Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Some strips of fried toast are an acceptable addition to this ragoût. These should be laid on the heap of meat.

I have also varied it satisfactorily, by putting in sliced hard-boiled eggs. It is a good _entrée_ at dinner, and a capital luncheon or breakfast-dish.

A MOULD OF CALF’S HEAD. +

A cold boiled calf’s head freed from bones and cut into thin slices—or so much of it as you need for your mould.

6 hard-boiled eggs—also sliced.

Five or six slices of cold boiled ham—corned is better than smoked.

1 large cupful of the liquor in which the head was boiled, stewed down to a rich gravy and well seasoned with pepper, salt, mace and minced onion. Strain before using.

Line the bottom of a buttered mould with the slices of egg also buttered on the outer side, that they may easily leave the mould.

Salt and pepper them, then fill the mould with alternate layers of sliced calf’s head, ham, sliced eggs, seasoning, etc., pouring in the gravy last. If you have no top for the mould, make a stiff paste of flour and water to close it in and preserve flavor and juices.

When done, set it, still covered, in a cool place. When cold and firm, slice for luncheon or tea.

_Or,_

You can chop both kinds of meat fine, also the eggs, and pack in successive layers within your mould.

A little lemon-juice and minced parsley, with a touch of catsup, will improve the gravy.

CALF’S BRAINS FRIED.

The brains, well washed, and scalded in _boiling_ water for two minutes, then laid in very cold.

2 eggs well beaten.

A little flour and butter.

Salt and pepper.

Beat the brains, when perfectly cold, into a paste; season, add the eggs and enough flour to make a good batter, with less than a teaspoonful of butter to prevent toughness. Have ready some good dripping in the frying-pan, and when it is hissing hot, drop in the batter in spoonfuls and fry.

_Or—_

You can fry on the griddle, like cakes.

They are very palatable either way when cooked quickly and freed of every clinging drop of grease.

CALF’S BRAINS ON TOAST.

The brains.

3 eggs, beaten light.

Salt, pepper and parsley.

Six or eight rounds of fried bread.

2 table-spoonfuls butter.

Soak the brains fifteen minutes; free from skin and fibre; then drop them into boiling water in which you have put a little salt and a teaspoonful of vinegar. Boil hard for ten minutes, then throw the brains into ice-cold water. When well cooled break them up with a wooden or silver spoon; and stir into the beaten eggs with the seasoning. Have ready the butter in a hot frying-pan, pour in the mixture and stir rapidly for two minutes, or until it is a soft mass like stirred eggs. Lay the toast upon a hot dish and heap the brains upon it.

This dish is rendered yet more savory, if you will pour some good well-seasoned gravy over the mounds of brains and the toast.

VEAL CUTLETS (_Stewed_). +

2 pounds veal cutlets, nicely trimmed.

1 small onion, sliced.

4 table-spoonfuls strained tomato sauce.

Enough butter or clear dripping to fry the cutlets.

Salt and pepper with a bunch of sweet herbs.

½ cup gravy.

Fry the cutlets to a light brown, but not crisp; take them out and put into a covered saucepan. Have ready the gravy in another, with the tomato sauce stirred into it. Fry the onion in the fat from which you have taken the cutlets, and add with the fat to the gravy. Pour all over the cutlets and simmer, covered, twenty minutes.

MOCK PIGEONS. +

3 or 4 fillets of veal.

Force-meat of bread-crumbs and minced pork, seasoned.

½ cup mushrooms and a little minced onion.

1 sweetbread.

A dozen oysters.

½ cup strong brown gravy.

1 glass of wine.

Take the bone, if there be any, out of the fillets (or cutlets, or steaks) of veal; spread each thickly with the force-meat, and roll up tightly, binding with packthread. Put into a baking-pan with enough cold water to half-cover them; turn another pan over them and bake from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in proportion to their size. Meanwhile, boil the sweetbread fifteen minutes, blanch in cold water; cut into dice, and put into a saucepan with the gravy, which let simmer on the hob. Cut the mushrooms into small pieces and fry with the onion in a little butter, then add to the heating gravy. In still another vessel, when the veal is nearly done, heat the oysters, also chopped fine, seasoning with salt and pepper. When the “pigeons” are tender throughout, uncover, baste generously with butter, and brown. Transfer to a hot flat dish; clip the packthread and gently withdraw it, not to injure the shape of the rolled meat. Let the gravy in which they were roasted come to a fast boil, thicken with browned flour and pour into the saucepan containing the sauce, sweetbreads, etc. Boil up once, add the wine; take from the fire and put in the chopped oysters. Stir all together well in the saucepan, pour a dozen spoonfuls, or so, over the “pigeons,” taking up the thickest part; send the rest to table in a gravy tureen.

You can make a simpler sauce by leaving out the sweetbreads, etc., and seasoning the gravy in the baking-pan with tomato sauce.

These “pigeons” will make an attractive variety in the home bill of fare, and do well as the _pièce de résistance_ of a family dinner.

A VEAL TURNOVER. +

Remains of roast veal—cold, minced fine, and seasoned.

2 or 3 eggs.

1 cup milk.

Flour to make a good batter—about 4 table-spoonfuls.

2 table-spoonfuls of butter.

Chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.

Heat the butter to a boil in the frying-pan. Mix the eggs, milk, flour, parsley, pepper, and salt into a batter, and pour it into the frying-pan. Lay in the middle, as soon as it begins to “form,” the minced meat. Fry rather slowly, taking care that the batter does not burn. When done on one side, fold the edges of the pancake over to the middle, enclosing the meat, and turn with a cake spatula. When both sides are of a delicate brown, put the cake “turner” under it, and slip over to a hot dish.

Send around a little gravy in a boat.

