partridges, or grouse (leave pigeons or quails whole, but bone them).
Put sufficient pieces of one sort, or all sorts mixed, to fill the pate
chaude case into a saute pan, with two ounces of butter, and saute till
lightly colored. Take them out, and put them in a stewpan with a quart
of reduced consomme, half a pint of mushrooms sliced, a dozen truffles
cut into dice (half-inch), a teaspoonful of salt, a little pepper, and a
wineglass of sherry, and let them simmer very gently, _not boil_, for
half an hour, or until very tender. Let them cool, and when lukewarm
arrange them in the pate case, leaving the centre hollow, which fill
with mushrooms and truffles. The liquor in which they were stewed must
be then poured over them. The cover of a pate chaude case is often not
used, and aspic jelly covers the top of the pie.
_English Manner of Making Game Pie in a Crust._--Use at least two kinds
of game, which for this purpose must not be long kept; high game is
acceptable to epicures when roasted or stewed, but never in a pie.
Discard all parts blackened by shot. Cut into neat joints, from which
bones must be removed. Take all the fragments from the carcass after the
breast and joints are removed, and the flesh of a small bird or hare,
or, failing that, some calf's liver fried in dice; pound whichever you
may have for force-meat in a mortar with four ounces of bacon that has
been boiled; when the whole forms a paste (from which you have removed
all strings, sinew, or gristle while pounding), season with pepper and
salt--a teaspoonful of salt to a pound of force-meat, and a scant half
saltspoonful of pepper. Put on the bones, _without vegetables_, in cold
water to simmer until it is a rich broth, which strain, and boil rapidly
till a little set on ice in a saucer will jelly. Make what is called
"raised" paste in the following way: To two pounds of flour use three
quarters of a pound of butter and half a pint of scalding milk; pour
this into a hole in the centre of the flour, and knead into a firm
paste, adding a little more milk if necessary (but it seldom is). This
paste is not to be rolled, but beaten out with the hand while warm to
half an inch thickness. Line a well-buttered meat-pie mould, with a
hinge opening at the side; leave half an inch of paste above the mould;
trim off neatly with scissors. Then lay in the game and force-meat in
alternate layers, seasoning the joints with pepper and salt as you lay
them. A few slices of tongue and truffles to form one layer are
desirable. When the mould is full, lay on the cover, moisten the under
edge, and pinch round in tiny scallops. Make a hole in the centre, round
which put an ornament; stick in a bone to prevent the hole closing, and
bake two to four hours in a moderate oven, according to size,
remembering always that the crust will not be injured by long baking,
and that the game in this pie is uncooked. When it is removed from the
oven, let it stand half an hour, taking the mould off, that it may
cool; then brush the sides and top with an egg beaten with milk, and
return the pie to the oven that the sides may brown; cover the top, if
it is already highly colored, with a sheet of paper. Remove the bone
from the centre, insert a small funnel, and after removing all fat from
it, pour in the gravy from the bones. The gravy must be poured very
slowly or it will bubble up, and care must be taken to have all the pie
will hold, yet not a drop too much, or it will ooze somewhere. These
pies, when quite cold, may be sent any distance, and are much used in
England and Scotland for hunting-parties, besides being a standard
breakfast and luncheon dish. The crust is merely a frame to hold the
game.
XXI.
GARNISHES.
In all choice cookery the appearance of dishes has to be carefully
studied. However good the taste may be, the effect will be spoiled if
its appearance on the table does not come up to the expectation raised
by the name on the _menu_. For this reason the subject of garnishes
requires to be considered apart from the dishes they adorn. In the old
time garnishes were few and simple, and when not simple, very ugly, as
the camellias cut from turnips and stained with beet juice. Nowadays
garnishes are many, and many so termed form part of the dish, as what
are termed, "floating garnishes for soup," quenelles, etc. Garnishes
that are merely ornamental need not be so expensively made as those
intended for eating. Foremost among fashionable floating garnishes for
soup are the colored custards known as pate royale; they are perfectly
easy to make, yet very effective served in clear bouillon.
