Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and flour, and pour upon them a cupful and a half of rich milk—half cream, if you have it. Stir to a smooth sauce, add the drained oysters, and cook just long enough for the edges to begin to ruffle. Now beat in gradually the beaten yolk of an egg; cook two minutes, season with celery salt and white pepper and fill the shells with the mixture. Fit on the little covers, and set in the oven until all are very hot.

Oyster fritters

Chop thirty oysters. Make a batter of two beaten eggs, a half pint of milk and a pint of prepared flour. If the batter is too stiff, add more milk. Stir the oysters into the batter, and drop this by the spoonful into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. As the fritters brown on one side, turn them over. Drain in a hot colander as soon as well colored.

Oyster pie

Line a deep pie-plate with puff paste, fill the interior with bread crusts (to be removed later) and fit on a top crust, buttered about the edge on the under side that it may be easily taken off. Stew a quart of oysters for five minutes; stir in very slowly a cupful of thick white sauce and the beaten yolks of two eggs. When the paste is done take off the top, remove the bread crusts, fill the center with the creamed oysters, replace the top crust and set the pie in the oven for five minutes before sending to the table.

Pickled oysters

Bring a quart of oysters, with their liquor, to the boil; immediately remove the oysters and drop into a large glass jar. To the liquor add six whole cloves, six whole pepper-corns, six blades of mace broken into bits, a small red pepper, a cupful of vinegar and a little celery salt. Boil up once and pour immediately over the oysters. Keep in a dark place until wanted.

Jumbolaya

(An East Indian recipe.)

Wash half a cupful of raw rice well and drop into a pint of strained tomato juice, made boiling hot. Cook fast for twenty minutes, or until the rice is soft, but not broken; add two tablespoonfuls of butter worked to a paste with two teaspoonfuls of curry; simmer ten minutes, salt to taste and put in twenty-five fine oysters. Cook until they ruffle, and pour out.

This is a good entrée for a family dinner. Pass thin slices of buttered graham bread and ice-cold bananas with it.

Clam pie

Fry a quarter pound of fat salt pork crisp; strain out the scraps and fry a sliced onion in the same fat. Strain again, add a pint of clam juice with a lump of butter the size of an egg, and make hot while you prepare the “pie.”

In the bottom of a buttered bakedish put a layer of clams, on them one of milk crackers, previously soaked in hot milk, buttered, peppered and salted, more clams and so on until the dish is nearly full. Cover the last stratum of clams with parboiled potatoes cut very thin, pepper and salt, and sprinkle these with a tablespoonful of grated onion and the same of parsley. Now pour the hot liquor over all, cover with a good pie crust and bake half an hour in a good oven, covered, then brown.

Clam cocktails

Put a dozen small clams in an ice-cold bowl and pour over them a half tablespoonful, each, of Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, lemon juice and tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of horseradish and a saltspoonful, each, of salt and Tabasco sauce. Mix and bury in ice for an hour before serving in two small glasses.

Oysters with Parmesan cheese

(Contributed)

Drain the oysters free from all liquor. Lay in a well-buttered baking-dish, sprinkle over with finely-minced parsley, season with salt and pepper; over all pour one-half glass of champagne and cover thickly with grated Parmesan cheese. Put in the oven until nicely browned on top. Take out; drain all the fat from it, and serve while very hot in the dish in which it was baked.

Oyster cutlets

(Contributed)

Drain off the liquor and wash the oysters well. Put them into a saucepan over the fire and heat until the edges curl, being careful to stir all the time. Strain the liquor. Chop the oysters fine. Rub together one tablespoonful of butter and one rounded tablespoonful of flour for each pint of chopped oysters. Add the oyster liquor and cook until quite thick. Then add the chopped oysters and the yolk of one egg, beaten well. After taking from the fire add one teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonful of minced parsley and the juice of one-half a lemon. Let all stand until perfectly cold. Form into cutlets, dip into egg, then into breadcrumbs and fry in hot fat.

Oyster canapés

(Contributed)

Toast ten slices of buttered bread and place in the oven to keep warm. Wash and drain one quart of oysters. Throw them into a hot pan and stir until the edges are curled. Add one teaspoonful of butter, one-half teaspoonful of salt and a dash of cayenne. Dish on the slices of toast, garnish with a thin slice of lemon for each one, and serve at once.

Scalloped fish

The remains of any cold cooked fish may be utilized and made palatable in this way. Get rid of skin, bones and fat. Pick fine, season well, and mix with good drawn butter. Fill buttered scallop shells or “nappies” with the mixture, strew with fine crumbs, stick bits of butter on the top, add a “suspicion” of cayenne, and bake to a delicate brown.

Oyster scallop

Cut each oyster in half, “draw” the butter in the oyster liquor and proceed as in the preceding recipe.

SAUCES FOR FISH AND MEAT

Drawn butter (“white sauce”)

Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan. When it bubbles put in (all at once) two tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir from the sides towards the center of the pan until the ingredients are well mixed. Have ready-heated a cupful of milk, add to this the “roux” gradually, and beat to a smooth cream. Season with white pepper and salt, and, if you like, a little onion juice.

Egg sauce

Make as above, beating the yolks of two raw eggs into the thickened milk, and if for fish, adding the yolk and white of a hard-boiled egg chopped fine, also a little minced parsley.