MEAT AND POTATO PUFFS. +

Slices of cold roast beef or mutton, and as many of corned ham.

2 eggs.

1 cup milk.

Enough potatoes and flour to make a good paste.

Pepper, salt, and mustard, or catsup.

Mash the potatoes, mix with them the eggs, well beaten, and whip up to a cream, adding the milk gradually. Add flour enough to enable you to roll it out into a sheet. Cut into squares, and in the centre of each lay a slice of beef or mutton, well seasoned with pepper and salt, and spread with made mustard or catsup. Lay on this a slice of ham of the same shape and size; fold the paste into a triangular “turnover,” printing the edges deeply with a jagging-iron, and fry in butter or beef-dripping to a nice brown. Take up so soon as they are done; lay on white paper for a moment to absorb the grease, and serve hot.

SCALLOPED CHICKEN. +

Cold roast or boiled chicken—chiefly the white meat.

1 cup gravy.

1 table-spoonful butter, and 1 egg, well beaten.

1 cup of fine bread-crumbs.

Pepper and salt.

Rid the chicken of gristle and skin, and cut—_not_ chop—into pieces less than half an inch long. Have ready the gravy, or some rich drawn butter, in a saucepan on the fire. Thicken it well, and stir in the chicken, boil up once, take it off, and add the beaten egg. Cover the bottom of a buttered dish with fine bread-crumbs, pour in the mixture, and put another thick layer of crumbs on top, sticking bits of butter all over it. Bake to a delicate brown in a quick oven.

_Or—_

Instead of the gravy make a white sauce, as follows:

1 cup cream or rich milk.

2 table-spoonfuls butter and 1 beaten egg.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in cold milk.

Pepper, salt and parsley.

Heat the cream to a boil, stir in the corn-starch until it thickens; then the butter, seasoning and egg. Take at once from the fire, add the minced chicken, and proceed as already directed.

Turkey may be used instead of chicken; also veal.

SCALLOPED BEEF (_Very good_). +

Some minced beef or lean mutton.

1 young onion, minced.

½ cup gravy.

Some mashed potato.

1 table-spoonful of butter to a cup of potato.

1 table-spoonful of cream to the same.

Pepper and salt.

Catsup, if mutton be used; made mustard for beef.

1 beaten egg for each cupful of potato.

Mash the potato while hot, beating _very_ light with the butter and cream—lastly, the egg. Too much attention cannot be paid to this part of the work. Fill a buttered baking-dish, or scallop shells with the minced meat, seasoned with onion, pepper, salt and mustard or catsup, moisten with gravy, and cover with the mashed potato at least half an inch thick if your dish be large. Smooth this over and bake to a light brown. Just before you draw them from the oven glaze by putting a bit of butter on the top of each scallop.

MINCE OF VEAL OR LAMB. +

1 cup gravy, well thickened.

The remains of cold roast meat—minced, but not very fine.

2 table-spoonfuls cream, or rich milk.

1 saltspoonful mace.

Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.

1 small onion.

1 table-spoonful butter.

3 eggs well whipped.

Heat the gravy to a boil, add the milk, butter, seasoning, onion, lastly the eggs, and so soon as these are stirred in, the minced meat, previously salted and peppered. Let it get smoking hot, but it must not boil. Heap in the middle of a dish, and enclose with a fence of fried potato or fried triangles of bread.

If well cooked and seasoned, this is a savory _entrée_.

WHITE FRICASSEE OF RABBIT. +

1 young rabbit.

1 pint weak broth.

¼ pound fat salt pork.

1 onion, sliced.

Chopped parsley, pepper and salt.

A very little mace.

1 cup of milk or cream.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch or rice flour.

1 table-spoonful butter.

Joint the rabbit neatly and cut the pork into strips. Put on the rabbit to boil (when it has lain in salt-and-water half an hour) in the broth, which should be cold. Put in the pork with it, and stew, closely covered, and very gently, an hour, or, until tender, before adding the onion, seasoning and parsley. When you do this, take out the pieces of rabbit, put in a covered dish to keep warm and boil down the gravy very fast, for fifteen minutes. Take out the pork, then strain the gravy through your soup-strainer. Let it stand five or six minutes in a cold place that the fat may rise. Skim this off; return the gravy to the saucepan, and when it is almost on the boil, stir in the cream or milk in which the corn-starch has been dissolved. Stir until it thickens, put in the butter, then the pieces of rabbit and the pork. All must simmer together five minutes, but not boil. When it is smoking hot, lay the rabbit neatly on a dish, pour over the gravy, garnish with parsley and sliced lemons and serve.

BROWN FRICASSEE OF RABBIT, _or_ “JUGGED RABBIT.” +

1 young but full-grown rabbit, or hare.

½ pound fat salt pork, or ham.

1 cup good gravy.

Dripping or butter for frying.

1 onion, sliced.

Parsley, pepper, salt and browned flour.

1 glass of wine.

1 table-spoonful currant jelly.

Let the rabbit lie, after it is jointed, for half an hour in cold salt-and-water. Wipe dry, and fry to a fine brown with the onion. Have ready a tin pail, or the inner vessel of a farina-kettle; put in the bottom a layer of fat salt pork, cut into thin strips; then, one of rabbit, seasoning well with pepper, but scantily with salt. Sprinkle the fried onion over the rabbit, and proceed in this order until your meat is used up. Cover the vessel, and set in another of warm water. Bring slowly to a boil, and let it stand where it will cook steadily, but not fast, for three-quarters of an hour, if the rabbit be large. Take out the meat, arrange it on a dish, add the jelly, beaten up with the browned flour, to the gravy, then the wine. Boil up quickly and pour over the rabbit.

Do not fail to give this a trial.

CURRIED RABBIT.

