tea-cupful of the water in which two or three square inches of rennet
has been soaked for several hours, set the milk in a covered pitcher, in
a warm place, till it becomes a firm curd, the whey separating from it,
and looking thin and greenish. Keep it on ice till just before it is
wanted for table. Then transfer it to a large bowl, and sweeten it well
with white sugar. Mix in two glasses of sweet wine, and grate over it a
nutmeg. It is very nice with extract of vanilla added to the wine, &c.
It is not a good way to preserve a rennet by cutting it into little
pieces, and keeping it in wine, stirring the wine into milk when you
wish to form a curd. If turned with rennet wine, the curd will never
separate completely from the whey, which will therefore be always thick
and whitish. By using rennet water, the whey will be pure, thin, and of
a light green, and the curd very white and firm. In Philadelphia market,
dried rennets (which will keep a year or two hanging up in a cool dry
closet) are universally used to make curds, and are always to be bought
at small prices. They are cured by salting them, and stretching on a
bent rod. To use this rennet, cut off a small bit, and soak it several
hours, or over night, in a cup of lukewarm water. Then stir this water
into the milk.
MILK POTTAGE OR FARMER'S RICE.--Take some rich milk, and put it on to
boil in a pot of sufficient size. When it has begun to boil, stir in, by
degrees, enough of wheat flour to make it about as thick as the general
consistence of rice milk, and boil it well, stirring it frequently down
to the bottom. Add a few blades of mace, or some powdered cinnamon.
Knead together some flour and fresh butter, forming a lump of white
paste. Divide the paste into small round dumplings about the size of a
cent, and put them to boil with the milk. When the pottage is well
boiled, take it up, and transfer it to a tureen or deep white-ware dish,
and make it very sweet with good brown sugar. Grate some nutmeg over the
surface.
This is an excellent addition to a winter supper-table, and is much
liked by children, for whom it is also good at the end of a plain
dinner. As a substitute for rice milk, it is better and more wholesome
than rice itself.
PLAIN RICE PUDDING.--Pick some rice, carefully removing from it the
husks, and all impurities; and if you find it the least sour or musty,
throw it away, and get some that is perfectly good. Wash it through two
or three waters, till it drains off quite clean. Stir a quarter of a
pound of this rice into a quart of good rich milk. If the milk is poor
and thin, and has been skimmed till it is blue, or mixed with water, the
pudding will be poor accordingly. In the country where cream is easily
to be obtained, add some to the milk which you use for the rice pudding.
Stir in also a quarter of a pound of good brown sugar, and a
tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Set the pudding into an oven, and
bake till a brown skin covers the surface, and the rice is quite soft,
which you may ascertain by lifting a bit of the brown skin from the edge
and trying the rice. Eat it warm or cold. It is usual in the country to
put several of these rice puddings into the oven on baking days.
They will be greatly improved by the addition of two or three beaten
eggs, and a few bits of fresh butter, stirred in with the rice and
sugar. Also powdered cinnamon. Rice is in itself so tasteless, that it
requires good flavoring.
PLAIN BOILED RICE PUDDING.--Pick, wash, and drain a pound of rice.
Moisten it with a quart of milk. Have ready a pound of seedless raisins.
Dredge them well all over with flour to prevent their sinking. Stir them
gradually into the rice and milk. Boil it in a cloth, leaving ample
space for it to swell. Keep the water very hot all the time. Eat it with
butter and sugar, seasoned with ground cinnamon.
RICE CUPS.--Boil in water, in the usual manner, a pound or more of
cleaned rice till it is perfectly soft. Drain it well, and mix it with a
quart of milk, seasoned with a mixed table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon
and nutmeg or mace. Boil it a second time till all the grains are
dissolved into a smooth mass, and their form cannot be distinguished.
Mould it in large tea-cups, pint bowls, or blanc-mange moulds; and when
it has taken the desired form, turn it out on dishes, and serve up with
it a small tureen of wine sauce, or of boiled custard made very sweet,
and seasoned, by boiling in the milk of which the custard was made a
few peach leaves, or some bitter almonds broken up, or a broken-up stick
of cinnamon, to be taken out when it is done.
BREAD PUDDING.--Grate or crumble as much stale wheat bread (omitting the
crust) as will fill a pint bowl when done. Boil a pint of good milk with
a broken-up stick of cinnamon in it. Strain the milk, and pour it
(boiling) over the bread. Sweeten it with three large table-spoonfuls of
sugar. Stir in one or two large table-spoonfuls of fresh butter. Beat
four eggs till very thick and smooth, and add them, gradually, to the
mixture, when it is lukewarm. It will be much improved by the grated
peel and juice of a lemon or orange. Bake it in a deep dish or mould;
sift white sugar over it. Eat it warm, with sweet sauce flavored with
nutmeg.
BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING.--Cut large even slices of yesterday's bread,
(_leaving on_ the crust) and spread them well with fresh butter. Strew
over them thickly half a pound of Zante currants, picked and washed.
Make a batter of four beaten eggs and a large pint of milk, seasoned
with powdered nutmeg or mace. Pour some of this batter into the bottom
of a deep white dish. Then put on as many slices of bread and currants
as will cover the bottom. Next, add the remainder of the batter, and
finish with slices of bread and butter strewed with currants. Bake till
the batter is set and firm. When done, serve it up warm.
A BROWN BETTY.--Pare, core, and slice thin some fine _juicy_ apples.
Cover with the apples the bottom of a large deep white-ware dish.
Sweeten them well with plenty of brown sugar; adding grated lemon or
orange peel. Strew over them a thick layer of bread-crumbs, and add to
the crumbs a _very few_ bits of fresh butter. Then put in another layer
of cut apples and sugar, followed by a second layer of bread-crumbs and
butter. Next more apples and sugar; then more bread-crumbs and butter;
repeat this till the dish is full, finishing it with bread-crumbs. Bake
it till the apples are entirely done and quite soft. Send it to table
hot. It will be improved (if in the country at cider-making season) by
adding to each layer of apples a very little sweet unfermented cider,
fresh from the press.
This pudding is in some places called an Apple Pandowdy. We believe it
is Brown Betty in the South; Pandowdy in the North. It is a good plain
pudding if the butter is fresh and sweet, and not too much of it. The
apples must be _juicy_ and _not_ sweet. Sweet apples never cook well.
SWEETENED SWEET POTATOS.--The sweet potatos should be all about the same
size, or else so large as to require splitting. Boil them till, on
probing them with a fork, you find them soft all through. Peel off the
skin, and trim off the sharp points of each end. Place them in a large
baking dish, and lay among them some pieces of fresh butter; sprinkle
powdered sugar _profusely_ over them and among them, especially in the
vacancies between the potatos. Set the dish into a moderate oven, and
bake slowly till the butter and sugar are all melted and blended
together, forming a nice crust. They should be eaten not with the meat,
but _after_ it. They make a good supper or luncheon dish, and a plain
dessert at dinner for plain-living people.
Sufficient butter and sugar will make the crust like a thick syrup, when
broken. They should be cooked this way only when in the height of their
season, and perfectly fresh and nice. When sweet potatos are old enough
to decay at the ends, give them up. Large sweet potatos may be first
boiled; then peeled and sliced thick, sprinkled thick with sugar, and
fried in fresh butter or lard; the lard well drained from them as they
are taken up. Eat _them_ with meat.
They are good boiled very soft, peeled and sent to table mashed, (while
hot) with fresh butter--or made into thick flat cakes, and browned on
the top.
It is a great waste to bake sweet potatos whole. If baked enough, (as
they seldom are) they "go all to skin."
APPLE DUMPLINGS.--For dumplings the apples should be large and
juicy--pippins, bellflowers, or the best you can get. Small sweet apples
make very poor dumplings. Having pared the apples, extract the cores
with a tin apple-corer, so as to leave them smooth and whole. Why is it
that so many families "have never had an apple corer in their house?"
They cost, at the utmost, but twenty-five cents, are to be had at all
the tinsmiths' and furnishing stores; and they screw out an apple core
in a minute; saving time and trouble. The apples being ready, make a
nice paste in the proportion of a small pint of finely-minced suet, to a
large quart of flour; one-half of the suet rubbed into the pan of flour,
(adding _a very little_ water) the other half sliced thin, and spread
all over the sheet of dough after it is rolled out; then folding it, and
rolling it out again. Cut the sheet of dough in as many circular pieces
as you have apples, allowing them large enough to close entirely over
the top, and rolling it thick enough to hold the apple securely without
danger of its breaking through. Put an apple on every piece of paste,
and fill with brown sugar the hole from whence the core was taken.
Squeeze on the sugar some fresh lemon juice, with the grated yellow
rind; or, add some powdered nutmeg or mace, or some rose-water. This
will make them very nice. They should be boiled in small cloths kept
clean for the purpose, dipped in hot water, and sprinkled with flour,
and room left for the dumpling to swell. Put them into a pot of boiling
water, and boil them steadily for near an hour. Serve them up very hot,
as they become heavy when cold. Eat with them butter and sugar, or cream
sauce.