Brown sauce

Make as you would white, but substitute boiling water for the milk, and browned flour for white. Add a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, the juice of a lemon, pepper and salt.

Sauce tartare (No. 1)

Make a pint of mayonnaise dressing. Into this beat a teaspoonful of mustard, a tablespoonful of minced parsley, a teaspoonful, each, of chopped pickle and minced capers, a dozen drops of onion juice. Beat for a minute, and serve in a sauceboat.

Sauce tartare (No. 2)

Make a cupful of drawn butter (using boiling water, not milk). Beat in a teaspoonful of French mustard, half as much onion juice, a little cayenne and salt, a heaping teaspoonful of finely-chopped pickle and the beaten yolk of a raw egg at the last.

Hollandaise sauce

Into one cupful of drawn butter beat the yolk of an egg, then a good teaspoonful of best salad oil, dropping as you would for mayonnaise. Add, then, the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of pepper, one of salt, and the same of sugar, and serve at once.

Béchamel sauce for meat

A roux of butter and flour should be thinned with a cupful of veal or chicken stock, seasoned with onion juice, a small carrot, sliced, pepper and salt. Strain the stock before mixing with the roux. Have ready a cupful of rich milk or cream, heated with a pinch of soda; draw the hot stock and roux from the fire, stir in the cream, and it is ready for use.

Béchamel sauce for fish

Put the bones, head and a few ounces of fish meat in cold water over the fire, with an onion and a small carrot, sliced, also a bay leaf; boil down to one cupful of liquid, and use instead of veal or chicken stock in last recipe. In all other respects make in the same way.

Oyster sauce

To a white roux of butter and flour add a cupful of boiling liquid made by cooking a dozen oysters in hot water for two minutes. Drain the oysters (which should be very small) and keep warm while you stir the thinned roux to a smooth cream, and season it with a dash of cayenne, a teaspoonful of lemon juice and a little salt. Boil one minute, put in the oysters and take at once from the fire.

Lobster sauce

Make a rich-drawn butter and beat into it the coral of a lobster worked smooth with a tablespoonful of butter. Add the juice of half a lemon, cayenne and salt. Finally, add half a cupful of lobster meat, minced as fine as powder. Heat and serve.

Horseradish sauce

Into a cupful of drawn butter beat a great spoonful of grated horseradish wet with lemon juice, and work to creamy whiteness.

Anchovy sauce

Beat a tablespoonful of anchovy paste into a cupful of drawn butter, adding the juice of half a lemon and a dash of cayenne or paprika.

Shrimp sauce

Into a cupful of drawn butter beat a good teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, the juice of half a lemon, and half a can of shrimps minced fine and made very hot in a tablespoonful of boiling butter. Simmer for two minutes and serve.

An excellent fish sauce.

Celery sauce

Boil half a cupful of minced celery in a cupful of hot water for fifteen minutes. Strain through a cloth, pressing hard. Return the liquor to the fire and boil up. Then cook with it a roux made of two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same of flour. Have ready the yolk of an egg, beaten light. Pour the hot sauce upon it, stir less than one minute over the fire, season with salt and paprika and pour out.

A nice accompaniment to boiled fowl and to boiled mutton.

Tomato sauce

Peel and slice a quart of tomatoes; cook twenty minutes and strain through a coarse bag into a saucepan. Season with a teaspoonful of onion juice, one of sugar, a little salt and pepper, and when it boils stir in a tablespoonful of butter cooked to a roux with one of flour. Simmer two minutes and serve.

Caper sauce

Into a cupful of good drawn butter stir a great spoonful of minced capers and a teaspoonful of onion juice.

Maître d’hôtel sauce

Beat two tablespoonfuls of soft butter to a cream with the juice of half a lemon and a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley. It should be a fine, pale green when done. Serve cold with hot fish.

Mint sauce

Chop six sprays of mint very fine, and add to half a cupful of vinegar in which have been dissolved two tablespoonfuls of white sugar and a dash of pepper.

Serve cold with roast lamb.

Onion or soubise sauce

Boil two onions of fair size in two waters and until soft all through; mince and mix with a cupful of drawn butter. Season with pepper and salt, beat to a cream over the fire, and when very hot, serve.

Bread sauce

Heat a cupful of milk and season with a tablespoonful of butter, salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Boil up and stir in lightly half a cupful of fine bread-crumbs, previously dried, but not colored in the oven. They should be tossed up several times while drying to prevent clotting, and be very crisp.

Serve with boiled chicken.

Béarnaise sauce

Beat the yolks of two eggs very light, put into a round-bottomed saucepan and set in one of boiling water; stir into it, a few drops at a time, three tablespoonfuls of salad oil, heating as you stir; then, as gradually, the same quantity of boiling water; next, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, a dash of cayenne and salt.

It is served with all sorts of fish, also with chops, cutlets and steaks.

Claret or Bordelaise sauce

Make a brown sauce by substituting browned flour for white in the roux, adding a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet. Season with onion juice, salt and pepper, boil one minute, pour in a wineglassful of claret, heat for half a minute more, and serve.

Serve with roast meats and poultry.

Cream cucumber sauce

Pare and mince with a keen knife two cucumbers of fair size. Drain off the liquid without pressing, letting it drip for two minutes. Have ready a chilled bowl rubbed with a clove of garlic. Put the mince into it, season with white pepper, salt, a teaspoonful of onion juice and a tablespoonful of lemon juice.