1 rabbit, jointed.

½ pound fat salt pork.

1 onion, sliced.

½ cup cream.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch.

Pepper, salt and parsley, and 2 eggs well beaten.

1 dessert spoonful good curry-powder.

Soak the jointed rabbit half an hour in cold salt-and-water, then put into a saucepan with the pork cut into strips, the onion and parsley, and stew steadily, not fast, in enough cold water to cover all, for an hour, or until the rabbit is tender. Take out the meat and lay on a covered chafing-dish to keep warm, while you boil the gravy five minutes longer. Let it stand a few minutes for the fat to rise, skim it and strain. Return to the fire; let it almost boil, when put in the corn-starch. Stir to thickening, put in the curry-powder, the rabbit and pork, and let all stand covered, in a vessel of boiling water, fifteen minutes. Take up the meat, pile upon the chafing-dish; add to the gravy the cream and eggs, and stir one minute before pouring over the meat. All should stand, covered, in the hot-water chafing-dish about five minutes before going to table.

No arbitrary rule can be given as to the length of time it is necessary to cook game before it will be tender, since there are so many degrees of toughness in the best of that recommended by your reliable provision merchant as “just right.”

Hence, my oft-reiterated clause, “or, until tender.”

You can curry chicken in the same manner as rabbit.

DEVILLED RABBIT.

1 rabbit, jointed, as for fricassee.

3 table-spoonfuls butter.

A little cayenne, salt and mustard.

1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, and 1 table-spoonful vinegar.

Parboil the rabbit, and let it get perfectly cold; then score to the bone, the gashes about half an inch apart. Melt together in a saucepan the butter and seasoning. Stir up well, and rub each piece of the rabbit with the mixture, working it into the gashes. Broil over a clear fire, turning as soon as they begin to drip. When they are brown lay on a hot dish, and pour melted butter over them. Let them lie in this, turning several times, for three or four minutes. Put the rest of the mixture on them, if any be left, and serve.

DEVILLED FOWL.

Use only the legs and upper part of the wings of roasted or boiled fowls. Treat precisely as you do the rabbit in the foregoing receipt.

SALMI OF GAME. +

An underdone roast duck, pheasant, or grouse.

1 great spoonful of butter.

2 onions, sliced and fried in butter.

1 large cup strong gravy.

Parsley, marjoram and savory.

Pepper and salt.

A pinch of cloves, and same of nutmeg.

Cut your game into neat joints and slices, taking all the skin off. Put refuse bits, fat, skin, etc., into a saucepan with the gravy, the fried onions, herbs, spice, pepper and salt. Boil gently one hour; let it cool until the fat rises, when skim it off and strain the gravy. Return it to the saucepan, and, when it heats, stir into it the butter and thicken with browned flour. Boil up sharply for five minutes and put in the pieces of duck. After this, the salmi _must not boil_. Neglect of this rule ruins most of the so-called salmis one sees upon private as well as upon hotel tables. Set the saucepan in a vessel of boiling water, and heat it through, letting it stand thus ten minutes. Arrange the meat upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it. Garnish with triangles of fried bread, and serve a piece to each guest with the salmi.

ROAST RABBITS. +

A pair rabbits.

½ pound fat salt pork, cut into thin slices.

2 table-spoonfuls butter, and 1 glass of wine.

Bread-crumbs, chopped pork, parsley, grated lemon-peel, salt and pepper for the stuffing.

1 egg, beaten light, and 1 onion, sliced.

Skin and clean the rabbits (or hares), and lay in cold salt-and-water half an hour. Prepare the dressing as above directed, binding with the egg. Wipe the rabbits dry inside and out, stuff with the prepared mixture, and sew them up closely. Cover the backs of the rabbits with the sliced pork, binding it in place with packthread wound around and around the bodies. Lay them in the baking-pan, backs uppermost; pour into it about two cupfuls of cold water, cover closely, and steam for an hour, raising the upper pan now and then to pour a few spoonfuls of the boiling water about the rabbits over their backs, that the pork may not crisp; then remove the cover, clip the packthread, and take off the pork. Brown the rabbits, basting bountifully and frequently with butter. Chop the pork, and crisp in a frying-pan with the sliced onion. When the rabbits are done transfer to a hot dish; pour the gravy into a saucepan with the pork and onion. Boil up once, and strain before thickening with browned flour. Add the wine, give a final boil, and pour over and about the rabbits, sending up the surplus in a tureen.

Pigeons and grouse are very fine roasted in this way, also partridges.

BRAISED WILD DUCK OR GROUSE. +

A pair of ducks or grouse.

1 onion, minced fine.

Bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, a pinch of sage, and a little chopped pork for stuffing.

4 table-spoonfuls of butter, or good dripping.

1 cup gravy.

Browned flour.

Prepare and stuff the fowls as for roasting. Have ready the butter or dripping hot in a large frying-pan, and fry first one fowl, then the other in this, turning as it browns below. Then lay them in a large sauce-pan and pour the gravy, previously heated, in with them. Cover closely and stew gently for an hour, or until the game is tender. Transfer the fowls to a hot dish and cover it, to keep in flavor and warmth while you strain the gravy. Let it cool a little to throw up the grease. Skim, thicken with browned flour, and boil up well for five minutes. Skim again, put back the duck into the gravy, and let all stand heating—_not_ boiling—five minutes more, before dishing. Pour a few spoonfuls of gravy over the ducks on the dish; the rest into a tureen.

Send around green peas and currant jelly with them.

ROAST QUAILS. +

6 plump quails.

12 fine oysters.

3 table-spoonfuls butter.

Pepper and salt, and fried bread for serving.

