Henrietta Sowle

“And we meet, with champagne and chicken, at last.”

ANY one can go to market if she has the wherewithal and secure any kind of game that happens to be on the list and be happy in the purchase and eating of it, I dare say. But the happiest dames in these times are those who have a husband or sweetheart in the field shooting straight to the mark with all thoughts for the recipient of his day’s work. So it comes to pass that by express to many a door there come on these fine crisp mornings boxes or hampers of game birds. The next thing, of course, is to get one’s neighbors in to partake of them in order that they may be set by the ears with envy. I am with you. I will help you to make this envy business complete while you are about it.

There shall be a dinner given—a dinner which by a wise and palatable arrangement of courses shall lead up to the game.

Now, you know all about scallops, of course—and by “all” you mean fried and served with tartar sauce. Bah! to you and your stereotyped dishes. Novelty I beg of you, and then put in your way the means to do as I beg. Do you appreciate it, I wonder? I doubt it.

Well, then, scallops after the bouillon. Cook them in a little white wine till you know they are done. Then drain, cut them in halves or in quarters and add to them half their quantity of minced onion fried till tender, but not brown. Moisten with a little white sauce, season with cayenne and salt, heap in scallop shells, cover with bread-crumbs moistened with melted butter and brown in the hottest oven you can arrange.

Whereas it is agreed that the pleasure of a repast must be continuous—not jerky—let us plan for the next dish at your luncheon salmis of partridge, cold. The birds must be roasted and then cooled. Cut them into neat pieces, removing all the skin. Boil the skin and all the odd bits in a little red wine and water. Season with salt and a bay-leaf and thicken after it has boiled five minutes with a little flour braided with butter. Take it off, lift out all the pieces of meat and add enough aspic jelly to stiffen it. Set on ice and beat till stiff, then dip into it the neatly trimmed pieces of partridge. Dress them on a dish, using chop frills for the legs and set on ice till the time comes for serving.

At this sort of a luncheon you know you must have two dishes of game and to let the first one be cold is doing the matter up as not one neighbor in ten of yours would think of doing.

Now for the next link in this gastronomical harmony. Let it be chicken liver patties. You know how to make the puff paste and how to line the pans with it. Then you cook the desired number of chicken livers till tender, drain off the water, cover them with a rich Spanish sauce in which are as many sliced truffles as your means will allow. Of course this must be hot when the patty pans are filled with it and then the patties must be hot when they go to table.

Now make way for the piÈce de rÉsistance. What shall it be? He sent you blue-winged teal duck, you say? Couldn’t be better. His intentions towards you are of the best, you may depend. His blue-winged teal go where his heart is every time, let me tell you. Into each bird you will put a slice or two of toasted bread which has been soaked in any red wine. Rub the inside of the bird well with salt. Roast in a piping hot oven for twenty minutes, basting five times with melted butter. Garnish with sliced lemon when serving.

You will want tomato with celery and mayonnaise for this course, you know. Have large, firm, fine tomatoes peeled carefully. Then cut a round out of the top of each and scoop out all the seeds. Keep the round whole, by the way. Fill each tomato with celery chopped and mixed with mayonnaise. Clap on the top in which you have cut a tiny hole in the centre and in this hole stick a little sprig of tender green celery.

Only macaroon custards are good enough to be served at this point and these you make by covering half a pound of macaroons with hot cream first. When cool, beat well. Then add the yolks and whites beaten separately of six eggs and a tablespoonful of brandy. Butter some moulds, fill with the mixture and bake for ten minutes. Unmould on lace paper before serving. Yes, of course, have them cold. Who wants hot custard?

For a drink? Cider cup. Not here, but elsewhere, a page or two away, will you find directions for making this decoction.

A few pages back I related an account of some of the happenings of my trip to market in search of game birds of the smaller kinds. Appended to this recital were given in a more or less appetizing fashion a few directions for preparing the birds which it seemed to me must find favor with epicures and laymen alike; and, assuming that approval was accorded these recipes, of which some were begged, others borrowed and more stolen, I am giving herewith hints for use in the preparation of the larger birds to be had now, with honors easy as to quantity and quality. As to price, you may pay what you will, almost, from seventy-five cents up to three and four and even five dollars per pair.