Mix lightly into it with a silver fork a cupful of whipped cream into which has been beaten a pinch of soda.

Serve very cold with fish.

Plain cucumber sauce

When the cucumbers have been minced, drained and turned into the chilled bowl scented with cut garlic, mix with them a good French dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil, one-third as much lemon juice, a little salt and pepper.

N. B.—You may substitute for the garlic a tablespoonful of minced chives blended with the dressing.

Serve cold with fish, and quickly, before the cucumbers wilt.

Cranberry sauce

Wash and pick over carefully a quart of cranberries. Put into the inner vessel of a double boiler, fill the outer with boiling water and cook, keeping the cranberries closely covered until they are broken to pieces. Rub through your vegetable press into a saucepan, sweeten abundantly, bring to a boil (barely), and turn into a wet mold to form.

Apple sauce

Pare, core and quarter tart apples, dropping into cold water as you do this. Put over the fire dripping wet and cover closely to keep in the steam. When they are heated through, open and stir up from the bottom. When soft and broken, rub through colander or vegetable press, sweeten to taste while hot and set away to cool.

Serve with roast pork and roast ducks.

Jelly sauce

Make a cupful of a brown sauce of butter, browned flour and a little caramel. Heat boiling hot and beat in four or five teaspoonfuls of currant or other tart jelly.

Serve with game, lamb or mutton.

Espagnole sauce

(Contributed)

Put four tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan. When hot stir into it five tablespoonfuls of flour. Stir until very brown. Add two cupfuls of brown stock and one tablespoonful of Worcester sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. Let the sauce boil well and remove from the fire. Serve with chops or steak.

Parsley sauce

(Contributed)

To a good white sauce add three tablespoonfuls of finely-chopped parsley and a little green fruit coloring and let it come to a boil.

Cider sauce

(Contributed)

Put into a saucepan over the fire one tablespoonful of butter and when this begins to bubble stir into it one tablespoonful of flour; cook for one minute, then add slowly one teacupful of highly-seasoned stock; cook for ten minutes, add a cupful of cider, and when it again comes to a boil, strain and serve. This sauce is excellent with boiled ham.

Giblet sauce

(Contributed)

Boil the giblets until tender. Chop them, but not too fine. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with two tablespoonfuls of flour. Add slowly a cupful of the water in which the giblets have been boiled and a cup and a half of rich milk. Add to this the chopped giblets and season with salt and pepper. Serve in sauce-boat.

Cauliflower sauce

(Contributed)

To a pint of white sauce add a cupful of chopped cauliflower. Reheat, and when ready to serve stir in a teaspoonful of butter and a tablespoonful of lemon juice.

Champagne sauce

(Contributed)

Into one cupful of champagne put two cloves, four peppercorns, one bay leaf and a little sugar. Let all simmer for five minutes. Then add one cupful of brown sauce. Simmer for ten minutes more and strain. To be served with ham.

Port wine sauce

(Contributed)

Port wine sauce is made the same as champagne sauce, except that port wine is used instead of champagne.

Olive sauce

(Contributed)

Make a brown sauce as follows: Put four tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan; when hot add four and a half tablespoonfuls of flour and stir until very brown; add two cupfuls of brown stock and salt and pepper to taste. Remove the stones from five olives and boil for five minutes in water to which one tablespoonful of vinegar has been added. Drain and mince and add to the sauce.

Imitation caper sauce

Cut cucumber pickles into tiny cubes with a sharp knife. Do not chop them, as the bits must be of uniform size. Drain perfectly dry and stir into hot drawn butter. Boil for one minute. Eat with fish or chops.

FAMILIAR TALK

IS IMPROMPTU HOSPITALITY A LOST ART

Without staying to prove my premises I take it for granted nobody will dispute that what it pleases me to call impromptu hospitality is an out-of-date virtue.

In the very olden time there were those who were backward in the practice of it. Else the fisherman Apostle would not have enjoined upon the “strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,” to “use hospitality, one to another, without grudging.”

An ancient writer says: “The primitive Christians made one principal part of their duty to consist in the exercise of hospitality; and they were so exact in the practice of it that the very heathens admired them for it.”

From which we gather that the Apostolic admonition had fallen into good soil and brought forth much fruit.

It would be interesting to know when the _quid pro quo_ element entered into and defiled the noble virtue. The primitive Christians aforesaid had no knowledge of this alloy, while the recollection of the Master’s teaching was fresh in their minds:

“For if ye lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have ye?”

The principle that moves me to invite those to sit at my table and sleep under my roof who can return the favor in kind, or be useful in turn to me in some way, is barter, not hospitality. When I give a feast—be it afternoon tea, or the gravest of social functions, a dinner party—to five hundred, or to five people who have invited me at some time to their houses—and because of the obligation under which their invitations have laid me—I may be honest. I am not generous. I pay a debt. I do not exercise a grace.

The former times were _not_ better in all respects than these. But for divers reasons they were more hospitable times. It was inevitable that private houses should keep open doors when taverns, and even houses of entertainment, were few and far apart upon main-traveled roads, and utterly wanting to the traveler who pushed his way into the back country unknown except to the pioneer. If the stranger were not welcomed to the home of him whose house stood nearest to the wayside, he was shelterless in night or storm. There is the less need for the exercise of undiscriminating hospitality when inn and hotel “blaze” the track into the wilderness.