Clean the quails and wash out very carefully with cold water in which been dissolved a little soda. Cleanse finally with pure water and wipe dry, inside and out. Place within the body of each bird a couple of oysters or one very large one, sew it up and range all, side by side, in a baking-pan. Pour a very little boiling water over them to harden the outer skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, about half an hour. Then uncover and baste frequently with butter while they are browning. Serve upon rounds of fried bread, laid on a hot dish. Put a spoonful of gravy upon each, and send up the rest in a boat, when you have thickened and strained it.

If you like, you may add a glass of claret and a table-spoonful of currant jelly to the gravy after the quails are taken up.

Be careful to sew up small game with fine cotton that will not tear the meat when it is drawn out.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN _à l’Italienne_ (_Fine_).

Pair of chickens.

½ pound fat salt pork, cut into strips.

2 sprigs of parsley.

1 sprig thyme.

1 bay leaf.

A dozen mushrooms.

1 small onion.

1 clove.

1 table-spoonful of butter.

1 table-spoonful of salad oil.

2 glasses wine—white, or pale sherry.

Cut the chickens into joints; put them with the pork into a saucepan with a very little water, and stew, covered, until tender. Remove the chicken to a hot-water chafing-dish and keep warm while you prepare the gravy. Turn the liquor in which the chickens were cooked into a frying-pan, thicken with browned flour; put into it the herbs, onion, clove and the mushrooms chopped very fine. Boil up sharply; add the butter and stew fast half an hour. Then add the wine and oil. Simmer a few minutes, and strain through a coarse cullender over the chicken.

I have understated the merits of this admirable fricassee by styling it “fine.” The dear friend upon whose table I first saw it, will, I am sure, earn the thanks of many other housewives, with my own, by giving the receipt.

MINCED CHICKEN AND EGGS. +

Remains of roast or boiled chicken.

Stuffing of the same.

1 onion cut fine.

½ cup of cream.

1 table-spoonful flour or corn-starch.

Parsley, salt, and pepper.

6 or 8 eggs.

½ cup gravy, and handful of bread-crumbs.

Cut the meat of the fowls into small, neat squares. Put the bones, fat, and skin into a saucepan, with the onion and enough cold water to cover them, and stew gently for an hour or more. Strain, let it stand for a little while that the fat may rise, skim, and return to the saucepan. When hot to boiling, add the cream and thickening, with the seasoning. When it thickens, put in the chicken, after which it must not boil. Butter a deep dish; cover the bottom with the stuffing of the fowls, crumbled or mashed up; wet with gravy; pour in the mince; strew fine, dry bread-crumbs over this, and break the eggs carefully upon the surface. More, and if possible, finer crumbs should cover these; put a bit of butter on each egg, pepper and salt, and bake in a quick oven until the top begins to bubble and smoke. The whites of the eggs should be well “set,” the yolks soft.

I can safely recommend this receipt. Few “pick-up” dishes are more popular with those for whom it is my duty and delight to cater.

A mince of veal can be made in the same way, in which case a little ham is an improvement, also two or three hard-boiled eggs, cut into dice, and mixed with the meat.

QUENELLES. +

Some cold, white meat of fowls or veal.

1 cup fine bread-crumbs.

3 table-spoonfuls cream or milk.

2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

1 egg, well beaten.

1 cup well-flavored gravy.

Pepper and salt.

Chop the meat very fine. Wet the crumbs with milk, and drain as dry as you can. Work into this paste the meat and egg, seasoning well. Flour your hands, and make the mixture into round balls, rolling these in flour when formed. Have ready the gravy hot in a saucepan; drop in the quenelles, and boil fast five minutes. Take them up and pile upon a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour; boil up once and pour over them.

_Or,_

After making out the quenelles, roll them in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in good dripping seasoned with onion. Dry every drop of grease from them by rolling them upon paper, and serve with the gravy poured over them.

These quenelles are nice served up with fricasseed sweetbreads, or as a garnish for them, or game.

RECHAUFFÉE OF VEAL AND HAM.

Cold veal (if underdone all the better) and ham.

2 eggs, beaten light.

Handful of very fine bread-crumbs.

A little tart jelly.

Dripping or butter for frying.

Pepper, salt, and made mustard, or catsup.

Cut the veal and ham into rather thick slices of exactly the same size. Spread one side of a slice of veal with jelly, one side of the ham with mustard or thick catsup. Press these firmly together, that they may adhere closely, dip in the beaten egg, and roll in the bread (or cracker) crumbs, which should be seasoned with pepper and salt. Fry very quickly; dry off the grease by laying them on soft paper, and pile upon a dish.

ROULADES OF BEEF.

Some slices of rare roast beef.

Some slices of boiled ham.

2 eggs, beaten light.

Butter or dripping for frying.

Pepper and mustard.

A little thick gravy.

Cut the beef into even, oblong slices, the ham rather thinner and smaller. Spread one side of the beef with mustard, and pepper the ham. Lay the ham upon the beef and roll up together as tightly as possible; roll in the egg, then the cracker, and pierce with a slender steel, tin or wooden skewer in such a manner as to keep the roll pinned together. Put several on each skewer, but do not let them touch one another. Fry brown; lay on a dish, and gently withdraw the skewers. Pour the gravy boiling hot over them.

Small _roulades_ are a convenient and toothsome garnish for game and roast poultry.

ROULADES OF MUTTON.

Can be made in the same way, but leaving out the ham, and spreading the inside of each slice with currant jelly.

FRIED CHICKEN. +

1 tender young chicken, cut into joints.

2 eggs, beaten light.

½ cup of cracker-crumbs.

Sweet lard, dripping, or the best salad-oil for frying.

Lay the chicken in salt-and-water fifteen minutes; wipe dry, pepper and salt, dip in the egg, then in the cracker-crumbs, and fry slowly in hot lard or dripping. Drain dry, pile on a hot dish, and lay sprigs of parsley over it.