_Colored Custard._--Prepare the custard with five yolks of eggs, a gill
of cream or strong bouillon, and a pinch of salt; butter small saucers
or cups; divide the custard in three--color one with spinach juice or
pulp of green asparagus, another with red tomato pulp or the pulp of red
carrot boiled, and a third with pulp of beets. A few drops of cochineal
may be added to intensify the color of the last, which is apt to be a
beautiful pink instead of red. The custard for which pulps are used must
be strained after they are added, expressing as much of the juice as
possible. The custard should be flavored delicately with the vegetable
used for color.
_Spinach Juice_ is very frequently directed to be used as coloring, but
scarcely anywhere is any indication given that the juice without
preparation is of very little use. It should be prepared as follows:
Take a large handful of fresh green spinach, wash it, and remove decayed
leaves only; drain well, then pound in a mortar or chopping-bowl until
quite mashed. Let it stand a quarter of an hour, then squeeze the mass
in a cloth, and put the green water into a cup, which set over the fire
in a small saucepan of water; watch the scum rise; when it stands quite
thick at the top and turns a vivid green, remove at once (if it remains
on the fire after this the green darkens); pour the contents of the cup
through cheese-cloth or thin muslin laid in a strainer. The scum that
remains is your coloring matter. It must be carefully scraped off with a
spoon, and mix with the custard only as much as is required to give a
delicate green tint. If any is left it may be mixed with an equal
quantity of salt and put away; it loses color, however, after a few
days.
The colored custards must be set in water, a small piece of buttered
paper over each, and the water allowed to boil gently round them till
they are firm. Let them get quite cold; then cut them into cubes or
diamonds.
_Profiterolles._--Perhaps the next in popularity of these floating
garnishes are _profiterolles_, or "prophet's rolls," as cooks call them.
They are made exactly like those intended for dessert, omitting
sweetening of course, and a very small quantity is required, as they
must be dropped no larger than a pea, and baked a _pale_ fawn-color.
Put a gill of water and a pinch of salt and two ounces of butter in a
small saucepan; as soon as they begin to boil draw the saucepan back and
stir in four ounces of flour; beat well over the fire with a wooden
spoon until it becomes a soft paste, then add the yolks of two eggs and
white of one, beating each yolk in separately. It will be seen that the
paste is similar to that made for cream cakes.
A similar garnish is made in the following way: Beat an egg with a pinch
of salt, and then stir in as much dry sifted flour as the egg will
moisten; work it well with the hands till it is elastic, although stiff.
Roll it on a pastry board until it is as thin as paper, then roll it on
a clean linen cloth still thinner, and leave it a quarter of an hour to
dry. Then fold the paste, press it very tightly together, and with a tin
cylinder, not larger in diameter than a cent, cut out, with considerable
pressure, as many small disks as you require to allow five or six to
each plate of soup. Have ready in a small saucepan some _smoking hot_
lard. Drop the disks in; they will puff and swell till they are like
marbles. Stir them, and take them out of the fat; they require only a
few seconds to brown, and must be taken out very pale. Add to the soup
the last thing before serving.
While aspic jelly is certainly the handsomest of garnishes for cold
dishes, it is generally part of the food itself, and should not be so
lavishly used that when helped there is more jelly than meat served.
Where the jelly is intended only for a garnish not to be eaten, simple
gelatine is sufficient. For instance, a large platter containing a
galantine or a _chaudfroid_ may have a handsome wreath glued on the
border, of red and green leaves, or holly leaves and red berries, or any
device that need not be disturbed by the carver.
For such decorations as these gelatine is melted in proportion of three
ounces to a scant quart of water, cleared with white of egg, and then
colored pale yellow with caramel or saffron, vivid red with cochineal,
and bright green with spinach; it saves time and trouble to let this
congeal on dishes in thin sheets. Small cutters of ivy, oak, and other
leaves can readily be purchased at the large house-furnishing stores.
One word here about uneatable decorations, never admit them at a
children's party; they are the very part of the feast the little people
will most crave; red leaves for them must be of red currant-jelly,
yellow of white, etc.
"Forced butter" is another form of garnish which adds much to the
appearance of glazed ham or tongue. It is butter beaten to a white
cream, then put in a forcer, and a pattern traced on the ham, which must
be followed just as in icing a cake.
_A Few Ways of Cooking Vegetables._--It is not intended to go into the
general cooking of vegetables, although it may be said that even the
choicest cooking can offer no greater luxury, or, alas! a greater
rarity, than a dish of early peas or asparagus _perfectly cooked_. But
this is not the place to remedy the wholesale spoiling of summer
vegetables that goes on in almost every kitchen. I will only give what
may be a few new ways of preparing familiar vegetables.