To begin with, there are the toothsome canvas-backs that lead in price and palate-tickling properties. Now, I know quite as well as you that not every one who pleases may dine from canvas-back when fancy dictates; in fact, with nine out of ten householders something very like a dispute takes place between the purse and the palate in every instance where canvas-back forms the piÈce de rÉsistance at dinner. But the next time the palate wins in the debate go straightway to market and secure its indulgence from a marketman who will give you his oath that the canvas-backs he has on sale have fed on the banks where the wild celery grows, i.e., along the Gunpowder River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, and you may feel sure that you have the best the market affords.

As to the cooking. Wasn’t it that wholly delightful old Colonel Carter who laid it down as a law that to smother a canvas-back in jelly of any sort or description was little short of criminal? And that he was right there are scores of persons devoted to the art of good living ready to attest. No; if you are to have the bird broiled, use a double-broiler, leave over the fire ten minutes, eight will be better, and serve with only a little melted butter having in it a soupÇon of lemon juice. There is nothing there, you see, to encroach upon the delicate flavor of the duck. About two minutes before removing from the fire sprinkle a little salt over the bird.

But if a roast of game seems to you better calculated to round out your dinner scheme, then roast them, but don’t have them too well done (’tis said the blood should follow the knife); and for a sauce have some port wine heated in a bain-marie with a few drops of orange juice added thereto. H’m, talk about being able to tempt a dying anchorite! Sydney Smith may have thought it a great height attained to concoct a salad calculated to make that abstemious old recluse dip his fingers in the salad bowl, but for me, I’d a thousand times rather prepare a dish fit to tickle the palate of a gourmet who is somewhat aweary of good things; and I fancy that canvas-back so roasted and served is quite capable of lending a fillip to the existence of those most experienced in the joys to be found in eating.

It’s very sad, but it’s also very true, that there are instances where a redhead duck is foisted upon an unknowing and consequently unsuspecting purchaser in place of a canvas-back. This is easily done, because of the strong resemblance between them as to plumage and habits, for the two kinds fly and feed in the same flock. But while the flavor of the redhead is of a desirable quality, it in no way approaches that of the canvas-back.

In the cooking of the redhead duck, the rules given for preparing canvas-backs may be followed, with the exceptions that in the melted butter used for the broiled bird a little minced parsley will be an improvement, and in the port wine sauce for the roasted duck currant jelly may be melted and impart a flavor that will be generally liked.

A favorite duck with many good diners is the mallard, and when they are in good condition they are quite worthy the favor shown them. It is only a matter of choice whether they shall be roasted or broiled; if the latter way is decided upon, then a garnishing of fried celery makes a tempting dish more tempting still. Only the tender, smallest stocks of celery should be used, and then, after being dipped in frying batter, they should be fried quickly in butter. These birds, and, in fact, all others, when being broiled or roasted, should not be salted till about two minutes before removing from the fire. If the salt is put on earlier the meat is apt to be tough and the quality of the flavor somewhat injured. I don’t know that cookery books give this direction explicitly, but I have found from experience that it is the case.

If you are to have your mallards roasted, then by all means make a sour-apple marmalade, strain it through a sieve and add to it half its quantity of unsweetened whipped cream. If you have never tried this sauce with roasted duck, then, my word for it, there is a gastronomical delight waiting for you, and I wouldn’t advise you to keep it waiting long, for you will be the loser.

Don’t you recognize in this sauce an old friend in a new dress? Why, of course, roast duck and apple sauce is a dish our great-grandmothers were fond of; but this latter-day manner of preparing the sauce, you see, idealizes it a bit and renders it so much the daintier.

Another duck of delectable flavor is the ruddy duck, or broadbill, as it is known in some localities. They live in the fresh ponds hereabouts, and as long as the ponds remain unfrozen the ducks will be quite satisfied with this climate. Teal ducks, too, especially the blue-winged, are of excellent flavor, and, in addition to this, the meat is said to be highly nutritious and easily digested, making them desirable for convalescents. There is also a green-winged teal, but it is far inferior to the first-mentioned variety.

