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Title: The Dinner Year-Book

Author: Marion Harland

Release date: September 14, 2015 [eBook #49958]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK ***

THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK

cover

“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES.
THE
DINNER YEAR-BOOK
BY
MARION HARLAND,
AUTHOR OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,”
“BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,” ETC.



NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1883.


Transcriber’s Note:

The books by the same author, referenced often in this text, Common Sense in the Household and Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea, may be found at Project Gutenberg, etexts 48804 and 49944, or, if supported by your device, by clicking here or here.


[1]

Familiar Talk with the Reader.

“Do not laugh when I tell you that one of the most serious perplexities of my every-day life is the daily recurring question, ‘What shall we have for dinner?’” writes a correspondent.

I do not smile at the naïve confession. I feel more like sighing as I recollect the years during the summers and winters of which the same query advanced with me into the dignity of a problem. There were several important ends to be compassed in the successful settlement of the question. To accomplish an agreeable variety in the family bill of fare; to accommodate appetites and individual preferences to the season and state of the local market; to avoid incongruous associations of meats, vegetables, sauces, entrées and desserts; to build fragments into a structure about which should linger no flavor of staleness or sameness; so to manage a long succession of meals that yesterday’s repast and the more frugal one of to-day should not suggest the alternation of fat and lean in the Hibernian’s pork, or the dutiful following of penance upon indulgence; to shun, with equal care, the rock of parsimony and the whirlpool of extravagance;—but why extend the list of dilemmas? Are they not written in the mental chronicles of every housewife whose conscience—be her purse shallow or deep—will not excuse her from a continual struggle with the left-overs? Such uncompromising[2] bits of facts do these same “left-overs” appear in the next day’s survey of ways, means, and capabilities, that timid mistresses are the less to blame for often winking at the Alexandrine audacity with which the cook has disposed of the knotty subject by emptying platters and tureens into the swill-pail,—which should stand for the armorial bearings of her tribe wherever found,—or satisfied indolence, and what goes with her for humanity, by tossing crusts, bones, and “cold scraps” into the yawning basket of the beggar at the basement door.

One of these days I mean to write an article, scientific and practical, upon the genus, “basket-beggar.” For the present, take the word of one who has studied the species in all its varieties,—who has suffered long, and certainly not been unkind in the acquisition of experience upon this head,—and prohibit their visits entirely, and at all seasons. “Cold cuts” and the “heels” of loaves belong to you as certainly as do hot joints and unmutilated pies. Issue your declaration of independence to the effect that you choose to dispense charity in your own way, and that, as an intelligent Christian woman, you can better judge by what methods to relieve want and aid the really worthy poor, than can the ignorant, irresponsible creature who lavishes what costs her nothing upon every chance speculator whose lying whine excites her pity. Sympathy which, by the way, would generally lie dormant, were the listener to the piteous tale obliged to satisfy the petitioner from her own purse or wardrobe.

Returning from what is not, although it may seem to be a digression, let us talk together more briefly than is our wont in these familiar conferences, of the considerations that have moved and sustained me in the preparation of this volume, and which will, I hope, make it a welcome and useful counsellor to you. First, then, the[3] suggestion and interrogation of sincere seekers for helpful advice pertaining to that most important of the triad of daily meals—“The Family Dinner,” superadded to my own observation and experience of the difficulties that beset the subject. Secondly, the discovery, that so far as I have been able to push my investigations—and my searching has been keen and extensive—no directory upon this particular branch of culinary endeavor has been published, at least none in the English language. We have had books, some of them admirable helps to skilful, no less than to inexperienced housekeepers, upon dinner-giving, and company dinners, and “little dinner” parties, not to refer to the mighty mountain of manuals upon cookery in general; but, up to the time of the present writing, I have found nothing that, to my appreciation, meets the case stated by the friend whose plaint heads this chapter.

My aim has been to write out, for seven days of four weeks in each month, a menu adapted, in all things, to the average American market; giving meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits in their season, and, so far as I could do so upon paper, rendering a satisfactory account of every pound of meat, etc., brought, by my advice, into the kitchen. I have taken the liberty accorded me by virtue of our long and intimate acquaintanceship, of inspecting not only the contents of your market-basket, but each morning the treasures of larder and refrigerator; of offering counsel concerning crumbs, bones, and such odds-and-ends as are held in contempt by many otherwise thrifty managers—to wit, other cold vegetables than potatoes, and dry crusts of bread and cake, while of gravy and dripping I have made specialties. I have tried, moreover, to inspire such respect for made-over dinners, as we feel for the pretty rugs made of the ravellings of Axminster[4] carpets. We do not attempt to impose them upon ourselves or our friends as “pure Persian.” But neither do we blush for them because Mrs. Million Aire across the way would scorn to give them house-room. Let “Consistency” be stamped upon every appointment of your household, and even the parvenue opposite cannot despise you. Once learn the truth that moderate, or even scanty means do not make meanness or homeliness a necessity, and act upon the lesson, and you can set criticism at defiance. Apropos to this point of consistency, let me say, in explanation, not apology, for the small space devoted to company-dinners, that I have dealt with them upon the principle that ten times one makes ten. Having, in emulation of the Eastern beauty, carried the calf with ease for four weeks, you will hardly appreciate the difference in the weight of the cow you lift upon the fifth. In plainer phrase, give John and the children good dinners, well-cooked, and daintily served, every day, and the entertainment of half-a-dozen friends in addition to the family party will cease to be a stupendous undertaking. They have a saying in the Southern States that aptly expresses the labor and excitement attendant upon such an event in too many families; the straining after Mrs. Million Aire’s diners à la Russe, which presuppose the despotism of a chef in the kitchen, and the solemn pomp of a Chief Butler in the salle à manger. The Southern description of the frantic endeavor is—“Trying to put the big pot into the little one,” and it is invariably used with reference to preparations for company. Be content, my dear sister, to put into your little pot only so much as it will decently hold, and be thankful that you have in it a sure gauge of responsibility.

I have spoken of dinners for four weeks in each month. I have written receipts for this number, not in forgetfulness[5] of the fact that there is but one February per annum, but because the need of adapting the bills of fare to the days of the week, instead of the month, was absolute, and if I wished the Dinner Year-Book to be a perpetual calendar, I must say nothing of the broken week that sometimes ends and sometimes begins the month. The difficulty of disposing satisfactorily of the two or three odd days brought to my mind, while blocking out my work, the summary manner in which one of my baby-girls once dismissed a somewhat analogous difficulty.

“My dear,” I said to her one night as she concluded her prayer at my knee, “you have forgotten to pray for your little cousins. How did that happen? Don’t you want our Heavenly Father to take care of them?”

She made a motion of again bending her knees, yawned sleepily, and tumbled into bed.

“Can’t help it, mamma! Baby is too tired! Horace and Eddie must scuffle for themselves just this one night!”

I have given you twenty-eight—nay, counting your possible company-meal—twenty-nine dinners in succession to little purpose if you cannot collate from previous receipts one or two for yourself, and be the better for the practice. I need hardly say that I do not anticipate or desire slavish adherence to the plan sketched for your day or week. I have sketched—that is all—not worked out a sum in which addition or subtraction would materially affect the sum-total. The framework is, I would fain hope, symmetrical. I expect you to build thereupon as convenience or discretion may dictate.


[6]

Touching Saucepans.

While it is true that the finest tools will not impart skill to the untrained workman, it is equally a matter of fact that the best artisan is he who cares most jealously for the quality and condition of his instruments as well as for the finish of his workmanship.

A visitor once asked permission to witness the operation of cooking a beefsteak in my kitchen, saying that her husband had spoken in terms of commendation of those he had eaten at my table. Like the good wife she was, she desired to “catch the trick,” whatever it might be, of preparing them to his liking. I willingly acceded to her request, and upon her return to the parlor her husband inquired eagerly: “Did you learn the secret?”

“Yes,” was the smiling answer. “You must buy me a gridiron!”

Up to that time, she then explained, fried steaks had been the rule in her house, and gridirons a thing unheard or unthought of.

A fried beefsteak being, as I have elsewhere stated, a culinary solecism, I have, perhaps, selected an extreme case as the test of my discourse upon the necessity of a supply of fitting utensils for the proper prosecution of home-cookery. Mrs. Whitney’s idea of the “art-kitchen,” so charmingly set forth in “We Girls,” may not be so chimerical (with limitations) as most practical housewives—practised in nothing more than in the exercise of patience—are apt to suppose. They tell us the tale—known already too sadly well to each of us—of the impossibility of inducing “girls” who are tractable and respectful in most things, to accept labor-saving machines,[7] and the thousand-and-one ingenious contrivances for making cooking easier and even graceful; of the hard usage to which expensive implements are subjected in rude hands, the motive-power of which is the untilled brain, unrestrained by the conscienceless will; of how innovations are openly flouted, or secretly sneered at, “until,” say they, “we find it easier to let the cook have her own way down-stairs, and reconcile ourselves, as best we may, to obstinate stupidity and unmerciful breakages. As to art-kitchens”—a shrug and a groan,—“we are thankful if our tenderest care can keep the upper stories free from the vandalism that rages below.”

Nevertheless, acknowledging, as I have, personally, reasons for doing—the truth of all these things—I make answer, “Have an art-kitchen for yourself!” First, give your cook, or maid-of-all-work, a fair trial. It is a duty you owe to humanity and to her to prove, conclusively, whether her careless or destructive habits be ingrain and wilful, or merely the result of ignorance and bad training. There are bad mistresses, let us remember,—and more still who are indifferent or incompetent. If “our girl” has a heart or a conscience, let us find it. Make her understand the value and usefulness of the appliances you have furnished for her work, where and how they are to be kept, and set her the example of always looking for and putting them in their proper places. If they are misused, show your regret decidedly, but still kindly. Should all means of civilizing her taste up to your standard fail, make, as I have advised, an art-kitchen for your own use. Appropriate one corner of the room, where cooking is done, for your operations, and arrange there your pet tools. Have your scoop flour-sifter; your patent pie-lifter and oyster-broiler; your star-toaster; your pie-crimper, vegetable and nutmeg graters; gravy-strainer, colander, biscuit-cutter,[8] skimmers, larding needles, wire, and perforated, and slit and fluted spoons; your weights and measures, and the tidy, serviceable tinned and enamelled saucepans, Scotch kettles, frying-pans, etc., that will retain tidiness and serviceable qualities so long in your care, and so soon come to grief in boorish clutches. Set all these, and as many others as you like and can afford to buy—always including the Dover egg-beater and its “Baby” (made for whipping one egg to more purpose than one egg, or anything else as small was ever whipped before)—in array upon walls and shelves,[A] and let the logic of daily events prove how far they will deprive work of the wearing vexations attendant upon long searches for the right article, and its wrong condition when found. Make your helpers—one and all—comprehend that these are your especial property, to be used—and kept clean—by no one else. Let them be looked down upon as the toys of a would-be-busy woman by the superior intellects about you, should they see fit thus to do, and provide such tools as are suited to coarser fingers for them to use. The chances are many to one that your dexterous manipulation of your instruments; the excellence of the products achieved by yourself and them; even the attractive neatness of the display and your corner, will win skeptics, first, to indulgence, then, admiration, then, to imitation. If you can afford the great [9]luxury of a pastry or mixing-room, adjoining the kitchen, so much the better for you and your pious undertaking. But without regard to what may be the effect upon others, have your saucepans, of whatever designs and in whatever quantities you like—taking “saucepan” as a generic term for every description of mute helpers in the task of elevating cookery into a fine art, or, at the least, in redeeming it from the stigma of coarseness and vulgarity.

Have, also, as an indispensable adjunct of saucepans, appliances for cleansing them. There is nothing inherently degrading in dish-washing. Provide plenty of towels and hot water; a mop with a handle and a loop by which to hang it up when it has been squeezed and shaken after use; a soap-shaker—a neat wire cup, enclosing the soap, and furnished with a handle of tinned wire, and a dish-pan, with a partition running across the middle, that the soiled articles may be rinsed from grease in one of the compartments before they are purified thoroughly in the other. Have, also, at hand a can or box of washing soda, and a bottle of ammonia for taking off the grease more effectually; a cake of Indexical silver soap in a cup, with a brush, for restoring lustre to tins, Britannia or plated, or silver ware. Thus armed, the cleansing of your implements will be a matter of brief moment, and your work in the kitchen be, in no sense, a hindrance to the stated duties of the day, while your methods and occasional presence cannot fail to be a refining influence upon all except the very common and spiritually unclean. Ladyhood, if thorough, will assert itself, even behind a scullion’s apron.[10]
[11]

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JANUARY.

Beef Soup.

Cut the meat very fine, and crack the bones well. Put these on in a pot with a close top; cover with a quart of water, and set where they will come very slowly to a boil. If they do not reach this point in less than an hour, so much the better. When the contents of the pot begin to bubble, add the remaining two quarts of cold water, and let all boil slowly for three hours: for two hours with the top closed, during the last with it slightly lifted. Wash and peel the turnip, carrot, and onion, scrape the celery, and wash with the cabbage. Cut all into dice and lay in cold water, a little salted, for half an hour. Put the carrot on to stew in a small vessel by itself; the others all together, with enough water to cover them. Some[12] think the carrot keeps color and shape better if hot, instead of cold water be used for it. Let it stew until tender, then drain off the water and set it aside to cool. The other vegetables should be boiled to pieces. Half an hour before the soup is to be taken up, strain the water from the cabbage, etc., pressing them to a pulp to extract all the strength. Return this to the saucepan, throw in a little salt, let it boil up once to clear it; skim and add to the soup. Put in pepper, and salt—unless the ham has salted it sufficiently—and boil, covered, twenty minutes. Strain into an earthenware basin; let it get cool enough for the fat to arise to the surface, when take off all that will come away. Return to the pot, which should have been previously rinsed with hot water, boil briskly for one minute, and throw in the carrot. Skim and serve.

This is a good, clear soup. If you like it thicker, dissolve a tablespoonful of gelatine in enough cold water to cover it well—this may be done by an hour’s soaking—and add to the soup after the latter is strained and cleared of the fat.

When practicable, make Sunday’s soup on Saturday, so far as to prepare the “stock,” or meat base. Set it away in an earthenware crock, adding a little salt. This not only lessens Sunday’s work, but the unstrained soup gathers the whole strength of the meat, and the fat can be removed in a solid cake of excellent dripping. Indeed, it is a good rule always to prepare soup stock at least twenty-four hours before it is to be used for the table.

Try, likewise, to make enough soup for Sunday to last over Monday as well. A little forethought on Saturday will lessen the labors and increase the comfort of what has been somewhat profanely named “Job’s birthday,” the anniversary which was to be accursed for evermore.

Chicken smothered with Oysters.

Prepare the chicken as for roasting. Stuff with a dressing of the oysters chopped pretty fine, and mixed with the bread-crumbs, seasoned to taste with pepper and salt. Tie up the neck securely. (This can be done on Saturday, if the fowl be afterwards kept in a very cold place.)

Put the chicken thus stuffed and trussed, with legs and wings tied close to the body with soft tape, into a tin pail with a tight top. Cover closely and set, with a weight on the top, in a pot of cold water. Bring gradually to a boil, that the fowl may be heated evenly and thoroughly. Stew steadily, never fast, for an hour and a half after the water in the outer kettle begins to boil. Then open the pail and test with a fork to see if the chicken be tender. If not, re-cover at once, and stew for half or three-quarters of an hour longer. When the chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay upon a hot dish, covering immediately. Turn the juices left in the pail into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, which should first be wet up with a little cold milk, then the chopped parsley, butter, pepper and salt, and the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs chopped fine. Boil up once, stir in the cream, and take from the fire before it can boil again. Pour a few spoonfuls over the chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce-tureen.

Celery Salad.

Wash and scrape the celery, lay in ice-cold water until dinner-time, when cut into inch-lengths, season, tossing all well up together, and serve in a salad bowl.

Cauliflower au gratin.

[14]

Boil the cauliflower until tender (about twenty minutes), having first tied it up in a bag of coarse lace or tarlatan. Have ready a cup of good drawn butter, and pour over the cauliflower, when you have drained and dished the latter. Sift the cheese thickly over the top, and brown by holding a red-hot shovel so close to the cheese that it singes and blazes. Blow out the fire on the instant, and send to the table.

Mashed Potatoes.

Pare the potatoes very thin, lay in cold water for an hour, and cover well with boiling water. (“Peach-blows” are better put down in cold water.) Boil quickly, and when done, drain off every drop of water; throw in a little salt; set back on the range for two or three minutes. Mash soft with a potato-beetle, or whip to a cream with a fork, adding a little butter and enough milk to make a soft paste. Heap in a smooth mound upon a vegetable dish.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Open a can of tomatoes an hour before cooking them. Leave out the cores and unripe parts. Cook always in tin or porcelain saucepans. Iron injures color and flavor. Stew gently for half an hour; season to taste with salt, pepper, a little sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Cook gently, uncovered, ten minutes longer, and turn into a deep dish.

Blanc Mange.

Soak the gelatine for two hours in a breakfast-cup of cold water. Heat the milk to boiling in a farina-kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot of hot water. Add the soaked gelatine and sugar, stir for ten minutes over the fire, and strain through a thin muslin bag into a mould wet with cold water. Flavor and set in a cold place to form. To loosen it, dip the mould for one instant in hot water, detach[15] the surface from the sides by a light pressure of the fingers, and reverse over a glass or china dish. Serve with powdered sugar and cream.

By all means have Sunday desserts prepared upon the preceding day. To this end, I have endeavored to give such receipts for the blessed day as can be easily made ready on Saturday.

Cocoa.

Rub the cocoa smooth in a little cold water. Have ready on the fire the pint of boiling water. Stir in the grated cocoa-paste. Boil twenty minutes; add the milk and boil five minutes more, stirring often.

Sweeten in the cups to suit different tastes.

There is a preparation of cocoa, already powdered, called “cocoatina,” which needs no boiling. It is very good, and saves the trouble of grating and cooking. I regret that, although I have used it frequently and with great satisfaction, I have forgotten the name of the manufacturer. It is put up in round boxes, like mustard, and is quite as economical for family use as the cakes of cocoa.

Sponge Cake.

Beat yolks and whites very light, separately of course, the powdered sugar into the yolks when they are smooth and thick; next, the juice and grated peel of the lemon; then the whites with a few swift strokes; at last, the flour, in great, loose handfuls. Stir in lightly, but thoroughly. Too much beating after the flour goes in makes sponge cake tough. Bake in round tin moulds, buttered. Your oven should be steady. When the cakes begin to color on top, cover with paper to prevent burning.

When cool, wrap in a thick cloth to keep fresh.[16]

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Said an irascible householder to a friend from another city, whom he chanced to meet in the street one day, “Come and dine with me! But I give you warning we shall have nothing for dinner but a confounded dressmaker!” Few of the great middle class, who are the strength and glory of our land, would dare take an unexpected guest home on washing-day, although fewer still would dare reveal, as frankly as did our blunt citizen, the cause of their reluctance to unveil the penetralia of what are, upon all days save Black Monday and Blue Tuesday, orderly and brightsome households.

Don’t interrupt me, please, my much-tried and much-trying sister, upon whose brow the plaits of Monday’s tribulations have left enduring traces! I know Bridget is always cross on wash-day, and that Katy wears an aggrieved air from morning until night; that dusting, china-washing, and divers other unaccustomed tasks are appointed unto your already busy self; that John and the boys hate “pick-up dinners;” that the modest bills of fare set down in this book for the second and third days of the week will, at the first glance, seem preposterous and unfeeling. You will survey them with very much the same feeling as moved Pope to exclaim, with tears in his eyes, “From an old friend I had not expected this!” when his host, having allowed him to eat to repletion of less savory viands, had brought on, without a note of preparation, the poet’s favorite dish, a fine hare roasted with truffles. But the fact remains that people cannot swallow enough on Sunday to support Nature through the two days’ journey into the wilderness of making-clean that[17] follows the season of rest and devotion. It is also true that your husband and yourself, with school-children and servants, work harder on Monday than upon any other one day of the seven, and that your food should be nourishing. Should Bridget protest against “hot mate and soup” as unprecedented and “onfaling,” Bridget’s mistress (by courtesy) must bring another unknown commodity to the obstinate Celt, to bear upon the subject—to wit, Brains. As I shall try to show, an hour given by yourself to the lower regions—too often an inferno on that direful day—will put such a repast before unexpectant John as shall have for his eye and taste none of the characteristics of a “pick-up dinner.”

Soup À l’Italienne.

Put the soup on fifteen minutes before dinner, where it will heat quickly. The moment it boils, draw it to one side, stir in the corn-starch and milk and heat anew, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Set it again upon the side of the range, and add the beaten eggs. Cover and leave it where it will keep hot, but not cook, while you scald the tureen and put the grated cheese in the bottom. In five minutes pour the soup upon the cheese, stir all up well, and it is ready for the table.

This is a delicious soup and easily made.

Breaded Mutton Chops—Baked.

Trim the chops neatly and put aside the bones and bits of skin for the sauce for macaroni. Pour a little melted butter over the meat. Do this as early in the day as convenient, cover them and let them stand until an hour before they are to be served. Then, roll each in beaten egg, next, in fine cracker-dust, (you can buy it ready powdered) and lay them in your dripping-pan with a very little water in the bottom—just enough to keep them from burning. Bake quickly—covering the dripping-pan with another—for half an hour. Then remove the upper[18], baste the chops with butter and hot water, and let them brown. When done, lay them upon a hot dish and set in the open oven to keep warm. Add to the gravy in the dripping-pan a little hot water, a teaspoonful of browned flour, a tablespoonful of catsup, a small quantity of minced onion, pepper and salt. Boil up once, strain, and pour over the chops.

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.

Break the macaroni into short pieces and set over the fire with enough boiling water to cover it well, as it swells to treble its original dimensions. In twenty minutes it should be tender. Drain off the water carefully, not to break the macaroni, and stir lightly into it pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of butter. Turn it into a deep dish and pour over it a sauce made as follows: To the bones and refuse bits left from trimming the chops, add a pint of cold water, and stew slowly upon the back of the range, (lest Bridget should be inconvenienced thereby,) until you have less than a cupful of good gravy. Strain out the bones, etc., season to taste, and add what was left from the stewed tomatoes of yesterday. Having had the provision for to-day’s dinner in mind, you will have acted wisely in seeing for yourself that it did not go into the swill-pail under the head of “scraps.” Cook tomatoes and gravy together for three minutes after they begin to simmer, and pour, smoking hot, over the macaroni. Let it stand covered a few minutes before serving.

Potato Puff.

To two cupfuls of cold mashed potato (more of yesterday’s leavings), add a tablespoonful of melted butter, and beat to a cream. Put with this two eggs whipped light, and a cupful of milk, salting to taste. Beat all well; pour into a greased baking-dish, and bake quickly to a light brown. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked.

Corn-starch Hasty Pudding.

[19]

Heat the milk to scalding, and stir into it the corn-starch until it has boiled ten minutes and is thick and smooth throughout. Add salt and butter, let the pudding stand in the farina-kettle in which it has been boiled—the hot water around it—for three minutes before turning it into a deep open dish.

Eat with butter and sugar, or with powdered sugar and cream, with nutmeg grated over it.

Coffee.

A French coffee-pot is a convenience on Monday. If you have one, you know how to use it. If not, put a quart of boiling water into your coffee-pot; wet up a cupful of ground coffee with the white of an egg, adding the egg-shell, and a little cold water. Put this into the boiling hot water, and boil fast ten minutes. Then, add half a cup of cold water, and set it upon the hearth or table to “settle” for five minutes. Pour it off carefully into your metal or china coffee-pot or urn.

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Scotch Broth.

[20]

Crack the bones and mince the meat early in the day, if you dine near midday, and put on with the cold water. Soak the barley in lukewarm water, after washing it well, and when it has lain in the tepid bath for two hours, put it in the same over the fire to cook slowly, keeping it covered fully by adding hot water from the kettle. Wash, scrape and chop the vegetables; cover with cold water, and stew in a saucepan by themselves. When they are very soft, rub them through a colander; add the water in which they were cooked, and keep hot until the meat in the soup-kettle has boiled to rags. For this purpose four hours are better than three. Strain out bones and meat; put soup-stock, barley (with the water in which it has boiled), vegetable broth, pepper, and salt, into one kettle and boil slowly for thirty minutes. A little chopped parsley is an improvement.

Rolled Beefsteaks.

Take out the bones from the steak and throw them into the soup-pot. If your butcher has not already done so, beat the meat flat with the broad side of a hatchet, and cover it with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs, minced pork, and half an onion. Moisten this slightly with water, and season to taste. Roll each steak up, closely enclosing the stuffing; bind with twine into two compact bundles and lay in a dripping-pan. Dash a cupful of boiling water over each, cover with an inverted pan, and bake about three-quarters of an hour, in their own steam. At the end of this time remove the cover, baste with butter and dredge with flour to brown the meat. When they are of a fine color, lay upon a hot dish. Thicken the gravy with a little browned flour, boil up and send to table in a boat. In removing the strings from the rolled beef prior to serving, clip them in several places, that the form of the meat may not be disturbed.[21]

Cabbage Salad.

Heat milk and vinegar in separate vessels. To the boiling vinegar add butter, sugar, and seasoning, lastly the chopped cabbage. Heat to scalding, but do not let it boil. Stir the beaten eggs into the hot milk. Cook one minute together after they begin to boil. Turn the hot cabbage into a bowl; pour the custard over it; toss up and about with a wooden or silver fork, until all the ingredients are well mixed. Cover and set in a very cold place for some hours.

This is a very delightful salad, quite repaying the trouble of cooking the dressing.

Browned Potatoes.

Boil large potatoes with their skins on; peel them, and, when you uncover your beef for browning, lay the potatoes in the dripping-pan about the meat. Dredge and baste them as well as the beef. If not quite brown when the meat is ready, leave them in the gravy for awhile, before thickening the latter. Drain in a hot colander, and arrange neatly around the steaks in the dish.

Baked Beans.

Soak dried beans all night in soft water, exchanging this in the morning for lukewarm, and this, two hours later, for still warmer. Let them lie an hour in this, before putting them on to boil in cold water. When they are soft, drain and turn them into a bake-dish. Season with pepper and salt, with a liberal spoonful of butter. Add enough boiling water to prevent them from scorching and bake, covered, until they smoke and bubble. Remove the cover, and brown. Serve in the bake-dish.[22]

Apple and Tapioca Pudding.

Arrange the apples in a deep dish; add a cup of cold water; cover, and steam in a moderate oven until tender all through, turning them once or twice. Turn off half the liquid and pour the tapioca, which should have been soaked in a warm place, over the apples, when you have filled the hollows left by the cores with sugar and put a clove in each. The tapioca should be slightly salted. Bake one hour, or until the tapioca is clear and crusted on top. Serve in pudding-dish.

Hard Sauce.

To two cups of powdered sugar add half a cup of butter, slightly warmed, so that the two can be worked up together. When they are well mixed, beat in half a teaspoonful of nutmeg and the juice of a lemon. Whip smooth and light, mound neatly upon a butter-plate, and set in the cold to harden.

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Split Pea Soup.

Soak the peas all night in soft water, changing it in the morning for warm—not hot. Throw this off after an hour and cover the peas with four quarts of cold water. Boil in this—adding the meat, cut small, the bones well cracked and the celery—four hours. Always boil soups slowly. The neglect of this rule leaves in the kettle a mass of toughened meat and an ocean of dish-water.

When you are ready to take up your soup, strain in a colander, picking out and casting aside bits of bones and shreds of meat. Rub the peas and celery through the holes of the strainer until nothing more will pass. Season with pepper and salt; add the juice of a small lemon, and return to the kettle, which must first be rinsed with hot water. Let all boil together two minutes. Should it not seem so thick as you would like, you can put in, while it is boiling, a little corn-starch wet up with cold water. Put a couple of slices of stale bread, cut into dice and fried crisp in dripping, in the heated tureen, and pour the soup upon them.

Halibut Steaks—Fried.

Wash and wipe the steaks. Roll each in flour, and fry upon a buttered griddle, turning carefully with a spatula, or cake-turner, when the lower side is done. They should be of a nice brown, and tender throughout. Remove to a hot dish and garnish with sliced lemon; in carving, see that a bit of the lemon goes to each person, as many prefer it to any other sauce for fish. Send around potatoes with the steak. Worcestershire is a good store-sauce for fish and game. Anchovy is pre-eminently a fish sauce, but many do not like it.

Leg of Mutton—Boiled.

Do not have the mutton too fat or too large. Cut off the shank, which the butcher will have nicked for you, leaving about two inches beyond the ham. Wash and wipe carefully and boil in hot water, with a little salt, until[24] a fork will readily pierce the thickest part. About ten or twelve minutes to the pound is a good rule in boiling fresh meat. Serve with caper sauce. Since you intend to use the liquor in which the meat is boiled for to-morrow’s soup, do not oversalt it. But sprinkle, instead, salt over the leg of mutton after it is dished; rub it all over with butter and set in a hot oven for a single minute.

Caper Sauce.

Heat the liquor to boiling, and skim before stirring in the flour, which must be perfectly free from lumps, and rubbed smooth in cold water. Stir until the sauce thickens evenly. It is best to cook all sauces in a vessel set within a larger one of hot water. When it has boiled about a minute, add the butter gradually, stirring each bit in well before putting in more. Salt, and drop in the capers. Let it just boil, and turn into a sauce-boat.

Spinach.

Pull the spinach from the stalks, leaf by leaf; wash carefully, and leave in cold water one hour. Boil in hot water fifteen minutes. Drain very dry in a colander; chop extremely fine in a wooden bowl, then return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, and a teaspoonful of white sugar. As it heats beat it up with a wooden spoon until it is a soft paste. Let it bubble up once, and dish. Lay a hard-boiled egg or two, cut in thin slices, upon the surface. Few vegetables are more often ruined in the cooking than spinach. The above receipt is simple and good.

Stewed Potatoes.

Pare and cut into large dice some good potatoes. Lay in cold water half an hour. Stew in cold water, a little salted. There should be enough water to cover them[25] well. When they are tender and begin to crumble at the edges, drain off half the water, and pour in as much milk. When they are again scalding hot, stir in a lump of butter the size of an egg (for a large dish) rolled in flour, salt, pepper and chopped parsley to taste. Boil up once and serve in a covered dish.

Cottage Pudding.

Rub the butter well into the sugar; add beaten yolks; the milk, salt, then whipped whites and yolks alternately. Bake in a buttered mould. When you can bring out the testing-straw clean from the middle of the loaf, turn it out upon a dish. Cut in slices while hot, as it is wanted.

One who has never tried it can hardly believe that the result of a receipt which may be tried fearlessly by a novice in cookery, could be the really elegant pudding just described.

It is also as economical as toothsome.

Sauce for Cottage Pudding.

Rub the butter into the sugar; add hot water gradually; then spice and wine. Cover tightly to keep in the strength of the wine, and set for twenty minutes in a saucepan of boiling water. Stir up and send to table.[26]

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Vermicelli Soup.

Take off all the fat from the broth in which your mutton was cooked yesterday, and boil it down slowly to two-thirds of the original quantity. Stew to pieces, in another vessel, a stalk of celery, one small onion, a carrot, and a bunch of sweet herbs—all cut up fine. A ham-bone, if you have it, or a couple of slices of lean ham, will be an improvement to the broth. Strain the soup; rub the vegetables through a fine colander with the water in which they were boiled; return to the fire with a double handful of vermicelli broken into short pieces; boil for ten minutes; add a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; boil up and serve.

Send around a saucer of grated cheese with vermicelli and macaroni soups. It is a great improvement to the flavor and consistency. Each person may take as much or as little as he likes.

Scalloped Oysters.

Butter a baking-dish and cover the bottom pretty thickly with pounded cracker. Wet with oyster liquor and a few spoonfuls of cream. Next, lay oysters, one deep, closely over these. Pepper and salt, and stick a bit of butter upon each. Another layer of crumbs, wet[27] as before; more oysters, and proceed in like order until your dish is full, making the top layer of crumbs with butter dotted over it. Set in the oven, invert a plate or tin pan over the dish, and bake until the juice bubbles up to the top. Uncover; set upon the upper grating of the oven to brown, and send to table in the bake-dish. Pass around sliced lemon with it.

Oysters, like fish, follow immediately after soup, and are a course by themselves.

Mince of Mutton with Potato Frill.

Heat the sauce to a boil, add the seasoning and the onion, chopped very fine; then, the meat. Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, and let it stand, closely covered, in boiling water for ten minutes. Set again over the fire and bring to boiling point. Add the eggs and milk and set back at the side for five minutes, still covered. The mince should never really boil after the meat goes in.

Potato Frill.

Boil and mash some potatoes; working in a little milk and butter, but not so much as to make the paste very soft. Season with salt, and, while still hot, knead in a beaten egg. Shape this paste into a fence, on the inside round of a shallow dish; fluting it regularly with the round handle of a knife. Set for one minute in a hot oven, but not long enough to cause the fence to crack. Glaze quickly with butter, and pour the meat carefully within the wall. The mince should not be so thin as to wash away the “frill.” If well managed this is a pretty and a savory dish.[28]

Baked Tomatoes.

Drain off two-thirds of the liquor from the tomatoes; salt it and set aside for another day’s soup. One has no excuse for waste whose “stock-pot” is always near at hand. Little comes amiss to it. Cover the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; lay the tomatoes evenly upon this bed; season with pepper, salt, sugar, and parsley, with bits of butter here and there. Strew bread-crumbs over all, a thicker layer than at the bottom; put tiny pieces of butter upon this, and bake, covered, about thirty-five minutes. Take off the cover and brown upon the upper shelf of the oven. Do not let it stay there long enough to get dry.

Celery—Raw.

Wash, trim, and scrape the stalks, selecting those that are white and tender. Crisp by leaving them in very cold water until they are wanted for the table. Arrange neatly in a celery-stand. Pass between the oysters and meat.

Tipsy Trifle.

Make a custard of the milk, sugar, the yolks of the eggs and the whites of two. Put in the latter ingredients when the milk almost boils, and stir until it begins to thicken. Flavor when cold. Put a layer of sliced cake in the bottom of a glass bowl. Wet with the wine and a few spoonfuls of custard, and when it is quite soaked, put on more cake. Proceed in this manner until the cake and wine are used up, when pour on, a little at a time, the[29] remainder of the custard; holding down the cake with a bread spoon as you do this to keep it from floating. Lay a heavy plate upon it, for the same purpose, while you prepare a méringue by whipping stiff the rest of the whites, and then beating in the currant jelly. Cover the trifle with this just before dinner-time.

Apples and Nuts.

Polish the apples, and crack the nuts, unless you have plenty of nut-crackers. Give a knife to each apple-plate, and teach the children to pare them neatly for themselves, instead of “munching” like rabbits at family dinners, and being awkwardly ill at ease when “company” is present. Silver or ivory knives are better for fruit than steel.

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Soupe Maigre.

[30]

Clean, scrape, and mince the vegetables, and put on to cook in cold water, enough to cover them well. When they are scalding hot, drain, and cover them with three pints of boiling water. Stew slowly in this until they are reduced to pulp. Rub through a colander, season, and heat again to boiling. Stir in the bread-crumbs; then the butter, very gradually. Have the milk ready, heated in another vessel, and pour into the soup-kettle at this juncture. Let the soup get very hot, but not boil. Set upon the side of the range, and, dipping out a cupful, add it, a little at a time, to the beaten eggs. When well mixed, return eggs and liquor to the rest of the soup; stir over the fire for an instant, but never to boiling, and serve in a hot tureen.

The eggs should not be allowed to curdle in the liquor; hence the need of carefulness in following the directions above given. A little grated cheese is a pleasant accompaniment to this soup, each person adding it as pleases him.

Boiled Cod.

Lay the fish in cold water, a little salt, for half an hour. Wipe dry, and sew up in a linen cloth, coarse and clean, fitted to the shape of the piece of cod. Have but one fold over each part. Lay in the fish-kettle, cover with boiling water, salted at discretion. Allow nearly an hour for a piece weighing four pounds.

Sauce.

To one gill of boiling water allow as much milk; stir into this, while boiling, two tablespoonfuls of butter, added gradually, a tablespoonful of flour wet up with cold water, and, as it thickens, the chopped yolk of a boiled egg and one raw egg, beaten light. Take directly from the fire, season with pepper, salt, a little chopped parsley and the juice of a lemon, and set, covered, in boiling water, but not over the fire, for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour part of the sauce over the fish when dished; the rest in a boat. Send around mashed potatoes with it.[31]

Roast Duck.

Clean the duck very carefully, rinsing it out with a little soda and water, and afterwards with fresh water. Lay in cold, salted water for an hour. Wipe dry, inside and out, and stuff with a dressing of bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper and salt, a very little powdered sage and a “suspicion” of minced onion. Sew up; dash a cup of boiling water over them, as they lie in the dripping-pan, and roast, covered, for the first half-hour. Remove the cover, and baste freely—three times with butter and water, four or five times with the gravy from the pan. Stew the giblets in a little salted water, and reserve to piece out to-morrow’s salmi. Dish the ducks upon a hot platter.

Bread Sauce.

Skim the fat well from the gravy left in the dripping-pan; have ready a handful of bread-crumbs (stale), wet up with hot water. Thicken the gravy with these when it has come to a boil; season with pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace. Boil all together once and serve.

Mashed Potatoes.

See receipt for Sunday.

While I would spare you all waste of time and pains in looking up receipts in other parts of this volume, I yet deem it hardly worth while to write out in full the same directions twice for the same week—or month.

Rice Croquettes.

Work rice, butter, egg, etc., into an adhesive paste, beating each ingredient thoroughly into the mixture. Flour your hands and make the rice into oval balls. Dip each in beaten egg, then in flour, or cracker-dust, and fry[32] in boiling lard, a few at a time, turning each with great care. When the croquettes are of a fine yellow-brown, take out with a wire spoon and lay within a heated colander to drain off every drop of fat. Serve hot, with sprigs of parsley laid about them, in an uncovered dish.

Stewed Celery.

Cut the celery into inch lengths; cover with cold water and stew until tender. Turn off the water and supply its place with enough milk to cover the celery. When this begins to boil stir in a good lump of butter rolled in flour; pepper and salt to taste, and stew gently five minutes.

You will like this vegetable thus prepared. Eat, if you like, with a little lemon-juice or vinegar.

Apple Pie.

Chop the lard into the dry flour. Wet with ice-water into stiff paste, touching as little as may be with your hands. Roll out very thin, always from you. Stick bits of butter all over the sheet; roll up tightly as you would a sheet of paper. Beat flat with your rolling-pin, roll out again, and again baste with butter. Repeat the operations of rolling up, rolling out, and basting until your butter is used up. Set the roll of pastry in a cold, dry place for at least one hour. All night would not be too long. When it is crisp and firm, roll out and line your buttered pie-plates. The bottom crust should be thinner than the upper. And, as a rule, you would do well to give the roll of pastry intended for the latter a “baste” or two more than that meant for the lower.

Pare, core and slice juicy, tart apples; put a layer upon the inner crust, sprinkle with sugar thickly—scatter a few cloves upon the sugar; then another layer of apples, and so on, until the dish is full. Cover with crust,[33] pressed down firmly at the edges, and bake. Eat warm, or cold, with white sugar sifted over the top.

Apple pie is very good with cream poured over each slice.

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Macaroni Soup.

Fry the meat until half done, in a very little dripping. Take it out and fry the onions and bones in the same gravy. Put all into a soup-kettle with the herbs, and cover with 4 quarts of water (cold). Bring to a slow boil, and, at the end of four hours, strain into a great bowl to cool, in order that the fat may rise and be taken off. Meanwhile, make ready your macaroni by breaking it into short bits, covering well with boiling water, a little salted, and stewing slowly twenty minutes, or until tender. Add a lump of butter the size of a walnut; let it stand, covered, for a few minutes, while you season the soup, adding the tomato-juice or catsup. Boil, skim,[34] and thicken with a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet up with cold water. When it is again on the boil, turn in the macaroni, taking care not to break it. Heat to scalding, but do not boil; pour out, and serve.

Ham and Eggs.

Cut your slices of ham of a uniform size and shape, cutting off the rind. Fry quickly in their own fat. Remove from the pan with a wire spoon so soon as they are done, and arrange upon a hot dish, setting this within the open oven, or upon a pot of boiling water to keep warm. Drop the eggs, as you break them, into the hot fat left in the frying-pan. Do not put so many in as to crowd one another. Each egg should preserve its individuality. Cook about three minutes, without turning. Take up with a spatula, or cake-turner, and lay one upon each slice of ham. Do not send the gravy to table. Strain, and use for dripping.

Salmi of Duck.

From the cold ducks left after yesterday’s dinner cut all the meat in as neat slices as you can, leaving the joints of legs and wings whole. Take off the skin; break the carcass into pieces, and put these, with the stuffing, into a saucepan with a fried onion, some sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and a pinch of allspice. Cover with cold water and stew gently, after it reaches the boil, for one hour. Cool, that the fat may rise and be taken off. Strain the gravy when you have skimmed it; return to the saucepan, boil and skim again, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of browned flour, wet with cold water; lastly, stir in a great spoonful of butter. Stew five minutes longer, and put in the meat. Draw to one side of the range, and set, closely covered, in a pot of boiling water for ten minutes. The meat must be thoroughly heated and steeped in the gravy, but not boil. Take the meat out with a perforated spoon, pile neatly upon a dish and pour the gravy over it. Garnish with triangles of stale bread fried crisp, and send a piece to each person who is helped to salmi.[35]

Fried Parsnips.

Boil, until tender, in hot water slightly salted; let them get almost cold, scrape off the skin, and cut in thick, long slices. Dredge with flour and fry in hot dripping, turning as they brown. Drain very dry in a hot colander; pepper and salt and serve.

Stewed Salsify.

Scrape the roots, dropping each into cold water as you do this, that they may not change color. Cut in pieces an inch long; cover with hot water and stew until tender. Drain off two-thirds of the water and add enough milk to cover the salsify. Stew ten minutes in this; put in a good lump of butter rolled thickly in flour. Pepper and salt. Boil up for one minute.

Sweet Potatoes—in Jackets.

Parboil in their skins when you have washed them, selecting such as are of like size. Then put in a moderate oven and bake until soft all through. You can ascertain this by pinching the largest. Wipe off and serve in their skins.

Rosie’s Rice Custard.

Boil the rice, drain, and stir, while hot, into the milk. Beat the eggs well; rub butter and sugar to a cream with lemon-peel and a little salt, and stir into the warm milk. Mix well and bake in a buttered dish in a brisk oven. Eat warm or cold. We like it better warm, with a little cream poured over it when served in saucers.[36]

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Soupe au Julienne.

Prepare the stock on Saturday. Put meat and bones into a pot with a close cover, pour on the water, and set it where it will heat very slowly. Boil, also very slowly, six hours, at the back of the range. Should the water sink fast in the pot, replenish from the boiling tea-kettle. At the end of six hours, turn the soup, meat, bones and all, into an earthenware vessel; pepper and salt it and set on the cellar floor, covered, until next day. Take off, then, the cake of excellent dripping from the top; strain the soup and set over the fire, about an hour before dinner, and heat gradually.

The vegetables should be—

Clean, scrape, and mince all these, except the corn and tomatoes. Cut the carrot into dice and stew, by itself, in a little cold water. Boil the corn in enough water to cover it, and add more hot water as it swells. Cover[37] the minced vegetables with cold water, and so soon as it boils, turn it off, and replenish with boiling, from the kettle. This will take away the rank taste from cabbage and onion. When they are soft enough to pulp, strain well, but without pressing, into the soup. It is needless to add the vegetables, as the strength is in the liquor. Boil up and skim the soup before putting in the boiled corn and the canned tomatoes, which should be cut up small, and the unripe parts removed. Boil fifteen minutes, add the carrot, season to taste, and serve.[B]

Roast Turkey.

Rinse out the turkey well with soda and water; then with salt, lastly with fair water. Stuff with a dressing made of bread-crumbs, wet up with butter and water and seasoned to your taste. Stuff the craw and tie up the neck. Fill the body and sew up the vent. I need hardly say that these strings are to be clipped and removed after the fowl is roasted. Tie the legs to the lower part of the body that they may not “sprawl,” as the sinews shrink. Put into the dripping-pan, pour a teacupful of boiling water over it, and roast, basting often, allowing about ten minutes’ time for every pound. Be careful not to have your oven too hot—especially during the first half-hour or so. The turkey would, otherwise, be dry and blackened on the outside and raw within. And remember how much of the perfection of roasting meats and poultry depends upon basting faithfully. Boil the giblets tender in a little water. When the turkey is done, set it where it will keep warm; skim the gravy left in the pan; add a little boiling water; thicken slightly with browned flour; boil up once and add the giblets minced fine. Season to taste; give another boil, and send to table in a gravy-boat.

Cranberry Sauce.

Wash and pick over the cranberries; put on to cook in a tin or porcelain vessel, allowing a teacupful of water [38]to each quart. Stew slowly, stirring often until they are as thick as marmalade. Take from the fire in little over an hour, if they have cooked steadily, sweeten plentifully with white sugar, and strain through coarse tarlatan, or mosquito-net, into a mould wet with cold water.

Do this on Saturday. On Sunday, turn out into a glass dish.

Mashed Potatoes—Browned.

Having mashed them in the usual manner, mound them smoothly upon a shallow earthenware dish and set them in a quick oven, glazing them with butter as they color. They should be of a light brown. Slip the mound from a coarser to a finer platter by the help of your cake-turner. It is still better if you have one of the pretty “enamelled” bake-dishes lined with porcelain, with silver stands for the table. They are invaluable for puddings, scallops, etc.

Stewed Corn.

Stew one quart of canned corn in its own liquor, setting the vessel containing it in an outer, of hot water. Should the corn be exceptionally dry, add a little cold water. When tender, pour in enough milk to cover the corn, bring to a boil, and put in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, and salt to taste. Stew gently, stirring well, three or four minutes, and turn into a deep dish. Keep the vessel containing the corn closely covered while it is cooking. The steam facilitates the process and preserves the color of the corn.

Celery

Is the usual accompaniment of roast turkey. Prepare by selecting the blanched stalks, scraping off the rust, cutting off all but the youngest and tenderest tops, and laying these in cold water to crisp until wanted for the table. Garnish your turkey with alternate light and dark green sprigs of celery.[39]

Tropical Snow.

Peel and cut the oranges into small pieces by dividing each lobe crosswise into thirds. Extract the seeds and put a layer of the fruit in the bottom of a glass dish. Pour a little wine upon it, and strew with powdered sugar. The cocoanut must have been prepared by removing the rind and throwing it into cold water for some time before grating it. Over the layer of oranges spread one of cocoanut; cut the bananas into very thin, round slices, and lay these, one deep, upon the cocoanut. Repeat the order just given until your dish is full and the oranges and bananas used up. The top layer must be of cocoanut, heaped high, sprinkled with powdered sugar and garnished about the base with slices of banana. Eat soon, as the oranges toughen in the wine.


Supplement this pretty, but not substantial dessert by a salver of lady’s-fingers, and macaroons, and a good cup of coffee.

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Next Day’s Soup.

Julienne soup, like most other soups the base of which is meat, is better when warmed over the second day. Set[40] it over the fire where it will heat, not too quickly, almost to a boil. It will not “put back” the business of the day twenty minutes, and be a welcome addition to your dinner.

Turkey Scallop.

Cut the meat from yesterday’s turkey. Crack the carcass to pieces, and put, with bits of skin, fat, and gristle, into a saucepan; cover with cold water, and set on to stew slowly into gravy. Chop the meat very fine; strew the bottom of a greased bake-dish with crumbs, and cover this with a thick stratum of minced turkey, stuffing, and tiny bits of butter. Pepper and salt, and put on more crumbs, then meat, and so on. Stale bread is better for this scallop than cracker-dust. Having used up all your meat and reserved enough crumbs for a thick upper crust, cover the dish and put aside in a cool place until your gravy is ready. It is economy of time, on Monday, to slip in such work as this between the many “must be’s” of the season. Your scallop will be none the worse for waiting some hours before, or after, the gravy is added, provided you keep it covered. When the gravy has drawn all the substance from bones, etc., strain it and return to the saucepan with what was left in yesterday’s gravy-boat, having first skimmed the latter. Boil up, thicken with browned flour wet up with cold water; bring to another boil; pour over the scallop, saving a little to wet the top. Now comes your layer of fine bread-crumbs. Wet these with the gravy in a bowl, season to taste, beat to a soft paste with a couple of eggs and spread evenly over the scallop. Invert a plate over the bake-dish and set in the oven. When, at the end of half an hour or so, the gravy bubbles up at the sides, remove the cover and brown. Serve in the pudding-dish.

Panned Oysters.

A four-course dinner is hardly in order in most households on Monday. You can, if you like, and have an efficient table-waiter, bring on oysters, as usual, between soup and meat. But there will be no violation of the “unities[41] of the drama” of a family dinner, if you send around your oysters, scallop, and vegetables together.

Have ready some “patty pans”—the more nearly upright the sides the better. Cut stale bread in rounds to fit the bottoms of these. Toast, and lay a piece in each. Wet with oyster liquor and put into each pan as many oysters as it will conveniently hold. Pepper and salt; put a bit of butter upon each; arrange all in a large dripping-pan; invert another of the same size over it, and bake eight minutes, or until the oysters “ruffle.” Send hot to table in the pans.

You can toast the bread at breakfast-time if you choose. The oysters can go into the oven when the soup is poured out, and be in good season on the table. By this arrangement they will not interfere with the other “baked meats.” Panned oysters are always popular, and there is no more simple manner of cooking this favorite shell-fish.

Roast Potatoes.

Choose large, fair potatoes, wash and wipe, and bake until soft to the grasp. Three-quarters of an hour should suffice. Take out, before the oysters go in; wipe off dust and ashes, and serve in a heated napkin. This will keep them hot a long time, yet prevent them from “sweating.”

Tomato Sauce.

Open a can of tomatoes at least one hour before it is to be used, and empty into an earthenware basin, that no close or metallic taste may linger about them. Cook in tin or porcelain. Stew half an hour, gently; add salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of sugar, and three of butter, a handful of dry bread-crumbs—or, if you have any stewed corn left from yesterday, use that instead of bread. Cook ten minutes longer, and turn out.[42]

Floating Island.

Heat the milk to scalding, but not boiling. Beat the yolks, stir into them the sugar, and pour upon them, gradually and mixing well, a cupful of the hot milk. Return to the saucepan and boil until it begins to thicken. You can do this while breakfast is cooking, before the Moloch clothes-boiler goes on. When cool, flavor and pour into a glass dish. Heap upon the top a méringue of the whites whipped until you can cut it, into which you have beaten the jelly, a teaspoonful at a time.

Tea.

“A comfortable cup of tea” never comes amiss to a fagged housewife, be it served at breakfast, luncheon, or dinner. The best way to insure its goodness—that is, that it be strong, hot and fresh—is to have your own tea-urn or kettle on the table, with a spirit-lamp burning under it. Scald the tea-pot, put in the tea; cover with boiling water; put a “cosey” or a thick napkin about it, and let it stand five minutes before filling with more boiling water. Wait a minute longer and pour out.[43]

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Mutton Soup with Tapioca.

Put on the meat, cut in small pieces, with the bones, in two quarts of cold water. Heat very slowly, and when it boils pour in two quarts of hot water from the kettle. Chop the vegetables; cover with cold water. So soon as they begin to simmer, throw off the first water, replenishing with hot, and stew until they are boiled to pieces. The meat should cook steadily, never fast, five hours, keeping the pot-lid on. Strain into a great bowl; let it cool to throw the fat to the surface; skim and return to the fire. Season with pepper and salt, boil up, take off the scum; add the vegetables with their liquor. Heat together ten minutes, strain again, and bring to a slow boil before the tapioca goes in. This should have been soaked one hour in cold water, then cooked in the same within another vessel of boiling water until each grain is clear. It is necessary to stir up often from the[44] bottom while cooking. Stir gradually into the soup until the tapioca is dissolved.

Send around grated cheese with this soup.

Salmon Pudding.

Mince the fish, draining off the liquor for the sauce. Rub in the butter until thoroughly incorporated. Work in the crumbs, the seasoning, at last the beaten eggs. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, set in a dripping-pan full of hot water. Cover the mould, and steam in the oven, keeping the water in the pan at a fast boil, filling up as it evaporates, for one hour. Set it in cold water one minute when you have taken it from the oven. This will make it shrink from the sides and turn out easily upon a flat dish.

Sauce for the above.

Put the egg into the thickened milk when you have stirred in the butter and liquor; take from the fire, season, and let it stand in hot water three minutes, covered. Lastly, put in the lemon-juice and turn out immediately. Pour it all over and about the pudding. Cut the latter into slices when helping it out.

Beefsteak.

First of all, let me recommend the plan of broiling a steak under, instead of over the grate. I have found so[45] many and manifest advantages in the former method that I have had a gridiron made to fit beneath my range.

Wipe the steak dry, and broil upon a buttered gridiron, turning frequently, whenever it begins to drip. When done, which should be in twelve minutes, if your fire is clear and strong, lay upon a hot dish—a chafing-dish is best—season with pepper and salt (not until then), and butter very liberally. Put over it a hot cover, and wait five minutes before sending to table, to draw the juices to the surface and allow the seasoning to penetrate the steak.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Parboil a dozen potatoes at breakfast-time, and set aside, when you have peeled them, as they should get perfectly cold. When you are ready to cook them, heat some butter, or good dripping, in a frying-pan; fry in it one small onion, chopped fine, until it begins to change color—say about one minute. Then put in the potatoes, cut into dice, not too thick or broad. Stir well and cook five minutes, taking care the potatoes do not break to pieces. They must not brown. Put in some minced parsley just before taking them up. Drain dry by shaking in a heated colander. Serve very hot.

Macaroni with Cheese.

Cook half a pound of pipe macaroni, broken into inch lengths, in boiling water until tender. Drain this off, and substitute a cupful of cold milk. When the macaroni has again come to a boil, season with pepper and salt and stir in a great spoonful of butter; lastly, two tablespoonfuls of dry, grated cheese. Turn into a deep dish, strew more cheese thickly over it, and it is ready for use.

Susie’s Bread Pudding.

[46]

Rub butter and sugar together. Beat the yolks of the four eggs and the white of one very light; mix the butter and sugar with these. Soak the crumbs in the milk, and beat in with the other ingredients, hard and fast. Add the lemon last. Bake in a buttered dish. When nearly done and fully “set,” even in the middle, spread with a méringue made of the reserved whites, beaten stiff with a little sugar. It is good eaten warm—not really hot—or cold, especially if a little cream be poured over each saucerful.

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Bean Soup.

Soak a quart of dried beans all night in soft water. Throw this off next morning, and cover the beans for two hours in water a little more than lukewarm. Put over the fire with five quarts of cold water, and one pound of salt pork. A bone of veal or beef may be added, if you have it. Boil slowly for at least four hours; shred into it a small onion, four stalks of celery, pepper—the pork may salt it sufficiently—simmer half an hour longer, rub through a colander until only husks and fibres remain, and send to table. Pass sliced lemon with it.

Fillet of Veal—Stuffed.

Make ready a force-meat of bread-crumbs, chopped thyme and parsley; pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg;[47] a little dripping for shortening; moisten with warm water and bind with a raw egg.

If your butcher has not “put up” the fillet, remove the bone, pin the meat into a round with skewers; then bind firmly with a strip of muslin passed two or three times about it. Fill the cavity left by the bone with dressing, and thrust the same between the folds of the meat, besides making cuts with a sharp knife to receive more. Tuck in a strip of fat pork here and there. Baste three times with salt and water while roasting, afterwards with its own gravy. At last, dredge once with flour and baste with butter. Cut the bands, draw out the skewers carefully, and serve.

Baked Corn.

To one can of corn allow a pint of milk (more if the corn be dry), three eggs, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one of white sugar, pepper and salt to taste. Beat the eggs very light, rub butter and sugar together and stir in hard; next, the corn and seasoning; finally, the milk. Beat hard, and bake in a buttered dish for half an hour, covered. Then brown by lifting the top. Send up in the bake-dish.

Potato Cakes.

Boil and mash the potatoes, working in salt and butter and an egg or two—beaten light. Let them get cold; make into cakes of size and shape to suit yourself; roll in raw egg, then in flour, or cracker-dust, and fry quickly in hot dripping. Take each up as soon as it is done, and drain with a wire spoon, before laying upon a hot dish.

Canned String-Beans.

Cook in their own liquor half an hour, or until very tender. First, however, cut them into neat lengths. The comeliness of the dish depends upon this. When almost done, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, with salt and pepper. Simmer ten minutes longer, and serve by draining off the liquid and heaping the beans upon a hot dish, with a bit of butter on the top. If the can does not[48] contain liquor enough to cover the beans, add a little cold water in cooking them.

Baked Apple Dumplings.

Chop the shortening into the flour when you have sifted and salted the latter. Wet up with milk and roll out quickly in a sheet less than half an inch thick. Cut into squares; lay in the centre of each a tart, juicy apple, pared and cored. Bring the corners of the square together and pinch to join them neatly. Lay in a baking-pan, the joined edges downward, and bake to a fine brown. When done, brush over with butter and shut the oven door for a minute more to glaze them. Sift powdered sugar over them, and eat hot.

These are more wholesome and more easily prepared than boiled dumplings. Eat with sweet sauce.

Brandy Sauce.

Warm the butter slightly, work in the sugar until they form a rich cream, when add brandy and spice. Beat hard; shape by putting into a mould made very wet with cold water, and set in a cool place to harden. Should it not turn out readily by shaking gently, dip for a second in hot water.[49]

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Veal and Sago Soup.

Cut the meat into bits; put on with the water and boil very slowly, with the pot-lid laid on loosely, four hours, until the meat is in rags. Strain through coarse net, or a wire soup-strainer (which you ought to possess), season with pepper and salt, and return to the kettle when you have scalded it out.

Meanwhile, the sago should have been washed and soaked in lukewarm water, for an hour. Stir it into the broth and let them simmer, stirring often, half an hour. Heat the milk scalding hot in another vessel, beat the yolks of the eggs light, reserving the whites for your pudding; pour gradually over these a cupful of the hot milk, and stir carefully into the soup with all the milk. Taste, to see if it needs more seasoning; add a little chopped parsley, if you like; let it almost boil and pour into the tureen. It should be about as thick as boiled custard. Should the sago thicken it too much, add boiling water.

A relishful and wholesome soup.

Jugged Rabbit.

Joint the rabbit, and lay for an hour in salted water. Wipe dry and fry in the dripping, with the onion, until brown. Put in the bottom of a tin pail, or farina-kettle, a layer of salt pork cut into strips; upon this one of rabbit. Sprinkle with pepper and a little salt. Scatter fried onion over the rabbit and proceed in this order until your meat is used up. Pour in the gravy; cover the vessel, and set it in another of cold water. Bring gradually to a boil and stew steadily one hour, or until tender. Arrange the meat upon a dish; strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour wet up with cold water; boil up once; stir in the jelly and lemon-juice, heat to boiling, and pour over the rabbit. If you have no gravy, use a little butter and water instead.

Scalloped Potatoes.

Work butter, milk, and salt into the hot mashed potatoes. Put a layer in the bottom of a pudding-dish well greased; cover this with thin slices of egg; salt and pepper; another stratum of potato, and so on, until the dish is full. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over the uppermost layer of potatoes. Stick bits of butter over this and bake, covered, until hot throughout; then brown quickly. Send up in the pudding-dish.

A simple and nice side-dish.

Sweet Potatoes—Fried.

Boil, peel, and when cold, slice the potatoes neatly. Fry in good dripping until they are of a light brown. Drain from the fat and eat hot.[51]

Minced Celery with Egg Dressing.

Scrape and wash the celery and cut into half-inch lengths, having first crisped it in cold water. Rub the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs to a paste with a tablespoonful of oil; add salt, pepper, a little powdered sugar, vinegar to make the mixture liquid, and pour over the celery. Serve in a salad-bowl and eat at once, lest the celery should toughen in the vinegar.

Macaroni and Almond Pudding.

Simmer the macaroni half an hour in a pint of the milk. When tender, but not broken, put in butter and salt. Take the saucepan from the fire and turn out the contents to cool while you make a custard of the rest of the milk, the eggs and sugar. Add the latter to the scalding milk, but do not boil the custard. Chop the almonds when you have blanched them, i. e., taken off the skins with boiling water. As you chop, put in a few drops of rose-water from time to time, to prevent oiling. When the macaroni is almost cold, mix it with the custard, breaking it as little as may be. Season, and last of all, stir in the chopped almonds. Bake in a well-buttered pudding-dish. Spread with the méringue made from the whites of the eggs reserved from the soup. Eat warm with powdered sugar and cinnamon.[52]

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Fish Chowder.

Cover the bottom of your soup-kettle with the fish; pepper and salt; strew with sliced onion, and this with the split crackers, buttered sides down. Follow this order until your ingredients are all in the pot, and cover them with cold water. Stew gently for an hour, keeping the water at the original level by replenishing from the tea-kettle. By this time the fish should be thoroughly done, if it has cooked steadily. Take it up with a perforated skimmer, and cover in the tureen to keep hot, while you strain the chowder to get out the bones, returning the crackers with the liquor to the soup-kettle, when you have rinsed it out. Thicken with two teaspoonfuls of corn-starch wet up in a cup of milk, and when this has boiled, add the oysters, cut small, two great spoonfuls of butter, and a little chopped parsley. Stew for three minutes, pour slowly over the fish in the tureen. Send sliced lemon around with it.

This is a most palatable chowder when properly prepared. You can use fewer crackers, if you dislike a thick soup.[53]

Fricasseed Chicken—White.

Joint the fowls neatly, and cut the back, neck, and breast apart from each other, the latter into two pieces. Lay them in salt water for half an hour. Put them into a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and the pork cut into thin strips. Cover and heat very slowly. Stew constantly, but never fast, for one hour after it comes to a boil, or until the chickens are tender. The time will depend upon their age. If they are tough, put them on early and cook all the more slowly. Add now the onion, parsley, and pepper, with salt, if needed. Heat again, and stir in the flour wet up in the cup of milk. Beat the eggs and pour upon them a cupful of hot gravy; mix well, and put back into the soup with the butter. Just as the stew begins to simmer again, remove from the fire. Take out and pile the chicken upon a dish; then pour the gravy over all.

Potatoes à l’Italienne.

Instead of mashing the potatoes with a beetle or spoon, whip them up light with a silver fork. When they are fine and mealy, beat in a few spoonfuls of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of two eggs, pepper and salt. Whip into a creamy heap before adding, with a few dexterous strokes, the stiffly-frothed whites. Pile roughly up on a buttered pie-dish; brown quickly in the oven, and transfer, with the help of a cake-turner, to a flat dish.

Make a rather too abundant dish, according to this receipt, as the residue will be found useful in to-morrow’s bill of fare.

Tomatoes Stewed with Onion.

Stew in the usual manner, adding a small onion minced fine. When they have cooked half an hour, season with[54] pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a good spoonful of butter. Simmer ten minutes more, uncovered, and turn out.

Cheese Fondu.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, the butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Pour into a neat pudding-dish, strew dry bread-crumbs over the top, and bake in a quick oven until delicately browned. Serve in the pudding-dish, and at once, as it falls in cooling.

Very good!

Sponge Gingerbread.

Mix molasses, sugar, butter, and spice together. Warm slightly, and beat hard for five minutes. Add the milk, then the soda, lastly the flour. Beat three minutes, and bake in a broad, shallow pan. Take heed that it does not burn. Eat warm.

Chocolate.

Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water, and stir into the hot. Boil twenty minutes; put in the milk,[55] and boil five minutes more, stirring often. Sweeten at pleasure, while boiling, or in the cups. Send around with the warm gingerbread and some slices of mild cheese. You will not regret not having prepared a more pretentious dessert.

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Clear Gravy Soup.

Cut the meat into dice and slice the onions. Fry the latter brown in some good dripping. Take them out, and fry the meat in the same fat, turning often, until it has a thick brown coat. Put it, drained from the fat, into the soup-kettle, with two quarts of cold water, and set where it will come to a boil in about an hour. The bones should also be fried, and put into the pot with the meat. When these fairly boil, skim, add three quarts of cold water, and stew gently four hours. If you dine early, the soup should go on before breakfast. Put herbs and vegetables, including the fried onions, all chopped up, into a saucepan,[56] with enough cold water to cover them, and boil to pieces. Strain the soup half an hour before dinner; season, return to the pot; boil and skim. Strain the vegetable liquor into it, without squeezing or rubbing. Boil up once more, skim well, and put in the gelatine, which should have soaked one hour in a little cold water. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

The soup should be of a clear, light brown. Should the color not suit you, burn a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup, add three or four spoonfuls of boiling water, stir until you get a deep color, and turn off the water into the soup. It will not injure the flavor.

Please never lose sight of the cardinal principle that all the essence, strength, and taste should be extracted from meat, vegetables, etc., in soup-making, and that the soup which boils fast is lost. Take plenty of time, and cast an eye into the kitchen from hour to hour until you have educated your cook up to a glimmering appreciation of this law of enlightened cookery.

Oyster Salad.

Drain the liquor from the oysters and cut them up. Add the minced celery. Prepare the seasoning, putting in the vinegar last, and pour the mixture over the celery and oysters. Toss up well with a silver fork. Do this just before dinner, as the salad will be injured by lying long in the dressing.

Calf’s Liver à la Mode.

Wash the liver thoroughly, and soak half an hour in salted water. Wipe, make incisions about an inch apart, and lard with strips of pork, projecting slightly on each side. Fry the onions and herbs in the dripping. Take them out, put in the liver, and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, with the vinegar and water to cover the liver—barely. Cover closely, and stew gently an hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, strain the gravy, return to the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour, put in the sauce and spice; boil up and pour some of it over the liver, the rest into a gravy-boat. What is left from dinner will be nice for luncheon or tea, cut horizontally in thin slices.

Salsify Fritters.

Scrape and grate the roots, and stir into a batter made of the beaten eggs, the milk, and flour. Grate the salsify directly into this, that it may not blacken by exposure to the air. Salt, and drop a spoonful into the boiling fat to see if it is of the right consistency. As fast as you fry the fritters, throw into a hot colander to drain. One great spoonful of batter should make a fritter.

Potatoes à la Duchesse.

Cut the remnants of yesterday’s potatoes à l’Italienne into rounds with a cake-cutter, dipped in cold water. Set like biscuits, but not so near as to touch one another, in a greased pan, and bake quickly, brushing top and sides with beaten egg when they begin to brown. Serve upon a heated napkin folded flat, on a platter.[58]

Corn-Meal Fruit Pudding.

Scald a pint of milk and wet up the meal with it, stirring well. While it is cooling, add the flour, wet into batter with a pint of cold milk. Heat the remaining pint, and when scalding, add sugar and eggs. Beat this gradually, hard and long, into the cooled paste. When well mixed, put in butter, spice, and the fruit dredged with flour. Beat fast and deep for two minutes. Bake in a buttered dish, in a tolerably brisk oven. Cover with paper as it browns. It ought to be done in three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.

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Tomato Soup.

Stew one can of tomatoes half an hour; strain and rub through a colander into the soup left from yesterday.[59] Heat to a slow boil, and simmer together ten minutes before serving.