_Stuffed Artichokes._--Wash the artichokes; boil till nearly tender;
drain them; remove the middle leaves and "chokes" (this is the fibrous
part round the base); lay in each a little rich force-meat, and put them
in the oven to cook until the meat is done. Serve with rich brown
gravy.
_Fried Artichokes._--Cut in slices lengthwise; remove the chokes, cut
off the tops of the leaves, wash them in vinegar and water, drain them,
and dip them in frying batter. Fry in very hot oil or lard. Serve with
fried parsley sprinkled with salt.
_Beet-root Fritters._--Cut boiled beets in slices; slice raw onions;
scald them; dry them well; then lay one slice of onion, sprinkled with
chopped chervil, pepper, and salt, between two slices of beet. Dip them
carefully in frying batter, and plunge into boiling fat; when pale brown
take them up.
_Cauliflower Fritters._--Parboil the cauliflower--that is to say, boil
until it begins to be tender--about fifteen minutes; then plunge it into
ice-cold water; this keeps it white. Break it up into branches. Dip each
one into thick bechamel sauce slightly warmed; let them get cold; then
take each piece separately and dip it into carefully made frying batter,
and drop them into boiling lard; fry a pale brown, and serve garnished
with fried parsley.
XXII.
VARIOUS WAYS OF SERVING VEGETABLES.
_Stuffed Cucumbers._--Cut large-sized young cucumbers into slices about
two inches thick, rejecting the ends. Peel, and remove the seeds; scald
the slices for ten minutes, plunge them into cold water, and drain them.
Line a fire-proof china dish with very thin slices of unsmoked bacon
which has been scalded; make some veal force-meat such as directed for
galantines; fill the holes in the centre of the rings of cucumber till
it is level with the surface on both sides; wrap each up in a slice of
bacon broad enough to cover it. Tie round with a string, pour a pint of
strong stock into the dish, and bake twenty minutes in a slow oven. When
done, take up the cucumber, drain, and remove the bacon carefully so as
not to disturb the stuffing. Lay in a dish, and serve with Robert
sauce.
In the following recipes the mushrooms to be used are the large flap
ones. When canned ones will serve, the fact will be stated.
_Mushrooms Stuffed a la Lucullus._--Wash, dry, and trim large mushrooms;
chop up the stalks and broken ones fine with a teaspoonful of minced
parsley, pepper, salt, and a tomato; make these hot in a tablespoonful
of butter. Fill the mushrooms with the mixture, place them on a buttered
baking-dish, and bake six minutes, basting them once or twice with
clarified butter.
_Mushrooms and Tomatoes._--Toast some slices of bread, cut them into
rounds two inches in diameter, and butter them. Peel some firm tomatoes,
cut them into thick slices, and lay them on the toast. On the top of
each place a peeled mushroom. Put them on a dish that can go to table,
pour a little clarified butter over them, put them in a hot oven for
three minutes, and baste well. Serve hot and quickly.
_Mushroom Jelly._--Take two pounds of mushrooms, put them in a stewpan
over the fire with a gill of strong consomme. Squeeze in a few drops of
lemon juice, add a little pepper and salt, unless the consomme was salt
enough. Melt in a gill of water half an ounce of gelatine, and strain
it. When the mushrooms are quite soft, pass them through a sieve, mixed
with the gelatine, and pour the mixture into a mould which has been
rinsed with water. When set, turn out and garnish with finely chopped
aspic, and a few cherry tomatoes if in season.
_Mushroom Baskets._--Make some puff-paste; roll it out _very_ thin. Line
some small suitably shaped moulds (darioles will do very nicely); fill
the centre with uncooked rice or flour to keep the shape while baking;
cut some strips of paste, twist them, and bend them into the shape of
handles; bake them very pale. When the pastry cases are done, empty out
the rice, remove them from the moulds, and fill with the following
mixture: chop as many canned mushrooms as you require with a small
shallot, squeeze to them the juice and pulp of a large tomato, and put
them in a stewpan with a tablespoonful of butter and a tablespoonful of
very thick white sauce. Stir till about the consistency to eat with a
fork. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over the top. Put the handles
in so that they stand over the tops. Decorate with fried parsley.
