  Clear Soup.Take all the fat from the stock reserved for to-day, and pour the liquid carefully off from the meat and bones, not disturbing the sediment in the bottom. (Mem. Take out a little of the meat, beef, and ham, for a purpose of which we shall speak presently—add boiling water—about a quart—to the rest of the residuum with more seasoning, and the remains of your okra and tomato soup. Stew gently half an hour, and set aside in a cool place for to-morrow. The growing heat of the weather makes this a necessary precaution.) Put then the clear stock upon the fire with a whole onion, and simmer thirty minutes. Skim well, take out the onion, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of gelatine previously soaked one hour in cold water, with a tablespoonful (scant) of Harvey’s sauce. Cook five minutes and pour out. Roast Lamb.Lay in the dripping-pan; dash a cupful of boiling water over it and roast in a good oven, allowing about ten minutes—not more—to the pound. Baste often and freely, and after half an hour, cover with a sheet of thick paper. Five minutes before taking it up, remove this, dredge with flour, and as this browns, bring to a froth with butter. Do not send the gravy to table if you use mint sauce. Mint Sauce.
Put sugar and vinegar into a sauce-boat and stir in the mint. Let it stand fifteen minutes before serving. Green Peas.I have purposely avoided too early an introduction of green vegetables and other spring dainties, through fear that the high prices demanded for them might make this part of my work useless for housekeepers of moderate means. By the first of May, however, even our Northern markets should be well supplied at reasonable rates with many delightful esculents which are, as yet, brought only from the South. Shell the peas and wash well in cold water. Cook in boiling water—salted—for twenty-five minutes. A lump of sugar will be an addition, and a pleasant one, to market peas. Drain well, stir in a great lump of butter, and pepper and salt. Serve hot. Asparagus upon Toast.Cut the stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody portions and scraping the whiter parts retained. Tie in a bunch with soft tape, and cook about thirty minutes, if of fair size. Have ready six or eight slices of crustless bread, nicely toasted. Dip in the asparagus-liquor, butter well and lay upon a very hot dish. Drain the asparagus, untie, and arrange upon the toast, peppering and buttering to taste. Potato Eggs.
Work the potato smooth with butter, milk, gravy, and beaten eggs. Put into a saucepan, and stir over the fire until smoking hot. Stir in the meat; let it get cool enough to handle. Flour your hands and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll in flour and fry in hot dripping. Pile upon a hot dish. Rice and Tapioca Pudding.
Soak the tapioca three hours in half of the milk. Wash the rice in three waters and soak in the rest of the milk the same length of time. Put them together, stir in the sugar by degrees, until all is melted; season with cinnamon and a pinch of salt; mix up well, and bake in a slow oven two hours. Make it on Saturday, and eat cold on Sunday with sugar and cream. divider Strain the stock heated up on Sunday with the remains of Saturday’s soup. Boil four tablespoonfuls of rice in a little water until soft. Add, with the water, to the soup, with additional seasoning, if necessary, and heat almost to a boil. If it has been kept in a cool place you will find it very good. Never throw away a spoonful of any soup. It will come into use if you can keep it from spoiling. Cold Lamb.Trim neatly, garnish with curled parsley, and pass mixed pickles with it. Few methods of preparing lamb for the table by warming over can compare with the easier way of setting it on cold, if it has been nicely roasted at first. Savory Macaroni.To a cup of yesterday’s soup add another of boiling water. Let them boil once; skim and put in half a pound of macaroni broken into inch lengths. While it is cooking tender, boil one sweetbread fifteen minutes; throw into cold water and let it cool, then cut into small dice. When the macaroni is tender, but not broken, mix with it a custard made of two eggs, one large cup of milk, and a little salt. Stir into the macaroni a very little minced onion, pepper to taste; add the chopped sweetbread; put into a greased mould, with a cover; put this into a dripping-pan full of boiling water and cook in a good oven a little over one hour. Turn out upon a hot dish, and send around grated cheese with it. Sea-Kale.Pick over carefully, tie up in bunches, and lay for half an hour in cold water. Put into salted boiling water and cook twenty-five minutes. Put buttered toast in the bottom of a deep dish; clip the threads binding the kale, and lay it upon the toast. Pepper, and pour a cupful of drawn butter over it. Potato Salad.Slice cold boiled potatoes, and put a layer in a salad dish. Cover with thin slices of hard boiled egg, and strew with bits of pickled onion. When the dish is full pour over them a dressing made in the proportion of one tablespoonful of vinegar to three of salad oil; one spoonful of salt to half as much pepper, and the same quantity of made mustard. Beat up well before pouring over the salad. Let all stand ten minutes—or more—before serving. Coffee and Sister Mag’s Cake.Let your coffee be strong and hot, with plenty of boiling milk. For receipt for the delightful cake mentioned please see “Common Sense in the Household” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 321. Friday is a good cake-baking day. divider Put meat, bones, and sliced vegetables on in the water, and cook slowly three hours. Soak the tapioca during this time in a very little milk. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the colander; cool to throw up the fat. Skim and season. When hot again put in the tapioca and stir until it melts. Simmer half an hour, add the celery essence and serve. Baked Beefsteak.Take the bone from a large sirloin steak; flatten it with the side of a hatchet, wash over the upper side with Young Onions Stewed.Skin, wash well, and cook in boiling water, salted, until half-done—say fifteen minutes. Then, throw off nearly all the water and replenish with scalding milk. Cook tender in this, stir in pepper, salt, a great spoonful of butter cut up in a teaspoonful of flour. Simmer three minutes, and pour out. Potatoes Baked with Steak.Parboil, skin, and quarter some large potatoes. About ten minutes before you take up your steak, lay the potatoes around it in the pan, and brown in the hot gravy. Serve in the dish with the meat, laid on the outer edge. Lettuce Salad.Pull out the hearts and blanched leaves, heap them within a salad bowl; strew with powdered sugar, and pour over them a dressing made according to directions given yesterday. Toss up well with a silver fork. Oatmeal Pudding with Cream.