PEACH DUMPLINGS.--Take large fine free-stone peaches. Peel them, cut
them in half, and extract the stones; fill the sockets with white sugar,
and put the two halves together. Make a nice suet paste, or, if more
convenient, of butter, but it must be quite fresh, and very nice. Allow
half a pound of butter to a large quart (or a pound) of sifted flour.
Rub half the butter into the pan of flour, and make it into a dough,
with a very little cold water. Too much water always makes tough heavy
paste. Then roll the paste into a sheet, and put on it with a knife the
remainder of the butter in regular bits. Fold it, roll it out again, and
divide it into circular pieces. Lay a peach on each. Gather up the dough
over the top, so as to form a well-shaped dumpling. Boil them in cloths
for full three-quarters of an hour or more. Eat them with cream sauce.
Dumplings of raspberries, or blackberries, may be made as above. Also,
of gooseberries or currants, made very sweet. Quinces preserved whole
make excellent dumplings.
APPLE PUDDINGS--Are made like large dumplings, with suet paste, and
flavored with lemon, or rose, or nutmeg. The apples must be sliced. The
pudding should be tied in a cloth; put into a pot of fast-boiling water,
kept steadily boiling for two hours or more, and sweetened with brown
sugar as soon as it is taken up, cutting a round piece of paste out of
the top, and putting in with the sugar a small piece of fresh butter.
Large puddings may be made in this manner of stoned cherries, damsons,
or plums, or of gooseberries, or currants--allowing plenty of fruit, and
making it very sweet; besides sending sugar to table with it.
ROLLED PUDDING.--Have ready a quart or more of apples stewed with _very
little_ water, sweetened with brown sugar, and flavored with lemon or
rose. Prepare a nice suet paste. Roll it out, and cut it into a square
sheet. Spread it _thickly_ with the stewed fruit, (not extending the
fruit quite to the edges of the dough) and roll it up as far as it will
go. Close it nicely at each end. Tie it in a cloth, dipped in hot water
and floured, and put it into a fast-boiling pot. Boil it well. Cut it
down in round slices. Eat it with butter and sugar beaten together, or
with cream sauce. You may make this pudding of any sort of thick
marmalade, spread over the sheet of paste; or, with ripe uncooked
currants, raspberries, or blackberries, mashed raw, sweetened, and
spread on thickly. This pudding is the same that common English people
call a "Jack in a blanket;" and sometimes "a Dog in a blanket." The
_blanket_ is supposed to mean the paste; the _dog_ is probably the
fruit.
FRUIT POT-PIES.--These are made in a pot lined with paste, interspersed
with small squares of the same dough, and covered with a paste lid. The
filling is of dried apples, peaches quartered, blackberries,
raspberries, ripe currants, or gooseberries; all well sweetened, and
cooked in their own juice, with a small tea-cupful of water at the
bottom to "start them." Both fruit and paste must be perfectly well
done.
Fruit pot-pies are easier made and cooked, than fruit puddings or
dumplings. We recommend them highly for plain tables. They require more
sugar when they are dished. A large _bain-marie_ is excellent for
cooking any sort of pot-pie, the water being all in the outside kettle.
PLAIN BAKED CUSTARD.--Boil a quart of milk, with a small bunch of green
peach leaves in it, or a half dozen of peach kernels broken up. When the
milk has boiled well strain it into a broad pan, and set it away to
cool. In a shallow pan beat six eggs till very light, thick, and smooth.
Stir them, gradually, into the milk, in turn with a tea-cup of white
sugar, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon or mace. Transfer the
mixture to a deep white dish, set it into the oven, and bake it till
the top is well browned, but not scorched. When done, set it away to
cool, and grate nutmeg over the surface.
BOILED CUSTARD.--Make exactly the above mixture; but instead of baking,
boil it in a porcelain lined sauce-pan, stirring it all the time. As
soon as it comes to a boil, take it immediately from the fire, or it
will curdle. Put it into a glass or china pitcher, and set it to cool. A
_bain-marie_ is excellent for boiled custard.
If custards are baked in cups, set them in an iron pan half full of warm
water. If too hot, or kept baking too long, they will be tough and
porous, and have whey at the bottom. So they will if the milk is warm
when the eggs are added. Good custards will cut down to the very bottom
as smooth and firm as the best blanc-mange.