One cannot very well decide upon the particular kind of game and the manner in which it shall be served without giving some thought to the salad that in reality acts as its supplement. And the same rule which forbids the serving of a rich, heavy sauce with game applies to salads. The simpler the salad the more keenly will you relish the game. Chopped celery, lettuce, chicory, watercress or cucumbers, with a simple French dressing, are the salads par excellence to be served with game.

By the way, not long ago some one wrote to a certain weekly published in New York asking if it was “good form” to serve the game and the salad on the same plate. It doesn’t seem to me to be a matter in any way to be governed by what is called “good form.” Good taste and a very superficial knowledge of epicureanism would enable their possessor to understand that hot game should be hot, not lukewarm, and that the salads should be cold, and the only way to accomplish this is to have a plate for each.

Cut some slices of bread from a not too fresh loaf, trim them to an oblong shape, remove all crust and toast a delicate brown. Into a pat of butter mix some finely chopped parsley, pepper and lemon juice, in suitable proportions, and with the mixture coat the slices of toast. Remove the skin and bones from the desired number of sardines and lay them on the toast; garnish between the sardines with hard-boiled eggs, chopped very finely, the whites and yolks separately. Sprinkle over all some minced parsley and there you have a canapÉ—a sardine canapÉ—one of the most delightful appetizers known to good diners of this day and generation. Moreover it is a fitting beginning for a Christmas dinner of the kind which I am about to submit for your approval.

The wisdom of following the canapÉ with the simplest soup possible will be quite apparent, if I mistake not, some time before the dinner is a thing of the past. Why not, therefore, prepare it in this way? Take a chicken, cut it in pieces and put it into a saucepan with two quarts of water to simmer gently until the scum begins to rise, skim until every particle is removed, then add salt, a carrot, an onion, two slices of turnip and three celery stalks. Boil gently for two hours, strain and serve, and your family and guests will have reason to bless the hour when you set before them a chicken consommÉ.

After the soup? Well, suppose you lay in a deep dish fit to be placed in the oven a bed of medium-sized oysters; season them with salt, pepper, and a few small pieces of butter; sift over them some fresh bread-crumbs and pour in a little sherry with some of the oyster liquor; repeat the same operation until the dish is full, then besprinkle the whole with bread-crumbs; scatter small pats of butter here and there, and set the dish in a hot oven for fifteen minutes to color a light brown, then serve, and serving be modestly proud of the fact that you have prepared a dish which sometimes appears upon the menu at Delmonico’s as “HuÎtres au Gratin À la Crane.” Order it the next time you are lunching or dining at that hostelry and compare your effort with that of the famous chef at Delmonico’s. For your sake, as well as for my own, I trust that you will find that the success turned out by your own cuisine gains by the comparison.

Are you still wavering in your opinion as to whether your choice shall fall on turkey, ducks or goose for the Christmas dinner? Let it be goose then, for if properly cooked and served they go far toward clinching the success of the feast. But “properly cooked and served,” there’s the rub. And isn’t it enough to amaze a contemplative person to note how wide apart are the conditions which different housekeepers define by that phrase? Nevertheless I am going to tell you how it seems to me a goose should be prepared to answer the description. If the bird is of medium size then you will want to boil and mash eight or ten large potatoes; to them add half a dozen small onions which have been peeled and chopped as finely as possible; then season with white pepper and salt to taste. Add at least half a pint of cream or rich milk, about three ounces of melted butter, and three eggs beaten to a froth. Whip the potato till it is light and smooth and fill the inside of the goose with it. When it is sent to the table have it garnished with very small onions which have been boiled till tender without losing their shape, and then fried a light brown in butter. Nothing can be better for a sauce than the giblets boiled till tender, then chopped finely and returned to the water in which they were boiled, with a little Madeira, and a gill of button mushrooms cut in halves; thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour braided with an equal quantity of butter.

Although there may be in market a goodly showing of vegetables from almost every part of the country, not everything is calculated to supplement the flavor of roasted goose so well as is a sweet and well-flavored turnip. Particularly is this the case if the turnips are cut into fanciful shapes, such as dice, crescents, etc., with the vegetable cutters, which come expressly for this purpose, boiled till tender and then served with melted butter and chopped parsley poured over them.