Wet up flour, oatmeal, and salt, with cold milk and stir into the hot, which must be in a farina-kettle. Stir twenty minutes well from the bottom, and let it stand ten minutes in the boiling water without cooking before pouring into an uncovered deep dish. Eat with cream and sugar. divider Boil beef, herbs and onion together in the water—cooking slowly—three hours. Cool, to throw up the fat, and skim well. Put away half of the liquor with the meat, well-seasoned, for another day. Strain the remainder back into the pot; add the meat of two boiled crabs nicely cut—not chopped—up, and the pork, also boiled and cut into dice; the asparagus-tops, with plenty of seasoning. Stew for half an hour, gently. Have ready in your tureen eight Boston crackers split, laid for five minutes in boiling water, then drained and buttered. Pour Stewed Breast of Veal with Mushroom Sauce.Trim neatly; take out the largest bone, and fill the cavity with a good force-meat. Skewer into a compact shape. Lay in a frying-pan with three tablespoonfuls of butter, and brown on both sides. Line the bottom of a large saucepan with slices of pork, pepper them, and lay in the veal. Cover tightly, and heat very slowly, one hour, without opening the pot. Then turn the meat, add half a can of chopped mushrooms, and half a Bermuda onion, sliced, with a cup of boiling water. Cover again, and cook for another hour—never fast. The meat should be cooked almost wholly in its own steam. Turn again, and simmer fifteen minutes. Take up the meat, thicken the gravy with browned flour, wet with cold water, adding a little boiling water, if needful; boil up, and pour over the veal. If these directions be exactly followed, this dish will be excellent. Spinach À la Reine.Wash well, pick off the leaves, and cook them twenty minutes in salted, boiling water. Drain and press out all the water; chop very fine. Return to the saucepan with a good lump of butter, pepper, salt, a pinch of mace, a teaspoonful of sugar, and three spoonfuls—large ones—of good gravy. Stir, beat, and toss, until nearly dry. Fill hot, wet egg-cups with the mixture, and turn out upon a heated, flat dish. Lay a slice of egg upon each. Rhubarb (or Pie-plant) Sauce.Skin, and cut up the stalks. Put into a saucepan, with just enough water to keep them from burning, and stew slowly until soft. Sweeten while hot, but not on the fire. Eat cold. Browned Potatoes—Mashed.Whip up boiled potatoes very light with a fork; beat in butter, milk, and salt. Heat roughly upon a neat bake-dish Burnt Custard.
Scald the milk, but not to boiling; beat eggs light with the sugar, and pour upon them the hot milk. Mix well, and bake in a well-buttered dish. Turn out when cold; strew very thickly with white sugar. Set the plate containing the custard upon the upper grating of a hot oven. The sugar will melt, and run in brown streams all over the moulded pudding. Slip carefully to a dish, and eat cold. divider Strain the stock reserved for to-day from the bones, after taking the fat from the top. Never neglect this. Greasy soups are not good, and plenty of dripping may be thus obtained for kitchen use. Heat the soup, season to taste, and add a little more than half a cupful of minestra, by some known as Italian Paste. It can be had at the best grocers in various shapes—like wheat-grains, in small squares, or in stars, circles, letters, etc. Simmer twenty minutes, and pour out. The minestra should be tender, but not broken. Chicken Pudding.Cut up a tender fowl into neat joints, and parboil, seasoning well, ten minutes before you take it up, with pepper, salt, and a generous spoonful of butter. It should cook slowly for half an hour. Take up and cool, setting aside the liquor for your gravy. Batter for the Pudding.
Make a hole in the flour, when you have sifted the salt through it. Mix eggs, milk, and butter together, and pour in by degrees, beating all up hard at the last. Put a layer of chicken in the bottom of a bake-dish; pour a cupful of batter upon it; then more chicken, and so on, until the dish is full, with batter for the upper crust. It will require about one hour to bake in a moderate oven. Skim the cooled gravy, and boil down one-half. Then, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in flour. Boil once, and pour over a beaten egg. Season with chopped parsley; return to the fire; let it almost boil, and serve in a sauce-boat. Pass with the pudding. Boiled Potatoes.Put on in cold water, and bring to a rapid boil. When nearly done, pour off all but a cupful of water. Cover closely, return to the fire, and steam until the skins crack, and the potatoes are soft. They will need about half an hour’s boiling in all. Uncover, strew with salt, leave for a few moments for the moisture to evaporate, and serve at once. Old potatoes, treated thus, can be made mealy. Asparagus and Eggs.Cut about two dozen stalks of asparagus—leaving out the hard parts—into inch lengths, and boil tender. Drain; pour upon them a cupful of drawn butter; stir German Puffs.
Make a batter as directed for your chicken pudding, beat up hard, and bake in nine cups, such as you used for measuring, to a fine brown. The oven should be a quick one, and the puffs be served immediately in their cups. divider Drain the corn and chop it in a chopping-tray. Put on in the boiling water and cook steadily one hour. Rub through a colander, leaving the husks behind and return, with the water in which it has boiled, to the fire. Season; boil gently three minutes and stir in the butter and flour. Have ready the boiling milk, pour it upon the beaten eggs, and these into the soup. Simmer one minute, stirring all the while; take up, add the catsup and pour out. Boiled Shad.Clean, wash and wipe a large roe shad. Set aside the roes for your scallop. Sew up the fish in a thin cloth fitted to its shape; cover well with boiling salted water, and cook from forty-five minutes to an hour, according to its size. Unwrap and butter and pepper, after laying it upon a hot dish. Pour over it a few spoonfuls of drawn butter in which have been mixed the chopped yolks of two eggs, a little parsley, and the juice of a lemon. Serve the same in a boat. Garnish the fish with rings of the whites of the boiled eggs, with a sprig of parsley in each. Scalloped Roes.
Boil the roes in water with a little vinegar stirred in. Lay in cold water five minutes and wipe dry. Break up with the back of a spoon, but do not crush the eggs. Set by, and pound the boiled yolks to a powder. Beat this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning, finally the roes. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; pour in the mixture, and cover thickly with fine crumbs. Stick dots of butter over the top, and bake, covered, until it begins to bubble, then brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Potato Snow.Mash with a beetle very fine, working in salt only. Then rub hard and fast through a colander into a hot dish. The potato should fall in light spiral threads. Set in the oven three minutes to renew the heat, but do not let it “crust” or brown. Green Peas.See receipt given on Sunday. Cress Salad.Pull the sprigs to pieces and pour over them a dressing such as was made for your potato salad on Monday. Lemon Trifle.
Let sugar, lemon-juice, and peel lie together two hours before you add wine and nutmeg. Strain through double tarlatan, and whip gradually into the frothed cream. Serve very soon, heaped in small glasses. Pass cake with this as well as with the tea. Tea and Cake.Whereas pound, jelly, or cup-cake should accompany your trifle, small sponge-cakes, or cookies—not too sweet—taste better with tea, and do not detract so much from its flavor. divider Crack the bones to splinters, and put on with the vegetables in three quarts of cold water and boil two hours. Strain, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp, and add, with the rest of the water, also cold, to the minced beef. Bring to a boil, cook gently one hour after it boils, and strain, pressing hard. Reserve a little of the beef for force-meat, and put away the rest well seasoned, after pouring back over it half the soup, as stock for to-morrow. Keep in a cool place. Chop the herbs and put into that meant for to-day, with pepper and salt. Boil and skim fifteen minutes. Have ready some long strips of buttered crisp toast in the tureen and pour on the soup. RagoÛt of Mutton.