Roast Beef, with Yorkshire Pudding.

Have your meat ready for roasting on Saturday, always. Roast upon a grating or several clean sticks (not pine) laid over the dripping-pan. Dash a cup of boiling water over the beef when it goes into the oven; baste often, and see that the fat does not scorch. About three-quarters of an hour before it is done, mix the pudding.

Yorkshire Pudding.

Use less flour if the batter grows too stiff. Mix quickly; pour off the fat from the top of the gravy in the dripping-pan, leaving just enough to prevent the pudding from sticking to the bottom. Pour in the batter and continue to roast the beef, letting the dripping fall upon the pudding below. The oven should be brisk by this time. Baste the meat with the gravy you have taken out to make room for the batter.

In serving, cut the pudding into squares and lay about the meat in the dish. It is very delicious.

Macaroni al Napolitano.

Wash the sweetbreads; lay in salted water fifteen minutes, and stew with the onion, in a pint of cold water, a little salt, until done, as may be seen by cutting into the thickest part. Wash the macaroni when you have broken it into small bits, and cook gently until tender, but not to breaking, in the hot broth from which you have taken the sweetbreads and strained the onion. Stew in a farina-kettle[60] or tin saucepan set in hot water. Chop the sweetbreads; stir the butter into the macaroni, which should have absorbed all the broth; then the minced sweetbreads. Season with parsley, pepper, and salt; cover closely and leave in the hot water, but not over the fire, five minutes before turning into a deep dish.

Potatoes au Naturel

Are, with all their high-sounding name, only the homely vegetables boiled in their skins. Put on in cold water, bring to a slow boil, and increase the heat until a fork will pierce the largest. Throw in salt; turn off every drop of the water; set back on the range, without the cover, for two minutes to dry, peel, and send to table in a napkin.

French Beans, Sauté.

Open a can of French or “string” beans; cut into inch lengths and boil in the can liquor, adding a little cold water, if needed, for twenty minutes. Drain, return to the saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little salt and pepper. Toss constantly with a fork until they are hissing hot, but not until they scorch. Serve in a hot vegetable dish.

Apple Sauce.

Pare, core, and slice tart apples, and stew in water enough to cover them until they break to pieces. Beat to a pulp with a good lump of butter and plenty of sugar. Eat cold. Make enough for several meals, as it will keep a week at this season.

Made Mustard.

Rub mustard, oil, sugar, pepper, and salt together; wet,[61] by degrees, with vinegar, beating very hard at the last, when the proper consistency has been gained.

This is far superior to mustard as usually mixed for the table.

Narcissus Blanc-mange.

Heat the milk to scalding; stir in gelatine and sugar. When these are dissolved, take out a cupful and pour, by degrees, over the beaten yolks. Return to the saucepan and stir together over the fire for two minutes after the boiling point is reached. Take from the range, flavor with rose-water, and pour into a mould with a cylinder in the centre, previously wet with cold water. Next day, turn out upon a dish with a broad bottom, and fill the hollow in the middle with the cream, whipped light with a little powdered sugar and flavored with vanilla. Pile more whipped cream about the base.

Send your coffee around after the blanc-mange has been eaten. A spoonful of whipped cream, without the vanilla, will give a touch of elegance to the beverage. Let this happy thought come to you while you are preparing the cream, and before the flavoring goes in.[62]

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Variety Soup.

Chop a quarter of a small cabbage, a turnip, and some sweet herbs; cover with cold water, and heat to boiling. Throw off the first water, and add a quart more of cold. Put in the roast-beef bones, after you have cut off the meat, with a slice or two, or bone, of ham. Stew all two hours at the back of the range. Half an hour before dinner, warm up what was left from Sunday’s soup. Strain the hot liquor in which your cabbage, etc., have boiled, into this. Pick out bits of bones and meat from the colander, mashing the vegetables as little as possible; put these into the soup, with any macaroni or beans you may have left over; season to your liking; simmer for ten minutes; thicken with a tablespoonful of corn-starch, and pour out.

This will not be a “show-soup,” but it will be savory and nutritious.

Beef Pudding.

Cut the meat from yesterday’s roast into neat pieces; lay them in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish, season well, and pour a few spoonfuls of cold gravy over them, letting it soak into the meat while you prepare a batter according to the above directions, taking care not to get it too stiff. Pour over the meat and bake in a quick oven. Eat hot.[63]

Scored Potatoes.

Mash in the usual way, mixing rather soft; heap and round upon a greased pie-plate; score deeply in triangles with the back of a carving or butcher’s knife; brown in the oven, and slip carefully to another dish.

Canned Peas.

Open a can of peas an hour before cooking them, that there may be no musty, airless taste about them, and turn into a bowl. When ready for them put on in a farina-kettle—or one saucepan within another—of hot water. If dry, add cold water to cover them, and stew about twenty-five minutes. Drain, stir in a generous lump of butter; pepper and salt.

Apple Méringue.

Butter a neat pudding-dish, and nearly fill it with apple sauce. Cover and leave in the oven until it is smoking hot. Draw to the oven door and spread with a méringue made of the whites of three eggs, whipped stiff with a little powdered sugar. (Your pudding will be much nicer, by the way, if you have beaten the yolks into the stewed apple before putting it into the dish.) Shut the oven door long enough to brown the méringue very lightly. Eat nearly or quite cold, with sugar and cream.

Send around crackers and cheese as an accompaniment.

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Celery Soup.

Cut the veal up small, crack the bones, and put on in cold water. Boil slowly four hours, replenishing with boiling water should the broth sink to less than two-thirds of the original quantity. Strain, pressing all the strength out of the meat. Cut the celery into bits, and stew in the broth, with the minced onions, until so soft that you can rub through a colander. Strain a second time, and return the soup, with the pulped celery, to the fire. Season, and thicken with the corn-starch wet up in the pint of milk. Stir until it boils, and lastly, put in, carefully, the butter, after which take from the range. Have ready a double handful of fried bread in the tureen, and pour the soup upon it.

Veal Cutlets and Ham.

Divide each cutlet into pieces about two inches wide by three inches long, and cut the ham into slices of corresponding size. Dip in the egg, then roll in the bread-crumbs, and fry—the ham first, afterwards the veal, until nicely browned on both sides. Sprinkle salt upon the veal cutlets. Arrange upon the dish in alternate slices of veal and ham, overlapping one another. Anoint the ham with butter mixed with a little mustard; the veal with butter melted up with a spoonful of tart jelly.

Cauliflower with Cream Sauce.

Boil your cauliflower, when you have washed and trimmed it, and tied it up in coarse net or tarletan.[65] Cook in boiling water slightly salted, keeping the stalk end uppermost. Prepare, in another saucepan, the dressing, by adding to a cup of scalding milk a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet up with cold water, two tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper and salt at discretion. Drain the cauliflower, remove the net, put into a deep dish, the flower up, and drench with the boiling sauce.

Stewed Potatoes.

Cut into slices, cook until tender, but not to breaking, in hot water. Turn half of this off and replace by as much milk, in which some slices of onion have been boiled and strained out. Add pepper and salt, a good lump of butter rolled in flour, and some chopped parsley. Simmer three minutes, and turn into a vegetable dish.

Mixed Pickles,

Home-made or bought, should be passed with the cutlets.

Jam Pudding.

Spread slices of stale bread with butter, then with jam. Fit them closely into a buttered pudding-dish until it is two-thirds full. Make a custard by adding the beaten eggs and sugar to the scalding milk, but do not let them boil. Lay a heavy saucer upon the bread and butter to prevent floating, and moisten gradually with the hot custard. Let all soak for fifteen minutes before the dish goes into the oven. When it is hot throughout, take off the saucer, that the pudding may brown equally. Eat cold.

Tea, and Albert Biscuits

May follow the pudding.[66]

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Sheep’s-head Soup.

Get your butcher to clean a sheep’s head with the skin on, as he would a calf’s head for soup. Let him also split it in half that you may get at the brains. Take them out, with the tongue, and set aside. Break the bone of the head, wash it well in several waters, and soak for half an hour in salted water. Cover it with fresh water, and heat gradually to a boil. Drain off the water, and thus remove any peculiar odor from the wool or other causes, and add four quarts of cold water, with two turnips, two roots of salsify, two carrots, two stalks of celery, and a bunch of sweet herbs, all chopped fine. Boil slowly four hours. Strain the soup into a bowl, pressing all the nourishment out of the meat, and let it stand in a cool place until the fat rises thickly to the surface to be taken off. The vegetables should be soft enough to pass freely through a fine colander, or coarse strainer, when rubbed. While the soup cools, prepare the force-meat balls. The tongue and brains should have been cooked and chopped up, then rubbed to a paste together and mixed with an equal quantity of bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, and parsley, bound with a raw egg, and rolled into small balls, dipped in flour. Set them, not so near as to touch one another, in a tin plate or dripping-pan, and put in a quick oven until a crust is formed upon the top, when they must be allowed to cool. Return the skimmed broth to the fire; season; boil up once; take off the scum, and add a cup of milk in which you have stirred a tablespoonful of corn-starch. Simmer, stirring all the while, for two minutes after it boils. Put the force-meat balls into the[67] tureen and pour the soup gently over them so as not to break them.

This is a good and cheap soup, and deserves to be better known.

Roast Hare.

Have the hare skinned and well cleaned. Cooks are often careless about the latter duty. Stuff, as you would a fowl, with a force-meat of bread-crumbs, chopped fat pork, a little sweet marjoram, onion, pepper, and salt, just moistened with hot water. Sew up the hare with fine cotton; tie the legs close to the body in a kneeling position. The English cook it with the head on, but we take it off as more seemly in our eyes. Lay in the dripping-pan, back uppermost; pour two cups of boiling water over it; cover with another pan and bake, closely covered, except when you baste it with butter and water, for three-quarters of an hour. Uncover, baste freely with the gravy until nicely browned; dredge with flour and anoint with butter until a fine froth appears on the surface. Take up the hare, put on a hot dish, and keep covered while you make the gravy. Strain, and skim that left in the pan; season, thicken with browned flour, stir in a good spoonful of currant-jelly, and some chopped parsley; boil up; pour a few spoonfuls of it over the hare; serve the rest in a gravy-boat. Clip, instead of tearing hard at the cotton threads. Send currant-jelly around with it.

Macaroni and Ham.

Break the macaroni into inch lengths, and stew ten minutes in boiling water. Meanwhile, cut two slices of corned (not smoked) ham into dice, wash well and put on to boil in a cup of cold water. Drain the macaroni, and when the ham has cooked for ten minutes after coming to a boil, pour it, with the liquor, over the macaroni. Season with pepper, simmer in a closed farina-kettle for fifteen minutes; add a little chopped parsley, cover, and let it stand a minute more, and serve in a deep dish. The fatter the ham the better for this dish. Always pass grated cheese with stewed macaroni.[68]

Stuffed Potatoes.

Wash and wipe large, fair potatoes, and bake soft. Cut a round piece from the top of each, and carefully preserve it. Scrape out the inside with a spoon without breaking the skin, and set aside the empty cases with the covers. Mash the potato which you have taken out, smoothly, working into it butter, a raw egg, a little cream, pepper, and salt. When soft, heat in a saucepan set over the fire in boiling water. Stir until smoking hot, fill the skins with the mixture, put on the caps, set in the oven for three minutes, and send to table wrapped in a heated napkin.

Turnips.

Boil, sliced or quartered, until soft all through; drain well and mash in a colander with a wooden spoon or beetle, very quickly, lest they should cool. Cold turnips are detestable. Work in a little salt and a good lump of butter; serve in a hot dish, smoothly rounded on top, with a pat of pepper here and there.

Fig Pudding.

Soak the crumbs in the milk. Add the eggs, beaten light, with the sugar, salt, suet, and figs. Beat three minutes, put in a buttered mould with a tight top; set in boiling water with a weight on the cover, to prevent the mould from upsetting, and boil three hours.

Eat hot, with hard sauce, or butter and powdered sugar, mixed with nutmeg. It is very good.[69]

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Veal and Rice Broth.

Put on the veal and bones, with the onion and celery minced, in four quarts of cold water. Boil gently after it begins to bubble, four hours, keeping the pot-lid on. Soak the rice in lukewarm water, enough to cover it well—adding warmer as it swells—for one hour. Cook in the same water, never touching with a spoon, but shaking up from the bottom, now and then. Strain and press the soup into a bowl; cool to throw up the fat for the skimmer, and return to the pot. Salt and pepper; boil up and skim, and stir in the corn-starch wet up in the milk. Simmer three minutes; put in the rice with the water in which it was boiled, and the parsley. Simmer very gently five minutes, and pour out.

Mutton à la Jardinière.

Fry the mutton (whole) in a large frying-pan, until it is lightly browned on both sides. Put into a deep, broad saucepan with all the vegetables (also whole) except the tomatoes; cover with cold water, and stew, closely covered, for an hour after they begin to boil. Take out the vegetables, and set aside; add boiling water to the meat, if it is not covered, and simmer steadily, never fast, two hours longer. The meat should be tender throughout, even the fibres. Turn off all the gravy, except about half a cupful, fit the pot-lid on very tightly, and leave the meat where it will keep just below the cooking-point. Strain the gravy you have poured off; leave it to cool until the fat rises. Skim, and return to the pot with the tomatoes. Season, and boil fast, skimming two or three times, until it is reduced to one-half the original quantity, or just enough to half cover the meat. Thicken with corn-starch, and put in the meat, with its juices from the bottom of the pot. Simmer, closely covered, half an hour. Cut the now cooled vegetables into neat dice; put the butter into a saucepan, and when it is hot, the vegetables. Shake all together until smoking hot, season, add a little gravy from the meat, and leave them to keep hot in it while you dish the mutton. Put it in the middle of a flat dish, and put the vegetables around it in separate mounds, with sprigs of parsley or celery between. Pour gravy over the mutton.

Try this dish. It is not difficult of preparation, diffuse as I have made the directions. It is, if well managed and discreetly seasoned, a family dinner of itself, and a very cheap one.

Potato Puff.

Mash the potatoes as usual; beat in more milk than is your custom, and a couple of eggs, whipping all to a cream,[71] and seasoning well. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish, and bake quickly to a good brown.

Pork and Beans.

Soak a quart of dried beans overnight in soft water. Change this for more and warmer in the morning, and, two hours later, put them on to boil in cold. When they are soft, drain well, put into a deep dish; and sink in the middle a pound of salt pork (the “middling” is best), leaving only the top visible. The pork should have been previously parboiled. Bake to a fine brown. It is well to score the pork in long furrows to mark the slices, before baking.

Minced Pudding.

Cut the crust from the bread and slice evenly. Butter a shallow pudding-dish, and line it with the slices, fitted neatly together, and well buttered. Spread thickly with a mixture of the ingredients just enumerated, to wit: apples, raisins, suet, and almonds, sweetened with sugar, and spiced with nutmeg. They should form a paste and adhere to the bread. Make a custard by scalding and sweetening the milk, then pouring gradually over the eggs. Soak the bread, etc., with this by pouring it on, a few spoonfuls at a time, until the dish is full. Bake in a moderate oven, for a time covered, lest it should dry out. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over the top.

Apples, Nuts, and Raisins

Should be served on clean plates after the pudding.[72]

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Purée of Peas.

Put all on to cook together, except the tomatoes and butter. The vegetables must be chopped fine. Stew steadily and gently three hours. Rub to a purée through a sieve, and put in the tomatoes, freed of bits of skin and cores, and cut into bits. Season, and return to the fire to stew for twenty minutes longer, closely covered. Stir in the butter—divided into teaspoonfuls, each rolled in flour. Boil up and serve. Dice of fried bread should be put into the tureen.

Fried Bass.

Clean, wipe dry, inside and out, dredge with flour, and season with salt. Fry in hot butter, beef-dripping, or sweet lard. Half butter, half lard is a good mixture for frying fish. The moment the fish are done to a good brown, take them from the fat and drain in a hot colander. Garnish with parsley.[73]

Mashed Potatoes

Must accompany the fish.

Roast Chicken.

Wash well in three waters, adding a little soda to the second. Stuff with a mixture of bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt. Fill the crops and bodies of the fowls; sew them up with strong, not coarse thread, and tie up the necks. Pour a cupful of boiling water over the pair, and roast an hour—or more, if they are large. Baste three times with butter and water, four or five times with their own gravy.

Stew the giblets, necks, and feet in water, enough to cover them well. When you take up the fowls, add this liquor to the gravy left in the dripping-pan, boil up once, thicken with browned flour; add the giblets chopped fine; boil again, and send up in a gravy-boat.

Should there be more gravy than you need, set it away carefully. Each day brings forth a need for such.

Crab-apple Jelly

Is a pleasing sauce for roast fowls.

Stewed Celery.

Select the best blanched stalks, and lay aside in cold water. Stew three or four stalks of the coarser parts, minced, with a small onion, a few sprigs of parsley, also chopped, and a bone of ham, or other meat. Stew for an hour in enough water to cover them; strain, pressing hard. Cut the choicer celery into pieces two inches long; pour over them the “stock” from the strainer, season with pepper, and, if needed, salt. Stew until very tender. Stir in a good tablespoonful of butter, and a little corn-starch, wet up in cold water. Simmer gently three minutes, and dish.

Fried Salsify.

Scrape and lay in cold water ten minutes. Boil tender, drain, and when cold, mash with a wooden spoon, picking out the fibrous parts. Wet to a paste with milk, work in a little butter, and an egg and a half for each cupful of[74] salsify. Beat the eggs very light. Season to taste, make into round, flat cakes, dredge with flour, and fry to a light brown. Drain off the fat, and serve hot.

Margherita Lemon Custard.

Beat the whites of two eggs and the yolks of five very light; add the sugar and pour over these the milk, scalding hot. Lastly, put in the grated peel, pour into a buttered pudding-dish, and set in a pan of hot water. Put both into the oven, and bake the custard until it is well “set.” Then spread with a méringue made of the reserved whites beaten stiff with a little powdered sugar. Shut the oven door, and cook the méringue until slightly tinged with yellow-brown. Eat cold.

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English Soup.

Put the beef, cut into strips, the “carcasses” of the chickens broken to pieces, and three quarts of cold water, into a large soup-pot, and heat gradually. When it boils, skim well, and add the fried onion and other vegetables, cut fine, and three quarts more of cold water. Stew, with the pot-lid on, five hours, after it again boils, giving it no attention save to see that it never boils fast, and that the liquid has not diminished to less than three-quarters of the original quantity. Strain at the end of this time, first taking out the meat that has not boiled to shreds, and the bones. Rub the vegetables through the colander; afterwards strain the soup again through your wire strainer or sieve, into the kettle when you have washed it out. Season, and simmer ten minutes after the boil recommences, skimming often. Break the vermicelli into short lengths, put into the soup when you have taken out two quarts for Sunday’s “stock.” Cook gently twelve minutes after the vermicelli goes in.

At first glance, the quantity of meat prescribed for this soup may seem extravagant; but, apart from the fact that the coarser and cheaper quality is used, you must note that you have now the foundation of three days’ soups, and that you have saved time, no less than money, by making this as I have directed. It is by the long, intelligent look ahead that the mistress proves her right to the title.

Mutton Chops—Broiled.

Next to beef, good mutton, properly cooked, deserves the most prominent place among the meats upon your weekly bill of fare. It is digestible, nutritious, and, as a rule, popular. I therefore offer no apology for the regular and frequent appearance of these two standard articles of diet upon these pages. They may well be named the two staves of healthful existence—for civilized humanity, at least.

Trim your mutton chops, if your butcher has neglected to do it, leaving a naked end of bone as a “handle” upon[76] each. Lay them for fifteen minutes in a little melted butter, turning them several times. Then hold each up for a moment, to let all the butter drip off that will, and broil over a clear fire, watching constantly and turning them often when the falling fat threatens a blaze from below. If your gridiron is beneath the grate, they can be cooked far more satisfactorily, and with one-tenth of the trouble. Pepper and salt when they are laid upon a hot dish, and put a bit of butter upon each.

Sweet Pickles

“Go” well with broiled chops. For receipts for these and other pickles, with preserves and fruit jellies, the reader is respectfully referred to “Common Sense in the Household, No. 1, General Receipts.”

Browned Potato.

Mash your potatoes with milk, butter, and salt; heap as irregularly as possible in a vegetable dish, and hold a red-hot shovel close to them. They will brown more quickly if you glaze them with butter so soon as a crust is formed by the hot shovel, then heat it again and repeat the browning.

Stewed Tomatoes.

To one can of tomatoes allow a saltspoonful of salt, half as much pepper, a teaspoonful of sugar, and a great tablespoonful of butter. Drain off half the liquor, season thus, and stew fast for twenty minutes, in a vessel set within another filled with water on the hard boil. This receipt was given to me by a notable housewife. It is worth trying for her sake—and variety’s.

Orange Fritters.

[77]

Take the peel and thick white skin from the oranges. Slice, and take out the seeds. Make a batter of the ingredients given above, taking care not to get it too thin. Dip each slice in this dexterously and fry in boiling lard. Drain in a hot colander, and eat with the sauce given below.

Beehive Sauce.

Make hard sauce in the usual way by creaming the butter and sugar. Before beating in the lemon-juice and nutmeg, set aside three tablespoonfuls to be colored. Having added lemon and spice to the larger quantity, color the less by whipping in currant jelly or cranberry syrup, until it is of a rich pink. Shape the white sauce into a conical mound. Roll a sheet of note paper into a long, narrow funnel, tie a string about it to keep it in shape, and fill with colored sauce. Squeeze it gently through the aperture at the small end, beginning at the base, and winding round the cone to the top, guiding it so that the white will show prettily between the pink ridges.

The effect is pleasing and costs little trouble to produce.

Coffee

Is believed by some to aid digestion, and, since fritters are not generally classed among very wholesome dainties, it may be as well to give John and John’s wife—not the children—a cup of the fragrant elixir as a possible preventive against an attack of dyspepsia. It always lends grace even to a homely dinner.[78]

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German Sago Soup.

Soak half a cup of German sago in enough water to cover it entirely for two hours. Heat yesterday’s soup to boiling, with a little of the reserved “stock,” should the supply be too small; stir in the sago with a little salt, until dissolved, and serve.

Boiled Turkey and Oyster Sauce.

Chop about fifteen oysters and work up with them bread-crumbs, a spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. Stuff the turkey as for roasting; sew it up, neatly, in a thin cloth fitted to every part, having dredged the cloth well inside with flour. Boil slowly, especially at first, allowing fifteen minutes to a pound. The water should be lukewarm when the turkey goes in. Salt and save the liquor in which the fowl was boiled.

Oyster Sauce.

[79]

Drain the liquor from the oysters before you cut them up. Boil the liquor two minutes, and add the milk. When this is scalding hot, strain and return to the saucepan. Wet the flour with cold water and stir into the sauce. As it thickens, put in the butter, then pepper and salt, with a very little parsley. The juice of a half a lemon is a pleasant flavoring. Stir it in after taking the sauce from the fire. Before this, and so soon as the flour is well incorporated with the other ingredients, add the oysters, each cut into three pieces. Simmer five minutes and pour into a gravy-tureen. Some also pour a little over the turkey on the dish. Garnish with slices of boiled egg and celery tops.

Savory Rice Pudding.

Wash the rice thoroughly; clean the giblets; soak them an hour in salted water, cut each into several pieces, and put on to stew with the pork and rice in nearly a quart of cold water. Cook slowly until the giblets are tender and the rice soft. The grains should be kept as whole as possible, so do not use a spoon in stirring, but shake up the saucepan, which should be set in another of boiling water. The rice should, by this time, be nearly dry. Take out the giblets and chop fine. Pour on the rice the milk, previously heated with the minced onions, and then strained. When this is again scalding, stir in the giblets, then the butter and seasoning. Cover and simmer for ten minutes. Wet a round or oval pan with cold water; press the rice firmly into it, so that it may take the shape, and turn out carefully upon a flat dish. Set in the oven for two minutes before sending to table. It should be stiff enough to take the mould, yet not dry.[80]

Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel.

Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a saucepan containing enough milk, already heated, to cover them—barely. When all are smoking hot, add a tablespoonful or more of butter, pepper, salt, and minced parsley. Add a teaspoonful of flour wet in cold water; heat quickly to a boil; put in the juice of half a lemon; pour into a deep dish without further cooking.

Celery and Grape Jelly

Should flank the castor, or épergne, or whatever may be your centre-piece.

Mince Pie.

A receipt for mince-meat will be found in the proper order in the menu for next December. I take it for granted that, like the wise woman you are, you have laid up in the store-room enough from your Christmas supply to last for some weeks to come. If not, let me advise you to get a box of “Atmore’s Celebrated Mince-Meat,” and fill your pastry-crusts, instead of repeating so soon the tedious operation so lately performed. It comes in neat, wooden cans, and is really good. If you like, you can add more sugar and brandy. N. B.—My John has a sweet tooth. Has yours?

Make the paste by rubbing into a quart of your best flour one-third of a pound of sweet lard. Chop it in with a broad knife, if you have plenty of time. Wet up with ice-water, roll out very thin, and cover with “dabs” of butter, also of the best. Fold into a tight roll, flatten with a few strokes of the rolling-pin, and roll out into a sheet as thin as the first; baste again with the butter; roll up and out into a third sheet hardly thicker than drawing-paper; a third time dot with butter, and fold up closely. Having used as much butter for this purpose as you have lard, set aside your last roll for an hour in a very cold place. Then roll out, line your pie-plates with the paste, fill with mince-meat; put strips, cut with a jagging-iron, across them in squares or triangles, and bake in a steady, never a dull, heat.[81]

These pies, like all others, must be made on Saturday, and warmed up for Sabbath—unless you prefer to line your plates on Saturday, and set them aside until next day, then fill the raw, crisp paste with the mince-meat, and bake. The paste will be the better, instead of worse, for standing overnight, and the trouble of baking scarcely exceed that of warming over.

Bananas and Oranges

May solace the disappointment of the dyspeptic or very juvenile members of the family party, who “dare not touch mince pie.”

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Combination Soup.

Put the remains of yesterday’s soup and of the stock reserved on Saturday together, and heat almost to boiling. Split and toast crisp half a dozen Boston crackers; butter while hot, set in the oven until the butter has soaked in, when put on more. Lay in the bottom of your soup-tureen, wet with a little boiling milk, and when they have soaked this up, pour on the soup.

Mince of Fowl.

Set what was left of yesterday’s oyster-sauce over the fire to heat, thinning, if necessary, with a little milk. Or, if you have no sauce, substitute a cupful of drawn butter, made from the liquor in which the turkey was boiled on[82] Sunday, reserving the rest for another day’s soup. Cut the meat closely from the bones of the turkey (saving these, also). Set aside the white flesh for a nice little dish of salad. Cut the rest, freed from skin and gristle, into pieces of nearly uniform length, not more than an inch long. When your sauce boils, put in the meat, simmer until smoking hot, then take off the saucepan, and pour gradually over two beaten eggs. Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with bread-crumbs, when you have greased it well; season the mince to taste; fill up the dish with it; put another layer of bread-crumbs, on top, and stick bits of butter over these. Bake covered, until bubbling hot, then brown lightly. This will be found very delightful.

Turkey Salad.

The white meat of the turkey cut up in small pieces. An equal quantity of blanched celery, also cut into lengths. Salt slightly, and when dinner is nearly ready pour over them a dressing made of the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs rubbed to a powder with a teaspoonful of sugar, half as much salt, pepper and made mustard, when worked into a paste with two tablespoonfuls of oil, and six of vinegar. Toss up the salad well with a silver fork, and garnish with white of egg cut into rings.

Sweet Potatoes—Baked.

Select those which are nearly of a size, and not too large, or so small as to shrivel into dry husks. Wash, wipe, and bake in a moderate oven until, by pinching, you find that they are soft at heart.

Brussels Sprouts.

Wash carefully, cut off the lower part of the stems, and lay in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour. Cook quickly, in boiling water, with a very little salt, for fifteen minutes, or until tender. Drain thoroughly, heap neatly upon a dish, and put a few spoonfuls of melted butter, peppered to taste, upon them. Eat hot.[83]

Sweet Macaroni.

Break the macaroni into short pieces, put into a farina-kettle, cover with the milk, put on the lid of the kettle, and cook with boiling water in the outer vessel, until the milk is soaked up and the macaroni looks clear, but has not begun to break. Add the butter, sugar, and flavoring, and, if you have it, a few spoonfuls of cream. If you have not, thicken a little milk slightly with corn-starch, and use instead. Cover, and set in the boiling water for ten minutes longer. Serve in a deep dish, and send around canned or brandied peaches with it.

Chocolate.

To one pint of boiling water allow six tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate wet up to a paste in cold water. Boil twenty minutes, put in one pint of milk and boil ten minutes more. Stir often. It saves time, if you know the tastes of those who are to drink it, if you sweeten it in the saucepan.

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Mother’s Soup.

Put on bones, ham (chopped), and the vegetables, cut up with the sweet herbs, but not the corn, in a soup-kettle; cover well with the liquor in which the turkey was cooked, and boil slowly, untouched, two hours. Take out the bones, and strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the strainer, into a bowl. Return this to the fire and with it the corn and turkey dressing. Bring to a gentle boil and keep it steady, for fully half an hour. Season, and simmer a quarter of an hour longer. The corn and dressing will thicken it sufficiently.

Beefsteak with Onions.

While your steak is broiling, watched by some one else, fry three or four sliced onions in a pan with some beef dripping or butter. Stir and shake them until they begin to brown. Dish your steak, salt and pepper, and lay the onions on top. Cover, and let all stand where they will keep hot, for five minutes. Do not help onions to any one unless you are sure that he likes them.

There is no dish so good for keeping a steak hot, yet juicy, as a hot-water chafing-dish. No household can afford to be without one, if no more.

Mixed Pickles

Give the needed piquancy to steak. Home-made ones are best.

Sweet and Irish Potatoes—Chopped.

Chop cold boiled Irish potatoes and mix with them the cold sweet ones left from Monday—in equal parts, if convenient—or, if you have but two or three, make them do. There is philosophy, and religion, too, sometimes, in “making things do.” Heating a little butter in a saucepan, stir in the potatoes when it begins to “fizzle.”[85] Shake and toss them up with a wooden fork until they are very hot; season with pepper and salt, and dish.

Corn and Tomatoes Stewed.

To a can of tomatoes add the half can of corn left from your soup. Stew together half an hour, with a little minced onion; then pepper and salt to taste, and stir in a great spoonful of butter with a very little sugar. Simmer ten minutes before turning out.

Crème du Thé, Café et Chocolat.

Soak the gelatine for an hour in a cup of cold water. Heat the milk to boiling and add the gelatine. So soon as this is dissolved, put in the sugar, stir until melted, and take the saucepan from the fire. Strain through thin muslin and divide into three parts. Into the largest stir the chocolate, rubbed smooth in cold water; into another the tea, and into a third equal to the second, the coffee. Return that containing the chocolate to the farina-kettle, and heat scalding hot, stirring all the while. Rinse out the kettle well with boiling water, and put in, successively, those portions flavored with the tea and the coffee, scalding the vessel between each. Wet several small cups or glasses with cold water. Pour the chocolate into some, the tea into others, and the coffee blanc-mange into the rest. When cold, turn out upon a flat dish, and eat with sugar and sweet cream. It will “form” in about six hours. This is a dessert by no means tedious or difficult of preparation, and is worth trying, being both dainty and wholesome.[86]

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Lexington Soup.

Mince the meat and vegetables and crack the bones. The peas should have been soaked overnight in soft water, the rice washed and picked over. Put all together in your soup-kettle, pour in the water and stew gently, covered, five hours. Should the water waste too much, put in more from the tea-kettle. At the end of this time, strain, rubbing the vegetables through a colander. Return to the fire, season, and boil slowly ten minutes, skimming carefully. Put sliced lemon, from which the yellow rind has been pared, into the tureen, and pour the soup upon it. Serve a slice in each plateful.

Boiled Chickens and Macaroni.

Clean, wash, and stuff your chickens as for roasting; sew each up in a piece of new tarlatan, fitted snugly to the shape. Boil, putting them down in pretty hot, but not scalding water, allowing twelve minutes to the number of pounds in one of the pair, and that the larger. About half an hour before they are to be served take out[87] a large cupful of the liquor from the pot and put into a saucepan. Season it, and boil for five minutes with a small chopped onion. Strain, and when again hot, drop in a double handful of macaroni, broken into short lengths. Cook until tender, by which time the liquor should be absorbed by the macaroni. The saucepan should be set in another, holding boiling water, that there may be no danger of scorching while stewing. Make a flattened mound of the macaroni upon a hot dish; lay the chickens upon it, and anoint them well with melted butter, made more salt than usual. Serve them out together, and have grated cheese for such as wish it.

Chow-Chow,

Or “picklette,” in American store-rooms—is a keen appetizer and especially harmonious with boiled fowls. For receipt for making in winter or summer, see “General Receipts, No. 1, Common Sense Series,” page 491.

Parsnip Cakes.

Scrape, wash, boil, and mash the parsnips. When cold, season with salt and pepper, and, flouring your hands, make them into small, flat cakes. Roll in flour and fry in boiling dripping. Drain dry and send up on a hot dish.

Whipped Potatoes.

Instead of mashing the potatoes in the ordinary way, whip with a fork until light and dry. Then whip in a little melted butter and some milk with salt to taste, beating up fast until you have a creamy compound, almost like a méringue. Pile as lightly and irregularly as you can upon a hot dish.

Jam Roley-Poley.

Rub lard and butter into the flour, with a little salt, and[88] wet with cold milk into a soft paste. Roll out into a pretty thick crust—say about a quarter of an inch—and trim into an oblong sheet. Spread this generously with jam, leaving a margin at each end. Roll up closely, the fruit inside. Pinch the open ends together, and baste neatly in a floured bag fitted to the roll, but not so tightly as to interfere with the swelling of the pudding. Boil an hour and a half in hot water that, from first to last, is not once off the boil. Dip the cloth into cold water before attempting to turn the roley-poley out—but for one hasty second only.

Wine Sauce.

Cream the butter and sugar, adding the boiling water, a little at a time, until you have used the half cupful. Put on in a saucepan, and stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. When it has thickened, put in the lemon-peel and nutmeg. Simmer one minute, add the wine, put on the lid of the saucepan and set in hot water to keep warm until wanted.

Apples and Nuts,

Being cheap and abundant at this season, should form the sequel of many dinners.[89]

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White Soup.

Cover the broken chicken and veal bones, the minced veal, parsley, and onion with the cold water and chicken liquor and simmer three hours, until the three quarts are reduced to two. Strain the liquor; put back into the pot; salt and pepper; boil gently and skim for ten minutes before adding the milk and boiled farina. Simmer another ten minutes; take out a cupful and pour over the beaten egg. Mix well, and put with the soup; let all stand covered, off the fire, two minutes, and serve.

Langue de Bœuf, or Beef’s Tongue.

Get your butcher to save you a fresh, large beef’s tongue, the finest he can get. Soak, in cold water, a little salt, six hours—overnight, if you choose—changing the water before you go to bed. Wipe it, trim and scrape it, and plunging into boiling water, keep it at a slow boil for an hour and a half. Take it up, pepper and salt; brush[90] over with beaten egg and coat thickly with bread-crumbs; lay in your dripping-pan and bake, basting often with butter melted in a little water. Half an hour in a good oven should suffice. Put on a hot dish and cover while you prepare the sauce.

Sauce Piquante.

Brown the butter by shaking it over a clear fire in a saucepan. Heat the cupful of liquor to a boil, skim and season it with salt and pepper. Skim again before stirring in the flour wet up with cold water. As it thickens, put in the butter, herbs, mustard, and vinegar. Boil up, pour half over the tongue, the rest into a sauce-boat.

Fried Brains and Green Peas.

Open a can of green peas an hour before cooking them, and turn into a bowl. If there is not liquor in the can to cover them, add a little water, slightly salted, and cook over twenty minutes after they boil. Drain, pepper and salt; stir in a lump of butter nearly as large as an egg, and put into a vegetable dish, the fried brains arranged along the base of the mound.

Wash a calf’s brains in several waters; scald in boiling, then lay in ice-cold water, for half an hour. Wipe, and beat them into a paste; season, work in a little butter, a beaten egg, and enough flour to hold the paste together. Fry upon a griddle in small cakes. Drain off every drop of fat. Eat hot.

A nice and savory garnish.

Hominy Croquettes.

Work the butter into the hominy until the latter is smooth; then the eggs, salt and sugar. Beat hard with a wooden spoon to get out lumps and mix well. Make into oval balls with floured hands. Roll each in flour, and fry in sweet dripping or lard, putting in a few at a time and turning over with care as they brown. Drain in a hot colander.

Cold Slaw.

Chop or shred a small white cabbage. Prepare a dressing in the proportion of one tablespoonful of oil to four of vinegar, a teaspoonful of made mustard, the same quantity of salt and sugar, and half as much pepper. Pour over the salad, adding, if you choose, three tablespoonfuls of minced celery; toss up well and put into a glass bowl.

Brown Betty.

Put a layer of chopped apple in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Sprinkle well with sugar, stick bits of butter here and there and add a pinch or two of nutmeg. Cover with bread-crumbs, then more apple. In this order of alternation fill the dish, spreading the surface with bread-crumbs. Cover, steam nearly an hour in a moderate oven; then brown quickly.

For sauce, mix a teaspoonful of cinnamon with a cup of powdered sugar. Butter the hot “Betty” as you fill each saucer, and strew with this mixture. Or it is excellent, eaten warm, not hot, with cream and sugar.[92]

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Potato Soup.

Parboil the potatoes; then slice and put them into the soup-pot with the tomatoes, the onions, minced, and the celery and herbs chopped small. Pour on three quarts of water, and stew for one hour, or until the vegetables can be rubbed easily through the colander. Strain, return to the pot, drop in the sugar, pepper and salt judiciously, boil up and skim. Stir in the butter, and simmer, covered, for ten minutes. Have dice of fried bread in the tureen, upon which pour the soup.

Fried Oysters.

Select for this the finest oysters. Drain, and wipe them by spreading them upon a cloth, laying another over them, and pressing lightly. Roll each in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs with which have been mixed a little salt and less pepper, and fry in a mixture of equal parts of lard and butter.[93]

Drain each in a wire spoon, and eat them hot, with bread and butter.

Roast Mutton.

Wash the meat well and wipe with a clean cloth. Put into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over it, and roast, basting often, for a while, with salt and water, afterwards with its own gravy. Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat, and keep the fire at a steady, moderate heat. Should it brown too fast, cover with a sheet of paper. Take up the meat, put it on a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour, having first taken off all the fat you can—season with pepper and salt, boil up, skim and serve. Pass currant jelly with it.

Spinach à la Crème.

Pick over and wash the spinach, and cut the leaves from the stalks. Boil in hot water, a little salted, about twenty minutes. Drain, put into a wooden tray, or upon a board; chop very fine, and rub through a colander. Put into a saucepan; stir until it begins to smoke throughout. Add then two tablespoonfuls of butter for a good-sized dish, a teaspoonful of white sugar, three tablespoonfuls of milk, salt and pepper to liking. Beat, as it heats, with a silver fork or wire spoon. Some put in a little nutmeg, and most people like it. Cook thus until it begins to bubble up as you beat it. Pour into a deep dish, surround with sliced egg, and serve.

Potatoes Stewed Whole.

Pare the potatoes and boil in water which was cold when they went in. When they are done, as is proved by piercing the largest with a fork, turn off the water, and cover them barely with milk already heated. Stew in this five minutes; take the potatoes out, and put into a covered deep dish. Add to the milk in the saucepan a good lump of butter, rolled in flour, some chopped parsley, pepper and salt. Boil up once. Crack each potato as it lies in the dish, by pressing with the back of a spoon; pour the hot milk over them; let them stand three minutes in it, and send to table.[94]

French Tapioca Custard.

Soak the tapioca in the water five hours. Heat the milk to scalding; add the tapioca, the water in which it was soaked, and the salt. Stir to boiling, and pour gradually upon the yolks and sugar, which should have been beaten together. Boil again, stirring constantly, about five minutes, or until it begins to thicken well. Turn into a bowl and stir gently into the custard the frothed whites and the flavoring. Eat cold.

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Old Hare Soup.

[95]

Clean the hare carefully and cut to pieces, cracking all the bones. Put into the soup-kettle with the mutton bones, the bacon, onion, and parsley. Pour on three quarts of cold water; put on the lid tightly, and stew four hours very slowly. By this time the meat should be in shreds. Strain it, return to the fire, season it, stew and skim five minutes. Slice three boiled eggs and put into the tureen and pour the soup over them.

Hot Pot.

Put into a deep bake-dish a layer of cold mutton left from your roast, freed from fat and skin and cut into strips two inches long by one wide. Overlay these with slices of parboiled potatoes, a little minced onion, an oyster or two chopped, some tiny bits of butter, with salt and pepper. Repeat this process until your meat is used up. The top layer should be potatoes. Add a cupful of gravy from Friday’s dinner (or elsewhere), cover very closely and bake one hour before lifting the lid. Peep in to see if the contents are done—they will be if your fire is tolerably strong. Turn out into a deep dish.

Cucumber Pickles

Are a better condiment for this dish than any others.

Turnips with White Sauce.

Peel and quarter your turnips. Leave in cold water half an hour. Put on in hot water, and boil until tender. Drain and cover with a sauce prepared by heating a cup of milk, thickening it with a heaping teaspoonful of corn-starch, and stirring in a great spoonful of butter with pepper and salt to season it well. Put this, when you have added the turnips, into a vessel set within another of boiling water, and let them stand covered, without cooking, ten minutes before serving.

Boiled Rice au Genève.

Pick over and wash the rice, and boil in a farina-kettle, with enough cold water, a little salted, to cover it an inch deep. Shake now and then as the rice swells. Take from[96] your hare soup, when you have strained it, a cupful of the liquor and about half as much of the boiled shreds of meat. Chop these extremely fine, season with salt and pepper. Heat the cup of liquor to a boil, stir into it a scant tablespoonful of browned flour, then the chopped meat and a tablespoonful of butter, and stew gently five minutes. Pile the boiled rice, which should be almost dry, in a dish, and pour the gravy over it. It is very savory, and makes a pleasant variety in the list of winter vegetables.

Cabinet Pudding.

Cream the butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks; the milk and the flour alternately with the whites. Lastly, stir in the fruit, well dredged with flour; beat up thoroughly, pour into a buttered mould; put into a pot of boiling water and do not let it relax its boil for two hours and a half. Dip the mould into cold water for one moment before turning it out.

Cabinet Pudding Sauce.

Rub the butter into the sugar; add the yolks, lemon, and spice. Beat five minutes and put in the wine, stirring hard. Set within a saucepan of boiling water, and stir until it is scalding hot. Do not let it boil. Pour over the pudding.

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[97]

FEBRUARY.

Clear Vermicelli Soup.

Cut the meat from the bones in thin shreds, and crack the bones to splinters. Mince the ham and herbs. Put into a soup-kettle, add the water, cover very tightly with a weight upon the lid, and stand where it will slowly boil, for five hours. Then turn into a jar, salt and pepper, and shut up while hot. Leave the jar all Saturday night upon the side of the range, where it will keep warm until morning. Pour into a bowl before breakfast and let it get cold. Take off the cake of fat two hours before dinner, turn the soup-jelly, bones and all, into the soup-pot, and when it is melted strain through your wire sieve. Put in the mace, boil for an hour and a half, and skim. Put the vermicelli, already broken into short bits and boiled tender, into the tureen (but not the water in which it was boiled) and strain the soup over it through double tarlatan. Let it stand ten minutes before serving. This is a showy soup, and easily made, really requiring little attention.[98]

Stewed Ducks.

On Saturday, draw, wash, and stuff your ducks, adding a touch of onion and sage to the dressing. On Saturday, also, make a gravy of the giblets, cut small, an onion, sliced, with a pint of water. Stew, closely covered, for two hours; take off, season, and set away with the giblets in it still. Next day—on Sunday—lay the ducks in the dripping-pan, put in the gravy, adding water if there is not enough to half cover the fowls, at least. Invert another pan of the same size over them, and let them stew, at a moderate heat, for two hours. Or, you can put them into a large saucepan, pour in the gravy, fit on the lid, and cook upon the range for the same time. In either case they will take care of themselves, as will the soup, if Bridget be reasonably obedient to orders, while you go to church. When the ducks are done, lay them upon a hot dish, thicken the gravy with browned flour, add a glass of brown sherry and the juice of a lemon. Lay three-cornered bits of fried bread around the inside of the dish, and pour the gravy over all.

Fried Apples and Bacon.

Pare, core, and slice round, some well-flavored pippins, or greenings. Cut into thin slices some streaked middling of excellent bacon, and fry in their own fat almost to crispness. Take out the meat and arrange it upon a hot chafing-dish, while you fry the apples in the fat left in the pan from the bacon. Drain and lay upon the slices of meat.

This is a Southern dish, and not so homely as it would seem from the mere reading.

Potatoes à la Reine.

Mash as usual, beating up light with butter and milk, but not so soft as not to take any shape you like to give them. Make a rounded hillock, or a four-sided pyramid of them upon a flat dish. Brush this all over with beaten yolk of egg, set in the oven a few minutes to harden the coating, and send to table.[99]

Mashed Carrots.

Scrape, wash, lay in cold water half an hour; then cook tender in boiling water. Drain well, mash with a wooden spoon, or beetle, work in a good piece of butter, and season with pepper and salt. Heap up in a vegetable dish, and serve very hot.

Potato Pie.

Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolks, the spice, and beat in the potato gradually until it is very light. At last, whip in the whites. Bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.

When making these pies on Saturday—forecasting Monday’s needs and superabundance of cares—prepare more pastry than you need for the two large pies which the above quantity of potato mixture will fill, and set aside a trim roll of raw crust to be rolled out in due time—we shall see to what end. I take it for granted (once more) that all of Sunday’s receipts will be diligently conned on the day when the old distich tells us, even “lazy people work the best.”

This potato pie will be pronounced delicious.

Oranges and Bananas.

These will make a pretty finish to what I flatter myself with the hope that you will find a good, and not inelegant repast.[100]

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Blanche’s Soup.

Strain out the vermicelli left in yesterday’s “stock.” Heat very hot, and add two cups of milk in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of rice-flour, or, if you cannot get that, corn-starch. Stir until it thickens; take out a cupful and pour it over two beaten eggs. Return to the soup, taste, and supply what seasoning is needed; lift from the fire and leave covered five minutes before pouring into the tureen.

Duck Paté.

Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, in season to make gravy. Do this by breaking the skeletons to pieces, and putting them, with the stuffing, into a saucepan, pouring in a quart of cold water, and letting it in two hours boil down to half as much, or even one-third. Boil slowly, with the lid slightly lifted after the boiling begins. Let this get cold; skim and season. In the bottom of a pudding-dish put some neat slices of duck; on this a layer of boiled egg sliced thin; then, a few slices of corned tongue. (That of a calf will do as well as beef, and be cheaper. It should be boiled and cold.) Sprinkle each layer with pepper and a little salt, with a tiny pinch of mace upon the tongue. When your materials are used up, pour in the gravy, and, just before it goes into the oven, cover with a crust of pastry kept over from Saturday. Bake about three-quarters of an hour for a large dish—half an hour for one of medium size. There[101] must be a slit in the centre of the crust to let out the steam.

By proper foresight, the manufacture of this very palatable pie will consume but little of a busy woman’s time on Monday. Do not forget that with gravies and soups, after you have placed them over the fire in a well-chosen location, they will need nothing more than a hasty glance for, perhaps, several hours, during which much work in other parts of the household can be done.

Sweet Potatoes, Boiled.

It is poor economy, in buying sweet or Irish potatoes, to get either very large or very small ones. So, in cooking, select those of uniform size. Put on in hot water; boil until a fork will go easily into the largest. Peel quickly and set in the oven for a few minutes to dry. Eat hot, with butter.

Succotash.

Cut the beans into inch lengths; put them into a saucepan with the corn, and cover with cold water. Stew half an hour, after they begin to cook, turn off most of the water and put in the milk—cold. When it is hot, stir in the butter, rolled in flour. Season, simmer for five minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

This will make a large quantity of succotash for a small family, but what is not eaten will be nice warmed over for breakfast.

Cup Custards—Boiled.

[102]

Heat the milk almost to boiling. Take out a cupful and add, slowly, to the beaten yolks and sugar, whipped up with three of the whites. Return to the fire and stir until it begins to thicken, but not until it curdles. Pour into a bowl and, when cold, flavor. Fill glass, or china cups with it. Whip the reserved whites to a méringue with a little powdered sugar, and heap a spoonful upon the top of each cup.

Watch your opportunity for boiling the custard. I have often slipped into the kitchen and made it while the coffee was boiling for breakfast. This once off the fire, no more cooking is needed.

Cut, or Fancy Cake,

Of which every housewife keeps a supply in her pantry, for luncheon and tea, makes, with these custards, a nice dessert, to which you need never be ashamed to seat John and his friends.

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Family Soup.

Put the cracked bones, the meat, and the chopped vegetables into the soup-pot, and cover with the water. The liver should lie in salted water one hour before it is sliced. Stew very slowly five hours. Then strain, rubbing hard; cool enough to bring the fat to the top. Take it off, season the soup, put over the fire, and when it boils stir in the rice, previously cooked soft in a little salted water. Simmer together half an hour, and pour out.

Rolled Beef.

Get a fillet of beef—that is, the tenderloin of several steaks cut in one piece. It will not be cheap, but there will be no waste. Therefore, as one weighing four or five pounds will make a roast for one day, your dinner will not be really expensive. Roll it up round; pin tightly with skewers not to be removed, except by the carver, and roast with care, basting often that it may not dry up. Carve horizontally.

Browned Potatoes—Whole.

Peel and parboil some fine potatoes, and half an hour before your beef is taken up, lay them in the dripping-pan. Baste with the meat and turn several times. Drain off the grease when they are done to a fine brown, and lay about the meat in the dish when it goes to table.

Baked Tomatoes.

Open a can of tomatoes, and turn into a bowl. After an hour, season them with a teaspoonful of sugar, half as much salt, a little pepper and a tablespoonful of butter cut into bits, each bit rolled in flour and all distributed evenly throughout the tomatoes. Cover with very dry bread-crumbs. Bake in a pudding-dish, covered, about thirty minutes, then brown on the upper grating of the oven.[104]

Apple Sauce.

Make this on Saturday, by stewing sliced tart apples in a little water until soft, draining and mashing them, adding a bit of butter while doing this. Sweeten abundantly and season with nutmeg.

Unity Pudding.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat in the egg, and whip up very light. Then, milk and salt, finally the flour. Bake in a buttered mould, until a straw thrust into the thickest part comes out clean. Turn out upon a plate. Cut in slices and eat hot.

If for this and other receipts which prescribe prepared flour, you cannot conveniently procure it, add one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream of tartar to each quart of flour. Sift all several times through a sieve. You can keep this for a week or two in a dry place.

Cream Sauce.

Heat the milk to scalding; add the sugar, stir in the corn-starch. When it thickens beat in the stiffened whites, then the seasoning. Take from the fire, and set in boiling water to keep warm—but not cook—until wanted.[105]

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Split Pea Soup.

Put soaked peas, pork, bones and vegetables over the fire, with the water, and boil slowly for three hours, until the liquid is reduced nearly one half. Strain through a colander, rubbing the peas into a tolerably thick purée into the vessel below. Season, simmer ten minutes over the fire, and pour over the lemon, sliced and pared and laid in the tureen.

Fricasseed Chicken—Brown.

Joint the chickens, cutting them with a sharp knife. Put, with the pork, into a pot with a quart of water, and stew until tender. Do not boil fast, especially at first[106]. Strain off the liquor and cover the chickens while you prepare the gravy. Put it into a large frying-pan. There will not be too much after the chickens are taken out of it. Add to it the parsley and chopped onion, with seasoning. Boil up, thicken with browned flour; stir in the butter and cook rapidly, stirring often, ten minutes. Arrange the chickens upon a hot dish and pour the gravy over it. Let all stand for five minutes before sending to the table.

Ladies’ Cabbage.

Boil the cabbage in two waters. When it is cold, chop fine, and mix with it the beaten eggs, butter, milk, pepper and salt to your liking. Beat up well and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until brown. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked, and eat hot.

Baked Potatoes.

Select large, fair potatoes of equal size, wash, wipe and put into the oven to bake until soft all through. Send to table wrapped in a napkin.

Stewed Salsify.

Scrape and drop into cold water as fast as you clean them. Cut into inch lengths; cover with hot water and stew tender. Turn off the water; put in a cupful of cold milk. Stew in this ten minutes after the boil begins; add a lump of butter rolled thickly in flour; pepper and salt as you fancy. Boil up once and pour into a deep dish.

Soft Gingerbread.

Cream butter, sugar, molasses, and spice; set the mixture on the range until lukewarm. Add the milk, then the beaten eggs, the soda, and at last the flour. Beat hard five minutes; put in the fruit dredged with flour; beat three minutes, and bake in small round tins.

Eat warm all that is needed for dessert. The rest will keep well. This gingerbread is uncommonly fine.

Café au Lait.

Strain the coffee from the boiler into the table coffee-pot, through thin muslin. Add the boiling milk and set in a vessel of hot water, a “cozey,” or a thick cloth wrapped about it, for five minutes. Then it is ready for use. Pass with the gingerbread.

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Dundee Broth.

Put on the meat, bones, and sweet herbs, to stew in four quarts of water. Do not disturb for four hours. Meanwhile, pare and cut the vegetables into dice, and boil until tender in just enough water to cover them. Drain this off and throw it away. Cover the vegetables with cold water, a little salt, and let them stand until you have strained the soup. This should be allowed to cool to throw up the fat. Skim it with care; put back over the fire. Salt and pepper, boil up, and skim again before putting in the vegetables, without the water in which they have been standing. The barley should, all this time, be soaking in warm water, just deep enough to cover it. Turn it now, with the water in which it has lain, into the soup. Let all simmer together one hour, and serve the vegetables in the soup.

Baked Calf’s Head.

Take out the brains and set aside. Wash the head carefully. It should, of course, be cleaned with the skin on. Soak it in cold, salted water, one hour, then in hot water ten minutes. Boil in three quarts of cold water for about an hour after the water begins to bubble. Take it out, saving the liquor when you have salted it, as stock for to-morrow’s soup. Plunge the head into cold water for five minutes. Wipe carefully, put into your dripping-pan, brush it over with beaten egg, sprinkle with bread-crumbs, and bake until nicely browned, basting three times with butter. Make a gravy of a cupful of the liquor, seasoned and thickened. Fry strips of ham, about an inch wide by four inches long, almost crisp in their own fat, and having laid the head upon a flat dish, dispose these about it. Serve a piece with each plate of the head.[109]

French Beans and Fried Brains.

Open a can of string-beans one hour at least before they are to be cooked. Cut into short pieces, cover with hot water, and stew thirty minutes, but not until they break. Drain well; stir into them two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, in which have been mixed salt, pepper, and a tablespoonful of lemon-juice. Heap within a deep dish, and garnish with the brains.

Wash the brains and lay in cold salt and water for an hour, then boil ten minutes. Leave in very cold water until firm—say a quarter of an hour. Wipe, and chop fine, add a little parsley, pepper and salt; make into small cakes by flouring your hands; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping. Drain thoroughly.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Season a can of tomatoes with salt, pepper, sugar, and a little chopped onion. Stew for twenty-five minutes and stir in a large tablespoonful of butter. Simmer ten minutes, and serve.

Potatoes in Cases.

Roast large potatoes. Cut off a piece from the top of each, and lay it aside. Empty the insides carefully by the help of a small spoon—not tearing the skins. To this potato, when mashed, add butter, grated cheese, pepper and salt, as suits your taste. Bind the mixture with a beaten egg; heat in a saucepan, stirring to prevent scorching; refill the cases, fit on the top of each, and set in a hot oven three minutes before sending to table in a warm napkin.

Snowballs.

Wash the rice in several waters, and boil in the milk (always in a farina-kettle), adding a little salt and five[110] tablespoonfuls of sugar, with a pinch of nutmeg. Stew gently until the rice is soft and has soaked up the milk. Fill small cups with the rice, pressing it down firmly, and let it get cold. At dinner-time, turn it out upon a large flat dish, or pile within a glass bowl. Eat with sweetened cream.

Sweet Cream.

Stir the sugar into the cream until it is dissolved; then the rose-water.

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Calf’s Feet Soup.

[111]

In bespeaking your calf’s head from your butcher, ask also for four nice feet, already cleaned. (You can secure your sweetbreads at the same time.) Put on the feet in a quart of cold water. Cover closely and heat gradually to a very gentle boil. Keep this up until the feet begin to shrink from the bones—about two hours. Should the water fall perceptibly, fill up from the tea-kettle. Have ready the vegetables, herbs, and spice, the former cut up small. Put them into the liquor left from yesterday’s head, and when you have heated this to a boil, add the feet with the water in which they are cooking. Boil for another hour, still slowly. Strain the soup, cool to make the grease rise. Skim, season, and return to the fire. When again boiling, stir in the milk, and the meat from the feet, cut into dice. Take out a cupful of the soup and pour, by degrees, over the beaten eggs. Return to the pot, stir two minutes, and serve.

A very nice soup, and nutritious. If you cannot get calf’s feet, use those of a pig instead, cooking exactly in the same way.

Salt Mackerel, with Cream Sauce.

Soak overnight in lukewarm water, changing this in the morning for ice-cold. Rub all the salt off, and wipe dry. Grease your gridiron with butter, and rub the fish on both sides with the same, melted. Then broil quickly over a clear fire, turning with a cake-turner so as not to break it. Lay upon a hot-water dish, and cover until the sauce is ready.

Heat a small cup of milk to scalding. Stir into it a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet up with a little water. When this thickens, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Beat an egg light, pour the sauce gradually over it, put the mixture again over the fire, and stir one minute, not more. Pour upon the fish, and let all stand, covered, over the hot water in the chafing-dish. Put fresh boiling water under the dish before sending to table.[112]

Mashed Potatoes,

Beaten light with milk and butter, and smoothed into a mound, should be served with the fish. If you have a pretty butter-print, wet it, and stamp the top of the mound.

Remember that everything tastes better for looking well.

Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed.

Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should boil when they are dropped in. Take out and lay at once in ice-cold water. This makes them firm. Leave in this five minutes, wipe dry, and set aside to get cold. Then lard with the strips of pork, passing them quite through, so as to project on both sides. If you have no larding-needle, use a long-bladed penknife. Put them into a saucepan; cover with the gravy. If there is not enough, put in a few spoonfuls from the boiling soup. The gravy should be cold, however, when poured over the sweetbreads. Stew about twenty-five minutes after the boil begins. Take out the sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add catsup, lemon, and pepper, the lardoons having salted it sufficiently. Lay the sweetbreads upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve; in carving, cut perpendicularly.

Stewed Celery.

Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender. Drain off the water and put in the milk, cold. So soon as it boils, stir in the butter, rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Add a few spoonfuls of the hot milk to the beaten eggs that they may not curdle in the saucepan; put with the celery and sauce over the fire; boil up once, and dish.

Omelette Soufflé.

Whip the whites to a very stiff froth, thick enough to be cut with a knife. Beat the yolks smooth and long; add to these the sugar, whip up well, and flavor. Grease a neat pudding-dish abundantly with the tablespoonful of butter. The last thing before you take your seat at the table, do all this; stir whites and yolks together, and put into a steady, not too hot, oven. If you have a teachable cook, let her learn how to put the prepared ingredients together after dinner has gone in. The oven-door should be opened as seldom as possible, certainly not under fifteen minutes. By this time the omelette should have risen high, and be of a golden brown. Partly close the oven-door, to keep it hot, and let it be served as soon as possible in the bake-dish.

Never attempt this or any other nerve-trying dish, for the first time, for others than a family party. Yet it is easy enough when you have once learned for yourself how long to cook it, and how soon it will fall.

Tea and Toasted Crackers.

Split Boston crackers, toast, butter; put where they will keep hot, and pass with an after-dinner cup of tea.[114]

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Gravy and Sago Soup.

Cut the beef into narrow strips, the onions into slices. Fry the latter brown in dripping, strain them out, and set aside. Return the dripping to the pan, and fry the meat until it is nicely browned, but not crisp. Lastly, fry the bones in the same fat. They should be broken up small. Put meat, bones, celery, spice, and onions into a pot with a quart of cold water; cover closely, and put where it will not boil under an hour, but will heat all the time. This is to draw out color and open the pores (so to speak) of the meat. So soon as it boils add four quarts more of cold water. Set where it will boil steadily, but never fast, for five hours. Strain, and cool sufficiently to make the fat rise. Take it off, put back over the fire, season, boil up and skim; put in the sago, which should have been soaked two hours in a little water, simmer fifteen minutes and serve.

Save all that is left from dinner, for Monday.[115]

Boiled Corned Beef.

Wash well, and put over the fire in hot water—plenty of it—and boil twenty minutes for each pound of meat. Turn three times while cooking. Drain dry, and serve with drawn butter in a boat. “Draw” the butter in liquor taken from the pot. Keep the rest of the liquor for the base of Sunday’s soup.

Mashed Turnips.

Pare, quarter, and lay in cold water half an hour. Put on in boiling water, and cook until tender. Drain, mash, and press to get out the water, work in pepper, salt, and a generous lump of butter. Do all this quickly not to cool the turnips, and pile smoothly in a hot, deep dish.

Cauliflower, with Sauce.

Pick off the leaves and cut the stem close. Do not cut the cauliflower unless very large. Lay in cold water for thirty minutes, tie in coarse bobbinet lace or mosquito net, and cook in boiling water, slightly salted, until tender. Lay the cauliflower, flower upward, within a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it.

Sauce for the above.

Stir into a cup of boiling water a tablespoonful of flour, wet up with cold. When it has boiled two minutes, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, the white of an egg whipped stiff, pepper and salt, and the juice of a lemon. Boil one minute, and pour over the cauliflower.

Baked Macaroni.

Break half a pound of macaroni into pieces an inch long, and cook in boiling water, slightly salted, twenty minutes. Drain, and put a layer in the bottom of a greased bake-dish, upon this some grated cheese—Parmesan, if you can get it—and tiny bits of butter. Then more macaroni, and so on, filling the dish, with grated cheese on top.[116] Wet with a little milk, and salt lightly. Bake, covered half an hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

Jelly Tartlets.

Wash the butter in three waters, working it over well to get out the salt. Melt it in a tin cup set in boiling water, take the scum from the top, and let it get almost cold, when beat, little by little, into the whipped egg. Work these into the flour, adding just enough ice-water to make the paste soft enough to roll out. When you have rolled it into a thin sheet, spread all over with the lard, put on with a knife. Sprinkle lightly with flour, roll up, and flatten with three or four strokes of the rolling-pin. Roll again into a yet thinner sheet; again lubricate with the lard and sprinkle with flour, and, once more, make into a tight roll. Set for an hour in a cold place. Cut in two. Set aside enough for your Monday’s dessert; line small “patty-pans” with the rest, pricking the paste on the bottom to keep it from puffing too high. Bake in a quick oven, and when cold put a tablespoonful of sweet jelly or jam in each.

Apples and Nuts,

Especially the former, are better for very young stomachs than pastry.[117]

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Mock Turtle Bean Soup.

Soak the beans overnight. In the morning, pour on a quart of cold water, and set them where they will heat for an hour, without burning. Stir up often from the bottom. At the end of this time add the beef liquor (after taking off the fat), the onions, and celery. Cook gently three hours, until the beans are boiled to pieces. Strain, season, put back into the kettle, boil up, season with pepper, stir in the butter rolled in flour. Simmer five minutes, and pour upon the fried bread in the tureen.

If you cannot get the purple “mock turtle soup beans,” use the common white ones.

Haunch of Venison.

Wash all over with lukewarm vinegar and water; then rub well with butter or lard to soften the skin. Cover the top and sides with foolscap paper, well greased, and coat it with a paste of flour and water, half an inch thick. Lay over this a large sheet of thin wrapping-paper, and[118] over this another of stout foolscap. Tie all down in place by greased pack-thread. The papers should also be thoroughly greased.

Thus much on Saturday—and set the venison in a very cold place. Next day, about three hours before it will be needed, put into the dripping-pan, with two cups of boiling water in the bottom. Invert another pan over it to keep in the steam; be sure that the fire is good, and leave it to itself for an hour. Then see that the paper is not scorching; wet it all over with hot water and a ladleful of gravy; cover and let it alone for an hour and a half more. Remove the papers and paste, and test with a skewer in the thickest part. If it goes in readily, close the oven, and let it brown for half an hour. Baste freely four times with claret and butter; at last dredge with flour and rub over with butter to make a froth. Take it up, put upon a hot dish. Skim the gravy left in the dripping pan, strain it, thicken with browned flour; add two teaspoonfuls of currant-jelly, a glass of claret, pepper and salt. Boil up for an instant, and serve in a gravy-boat. Allow a quarter of an hour to the pound in roasting venison. The neck can be roasted in the same way as the haunch.

Mashed Potatoes—Moulded.

Having mashed and seasoned them as usual, grease well the inside of a fluted pudding or cake mould, put in the potato, cover, and set for half an hour in a dripping-pan half full of boiling water, within a moderate oven. Then remove the lid, dip, for a moment, the mould in cold water, and turn the potato out upon a flat dish.

Lima Beans.

You can get them canned, but they are nearly, if not quite as good dried. In this case soak them overnight in soft water. Change this in the morning for fresh, and put them on to boil in hot water, a little salted. Cook slowly until soft. Do not boil so fast as to break the skins. Drain well, stir in a good piece of butter, a little pepper and salt, and eat very hot.[119]

Sweet Potatoes—Browned.

Boil in their skins, peel while hot, and set them in a quick oven. Glaze presently with butter, repeating the process, several times, as they brown.

Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream.

Put soaked gelatine, lemon, sugar, and flavoring extract together, and cover closely for half an hour. Pour on boiling water, stir and strain. Add the wine, strain again through a flannel bag, without squeezing, and leave in a mould wet with cold water, until just before the Sunday dinner.

Whip a cup of rich cream to a thick froth in a syllabub-churn. The jelly should have been formed in an open mould—one with cylinder in the middle. Fill the hollow left by this with the whipped cream; or, if your jelly be a solid mass, heap the cream about the base.

Coffee and Macaroons

Should be the final course. I make no apology for hot and good Sunday dinners. There is a vast deal of straining out infinitesimal gnats and swallowing gigantic camels upon this, as upon most other questions of conscience. We have neither time nor space for their discussion. I have simply tried to deal with the fact that most husbands, brothers, and fathers expect a better dinner on Sabbath, and enjoy it more, than upon other days, by showing, to the best of my ability, how they can be gratified without imposing heavy duties upon mistress and servants at a season when both mind and body need comparative rest.[120]

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“Second Thoughts” Soup.

Heat Saturday’s soup to a boil; add two cups of milk, and when this heats, pour a little of it upon two beaten eggs. Return these to the soup, add whatever seasoning is necessary; simmer all together for one minute, and pour upon three or four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese placed in the bottom of the tureen. Stir up well, and it is ready.

Larded Venison.

