The mistress of a family should always remember that the welfare and
good management of the house depend on the eye of the superior, and,
consequently, that nothing is too trifling for her notice, whereby waste
may be avoided.
Many families have owed their prosperity full as much to the conduct and
propriety of female arrangement, as to the knowledge and activity of the
father.
All things likely to be wanted should be in readiness,--sugars of
different qualities should be broken; currants washed, picked and dry in
a jar; spice pounded, &c. Every article should be kept in that place
best suited to it, as much waste may thereby be avoided. Vegetables
will keep best on a stone floor if the air be excluded. Dried meats,
hams, &c., the same. All sorts of seeds for puddings, rice, &c., should
be close-covered, to preserve from insects. Flour should be kept in a
cool, perfectly dry room, and the bag being tied should be changed
upside down and back every week, and well shaken. Carrots, parsnips, and
beet-roots should be kept in sand for winter use, and neither they nor
potatoes be cleared from the earth. Store onions preserve best hung up
in a dry room. Straw to lay apples on should be quite dry, to prevent a
musty taste. Tarragon gives the flavor of French cookery, and in high
gravies should be added only a short time before serving.
Basil, savory, and knotted marjoram, or London thyme, to be used when
herbs are ordered; but with discretion, as they are very pungent.
Celery seeds give the flavor of the plant to soups. Parsley should be
cut close to the stalks, and dried on tins in a very cool oven; it
preserves its flavor and color, and is very useful in winter. Artichoke
bottoms, which have been slowly dried, should be kept in paper bags, and
truffles, lemon-peel, &c., in a very dry place, ticketed.
Pickles and sweetmeats should be preserved from air: where the former
are much used, small jars of each should be taken from the stock-jar, to
prevent frequent opening.
Some of the lemons and oranges used for juice should be pared first, to
preserve the peel dry; some should be halved, and, when squeezed, the
pulp cut out, and the outsides dried for grating.
If for boiling any liquid, the first way is best. When whites of eggs
are used for jelly, or other purposes, contrive to have pudding,
custards, &c., to employ the yolks also.
Gravies or soups put by, should be daily changed into fresh scalded
pans.
If chocolate, coffee, jelly, gruel, bark, &c., be suffered to boil over,
the strength is lost.
The cook should be charged to take care of jelly bags, tapes for the
collared things, &c., which, if not perfectly scalded and kept dry, give
an unpleasant flavor when next used.
Hard water spoils the color of vegetables; a pinch of pearlash or salt
of wormwood will prevent that effect.
When sirloins of beef, loins of veal or mutton come in, part of the suet
may be cut off for puddings, or to clarify; dripping will baste
everything as well as butter, fowls and game excepted; and for kitchen
pies nothing else should be used.
Meat and vegetables that the frost has touched should be soaked in cold
water two or three hours before they are used, or more if much iced;
when put into hot water, or to the fire until thawed, no heat will
dress them properly.
Meat should be well examined when it comes in, in warm weather. In the
height of the summer it is a very safe way to let meat that is to be
salted lie an hour in cold water; then wipe it perfectly dry, and have
ready salt, and rub it thoroughly into every part, leaving a handful
over it besides. Turn it every day and rub the pickle in, which will
make it ready for the table in three or four days; if it is desired to
be very much corned, wrap it in a well-floured cloth, having rubbed it
previously with salt. The latter method will corn fresh beef fit for
table the day it comes in; but it must be put into the pot when the
water boils.
If the weather permits, meat eats much better for hanging two or three
days before it be salted.
The water in which meat has been boiled makes an excellent soup for the
poor, when vegetables, oatmeal, or peas are added, and should not be
cleared from the fat. Roast beef bones, or shank bones of ham, make fine
peas soup, and should be boiled with the peas the day before eaten, that
the fat may be removed. The mistress of the house will find many great
advantages in visiting her larder daily before she orders the bill of
fare; she will see what things require dressing, and thereby guard
against their being spoiled. Many articles may be redressed in a
different form from that in which they are first served, an improve the
appearance of the table without increasing the expense.
In every sort of provisions, the best of the kind goes farthest; cutting
out most advantageously, and affording most nourishment.
Round of beef, fillet of veal, and leg of mutton, bear a higher price;
but having more solid meat, deserve the preference. It is worth notice,
however, that those joints which are inferior may be dressed as
palatably, and being cheaper ought to be bought in turn; and when
weighed with the prime pieces, the price of the latter is reduced.
In loins of meat, the long pipe which runs by the bone should be taken
out, being apt to taint, as likewise the kernels of beef.
Rumps and aitch bones of beef are often bruised by the blows the drovers
give, and that part always taints: avoid purchasing such.
The shank bones of mutton should be saved, and after soaking and
bruising may be added to give richness to gravies and soups, and they
are particularly nourishing for the sick.
Calves' tongues, salted, make a more useful dish than when dressed with
the brains, which may be served without.
Some people like neats' tongues cured with the root, in which case they
look much larger; but should the contrary be approved, the root must be
cut off close to the gullet, next to the tongue, but without taking away
the fat under the tongue. The root must be soaked in salt and water, and
extremely well cleaned before it be dressed; and the tongue laid in salt
for a night and day before pickled.
Great attention is requisite in salting meat, and in the country, where
great quantities are cured, it is of still more importance. Beef and
pork should be well sprinkled, and a few hours after hung to drain,
before it be rubbed with the preserving salts; which mode, by cleansing
the meat from the blood, tends to keep it from tasting strong; it should
be turned daily, and, if wanted soon, rubbed. A salting tub may be used,
and a cover should fit close. Those who use a good deal of salt will
find it well to boil up the pickle, skim, and when cold pour it over
meat that has been sprinkled and drained. In some families great loss is
sustained by the spoiling of meat. If meat is brought from a distance in
warm weather, the butcher should be charged to cover it close, and bring
it early in the morning.
Mutton will keep long, by washing with vinegar the broad end of the leg;
if any damp appears, wipe it immediately. If rubbed with salt lightly,
it will not eat the worse. Game is brought in when not likely to keep a
day, in the cook's apprehension, yet may be preserved two or three days
if wanted, by the following method:
If birds (woodcocks and snipes excepted, which must not be drawn), draw
them, pick and take out the crop, wash them in two or three waters, and
rub them with a little salt. Have ready a large saucepan of boiling
water, put the birds in it, and let them remain five minutes, moving it,
that it may go through them. When all are finished, hang them by the
heads in a cold place; when drained, pepper the inside and necks; when
to be roasted, wash, to take off the pepper. The most delicate birds,
even grouse, may be kept this way, if not putrid.
Birds that live by suction, &c., bear being high: it is probable that
the heat might cause them to taint more, as a free passage for the
scalding water could not be obtained.
Fresh-water fish has often a muddy taste, to take off which, soak it in
strong salt and water; or, if of a size to bear it, give it a scald in
the same, after extremely good cleaning and washing.
In the following, and indeed all other receipts, though the quantities
may be as accurately set down as possible, yet much must be left to the
discretion of the persons who use them.
The different taste of people requires more or less of the flavor of
spices, garlic, butter, &c., which can never be directed by general
rules, and if the cook has not a good taste, and attention to that of
her employers, not all the ingredients with which nature or art can
furnish her will give an exquisite relish to her dishes.
The proper articles should be at hand, and she must proportion them
until the true zest be obtained.
March, 1864.
Poetical Cook-Book.