Fry the onion in plenty of dripping; then the meat for five minutes. Parboil the sweetbreads, throw into cold water to blanch; wipe and slice; then fry also in the fat. Lay sliced pork in the bottom of a saucepan, upon this the mutton, then the sweetbreads, next the onion, the green peas, then pepper and salt. Cover with the gravy; put on a close lid and stew gently for an hour after the boil sets in. Take up the meat and sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour; pour it upon two beaten eggs, stir one minute over the fire and pour upon the meat. Broiled Potatoes.Cut cold boiled potatoes lengthwise; cook over a clear fire upon a greased gridiron, until they begin to brown. Lay upon a hot dish, butter, pepper, and salt. French Beans with Force-meat Balls.Chop the beef taken from the soup when cold. Add one-third as much bread-crumbs, and season well. Put a spoonful of butter into a saucepan, and when it hisses, stir in the meat, then a little browned flour wet up with cold water. Beat an egg light, pour the meat upon it, and mix well. Make into floured balls and fry in hot dripping. Cook the beans as usual and lay the balls about them when dished. Boiled Rice.Wash well and cook in hot salted water, shaking up from time to time until the water is nearly all absorbed, and the rice soft, with every grain distinct. Put a good piece of butter upon the top after it is dished. Neapolitan Pudding.
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks; then the crumbs, the lemon, and when this is a smooth paste, the whites. Butter a mould thickly, and cover the bottom with dry bread-crumbs, and these with maccaroons, laid evenly. Wet with wine, and pour on a layer of the mixture just made; next, put sliced cake spread with jelly, then more maccaroons wet with wine, more custard, cake and jam, until all the materials are used up, with a layer of custard on top. Cover closely; set in a pan of boiling water and cook three-quarters of an hour in the oven, then remove the top and brown. Turn out carefully, and pour over it a sauce made of currant-jelly warmed, and beaten up with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a glass of wine. A plain round mould is best for this pudding. divider Take the fat from the top of the reserved stock, strain it and heat to scalding. Heat in another vessel a pint of milk, pour it upon three beaten eggs; return to the saucepan with a little salt and a pinch of soda, and cook Beef À la Mode.Remove the bone from a round of beef, and trim away the gristle and tough bits from the edges. (Cover these with water and boil down for soup-stock. Season highly and put by in a cool place for Monday.) Bind the beef into a good shape by sewing about it a broad band of stout muslin, as wide as the round is high. Cut a pound of salt pork into strips long enough to reach from top to bottom of the beef—make incisions in it with a thin, long-bladed knife, and thrust these in closely together. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with a force-meat of minced pork and crumbs, highly spiced. Put the meat thus prepared in a deep earthenware dish, and rub well into it a mixture of one cup of vinegar, a teaspoonful of mixed cloves and allspice, a teaspoonful of salt, and the same of made mustard; a tablespoonful of sugar and a bunch of sweet herbs minced, with as much pepper as salt. Leave the beef in the pan with the spiced vinegar about the base from Saturday until Sunday morning, turning several times. Early on Sunday, put it into a large pot, with enough boiling water to half-cover it; cover tightly with a weight upon the lid, and stew at least four hours—or half an hour for each pound. Open once, when half-done, to turn the meat. Dish the meat; cut the stitches in the band, and withdraw it carefully. Keep hot while you prepare the gravy. Pour off all but a cupful, and set aside for soup-stock. Thicken that reserved with browned flour, and serve in a boat. Cut the beef in horizontal slices. When dinner is over, pin another band tightly about the meat; pour gravy on the top, and set a plate with a heavy weight upon it, on the round, before putting it away for Monday’s dinner. Asparagus upon Toast, and Green Peas.Please see receipts given on last Sunday. Mashed Potatoes.Mash in the usual manner, working in milk, butter, and salt. Make into a smooth mound in a deep dish, and score deeply on top with the back of a knife. Tropical Snow.
Peel and cut the oranges small, taking out the seeds. Put a layer in a glass-bowl and wet with wine, then strew with sugar. Next, put a layer of grated cocoanut, slice the bananas thin, and cover the cocoanut with them. When the dish has been filled in this order, heap with cocoanut. Eat soon, or the oranges will toughen. Jelly Cake,In some of its pretty variations, and sliced in triangles, should go around with the snow. divider Take the fat from both portions of stock set by for to-day; put them together, and strain into a soup-kettle. Heat to a boil, skim well, and after fifteen minutes’ cooking, add a quarter of a pound of macaroni, boiled tender in salted hot water, and cut into pieces about an inch long. Simmer ten minutes and pour out. Pressed Beef.Take the weight from your round of beef; undo the bandage, and set on the table cold, garnished with cresses. Cut in thin horizontal slices. It will be handsomely mottled with the pork. Many prefer to eat À la mode beef cold, always. Spinach.Cook as directed upon last Wednesday, but leaving out the gravy and not drying out so much. Beat to a smooth cream, and turn into a deep dish, with sippets of fried bread at the base. Potato Puff.
Beat in butter, then milk and salt, finally the eggs. Whip all up to a cream. Pile in a bake-dish and cook in a good oven until lightly colored. Southern Rice Pudding.
Soak the rice in the milk for two hours in a farina-kettle, surrounded by warm water. Then increase the heat, and simmer until the rice is tender. Cream butter and sugar, and whisk into the eggs, until very light. When the rice is almost cold, stir all together, and bake in a buttered dish three-quarters of an hour. Eat warm with sauce, or cold with sugar and cream. divider Boil the empty pea-pods in the water one hour. Strain these out, put in the beef, cut up fine, and cook gently one hour and a half longer, or until the beef is in rags. Add the peas; boil half an hour, and rub hard through a colander to pulp the peas. Return to the fire, season, and stir in the rice-flour wet up in cold water, and the parsley. Stir ten minutes, and serve. Breaded Mutton Chops.Trim neatly, cutting off all the fat and skin. Roll in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping, turning as the under-side browns. Drain well and serve, standing upon the thick part around the base of your potatoes. Mashed Potatoes.After mashing soft and smooth with butter, milk, and salt, mound upon a flat, hot dish, with the chops laid up against them. Stewed Tomatoes.Empty a can of tomatoes an hour before you mean to use them, and leave in a crockery bowl. Put on in a saucepan, and stew twenty minutes; add salt, pepper, a Lettuce.Cut up—not chop—and pour over them a dressing made of—
Rub the eggs to a powder, add all the ingredients except the vinegar, and let alone five or ten minutes. Then beat in the vinegar with your “Dover” egg-whisk until the mixture is smooth. Garnish with a chain of the whites. Batter Pudding.
