Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Heat the cream in a farina-kettle almost to boiling; then stir in the flour, previously wet with cold milk. Boil for two minutes, stirring all the time; add the sugar, and take from the fire. When half cold beat in the whipped whites of egg with swift strokes, but not many. Set aside to cool. When quite cold, whip in the oil, pepper, mustard and salt, and if your salad is ready, add the vinegar, and pour at once over it.

This dressing is especially nice for lettuce salad. If made for chickens, only the white meat should be used.

GOLDEN SALAD-DRESSING. +

4 hard-boiled eggs.

3 table-spoonfuls of best salad oil.

4 table-spoonfuls vinegar.

Yolks of 2 eggs, well beaten.

1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.

1 teaspoonful essence of celery.

1 saltspoonful of salt.

1 saltspoonful pepper.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

Rub the boiled yolks to a powder; add sugar, mustard, salt, pepper. Work up well with the oil; put in gradually. Beat hard; stir in the vinegar, and strain out all lumps, rubbing or squeezing the mixture to get the full strength. Put over the fire and heat almost to boiling. Take a spoonful at a time from the saucepan while still on the fire, and beat into the whipped raw yolks. When all the ingredients are mixed, return to the saucepan; simmer slowly for three minutes, stirring all the time. Do not let it boil, as it will be apt to curdle. Put in the celery-essence after withdrawing it from the range. Let it get perfectly cold; pile up lobster and lettuce—the first cut into dice, the latter pulled lightly apart—in a deep dish, and pour half the dressing over it. Give a few tosses with a silver fork; mound up neatly, and pour the rest of the sauce over all.

This dressing is very fine for a mayonnaise of fish. In this case, add a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce after it comes from the fire.

POTATO SALAD DRESSING. +

2 large boiled potatoes.

1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.

1 table-spoonful oil.

1 saltspoonful made mustard.

1 saltspoonful salt, and same of pepper.

1 teaspoonful Harvey’s sauce.

1 egg, beaten light—white and yolk separate.

3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.

Boil the potatoes until mealy, drain every drop of water from them; let them dry on the range for an instant, and _beat_ up (not mash) them with a fork, tossing them into lightness and dryness. When fine and dry, beat in the salt, oil, and egg; the yolk first, then the white, which should be a stiff froth. In another vessel have ready mixed the mustard, sauce, sugar, pepper, and vinegar. Add by degrees to the potato-mixture until it is like thick cream. If not perfectly smooth, rub through a coarse wire sieve or a bit of coarse lace, such as is used for mosquito netting.

This, also, is peculiarly nice with salmon, or halibut mayonnaise, although excellent with chicken or turkey salad.

VARIOUS PREPARATIONS OF CHEESE.

TOASTED CHEESE. +

½ pound cheese—dry—grated.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

A pinch of cayenne pepper.

1 table-spoonful very fine, stale bread-crumbs—soaked in cream.

Rounds or slices of thin toast, from which the crust has been pared.

Rub the bottom of a heated frying-pan with a cut onion, then with butter. Put the cheese into it, stirring fast to prevent burning. When it has melted, put in the butter, the mustard, pepper; lastly the bread-crumbs, which have been previously soaked in cream, then pressed almost dry. Spread smoking hot upon the toast, and eat at once.

CHEESE TOASTED WITH EGGS. +

½ pound good English cheese.

3 eggs, beaten light.

3 table-spoonfuls bread-crumbs, soaked in cream.

1 table-spoonful of mustard.

Salt and pepper to taste.

A little minced parsley.

Slices of delicate toast.

3 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.

Beat the soaked crumb into the eggs; the butter; seasoning; lastly, the cheese. Beat very light; spread smoothly on the toast and brown quickly upon the upper grating of the oven. Be sure the bars are perfectly clean.

CHEESE WITH MACARONI. +

½ pound macaroni.

½ cup cream.

1½ table-spoonfuls butter.

Pepper, salt and parsley.

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

4 table-spoonfuls grated cheese, and a little crumbed bread.

Break the macaroni into inch lengths; boil in water slightly salted; drain _perfectly_ dry in a cullender. Take out two table-spoonfuls of cream, and put the rest into a farina-kettle or saucepan, set within another of boiling water. When it is scalding hot, salt to taste; add half a table-spoonful of butter, then the macaroni, and heat together slowly. They should not boil. Meanwhile put the reserved cream into a small saucepan. Heat, stir in the table-spoonful of butter, pepper and parsley; the flour, wet with cold milk, the grated cheese, and when this is dissolved, the beaten egg. Pour the macaroni into a neat baking-dish, cover with the cheese mixture. Strew the top with _very_ fine bread-crumbs, and brown quickly on the upper grating of a hot oven.

This is very good.

CHEESE FINGERS.

Some good pie pastry, “left over” from pie-making.

3 or 4 table-spoonfuls best English cheese, dry and old—grated.

A little salt and pepper.

1 raw egg.

Roll the paste out thin; cut into strips about four inches long and less than half as wide. Strew each with grated cheese, season with pepper and salt, double the paste upon it lengthwise, pinch the edges, and when all are ready, bake in a quick oven. Wash over with beaten egg just before taking them up, and sift a little powdered cheese upon the top. Shut the oven-door an instant to glaze them well; pile log-cabin-wise upon a hot napkin in a warm dish, and eat at once, as they are not good cold.

This will make a savory side-relish for John’s luncheon on a hurried baking-day. Pastry is none the worse for standing a day or longer in a cold, dry place, and this uses up the “odds and ends” satisfactorily and economically.

CHEESE BISCUITS.

Some pie-paste.

Grated cheese.

1 beaten egg.

Pepper and salt.

Cayenne pepper, if you like.