Perhaps there are some housekeepers who will think I should suggest an entrÉe to follow the goose, but at this season of the year I am trying to live up to the golden rule, and as at this point I should vastly prefer a punch or a sorbet to anything else, I am going to recommend that you be guided by my preference. You may take one quart of lemon water ice to which has been added the whites of three eggs beaten to a froth, a gill of kirsch and half a pint of champagne, and send to table in some of the pretty punch cups which formed one of your Yule-tide gifts. You may also serve cigarettes at the same time, and, my word for it, your guests at table assembled will have a keener appetite for the next course than if you had sandwiched in some rich entrÉe.

With about nine out of every ten suburbanites raising pigeons in these days it is very easy to understand why the squabs in the market are of such good quality and are sold at such a reasonable price. And under these circumstances don’t you think they will be excellent for the next course if broiled to a turn and accompanied by a salad of chicory or watercress?

After the squabs the sweets. Few housekeepers will think a Christmas dinner complete without mince pies and plum-pudding, but I cannot suggest a way in which to make them, for truth to tell, I never prepared either, and I’m above offering you any recipes which I’ve not tried, no matter how true they may be. Consult your cookery books if you’ve not a favorite method of your own for preparing these aids to indigestion, and select those that seem least harmful.

Of course, there will be upon the table till dessert is served celery, olives stuffed or plain, salted almonds or pecans, etc. I know that you know this, but had I neglected to mention it more than likely you would have accused me of being ignorant of the necessity of having these side dishes at a dinner.

After the sweets the biscuit, cheese and coffee, and if the cheese is to be of a particularly rich flavor, such as Camembert, Roquefort, or Brie, then by all means serve with it some of the little Bar-le-Duc currants, both red and white.

Are you to have wine? Then make it sherry with the soup, champagne with the goose, and the very best burgundy to be had to accompany the squabs.

I fancy there is nothing more that I can suggest that will add to your happiness or that of your guests, who will probably feel very grateful to you for spreading for them a feast “delectable to eat and to behold.” For yourself, you will probably feel very grateful that Christmas comes but once a year.

You shall not be put off with any side issue in these very last pages, but shall have dished up for your critical examination a list that I promise you shall be a hodge-podge, a mÉlange, or, if it please your sense of the fitness of things better, a macÉdoine of the best edibles the market affords.

Doubtless when you have been in Western cities you have dined many a time and oft at those sky-high restaurants overlooking one of the Great Lakes, and have had the waiter, with an air of honesty made perfect by practice, point out to you the very spot where the whitefish you were at the minute admiring had been pulled in scarcely three hours before. If so, you know the delicious and unapproachable flavor of the fish in their purest and best estate. And yet they reach eastern markets in a remarkable state of freshness and are inexpensive enough to warrant any one in trying them for a change from the kinds that are more common here.

Broiled over a hot fire and served with a simple sauce made of melted butter, lemon juice and a sprinkling of cayenne they are good enough to serve at any meal for anybody. But you can make a more elaborate dish from them by going to work in this way: Scale a rather good-sized fish, split it, remove the backbone, and then season the fish well with salt and pepper, dip it in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, again in beaten egg, and lay in a well buttered baking pan. Bake in a hot oven till it is colored a good brown. Take it up on a hot dish, set the baking pan having in it the hot butter on the top of the range and cook in it for a minute or two half a pint of drained oysters; arrange the oysters round the fish and pour a little melted butter over all, with a garnishing of fried parsley. If you are having this dish for luncheon, have with it some potato croquettes, but if it is intended for dinner and a roast or rich entrÉe is to follow, then have a dainty salad of crisp radishes with a handful of capers shaken over them.