Trim the remains of the roast haunch into a neat shape, and lard with strips of fat pork, making incisions to receive it with a thin, sharp-edged knife. Pour what gravy you have over it, or should there be none, use butter and water instead. Put into a dripping-pan, turn another over it and roast—or steam—for one hour. Meantime, make a gravy of the trimmings, bits of bone, etc., by covering them well with cold water, and adding half an onion, sliced. Stew until the gravy is reduced one-half. Strain, season with pepper; a tablespoonful of currant-jelly, one of catsup and two of claret. Thicken slightly with browned flour, boil up to mix well, and pour gradually over the meat. Baste abundantly with this for half an hour if the piece of meat be large. Less time may suffice for a small roast. Never let it dry for an instant. When done, it should seem to have been stewed rather than roasted. Serve the gravy in a sauce-boat.

Like some other “second thoughts,” this dish will be even better than at its first appearance.[121]

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Turn nearly all the juice off from a can of tomatoes. Salt and pepper this, by the way, and put aside in a cool place for some other day’s soup. Put a layer of bread-crumbs in the bottom of a buttered pie-dish; on them one of tomatoes; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and some bits of butter, also a little sugar. Another layer of crumbs, another of tomatoes—seasoned—then a top layer of very fine, dry crumbs. Bake covered until bubbling hot, and brown quickly.

Fried Sweet Potatoes.

Slice cold ones left from yesterday, or boiled this fore-noon; roll in flour and fry in dripping. Drain well.

Raspberry and Currant Jelly Tart.

Roll out the raw paste reserved for to-day from Saturday, and line two pie-dishes. Fill them nearly full of canned raspberries, sweetened to your liking. Spread a coating of currant jelly over the top, and cover with a lattice-work of pastry, cut with a jagging-iron. Watch your chance of putting them into the oven, as they are better when not hot.

You will like them, I think.

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Clam Soup.

Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire in a large farina-kettle, with a pint of water, the peppers, mace, celery, and salt. When it has boiled ten minutes, strain and put back into the kettle with the clams. Shut the lid down closely, and boil, fast, thirty minutes. Heat the milk in another vessel, stir into it the rice-flour, wet up with cold water, and the butter. Pour into the kettle with the clams, take at once from the fire, pour into the tureen, in the bottom of which you have laid four or five Boston crackers, split. Cover, and wait five minutes before serving.

Ragoût of Veal.

Crack the bones, when you have taken the meat off, and put them into a saucepan with the minced onion, celery, and herbs, with a quart of water. Stew slowly until the liquor has boiled down to a pint. Meanwhile, cut the veal into neat slices, and fry until they begin to brown, in some good dripping. Strain the gravy made from the bones and vegetables over this, and put all on to stew, adding the tomato-juice, pepper, and pork, the last cut up fine. Simmer, with the lid on, for two hours.[123] Then add the browned flour, wet up in cold water, salt, if needed, the butter and lemon-juice. Boil up once, and dish.

Rice and Cheese.

Boil a cup of rice in a quart of water, slightly salted, and when half-done add two tablespoonfuls of butter. By the time the rice is soft, the water should have been soaked up entirely, and each grain stand out whole in the mass. Never stir boiling rice, but shake up the saucepan instead. Stir into the rice, at this point, three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Toss up with a fork until the cheese is dissolved, and pour into a deep dish.

Potato Puff.

Mash the potatoes while hot. Beat in butter, milk, and two whipped eggs, with salt to your liking, until you have a light, soft paste. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish in a quick oven.

Celery Salad.

Cut up blanched stalks of celery into short pieces. Mix a dressing of one tablespoonful of oil to one teaspoonful of sugar, one of salt, half as much pepper, and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar with half a teaspoonful of made mustard. Heat the vinegar to scalding, and pour over a beaten egg, a little at a time, and beating it in well. To this add the oil and other ingredients, whipping up the mixture with an egg-beater. When cold, pour over the salad, toss up with a silver fork, and put into a glass bowl.

A Mere Trifle.

Heat the milk to boiling, and pour, gradually, upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Put again over the fire, stir[124] steadily for about ten minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Take it off, and while still very hot, stir in with a few light strokes half of the frothed whites. Let it get cold before flavoring it. Pour into a glass bowl. Whip the remaining whites to a méringue with a little powdered sugar. Heap upon the custard. Put bits of bright jelly, or preserved strawberries, here and there upon the snowy mass.

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Hotch-Potch.

Wash, scrape, and slice the vegetables, and put all except the tomatoes into a pot; cover with hot water and boil gently ten minutes. Drain off the water, put a handful of the mixed vegetables, including now the tomatoes, in the bottom of a stone jar. Pepper and salt, strew[125] thickly with the minced raw beef, repeat the order until your materials are all in the jar. Fit a top or a small plate over the mouth; tie down with stout greased paper, set it within the oven, and let it alone for five or six hours, except that you must look, now and then, to see that the paper does not take fire. Prevent this by greasing it abundantly. At the end of this time, turn out the hotch-potch; stir in the butter, and, if needed, additional seasoning through it, and serve in a tureen.

Stewed Pigeons.

Pick, clean, and wash the pigeons, and put into a pot with a cupful of water to keep them from burning, and a tablespoonful of butter for each one. Shut the lid down tightly, and subject to a slow heat until they are of a nice brown—about nut-color. Once in a great while turn them, and see that each is well wet with the liquor. Take them out and cover in a warm place—a colander set over a pot of hot water is best—while you make the gravy. Chop the giblets of the pigeon “exceeding small” with a little onion and parsley. Put into the gravy, pepper and salt, boil up and thicken with browned flour. Return the pigeons to the pot, cover again tightly, and cook slowly until tender. If there should not be liquor enough in the pot to make the gravy, add boiling water before the giblets go in.

This is an admirable receipt.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Cut parboiled potatoes into dice. Chop an onion and fry it, with a little minced parsley, in good dripping or butter, for one minute. Then put in the potatoes. Stir briskly until they have fried slowly for five minutes. They must never stick to the bottom, nor brown. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, drain free of fat by shaking them in a heated colander, and send up hot.

Kidney Beans.

Soak over night in soft water; next morning cover with lukewarm, and cook slowly for one hour. Salt slightly[126] and boil until tender, but not to actual breaking. Drain very well, stir in a liberal spoonful of butter, pepper, and serve.

English Tapioca Pudding.

Soak the tapioca for one hour in a pint of the milk; pour into a farina-kettle, surround with warm water, salt very slightly, and bring to a boil. When soft throughout, turn out to cool, while you make the custard. Heat a quart of milk to scalding; pour over the beaten eggs and sugar, this last having been rubbed to a cream with the butter. Mix with the tapioca—lemon-peel and raisins last. Dredge the fruit lightly with flour, and beat all up hard. Bake in a buttered dish one hour—at first covered.

Eat warm, with powdered sugar. It is better for not being too hot.

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Celery Soup.

Chop the meat, onion, and herbs; cover with the water and put on to stew early in the day. When the meat has boiled to rags and the liquid reduced one-half, strain, and put in the celery, cut into small pieces. Use the best parts only. Stew soft; rub through a colander and return with the broth to the saucepan. Season, add the sugar, boil up and skim, and put in the milk. Heat, and add corn starch. When it again boils, you stirring all the while, put in the butter.

Take off so soon as this has melted, and pour over the fried bread in the tureen.

Mutton Cutlets—Fried.

Beat them flat with the broad side of a hatchet; season with pepper and salt, dip first in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in lard or dripping. Drain perfectly free from the fat, and arrange them, standing on end and touching one another, around a mound of mashed potatoes.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and shape with a knife into a smooth mound, with a hedge of cutlets about the base.

Stewed Corn and Tomatoes.

Take a half-can of tomatoes and the same of corn, the rest of that which was opened for your “hotch-potch” yesterday, and, after mixing them up well, season with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Set on where they will cook slowly. At the end of twenty-five minutes, stir in a great spoonful of butter. Put on the lid and stew very gently ten minutes more. Serve in a deep dish.[128]

Brussels Sprouts.

Pick over, trim, and lay in cold water for half an hour cook quickly in boiling water, a little salt, for fifteen minutes. Drain carefully, put upon a flat dish, and pour drawn butter over them.

Apple Méringue Pie.

Chop the lard in flour, wet up with ice-water to a stiff paste. Roll thin, and baste with one-third of the butter, sprinkle lightly with flour, and roll up. Again roll out, even thinner than before, baste again with half the remaining butter, sprinkle with flour, and make a second roll. Repeat this process yet a third time, and set in a cold place for one hour.

Cut the roll of paste into two pieces, reserving one for to-morrow’s oyster-pie. With the other, line two pie-dishes and fill with good apple-sauce, well sweetened, and seasoned with nutmeg. Bake until just done. Draw to the oven door, and spread with a méringue made by whipping stiff the whites of three eggs for each pie, sweetening with a tablespoonful of sugar for each egg. Flavor with a little rose-water or lemon-essence, beat until you can make a clean cut in it, and spread three-quarters of an inch thick upon each pie. Shut the oven door until the méringue is well set. Do not let it scorch. Eat cold.[129]

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Friars’ Soup.

Boil the vegetables, all chopped fine (reserving the parsley for seasoning), in three quarts of water until they can be pulped through a colander. Return them, with the water in which they were cooked, to the fire. Boil the rice, meantime, in a little water until it swells and absorbs it all. Stir into the vegetable porridge, season, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Add the butter, simmer ten minutes, dip out a cupful and beat into the eggs. Stir this into the broth, and before it begins to boil, take from the fire and pour out, lest the eggs should curdle.

Oyster Pie.

Roll out the raw paste made yesterday into a pretty thick sheet. Fill a pudding-dish with crusts of stale bread, or light crackers. Butter the edges of the dish that the crust may be easily removed. Cover the mockpie with[130] the pastry; lay a strip cut in scallops or points, around the edge, to keep it in place, and bake.

To each pint of oyster-liquor allow a cup of milk, but heat them in separate vessels. So soon as the liquor boils, put in the oysters and cook five minutes more. Stir a tablespoonful of corn-starch into the pint of hot milk, having, of course, first wet it up with cold water, and, when it thickens, pour over the oysters and liquor. Season with pepper and salt, and add two tablespoonfuls of butter, if there be a quart of oysters. Lift the hot crust from the pudding-dish with great care. Remove the stale bread, wipe out the inside; pour in the stewed oysters with enough of the soup to cover them well; replace the pastry and set in the oven for two or three minutes.

Calf’s Liver à l’Anglaise.

Put the butter into a warm—not hot saucepan. Cut the liver into slices half an inch thick, and lay upon the butter. Mince the pork and cover the liver. Sprinkle the parsley and onion, with pepper, on top. Cover the saucepan closely and set in a kettle of hot water. Keep this water below the boiling-point for an hour. Then let it boil another hour. The liver should by this time be very tender and juicy, if the heat has been properly managed. Take it out, and put it upon a chafing-dish to keep warm. Boil up, and thicken the gravy with browned flour; pour over the liver and serve. The inner saucepan should be made of tin.

Potatoes au Gratin.

Mash your potatoes soft with butter and milk; mould in a round pan or tin jelly-mould, made very wet with[131] cold water. Turn out upon a flat plate—a sheet of tin is better—well-greased, strew with fine, dry bread-crumbs; set upon the upper grating of the oven to brown quickly. Slip dexterously from the plate to a hot dish.

Stewed Parsnips.

Boil tender and cut in long slices. Heat in a saucepan a cup of milk, thicken it with a tablespoonful of butter cut into bits and rolled in flour, season with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg. Put in the parsnips, boil up once gently, take from the fire, and leave covered in the saucepan for five minutes before you serve.

Picklette and Apple Sauce.

Pass the first with the oyster pie, which is a course of itself; the apple sauce with the meat.

Chocolate Custard.

Scald the milk, rub the chocolate to a smooth paste in a little cold milk. Stir into the milk and cook two minutes in it. Beat up the yolks of the five eggs with the whites of two, and the sugar. Pour the hot mixture, gradually, upon them, stirring deeply. Turn into a buttered pudding-dish, and set in a dripping-pan of boiling water. Bake until firm. When “set” in the middle, spread quickly, without taking from the oven, with a méringue made by whipping the reserved whites stiff with a very little sugar. Bake until this is done. Eat cold.[132]

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Macaroni Soup.

Mince the meat, crack the bones, and slice the vegetables. Mix all together. Put the butter in the bottom of a soup-pot, next the meat, then the vegetables and herbs; fit on a tight lid, and set the pot where it will warm very slowly. At the end of an hour, open it, pour off the gravy; increase the heat until the meat begins to brown on the sides of the pot. Return the gravy to the rest of the ingredients; cover with six quarts of cold water, and boil until the liquor has fallen to four quarts. This should be in four hours. Strain the soup; pressing out all the nourishment, and rubbing the vegetables through the sieve. Add the paste, or, if you cannot obtain it, the same quantity of pipe macaroni, boiled a few minutes in hot water, and left to get cool. Then, with a sharp knife or scissors, clip it into very short bits, and put into the soup. Season, boil up, skim well, and[133] let all cook gently together for ten minutes. Half of the above quantity of stock will be enough for Saturday’s dinner. Therefore, before adding the macaroni, take out about two quarts, season well, and set aside for Sunday’s soup.

Baked Ham.

Soak overnight in warm water. In the morning, scrub it hard; trim away the rusty part of the under side and edges; wipe dry; cover the bottom with a stiff paste of flour and water, and lay, upside down, in the dripping-pan, with enough water to keep it from burning. Allow, in baking, twenty-five minutes to the pound. Baste a few times, to prevent the skin from cracking, and keep hot water in the pan. When a skewer will pierce the thickest part, take it up, plunge for one minute into cold water; skin carefully, brush all over with beaten egg, then strew very thickly with cracker-crumbs, and set in a hot oven to brown. Eat hot or cold, garnished with sprigs of celery or parsley.

Cheese Fondu.

Soak the crumbs in the hot milk; beat in the cheese; then the yolks of the eggs, pepper and salt. Have a buttered pudding-dish ready, and just before the fondu goes into the oven whip in the whites of the eggs, already frothed. Pour into the dish, bake in a brisk oven, and send at once to table, as it soon falls. This is a delightful accompaniment to ham.

Spinach with Eggs.

Pick the leaves from the stems, wash well, and boil in hot water, a little salted, for twenty minutes. Chop and drain. Return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of[134] butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little pepper and salt. Have ready the yolks of three eggs, rubbed to powder, then wet up with a little cream or milk. Stir all together in the saucepan, beating with a wire spoon, until they are smooth and thick. Turn into a deep dish and garnish with the whites of the eggs cut into rings.

Stewed Potatoes.

Pare the potatoes; cut into quarters, and these into long, even strips. Lay in cold water half an hour, and cook in boiling water until tender, with half a minced onion. Drain off nearly all the water; pepper and salt, and add a cup of cold milk with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. When it thickens, stir in a little chopped parsley. Simmer five minutes and serve. The potatoes should not be allowed to break so much as to lose their shape.

Seymour Pudding.

Stir molasses, suet, and milk together, add the egg, spice, flour, fruit, well dredged with flour—at last, the soda. Beat hard five minutes before putting it into a buttered pudding-mould. Boil two hours and a half. Eat with butter and sugar.[135]

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Beef and Barley Soup.

Use the two quarts of stock set aside yesterday. Soak five or six tablespoonfuls of barley in cold water two hours. Boil half an hour or until tender, in a little salted water. When you have taken the cake of cold fat from the top of the soup, put in the barley and simmer all together half an hour. Then stir in two tablespoonfuls of shred gelatine previously soaked one hour in cold water. When this has dissolved, the soup is ready for use.

Steamed Turkey.

Prepare the turkey as for roasting, and, if you have no steamer, put a gridiron upon the top of a pot of boiling water; lay the fowl upon it, invert a deep pan, as nearly as possible the size of the mouth of the pot, over it, stuff wet cloths into whatever space may be left between the pot and the pan, and keep the water at a hard boil, allowing twenty minutes for each pound of turkey. Two or three times, replenish the water by pulling away one of the cloths so as to leave an aperture large enough to admit the nose of the boiling tea-kettle. When the turkey is half done, lift the pan and turn it; replace the cloths and steam again. When it is done, lay upon a hot dish and baste with a mixture of melted butter and chopped parsley, anointing all parts of it well. Serve drawn butter in a boat, with a couple of boiled eggs chopped fine, stirred up in it. Save the giblets of the turkey for Monday’s soup.

Cranberry Sauce

In a mould, as strained jelly, or the plainer dish of stewed cranberries, well-sweetened, must accompany this dish.[136]

Naples Rice Pudding.

Take a few tablespoonfuls of the meat boiled in yesterday’s soup, mince fine, add half a chopped onion, a tablespoonful of dripping from the top of the soup, and put on to warm with a very little hot water. Simmer, but do not boil, fifteen minutes. Boil one cup of rice in enough water, slightly salt, to cover it well. Shake up from time to time, but do not stir. When the rice is soft and has soaked up the water, add a cup of cold milk in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of corn-starch, one raw egg, and a tablespoonful of butter. Take from the fire before you do this and turn into a bowl. Stir in now the minced meat and gravy (there should be very little of the latter), season to taste, mix all up well, and put into a buttered cake-mould. Set this in a dripping-pan of hot water and bake one hour, closely covered. Turn out upon a hot dish. It is a very good entrée, and easily made.

Boiled Sweet Potatoes.

Boil in their skins until soft to the touch; pare quickly, lay upon a flat dish, butter each, and serve hot.

Pumpkin Pie.

Beat the eggs light and whip in the sugar, then the pumpkin and spice. At last, mix in the milk, stirring up well from the bottom.

Bake in open shells of paste made according to the receipt given last Thursday. Eat cold, and send around a plate of cheese with it.[137]

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Giblet Soup.

Cut the giblets of your turkey into six pieces each, and stew, closely covered, in a pint of water until tender. Strain out the barley from the remains of yesterday’s soup and if you have any of Saturday’s in the pantry, strain out the vermicelli and add that. Warm this to a boil with the liquor in which the giblets were cooked. Boil up sharply and skim; add the giblets, and while they simmer together, put two tablespoonfuls of butter cut into bits, and rolled in browned flour, into a frying-pan. Stir until it is hissing hot. Add to the soup with a handful of chopped parsley, and a tablespoonful of walnut or mushroom catsup. Boil up once and serve.

Turkey and Ham.

Cover the uncarved side of your steamed turkey with rather thick and fat slices of cooked ham. Three or four large ones will suffice. Bind them to the body with greased packthread. Lay the turkey, cut side downward, and the ham up, in the dripping-pan with a little boiling water in the bottom. Bake about three-quarters of an hour, basting the ham, when it begins to drip, with its own grease. Ten minutes before taking it up, clip the strings, and remove the ham to a hot dish. Dredge the upper side of the turkey with flour, and baste with butter to make a brown froth. Dish, with the ham laid around it.

Corn Puddings.

Beat up the eggs, add the sugar and butter, the milk, corn, and, lastly, the flour. Bake in earthenware cups well buttered, or in neat patty-pans. Turn out upon a dish, or eat from the cups. They are very nice when hot.

Baked Potatoes.

Wash, wipe, and bake in a moderate oven. When done, cut a round piece of skin almost entirely from the top of each, leaving a “hinge” at one side. With a small knife make an incision in the mealy part of the potato, i. e., the heart, put in a pinch of salt, and a bit of butter, replace the flap of skin, and send hot to table.

Farina Custard.

Heat the milk to scalding; stir in the farina, which should have been previously soaked in a little cold water for an hour. Cook in a farina-kettle fifteen minutes, stirring often. Take out a cupful and beat into the eggs already whipped up with the sugar. Put into the kettle, stir in salt and flavoring, boil two minutes, and pour into a deep dish. Eat warm, putting a teaspoonful of sweet fruit jelly upon the top of each saucerful in serving.[139]

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Plain Calf’s Head Soup.

Wash a calf’s head (cleaned with the skin on), in three waters, and soak one hour in salted water. Then put on to boil in five quarts of cold water. Cook until the meat slips easily from the bones. Take out the head, remove the bones, and throw back into the soup. Set aside three-quarters of the meat—the best portions—for to-morrow’s dinner. Chop the ears and other refuse parts fine; season with salt, pepper, onion, sweet marjoram, a teaspoonful of ground cloves, and as much allspice—even spoonfuls. Mix all up well, return to the soup and boil down to three quarts. Mash the brains and make into force-meat balls with raw egg, seasoning and enough flour to hold them together; roll in flour and set in a cool place until wanted. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour wet up with cold water, and stir together five minutes. Strain the soup, put back two quarts over the fire, stir in the thickening of flour and butter, boil up and put in the force-meat balls. Simmer ten minutes, add the juice of a lemon, and a glass of brown sherry, and pour out. The reserved quart of “stock” is for another day’s soup. Do not put the calf’s tongue into the soup. It is indispensable in to-morrow’s ragoût.

Boiled Mutton.

The best part for boiling is the leg. Put on in boiling water and cook, allowing fifteen minutes to the pound. Make a sauce by taking out a cupful of liquor when it is nearly done, cooling it until you can take off the fat, then heating again in a saucepan and stirring into it one[140] tablespoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls of flour, wet up with cold water. Stir for five minutes, putting in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and after another boil, take from the fire before you put in the juice of a lemon.

In this, as in other cases where the liquor in which meat is boiled is to be used for broth, salt slightly while cooking, sprinkling all over lightly with salt the moment you take it from the fire. Serve the sauce in a boat.

Minced Cabbage.

Boil a firm head of cabbage, quartered, in two waters, throwing the first away after ten minutes’ cooking and putting in more as hot, and a little salted. When it is tender all through, drain and chop quite fine, seasoning with salt, pepper, and a liberal portion of butter. Serve hot in a vegetable dish.

String Beans.

Open a can of string beans an hour before they are to be used. Cut them into short pieces when you are ready to cook them; turn off the liquor and cover them with cold water. Put into a pot with a bit of salt pork a little more than an inch square. Boil slowly until tender, strain, season with pepper, and serve hot, with the pork on top of the pile of beans.

Beet-root Salad.

Boil the beets until tender; scrape clean; drop into cold water for three minutes. Slice, and pour over them a dressing of vinegar, salt, sugar, made mustard, pepper, and one tablespoonful of oil to four of vinegar. Cover, and let all stand together for two hours. This salad will keep for a couple of days.

Corn-meal Puffs.

Sift soda and cream tartar twice through the flour. Then, mix flour and meal together, and sift a third time. Boil the milk and stir into it the meal, flour, and salt. Boil ten minutes, stirring well up from the bottom. Take it off, put into a bowl, add the butter and beat hard for three minutes. Let it cool while you whip the eggs light, then the yolks and sugar and spice together. Beat these into the cold mush, and lastly the frothed whites. Whip all together faithfully, and bake in greased cups or small “corn-bread moulds,” set within a steady oven. When done, turn out and eat hot, breaking—not cutting—them open, and after buttering sprinkling with white sugar.

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Marie’s Soup.

Wash and scald the sweetbreads, and put on to stew in the cold water. When they have boiled slowly half an hour, salt, boil up and skim. Take all the fat from the top of the cold soup-stock, and stir into the liquor already on the fire. Add the onion and parsley minced, and the mace; season to taste, cover and stew gently for one hour. Take out the sweetbreads and lay them where they will cool quickly. Strain the soup, return to the fire; put in a dozen mushrooms (you can buy the French champignons in cans), stew fifteen minutes; cut the sweetbreads into small squares, drop into the soup; thicken with the corn-starch wet with cold water; boil up once and serve.

This soup is very fine.

Ragoût of Calf’s Head and Mushrooms.

Cut three-quarters of the calf’s head—the best parts—into neat slices, also the tongue. Chop the rest, season with the onion, pepper and salt, cover with three cups of cold water, and stew gently down to one cup of gravy. Meanwhile fry the slices of meat in good dripping. Take them out with a wire spoon and put into the bottom of a tin vessel set within another of warm—not boiling—water. Cover and set over the fire. Drain, slice and fry the mushrooms in the fat left in the frying-pan. Drain and lay these upon the meat in the inner vessel. Time the cooking of the gravy so as to have it ready, spiced, and seasoned, to be strained, hot over the meat and mushrooms. Put on a tight lid and simmer fifteen minutes, never boiling once. Strain off the gravy into a saucepan.[143] Thicken, and let it boil up once. Add the lemon-juice, put the meat and mushrooms into a deep dish, and pour the hot gravy over all.

Mashed Turnips.

Boil soft, drain and mash, pressing the water out well, return to the saucepan, with a generous lump of butter; pepper and salt; stir constantly until the butter is dissolved, and all smoking hot, and serve in a covered dish.

Creamed Potatoes.

In mashing them, add more milk than usual, whipping up hard with a silver fork. While still very hot, beat in the white of an egg, already frothed stiffly; pile in a deep dish and set, uncovered, within the oven, until a light crust begins to form on the top, but not long enough to injure the dish. Brush over with butter to glaze it, and serve.

Tomato Soy

Is an excellent “stock” pickle. For directions for making it, please refer to page 488, “General Receipts, No. 1, of Common-Sense Series.”

Sponge-cake Pudding.

Slice the cake and lay some of it in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Make a custard by scalding the milk, stirring into it the corn-starch, then pouring it, by degrees, upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Add the lemon; pour over the cake, put another layer of slices; more custard, and so on, until the mould is full. Put a small, heavy plate on top, and let all stand until the custard is soaked up. Cover and bake, half an hour, or until done throughout. Turn out upon a flat dish, sprinkle thickly with white sugar, and eat warm or cold.[144]

Nuts and Raisins.

Crack the nuts, and select for table use fair bunches of plump, fresh raisins.

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Potage au Riz,

In plainer English, rice-broth, can be achieved for to-day, with little trouble, by the help of the liquor in which your mutton was boiled on Tuesday. Wash and soak a cup of rice in cold water. At the end of half an hour, add it, with the water in which it has soaked, to the mutton-broth, from which you must first take the fat. Boil very slowly two hours, and should the water sink below the original level more than an inch, replenish with boiling. In another saucepan heat a cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of rice-flour. Season the mutton-broth with pepper and parsley—it will hardly need salt. (Boil up and skim, before the parsley goes in.) Pour the hot milk over two beaten eggs, stir in well; add to the soup in the kettle, and take instantly from the fire.

English Pork Pie.

Put a layer of pork within a pudding-dish; season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, or mace. Next a layer of sliced apples, strewed with sugar and bits of butter. Go on in this order until you are ready for the crust, having the last layer of apples. Pour in the cider, cover with a thick crust of good pastry, ornamented around the edge; make a slit in the middle, and bake in a moderate oven one hour and a half. Should the crust threaten to brown too fast, cover with paper. When nicely browned, brush over with butter and close the oven door for a moment; then wash well with white of egg. Eat hot. You will find it very good, odd as the receipt may seem.

Mock Stewed Oysters.

Scrape and drop into cold water a bunch of salsify, or oyster-plant. Cut into short pieces and stew tender in boiling water, a little salted. Drain off nearly all the water, and pour into the saucepan a cup of cold milk. When again hot, add a heaping tablespoonful of butter and a handful of fine cracker-dust, with pepper and salt. Stir very slowly for five minutes, and pour out. It should be about as thick as oyster soup.

Potato Balls.

Mash potatoes with a little butter and salt, and let them get cold. Then work in a beaten egg. Make into balls about twice the size of a walnut, with floured hands, roll them well in flour, and fry yellow-brown in good dripping or lard. Drain in a colander, and pile upon a flat dish.

Lemon Jelly and Light Cake.

[146]

Stir sugar, lemon-juice, peel, and soaked gelatine together, and leave, covered, for an hour. Then pour over them the boiling water; stir until the gelatine is dissolved; strain through a flannel bag, without pressing. Add the wine, and let all drip, untouched, through double flannel. Pour into a wet mould. In cold weather, or if set on ice, it will be ready for use in six hours. Pass a basket of light cake with it.

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Lobster Bisque.

Free the lobster from all bits of shell, and cut up small, tearing as little as may be. Put the water into a saucepan, with the salt and pepper. When boiling, stir in the lobster and stew half an hour. Heat the milk in another vessel, and, when scalding, stir in the cracker and set in hot water for ten minutes. The lobster having cooked for thirty minutes, add the butter, and simmer five minutes longer. Then pour in the milk; mix all up well; set for five minutes in hot water, and serve in a tureen. Pass sliced lemon with it.

This bisque is delicious.[147]

Stewed Chicken.

Prepare a fine young fowl as for roasting, with the exception of the dressing, which should be left out. Early in the day (if you have no gravy already made) put on the feet and giblets to stew in two cups of cold water, with a little minced onion. When the giblets are very tender, and the liquid has boiled down to one cupful, strain it and set aside the giblets to cool. Chop a quarter of a pound of pork, put it in the bottom of a pot, lay the chicken upon it; pour the gravy over it; cover tightly and set where it will heat steadily, but not reach the boil under an hour. Increase the heat, not allowing the steam to escape, for an hour longer, but it should not stew fast at any time. By this time the fowl should be thoroughly done. Remove carefully to a hot dish; season the gravy, adding a little hot water if needful, and strain out the pork. Add the giblets, chopped fine, stew fast for one minute, pour over the chicken, and it is ready for the table.

Rice Croquettes.

Work butter and sugar to a cream, and these into the rice. Salt, and stir up with the eggs to a smooth paste. Make into oval balls or rolls, with well-floured hands. Roll in flour, and fry, a few at a time, in sweet lard. Drain well and eat hot.

Winter Squash.

Pare, take out the seeds, cut into strips, and lay in cold water, one hour. Cook in boiling water, a little salt, until very soft. Drain off every drop of water, and mash with a potato beetle, stirring in a large spoonful of butter, and seasoning with pepper and salt. Mound up in a vegetable dish and serve hot.[148]

Apple Snow.

Make a custard by stirring into the hot milk half the sugar, the yolks of all the eggs, and the white of one, and cooking, stirring constantly until it thickens. Let this cool while you whip the whites to a stiff méringue with the rest of the sugar. Peel the apples, and grate directly into the méringue, stirring in at once that the coating of egg may prevent them from changing color. Put the cold custard in the bottom of a glass dish, and heap the snow upon it. Eat soon after making it.

Tea and Macaroons.

Pass after dinner in the dining-room, or send into the parlor.

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Ayrshire Soup.

Chop the vegetables and herbs; cut the meat fine, and break up the bones. Put the oatmeal to soak in a pint of water. Slice the potatoes, and parboil them in hot water for ten minutes. Add them then to the other vegetables, and put them all, with the meat and bones, into a soup-pot, with the water. Stew for four hours, until the liquor in the pot has fallen one-third. Strain through a colander, set aside two quarts of the stock until to-morrow, after seasoning it all, and return the rest to the fire. Boil up and skim; add the oatmeal, and stew, covered, forty minutes, stirring often, lest it should burn.

Mutton Chops and Tomato Purée.

Broil the chops, after trimming them neatly; rub, as soon as they leave the gridiron, with butter on both sides; pepper and salt, and cover, for a few minutes, in a hot water dish, that they may take up the seasoning.

Make the purée by stewing a can of tomatoes until almost dry, then seasoning, and stirring in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer three minutes, arrange the chops on their sides, overlapping each other, inside of the curve of a flat dish, and pour the purée within their enclosure.

Potato Strips.

Pare and cut the potatoes in long strips, the length of the potato, and not more than the sixteenth of an inch thick. Lay in ice-water for one hour; dry by laying on one clean towel and pressing another upon it, and fry, not too many at once, in hot lard, a little salt. Take out so soon as they are browned lightly, toss in a hot colander, and serve in a deep dish lined with a napkin.

Boiled Beans.

Soak all night, and in the morning change the cold water for lukewarm. Leave in this two hours; drain it off and put them on to boil in cold water, with a piece of fat salt[150] pork two inches square. Cook slowly until soft. Take out the pork, drain the beans well, season with pepper, and dish.

Macaroni Pudding.

Boil the macaroni in the water until it is tender, and has soaked up the liquid. It must be cooked in a farina-kettle. Add the butter and salt. Cover for five minutes without cooking. Put in the rest of the ingredients. Simmer, after the boil begins, ten minutes longer, before serving in a deep dish. Be careful, in stirring, not to break the macaroni. Eat with butter and powdered sugar, or cream and sugar.

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Potato Soup.

Slice the potatoes, cover with boiling water, and cook ten minutes. Throw away this water, and add the quart of cold, slightly salted, and the onion, to the potatoes. Boil to pieces, and pass, with the water in which they were boiled, through a colander into the stock. Heat all together, and cook gently half an hour, before adding the rice, which should have been boiled soft in a very little water. When the rice is nearly dry, stir in the butter, put into the soup, and simmer five minutes.

Roast Beef.

A rib-roast is best for family use. Make your butcher saw off about half of the bone, after cutting the ends of the ribs clear of the meat; then fold the flap neatly around to the thick part, and secure with skewers. The “trimmings” are yours—a fact housekeepers often fail to insist upon. The meat is weighed before you buy it. Take all that you pay for—and you will seldom be at a loss for a “base” for soup or gravy. Between butchers and cooks, there is enough wasted in American kitchens to supply a National Soup-house that might feed all the poor in the land.

Put your beef in the dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over it, and roast ten minutes for every pound. Bake as soon as the juices begin to flow—the oftener in reason the better. If your meat has much fat on top, cover it—the fat—with a paste of flour and water. When nearly done, remove this, dredge the beef with flour, baste well with gravy, strew salt over the top, and serve. Pour the fat off from the gravy; return to the fire, thicken with browned gravy, season, and boil up once.

Sweet Potatoes—Baked.

Parboil, take off the skins, and, half an hour before you take up your beef, lay the potatoes in the dripping-pan to brown, basting them with the meat. They should be of a fine brown. Drain off the grease, and lay about the beef when dished.[152]

Baked Hominy.

Work the melted butter well into the hominy, mashing all lumps. Then come the beaten yolks; next, sugar and salt; then, gradually, the milk; lastly the whites. Beat until perfectly smooth, and bake in a greased pudding-dish until delicately browned. Serve in the bake-dish.

Cabbage Salad.

Chop a firm white cabbage with a sharp knife. A dull one bruises it. Make a dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil; six of vinegar; a teaspoonful each of salt and sugar; half as much each of made mustard and pepper. Work all in well, the vinegar going in last, and then beat in a raw egg, whipped light. Pour over the salad, toss up with a fork, and serve in a glass dish.

Arrow-root Pudding—(Cold).

Heat the milk to scalding, and stir in the arrow-root wet up with cold milk. Stir ten minutes, and add sugar and butter. Stir five minutes more, and pour out. When nearly cold, beat in the fruit. Pour into a wet mould. Make on Saturday, and on Sunday, turn out upon a dish, and eat with sugar and cream. It is very good without the fruit, but needs more sugar in making.

Coffee

Should be served last of all.[153]

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Bread Soup.

A few raw beef-bones and trimmings, spoken of yesterday. Bones, bits of skin, gristle, etc., left from Sunday’s roast when you have cut off the meat for the cannelon.

Crack the bones, chop meat and vegetables; put on in the water, and boil slowly down to two quarts. Strain the liquor; let it cool; take off all the fat, season, and return to the pot with the stock. Boil up and skim; put in the crusts; stew, covered, half an hour. Take it from the range and beat in the butter, taking out indissoluble bits. Then simmer, in a vessel set within another of boiling water, half an hour.

As you will see, by a careful perusal of these directions, the preparation of this soup requires little actual expenditure of time. I beg, therefore, that you will “gather up the fragments” from larder and bread-box, and give your family a hot, nourishing, “comforting” dish of porridge, if it is wash-day.

Cannelon of Beef.

Cut the meat from your cold roast, and chop it fine. Season well, and beat into it the yolks of three eggs and the white of one. Add one-third as much cold mashed[154] potato as you have meat, wet up with gravy, and make, with floured hands, into a long roll—three times as long as it is broad. It should be just soft enough to handle. Dredge thickly with flour, and lay in a greased baking-pan. Invert another one over it, and bake until it is hissing hot on top and sides, when uncover, and brown quickly. Brush over the outside with white of egg; dredge again with flour, shut the oven-door to brown this, glaze again with egg, and shut up the oven for one minute. Carefully, with the aid of a cake-turner, slip the cannelon to a hot dish and serve.

Chow-chow

Should go around with the cannelon.

Potato Stew.

Pare and cut the potatoes into dice. Stew in hot water, with a slice of fat salt pork, cut very small, half a minced onion and a little chopped parsley, until the pork is dissolved and the potatoes very tender. Pepper, and if necessary, salt, and pour into a hot, deep dish. The “stew” should not be too liquid, nor yet stiff.

Pork and Beans.

This is a good, nourishing dish for Monday, and easily managed, if you have boiled the beans on Saturday. Fill a bake-dish nearly full of them, and put in the middle a piece of fat salt pork, about three inches wide, which you have parboiled in your soup. It will improve the taste of the “stock” and be itself the better for the temporary association. Pour in a little hot water to keep the beans from burning. Pepper and bake, covered, for half an hour. Remove the cover and brown.

Peach Batter Pudding.

Open a can of peaches—whole ones, if you have them—and pour into the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish before you make your batter. There should be just syrup enough to half cover the fruit.

For batter, take 1 quart of milk.

Beat the yolks light, add the milk and salt, and pour slowly into a hole made in the middle of the flour. Finally, stir in the whites lightly, but not until you have beaten the batter smooth. Pour over the peaches and bake quickly. You can put it in the oven after the beans are done, setting the latter aside to keep warm. If you have not time to make sauce, eat with butter and sugar. Do not let the pudding stand after drawing from the oven, or it will fall.

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Cream Soup.

Chop the meat and onion fine, cover with the water, and stew slowly three hours. Strain, cool and skim. Season and set back on the fire. Boil up and skim carefully; add the milk, and when hot, the corn-starch wet with cold water. As it thickens, take out a cupful, pour upon the eggs; stir into the soup, and take at once from the fire.[156]

Roast Breast of Veal.

Make incisions between the ribs and the meat, and stuff with a force-meat of dry bread-crumbs, chopped pork or ham, pepper, sweet marjoram, and one beaten egg. Save a little to thicken the gravy. Roast slowly, basting often and copiously. Dredge at the last with flour, and baste well, when this has colored, with butter.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Stew a can of tomatoes twenty-five minutes; season with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Cook five minutes and serve.

Plain Boiled Potatoes.

Pare very thin, and put on (after having lain half an hour in cold water) in boiling water. Cook fast until a fork will go easily into the largest; drain off every drop of water, and throw in salt. Set back, uncovered, on the side of the range, or where they will dry quickly, yet not scorch. Serve in an uncovered dish.

Celery.

Wash, scrape, trim off the green tops, and throw aside for seasoning soups, vinegar, etc., the rank green stalks. Lay the better parts in cold water until wanted for the table. Put into a tall glass or celery-stand.

Essex Pudding.

Cook the sago in enough water to cover it until tender and nearly dry. Heat the milk and pour upon the beaten[157] eggs and sugar, add the crumbs, beating into a good batter in a bowl; then suet, flour, sago, and salt. Butter a mould thickly and lay the raisins, dredged with flour, in the bottom and sides, in whatever designs you fancy. Fill the mould with the batter—well beaten up at the last—putting it in by cautious spoonfuls not to dislodge the raisins, which should be imbedded in the butter. Put on the lid of the pudding mould, and boil one hour, never relaxing the heat. Dip in cold water and turn out upon a flat dish. Eat with jelly sauce.

Jelly Sauce.

Beat the hot water gradually into the jelly, and add the butter, lemon, and nutmeg. Warm almost to a boil, put in the sugar, then the flour wet up with cold water. Boil up once sharply; add the wine, and take from the fire. Set, closely covered, in a vessel of hot water until wanted. Stir well before pouring it out.

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Julienne Soup.

Cut the meat small, crack the bones, and put on to cook in five quarts of water with the herbs. While it simmers, prepare the vegetables, with the exception of the cabbage and tomatoes, by cleaning, paring, and cutting them into narrow strips about two inches long, and as nearly as possible of uniform size. Lay them in cold water for one hour. Drain very dry, and put them into a frying-pan in which you have melted, but not cooked, the butter, and dissolved the sugar. Toss them over a hot fire until they are coated with the butter, but do not let them scorch. Set aside in a clean vessel set within one of hot water. When the meat has boiled to rags, and the liquid is reduced one-third, strain it and set by until the fat rises and can be taken off. Return the soup to the fire, season, boil up and skim; add the glazed vegetables, with the chopped cabbage—which should have been parboiled, then drained—and the tomatoes, cut up small. Stew gently for one hour. Serve with the vegetables in it.

This will make enough soup for two days, unless your family be large.

Halibut Steaks—Broiled.

Wash and wipe the steaks dry. Broil upon a buttered gridiron, turning when the lower side is done. Remove carefully to a chafing-dish, and anoint with a mixture of butter, salt, pepper, and a little lemon-juice.

Always serve fish upon hot plates. Pass potatoes, and no other vegetable, with it.[159]

Scalloped Potatoes.

Beat butter, milk, and seasoning into the potatoes while hot. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish; cover this with thin slices of yolk; pepper and salt them; spread another layer of potato over these, and proceed in this order until the dish is full, having the top layer of potato. Strew thickly with bread-crumbs. Bake covered until hot through, then brown quickly. Serve in the bake-dish.

Veal and Ham Pie.

Cut the meat from the cold roast of yesterday. Put the bones, well-cracked, the refuse bits of meat and skin into a saucepan with an onion, a few spoonfuls of tomatoes, and three cups of cold water, and cook slowly until there remains but one cup of gravy. Strain and season, thickening with a tablespoonful of browned flour. Cut the veal into small, even slices. If you have no cold boiled ham, cook half a pound on purpose by boiling in your gravy stock. Slice this also, and lay upon the veal, with now and then a slice of hard-boiled egg. Fill the dish with alternate layers of veal and ham; pour in the gravy, and cover with a thick crust of good pastry, such as you made last Thursday for your pork-pie. Bake one hour.

Stewed Cauliflower.

When your soup is about half done, and before you strain it, take out a cupful, strain through a thin cloth, and put into a saucepan, with a little salt and a tablespoonful of butter. Cut a cauliflower into small bunches, when you have washed and trimmed it, and lay these in the cooled broth. Stew slowly, covered, twenty-five minutes, turning the bunches now and then. When they are tender, take them out, lay in a covered dish to keep warm, stir into the[160] broth a tablespoonful of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour, with nearly half a cup of milk. Pepper, boil up once, and pour over the cauliflower.

Pancakes with Preserves.

Beat the yolks light, add the salt and two cups of milk, then the flour and beaten whites alternately, and thin with more milk until the batter is of the right consistency. It should be quite thin. Have ready in a small frying-pan a tablespoonful of butter or sweet lard, hissing hot, but not discolored by too long heating. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, and fry quickly, pouring off the fat so soon as the cakes set. Turn it with a lift of your spatula and a skilful toss of the pan at the same time. As fast as the pancakes are done—the same lard will do for several—let an assistant spread each upon a hot plate and cover with sweet jam or jelly, rolling up neatly so soon as this is done. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and set in a warm oven until you are ready for dessert.

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Chicken Broth.

Draw, stuff, and truss a pair of chickens, as for roasting; tie soft pack-thread around their legs and wings, binding them close to their bodies, and put on to boil in four quarts of cold water, a little salted. They will require at[161] least one hour’s boiling, if they are of fair size. Do not cook fast, especially at first. Try with a fork if they are tender, and if it pierces the breast easily, take them up, butter well, and set in a warm place, covered. Take out a cupful of liquor when they are three-quarters done, in which to cook your rice. Strain the broth after taking out the fowls, season with pepper and chopped parsley and put again over the fire. Take off the scum, as it rises, and boil hard fifteen minutes. Then add a half cupful of rice, previously stewed soft in a very little water. Simmer a quarter of an hour; pour in a cup of milk in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of rice-flour; bring to a slow boil, and pour a few spoonfuls upon two beaten eggs. Return these to the soup, stir them in and take from the fire. Have ready the giblets and one hard-boiled egg chopped fine in the bottom of the tureen, and turn in the broth upon them.

Chickens and Rice.

Parboil a cup of rice in a little water. When it has taken it up, and is about half done, add the cupful of broth taken from the soup, seasoned well. Cook the rice slowly in it until done. (Always cook rice in a farina-kettle, and shake, instead of stirring.) It should absorb all the gravy. At the last, stir in a beaten egg, mixed with a tablespoonful of melted butter. It is best to do this with a fork, and not a spoon. Make a low, flattened mound of the rice upon a hot dish; remove the pack-threads from the chickens and lay them on the top. Pass grated cheese with it.

Potato Croquettes.

To each cupful of mashed potato, add half a raw egg, beaten light, a little salt and pepper, and half a teaspoonful of butter. Beat well. Make into oblong balls, or rolls, flour well and fry, a few at a time, in boiling lard, or dripping. Drain off the fat and serve hot.

Boiled Sweet Potatoes.

Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and boil until a fork will penetrate them easily. Skin, set in the oven a moment to dry, and send to table.[162]

Cold Slaw—Cream Dressing.

Rub butter and sugar together and pour over them the hot milk. Beat into these the frothed egg. Put into a vessel set within another of hot water, add the corn-starch wet up with cold water, boil slowly until it thickens, and set aside. In another saucepan scald the vinegar; put in the pepper and salt with essence of celery, and pour hot over the cabbage. Mix up well; put back into the saucepan, and stir briskly over the fire until it is smoking all through, but not until it boils. Turn it into a bowl, stir into it the custard with a silver fork, until well mixed; cover, to keep in the strength of the vinegar, and set it where it will cool suddenly. It is very fine.

Poor Man’s Plum Pudding.

Slice the bread and cut off all the crust. Butter thinly and lay in order in a well-greased pudding-dish, strewing each layer with raisins. Heat the milk, put in sugar and salt, and pour over the beaten eggs. Lay a heavy saucer upon the top of the bread and soak with the custard. Let all stand half an hour, then set in a dripping-pan of boiling water, cover closely, and cook one hour, keeping the pan full of water at a hard boil. Turn out and eat with liquid sauce.[163]

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Wednesday’s Soup.

The Julienne soup which, as I stated in the receipt for making it, was sufficient for two days, will have kept perfectly well in the refrigerator, or in any cold closet. You have now only to warm it over—not quite to the boil, and it will be even better than upon the first day. It is wise, sometimes, to skip a day with a réchauffé, for fear of wearying those for whose comfort your bills-of-fare are made up.

Boiled Cod.

Sew up the piece of fish in a thin cloth, fitted neatly to the shape, and boil in salted water (boiling from the first), allowing about fifteen minutes per pound. Unwrap carefully and pour over it a sauce made thus:

Heat half a cup of milk and as much water together; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour, and when it has thickened, pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Put back into the saucepan and stir for one minute; add salt, chopped parsley, and a dozen capers or nasturtium seeds. Take at once from the fire.

Chicken Patés.

Line your paté-pans with a good paste, made according to either of the receipts already given this month, and bake in a brisk oven.

Mince the chicken left from yesterday. Put the bones and stuffing into a saucepan with two cups of cold water, and stew down to one cup of gravy. Season this well, add[164] three tablespoonfuls of milk when you have strained out the bones, a tablespoonful of butter, and a very little parsley. The stuffing should thicken it sufficiently. Stir in the chicken, warm until hot, but do not let it boil, or it will be spoiled. Fill the paste-shells, having taken them from the tins; arrange upon a hot dish and set within an open oven until they are sent to table.

Cheese Fingers.

Cut good pastry, left from your patés, into strips three inches long and two inches wide. Strew with grated cheese, season with pepper and salt; double the paste upon this lengthwise, and bake in a quick oven. Brush over with beaten egg just before taking them up, and sift a little powdered cheese upon them.

Pile, log-cabin-wise, upon a folded napkin laid within a flat dish, and eat without delay, as they are not good cold.

Mashed Potatoes and Mashed Turnips.

The receipts for these standard dishes having been already given this month, it is scarcely necessary to repeat them here. Bear in mind, always, that they must be served hot, and the turnips be well drained.

Sweet Potato Pudding.

Let the potatoes get entirely cold, and grate them. Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolks, spice and lemon. Beat the potato in by degrees, to a light paste; then the brandy, lastly the whites. Bake in a buttered dish, and eat cold.[165]

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Bean and Celery Soup.

Cover beans, meat, onions, and half the celery cut into bits, with the water, and boil to pieces, and until the liquid is reduced one-third. Rub the beans and celery through a fine colander into the soup. Return to the fire, season with pepper, put in the rest of the celery, cut into inch-lengths, and simmer half an hour, stirring often, that it may not “catch” on the bottom. Set aside a quart of it, if you can spare as much, for Monday’s soup.

Jugged Pigeons.

Clean and wash well, and stuff with a dressing made of the giblets boiled and chopped, a slice of fat pork also minced fine; the yolks of two hard eggs rubbed to powder, some bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, bound with a beaten raw egg. Tie the legs and wings close to their bodies, and pack the pigeons in a tin pail with a tight top. Plunge this into a pot of boiling water; put a weight on top to keep it steady, and cook two hours and a half. The water should not boil over the top. Drain off the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with a tablespoonful[166] of butter rolled in flour. Season, boil up, pour over the pigeons. Cover again, and leave in the hot water ten minutes before serving.

Shred Macaroni.

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into pieces two inches long, and cook in boiling water, a little salted, ten minutes. Drain off the water, and spread the macaroni out to cool upon a dish. When cold, take a sharp knife or a pair of scissors, and split each piece in half, lengthwise. Put on in a farina-kettle with a cup of hot milk and a tablespoonful of butter, seasoning with pepper and salt. Cover and stew tender, but not to breaking. Ten minutes after the boil should do this. Then stir in three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Serve in a deep dish.

Brussels-Sprouts.

Wash and pick over very carefully. Put on in plenty of boiling water with a little salt, and cook fifteen minutes after the water begins to boil anew. Drain well and pile upon a dish, with drawn butter poured over them.

Sponge-Cake Fritters.

Roll the cakes into fine crumbs; pour over them the hot milk, with the soda and flour stirred into it. Cover for fifteen minutes, then beat until cold. Add the whipped eggs—the yolks first, then the whites; finally, the currants dredged with flour. Beat all well. Drop in great spoonfuls in boiling lard, trying one first to be sure that the batter is of the right consistency; drain quickly in a hot colander; sprinkle with powdered sugar mixed with nutmeg, and serve hot.

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[167]

MARCH.

Mushroom Soup.

Crack the bones and mince the meat, onion, and parsley. Cover with the water, and boil gently three hours, or until the stock has diminished one-half. Strain, season, boil up and skim. Add the mushrooms, drained from the can liquor, and sliced. Stew twenty minutes; put in the milk, the flour, wet up in cold water, and when it thickens, beat a cupful into the whipped eggs. Stir into this the butter, return to the soup, let it almost boil, and pour out.

To the lovers of mushrooms this is a delicious soup.

Roast Ducks.

Draw, clean and wash a pair of ducks. Stuff one only with a dressing made of bread-crumbs, the hard-boiled[168] yolk of an egg, a little minced sage and onion. Rub the inside of the other with melted butter, pepper and salt. Many do not like the taste of onion and sage, while others do not enjoy roast duck without the flavor of these condiments. Put the fowls into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over them, and roast about an hour, basting frequently. At the last, dredge with flour, and baste with butter; then brown. Chop the giblets fine, pour the fat from the top of the gravy in the dripping-pan, thicken with browned flour that which is left, and stir in the giblets.

Green Peas

Have, from time immemorial, been the adjunct of roast ducks. As the best substitute to be had at this season, open a can of preserved green peas—the French cans are best; let them stand an hour to get rid of the airless taste that is apt to cling to canned vegetables; pour off the liquor; cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt; drain dry, and stir up in them a teaspoonful of butter, with pepper to your liking.

Savory Scotch Pudding.

When your soup is ready to strain, dip out a cupful and set by to cool. Take off the fat and stir into the soaked oatmeal. Mix up well; put in a farina-kettle with boiling water around it, and add by degrees, as it thickens, the milk heated to scalding. When all is in, salt and pepper to taste and cook fast, stirring often, ten minutes. Take from the fire, and let it cool.

N.B. If you have the gravy, all this can be done on Saturday.

When cold, beat in the butter, melted, working out all the lumps and taking the skin from the top. Beat in the[169] whipped eggs, working up fast and hard. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish; bake, covered, one hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

Spinach in a Mould.

Pick over carefully, clip off the stems and put on the leaves in boiling water, with salt stirred in. Boil hard fifteen minutes. When done, drain, pressing out all the water. Chop fine; put back into the saucepan with a piece of butter—a large spoonful for a good dish—a little powdered sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir and toss until very hot; press hard into a mould wet with hot water, and turn out with care upon a heated dish. Lay round slices of hard-boiled eggs on the top.

Turret Cream.

Soak the gelatine three hours in a large cup of cold water. Scald the milk, stir in the sugar, and when this has melted, the gelatine. Stir over the fire five minutes; pour out half of the mixture into a bowl, and add the whipped yolks to that left in the saucepan. Stir one minute, and take from the fire. Flavor the yellow gelatine with lemon—the white with vanilla. As soon as the yellow begins to congeal, whip one-half of the stiffened whites into it, a little at a time, with a Dover egg-beater. Add the rest to the white gelatine, in the same manner, whipping each in until it stiffens before adding more, and not ceasing until both are heaps of “sponge.” Wet the inside of a tall fluted mould with water, and arrange in the bottom, close to the outside of the mould, a row of crystallized cherries. Then, put in a layer of the white mixture; on this, close to the outside, strips of apricots or peaches; then a layer of yellow mixture, another border[170] of cherries, and so on, until the materials are used up. Do this on Saturday. Next day, dip for one instant in hot water, and invert upon a flat dish.

Eat with brandied fruit. It will be a beautiful dessert.

Coffee.

Pass with light cakes or sweet biscuits.

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Tomato and Bean Soup.

Open a can of tomatoes; take out the hard and unripe portions, cut up the rest in small pieces, and heat to a boil before adding the bean soup set aside from Saturday. Simmer all together half an hour, season to taste, and pour over the dice of fried bread you have put in the bottom of the tureen.

Ham and Eggs.

Pour a little hot water in a frying-pan, if you use smoked raw ham for this dish, and cook the slices in it ten minutes. Let them get perfectly cold. Fry in their own fat until tender throughout and crisp at the edges. Drain the fat from them and arrange them upon a hot dish. Strain the fat, return to the pan, and fry the eggs without turning. Cut the ham in neat slices, lay an egg upon each, and serve.

Fricassee of Duck.

Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, dividing the joints neatly, and slicing the breast, etc. Crack the skeleton to pieces, and put it, with the skin,[171] stuffing, and gristly bits, into a saucepan. Cover with cold water, and stew until a cupful of good gravy is extracted. Strain and season this; put in the sliced duck. Set within a pot of hot water and bring the contents of the inner saucepan almost to a boil. Add a couple of beaten eggs; stir up well and set aside in the hot water, covered, for five minutes. The meat must not actually boil once.

Stewed Corn.

Open a can of corn, an hour before cooking it. Put it into a saucepan when you are ready for it; cover with boiling water, and let it stand without cooking, for ten minutes. Drain off the water; cover the corn with hot milk, a little salted; set within a vessel of hot water, and cook for half an hour, or until tender. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into thirds, each rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes, pepper, and turn into a deep covered dish.

Glazed Potatoes.

Parboil them in their skins; peel quickly and lay in the dripping-pan within a hot oven. As soon as they begin to “crust” over, baste with good dripping or butter. Repeat this three times until they are of a glossy brown. Eat hot.

Queen’s Pudding.

Put the apples into a buttered pudding-dish. Fill this half full of cold water; cover closely and bake until a straw will pierce them. Let them stand, covered, until cold. (Do this on Saturday.) Drain off the water the day you mean to use them. Put a spoonful of jelly and[172] a few drops of brandy into each apple. Strew with cinnamon and sugar. Cover and let them stand while you scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons, the salt and the corn-starch wet up in cold milk. Boil for one minute. Take from the fire, beat up well, and let it cool before whipping in the frothed whites. Pour this mixture over the apples and bake half an hour in a brisk oven. Eat warm with a sauce made of the water in which the apples were stewed, well sweetened and spiced, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour and the beaten yolk of an egg. Heat the liquor, sweeten and season; thicken with butter and flour; boil up; pour gradually over the egg, and set in hot water until it is needed.

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German Sago Soup.

Chop the meat, celery, herbs, and onion, and crack the bones. Cover with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until the meat is boiled to shreds. Strain, season,[173] boil up and skim well, put in the soaked sago and cook slowly half an hour. The sago should be entirely dissolved.

Beefsteak and Onions.

Broil your steak as usual. Fry in a little butter one onion, sliced, until brown. Strain it out, and when your steak is done, and laid upon a hot dish, pour the butter in which the onion was fried over it. Add pepper and salt, and the faintest suspicion of made mustard, turn over it a hot cover and let it stand five minutes before serving.

French Beans Garnis with Sausages.

Open a can of “string” beans, cut in short pieces, cover with boiling water, slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain well, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and heap upon a hot dish. Surround with sausages, in cakes or in cases, fried in their own fat, and drained from the grease. Serve hot.

Hot Slaw.

Put the vinegar, and all the other ingredients for the dressing, except the cream, in a saucepan, and heat to a boil. Pour scalding hot over the cabbage; return to the saucepan, and stir and toss until all is smoking again. Take from the fire, stir in the cream, turn into a covered dish and set in hot water ten minutes before you send to the table.

Hasty Farina Pudding.

[174]

Scald the milk; stir in the salt, then the soaked farina, and cook steadily (always in a farina-kettle) three quarters of an hour. Add the butter; take a cupful of the boiling mixture, and beat into the whipped eggs. Put back into the saucepan, stir for two minutes and pour into a deep, open dish. Eat with milk, or cream, and sugar.

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Baked Soup.

Prepare beef and vegetables early in the day; mix all up well, and put into a strong earthenware jar, with a good cover of the same material. Coat this top thickly with a stiff paste of flour and water to exclude the air, and set in the oven for six hours. Once in a while, grease the paste to prevent it from scorching or cracking. It is also well to set the jar in a dripping or bake pan of boiling water. Serve without straining.

Devilled Lobster.

Open the lobster-can and empty it into a bowl an hour before using it. Mince evenly. Put vinegar, butter and seasoning into a saucepan, and when it simmers, add the lobster. Cook slowly, covered, half an hour, stirring occasionally. Turn into a deep dish, and garnish with slices of egg. Eat hot with buttered Boston crackers.

Calf’s Liver à la Mode.

Wash the liver, and soak half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe dry and lard with the fat pork, allowing it to project on both sides. Heat dripping, onion, herbs, and spice in a frying-pan. Put in the liver and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, add the vinegar, and water enough to cover it; put on a close lid and stew gently one hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, add the sauce to the gravy, strain it, thicken with browned flour, boil up; pour half over the liver, and send the rest up in a sauce-boat.

Baked Celery.

Cut two bunches of celery, the best stalks only, into inch-lengths, and stew in boiling water, a little salt, for ten minutes. Drain off the water, and add a cup of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled thickly in flour, a little pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes after heating, and pour into a shallow bowl to cool. Butter a bake-dish, strew the bottom with fine bread-crumbs. When the[176] celery is almost or quite cold, beat into it two eggs, and pour into the dish. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over the top, turn a tin plate over all, and bake twenty minutes. Remove the cover and brown.

Potatoes au Gratin, with Vermicelli.

Mash the potatoes as usual, with butter, milk, and salt. Smooth into a hillock upon a pie-plate, and strew with a handful of vermicelli broken small, cooked soft in boiling water, a little salt, then drained perfectly dry and spread out to cool. Brown all in a quick oven, glaze with butter, slip to a hot dish, and it is ready.

Lemon Pudding.

Chop the pulp of the lemons, leaving out the thick white peel, very fine; stir into the crushed crackers, with the butter and salt. Beat the molasses into this, gradually, with the grated peel. Line two pie-dishes with good paste, fill with the mixture and bake, without upper crusts. Eat warm, or cold. They are best fresh.

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Beef Soup with Barley.

Cut up the meat and crack the bones. Cut up celery, turnips, and tomatoes. Put all these, with the onion, into the soup-pot, with the gallon of cold water, and boil gently three hours. The liquor should be reduced one-third. Wash the barley and boil fifteen minutes in a very little water. Strain the soup, pressing hard. Season; let it boil up once, and skim before adding the barley and the water in which it has boiled. Simmer half an hour, and serve.

Stuffed Loin of Veal.

Prepare a dressing of bread-crumbs, a little chopped corned ham, parsley, pepper and salt, moistened with milk. Have the bones taken out of the meat, and fill the holes thus left with the stuffing. Secure the meat into a good shape with skewers, and cover the top and sides with thick foolscap paper, binding it with strings. Grease paper and strings, put the veal into your dripping-pan with a cup of hot water, and bake, basting the paper now and then with dripping, to prevent scorching. At the end of an hour, take out the meat and remove the paper. Pour off the gravy, carefully setting it by; return the meat to the oven with a cupful of milk in the pan instead of the gravy. Baste with butter, lavishly, once,—afterwards, and often with the milk as it heats. Roast, not too fast, nearly an hour more, or until your meat is tender. Should the milk evaporate too rapidly, add a little hot water. Indeed, this is a wise precaution against scorching. Take up the veal, thicken the gravy left in the oven, with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, salt, and pepper, heat carefully that the milk may not “catch,” and pour some over the meat, serving the rest in a boat. Veal cooked in this way is very nice, but requires much attention at the last.[178]

Baked Tomatoes.

Strew the bottom of a pie-dish with fine crumbs, having greased it first. Drain off much of the liquor from a can of tomatoes, add it to the soup, pour the tomatoes upon the crumbs, season with pepper, salt, and butter; strew more crumbs thickly over the top. Bake, covered, twenty minutes; then brown.

Kidney Beans with Sauce.

Soak the beans overnight. The next day boil them until soft in salted water. Drain this off. Strain the first gravy taken from the roast veal—before the milk is substituted—into a saucepan; add a tablespoonful of butter, and half a small onion, minced. Boil five minutes, strain through a soup-sieve, pressing the onion hard; season with pepper, salt, and a little chopped parsley; pour over the beans, simmer fifteen minutes, closely covered, drain off half of the liquor, and serve in a covered dish.

Plain Boiled Pudding.

Stir the milk and soda gradually into the flour, working it smooth. Put suet and salt in, and beat all thoroughly. Boil in a buttered mould an hour and a half.

Hard Sauce.

Warm the butter, and rub into the sugar, working into a light cream. Add lemon and wine. Mould as you like, and set aside to cool.[179]

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Oyster Soup.

Drain the liquor from the oysters through a colander. Put the liquor over the fire with half as much water, salt, pepper, and a large tablespoonful of butter for each quart of soup. Let it boil up well, and put in the oysters. Heat slowly, and as soon as they “ruffle,” which should be about five minutes after they reach the boil, strain off the soup. Have in another vessel as much boiling milk as there was oyster liquor. Pour the oysters into a hot tureen, put a large spoonful of butter upon them; when it melts entirely, turn in the milk. Stir in well, add the hot soup, cover, and serve with sliced lemon and crackers.

Brown Fricassee of Chicken.

Joint the chicken neatly, and lay in salted cold water half an hour. Cut a quarter of a pound of salt pork into strips, and fry in good dripping. Strain it out, skin the chicken as far as possible, and fry in the same fat, with a sliced onion. Chop the pork fine and put into a saucepan; next, the onion; at last, the fowl. Sprinkle a teaspoonful of mixed allspice and cloves over all, pour on cold water to cover them well, put on a tight lid, and stew gently for an hour or more, until the meat is tender. Arrange the fowl upon a hot dish; strain the gravy; season to taste with pepper, salt, and parsley; thicken with browned flour; boil up once; pour over the chicken; cover, and let all stand for five minutes before serving.

Ladies’ Cabbage.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters. Drain, then set aside to get cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and three tablespoonfuls[180] of milk. Stir all well, and bake brown in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat very hot.

Potatoes au Naturel.

Choose those of uniform size; put on in their skins, in boiling water. When about half done, check the boil suddenly by a cupful of cold water. This is said to make old potatoes mealy. Boil again until a fork will pierce them. Drain off the water; sprinkle with salt to make the skins crack, and dry out in the uncovered pot, on the range, for a few minutes before peeling.

Sliced Apple Pie.

Chop half of the butter into the flour. Work up with ice-water. Roll out thin; baste all over with butter, and sprinkle lightly with flour; fold closely into a long roll; flatten, and re-roll as thin as at first; then baste again. Repeat this three times. Set the last roll in a cold place for at least an hour. Roll out, and line two buttered pie-plates, reserving enough for upper crusts.

Pare, core and slice juicy pippins; put a layer within the crust; sprinkle sugar liberally over it, strew half a dozen whole cloves upon this; then more apples, etc., until the dish is full. Cover with crust and bake.

Eat barely warm, with sugar and cream.

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A Plain Soup.

Slice the meat and crack the bones. Cut the vegetables into strips and fry the onions in good dripping. Then put all, with meat and bones, into a soup-pot with the water. Cover and cook gently five hours. Strain the liquor from the shreds of meat and rub the vegetables through the colander. Season and set aside half the stock for to-morrow. Put that meant for to-day into a soup-kettle; season and boil up for a minute, that you may skim it; then add the corn-meal, previously scalded with a cup of boiling milk. Stir in well, and simmer half an hour before adding the catsup and pouring into the tureen.

Breaded Mutton Chops.

Trim the chops from fat and skin, leaving a bit of bone clean at the end of each. Beat up a raw egg; dip the chops in this—having peppered and salted them; roll in cracker-dust, and fry brown in good dripping or sweet lard. Drain, and arrange in rows upon a hot dish, the large end of each overlapping the small end of the next. Garnish with parsley.

Milanaise Potatoes.

Heat and strain your gravy. Put into a saucepan with the seasoning, butter, and lemon, bring to a boil, and stir it into the beaten egg. Slice the potatoes; lay a[182] row within the outer round of a neat pie-plate. (I hope you have one with a silver stand for the table.) Pour a few teaspoonfuls of sauce upon these; lay another and smaller row inside of the first; more sauce, and so on, until you have a low cone of sliced potato; pour sauce over all, coat with the bread-crumbs and cheese, mixed together; pepper and salt, and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.

Green Peas.

Open a can of green peas; turn off the liquor and cover with boiling water, a little salt. Boil fast until tender; drain well; stir in a tablespoonful of butter; pepper and salt, and serve in a deep dish.

Cocoanut Sponge Pudding.

Scald the milk and beat into this the cake-crumbs. When nearly cold add the eggs, sugar, rose-water, and lastly the cocoanut. Bake three-quarters of an hour in a buttered pudding-dish. Should it brown too fast, cover with white paper. Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over it.

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Tapioca Soup.

Take the fat from the stock reserved for to-day. Bring the soup to a boil and stir in half a teacupful of “grained”[183] tapioca, which has been soaked three hours in a little cold water. Add also seasoning, if needed; simmer half an hour and pour out. Send around grated cheese with it.

Roast Beef and Potato Balls.

When your beef is about three-quarters done, pour nearly all of the gravy from the dripping-pan. Have ready some mashed potato worked smooth with a beaten egg, pepper and salt, then made into balls and rolled in flour. Place them in the pan around the meat and baste until well browned. Serve in the same dish with the beef.