APPLES BAKED WHOLE.--Never bake apples without paring and coring. They
will be found nearly all skin and core, and are troublesome and
inconvenient to eat. Have fine large apples; take off a thin paring, and
extract the core with a tin corer. Fill up the holes with brown sugar.
Place the apples, side by side, in a square tin pan, set them in an
oven, and bake them till, when tried with a fork, you find them soft all
through. Send them to table warm, but not burning hot. If you have
country cream to eat with them, so much the better.
BAKED PEARS.--Take good-sized pears. Small ones are not worth the
trouble of cooking. Peel them, split them in half, and remove the core,
the stem, and the blossom end. Strew them well with brown sugar, and lay
them on their backs in a large baking dish. A narrow slip of the yellow
rind of lemon or orange, (cut so thin as to look transparent,) will be a
great improvement, laid in the hollow of each pear. Also the juice
squeezed. Put into the dish sufficient molasses or steam-syrup to well
cover the pears. Place them in an oven, and bake them till they are
soft, but not till they break. If you have no lemon or orange, season
them with ground ginger or cinnamon.
The great pound pears are baked as above, with the addition of port wine
and a few cloves, and colored red with a little cochineal.
COUNTRY CHARLOTTE.--Slice or quarter some fine juicy apples, having
pared and cored them. Put them on a large dish, sweeten them well with
brown sugar, set them in the oven, and bake them till soft enough to
mash smoothly. Then cut some slices of bread, butter them slightly, and
dip every one in sweet cider fresh from the press. Let them soak in the
cider a short time, but not till they break. Take them out of the
cider, spread every one thickly with the mashed apple, (sprinkling on
more sugar) and send them to the dinner table in a deep dish or pan.
A PLAIN CHARLOTTE.--Stew very nicely any sort of ripe fruit, (currants,
gooseberries, blackberries, stoned cherries, or stoned plums,) and as
soon as you take them from the fire make them very sweet with brown
sugar. Prepare some large slices of buttered bread, with the crust pared
off. Cover each slice thickly with the stewed fruit. Lay some in the
bottom of a deep dish, and stand up others all round its sides. Fill up
the dish with the same, and sift white sugar over the surface.
It may be made of sliced sponge-cake, spread thickly with stewed dried
peaches.
GOOSEBERRY FOOL.--This foolish name signifies an excellent preparation
of gooseberries; stewed, mashed, and made very sweet with brown sugar.
Have ready in another dish a good boiled custard. When all has become
cool, mix well together in a large bowl the stewed gooseberries and the
custard, and season the mixture well with nutmeg. It will be found very
good.
Any other "fool" may be made in the same manner, of stewed fruit and
boiled custard. It saves the trouble and expense of making paste, or
can be prepared at a shorter notice. It is good either at dinner or
tea.
We hope somebody will think of a better name for it.
POTATO PASTE.--Boil three moderate-sized potatos till very soft. Then
peel and mash them fine and smooth. Put them into a deep pan, and mix
them well with a quart of flour and a half pint of lard; or what is
better, with that quantity of beef dripping, or the dripping of fresh
roast pork. Never for any sort of crust use mutton dripping. Having
mixed the mashed potato, dripping, and flour into a lump, roll it out
into a thick sheet. Sprinkle it with flour, and spread over it evenly a
thin layer of dripping or lard. Fold it again, and set it in a cool
place till wanted. It is good for meat pies, and for boiled meat
pudding, or any sort of dumplings.
VERY PLAIN PIE-CRUST.--Sift a quart of flour into a pan. Mix together,
with a knife, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a
pound of lard, and when they are well blended mix them with the flour,
and form them into a dough with as little water as possible--the water
being very cold. Use ice water in summer. Avoid touching the paste with
your hands, but use a knife almost entirely. If your hand is warm, do
not rub butter into flour with it, but manage all the mixing with a
knife. If you have a cool hand, you may rub the butter into the flour,
and reserve the lard to spread all over the sheet of dough. Roll it out
lightly. Dredge with flour, fold it, spread on the lard, and roll it
again. Divide it into two pieces, and roll out each of them. Trim the
edges nicely, and make them to fit your pie-dish. If one is for bottom
crust, roll it out thinnest towards the centre, having for this part of
the process a very small rolling-pin, but a finger long. Grease with
lard a deep dish, or soup plate, and line it with the bottom crust. Fill
it up with the fruit you intend for the pie, sweetened well with brown
sugar, and heaping the fruit high in the centre. Cover it with a lid of
paste, trim, and notch the edges neatly, and make a cross slit in the
top; set it in the oven, and bake it steadily till it is a light brown.