CHICKEN FRIED WHOLE.

1 young, tender chicken, trussed as for roasting, but not stuffed.

Butter or _very_ nice dripping for frying.

Clean the chicken, wash out well, and dry, inside and out. Put it in your steamer, or cover in a cullender over a pot of boiling water, keeping it at a fast boil for fifteen or twenty minutes. Have ready the boiling hot fat in a deep frying-pan, or cruller-kettle. It should half cover the chicken, when having floured it all over, you put it in. When one side is a light brown, turn it. When both are cooked, take up, put into a covered kettle or tin pail, and set in a pot of hot water, which keep at a _slow_ boil, half an hour. If you like a delicate flavor of onion, put a few slices in the bottom of the kettle before the chicken goes in. Anoint the chicken plentifully, after laying it on a hot dish, with melted butter in which you have stirred pepper and chopped parsley.

This is a new and attractive manner of preparing chickens for the table. None but tender ones should be fried in any way.

“SMOTHERED” CHICKEN. +

2 tender chickens, roasting size, but not very large.

Pepper, salt and browned flour for gravy.

Clean and wash the chickens, and split down the back as for broiling. Lay flat in a baking-pan, dash a cupful of boiling water upon them; set in the oven, and invert another pan over them so as to cover _tightly_. Roast at a steady, but moderate heat, about half an hour, then lift the cover and baste freely with butter and a little of the water in which the fowls are cooking. In ten minutes more, baste again with gravy from the baking-pan. In five more, with melted butter and abundantly, going all over the fowls, which should now begin to brown. Increase the heat, still keeping the chickens covered. A few minutes before dishing them, test with a fork to ascertain if they are tender. When done they should be of a mellow brown hue all over the upper part—a uniform and pleasing tint. Dish, salt and pepper them; thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, adding a little water, if necessary, season with pepper, salt and parsley, and send up in a gravy boat.

The flavor of “smothered” chicken—so named by the Virginia housewife of the olden time—is peculiar, and to most palates delightful.

SMOTHERED CHICKEN WITH OYSTERS. +

1 fine, fat chicken.

1 pint of oysters, or enough to fill the chicken.

Dressing of chopped oysters, parsley and crumbs.

1 table-spoonful butter.

3 table-spoonfuls cream.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch.

Yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.

Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley for sauce.

Clean the chicken, washing it out with two or three waters. Fill the “craw” with the prepared stuffing, tying up the neck very securely. Then, pack the main cavity of the body with oysters and sew up the vent. Have ready a clean tin pail with a closely-fitting top. Put the fowl, neatly trussed, into it, cover and set in a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil, and cook slowly for more than an hour after the water in the outer vessel begins to boil. If the fowl be not young, it may be needful to keep it in two hours. _Do not open the inner vessel in less than an hour._ Having ascertained that the chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay on a hot dish, covering immediately. Turn the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, add the cream, parsley, seasoning and the boiled yolks chopped fine. Boil up once; pour a little over the chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce-boat.

FONDU OF CHICKEN OR OTHER WHITE MEAT.

Some cold chicken, veal, or turkey minced fine.

1 cupful bread-crumbs—baker’s bread is best.

1 cupful boiling milk.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 slice cold boiled ham—minced.

½ onion boiled in, and then strained out of the milk.

2 eggs, beaten very light.

A pinch of soda, dissolved in the milk.

Pepper and salt to taste.

Soak the crumbs in the boiling milk, stir in the batter, and beat very light. Let the mixture cool, while you mince the meat and whip the eggs. Stir in the meat first when the bread is nearly cold, season, and lastly put in the beaten eggs. Beat all up well and pour into a well-greased baking-dish. Set in a brisk oven. When the fondu is a light, delicately-browned puff, send at once to table in the dish in which it was baked.

GALANTINE. +

“A sort of glorified head-cheese—isn’t it?” said a blunt collegian at the height of his vacation-appetite, in passing his plate for a third reinforcement from the dish in front of his hostess.

The phrase always recurs to me, when I taste or see a galantine, for this was the foreign name of the spicy relish aptly characterized by the youth. If spicy and appetizing, it is also a convenient stand-by for the lunch or supper-table, since it keeps well and pleases most people, even those who do not affect “head-cheese” proper.

A rind of fat salt pork, about six inches wide and eight long.

A little sausage, some minced ham, and odds and ends of game and poultry, with giblets of all kinds, chopped up.

Salt, pepper, cloves, allspice, mace and cinnamon; sweet marjoram, savory, thyme, a little grated lemon-peel; a pinch of cayenne.

1 small onion, minced very fine.

1 cup rich gravy, thick and savory.

A little butter and bits of fat meat cut into dice.

A pint of weak broth, seasoned with pepper, salt and onion.

Cut from a piece of fat salt pork (the loin or sides) the rind in one piece, leaving on about a half-inch of fat. Soak in water over night to make it more pliable. Spread, next day, upon a flat dish, and lay on it layers of sausage (_or_, if you have it, potted ham or tongue), game, poultry, giblets—minced meat of almost any kind, although these named are most savory—well seasoned with the condiments above enumerated, and sprinkled sparsely with onion. Moisten as you go on, with the rich broth; put in occasional bits of butter and fat meat, else it will be dry. Fold all up in the pork rind, joining the edges neatly.

About the roll wrap a stout cloth, fitting closely and sew it up on all sides. Bind, for further security, stout tape all about the bundle. Put the weak broth into a pot, and while it is still cold, drop the galantine into it, and boil slowly for five hours. The broth should cover it entirely all the time. Let it get perfectly cold in the liquor; then take it out, and without removing tape or cloth, put it under heavy weights between two plates, and do not touch it for twenty-four hours. At the end of that time, cut tape and threads, remove the cloth carefully, trim the ragged edges of the galantine, and send to table whole. Cut as it is asked for, with a keen knife, in smooth, thin slices.