Sliced Sweet Potatoes.

Boil in their skins until a fork will go easily into them. Pare and slice with a sharp knife lengthwise; fry lightly and quickly in good dripping, or butter; drain off the grease, and serve hot.

Cauliflower au Gratin.

Wash the cauliflower, cut off green leaves and stalks, and divide into neat bunches. Boil in hot water, salted, until tender. Drain well; dip each piece in melted butter, and strew thickly with fine, dry crumbs, mixed with pepper and salt. Arrange flower end uppermost, in a pudding-dish, and brown the crumbs upon the upper grating of an oven. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pass a boat of drawn butter with them.

Southern Rice Pudding—Méringued.

Soak the rice two hours in the milk. Simmer in a farina-kettle until tender. Rub butter and sugar to a cream. Beat up the eggs, and whip the mixture into them while the rice is cooling. Stir all together; flavor, and bake three-quarters of an hour in a buttered dish[184]. If baked too long, the custard will break. So soon as it is well set in the middle of the dish, draw to the oven-door, and spread with a méringue made of the whites of three eggs whisked stiff with one tablespoonful of powdered sugar and juice of half a lemon. Close the oven-door, and brown delicately. Eat cold. Make it on Saturday.

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Hasty Soup.

The trimmings of your roast beef, and any other cold meat you may have—about two and a half pounds in all, chopped very fine.

Put meat, butter, salt and pepper into a saucepan; add two quarts of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil. Cook half an hour after the boil fairly begins. Strain hard through a thin cloth; thicken with browned flour; add the catsup; boil up once, and pour over the fried bread in the tureen.

Larded Beef.

Trim yesterday’s roast on top, bottom, and sides, saving all the fragments for your soup. Then make incisions quite through the meat, and thrust in numerous lardoons of fat salt pork, projecting above and below. Rub[185] the meat all over with vinegar, and then with melted butter, rubbing both in well. Put in a dripping-pan. Take the fat from the top of yesterday’s gravy; thin it with a little hot water; strain this into the dripping-pan, and baste the meat plentifully with it, keeping another pan inverted over it between times. If your oven be moderately good, the beef should be ready for table in forty-five minutes. Pour a few spoonfuls of gravy over it when dished. Put the rest into a sauce-boat.

Stewed Parsnips.

Scrape, slice lengthwise, and lay in cold water half an hour. Cook tender in boiling water, a little salt. Drain off half the water, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in flour. Pepper and salt to your taste, and stew gently five minutes before pouring into a deep, covered dish.

Browned Potatoes.

Mash soft with butter, milk, and salt. Heap as irregularly as possible upon a pie-dish, and set in a quick oven. Mem.: The dish should be well greased. As the potato browns, glaze it with butter. Slip carefully to a hot dish.

“Brown Betty.”

Put a layer of chopped apple in a buttered pudding-dish; strew with sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Cover with bread-crumbs; then more apple. When your dish is full, cover with crumbs. Invert a tin plate over it, and “steam” forty-five minutes in a good oven. Then, uncover and brown. Eat warm, with sugar and butter, or cream.

Tea and Albert Biscuit.

Pass these after the pudding. Tea-drinking is restful as well as refreshing on a busy day. Weary housekeepers can have no more innocent nervine.[186]

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White Soup.

Crack the veal-bones, and cut off the meat in small pieces. Put into the soup-pot with the chopped ham; the onion sliced, the herbs and spice. Pour on the water, and boil very slowly five hours. The water should be reduced to three quarts. Strain off the liquor. Season three pints, and pour back upon the bones, etc. Cover tightly in a stone crock, and put away for to-morrow’s stock. To the remainder add the rice and the pint of water in which it has been soaking for two hours. Season, and cook gently, taking care it does not burn, while you blanch the almonds by scalding off their skins, and pound them in a Wedgewood mortar. When the rice is soft, put in these, and cook slowly ten minutes. Scald the milk, pour it upon the beaten eggs by degrees, add to the soup; stir one minute, but not to the boil, and pour into the tureen.

Boiled Shoulder of Mutton with Oysters.

Take the main bones out of a shoulder of mutton; fill the cavity with oysters, and bind the meat firmly over the[187] incision. Sew the shoulder into a neat shape in a piece of stout tarlatan; put on in boiling water, slightly salted, allowing eighteen minutes to each pound in cooking. When done, unbind carefully upon the dish in which you are to serve it. Pour over it a sauce made of equal parts of oyster liquor and the broth from the boiling meat, seasoned, then thickened with a generous lump of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour, and some chopped parsley. Boil up once well, and put half upon the meat, the rest in a sauce-boat.

Creamed Potatoes.

Mash in the usual way, whipping very light with a fork, adding a cupful of rich milk and two tablespoonfuls of softened butter, beating in gradually. Return to the saucepan; stir constantly for three minutes; turn into a bowl and whip with an egg-beater, hard, one minute. Pile in a hot deep dish, and set in the open oven until you are ready to send it to table.

Baked Beans.

Soak overnight. Next day, put on in cold water—salted—and cook soft. Drain dry, turn into a greased bake-dish, stir in a great spoonful of butter, and when this has melted, enough milk to fill the dish one quarter full. Season with pepper and salt; cover and bake forty minutes. Remove the top, and brown.

Cottage Puffs.

Mix the beaten yolks with the milk; then the salt and whites; at last, the flour. Bake in greased iron pans, such as are used for “gems” and corn-bread. The oven should be quick. Turn out and eat with sweet sauce.[188]

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Giblet Soup.

Clean and cut the giblets of your fowls into three pieces each. Stew tender in a pint of water. Take the cake of fat from the broth set by yesterday. Put a half cupful aside for your macaroni sauce. Warm the rest and strain out the bones, etc. Return to the fire, boil up and skim, chop the giblets fine and put them in with the water in which they were boiled. Simmer a quarter of an hour; stir in half a cupful of fine, dry bread-crumbs. Season, if necessary; boil ten minutes longer, stirring often, and pour out.

Smothered Chickens.

Prepare the chickens as for broiling, splitting each down the back. Lay flat in a dripping-pan, pour a cupful of boiling water upon them; set in the oven and invert another pan over them, so as to cover them tightly. Roast half an hour, lift the cover and baste freely with butter. In ten minutes more, baste with gravy from the dripping-pan. In five more, with melted butter—abundantly—going all over the fowls. Keeping the chickens covered except while basting them, increase the heat, until you ascertain, by testing with a fork, that they are done. They should be coffee-colored all over, rather than brown. Dish, salt and pepper them; cover while you thicken the gravy with browned flour, adding a little hot water, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Boil up; put a few spoonfuls over the chickens—the rest in a gravy tureen.

They are extremely nice, if faithfully basted.[189]

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.

Break half a pound of macaroni into inch lengths. Cover with salted boiling water, and cook twenty minutes, or until tender. Have ready a sauce prepared as follows: open a can of tomatoes; take out half the contents and cut up very small. Add, with pepper and salt, and a little minced onion, to the half cup of broth reserved for this purpose, and stew together twenty minutes. Put the macaroni into a deep dish, stir well into it a large tablespoonful of butter. Add to the sauce two great spoonfuls grated cheese; boil once and strain over the macaroni, loosening the latter with a fork that the sauce may penetrate. Serve hot.

Potato Chips.

Peel and slice, round, some fine potatoes. Lay in cold water for one hour. Dry by laying them upon a dry towel and pressing with another. Fry in salted lard, quickly, to a delicate brown. Take out as soon as they are done; shake briskly in a hot colander to free them from fat, and send to table in a deep dish—uncovered—lined with a napkin.

Apple Cake.

Add the milk to the creamed butter and sugar; then the corn-starch, lastly the flour and whites alternately. Bake in greased jelly-cake tins.

Filling.

Beat sugar, egg, and lemon together. Grate the apples[190] into this mixture. Put into a farina-kettle and stir until it boils. Cool before putting between the cakes.

Coffee

May to-day be passed with the cake.

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Chicken Broth.

Cut an old fowl into quarters. Lay in salt and water an hour; put on in a soup-kettle with an onion, and four quarts of water. Bring very slowly to a gentle boil, and keep this up until the liquid has diminished one-third, and the meat shrinks from the bones. Take out the chicken, salt it, and set aside with a cupful of the broth, in a bowl (covered), until to-morrow. Season the rest of the broth and put back over the fire. Boil up and skim, and add nearly a teacupful of rice, previously soaked for two hours in a cup of water. Cook slowly until the rice is tender. Stir a cup of hot milk into two beaten eggs, and then into the soup. Let all come to the boil—barely—when you have added a handful of finely-minced parsley, pour out into the tureen.

Rolled Beefsteak.

Beat a large sirloin steak flat with the broad side of a hatchet. Fry a sliced onion in a little butter. Take it out with a skimmer, and put the meat into the pan. Fry quickly on both sides, soaking up all the butter and leaving a brown glaze upon the steak. Spread it upon a dish. Chop the onion, mix with bread-crumbs, minced herbs and a few chopped mushrooms, and lay this force-meat[191] upon the steak. Roll the meat up tightly upon the dressing. Fasten with soft packthread and skewers. Put into a saucepan with a cupful of cold water. Set where it will heat very slowly, keeping on a close lid. Simmer thus two hours, turning now and then. Transfer the meat to a hot dish. Strain the gravy, add a little hot water, if needed; thicken with browned flour; stir in some minced mushrooms, a tablespoonful of catsup and another of butter. Boil about three minutes, pour over the steak, when you have removed the threads. The skewers are to be withdrawn by the carver.

Salsify Fritters.

Scrape, wash, and grate the roots into a mixture made of a beaten egg, one cup of milk, and enough flour for a very thin batter. Thicken with the grated salsify; salt and pepper, and drop, in large spoonfuls, into boiling lard or dripping. Drain in a hot colander. Eat while fresh.

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Drain off the liquor from a can of tomatoes; salt it, and put aside for another day’s soup. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with fine crumbs; cover with tomatoes, sliced thin. Scatter over these a little minced onion and some bits of butter, with pepper, salt, and sugar. Proceed thus until the tomatoes are used up. Cover thickly with crumbs, fit a plate or tin lid over the scallop, and bake half an hour. Brown quickly upon the upper grating of the oven.

Fig Custard Pudding.

Soak the figs in warm water until quite soft. Split them; dip each piece in jelly, and line a buttered mould with them. Heat the milk, stir into the beaten eggs and sugar,[192] return to the farina-kettle, and cook until it thickens well. Set by to cool. Beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth. Melt the soaked gelatine by adding two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and setting it within a vessel of hot water. Stir until melted, and let it cool. When it begins to congeal, whip with the Dover egg-beater, gradually, into the whisked whites, until all is white and thick. Beat into the cold custard rapidly and thoroughly, and fill the fig-lined mould. Set on ice, or in a cold place, until firm. Dip the mould in hot water to loosen the pudding when you are ready for it. It is delicious.

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Split Pea Soup, without Meat.

Soak the peas all night. In the morning, put them on, with the vegetables and herbs cut small, and the tomato juice; cover with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until you can rub all to a pulp through a colander. Season; simmer fifteen minutes, stir in the butter, cook[193] five minutes longer, and pour upon the fried bread in the tureen.

Baked Halibut.

Lay a cut of halibut, weighing five pounds, in salt and water for two hours. Wipe dry, and score on top. Bake an hour, basting often with butter and water melted together. Test with a fork to see if it be done, and transfer to a hot dish. Strain the gravy from the dripping-pan to a saucepan. Stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, the juice of a lemon, and a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in three tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil, and pour into a sauce-boat.

Chicken and Ham Pudding.

Add a little hot water to the chicken broth reserved yesterday; strain, heat, and cook the macaroni tender in it. Drain the latter; mix well with the ham and chicken, beaten eggs, butter, and seasoning. Pour into a greased pudding-mould with a tight top, and boil for two hours. Dip the mould into cold water for half a minute; invert a hot dish, and strike gently upon top and upon sides to turn it out.

Mashed Potatoes.

Pare and boil until a fork will pierce the largest. Drain off the water, leaving the potatoes in the pot. Set back on the range, strew with salt, and dry for three minutes. Whip up with a stout, four-tined fork until they are a mass of meal. Add, then, a great spoonful of butter, a cup of milk, salt, if necessary, whipping all in lightly. Form into a smoothed mound in a vegetable-dish. Pass with the fish.

Mixed Pickles

Should go around with both fish and meat, to-day.[194]

Cottage Pudding.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the yolks, then the milk, salt, and the beaten whites alternately with the flour. Bake in a buttered mould until a straw will come out clean from the middle; turn out upon a plate. Eat hot with wine sauce.

Wine Sauce.

Cream butter and sugar, whipping up, by degrees, with the hot water. Beat five minutes before adding, gradually, the wine and sugar. Heat in a tin vessel set in boiling water, stirring often, but not to a boil. Leave in warm water until you are ready for it. Stir up from the bottom as you serve.

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Bone Soup.

Put on the bones and vegetables early in the day. Purchase soup meat a day beforehand, whenever you can. Cover with half the water. When the scum arises after the boil is reached, remove it, and pour in another quart of cold water. This will bring up more scum. Skim, after boiling again, and pour in the rest of the water. When no more scum comes up, cover the pot, and cook gently four hours, if you can give it so much time. Divide the liquor into two parts. Set away half in a stone jar, with the bones in the bottom, fit on the lid, having salted the liquor. This is Sunday’s “stock.” Strain the rest through a fine soup-sieve, without pressing the residuum in the bottom, season it, and having skimmed it carefully after the boil, stir in the soaked tapioca. Simmer twenty minutes, and it is ready.

Pigeon Pie.

Clean, wash, and cut the pigeons into quarters. Wipe dry and fry lightly in butter or dripping. Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Have ready a greased pudding-dish and a good paste, made according to the receipt given on Friday of last week. Lay some pieces of pigeon in the bottom of the dish, and cover with a mixture of chopped eggs, and the giblets, boiled tender in a little water, then minced. More pigeons, and another layer of the force-meat. Stir two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, into the hot water in which the giblets were boiled; season, and pour enough into the pie to half cover the birds. Cover with a thick crust with a slit in the middle, and bake an hour if the pie be of fair size. Glaze with beaten egg, just before you take it from the oven.

Roast Sweet Potatoes.

Parboil them, and lay in a moderate oven until soft to the touch. Wipe, and serve with the skins on.[196]

Baked Hominy.

Rub the butter into the hominy until there are no lumps left. Work up very thoroughly. Scald the milk; pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar, add the salt, and beat, by degrees, into the hominy. At the last, whip in the frothed whites, and pour into a buttered bake-dish. Put at once into the oven and bake until lightly browned.

Willie’s Favorite Pudding.

Cut the bread into thick slices, and pare off the crust. Cover the bottom of a greased mould (with plain sides) with these, fitted in nicely. Soak with milk, spread with the suet and fruit mixed together. Sprinkle this with sugar, and strew almond shavings over it. Fit on another stratum of bread, soaking it likewise with milk, more of the suet and fruit mixture, sugar and almonds, and so on to the topmost layer which must be bread, and very moist with milk. Cover the mould, set in a dripping-pan, which you must keep full of boiling water, and cook in the oven one hour and a half. Pass a knife carefully between the pudding and the sides of the mould; turn it out; sift white sugar thickly over it and eat with sweet sauce. You may have enough left from yesterday.[197]

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Macaroni Soup.

Boil the onion five minutes in a pint of salted water. Strain it out, and when the water again boils, put in the macaroni with the butter. Boil very gently until quite tender. Drain off the water, and spread the macaroni out to cool somewhat. Meanwhile, take the fat from the top of your cold soup; thin the latter with a cup of boiling water, and strain into the soup pot. Heat to a boil, skim, season, stir in the corn-starch, and when this has thickened it, put in the macaroni. Simmer ten minutes, and it can be put into the tureen.

Roast Mutton.

The breast, fore leg, and saddle are best for this purpose. A nice way of cooking the breast is to sew it up in stout tarlatan and boil it eight minutes for each pound. Then take it out (saving the liquor), wipe as clean as possible, and put it into a dripping-pan; score the skin with a sharp knife, rub in pepper and salt; wash with beaten egg, strew thickly with bread-crumbs, and bake half an hour in a good oven. Baste twice with melted butter. Make a gravy of a cupful of the broth, thickened with a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour. When it has boiled,[198] stir into it a little chopped parsley; a teaspoonful of minced onion, and three times as much chopped pickled cucumber, with the pounded yolks of two hard-boiled eggs. Stew three minutes; pour part of it over the mutton; the rest into a gravy-boat.

N. B.—Test your mutton with a skewer before taking it from the oven. If not done, leave it in a while longer.

Potato Rissoles.

Work into cold mashed potato, a beaten egg, a little butter, pepper and salt. Make into egg-shaped balls; roll in beaten egg, then in pounded cracker, and fry in hot lard, or dripping, to a light brown. Drain well in a colander, and serve in a hot napkin-lined dish.

Lettuce Salad.

One-third as much oil as you have vinegar; pepper and salt at discretion. Cut up the young lettuces with a sharp knife; pile in a salad-bowl; sprinkle with powdered sugar, and pour the rest of the ingredients mixed together over the salad. Toss up with a silver fork, to mix all well.

Spinach à la Reine.

Boil the spinach in salted water twenty minutes. Drain very thoroughly. Chop fine; return to the saucepan with a teaspoonful of sugar, two tablespoonfuls of butter, three tablespoonfuls of cream, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt. Stir constantly until almost dry. Have ready an egg-cup dipped in boiling water. Fill it with spinach, press hard and turn out upon a hot dish. Do this until all is moulded. Put a slice of egg upon the top of each.

Transparent Puddings.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in all the yolks and the whites of three eggs, the lemon, spice and brandy. Bake[199] in open shells of good paste. (Add another “baste” of butter to the crust made for your pigeon pie; roll out and line paté-pans with it.) When nearly done, spread each with a méringue made of the reserved whites, whipped up with a little powdered sugar. Color very lightly.

As they are to be eaten cold make them on Saturday.

Coffee,

Hot and strong, should be handed at the close of dinner particularly if you attend afternoon service!

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Savory Porridge.

Cut the meat from yesterday’s roast, and take the least desirable portions, with any remains of other meat you may have—veal, pork, or poultry. Chop extremely fine; and rub them through a coarse sieve or colander. Skim the fat from the liquor in which your mutton was boiled; add a chopped onion, a bunch of sweet herbs and a stalk of celery, chopped. Boil down to three pints; strain, season, and when it boils up again, skim and stir in your chopped meat, with half a cupful of dry bread-crumbs. Cook, covered, twenty minutes; put in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, and a little minced parsley. Stew five minutes before serving.

Minced Mutton and Eggs.

Mince the cold mutton. Have ready warmed a cupful of gravy, left from yesterday, or made from the bones of the roast. Season the meat well and stir into this, but[200] do not cook it as yet. Strew the bottom of a buttered bake-dish thickly with dry crumbs; pour the mince upon it; cover with crumbs, and set in the oven, covered, until bubbling hot. Then break enough eggs over the top to cover the mince well; stick bits of butter here and there, pepper and salt, and bake quickly until well “set.” Serve in the bake-dish.

Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel.

Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a saucepan with four or five tablespoonfuls of milk, two or three of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Heat quickly, stirring all the time until ready to boil, when stir in a tablespoonful of flour, and two minutes later, the juice of a lemon. Take instantly from the fire so soon as this last ingredient goes in.

String-Beans—Sauté.

Open a can of string-beans and drain off the water. Cut them into inch lengths; cook twenty minutes in salted boiling water. Drain them, put them back into the saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, a pinch of salt and a little pepper. Toss them over a clear fire for three minutes, until they are very hot; then turn out into a deep dish.

Jaune Mange.

Put gelatine (soaked), sugar, juice, peels, and spice into a bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Stir until dissolved; put over the fire in a saucepan, and heat almost to boiling. Pour, very gradually, upon the beaten yolks. Return to the fire—in a farina-kettle—and stir[201] one minute. It must not boil. Take it off, add the wine, and strain through double tarlatan.

If you have ice, or if the weather be cold, set the mould containing this in the refrigerator, or in a very cool closet from Saturday to Monday. By making it on the former day, you can add to the excellence of your méringue on the transparent puddings by using the whites of the four eggs required for the receipt. Pass light cakes with the jaune mange.

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Quick Lobster Soup.

Three lbs. of fish—the less choice parts of halibut or cod will do—those which are too bony for table use. Cover with three quarts of cold water and boil down to less than two or until the fish is in rags. Strain through a fine sieve and put on to boil. Season with salt and pepper. When you have skimmed it well, stir in a cup of milk in which has been mixed two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. Boil up well; then add two tablespoonfuls of butter. Stir it in, take out a cupful of soup and beat it into two eggs. Return to the soup and leaving the saucepan on the range, but not over the fire, stir in a can of preserved lobster, freed from bones and cut up small. Cover and stand in a pot of hot water ten minutes before pouring out.

Roast Tenderloin of Beef.

As I have before stated, this is the best, and not the least economical cut for the table, there being no waste[202] and scarcely any bone. Put in the dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over it, and roast carefully, basting often with its own gravy. When nearly done, dredge with flour and baste once with butter. Do not let it once get dry while cooking. Allow about ten minutes per pound if you like it rare and juicy—that is, if your oven be of moderate heat. Pour the fat from the gravy, thicken what is left with browned flour, pepper, and salt, boil up, and put into a gravy-boat. Pass made mustard with it.

Mashed Potatoes.

Please see receipt given last Friday.

Canned Succotash.

Open the can an hour before it is to be cooked, and turn into a bowl. Drain off the liquor, put the succotash into a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and stew half an hour. Throw off half the water, and add as much cold milk. When it boils, put in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into quarters and rolled in flour; pepper and salt; simmer five minutes and serve in a vegetable-dish.

Apple Trifle.

Heat the milk, and pour over the beaten yolks and sugar. Put back in a farina-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken, say about eight minutes. Set by in a shallow vessel to cool. Beat the whites very stiff, then whip gradually into the apple. When all is in, and well beaten, pile up in a glass dish, and pour the cold custard about the base.

Lady’s-Fingers,

Or small, fresh sponge-cakes, should be passed with the trifle.[203]

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Mock-Turtle Soup.

Soak the calf’s head an hour in cold water, and boil in the five quarts of water until the bones will slip easily from the flesh. Take out the head, leaving the bones and broth in the pot. Take out the tongue and brains, and put them in separate plates. Set aside, also, the cheeks and the fleshy parts of the scalp to cool. Chop the rest, including the ears, very fine. Reserve four spoonfuls of this for force-meat balls. Season the rest with pepper, salt, onion, allspice, herbs, and mace, and put back into the pot. Cover closely, and cook four hours. Should the liquor sink to less than four quarts, replenish with boiling water. Just before straining the soup, take out half a cupful; put into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the browned flour, wet up in cold water, also the butter. Simmer these together ten minutes, stirring almost constantly. Strain the soup; scald the pot and return the[204] broth to the fire. Have ready the tongue and fleshy parts of the head cut, after cooling, into small squares; also, about fifteen balls made of the chopped meat, highly seasoned, worked into the proper consistency with a little flour and bound with the raw eggs, beaten into the paste. They should be as soft as can be handled. Grease a pie-plate, flour the balls and set in a quick oven until a crust forms upon them, then cool. Now, thicken the strained broth with the mixture in the frying-pan, stirred in well. Should there not be enough to make it almost like custard, add more flour. Then drop in the dice of tongue and fat meat. Cook slowly five minutes. Put the force-meat balls and thin slices of a peeled lemon into the tureen. Pour the soup upon them, add catsup and wine; cover five minutes and serve.

This king of soups having, of right, received such a long and minute notice, I shall not repeat the receipt in full in this work, but take the liberty of referring you, from time to time, to that just given.

Veal Cutlets and Brains.

Flatten the cutlets with the broad side of a hatchet; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry rather slowly in ham-dripping, if you have it; if not, in salted lard. Drain off the fat; put into a hot-water dish, pepper, and cover while you fry, in the same fat, after straining it, the brains from the head of which your soup was made. They should first have been boiled for ten minutes, drained, and cooled; then beaten to a paste with egg, seasoned with pepper and salt, and dropped by the spoonful into the scalding fat. Drain, and lay about the cutlets as a garnish.

Potatoes au Gratin.

Mash as usual; put into a shallow pie-plate well greased; strew thickly with dry crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Glaze with butter, when the gratin begins to brown well. Slip dexterously to a flat dish.

Stewed Tomatoes and Onion.

To one can of tomatoes add a small onion, minced fine. Season with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and stew[205] twenty-five minutes. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter; cook two minutes, and serve.

Lettuce.

Treat as directed on last Sunday.

Steamed Bread Pudding.

Heat the milk; pour over the eggs and sugar, beaten together. Stir in the corn-starch; cook one minute, and pour upon the bread-crumbs, beating all to a batter. Put a layer of this in the bottom of a buttered pudding-mould. Cover this with suet; then with raisins; sprinkle with sugar; then more butter, and proceed in the foregoing order until the mould is nearly full. Fit on the top, put into the steamer over a pot of boiling water, and steam at least two hours. If you have no steamer, boil one hour and a half. When done, dip the mould into cold water for half a minute, and turn out, with care, upon a hot, flat dish. Eat hot with wine sauce.

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Curry Soup.

You can, if you dislike the taste of curry, warm up what was left from your mock-turtle soup, just as it is.[206] But you can vary it, agreeably to most palates, by stirring into it, when melted, and almost on the boil, a tablespoonful of curry powder, if there be more than three pints of soup—half as much, should there be but a quart. Wet the powder up in cold water, add to the soup, and cook three minutes.

Stewed Beef.

Cut the meat into strips about an inch long. Cover with a pint of water, and stew gently two hours. The meat should be ready to fall to pieces. Add the onion and herbs cut up fine, the spice, salt and pepper, and stew half an hour, closely covered. Then stir in the browned flour, and when it has thickened, the sauce and wine. Cover the bottom of a deep dish with strips of fried bread, and pour the stew over it. If cooked long and slowly enough, it will be a rich brown mixture, with no hard lumps of meat in it. Save half a cupful of gravy for to-morrow.

Bermuda Potatoes—au Naturel.

Wash and boil in hot salted water, until a fork will easily pierce them. Drain off the water, throw salt over them, and “dry off” upon the range for a few minutes. Peel, and serve whole.

Baked Macaroni.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces; cook in boiling water, salted, twenty minutes. Drain, put a layer into a greased bake-dish; strew thickly with grated cheese, and stick bits of butter over it. Go on in this order until the dish is full, strewing cheese and butter on top. Pour in a cup of milk; bake, covered, thirty minutes; then brown nicely. Serve in the pudding-dish.[207]

White Puffs.

Whisk eggs, lemon, and sugar to a méringue, and add alternately with the flour to the milk. The salt should be sifted with the flour. Beat very light, and bake in small, well-buttered tins, or cups. Turn out, sift powdered sugar over them, and eat with custard sauce.

Custard Sauce.

Rub the butter into the sugar, add the eggs, and beat light. Put in corn-starch and spice; finally, pour upon this mixture, by degrees, the boiling milk. Set within a saucepan of boiling water five minutes, stirring all the while, but do not let it really boil.

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Clam Chowder.

Fry five or six slices of fat salt pork crisp, and chop fine. Sprinkle a layer in the bottom of a pot; cover[208] with clams; sprinkle with pepper, salt, and bits of butter, then with minced onion. Next, have a stratum of small crackers, split and soaked in warm milk. When the pot has been filled in this order, cover all with cold water, and cook slowly (after the water is heated) three-quarters of an hour. Strain the chowder, without pressing or shaking; put clams, etc., into a covered tureen; return the liquor to the pot. Thicken with rolled crackers; add a glass of wine, a tablespoonful of catsup; boil up, and pour over the chowder. Pass sliced lemon with it.

Fried Weak Fish.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay in a broad pan or dish; salt, and dredge with flour. Fry in hot lard or very nice dripping to a light brown. In serving, lay the fish side by side, the head of each to the tail of the one next him. Garnish with parsley.

Braised Duck.

Clean and wash the duck. Stuff with a dressing of bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper and salt, a little onion and sage. Sew up the vent, and tie the neck to keep in the flavor. Fry the duck in a great spoonful of butter until lightly browned, turning it often. Add the butter used for frying to the gravy saved from yesterday; thin with boiling water, and, having put the duck into a saucepan, strain this gravy over it. It should half cover the fowl. Stew slowly forty-five minutes, or until tender, keeping the lid on all the while. Take up the duck, cover to keep it warm, strain the gravy, and if very oily, take off the top. Boil sharply ten minutes in an open saucepan; thicken with browned flour; put back the duck into it, and set the saucepan, again covered, in boiling water for a quarter of an hour. Serve the gravy in a boat.

Purée of Green Peas.

Open a can of peas, drain off the liquor, and cook twenty minutes in boiling water slightly salted. Strain off the water through a colander; mash the peas with the[209] back of a wooden spoon, and rub through the colander into a bowl below. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with pepper, salt, and a little sugar, and, if you fancy it, three mint leaves finely chopped. Heat, but not to boiling, stir in the pulped peas, and toss about with a silver fork or spoon until they are a smoking mass. Pile in a hot dish, with triangles of fried bread laid up around the base.

Cauliflower à la Crème.

Boil a fine cauliflower, tied up snugly in coarse tarlatan, in hot water, a little salt. Drain and lay in a deep dish, flower uppermost. Heat a cup of milk; thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour. Add pepper, salt, the beaten white of an egg, and boil up one minute, stirring well. Take from the fire, squeeze the juice of a lemon through a hair sieve into the sauce, and pour half into a boat, the rest over the cauliflower.

Corn-Meal Pudding without Eggs.

Sift the salt with the flour, and mix up well with the meal. Make a hole in the middle, and pour in the milk, stirring the meal and flour down into it. Beat smooth. Mix molasses, spice, butter, and the soda—this last dissolved in hot water—all together, and beat into the batter—well and hard. Butter a tin mould with a cover; pour in the pudding, and boil steadily an hour and a half. Eat hot with butter and sugar.[210]

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Chicken Broth.

Clean, wash, and truss, but do not stuff, a full-grown fowl. Set aside the giblets for another use. Bind the legs and wings of the fowl closely to its sides. Put into a pot with four quarts of water (cold), and cook gently until the liquor has fallen one-third. Then add a full cup of rice, soaked for one hour in a very little water, and boil half an hour more, or until the chicken is tender and the rice soft, but not broken to pieces. Take out the chicken. Wipe off the adhering grains of rice, wash over with butter, salt and pepper, and set, covered, upon a pot of boiling water to keep hot. Season the soup with pepper and salt, and simmer ten minutes more. Then strain out the rice, and cover it to keep hot. Return the soup to the pot, stir in a cup of hot milk, a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet with cold water, and a handful of very finely minced parsley. Boil up, take from the fire, and pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Cover for three minutes; then pour into the tureen.

Paté of Salt Cod.

Boil the oyster-liquor, stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. When it thickens, add the butter and pepper; next the parsley and fish. Heat almost to boiling, and stir in the chopped egg. Take from the fire, and cover, over a pot of boiling water, ten minutes.

Make the shell by lining a profusely buttered cake-mould, or round pan with nearly straight sides, with a thick sheet of puff-paste, pricking it at the bottom to prevent too much puffing. Cut a round piece exactly the size of the top, for a cover, and bake separately. Bake both in a quick oven. Let them get almost cool, turn out the shell with the utmost care; fill slowly with the prepared fish, that the sides may not give way; fit on the top; hold an inverted hot plate firmly upon it and reverse the paté skilfully, leaving the closed side uppermost. It is easily done, if one is only fearless yet dexterous. Eat hot.

Boiled Chicken and Rice.

Boil the giblets tender in a little salted water; chop fine, and when the rice is strained from the soup, mix them well through it. Pile the rice, when you are ready to serve it, upon a meat dish; lay the chicken upon the top; pour a few spoonfuls of egg sauce over it, and send to table.

Egg Sauce.

One cup of the broth in which the chicken was boiled, heated; thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in flour; poured over two beaten eggs; boiled one minute, with a tablespoonful of parsley stirred in; then seasoned and poured upon the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs placed in the bottom of a bowl. Stir up well, and it is ready.

Mashed Turnips.

Boil in salted water, until tender; mash and drain in a hot colander, working in butter, salt, and pepper. Mound up in a hot, deep dish, covered.[212]

Ambrosia.

Arrange slices of orange in a glass dish; scatter grated cocoanut thickly over them; sprinkle this lightly with sugar, and cover with another layer of orange. Fill the dish in this order, having a double quantity of cocoanut and sugar at top. Serve soon after it is prepared.

Café au Lait and Sponge-Cake.

To one pint strong made coffee, add the same quantity of boiling milk. The coffee should be first strained through muslin into the table-urn, then the milk poured in with it. Wrap the urn in a woollen cloth, if you have no “cozy,” for five minutes before serving. Send around sponge-cake, home-made or bought, with it.

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A Good Stock Soup.

Slice the meat, crack the bones, chop the vegetables, and put all on over the fire with the water. Boil slowly five or six hours; strain; pick out the meat as well as you can, and set aside. Then, rub the vegetables through a colander, prior to straining all through your soup-sieve. Set aside half the stock for Monday. Do this much on Saturday. Or, if you choose, do not strain the soup at all until Sunday morning. It will be the richer for cooling with meat, etc., in it. In either case, season before setting it away, or it may sour. Put Sunday’s stock back into the pot; boil up and skim, before adding the half cup of pearl sago, previously soaked for two hours in a very little cold water. Simmer twenty minutes and pour out.

Beef à la Mode de Rome.

Cut a quarter of a pound of streaked salt pork, and the same quantity of lean beef into strips, and fry, with a sliced onion, in good dripping. Put them in the bottom of a pot and lay a rib roast of beef, rolled round, upon them. Add a pint of boiling water, cover, and cook ten minutes to the pound, turning the beef three times meanwhile. Transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, dredge the top with flour, then baste with its own gravy, once. Keep hot, without cooking, while you strain the gravy left in the pot, thicken it with browned flour (always after taking the fat from the top), season with pepper, and stir in a teaspoonful of sugar, a handful of Sultana raisins, picked and washed, and the same quantity of blanched almonds, cut into tiny strips. Boil gently three minutes, dish the beef, and pour the sauce over it.

Odd as this receipt may seem to an American housewife, the result is extremely palatable, and a good change of fare at this season.

Potato Puff.

Mash the potatoes soft with milk and butter, season and beat very light with two raw eggs. Smooth and bake to[214] a light brown in a greased pudding-dish, in which, also, serve it.

Hominy Croquettes.

Work hominy, butter, and salt to a smooth paste; beat in the eggs, finally the chopped meat, after peppering and salting it. Stir up in a farina-kettle until hot, and pour out to cool. When cold, make into long rolls with floured hands, flour each well by rolling upon a dish, and fry to a yellow-brown in sweet lard. Drain off the fat and pile upon a hot dish.

Spinach.

Boil in hot, salted water, twenty minutes, drain and press hard; chop fine, and return to the saucepan with a large spoonful of butter, pepper, salt, a little sugar and a pinch of mace. Stir, and beat until very hot; then pour into a deep dish.

Snow Custard.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a teacupful of cold water, then stir in two-thirds of the sugar, the lemon-juice and the boiling water. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the strained gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time for half an hour, if you use the Dover egg-beater (at least one hour with any other). When all is white and stiff, pour into a wet mould, and set in a cold place. Make this on Saturday, and on Sunday dip the mould into hot water, and turn out into a glass dish. Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and the rest[215] of the sugar, flavoring with vanilla; boil until it begins to thicken. When the méringue is turned into the dish, pour this custard, cold, about the base.

Nuts and Raisins

Serve as another and a last course.

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Vermicelli Soup.

Boil a quarter of a pound of vermicelli in a little salted water fifteen minutes. Heat the stock set aside for to-day, when you have taken the fat from the top, and when scalding, add the vermicelli.

N. B.—Always break vermicelli and macaroni small before cooking. Add a little chopped parsley; simmer fifteen minutes and pour out.

Browned Mince of Beef.

Cut all the meat from the bones of yesterday’s roast, setting away the bones for another day’s soup. Mince the beef fine; mix with it one-fourth as much mashed potato, season highly with pepper, salt, a little mustard and catsup; work soft with the remains of yesterday’s gravy; heat in a saucepan, then heap upon a stone china dish, cover the mound with fine crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of your oven. Put bits of butter thickly over the top as it begins to brown.[216]

Stewed Potatoes—Creamed.

Chop cold boiled potatoes coarse; put on in a saucepan with a cup of milk, and heat in an outer vessel of hot water. When scalding, pepper and salt; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut up and rolled in flour, and when this has melted, a beaten egg, stirred in while the potatoes are not boiling. Simmer one minute, and turn out.

Broccoli.

Wash, and let stand in salt and water one hour. Cook in boiling salted water fifteen minutes. When tender, drain dry, and serve with melted butter (peppered) poured over it.

Canned Peaches and Cream.

Open the can at least an hour before using, and turn into a glass dish; sprinkle with sugar. Serve in saucers, sending around powdered sugar and cream to each person.

Myrtle’s Cake,

Or any other good cup cake, made last week, may be sliced and passed with the fruit and cream. If you desire a receipt for this particular cake please consult “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,”—No. 2, Common Sense Series, page 334.

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Barley Broth.

Break the bones to splinters and chop the meat. Mince the vegetables, and put all into a soup-kettle, with the water. Boil slowly three hours, until the liquor has fallen one-third. Meanwhile wash the barley and boil half an hour in a little salted water. Strain your soup; cool to let the fat arise, and take this off. Season with pepper and salt and boil up. Skim, put in the barley, and cook gently half an hour longer.

Boiled Leg of Mutton.

The mutton will be cleaner and in better shape if boiled tied up in coarse net or tarlatan. Put on in boiling water, plenty of it, slightly salt, and cook steadily fifteen minutes to the pound. Save the broth for soup. Undo the net from the meat, rub the latter over with butter, lay on a hot dish, and send the oyster sauce in a boat. Garnish the mutton with sliced cucumber pickles.

Oyster Sauce.

Heat the oyster liquor, and when it boils, skim, and put in the oysters. So soon as they boil, stir in the butter, cut up and well floured, the spice and lemon-juice. Boil five minutes, take from the fire and put with the milk which has been heated in another vessel. Stir up well, and pour out.

Kidney Beans.

Soak all night. In the morning put on in warm—not hot—water slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain dry, stir in a great lump of butter, a little salt and pepper, and turn into a deep dish.

Bermuda Potatoes—Baked.

Select those of uniform size; wash, and bake in a moderate oven until soft to the pinching fingers. Wipe clean, and serve in their skins, wrapped in a napkin.[218]

Cocoanut Pudding.

Soak the crumbs in the milk. Rub butter and sugar to a cream, and whip in the beaten yolks. Beat this into the soaked crumbs; stir in the corn-starch, then the whisked whites—finally, the grated cocoanut. Beat very hard, pour into a neat pudding-dish, well buttered, and bake in a moderate oven forty-five minutes. Eat cold, with powdered sugar on top.

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Tomato Soup.

Open a can of tomatoes, and cut them up small. Take the fat from the top of the liquor in which your mutton was cooked yesterday; put over the fire with the tomatoes and half a cup of raw rice, and cook slowly one hour. Season to taste, adding a lump of loaf sugar and a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour; simmer five minutes, and pour into the tureen.

Salmon Pudding.

Chop the fish fine, rub to a paste with the butter. Beat the bread-crumbs up with the eggs and seasoning; work all together; put into a buttered mould, with a tight top, and boil one hour. Dip in cold water; turn it out upon a hot dish. Have ready a cupful of drawn butter with a raw egg beaten into it, and pour over the pudding.

Swiss Turnovers.

Mince the cold mutton left from yesterday. Put half a cupful of hot water into a saucepan; stir in a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour; season with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Pour over a beaten egg, mix well, and, returning to the saucepan, add the mince, well seasoned with pepper, salt, a little grated lemon-peel and nutmeg. Stir up until very hot, but not boiling. Set by to keep hot while you make a batter of one pint of flour, four eggs, a little salt, and a quarter spoonful of soda, dissolved in vinegar, and about four cups of milk—enough for thin batter. Beat very light. Put a spoonful of lard (a small one) into a hot frying-pan, run it over the bottom, turn in a half cupful of batter, and fry quickly. Invert the pan upon a hot plate, and this, in turn, upon another, to have the browned side of the pancake downward; cover the lighter side with the mince; fold up neatly and lay upon a hot dish in the open oven to keep warm, while you fry and spread the rest.

They are very nice.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and pass with both fish and meat.

Lettuce Salad with Cream Dressing.

Heat the milk (or cream) almost to boiling; stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. Boil up, add the sugar, and take from the fire. Cool, beat in the frothed whites, oil, pepper, mustard and salt, and, when the lettuce is shred fine, add the vinegar to the dressing, and pour over it. Toss up with a silver fork. Eat very soon.

Wayne Pudding.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks; whip up light with the lemon, then add the whites, alternately with the flour. Butter a mould abundantly, line it with the strips of citron; put in the batter, a few spoonfuls at a time; cover and set in a pan of boiling water, in a good oven. Keep plenty of boiling water in the pan, and cook steadily one hour and a half. Dip into cold water and turn out upon a hot plate. Eat warm with wine or brandy sauce. Leave room in the mould for the pudding to swell. Never heat a pudding or cake mould before greasing it or the batter will stick.

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Ox-tail Soup.

Cut the tail into joints and fry brown in good dripping. Slice the onions and two carrots, and fry in the same, when you have taken out the pieces of tail. When done, tie them, with thyme and parsley, in a lace bag, and drop into the soup-pot. Put in the tail, then the beef, cut into strips. Grate over them the two whole carrots, pour over all the water, and boil slowly four hours. Strain and season; thicken with brown flour wet with cold water; boil fifteen minutes longer, and pour out.

Irish Stew.

Cut the meat into pieces an inch wide by two long. Slice the parboiled potatoes and onions. Put a layer of meat in a pot; then one of potatoes, next one of onions. Pepper and salt each sparingly; scatter the herbs upon the onions; put in more meat, and so on. When all are in, cover—barely—with cold water, and stew slowly two hours. Strain out the meat, and put into a covered dish—a chafing-dish, if you have one. Return the gravy to the saucepan; thicken with browned flour; cut your paste into narrow strips two inches long, and drop, one by one, into the boiling gravy. Stew about eight minutes, and pour over meat, potatoes, etc., which await it in the dish.

Corn Pudding.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat in the eggs; salt the milk, and put in next; lastly, the corn, drained of can liquor. Beat up well; pour into a greased bake-dish, and set, covered, in the oven. At the end of half an hour, take off the lid, and brown.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Parboil double the quantity of potatoes required for your Irish stew, and lay aside eight for this dish. Cut, when cold, into dice; fry a small chopped onion in a heaping spoonful of butter, for one minute, then put in the potatoes. Stir briskly to keep them from browning; cook until very hot; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley; stir a minute longer; turn all into a heated colander; shake hard to get rid of the grease, and serve hot in a vegetable-dish.

Queen’s Toast.

Cut slices of stale baker’s bread round with a cake-cutter, taking off all the crust. Fry in sweet lard to a light brown. Dip each round quickly into boiling water to remove the fat. Sprinkle thickly on both sides with a mixture of powdered sugar and nutmeg, and pile upon a hot plate. You may dispense with sauce if you will heat a glass of wine, and put a teaspoonful, or less, upon each piece, after dipping it into the water, and before sugaring it. Serve hot.

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Réchauffé Soup.

An excellent a soup as ox-tail deserves repetition, and the probability is that, since Friday is a fast day from[223] meat with Roman Catholic servants, you have enough soup left over for your family proper. Warm it up, making very hot, but not to boiling. If you like, you can put some dice of crisp fried bread in the tureen.

Lobster Croquettes.

To a can of preserved lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt, and powdered mace. Mix with this one-fourth as much bread-crumbs as you have meat, work in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and make into egg-shaped rolls. Roll these in raw egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry in butter or very sweet lard. Serve dry and hot with cresses or parsley laid around them.

Chickens with Mushroom Sauce.

Split a pair of chickens down the back as for broiling, and lay in a dripping-pan, with two cups of boiling water, a little salt, poured over them. Cover very securely with another pan of the same size—inverted—and cook an hour and a half if the fowls are of fair size. Baste at least six times; twice with butter in which has been mixed a little pepper; three times, copiously, with their own gravy, and, just before they are done, again with butter. Boil half a can of mushrooms ten minutes in clear, hot water. Drain and mince them very fine. Take up the chickens and keep hot in a covered dish. Put the gravy into a saucepan; add a little chopped onion; boil three minutes, thicken with browned flour; and stir in the chopped mushrooms. Simmer, covered, five minutes, and pour half over the chickens, the rest into a sauce-boat. Save all the gravy left after dinner.

Cabbage Sprouts.

Wash, trim, and boil in hot, salted water, with a bit of streaked salt pork, an inch square. When tender, drain, season, and chop fine. Stir in a tablespoonful of melted butter and the juice of half a lemon. Eat very hot.

Boiled Macaroni.

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into short lengths. Cover well with boiling water, salted, and boil—not too[224] fast—about twenty minutes, or until tender and clear at the edges. Drain well; pour a little into a hot, deep dish, and butter it, then strew with grated cheese. Do this three times in filling the dish, with cheese scattered over the top.

Nursery Plum Pudding.

Soak the rice two hours in a farina-kettle, just covered with warm water. When all the water is soaked up, shake the rice hard, to reach that at the bottom, and add a pint of milk. Simmer gently, still in the inner kettle, until the rice is again dry, and quite tender. Shake up anew, and add another pint of milk. When this is hot, put in the raisins, dredged with flour; cover the saucepan and cook twenty minutes. Turn into a bowl; put with it the butter, rice-flour, the remaining pint of milk, heated and mixed with the beaten eggs and sugar, and stir all up thoroughly. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish, about forty minutes. Eat warm with butter and sugar, or sugar and cream.

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Dresden Soup.

Early in the day, put on the meat, pig’s feet and bones, and cook slowly five hours in six quarts of water. Skim then, carefully, add the onions, mace, and herbs, cut small, and the carrots, grated. Stew half an hour; take out the meat and the feet, leaving the bones, etc., on the fire. Cut the flesh from the feet, and return the bones to the pot. Set aside half this flesh, with a few pieces of beef, to get cold. Chop the rest fine, and make up with pepper, salt, and a raw egg, into small force-meat balls. Roll them in flour, lay upon a greased plate, and set within the oven to “crust.” When quite firm, take out and cool. Cut the reserved meat into small, square bits. When the soup has cooked half an hour after the meat was taken out, strain and season it. Divide into two portions. Into that designed for Sunday drop the dice of meat, from the pig’s feet as well as the beef, and set away, covered, in an earthenware vessel. Return the rest to the fire; thicken with the butter, melted and worked up into the rice-flour; add the sauce, lemon-juice, and a glass of claret. Put the force-meat balls into the heated tureen; pour on the soup, cover five minutes, and serve.

Boiled Blue Fish.

Sew up the fish neatly in a thin cloth, put on in scalding water with a little salt, half a small cup of vinegar, a quarter of an onion, six whole black peppers, and a blade of mace. Let it stand, just below boiling heat, half an hour; then increase the heat and boil thirty minutes more.[226] Take out, unwrap, lay upon a hot dish and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter, with a little lemon-juice stirred in it.

Baked Calf’s Head.

Put on, having removed the brains, in four quarts of cold water, and boil gently one hour. Take out the head; salt and pepper the liquor and set by as the foundation of Monday’s soup, keeping out a cupful for gravy. Put the calf’s head in a dripping-pan, rub over with butter, pour the gravy into the pan, and bake, covered—basting four times—for half an hour. Uncover, wash over with a mixture of melted butter, pepper, and salt, and a teaspoonful of catsup. Dredge with browned flour, baste again, and when the surface is of a fine froth, dish the head. Strain and thicken the gravy, and serve in a boat. The brains should be washed well, boiled quickly, then cooled; mashed to a smooth paste with pepper, salt, a dust of flour, and a raw egg, and fried, by the spoonful, in hot lard. Drain, and lay about the head.

Canned Succotash.

Drain from the liquor; cut the beans—if French or string beans—into short pieces; cook half an hour in salted boiling water; drain this off; add a cup of hot milk, thicken with a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour, pepper, and salt, and simmer ten minutes more.

Casserole of Rice with Tomato Sauce.

Boil one cup of rice tender in hot water, a little salt, shaking up from time to time, but never stirring. Drain dry, add a very little milk in which has been stirred a beaten egg, a teaspoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt. Simmer for five minutes, and if the rice has not absorbed all the milk, drain it again. Pile it around the inner edge of a flat dish; smooth it neatly, rounding the top, into a sort of fence; wash over carefully with the beaten yolks of two eggs, and set it in the oven until firm.

Drain more than half the juice from a can of tomatoes; season with a little chopped onion, pepper, salt, and sugar. Stew twenty minutes; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and two tablespoonfuls of fine bread-crumbs; stew[227] three or four minutes to thicken it well, and pour within the hedge of rice.

Belle’s Dumplings.

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick, cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put a great spoonful of damson, cherry, or other tart preserve, in the middle, and roll into a dumpling. Bake about forty minutes, brush over with beaten egg, while hot, and shut up in the oven three minutes to glaze. Eat hot with brandy sauce. (For receipt for sauce see Wednesday, 2d Week in January.)

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APRIL.

Clear Soup.

Take the grease from the soup-jelly you will find in the crock into which the stock was poured yesterday. Take it up by the ladleful, leaving the meat and sediment at the bottom, and put on to heat in a soup-kettle. When it boils, stir in the beaten white of an egg; take off the scum as fast as it rises, and when quite clear add two teaspoonfuls of Coxe’s gelatine, previously soaked in cold water. Add, meanwhile, a little boiling water to the sediment and meat dice in the pot; strain off the liquid; pick out the bits of meat, and see that they are clean. Drop into the soup at[228] the same time that you add four tablespoonfuls of colored water, made by burning a tablespoonful or two of sugar in a tin cup, pouring a little boiling water upon it, and stirring until you get a clear brown liquor. After these go in, do not let your soup really boil, but simmer a few minutes to throw up and remove any remaining scum. Pass sliced lemon with the soup.

Fricasseed Chickens—White.

Clean, wash, and joint the fowls. Lay in cold salt and water for one hour. Put them into a pot, with half a pound of salt pork cut into strips, and cold water enough to cover them. Cover closely, and heat very slowly to a gentle boil. The excellence of the fricassee depends mainly upon care in this respect. If the fowls are full-grown and reasonably tender, stew more than one hour after they begin to boil. When done add half a chopped onion, parsley and pepper. Cover again for ten minutes. Stir up two tablespoonfuls of flour in cold water, then into a cup of hot milk, and this, in turn, into two beaten eggs. Then put in a great spoonful of butter, and pour all into the saucepan; mix well, boil fairly, and, having arranged the chickens upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them.

Buttered Parsnips.

Boil tender and scrape. Slice lengthwise. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan with pepper, salt and a little chopped parsley. When it heats, put in the parsnips, and shake and turn until the mixture boils. Lay the parsnips in order upon a hot dish, and pour the butter over them.

Savory Potatoes.

Pare and cut into squares some raw potatoes. Lay in cold water half an hour, put into a saucepan, cover with boiling water, slightly salted, and stew half an hour, not so fast as to break them. Then throw off the water and add a cupful of sauce made from the gravy of Friday’s chickens, thinned with a little hot water, and strained; seasoned to taste, and again thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer all for ten minutes, and turn into a deep dish.[229]

Lettuce Salad—Plain.

Wash the lettuce; pull leaf from leaf, and pile over a lump of ice in a salad-bowl. Pass the oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, and powdered sugar to each person, with the lettuce, that he may season for himself.

Pie-Plant (April) Fool.

Put the strained pie-plant into a saucepan; set it in boiling water, and, when hot, beat in the butter, sugar, and beaten yolks. Stir two minutes, and turn out to cool. This can be done on Saturday. On Sunday, a few minutes’ whirl of your egg-beater will give you the méringue. Beat in the powdered sugar with a few more, and when you have poured the stewed fruit (or vegetable) into a glass bowl, pile the méringue (the “fool”?) on the top.

Coffee and Cake

Can be handed with, or after the sweets.

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Milk and Bread Soup.

Boil down the liquor in which Saturday’s calf’s head was cooked, to less than two quarts. Add a pint of milk previously[230] heated, and mixed with three beaten eggs. Thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, and take at once from the fire. Salt and pepper, if needed. Have ready in a tureen a cupful of fine, dry crumbs. Pour on the soup, stir up for a moment, cover and send to table with a plate of grated cheese.

Larded Mutton Chops.

Trim off superfluous fat and skin; beat flat with the broad side of a hatchet, and lard each with four strips of fat, salt pork, drawn quite through, so as to project on both sides. Put into a saucepan, sprinkle with minced onion, pepper, and parsley, and barely cover with weak broth. The gravy from yesterday’s chickens will do, or any other you may chance to have. Put on the saucepan lid, set it where it will not boil under an hour, and think no more about it until the time is up. Then increase the heat and simmer half an hour, or until tender. Take up the chops and keep hot. Thicken the gravy with browned flour; add the juice of a lemon, a great spoonful of mushroom catsup, a glass of sherry, and boil one minute. Put back the chops; cover, and heat just to a feeble boil. Lay the chops in order upon a dish and pour the gravy over them.

Green Peas.

Open a can of peas; turn out into a bowl, and let alone for an hour. Then, strain off the liquor, put the peas into a saucepan, and cover with salted, boiling water. Cook twenty minutes; drain, pepper, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and dish.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and heap in a covered dish. Wet a pretty butter-print and press firmly upon the top.

Corn-Meal Hasty Pudding.

Wet up meal and flour with the water and stir into the boiling milk. Mem.—Cook all sorts of milk-puddings (boiled) in a farina-kettle. Boil steadily half an hour, stirring very often from the bottom. Put in salt, sugar, butter, and spice, and cook ten minutes more. Pour into a bowl, or other uncovered dish. Eat hot with sugar and butter.

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Bean and Corn Soup.

Put on the beans, pork, beef, and all the vegetables except the corn, with the water, and boil slowly until the beans are thoroughly broken, and the meat in rags. Meanwhile, cook the corn tender in just enough boiling water to cover it. When done, stir in half the butter and flour, salt and pepper, and cover to keep hot while you[232] strain the soup, rubbing the beans, onion, and celery to a pulp through a colander. Set aside half for to-morrow. Return the rest to the fire; pepper to taste; add the corn with the water in which it was cooked. Simmer fifteen minutes; stir in the rest of the butter and flour; boil up well, and serve.

Beefsteak Pudding.

Rub the suet into the flour, salt slightly, and make, with the water, into a paste just soft enough to roll out. Roll into a sheet nearly half an inch thick. Butter well a round-bottomed pudding mould; line with the paste, and leave in a cold place while you cut the steak into small squares, seasoning with pepper, salt, and catsup. Fill the paste-lined mould (or bowl) with this. Cut a piece of paste for the top. Cover with this, pinching the two sheets of paste tightly together at the edges. Let an assistant hold up the bowl while you cover with a stout pudding-cloth and tie tightly under the bottom, not straining the cloth so strongly over the top as to hinder the paste from swelling. (Flour the cloth before tying it over the bowl.) Plunge into a gallon of boiling water, and keep it at a fast boil for two hours, filling up from the tea-kettle when the water sinks. Turn the bowl bottom upward and dip in cold water; untie the cloth, invert a hot dish upon the mould, and turn over carefully, to get the pudding out without breaking. This is a favorite English dish.

Stewed Potatoes.

Old potatoes, by this time, need a little management to make them acceptable at a season when appetites crave fresh vegetables. This is a good way to cook them. Pare very thin, and leave in cold water one hour. Put on to cook in cold water, bringing it soon to a boil.[233] When a fork will run easily into the largest, strain off the water, throw in a handful of salt, and dry, for a minute, on the stove. Then take out the potatoes; crack each one by pressing with a wooden spoon; put into a deep dish, and pour over them a cup of hot milk thickened with two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in flour; cooked for a minute, then seasoned with pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful very finely-minced parsley. Cover the dish; set in boiling water ten minutes, and serve.

Mashed Turnips.

Boil tender; press all the water out in a colander, as you mash them; return to the fire with a good lump of butter, pepper, and salt, and stir until smoking hot.

Cold Slaw.

Shred the heart of a white cabbage, and pour over it a dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil, four of vinegar, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar, and half as much pepper and mustard, beaten up well with the whipped yolks of two eggs. The mixture should be quite thick. Use an egg-beater in mixing.

Baked Chocolate Custards.

Scald the milk; wet up the chocolate and stir in. Boil two minutes. Beat the yolks into the sugar, and pour the hot mixture slowly upon them, stirring constantly. Season and fill small cups, which should be set ready in a dripping-pan of boiling water. See that there is no danger of their boiling over the tops. Cook twenty minutes, or until the custards are firm. While they cool whip the whites to a stiff méringue with a little powdered sugar. When the custards are cold, heap this upon the tops.[234]

Fancy Cakes,

Macaroons, lady’s-fingers, or jumbles, should go around with the custards.

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“Red Pottage.”

To the bean-stock set by on yesterday add a can of red tomatoes, cut small, and two lumps of sugar, and simmer, set in boiling water for fear of burning, until they are one mass of pulp. Strain through a colander, add seasoning, and stir in a generous glass of claret which was poured, two hours before, upon a sliced, deep-colored beet, warm from the boil. Strain the juice from the beet by squeezing in a cloth. Put a double-handful of fried bread into a tureen, and pour the soup upon it.

This, if not “that same red pottage” for which poor hungry Esau—who certainly came honestly, by hereditary right, by his love of “good eating”—bartered his birthright, is yet very pretty and savory.

Boiled Cod with Caper Sauce.

Sew the fish up neatly in a thin cloth and cook in boiling water, fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap, lay upon a hot dish, and pour over it the following sauce:

Put a cupful of boiling water into a saucepan, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in a heaping teaspoonful of flour. Beat in, when thick, the whipped yolk of an egg, the juice of a lemon, and twenty-four capers. Stir up well, cook half a minute, and take from the fire.[235]

Scalloped Chicken.

Clean, wash, and cut an old fowl to pieces. Put into a pot with four quarts of cold water and cook very slowly until tender. Take it out, salt and pepper the broth, and put by for to-morrow’s soup, reserving one cupful for your gravy.

Let the chicken cool, and cut—cleanly—into pieces an inch long by one fourth that width. Put the gravy, well-seasoned, over the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of butter, cut up and rolled in flour; stir in the chicken, and just before it boils, take from the fire, and beat in two whisked eggs, with a little finely minced parsley. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; pour in the chicken; cover with a deeper coating of bread-crumbs; stick bits of butter over this, and bake, covered, until bubbling hot; then brown delicately.

Mashed Potatoes—Browned.

Mash soft with milk and butter, season, and round into a heap upon a greased pie-dish. Brown in a quick oven; glaze with butter; slip carefully to a hot dish.

Split Pea Pancakes.

Soak a pint of split peas all night. Put on, in the morning, in cold water and cook soft. Rub through a fine colander. While hot, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and season with pepper and salt. When quite cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, and half a cupful of flour in which has been sifted—twice—a quarter teaspoonful of soda and twice as much cream-of-tartar. Beat hard and long, and fry as you would griddle-cakes.

Queen of Puddings.

[236]Cream butter and sugar and whip in the yolks. Soak the crumbs in the milk and add next—then flavor. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish, filling it two-thirds of the way to the top, and bake until well “set” in the middle. Draw to the oven door, spread quickly with the jelly, and this with a méringue of the whites and half a cup of sugar. Shut the oven and bake quickly until the méringue begins to color. Eat cold with cream.

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Chicken Soup.

Take the fat from the top of the liquor in which your chicken was boiled yesterday, and put on the soup to heat. Meanwhile, boil half a cupful of rice tender in a pint of salted milk, and when the rice is soft, stir in a tablespoonful of butter worked up in flour to prevent oiling. When the soup boils up clear, skim and add the rice and milk, with two tablespoonfuls of minced parsley. Pepper and salt to taste; simmer ten minutes. Chop up three hard-boiled eggs fine; put into the tureen and pour the soup upon them.

Mayonnaise of Fish.

Rub the yolks smooth with the oil, add sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, and, when all are mixed, the vinegar, a little at a time. Set by, covered, while you cut—not chop—the fish into strips an inch long, and shred the lettuce. Mix these in a bowl. Whip the frothed white of egg into the dressing, and pour upon the salad. Stir up with a silver fork and put into a glass dish. Garnish with rings of the whites of boiled eggs.

Veal Chops with Tomato Sauce.

Trim and flatten the chops. Dip in raw egg, then in cracker dust, and fry, rather slowly, in lard or dripping. Open a can of tomatoes, and drain off the liquor. Salt the rest of the tomatoes and reserve for Friday’s soup. Put the liquor into a saucepan with a sliced onion, and stew ten minutes. Strain out the onion, return the juice to the fire; thicken with a great spoonful of butter, worked up in a teaspoonful of corn-starch; pepper and salt. Boil up sharply, and when you have laid the chops upon a dish, pour the sauce over them.

Macaroni with Eggs.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short bits; cook tender in boiling, salted water. Drain well; put into a deep dish and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter in which have been stirred two beaten eggs, and two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, with salt and pepper. Loosen the macaroni to allow the sauce to penetrate the mass. Pass more grated cheese with it.

Potato Strips.

Pare, cut in long, even strips; lay in cold water for one hour; dry by spreading them upon a towel and pressing another upon them. Fry to a light brown in salted lard. Shake off the fat in a hot colander. Line a deep dish with a napkin and put in the strips. They should not be crowded in frying, but each should be distinct and free from the rest.[238]

Jelly-Cake Fritters.

Cut stale sponge or very plain cup cake into rounds with a cake-cutter. Fry to a nice brown in sweet lard. Dip each round in boiling milk, to soften it and get rid of the grease. Lay upon a hot dish and spread with sweet jelly or jam. Pile neatly one upon another. Send around hot, sweetened cream to pour over them.

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Graham Soup.

Chop the cabbage and slice the onions; pare and grate the other vegetables, and put over the fire with the rice, the bag of celery-seed, and the water. Stew one hour; add the tomatoes and stew twenty minutes more. Rub all to a pulp through a colander; return to the soup-pot, season, and when it boils, stir in the butter. Heat the cream to scalding in a separate vessel, and pour[239] into the tureen. Stir the soup into it by degrees, and serve. Pass Boston crackers—split and buttered—with it.

Scalloped Oysters.

Butter a pudding-dish, and strew the bottom with rolled cracker. Wet this with oyster-liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Then lay on oysters, set closely together. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and bits of butter, with a few drops of lemon-juice. Another stratum of moistened crumbs, and so on, until the dish is full. Let the top layer be of crumbs, with butter dots here and there. Bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly.

Stewed Sweetbreads—Brown.

Boil the sweetbreads quickly—ten minutes are enough—blanch by throwing them into cold water, then leaving them to cool. Slice them lengthwise. Slice, also, the onion and mushrooms, and fry brown in half the butter. Strain them out, return the fat to the pan, with the rest of the butter. Heat, and fry the sweetbreads. When the latter are done, put all into a tin pail, with a tight top; add the gravy; set, covered, in boiling water, and stew gently, at the side of the range, half an hour. Arrange the sweetbreads upon a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour, and pour over them. Garnish with triangles of fried bread.

Moulded Potato.

Mash soft with butter and hot milk in which has been stirred a beaten egg. Salt and put into a buttered cake or pudding mould. Set in a pan of hot water, put on the lid of the mould, and keep the water at a hard boil half an hour. Dip the mould in cold water, and turn out the potatoes upon a flat dish.[240]

Lettuce.

Treat as directed upon last Sunday.

Quaking Custard.

Soak the gelatine two hours in a cup of the cold milk. Then add to the rest of the milk, which must be boiling hot, and stir until dissolved. Let it stand a few minutes, and strain through muslin over the beaten yolks and sugar. Put over the fire and stir five minutes, or until you can feel it thickening. Stir up well when nearly cold, flavor, and let it alone until it congeals around the edges of the bowl into which you have poured it; then stir again, and put into a wet mould. Set upon ice, or in cold water until firm. Turn it, when you are ready for it, into a glass bowl. Have ready a méringue made by whipping the whites stiff with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and the lemon-juice. Heap irregularly about the base.

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Vermicelli Soup.

Crack the bones into splinters; cut the meat into strips; slice the onions and chop the herbs. Put on in six quarts of water, and cook slowly five hours. Strain, pressing meat, etc., hard in the colander. There should be about four quarts of soup. Set aside half, when you have salted it, for Sunday. Return the rest to the clean kettle, season and skim. The vermicelli should have been broken small, and boiled in a little hot, salted water, three minutes. Strain, without squeezing; butter and pepper; stir into the soup; simmer very gently five minutes, and pour out.

Glazed Ham.

Wash a fine corned—not smoked—ham; soak all night in cold water, and boil about eighteen minutes to the pound. There should be plenty of water in the pot, cold at first, and brought gradually to a boil. Skim well from time to time. Let it get cold in the water in which it was boiled, if you can spare the time. We always boil a ham the day before it is to be eaten. Take it out; remove the skin carefully, and put the latter back into the cold liquor when you have skimmed all the fat—which makes excellent dripping—from the surface of the liquid. Press soft paper on the top of the ham, to take off the clinging drops of grease. Brush all over with beaten egg. Work a cup of rolled cracker into a paste with warm milk, butter, pepper, salt, and a beaten egg. Coat the ham thickly with this, and set to brown in a moderate oven. Twist frilled paper around the knuckle, and garnish with cresses.

Spinach à la Parisienne.

Pick off the leaves from the stalks; put on in boiling water, a little salt, and cook twenty minutes. Drain hard and dry, chop fine, return to the fire with a good piece of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, and stir two minutes. Then, beat in two or three[242] tablespoonfuls of cream, or rich milk, and whip as you would a custard. It should be smooth to taste and sight. Boil up—barely—and dish.

Chow-chow

“Goes well,” as the French say, with ham.

Baked Potatoes.

Parboil, peel, and lay in a dripping-pan, with a bit of butter upon each. As they brown, put on each a teaspoonful of warm milk mixed with butter, salt, and pepper. They should be of a light brown. Butter again just before you dish them.

Rhubarb Tart.

Scrape the stalks, cut into small bits, and stew in a very little water. When tender, take from the fire and sweeten. Have ready some open shells of pastry, freshly baked. Fill with the fruit, and sift sugar on top. Eat warm or cold—never hot. Make more paste than you need, and keep—raw—in a cold place.

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Pea and Rice Soup.

Open a can of green peas, and turn them into a bowl for an hour. Boil half a cup of rice soft in a cup of milk. Skim the stock made yesterday, and heat to a boil before adding the peas (drained) and the rice, which should have absorbed all the milk. Stew slowly half an hour; add what seasoning you like, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer five minutes and pour out.[243]

Fillet of Veal with Ham.