Roll out the pastry thin; strew grated cheese, seasoned, over the whole sheet and roll it up tightly. Roll out again, even thinner than before; strew the rest of the cheese; roll up and set in a cold place, half an hour, until crisp. Roll again into a sheet, cut into squares or triangles with a cake-cutter, or your jagging-iron; prick with a fork, and bake very quickly in a hot oven. Brush with beaten egg before taking up, and sift raspings of cheese over the top, shutting up in the oven for an instant to glaze the biscuits. Serve at once, on a hot napkin.

These are, it will be seen, a modification of the “fingers,” and will be preferred by some. Of course, to those who object to cooked cheese as indigestible, none of the combinations that smell so appetizing and taste so savory, will be a temptation. Cayenne is said to make these more wholesome.

CHEESE FONDU. + (_Delicious._)

1 cup bread-crumbs—very dry and fine.

2 scant cups of milk—rich and fresh, or it will curdle.

½ pound dry old cheese, grated.

3 eggs—whipped very light.

1 small table-spoonful melted butter.

Pepper and salt.

A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water and stirred into the milk.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat into these the eggs, the butter, seasoning, lastly the cheese. Butter a neat baking-dish; pour the _fondu_ into it, strew dry bread-crumbs on the top, and bake in a rather quick oven until delicately browned. Serve immediately in the baking-dish, as it soon falls.

The day on which this cheese-pudding first appeared on my table is marked with a “very good.” It is a pretty, cheap and palatable _entrée_, such as you need never be ashamed to set before any guest, however fastidious.

Let me say, in this connection, in explanation not apology, for my running commentary upon receipts like the above, that it is made—the commentary, I mean, “with a purpose.” The unexpected guest is sometimes an embarrassment, sometimes a horror to the inexperienced housewife.

“I remembered the cold duck in the pantry with exceeding joy; summed up the contents of bread and cake box to a crumb, between the foot of the stairs and the front-door,” confessed one to me. “By the time I had said ‘How do you do?’ all around, and kissed the babies, I remembered, with a sick thrill, that the butter was low and the coffee out (we don’t drink it ourselves), and that the whole party of new-comers must, at that hour of the evening, be ravenously hungry.”

It is wise and provident to arm oneself against such occasions by practice in the manufacture of what may be called “surprise-dishes.” With a crust of cheese in the larder, half a loaf of dry bread, an egg, a few spoonfuls of milk and a bit of butter, one is tolerably armed against an unlooked-for and unseasonable arrival. Give the guest my _fondu_, with a good cup of coffee, or tea, or glass of ale; bread-and-butter, cut thin, and your brightest smile, and he will not complain, even inwardly, should the cold duck be wanting.

CREAM CHEESE. (No. 1.)

3 pints of cream, with a teaspoonful of salt put in after it sours.

An empty salt-box, and ¼ yard of very stout, coarse lace.

Knock top and bottom out of one of the small boxes used for holding table-salt, and cleanse the broad and the narrow rims remaining, thoroughly. When dry, fit over the bottom of the box itself a piece of new strong net lace, or mosquito-netting. Fasten it in place by pressing down over it the rim of the top. The net should be drawn tightly and smoothly. Tack both rim and net to the outside of the box with small tacks driven through the former, leaving the heads protruding, that they may be easily withdrawn. This is your cheese-press. If you can get a small wire sieve with _coarse_ meshes, it will save you trouble. The cream should have been set aside until it thickens or “loppers,” in a solid curd. Inside of your mould lay a piece of clean white tarletane, fitted neatly to the sides and bottom, and projecting all around above the press. Pour in the cream, opening the flakes gently with a spoon to allow the whey to reach the bottom of the press, but do not stir it. Set the mould upon two slender sticks laid on a bowl, and let it drip two days. If the mould will not hold all the cream, add it during the first day, as the curd sinks. By the third day it will be a rich, smooth mass. If not quite firm, trim down the round board you took out of the top, cover the cheese with a thin cloth, and press the board firmly upon it. Lay a weight on this—not heavy enough to break the net—and leave for some hours longer. A saucer or small plate will do almost as well as the board. When the cheese is ready to eat, which will be when it is firm, remove the oil from the top by laying a piece of blotting or tissue paper upon it, and lift from the mould by taking hold of the projecting edges of cloth. It will be found very nice. This is the famous English cream cheese.

CREAM CHEESE. (No. 2.) +

Make cottage cheese as directed in “Common Sense in the Household,” page 268, or, what is easier, buy two or three “pats” of the same from some honest countrywoman in the market. To each little cheese allow a table-spoonful of melted butter, and three or four of good sweet cream, with a little salt and pepper. Work in the butter first with a silver spoon, and very thoroughly, then the cream, until all is light and smooth. Make into neat rolls, or shape into miniature cheeses upon a plate; print as you would butter, and set in a cold place half an hour. They should be eaten fresh.

CHEESE PATÉS. +

Rounds of bread, cut and fried as for Swiss patés.

5 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.

½ cup hot water.

2 eggs, yolks only.

Pepper and salt.

Handful bread-crumbs.

1 table-spoonful of butter.

Put the water on the fire, and, when it boils, stir in the butter and seasoning, the cheese, and, when this is melted, the eggs. Heat together one minute; put in the bread-crumbs and pour a good spoonful of the mixture into each of the cavities left in the rounds of fried bread. Brown very quickly in the oven, and serve on a folded napkin.

CHEESE SANDWICHES. +

¼ pound good English cheese—grated.

3 eggs, boiled hard—use the yolks only.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

Thin slices of buttered bread.

Pepper and salt.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste with the butter, season, and work in the cheese. Spread the bread, and fold upon the mixture.

RAMAKINS.

3 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.

2 eggs, beaten light.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.

Pepper—cayenne is best.

1 teaspoonful flour, wet with cream.

Rounds of lightly-toasted bread.