Beat up the eggs, and add the yolks to the milk. Salt the flour, and stir in alternately with the whites. Beat hard and bake in a buttered pudding-dish forty-five minutes. Eat with sweet sauce, at once, as it soon falls. divider Cut the meat from the knuckle; put this, the chicken, bones and onion, with the water, and boil slowly two hours. Take out the chicken, and put into a deep jar or bowl, sprinkling well with salt. Cook the soup an hour longer; strain back into the pot, pressing the meat hard. Take out half of the liquid, season well, and pour upon the chicken, cover, and set in a cold place for to-morrow’s “stock.” Season the soup in the kettle with pepper and salt. Boil and skim. Chop the veal-shreds very fine, and mix with the almonds. Have ready the milk, scalding hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in, and pour upon the veal-and-almond paste. Set over the fire in a saucepan, and stir in the butter and corn-starch, simmering five minutes. Add the sugar, and turn into the tureen, then pour in the soup. Stir all up well, and let them stand, covered, in hot water, a few minutes. Stir up again and send to table. Calf’s Liver, Larded.Cut half a pound of fat salt pork into lardoons, and thrust them, about half an inch apart, into a fresh liver, so that they will project on both sides. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with a small onion minced, pepper, and some sweet herbs chopped, also a few spoonfuls of strained tomato (left over from yesterday). Cover closely, and set in a frying-pan of boiling water for one hour, keeping the outer pan full all the time, and turning Green Pea Pancakes.Two cups of green peas, boiled, and mashed when hot. Season with butter, pepper, and salt, and when cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, half a teaspoonful of soda, and twice as much cream of tartar, sifted twice through half a cupful of flour. Beat well, and bake as you would griddle-cakes. Eat very hot. Asparagus in Ambush.
Take out the crumb from the rolls, when you have cut off the tops to serve as covers, and set them open in the oven to crisp, laying the tops by them. Heat the milk, pour upon the beaten eggs; stir over the fire until they begin to thicken, when add the butter and flour. Lastly, put in the asparagus, boiled tender, and chopped fine. Fill the rolls with this mixture, put on the tops, and serve hot. Good! Bermuda Potatoes en robe de chambre.Put on in boiling water, and cook until a fork will pierce them. Throw off the water and set back, uncovered, upon the range to dry off, strewing with salt at the same time, Send to table in a dish lined with a napkin, peeling as you eat them. Pine-Apple Pie.
Cream, butter and sugar. Beat in the yolks for three minutes; add pine-apple and spice; lastly, the whites. Bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold. divider Skim the stock set aside yesterday, and strain from the chicken into a soup-pot. Add a small onion and half a cupful of raw rice, and simmer forty minutes, or until the rice is tender. Wet up a tablespoonful of curry powder with the juice of a lemon, and stir in then a large spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil once and serve. Chicken PatÉs.Chop the meat of your cold chicken fine, and season well. Make a large cupful of rich drawn butter, and while it is on the fire, stir in two eggs boiled hard and minced very fine, also a little chopped parsley—then the chicken-meat. Let it almost boil. Have ready some patÉ pans of good paste, baked quickly to a light brown. Slip while hot from the pans, fill with the mixture, and set in the oven to heat. Arrange upon a dish and send up hot. Sea-Kale.Choose fresh, and pick over carefully; cook twenty-five minutes in boiling, salted water; drain and press well. Potatoes au MaÎtre d’HÔtel.Put a cup of milk into a saucepan, and when it heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley; then about two cupfuls cold boiled potatoes, sliced rather thick. Heat scalding hot, take from the fire and add a pinch of grated lemon-peel with the juice of half a lemon. Serve in a deep dish. Lettuce and Cress Salad.Cut up lettuce and cresses, having washed both well, and pile in a salad bowl; then pour over them a dressing made by beating together four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar, half as much mustard, and when these are well mixed, adding, gradually, two tablespoonfuls of best salad oil. Toss with a silver fork, and serve. Queen of Puddings with Strawberry MÉringue.
Cream the butter, and a cup of sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks; the crumbs, soaked in the milk; lastly, the seasoning. Fill a pudding-dish two-thirds full and bake until the custard is “set.” Draw to the mouth of the oven, and cover with the strawberries, rolled in sugar, then with a mÉringue made of the whipped whites and the half-cup of sugar. Bake until the mÉringue begins to color. Eat cold with cream. divider Slice the vegetables, with the exception of the peas, and fry them in dripping until brown. Put with the herbs into a kettle and cover with the water. Cook slowly two hours, reducing the liquid one-third. Pulp the vegetables through a colander, return the soup to the fire with the rice and peas, and stew half an hour. Season, stir in the butter and flour with the sugar. Simmer five minutes and serve. Fried Shad.Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad. Split it and cut each side into four or five pieces, leaving out the head and tail, and cutting off the fins: Sprinkle with salt and pepper; roll in flour and fry to a fine brown in plenty of lard or dripping, turning as each piece browns. Drain well, and serve hot. Garnish with sliced cucumber, pickle and parsley, and pass sliced lemon with it. Send around mashed potatoes with this dish. Roe Croquettes.
Work roes, potato, drawn butter, and seasoning together; put over the fire in a saucepan and stir well until hot. When almost cold, make into short rolls, dip in raw egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a nice brown. Drain in a heated colander, and pile upon a hot dish. Mashed Potatoes.Proceed with this oft-repeated and ever-welcome dish as I have directed upon other pages. Stewed Tomatoes with Onion and Bread.Empty a can of tomatoes into a saucepan, and when hot, add a small onion, sliced, with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Stew twenty minutes, and add a tablespoonful of butter and a good handful of bread-crumbs. Simmer five minutes more and pour out. Cup Custards—Baked.