JELLIED TONGUE. +

1 large boiled tongue (cold).

2 ounces of gelatine dissolved in

½ pint of water.

1 tea-cup of browned veal gravy.

1 pint of liquor in which the tongue was boiled.

1 table-spoonful sugar.

1 table-spoonful burnt sugar for coloring.

3 table-spoonfuls of vinegar.

1 pint boiling water.

Put together the gravy, liquor, sugar, vinegar and a table-spoonful of burnt sugar dissolved in cold water.

Add the dissolved gelatine and mix well—then the boiling water, and strain through flannel. Cut the tongue in slices as for the table. Let the jelly cool and begin to thicken. Wet a mould with cold water, put a little jelly in the bottom, then a layer of tongue, more jelly, and so on, until the mould is full. Cover and set in a cool place.

To turn it out, dip the mould in hot water for an instant, invert upon a dish, and garnish with celery-sprigs, and nasturtium-flowers. Cut with a thin, sharp knife, perpendicularly.

This is a handsome and delicious dish, and easily made.

GAME OR POULTRY IN SAVORY JELLY. +

A knuckle of veal, weighing 2 pounds.

1 slice of lean ham.

1 shallot, minced.

Sprig of thyme and one of parsley.

6 pepper-corns (white), and one teaspoonful salt.

3 pints of cold water.

Boil all these together until the liquor is reduced to a pint, when strain without squeezing, and set to cool until next day. It should then be a firm jelly. Take off every particle of fat.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in

1 cup cold water for 3 hours.

1 table-spoonful sugar.

2 table-spoonfuls strained lemon-juice.

2 table-spoonfuls currant jelly, dissolved in cold water, and strained through a muslin cloth.

Nearly a quart of _boiling_ water.

Pour the boiling water over the gelatine, stir swiftly for a moment; add the jellied “stock,” and when this is dissolved, the sugar, lemon-juice and coloring. Stir until all are mixed and melted together. Strain through a flannel bag until quite clear. Do not shake or squeeze the bag.

Have ready—4 or 5 hard-boiled eggs.

The remains of roast game, roast or boiled poultry, cut in neat thin slices, with no jagged edges, and salted slightly.

Wet a mould with cold water, and when the jelly begins to congeal, pour some in the bottom. Cut the whites of the eggs in pretty shapes—stars, flowers, leaves, with a keen penknife. If you have sufficient skill, carve the name or initials of some one whom you wish to honor. Unless you can do this, however, content yourself with smooth thin rings overlapping one another, like a chain, when they are arranged on the lowest stratum of jelly, which, by the way, should be a thin one, that your device may be visible. Pour in more jelly, and on this lay slices of meat, close together. More jelly, and proceed in this order until the mould is full, or all the meat used up.

Set in a cool place until next day, when turn out upon a flat dish.

An oblong or round mould, with smooth, upright sides, is best for this purpose.

There is no need for even a timid housekeeper to be appalled at the suggestion of attempting a task such as is described above, or below. The very minuteness with which I have detailed the by-no-means difficult process should encourage, not daunt the tyro. “Nothing venture, nothing have,” is a telling motto, in this connection.

A TONGUE JELLIED WHOLE.

Make the jelly and stock as in preceding receipt, leaving out the currant jelly, and coloring with a little burnt sugar, dissolved in cold water. This gives an amber tinge to the jelly. Should it not be clear after first straining, run it through the bag—a clean one—again.

Trim a small tongue—boiled and perfectly cold—neatly, cutting away the root and paring it skilfully from tip to root with a sharp, thin-bladed knife. Wet an oblong mould (a baking-pan used for “brick” loaves of bread will do) with cold water, and put a thin layer of the congealing jelly in the bottom. Upon this lay the tongue, bearing in mind that what is the bottom now will be the top when the jelly is turned out. Encircle it with a linked chain made of rings of white of egg, or, if you prefer, let the rings barely touch one another, and fit in the centre of each a round of bright pickled beet. The effect of this is very pretty. Fill up the mould with jelly; cover and set in a cold place for twelve hours.

This is a beautiful show-piece for luncheon or supper, and when it has served the end of its creation in this respect, can easily be carved with a sharp knife and remain, even in partial ruin, a thing of beauty.

GRAVY.

“PRESIDING over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,” said Mrs. Todgers. “The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one’s age. The anxiety of that one item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch.”

Without following the worthy landlady further into the depths of her dissertation upon the fondness of commercial gentlemen for the “item,” I would answer a question addressed to me by a correspondent who “believes”—she is so kind as to inform me—“in Common Sense.”

“I notice that many of your made dishes are dependent for savoriness upon ‘a cup of good broth,’ or, ‘half a cup of strong gravy.’ Let me ask, in the spirit of sincere desire for useful information, where is the gravy or broth to come from?”

In return I plagiarize the words of a lady who accomplishes more with less noise and fretting than any other person I ever saw.

“I don’t see how you find time for it all!” exclaimed an admiring visitor.

“I _make_ it, if I can get it in no other way,” was the rejoinder.