There is none the less occasion for asking our friends to enter our homes and to partake of the food which is a symbol of the good-will we have for them, our disposition to share with them the best blessings granted to man in this world—home loves and home joys. True hospitality but widens the circle and makes the guest “at home.” Artificial hospitality seeks or accepts a convenient season for making the everyday life of the home seem what it is _not_ to the stranger within our gates.

Our forbears said: “Come in and take pot-luck with us.”

An old Virginian told me that, as a boy, he was a visitor in a country house in the central part of the state, when a carriage drove up to the gate, and James Madison, then president of the United States, alighted. The lady of the manor was sitting upon the front porch, a bit of needle-work in hand. She arose, cordial and dignified, to receive her guest. As her chief butler, a far more consequential personage than his mistress, bustled out with a footman or two at his heels to see what could be done for the distinguished arrival, she said to him in a gentle “aside,” audible to the boy visitor: “James! see that a plate is put upon the table for Mr. Madison.”

Southern hospitality was a proverb then and for many a year thereafter. In her book, “The Voice of the People,” Miss Glasgow tells a story, which I can certify is not exaggerated, of an old aunt who came to her nephew’s house on a visit of a week and stayed twenty years, guarded by the viewless, but potent, ægis of hospitality. A plate was put upon the table for the poor relation in town and country house in that lavish land, as freely as for the chief magistrate, and was filled as bountifully.

When relative, acquaintance or stranger tarried but a night, the householder, in the homely speech of his fathers, asked in gentle sarcasm, “if he had come for a chunk of fire?”

In his father’s day, lucifer matches were unknown. When the fire went out upon the kitchen hearth of plantation or cabin, a swift runner was sent across fields to borrow a live brand from the nearest neighbor. He must hurry back before it went out.

_We_ invite people to come to us at a stated time and for a given period. When the time is up, we tell them graciously that we have enjoyed their visit, and hope we shall meet again before long. When the carriage that takes them to the station is out of sight, we say, “That is well over!” and make a note to that effect in our visiting book.

Leaving the general view of our subject for individual illustration:—

If satirists and grumbling wives are to be believed, a husband can hardly do a more imprudent thing than to bring home an unexpected guest to dinner, or luncheon, or supper.

The ill-used wife contends that he always does this—as if with malice aforethought—at the most inconvenient times and seasons. From her standpoint he might have recollected—it seems incredible that he could have forgotten—that it is washing or ironing day, or Thursday, which is the cook’s afternoon out, and that the housemaid is not equal to a regular dinner. When the mistress has planned to have a “pick-up” composite of the substantial meal required by a man after his day’s work, and the tea and toast which are supposed to meet the temporal needs of the feminine system—the apparition of an impromptu guest, and that guest a man, is like a boulder rolled upon the track before the domestic engine. The train is derailed, conductor and engineer “rattled,” and badly shaken up.

Our housewife has reason on her side, and a good deal of it. It is all very fine to say, she urges, that her table should always be neat and orderly; that what is nice enough for her husband in the way of food and appointments should content the president, should he chance to drop in. Everybody sings that song in the same key, and it is stale _bosh_! For everybody knows that in the best regulated families we do make special provision for company. John comprehends that the best china can not be used every day, if we would have it remain even “good.” The second-best is excellent in quality, and pretty. Yet what housekeeper is superior to the wish to show outsiders that she has a Minton fish set; Coalport meat dishes and plates; silver vegetable dishes; Sèvres after-dinner coffee-cups? To set out her table as tastefully as she can afford to do is an offering due to the stranger within her gates—a visible token of hospitable intent. She is, in a measure, defrauded in all this when a surprise-visit is sprung upon her.

John is sensible, and does not object to left-overs now and then, when flavorously put together. Today’s salmi, or salad, or croquette is, to him, a reminiscence of yesterday’s roast. The oyster-stew made by his wife to spare servants wearied by laundry work, is as satisfactory to him, once in several whiles, as a six-course dinner would be. He sees in an Irish stew, supported by browned potatoes, hot biscuits, home-made cake and a capital cup of coffee, a feast fit for the gods as represented by his hungry self and any fellow he may have corralled and brought in to “take pot-luck.”

“I ask yer honors if that is anny sort of a shkull to take to Donnybrook Fair!” cried an Emeralder who had killed his man “in a bit of a foight,” when the defense produced the broken skull of the deceased in court to prove that the “frontal, parietal and occipital segments were extraordinarily thin.”

Mary submits to a jury of her peers if she has not a right to be “put about” when Johnny comes marching home serenely with a guest in tow, who, for the lack of time to make anything else ready, must be set down to left-over oyster, or Irish stew.

“When a man is asked to dinner, he expects a dinner!” she asserts in justifiable vexation. “And when all is said and done, the fact remains that one’s husband is not a visitor for whom one must mind her p’s and q’s.”