Scald the milk, and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Add to this, when you have flavored it, the whites of two eggs. Fill small stone-ware cups and set in a dripping-pan of boiling water. Bake until “set,” cover with a mÉringue made of the whisked whites (reserved) and a little powdered sugar. Bake until they begin to be tinged. Eat cold from the cups. Corn-Starch Cake.Please see “Common-Sense in the Household” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 333. divider Cut the meat into strips; crack the bones; mince the onion and parsley, and put on with the water. Cook slowly four hours. Strain; set aside some bits of “ragged” veal and ham for your dish of rice. Put the rest into a crock; season highly and pour on half your soup stock—setting this by, as usual, in a cool place for Sunday. Season the remainder of the broth; boil and skim; put in the sweetbreads, and cook half an hour. Take them out and drop into cold water. Add the tapioca to the soup; simmer ten minutes; chop the sweetbreads, and put them back; boil one minute and serve. Beefsteaks.Flatten your steaks with the side of an axe or hatchet, taking out the bones for your soup. Butter a gridiron—if you have no “broiler”—and cook the steaks quickly over a bright fire, turning often as they drip. Lay upon a hot dish; butter abundantly and season. Cover with another heated platter, and let them stand five minutes before serving. Baked Rice.Wash a cup of rice well. Take a cupful of broth from your soup-pot; strain through a thin cloth, and add twice as much boiling water, with a little salt. Put in the rice and cook slowly until it has taken up all the water and is soft. Pour in a large cup of hot milk in which have been mixed two eggs (raw), two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, and a tablespoonful of butter. Stir up well; add about half a cupful of minced veal and ham, taken from your soup; turn into a greased mould; cover and bake one hour in a dripping-pan of hot water. Dip in cold water, and invert upon a flat dish. Green Peas.See receipts for last Sunday week. Roast Potatoes.Roast in a moderate oven until soft. Cut a piece nearly off the top of each; thrust a thin-bladed knife into the heart, and slip in a bit of butter. Replace the skin and send up hot. Omelette aux Confitures.
Beat yolks and whites apart and very stiff. Add sugar, lemon, and milk to the yolks; then, with a few rapid whirls of your “beater,” the whites. Put the marmalade in the Tea and Albert BiscuitsMay be partaken of at the same time with the omelette, or afterwards. divider Take the fat from your cold stock; pour off carefully from the sediment and strain. Heat to boiling. Wash the sago well; soak in warm water half an hour; put into the soup, and simmer twenty-five minutes. Meanwhile, heat the milk in another vessel, and pour upon the eggs. Heat this until it begins to thicken, pour into the tureen, season with a little salt and pepper, and turn in the boiling soup. It should be about as thick as hot custard when all the ingredients are in. Stuffed Shoulder of Mutton.Get your butcher to take out the bone. (It will help out to-morrow’s soup.) Fill the hole from which it was taken with a good force-meat of crumbs, minced pork, Potato Edging.Mash the potatoes very soft with milk and butter; beat in two eggs; return to the saucepan and stir until smoking hot all through. Let them get quite cool; then, mould by pressing firmly into a wet egg-cup, and turning out each form upon the mutton-dish. Arrange the little cones side by side until you have a barricade about the meat. Set in the oven and brown, glazing with butter just before you take the dish out. Serve a cone with each slice of mutton. Boiled Asparagus.See receipt on first Sunday in May. PurÉe of Green Peas.
Boil the empty pods twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Strain these out, and put in the peas with the sugar. Boil gently until they are very soft. Rub through a fine colander. Add a cupful of the water in which they were cooked, pepper and salt, and put over the fire. When very hot, stir in the floured butter, and, when this is mixed, the cream. Stir three minutes and pour out into a dish lined with strips of fried bread. Neapolitan Blanc-Mange.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the sugar, then the gelatine. Cook about five minutes, and strain through thin muslin. Divide the blanc-mange into four equal portions. Beat the chocolate well into one; heat for one minute, and put by in a cup or bowl. Do the same with the egg to a second, and the currant jelly for the third. This last must be heated carefully, and a little sugar added, that the milk may not curdle. Leave the fourth white, and flavor with rose-water. When cold and a little stiff, pour into a wet mould—the white first; when this is so firm as to bear the weight of the next without mixing, the pink; then, the yellow; lastly, the brown. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday dip the mould in warm water, work the surface free with your fingers, and turn out upon a flat dish. Eat with cream and sugar, or brandied fruit. divider Early in the morning crack your mutton-bone, and put on in a quart of cold water, at the back of the range. When This is a delightful and nutritious soup, and since you are to have cold meat for dinner, you need not grudge the care of preparing it, even on Job’s birthday. Cold Mutton.Your stuffed shoulder will be nearly as nice cold as hot. Garnish it tastefully with curled parsley and bleached lettuce-leaves. Brussels Sprouts.Cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes; drain well; add a liberal lump of butter, with pepper and salt to taste, and put into a deep dish. Raw Tomatoes.Peel with a sharp knife; slice, and lay in a salad-bowl. Season with a dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the proportions given on last Thursday. Stewed Potatoes.Boil whole until a fork will pierce them. Peel quickly; crack, without breaking, each, by pressing it, and drop into a saucepan containing a large cup of milk, almost on the boil. When all the potatoes are in, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, with salt and pepper. Cover and heat—below the boiling point—until the potatoes begin to crumble. Pour into a deep dish. Oranges and Bananas.Serve whole, upon china plates, with a knife for each. Coffee and Cake.You need not be ashamed of “cold meat on Monday,” even should John have “picked up” his unexpected friend on the street, when your bright coffee-urn, with the fragrant contents, flanked by a basket of sliced home-made cake, comes in as a reserved force. divider Fry the sliced onion brown in good dripping; then the beef, quickly. Put into a soup-pot, cover with the water; put on a tight lid, and stew four hours. Strain and press hard. Let the soup cool to throw up the fat. Skim, and return to the pot, with the salt, pepper, herbs, and spice. Simmer fifteen minutes; add wine and celery, and pour into a tureen upon dice of crisp, buttered toast. Veal Cutlets and Ham.
Boil the slices of ham ten minutes; let them get cold, and cut of the same size and shape as the strips of veal, viz., about three inches long by one and a half wide. Salt and pepper the veal; sprinkle each cutlet with a pinch of lemon-peel; roll in egg, then cracker, and fry to a good brown. Fry the ham in its own fat in another pan, and lay upon a hot dish, alternately with the cutlets. String-Beans.If fresh, top and tail, and, with a sharp knife, take off the strings on both sides. Cut into short pieces, and cook tender in boiling water, and a little salt. Drain well, heap upon a hot dish; butter freely, and season to taste. Chopped Potatoes.Chop cold boiled potatoes rather coarsely. Have ready a great spoonful of butter in a saucepan, with a little grated lemon-peel, pepper and salt. Stir in the potatoes until very hot, but do not let them brown. Serve in a deep dish, after draining. Lettuce.Pick out and pull apart the hearts and best blanched leaves. Pour over it a dressing such as was directed on last Thursday. Graham Hasty Pudding.
