If the needle goes through, and in and out easily, it is
sufficient.
A turkey (boiled or roast) for a family dish, may be stuffed with nice
sausage meat, in which case it requires no other stuffing. Surround it
on a dish with fried sausage cakes, about the size of a dollar, but
near an inch thick.
It is very convenient to keep always in the house, during the winter
months, one or two large jars of nice home-made sausage-meat, well
covered. The best time for making sausage-meat is in November. After
March, sausages are seldom eaten.
OYSTER TURKEY.--(_French dish._)--Prepare a fine young hen turkey, for
boiling; skewering the liver and gizzard under the pinions. Fill the
body well with fine large fresh oysters, having removed their hard part
or gristle. Add to the oysters a tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and
mace, and a tea-spoonful of celery seed or minced celery, and a piece of
fresh butter dredged with flour. With this, stuff the turkey very full;
securing the stuffing with packthread. Put the turkey into a large
block-tin kettle, and let it stew in the oyster liquor only, without any
water. Strain the oyster liquor before you put it in. Set the kettle
into an outer kettle full of boiling water. This will cook the turkey
very nicely. For such purposes, nothing is so convenient as the utensil
called in French a _bain marie_, (pronounced _bine marée_.) This is a
permanent double kettle with two covers, and a large tube or spout
outside, for pouring in fresh hot water, without opening the lid and
letting out the steam. They are to be had of all sizes at the furnishing
stores in New York and Philadelphia, and are so excellent for stewing
without water, that no family should be without them.
When the turkey is well boiled and quite done, keep it warm by wrapping
it closely in a cloth, putting a dish cover over it, and placing it near
the fire. A fine oyster gravy will be found in the kettle. Add to it
some fresh butter, dredged with flour, and some mace and nutmeg, and
some celery seed. Give it one boil up, and send it to table as sauce for
the turkey. This is a very nice way of cooking a small turkey.
A pair of oyster chickens may be thus prepared, and stewed in the above
manner in a _bain marie_, or double kettle.