HOT BISCUITS

SLICED HOME-MADE CAKE

“AND A CAPITAL CUP OF COFFEE”

“A PICK-UP DINNER”]

Yet—and a “yet” that might fill a whole line if its importance were considered—there is, also, much to be said on John’s side. Any bachelor can ask the old friend who looks in upon him in business hours and places, to lunch or dine with him at a chop house or hotel. The guest knows what he would get there. Just such a meal as he can buy for dollars and cents at fifty other “eating joints” all over the country. A meal, eaten in the presence of from twenty to one hundred other feeders, amid the babble of voices, the rattle of crockery and the click of knives and forks.

It is the married man alone who can offer the wayfarer a taste—and a generous taste—of HOME. The dear old fellow thrills in every inch of body and soul when he claps an ancient chum on the back with—

“Now you must see my wife and babies, old man!” or says to a business acquaintance in town for the day: “Mrs. Johannes and I would be charmed to have you take a family dinner with us. I am just going home now. Come with me!”

If malcontent Mary but knew it, he pays the highest possible compliment to her, as woman and housekeeper, by taking her welcome for granted.

I heard a man say the other day of another:

“He is a royally good fellow, and, I take it, is happily married. He begged me to dine with him when I called at his office, and without giving his wife notice. A fellow doesn’t take such liberties with his wife unless he is pretty sure of her and her housekeeping. I couldn’t accept the invitation, but the impression left upon my mind was most agreeable.”

It is worth Mary’s while to score a point in her favor with her husband’s friends and to strengthen her hold upon him by meeting the unexpected guest with frank cordiality, and in every other way making the best of the situation.

She keeps the house, and has the work and worry that go with the keeping. John pays for the material part of the home. How much it signifies to him the best of wives does not always know. It is his stimulus, his hope, his sheet anchor, when all the waves and billows of business trouble go over his soul—his haven of refuge—the nearest approach to Heaven he can find on this side of the dark river. He has a lien—in legal phrase—upon all the benefits accruing therefrom.

The exercise of spontaneous hospitality is not the least of these.

I am so unhappy as to know a woman who has her whole house, including attic and cellar, swept every week and dusted thoroughly daily. Every picture is taken down on Saturday morning that the backs and cords may be wiped off with a damp cloth wet with a disinfectant. She changes servants from twelve to twenty-four times a year. She will tell you with an air of calm sad conviction, that “there is not one tolerably efficient maid in America.” Her daughters have been her slaves since they could wield broom and duster. They are pale and thin; their eyes have a hunted look and are hollowed by fixed dark crescents beneath them. One of them was married two years ago, and sank into confirmed invalidism after the birth of a pitiful scrap of a baby that wailed feebly for an hour and died.

I met the single sister not long ago on a ferry-boat, and she confided to me that she is to submit to a crucial operation in a few days.

“The doctors say it is too much housework,” she said bitterly, “I can not recollect when I was not tired, _tired_, TIRED! My mother keeps the cleanest house in town. She says ‘dirt is disease.’ Maybe so! I know that life is not worth living when one has to pay such a price for cleanliness. My mother has bones of steel and nerves of whalebone, and can not comprehend ‘how it happens that she should be afflicted with delicate children.’

“As to company—it is a curse—nothing less! To have a friend in to a meal involves so much extra work beforehand, so much readjusting afterward, that the thought is frightful.

“This is not living. It is slavery!”

MEATS

BEEF

Roast beef

Never wash a raw roast, at least not the parts unprotected by the thin skin. Wipe the skin off with vinegar, dry with a soft cloth, and lay the meat, cut sides at top and bottom, upon the grating of your roaster. Dash a cupful of really boiling water over it. They cicatrice the surface and keep in the juices. Dredge with flour, cover and cook ten minutes to the pound, turning all the heat into the oven for fifteen minutes; then shift into a slower oven, or “dampen” the fire. Baste every ten minutes with the gravy dripping into the pan. Ten minutes before dishing the meat, wash freely with butter and dredge with browned flour, to “glaze” the roast.

Never serve “made gravy” with roast beef. Pour the liquid from the pan into a bowl, and when the fat is solid, remove it and clarify for dripping. The residuum will add richness to your soup-stock, or make a savory base for stew or hash.

Serve horseradish sauce and mustard with your rare roast, and put a little of the ruddy juice which exudes as the meat is carved, upon each slice when served.

Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding

Fifteen minutes before taking up the roast just described, skim six tablespoonfuls of fat from the gravy, put into a smaller dripping-pan, or pudding-dish, and set in the oven. Have ready this batter:

Sift an even teaspoonful of salt and one of baking-powder twice with a pint of flour. Beat two eggs light, add to them two cupfuls of milk, turn in the sifted flour and mix quickly. Set the reserved fat upon the upper grating of the oven; when it begins to bubble, turn in the batter, and cook quickly to a fine, golden-brown. Cut into squares and garnish the meat with them when you dish it.

This is a better way than cooking the pudding in the roaster under the meat, as used to be the custom with English cooks.

Réchauffé of beef à la jardiniére

Lay yesterday’s piece of beef in a roasting-pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cover it with thick slices of raw tomatoes. Dash a cupful of boiling water over all, put a close cover on the roaster, and cook in a hot oven for thirty-five minutes. While this is cooking boil tender a pint of green peas, a pint of potatoes—cut into tiny squares—three carrots, also cut small, and ten small onions. Season each vegetable with pepper, salt, and a small bit of butter.