Heat half the milk in a greased saucepan or farina-kettle. Wet the flour with the rest, and beat very light with the butter—melted—the eggs and salt. Stir this into the hot milk—or, better still—pour the milk upon it. When thoroughly mixed, return to the fire, and stir fifteen minutes, surrounded by boiling water at its highest bubble. Take from the range, leave in the water five minutes; stir up again, and serve in a deep, uncovered dish. Eat with butter, sugar, and nutmeg. divider Put the veal, pork, onion, and the hard parts of the asparagus-stalks—all cut up fine—on in the water, and boil gently four hours. Meanwhile cook the spinach tender in a little water; chop and squeeze it through double tarlatan back into the cupful of water in which it was boiled. Add a lump of sugar to the green liquid. Strain the soup; season, boil once, and skim; put in the green heads of the asparagus (kept until now in cold water) and boil slowly twenty minutes. Stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, and when this has boiled Stewed Chicken.Cut into joints, leaving none of the pieces large. Put the scrags, feet (having scalded off the skin), and giblets into two cupfuls of water, and stew until the meat is in rags. Put a quarter of a pound of pork, cut as fine as shavings, in the bottom of a saucepan; lay on this a teaspoonful of minced onion, and then the uncooked chicken. Strain, and partly cool the gravy, which should have boiled down to one cupful—setting by the giblets. Pour this over the chicken, pepper and salt; put on a tight top, and cook very slowly one hour. Then increase the heat, but still do not let it boil hard, for half an hour longer. Open the saucepan at the end of the first hour to change the upper pieces to lower places—and again when the half hour is up, to see if they are all tender. If not, cover and cook until they are. Take out the chicken, lay in order upon a hot-water dish, and add to the gravy the giblets, minced fine, and a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Boil one minute, and pour upon a half cup of milk in which have been beaten two eggs. Set over the fire, and stir one minute, but do not let the gravy boil. Pour upon the chicken. Scalloped Tomatoes.If raw tomatoes are dear still, drain off most of the liquor from a can of the vegetable. Cover the bottom of a pie-dish with bread-crumbs, lay in the tomatoes, well seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, and sugar; cover thickly with fine, dry crumbs; put dots of butter, with pepper and salt, over all, and bake, covered, half an hour—then, brown quickly. Corn Fritters.Drain the liquor from a can of corn, and chop the grains in a chopping-tray. Beat into this paste three eggs, one cup of milk, a heaping tablespoonful of sugar, Marmalade Roll.
Rub the lard into the flour; wet into a soft paste with the milk, and roll out very thin. Baste thickly with the butter, sprinkle with flour lightly, and roll up in close folds. Lay upon ice, or in a very cold place, one hour. Roll out into a square sheet, a quarter of an inch thick, spread with the marmalade, leaving a narrow margin all around, and roll up neatly. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, the joined edge downward, and bake three-quarters of an hour. Wash over with white of egg, beaten with a little sugar, just before you take it up. Eat hot with a good sauce. divider You will probably have to coax your butcher to dress the head properly, but the head itself he will be willing to give you, as almost worthless in his eyes. Be sure it is quite clean, even to the mouth. Soak it in tepid water, one hour—then put into a pot with the vegetables, sliced, the chopped herbs and the cold water. Cook gently four hours. Strain off the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the sieve; let it get almost cool, that you may remove the fat from the top, and put back over the fire with pepper and salt. Chop the brains and mix them into a paste with an equal quantity of crumbs; also pepper, salt, and raw egg, with enough flour to enable you to roll into little balls. Fry these to a nice brown, drain in a colander, and put into your tureen. Skim the boiling soup and stir in the corn-starch wet with half a cup of milk, then the tongue, skinned and cut into dice. Boil once and pour into the tureen. Roast Beef.Put into your dripping-pan; pour a cupful of boiling water over it, and roast, basting often, allowing a quarter of an hour to the pound. Towards the last, pepper and salt, dredge with flour, and baste once well with butter. If you send made gravy to the table, take off all the “top-grease,” thicken the brown juice in the dripping-pan with browned flour, boil up, and pour out into a boat. Fried Potatoes.Cut peeled potatoes into long strips, not too thin. Lay in cold water one hour, dry between two towels, and fry in boiling fat, a little salt, to a light brown. Drain and dish upon a napkin. Spinach upon Toast.Wash well. Cook twenty minutes in boiling, salted water. Drain and chop very fine. Put a tablespoonful Asparagus with Eggs.Boil a bunch of asparagus twenty minutes; cut off the tender tops and lay in a deep pie-plate, buttering, salting, and peppering well. Beat four eggs just enough to break up the yolks, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, with pepper and salt, and pour upon the asparagus. Bake eight minutes in a quick oven, and serve immediately. Corn-Starch Blanc-Mange with Preserves.
Scald the milk in a farina-kettle; stir in corn-starch, lemon, and salt, and cook five minutes. Pour this upon the beaten eggs and sugar, return to the fire and stir two minutes more. Pour into a wet mould and set in a cold place for four or five hours. Turn out upon a broad glass dish, and pour rich, sweet preserves about the base. In helping it out, put a spoonful of preserve upon each share of blanc-mange. divider Put tomatoes and onion over the fire with the hot water. Boil half an hour; strain and rub through a colander, working the tomatoes to a pulp. Meanwhile, boil the milk, stir in soda, butter and flour, and after one boil, keep hot. Put pepper, salt, and sugar with the tomatoes; simmer five minutes; pour into the tureen; stir in the crumbs, and one minute later the thickened milk. Serve at once. If the milk be cooked with the purÉe, it will almost surely curdle. Boiled Bass with Mushrooms.Clean a fine bass, and sew up in a thin cloth. Put into boiling water in which you have mixed four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, with six whole black peppers, and a little salt. Cook about twelve minutes to the pound. Prepare a cupful of drawn butter, boil half a can of mushrooms twenty minutes; drain, chop up and stir, with the juice of half a lemon and a little pepper, into the drawn butter. Simmer together three minutes—put the fish upon a hot dish, and pour one-third of the sauce over it, serving the rest in a boat. Roast Sweetbreads.
Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads. Dry, and dip, first, in egg, then, in cracker-crumbs. Lay in a small dripping-pan; pour the butter over them, set in the oven, and roast, covered, three-quarters of an hour, basting often with the gravy. Dish upon fried bread. Add the catsup to the gravy; boil up and strain over the sweetbreads. Mashed Potatoes.Prepare as usual, and pass with the fish. Succotash.Drain off the can liquor; cook the succotash half an hour in boiling water; drain, add a cup of hot milk, and stir in pepper, salt, and a great spoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer three minutes and pour out. Strawberry MÉringue.Make a good puff-paste, cut out large, and round as a dinner-plate, and bake to a light brown in a quick oven. Draw to the oven door; lay strawberries, rolled in sugar, over it, and cover these an inch deep with a mÉringue made of the whites of four eggs whisked stiff, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Bake until the mÉringue is faintly tinged with yellow brown. Eat fresh, but not hot. It is delicious. divider This soup should be prepared very early in the day; therefore, have the materials in the house overnight.