The large Spanish or Portuguese onion that has of late years appeared in
the markets is not often properly cooked. It is the most delicate and
delicious of all onions, lacking the usual intense heat and rank odor.
For this reason persons who wish to eat onions, either for health or
inclination, will find this large onion cut up with ordinary salad
dressing a great improvement even on Bermudas. This onion is full of a
milky juice, which is lost in cooking if it is cut. Therefore, where a
simple dish is required, the best way is to boil it, without peeling or
trimming, for three hours if it weighs three pounds (it must be tender
right through); then take it up, strip it, and remove the root, stalk,
etc. Pour over it a rich white sauce, and serve, taking care that the
gravy that runs from the onion is served with it. A still better way
when an oven is not wanted is to bake them. Put them in a dripping-pan
in the oven without removing peel or stalk. Bake at least four hours in
a moderate oven. It will burn and blacken outside, which is of no
consequence. Keep it turned so that the darkening may not go deeper one
side than the other. When quite tender (but do not try it until it
begins to shrink, or you will let out the juices), so that a
knitting-needle will run through it, take it out of the oven, strip off
three or four skins, remove root and stalk, and place the onion, without
breaking it, on a dish; put a piece of butter as large as an egg, with a
saltspoonful of salt and a quarter one of pepper worked in it, on the
onion; cover it, and put in the oven till the butter melts, and serve
very hot.
_Stuffed Spanish Onion._--Parboil a Spanish onion; then drop it into
ice-water; take out the centre and fill it with force-meat; cover with a
thin slice of sweet fat pork; sprinkle with a teaspoonful of salt and
the same of sugar; add four tablespoonfuls of stock, cover closely, and
cook over a good fire. When the onion is tender, take it up, remove the
pork, strain and skim the gravy, pour it over, and serve. The best
force-meat for the stuffing is made of cold chicken, a shred of boiled
ham, a little chopped parsley, half a dozen mushrooms, all chopped well
and mixed with a tablespoonful of butter and pepper and salt.
_Potatoes a la Provencale._--Mash and pass through a wire sieve two
pounds of potatoes; season with pepper and salt. Grate two ounces of
Gruyere (Swiss) cheese, pound it with enough butter to make a paste, add
a gill of milk and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; put this in a saute
pan, add the potato, mix all well, and stir until the mass is pale
brown; serve as a pyramid.
_Milanese Potatoes._--Bake large potatoes till just tender; cut off the
tops, which keep. Scoop out the potatoes, but do not break the skin.
Mash the inside with butter, pepper, salt, and grated Parmesan; about a
teaspoonful of butter and cheese to each will be the right proportion.
Beat the potato mixture with a fork for a minute to make it light,
refill the skins, put on the covers, and heat them in the oven.
_Scalloped Potatoes._--Mash two pounds of potatoes with milk, and pass
through a sieve; add three ounces of butter melted, two ounces of grated
Parmesan cheese, and a little pepper and salt. Fill shells with this
mixture, and brown them in the oven. Glaze them over with butter melted
and grated Parmesan; return one minute to the hottest part of the oven.
Serve very hot.
_Tomato Jelly._--Two pounds of tomatoes, half a grain of red pepper, and
two small shallots. Place them in a stewpan and boil till quite soft.
Melt half an ounce of gelatine in as little white stock as possible;
add this to the tomatoes, and strain; if not perfectly clear, clarify
with white of egg in the usual way. Mould, and serve with chopped aspic
round it. A little grated Parmesan may be sometimes sprinkled over it
for a change.
_Tomato Souffle._--Prepare some tomato pulp, taking care to boil it down
if too liquid; stir in the yolks of three eggs, then the whites well
beaten; salt to taste. Fill either a large souffle case or several small
ones. Bake in a hot oven till it rises very high and is set in the
centre; serve instantly.
_Spinach Fritters._--Boil the spinach till it is quite tender; drain,
press, and mince it fine; add half the quantity of grated stale bread,
one grate of nutmeg, and a _small_ teaspoonful of sugar; add a gill of
cream and as many eggs as will make a batter, beating the whites
separately; pepper and salt to taste. Drop a little from a spoon into
boiling lard; if it separates, add a little more crumb of bread; when
they rise to the surface of the fat they are done. Drain them, and serve
very quickly, or they will fall.