Have the fillet rolled and skewered by your butcher. Stuff a good force-meat of crumbs and minced fat ham between the folds of meat, and lay sliced ham over the top and sides, binding it in place with packthread. Put into a dripping-pan with a cup of boiling water, and roast twelve minutes for each pound. Baste very often. Half an hour before you take it up, remove the ham, and lay on one side of the pan; dredge the meat with flour and baste abundantly and frequently until well browned. Dish with the ham cut into strips and laid next the edge of the dish—the potato balls close to the meat. Send around sweet pickles with it. Strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour, add pepper and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup; boil up and pour into a boat.

Potato Balls.

To one cup of mashed potato add a beaten egg, pepper, and salt, and work smooth. Make into balls; roll them in flour. When the veal is half done, skim off the fat from the gravy, lay the balls in the pan, basting, now and then, and turning until they are browned all over. Drain well, and lay about the dished veal.

Stuffed Cabbage.

Boil a large, firm cabbage, whole, on Saturday, tying coarse net over it to keep it in shape. Do not remove the net until next day. Then, bind a broad strip of muslin about it that it may not crack in the stuffing. Extract the stalk with a thin, sharp knife. Without making a wide external aperture, “dig out” the heart, until you have room for nearly a cupful of force-meat. Chop the bits you have taken out, mix with cooked sausage-meat, a very little onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme and bread-crumbs. Stuff the cabbage with this, remove the band, tie up firmly again in a net bag, and put it into a pot, covering with the liquor in which your ham was boiled yesterday, having first again skimmed the latter. Stew gently one hour. Take out the cabbage, unbind, with care, and pour a cup of drawn butter over it. Strain the useful “pot liquor,” and put away heedfully.[244]

French Beans.

Cut into short lengths, when you have poured off the can liquor; cook half an hour in boiling water, salted. Drain well, stir up with a tablespoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste.

Charlotte Cachée.

Cut the cake into horizontal slices of uniform width. Spread each with jelly—first, the tart, then the sweet, and fit into their former places. Ice thickly with a frosting made of the whites, sugar, and lemon-juice. Set in a sunny window, or slow oven, to harden. The former is the better plan.

Bird’s Nest in Jelly.

Empty the eggs carefully through a hole in the small end; wash them out with cold water, and while wet inside set firmly in a pan of bran or meal, to keep them steadily upright. Fill them with blanc-mange. Next morning, fill a glass dish two-thirds full with clear jelly, reserving a large cupful. So soon as the jelly is firm enough to bear their weight, break the shells, with care, from the blanc-mange eggs, and pile them upon the jelly. Lay the “straw”—i. e., the orange-peel—over and about them; pour the rest of the half congealed jelly over all, and set in a very cold place.

A beautiful variation of this dessert can be made for Easter Sunday, by coloring part of the blanc-mange brown with chocolate, part pink with currant jelly or cranberry juice, part yellow with yolk of egg, and leaving the rest white.[245]

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Ham and Egg Soup.

Skim once more and re-heat the liquor in which your ham was cooked, and, when boiling, take off the scum; stir in two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, wet in a half cup of milk. Take out a pint of the soup, and pour slowly, stirring well, upon four beaten eggs. Return to the soup, with a handful of very finely minced parsley. Stir one minute, without letting it boil, and pour upon half a dozen split Boston crackers, lining the tureen.

Veal Patés.

Chop up the meat left from Sunday’s fillet—reserving some for salad—also the crisped ham. Season well, warm up the gravy, when you have removed the fat; mix a little oyster liquor with it, and stir in the mince. Heat almost to boiling, and set by, covered, where it will keep warm. Line paté-pans with the paste reserved for this purpose from Saturday. If kept in the refrigerator or cool cellar, it will be perfectly good. Bake these “shells,” buttering the tins well; slip out while hot; arrange on a warm dish; fill with the mince, sprinkling the top of each with fine, dry crumbs; set upon the upper grating of your oven for a minute or so, and send to table.

Creamed Parsnips.

Boil, scrape, and slice lengthwise. Have ready in a saucepan a great spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. Put in the parsnips, shake and turn until very hot; lay the parsnips upon a dish; add to the sauce three tablespoonfuls of cream, or four of milk, in which has been rubbed a teaspoonful of flour. Boil up briskly, and pour over the sliced vegetable.[246]

Salad of Lettuce and Veal.

Cut half a pound of your cold veal into inch-long strips, and strew with salt and pepper. Shred a head of lettuce, and chop two boiled eggs—not too finely. Mix these together in a bowl. Prepare a dressing thus: Beat the yolks of two eggs (add the whites to the soup); salt lightly, and beat in, a few drops at a time, four tablespoonfuls of oil; then, as gradually, three teaspoonfuls of best vinegar, and half a teaspoonful of celery essence—Colgate’s, if you can get it. The mixture should be thick as cream. Pour over the meat and lettuce, toss up with a silver fork, and transfer to a glass dish.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as often before directed.

Corn-Starch Hasty Pudding.

Scald the milk, and stir in the corn-starch, previously wet in cold water to a white liquid. Boil steadily, stirring constantly, ten minutes. Salt and butter. Let the pudding stand three minutes in hot water, after you take it from the fire, and turn out into a deep, open dish. Cook, of course, in a farina-kettle.

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Mélange Soup.

Cut the meat into dice, and put on in the water. Boil gently two hours, when add the rice, tomato-juice, and the vegetables cut into small squares, and already cooked five minutes in hot water, to take off the rank taste. Stew half an hour, or until the vegetables and rice are tender, but not a pulp; season; boil up once and pour out—meat, vegetables, and all—into the tureen.

Ragoût of Mutton.

Fry the mutton to a nice brown, quickly, in the dripping. Lay in a saucepan, the chopped ham upon it, and cover with the gravy, highly seasoned. Stew slowly until very tender; take up, and keep hot, while you add the lemon to the gravy, with the catsup. Boil five minutes; strain, and return the gravy to the saucepan. Thicken, and put in the parsley minced fine. Boil up, and pour over the meat in a flat dish. Put sippets of fried bread around the edge of the dish.

Canned Corn Pudding.

Beat eggs, sugar, and butter together; then add the corn. Salt the milk, and dissolve the corn-starch well in it, and pour, by degrees, upon the rest, mixing well. Bake in a greased bake-dish three-quarters of an hour. Keep covered until nearly done; then, brown.

Baked Tomatoes.

Drain off the liquor from a can of tomatoes, and put it into your soup. Pare the crust from some slices of bread, cut them to fit the bottom of a greased pie-dish, and fry to a light brown in dripping. Dip each in boiling, salted milk, fit to their places in the dish, pour the tomatoes upon them, season with pepper, salt, butter, and a little sugar. Strew thickly with crumbs, and bake, covered, twenty minutes; then, brown.

Peach Batter Pudding.

Lay the drained peaches in a buttered bake-dish. Salt the flour, and sift into a pan. Beat eggs and butter together, stir in the milk, and pour, by degrees, into a hole in the middle of the flour, until you have a smooth batter. Pour upon the peaches, and bake in a brisk oven. Add a glass of brandy to the peach syrup; sweeten to taste; stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, and set in boiling water until the butter is melted. Serve the pudding in the bake-dish and eat with this sauce.[249]

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Eel Soup.

Clean the eels with care, removing all the fat; cut them into short pieces, and fry for five minutes in dripping. Drain, put into a saucepan with the water, onion, and pepper, and stew slowly one hour, or until they are tender, without breaking. Strain through a colander; pick out the eels and cover in a tureen, the bottom of which is lined with strips of buttered toast. Strain the soup, through a soup-sieve, back into the saucepan; heat, and stir in butter, flour, and parsley. Boil up, add the milk, already heated, and pour over the eels and toast.

Boiled Chicken.

Clean and stuff as for roasting. Bind legs and wings to the sides; tie in a net, and put on in boiling water—if tender. If doubtful, use cold water, and cook very slowly. When the fork-test shows that it is done, unwrap and lay on a dish. Salt, pepper, and butter well, and cover while preparing the sauce. Take out a cup of the liquor, cool, and skim, put on in a saucepan; put in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, and stir to a boil. Take[250] off, and pour gradually over two beaten eggs. Return to the fire, with minced parsley, almost boil, and pour over the fowl.

Salt the liquor and set aside for soup.

Potatoes à la Crème.

Mash thin, whip up with a fork, at first, with butter, salt, and milk; at last, with the frothed white of an egg. Heap roughly upon a dish, set upon the upper grating of the oven until they begin to color, and serve.

Rice Croquettes.

Work the butter into the rice, then the seasoning, lastly, the beaten eggs. Make into long balls, roll in egg, then in powdered cracker, and fry, a few at a time, in hot lard.

Steamed Corn-Meal Pudding.

Put meal, flour, salt, sugar, and soda in a bowl; mix thoroughly; make a hole in the middle and work in the milk and butter. Beat hard and long when all are in; put into a buttered mould with a tight top, and steam one hour and a half. If you have no regular steamer, fit the mould in the top of a pot of boiling water, taking care it does not hang into the water. Lay a thick wet towel,[251] folded, over the top of the mould to keep in all the heat. Or, you may simply boil it. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.

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Cream Almond Soup.

Skim and heat the soup. Meanwhile, blanch (that is, scald and skin) the almonds, and pound in a mortar. Rub to a powder the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and work up, with the butter, flour, and almonds, to a paste. When the soup boils, pepper and salt, and put in the mace. Skim clean, strain out the mace; return to the pot and stir in the paste of almonds, etc. Boil up gently, have the milk scalding hot in the tureen, and pour in the soup, mixing all up well. Serve at once.

Beefsteak.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet; broil over (or under) a clear fire upon a buttered gridiron—turning often. Lay upon a hot dish; salt, pepper, and butter, plentifully. Cover with a hot dish or lid, and let it stand five minutes to draw out the juices.[252]

Chopped Potatoes.

Chop cold boiled potatoes into dice. Put some butter or nice dripping into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the potatoes. Shake to prevent them from sticking to the pan, and when very hot, and glazed with the butter, pepper and salt, and turn into a hot colander. Shake and toss for a moment, and pour into a deep dish.

Chicken Salad.

Cut the meat from the “carcasses” of yesterday’s chickens. If you have but a little it may be worth while to give John a piquant side-dish. Add an equal quantity of shred lettuce, when you have cut your chicken into narrow strips, two inches long. Mix in a bowl; prepare a dressing according to the receipt given on Monday; pour over it, mix well and lightly; put into a salad-dish, and lay sections of two hard-boiled eggs on top, with a chain of sliced whites—left from the yolks used for the soup—around the outer edge.

Moulded Spinach.

Boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water; drain, pressing hard. Chop fine, and put into a saucepan, with a good lump of butter, a little pepper, salt and sugar. Beat and toss until nearly dry. Press hard into an oblong pan or mould. Invert this upon a hot dish. Lay slices of egg upon the top.

Soft Gingerbread.

Beat molasses, butter, sugar, and spice to a cream; whip in the beaten yolks, the milk, and lastly, the whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in two loaves, or in round tins or cups.[253]

Chocolate.

Wet the chocolate in cold water; stir into the hot. Boil fifteen minutes; add the milk, and simmer ten minutes longer. Sweeten upon the fire, or as you pour it out.

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Oyster Soup.

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, mixing in the water. Season and spice to taste. When the liquor boils, add a quarter of the oysters chopped fine. Boil five minutes; strain through muslin and put back into the saucepan. Thicken with the butter rubbed up in a tablespoonful of corn-starch. When this boils, drop in the whole oysters. Cook until they “ruffle.” Meanwhile, make a sugarless custard by heating and salting the milk, adding the beaten eggs, and stirring four minutes over the fire. Put some split crackers into the tureen; pour on the custard, then the oyster-soup, stirring all up well. Send around oyster crackers and sliced lemon with it.[254]

Fillets of Halibut.

Cut a tolerably thick halibut steak into strips four inches long by two wide. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter, with pepper and salt, into a saucepan, and simmer gently—not frying—until tender. Then drain, and put upon a hot water dish to keep hot. Cut some potatoes into small balls. There is a little instrument for this purpose, like a rounded gouge, which turns them out rapidly and neatly. A small iron spoon will give you oval balls. Or, if you find it easier, cut the potatoes into equal cubes; lay in cold water half an hour, then cook fifteen minutes in boiling water. Drain and dry, and after taking your fish from the butter, strain the latter, put in the potatoes, and shake over a hot fire until they begin to brown. Drain, and lay about the fish-fillets. Add a tablespoonful of butter to that in the pan (previously cut up in flour), a teaspoonful of anchovy-sauce, and the juice of a lemon, with a little minced parsley. Boil once, and pour over fish and potatoes.

Paté of Sweetbreads.

Cut good puff-paste into rounds a quarter of an inch thick. Reserve one of these for the bottom of each paté. With a smaller cutter take out the centre of three others and pile upon this, making a deep well over an inch across. Bake quickly, glazing with white of egg when nearly done.

Boil three sweetbreads ten minutes, leave in cold water as long; cut into dice, put into a saucepan with a great spoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and a few spoonfuls of boiling water, and stew twenty minutes. Stir, meanwhile, into half a cup of boiling milk a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in as much flour. Add to the sweetbreads with a little minced parsley. Boil up. Fill the patés, and arrange upon a heated dish.

Lima Beans.

If dried, soak over night, put on next day in cold water, salted, and cook gently until soft. Drain, stir in butter and pepper. If you use the canned beans, put on in boiling water, then proceed as above directed.[255]

Boston Cream Cakes.

Stir the butter into the warm water, and heat slowly to a boil. Then put in the flour, boil and stir one minute; empty into a dish to get cold. Beat the eggs light, and whip, first the yolks, then the whites, into the cooled paste. Drop in great spoonfuls, upon buttered paper, not letting them touch each other, and bake, in a quick oven, ten minutes. They should puff up to quadruple their original size. Pass a sharp knife lightly around each, split, and fill with the following mixture:

Heat three cups of milk, and stir in the corn-starch wet with the other cupful. Beat the eggs and sugar together, and add the boiling mixture, by degrees. Put in the butter; mix well and cool before adding the vanilla.

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Soup Verte.

Stew the beef with the celery-seed in a quart of water for two hours, or until the meat is in rags. Strain hard in a bag. Add the other quart of water in which have been simmering, for half an hour, the grated carrot, the spinach cut small, and the other vegetables sliced. Stew all together fifteen minutes; rub entirely through a colander; return to the fire, season; add sugar, chopped parsley, butter and flour; boil up and drop in the noodles, one by one. Simmer ten minutes, and pour out. It is a very good and wholesome soup for the spring-time.

Baked Mutton Cutlets.

Trim neatly and put the bits of bone, skin, etc., on in a pint of cold water to stew down into gravy. Pour a little melted butter upon the cutlets and set over hot water, fifteen minutes. Then dip each in egg, next in rolled cracker, and lay in your dripping-pan with a very little water. Bake rapidly, basting with butter and water. When the gravy has boiled down to one cupful, strain into a saucepan; season with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Thicken with browned flour; strain into it the gravy from the dripping-pan; lay the chops carefully in a frying-pan, as being broad and easily managed. Pour over them the gravy, simmer ten minutes; arrange the chops upon a dish, and serve the gravy in a boat.

Hominy Pudding.

Work the butter into the hominy; then the beaten yolks and sugar; then, by degrees, the milk, and when all are smoothly mixed, the whites. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish.

Potato Cakes.

Make cold mashed potatoes into flat cakes, seasoning well, and flouring all over. Fry to a good brown in dripping. Take up and drain as soon as they are done, and serve hot.

Lettuce.

Wash and pile the best parts in a salad-dish. Pass oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar to each one and let him season for himself. It is well to do this, once in a while, that the children may learn how to prepare their own salad.

Tapioca Pudding.

Soak the tapioca in cold water three hours; drain off the water, if it be not all absorbed. Soak another hour in the warmed milk. Then, beat eggs and sugar up with the butter, add the milk and tapioca, stir up well from the bottom, after it goes into the oven, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until firm and nicely browned. Eat warm with sweet sauce. It is also good cold, eaten with sugar and cream.[258]

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Calf’s Head Soup.

Boil a calf’s head on Saturday until the flesh slips from the bones. Salt and pepper the meat and set away, with the brains—also salted and cooked—in a cool place. Return the bones to the liquor with the vegetables and herbs cut small, the fried beef and onions, and boil one hour. Season highly and put by in a cool cellar until Sunday. Take off the fat, and melt the soup-jelly under it by heating all together in a soup-kettle. When hot, strain, and set aside half the stock for Monday. Boil up that meant for to-day, stir in the butter and flour, and a cupful of dice made from one cheek of the cold head. Simmer ten minutes, add sauce and wine, and pour out.

Imitation Turtle.

Slice the meat from the head neatly. Heat the gravy with seasoning, herbs, and onion, and boil ten minutes. Strain; put the meat into the saucepan; pour the gravy over it, and set all in boiling water fifteen minutes. Put over the fire with the sliced eggs and force-meat balls. Let them begin to boil, and take off. Lay the meat evenly upon a dish, and the eggs upon it, the force-meat balls around all, and pour half the gravy over it, sending up the rest in a boat.

Chopped Macaroni.

Boil half a pound of macaroni tender in hot salted water, and let it cool. Then chop small. Have ready in a saucepan a cupful of hot milk in which an onion has been boiled and strained out. Stir into this a great spoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. When these are well mixed, put in the macaroni, and shake—not stir—until very hot. Turn into a deep dish, and grate more cheese on the top. Pass a red-hot shovel over this until the cheese browns—or if dry, takes fire. Blow it out, and serve.

String-Beans and Fried Brains.

Cut the beans into short lengths and cook in boiling water salted. Drain, stir in butter, pepper, and salt, and dish. Garnish with the brains, rubbed smooth, seasoned, beaten up with a raw egg and a little flour, and fried by the spoonful in hot fat.

Bermuda Potatoes.

Put on in boiling water; cook until a fork will go in easily; dry off, and serve in their skins.[260]

Alice’s Pudding.

Sprinkle the bottom of a buttered bake-dish with crumbs. Pour in the jam, and cover this with the rest of the crumbs, wet with a little milk. Scald the remainder of the milk, and pour, gradually, upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Heat and stir three minutes; put it, spoonful by spoonful, upon the crumbs, so as not to displace them, and when all is in, bake until well set and slightly colored by the heat. Eat cold—with cream, if you can get it.

Coffee and Whipped Cream.

Whip a little cream in a syllabub churn, and lay a spoonful upon the surface of each cup of made coffee.

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A Good White Soup.

Skim the stock set aside yesterday; heat and season, then strain through thin muslin, and return to the fire. Skim again; add a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour, and boil up. Have ready in your tureen a cupful of hot milk, in which has been soaked half a cupful of bread-crumbs; beat into these the whites of two eggs; pour in the soup, by degrees, stirring in well, and serve.[261]

Ham and Eggs.

Cut slices of ham of equal size; cover with boiling water, and cook ten minutes, then let them get cold. Cut off the rind and fry in their own fat, until browned. Lay upon a hot dish; strain the fat, returning it to the pan with a little butter, and when hot break in the eggs. Fry upon one side; trim off the ragged edges, and lay upon the ham. Dust with pepper, and serve.

Succotash.

Open a can of succotash; drain off the liquor, cut the beans into short lengths, and put on in boiling water, salted. Cook twenty-five minutes; drain off the water, and add as much cold milk. When this is hot, stir in a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour; pepper and salt, cook three minutes more and serve.

Oyster Salad.

Cut the oysters into thirds; pull the hearts out of nice lettuce heads and shred up one-third as much as you have oysters. Make a dressing in the proportion of two tablespoonfuls of best oil to four of vinegar; one teaspoonful of salt and the same of sugar; half as much pepper, and made mustard. Rub all up well, and pour over oysters and lettuce just before serving.

Stewed Potatoes.

Cut into small squares and put on in boiling water, slightly salted. When tender, but not broken, throw off half the water, and proceed as with the succotash, only adding a teaspoonful of finely minced parsley.

Plain Macaroni Pudding.

When the macaroni is tender, drain off the water and add the salt and butter. Heat the milk and pour over the beaten eggs, sugar and flavoring. Mix with the macaroni, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish, covered, for half an hour; then brown. Eat with butter and sugar.

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Pot-au-feu.

Put on the beef in two quarts of water and cook slowly until it is tender, and the water reduced to one quart. Put the vegetables—except the potatoes—on in boiling water. Cook ten minutes; throw away the water and cover with a quart of cold. Add the potatoes; pepper and salt and cook gently half an hour. Put in the meat and the quart of gravy and simmer ten minutes more, with the minced herbs. Then pour out. This is only a family soup, but is a good one when properly cooked.

Boiled Leg of Mutton.

Do not have the shank too long, nor cut it so short as to make the leg “chunky.” The meat will look cleaner[263] and less sodden if you boil it in a piece of mosquito net or tarlatan, sewed about it somewhat tightly. Put on in boiling salted water, plenty of it, and cook fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap and lay upon a hot dish. Butter all over, and sprinkle lightly with salt. Twist frilled paper about the end of the shank.

Caper Sauce.

Take out a cupful of the liquor in which the mutton was boiled (putting away the rest for soup), strain, heat, and skim; stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed in a teaspoonful of flour; pepper, boil up, pour upon a beaten egg; return to the fire and stir for a minute; add two dozen capers or nasturtium-seed, and pour into a sauce-boat. Pass, of course, with the mutton.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Parboil the potatoes, and cut into dice. Chop a small onion and mince a tablespoonful of parsley. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter or excellent dripping into a frying-pan, and when hot, stir in potatoes, onion, and parsley. Shake and toss until all are hissing hot, but do not let them brown. Shake off the fat in a hot colander, and serve in a deep dish.

Stewed Pie-Plant.

Skin and wash the stalks, and cut into half inch lengths. Stew tender in a little water, with a handful of seedless raisins. Sweeten to taste. Eat cold with meat.

Peach Lèche Crèma.

Scald the milk; stir in the corn-starch wet with cold milk, and cook, still stirring, until it begins to thicken. Take from the fire, and beat in the butter, then the[264] whipped yolks, two whites and sugar. Whisk to a light cream. Drain the syrup from the peaches; lay them in the bottom of a bake-dish, and pour the mixture gently over them. Bake in a quick oven ten minutes, then spread with a méringue of four whites whisked stiff with a little sugar. Shut up in the oven until this is slightly tinged. Eat warm with sauce, or cold with cream.

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Scotch Broth.

Take the fat from the top of the broth in which the mutton was boiled yesterday. Chop up an onion, a good sized one, and put in it. Boil half an hour and strain. Add a cup of barley, previously soaked two hours in cold water, and cook for two hours more. Chop up some parsley fine and add. When the barley is very soft, and the broth has boiled down one-half, pour out and serve, having peppered to taste.

Mutton Pie.

Cut the meat from yesterday’s mutton, into strips two inches long by half an inch wide. Chop a pickled cucumber to pieces, also two boiled eggs. Put a layer of meat in a bake-dish, strew with pickle and egg; salt and pepper and drop, pretty thickly, over it, bits of butter rolled in flour. Go on in this order, until your meat is used up, when pour in a cup of oyster-liquor or cold water. Cover with a good crust, ornamented around the edges; make a slit in the middle, and bake one hour.

N. B.—The bare bones will “help out” to-morrow’s soup.[265]

Stewed Tomatoes.

Receipts for these, as also for plain mashed potatoes, have been given so lately that repetition here is needless.

Cabbage Salad.

When the vinegar boils, put in butter, sugar, and seasoning. Boil, and add the shred cabbage. When this is scalding hot, take from the fire. Pour the hot milk upon the eggs, and cook one minute, stirring constantly. Turn the cabbage into a bowl, pour over it the smoking custard, toss up and mix well, and set it, covered, in ice-cold water. Eat perfectly cold.

Lemon Puffs.

Cream butter and sugar, whip in the yolks, milk, and lemon-peel; then, the whisked whites and flour, alternately. Bake in small, buttered tins, or in “gem” pans. Turn out while hot, and eat with sweet sauce.[266]

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Soup à la Bonne Femme.

Put bones, meat, onion, and rice on in the cold water, and cook slowly three hours. Strain, rubbing the rice and onion to a pulp, through a coarse sieve. Season, boil up, skim, and stir in parsley and butter. Heat the milk, pour upon the beaten eggs, and add to the soup, stirring in well. Let it almost boil, and take from the fire. Pour out, and serve at once.

Corned Beef.

Wash the beef well, put on in plenty of boiling water, and cook at least eighteen minutes to the pound, if the piece be tolerably thick. Put away the liquor for to-morrow. Dish the meat. Make a sauce as directed on Tuesday, for mutton, but substituting pickled cucumber, chopped, and a very little pickled onion, for the capers. Serve in a boat.

Mashed Turnips.

At this season the yellow turnips are best. Put on, when you have pared and quartered them, in cold water,[267] salted, and cook tender. Mash, and press out the water; stir in a good piece of butter; pepper and salt to taste, and dish very hot.

Scalloped Cauliflower.

The cauliflowers in market now are less nice than those to be had earlier, or later in the year. Still, you can get them, now and then. Boil, tied in a net, in hot water. Clip into neat clusters, and set, stems downward, in a buttered bake-dish. Beat up a cupful of bread-crumbs to a soft paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and four of milk. Season with pepper and salt, and whip in a raw egg. Butter, salt, and pepper the cauliflower, and pour the mixture over it. Cover closely, and bake ten minutes, or until very hot, in a brisk oven; then brown lightly and rapidly.

Fried Potatoes.

Wash, pare, and slice round, very thin. Leave in cold water one hour; wipe, by spreading upon one towel, and pressing another upon it, and fry, not too many at a time, in boiling lard, salted. Cook quickly, take out with a wire spoon, and shake in a hot colander. Serve in a deep dish lined with a hot napkin.

Orange Cream Pie.

Stir the corn-starch into the water; cream the butter and sugar, and pour over them the hot mixture. Cool, and add the orange and beaten egg. Take the inner rind from the half-orange, remove the seeds, and chop very fine. Bake in open shells.[268]

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“Peas Porridge Hot.”

Soak a quart of split peas all night. In the morning put on in the liquor from your corned beef, with a sliced onion and a little celery-seed, tied in thin muslin. The liquor should be skimmed and poured cold upon the peas. Cook slowly, until these are soft enough to pulp through a colander. Rub them; if the soup be very salt, add hot water; pepper to taste; boil up, and stir in a cup of hot milk, in which have been dissolved two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, wet up in water, and a tablespoonful of butter. Add minced parsley; simmer two minutes; have a double handful of fried bread dice in the tureen, and pour on the soup.

Baked Shad.

Clean, wash, and wipe a large shad. Stuff with a dressing of bread-crumbs, butter, salt, and pepper, wet with milk, and sew up carefully with fine cotton. Lay in the dripping-pan; pour over it a cupful of hot water, and bake one hour, covered, except when you are basting it with butter and water. Put into a hot dish, and keep warm, while you add to the gravy a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of browned flour, wet up with cold water, and pepper. Boil up well, and serve in a boat. Garnish the fish with sliced lemon, and pass the cress-salad with it.

Miroton of Beef.

Chop your cold corned beef fine. Have ready in a saucepan a cup of drawn butter, into which stir a teaspoonful[269] of minced onion, the yolk of a boiled egg, pounded, and a beaten raw egg. Boil gently three minutes, and add the mince of beef. Stir until hot, but not boiling; pour into a bake-dish; spread with a cover of mashed potatoes, into which have been worked half a cup of milk and a great spoonful of butter. Brown in a good oven, and glaze with butter, when it begins to color well. Serve in the dish. It is very good.

Cresses.

Pick over, wash, and cut into small pieces. Pile in a salad-bowl, and season with vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little sugar, mixing in well.

Spinach with Eggs.

Cut the leaves from the stems, and cook twenty minutes in boiling, salted water. Drain and chop very fine upon a board or chopping-tray. Return to the fire with a good spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar; salt and pepper to taste. Heat, stirring constantly and beat in the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a fine powder. When well mixed, turn the spinach into a deep dish and garnish with a chain of sliced whites laid on top.

An Ambushed Trifle.

Cut the top carefully from the cake in one piece. Scoop out the inside of the loaf, leaving side-walls and bottom an inch thick. Coat these with the jelly. Heat the milk; beat eggs and sugar, with the cake-crumbs, and pour on the hot milk. Stir over the fire until thick, and add the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. Cook one minute and turn out. When cold, flavor and fill the cake[270] with it. Coat the inside of the lid with jelly, and fit into its place; brush the whole cake with white of egg, sift powdered sugar over it, and set in a cool, dry place until wanted.

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Clam Soup.

Strain the liquor from the clams, add one-third as much water, bring to a slow boil, skim and strain. Then put in the clams, chopped, with pepper and salt. Stew half an hour, and stir in two great spoonfuls of butter rolled in cracker-dust, one teaspoonful essence of celery (Colgate’s), and the juice of a lemon. Simmer ten minutes, have ready in your tureen a cup of scalding milk, slightly salted. Pour upon this the soup, stirring up well.

Beefsteak.

Cook according to receipt given on Thursday of Second Week in this month. If you use the “Vertical Broiler,” manufactured by the Dover Stamping Company, 88 North Street, Boston, you will save every drop of gravy, and be spared the trouble of watching and turning the steak.—See Familiar Talk, “Touching Saucepans.”

Scalloped Tomatoes and Corn.

Open a can of corn; drain, and cook twenty minutes in boiling water, salted. Throw off the water; cover the bottom of a bake-dish with fine crumbs; put in a layer of corn, butter, pepper, and salt; upon this a layer of canned tomatoes; butter and pepper, and sprinkle with a little[271] sugar. Go on in this order until the dish is full. Cover with bread-crumbs; stick bits of butter over them, and bake, covered, half an hour. Brown and serve in the dish.

Whole Bermuda Potatoes.

Pick out those of uniform size; put on in boiling water, salted slightly, and cook until a fork will pierce the largest. Turn off the water; set back on the range to “dry off;” lay a napkin, heated and neatly folded, upon a dish. Pare the potatoes quickly by pulling off their skins, and heap upon the napkin.

Boiled Custards.

Heat the milk; beat yolks and two whites light, and pour the milk upon them. Return to the fire and cook, stirring all the while, until the custard begins to thicken. Let it cool. Season and put into glass cups. Whip the whites to a méringue with a little powdered sugar, and heap upon the top of each.

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Ox Head Soup.

Soak the head two hours in cold, salted water. Wash well, and put on in cold water, with the vegetables and herbs. Cover, bring slowly to a boil, and cook four hours. Then, take out the meat of the head; salt well, and set away in a cool place. Salt and pepper the soup, and set by in an earthenware crock, leaving in the bones and vegetables. Do this on Saturday.

On Sunday, take off the fat and heat the soup. Strain, first through a colander, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp, then through a sieve, back into the kettle. Cut the meat into dice and drop in; season with sauce and wine, and having let it barely boil, pour out.

There should be enough for two days. In setting aside Monday’s portion, make an equal distribution of meat and broth.

Roast Breast of Mutton.

Sew up in a thin cloth and boil ten minutes to the pound. (Take care of the broth for gravy.) When unwrapped, lay in a dripping-pan, wash well with butter, dredge with flour, and set in the oven half an hour, basting freely with its own broth, and lastly with butter. A few minutes before taking it up, strew thickly with crumbs—fine and dry—pepper these, and drop dots of butter over it. Brown, and dish. Garnish with sliced beet-root and cresses.

Hominy Fritters.

Rub the sugar and salt into the hominy; wet with the milk, and when smooth beat in the whipped eggs. Drop by the spoonful into boiling fat, and fry quickly. Drain in a hot colander. Everything depends upon beating and cooking. The soda should go in last of all the ingredients, and be whipped in hard.

Browned Potatoes.

Mash soft, with butter and milk; mound smoothly upon a greased plate and brown in a quick oven, glazing with butter. Slip to a hot flat dish.

Lettuce Salad.

Pull out the hearts and pick them apart. Heap loosely in a salad-bowl, and season, first sprinkling lightly with powdered sugar—with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Toss up with a silver fork; lay cold-boiled eggs, cut into sixths, lengthwise, upon the top.

Pine-apple Ambrosia.

Put a layer of pine-apple in a glass bowl; strew with sugar, and wet with wine. Next, put a stratum of cocoanut, and sprinkle more sparsely with sugar. More pine-apple, sugar, and wine, and continue to add layers in the order given. The top coating must be of cocoanut. Eat soon, or the pine-apple will wither in the wine and become tough. Pass light cake with it.[274]

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Next Day Soup.

Take the fat from the top of the cold soup set by on Sunday; heat it almost to the boil, and pour out. It is better for the second and third warming up. Save every drop that is left over.

Pilau of Mutton.

Cut your cold roast into neat strips an inch long. Make a gravy of the cracked bones and skin, hard bits, etc., and a pint of water. While it is stewing down one-half, skim the liquor in which the meat was parboiled; put it over the fire with a cup of washed rice, and cook the latter tender. When there is but one cup of gravy left upon the bones, etc., strain, season highly with pepper, salt, and nearly a teaspoonful of curry powder. Chop, also, a quarter of a pickled onion, and mix in. Roll a tablespoonful of butter in a heaping spoonful of browned flour, and when the gravy is hot stir it in; lastly, put in the mutton, and when nearly on the boil, draw aside. Drain the rice, and season well. Pile the meat upon a hot dish, and make a fence of rice about it.

Green Peas.

Open a can of green peas, drain, and cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Strain off the water; dish the peas, stir in butter, pepper, and if needed, salt.

Cheese Fondu.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, butter, seasoning, and at last, the cheese. Butter a bake-dish; pour in the fondu; cover with crumbs, and bake in a brisk oven. Serve at once, as it soon falls.

Farina Hasty Pudding with Sauce.

Heat the milk, when the farina has soaked two hours in just enough water to cover it, and has absorbed it all. Salt the milk and stir in the farina. Boil half an hour, steadily stirring now and then, from the bottom. Add the butter; and let the pudding stand in hot water three minutes after you cease to stir, before turning out into an open, deep dish. Make a good sauce of butter, sugar, and nutmeg, and eat with it.

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Crust Soup.

Pour the boiling water upon the crusts, which should be broken small. Set in a pot of boiling water for one hour, with a small onion minced fine, and the seasoning. Meanwhile skim the cold soup (or any good gravy) and heat to a boil. At the end of the hour, add the butter to the bread, and cover ten minutes longer. Then turn into the soup; beat up the bread and stir in the parsley. Simmer fifteen minutes, beat the eggs light, pour a little of the soup upon them to heat them before stirring them well into the contents of the kettle. Take from the fire at once, lest the eggs should curdle.

Mock Pigeons with Mushroom Sauce.

The fillets must be boneless. Sprinkle with pepper and spread with force-meat. Roll up closely and wind with packthread. Put into a dripping-pan with enough water to half cover them. Invert a pan over them, and bake from forty-five minutes to one hour in proportion to their size. Boil, then blanch the sweetbread, by dropping it into cold water. Cut into dice, put into a cup of oyster liquor with a spoonful of butter, and simmer fifteen minutes. Baste the “pigeons” four times—twice with butter, and when tender, lay on a hot dish, clip and carefully withdraw the threads, and cover to keep warm. Add the gravy from the dripping-pan to the sweetbread; thicken with browned flour; boil once; put in the oysters and mushrooms, chopped, and stew five minutes quite[277] fast. Pour a few large spoonfuls, taking up the thickest part, over the “pigeons;” send the rest up in a sauce-boat. You will find this a very nice dish.

Baked Potatoes.

Parboil and skin while hot. Lay in a pan and anoint with beef-dripping or butter, from time to time, as they brown. Drain off the grease and serve hot, after peppering and salting.

Cabbage Sprouts and Eggs.

Boil the sprouts tender, drain well, pepper and salt. Lay some slices of crustless toast in a deep dish, and soak in boiling water; drain them and cover with a soft omelette made of three or four eggs, “stirred” up in a pan in which has been heated a spoonful of butter. Lay the sprouts upon this, butter well and eat hot.

Bread and Raisin Pudding.

Butter the bread. Make a raw custard of eggs, sugar and milk. Line the bottom of a buttered dish with the bread. Wet with custard; strew with raisins, and lay in more bread. Go on in this order until the dish is full. The uppermost layer should be of bread, well buttered and soaked. Cover the dish; set in boiling water, and bake one hour, keeping the water at a fast boil. Turn out carefully, and pour hot, sweet sauce over it. The liquor from brandied peaches, made hot, with a little butter, makes a delicious sauce for it.[278]

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Bouillon of Beef.

Cover the beef with the water and cook slowly one hour. Meanwhile, cut the vegetables into long strips—not too thin—leaving the sprouts whole. Cook them all in boiling, salted water twenty minutes. Throw this water away, and at the end of the hour, skim the soup well, and put in the vegetables. Stew all very slowly two hours longer. There must never be a fast boil. Take out the beef; put into a dripping-pan; pour a cup of the soup (strained), seasoned well with pepper, salt, and mustard, over it; dredge thickly with flour and brown in a good oven, basting every few minutes. Take half the vegetables from the pot and keep hot. Rub the rest through a colander; season the soup and pulp, add the herbs and return to the saucepan; boil sharply five minutes; stir in butter and flour; simmer five minutes, and the soup is ready for the tureen. Season the reserved vegetables, and having dished your beef, lay them, very hot, around it. Serve with each slice.

Tomato Omelette with Cheese.

Break six eggs into a bowl and give about a dozen whirls of the beater, just enough to mingle whites and yolks well. Have ready in a frying-pan a great spoonful[279] of butter. When it begins to hiss, run it quickly over the bottom of the pan, and pour in your eggs. Take the handle of the pan in one hand, a cake-turner in the other, and with the latter, loosen all around the edges of the omelette, while with the other hand you shake the pan to keep the eggs free from the bottom. In about three minutes, the eggs should be “set,” but still soft. Let an assistant lay upon one-half of the omelette five or six slices of canned tomatoes. Fold the other half over this by a dexterous motion of the turner; invert a hot dish upon the pan; upset the latter, and dish the omelette. Have at hand a handful of dry cheese, grated and seasoned with pepper and salt. Strew the omelette thickly, singe with a red-hot shovel held very close to the cheese, and serve hot.

N. B.—Teach your cook the art of omelette-making at breakfasts, and she will soon be capable of managing this very delightful entrée.

Savory Rice Pudding.

Boil the rice with the whole onion in the broth, adding more, or hot water, as it swells. When the rice is soft and has soaked up the broth, remove the onion and add a raw custard made of the milk, egg, pepper, and salt. Mix well with the meat, put into a greased mould, set in a pan of boiling water, and bake, covered, until firm. Keep the water boiling hard. About forty-five minutes should be ample time. Turn out and eat with meat.

Corn-Starch Custard Pie.

Boil the milk, stir in the corn-starch wet with milk. Boil one minute and cool. When cold, beat in the sugar, the yolks and two whites. Flavor, and bake in open shells of paste. When the custard is “set,” draw to the door of the oven, and cover with a méringue made of the reserved whites whipped stiff with two tablespoonfuls of white sugar and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Do this quickly and close the oven until the whites begin to color. Eat cold.

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Frugal Soup.

Break the bones, chop the meat, vegetables, and herbs, and cook slowly three hours in the water. Soak the sago, all this time, in a little cold water. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables and liver through the colander; season, boil, and skim; put in the sago and cook half an hour more.[281]

Calf’s Liver à l’Anglaise.

Melt, but not heat the butter in a saucepan; lay in the liver, then the pork, next the minced parsley and onion, with a little salt and pepper. Cover closely, and set where it will heat very slowly without boiling, for one hour and a half. Then increase the heat gradually until the gravy begins to bubble. Remove from the fire; cover the liver in a hot water dish, thicken the gravy in the saucepan and pour over it when it has boiled one minute. Please obey these directions implicitly.

Potato Croquettes.

Mix soft, as for hominy croquettes, roll in egg and cracker, and fry in hot lard or dripping. You can make into long rolls, or round balls. Drain, and serve hot.

Spinach and Eggs.

Pick the leaves from the stems; cook twenty minutes in plenty of boiling, salted water; drain, chop fine, return to the fire with butter, a little sugar, pepper, and salt. Beat until nearly dry, and very smooth; mould in a hot, oblong pan; turn out and garnish with sliced egg.

Cocoanut Pudding.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; cream butter and sugar, and beat in the yolks, then add to the soaked crumbs. Stir in corn-starch, beaten whites and flavoring—at last, cocoanut. Beat hard and bake forty-five minutes in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat cold.

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Onion Soup.

Fry the onions in the butter; strain the latter; return to the frying-pan and stir in the flour gradually, cooking until it is a light bistre color. Thin with boiling water, added slowly. Meanwhile, heat the milk, and work by degrees, into the potato. Then strain through a colander into a saucepan; add a piece of soda the size of a pea, and set within a pot of boiling water. Cook ten minutes,[283] season well, put in the flour and butter. Then mince the onions very fine, and stir in. Let all stand in the hot water ten minutes; add celery. Flavor and pour upon the fried bread, cut into dice and put into the tureen.

Salmon Croquettes.

Mince the fish; work in the butter, slightly warmed; the powdered yolks, the seasoning, raw eggs—finally, the crumbs. Make into rolls; shape well by rolling in a dish covered thickly with flour. Fry quickly in sweet lard. Roll each, when done, for one instant, upon a clean cloth to take off the grease. Lay a square of treble tissue-paper, red, green, and white, upon a dish (fringing the ends), and serve.

Mutton Chops—Broiled.

If you have not a “vertical broiler,” lay upon a hot gridiron—greased—and turn often over a clear fire, until nicely browned. Butter, salt, and pepper each one as it is taken from the fire.

Squeezed Potatoes.

Put old potatoes on in cold water, and cook soft. Skin rapidly, set over the fire for one minute; then, twist a soft, dry cloth around each one until you feel it crush but not quite break open. Lay each, as you squeeze it, within a hot dish, lined with a napkin. When all are in, turn the four corners of the napkin over the top to keep in the heat.

Parsnip Fritters.

Boil, scrape, and mash; take out fibres and hard bits. Work into four large parsnips one beaten egg, a teaspoonful[284] of flour, with pepper and salt. Make into small, round cakes, roll in flour and fry in good dripping. Drain well, and serve hot.

Almond Blanc-Mange.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of the milk. Heat the rest; add the almond-paste, and stir over the fire three minutes, then put in the sugar and gelatine, and stir five minutes more. Strain through thin muslin, pressing hard. When cool, pour into a wet mould, and set upon ice, or in cold water to form. Eat with cream and sugar. It is a good plan to blanch the almonds the day before they are to be pounded.

White Cake.

Please see “Common Sense in the Household” Series No. 1., “General Receipts,” page 334.

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Okra and Tomato Soup.

Crack the bones into splinters. Cut the meat into strips and mince the herbs. Put on in the water, and cook slowly, four hours. Strain off the liquor, and divide into two portions. Season the meat, bones, etc., highly, put them back into that portion designed for Sunday, and set aside in a cold place. Pour the stock for to-day’s soup back into the pot; season with salt and pepper; boil up, and skim, and add the okra, tomatoes, and sugar. Simmer half an hour, boil briskly one minute. Skim and serve.

Beef’s Heart.

Choose a fine, fresh one. Wash well, lay in salt and water an hour, then wipe dry. Stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, minced salt pork, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley with a little onion. Pack this in tightly, sew the heart up in coarse net, fitted well to it, and stew one hour and a half in weak broth. (A cupful can be taken from your soup stock.) At the end of this time, take it out, undo the cloth, and return the heart to the saucepan with enough gravy to half cover it. Add to this a tablespoonful of butter cut up in as much flour; pepper and salt to taste. Cover closely, and simmer half an hour, turning the heart as it browns. Dish it; add the juice of half a lemon to the gravy, boil once, and pour over the heart.

Ramakins.

Beat eggs, butter, and seasoning together; then the[286] cheese, lastly, the flour. Work all to a cream; spread thickly upon the bread, and brown lightly.

Potatoes à la Crème.

Heat a cupful of milk; stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter cut up in as much flour. Stir until smooth and thick; pepper and salt, and add two cupfuls of cold boiled potatoes, sliced, and a little very finely chopped parsley. Shake over the fire until the potatoes are hot all through, and pour into a deep dish.

Lima Beans.

Open the can an hour before it is needed, and empty into a bowl. When ready for the beans drain off the liquor and cook in boiling water twenty-five minutes. Drain, butter, pepper and salt, and serve.

Newark Pudding.

Beat the yolks. Add the crumbs soaked in a pint of the milk. Stir in the rice-flour, wet in cold milk; the reserved pint of milk; the butter, flavoring, the fruit, and lastly, the whisked whites. Bake one hour in a well-greased mould; turn out and eat with hard sauce.

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[287]

MAY.

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.[288]

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.

[289]

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.

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Yesterday’s Soup.

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.[290]

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.[291]

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.

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Veal and Tapioca Broth.

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[292] a beaten egg and spread thickly with a force-meat of crumbs, minced ham, and any other cold meat you may have, a teaspoonful of minced onion, a pinch of grated lemon peel, with pepper and salt, a beaten egg and three tablespoonfuls of cream or milk. Work these into a paste before spreading. Roll the steak upon them, binding closely with soft pack-thread. Have ready some dripping in a frying-pan, and cook the steak five minutes in this, turning as it browns. Now lay it in a dripping-pan with a cupful of boiling water; cover and bake forty minutes, basting and turning often. When done, remove the strings; lay the beef upon a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up and pour half over it—the rest into a boat.

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.

[293]

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.

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Hot Pot.

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[294] the soup over these, cover, and serve, having added the lemon-juice at the last. Send sliced lemon around with it.

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[295] (one with a silver stand for the table, if you have it), and brown in a quick oven, glazing with butter, when done.

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.

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Italian Minestra Soup.

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.[296]

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[297] until hot, then turn into a bake-dish. Break six eggs upon the top; put a bit of butter upon each; salt and pepper, and put into a quick oven until the eggs are “set.”

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.

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Canned Corn Soup.

[298]

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.[299]

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.[300]

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Minced Beef Soup.

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.

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Soup à l’Italienne.

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[303] two minutes, stirring all the while. Have ready four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese in the bottom of a tureen, pour in, first, the milk and eggs, then the soup. Stir all up well, and serve.

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.[304]

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.

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Macaroni Soup.

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.[305]

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.[306]

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Green Pea Soup.

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[307] little sugar, and a good spoonful of butter, and simmer ten minutes more.

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.

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Fine White Soup.

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[309] the liver twice. Then, take out the saucepan, and set over the fire, but cook slowly. When the liver is nicely browned below, turn it. At the end of forty minutes, boil up once sharply—and for the first time. Take out the liver, and keep hot. Add a little boiling water to the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and pour over the liver.

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.

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Mulligatawny Soup.

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.[311] Chop fine; put back in the saucepan with a great lump of butter, pepper, salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir and beat, and heap upon slices of buttered crustless toast laid upon a hot dish.

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.[312]

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A Soup Maigre.

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.[313]

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.[314]

Corn-Starch Cake.

Please see “Common-Sense in the Household” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 333.

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Sweetbread Soup.

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.[315]

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[316] bottom of a neat bake-dish (buttered), pour on the omelette, and bake until it has puffed up high and begins to “crust” well. Serve at once, or it will fall. Eight minutes should suffice to cook it—at the outside.

Tea and Albert Biscuits

May be partaken of at the same time with the omelette, or afterwards.

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Sago Soup.

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,[317] sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and one raw egg. Sew up the edges of the skin to keep in the stuffing, and roast about fifteen minutes—not more—for each pound, basting often, at first with the boiling water you have poured upon it, at the last twice with butter. When done, brush with beaten egg; sift crumbs all over it; put into a stout stone-ware dish—or one of block-tin—surround with the potato-edging, and brown in a quick oven. Pour off the fat from the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and serve in a boat.

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.[318]

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.

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Clam Soup.

Early in the morning crack your mutton-bone, and put on in a quart of cold water, at the back of the range. When[319] little more than a large cupful of liquor remains, take it off and strain into a bowl to cool. When perfectly cold take off the fat, put in a quart of clam liquor and the hard parts of fifty clams. Season with a teaspoonful of minced onion, as much chopped parsley, a pinch of mace, pepper and salt to taste, and cook, covered, half an hour after the boil begins. Heat in another vessel two cups of milk; when hot, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a heaping tablespoonful of flour, and set in boiling water to keep hot, after it has boiled two minutes. Strain the soup back into the pot, put in the soft parts of the clams—the only digestible portions—and simmer five minutes. Pour the thickened milk into the tureen, stir in the soup, and serve.

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.[320]

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.

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Brown Beef Soup.

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.[321]

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.

[322]

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.

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Green Asparagus Soup.

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[323] a minute, the green water. Simmer five minutes more, and pour out. Dip up from the bottom with each ladleful in helping the soup.

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,[324] and as much warmed butter, with two tablespoonfuls of prepared flour. Beat thoroughly, season with pepper and salt, and fry, by the spoonful, upon a greased griddle.

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.

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Sheep’s Head Soup.

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[326] of butter into a saucepan with a teaspoonful of sugar, a pinch of nutmeg, and pepper and salt. Stir in the spinach, and beat smooth while it heats. At the last add a tablespoonful of cream, or two of milk. Pour upon crustless slices of buttered toast laid upon a flat dish.

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.[327]

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Purée of Tomatoes.

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.[328]

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.[329]

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Amber Soup.

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[330] while still liquid, pour in half a cupful of boiling water. Let it stand thus until you are ready for it. The tapioca should have been soaking two hours in a little cold water. When the soup is cold, take off fat and scum—every particle; return to the scalded pot; boil up once, put in tapioca, and strain the sugar-water upon it. Simmer ten minutes, or until the tapioca is clear; skim once again, and pour out.

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[331] in two tablespoonfuls of butter; add pepper, and strain the hot butter over the rice in the dish. Pass grated cheese with it.

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.

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German Sago Soup.

Soak half a cup of German sago in a little cold water for two hours. Take the fat from the top of your soup[332] stock, and pour off carefully from the bones, etc. If you have any left from the “amber soup,” add that, and a cupful of boiling water. Heat, season, and skim; put in the sago, and simmer half an hour.

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.[333]

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Baked Hotch-Potch.

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.[334]

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.[335]

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Cracker Soup.

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[336] a hot tin platter for five minutes, and make cuts in the steak, here and there, to draw out the juices and enable the butter to penetrate it. This is a nicer way of flavoring a steak than the usual fashion of serving the onion with it.

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.[337]

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Scotch Broth.

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.[338]

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.[339]

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Mock Turtle Soup.

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[340] rice two hours in two cups of cold water; drain this off; put the rice into a farina-kettle with the gravy, previously heated to a boil, and a cup of boiling water. Season with salt and pepper, and cook tender, shaking up once in a while, but not stirring. When the rice is nearly dry, make a rounded hillock of it in the middle of a dish; strew with grated cheese, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven.

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.[341]

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Yesterday’s Soup.

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.[342]

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.

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Pea and Potato Soup.

Take the fat from the liquor, and put on with the onion and potatoes, sliced. Cook one hour; strain, rubbing the[343] vegetables through the sieve. Pepper, and return to the fire with the rice, parsley, and peas. Stew half an hour, or until the rice is tender. Pour out and serve. Dip up from the bottom in helping it out.

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.

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[345]

JUNE.

All-night Soup.

Cut the meat into dice, and chop the vegetables. Season, as you put them with sago and herbs in close layers, into a jar with a tight top. About eight o’clock on Saturday night, set this in a pot of boiling water (having tied a thick cloth over the lid of the jar) and cook until bed-time. Leave pot and jar upon the range. When the fire is built next day see that there is plenty of water in the pot, and pay no more attention to your soup, except to replenish the water in the pot with more, as hot from the tea-kettle, until half an hour before dinner is served. Then strain the contents of the jar, pressing the vegetables to a pulp. Divide the broth into two portions. Return one to the jar, with the meat, and set, when cold,[346] in the refrigerator for to-morrow. Put the other into a saucepan, boil two minutes, skim, add the catsup, and pour into the tureen. Mem.: Never forget to let the soup stand in a broad bowl after straining, long enough for the fat to rise and be skimmed off.

Roast Beef and Round Potatoes.

Roast the meat in the usual manner, and, about half an hour before taking it out, pour off three-quarters of the gravy from the dripping-pan and lay about the meat some balls of mashed potato, worked smooth, with pepper, salt and a raw egg, moulded in your hands, and rolled in flour. Turn as they brown, and, when done, drain off the grease, and dish with the beef.

Boiled Macaroni.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces; cook about twenty minutes in salted boiling water. It should be clear at the edges, but not ragged. Drain well, pepper and salt, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter. Strew grated cheese over the top when dished, and pass more with it at table.

Green Peas.

Cook from twenty to twenty-five minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Drain very well when tender, stir in a great lump of peppered butter, and serve hot in a vegetable dish.

Snow Custard.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of cold water. Add then a pint of boiling water, and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Put in two-thirds of the sugar and all the lemon-juice. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff, and[347] when the gelatine is quite cold, whip it in, a spoonful at a time, for half an hour with the “Dover”—an hour, if you use the common egg-whisk. When all is a white sponge, put into a wet mould to form. Make a custard of the milk, yolks, and the reserved sugar, flavor as you like, and when the “snow” is turned out into a glass dish, pour this around the base. Prepare this dessert on Saturday, and keep in the refrigerator. It is very nice.

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Tomato Soup.

Peel, by pouring boiling water over them, a dozen fine tomatoes, cut them up, throwing aside the hard cores and unripe portions. Take the fat from the surface of your soup stock; pour it off from the meat and sediment; add the tomatoes, and stew gently half an hour. Strain, rubbing the tomatoes through the sieve; return to the pot; add a little pepper and salt, a lump of sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil one minute, and pour out. It will be a delicious soup.

Larded Beef.

Make perpendicular incisions in your cold roast, having trimmed the top smoothly, and thrust in lardoons of fat salt pork, set closely together. Take the fat from the cold gravy, and add to the latter a little minced onion, a tablespoonful of catsup, and a large cup of boiling water. Lay the meat in a dripping-pan, pour the gravy upon it,[348] invert another pan over it, and cook in a moderate oven about an hour. Turn the meat once, and baste six times with the gravy. Dish the meat; strain the gravy, thicken it with browned flour, boil up and pour into a boat.

Stewed Cream Potatoes.

Peel and cut into neat dice. Leave in cold water half an hour; then cook as long in boiling water, salted. Drain this off before the potatoes break; add half a cup of milk (or cream) with a pinch of soda. When it heats, stir in a generous lump of butter cut up in a teaspoonful of flour, and a mere pinch of finely-grated lemon-peel. Stew one minute and pour into a deep dish.

Spinach Dressed with Egg.

Boil the spinach in plenty of hot water, salted, for twenty minutes. Drain and press out the water. Chop fine; put back over the fire with a large spoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of sugar, with salt and pepper to taste, also a little nutmeg. Beat until hot and smooth; turn into a hot, deep dish, and cover with a dressing of the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs, left to cool, then pounded in a Wedgewood mortar, and rubbed to a paste with a teaspoonful of melted butter, one of cream, and lastly, one of lemon-juice. Spread over the surface of the spinach and garnish with a border of the sliced whites.

Strawberries and Cream.

Cap the berries, and pile in a glass bowl. Do not sugar them, but pass powdered sugar and cream with each saucerful.

Martha’s Cake.

An economical and very nice variety of jelly-cake, easily made, and which keeps well. Please see “Common Sense in the Household” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 314.[349]

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Quick Beef Soup.

Put onion and other vegetables with spice on in two quarts of water, and boil down to three pints. Strain and press over the beef. Season with pepper, salt, and catsup; simmer half an hour, or until the meat is nearly white and the soup brown, and serve with the meat in it. The vegetable liquor must be boiling when it is poured upon the minced beef.

Lamb Chops.

Broil quickly over a clear fire; pepper and salt; butter on both sides, and lay in a heap, symmetrically arranged, in the centre of a dish, surrounded by the potato purée.

Purée of Potatoes.

Mix all up well; put into a greased saucepan, and stir until hot, never allowing it to stick to the sides or scorch, and lay, in a white hedge, about the chops.[350]

Asparagus Rolls.

Cut off the top of each roll; pick out the crumb carefully, and set the hollowed rolls, with their tops, in a slow oven to dry to crispness. Boil the asparagus twenty minutes, cut off the green tops, and let them get perfectly cold. Then heat the milk; stir in the butter; pour upon the beaten yolks; beat one minute with your egg-whisk; return to the fire; put in the asparagus-tops—minced—leaving out as many whole tops as you have rolls—stir until very hot, but not until it boils. Fill your rolls with the mixture; make a round hole in the top of each crust-cover; fit in a bit of asparagus, as if it had sprouted from below; fit each cover upon its roll, and the pretty and delightful dish is ready.

Lettuce.

Pick hearts and blanched leaves from the stems; pile in a salad-bowl, and cover with a dressing made of two tablespoonfuls of oil, one teaspoonful of white sugar, half as much each of salt, pepper, and made mustard—all rubbed smooth together—then thickened, rather than thinned, by whipping in a few drops at a time, four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Stir up with a silver fork after the dressing goes on.

Rosie’s Rice Custard.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten eggs, salt, then, the rice stirred warm into the milk. Bake in a buttered dish half an hour in a quick oven. Eat warm.[351]

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Chicken Broth.

Put water and chicken on quite early in the day, and cook slowly until the water has boiled down to about three and a half quarts, and the chicken slips easily from the bones. Take off all the meat, and return the bones to the pot. Cook gently until an hour before dinner, when strain, and let it cool. Take off the fat; return to the fire—with the seasoning and rice—and simmer half an hour, or until the rice is soft. Have the milk heated in a separate vessel, with a pinch of soda; pour upon the beaten eggs; put back over the fire, and stir until it begins to thicken. Turn into the tureen. Boil up the chicken broth once sharply, and add to the milk in the soup-tureen, stirring up well.

Fried Shad au Gratin.

Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad. Take off head, tail, and fins, and cut into eight pieces. Pepper and salt these; dip into beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping or lard. Drain, and serve on a hot, flat dish. The roes should be parboiled, then cooled—afterward dipped in egg and cracker, fried in the same manner as the fish, and dished with it.

Milanaise Pudding.

Boil the macaroni in the broth until tender; then let it cool somewhat, and, with a pair of old scissors, clip it into inch lengths. Chop ham and chicken, and pepper. Mix with the macaroni—which should have absorbed the broth—stir in the melted butter and eggs. Put into a well-greased mould, and boil an hour and a half. Turn out; pour over it a cup of drawn butter, and serve. Pass grated cheese with it.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual and pass with the fish course.

Navy Beans.

This is a variety of white kidney beans. Shell and lay them in cold water half an hour, to take off the raw, rank taste. Cook about twenty-five minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Drain well; pepper, salt, and butter. Eat hot.

Cottage Pudding.

Cream butter and sugar; beat in the yolks, then the salted flour, alternately with the whites. Bake in a buttered cake-mould until a straw will come up clean from the middle. Turn out and eat hot with sweet sauce.[353]

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White Asparagus Soup.

Crack the bones to splinters and chop the meat. Put on with all the asparagus stalks and one-half of the heads. Cover with the water and cook gently, covered, three hours. Strain; cool to let the grease rise; skim and return to the pot with the seasoning and reserved heads of asparagus. Boil slowly for twenty minutes longer. Heat the milk separately, salt and pepper, and stir in the corn-starch, boiling one minute to thicken it. Pour into the tureen upon the dice of fried bread; stir into this the boiling soup, and send to table.

Stuffed Fillet of Veal with Bacon.

Take out the bone from the meat, and pin into a round with skewers. Bind securely with soft tapes. Fill the cavity left by the bone with a force-meat of crumbs, chopped pork; thyme, and parsley, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of lemon-peel. Cover the top of the fillet with thin slices of cold, cooked, fat bacon or salt pork, tying them in place with twines crossing the meat in all directions. Put into a pot with two cups of boiling water, and cook slowly and steadily two hours. Then take from the pot and put into a dripping-pan. Undo the strings[354] and tapes. Brush the meat all over with raw egg, sift rolled cracker thickly over it, and set in the oven for half an hour, basting often with gravy from the pot. When it is well browned, lay upon a hot dish with the pork about it. Strain and thicken the gravy, and serve in a boat.

If your fillet be large, cook twice as long in the pot. The time given above is for one weighing five pounds.

Scooped Potatoes.

Pare and cut round with a potato-gouge—a neat little instrument that costs but a trifle. The waste bits can be boiled, mashed, and set by for to-morrow’s uses. Boil the scooped pellets in hot, salted water twenty minutes; throw this off and put in a cup of cold milk. Simmer gently until the potatoes are tender; stir in a good lump of butter rolled in flour, and when this is melted, a little minced parsley, with pepper and salt. Stew three minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

Tomato Salad.

Pare with a keen knife; arrange upon a glass dish and cover with a dressing like that made on Tuesday for lettuce, but adding the beaten yolks of two raw eggs, whipped in the last thing.

Hominy Pudding.

Rub the hominy very smooth with the butter; then the yolks, beaten up with the sugar. Beat well before thinning with the salted milk. Lastly, add the frothed whites. Bake in a greased pudding-dish until nicely browned.

Cocoanut Puddings.

Scald the milk and pour, gradually, upon the beaten eggs. Do not return to the fire, but, when nearly cold, season, add the cocoanut; stir up well; pour into buttered cups, and bake by setting in a pan of boiling water, and stirring again as the custard begins to heat, that the cocoanut may not settle to the bottom. Bake until well “set,” and slightly browned. Eat cold.

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Clam Chowder.

Put a layer of clams in the bottom of a soup-pot, next one of sliced tomatoes and onion. Sprinkle with seasoning,[356] and drop bits of butter upon them. More clams, more tomato, etc., until all are in. Pour on the liquor—there should be at least three pints—cover, heat slowly for half an hour, then boil quite briskly for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, soak the split crackers—covered—in the boiling milk. When soft all through, butter thickly, and keep warm over boiling water until the soup is ready. Then line a hot tureen with them, and pour in the chowder. Pass sliced lemon with it.

Baked Pickerel.

Select a couple of large, fresh fish; score the back-bones with a sharp knife, and lay them in a baking-pan. Pour a cupful of boiling water over them, cover, and bake slowly, basting with butter and water, at least six times. The fish should be tender, yet firm when done. Transfer them carefully to a hot-water dish. Have ready a cupful of rich, drawn butter; strain the gravy from the dripping-pan into it, with a little minced parsley. Heat almost to a boil and pour over the fish. There is no better way of cooking large pickerel than this.

Veal Scallop.

Chop the remains of your fillet fine, and season with pepper and salt. Put a layer of dry crumbs in a buttered bake-dish; stick bits of butter over it; cover with the meat and wet this with gravy and warm milk. Repeat this order of strata until your dish is full, covering deep with crumbs. Fit a tin cover on the top and bake half an hour; remove the lid and brown nicely. Serve in the bake-dish.

Mashed Potatoes—Browned.

Mash soft with milk and butter; whip up to a cream; season, and make into a four-sided pyramid upon a greased pie-dish. Brown in a good oven and slip to a warm dish. Pass with the fish.

Green Peas.

Please see receipt given on Sunday of this week.[357]

Strawberry Shortcake.

Please see receipt given on Friday of Fourth Week in May. The strawberry season is so short that you can hardly give this popular dessert often enough to weary your family while the scarlet, flavorous beauties last.

Tea,

Hot and strong, will be the better for a little cream borrowed from the supply meant for your shortcake.

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Marlowe Soup.

Cut up meat and vegetables fine, and put with the water into the soup-kettle. Cook slowly four hours. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the colander. Divide the liquor into two parts. Put with the meat—all highly seasoned—into a stoneware vessel and[358] set by in the refrigerator. Let the other portion cool; take off the fat; season; put over the fire; boil and skim for a few minutes, and put in the rice. Simmer very gently half an hour, or until the rice is very soft.

Beef’s Tongue—(Langue du Bœuf).

Wash a large, perfectly fresh tongue in three waters. Then cover well with boiling water, a little salt—plenty of it—and cook about twelve minutes to the pound. Strip off the skin; dish, when you have trimmed away the root, and pour over it the following sauce: Strain a cup of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled; set over the fire, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in flour, pepper to taste; the juice of a lemon, and when this has thickened, two small pickled cucumbers, chopped. This is a dish whose merits deserve to be better known. (Save the liquor.)

Squeezed Potatoes.

Put on in cold water, and bring quickly to a boil. When soft enough to be pierced by a fork, turn off the water; throw in a little salt, and dry on the range. Tear off the skins quickly, and as soon as each is bare, envelop it in the corner of a dry, hot towel and twist the same tightly around it for a second, but not quite breaking it. Pile within a napkin-lined dish, and send up hot.

French Beans—Sautés.

Top, tail, and “string” with care. Cut into short pieces. Cook in boiling water, a little salt, until tender—say thirty minutes, if they are full-grown. Drain well; return to the saucepan with two great spoonfuls of butter, salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of vinegar. Toss until very hot, and turn into a hot, deep dish.

Young Beets.

Boil in hot, salt water one hour. When done, rub off the skins; split the beets lengthwise and lay upon a hot dish. Have ready a great spoonful of melted butter,[359] mixed with two of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, heated to boiling, and pour over the beets. Be careful not to break the skin of raw beets, or they will lose their color in the hot water while cooking.

Cherry Pie.

Line your pie-dish with a good paste; fill with a mixture of sour and sweet cherries; sweeten plentifully; cover with paste printed at the edge and slit in the middle, and bake until nicely colored. Eat fresh, but not warm, with white sugar sifted over the top.

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Tomato and Pea Soup.

Take the fat from the liquor in which the tongue was boiled yesterday; set it over the fire, and, when boiling, put in the empty pods of two quarts of peas. Boil half an hour; take from the fire and strain out the pods. About half an hour before dinner, take the fat from the “stock” set aside yesterday, and pour off from the meat and sediment into the soup-pot. While it is slowly heating, put on the water in which the pods were boiled, with the peas and two quarts of peeled and sliced tomatoes, in another pot, and bring more rapidly to the boil. Cook twenty-five minutes, then stir in two lumps of white sugar, two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, pepper well, boil up, and rub through a colander into the main soup-kettle. Simmer all together three minutes, and it is[360] fit for use. Pour half into the tureen; cool the rest and remand to the refrigerator.

Stewed Lamb with Mushroom Sauce.

Let your butcher take out the bones from the lower side of a shoulder of lamb, leaving in the shank. Fill the cavity thus left with a good force-meat of crumbs, chopped pork, and sweet herbs, and sew the meat edges together to hold it in. If you have no gravy ready make a pint on Saturday of the lamb trimmings and a few veal-bones, with seasoning. It need not be strong. Put the lamb into a broad pot, with some thin slices of fat pork laid in the bottom; pour in the gravy, cover tightly, and stew gently one hour. Turn the meat then, and cook twenty minutes longer. Lay the lamb upon a hot dish, and butter it all over. Cover, and keep warm over hot water while you make the sauce. Have ready half a can of mushrooms, boiled and chopped. Strain the gravy left in the pot, add the mushrooms, and stew five minutes; thicken with browned flour; boil up and pour over the lamb. Garnish with alternate slices of green pickle and boiled beets.

Lima Beans.

Shell; lay in cold water twenty minutes, and cook in slightly salted boiling water about half an hour, or until tender. The time depends much upon age and size. Drain well; pour into a deep dish; pepper, salt, and butter.