Cut the meat into strips; put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a soup-pot, and lay the meat in it. Let it stand where it will heat slowly for half an hour. Then set over the fire, and stir until the meat is glazed with a brownish crust. Put a quart of water—cold—upon it, and bring gradually to a boil. Fry the onion and carrot in dripping to a fine brown, and drain off the fat, then put the vegetables into the pot with the meat, as soon as the latter is boiling hot. Cook half an hour; put in the rest of the cold water, the minced ham, and the bones broken to bits. Boil slowly four hours, then strain. Put meat and bones—highly seasoned—into a stone vessel, and pour half the soup over them for to-morrow. Put the rest back into the soup-kettle; season and boil up. Skim with care; put in the white and shell of an egg; boil three minutes; take from the fire and pour into a broad pan to cool. Burn two tablespoonfuls of sugar in a tin cup, on the hot range, and This is a fine company soup, but you should make it once or twice for family dinners in order to manage it properly. It is really not difficult. Ham and Omelette.
Lay the ham in boiling water fifteen minutes, then let it get cold. Cut off all the rind and trim each slice neatly; then broil upon a greased gridiron. Pepper and keep hot while you prepare the omelette. Beat whites and yolks together with a few whirls of the beater; put in the milk and beat fast for one minute; season and pour into a frying-pan in which the butter is heating—not hissing. Shake briskly over the fire, slipping your cake-turner under it to prevent sticking, and in four minutes, double it over in the middle and turn out into a hot dish by a dexterous inversion of the pan. Lay the ham about it in the dish. Ladies’ Cabbage.Boil a firm cabbage in two waters, and let it get perfectly cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, pepper, salt, and a few spoonfuls of milk. Stir all up well; put into a buttered bake-dish, strew with fine crumbs; bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly. Eat hot. Buttered Rice.Boil a cup of rice soft in hot, salted water. Drain, and heap in a deep dish. Fry an onion (sliced) very lightly Summer Salad.
Cut lettuces and cresses with a sharp knife, and mix with the other vegetables in a bowl. Pour over them a dressing made as directed on Thursday of the second week in this month. Lay the sliced eggs on the top of all. Irish Potato Pie.
Mix as you would cake, putting the whites in last, and bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold. divider Soak half a cup of German sago in a little cold water for two hours. Take the fat from the top of your soup Roast Lamb.Cook as you did the mutton, last Sunday, leaving out the stuffing and omitting the egg and crumb coating at the last. Roast about twelve minutes to the pound. Green Peas.See receipt for Saturday of second week in May. Young Onions—Stewed.Cook ten minutes in boiling water; throw this off, and pour on a cup of cold milk. Stew tender in this, add pepper, salt, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; simmer five minutes and turn out. Potato Puff.Mash the potatoes very soft, beating in butter, and milk, and finally, the whipped white of an egg. Whisk to a cream; heap roughly in a neat bake-dish and brown in a good oven. Strawberries and Cream.Cap and pile the strawberries in a glass dish. Send around powdered sugar and a pitcher of cream with them. Silver Cake.This delicate and handsome cake should have been made on Friday or Saturday. Please see “Common-Sense in the Household,” Series No. 1, General Receipts, page 332. divider Cut the meat small and put in alternate layers with the vegetables and rice, into a stout stone jar. Pour in three quarts of water, when you have seasoned the vegetables. Fit a close cover on the jar, sealing around the edges with a paste of flour and water. Set in the oven early in the day and do not open for six hours; then pour into the tureen. This is a good soup for Monday, and almost a dinner in itself. Minced Lamb.Cut the meat from the bone of your cold roast. Salt the bone and put by for another day’s soup. Mince the meat fine, season highly; put the gravy left from yesterday (or a cup of your Sunday’s soup would be even better) in a saucepan, when you have taken off the fat, heat it, and stir in the mince. Make it very hot; thicken with a little browned flour if it is too thin, and pile up in a flat dish, with poached eggs and toast about it. Poached Eggs.Nearly fill a frying-pan with boiling water. Add a little salt and vinegar. Break your eggs, one at a time, into a wet saucer, and slip from this upon the surface of the water. Cook slowly three minutes; take up with a perforated skimmer, and lay carefully upon rounds of buttered toast laid around the minced lamb. Potato Cakes.Work cold mashed potato—or the remains of your “puff,” soft with a little melted butter and milk; knead into it enough prepared flour to enable you to roll it out into a sheet half an inch thick. Cut into rounds like biscuit, and bake in a floured pan rather quickly to a good brown. Glaze with butter just before you take them out. Eat hot. Raw Tomatoes.Please see receipt for last Monday. Bread Pudding.
Soak the crumbs in the milk to a soft paste. Put a layer of this into a buttered bake-dish. Sprinkle with citron, then spice, and cover with more soaked crumbs. Having nearly filled the dish in this order, pour over all the eggs whipped light with sugar, butter, and brandy. Bake covered twenty-five minutes, then brown. Eat warm. It will need no sauce. divider Put meat, onion, and bones on in the water and cook slowly two hours. Strain and cool, and take off every particle of fat. While the soup is cooling, put your crackers into a bowl, or tin pail, salting and peppering them. Pour on the milk, cover closely, and set for half an hour in boiling water at one side of the range. Return the broth to the fire, season and skim as it heats. Now strain the milk from the crackers, if it be not all absorbed, and turn them, with care, into your tureen. They should be like a jelly, yet retain their shape. Stir into the soup the floured butter and parsley; boil one minute and pour slowly upon the crackers. Set the tureen in hot water—covered—ten minutes, before sending to the table. Beefsteak and Onion.Broil the steak in the usual manner and lay upon a hot dish. Pepper and salt, and strain over it three tablespoonfuls of butter in which a sliced Bermuda onion has simmered—not browned—for ten minutes. Cover with Green Peas.Boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water, with a lump of white sugar, unless the peas are newly gathered from the home garden. When tender, drain well, pepper, and add a generous lump of butter. Serve hot. Baked Corn.Open a can of sweet corn; drain and chop it fine. Beat up three eggs with a tablespoonful of sugar, the same of butter, two cups of milk, pepper and salt to taste. Stir in the corn and bake forty-five minutes in a buttered pudding-dish. Cress-Salad.Cut up—not too small—pile in a salad-bowl, sprinkle with sugar, and pour over it a dressing made by working up a saltspoonful each of salt, pepper, and made mustard with two tablespoonfuls of oil, and when this is well mixed, adding, a few drops at a time, and whipping these in with an egg-beater, four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Toss up with a silver fork. Jersey Puffs.