Beat the butter and seasoning in with the eggs; then the cheese; lastly the flour; working until the mixture is of creamy lightness. Spread thickly upon the bread, and brown quickly.

This is a Dutch compound, but eatable despite the odd name.

CHEESE PUDDING.

½ pound dry cheese, grated fine.

1 cup dry bread-crumbs.

4 eggs, well beaten.

1 cup minced meat—one-third ham—two-thirds fowl.

1 cup milk and one of good gravy—veal or fowl.

1 teaspoonful butter, and a pinch of soda in the milk.

Season with pepper and a very little salt.

Stir the milk into the beaten eggs, then the bread-crumbs, seasoning, meat, lastly, the cheese. Beat up well, but not too long, else the milk may, in spite of the soda, curdle.

Butter a mould; pour in the pudding, cover, and boil three-quarters of an hour steadily. Turn out upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it.

POTATOES.

POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE. +

12 potatoes, _parboiled_, and when cold, sliced, or cut into dice.

1 onion, chopped.

Butter or dripping for frying.

Chopped parsley, pepper and salt.

Heat the butter in a frying-pan; put in the onion; fry one minute; then the potatoes. Stir briskly and fry slowly five minutes. There should be butter enough to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan; and they should not brown. Add the seasoning just before you take them up. Drain perfectly dry by shaking them to and fro in a heated cullender. Serve in a hot dish.

STEWED POTATOES. +

12 fine potatoes.

1 egg, beaten light.

1 great spoonful of butter.

1 table-spoonful flour, wet with cold milk.

1 cup of milk.

Chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

Peel and lay the potatoes in cold water for half an hour. Then slice or cut into dice into more cold water, just enough to cover them. Boil gently in this until tender; but not until they are a paste. Drain off nearly all the water; put pepper, salt, and the milk in with the potatoes left in the saucepan, and heat again to boiling before stirring in the flour. Cook two minutes, stirring up from the bottom to prevent scorching; add the egg, parsley and butter, and pour into a covered dish.

FRIED POTATOES. +

12 potatoes.

Butter or dripping for frying.

Salt to taste.

Peel the potatoes; cut from end to end in even strips, by first halving, then quartering each; cutting into eighths, and if the potato be large, into sixteenths. The more regular the shape and uniform the size the better the dish will look. Lay these in cold—ice-water if you have it—for at least half an hour; then upon a dry cloth, covering with another and patting the upper gently to dry each piece. The butter or dripping should be boiling hot. Fry the potatoes briskly, turning as the lower side is done to a yellow-brown. As you take them out of the fat—which should be done the instant they are of the right color—put into a hot cullender set over a plate in the open oven, and sprinkle with salt. Serve in a napkin laid within a hot dish and folded lightly over them. A dish-cover would make them “soggy,” whereas they should be crisp.

SCALLOPED POTATOES.

3 cups mashed potatoes.

3 table-spoonfuls cream.

2 table-spoonfuls butter.

Salt and pepper.

Yolks of four hard-boiled eggs.

1 raw egg, beaten well.

Handful dry, fine bread-crumbs.

Beat up the potatoes while hot, with the cream, butter and raw egg, seasoning well. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered baking-dish; cover this with thin slices of yolk, salt and pepper; then another layer of potato, and so on, until all the materials are used up. The top layer should be potato. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over this. Bake covered until hot through, then brown quickly. Serve in the baking-dish.

POTATOES À L’ITALIENNE. (_Extremely nice._) +

Enough mealy potatoes to make a good dish, boiled dry.

2 table-spoonfuls of cream.

1 table-spoonful of butter.

Salt and pepper.

2 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.

Whip up the potatoes, while hot, with a silver fork, instead of using the potato-beetle. This is, by the way, a much better method of mashing potato than that usually adopted. The potato is dried of all superfluous moisture, made whiter and lighter than by pounding. When it is fine and mealy, beat in the cream, the butter, salt, pepper, and whip up to a creamy heap before mixing in, with few dexterous strokes, the whites, which should be first whipped stiff. Pile irregularly upon a buttered pie-dish; brown quickly in the oven; slip carefully, with the help of a cake-turner, to a heated flat dish, and send up.

POTATOES À LA DUCHESSE. +

When you cook potatoes _à l’Italienne_ prepare more than will be needed for one day. Cut the remnants, when perfectly cold, into squares or rounds with a cake-cutter, wet in cold water. Grease the bottom of a baking-pan and set these in it in rows, but not touching one another, and bake quickly, brushing them all over, except, of course, on the bottom, with beaten egg when they begin to brown. Lay a napkin, folded, upon a hot dish, and range these regularly upon it.

They are very fine, and considered quite a fancy dish.

POTATO EGGS. +

2 cups cold (or hot) mashed potato.

¾ cup of cold ham, minced very fine.

2 eggs, beaten light.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

2 table-spoonfuls cream or rich milk.

Pepper and salt, and dripping for frying.

1 cup good gravy.

Work the butter into the potato, the cream, seasoning, and, when the mixture is free from lumps, the beaten eggs. Beat all up light before the ham goes in. Flour your hands; make this paste into egg-shaped balls; roll these in flour and fry in good dripping; turning them carefully, not to spoil the shape. Pile upon a flat dish, and pour some good gravy, hot, over them.

If you have nothing else of which gravy can be made, boil the ham-bone or a few slices of ham in a little water; thicken with flour; add a little butter, parsley, pepper and a beaten egg; boil up until it thickens.

The above is a simple, but very good preparation of potato. You will not grudge the little additional time and trouble required to make pretty and palatable the remnants of ham and potato, that, served plain, would tempt no one except a very hungry man.

For many other ways of cooking this invaluable vegetable, for breakfast and luncheon, as well as for dinner, the reader is referred to the section—“Potatoes,” in “Common Sense in the Household,” page 210.

LUNCHEON.