Green Peas.

Receipt given on Sunday of First Week in this month.

Stewed Turnips.

Peel and slice young turnips. Boil fifteen minutes in hot, salted water; throw this off, and add half a cup of milk and as much boiling fresh water. When this heats, stir in a generous lump of butter, rolled in a teaspoonful of flour, with pepper and salt to taste. Simmer ten minutes longer, or until tender, and pour into a deep dish. Eat very hot.[361]

Lemon Blanc-Mange.

Add to the soaked gelatine the lemon-juice and peel, sugar and spice. Leave standing one hour. Then pour on the boiling water. Stir until clear, add the wine, and strain through double tarlatan. While it is cooling, whip the whites very stiff. When the gelatine begins to coagulate around the edge of the dish, whip it, little by little, into the frothed whites until it is stiff. Put into a wet mould, and set upon the ice. On Sunday turn it out, and pour a rich liqueur—that from brandied peaches is best—about the base. Preserved strawberries are also very nice with it if you have no liqueur.

Coffee and Cake.

If you prefer, you can give the cake with the blanc-mange, and drink the coffee afterwards.

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“Once-Again” Soup.

A good soup, founded upon such stock as you made on Saturday, is better the third day than the first. Therefore,[362] take off the fat from the portion kept on the ice since yesterday’s providential division, and warm it slowly, almost to a boil. If you have time, cut some fried bread into dice and put into the tureen before you pour in the soup.

Cold Lamb.

Do not murder the well-cooked, juicy innocent of yesterday by hashing and reheating. A nice dish of cold lamb, trimmed and garnished with cresses and cool, white lettuce, is goodly to the eyes—and taste—on a sultry June day.

Cheese Fondu.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Butter a pudding-dish; put in the mixture; strew the top with fine crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown quickly. Eat soon, as it will fall in cooling.

Raw Tomatoes.

See receipt for Tuesday of first week in this month for dressing lettuce, when you have peeled and sliced the tomatoes.

Potatoes en Robe de Chambre.

If you use Bermuda potatoes, cook in boiling water. If you take old potatoes, put on in cold and bring rapidly to a boil. Throw off the water when they are done, set back on the range, uncovered, to dry out, and send to table with the skins on.

Floating Island.

Beat yolks and sugar light, and pour on, by degrees, the boiling milk. Pour back into the farina-kettle, and heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. When cold, flavor, and pour into a glass dish. Pile with a méringue of the whites beaten up with half a cup of currant jelly. Ornament with dots of jelly.

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A Summer Mélange Soup.

Put on the meat in the water, and cook, slowly, three hours, to extract every particle of nourishment from the beef. Peel and slice the vegetables, and lay all, except the tomatoes, in cold water for half an hour. At the end of the three hours, strain the soup; return to the pot and put in all the vegetables with salt and pepper. Stew for one hour, covered; stir in the butter and simmer half an hour longer before turning it out.[364]

Rolled Beef.

Make your butcher take all the bones out of a rib-roast. (Keep them for to-morrow’s soup.) Make him also roll the meat into a round, and skewer it securely. Wash it all over with vinegar, then rub with hot butter mixed with minced onion and pepper, working this well between the folds of meat. Put into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of gravy from the boiling soup—before the vegetables are added—about the base, and a few spoonfuls of butter and water upon the top. Roast twelve minutes to the pound, basting freely and often. Towards the last, dredge with flour, and rub over with butter to make a brown froth. Pour off the fat from the gravy, strain what is left; add, if needed, a little boiling water; thicken with browned flour, and serve in a boat.

Boiled Onions.

Top and tail; skin and cook fifteen minutes in boiling fresh water. Throw this off, add more from the boiling tea-kettle; salt slightly, and boil until tender all through. Drain, butter well, and pepper and salt.

Stuffed Tomatoes.

Select large, smooth tomatoes; cut a piece from the top of each, and scoop out seeds and pulp. Chop fine what you have removed; season with butter, pepper, salt and sugar; add one-third as much bread-crumbs; work all well together, and fill the skins with the mixture. Replace the tops; put the rest of the stuffing between the tomatoes when you have set them close together in a bake-dish. Bake, covered, half an hour, in a moderate oven; then uncover and cook ten minutes longer, or until browned and soft.

Baked Omelette aux Fines Herbes.

Make this a course between soup and meat, passing bread and butter with it.

Beat the yolks light, and pour upon them the hot milk. Stir in the corn-starch, season, whip in the frothed whites, lastly, the herbs. Have ready a nice pudding-dish, well buttered. Set in the oven until hot; butter again, and pour in the omelette. Bake about twelve minutes, or until “set” in the middle, but not longer, or it will be a leathery puff. It should be very light. Send up—instantly.

Strawberries and Cream.

Orange Cake.

Serve as directed on Monday of last week.

The orange cake, if made on Friday or Saturday, will have kept perfectly well, if the cake-box—a tight one—containing it has been set in the refrigerator. For directions for making it please consult “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,” page 318.

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Broiled Bones Soup.

[366]

Crack the bones well, and lay upon a gridiron above the coals until they are hot, and the bits of meat adhering to them are frizzled. Meanwhile, fry the pork and onions together in a frying-pan until the latter are a fine brown. Strain out the pork and onions; put back the fat into the pan and fry the bones five minutes. Lay the onions in the soup-pot with the chopped herbs, then the bones. Cover with the water and boil slowly three hours. Strain; cool, and take off the fat. Set over the fire; season, boil once to throw up the scum; skim, and put in the tapioca, which should have soaked two hours in a little cold water. Simmer until the tapioca is clear; put in the catsup, and serve.

Boiled Chickens.

Clean, wash, and stuff as for roasting. Sew each up in thin muslin, or tarlatan, fitted closely to the shape, and put on in plenty of boiling water, a little salt. Boil twelve minutes to the pound (taking the heavier chicken as the standard) if they are tender. If doubtful, take a longer time, and cook more slowly. When done, lay upon a heated dish, and pour over them a cupful of drawn butter, made from the pot liquor, thickened with butter rolled in flour, and with an egg beaten up in it with a little chopped parsley. See “Drawn Butter, No. 3,” in “General Receipts,” page 184.

Rice Croquettes.

Boil a cup of rice soft in weak broth, made from a cupful of the chicken pot-liquor, mixed with boiling water and salted. Drain, and stir in a couple of beaten eggs; a teaspoonful of butter, a mere dust of flour, pepper, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel. Stir up in a saucepan until thick and hot, and spread out to cool. When cold, flour your hands; make the paste into long balls; roll each in raw egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry carefully to a yellow-brown.

Asparagus upon Toast.

Tie the bunch of asparagus up with soft string, when you have cut away the wood, and cook about twenty-five[367] minutes in salted boiling water. Have ready some slices of crustless toast; dip each in the asparagus-liquor; butter well while hot and lay upon a heated dish. Drain the asparagus, and arrange upon the toast. Pepper, salt, and butter generously.

Potato and Beet Salad.

Slice a cupful of cold boiled potatoes. Chop a red beet, also boiled, but lukewarm, and pour over it four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Let it stand while you rub together a teaspoonful of salt, half as much each of pepper, sugar and made mustard, with a full tablespoonful of oil, and a very little green pickle, minced fine. When this is ready, take out a tablespoonful of chopped beet, and strew among the sliced potatoes. Put them into a salad-bowl. Squeeze beets and vinegar through muslin into oil, etc. Beat up well, and pour over the cold potatoes.

Raspberry Shortcake—Hot.

Make these ingredients into a soft paste. Roll lightly into two sheets—that intended for the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower, less. Lay the bottom crust in a greased square pan. Strew thickly with the berries, sprinkle with sugar, and cover with the upper crust. Bake about twenty-five minutes, until browned, but not dry. Cut in squares, and send, piled upon a flat dish, to table. Split and eat with butter and sugar. It is good.[368]

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Chicken Panada Soup.

Take the fat from the cold “stock.” Heat the latter to boiling and add the chicken, minced as finely as it can be cut. Pepper and salt to taste, and simmer one hour. Make ready your hot milk, at the end of that time, pour upon the beaten eggs; stir over the fire two minutes and add the butter, and when this is melted, the crumbs. Take at once from the fire; put into the tureen and pour in the soup through a colander, rubbing into it all the meat that will pass the holes. Stir well, and serve. This soup is very nice.

Larded Mutton Chops.

Trim off all the fat and skin, and lard closely with strips of fat salt pork. Pepper, and put into a hot frying-pan. Fry them in the lardoon fat as it flows out in heating, and turn several times to cook both sides equally. Arrange upon a hot dish, one overlapping the next.

Green Pea Cakes.

[369]

When the peas are cold beat in the eggs, milk, and, at last, the flour. The batter should not be thick. Fry as you would griddle-cakes.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Pour boiling water over them to loosen the skins. When peeled, cut up small, leaving out the unripe and hard parts. Put over the fire with pepper, salt, and sugar to taste; at the end of twenty minutes’ stewing add a good piece of butter, and simmer ten minutes more.

String-Beans.

Cut off the stem and blossom ends; “string” with a sharp knife. Cut into short pieces and cook tender in boiling salted water. Drain, pepper, salt, and butter.

Strawberry Trifle.

Heat the milk; beat in yolks and sugar. Cook and stir until the custard begins to thicken. Slice your cake, and put a layer in a glass dish. Wet with the cream; cover with fresh, ripe berries, sprinkled with sugar, then more cake, cream, and berries, until the dish is three-quarters full. Pour the custard, gradually, over all. Beat the whites stiff with a little sugar and strawberry-juice, and heap roundly on the top. Lay rows of bright berries upon the méringue.[370]

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Purée of Potatoes.

Pour the water upon the potato, season with pepper and salt, and boil gently one hour, taking care that it does not burn. Then stir in the butter, and when this is melted, the hot milk. Let it begin to boil, and pour out.

Salmon Scallops.

Chop the fish fine; rub the butter and seasoning into it, and stir into the hot, drawn butter. Butter scallop-shells, or paté-pans, fill with the mixture, and strew it with fine crumbs. Bake a few minutes in a quick oven to brown them lightly. Serve in the shells.

Fricassee of Sweetbreads.

Wash the sweetbreads; boil five minutes; then lay in ice-cold water. Slice and cover them with the gravy, and stew three-quarters of an hour. Heat the cream—or milk—in another saucepan, putting in a pinch of soda. Pour upon the eggs, and returning these to the fire, cook one minute. Stir in the butter and the parsley. Take both saucepans from the fire and empty one into the other. Stir all together well, and pour into a hot deep dish.

Raw Tomatoes.

See receipt for last Monday.

Roasted Potatoes.

Wash fair-sized potatoes and bake on the oven floor until soft to the grasp of thumb and forefinger. Wipe and send to table wrapped in a napkin.

Baked Cherry Dumplings.

Rub the lard into the salted flour, wet up with the milk; roll into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick; and cut into squares about four inches across. Put two great spoonfuls of cherries in the centre of each; sugar them; turn up the edges of the paste and pinch them together. Lay the joined edges downward, upon a floured baking-pan, and bake half an hour or until browned. Eat hot with a good sauce.[372]

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Ox-head Soup.

Wash the head in three waters; break the bones with a few smart blows of a hammer. Put it on in the cold water; bring to a slow boil and skim well. Then add the sliced vegetables, and stew gently three hours. The liquor should be reduced to four quarts. Take out the head and set in the open air to cool. Strain the liquor, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp. Return half of it to the fire—season and skim as it boils, for five minutes; then add three-fourths of the meat from the head, cut into dice. Simmer half an hour, and serve. Put bones and the rest of the meat, well seasoned, into a jar; season the reserved “stock,” and pour it in, and keep in the refrigerator until to-morrow.

Corned Beef.

Boil in plenty of hot water, fifteen minutes—at least—to the pound. Serve drawn butter (made from the pot-liquor), with chopped cucumber-pickle stirred in it, in a sauce-boat. Save the liquor and set in a cool place.

Mashed Turnips.

Boil tender in hot salted water. Drain, mash and press, and stir in butter, salt and pepper.[373]

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and serve without browning.

Green Peas.

See Sunday of First Week in this month.

Raspberries and My Lady’s Cake.

Send around powdered sugar with the berries. For directions for the cake-making, I beg to refer to “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,” page 329.

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Rice and Tapioca Soup.

Take the fat from your stock; pour it from the bones and meat, and heat slowly. Have ready a cup of boiled rice—hot—and half a cup of granulated tapioca, which has been soaked two hours in a little cold water. When the soup boils, put them in, and simmer gently half an hour. Should it be too thick, add a little boiling water.

Smothered Chicken.

Clean and split a pair of young chickens down the back as for broiling. Lay them in a dripping-pan; dash a cup of boiling water, in which have been stirred two tablespoonfuls of butter, over them, and, covering with another pan, cook until tender, and of an equal yellow-brownish tint all over. Lift the pan, now and then, to[374] baste freely—four times with the gravy—twice, toward the last, with melted butter. Lay the chickens in a hot-water dish; add pepper, salt, a chopped boiled egg, finely minced, and a little minced parsley, with browned flour, to the gravy. Boil up, and pour half over the chicken, the rest into a gravy-boat.

Mashed Squash.

Peel, seed, and slice fresh summer squashes. Lay in cold water ten minutes; put into boiling water, a little salt, and cook tender. Twenty minutes will suffice if the squash be young. Mash in a colander, pressing out all the water; heap in a deep dish, seasoning with pepper, salt and butter. Serve hot.

String-Beans.

See Thursday of Second Week in this month.

Beets Sautés.

Boil young sweet beets until nearly done—say forty-five minutes. Skin and slice them. Have ready in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one tablespoonful of vinegar, a small onion minced, salt and pepper. When this begins to simmer, put in the beets, and cook ten minutes, shaking the saucepan frequently, to prevent scorching. Put the beets into a root-dish, and pour the dressing upon them.

Cream Pudding.

Heat the milk, stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk; then the beaten yolks and sugar. Add to these the heaping cup of boiled rice. Stir until it begins to thicken, add the seasoning, and pour into a buttered[375] bake-dish. Bake until well “set”; spread with a méringue of the whites and a little sugar, made very stiff. When this has colored lightly, take from the oven.

Make on Saturday, and set on ice until Sunday. The colder it is, the better.

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Green Pea Soup.

Take the fat from the top of the corned-beef liquor; add the beef-bones and any others you may have. Boil gently one hour, skimming often. Strain, and put in two quarts of green peas, a minced onion, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Cook forty-five minutes and rub to a pulp through a colander. Add pepper, heat to a boil and pour upon dice of fried bread laid in the tureen.

Beef Miroton.

Mince the remains of your corned beef; season with pepper, salt, a little chopped pickle, two boiled eggs chopped fine; wet with whatever gravy you may have, and put into a greased pudding-dish. Cover with mashed potatoes, made very soft with milk and butter, sift bread-crumbs over all, and bake, covered, half an hour, then brown. This is a nice way of warming over cold meat.

Asparagus Omelette.

[376]

Beat whites and yolks together, add the milk, then the boiled asparagus heads, cold and chopped fine. Have ready a frying-pan with a tablespoonful of butter in it, hot, but not frying. Pour in the mixture; shake well from the bottom as it forms, loosen from the pan with “spatula” or cake-turner; fold over in the middle, and turn the pan upside down upon a hot dish.

Tomato Salad.

Peel and slice your tomatoes, put into a salad-dish, and pour over them a dressing prepared as follows:

Rub yolks, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar and oil to a paste. Beat in the raw egg with your whisk, finally, the oil, a little at a time. Stir a great lump of ice into the dressing, whirling rapidly for half a minute. Take it out and pour the mixture over the salad.

Green Peas.

For Green Peas Receipt, see Sunday of First Week in this month.

Mountain Custard, or “Junket.”

Pour the milk, slightly warmed, into a glass bowl; sweeten, flavor, and stir in the rennet. Set in a rather warm place until it is firm, like “loppered” milk or blanc-mange; then put on ice. If at the end of an hour it remains liquid, put in more rennet. Do not let it stand until the whey separates from the curd. Two hours in[377] warm weather should be enough. Eat with cream and sugar.

Tea and Fancy Biscuits.

Peek & Freans, Mackenzie & Mackenzie, and Huntley & Palmer make the best fancy biscuits that come to the American market.

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Vermicelli Soup.

Put meat, bones, and sliced vegetables and herbs on in the water early in the day, and stew gently five hours. Strain and season. Set aside two quarts of stock, with the bones and meat, highly seasoned, until to-morrow, keeping upon the ice. Boil and skim the rest; add the vermicelli; simmer fifteen minutes, and pour out. Put in the catsup after the soup goes into the tureen.

Beefsteak.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet, and broil quickly about ten minutes over a clear, hot fire. Lay[378] between two hot dishes, with salt, pepper, and a great lump of butter upon it to draw the juices to the surface, for five minutes before serving.

Young Onions.

Cut off stems and tops, skin and cook them in plenty of boiling water for fifteen minutes. Have ready another saucepan with a large spoonful of butter melted in it, but not hissing hot. Put in the onions, with a little chopped parsley, and let them warm slowly ten minutes. Then add a cup of milk in which have been stirred salt, pepper, and half a teaspoonful of corn-starch. Simmer all for three minutes, stirring several times, and pour out.

Spinach.

Boil in hot, salted water twenty minutes. Drain well, and chop fine. Put into a saucepan with a good spoonful of butter, a little sugar, salt and pepper, a dust of nutmeg, and a few teaspoonfuls of milk, and beat until all resolve themselves into a smooth, soft paste.

Potato Puffs.

Mash and whip the potatoes very light with milk, butter, salt and pepper; lastly, the frothed white of an egg. Pile irregularly within a bake-dish, and set in the oven until light and delicately browned. Glaze with butter before taking it from the oven.

Strawberries and Cream.

Cap, but do not wash the berries. Never put berries that need washing upon the table as an uncooked dessert. Pile in a glass bowl, and pass sugar and cream with them.

Mother’s Cup-Cake.

Please see “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,” page 322.[379]

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Julienne Soup.

Pare and cut into small dice,

Cook ten minutes in salted boiling water, leaving out the tomatoes. Drain away the water, and spread the vegetables upon a dish to cool, while you take the fat from your cold soup-stock; strain the latter from the bones and meat, and heat to a gentle boil. Continue this for five minutes, skimming well; put in the parboiled vegetables, the tomatoes, and a pint of green peas, and stew steadily, but not fast, for half an hour. Pour out all together.

Lamb Cutlets.

Trim carefully, lay in a little warmed butter for an hour, turning several times. Then broil upon a greased gridiron, taking care they do not drip. Butter, pepper, and salt each, and lay them in a circle about the peas purée.

Purée of Green Peas.

Boil three pints of green peas until soft. Rub them, while hot, through a fine colander. Work in a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in flour; pepper and salt to taste; add three teaspoonfuls of milk, and stir in a saucepan until very hot and smooth. Put in the centre of a hot, flat dish, with the cutlets about it, and help out both at the same time.[380]

Potato Strips.

Pare large potatoes: cut into long strips; lay in ice-cold water one hour; dry between two towels and fry in salted dripping to a light brown. Drain well, and dish upon a folded napkin.

Lettuce.

Pull out and tear apart the white hearts, and heap within a salad-bowl. Rub together

Pour over the salad.

Ristori Puffs.

Use prepared flour always in this receipt. Cream butter and sugar, and beat in the yolks. Add the lemon; a pinch of soda, dissolved in a teaspoonful of hot water, then the beaten whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in muffin rings in a quick oven. Eat hot, with jelly sauce.

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Jelly Soup.

Boil the feet, onion, herbs, and the veal, cut into strips, in the water for four hours, diminishing the liquid to three quarts. Strain, and cool. Put two of the feet and the veal back into one quart of the broth; season, and set by on the ice. Take the fat from the rest; put the liquor, seasoned, over the fire, boil gently and skim, add the sago, previously soaked two hours in a cup of cold water, simmer tender, and pour out. You can, if you like, add a glass of pale sherry.

Stewed Sheep’s Tongues.

Speak for six sheep’s tongues several days before you want them, unless you have access to a large market. Wash well in several waters. Boil in hot, salted water half an hour, to loosen the skins. Take these off and trim neatly. Put a cupful of your soup—before adding the tapioca—into a saucepan, with a quarter-pound of sliced salt pork, a teaspoonful of chopped onion, pepper, and a lump of white sugar. Lay in the tongues, sliced lengthwise, and stew half an hour. Lay the slices in rows, overlapping one another, upon a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add the juice of a lemon, boil once, and pour upon the tongues.

Potatoes à la Louise.

Mash the potatoes, and whip with a fork to a light cream, adding milk and butter, salt and pepper. Heap upon a shallow pie-plate, well greased, and set in the oven until a white crust has gathered over it. Then, wash the mound well with beaten egg. Set in a moderate oven long enough to harden this, but not until the yellow changes to brown. Slip, without breaking, to another dish, by the help of the spatula.[382]

Spinach.

See receipt for Tuesday of this week.

Lima Beans.

See receipt for Sunday, Second Week in this month.

Raspberry Shortcake with Cream.

Substitute white or red raspberries for strawberries in the receipt for shortcake, given on Friday of First Week in this month.

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Halibut Chowder.

Put a layer of fish in the bottom of a pot; season, and sprinkle with parsley. Hide this with sliced potato. More fish, and yet more potatoes, until all are in, when cover with boiling water. Put on the lid, and simmer half an hour after the boil recommences. Have ready the hot milk in another saucepan; stir in the floured butter. Dip the crackers in boiling water, butter and salt them, and line the bottom of your tureen with them. Pour in the boiling milk; then the fish and potatoes. Send around sliced lemon with it.[383]

Chicken Pot-pie, with Dumplings.

Clean and cut up the chicken as for fricassee. Put a good layer of salt pork in the bottom of a broad, not too deep pot; then a small onion, sliced, the chicken, peppered, and enough cold water to cover it well. Over this lay a thick sheet of good “family” pie-crust. Stew one hour and a half; then brown the crust by putting a red-hot stove-cover on the top of the pot. Take off the crust with care, and set by. Take out the chicken and arrange upon a hot-water dish. If the gravy has boiled down too low, add a little hot water. Drop in while the liquor is boiling hot, squares or rounds of raw pie-paste; cook ten minutes, and lay upon the chicken. Stir into the gravy a large spoonful of butter rolled in flour; boil up, and pour upon the dumplings and chicken. Lay the crust on top.

Sea-Kale.

Boil fifteen minutes in hot, salted water. Drain well, and return to the fire, with a spoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and a little lemon-juice. Stir, or toss, five minutes, and heap upon rounds of buttered toast in a hot dish.

Baked Tomatoes.

Peel and slice large, ripe tomatoes. Chop fine a little streaked salt pork, or ham. Butter a pudding-dish, and cover the bottom with slices of tomato. Season with pepper and sugar, and strew with bread-crumbs. Then scatter chopped pork over it. Fill the dish in this order, having crumbs at the top. Cover closely, and bake half an hour, or until the juice bubbles up at the sides. Brown nicely, and serve in the dish.

Charlotte Russe.

Line a tin mould with straight sides with slices of cake, having the bottom in one piece, if possible. Whip the cream in a syllabub-churn, and, with your egg-beater,[384] whisk into this, gradually, the frothed whites and the sugar, flavoring to taste. Fill the cake-lined mould with this, cover with more slices, and set in ice for an hour or so. Pass a knife around the inside of the mould to loosen the cake, and invert upon a plate. Sift powdered sugar over it.

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Cream Soup.

If your jelly-soup stock has been kept upon the ice these two days, it is as good now as on Thursday. Take off the fat, add a pint of boiling water to the soup, and stew slowly for half an hour. Strain, add more seasoning, and skim for a few minutes until quite clear in boiling. Heat in another vessel a pint of milk; stir in a tablespoonful of butter and the same of corn-starch wet up in cold milk, with a little nutmeg. Pour this upon two beaten eggs, cook one minute, and put into the tureen. Add the boiling soup, and stir all up well. It will be wise to put a pinch of soda in the milk before boiling.

Boiled Mutton.

Put on in plenty of boiling water, salted, and cook twelve minutes to the pound. Take out, wipe carefully with a hot, wet cloth; butter all over, and serve with a cup of drawn butter sent up in a sauce-boat. Season the pot-liquor, and, when cool, put upon the ice.

Hot Slaw.

Shred a small white cabbage. Boil for fifteen minutes in hot water, salted. Throw this away, and add four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, the same quantity of your soup[385]-stock, with pepper and salt. Simmer in this ten minutes, stirring often. Turn out into a deep dish; pour over it half a cupful of drawn butter; set in a pan of boiling water five or six minutes, and serve.

Buttered Potatoes.

Slice cold boiled potatoes lengthwise. Put into a saucepan a good lump of butler, with pepper and salt. Add the potatoes as the butter melts, and shake over the fire until they are very hot and covered with a sort of glaze, but not browned.

Mashed Squash.

Receipt given last Sunday.

Cherry Roley-Poley.

Make a soft paste of flour, with the shortening chopped into it, and the milk. Roll out, a quarter of an inch thick, into an oblong sheet. Cover this with cherries; sprinkle with sugar, and roll up closely upon the fruit. In spreading the cherries, leave a narrow margin on both sides of the sheet. Baste the roll up in a bag floured well on the inside, and make a “felled” seam at the open end to keep out the water. Fit it exactly, but not tightly, to the shape of the pudding. Plunge into a pot of boiling water and keep it at a steady boil for one hour and a half. Dip the bag into cold water, rip the stitches, and turn out upon a hot dish. Eat with hard sauce.[386]

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Mutton, Rice, and Tomato Broth.

Take the fat from the surface of the liquor in which your mutton was boiled yesterday. Add to this broth the bones of the cold mutton well cracked, and let them boil slowly one hour and a half. Strain and cool to throw up the fat; remove this, and put the soup over the fire with one quart of ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut very fine, and half a cup of raw rice. Stew forty minutes. Add a lump of sugar; more pepper and salt, if needed, and a tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet in cold water. Boil one minute, and pour out.

Glazed Ham.

Boil a ham on Saturday, allowing twenty minutes to the pound, and let it get cold in the liquor. Set by then, and, early Sunday morning, skin it carefully, and trim away the rusty edges. Brush all over with beaten egg, and cover with a paste of rolled cracker wet up with milk, seasoned with pepper, and bound with beaten egg. It should be a quarter of an inch thick. Set the ham in the oven until this is lightly browned. Serve cold and slice thin. Garnish with frilled paper about the shank.

Green Peas.

Shell and lay in cold water fifteen minutes. Cook from twenty to twenty-five minutes in boiling salted water. Drain, put into a deep dish with a good lump of butter; pepper and salt to taste.[387]

Potatoes au Gratin.

Mash with milk and butter, and press firmly into a pretty mould wet with cold water. Turn out at once; sift fine dry crumbs all over the mould of potato; set in the oven five minutes to get it quite hot again, and serve.

Stewed Lima Beans.

Shell; lay in cold water ten minutes. Boil tender in hot, salted water. Drain this off, and add a scant cup of hot milk; a good spoonful of butter, rolled in a very little flour, with pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes and pour into a deep dish.

Tomato Salad.

Peel with a keen knife, and slice red, ripe tomatoes. Make a dressing like that for lettuce on Wednesday.

Spanish Cream.

Soak the gelatine in the milk two hours. Stir in the soda, and heat, stirring often. When scalding hot, pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar, and return to the farina-kettle. Boil one minute, stirring ceaselessly. Strain through tarlatan, and when cold, flavor and put into a wet mould. Set on the ice until wanted, and eat with cream and sugar. Make this, of course, on Saturday.

Coffee and Macaroons.

Bring these on last of all.[388]

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Bisque of Lobster.

Pound the coral and other soft parts of the lobster to a paste, and simmer five minutes in the boiling water; then rub through a colander back into the water. Cut the rest of the lobster-meat into dice, and put into a saucepan with the cracker-crumbs. Pour the red water over them, and heat to a boil, when add pepper, salt, and the butter. Simmer, covered, half an hour, taking care it does not scorch. Heat the milk, with a pinch of soda, in another vessel, and after the lobster is in the tureen, pour this in, boiling hot. Pass sliced lemon with it.

A Good “Pick-up” Dish.

Chop liver and ham; wet with the gravy; mix in seasoning and crumbs, and beat the eggs in. Put the mixture[389] into a well-greased mould; cover this and put into a dripping-pan full of boiling water. Cook thus one hour and a half, keeping plenty of water in the pan, and at a steady boil. Turn out upon a dish; pour a cup of drawn butter over it, and serve.

Baked Potato Balls.

Rub cold mashed potato, left from yesterday, smooth with a spoonful of warmed butter, and soft with warmed milk. Beat up an egg in it, and stir, until hot, in a clean, greased frying-pan, not allowing it to “catch” on the side. Then let it cool. When cold and stiff, make into balls, roll these in flour, and bake upon a greased pan until well browned. Pile upon a hot dish.

String-Beans.

See Thursday of Second Week in this month.

Lettuce.

See Wednesday of Third Week in this month.

Strawberries and Cream, and Wine Cake.

For Receipt for Cake please refer to “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,” page 341.

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Bread-and-Cheese Soup.

Put meat, bone, onion, and water together, and cook slowly four hours. Strain, pressing hard, cool, and take off the fat. Season, and heat to a boil; put in the parsley and corn-starch—the latter wet with cold water—and simmer five minutes. Heat the milk in a farina-kettle, pour upon the eggs, and re-heat, stirring constantly until they begin to thicken. Put bread-dice and cheese into the tureen; pour on the milk and eggs; then the hot soup. Stir up and serve.

Breast of Lamb with Macaroni.

Cover the bottom of a broad pot with very thin slices of fat salt pork or ham. Lay the lamb upon them. Take all the peel from a small lemon, and slice it, also very thin. Cover the lamb with this; then with more sliced pork. Mince a small onion and a bunch of sweet herbs, and scatter over these. Pour in a pint of boiling water. Put on a close lid with a weight on top, and cook very slowly two hours, turning the meat over at the end of the first hour. Meantime, boil half a pound of macaroni, broken into short pieces, twenty minutes in a little broth, borrowed from your soup; drain, pepper and salt, and arrange into a flat bed, upon a hot meat-dish. Keep hot until the lamb is done, when lay it upon the prepared mound, and set both in the oven while you strain the gravy. Thicken it with a little browned flour, and boil up once. Pour over the lamb and macaroni.

Whole Baked Tomatoes.

Chop fine a half cupful of the veal left after straining off the soup. Add half as much chopped ham, and one-third the quantity of bread-crumbs. Pepper (and salt, if needed). Put a few spoonfuls of gravy into a saucepan; stir in this force-meat, with a very little onion, and the pulp and seeds you have scraped carefully from six or eight fine smooth tomatoes. When all are smoking hot, add a[391] tablespoonful of butter, and when this has melted, take from the fire. Set the tomatoes you have hollowed out in a pudding-dish. Fill with the mixture; cover with the neat slices you took from the tops; fill the interstices with what remains of the force-meat, and bake nearly an hour, or until soft and brown. Keep the dish covered for the first half hour.

Stewed Peas and French Beans.

Cover peas, beans, and onion with salted boiling water. Put on the saucepan lid, and stew for half an hour. Then stir in the floured butter, pepper, and catsup; cover again, and simmer fifteen minutes. Turn out into a deep dish. The beans should be young, and cut into small pieces.

Corn-Bread Pudding.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat in the yolks; then the milk; the spice; the salted meal, previously mixed with the flour, cream of tartar, and soda. Beat hard for five minutes. Pour into a buttered mould, with a top. Set in a pot of boiling water—the water not quite reaching the top—and boil steadily two hours. Turn out, cut in slices, and eat with butter and sugar.[392]

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A Stew Soup.

Cut the meat into strips, and slice the vegetables. Put the dripping into the soup-pot; next the beef; then a layer of vegetables; next one of ham; more vegetables, the veal, the rest of the vegetables, and a cup of cold water. Cover, and heat very slowly, then stew until the meat is covered with a brown glaze, but not burned. Be very careful on this latter point. Now, pour in your six quarts of water, and cook steadily at least three hours. Strain, take out the scraps of meat, and pulp the vegetables into the soup. Take out two quarts of stock, season, and put by, with the meat in it, for to-morrow. Let the rest cool; take off the fat; season, boil up and skim, and put in the barley, already soaked two hours in a little cold water. Simmer half an hour, and pour out.

Stuffed Beef’s Heart with Horseradish Sauce.

Wash and soak the heart ten minutes in cold, salt water. Fill full with a force-meat of fat salt pork, minced[393] fine with an equal weight of bread-crumbs, a little chopped parsley, with pepper, and a small quantity of grated lemon-peel. Sew up the swollen heart trimly in coarse net or tarlatan, and put on in a saucepan with two cups of weak broth, made by taking a cupful from the soup and diluting it with water, and half a minced onion. Boil two hours, turning twice. Keep closely covered. Make ready a cup of drawn butter, and let it get almost cold. Then whip in the frothed whites of two eggs, and when stiff, two tablespoonfuls of grated horseradish. You can buy it in any market. Add the juice of a lemon, unless your horseradish is put up in vinegar. The mixture should look like whipped cream. Put into a sauce-boat. When your heart is done, remove the cloth, and lay upon a hot dish. Strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour, and pour over the heart. Pass the white sauce with it.

Scalloped Squash.

Boil and mash the squash in the customary way, and let it cool. Beat the yolks of the two eggs, the whites of which were used for the horseradish sauce, and when the squash is nearly cold, whip these into it, with three tablespoonfuls of milk, one of butter, rolled in flour and melted in the milk; pepper and salt to taste. Pour into a buttered bake-dish, cover with fine crumbs, and bake to a light brown in a quick oven. Eat hot.

Beets.

Wash and cut off the tops. Boil more than an hour if they are of a fair size. Scrape, slice, and lay in a dish. Pour over them a tablespoonful of butter, heated with one of vinegar, and seasoned with salt and pepper. If any are left over, save them for salad, by pouring vinegar upon them.

New Potatoes.

Rub the skins off, and cook until tender in boiling salted water. Serve whole.

Gooseberry Tart.

Top and tail a quart of green gooseberries. Put into a tin or porcelain saucepan with enough water to prevent[394] burning, and stew slowly until they break, stirring often. Sweeten abundantly, and set by to cool. When cold, pour into a pie-dish lined with puff-paste, cover with a top crust, and bake in a good oven. Eat cold, but fresh, with powdered sugar sifted over the top.

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String-Bean Soup.

Boil three cups of string-beans—rid of all the fibres and cut small—in hot salted water until very tender. Drain and chop them, rub them through a colander to a pulp. Take the fat from the stock kept in the ice-box since yesterday; pour off from the meat, and strain into a soup pot. Bring to a boil; skim, and stir in the beans, with a great spoonful of butter cut up in as much flour. Simmer fifteen minutes; add seasoning, if necessary, and pour upon dice of fried bread in the tureen.

Breaded Mutton Chops.

Trim the chops well, leaving an inch of bare bone at the small end of each. Dip in beaten egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry in hot lard or dripping. Drain, and stand upon the large ends in a row about the base of your hillock of potatoes.

Stewed Tomatoes with Onion.

Loosen the tomato-skins with boiling water. Peel and slice them, and put into a saucepan with a sliced onion, a good piece of butter, pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Stew gently half an hour.[395]

Green Corn Boiled Whole.

Strip off the outer husks; turn down the innermost covering, and pull off the silk with great care. Re-cover the ear with the thin inner husk; tie at the top with a bit of thread, and cook in salted boiling water from twenty-five to thirty minutes. Cut off the stalks close to the cob, and send the corn to the table wrapped in a napkin.

Mashed Potatoes.

Mash, and mould into a shapely hillock, fenced about with a chevaux de frise of chops.

Cherries.

Wash, handling gingerly, and heap about a lump of ice in a glass bowl.

Raspberries and Cream, with Light Cakes.

Do not sugar the berries in the dish, but pass sugar and cream with each saucerful.

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Convent Soup.

Parboil, and leave to cool, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, sliced; also the chopped cabbage. Slice the onions, and fry in the hot dripping for five minutes. Then stir in the flour, and simmer until well colored. Turn into a soup-kettle the contents of the frying-pan, rinsing out the latter with two cups of boiling water, and pour this, also, into the soup-pot. When it bubbles, add all the vegetables. Stir a few minutes, and put in another pint of hot water. Cover, and simmer until all are heated through and begin to boil, when put in the rest of the water. Cook slowly for two hours, or until all are soft and breaking. Strain, and pulp the vegetables through the colander. Season the purée with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs, chopped; stir in your floured butter; simmer five minutes, stirring well, and serve.

Boiled Salmon.

The middle slice of salmon is the best. Sew up neatly in a mosquito-net bag, and boil a quarter of an hour to the pound in hot, salted water. When done, unwrap with care, and lay upon a hot dish, taking care not to break it. Have ready a large cupful of drawn butter, very rich, in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of minced parsley and the juice of a lemon. Pour half upon the salmon, and serve the rest in a boat. Garnish with parsley and sliced eggs.

Fried Chicken—Whole.

Truss a young, tender chicken as for roasting, but do not stuff it. Put into a steamer, or cover closely in a colander, over a pot of fast-boiling water for half an hour. Have ready some very nice dripping, or a mixture of one-third butter, two-thirds lard, in a deep frying or saucepan. Flour the chicken all over, and put in when the fat is hot. When the lower side is of a fine brown, turn the fowl. When both are cooked, take it out, lay a few slices of[397] onion in the bottom of a tin pail, and put in the chicken. Fit on the top, and set in a pot of water, which must be kept at a slow boil, half an hour. Rub the chicken well with melted butter, in which have been stirred pepper, salt, and chopped parsley, and serve.

Stewed Onions.

See Tuesday of Third Week in this month.

Green Peas.

See Sunday of this week.

Potatoes à la Duchesse.

Cut cold mashed potatoes, round or square, with a cake-cutter; flour well, and bake in the oven, buttering as they begin to brown. If the potatoes are too pliable to cut out well, mould by pressing firmly into your cutter, which should first be wet with cold water. Serve with the salmon.

Cherry Pie.

Line a pie-dish with cold crust; fill with whole cherries—tart and sweet, in equal proportions; sugar plentifully; put on a top crust, and bake in a tolerably brisk oven. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over the top.

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Gravy Soup.

Cut the meat into strips; pare and slice the vegetables. Fry the onions brown in dripping. Put all together into the soup-kettle, with one quart of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil. Then pour in a quart of hot water. Cook an hour longer—still slowly—and pour in the rest of the water—cold. Boil steadily three hours after the bubbling recommences. The meat should be done to rags, the vegetables broken to pieces. Strain, pulping the vegetables through a colander; then strain a second time through a soup-sieve, or squeeze through a double tarlatan or mosquito-net bag. Season the soup, and set aside your Sunday portion, seasoning the rags of meat highly, and returning them to it. (Keep on the ice.) Put to-day’s soup back into the pot; boil and skim; add a tablespoonful of walnut catsup and pour upon dice of well-buttered toast, laid in the tureen.

Lemon Veal.

Work meat, eggs, onion and seasoning up soft with the tomato-sauce, and stir in enough cracker to enable you[399] to mould it with your hands. Press firmly into a wet bowl, and invert upon a pie-dish, withdrawing the bowl cautiously. Now, sift cracker-dust thickly all over it, and cover the top and half-way down the sides with thin slices of lemon. Bake one hour in a good oven; pick off the lemon with care and dispatch, and brown nicely on the upper grating of the oven. Serve in the pie-dish.

Stewed Squash.

Pare, slice, lay in cold water fifteen minutes. Cook tender in boiling water, salted, drain well, and mash with pepper, salt and butter, pressing out all the water.

String-Beans.

See Receipt for Monday of this week.

Raw Cucumbers.

Pare and lay them in ice-water one hour, then slice and season to taste with vinegar, pepper and salt. Never omit the soaking in ice-water.

Bananas and Oranges.

Serve in the same fruit-basket or dish.

Cherries.

Pile upon a lump of ice in a glass dish.

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[400]

JULY.

Clear Sago Soup.

Remove the fat from the surface of your cold “stock,” pour off without disturbing the sediment, and heat to a boil. Skim as long as the scum rises; then stir in the beaten white of an egg, and simmer, skimming well until it has brought up with it all the impurities, leaving the soup clear. Add half a cup of German sago, previously soaked two hours in a little water, and cook gently until this is melted; then serve.

Larded Shoulder of Mutton.

Cut half a pound of salt fat pork into narrow, long lardoons. Roll them in a mixture of pepper, allspice and vinegar. If you have no larding-needle, make incisions in the shoulder of mutton with a thin, narrow-bladed knife, and thrust in the strips of pork, leaving about a quarter of an inch projecting on the upper side. Put into a dripping-pan, pour two cupfuls of boiling water over it, in which has been mixed a glass of claret. Cover with another pan, and cook two hours, if the shoulder be of full size. Baste frequently—for an hour and a half with its own gravy—then three times with a mixture of melted butter and currant jelly, leaving off the upper pan that the meat may brown. Dish the meat; thicken the strained gravy with browned flour, and after one boil, serve in a boat. To save labor and time on Sunday, lard the meat over night.[401]

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Skin and slice. Cover the bottom of a pie-dish (buttered) with dry crumbs; lay tomatoes over them. Season with pepper, salt, sugar and butter. Put alternate layers of crumbs and seasoned tomatoes until the dish is full, having crumbs on top. Bake, covered, half an hour, and brown slightly.

Boiled Corn.

Please see Thursday, Fourth Week in June.

New Potatoes—Stewed.

Rub or scrape off the skins; boil in hot salted water until done. Turn off the water and dry out on the range. Then crack each one by steady pressure with the back of a spoon, and drop into a saucepan containing a cup of hot milk, pepper, salt, chopped parsley, and a great spoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer five minutes, and pour into a vegetable dish.

Raspberry and Currant Jelly with Whipped Cream.

Crush the fruit and strain out every drop of juice through coarse muslin. Stir sugar, soaked gelatine, and boiling water together. When clear, strain into the fruit juice. Strain again through a flannel bag. Pour into a wet mould that has a cylinder in the centre. Do this on Saturday, and bury in the ice. On Sunday, turn out into a glass dish, fill the open centre with whipped cream, and pile more about the base.[402]

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Jugged Soup.

Early in the day put on the cracked bones from which you have cut the cold mutton, with refuse bits of skin, crisped meat, etc., into a soup-pot with three quarts of water, and boil at the back of the range down to two quarts. Strain; let the liquid cool to throw up the fat, and remove this. Have ready in a stone jar, with a top, six parboiled potatoes, sliced, laid upon slices of streaked pork, cut very thin; upon this a sliced onion; next, three sliced tomatoes; then a sliced turnip; on this a cupful of green peas; three more tomatoes; then a quarter-cup of raw rice; cover this with a grated carrot, and this with another layer of sliced pork. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper, and a few dots of butter upon each layer of vegetables, and put upon the pork some chopped sweet herbs. Pour the cooled broth over all; put on the jar lid, with a paste of flour and water around the edge to exclude the air and keep in the steam, and set in a pan of boiling water in the oven. Leave it there as long as possible—four hours at the least. Pour into the tureen without further preparation.

Potato Batter Pudding.

Mince and season your cold mutton, wet it with the remains of yesterday’s gravy and put into a bake-dish. Mash six boiled potatoes soft with butter; beat in two eggs; a heaping tablespoonful of prepared flour, and a cup of milk. Mix well, and pour over the mutton. Bake to a good brown in a moderate oven. One hour will be needed to cook it properly.

Mashed Squash.

See Receipt for Saturday of Third Week in June.[403]

Chopped Corn and Potatoes.

Cut the corn from the cobs left cold from yesterday and chop the cold new potatoes, also left over. Have ready in a frying pan a large spoonful of good dripping, well seasoned, and hot. Stir in corn and potatoes, and toss about until hot and glazed, but not browned. Serve in a deep dish.

Corn-Starch Custard Pudding.

Heat the milk; stir in the corn-starch wet up in cold milk, and cook in a farina-kettle three minutes. Take from the fire; beat in the butter, and let it cool. When cold, beat in the eggs and sugar, with the spice. Whip two minutes, and bake in a buttered dish until lightly browned and well set. Eat cold, with sugar sifted over it.

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Veal Broth.

[404]Put meat, bones, and vegetables, with the water, over the fire, and cook slowly three hours. Strain the broth and pulp the vegetables. Take off the fat; season the broth, add the rice, and stew gently until this is soft.

Beefsteak.

See Tuesday of Third Week in June.

Boiled Onions.

Top, tail, and skim. Cook fifteen minutes in boiling water. Drain this off and throw it away. Replenish the pot with boiling water, put in a little salt, and stew tender. Drain, dish, season well with pepper and salt, and butter liberally.

Mashed Potatoes—Moulded.

Mash smooth, but not too soft, with butter and milk. Wet a jelly-mould, fill with the potatoes, pressed in firmly. Shake gently out upon a flat dish, set one minute in the hot oven, and serve.

String-Beans Sautés.

Trim, cut in short pieces, and cook tender in boiling salted water. Meanwhile, take half a cup of broth from your soup, season well, boil, and skim for fifteen minutes; then add a tablespoonful of butter. While these are boiling stir in the beans; shake and stir for three minutes, add a teaspoonful of vinegar, and pour out.

Raspberries, Cream, and Cake.

When you can give an uncooked dessert, which is more palatable and more wholesome than a cooked one, and that costs no more, it is wise policy to avail yourself of the consequent lightening of your labors, especially in hot weather. Except when it is necessary to deviate from the rule in order to secure the requisite variety, let cold desserts be the order of the day in your bills of fare, while the “heated term” lasts.[405]

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French Potage.

Put the veal, cut into strips, and the sliced onion, into a soup-pot with the butter, and simmer, stirring constantly, until they are coated with a brown glaze. They must not scorch. Now pour in one quart of boiling water; cover, and stew half an hour. Check the boil suddenly with a gallon of cold water, and put in beef, ham, and herbs. Cover again, and boil gently three hours. Take out the strips of veal, beef, and ham, when you have strained off the water, and pulp the onion. Set aside half the stock, highly seasoned, with the meat in it, for to-morrow. Skim the fat from the rest, season, and put back over the fire with the prunes, stoned, and cut into thirds, after being well washed. Simmer half an hour, put in the tapioca; cook until this is clear, and pour out.

Beef à la Mode.

For full and explicit directions concerning this dish please refer—to spare me work, time, and space—to Sunday, Second Week in May.[406]

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.

Break half a pound of macaroni into inch-lengths, and cook twenty minutes in boiling salted water. Meantime, take a cup of broth from your soup; strain, boil, and skim it, and slice into it four ripe tomatoes. Stew tender, and strain through net or tarlatan, into a saucepan. Season well; stir into it a great spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer five minutes; put the macaroni into a deep dish, sprinkling grated cheese over each layer, and pour the hot sauce over it, opening the mass with a fork, to let it reach the lower layers.

Lima Beans.

Shell, lay in cold water fifteen minutes, and cook from twenty-five to thirty minutes in salt boiling water. Drain well; season with pepper, salt, and butter.

Fried Cucumbers.

Pare, cut into lengthwise slices, more than a quarter of an inch thick, and lay for half an hour in ice-water. Wipe each piece dry; sprinkle with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour. Fry to a light brown in good dripping or butter. Drain well, and serve hot.

Lemon Trifle.

Heat the milk, stir in four tablespoonfuls of sugar into the beaten yolks and pour the hot milk upon it, by degrees, stirring well. Return to the custard-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken. Flavor, and pour, quite hot, upon the sliced cake laid in the bottom of a deep dish. If the dish be of glass, roll it in hot water before cake and custard go in. Put a heavy saucer on the cake to keep it from rising, and let it cool. When perfectly cold, heap upon it a méringue of the beaten whites, whipped up with the other tablespoonful of sugar, the lemon-juice and rind. Set on ice until wanted.[407]

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Italian Paste Soup.

Take the fat from your cold soup-stock; pour off from the sediment; boil and skim, adding a tablespoonful of walnut or mushroom catsup. When the scum ceases to rise, put in a quarter of a pound of Italian paste—i. e., something like macaroni cut into small figures, letters, stars, and the like. Simmer twenty minutes and pour out.

Broiled Spanish Mackerel.

Clean, wash, and wipe dry. Split, so that when laid flat the backbone will be in the middle. Sprinkle with salt and lay, inside down, upon a buttered gridiron, over a clear fire, until it is nicely colored, then turn. When done, put upon a hot dish, butter plentifully and pepper. Put a hot cover over it and send to table.

Cold Beef à la Mode.

Smooth the round on the top and garnish with pickled beets and parsley. Shave off horizontal slices in carving.

Mashed Potatoes.

Pass with the fish, and, if you like, again when the meat comes on.

Green Peas.

Shell, lay in cold water fifteen minutes; cook from twenty to twenty-five minutes in boiling salt water, adding a lump of sugar unless they are just gathered. Drain very well, dish, pepper, salt, and butter.[408]

Raw Tomatoes.

Pare and slice with a sharp knife. Lay in a glass dish and pour over them a dressing made thus: Rub a teaspoonful of sugar, half as much each of salt, pepper, and made mustard, into two tablespoonfuls of oil. Beat into this the yolk of a raw egg, and then, a few drops at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

Cream Raspberry Pie.

Line a pie-dish with puff paste, and fill with raspberries, sweetened bountifully. Cover with a paste-crust, but do not pinch this down at the edges. Also rub the edge of the lower crust with butter to prevent adhesion. Bake in a good oven. While it is cooking, heat a small cup of rich milk, putting in a pinch of soda—stir into it half a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet in cold milk, one tablespoonful of white sugar, and cook three minutes. Take it off, and beat in the frothed whites of two eggs. Whip to a cream, and let it get cold. When the pie comes out of the oven, lift the top crust and pour in the mixture. Replace the crust and set aside to cool. Sift sugar upon the top before serving.

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Tomato Soup without Meat.

[409]

Fry the onion in the soup-pot in the dripping. When they are of a reddish-brown, add the tomatoes and stir all up until very hot, when put in the boiling water and parsley. Stew half an hour, and strain, rubbing the tomato through a sieve into the hot liquid. Return to the pot, season, and when boiling again, stir in the floured butter, and a minute later the rice. Simmer ten minutes and pour out.

Chicken—Stewed Whole.

Truss as for roasting; but do not stuff it. Put a layer of fat salt pork in the bottom of a saucepan; then, some sliced onion and parsley. Lay in the chicken and put in a cupful of gravy made by boiling the feet and giblets, and, when these are taken out, add a good spoonful of butter to the weak broth. Cover the saucepan closely, and stew one hour, slowly. Turn the fowl, and stew one hour more, keeping it covered. Take it out of the pot; lay upon a dish, and thicken the gravy, after straining it, with a little browned flour. Pepper, also, to taste, and pour over the fowl, which should be so tender as to fall apart under the carver’s knife.

Baked Squash.

Boil, mash, and let it get cold. Then, beat up light with a tablespoonful of melted butter, two raw eggs; three tablespoonfuls of milk, with pepper and salt to liking. Put into a buttered bake-dish; sift dry crumbs over the top, and bake in a quick oven.

Rice Croquettes.

Boil a cup of rice soft; work into it, while hot, a tablespoonful of butter, one of grated cheese, pepper, salt, and a beaten egg. Spread out to cool. Chop the boiled giblets of your chicken fine with a slice or so of your cold beef, wet with a little gravy, but not too soft. Make the cold rice into square, flat cakes. Lay in the centre of each a teaspoonful of the mince. Close the cakes so as to have this in the middle; mould into oval balls; dip in beaten egg; then, roll in cracker-crumbs and grated cheese, and fry in good dripping, or lard. Drain well, and heap upon a hot dish.[410]

Potato Omelette.

Beat yolks and whites together. Thin the potato with the milk, and strain through a colander. Stir into the eggs, have the butter warm in the pan, pour in the mixture; shake, and loosen with a spatula, and when nearly done, hold it under the red-hot grate to brown the upper side. Invert the pan above a very hot dish, and turn out without folding. Serve at once, as it soon falls.

Cherry Bread Pudding.

Butter the bread on both sides. Put a layer into a buttered bake-dish; pour upon it a little raw custard, made of the eggs, sugar, and milk. Strew over this some of the cherries, and lay in more buttered bread. Proceed in this order until the dish is full. The upper layer should be bread particularly well-buttered and soaked. Cover the dish closely; set in a dripping-pan full of boiling water, and cook one hour; then uncover, and brown delicately. Turn out upon a plate, and eat hot with sauce.[411]

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Consommé Soup.

Cut the beef into strips, and joint the chicken. Slice the vegetables, chop the herbs, and put on all with the water, to cook slowly for six hours. Take out the chicken and beef; salt and pepper and put into a jar. Strain the soup, pulping the vegetables through a colander. Season and divide it; pouring half upon the meat in the jar, and setting in a pot of hot water to cook, covered, two hours more. Heat the rest, and skim; put in the sago, and simmer for half an hour; then pour out.

When the two hours have elapsed, pour out the stock into a bowl, and, when cold, put upon ice.

Braised Veal.

The breast is a good piece for this purpose. Put three or four spoonfuls of sweet dripping in a broad saucepan, and when hot, lay in the veal and fry on both sides. Pour over it two cupfuls of broth, taken from your soup; a minced onion and a couple of sliced tomatoes. Cover and stew forty-five minutes. Take out the veal and keep warm, while you strain and skim the gravy, and return to the pot with pepper, salt, and minced summer savory,[412] also, a pinch of mace, a lump of sugar, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel. Put back the meat, and stew half an hour more. Lay on a dish, thicken the gravy, boil once, and pour over the veal.

Cauliflower, with Sauce.

Tie the cauliflower in a net and boil in hot, salted water from thirty-five to fifty minutes, in proportion to its size. Take up, undo the net, lay in a deep dish, blossom upward, and pour over it a cup of rich drawn butter, with the juice of a lemon stirred in.

Raw Cucumbers.

See Saturday, Fourth Week in June.

Green Corn Pudding.

Beat the yolks well; then add the corn, the butter and salt, and stir up hard with your “beater.” Then comes the milk, next the sugar; lastly, the whites. Bake in a greased pudding-dish, covered, one hour. Then brown well. Serve hot in the bake-dish.

Cottage Puffs.

Mix the whipped yolks with the milk and cream; then the salt and the whites; lastly, the flour. Beat fast and well, and bake in “gem” pans. The oven should be quick. Eat hot, with sauce.[413]

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Béchamel Soup.

Take the fat from the jellied stock in your refrigerator; dip it out carefully from the meat—taking care of the chicken—and heat in a saucepan. Scald a quart of milk in another vessel, and stir into it a large spoonful of corn-starch, wet with cold milk. Pepper and salt to taste (the milk should have had a pinch of soda in it), and pour into the tureen. Add the boiling soup, stir up well, and serve.

Boiled Mutton.

The leg is best for this purpose, and will look much nicer when served, if it has been tied up in very coarse, thin muslin, or in white mosquito-netting. Put on in plenty of boiling salted water, and cook a quarter of an hour to the pound. Unwrap when done, brush all over with butter, and serve with a boat of drawn butter, in which have been stirred two dozen capers or pickled nasturtium-seed. Take care of the liquor.

Chicken Rissoles.

Cut the chicken, boiled in your soup, from the bones, and chop fine. Add to it a cupful of mashed potato, whipped to a cream, a beaten egg, pepper and salt; wet soft with a little of the soup, and heat in a frying-pan, in which has been melted a little butter. Stir until very hot, and let it get perfectly cold. You can see that this is done before morning service, if you have an early dinner on Sunday. When cold, make into bails; roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry to a light brown in[414] lard or nice dripping. Drain off the fat, and serve hot upon a folded napkin.

String-Beans.

See Monday of Fourth Week in June.

Green Peas and Raw Tomatoes.

See Thursday of First Week in July.

Self-freezing Ice-Cream.

Heat the milk; pour it upon the eggs and sugar. Cook, stirring steadily fifteen minutes, or until it has thickened well. When perfectly cold, add the cream. Make the custard on Saturday, and set on ice. Early Sunday morning, beat in the cream, and put all in an old-fashioned upright freezer, set in its pail. Put a block of ice within a stout sack, or between the folds of a piece of carpeting, and beat small with a hammer. Put a thick layer into the outer part, then one of rock-salt. Fill the pail in this order, and, before covering the freezer with ice, beat the custard for five minutes with a flat stick or ladle. Shut tightly; pack pounded ice and salt over it, and put a folded carpet over all. In an hour and a half, open the freezer, first wiping off the salt from about the top. Dislodge the frozen custard from sides and bottom with a long knife, and beat and stir with your stick, faithfully, until the custard is a smooth paste. Replace the cover; let off the water, and pack more pounded ice and salt about it, completely concealing the freezer. Put back the folded carpet. The cream will take care of itself for three hours, and more, and you can, if you like, leave it all day, with a visit of three minutes every few hours, to let off the water and pack in more salt and ice. Do not open the freezer until you are ready for the cream. Then take it out, wipe it off, wrap a towel wrung out in hot water[415] about the lower part, and invert it upon a flat dish. Should the weather be very hot, you may have to let off the water oftener than once in three hours; but this seldom happens if the freezer be set in a cool cellar.

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Brown Soup.

½ lb. lean bacon; 2 onions; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 scant teaspoonful mixed allspice and cloves; 2 tablespoonfuls browned flour; liquor in which your mutton was boiled; pepper.

Cut the bacon into strips, and slice the onions. Put the butter into your soup-pot with these, and simmer, stirring often, until they are browned, but not scorched. Add the flour, wet up in cold water, and stir until very hot. Then, having taken the fat from the top of your mutton “pot-liquor,” pour it in, with pepper and parsley. Add by degrees, stirring well, not to lump the flour. Cover, and set at the back of the range to simmer for two hours—more would not hurt it. When ready for it, strain into the tureen.

Ragoût of Mutton.

Slice even, rather thick slices, without skin or fat, from your boiled mutton, and lay in a deep dish. Pour a good glass of claret wine over them, and cover for an hour. Make a gravy of the bones and refuse portions with a quart of cold water. When this has boiled down to a pint, strain it off. Let it cool, and take off the fat. Put into a saucepan with a little minced onion, pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and boil down to a[416] large cupful. Then stir in a tablespoonful of browned flour, wet up in cold water; simmer three minutes; add the sliced meat and wine, with a little grated lemon-peel and a teaspoonful of currant jelly. Let all get hot slowly, but the meat must not boil, or it will be tough. Set at one side of the range to heat, until you are ready to pour it into a deep dish.

Squash à la Crême.

Boil and mash in the customary manner; press out all the water, and beat in a tablespoonful of melted butter, with two of cream, heated, pepper and salt to taste; lastly, a beaten egg. Put the mixture into a pail, and set in boiling water fifteen minutes, stirring often, and keeping the water at a boil. It should look like rich custard. Serve in a deep dish.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and serve without browning.

Lettuce Salad.

Pick out and pull apart the hearts; pile in a glass dish; sprinkle with sugar, and season to taste with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

Raspberries, Cream, and Cake.

Since your soup and ragoût have taken more time and labor than you like to give to Monday’s dinner, make up for the loss by serving the dessert given above, sure that nobody will murmur.

Iced Coffee.

Make more coffee than usual at breakfast-time, and stronger. Add one-third as much hot milk as you have coffee, and set away. When cold, put upon ice. Serve at dessert, with cracked ice in each tumbler.[417]

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Cabbage Soup.

2 lbs. of lean beef, chopped, and the same of mutton-bones, well cracked; 1 small, firm white cabbage; 1 onion; bunch of sweet herbs; 1 cup of milk, heated, with a pinch of soda; 1 tablespoonful of butter, rubbed in one of flour; pepper and salt; 3 quarts of water.

Cook beef, onion, and bones in the water four hours, boiling slowly. Boil the cabbage in two waters; let it get cold, and shred only the white parts into rather coarse dice. Cool the soup, and take off the fat. Put over the fire with pepper and salt and the chopped herbs. Having boiled it one minute, skim, and put in the cabbage. Heat the milk in a separate vessel; stir in the floured butter; boil until it thickens, and pour into the tureen. When the cabbage-soup reaches the boil, pour it upon the milk, and stir up well.

Mock Pigeons.

Take the bone from two nice fillets of veal; flatten them with the broad side of a hatchet, and spread with a good force-meat of crumbs and chopped ham, seasoned well. Roll the meat up on this; bind into oblong rolls with soft string; lay in a dripping-pan, and pour over them two cups of your boiling soup before the cabbage goes in—or any other hot broth will do as well. Turn a pan over them and bake nearly two hours, basting well with the gravy. When done, lay upon a hot dish, while you thicken the gravy with browned flour, and season well with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Boil one minute, and pour part over the pigeons, the rest into a boat. Clip the strings carefully, and do not pull them[418] hard in removing them, lest you spoil the shape of the meat.

Green Peas.

See Wednesday, First Week in this month.

Lima Beans.

See Thursday of First Week in July.

Cucumber Salad.

See Saturday of First Week in July.

Farina Pudding—Cold.

1 quart fresh milk; 3 tablespoonfuls of farina, soaked one hour in a little cold water; 3 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar; a little salt; flavoring essence.

Heat three-quarters of the milk, salt it, and stir in the farina. Cook half an hour, stirring often; take it off, and pour upon the eggs, sugar, and the other cup of milk, beaten together. Return to the farina-kettle, and stir ten minutes longer. Pour out, beat in the flavoring, and put into a wet mould. Set on the ice, when cool. It will soon form. Eat with cream, or fruit syrup.

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Crab Soup.

Two pounds of lean veal chopped, covered with two quarts of cold water, boiled down one-half, strained, cooled, skimmed and seasoned with pepper and salt. Meat of three large crabs, boiled and cold. One pint milk, and a pinch of soda stirred into it. Pepper, salt, nutmeg, one teaspoonful of anchovy paste. One cup of[419] boiled rice—soft and hot. Tablespoonful of floured butter. Return the broth—prepared as directed above—to the fire, with the rice, and simmer until the latter is broken to pieces. Strain, rubbing the rice through the sieve; set over the fire, adding the nutmeg and anchovy; then the crab meat, cut into small dice. Simmer ten minutes longer—it must not actually boil—and pour into the tureen. Add the boiling milk, which has been thickened with the floured butter; stir up well and serve. Pass sliced lemon, crackers and butter with it.

Savory Calf’s Head.

Wash the head well—it should of course have been cleaned with the skin on; take out the tongue and brains; boil them in a separate vessel, and keep on ice for to-morrow’s soup. Put on the head (the two sides tied into the original shape by a band of tape) in plenty of cold water, slightly salt, and cook gently one hour and a half. Take out, wipe dry, score the cheeks in squares, and wash the head on top and sides, with beaten egg. Sift over it a mixture of rolled cracker, pepper and salt; and set in a quick oven. In ten minutes, baste with melted butter; five minutes later, with a cupful of broth from the pot poured gradually over it. Cover with thick white paper and cook ten minutes longer, then dish, with thin slices of crisped ham laid about it. Thicken the gravy in the pan with browned flour, and send up in a boat. Save the pot-liquor for soup, seasoning it, and keeping in a cold place.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Loosen the skins by pouring boiling water upon them. Peel, slice, and put into a saucepan with a little minced onion, pepper, salt and sugar, and stew from twenty-five to thirty minutes. Just before taking them up, add a good lump of butter.

Potato Puff.

Mash the potatoes very light and soft; whipping in milk, butter, salt, and two beaten eggs. Heap within a greased bake-dish, and set in a good oven until well browned. Serve in the bake-dish.[420]

Boiled Corn.

See Thursday, Fourth Week in June.

Cherry Soufflé.

2 cups of milk; 1 cup of prepared flour; 5 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls sugar; 1 teaspoonful bitter almond flavoring; 1 cup of stoned cherries, dredged with flour; a pinch of salt.

Scald the milk and pour it—a little at a time—upon the flour, stirring constantly, to a smooth batter. Return to the custard kettle, and stir until thick as hasty pudding. Pour, still hot, upon the yolks beaten up with the sugar. Whip up thoroughly and let it cool. Whisk the whites very stiff and beat rapidly into the cold paste. Butter a mould, line thickly with the dredged cherries, and put in the mixture, carefully, not to disturb the cherries, which should stick to the buttered sides. Allow room for swelling in the mould. Put on the top, set in a pot of boiling water, and cook for an hour and a half. Dip into cold water, and turn out upon a hot dish. Eat soon, with a good pudding sauce.

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Plain Calf’s Head Soup.

1 lb. of lean beef cut into strips and fried brown, with a sliced onion, in dripping; 1 grated carrot; 1 sliced turnip; bunch of herbs chopped; pot-liquor from yesterday’s calf’s head.

Skim the cold broth, and put on with the fried meat[421] and onions, the herbs and vegetables. Cook gently three hours, and strain. Add a tablespoonful—heaping—of browned flour wet in cold water; simmer a minute, and put in the cold tongue and brains—kept from yesterday—cut into dice. Cook gently three minutes, and pour out.

Fried Chickens.

Cut up a pair of young chickens, as for fricassee. Lay in cold water for one minute, and, without wiping them, pepper and salt each piece; roll in flour and fry in hot lard to a fine brown. Pile upon a hot-water dish; fry some whole bunches of green parsley in the lard, and lay over and about them. This is the famous fried chicken of the South.

Fried Kidney-Beans.

Boil tender in hot salted water, drain, and when nearly cold, mash them, partially, leaving here and there a whole grain. Have ready in a frying-pan some strips of fat salt pork fried crisp in their own grease. Season this with pepper, and stir in the beans. Cook, stirring briskly, until smoking hot. Dish with the crisped pork on top.

New Potatoes.

Rub, or scrape off the skins; cook until tender, in hot salted water; dry in the open pot on the range, after draining them, and serve.

Beets Sautés.

Boil and slice as for plain boiled beets. Put into a saucepan with a great spoonful of butter, the same of vinegar, with pepper and salt. Shake and toss until they are glazed with the hot butter; then dish.

Lettuce Salad.

See Monday of this Week.

Blackcap Shortcake—Hot.

Please see Wednesday of Second Week in June.[422]

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Soup à la Bonne Femme.

2 lbs. of good white fish—halibut, bass, or pickerel will do; 3 eggs; 1 cup of milk; 1 onion; bunch of sweet herbs; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed in flour; cayenne and salt to taste; a little nutmeg; 3 quarts of water.

Boil together fish, herbs, and onion in cold water for two hours. Strain; pick the fish from the bones, and chop so fine that you can rub it through the colander into the soup. Season, and put back into the soup-pot. Simmer ten minutes and stir in the butter. Heat the milk in a farina-kettle; pour it upon the beaten eggs, and stir over the fire until it begins to thicken. Pour into the tureen, add the soup, stir up well, and serve. It is well to add a pinch of soda to the milk in heating.

Roast Ducks.

Clean, wash, and stuff the ducks; adding sage and onion to the force-meat for one. Fill the other with the ordinary poultry dressing. Lay in the dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over them, and roast, basting often, about twelve minutes to the pound, unless they are very young and tender. Take them up; strain the gravy, and take off the fat. Season; thicken with browned flour, and pour into a boat.

Mashed Potatoes.

Whip boiled mealy potatoes to pieces with a fork, and, when they are a powdery pile, whip in butter, milk, and salt. They should be light and creamy. Pile roughly upon a hot dish.