XXIII.
JELLIES.
In this country culinary skill seems to run to sweet rather than to
savory cooking; very few housekeepers but make excellent preserves and
cakes, yet the list of sweet dishes manufactured at home is very
limited; as soon as anything not in this category is required the
caterer is applied to, and he has his list of water-ices, cream-ices,
and meringues, with very little variation; sometimes, indeed, a new name
appears on the list, but it turns out to be some old friend with a new
garnish, or put in a different mould and given an alluring name. There
are many delicious sweet dishes not difficult to make when once the
processes of making jelly and of freezing are understood (and very many
who do not pretend to be good cooks are expert at these two things),
and others which do not require even that ability. To put a sweet dish
on the table, however, in perfection, especially if it be an iced one,
requires the utmost care and skill; the slightest carelessness in
packing a frozen pudding, any delay between removing it from the ice and
getting it on the dish, will destroy that dull, marble-like appearance
it ought to wear when first it makes its entry, although it will gleam
with melting sweetness long before it reaches the partakers. Happily
there are many delightful sweets which are beautiful in appearance and
less depending on atmosphere than any of the family of ices. The
simplest of these are fruit jellies.
I spoke just now of the art of making jelly, and many readers may think
in using such a term for so simple a thing I am exaggerating, and
perhaps "art" is hardly the word, yet there is a daintiness and nicety
in making jelly which almost deserves the term.
However, before talking of how sweet dishes are to be made it is
necessary to provide the means by which they are to be redeemed from the
commonplace of mere richness and sweetness. The flavorings and liqueurs
keep indefinitely if well corked. Orange-flower water, it is true, will
lose strength, but when a bottle is first opened, if it is poured off
into small vials, and each one corked and _sealed_, it will keep its
original strength. The following list of articles kept in store will
enable a cook to give her cakes, creams, etc., just that "foreign"
flavor that home products so often lack: almonds, almond paste, candied
cherries, candied angelica, candied orange, lemon, and citron peels,
pistachio-nuts, orange-flower water, rose-water, prepared cochineal,
maraschino, ratafia, lemons, extract of vanilla, and sherry.
Several of these things are used principally for decoration; for
instance, the candied cherries and angelica and the pistachio-nuts.
Consequently, unless the cherries and angelica are required for dessert
(to which they are a showy and delicious addition), a quarter of a
pound at a time is all that need be bought. Very likely in small cities
or country places these latter articles may not be obtainable. But they
are sold at the large city caterers', also at the stores which deal in
French crystallized fruits--not French _candy_ stores--and can always be
sent by mail.
The vanilla should be of the finest quality, and had better be bought by
the ounce or half-pint from the druggist than from the grocer. There are
good extracts put up, no doubt, but very many of them are largely made
of tonka-bean, the flavor familiar in cheap ice-cream, in place of the
more expensive vanilla.
In the recipes that will be given the directions will be as minute as
possible; but to prescribe the number of drops required to flavor a
quart of cream would be utterly impossible, the strength of the
flavoring used differing so greatly, even in lemons. Sometimes the juice
of half a lemon will be right for a certain thing, at another the juice
of a quarter of one would be too much. This is where judgment must be
exercised. If you have a very juicy lemon, although your recipe says the
juice of half, you will remember that the average lemon would not yield
nearly so much, and that the author had the average lemon in mind. This
applies to all flavoring. Sometimes extract of bitter almond is so
strong that even a drop would be too much to impart the faint almond
flavor which alone is tolerable. In this case the thing to do for fear
of spoiling the dish is to pour a half-dozen drops in a teaspoonful of
water, and use from that, drop by drop, until the faint flavor desired
is attained. In using any flavoring, great care must be taken not to put
too much, as anything in the least over-flavored is offensive.
_Mould of Apple Jelly._--Peel and cut up a pound of fine-flavored apples
(to weigh a pound after preparation); put them in a stewpan with three
ounces of granulated sugar, half a pint of water, and the juice and
grated rind of a lemon. When cooked to a pulp, pass through a strainer,
and stir in one ounce of gelatine that has been dissolved in a gill of
water. Color half the apple with _about_ half a teaspoonful of
cochineal, and fill a border mould with alternate layers of the colored
and uncolored apple. When cold, turn out and serve with half a pint of
cream whipped solid and piled in the centre.