A YOUNG friend of mine who had not long been a wife and housekeeper, on returning from a morning drive, one day, was met at the door by the intelligence that her widower brother, who was a member of her family, had brought three gentlemen home with him to dinner. Her husband had not yet come in, and although not naturally nervous, she repaired forthwith, and in some trepidation, to the kitchen, to see for herself that the early dinner, which was then customary in the household, because more convenient for the master’s business, was in satisfactory progress.

The range was hot and the top empty; the tables clean and also empty; ditto the cook’s hands, while her terrified face had the hue of her whitest dish-towel.

“Don’t you think, ma’am,” was her salutation, “that the marketing has never come home at all, at all, and not a bit of meat, nor so much as a pertater in the house! Whatever will we do? and lashin’s of company in onexpected!”

The mistress was equally dismayed when a glance at the clock showed that it was past twelve. The market-house closed at noon; her residence was out of the region of butchers’ and green-grocers’ shops. It was evident that the plethoric hamper, she had seen filled by her usually careful provision merchant and left at his stand in the market to be delivered at her door early in the forenoon, had miscarried, or been overlooked.

“Whatever shall we do?” The despairing cry rang through her like a knell; a cold trembling seized her limbs, and she dropped helplessly into a chair.

“Has nothing come, Mary? Not even the meat for soup?”

“Sorra a sup, ma’am.”

“Cannot you think of something that can be made quickly? You told me you were a good hand at getting up nice dishes at short notice!”

The Celt’s _pose_ was tragic.

“An’ it was a thrue word I spake, whin I said it. But an angel couldn’t make something out of nothing, or it’s meself that would thry!”

Matters were too serious for the poor lady to suffer her to smile at the implied assumption of angelic relationship.

“Something must be done, nevertheless,” she uttered, desperately, and, with a woman’s instinct of leaning upon rugged masculine strength when deserted by feminine wit, she sought the billiard-room, whither the inconsiderate brother had conducted his visitors, happily unsuspicious as themselves of the poverty-stricken larder, or the qualms that were racking the secretary of the interior.

He showed an exasperatingly good-humored face at the door in answer to her knock.

“Come in!” he said blithely, and would have flung wide the door, but for the agonized gesture that beckoned him into the entry.

In a whisper as agonized, she explained the situation. He reflected a moment.

“Any pie, or cake in the house? fruit, fresh or preserved?”

“Yes, all,” impatiently. “But it isn’t a question of dessert. There is literally nothing for _dinner_.”

“I understand! I have it! We’ll be fashionable for once. Set on sardines, cheese, pie, cake, claret and sauterne, and a dish or two of fruit. Make a royally strong cup of coffee to wind up with, and _call it luncheon_!”

In fifteen minutes the guests were summoned to the dining-room, where the pretty hostess, in a becoming _demi-toilette_, welcomed them as the friends of her husband and brother, and presided over the collation from which not one of them perceived that anything was lacking, like a gracious little queen. A lisp of apology would have spoiled all, and she had tact enough to avoid the danger.

“That man is a Napoleon in small matters!” said I, when she told me the story. “If he never says another good thing, his—‘Call it luncheon,’ should win him lasting fame with all housekeepers who hearken to the tale of his masterly strategy.”

I have given the anecdote at length, that the reader may have the benefit of all the lessons it conveys.

First—Assure yourself, whenever it is practicable, that the materials for dinner are in the house several hours before the time for serving it arrives.

Secondly—It is a wise plan to keep sardines, canned salmon and lobster, cheese, and potted meats on hand always, with preserved fruits, and not to let the stores of cake and crackers run too low.

Thirdly—There is scarcely an imaginable domestic disaster on an ordinary scale, that cannot be rectified, or, at least, modified into passableness by presence of mind and energetic action. “Call it luncheon,” is a capital motto in other and graver perplexities than the non-arrival of a day’s marketing, and where higher interests are concerned than the feasting or fasting of half a dozen people.

VEGETABLES.

FRIED EGG PLANT. +

1 fine egg-plant.

2 eggs.

½ cup milk.

A little salt.

Flour for thin batter, and lard, or dripping, for frying. Slice and pare the egg-plant, and lay in salt-and-water one hour. Wipe perfectly dry, make a batter as directed above, dip each piece in it, and fry to a fine brown. Drain dry, and serve on hot, flat dish.

MOCK FRIED OYSTERS. +

1 bunch oyster-plant, or salsify.

2 eggs—well beaten.

½ cup milk.

Flour for thin batter, and lard or dripping for frying.

Pepper and salt.

Wash, scrape and grate the salsify, and stir into the batter, beating hard at the last. It should be about as thick as fritter batter. Season, and drop, by the spoonful, into the hot fat. Try a little, at first, to see if batter and fat are right. As fast as they are fried, throw into a hot cullender, set over a bowl in the oven. Send to table dry and hot.

They are delicious if eaten at once.

MOCK STEWED OYSTERS. +

1 bunch oyster-plant.

4 table-spoonfuls butter.

A little flour or corn-starch.

Vinegar-and-water for boiling.

Pepper and salt.

½ cup milk.

Wash and scrape the oyster-plant very carefully; drop into weak vinegar-and-water, bring quickly to a boil, and cook ten minutes; turn off the vinegar-water; rinse the salsify in boiling water; throw this out, and cover with more from the tea-kettle. Stew gently ten minutes longer; add pepper and salt and two table-spoonfuls butter. Stew in this until tender.

Meanwhile, heat, in a farina-kettle, the milk, thicken, add the remaining butter, and keep hot until the salsify is done, when transfer it to this sauce. Pepper and salt; let all lie together in the inner kettle, the water in the outer at a slow boil, for five minutes. Pour into a covered dish.

FRITTERS OF CANNED CORN. +

1 can sweet corn, drained in a cullender.

3 eggs—very light.