And now is the time if ever that fresh cods’ tongues should find favor. They are inexpensive and in perfect condition, and by more than one gourmet are considered an unrivalled delicacy. If this statement persuades you to give them a trial, just a word as to preparing them: Have three pints of water boiling in a saucepan, add to it two carrots and half a dozen onions very finely chopped, a few sprigs of parsley and two gills of vinegar. When the vegetables are nearly tender enough put into the saucepan with them two pounds of cods’ tongues. Let them boil just once, then move back where they will simmer but not boil for twenty minutes or so. Take up the tongues, drain, dress them on a hot dish and keep hot while you prepare the sauce. For this drain the vegetables and toss them about in a frying-pan in plenty of butter till they show signs of browning a bit, then add to them some chopped cucumber pickles and a few capers and pour round the tongues. Season the sauce, of course, with salt and pepper, and if you are gifted with rare discretion in the matter of spices use ever so little nutmeg in it; just one or two turns of the grater will give you all you should have. I intend to be very particular in my choice of readers and hearers when I suggest the use of nutmeg in savory sauces, because there are so many housekeepers as well as cooks who positively are not to be trusted with a nutmeg in one hand and a grater in the other; they will persist in going on the principle that if a little is good more must be better, and then grate away for dear life.

Of course you know that smelts are in their prime, but is your sense of smell keen enough to detect in that fish the likeness of its fragrance to that of the violet or of the cucumber? Well, the similarity is there if the fish be as fresh as it should, and if you don’t discover it you may add another to your list of misfortunes, for they do say, those who know whereof they speak, that inability to perceive this subtle scent indicates a correspondingly unappreciative palate. And so much for my fish story.

Along with the many things for which we have cause for rejoicing about this time of year there should certainly be reckoned the fact that game of almost all kinds is more plentiful and less expensive than at other seasons. And you know that under such favorable circumstances as these I am wont to urge you to make experiments in preparing the viand in question. Suppose, for instance, that the next time you are to have partridges you pretend to forget that these birds are ever roasted or broiled, and so set to work to serve them in this way: Have four partridges, cut off the breasts, divide them in two and lay them aside; boil the legs and livers of the birds in salted water till they are quite tender—so tender, in fact, that they can be pressed through a rather coarse sieve. Put this pulp into a saucepan with a gill of the water used for boiling it, half a gill of sherry wine, a bit of cayenne, an ounce of butter, and salt if it is needed. Let this get hot, very hot, without boiling, and keep it hot while you cook the breasts. These fry in butter and range in a circle on a dish with alternate slices of bread also fried in butter, and in the centre pour the sauce made from the legs and livers. To be sure, you can make the sauce somewhat richer by adding to it chopped mushrooms or chopped truffles or both.

Forget, also, for a time, your favorite ways of cooking quails in order that you may pronounce judgment on this manner of preparing them: Have half a dozen of them drawn and singed for roasting. Chop up the livers, double the quantity of chicken liver and as much minced fat salt pork as liver; add chopped parsley, salt, cayenne, three or four drops of onion juice, a tablespoonful of very fine bread-crumbs, and one beaten egg. Mix these ingredients all well together and fill the quails with it; roast them in a rather moderate oven for twenty minutes, basting occasionally with melted butter. Dress the quails on a hot dish, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice into the pan in which they were roasted, adding a little melted butter, and pour this sauce over the birds.

Or it may be that for yourself you prefer a roasted black duck, but cannot gratify your preference because some members of the family will insist upon calling such a bird “strong,” when you know and speak of the flavor only as being “gamey.” Now, there’s a way out of the difficulty for all of you. Just stuff the birds as full as you can with celery tops, tie thin slices of fat salt pork over their breasts and roast them till they are quite tender and brown. You will find the strong flavor entirely gone, while the gamey taste will be so aided and abetted by the celery that your palate will receive a new and altogether delightful sensation. Surround the ducks when serving with a border prepared as follows: Brown some slices of bread in the oven, and when of a good color and very dry, roll and pass through a fine sieve, mix these crumbs with a little butter, season them with salt and pepper and heat well in the oven before using. Serve with the ducks also a hot apple sauce; make it as you always do and add to one pint of sauce an ounce of butter.

With either of the ways suggested for cooking game you will want to serve a salad, probably, and you can’t do better than decide to have one of escarole or of romaine with a simple French dressing. But there is chicory, of course, and there is lettuce, and both of them in fine condition, if you don’t feel inclined to take my advice. And there are cucumbers, from hothouses, and there are hothouse tomatoes, that are expensive or the reverse, according to one’s position on the financial question. In fact, you can get almost any kind of vegetable or fruit in the large markets to-day, and at all times; and if the particular thing that you desire happens to be absent, just wait a few minutes and your order will be filled by lightning express from some part of the world.