THE butcher will slice the liver, or show you how to do it. When it is cut up, lay it in cold water in which has been stirred a teaspoonful of salt. This will draw out the blood.

Cut fat, raw salt pork into strips a finger long and a quarter of an inch thick and wide.

In half an hour’s time take the liver from the water, spread it out on a clean dry cloth, lay another cloth over the slices and pat gently to dry them thoroughly. Make holes an inch apart in the liver with a pen-knife or sharp skewer, and stick in the pork strips. They should protrude an equal distance on both sides.

As fast as they are ready, lay them in a clean, warm (not hot) frying-pan. When all are in, set it over the fire, and let it fry rather slowly in the fat that will run out from the pork “lardoons.” In five minutes turn the slices, and again ten minutes later. Let the liver heat quite slowly for the first ten minutes. If cooked fast it is hard and indigestible. Allow about twenty-five minutes for frying it.

Take it up with a fork, draining off every drop of grease against the side of the pan as you remove each piece, and dish on a hot platter.

Put a half a teaspoonful of tomato sauce on each slice. Serve without gravy and very hot.

Veal Cutlets (Breaded).

Whip two eggs light and pour them into a pie-plate. Turn the cutlets, one by one, over in this until every part is coated. In another dish spread evenly a cupful of rolled or pounded cracker, very fine and dry. Turn the “egged” cutlets over in this to encrust them well.

Meanwhile four large spoonfuls of sweet lard or nice beef-dripping must be melting in a clean frying-pan at one side of the range. When the cutlets are all breaded, move the pan directly over the fire. As the fat begins a lively hiss, put in as many cutlets as can lie in it without crowding. In five minutes turn them with care, not to loosen the crumb-coating. After another five minutes of rapid frying, pull the pan to a spot where the cooking will go on slowly, but regularly. In ten minutes turn the cutlets a second time. In another ten minutes they should be done.

Understand! The first fast cooking sears the surface of the meat and forms the breading into a firm crust that keeps in the juices. The slower work that follows cooks the veal thoroughly without hardening the fibres.

Lift the cutlets carefully from the pan, draining all the grease from each, and keep hot in a covered dish set over a pot of boiling water until all are done.

Always put tomato catsup or tomato sauce, in some form, on the table with veal cutlets.

Sausage Cakes.

Break off bits of sausage meat of equal size, roll them in the palms of clean hands into balls and pat them into flat cakes. Arrange them in a frying-pan and cook (not too fast) in their own fat, turning them twice until they are nicely and evenly browned. The time allowed for frying them depends on the size of the cakes. If they are not large, fifteen minutes should be enough.

Serve on a hot dish, without gravy.

Smothered Sausages.

Prick “link” sausages—that is, those done up in skins, in fifteen or twenty places, with a large needle; put them in a clean frying-pan in which is a half a teacup full of hot water. Roll the sausages over in this several times and cover closely. If you have not the lid of a pot or of a tin-pail that fits the frying-pan, use a pie-dish turned upside down. Set the pan where the water will bubble slowly, for ten minutes. Lift the cover then, and roll the sausages over again two or three times, to wet them thoroughly, leaving them with the sides up that were down. Cover again and cook ten minutes longer. Turn them twice more, at intervals of five minutes, cover, and let them steam four minutes before taking them up. They will be plump, whole, tender and well-done, and the bottom of the pan be almost dry. Lay in neat rows on a hot dish.

Fish Balls.

Soak a pound of cod-fish all night in cold water. Change it in the morning, and cover with lukewarm water for three hours more. Wash it, scraping off the salt and fat; put it into a sauce-pan, cover it well with water just blood-warm, and let it simmer—that is, not quite boil, two hours. Take it up, pick out the bones and remove the skin, and set the fish aside to cool.

When perfectly cold chop it fine in a wooden tray. Have ready, for a cupful of minced fish, nearly two cupfuls of potato boiled and mashed very smooth.

Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture on a floured pastry board, or a floured dish. Flour your hands, roll the fish and potato into a ball, and pat it into a cake, or make it as round as a marble. Lay these as you form them on a dish dusted with flour, and when all are made out, set in a cool place until morning.

Half an hour before breakfast, have five or six great spoonfuls of sweet lard hissing hot in a frying-pan or doughnut-kettle. Put in the balls a few at a time; turn as they color; take them out when they are of a tanny brown, lay them in a hot colander set in a plate, and keep warm in the open oven until all are fried.

A Breakfast Stew (very nice).

Cut the meat into pieces an inch square. Put it with the chopped onion into a saucepan with a pint of lukewarm water; cover closely and cook slowly, at least two hours and a half. The meat should not be allowed to boil hard at any time, and when done, be so tender that it is ready to fall to pieces.

Pour the stew into a bowl, add the salt and pepper, cover it and set in a cool place until next morning.

Then put it back into the sauce-pan, set it over a quick fire, and when it begins to boil, stir in the spice and herbs. (The latter may be bought dried and powdered at the druggist’s if you cannot get them fresh.)

Boil up sharply five minutes.

The flour should be browned the day before, by spreading it on a tin plate and setting this on the stove, stirring constantly to keep it from burning black. Or a better way is, to set the tin plate in a hot oven, opening the door now and then to stir it. It is a good plan to brown a good deal—say a cupful of flour—at a time, and keep it in a glass jar for thickening gravies, etc.

Wet up a heaping tablespoonful of this with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, the lemon-juice, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Rub smooth and stir well into the stew. Boil two minutes longer to thicken the gravy and turn out into a deep covered dish.

This is a good dinner, as well as breakfast dish. A teaspoonful of catsup is an improvement.