1 cup of milk.

Pepper and salt.

1 table-spoonful butter.

Flour for thin batter.

Dripping for frying.

A pinch of soda.

Beat up the batter well, stir in the corn and drop the mixture in spoonfuls into the boiling fat. Drain off all the grease in a cullender.

_Or,_

You may fry on the griddle as you would cakes.

DEVILLED TOMATOES.

Fine, firm tomatoes—about a quart.

3 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.

3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.

2 raw eggs, whipped light.

1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

A good pinch of cayenne pepper.

Pound the boiled yolks; rub in the butter and seasoning. Beat light, add the vinegar, and heat almost to a boil. Stir in the beaten egg until the mixture begins to thicken. Set in hot water while you cut the tomatoes in slices nearly half an inch thick. Broil over a clear fire upon a wire oyster-broiler. Lay on a hot chafing-dish, and pour the hot sauce over them.

BAKED TOMATOES. +

1 quart fine smooth tomatoes. The “Trophy,” if you can get them.

1 cup bread-crumbs.

1 small onion, minced fine.

1 teaspoonful white sugar.

1 table-spoonful butter—melted.

Cayenne and salt.

½ cup good broth.

Cut a piece from the top of each tomato. With a teaspoon take out the inside, leaving a hollow shell. Chop the pulp fine, mix with the crumbs, butter, sugar, pepper, salt and onion. Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with this stuffing; replace the tops; pack them in a baking-dish and fill the interstices with the stuffing. Pour the gravy also into these; set the dish covered in an oven, and bake half an hour, before uncovering, after which brown lightly, and send to table in the baking-dish.

BREAKFAST-ROLLS, MUFFINS, TEA-CAKES, ETC.

CORN CAKE. +

3 eggs, whipped light, yolks and whites separately.

2 cups sour, or buttermilk.

3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 small teaspoonful of salt.

Corn-meal enough to make a rather thin batter. Bake in a shallow pan, or in small tins 30 minutes in a hot oven.

ADIRONDACK CORN-BREAD. +

5 great spoonfuls Indian meal.

3 great spoonfuls wheat flour.

5 eggs, well-beaten—whites and yolks separately.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 small teacupful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted into the flour.

1 pint milk, or enough to make batter about the consistency of pound-cake.

Melt, but do not heat the butter; add to the milk and beaten yolks; next, the soda; then, the meal, alternately with the whites; then, the sugar, lastly the flour, through which the cream tartar has been sifted, stirring it lightly and swiftly. Bake in a broad, shallow pan, in a tolerably brisk oven,—or, if you prefer, in muffin-rings.

LOAF CORN-BREAD. (_Excellent._) +

2 heaping cups white Indian meal.

1 heaping cup flour.

3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.

2½ cups of milk.

1 large table-spoonful of butter—melted, but not hot.

1 large table-spoonful white sugar.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar, sifted with the flour, and added the last thing.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

Bake steadily, but not too fast, in a well-greased mould. Turn out, when done, upon a plate, and eat at once, cutting it into slices as you would cake.

After twelve years’ trial of this receipt, I have come to the conclusion that there is no better or more reliable rule for the manufacture of corn-bread. In all that time, there has hardly been a Sunday morning, winter or summer, when the family was at home, on which a loaf of this bread has not graced my breakfast-table, and unless when, through negligence, it has been slightly scorched or underdone, I have never known it to come short of excellence.

In cutting corn-bread, do not forget to hold the knife _perpendicularly_, that the spongy interior of the loaf may not be crushed into heaviness. Very good corn-bread is often ruined by neglect of this precaution.

CORN-MEAL MUFFINS. (_Raised._) +

3 cups white Indian meal.

3 table-spoonfuls yeast.

1 cup flour.

1 quart scalding milk.

3 eggs, beaten to a froth, yolks and whites apart.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 table-spoonful lard.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Pour the milk boiling hot upon the meal; stir well and leave until nearly cold. Then beat in gradually the yeast, sugar and flour, and set in a moderately warm place. It should be light enough in five or six hours. Melt, without overheating, the butter and lard; stir into the batter, with the salt, lastly the beaten eggs. Beat all together three minutes; put in greased muffin-rings; let these rise on the hearth for a quarter of an hour, with a cloth thrown lightly over them. Bake about twenty minutes in a quick, steady oven, or until they are of a light golden-brown.

Send at once to table, and in eating them, _break_, not cut them open.

CORN-MEAL MUFFINS. (_Quick._) +

2 cups Indian meal.

1 cup flour.

3 eggs, beaten very light.

3 cups milk.

2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted with flour.

Mix quickly, beating all the ingredients well together; pour into greased muffin-rings, or, better still, into the small round or oval iron pans, now sold for baking corn-bread. Bake in a brisk oven, and send directly to table. _All kinds of corn-bread are spoiled if allowed to cool before they are eaten._

CHRISSIE’S CORN-BREAD.

1 cup white corn-meal.

1 cup flour.

½ cup white sugar.

1 cup cream and 1 egg, _or_ 1 cup half-milk, half-cream, and 2 eggs.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in the flour.

1 saltspoonful salt.

Bake in two loaves, or several small tins.

SOUTHERN BATTER-BREAD OR EGG-BREAD. +

2 cups white Indian meal.

1 cup cold boiled rice.

3 eggs, well beaten.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

2½ cups milk, or enough for soft batter.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

A pinch of soda.

Stir the beaten eggs into the milk; the meal, salt, butter, last of all the rice. Beat up well from the bottom for two or three minutes, and bake quickly in a round, shallow pan.

BATTER BREAD. (No. 2.)

2 cups Indian meal.

3½ cups milk.

2 eggs, well beaten.

1 small cup stale, fine bread-crumbs.

1 teaspoonful salt.

1 table-spoonful melted lard.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water, and mixed with the milk.