Lay the beef with the tomatoes upon it on a hot platter, pour over it any gravy remaining in the pan, and arrange neatly about it the other vegetables. Be sure that meat and vegetables are very hot when served.

Braised beef

Put a nice round of beef in a broad-bottomed iron pot with a tablespoonful of butter, and sprinkle a chopped onion over it. Cook the beef on one side until brown, then turn and cook on the other side for the same length of time. Now dash a pint of boiling water over the meat, put a close cover on the pot and let the contents cook slowly, allowing at least fifteen minutes to every pound of beef. When the meat is done, remove from the pot to a platter and keep warm while you strain the gravy left in the pot; return to the fire and thicken it with a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, and pour it over the meat.

Rib-ends of beef

These are usually cut off when the roast is rolled, and can be bought cheap.

Fry in beef fat a sliced onion and a chopped sweet pepper—carefully seeded. Take these up with a skimmer and keep hot. Pepper, salt and flour the rib-ends and fry in the same fat until they begin to brown. Put, now, with the fat into a saucepan, strew the fried onion and pepper on top; pour in a cup of weak stock; fit on a close cover, and cook very slowly until the beef is tender.

Strain and skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour; add a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet; arrange the beef-bones in a dish; pour the gravy over them and serve.

Pot-roast of coarse beef

Cut four pounds of coarse lean beef in one piece. Fry half a pound of fat salt pork in a rather shallow pot. Put in the beef, and cook fast on both sides for five minutes. Cover with a chopped onion and a cupful of canned tomatoes, a sliced carrot and a sliced turnip. Now, pour in enough hot water to come half-way to the top of the meat; cover closely and simmer slowly for two hours, turning at the end of the first hour.

Take out the beef; rub with butter, pepper and salt, and set in the oven while you skim and strain the gravy, rubbing the vegetables with it through a colander. Put this back into the pot, thicken with browned flour, boil up once; pour half over the meat and serve the rest in a gravy-boat.

Rolled boiled beef

(An English recipe)

Cut an oblong piece of beef from the flank. It should be two inches thick, twelve inches long and six wide. Lay it on a dish and spread upon it this forcemeat:

A cupful of cracker crumbs, two tablespoonfuls of finely-chopped salt pork, half a teaspoonful of salt, one saltspoonful, each, of thyme, marjoram, and sage, half a saltspoonful of pepper, a few drops of onion juice, or one teaspoonful of chopped onion, and one egg. Moisten with a good stock until soft enough to spread over the meat.

Roll as you would a valise pudding, tie about with pack-thread and sew up in mosquito netting or cheese-cloth. Put on in plenty of boiling water and cook slowly for four hours. Let it lie in the water until the latter is a little more than lukewarm, and put under a heavy weight until next day. Remove the cloth, cut the strings and serve cold with horseradish sauce.

Corned beef is very good prepared in this way. Add vinegar to the water in which it is boiled and omit the pork from the stuffing.

Beef à la mode (No. 1)

Cut two pounds of lean beef from the round into strips. Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with thin strips of bacon, then put in half the meat and strew over this carrots, turnips and onions, sliced very thin. There should be four of these, part of them going over the first layer of beef, the remainder over the second layer of beef. With them go two bay-leaves broken into bits. Cover all with stock, make a paste of flour and water, rolling it out as for pie crust, cover the top of the bake-dish with this, pinching it down about the edges so that no steam may escape. Bake for two hours in a steady oven, remove the paste cover, and send the dish at once to the table.

Beef à la mode (No. 2)

Have a solid piece cut from the round, and tie into shape with stout cords at intervals of an inch apart. Plug the meat perpendicularly with strips of fat salt pork, long enough to project half an inch at top and bottom. Make incisions clear through the beef with a sharp, thin knife, and fill these with forcemeat made of fat pork, minced, onion and bread-crumbs, sharply seasoned. Lay the meat in a braising-pot, cover deep with chopped onion, carrot, turnip, celery, three bay-leaves, a sliced tomato, and sprinkle with mace and paprika. Now pour in a cupful of cold water, cover closely and cook slowly fifteen minutes to the pound.

If you wish to serve hot, clip the threads; rub the gravy through a colander, let it cool a few minutes to throw up the fat; skim and thicken with browned flour, and pour half over the meat, half into a gravy-boat.

It is, however, nicer if left to get cold in the gravy, with a heavy weight on top, until next day. Then remove the cords, and cut in thin, horizontal slices.

An underdone roast can be metamorphosed in this way for a second-day’s dinner.

Braised rolled beefsteak

This is a good way of dealing with a hopelessly tough steak. Lay upon a board and pound from end to end with a mallet. Cover with a forcemeat of minced salt pork, onion and seasoned crumbs, wet with a little gravy; roll up upon the stuffing and tie into shape. Lay in your roaster; pour in a little cold water (or, better still, weak stock), cover and cook slowly for two hours, basting often with gravy from the pan. Undo the strings carefully, after pinning the roll together with skewers, and lay upon a hot dish, covered, while you prepare the gravy. Skim, thicken with browned flour, add a good spoonful of kitchen bouquet, boil up and pour into a boat.

Baked beefsteak à la jardiniére

Still another way of making a tough steak eatable. Pound it on both sides and lay in lemon juice and salad oil for two hours. Transfer then to your roaster, cover with two sliced tomatoes, a sliced carrot, an onion and a turnip, with minced sweet herbs. Add a cupful of cold water, cover closely and cook slowly twenty minutes to the pound.