Never throw away so much as a teaspoonful of gravy of any kind. Season it rather highly, and set it away in a cool place until it is wanted. For a while you will have some difficulty in impressing the importance of this rule upon your cook, especially if she is allowed to have all the “soap-fat” she can save as one of her “perquisites.” This is a ruinous leak in any household, whether the oleaginous “savings” be exchanged for soap (hard or soft), or for money. It is so easy to “let it go into the fat-crock,” and when the cook is to gain anything for herself by the _laisser-aller_ the temptation is cruelly strong—even if she have a conscience. I have known the pile of unclean fat collected for the soap-man to be swelled not only by the bits of butter left upon the plates after meals, but by quarter and half-pounds abstracted bodily from butter tub or pot, and the abstraction never, in the phraseology of the “conveyer,” to be “scrupled.” “The wise convey it call!” said honest Pistol, and to no other ethical motto has heartier response been made by the comptrollers of culinary treasuries.

In a family of ordinary size nothing should find its way into the buckets of the unsavory caller at basement-door or back-gate. The drippings from most kinds of roast meat, if settled, strained and skimmed, and kept in a clean vessel, answer for many purposes quite as well as butter, and better than lard. Even that from mutton should be “tried out,” strained through muslin, slightly salted, and, if you choose, perfumed with rose-water, in which shape it is better than cold cream, or glycerine for chapped hands, and is a useful cerate for cuts, scratches, etc. The oil-cake should be removed from the top of all gravies before they are used upon the table; for, be it understood, _grease is not gravy_.

How often I have wished, from the depths of a loathing stomach, that certain well-meaning housekeepers—at whose boards I have sat as guest or boarder—who fry beefsteak in lard, and send ham to table swimming in fat; upon the surface of whose soups float spheroids of oil that encase the spoon with blubber, and coat the lips and tongue of the eater with flaky scales—that these dear souls who believe in “old-fashioned cookery,” understood this simple law of digestive gravity!

A “rich gravy,” or “a strong broth,” is not of necessity, then, one surcharged with fat. Beef-tea—which is the very essence of the meat, and contains more nourishment in small bulk than any other liquid used in the sick-room—should be made of lean, but tender beef, and every particle of suet be removed from the cooled surface before it is re-heated for the patient’s use.

If you have no gravy ready when you wish to prepare ragoût, or other dish requiring this ingredient, “make it.” Crack up the bones from which you have cut the flesh, and put them into a saucepan with the refuse bits of meat, gristle, skin, etc.; cover with cold water, and stew very gently until you have extracted all the nourishment, and from two cups of liquid in the pot when the boiling commenced, you have one cup of tolerable gravy. A few minutes of thought and preparation in your kitchen after breakfast will enable you to have anything of this kind in season for a luncheon dish, or an _entrée_ at the early dinner. Foresight in these matters is to be forearmed. Teach your cook, furthermore, never to toss “that carcass” of fowl, or the ham, or mutton-bone, “with next to nothing upon it,” to the dogs, or into the scavenger’s barrel. It will not, by itself, make good soup, unless it be very much underdone, and even then the broth will not be equal to that made from raw meat or marrow bones. But, seasoned and thickened—adding sweet herbs and a dash of catsup to the flavoring—it will be useful as gravy in many ways; always remembering that it must be skimmed before it is used. It is also well worth your while to see for yourself, when the meat comes home from market, that it has been properly trimmed for the table. Much goes into the oven or upon the spit to be roasted, or upon the gridiron to be broiled, that is unfit to be eaten after it has been baked or grilled. All bits of tough skin—all gristly portions, soft bones, and the cartilage known as “whitleather” should be removed before cooking from roasts, chops, and steaks, when this can be done without injuring the shape of the meat. The place for these is the stew-pot. Cover them with cold water; put in no seasoning until they have simmered slowly for a long time in a close vessel, and the liquid is reduced to at most one-half of the original quantity; then season, boil up once hard, strain, and set aside until you want to try a receipt in which “a little good gravy” is a desideratum.

If you buy meat for gravy—which you need not do very often, if you (and your cook) are reasonably careful about “scraps,” cooked and raw—get the coarser pieces and marrow-bones pounded to bits. Cut up the meat fine, also. You cannot, by never so long boiling; extract the strength so completely from a solid “chunk” of flesh as from the same quantity shred into strips or cut into dice. It should be reduced to rags for gravies and soups, and invariably put on in _cold_ water. Fast boiling hardens the meat and injures the flavor of the gravy. For the first hour, it should barely simmer. After that, stew very slowly and steadily. The best gravy is like jelly when cold.

Are these details trivial to absurdity? If they seem so to you, pray bear with my over-carefulness when I tell you how ignorant I was of minute economies when I assumed the name, and, so far as I could, the duties of a housewife, and how many others I have seen and talked with who are as anxious as was I, to stop the deadly little drains from the domestic system, yet know not where to begin.

SALADS.

THIS subject has been treated of so fully—so exhaustively, I thought, then,—in No. 1 of the “Common Sense Series,”[A] that I have comparatively few receipts to set down here. I can, however, heartily endorse these as especially good of their kind. Indeed, the neatest compliment ever paid any receipt in my _répertoire_ was when an epicure—not a _gourmande_—styled the oyster salad made in obedience to it, an “inspiration.”

OYSTER SALAD. +

1 quart oysters, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.

1 bunch celery, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.

2 hard-boiled eggs.

2 raw eggs, well whipped.

1 great spoonful salad oil.

1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.

1 small spoonful salt.

1 small spoonful pepper.

1 small spoonful made mustard.

Half cup best cider vinegar.

Drain the liquor well from the oysters and cut them with a sharp knife into dice. Cut the celery, which should be white and crisp, into pieces of corresponding size. Set them aside in separate vessels, in a cold place while you prepare the dressing. Beat the eggs light (with a “Dover” egg-beater, if you have one), mix in the sugar; then whip in gradually the oil until it is a light cream. Have ready, rubbed to a powder, the boiled yolks; add to _them_ the salt, pepper, and lastly the mustard. Beat these into the oil and yolk, and then, two or three drops at a time, the vinegar, whipping the dressing briskly, but lightly for two or three minutes. It should, if properly managed, be like rich yellow cream—or custard.