When it seems to be done, lift up a small piece at one side to try if
the fruit is soft. Apples for pies should be pared, cored, and sliced
very thin. If green, stew them before they are baked.
If you have saved enough of the dripping of roast beef, veal, or pork,
(skimmed and put away in a covered crock) it will be good shortening for
common pies--far superior to salt butter, and much lighter. Salt renders
pastry hard and heavy.
Never use suet for _baked_ paste. It is only for dumplings and pot-pies.
Bread dough, or any dough made with yeast, is not good when boiled,
becoming tough and leathery, and being very unwholesome.
Except in very plain country places a fruit pie, with two crusts,
(under and upper) is now seen but rarely. _Meat_ pies, or birds,
however, should have two crusts. The gravy is a great improvement to the
under one. English people usually make their fruit pies with a top-crust
only, putting a turned down tea-cup under the centre of the lid to
collect the juice, (of course removing the cup when the pie is cut.) It
is a good method in a country where the cost of flour is high.
Too much economy in the shortening will infallibly make the crust very
poor, hard, heavy, and unwholesome. If you cannot afford dessert paste,
do not attempt pies at all; but substitute a plain charlotte, or slices
of bread and butter, covered with stewed fruit, sweetened, and laid in a
deep dish.
COMMON FRUIT PIES.--Make the paste as above. For baking, use only apples
that are juicy, and rather sour. If green, stew them before they are put
in the pie, and make them very sweet with brown sugar. Peaches should be
peeled and quartered, leaving out the stones. Of cherries, take the
large red juicy pie cherries. Black cherries, (when baked) go all to
stones, and they are not worth the trouble of cooking, though very good
when eaten from the trees. Currants must be carefully stripped from the
stems, and made very sweet. Gooseberries must be "top and tailed," and
require great sweetening; so do cranberries. Blackberries make good
plain pies, and are very juicy if ripe. All pies should be well filled.
Pies may be made of ripe wild grapes, stewed in molasses or maple sugar.
EXCELLENT PLAIN PASTE.--Sift into a deep pan a quart and a pint of the
best superfine flour. Have ready (set on ice, and covered with a thick
double cloth) a pound of the very best fresh butter. When you want to
use it, cut it into four quarters. Cut one quarter into very little
bits, and with a broad knife mix it well into the flour, adding, by
degrees, a very little water, no more than half a tumbler. Some flour,
however, requires more water than others. Avoid touching the dough with
your hands, in case they should be warm. Take out the lump of dough,
dredge it with flour, and lay it on your pasteboard. Keep on a plate
near you a little extra flour for sprinkling and rolling. Roll out the
sheet of dough very thin, having floured the rolling-pin to prevent its
sticking. Place, with a knife, the second quarter of butter in little
bits all over the sheet of paste, at equal distances. Then fold it
square, (covering the butter with the corners of paste) dredge it, and
roll it out again to receive the third quarter of butter. Repeat this
again, till all the butter is in; always rolling very fast, and pressing
on _lightly_. You will see, towards the last, the paste puffing into
little blisters all over the surface; a sign of success. When the last
layer of butter is all in, roll the whole into a large sheet; roll it
round like a scroll, and put it away in a cold place, but not so cold
as to freeze it, for it will then be spoiled. When you are ready for it
bring it out, cut it down, and roll out each piece ready for use. There
is no better family paste than this, for all sorts of pies; meat or bird
pies, especially.
LEMON BREAD PUDDING.--Mince very fine a quarter of a pound of beef suet.
Have ready a pint and a half of finely-grated bread-crumbs. Prepare the
yellow rind of a large lemon, grated off from the white skin beneath,
and squeeze the juice among it. Mix together in a deep pan the
bread-crumbs and suet, adding four or five table-spoonfuls of powdered
sugar, and a tea-spoonful of mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg and mace.
Beat in a broad shallow pan five eggs till very smooth and thick. Add
them gradually to the other ingredients, a little at a time. Have ready
a square pudding-cloth, scalded and floured. Pour in the mixture, and
tie the cloth tightly, but not closely, as room must be left for the
pudding to swell in boiling. Put it into a pot of hot water, and boil it
steadily for two hours. Send wine sauce to table with it--or cold sauce,
of beaten butter, and sugar, and nutmeg.
If you use butter instead of suet, you can bake this pudding.