1 teaspoonful cream tartar.

Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk, and rub to a smooth paste. Into this stir the beaten eggs, the lard, the salt, and finally the meal, into which the cream tartar has been sifted.

Bake in shallow pans in a hot oven.

BOILED MUSH, TO BE EATEN WITH MILK.

1 quart boiling water.

2 cups Indian meal.

2 table-spoonfuls flour.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Wet up meal and flour in a little cold water. Stir them into the hot water, which should be actually boiling on the fire when they go in. Boil at least half an hour, slowly, stirring deeply every few minutes, and constantly toward the last. Send to table in a deep dish, but not covered, or the steam will render it clammy.

Eat in saucers, with cream or milk poured over it.

OATMEAL PORRIDGE (_for breakfast_).

1 quart boiling water.

2 scant cups best Scotch or Irish oatmeal, previously soaked over night in enough cold water to cover it well.

Salt to taste.

Stir the oatmeal into the water while boiling, and let it boil steadily, stirring up frequently from the bottom, for at least three-quarters of an hour. Send to table in an uncovered deep dish, to be eaten with cream, and, if you like, with powdered sugar.

This is a wholesome and pleasant article of food. If you give it a place upon your regular bill of fare, you would do well to provide yourself with a farina-kettle expressly for cooking it.

OATMEAL GRUEL (_For Invalids_). +

2 cups Irish or Scotch oatmeal.

2 quarts water.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Set the oatmeal to soak over night in half the water. In the morning strain through a coarse tartelane bag, pressing through all the farinaceous matter that will go. Add the rest of the water with the salt, and boil down until it begins to thicken perceptibly. Let it cool enough to become almost a jelly, and eat with powdered sugar and cream.

It is very good for others besides invalids.

MILK PORRIDGE. (_Very nice._) +

2 cups best oatmeal.

2 cups water.

2 cups milk.

Soak the oatmeal over night in the water; strain in the morning, and boil the water half an hour. Put in the milk with a little salt, boil up well and serve. Eat warm, with or without powdered sugar.

TEA ROLLS.

1 quart of flour.

2 eggs.

1 table-spoonful butter, melted.

2 great spoonfuls yeast.

Enough milk to work into a soft dough.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful white sugar.

Rub the butter into the sifted flour. Beat the eggs well with a cup of milk, and work into the flour, adding more milk, if necessary, to make the dough of right consistency. Stir the sugar into the yeast, and work this into the dough with a wooden spoon, until all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. _Do not knead it with the hands._ Set to rise in a moderately warm place until very light. Make into rolls lightly and quickly, handling as little as possible. Set these in rows in your baking-pan, just close enough together to touch. Throw a cloth lightly over them, and set on the hearth for the second rising, until they begin to “plump,” which should be in about fifteen minutes.

Bake half an hour in a steady oven. They are best eaten hot.

FRENCH ROLLS.

1 pint of milk.

2 eggs.

4 table-spoonfuls of yeast.

3 table-spoonfuls of butter.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

3 pints of flour, or enough to work into a soft dough.

1 table-spoonful of white sugar.

Warm the milk slightly, and add to it the beaten eggs and salt. Rub the butter into the flour quickly and lightly, until it is like yellow powder. Work into this gradually, with a wooden spoon, the milk and eggs, then the yeast. Knead well, and let it rise for three hours, or until the dough is light and begins to crack on top. Make into small rolls; let them stand on the hearth twenty minutes before baking in a quick oven. Just before taking them up, brush over with white of egg. Shut the oven door one minute to glaze them.

PLAIN LIGHT ROLLS.

1 quart of flour.

1 heaping table-spoonful butter or lard.

3 large table-spoonfuls yeast.

1 cup of warm milk.

Salt to taste.

Rub the butter and flour together; add milk and yeast. Knead well; let it rise until light; make into rolls; let these stand in a warm place half an hour, and bake in a steady oven.

RICE CRUMPETS. +

2 cups of milk.

4 table-spoonfuls yeast.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

Nearly a cup of well-boiled rice.

4 cups flour, or enough to make good batter.

Salt to taste.

¼ teaspoonful of soda added just before baking.

Beat the ingredients well together; set to rise for six hours, or until very light. Put into muffin-tins (having stirred in the soda, dissolved in a little hot water), let them stand fifteen minutes, and bake quickly. Eat hot.

HOMINY CRUMPETS

Are made as above, substituting boiled hominy (or samp) for the rice.

ALL-DAY ROLLS.

1 quart flour.

1 cup scalded milk, _not_ boiled.

2 table-spoonfuls yeast.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 table-spoonful butter.

A very little salt.

Let the milk cool, mix with yeast, sugar, and one cup of flour. Put the rest of the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle, pour in the mixture, and set aside in a moderately warm place until next day. In the morning melt the butter, and add to the sponge; work all together well, and let the dough rise six hours, at least. Make into oblong rolls; range them in baking-pan, at such a distance from one another that they will not run together, and let them rise three hours longer. Bake in a steady quick oven, glazing, when done, with white of egg.

I have never tried this receipt myself, but having eaten the rolls made according to it, can cordially recommend it.

UNITY LOAF. +

1 quart flour.

1 pint milk.

1 tablespoonful butter, melted.

1 egg.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 dessertspoonful (equal to 2 teaspoonfuls) cream tartar, sifted in the flour.

Mix the beaten egg with the milk, then the butter, sugar, salt and soda; next, the flour. Beat well, and bake in buttered cake-mould. The oven should be quite hot, and very steady. Turn out, and cut in slices at table. Eat hot.

A simple, easy and excellent breakfast or tea-loaf.

QUICK LOAF. +

3 cups flour.

1 cup milk.

2 table-spoonfuls white sugar.

2 eggs, thoroughly beaten.

1 table-spoonful butter—a liberal one.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in flour.