Cut one large carrot, two large onions, two turnips and four stalks of celery into neat dice and cook them soft, without breaking, in salted water, each in a pan of its own. In another saucepan cook four large tomatoes, peeled and whole.

When the steak is done, keep hot over boiling water, while you rub the vegetables with which it was cooked through the colander or a vegetable press back into the gravy, thickening this with browned flour. Boil one minute, add the juice of a lemon and a glass of sherry, and keep hot in a closed vessel. Dish the meat, lay the vegetable dice about it in little heaps, each kind by itself, leaving the tomatoes whole; pour the rich gravy over all; cover the dish and leave in the open oven for three minutes to let the gravy soak in.

You have now a “French dish,” that will amply repay the additional pains it has cost you.

A family pot-roast of beef

The round will serve for this dish. Fry slices of fat salt pork in an iron pot, and when crisp, remove and throw in a sliced onion. When this is browned, remove and lay the roast in the pot. Cook for ten minutes, turn and cook for five minutes more. Now, add a cupful of water, cover closely and simmer over a slow fire for an hour. Add a sliced carrot, two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice, a bay-leaf and a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce to the contents of the pot. Turn the beef over and over in this, and if the meat seem dry add a cupful of water, or, better still, stock. Cook covered, very slowly, for two hours more. Transfer the meat to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pot with a brown roux, salt and pepper to taste, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Pour this sauce over the meat and send to the table.

A New England pot-roast

Lay a round of beef in a broad, deep pot. Pour in a cupful of boiling water, add two slices of onion, cover closely and cook gently ten minutes to the pound. Transfer to a dripping-pan, rub with butter, dredge with flour, and brown in a quick oven. Strain and cool the gravy left in the pot, take off the fat, put the gravy into a saucepan, season with pepper, salt and a little kitchen bouquet, and thicken with a heaping tablespoonful of brown roux. Boil up once and serve in a gravy-boat, or pour around the base of the beef.

Savory ragout of beef

Cut a round beefsteak into inch-squares. Fry minced salt pork in a pan until you have enough fat to fry the meat, then remove the bits of pork and lay in the meat, each piece of which must first be rolled in flour. When the meat is brown at the edges, add to the fat two tablespoonfuls of flour that has been lightly browned, stir in a pint of weak stock, or, if you have not that, of boiling water; stir to a brown sauce, and return the meat to it, throwing in, at the same time, a minced onion. Leave the meat at the side of the range where it will cook very slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Now, season to taste with salt, add a bay leaf and a little kitchen bouquet. A little Worcestershire sauce is thought by some to be an improvement. Cover again and cook, still slowly, for over an hour, or until the meat is very tender. Stir in two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and turn out upon a heated platter.

Beef hot pot

Two pounds of beef ribs; one tablespoonful of dripping; two chopped onions and six tiny green peppers, four slices of toast, a little black pepper, chives, vinegar, thyme, raisins, olives, tomatoes to taste, all minced.

Heat the dripping in a saucepan, put into it the ingredients (leave the peppers whole, and mince the chives), cover closely and stew until boiled to rags. Thicken with butter rolled in browned flour. Serve on toast.

Boiled beef tongue (smoked)

Wash the tongue well and soak four hours in tepid water. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water and cook twelve minutes to the pound after the boil begins. Let it get cold in the water; pare and trim neatly, and garnish with small green pickles.

Braised fresh beef’s tongue (No. 1)

Wash the tongue and boil for half an hour. Trim away the root and the tough edges.

Fry a sliced onion in three tablespoonfuls of dripping. Strain out the onion and lay the tongue in the frying-pan. Cook ten minutes, turning twice. Remove to your covered roaster; lay upon the grating and dredge with flour. Pour the fat over it; add a large cupful of boiling water and cook, closely covered, for an hour and a half, basting four times.

Take up and keep hot over boiling water while you skim off the fat, and thicken with browned flour. Season with paprika, onion juice, salt and half a cupful of strained tomato sauce.

Dish the tongue and pour the gravy over it. Send around horseradish sauce with it.

Sauce for braised tongue

Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble. Into a half-pint cup put a couple of teaspoonfuls of vinegar, fill up the cup with boiling water, and turn this on the butter and flour. Stir until thick and smooth. Just before taking from the fire stir in a tablespoonful of grated horseradish. Let it get hot, and serve.

Braised fresh tongue (No. 2)

Clean, and boil for an hour, leaving in the water for fifteen minutes after taking it from the fire. Trim neatly. Skewer the tip and root of the tongue together and lay in your covered roaster upon a layer of sliced onion, carrot, celery, tomatoes, and minced parsley. Cover with the same; add a cupful of the water in which the tongue was boiled, fit on your cover and cook slowly for two hours. Dish the tongue and keep hot. Rub gravy and vegetables through the colander, into a saucepan; thicken with browned flour. Lay the tongue in a bake-pan; pour the gravy over it, and set upon the top grating of an oven to brown. Dish, pour the gravy about the tongue and serve. Eat mushroom sauce with it.

Mushroom sauce for the above

Wash the mushrooms, wipe and peel them, then cut into tiny dice. Stir in a little of the gravy from the tongue; season with salt and paprika; add a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook two minutes.