Green Peas.

Shell; lay in cold water fifteen minutes; put on in boiling salted water, with a lump of loaf-sugar, if they are[423] market peas. Boil twenty minutes, if young; drain very dry; dish, and season with pepper, salt and plenty of butter.

Raw Tomatoes.

Peel with a keen knife. Slice, and lay in a glass bowl, and pour on a dressing made by rubbing together half a teaspoonful each of pepper, salt, sugar, and made mustard, with two tablespoonfuls of best oil, beating into this, a few drops at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and at last the yolk of a raw egg. Set the salad upon the ice for half an hour.

Currant and Raspberry Tart.

Mix together three cups of currants and one of raspberries. Sweeten abundantly; fill shells of good pie-paste with them; cover with crust, and bake. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over them.

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Pea and Tomato Soup.

1 lb. of lean ham; 2 lbs. of lean beef; 2 lbs. of lean veal; 2 onions; bunch of sweet herbs; 12 tomatoes; 1 quart of green peas; 5 quarts of water; pepper and salt to taste; corn-starch; sugar.

Cook the meat, cut into strips, and the herbs and onions in the cold water four hours. Strain; put the meat and half the stock on the ice—after seasoning well—for Sunday. Season the rest, when you have cooled and skimmed it, and put over the fire with the sliced tomatoes and peas. Boil slowly half an hour. Pulp through a colander; stir in a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet with cold water, and a tablespoonful of white sugar. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.[424]

Salmi of Ducks.

Cut the meat neatly from the bones, having the slices as nearly as possible of uniform size. Make a gravy of the bones, stuffing, skin, etc., and a quart of water, boiling gently down to one large cupful. Skim and strain this into a saucepan. Add the juice of a lemon, and browned flour for thickening; stir smooth, and lay in the sliced duck. Warm slowly at one side of the range, but do not let it boil. When very hot, pour upon oblong slices of fried toast covering the bottom of a hot dish.

Mashed Squash.

Peel, quarter, and boil soft. Mash in a hot colander, pressing hard. Serve in a deep dish, with butter, pepper, and salt beaten in.

String-Beans.

Cut off the strings from both sides; cut into short lengths, and cook tender in boiling salt water. They require twice as much time as peas. Drain, season with pepper, salt, and butter. Set aside half for to-morrow’s salad.

Cucumbers.

Peel and lay in ice-water one hour. Slice; put upon a lump of ice in a salad-dish, and season to taste upon saucers after they are helped out.

Almond Corn-Starch Blanc-Mange.

1 quart of milk; 4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch; 3 eggs; ¼ lb. almonds, blanched, dried, and pounded; rose-water and bitter almond; ¾ cup of powdered sugar.

Scald the milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in. Have the almonds beaten to a paste with a teaspoonful of rose-water, and stir into the hot milk. Simmer five minutes; then strain through thin muslin, pressing hard upon the almonds. Add this, hot, to the beaten eggs and sugar; put upon the fire, and stir in, with the eggs, the corn-starch wet up in cold milk, never taking the spoon out until it is thick. Take off; flavor, and pour into a wet mould. Set in ice, and it will soon form. Eat with sugar and cream.[425]

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Rice Soup.

Take the fat from your cold stock, and strain it from the meat. Boil up once and skim. Add half a cup of rice, and simmer until this is very tender. Add the water in which have been soaked two tablespoonfuls of burnt sugar, and pour out.

Stuffed Veal with Garnish of Green Peas.

Take the large bones from a piece of loin of veal; stuff the cavities thus made with a good force-meat of chopped pork crumbs and seasoning—a few chopped mushrooms are an improvement—cover the sides with greased sheets of thick writing-paper; put a cupful of soup stock or other gravy in the dripping-pan, and baste well, for one hour with butter and water, afterwards with the gravy. Cook fully twelve minutes to the pound. Take off the paper during the last half hour; dredge with flour, baste with butter, and brown nicely. Take up and keep hot while you skim the fat from the gravy, stir into it half a cupful of chopped mushrooms and a little browned flour. Serve this—having cooked it three minutes—in a boat. Have ready some green peas, boiled and seasoned, and make a fence of them about the veal when dished.

New Potatoes.

Refer to Thursday, Second Week in July.

Boiled Corn.

See Thursday, Fourth Week in June.[426]

Bean Salad.

Cut the beans into inch-lengths, pile in a salad-dish and pour upon them such a dressing as you compounded for the raw tomatoes on Friday of Second Week in July. Garnish with curled lettuce.

Orange Snow.

4 large sweet oranges, all the juice, and the grated peel of one; juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon; 1 package of Coxe’s gelatine soaked in a cup of cold water; whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff; 1 large cup of white sugar; 3 cups of boiling water.

Mix the juice, and peel of the fruit with the soaked gelatine, also the sugar. Leave them covered for one hour, then pour on the boiling water and stir clear. Strain through flannel, wringing hard. When quite cold, whip in the frothed whites very gradually until the mixture is a white sponge. Put into a wet mould on Saturday, and set on the ice.

Iced Tea and Cake.

Set the tea aside after breakfast in a pitcher, or bottle, which you can keep in ice. When you serve it, half fill each glass with ice, put in more sugar than you would use for hot tea, and pour on the cold liquid.

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Summer Squash, or Cymbling Soup.

The bones from your cold veal; 2 lbs. lean, raw veal, chopped fine; 1 onion; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed in flour; 1 cup of milk, with a pinch of soda; 1 tablespoonful[427] of white sugar; 2 beaten eggs; 2 good-sized white squash pared and quartered; pepper and salt; fried bread; 4 quarts of water.

Boil bones, meat, and onions in four quarts of water until this is reduced to two. Strain, cool, and take off the fat. Cook the squash in one pint of the stock until soft enough to rub through a colander; pulp, and put this, with its liquor, in the remaining three pints of broth; also the sugar, seasoning, and floured butter, and cook slowly without boiling, five minutes. Heat the milk, pour upon the eggs, stir over the fire until it begins to thicken. Put dice of fried bread into the tureen; pour on the milk and eggs, then the soup, and stir up well.

Scalloped Veal.

Chop the cold veal and stuffing; put a layer into a greased bake-dish; season, and wet with the cold gravy. Lay chopped mushrooms upon this; then bread-crumbs, with butter scattered over them. More meat seasoning, mushrooms and crumbs should fill the dish, with plenty of crumbs, profusely buttered, on top. Wet each layer of meat with gravy. Cover the dish, and bake until it bubbles on top. Brown lightly, and send to table in the dish in which it was cooked.

Mashed Turnips.

Peel, slice, and cook soft in boiling salted water. Mash in a hot colander, pressing well. Season with salt, pepper and butter; smooth into a heap in a root-dish, and put pats of pepper on top.

Stewed Tomatoes.

See Wednesday of Second Week in July.

Potatoes, Boiled Whole.

Peel as thin as possible. Put on in boiling water, a little salt, and cook fifteen minutes. Then, pour in a pint of cold water. This checks the boil and throws the meal, or starch, to the surface. Increase the heat, and boil until a fork will pierce the largest. Throw off the water; set the pot on the range, and let the moisture evaporate.[428] Put the potatoes in a deep dish; pour upon them a few spoonfuls of melted butter mixed with chopped parsley, and serve.

Bananas, Oranges, and Cherries.

Put bananas and oranges in one dish; the cherries, bestrewed with cracked ice, in another.

Iced Coffee and Fancy Biscuits.

See Monday of Second Week in July.

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Bread-and-Cheese Porridge.

2 lbs. of beef-bones cracked; 2 lbs. coarse mutton—lean and chopped; 1 lb. stale bread-crusts, dried to crispness in the oven; 4 quarts of water; 4 tablespoonfuls fine grated cheese; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; pepper, salt, and chopped parsley; 1 onion.

Put on the bones, meat, and onion in the water, and boil three hours. Cool, and take off the fat. Season, and re-heat. Put in the crusts; cook very slowly until they are like a jelly. Take them from the fire; beat in a bowl until smooth; put back into the soup, and simmer fifteen minutes. Stir in the butter; cook five minutes, and pour upon the cheese in the tureen. Stir up well.

Lamb Chops.

Trim very neatly, and broil upon a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, turning often. Wind a strip of frilled tissue-paper about the bit of bare bone left upon each one.[429]

Purée of Peas and Onion.

Take a cupful of broth from your soup-pot, before adding the bread. Cool, and take off the fat, and return to the fire with two quarts of green peas and a sliced onion. Set the vessel containing it in a saucepan of boiling water, and cook, closely covered, until the peas begin to break. Put into a bowl; bruise the peas with a potato pestle, and return to the fire with the liquor in which they were stewed. Add a little parsley and a lump of sugar, with pepper, salt, and butter. Simmer five minutes, and turn out into a deep dish.

Lima Beans.

Shell, and cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes. Drain, season, and serve.

Moulded Potato.

Mash—or rather, beat up lightly with a fork. Work in butter and milk, but do not get it too soft. Fill small cups—wet with cold water—with the potato, pack down firmly and turn out upon a greased bake-pan. Brown in a quick oven until they are of a russet hue; glazing with butter, as they color. Transfer to a flat, hot dish.

Currants and Raspberries.

Slightly mash the currants, leaving as many whole ones as you break. Sweeten plentifully, and, just before serving, mix with them an equal quantity of red or white raspberries, fresh and whole.

Unity Cake.

Make fresh for the day, according to directions given in “Breakfast, Luncheon, and Tea,” page 333.[430]

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Ox-tail Soup.

2 ox-tails; bunch of thyme and parsley; 1 large onion, sliced; 2 grated carrots; ½ lb. fat salt pork; 6 quarts of water; 1 small onion stuck with six cloves; browned flour; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Slice the pork, and fry. When the fat has covered the bottom of the pan, put in the large sliced onion and fry to a good brown. Then add the tails, cut at each joint. When they have been in five minutes, take them out and put into the soup-pot with the fried onion and water. Cover and cook slowly two hours. Then put in the carrots, herbs, and clove onion, and stew two hours more. Strain, pulping the vegetables; cool, take off the fat, and season the soup. Put over the fire, and when it again simmers, stir in the butter melted and rubbed into the browned flour to form a paste. Boil up once and it is ready. Put the remnants of the tails into a jar, or bowl, and add to them half the soup. When cold put on ice for to-morrow.

Beefsteak with Wine Sauce.

Flatten and broil your steak as usual, but when you lay it upon the hot-water dish, have ready this sauce: 1 glass of brown sherry; 1 large spoonful of mushroom or walnut catsup; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a mere dust of flour; pepper and salt to taste. Heat to boiling—quickly—in a saucepan, and when it has been poured upon the steak, cover and let stand a few minutes before you serve.

Cream Onions.

Boil in two waters. Drain, and if they are large, cut into quarters, and pour over them a cup of scalding milk—in[431] which a pinch of soda has been stirred. Set over the fire, add a tablespoonful of butter, half a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet with milk, a little minced parsley, with pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes, and pour out.

Baked Squash.

See Friday, First Week in July.

Raw Tomatoes.

See Friday, Second Week in July.

Ambrosia Custard.

1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar for custard and 2 for méringue; 1 grated cocoanut; bitter almond flavoring.

Heat the milk; pour upon the sugar beaten up with the yolks of all the eggs and the whites of two. Cook, stirring all the time, until it begins to thicken. Pour it hot upon one-third of the grated cocoanut. Stir up well; flavor, and when cold put into a glass dish. Cover it with grated cocoanut, and heap high upon this a méringue made of the reserved whites and sugar.

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Yesterday’s Soup.

Take every particle of fat from the cake of soup jelly you will find in your refrigerator; add a cup of boiling water to thin it sufficiently to pour off from the meat; strain it into the soup-pot, boil gently once and skim; add seasoning if you find it needed, also a glass of wine and the juice of a lemon, and pour out.[432]

Roast Chickens.

Clean, wash out in several waters, and stuff with crumbs mixed in tepid water, then drained and put over the fire in a saucepan with a little hot butter in the bottom. Stir the crumbs until hot and almost dry, add chopped parsley, salt and pepper; take it off and beat in two frothed eggs. Fill the chickens, sew up the vents, and tie up the necks. Cover the breasts with very greasy writing-paper. Put a cup of boiling water into the dripping-pan and roast one hour, basting freely. Ten minutes before taking up the fowls, remove the papers and baste the breasts three times with butter while browning. Pour off the fat from the gravy; add the chopped yolks of two eggs, a little browned flour, with pepper and salt. Boil up and serve in a boat.

Salt the giblets slightly and keep upon ice for to-morrow’s soup.

Stewed Potatoes.

Pare and cut in rather large dice. Stew twenty minutes in boiling salted water. Pour nearly all of this off and put on as much cold milk. Stew ten minutes more; stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; a little minced parsley, pepper and salt. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

Stuffed Tomatoes.

Select enough large, smooth tomatoes to fill a bake-dish. Cut a piece from the top of each to serve as a cover. Scoop out the pulp, taking care not to injure the skin. Chop up a few spoonfuls of the meat from the soup; mix with it a little chopped pork and bread-crumbs. Add the tomato-pulp, pepper and sugar, and fill the skins. Put on the tops, and bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover and brown.

Green Corn Pudding.

See Saturday, First Week in July.

Lemon Méringue Pie.

3 eggs; 1 great spoonful of butter; ¾ cup of white sugar. Juice and grated peel of 1 lemon.[433]

Cream butter and sugar; beat in yolks and lemon, and fill one large open shell of paste, or two small ones. Beat the whites to a stiff méringue, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and a little rose-water. When the pies are done, draw to the door of the oven, spread quickly with this mixture, and shut them in again for three minutes. Eat cold.

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Giblet Soup.

Break up the skeletons of your roast chicken. Put bones, stuffing, and giblets into a soup-pot with four quarts of water. Boil one hour, and take out the giblets. Boil the rest an hour more; strain, cool, and skim. Then put back over the fire to simmer. Meanwhile, you should have fried an onion—sliced—in two tablespoonfuls of butter; then taking out the onion, have stirred in a great spoonful of browned flour, and cooked it, stirring incessantly five minutes. Now thin this mixture with a few spoonfuls of your soup, and strain it into the soup-kettle. Lastly, add the chopped giblets; season well, and pour out.

Halibut à la Royale.

6 lbs. of halibut in one piece; ½ cup of bread-crumbs; 2 tablespoonfuls chopped fat salt pork; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of anchovy; ¼ cup of melted butter; 1 cup of boiling water. Juice of 1 lemon. Pepper and salt.

Lay the halibut in salt and water two hours. Wipe it; make incisions on each side of the back-bone, and put in a dressing made of bread-crumbs, chopped pork, pepper, salt and a little anchovy. Pour into the bottom of a neat[434] bake-dish the butter, hot water, lemon and anchovy essence. Lay in the fish; cover, and bake one hour, basting often. Send to table in the dish.

Chicken Cutlets.

The meat of your cold fowls chopped very fine; 1 cupful of drawn butter or gravy; 4 eggs; ½ cupful of bread-crumbs; pepper and salt; beaten egg and rolled cracker.

Put the gravy into a saucepan, and when hot, stir in the meat, well seasoned, and the bread-crumbs. As they heat, add the beaten eggs, and mix all well together, stirring constantly for three minutes; then pour out upon a broad dish to cool. When cold and stiff, cut into oblong cakes, three inches long by two wide; dip in egg, then in cracker, and fry in hot lard. Drain, and pile upon a flat dish, log-cabin-wise, and serve.

Mashed Potatoes.

Serve with the fish.

Green Peas.

See Friday of Second Week in July.

Lettuce Salad.

See Monday, Second Week in July.

Coffee Cream.

1 quart of rich milk; 1 cup of strong, made coffee; 1 pint of sweet cream, whipped in a syllabub churn; yolks of 3 beaten eggs; 1 cup of sugar; 1 package of Cooper’s Gelatine, soaked one hour in a little cold water.

Scald the milk; add a pinch of soda; put in the hot coffee, and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until it begins to thicken; when, add the gelatine, and take off. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved. When perfectly cold, whip in, by degrees, the frothed cream, and put in a wet mould to form. Keep upon the ice until wanted.[435]

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Julienne Soup.

2 lbs. of beef, and the same of lean veal; 1 lb. of lean ham; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 2 onions; 1 cup of Lima beans; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; sweet herbs; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water.

Cut the meat small, and cook with herbs in the water four hours. Strain. Put the meat and half of the stock, well seasoned, upon the ice. Cool the rest, skim, season, and put back into the pot. Prepare your vegetables in the following manner: Put the butter into a frying-pan, and when hot, fry the onion, sliced, in it; then, carrots and turnips cut into strips less than an inch long. When they have cooked five minutes, put them into the soup. Simmer half an hour; skim, and put in the beans. Cook gently half an hour more, and pour out.

Mutton Stew with Peas.

Take three pounds from the breast, and cut it into inch-square pieces. Dredge these with flour, and fry brown in good dripping; add a small, sliced onion, and a tablespoonful of chopped herbs. Cover well with cold water, put on the saucepan-lid, and stew gently until very tender. Take out the meat, and keep hot over boiling water; strain and season the gravy; put in a quart of young peas, and stew slowly until the peas are done. Put back the meat, boil up once, and serve.

Potato Croquettes.

Mash two cups of potatoes light and smooth; season with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg, and beat in two eggs. Put a spoonful of dripping into a frying-pan, and[436] when it hisses, stir in the potato mixture. Keep stirring until it is very hot. Spread upon a dish to cool. When cold, mould into croquettes; dip in beaten egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a fine yellow-brown. Drain well, and heap upon a dish.

Boiled Corn.

See Thursday, Fourth Week in June.

Raw Cucumbers.

See Saturday, Second Week in July.

Cream-Cake and Chocolate.

2 cups of powdered sugar; ⅔ cupful of butter; 4 eggs; ½ cupful of milk; 3 cups of prepared flour.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, the milk, finally the frothed whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in jelly-cake tins. When cold, spread the following mixture between them:

1 cup of milk; 2 small teaspoonfuls of corn-starch; 1 egg; 1 teaspoonful of vanilla; ½ cup of sugar.

Scald the milk; add the corn-starch, wet with a little cold milk; pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until quite thick. Flavor when cold. Make a good cup of chocolate, and pass with this delicious cake.

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Chicken Soup with Eggs.

1 large chicken; 4 quarts of water; 1 cup of milk; 1 cup of raw rice; pepper, salt, and chopped parsley; 6 eggs.[437]

Put on the chicken, trussed, but not stuffed, in the water with the rice. Boil three hours, or until the bones are ready to slip from the meat. Take out the chicken, salt it and put by in a cool place for to-morrow. Cool and skim the soup; season it, and rub through a soup-sieve back into the pot, rice and all. The rice should be boiled to pieces, and pass freely through the sieve. Put in the parsley, and simmer, while you heat the milk in a separate vessel, and poach an egg for each person who is to partake of the soup. Trim each egg round when you have taken it from the water, and lay carefully upon a flat dish. Pour the hot milk into the tureen; then the soup. Stir well, and lay the eggs upon the top, one by one, taking pains not to break them.

Braised Beef.

Lay a piece of beef-fillet, without bone, weighing five or six pounds, in a broad pot. Scatter sliced onion over it, salt slightly, and, if you have any good gravy, add this to the cupful of boiling water you pour over the meat. Cover tightly, and cook slowly an hour and a half, adding boiling water should the gravy sink too low. When done, dredge with flour, set in a hot oven, and, as the flour browns, baste with butter, to glaze. It should not remain longer than ten minutes in the oven. Strain the gravy; pour off the top fat; put into a saucepan with a little browned flour and a tablespoonful of catsup. Boil until thickened; pour a few spoonfuls over the meat, the rest into a boat.

Stewed Onions.

Cook as on Wednesday, Third Week in July.

Whipped Potatoes.

Pare, boil, and dry out the potatoes, and whip, first into powder, then, adding milk and butter, to a cream; at last, beat in the stiffened white of an egg. Pile roughly in a deep dish, and set in the oven to warm up, but not to “crust” or brown, and send to table.[438]

Cream Squash.

Pare, quarter, boil in hot, salted water, and mash. Put into a saucepan a half-cup of hot milk, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, and a little salt and pepper. Stir in the squash until well mixed and ready to boil. Turn out into a deep dish.

Tomato Salad.

Refer to Friday, Second Week in July.

Claret Jelly and Cake.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a large cup of water; 2 cups of sugar; 2 cups fine claret; 1 pint of boiling water; the juice of one lemon; a pinch of mace.

Put soaked gelatine, sugar, and lemon together, and cover for half an hour. Pour on the boiling water; stir until melted, and strain through a flannel bag. Add the wine, and strain, without squeezing, through double flannel. Put in a wet mould, and set in ice. Turn out upon a cold glass dish, and pass cake with it. Make it on Saturday.

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A Baked Soup.

3 lbs. of lean mutton, boneless, and cut into strips, 1 carrot; 1 turnip; 1 onion—all cut into dice; 6 ripe tomatoes, sliced thin; 1 pint young green peas; 1 cup of green corn cut from the cob; bunch of sweet herbs,[439] chopped; 2 quarts of cold water; pepper and salt; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour.

Put all these into a stout stone jar early in the day. Fit on a tight top, putting a paste of flour and water over the crack between the mouth of the jar and the cover, and set within a dripping-pan of boiling water in the oven. Do nothing more to it until dinner-time, except to add more boiling water as that in the pan evaporates. When ready for the soup, pour into the tureen without straining.

Chicken Scallop.

Cut cold boiled chicken into pieces less than an inch long. Have ready a cup of yesterday’s soup in a saucepan—or some drawn butter—and, when hot, stir in the meat. Just boil, and pour upon a beaten egg. Cover the bottom of a bake-dish with fine crumbs; pour in the mixture, rather highly seasoned; strew with more crumbs; put drops of butter over the surface, and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown quickly.

Green Peas.

Shell, and boil in hot salted water from twenty to twenty-five minutes, adding a lump of sugar, if they are not freshly gathered. Drain well; dish, and season with pepper, salt, and butter.

New Potatoes.

Scrape off the skins, and cook in boiling salted water, until a fork will go in easily. Turn off all the water. Set the uncovered pot for a moment upon the range, throwing in a little fine salt. Then send up in a dish, with a napkin thrown lightly over it.

Lettuce.

Do not trouble yourself to-day with making salad-dressing. Pick apart the lettuce leaves, put into a salad-bowl with cracked ice below and among them, and pass the oil, pepper, salt, and vinegar with it.[440]

Huckleberries, Cream, and Cake.

Pick over and wash the berries. Drain, and serve in a glass dish. Send around sugar and cream with them, and follow with the cake-basket.

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Potage aux Croûtons.

3 lbs. of lean beef; fried bread; 1 onion, sliced; 3 quarts of water; chopped herbs; 1 carrot, cut up; pepper, salt, and 1 great spoonful of clear catsup—walnut or mushroom; dripping.

Fry meat and vegetables ten minutes in plenty of hot dripping. Drain this off, and set by in the pan while you put meat, vegetables, and herbs on in the water, and set where they will heat slowly to a boil. Prepare the croûtons by cutting out, with the top of a pepper-box, small rounds of stale bread, and frying them in the dripping used for the beef, etc. Drain, and set these in an open oven, that they may get very dry. Boil the soup three hours. Strain; cool, skim, season; boil and skim five minutes, and put in the croûtons. Heat three minutes, but do not boil, and pour out.

Devilled Crab.

1 cup of crab-meat, picked from the shells of well-boiled crabs; 2 tablespoonfuls of fine bread-crumbs or rolled cracker; yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, chopped; juice of a lemon; ½ teaspoonful of made mustard; a little Cayenne pepper and salt; 1 cup of good drawn butter.[441]

Mix one spoonful of the crumbs with the chopped crab-meat, yolks, seasoning, and drawn butter. Fill scallop-shells—large clam-shells will do, or small paté-pans—with the mixture; sift crumbs over the top, and heat to slight browning in a quick oven.

Corned Beef and Turnips.

Cook the beef in plenty of cold water, bringing slowly to the boil. Cook fifteen minutes to the pound after it begins to simmer. When about three-quarters done put in a dozen turnips, peeled and quartered. When you dish the beef, lay these—unmashed—about it. Serve the meat with drawn butter, having as a base the pot-liquor. Save the rest of the liquor for to-morrow’s soup.

Lima Beans.

Shell, and cook in boiling salted water about twenty-five minutes. Then drain, pour over them a little drawn butter, well peppered, and serve.

Beets.

Be careful, in cutting off the tops and washing them, not to break the skins, or they will bleed away their color in the water. Cook in boiling water one hour. Scrape; slice; salt, pepper, and butter, and pour a few spoonfuls of boiling vinegar upon them after they are dished.

Plain Boiled Pudding.

3 heaping cups of flour; 2 cups of buttermilk or “loppered” milk; 1 full teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in boiling water; ½ cupful of powdered suet; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Stir the sour milk into the flour gradually until it is free from lumps. Put in salt and suet; lastly, beat in the soda water quickly and faithfully. Put into a buttered mould, and boil an hour and a half. Eat hot with sauce.[442]

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Butter (or Lima) Bean Soup.

The pot-liquor from your beef; 1 quart of butter (or Lima) beans; ½ cup corn-meal, scalded and left to cool; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery; 2 beaten eggs; pepper.

Take the fat from the pot-liquor and put over the fire with the beans, onion, and scalded meal. The latter should be soft as thin mush. Stir until this is well mixed with the soup, and boil gently, stirring now and then, until the beans are broken to pieces. Rub to a purée through a colander; put in pepper and chopped parsley. Simmer five minutes, and pour a cupful upon the beaten eggs. Stir this back into the soup; cook one minute, without quite boiling, and serve. Pass sliced lemon with it.

Breaded Veal Cutlets.

Trim and flatten the cutlets; pepper and salt, and roll in beaten egg; then in pounded cracker. Fry rather slowly in good dripping; turning when the lower side is brown. Drain off the fat; squeeze a little lemon-juice upon each, and serve in a hot, flat dish.

Mashed Potatoes.

Mash very soft with butter and milk; season and heap irregularly upon a dish.

Succotash.

6 ears of corn; 1 pint of string-beans, trimmed and cut into short pieces; 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; 1 cup of milk; pepper and salt.[443]

Cut the corn from the cob, bruising as little as possible. Put over the fire with the beans in enough hot water, salted, to cover them, and stew gently half an hour. Turn off nearly all the water, and add a cupful of milk. Simmer in this, stirring to prevent burning, twenty minutes; add the floured butter, the pepper and salt, and stew ten minutes. Serve in a deep dish.

Devilled Tomatoes.

12 fine, firm tomatoes, pared and sliced nearly half an inch thick; yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs, pounded; 3 tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and same of vinegar; 2 raw eggs, beaten light; 1 teaspoonful sugar, and half as much, each, of made mustard and salt; a pinch of Cayenne.

Rub butter, pounded yolks, pepper, salt, mustard and sugar together. Beat hard, add vinegar, and heat to a boil. Put this upon the beaten eggs and whip to a smooth cream. Set in hot water while you broil the tomatoes in an oyster-broiler, over clear coals. Lay this upon a hot chafing-dish, and pour the scalding dressing upon them.

Baked Huckleberry Pudding.

1 pint of milk; 2 eggs; 1 quart of flour (sifted); 1 gill yeast; 1 saltspoonful of salt; 1 teaspoonful of boiling water; nearly a quart of berries, dredged with flour.

Make a batter of these ingredients—leaving out the berries—and set in a warm place to rise, for about four hours. If light then, stir in the dredged berries; pour into a buttered cake-mould, and bake one hour in a moderate oven. Turn out, and eat with hard sauce.[444]

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Bean and Tomato Soup.

Cut up a quart of ripe tomatoes; season with pepper, salt and sugar, and stew until broken to pieces. Rub through a colander; add what was left of yesterday’s bean soup; heat together almost to boiling, and pour upon dice of fried bread in the tureen.

Fricasseed Chicken.

Clean, wash, and cut the fowls into joints. Put a layer of fat salt pork in the bottom of a pot; lay the chicken upon this; pepper and salt. Cover with more pork, and pour in three tablespoonfuls of hot water mixed with as much butter. Finally, drop in a little minced onion. Cover tightly, and heat very slowly. After the chickens begin to stew, cook steadily one hour, if they are tender. If not, increase the time at discretion. When they are done, take up and keep hot. Add a little boiling water to the gravy; strain, thicken with browned flour, boil up and pour upon the fowls.

Boiled Onions with Sauce.

Boil fifteen minutes in hot salted water. Throw this off; add a little gravy (made, if you have none ready, by boiling a chicken-scrag and feet in a pint of water, until there is less than a cupful of broth, then seasoning and thickening this), with chopped parsley. Stew five minutes longer, or until tender, and dish.

Green Pea Cakes.

2 cups of boiled green peas, mashed hot with pepper,[445] salt, and butter; 2 beaten eggs; 1 cup of milk; ½ cup of prepared flour.

Mix and beat hard. Fry as you would griddle-cakes.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Chop cold parboiled potatoes into coarse dice. Put some butter in a frying-pan, and, when hot, throw in a tablespoonful of chopped onion and a little parsley. Cook one minute; add the potatoes, and stir until very hot and glazed with the butter, but not until colored. Serve hot.

Baked Cup Custards.

1 quart of milk; 5 eggs; 1 cup of sugar; lemon flavoring for custard, and lemon-juice for the méringue.

Heat the milk, add all but two tablespoonfuls of sugar to the beaten yolks of all the eggs and the whites of two, and pour the scalding milk upon them, mixing in well. Fill buttered stone-china cups with this custard; set in a dripping-pan of hot water, and bake until “set.” Then pile upon them roughly a méringue made of the reserved whites, whipped stiff with the rest of the powdered sugar and the lemon-juice. Shut the oven until these begin to be tinged. Eat cold from the cups.

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Corn Soup.

1 pint of grated corn just from the cob; 3 pints of boiling water; 1 pint of hot milk; 3 tablespoonfuls of[446] butter; 1 heaping tablespoonful of flour; pepper; salt; yolks of 2 eggs.

Put on the cobs, after you have grated off the corn, in the boiling water, and cook half an hour. Take them out and put in the corn. Boil one hour or until very soft. Pulp through the colander back into the water. Season, and set over the fire to simmer. Put the butter into a saucepan, and, when hot, stir in the flour. Cook ten minutes, stirring all the while. Add a little of the soup to thin it, and empty the saucepan into the soup-pot, stirring the contents until smooth. Heat the milk in another saucepan, pour upon the beaten yolks, cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Season with pepper and salt, and stir the soup into it. This is a remarkably nice soup.

Mayonnaise of Lobster.

Meat of one large boiled lobster, cold and cut into dice. Lay aside the coral for the dressing. Make this of these ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls best salad-oil; 1 teaspoonful, each, of made mustard, salt, white sugar, and anchovy sauce; vinegar and cayenne to taste.

Pound the yolks perfectly smooth, and rub in the coral and other ingredients with great care, moistening with vinegar as they stiffen, until a smooth cream is the result. Pour this over the minced lobster, and toss up well with a silver fork. Heap in the centre of your salad-bowl, and lay cool, white lettuce-hearts around it, helping out these with the lobster. Inside of the lettuce lay a chain of the sliced boiled whites.

Beefsteak au Maître D’Hôtel.

Broil your beefsteak in the usual manner. Lay upon the chafing-dish and pour upon it a sauce made of 1 great spoonful of butter; 1 teaspoonful very finely minced parsley; pepper, salt and the juice of a lemon—heated almost to boiling in a clean saucepan. Put a hot cover over the steak, and let it stand five minutes before serving.[447]

Stewed Lima Beans.

Boil in hot salted water fifteen minutes. Drain half of this off and stir in—for a quart of beans—a tablespoonful of very finely chopped sweet salt pork—the whitest fat slice you can get—a teaspoonful of minced onion, a little chopped parsley; pepper and a cupful of hot milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in to prevent curdling. Stew slowly fifteen minutes more; stir in a scant tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; cook ten minutes and pour out.

Fried Cucumbers.

See Wednesday, First Week in July.

Boiled Potatoes.

See Monday of this week.

Blackberry Pie.

Line a pie-dish with good crust, and fill with ripe berries, sweetening plentifully. Cover with another crust and bake in a moderate oven. Eat cold with white sugar sifted over it.

Iced Tea.

See Sunday, Third Week in July.

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Kilkenny Soup.

3 lbs. of lean beef; 2 lbs. scrag of mutton, cut up small; 1 lb. lean ham; 3 sliced onions; 3 carrots; 2 turnips;[448] bunch of sweet herbs; ⅔ of a cup of Irish oatmeal, previously soaked four hours in a little tepid water; 6 quarts of cold water; pepper and salt; 6 parboiled potatoes, sliced.

Crack the bones, and cut the meat into strips. Cover with the water, and bring slowly to the boil. When this has lasted one hour, skim off the top of the pot, and put in the onions fried brown in dripping, the other vegetables sliced, and the herbs; cook three hours longer, and strain the soup. Season the meat pretty highly and pour upon it—in a jar or bowl—half the clear stock. Set upon the ice for Sunday, when cold. Rub the vegetables through the colander into the rest of the stock; cool, take off the fat, season, add the sliced potatoes and the oatmeal, and cook one hour more. Strain into the tureen.

Mutton Chops.

Trim, leaving a bit of bare bone at the end of each. Pepper, and broil over a clear fire. Lay upon a hot dish; salt and butter both sides of each chop, and lay outside of your stewed tomatoes.

Ragoût of Vegetables.

Parboil 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 2 potatoes, 2 ears of corn, 1 cup of Lima beans, and the same of peas, 1 onion, and with them ¼ lb. of fat salt pork. Drain off the water, and lay aside the pork. Slice carrots, turnips, potatoes and onion. Put into a saucepan with a cup of your soup taken out before thickening; season well; cut the corn from the cob and add with the peas, beans, and a sliced tomato as soon as the rest are hot. Stew all together half an hour. Stir in a great lump of butter rolled in flour; stew five minutes and pour into a deep dish.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Loosen the skins with hot water, peel and slice. Stew until broken to pieces. Pulp through a coarse sieve, rubbing out all that will pass. Return to the fire with a little sugar, pepper and salt, and boil briskly fifteen minutes.[449] Stir in, then, enough fine crumbs to make it like a tolerably thick batter; add a great spoonful of butter; stew, stirring well, five minutes; pour in the middle of a flat dish, and arrange the chops around it.

Indian Pudding.

1 quart of milk; 4 cups white Indian meal; 3 eggs; 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 1 teaspoonful of salt; ¼ lb. powdered suet; 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon; ¼ teaspoonful of soda in the milk.

Scald the milk, and, while hot, stir in meal, suet, and salt. When cold, beat in the yolks and sugar, the spice—at last the whites. Beat long and hard; pour into a buttered mould, leaving room for swelling—and plenty of it—put into a pot of boiling water almost up to the top, and boil four hours. Turn out, and eat hot with sauce.

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[450]

AUGUST.

Macaroni Soup.

Take the fat from your cold soup; pour the latter carefully from the meat, and heat to a slow boil. Having removed all the scum that will rise, add a quarter pound of macaroni, broken into short pieces, boiled twenty minutes in hot salted water, and left to get cold. Simmer fifteen minutes, and serve.

Stewed Ducks.

Clean, wash, and truss neatly, but do not stuff the ducks. Put into a broad saucepan, such as is generally known as a braising-pan. Strew with a little onion; pour over them a cupful of weak broth made by boiling the giblets in a pint of water and reducing one-half. Season this well, and when you have poured it upon the ducks, cover the saucepan and cook gently an hour and a half or until the ducks are tender. Turn them when half done. Take up when ready; keep hot while you strain and thicken the gravy with browned flour. Pour a little over the ducks, the rest into a boat.

Green Peas.

See Monday, Fourth Week in July.[451]

Boiled Corn.

Strip off all except the inner thin husk. Turn this down, and pick off the silk. Put back the husk, tie with a bit of thread, and cook in boiling water from twenty-five to thirty minutes. Break off the stalks and husks, and send to table wrapped in a napkin.

Fried Egg-plant.

Cut in slices half an inch thick; pare each carefully, and lay for one hour in salt and water, to remove the bitter taste. Then slightly salt and pepper each piece, and dip in a batter made of two eggs, half a cup of milk, and about a cup of flour, or enough for thin batter. Fry in hot lard or dripping to a fine brown; drain well, and serve hot.

Potato Salad.

Slice six or eight cold boiled potatoes; put them into a salad-dish, and season as follows: To two tablespoonfuls of salad-oil add one teaspoonful of sugar, half as much, each, of made mustard, salt, and pepper, and nearly as much essence of celery. Rub to a smooth paste, and whip in, a teaspoonful at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar. When well mixed, pour upon the salad.

Almond Custard, with Cocoanut Frost.

2 cups fresh milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; ½ lb. almonds, blanched, dried, and pounded; 3 beaten eggs; ½ cup powdered sugar; rose-water; 1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water, and grated.

Scald the milk; stir in the almond-paste, which should have been mixed with rose-water, to prevent oiling. Boil one minute, and pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until the mixture begins to thicken. Take off, and pour into a bowl. When cold, put on ice until Sunday. Then turn the custard into a glass dish, and heap high with the grated cocoanut. Strew powdered sugar over all.[452]

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Clam Soup.

50 clams; 1 quart of hot water; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 tablespoonful of flour; 1 teaspoonful chopped onion, and same of mixed thyme and parsley; 2 cups of hot milk; salt and cayenne; 2 blades of mace.

Cut the hard parts off from the clams, putting the soft halves on ice. Strain off all the liquor, and put with the hard bits over the fire, with a quart of hot water, the onion, herbs, and mace. Simmer forty minutes. Heat the milk in another vessel—not forgetting the pinch of soda; stir in the butter, cut up in the flour, and set in hot water until the soup is ready. At the end of the forty minutes, strain the clam broth, leaving out the hard parts. Put in the soft, season with salt and cayenne, and let them just boil. Pour into the tureen, add the milk and butter, and set the tureen in hot water five minutes before serving.

Ragoût of Duck and Green Peas.

Cut the meat from the carcasses left since yesterday, making the slices as neat as you can. If you have not a large cupful of gravy left, make it by stewing down the bones and stuffing in a quart of water, cooling, skimming, and seasoning it. Put this in a saucepan with the pieces of duck, and set where it will get very hot, but not boil. Cook a quart of tender green peas in boiling water twenty minutes; drain, and season them with pepper, salt, and butter. Take out the duck and pile in the centre of a dish; put the peas around it like a green hedge.[453] Boil up the gravy once when you have stirred in a little browned flour, wet with cold water, and pour upon the meat.

Onions.

Boil in two waters, and after draining off the last, cover, barely, with boiling milk; stir in a good piece of butter rolled in flour; season with salt and pepper; boil once, and pour into a deep dish.

Potatoes, with Cheese Sauce.

12 boiled potatoes, mashed soft with milk and butter; 4 tablespoonfuls of dry, grated cheese; 1 cup of rich drawn butter; 2 beaten eggs; pepper, salt, and nutmeg; triangles of fried bread; cracker-dust.

Stir into the hot drawn butter the pepper, salt, nutmeg, beaten eggs, and half the cheese, and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Put a layer of potato upon a flat stone-china dish—or a block-tin one—round it to suit the shape of the dish, and cover with the sauce; this, in turn, with a narrowing round of potatoes, but of equal thickness, and this with sauce, and so on, until you have a mound rounded on top. Coat with sauce, then with the rest of the cheese and some pounded cracker. Lay the sippets of fried bread up against it at the base, and heat to browning in a quick oven.

Blackberries, Huckleberries, and Cream.

Cake.

Put the blackberries in a dish of their own. Some persons like them with cream, but more prefer to eat them simply strewed with sugar. Wash the huckleberries, and pass cream and sugar with them; then a basket of simple cake.[454]

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A Summer Soup.

3 lbs. coarse, lean beef, cut into strips; 1 lb. ham or salt-pork bones; 4 quarts of water; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 12 very small and young onions, minus the stalks; 1 cup of strained tomato sauce; 1 cup of green peas; ½ cup of green corn, cut from the cob; pepper and salt.

Cook the beef and bones in the water down to two quarts of liquid. Strain, cool, and skim. Meanwhile cut carrots and turnips into neat dice or strips, and parboil with the onions five minutes in boiling water. Return your skimmed and seasoned stock to the fire, and when almost on the boil, put in the parboiled and drained vegetables, with peas and corn. Simmer half an hour, add the tomato sauce, and cook ten minutes more, then pour out.

Veal Collops.

3 lbs. of lean veal, cut into square bits, two inches across, and more than half an inch thick; ¼ lb. fat salt pork, cut into lardoons; 1 cup of gravy taken from your soup before adding the vegetables; 1 cup of drawn butter; yolks of 2 eggs; juice of half a lemon; pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of mace.

Lard the veal with the pork, and lay in a pan of boiling water three minutes. Have ready a cup of gravy seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and lemon-peel. Put in the meat, and simmer half an hour very gently. Beat the yolks into the drawn butter; stir in the lemon-juice; add to the contents of the saucepan, and stir, carefully, not to break the lardoons, five minutes. Heap the collops into a block upon a dish, and pour on the gravy.[455]

Tomato Sauce.

Peel, slice, and stew twenty minutes; then season with pepper, salt, butter rolled in flour, and sugar. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

String-Beans.

Cut off the ends; “string” well, paring both sides with a keen knife; cut into short pieces, and cook in boiling salt water forty minutes. Drain; salt, pepper, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter, heated with a teaspoonful of vinegar.

Raw Cucumbers.

Pare, lay in ice-water one hour; slice, and mix with pounded ice, in a glass bowl. Pass vinegar, salt, pepper, and oil with them.

Apple Compote au Gratin.

Make a quart of good apple sauce; rubbing it very smooth, and beating in, while hot, sugar to make it quite sweet, nutmeg, and a great spoonful of butter. Make a heap of it (it should be rather stiff when cold) upon a deep plate, or pie-dish. Wash all over with beaten egg, and sift rolled cracker thickly upon it. Bake half an hour, and eat hot with butter and sugar.

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Beef Noodle Soup.

First—to borrow an idea from worthy Mrs. Glass—make the noodles.[456]

Take 4 eggs, beaten one minute; 3 tablespoonfuls of water; enough flour (prepared) for stiff dough, and a saltspoonful of salt. Make up, and knead fifteen minutes. Roll into a thin sheet, and cut half of it into long strips, less than half an inch wide, and these, again, across at intervals of four inches. Now, roll the other half of the sheet up very closely, making a long scroll like a quill. Cut this across, with a keen knife, into little wheels less than a quarter of an inch wide. Lay all in a sunny window to dry. Those intended for to-day will be fit to use in two hours. The rest will keep in a dry, cool place several days, and can be used as a vegetable, or in soups.

Make a stock of 2 lbs. of beef bones, the same of mutton bones and a slice of lean ham boiled in three quarts of water, with 1 onion, 1 carrot, and a bunch of herbs chopped. Boil down to two quarts, strain; cool, skim and season, and put in a good handful of the noodles—a few at a time—so soon as it boils. Simmer twenty minutes.

Boiled Chickens and Tongue.

Clean, wash, and truss the chickens; bind legs and wings down closely by tying up the fowls in white, perfectly clean bobbinet lace, or mosquito net. Put on in plenty of boiling salted water and cook one hour, unless they are large and tough. In that case cook very slowly and long. Have ready a tongue, which has soaked several hours in warm water—boiled, skimmed, and trimmed. Lay upon a dish with a chicken on each side. Pour a few spoonfuls of melted butter, heated, with a little chopped parsley, over all three; set in a quick oven three minutes; anoint again with the butter and parsley, and send to table upon a hot, clean dish. Pass a boat of drawn butter with them. Save the chicken liquor, well seasoned, for to-morrow’s soup, also the water in which the tongue was boiled. If it is a smoked tongue, you can use the fat from the top for dripping. If corned, the liquor can be added to soups and gravies.

Fried Egg-plant.

Please refer to Sunday of this week.[457]

Lima Beans.

Shell and cook in boiling salted water about thirty minutes. Drain, dish, and stir in salt, pepper, and a good lump of butter.

Potato Puffs.

6 boiled potatoes, mashed soft, with a tablespoonful of milk, and as much butter; 3 beaten eggs; 6 tablespoonfuls of prepared flour, or enough to enable you to make into soft dough. Make into balls like doughnuts; roll these in flour, and fry to a fine brown in hot lard.

Peaches and Cream.

Pare and slice the peaches just before dinner, and cover the glass dish containing them to exclude the air as much as may be, since they soon change color. Do not sugar them in the dish. They then become preserves—not fresh fruit. Pass “fruit sugar” and cream with them.

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Chicken and Corn Soup.

The pot-liquor from yesterday’s chickens; 12 ears of corn, grated from the cob; 1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour; pepper, salt, and parsley.

Take the fat from the top of your liquor, and save in the dripping-pot. Heat the broth to a boil; put in the cobs from which the corn has been cut, and cook half an hour. Strain the soup; put again over the fire and put in the cut corn. N. B.—It is well to split each row of grains[458] before cutting them off. Cook forty minutes, stir in butter and flour, with the parsley. Simmer five minutes, and serve.

Game Mutton.

Cut away the under-side of a nice leg of mutton, to make it as flat as may be without exposing the bone. Put the pieces thus trimmed off over the fire, with a quart of water, and stew down one-half. Cool, skim, season, and re-heat. Meantime, lard the upper side of the meat with slender lardoons. If you have not a larding-needle—which is a pity—use a long-bladed jack-knife to make diagonal incisions in the mutton; then thrust in the lardoons with your fingers, bringing both ends to the surface. Now rub the meat all over with hot butter and vinegar, letting the surplus trickle into the dripping-pan. Pour the boiling pint of gravy over the leg, and roast twelve minutes to the pound, basting every ten minutes, copiously. Just before taking it up, pour off the fat from the gravy; dip up a few spoonfuls of the brown juice, and, mixing with as much currant jelly, beat in a little browned flour, wet up with cold water. Baste the meat with this until a fine brown glaze covers it. Serve the gravy, well skimmed, in a boat. This is a delightful dish. Carve judiciously, so as to leave a seemly joint cold for to-morrow.

Green Peas.

See Sunday of this week.

Beets.

See Tuesday, Fourth Week in July.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and serve without browning.

Huckleberry Shortcake.

Please see Wednesday, Second Week in June.[459]

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Sister Anne’s Soup.

12 potatoes, pared and quartered; 1 onion, sliced; tablespoonful of minced parsley; 1 cup of unskimmed milk (cream is still better); 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet with cold milk; 1 teaspoonful of sugar; 2 quarts of boiling water; pinch of soda in the milk.

Parboil the potatoes ten minutes; throw off the water, and put on two quarts of boiling water. Cook in this one hour with the onion, replenishing from the kettle as it boils away. Then rub through a fine colander, season with pepper, salt, and parsley, and re-heat. When it bubbles up, stir in the butter and corn-starch; boil up, add the hot milk, and serve.

Boiled Bass.

Put enough water in the pot for the fish to swim in, easily. Add half a cup of vinegar, a teaspoonful of salt, an onion, a dozen black peppers, and a blade of mace. Sew up the fish in a piece of clean net, fitted to its shape. Heat slowly for the first half hour, then boil eight minutes, at least, to the pound, quite fast. Unwrap, and pour over it a cup of drawn butter, based upon the liquor in which the fish was boiled, with the juice of half a lemon stirred into it. Garnish with sliced lemon.

Cold Mutton.

Put on the larded joint, cold, garnished with nasturtium flowers and curled parsley.[460]

Boiled Potatoes.

Pass with the fish. Please see Monday of Fourth Week in July.

Tomato Salad.

Peel with a sharp knife. Slice, arrange in a salad-dish, and pour over it a dressing such as you made for potato salad on Sunday of this week.

Green Corn Pudding.

12 ears of sweet corn, each row of grains split lengthwise, then cut close to the cob; 4 eggs; 2 cups of milk; 1 tablespoonful of sugar, rubbed up with one of butter; 1 teaspoonful of salt; 2 tablespoonfuls of flour.

Mix as you would a rice pudding, and bake one hour in a buttered dish. Serve in the bake-dish, hot.

Apple Custard Pie.

Make a very sweet apple sauce in which not a lump remains. To each cupful add two eggs beaten light and half a cupful of perfectly fresh milk. Have ready some paste-shells in pie-plates, fill with the custard and bake at once without an upper crust.

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Pot au Feu.

5 lbs. of brisket of beef—bones cracked, and meat sliced; the broken bones of your cold mutton, after you have sliced off the meat; 2 grated carrots; 2 grated turnips;[461] 1 large fried onion; bunch of sweet herbs; 1 whole carrot; 1 whole turnip, cut into dice; 1 very small cauliflower, the bunches clipped apart; 6 quarts of water; pepper and salt.

Put on the meat, bones, onion, grated vegetables and herbs in the soup-pot with the water; cover closely and cook slowly five hours. Then strain; take out the meat and set aside with half the stock, well seasoned, for Sunday. Put on the ice when cold. Cool and skim the rest; season; put back in the pot with a parboiled turnip, carrot, and cauliflower, the latter clipped into small clusters; the others cut into dice. Simmer half an hour, and serve.

Broiled Ham and Eggs.

Cut slices of cooked ham of equal size; broil upon a gridiron over a clear fire. Lay upon a hot dish; pepper, and spread each slice with a mixture of melted butter and a very little made mustard. Lay on each a poached egg, trimmed neatly.

Casserole of Potato.

Mash eight or ten potatoes smooth with butter, salt, and work in the beaten whites of two eggs. Then fill a greased jelly-mould with it, pressing down firmly. Set aside to harden. When cold, scoop out about a teacupful, or less, from the middle, leaving firm, thick walls. Fill the cavity with a mince of cold mutton, highly seasoned, mixed with crumbs and moistened with gravy, and not too soft. Fit a piece of fried bread in the mouth of the filled cavity; turn out the casserole carefully upon a stone-china or block-tin dish; wash all over with beaten egg and set in a hot oven ten minutes to heat and glaze. The mince should be very hot when it goes in and stiff enough to keep its shape.

String-Beans.

See Tuesday of this week.

Cream Squash.

Boil and mash as usual; then return to the saucepan with half a cup of milk to a quart of mashed squash;[462] and when this simmers, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; pepper and salt to taste. Stir three minutes and pour out.

Jelly Omelette.

Beat six eggs light—yolks and whites separately; then mix them and stir in lightly a tablespoonful of powdered sugar. Put a tablespoonful of butter into a frying-pan, and, when it boils, pour in the omelette. Lift at the edges and bottom with your spatula, as it cooks, and when “set” in the middle, put on one side of it a few spoonfuls of fruit-jelly; fold over, and turn out upon a hot dish. Strew powdered sugar over it.

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Noodle Soup.

Take the fat from the top of your cold stock; put the latter in a soup-pot; heat to a gentle boil. Strain through thin muslin; set again over the fire; boil and skim one minute; add nearly a cupful of dried noodles and simmer twenty minutes. If you have no noodles made, break a handful of vermicelli small, and cook the same length of time.

Braised Chicken.

Clean, wash, and stuff a pair of fowls. Lay slices of fat salt pork in a broad saucepan, and upon these the chickens with thin slices of pork tied over their breasts. Put two cupfuls of hot water in the pan, cover very securely and cook slowly an hour and a half—longer should the chickens be tough—and this is a good way to[463] cook such. At the end of that time remove the chicken to the hot-water dish; cover to keep hot; strain the gravy and return half to a small saucepan. Add a little browned flour wet with cold water, and boil fast to a bright brown glaze. Put the fowls in a quick oven; take off the pork; brush all over with the glaze, and when brown, serve. Take the fat from the reserved gravy, add the water in which the giblets were boiled; the chopped giblets themselves, and a little browned flour, also pepper. Boil up and serve in a boat.

Fried Egg-plant.

Please see Sunday of First Week in August.

Green Corn Sauté.

Boil; then cut from the cob; have ready in a saucepan a little butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. Stir in the corn and shake and toss until hot and glazed with the butter.

Baked Tomatoes.

Pare with a sharp knife; cut in thick slices. Put a layer of crumbs in the bottom of a bake-dish; wet them with a little of your soup-stock, or other gravy; cover with tomatoes, seasoned with butter, salt, pepper and sugar, more crumbs moistened with gravy, and so on, to the top of the dish, having well-moistened crumbs for the last layer. Cover, and bake half an hour; then uncover and brown quickly. Serve in the bake-dish.

Ice Cream and Cake.

For directions, too full and explicit to need repetition, please see Sunday, Second Week in July.[464]

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A Monday Soup.

Strip all the meat from your chicken-bones, and set in a cool place, while you break the skeletons to pieces, and put in a soup-pot at the back of the range, with the dressing, skin, and gristly bits. Pour on three quarts of water and leave it to simmer—always covered—for three hours. Strain, rubbing the stuffing through the colander; cool and skim; return to the fire with a cupful of yesterday’s soup (there is always a little left over, if it is only saved from the swill-pail), also strained. Have ready six Boston crackers split and dried in the oven for half an hour, but not scorched. Butter these; lay in the heated tureen; pour upon them two cups of boiling milk, and let soak, covered, while you salt and pepper your soup, and add a little minced parsley. Should there not be dressing enough to thicken it well, stir in a little corn-starch, wet with milk. Boil up, and pour upon the crackers. This soup need not consume fifteen minutes of your time, and is very savory.

Scallop and Baked Eggs.

Mince your chicken, but not small; cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with fine crumbs; put in the chicken, wet with gravy and seasoned to taste; strew a good coating of crumbs on top, and this with butter-bits. Set, covered, in the oven. When the gravy bubbles to the surface remove the lid and break upon the scallop enough eggs to cover it well. Pepper and salt; lay a piece of butter on each, and bake until well “set.”[465]

Mashed Potatoes.

Boil, mash, and whip to a cream with a fork, mixing in butter, milk, salt and a dust of pepper, as you go on. Serve in a deep dish.

Green Peas.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

Raw Cucumbers.

Pare; lay in ice-water one hour; slice and pile upon pounded ice in a glass dish, sending around condiments with them.

Huckleberry Cake.

This cake should have been made on Saturday. It keeps well, and is much better the second day than the first.

5 eggs; 3 cups of powdered sugar; 1 cup of butter; 1 cup of sweet milk; 4 cups of prepared flour; 1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon; 2 cups of huckleberries dredged with flour; ¼ teaspoonful of soda stirred in boiling water and mixed with the milk.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, the milk, the flour, alternately, with the whipped whites, and, lastly, the dredged berries. Bake in small loaves, or in patty-pans, in a moderate oven, covering as it begins to brown. It takes a longer time to bake than plain cake.

Iced Coffee.

Make more coffee than needed for breakfast. Set by three or four cups of strong coffee, adding nearly one-third as much boiled milk, while both are hot. Set in ice, and, in serving, put a lump of ice in each glass.[466]

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Tapioca Soup.

2 lbs. lean veal; 2 lbs. beef-bones, cracked; 1 slice of corned ham; 1 carrot; bunch of herbs; 1 onion; 8 large tomatoes; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; pepper and salt; ¼ cup granulated tapioca, previously soaked two hours in a little cold water; 3 quarts of water.

Slice the meat and vegetables, and put on—leaving out the tomatoes—in the water, to boil slowly four hours. At the end of the second hour, skim well, and add the tomatoes. When the time is up, strain the soup, take out the meat, and rub the vegetables through the colander. Cool and skim; season with sugar, pepper, salt, and minced herbs, and heat up anew. When it boils, add the tapioca; stir clear, and serve.

Beefsteak.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet, and broil upon a buttered gridiron over a clear fire. Lay upon a hot dish, pepper, salt, and put a bountiful spoonful of butter, cut into bits, upon it. Cover with a hot dish or lid for five minutes before it is to be carved.

Tomatoes and Corn, Stewed.

Slice eight large tomatoes, when you have skinned them. Add the corn cut from six ears; put into a saucepan and stew twenty minutes; season with pepper, salt, and sugar. Add a great lump of butter rolled in flour, and cook ten minutes longer.

Potatoes in Jackets.

Put on in boiling salt water, and cook twenty minutes; then throw in a cup of cold water. Bring rapidly to the[467] second boil, and, when a fork pierces the largest easily, turn off the water, and set the uncovered pot upon the range, to dry off the moisture. Serve in a dish lined with a napkin.

Mashed Squash.

Pare, quarter, lay in cold water ten minutes, and cook soft in hot, salted water. Mash in a hot colander very quickly; season with butter, pepper, and salt, and dish very hot.

Peaches and Cream.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.

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Cream Soup.

The liquor in which your calf’s head was boiled; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 1 blade of mace; 1 cup of milk; yolks of 2 eggs; pepper and salt; 1 teaspoonful corn-starch, rubbed in cold water.

Boil your calf’s head early in the day, until you can just handle it without breaking it to pieces. It will be firmer for baking if left to get cold at this juncture. Skim the pot-liquor, put in the sliced onion, parsley, and mace, and boil slowly two hours. Strain, cool, skim, season, and thicken slightly with the corn-starch. Beat the yolks in a bowl, add the boiling milk, and pour into the heated tureen. Add the soup, stir up well, and serve.

Baked Calf’s Head, with Mushrooms.

Set the cold boiled calf’s head in the oven; pour a cup of pot-liquor, boiling hot, over it, and bake half an hour,[468] basting very often. Then dredge well with flour and baste twice with butter. Now coat thickly with a paste made of the brains, boiled, cooled and beaten smooth with an egg, and seasoned with pepper and salt. When this has browned, dish the head. Strain the gravy, add half a cupful of mushrooms, boiled and chopped, a very little browned flour, the juice of a lemon, and, if needed, a little boiling water. Stew one minute and send up in a boat.

Spinach.

Boil in hot water, a little salt, about twenty minutes. Drain and press; then chop very fine and return to the fire with a good lump of butter, salt, pepper, sugar, a few tablespoonfuls of cream, and beat to a smooth mixture like custard. Pour into a deep dish and serve.

Succotash.

Cut the corn from six or seven cobs; mix with it one-third the quantity of Lima beans; just cover with water, and stew gently half an hour. Turn off most of the water, add a cup of milk, and when this heats, a great lump of butter rolled in flour, with pepper and salt. Simmer half an hour longer, stirring up often.

Lettuce.

Pick apart the heads and pile upon pounded ice, on a glass dish. Pass vinegar, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar with it.

Apple Pudding.

Sliced tart apples; bread-crumbs; butter; sugar; cinnamon.

Butter a pudding-dish very well, and put in a layer of crumbs; then dots of butter; next, sliced apples strewed with sugar and cinnamon—more buttered crumbs. Repeat the layers in this order until your dish is full, with crumbs on top. Bake, covered, half an hour—or forty minutes for a large dish. Turn out, pour liquid sauce over it, and eat hot with more.[469]

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Beef Bouillon.

6 lbs. of round of beef, bound into a good shape with tape; 3 small carrots; 3 turnips; 8 very small young onions, and one large one stuck with four cloves. Bunch of herbs; 1 pint of string-beans and same of green peas; 1 small head of cauliflower; 4 quarts of water; pepper and salt; noodles, rice or sago.

Put the beef whole into the water, and heat slowly to a boil. When you have taken off the scum, dip out a pint of the liquor, and put by for cooking the vegetables. Add to the liquor left with the beef one sliced carrot, one turnip, also sliced, the large onion and the herbs. Stew slowly four hours; take out the beef and keep hot over boiling water. Strain the soup, pulping the vegetables; cool and skim, return to the fire, and, when it heats, add noodles, boiled rice or soaked German sago. Simmer five minutes and pour into the tureen.

The Beef and Vegetables.

Pare the two turnips and two carrots; string the beans; top, tail and skin the onions, and cook these, with the cauliflower, half an hour in the pint of hot broth, slightly salted. Then add the peas, and cook twenty minutes more. Serve the beef upon a hot dish; slice the turnips and carrots and clip the cauliflower into bunches, and lay, each kind of vegetable by itself, about the meat. Make a sauce by heating and skimming a cupful of the soup-broth, stirring into it a great spoonful of butter rolled in a heaping teaspoonful of flour, and, when it has thickened, seasoning with pepper, salt, a little French mustard, and the juice of half a lemon. Serve in a boat.[470]

Mashed Potatoes.

Treat as directed on Monday of this week.

Raw Tomatoes.

See Friday of First Week in August.

Peach Pie.

Pare, but do not stone ripe, rich peaches. Have ready your pie-plates lined with a good paste; put in the fruit; sweeten well; cover with pastry, and bake. Eat fresh—not warm—with powdered sugar sifted over them.

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Eel Soup.

4 lbs. of eels; 3 quarts of water; 1 chopped onion; minced parsley; a blade of mace; pepper, salt, and lemon-juice; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; dripping.

Clean the eels, removing all the fat, and cut into short pieces. Fry a chopped onion brown in plenty of dripping; wipe the eels dry and fry them in the same. Put into a pot with the onion and mace; cover with three quarts of cold water, and stew slowly two hours. Then season; stir in the floured butter; simmer three minutes, add the lemon-juice, and pour out.

Broiled Chickens.

Clean, wash off the blood, but do not soak; split down the backs, and lay upon a gridiron, or sticks laid over a[471] dripping-pan of boiling water. Cover with another pan and steam half an hour, in the oven or upon the range. Wipe off the moisture lightly, and cook upon a buttered gridiron over hot coals, turning when it drips. Let it get tender and brown without scorching. When done, lay upon a hot dish; butter well, pepper and salt, and send up at once.

Broiled Tomatoes.

Slice fine ripe tomatoes without peeling them, and cook, held between the wires of an oyster-broiler, until hissing hot and slightly browned. Lay upon a hot dish, and dress with a mixture of butter heated almost to boiling, with a little vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

Scalloped Squash.

Mash in the usual way; put upon a layer of crumbs laid in the bottom of a pudding-dish, having seasoned the squash with butter, pepper, and salt. Pour a little cream on top, and strew with buttered crumbs. Bake, covered, half an hour, then brown.

Nutmeg and Water Melons.

Keep both on ice for several hours. Serve, by wiping the watermelon and laying it whole upon a long dish, to be carved at table. If cut up too long before it is to be eaten, it becomes insipid. Cut the nutmeg melons in two; take out the seeds, and put a lump of ice in each half.

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Vegetable Soup with Eggs.

3 lbs. of beef—coarse and cut into strips; 2 lbs. veal, from the scrag; 2 lbs. marrow-bones of any kind; 2 carrots;[472] 1 turnip; 1 large onion; 6 tomatoes; corn from three ears, grated off; 1 pint of green peas; sweet herbs; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water; 6 or 8 eggs.

Put the meat, bones, and all the vegetables on in the water, early in the day, and boil slowly five or six hours. Should the liquid sink more than one-third, add boiling water. The meat should be in rags, and the vegetables broken to pieces. Strain; pulp the vegetables through the colander; cool, and skim the stock, and season well. Divide, and set aside a goodly portion for Sunday, keeping it on ice. Boil up, skim again, pour into the tureen, and lay on the surface the poached yolks of as many eggs as there are people to be served. Use the whites for white, silver, or lady cake.

Larded Mutton Chops.

Trim off all the fat and skin, leaving a bare piece of bone at the end of each. Lard closely with fat salt pork, passing the lardoons quite through the meat. Put on in a saucepan, with enough gravy to cover them, and what remains of your can of mushrooms from day before yesterday. They will have kept well on ice. Cut each mushroom in two. Cover, and simmer gently until the chops are tender. (The gravy should be cold when it is poured upon them.) Take up the chops; arrange upon a dish. Add a heaping teaspoonful of currant jelly and a little browned flour to the gravy, boil once, and pour over the meat. Garnish with sliced lemon.

Green Peas.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

Boiled Green Corn.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

Potatoes Boiled Whole.

Treat as directed on Tuesday of this week, only stripping off the skins after they are boiled, and, when they are dished, dressing them with hot butter mixed with minced parsley and pepper and salt. Serve very hot.[473]

Blackberry Roley Poley.

1 quart of prepared flour; 1 heaping tablespoonful of lard; and the same of butter, rubbed with a little salt, into the flour; enough milk—about two cups—to make soft dough.

Roll out into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick. Strew, leaving a narrow margin at the sides, with sound blackberries, sprinkled with sugar. Roll tightly. Sew up with a “felled” seam, in a cloth, leaving room for swelling. Put into a pot of boiling water, and keep at the boil an hour and a quarter. Dip the cloth in cold water to loosen it, and turn out. Eat cold with hard sauce.

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Tomato Soup.

Take the fat from the top of your soup-stock; heat, and add a pint of strained tomato sauce well seasoned. Simmer ten minutes, and it is ready.

Fillet of Veal.

Boil, blanch, and chop two sweetbreads; mix with them a slice of cooked corned ham, minced, and some fine bread-crumbs; season with pepper, salt, a pinch of lemon-peel, and bind with a beaten egg. Stuff a fillet of veal with this mixture. Bind a broad strip of muslin about it, as wide as the meat is high; set in a dripping-pan, and pour a cup of hot water around it. Cover the top with milk in which has been mixed a tablespoonful of melted butter. Pour[474] on carefully so as not to run down the sides. Bake, basting for one hour with milk and butter, for another hour with cream, in which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Unbind the muslin from the fillet, dish it; add to the gravy a little hot water and a teaspoonful of corn-starch wet in cold water; boil up, and pour half upon the veal, the rest into a boat.

Chopped Potatoes.

Chop cold, boiled potatoes into rather coarse dice; cover with warm milk in which a pinch of soda has been dropped; when very hot, stir in a lump of floured butter and a little minced parsley and onion. Simmer five minutes and serve.

Green Corn Pudding.

See Friday of First Week in August.

String-Beans.

See Tuesday of First Week in August.

Peach Lèche-Crêma.

12 ripe peaches, pared, stoned and cut in halves; 3 eggs, and the whites of 2 more; ½ cup of powdered sugar; 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet in cold milk; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 pint of milk.

Scald the milk, stir in the corn-starch, and, when it begins to thicken, take from the fire and put in the butter. When lukewarm, whip in the beaten yolks until all are very light. Put a thick substratum of peaches into a dish; strew with sugar, and pour the creamy compound over them. Bake in a quick oven ten minutes and spread with a méringue made of five whites whipped stiff with a little powdered sugar. Shut the oven-door until this is firm. Eat cold with cream.[475]

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Quick Soup.

2 lbs. of raw lean beef, chopped very fine; 3 pints of boiling water in which an onion, a turnip, and a carrot—all pared and sliced—have been boiled twenty minutes; pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup.

Put the beef into a tin pail and set in cold water. Bring this slowly to a boil, then pour in the boiling water upon the smoking hot meat inside. Cover closely, boil for half an hour in the hot water; turn into a saucepan; season, simmer ten minutes, strain, pressing and wringing the meat, and pour into the tureen.

Dijon Paté.

1 large cup of cold boiled rice; 2 raw eggs; ½ cup of milk; 2 cups of minced veal; ½ cupful of gravy or drawn butter; 4 hard boiled eggs, sliced; pepper and salt.