1 saltspoonful salt.

Beat well, but quickly together, and bake in well-greased mould. One with a cylinder in the middle is best. Test with a straw to see when it is done; turn out upon a plate, and cut hot at table into slices.

EXCELLENT MUFFINS.

3 cups milk.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

2 eggs—beaten stiff.

3 table-spoonfuls good yeast.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 teaspoonful salt, and ¼ teaspoonful soda.

Flour to make a pretty stiff batter.

Make all the ingredients except the eggs, into a sponge, and set to rise over night. Half an hour before breakfast, add the eggs and the soda (dissolved in hot water); beat all together hard; put into muffin-rings; let them stand on the hearth ten minutes, and bake about twenty in a brisk oven.

BROWN BISCUIT. +

2 cups Graham flour.

1 cup white flour.

1 cup milk.

2 table-spoonfuls brown sugar.

4 table-spoonfuls home-made yeast, or half as much brewer’s.

1 great spoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Set a dough made of all the ingredients except the butter and soda, to rise over night. In the morning, add these; knead quickly, roll into a sheet half an inch thick, cut with a cake-cutter; range in the baking-pan. When it is full, set on the warm hearth ten minutes before baking.

MINUTE BISCUIT, (_brown_.) +

2 cups Graham flour.

1 cup white flour.

2 table-spoonfuls mixed butter and lard.

1 table-spoonful light-brown sugar.

3 cups milk, or enough for _soft_ dough.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in flour.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Chop the shortening into the flour; add sugar and salt, at last the milk in which the soda has been put. Roll out, with as little handling as may be, into a rather thick sheet. Cut into round cakes; prick with a fork, and bake immediately in a brisk oven.

These biscuits are very good and wholesome.

GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 1.)

1 quart water.

1 cup molasses.

1 yeast-cake, or 4 table-spoonfuls best yeast.

1 saltspoonful salt.

Flour to make thick batter.

When light, bake in hot “gem” pans, or iron muffin-rings, in a very quick oven.

Break open and eat hot.

GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 2.)

1 quart of milk.

4 eggs.

1 saltspoonful salt, and 2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

Flour for tolerably thick batter, about the consistency of pound cake.

Stir the eggs until whites and yolks are mixed, but do not whip them. The milk should be blood-warm when these are put into it. Add the flour, handful by handful, and when of the right consistency, the melted butter. Beat long and hard.

Bake in greased iron pans—“gem” pans, as they are called—previously heated on the range. The oven can hardly be over-heated for any kind of “gems.”

GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 3.)

3 eggs, beaten very light.

3 cups of milk—blood-warm.

3 cups flour, or enough to make good batter.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

RUSK. (No. 1.)

1 quart flour.

3 cups milk, slightly warmed.

3 eggs—whites and yolks separate.

¾ cup of butter, rubbed with the sugar to a cream, and flavored with 1 saltspoonful nutmeg.

1 gill yeast.

Make a sponge of milk, yeast, and enough flour for rather thick batter. Let it rise over night. In the morning add the rest of the flour. The dough should be quite soft. Work in the eggs, butter and sugar. Knead well, and set to rise where it will not “take cold.” When light, mould into rolls. Set close together in a baking-pan, and bake about twenty minutes. Glaze while hot with white of egg, in which has been stirred—not beaten, a little powdered sugar.

SUSIE’S RUSK. (No. 2.) +

1 quart milk.

½ cup yeast.

Flour for thick batter.

Set a sponge with these ingredients. When it is very light, add,—

1 cup butter rubbed to a cream, with

2 cups powdered sugar.

3 eggs—well beaten.

Flour to make soft dough. Knead briskly, and set to rise for four hours. Then make into rolls, and let these stand an hour longer, or until light and “puffy,” before baking. Glaze, just before drawing them from the oven, with a little cream and sugar.

Rusk are best fresh.

SODA BISCUIT WITHOUT MILK. +

1 quart of flour.

2 heaping table-spoonfuls butter, chopped up in the flour.

2 cups cold water.

2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted thoroughly with the flour.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.

A little salt.

When flour, cream of tartar, salt and butter are well incorporated, stir the soda into the cold water, and mix the dough very quickly, handling as little as may be. It should be just stiff enough to roll out. Stiff soda biscuits are always failures. Roll half an inch thick with a few rapid strokes, cut out, and bake at once in a quick oven.

CREAM TOAST. (_Very nice._) +

Slices of stale baker’s bread, from which the crust has been pared.

1 quart of milk.

3 table-spoonfuls of butter.

Whites of 3 eggs, beaten stiff.

Salt, and 2 table-spoonfuls best flour or corn-starch.

Boiling water.

Toast the bread to a golden brown. Burnt toast is _detestable_. Have on the range, or hearth, a shallow bowl or pudding-dish, more than half full of boiling water, in which a table-spoonful of butter has been melted. As each slice is toasted dip in this for a second, sprinkle lightly with salt, and lay in the deep heated dish in which it is to be served. Have ready, by the time all the bread is toasted, the milk scalding hot—but not boiled. Thicken this with the flour; let it simmer until cooked; put in the remaining butter, and when this is melted, the beaten whites of the eggs. Boil up once, and pour over the toast, lifting the lower slices one by one, that the creamy mixture may run in between them. Cover closely, and set in the oven two or three minutes before sending to table.

If you can get real cream, add only a teaspoonful of flour and the whites of two eggs, but the same quantity of butter used in this receipt.

GRIDDLE CAKES.

SOUR MILK CAKES. (_Good._) +

1 quart sour, or “loppered” milk.

About 4 cups sifted flour.

2 teaspoonfuls soda, dissolved in boiling water.

3 table-spoonfuls molasses.

Salt to taste.