While milk and butter are cooling—a little above blood-heat—beat in the yolks, then the flour, and let the batter get stone cold before whipping in the frothed whites. Bake in greased muffin rings in a quick oven. Serve as soon as they are baked. Tear open with your fingers, and eat with liquid sauce. divider Put on the mutton and all the vegetables, except the peas, in the water, and cook slowly four hours. Meanwhile, soak the barley in a cup of tepid water. Strain the broth, pulping the vegetables through the colander. Let it cool, and take off the fat. Season, put over the fire, skim when it reaches the boil, and add peas and barley. Simmer steadily half an hour, and serve. Roast Chickens and Pork.Clean, wash, and stuff a pair of chickens. Slice half a pound of fat salt pork very thin and bind with soft strings over the breasts and upper parts of the bodies. Lay in a dripping-pan; pour in a cup of boiling water, and roast one hour in a good oven, basting often. Then clip the strings, lay the pork in the pan; dredge the chickens with flour, and, as this colors, baste once with butter, and twice afterwards with gravy. When the chickens are done to a fine brown, lay upon a hot dish with the pork about them. Strain and skim the gravy, pepper it, thicken with a little browned flour and serve in a boat. Asparagus Pudding.
Beat eggs, butter, pepper and salt together; add the flour; then, by degrees, the milk, finally the asparagus. Put into a well-greased mould with a top, and cook in a pot of boiling water nearly two hours. Turn out upon a dish and pour a cup of drawn butter over it. It is very nice. Mashed Potatoes.Prepare in the customary way, taking care not to have them too stiff. Tomato Salad.Pare with a sharp knife; slice and lay in a salad-bowl. Make a dressing such as was directed yesterday for your cresses, with the addition of the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, powdered, and worked in with the oil, pepper, etc. Pour over the tomatoes, and set upon ice for an hour. Chocolate Blanc-Mange.
Boil the milk; stir in sugar and gelatine, and when these are dissolved, the chocolate. Cook five minutes, stirring all the time, and strain through double tarlatan, into a wet mould. Set upon ice to form. When firm, turn out and eat with sweet cream. divider As I stated, after writing out the receipt in full for this soup (see Wednesday—Third Week in March), I shall not repeat it in this volume. Please, therefore, refer to the minute directions then given, and follow them in preparing to-day’s soup—only leaving out the brains in the force-meat. You may make enough soup for two days, keeping that for Friday upon the ice. Boiled Corned Beef.Select a piece not too salt. The brisket is a good cut for family use, when not too fat. Boil in plenty of hot water, allowing fifteen minutes per pound. Make a good cup of drawn butter, taking some of the beef-liquor—strained—as a base. Chop up a little parsley and half a pickled onion, and stir into the butter one minute before pouring it out into a sauce-boat. Save the liquor for Saturday. For directions for making drawn butter and other sauces, please consult “General Receipts,” page 183. Young Turnips.Peel and quarter. Cook in boiling water, a little salted, about half an hour, or until tender. Drain, but do not mash. Pepper and salt, then butter, after dishing them. Casserole of Rice with Calf’s Brains.Make a cupful of gravy from the bones and stuffing of yesterday’s chickens. Cool and skim it. Soak a cup of Boil the calf’s brains ten minutes; lay in cold water twice as long. Then dry well and beat up with an egg, pepper, salt, and a very little flour. Fry, by the spoonful, in hot fat, drain, and lay around the rice. Green Pea Fritters.
Beat eggs, milk, and mashed peas smooth, then add the flour and fry upon a griddle as you would breakfast-cakes. Bananas, Oranges, Nuts and Raisins.Pile bananas and oranges together, garnishing with green leaves. Put nuts and raisins upon two smaller dishes. Pass all at the same course. Tea, Toasted Crackers, and Cheese.If you have a hot-water pot and a spirit-lamp, make the tea upon the table a few minutes before it is needed, then cover the pot with a “cozy.” This is a pretty English fashion which, I am glad to see, is gaining ground in our country. Butter the split crackers while hot, and send around with the tea and cheese. divider Take the fat from the top of the cake of soup-jelly you will find in the refrigerator, and warm the stock cautiously, lest it should scorch. It should not quite boil. Lobster Fricassee.
Cut the lobster into dice. Put the gravy, pepper, and salt into a saucepan, and, when hot, the lobster. Cook gently five minutes, and put in the lemon. Heat the milk in another vessel, stir in the floured butter; boil up; turn into a deep bowl. Pour the lobster in also, stir up faithfully, and turn into a deep dish. Potato Pasty.Chop your cold, boiled beef fine; season with pepper and add the remains of yesterday’s drawn butter, or make more if you have none, putting in parsley and onion pickle, chopped. Pour this mixture into a greased bake-dish; cover with hard-boiled eggs, sliced. Work a large cup of mashed potato soft with a cup of milk and two tablespoonfuls of butter. Add prepared flour until you can just roll it out—the softer the better, so long as you can handle it. Roll into a thick sheet; spread upon the surface of your mince, printing the edges, and bake in a moderate oven to a fine brown. String-Beans.See Tuesday, Third Week in May. Boiled Asparagus.Receipt given First Sunday in May. Strawberry Shortcake with Cream.
Beat the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar; the cream, then the whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in three jelly-cake tins. When cold, lay between the cakes nearly a quart of fresh, ripe strawberries. Sprinkle each layer with powdered sugar, and sift the same whitely over the top. Eat fresh with cream poured upon each slice. divider Take the fat from the liquor, and put on with the onion and potatoes, sliced. Cook one hour; strain, rubbing the Stewed Mutton Cutlets.
Put the butter into a saucepan, and lay in the cutlets, then the tomatoes. Set where they will heat very slowly for one hour. Then turn the meat, add the boiling water, and stew steadily—not fast—half an hour, keeping the pan closely covered. Lay the cutlets upon a hot dish, strain the gravy back into the saucepan, thicken with a little browned flour, stir in a heaping teaspoonful of currant jelly, and when this has melted, pour over the meat. Green Peas.Cook as directed on Tuesday of this week. Raw Tomatoes.See “Tomato Salad” on Wednesday. Leave out the boiled eggs. Potato Scallops.Mash the potatoes light with a little milk, and an even tablespoonful of butter for every cupful. Salt and pepper to taste. Fill buttered patty-pans, or scallop-shells with the mixture, sift fine crumbs over the tops, and brown in a good oven. Serve in the shells. Fig Pudding.
Soak the crumbs in the milk. Stir in the eggs beaten light with the sugar, suet, salt, and figs. Beat hard three minutes; pour into a buttered mould and boil two hours and a half. Eat hot with wine sauce. divider |
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