Butter a pudding-mould—one without a cylinder—and line it with a thick coating of the rice worked to a paste with the milk and beaten eggs, and seasoned with pepper and salt. The paste should be quite stiff. Line the inside of this in turn with the sliced eggs, and within this pack the minced veal, wet with gravy and seasoned to taste. The stuffing of the fillet of veal should be chopped with the meat. Cover with rice; put on the lid of the mould; set it in boiling water and cook one hour. Turn out carefully, and serve with a good gravy in a boat. The gravy, if you have no other, can be made of odds-and-ends of the veal boiled down in water. Or a cup of your tomato soup of yesterday will make a good sauce.[476]

Lima Beans.

See Wednesday, First Week in August.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, and do not brown.

Raw Tomatoes.

See Friday of First Week in August.

Pears, Peaches, and Bananas.

Arrange tastefully in fruit dishes or baskets, with green leaves about them.

Iced Coffee, Crackers, and Cheese.

See Monday of Second Week in August.

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Mutton Broth.

3 lbs. of lean mutton; 2 turnips; 1 carrot; 2 onions; bunch of parsley; 1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch; 3 quarts of water.

Boil meat, cut into strips, and the vegetables, sliced, in the water two hours and a half. The water should be reduced one-third. Strain, taking out the meat, and rubbing the vegetables to a pulp through the colander. Cool, skim, season, and return to the fire. Heat, stir in[477] the corn-starch wet up with water, and pour into the tureen. Add the milk, boiling hot, stir well, and serve.

Brunswick Stew.

3 fine gray squirrels, skinned and cleaned—joint as you would chickens for a fricassee; ½ lb. of fat salt pork; 1 onion, sliced; 12 ears of corn cut from the cob; 6 large tomatoes, pared and sliced; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; parsley; enough water to cover the squirrels.

Put on squirrels, pork—cut up small—onion, and parsley in the water, and bring to a boil. When this has lasted ten minutes, put in the corn, and stew until the squirrels are tender. Then add the tomatoes, cut up thin. Twenty minutes later, stir in the butter and flour. Simmer ten minutes, and pour into a large, deep dish.

Onions Stewed Brown.

10 or 12 small onions; 1 cup of gravy from your soup, before it is strained; seasoning.

Top, tail, and skin the onions. Parboil for ten minutes; throw off the water, and cover with the cooled and skimmed gravy. Season, and stew until the onions are tender. Then stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed up with browned flour. Simmer five minutes.

Potatoes à la Duchesse.

Work a beaten egg and a little butter into each cup of mashed potatoes; put a tablespoonful of butter into a saucepan, and stir and turn the potato in it until very hot. Do not let it “catch” on the sides. Turn out, and mould in greased muffin-rings. Leave it to cool in these; then loosen gently upon a greased baking-pan, and bake until delicately browned.

Cucumbers.

See Monday of Second Week in August.

Peaches and Cream, with Sponge-Cake.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.[478]

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Ox-cheek Soup.

The meat from the cheeks of an ox-head; 2 sliced onions, fried brown; sweet herbs; 1 small cup of rice; 1 teaspoonful of curry-powder; 3 quarts of water; pepper and salt; bones of the head.

Cut the meat very small; put with the fried onions and bones into a pot, and pour on the water. Stew slowly three hours. Strain, cool, skim; put in seasoning, herbs, and the rice, previously soaked two hours. Stew half an hour; add the curry-powder, wet in cold water; boil up, and pour out.

Roast Beef.

Lay a neat cut of rib-roast, trimmed and skewered, in a dripping-pan; dash a cupful of boiling water all over it, and roast ten minutes to the pound, if you like it rare. Just before taking it up, baste it with butter—the previous and abundant bastings should have been with its own gravy—dredge with flour, and, as it browns, again with butter. Pour off the fat from the gravy before thickening and seasoning it. Much of the so-called beef gravy is only fit for the dripping-pot.

Mashed Squash.

Pare, quarter, seed, and boil in hot, salted water. Drain, and mash in a hot colander; season with pepper, salt, and butter, and dish hot.

Green Corn cut from the Cob.

After boiling, cut the corn, with a sharp knife, from the cob, into a hot dish; stir in butter, pepper, and salt, and cover to keep hot until eaten.[479]

Fried Egg-plant.

Please see Sunday, First Week in August.

Open Apple Custard Tart.

12 juicy, tart apples; 1 cup of sugar; grated peel of a lemon; 1 pint of milk; 3 eggs, and 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, for the custard; good pie-paste.

Put a border of pie-crust around the flat brim of a pie-plate, without lining the bottom. Fill the plate with sliced apple, sugared, with lemon-peel scattered here and there. Put in a little water. Cover with a crust, in the centre of which you have marked a circle with a cake-cutter, or large tumbler. Bake the pie; with a sharp knife, cut out the marked circle, lift the centre-piece, and fill the inside of the pie with a warm custard made of the milk, eggs, and sugar, boiled until it begins to thicken. Eat cold.

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Mrs. B.’s Corn Soup.

15 ears of corn, grated from the cob as close as the grater will take off the grains; the bones and other “trimmings” of yesterday’s roast beef, both raw and cooked; 1 onion; 1 cup of milk; 2 great spoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; pepper and salt; 3 quarts of water.

Put the empty cobs, the bones, etc., with the onion, on in the water, and stew two hours. Strain off the water, and put the grated corn into it with pepper and salt. Stew gently one hour; add the floured butter; simmer[480] ten minutes, and pour into the tureen. Add the milk, boiling hot; stir up and serve.

Smothered Chicken.

Split a pair of young, but well-grown chickens down the back, as for broiling. Lay flat in a dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over them, and invert another pan over them so as to cover closely. Roast half an hour, and baste very freely with butter and water. Ten minutes later baste with gravy from the pan. In five more, with melted butter, profusely. Bake until the fowls are tender and well colored. Dish, salt and pepper them; thicken and season the gravy; pour some over the chickens and send up the rest in a boat.

Stuffed Tomatoes.

Choose large, smooth tomatoes; cut a piece from the top of each; take out the inside, taking care not to cut the skin. Chop up the tomato-pulp with a little cold beef; add one-fourth as much bread-crumbs as you have pulp, and wet all with beef-gravy, seasoning with a little sugar, pepper, and salt. Fill the tomatoes with this force-meat; put on the top slices; pack the stuffing that remains between the tomatoes, and pour gravy upon this; cover and bake from forty to forty-five minutes.

Scalloped Potatoes.

2 cups of mashed potatoes; 3 tablespoonfuls of cream; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 raw beaten egg; handful fine crumbs; pepper and salt.

Beat up the hot potatoes light with butter, cream, raw egg and seasoning. Put a layer in the bottom of a bake-dish; cover with thin slices of yolk; salt and pepper; put on more potato, and go on thus until the dish is full. Cover the top layer of potato with crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly. Serve in the bake-dish.

Beets.

Cut off the tops, taking care not to scratch the skins. Boil at least one hour in hot salted water; scrape and[481] slice. Put into a deep dish and season with a few spoonfuls of hot water mixed with as much vinegar and a little pepper and salt.

Cottage Pudding.

1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a cup of sugar; 2 eggs; 3 cups of prepared flour; a little salt.

Beat the yolks into the butter and sugar; add the milk, then the flour, alternately with the whisked whites. Bake in a cake-mould; turn out hot upon a plate, cut in slices, and eat with sweet sauce.

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Fish Chowder.

3 lbs. of cod, or halibut, or any other firm white fish; 8 potatoes, sliced and parboiled; 1 sliced onion, large; ½ lb. fat salt pork, cut into dice; 2 cups of boiling milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; 6 Boston crackers, split and buttered thickly; chopped parsley, pepper, and salt to taste; 1 lemon, pared and cut into thin slices; claret.

Fry the pork in its own fat; add the onions, and, when they are brown, drain from the fat. Put a layer of pork into the soup pot; then, one of potatoes, peppered; next, fish, onions, more pork, and so on. Pour in a glass of claret, then just enough boiling water to cover all. Stew gently half an hour. Line the tureen with buttered crackers; pour on the boiling milk, and set the tureen in boiling water until the chowder is done. Just before taking it up add the parsley. Boil one minute, and pour out.[482]

Omelette with Gravy.

6 or 8 eggs; 1 tablespoonful of cream; 1 scant cup of gravy left from or made of the remains of yesterday’s chickens; butter for frying.

Put a good piece of butter in a frying-pan, and when it hisses, pour in the beaten eggs. Shake and loosen them as they form; fold over in the middle; invert the pan over a hot dish, and pour hot, savory gravy around it.

Boiled Corn.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

Potato Salad.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

Peach Batter Pudding.

12 rich ripe peaches, pared, but not stoned; 1 quart of milk; about 10 tablespoonfuls of prepared flour; 5 beaten eggs; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 saltspoonful of salt.

Set the peaches closely together in a buttered pudding-dish; strew with sugar, and pour over them a batter made of the ingredients above named.

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White Mock Turtle Soup.

1 calf’s head, cleaned with the skin on; ½ lb. lean ham, cut into strips; 1 carrot; 1 onion; 1 turnip; bunch of[483] sweet herbs; 4 tablespoonfuls of flour and the same of butter; 1 cup of milk; 6 quarts of water; pepper and salt.

Boil the head in the water with the ham, onion, turnip, and carrot sliced, and the chopped herbs. Cover, and stew slowly until the bones fall from the meat. Take out the head; return the bones to the soup. Divide the meat into two portions; set by one to cool for present use; put the other, highly seasoned, into a large bowl, and strain half the stock over it. When cool, set on the ice for to-morrow. Chop the calf’s ears, and the less desirable parts of the meat reserved for to-day, fine, and put back upon the bones in the soup. Boil gently half an hour. Meantime, put the butter into a frying-pan, and when hot, stir in the flour. It must not get at all brown. When it is again bubbling hot, stir in a cupful of the soup; boil one minute, and pour it out to cool. Strain your soup; stir in the cooled mixture; boil up and skim, when you have seasoned quite highly; put in three or four handfuls of meat-dice cut up from the fat, gelatinous parts of the cold head; simmer to a boil; pour into the tureen, add the milk, boiling hot, and send to table.

Calf’s Liver and Bacon.

3 lbs. of fresh liver; 1 lb. of streaked bacon; juice of a lemon; 1 tablespoonful of flour, and same of butter; pepper, salt, and onion.

Soak the liver in cold water fifteen minutes; wipe dry, and cut in strips an inch wide, and three long. Cut as many thinner strips of bacon, and fry these three minutes in their own fat; take out and keep hot while you fry an onion—sliced—with the liver in the same fat. Salt, pepper, and dredge the liver in flour before it goes in. When it is done lay in two rows, the length of the dish, with a strip of bacon between each piece and the next. Strain the fat, and return to the pan with a cupful of hot water, the butter rubbed into the flour, and, when it has boiled up, the juice of a lemon. Pour over the liver. Pass mustard with this dish.[484]

Breaded Egg-plant.

Slice half an inch thick, and lay in salt and water one hour, with a heavy plate on top to keep them under. Then wipe dry, dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard or dripping. Drain, pepper and salt them, and serve.

String-Beans.

Be doubly careful, as the season advances, to pare off the toughening fibres on both sides. Cut in short pieces; boil in hot salted water forty minutes, drain, pepper, salt, and butter.

Corn and Tomatoes.

8 large tomatoes, pared and sliced thin; 6 ears of corn, the grains shaved from the cob by successive strokes of a keen knife; sugar, pepper, salt, and butter.

Put corn and tomatoes together, and cook forty minutes. Season, and simmer ten minutes more. Pour out.

Nutmeg Melons and Peaches.

Halve the melons, take out the seeds, and put a piece of ice in each half. Pile the peaches in a fruit-dish, or basket, with green leaves between.

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Clear Soup.

Take the fat from your soup-jelly; pour into a pot and heat until you can strain it off from the meat. Cut up the[485] latter; season with salt and a little spice, and put back on the ice. There is still gelatine enough in it to make it valuable. Boil and skim your soup two or three minutes, and add a small cup of German sago which has been soaked in a little water one hour. When clear, serve.

Larded Ducks.

After cleaning and washing, lard the breasts of a pair of ducks with narrow strips of bacon. You must have a larding-needle for this, since both ends of the lardoons must project upon the same surface. Half roast the ducks; put on in a saucepan, with two cups of broth made by abstracting a cup of jelly from your soup-stock, thinning it with boiling water and seasoning it. Add a chopped onion and a glass of claret. Stew half an hour, or until tender; dish; take the fat from the gravy, thicken, boil and pour half over the ducks, the rest into a boat.

Succotash.

8 ears of corn—the grains cut off; about a pint of Lima beans; 1 tablespoonful of floured butter; pepper and salt; 1 cup of milk.

Boil corn and beans for nearly an hour in enough boiling water to cover them. Turn this off, add the milk; when this heats, butter, pepper and salt. Simmer ten minutes.

Stewed Squash.

Pare, seed, quarter, and cook soft in boiling salted water. Pour this off, and add a few tablespoonfuls of strained gravy from your ducks—or any other you may have. Beat the squash to pieces in this, in the saucepan; season well and stir until as stiff and smooth as apple sauce; then dish upon crustless slices of fried bread.

Boiled Potatoes.

See Saturday, Second Week in August.

Peach Ice-Cream.

1 quart of rich milk and as much sweet cream; 4 cups of sugar; 6 eggs; 1 quart of very ripe peaches pared and cut small.[486]

Make as directed in full on Sunday of Second Week in July; but stir in the peaches just before closing the freezer for the second time, beating them well into the congealing cream. Unless they are very sweet, you would do well to dredge them in sugar before they go in.

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A Medley Soup.

Cut up the cold calf’s head—or the remains of it set by for the second time on yesterday—into dice. Save half to be added as a final touch to your soup. Put the rest with the skeleton of your ducks into the soup-pot, and cover with three quarts of water. When it has simmered three hours and boiled down one-third, strain and return to the fire, with half a cup of green peas, and the same of tomato-sauce—or you can put in, if more convenient, the remnants of the succotash and squash left from Sunday’s dinner. If you use the raw peas, simmer half an hour; if the cooked vegetables, but ten minutes. Add the meat-dice, boil up once, and serve.

Casserole of Ducks and Macaroni.

Make according to directions given for “Dijon Paté,” on Monday of Third Week in August, substituting macaroni boiled twenty minutes in hot salted water, then cut into quarter-inch lengths, for the boiled rice, and minced duck for the veal.[487]

Broiled Ham.

Cut smooth slices of cooked ham, and broil five minutes over—or under—clear coals. Pepper and butter each, and give also a mere touch of French mustard.

Stewed Onions.

Top, tail, and skin the onions. Cook twenty minutes in boiling water; throw this off, and cover with milk. Simmer ten minutes, or until tender; stir in a lump of floured butter, season with pepper and salt; cook two minutes, and dish.

Chopped Potatoes.

Chop coarsely cold boiled potatoes. Have ready in a saucepan a little good dripping, well flavored. As it heats, put in the potatoes, and stir until smoking hot all through.

Watermelons and Pears.

Keep the watermelons on ice for some hours before you send them to table. Lay upon a large flat dish, and serve the pears in a fruit-dish or basket.

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Farina Soup.

2 lbs. of lean coarse beef; 2 lbs. of mutton-bones; 1 onion; 1 grated carrot, and 1 grated turnip; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; ½ cup of farina, soaked two hours in a cup of milk; 3 qts. of water.[488]

Crack the bones and chop the meat and onion. Put these on with the other vegetables, the herbs, and water, and boil slowly three or four hours. Strain, cool, skim and season. Put in the farina with a pinch of soda, and simmer half an hour.

Haricot of Mutton.

3 lbs. of lean mutton; 1 onion; 1 cup of gravy taken from your soup; 1 dessertspoonful of tomato catsup; 1 carrot; 1 cup of green peas; 1 glass of sherry; 2 spoonfuls of butter; browned flour for thickening the gravy; pepper and salt.

Cut the mutton into strips three inches long by one wide, and fry these, with the sliced onion, in the butter. Have ready the gravy in a saucepan, and put in the meat. Stew slowly nearly an hour. Then add the carrot, parboiled and sliced, and the peas. Stew twenty minutes; thicken the butter used for frying with browned flour, add pepper, salt, and the catsup; pour into the stew, and cook three minutes. Add the wine; boil up, and serve in a deep dish.

Moulded Potato.

Mash the potato smooth, working in a little milk, butter, and salt. Grease a pudding-mould; press the potato in firmly, and turn out upon a hot dish.

Raw Tomatoes.

See Friday of First Week in August.

Baked Berry Dumplings.

1 quart of prepared flour; 2½ tablespoonfuls of lard and butter mixed; 2 cups of milk, or enough to make a soft dough.

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick; cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put blackberries or huckleberries in the middle, sprinkle with sugar, and bring the edges together, pinching them to keep them from parting. Put into the oven with the joined edges downward, and bake forty minutes. Glaze with butter just before taking them up.[489]

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Squirrel Soup.

2 large fine gray squirrels, skinned, cleaned and cut up, 1 lb. lean corned ham, cut into dice; 1 onion; 2 blades of mace; a little cayenne; juice of a lemon; browned flour; 3 quarts of cold water; dripping; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Fry squirrel and onion in the dripping to a light brown. Drain off the fat and put them into the soup-pot with the water, ham, and mace. Cover closely, and stew until the meat is in rags, and the water reduced one-third. Strain, cool, and skim; season and put over the fire. When it boils, skim well, and stir in the butter, cut up in browned flour. When it has thickened, add the lemon-juice and serve.

Fricasseed Chicken.

Clean, wash and cut up a pair of full-grown chickens. Wash, but do not soak. Put into a pot with half a pound of fat salt pork, cut very thin, and enough cold water to cover them. Heat very slowly, and cook until tender. When done add a chopped onion, with chopped parsley and pepper. Cover again, and five minutes later, stir in a great tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Heat in another saucepan a cup of milk; add two beaten eggs; boil one minute. Arrange the chickens upon a dish; strain the gravy; stir in the milk and eggs, and without putting again over the fire, pour over the fowls.

Boiled Rice.

Wash well in several waters. Strain a half cupful of your chicken gravy with an equal quantity of soup; add[490] a little boiling water, and put on with the rice in a farina-kettle. When it is quite soft, and has absorbed all the broth, salt it, and stir in a little boiling milk in which has been melted a teaspoonful of butter, and a little minced parsley. Turn into a hot dish, when it has soaked up the milk, and pass grated cheese with it.

Scalloped Tomatoes.

Pare and slice fine ripe tomatoes. Put into a bake-dish with alternate layers of buttered bread-crumbs. Season each stratum of tomato with pepper, salt and sugar. Bake covered, until very hot—then, brown. The uppermost layer should be of crumbs.

Lima Beans.

See Wednesday, First Week in August.

Fruit.

Dispose to the best advantage in baskets or dishes, with a garnishing of green leaves.

Iced Coffee and Ellie’s Cake.

See Monday, Second Week in August, for Iced Coffee. For Ellie’s Cake, please consult “General Receipts, No. 1, of Common Sense in the Household Series,” page 326.

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Ham and Veal Soup.

2 lbs. of lean ham—that near the hock will do—cut into strips; 2 lbs. of lean veal; 2 carrots; 2 onions; 1 blade of mace; ¼ of a cabbage heart, minced and parboiled;[491] 2 lemons; pepper; 4 quarts of water; 1 tablespoonful of flour wet up in cold water.

Put on meat, chopped vegetables, and water, and cook for four hours. Strain, cool, and take off the fat. The vegetables should be pulped through the colander. Return to the fire, boil and skim for five minutes; having seasoned with pepper, stir in the flour; boil three minutes, and pour out.

Beefsteak Pudding.

2½ lbs. of rumpsteak; 1 quart of prepared flour; ¼ lb. powdered suet, chopped with the flour; pepper; salt; a very little minced parsley; 1 small pickled onion, chopped; nearly a cupful of broth, taken from the soup, cooled and skimmed.

Make a paste of the suet and salted flour mixed with a little ice-water. Roll it out and line a round bowl with it. Cut the meat into dice; pepper and salt each piece, and roll in flour. Put them inside of the paste; strew over them the parsley and pickle, and pour in the cold gravy. Cover the top with a paste-crust, overlapping the greased edges of the bowl; press this down firmly all around; envelop all in a stout cloth, tied tightly under the bottom of the bowl; plunge into boiling water and cook, at a steady boil, two hours and a quarter. Untie the cloth, invert the bowl with care over a hot dish; turn out the pudding, and serve at once.

Stuffed Egg-plant.

Parboil for ten minutes. Slit down the side, and take out the seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood, and lay in salt and water for one hour. Stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, fat salt pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and a bit of onion, all chopped. Moisten with a good gravy. Wind soft string about the egg-plant, to keep the cut closed, and bake, putting a cupful of weak broth in the dripping pan. Baste frequently; at first, with butter and water, then with the gravy. Baste twice with butter at the last. Lay the egg-plant in a deep dish; add to the gravy a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour,[492] and, when this boils, two or three spoonfuls of milk or cream. Just boil, and pour upon the egg-plant.

Mashed Potatoes.

Whip boiled potatoes light with a fork; beat in milk, butter, and salt, and heap like rock-work upon a hot dish.

Summer Salad.

2 heads of lettuce; a handful of water-cresses; 5 very tender radishes, scraped and cut up; 1 cucumber, pared, laid in ice-water for an hour, then sliced; 3 hard-boiled eggs; 2 teaspoonfuls of white sugar, and 1, each, of salt, pepper, and made mustard; 2 tablespoonfuls of salad oil, and 6 of vinegar.

Rub sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, to a paste with the oil. Pound the yolks fine, and work in. Then whip in, very gradually, the vinegar. Arrange the vegetables, all cut up neatly, in a salad-bowl, and strain the dressing over it. Garnish with the whites, sliced, laid around in a chain, with a nasturtium flower in every two or three links.

Peach Trifle.

12 fine peaches, pared and sliced very thin; 1 package Coxe’s gelatine; 2 cups white sugar; 1 pint of boiling and 1 cup of cold, water; 1 cup of rich, sweet cream, with a pinch of soda dissolved in it, then whipped light in a syllabub-churn.

Soak the gelatine two hours in the cup of cold water. Put it, with peaches and sugar, into a bowl; cover, and let stand an hour. Then pour on the boiling water; stir and mash the peaches, and strain through muslin. When cold and slightly congealed, beat in quickly, a spoonful at a time, the whipped cream. It should be thick and white, or faintly colored. Form in a wet mould set an ice. Eat with cake.[493]

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Cauliflower Soup, without Meat.

1 fine cauliflower; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in 1 of flour; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 2 blades of mace; 2 quarts of water; 2 cups of milk; pepper and salt; a pinch of soda in the milk.

Cut the cauliflower into bunches, reserving about a cupful of small clusters to put whole into the soup. Chop the rest, also the onion and herbs, and put on in the water, with the mace. Cook an hour, and rub through a colander. Return the purée, thus obtained, to the pot, and season with pepper and salt. As it boils, stir in the whole clusters, previously boiled tender in hot, salted water, and left to cool. When the soup is again hot, put in the floured butter; stir until this has thickened; pour into the tureen, and add the boiling milk. Pass sliced lemon and cream crackers with it.

Fillets of Halibut, with Potatoes.

3 lbs. of halibut, cut into strips three inches long, one wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; pepper; salt; 1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste; a pinch of cayenne; a little boiling water; juice of a lemon.

Lay the slices of fish in salt and water for half an hour. Wipe them dry. Have ready the butter in a saucepan, with pepper and salt. When it is hot, put in the pieces of fish, and cook gently, without browning, until tender.

Meanwhile, cut some potatoes round with your “gouge,” or, if you have none, into neat squares; parboil and[494] drain them, and simmer ten minutes in enough hot milk to cover them; then stir in a lump of butter; season with pepper and salt. Cook five minutes; drain the liquid into another saucepan, and keep the potatoes hot. Lay the fish in order upon a hot dish, the potatoes around it, and set over hot water, while you thicken the milk in which the potatoes were boiled (never omitting the pinch of soda), with a little flour. Boil up, add the butter used for cooking the fish, and the anchovy sauce. Squeeze a small lemon over the fish, and pour on the hot sauce.

Beef’s Tongue with Green Peas.

Parboil a corned tongue. Take it from the water, trim off the root and pare away the skin. Put into a broad saucepan with a cup of yesterday’s soup, half a minced onion, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little parsley and pepper. Cover, and cook slowly one hour, or until tender. Slice round, and lay upon a hot dish. Heap each slice with a great spoonful of green peas boiled in hot salted water, drained well, and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper. Strain the gravy, add a little of the water in which the tongue was boiled, a small spoonful of made mustard—French mustard if you have it—the juice of half a lemon, and thicken with browned flour. Boil up and serve in a boat.

Green Corn Pudding.

See Friday of First Week in August.

Raw Cucumbers.

Pare, lay in ice-water one hour; slice, and pile upon pounded ice in a glass dish, passing the condiments with them.

Melons, Peaches, and Pears.

Serve the melons upon flat dishes; the peaches and pears in fruit-salvers or in fancy baskets, with green leaves and flowers disposed tastefully among them. All would be the more refreshing for having lain in the ice-box or refrigerator awhile.[495]

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Beef Stock Soup.

5 lbs. of beef, and as many of bones; 2 carrots; 2 onions, sliced and fried in dripping; 2 turnips; bunch of herbs; 7 quarts of water; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery, or 3 stalks of the green plant, with the tops cut off; pepper and salt; dice of fried bread; 1 large spoonful of tomato catsup.

Cut up the meat, and chop the vegetables. Put with the herbs and cracked bones into a pot, and pour on two quarts of water. Heat slowly, and after it has boiled one hour, skim well, and add the other five quarts—also cold. Cook steadily four or five hours longer, then strain, rubbing the vegetables to pieces. There should be at least five quarts of liquid. If, in the boiling, it has lost too much, you should have replenished the pot with boiling water. Take out two quarts for to-day’s soup. Return meat and bones to the fire, and pour the rest of the soup over them with another quart of cold water. Cover very closely and simmer at the back of the range two hours longer. Then set away in an earthenware vessel, having seasoned it, and when cold, put on ice. You will now have made soup-stock for three days.

Cool the portion kept out for to-day; take off all the fat, season and re-heat it. Boil gently and skim well. Stir in the catsup, and pour upon the fried bread already put into the tureen.

Boiled Ham.

Wash a ham thoroughly, scrubbing off all the rusty parts with the dust. Put on in plenty of cold water, and boil twenty minutes to the pound. Let it get almost cold[496] in the water. If possible, do this on Friday, and do not skin until perfectly cold on Saturday. The fat will then be white and prettily pitted, and the skin leave it easily. Twist frilled paper about the shank, and lay in a bed of curled fresh parsley. Carve in thin slices.

Onion Tomato Sauce.

2 quarts of ripe tomatoes; 1 onion, chopped; 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley; 2 teaspoonfuls sugar; pepper and salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.

Pare the tomatoes, and slice thin. Stew with the onion half an hour; then pulp through a colander; return to the saucepan with the seasoning, and when again hot, stir in the parsley and floured butter. Boil gently three minutes.

Squash au Gratin.

Boil and mash, as usual, pressing out the water. Beat up with a good bit of butter, season with pepper and salt; finally whip in two or three tablespoonfuls of milk and a raw egg. Pour into a buttered pudding dish; strew thickly with fine crumbs and bake in a quick oven to a light brown.

Stripped Potatoes.

Peel and cut potatoes lengthwise into strips. Lay in ice-water half an hour. Dry between two clean towels, and fry to a pale brown in hot, salted lard. Shake in a heated colander to clear them of the fat, and turn into a dish lined with a napkin.

Whole Peach Pie.

Pare ripe peaches without removing the stones. Have your pie-dishes ready lined with a good paste, fill with the peaches; strew these with sugar, and cover with crust. Bake in a steady oven. Sift sugar over it, and eat fresh, with cream poured upon each slice.

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[497]

SEPTEMBER.

Vermicelli Soup.

Take the fat from the top of your soup-stock; dip out rather more than half. Add a little seasoning to that which remains, and return to the ice. Should the weather be very warm it will be wise to heat all together, and then divide, returning the smaller portion to the ice. Warm the stock designed for to-day with the remains of yesterday’s tomato sauce; and when it begins to boil, strain through thin, coarse muslin. Put back over the fire, and take off all the scum that rises in ten minutes’ boil. Then put in a scant cupful of vermicelli, which has been broken up small, boiled five minutes in very hot water, and drained. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

Roast Beef and Browned Potatoes.

Have all gristly parts of the beef cut away, and such bones removed as will injure the shape, or embarrass the carver. Put the beef into a dripping-pan, throw a cupful of boiling water over it, and roast ten minutes per pound, basting very often and copiously. Just before taking it up, dredge with flour and baste once with butter. After dishing the meat, pour the top from the gravy; add a little boiling water; put it into a saucepan, and thicken with browned flour. Pepper, and serve after a brief boil.[498]

Browned Potatoes.

Boil, and strip off the skins of large, fair potatoes. Half an hour before you take up the meat pour off the fat from the gravy; lay your potatoes in the dripping-pan, and cook brown, basting frequently. Lay about the meat when dished.

Fried Egg-plant.

Slice half an inch thick, and lay in salt water one hour, with a heavy plate on top to keep under the water. Pare each slice. Make a batter of two eggs, a cup of milk, a little salt, and flour for thin batter. Wipe the egg-plant perfectly dry; dip each slice in the batter, and fry in hot dripping. Drain well, and serve on a heated flat dish.

Boiled Green Corn.

Strip off all but the thin husk next the corn. Turn this down, and pick off the silk from the grains. Replace the husk, tie a thread about it to keep it smooth, and cook the corn from thirty to forty minutes, according to size and age. Pull off the husk; break the stalk close to the ear, and serve, wrapped in a napkin.

Raw Tomatoes.

Pare and slice; put into a salad dish, and dress as follows: Rub one teaspoonful of sugar, and half as much each of pepper, salt, and French or other made mustard, smooth with two tablespoonfuls of salad-oil. Beat in, a little at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and half a teaspoonful extract of celery. Pour over the tomatoes, and set on ice until wanted.

Narcissus Blanc-Mange.

1 quart of milk; 1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water; yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light; 2 cups white sugar; 1 large cup of sweet cream, whipped with a little powdered sugar, and flavored with vanilla; rose-water for the blanc-mange.

Heat the milk to scalding. Stir in the sugar and gelatine, and when these are dissolved, beat in the yolks, and[499] cook two minutes. Turn out into a shallow dish to cool. When it begins to form, put, a few spoonfuls at a time, into a bowl, and whip vigorously, flavoring with rose-water. When it is a yellow sponge, put into a wet mould, with a cylinder in the centre. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday turn into a dish, and fill the hole in the middle with whipped cream, just churned. Lay more whipped cream about the base. Like all other preparations of gelatine, this should be kept upon ice until you are ready to use it.

Iced Coffee and Sliced Cake.

Make the coffee at breakfast-time. It should be very strong. While hot add one-fourth as much boiling milk. When cool put on ice, and serve with more ice in the tumblers. Send around a basket of cake with it.

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Ham and Egg Soup.

A ham-bone broken to bits; 1 quart of cold water; 3 pints of good stock; as many poached eggs as you have people at table; a little pepper; ½ cup of rice.

Boil your ham-bone in a quart of water until the liquid is reduced one-half. Strain off the stock from the meat and bones in the jar or bowl; add the ham broth and half a cup of well-soaked rice. Simmer until this is soft, skimming often, and pour into the tureen. Lay the poached eggs, neatly trimmed, round upon the top.

Braised Larded Beef.

Lard yesterday’s cold roast with strips of fat salt pork; lay in a broad saucepan; half cover with gravy, and strew[500] minced onion over it. Cover closely and stew slowly at back of the range one hour. Dish the meat; boil down the gravy fast for a few minutes, and pour over it.

Chopped Potatoes and Corn.

Split each row of grain upon cobs of cold boiled corn, and cut them off clean. Add twice as much chopped cold boiled potatoes. Have a little good dripping hot in a frying-pan. Put in potatoes and corn and stir until very hot, but do not let them brown. Serve in a deep dish.

Cucumber and Onion Salad.

Pare the cucumbers and lay in ice-water one hour. Do the same with the onions in another bowl. Then slice them in the proportion of one onion to three large cucumbers, and arrange in a salad-bowl, and season with vinegar, pepper, and salt.

Stewed Squash.

Pare, quarter and boil the squash in hot salted water. Drain, mash very smooth, and put back over the fire with a few spoonfuls of milk, a little chopped parsley, and a good lump of butter, rolled in flour. Stew five minutes, after the boil begins, stirring well from the bottom most of the time. Pour into a deep dish.

Peaches and Cream.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.

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A Hash Soup.

The remains of your roast beef—bones cracked, and meat, skin, etc., chopped; 6 potatoes, boiled and mashed;[501] bunch of herbs, chopped; 1 sliced onion; salt and pepper; 3 quarts of water; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; 1 tablespoonful of walnut catsup.

Put on meat, bones, herbs, onion, and water, and simmer two hours, until the nourishment is all drawn from them. Strain, cool, take off the fat; rub in the potatoes through a colander, and season. When it is again hot, stir in the floured butter, and after boiling one minute, the catsup. Pour into the tureen. If you have any soup left from yesterday, you may add it to this, when the potatoes go in.

Kidneys Sautés with Wine.

Cut the kidneys into thin slices, and cook ten minutes in a little dripping in a frying-pan. Take out and lay upon a hot-water dish, covering closely. Add to the dripping in the pan a little gravy—beef will do, or a little of your soup; season with a chopped onion, parsley, salt and pepper, and thicken with browned flour. Boil up; add a glass of good wine and the juice of half a lemon. Pour upon the kidneys, and set in boiling water five minutes. If kidneys are cooked too long they toughen.

Baked Omelette aux Fines Herbes.

7 eggs; ½ cup of milk in which has been dissolved a quarter teaspoonful of corn-starch; 1 tablespoonful minced herbs; pepper and salt; butter and onion.

Beat the yolks very smooth, and whip in the milk; then stir in the frothed whites. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a round, rather shallow bake-pan; add the chopped herbs and a little finely minced onion. Set upon the upper grating of the oven until it begins to simmer. Pour in the omelette and bake quickly until high, and delicately browned. Run a sharp knife quickly around the edge and invert the dish upon a hot platter. Or, if your bake-dish is presentable, serve in it. Eat at once, as it soon falls.

String-Beans.

Cut off both ends, and pare the strings from both sides. Cut into short pieces, and cook thirty minutes, or until[502] tender, in boiling salt water. Drain, season with pepper, salt and butter, and serve in a deep dish.

Cauliflower au Gratin.

Cook a cauliflower—tied up in a net—in boiling salt water, fifteen minutes. Drain, clip into small clusters, and lay in a stone-china or block-tin dish. Pour a cup of drawn butter over it; strew thickly with fine crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of a brisk oven.

Syllabub and May’s Cake.

Whip a pint of cream to a stiff froth in your syllabub-churn, sweetening as you go on, with half a cup of powdered sugar. When it is a snowy mass upon the sieve upon which you have laid it as it rises, beat in a glass of wine. Set upon ice until wanted, then fill into glasses.

May’s Cake.

Please consult “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,” page 338.

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Ayrshire Broth.

Knuckle of veal—well cracked—about 4 lbs.; 3 onions; ½ lb. of lean ham; 2 turnips; bunch of parsley; 1 scant cup of barley soaked two hours in a little milk.

Put on meat, bones, and barley, and stew slowly in a gallon of water three hours. Then add the vegetables, cut into neat dice, parboiled, and left to cool. Cook[503] gently one hour and a half. Strain without pressing. Pick out the meat and bones, and return to the soup-pot with three pints of broth. Add a quart of cold water; cook, covered, one hour more, and season well. Turn into a jar or bowl, and when cold, set on ice for to-morrow’s soup. Cool that meant for to-day; skim, season, and put over the fire with the barley and vegetables. When it begins to boil, pour into the tureen.

Chickens à la Française.

Boil, and then blanch a sweetbread by dropping it into cold water. Then chop, mix with the pounded boiled livers of the chickens, and one-sixth as much bread-crumbs as you have meat. Season. Have ready, cleaned and washed, a pair of nice chickens. Fill with this force-meat. Cover the breasts and sides with thin slices of fat salt pork; put into a dripping-pan; pour about them a large cupful of boiling water, and roast—basting often—one hour. Take off the pork; lay it in the gravy, and dredge the fowls with flour. As this browns, baste well, with butter once, three times with gravy. Take up and keep hot while you strain; cool, skim and thicken the gravy. Have ready cooked a cup of rice measured when raw—which has been boiled in the water used for cooking the sweetbread and livers, then seasoned. Make a broad, flat-topped mound of it upon a dish; lay the chickens on it, and pour a little of the gravy over them. Serve the rest in a boat.

Succotash.

Cut the corn from eight or ten cobs; mix this with one third the quantity of Lima beans, and cook one hour in just enough water to cover them. Drain off most of the water; add a cupful of milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in. When this boils, stir in a great spoonful of butter rolled in flour; season with pepper and salt, and simmer ten minutes longer.

Sweet Potatoes.

Select those of uniform size; parboil them, with the skins on. Peel and lay in a baking-pan. Bake until soft[504] to the grasp, glazing with butter just before you take them up.

Apple Sauce.

Peel and slice juicy tart apples, and stew with just enough water to keep them from burning, until broken to pieces. Stir deeply and well, often. Beat a good lump of butter into them while hot, sweeten abundantly, and season with nutmeg. Mash and beat all the lumps to smoothness, or take them out.

Blackberry Shortcake—Hot.

2 quarts of sifted flour; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter, and 2 of lard; 2½ cups of buttermilk, or sour, thick milk; yolks of 2 eggs, beaten light; 1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, and the same quantity of salt.

Rub the shortening into the salted flour. Add beaten yolks and soda to the milk, and make out the paste quickly. Roll into two sheets—that intended for the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower, rather thinner. Lay the batter in a well greased baking-pan; cover thickly with the berries; sugar them; put on the top crust, and bake about twenty-five minutes to a nice brown. Cut into squares and eat—splitting these open—with sugar and butter.

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Tomato Soup.

Peel and slice twelve large tomatoes, and stew twenty minutes. Rub through a colander to a pulp; season this[505] with pepper, salt, and sugar. Take the fat from the top of your cold soup-stock, and put the latter over the fire. Simmer half an hour; strain out meat and bones. Boil and skim three minutes, and add the tomato sauce. Cook gently ten minutes; stir in a tablespoonful (even) of corn-starch wet with cold water. Boil up and pour out.

Boiled Leg of Mutton.

Cook in plenty of hot salted water, allowing twelve minutes to the pound. Take out when done, wipe carefully; dish, and rub all over with butter. Serve with caper sauce.

Caper Sauce.

Take a cupful of the liquor in which the meat has been boiled. Put on in a saucepan; boil and skim for a moment; stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed into a heaping teaspoonful of flour. Stir over the fire five minutes, add the juice of a lemon, pepper, and two dozen pickled capers—or, if you have not these, pickled nasturtium seed. Send to table in a boat. Save the rest of the pot-liquor for soup.

Mashed Potatoes.

Prepare as usual, whipping light with a fork, and heaping upon a hot dish.

Stewed Egg-plant.

Soak and stuff as directed on Thursday, Fourth Week in August, but instead of baking it, put on in a cupful of your soup-stock, and stew, closely covered, one hour, or until very tender. Take up and keep hot in a deep dish. Stir a lump of butter rolled in flour into the gravy; boil up and pour over the egg-plant.

Lima Beans.

Shell, and cook about forty minutes in boiling, salted water. Drain, pepper, salt and stir in a good lump of butter when dished.[506]

Peach Fritters.

1 quart of flour; 1 cup of milk; ⅓ cup of yeast; 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar; 4 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; a little salt; ripe, freestone peaches, pared and stoned.

Sift the flour into a bowl; work in milk and yeast, and let it rise five or six hours. Then, beat eggs and sugar light with butter, salt, and stir into the risen dough. Knead faithfully with your hands. Pull off bits nearly as large as an egg. Flatten and put in the centre of each a peach (pared), from which the stone has been slipped out through a slit in one side. Close the dough over it; make into a round ball, and lay upon a floured pan for the second rising. The balls must not touch each other. In an hour they should be light. Fry as you would doughnuts, but more slowly. Drain in a colander, and eat hot with brandy-sauce.

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Fish Soup.

2 quarts of broth; 2 lbs. of halibut, rock, or other white fish; 2 onions; salt and cayenne; juice of half a lemon; dripping for frying.

Cut the fish into neat strips; take out the bones. Remove the fat from the cold pot-liquor set by yesterday, put in the fish-bones, and put on to stew down. Fry the sliced onions; drain from the fat; lay in the bottom of your soup-pot; put the fish upon them; put in a little broth, and simmer gently one hour. Take out the fish,[507] dredge each piece with flour, and return to the kettle. Cover with two quarts of the strained stock, and cook, slowly, half an hour. Add cayenne and lemon, and pour out.

Mutton Batter Pudding.

2 cups of milk; 1 large cupful of flour; 2 eggs; neat squares of cold mutton, freed from skin and fat; pepper and salt; some melted butter, heated with tomato catsup.

Make a batter of the milk, eggs and flour. Lay the meat in the melted butter, pepper and salt; butter a pudding-dish; pour in a little of the batter; then add the meat soaked well in the butter; pour in the rest of the batter, and bake one hour in a steady oven. Serve at once.

Stewed Tomatoes and Corn.

Pare and slice six large tomatoes and one small onion. Cut the corn from four cobs, mix up well together, and stew half an hour. Season with pepper, salt and butter, stew again ten minutes, and pour out.

Cream Potatoes.

Pare and cut the potatoes into small squares or rounds. Cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Turn this off; add a cupful of milk; and when this bubbles up a tablespoonful of butter with a teaspoonful of water wet up with cold milk, also, a little chopped parsley. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

Apple Cake with Cream.

2 cups of powdered sugar; 3 cups of prepared flour; ½ cup of corn-starch, wet with a little milk; ½ cup of butter creamed with the sugar; ½ cup of sweet milk; the whites of six eggs, whipped stiff.

Add the milk to the creamed butter and sugar; the corn-starch, then the flour and whites alternately. Bake in jelly-cake tins.

Filling.

3 tart, well-flavored apples, grated; yolks of 2 beaten eggs; 1 cup of sugar; 1 lemon, juice, and half the grated rind.[508]

Beat yolks, sugar, and lemon together. Grate the apples directly into this mixture. Put into a custard-kettle, with boiling water outside of it, and stir to a boil. When cold, put between the cakes. Eat fresh with cream.

Iced Coffee.

See Sunday of this Week.

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White Stock Soup.

6 lbs. knuckle of veal; ½ lb. lean bacon; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed in 1 of flour; 2 onions; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 3 cloves stuck in an onion; 1 blade of mace; bunch of herbs; 6 quarts of water; pepper and salt; 1 cup of boiling milk.

Cut up the meat and crack the bones. Slice carrots, turnips, and one onion, leaving that with the cloves whole. Put on with mace, and all the herbs except the parsley, in two quarts of cold water. Bring to a slow boil; take off the scum, as it rises, and at the end of an hour’s stewing, add the rest of the cold water—one gallon. Cover and cook steadily, always gently, four hours. Strain off the liquor, of which there should be about five quarts; rub the vegetables through the colander, and pick out bones and meat. Season these highly, and put, as is your Saturday custom, into a wide-mouthed jar, or a large bowl. Add to them three quarts of stock, well salted, and, when cold, keep on ice. Cool to-day’s stock; remove the fat; season, put in chopped parsley, and put over the fire. Heat in a saucepan a cup of milk, stir in[509] the floured butter; cook three minutes. When the soup has simmered ten minutes after the last boil, and been carefully skimmed, pour into the tureen, and stir in the hot, thickened milk.

Mock Quails.

Cut slices about four inches square, and half an inch thick, from a leg of veal; flatten with the side of a hatchet, and dip in beaten egg. Make a force-meat of a cold boiled sweetbread, chopped fine, a little minced fat pork or ham, a few oysters, also minced, and a seasoning of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel. Wet with oyster-liquor, and the juice of half a lemon. Spread the slices with this, and roll each up tightly. Bind with soft thread, and lay in a broad saucepan. Half cover with broth borrowed from your soup, cooled and skimmed. Cover and stew slowly nearly one hour. Make the remnants of the force-meat—adding a few bread crumbs—into small balls. Roll in flour and set in the oven until browned. Five minutes before you take up the meat, roll these in beaten yolk of egg, once and again, until thickly coated. Let them stand to cool while you take up the “quails.” Lay them upon a hot dish; clip and gently withdraw the threads. Strain the gravy; add a little boiling water; thicken with browned flour; stir in a spoonful of butter, and when it boils, drop in the “quail eggs.” Simmer just one minute, and pour over the meat.

Kidney-Beans.

Shell; cook in boiling salted water thirty minutes, or until tender; drain, dish, and season with pepper, butter and salt.

Corn Fritters.

2 cups of grated corn; 2 eggs; 1 cup of milk; flour for thin batter; a pinch of soda; salt; 1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Mix and fry as you would griddle-cakes.

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.

Parboil and chop some potatoes; heat a little good dripping or butter in a frying-pan. Stir in half a minced[510] onion, for every eight potatoes, with a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. When they have cooked one minute, add the potatoes, and stir until all are tender, but not browned. Drain, pepper, salt and dish.

Cabinet Pudding.

2 cups of prepared flour; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter, creamed with the sugar; 5 eggs; 1 cup of sugar; ½ lb. raisins, seeded, and cut in three pieces each; ½ cup of milk; ½ lemon—juice and grated peel.

Add the beaten yolks to the creamed butter and sugar; then the milk and flour, alternately with the whites. Lastly, stir in the fruit, dredged with flour; pour into a buttered mould, and boil two hours and a half.

Eat hot with liquid sauce.

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Tapioca Soup.

Take the fat from your soup-stock. Dip out two quarts, add one large cup of boiling water, and strain into the soup-kettle. Heat to a slow boil; skim carefully; add half a cup of grained tapioca, soaked two hours in a little cold water; cook until this is clear; put in what additional seasoning your taste demands, with a glass of wine, and a teaspoonful of celery essence, and pour out.

Roast Ducks.

Put sage and onion in the stuffing for one; make that intended for the other, of bread-crumbs, seasoned with[511] pepper and salt, and wet up slightly with milk. Lay the ducks in the dripping-pan; pour boiling water over them, and roast, basting often, until tender and brown. Dish; take the fat from the gravy; season, thicken with browned flour and boil up. Serve in a gravy-boat.

Stuffed Tomatoes.

Choose enough large, smooth tomatoes to fill a shallow pudding-dish. Cut a slice from the top of each, scoop out the inside. Chop the pulp with a little cold meat, taken from your soup, a sprinkling of minced onion, and the grated corn from two cobs. Season with pepper, salt and butter; fill the tomatoes, put on the top slices; fill the interstices with the force-meat, pour on a little gravy, cover and bake forty minutes—then brown.

Cauliflower with Sauce Tartare.

Boil a large cauliflower—tied in netting—in hot salted water, from twenty-five to thirty minutes. Drain; serve in a deep dish with the flower upwards, and pour over it a cup of drawn butter, in which has been stirred the juice of a lemon, and a half teaspoonful of French mustard, mixed up well with the sauce.

Sweet Potatoes.

Please see Wednesday of First Week in September.

Melons, Peaches, and Pears.

Serve the melons upon a flat dish; the other fruit in baskets, or upon fruit-stands, garnished with leaves.

Black Coffee, Crackers and Cheese.

Pass very strong hot coffee without cream, in small cups of clear china, and fancy crackers with grated cheese.[512]

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Vegetable Consommé.

Cut into thin, short strips, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, and 1 onion; peel and slice 6 fine tomatoes; corn cut from 2 cobs; ½ cup boiled rice; 3 pints of soup-stock; 1 pint of boiling water; seasoning at discretion.

Boil the vegetables tender in a little hot salted water. Drain, butter, and keep them hot. The tomatoes and corn should be stewed in another vessel, twenty-five minutes, and seasoned. Add to your soup-stock a pint of boiling water, and simmer half an hour, then strain. Return to the fire with the cooked vegetables and the boiled rice. Stew gently ten minutes and turn out.

Stewed Lamb à la Jardinière.

Lay a breast of lamb, or two scrags, in a broad pot, meat downward. Scatter over this a sliced turnip, a sliced onion, and two sliced tomatoes, with a little pepper and salt. Add less than a cupful of broth from your soup; cover, and cook slowly one hour. Turn the meat then, and cook one hour longer, very slowly. When tender, but not ragged, dish, and keep hot. Strain the gravy; thicken with browned flour; season; boil up, and pour over the meat.

French Beans Sautés.

Cut off the fibres from both sides of the (string) beans, and clip into short pieces. Boil tender in hot salted water; drain dry, and put into a saucepan in which you have melted a great spoonful of butter, seasoned with pepper, a little French mustard, and a tablespoonful of vinegar. Toss and stir until the beans are very hot, and glazed with the butter. Serve in a deep dish.[513]

Mashed Potatoes au Gratin.

Mash in the customary manner, and heap upon a greased pie-dish. Strew thickly with dry crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Slip carefully to a hot, flat dish.

Peaches, Cream, and Cake.

See Monday of First Week in September.

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Beef Gravy Soup.

4 lbs. of lean, coarse beef, cut into strips; 2 lbs. mutton or beef bones, broken small; 2 onions, sliced and fried; bunch of sweet herbs; 3 carrots; 2 turnips; 5 quarts of cold water; pepper and salt; dripping.

Fry the meat and onions in the dripping to a light brown. Put on in two quarts of water, and having cooked one hour, add the other vegetables chopped, and the remaining three quarts of water, cold. Boil slowly four hours, skimming often. Strain, pulping the vegetables. Put meat and bones into the stock-pot, season well; divide the broth into two portions; salt one, and pour into the stock-pot. When cold, set on ice for to-morrow. Cool and skim the rest; heat and skim until quite clear. Put dice of fried bread into the tureen.

Paté de Foie de Veau.

3 lbs. of calf’s liver—parboiled and cold; ½ lb. of cold cooked ham; 3 eggs; 1 tablespoonful of butter, and same[514] of fine crumbs; 1 scant cup of milk; a little minced onion and parsley; nutmeg, cayenne, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel; some good pie-paste.

Mince the ham, and pound the boiled liver. Make into a sort of paste with the butter, beaten eggs, bread-crumbs, milk, and seasoning. It should be just soft enough to pour. Butter a bake-dish profusely; line with a good paste, rolled out thicker than for most pies. Fill this with the liver mixture; cover with crust, which must not overlap the edge of the dish, but be pinched down firmly upon the lower crust; set in a pan, containing a cupful of boiling water, just enough to keep the bottom crust from burning, and bake one hour and a quarter in a moderate oven. Pass a knife around the edges of the crust to detach the paté; invert upon a deep dish. Pass with it drawn butter in which have been beaten two raw eggs, and these thickened by two minutes’ boiling.

Stuffed Squash.

Pare a “turban” squash, and cut off a slice from the top. Extract the seeds, and lay one hour in salt water. Then fill with a good stuffing of crumbs, chopped fat salt pork, parsley, etc., wet with gravy. Put on the top slice; set the squash in a pudding-dish. Put a few spoonfuls of melted butter and twice as much hot water in the bottom; cover the dish very closely, and set in the oven two hours, or until tender. Lay within a deep dish, and pour the gravy over it.

Succotash.

See Wednesday, First Week in September.

Baked Potatoes.

Wash, wipe, and lay in a moderate oven. Bake until soft to the grasp. Send to table in their skins, wrapped in a napkin.

Baked Blackberry Pudding.

1 pint of milk; 2 eggs; 1 quart flour, or enough for thick batter; 1 gill bakers’ yeast; 1 saltspoonful of salt; 1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in boiling water; nearly a quart of berries, dredged with flour.[515]

Make the batter and let it rise in a warm place four hours. When very light, stir in the dredged fruit lightly and quickly; pour into a buttered dish and bake one hour, covering with white paper should it “crust” over too fast. Turn out, and eat with sweet sauce.

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Soup à la Bonne Femme.

3 lbs. of lean veal; ½ lb. lean ham; 2 carrots, grated; 1 chopped onion; thyme and parsley; 1 cup of chopped mushrooms; pepper and salt; 1 cup of milk; floured butter; 4 quarts water.

Cut the meat small and put on with herbs and vegetables in the water. Bring to a slow boil, and keep at this, taking off the scum as it rises, for three hours, or until the liquid is reduced one-half. Strain, cool, skim, season and return to the fire with the chopped mushrooms. Stew slowly half an hour; stir in a tablespoonful of butter cut up in one of flour. Boil two minutes and pour into the tureen. Add the boiling milk, and pour out.

Roast Tenderloin of Beef.

See Sunday of First Week in September.

Beets Sautés.

Wash and cut off the tops, but do not touch the roots with a knife. Boil one hour; scrape and slice them, and stew ten minutes in a little butter, mixed with pepper, and a good spoonful of vinegar. Toss and stir lest they should brown.[516]

Lima Beans.

See Thursday, First Week in September.

Fried Egg-plant.

See Sunday, First Week in September.

Velvet Blanc-Mange.

1 pint sweet cream, whipped stiff; ½ package Cooper’s gelatine soaked in 2 cups of cold water; 2 glasses white wine; juice of one large lemon; bitter almond flavoring; 1 cup sugar.

Put sugar, soaked gelatine, lemon and wine into a covered vessel for one hour. Stir well, and set the covered jar or bowl into a saucepan of boiling water until the gelatine is dissolved. Strain and cool before flavoring it. When it begins to congeal, beat gradually into the whipped cream. Put into a wet mould, and bury in the ice until wanted. Pass cake with it.

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Egg Soup.

1 quart of broth in which the feet and giblets of the chickens have been boiled; all that you have left of yesterday’s soup, strained; 4 beaten eggs; parsley, salt and pepper; dice of stale bread.

Cool and skim the quart of water in which have been boiled for one hour the cleaned feet and giblets of your chickens. (Salt the giblets and put them in the refrigerator.) Set this broth over the fire, and season. When it boils, take it off, pour it upon the beaten eggs; put all into a jar and set in boiling water, stirring until it thickens.[517] Heat in another saucepan the remains of yesterday’s soup—or, if you have none, a scant quantity of milk, thickened with floured butter; pour into a tureen, add the egg-broth, and throw in a good handful of stale bread-dice. Stir well and serve.

Smothered Chickens with Mushrooms.

Split a pair of young, full-grown chickens down the back. Lay them, breasts upward, in a dripping-pan; pour over them a great cupful of boiling water in which have been melted two tablespoonfuls of butter. Invert another pan over them, covering closely, and cook in a steady oven until they are tender and of a mellow russet hue. An hour is generally sufficient. Baste very often, twice at the last with butter. Keep the fowls hot upon a chafing-dish while you add the rest of the can of mushrooms opened yesterday—each mushroom sliced into thirds—to the gravy, with browned flour and pepper. Simmer ten minutes; pour a little upon the chickens, the rest into a boat.

Scalloped Cauliflower.

Small, and therefore cheap, cauliflowers will do for this purpose. Boil them in hot salted water twenty minutes. Drain, cool, and chop. Beat into them a couple of eggs, a spoonful of melted butter, a half cup of milk, and season. Pour into a buttered bake-dish; cover with drawn butter, then with fine crumbs, and bake half an hour.

Stewed Tomatoes.

Loosen the skins with boiling water; peel, slice, and stew twenty minutes. Season with sugar, pepper, salt, a good piece of butter cut up in flour, and stew five minutes more.

Beet-root Salad.

Arrange the cold beets left from yesterday in a salad-dish. Pour a little salad-oil over them, season with sifted sugar, salt, a little cayenne, and vinegar at discretion.

Peaches and Cream.

See Monday of First Week in September.[518]

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Oberlin Soup.

3 onions; 3 turnips; 3 carrots; ½ cabbage; bunch of herbs; 8 tomatoes, sliced; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 teaspoonful of corn-starch; pepper, sugar, and salt; 1 cup of boiling milk; 3 quarts of cold water.

Chop the vegetables, and put all except the tomatoes and cabbage over the fire, with the water. Simmer one hour. Then add the cabbage, previously parboiled. Ten minutes later, put in the tomatoes and herbs. Stew rather fast for half an hour. Rub through a colander; put over the fire; stir in the butter and corn-starch. Cook five minutes; season well. Let all stand together at the side of the range, covered, five minutes, and pour out. Stir in the boiling milk (with a pinch of soda in it) after the soup is in the tureen.

Cream Pickerel.

If you cannot get pickerel, pike, or salmon-trout, use rock-fish or bass for this dish. Clean the fish, and, if large, score the back-bone in several places. Bake slowly, pouring a cup of boiling water over him at first, afterward basting often with butter and water. When done, lay upon a hot-water dish; add to the gravy in the dripping-pan a cup of milk (with a pinch of soda stirred in), and, when this heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, one teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet in water, and a little chopped parsley. Boil up once, to thicken, add pepper and salt to taste, and pour over the fish.[519]

Giblet Omelette.

7 eggs; 2 tablespoonfuls of cream; yesterday’s giblets, chopped very fine and seasoned; 1 good spoonful of butter.

Beat yolks and whites together; then add the cream. Heat the butter in the frying-pan; put in the giblets; shake hard for a moment, and pour in the eggs. Keep them free from the bottom by shaking, and loosening with a cake-turner; and, when quite “set,” fold in the middle. Invert a hot dish over the pan, turn out, and serve at once.

Mashed Potatoes.

Mash soft, heap upon a hot dish, and serve without browning.

Boiled Corn.

See Sunday, First Week in September.

Cucumbers.

Pare; lay in ice-water an hour; slice, and dish, with pounded ice strewed over and among them. Pass condiments with them.

Diplomatic Pudding.

1 quart of milk; 4 eggs; 1 cup very fine bread-crumbs; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet with cold milk; ¼ lb. of currants, washed, dried, and dredged; 1 cup of sugar.

Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk, setting the vessel containing them in one of hot water, and heating milk and crumbs to scalding. Pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar; add corn-starch; lastly, the dredged currants. Pour into a buttered mould, and boil an hour and a quarter. Turn out, and pour a cup of hot custard over it for sauce, flavored with vanilla, or other essence.[520]

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Mutton Noodle Soup.

1 perfectly clean sheep’s head, cleaned with the skin left on; 3 lbs. scrag of mutton, broken to pieces; 2 onions; 2 carrots; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; a large handful of noodles (see Receipt, Wednesday, First Week in August); 7 quarts water.

Slice the vegetables, put with the head and scrag into a soup-kettle, add four quarts of water, and simmer two hours, or until the sheep’s head is so tender that the bones will slip out. Skim well, pour in three quarts of cold water, and after three minutes take out the head carefully. Lay in a greased bake-dish; as carefully, pull out the bones through the under side, and put these back into the soup-kettle. Add the vegetables and herbs; bring again to a slow boil, and cook three hours longer. Take out meat and bones; salt highly; put into your stock-jar, and pour half the broth over them. Season this also, and put by for another day. Rub the vegetables through the sieve into the broth left for to-day. Cool, skim; season, and set over the fire. Boil and skim for two minutes; add the noodles; simmer twenty minutes, and pour out.

Baked Sheep’s Head à la Russe.

Let the boiled and boned sheep’s head get cold in the bake-dish. Then brush over with raw egg, and sift over it a mixture of fine crumbs, a dust of flour and some minced parsley (dried and powdered is better), seasoned with pepper and salt. Set in the oven; baste well with butter, as it browns. Serve in the dish, and send with it[521] a boat of drawn butter, based upon a cupful of the soup and seasoned with French mustard, the juice of half a lemon, and some onion pickle minced very fine.

Sweet Potatoes.

See Wednesday of First Week in September.

Squash.

Pare, slice, cook soft in boiling salt water. Drain and mash smooth in a hot colander. Season with butter, salt, and pepper.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Corn.

Set large, smooth tomatoes in a greased pudding-dish. Cut a slice from the top of each. Scoop out the seeds, leaving the walls thickly lined with pulp. Have ready a cupful of corn grated from the cob, and seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt. Fill the tomatoes with this; put on the upper slices, and pour a little gravy over all. Bake, covered, in a moderate oven, one hour. Serve in the dish.

Cream Peach Pie.

Make as directed in Saturday, Fourth Week in August; but lay the upper crust on lightly, slightly buttering the lower at the point of contact. When the pie is done, lift the cover and pour in a cream made thus: 1 cup (small) of rich milk, heated; whites of 2 eggs, whipped and stirred into the milk; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; ½ teaspoonful of corn-starch wet up in milk. Boil three minutes. The cream must be cold when it goes into the hot pie. Replace the crust, and set by to cool. Eat fresh.[522]

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Rice and Tomato Soup.

Skim the soup in your stock-pot. Strain from the meat and bones; heat and add a pint of tomatoes, stewed, strained, and seasoned, and a cup of boiled rice with the cup of water in which it has been cooked. Season to taste; simmer fifteen or twenty minutes after it begins to boil, and turn out.

Boiled Chickens and Tongue.

Tie the stuffed and trussed chickens in netting, fitted to their shape, and cook in plenty of boiling water, a little salt. An hour and a quarter should suffice, if the fowls are tender. Soak a tongue over night. In the morning, wash it well and boil eighteen minutes to the pound. Trim and skin it. Lay in the middle of the dish, with a chicken on each side, and pour over them drawn butter, based upon a cupful of the liquor in which the chickens were boiled, mixed with a little minced parsley. Save the rest of the liquor.

Breaded Egg-plant.

Slice, and pare each slice. Lay in salt and water one hour, with a plate on top, to keep the slices under water. Wipe dry; salt and pepper; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry to a fine brown in lard or dripping. Drain, and serve.

Boiled Cauliflower.

Cook in boiling salted water twenty-five minutes, having tied the cauliflower up in white netting. Drain; untie;[523] lay in a deep dish, the blossom upward, and deluge with a white sauce made of drawn butter, with the juice of a lemon squeezed in.

Lima Beans.

See Thursday, First Week in September.

Frozen Custard and Cake.

Please refer to Sunday, Second Week in July.

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Chicken and Corn Soup.

Skim the liquor in which the chickens were boiled yesterday. Put over the fire, with the grated corn from twelve ears. Boil one hour; rub through a colander; season, heat, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, a little finely cut parsley, and a teaspoonful essence of celery. Simmer five minutes; add a cup of boiling milk, and pour out.

Casserole of Rice, with Chickens and Tongue.

Chop the remains of yesterday’s chickens and tongue fine, with the giblets. Season, and put over the fire, with a cup of yesterday’s soup, and, when almost on the boil, add two beaten eggs. Boil a cup of rice in a little of the chicken-liquor used for your soup, until the rice is soft, and the liquor absorbed. Beat two eggs into half a cup of[524] milk, in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Stir and beat this into the rice. Let it get cold, and then line a greased mould with it—one with a cylinder in the middle will not do. Make the walls of rice-paste an inch thick; then fill with the mince, which should not be too soft. Cover with the rice; put the top on the mould; set in a pot of boiling water, and cook one hour and a half. Turn out with great care, and pour a little of the pot-liquor, thickened and seasoned, over it.

Onions Stewed Brown.

Top and tail them; skin, and dredge them with flour. Then fry to a good brown in dripping. Put into a pot, cover with a little of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled, and stew slowly two hours, or until tender. Take up the onions; thicken the sauce with browned flour, add a tablespoonful of butter, with pepper; boil up, and pour over the onions.

Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Wash, wipe, and lay in a moderate oven. Bake until the largest is soft between your testing fingers. Wipe off, and serve in their jackets.

Cold Slaw.

Shred the heart of a firm white cabbage. Put into a salad-bowl, and season with sugar, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar. Stir up and toss thoroughly.

Corn-starch Hasty Pudding.

1 quart fresh milk; 3 tablespoonfuls corn-starch, wet up in cold milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

Scald and salt the milk, and stir into it the corn-starch. Boil steadily, stirring now and then, for fifteen minutes. Add the butter; let the pudding stand in hot water, uncovered, after you have ceased to stir, until you are ready for it; then serve in an open, deep dish. Eat with cream and sugar.[525]

Tea and Fancy Biscuits.

If the weather be hot, have iced tea; if cool, and suggestive of early frosts, or equinoctial storms, introduce the bright tea-pot and pretty “cozy.”

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St. Rémo Broth.

3 lbs. of veal—lean and cut into strips; 2 onions, sliced and fried; 3 quarts of water; 1 tablespoonful of minced parsley; ½ cupful of raw rice; 2 tablespoonfuls of grated cheese; salt and pepper.

Fry the onions in dripping; put in the meat, and fry to a light brown. Put into the soup-pot with the water, and boil slowly three hours, or until brought down to two quarts. The meat should be in rags. Strain; cool, skim, and season. Put back into the kettle with the rice, which must have soaked one hour in a little water. This water, also, must go into the soup. Simmer half an hour. Put the grated cheese into the tureen, and when the rice has boiled soft, pour upon the cheese, stir up and serve.

Beefsteak.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet, and broil quickly upon a greased gridiron. Ten minutes should be enough if you like it rare. Lay upon a hot dish, turn another over it, having salted, buttered, and peppered it, and let it stand five minutes before sending to table.[526]

Potatoes au Naturel.

Cook, without paring, in boiling salted water, until a fork will enter easily the largest. Pour off the water; set the pot, uncovered, upon the range for a moment, to dry off the moisture; peel rapidly, and dish.

Kidney-Beans.

Shell; cook in boiling water, a little salt, half an hour, or until tender. Drain, salt, pepper, and butter, and serve in a deep dish.

Raw Tomatoes.

Pare and slice. Put into a salad-dish, and pour over them a dressing made of two tablespoonfuls of oil rubbed with one teaspoonful of sugar, and half as much, each, of made mustard, salt, and pepper; then with five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, whipped in, a little at a time.

Fruit Dessert.

Use your own discretion and consult your own convenience in devising a tasteful and acceptable dessert of fruits, such as should now be plenty and cheap. Late peaches, melons, bananas, pears, and apples, are, some or all of them, within reach of housekeepers of moderate means. Arrange in dishes or baskets decorated with green sprays and flowers.

Coffee and Cake.

Consult, also, your discretion and the weather in the question of hot or iced coffee.[527]

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Ox-Cheek Soup.

2 ox-cheeks; 3 onions; 2 carrots; 2 turnips; 12 whole black peppers; 6 cloves; salt; 5 quarts of water; ½ cup of German sago.

Break the bones of the cheeks, and wash well with salt and water. Cover with cold water; bring to a boil, and throw off the water. Fry the sliced onions, and put into the pot with the meat, also the sliced carrots, onions, and spice. Cover with a gallon and a quart of water. Bring to a slow boil, and keep this up, skimming often, for four hours. Strain off the liquor; pick out the meat and bones; salt highly; put into your stock-pot with nearly half the broth. Set in a cold place for to-morrow. Pulp the vegetables into that meant for to-day; let it cool; take off the fat, and put back over the fire. Season to your liking; add the sago, which should have been soaking for two hours in a little water, and simmer until it is clear.

Stewed Calf’s Hearts.

Wash two fresh calf’s hearts; stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, chopped salt pork, a little thyme, sage and onion. Tie up snugly in clean mosquito-netting; put into a broad saucepan; half cover with broth from your soup from yesterday or to-day. Cover and stew an hour and three-quarters gently, turning several tim