Mix the molasses with the milk. Put the flour into a deep bowl, mix the salt through it; make a hole in the middle, and pour in the milk, gradually stirring the flour down into it with a wooden spoon. The batter should not be too thick. When all the milk is in, beat until the mixture is free from lumps and very smooth. Add the soda-water, stir up fast and well, and bake immediately.

These cakes are simple, economical, wholesome, and extremely nice. “Loppered” milk, or “clabber,” is better than buttermilk. Try them!

BUTTERMILK CAKES.

3 cups buttermilk.

3 cups flour, or enough for good batter.

1 great spoonful melted butter.

1 table-spoonful brown sugar.

1 full teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Salt to taste.

Mix as directed in last receipt, and bake at once.

GRANDMA’S CAKES. +

1 quart loppered milk—if half cream, all the better.

1 table-spoonful molasses—_not_ syrup.

2 eggs, beaten light.

1 _good_ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Salt to taste.

Flour for good batter. Begin with three even cups.

Stir the molasses into the milk, then the eggs and salt. Make a hole in the flour, and mix as you would “sour milk cakes” (the last receipt but one). Beat in the soda at the last.

RICE OR HOMINY CAKES. +

1 quart milk.

2 cups soft-boiled rice or hominy.

3 eggs, beaten light.

1 great spoonful melted butter or lard.

1 table-spoonful white sugar.

About one large cup of _prepared_ flour—just enough to hold the mixture together.

A little salt.

Work the butter into the rice, then the sugar and salt;—the eggs, beating up very hard; lastly the milk and flour, alternately, until the batter is free from lumps of dry flour.

These are wholesome and delicious, and not less so if the batter be made a little thicker, and baked in muffin-rings.

CORN-MEAL FLAPJACKS. +

1 quart boiling milk.

2 cups Indian meal—white. That known as “corn-flour” is best.

1 scant cup flour.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 table-spoonful brown sugar, or molasses.

1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in a little hot milk.

1 teaspoonful salt.

2 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.

Scald the meal over night with the hot milk. Put with this the butter and sugar. Cover and let it stand until morning. Add the yolks of the eggs, the salt and flour. If the batter has thickened up too much, thin with cold milk, before stirring in the soda. The whites should go in last, and be whipped in lightly.

These are the “cakes trimmed with lace” of which we read in Mrs. Whitney’s always charming—“We Girls.”

RICE CAKES. +

1 cup raw rice.

1 quart milk.

3 eggs—very light.

¼ cup rice-flour.

1 table-spoonful sugar, and same of butter.

¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

½ teaspoonful cream of tartar.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Soak the rice five or six hours (all night is not too long) in warm water enough to cover it. Then boil slowly in the same until it is very soft. While still warm—not hot, stir in the butter and sugar, the salt and milk. When cold, put in the eggs. Sift the cream of tartar into the rice-flour, and when you have beaten the soda into the batter, add these.

These cakes should be so tender as almost to melt in the mouth.

SUSIE’S FLANNEL CAKES. (_Without eggs._) +

2 cups white Indian meal.

2 quarts milk.

½ cup yeast.

Flour for good batter.

Boiling water.

A little salt.

Scald the meal with a pint or so of boiling water. While still warm stir in the milk, and strain through a cullender; then, add the flour, lastly the yeast. Cover and let the batter stand until morning. Salt, and if at all sour stir in a little soda.

These cakes will make a pleasant variety with “buckwheats,” in the long winter season. They will be found very good—so good that one will hardly believe that they contain neither “shortening” nor eggs.

“You can put in an egg or two, if you wish,” says “Susie,” modestly, “but to my notion they are quite as nice without.”

And we, who have tested the “flannel” of her making, are content to “let well enough alone.”

FARINA GRIDDLE CAKES. +

4 table-spoonfuls farina.

1 quart milk.

2 eggs, well beaten.

Enough prepared flour for good batter.

Boiling water.

Salt to taste.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

Scald the farina over night with a pint or more of boiling water, and let it stand until morning. Thin with the milk, beating it in gradually to avoid lumping. Next, the beaten eggs, the salt and butter. At last the flour stirred in with light, swift strokes. Do not get the batter too thick.

Bake at once.

If you have not prepared flour at hand, use family flour, with a teaspoonful of soda and two of cream tartar.

GRAHAM GRIDDLE CAKES. +

1 cup Indian meal scalded with a pint of boiling water.

1 quart of milk.

½ cup yeast.

1 cup cold water.

1 cup white flour.

1 cup Graham flour.

1 great spoonful molasses.

1 great spoonful butter or lard.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Salt to taste.

Scald and strain the meal over night; thin with the milk, and make into a sponge with the Graham flour, molasses and yeast. In the morning, add salt, white flour, soda and butter, and stir in enough cold water to make batter of the right consistency.

Graham and Indian cakes are far more wholesome in the spring of the year than any preparation of buckwheat.

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT EGG-BEATERS.

IN no department of nice cookery are the effects of lax or hasty manipulation more sadly and frequently apparent than in such dishes as are dependent for excellence upon the lightness and smoothness of beaten eggs. Unless yolks are whipped to a thick cream, and whites to a froth that will stand alone, the texture of cake will be coarse, and if the loaf be not heavy or streaked, there will be a crude flavor about it that will betray the fault at once to the initiated. The same is emphatically true with regard to muffins, waffles, and griddle-cakes. Mr. Greeley said, and aptly, of two publishers of note: “One will make a louder rattle with a hundred dollars than the other can with a thousand.” I have often recalled the remark in contrasting the tender, puffy products of one housewife’s skill with the dense, clammy cakes and crumpets of another, who used double the quantity of eggs and butter, and cream instead of milk.

“I think,” observed a friend, at whose house I was visiting, “there must be a mistake about the muffin receipt you gave me the other day. It calls for three eggs. My cook insists that five are none too many, yet hers, when made, do not look or taste like those I ate at your table.”