A little lemon juice improves the flavor.

An Italian entrée of beef’s tongue

This is a good way to warm up the remains of a boiled or roast fresh tongue. Slice, cover with oil and lemon-juice, and leave in the marinade for one hour. Then add salt, pepper, some sliced onion, a little parsley and a few mushrooms cut into halves. Place in a frying-pan and cook slowly for about fifteen minutes, moistening with a tablespoonful of sherry and a little lemon juice; just before taking from the fire add a little brown stock, and a little tomato sauce, well-seasoned.

Boiled beef’s tongue

Wash well and cook in salted, boiling water until a steel skewer goes easily into the thickest part. Leave in the water for fifteen minutes, trim, and lay on a hot dish. Pour sauce tartare over it and send more around with it.

Boiled beef’s heart

Wash the heart and soak for half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe and stuff the ventricles with a forcemeat of bread-crumbs and chopped ham or salt pork, minced fine and well seasoned. Sew up in cheese-cloth fitted to the heart, and bring slowly to a boil in salted water, to which a tablespoon of vinegar has been added. Boil gently two hours, turning the heart several times.

Remove the cloth and dish the heart. Pour a piquante sauce over it.

The heart is made more savory if you will boil it in weak stock instead of water.

Roast beef’s heart

Prepare as directed in last recipe, but roast instead of boiling, laying the heart upon a bed of minced onion and tomatoes, and pouring in a little hot water to make the gravy. Rub this through a colander, thicken with browned flour, season to taste and pour over the heart.

How to corn beef

Mix salt with saltpeter in the proportion of ten parts of the first to one of the second, and with this rub the piece of beef to be corned until the salt lies dry upon the surface. Let it stand in a cold place for twenty-four hours and repeat the process, and the next day put it into pickle. This is made by boiling together for ten minutes a gallon of salt, four ounces of saltpeter, and a pound and a half of brown sugar in five gallons of water. The meat should not be put into the pickle until the latter is perfectly cold. Leave it in the pickle and take it out as needed, looking after it once in a while to see if it is keeping well. If not, take the meat out, rub it well with dry salt, and prepare a fresh and stronger brine.

How to corn a tongue

Put into a saucepan a gallon and a half of water, a half-pound of brown sugar, two and a quarter ounces of salt and a half-ounce of saltpeter. Boil for half an hour, skim and, when cold, pour over the tongue.

It should be ready for use in a week.

Boiled corned beef

Soak for an hour in cold water. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water. Put into the pot with it a peeled carrot and a small onion, and for a gallon of water a tablespoonful of vinegar. Cook slowly, allowing twenty-five minutes to the pound if very salt, or if the meat has lain in the brine for some weeks. Let it lie in the liquor for half an hour after it is done. Lift it then, trim away ragged edges, lay on a hot dish and wash all over with butter in which has been beaten the juice of half a lemon.

Strain a cupful of the liquor; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of flour, boil two minutes and add a great spoonful of minced pickles, or of capers. Some like to use pickled onions for this purpose.

Send around horseradish and mustard with it.

When it leaves the table put a plate with a heavy weight upon it, and leave thus all night.

VEAL

Roast leg of veal

Wipe a leg of veal with a damp cloth and place it in a covered roaster. Dash a cupful of boiling water over the meat, cover it closely and cook at the rate of twenty minutes to the pound. Half an hour before the meat is taken from the oven remove the cover from the roaster, baste the meat with the gravy in the pan, and brown.

Shoulder of veal

This may be roasted, like the leg, but is better for having the bone removed, and the cavity thus left filled with a forcemeat made of bread-crumbs and chopped ham, seasoned to taste.

Veal cutlets

Wipe the cutlets with a damp cloth, dip them, first, in beaten egg, then in cracker dust, and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in dripping to a rich brown. Cook slowly that they may be thoroughly done. Lay for a moment on brown paper to drain free of grease, and put on a hot platter. Serve with tomato sauce.

Veal steaks with mushroom sauce

Broil the steaks slowly over a clear fire, turning often that they may not scorch. When done, keep the meat hot on a platter in the oven while you make the following sauce:

Drain the liquor from a can of mushrooms and cut the mushrooms in halves. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and one of browned flour until they are dark brown in color. Pour upon them the mushroom liquor and a cupful of beef stock. Stir to a smooth sauce, season with a dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and add the halved mushrooms. Cook for two minutes, stirring constantly, then pour over and around the veal steaks.

Breast of veal á la jardiniére

Lard with strips of fat salt pork, and sprinkle with paprika. Dredge with flour and lay upon the grating of your covered roaster, add enough boiling water to cover it barely, and roast for an hour, basting with the gravy every ten or fifteen minutes. Then turn on the other side and spread over the roast a pint of tomatoes peeled and sliced, two onions, chopped fine, two sprigs of parsley, chopped fine, and two chopped peppers. Baste for another hour every ten minutes. When the meat is removed keep hot while you take up the vegetables with a split spoon, and keep them hot also. Strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour, and put into a boat. Lay the vegetables about the meat upon a metal or fire-proof dish, dredge this last with browned crumbs, and dot with softened butter. Set upon the top grating of the oven for five minutes to brown and send to table in the dish.

Stuffed roast fillet of veal