With a silver fork toss up the oysters and celery together in a glass dish; pour half of the dressing over them; toss up—not stir it down—for a minute, and pour the rest on the top.

Lay a border of light-green celery tufts close within the edge of the bowl, with a cluster in the middle of the salad. Serve as soon as may be, after it is mixed. Meanwhile, keep on the ice.

CABBAGE SALAD. (_Very good._) +

1 small firm head of cabbage—chopped or sliced fine.

1 cup of sweet milk, boiling hot.

A little less than a cup of vinegar.

1 table-spoonful butter.

2 eggs, well beaten.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 teaspoonful essence of celery.

Pepper and salt to taste.

Heat the milk and vinegar in separate vessels. When the vinegar boils, put in the butter, sugar and seasoning. Boil up once and stir in the chopped cabbage. Heat to scalding, but do not let it actually boil. To the hot milk add the eggs; cook one minute after they begin to thicken. Turn the scalding cabbage into a deep bowl; pour the custard over it, stir in quickly, tossing up the mixture with a silver fork, until the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated; cover to keep in the strength of the vinegar, and set where it will cool suddenly.

Serve perfectly cold, and garnish with some slices of cold boiled eggs and cresses.

This will be found a vast improvement upon the old-fashioned “coldslaw,” however prepared, and is more wholesome.

LOBSTER SALAD—WITHOUT OIL. +

1 fine lobster—boiled thoroughly, and carefully picked out. Cut into small pieces; put in a broad dish, and sprinkle with a teaspoonful of salt and one of pepper. Set aside in a cold place.

2 bunches of white crisp celery, also cut into small pieces. Toss up lightly with the lobster.

_Dressing._

2 large table-spoonfuls of butter.

1½ large table-spoonfuls of flour or corn-starch.

1 pint boiling water.

Stir the flour, previously wet, into the boiling water; let it boil two minutes and add the butter. Boil one minute longer and set aside to cool. Meantime, mix well and smoothly.

1 large table-spoonful of mustard.

1 teaspoonful of sugar—(powdered).

½ teaspoonful of salt.

1 table-spoonful boiling water.

1 small cup of vinegar.

Beat this up well, then add to the drawn butter—beat to a cream and pour over the lobster.

Garnish the dish with celery tops and hard-boiled eggs.

It gives me great pleasure to present this receipt to those who, from prejudice or taste, do not like the presence of salad oil in any dish. I have known many who would not knowingly partake of salad, fricassee, or ragoût, that had oil, in however small quantity, as one of its ingredients. And, unlike mince-pie, with the brandy left out, or pie-crust, _minus_ shortening, this oil-less salad is really delicious. Especially if a couple of raw eggs, well whipped, be added to the drawn butter, when almost cold.

CHICKEN SALAD. (_Excellent._) +

2 full-grown chickens, boiled tender, and cold.

3 bunches of celery.

2 cups boiling water.

2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with cold water.

1 great spoonful fat, skimmed from liquor in which the fowls were boiled.

2 table-spoonfuls oil.

1 cup of vinegar.

2 teaspoonfuls made mustard.

3 raw eggs, whipped light.

3 hard-boiled eggs.

1 table-spoonful powdered sugar.

1 teaspoonful salt, or to taste.

1 teaspoonful pepper.

1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce.

Remove from the chicken every bit of fat and skin. Cut the best portions of the meat into dice with a sharp knife. Chopping is apt to make it ragged and uneven in appearance. Cut the celery in like manner, and set both aside in a cool place, when you have strewed a little salt over the chicken. To the boiling water add the corn-starch, and boil fast until it thickens well. Then stir in the chicken-essence, skimmed from the top of the cold liquor in which the fowls were boiled. If the pot is clean, it will be of a fine golden color. Take from the fire, and begin to whip into the sauce the beaten eggs. Continue this until the mixture is nearly cold. Rub the hard-boiled yolks to a fine powder in a Wedgewood mortar or earthenware bowl; add the mustard, sugar, pepper, and salt; the Worcestershire sauce; then, a few drops at a time, the oil, lastly, also gradually, the vinegar. Strain through a wire sieve, or coarse tartelane, rubbing through all that will pass the net. Put the chicken and celery together in a glass salad-dish, and wet up with half of the vinegar mixture. Be careful not to do more than moisten it well, tossing up lightly with a silver fork. Then beat the rest of the vinegar sauce into the thicker mixture, which should by this time be perfectly cold. Pour over the salad; ornament the centre of the dish with flower-cups made of the hollowed halves of the whites of boiled eggs, with celery-tufts for petals. Lay a chain of sliced whites nearer the edge of the bowl, with a tender-celery leaf in each link, and set in a very cold place until wanted.

In obedience to this last injunction, I once left my salad on the shelf of a “very cold” pantry, until it was slightly frozen all through—a misadventure I did not suspect until it came to table. With a desperate attempt at facetiousness, I introduced the compound as a novelty—“a _salade glacée_”—and, to my relief and surprise, found in the accident a parallel to the “Irish blackguard” snuff story. The spoiled dish was pronounced by all far more delightful than the usual form of salad. I do not advise a repetition of the adventure on the part of any of my readers. Perhaps other guests might be less complaisant and flattering. It is hardly worth while to risk a cut glass dish on the chances of success.

Use the liquor in which the chickens were boiled for soup.

CREAM DRESSING FOR SALAD.

1 cup sweet cream. It must be perfectly fresh.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch, or very fine flour.

Whites of two eggs, beaten stiff.

3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.

2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.

2 tea-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

1 teaspoonful (scant) of salt.

½ teaspoonful pepper.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.