Chapter XIV: Front Matter (14)

Take out the central bone and skewer the fillet into a neat round. Make a forcemeat of crumbs, minced pork, onion juice, parsley and half a can of mushrooms, minced. Wet with a few spoonfuls of stock or gravy; fill the bone-hole and ram the stuffing into the folds of the meat from both sides. Lay on your covered roaster, cover with very thin slices of fat salt pork, and dash a cupful of boiling water over top and sides. Roast, covered, twelve minutes to the pound. Fifteen minutes before you draw it from the oven remove the pork, wash with butter and dredge with browned flour. Then brown, uncovered.

The fillet should be basted four times while roasting. After the fourth basting draw off a cupful of gravy from the dripping-pan, set on ice, or in cold water until the fat rises, skim, add four tablespoonfuls of strained tomato juice, thicken with browned flour, and cook three minutes before pouring into a gravy-boat.

Roast breast of veal

Cook as you would the fillet, running a sharp knife between ribs and meat to make space for the stuffing.

Serve spinach with it.

Breaded veal cutlets

Roll the cutlets in fine crumbs, salted and peppered; dip into beaten egg, then again in crumbs. Set on ice for an hour to get firm, and fry in deep fat, turning three times, carefully. Cook slowly after the first five minutes. Underdone veal is unwholesome and unpalatable.

Drain off the fat, and serve in a heated dish. Send around horseradish or tomato sauce with them, and accompany with spinach.

Mock squabs

Have six or eight slices cut from a loin of veal, half an inch thick, about seven inches long and four wide. Make a forcemeat of crumbs, fat pork, and minced mushrooms seasoned with paprika, onion juice and a little lemon juice with a suspicion of grated lemon-peel. Moisten with a beaten egg and cover with this each slice of meat nearly to the edge, roll up tightly and tie with twine, or fasten with wooden skewers. Dredge with salt, pepper and flour, roast them as previously directed, golden-brown. Be very careful that they do not brown or become too highly colored. When nearly done add cream to almost cover and let them simmer about fifteen minutes or until quite tender. Remove the strings, arrange the “squabs” on toast, garnish with water-cress, and pour a little of the strained cream over each. Serve with asparagus or spinach.

Larded veal

Have a solid piece cut from the thickest part of the shoulder. Lard at short intervals with strips of fat salt pork and put into your covered roaster with sliced carrot, onion, bits of celery and a few sprigs of parsley; over all pour a large cupful of good stock, cover and cook slowly for about three hours. You should baste frequently while cooking, and a short time before it is done remove the cover, to cook the larding thoroughly and give a good color to the veal.

Just before taking up pour out a cupful of gravy, skim off the fat and thicken with browned flour, add a great spoonful of tomato catsup, and simmer until you are ready to dish the meat. Pour then into a boat.

Roast calves’ hearts

You will need two hearts for a dish of moderate size. Wash them thoroughly, leaving in salt and water for an hour, to draw out the blood. Run a slender, keen knife from the large end of each heart straight to the center, turning it around several times to make a central hole for the forcemeat stuffing. Make this of cracker crumbs highly seasoned with onion juice, salt and pepper, thyme or marjoram. Moisten with melted butter, or use hot water and a little fat pork or bacon finely chopped. Sew the opening together, and thrust in several lardoons of salt pork. Dredge with salt, pepper and flour. Fry one sliced onion in dripping in a frying-pan. Put in the heart and brown it lightly all over. Pour in stock to cover it—barely—add a bay leaf, two slices of carrot and one teaspoonful of salt. Cover the pan and cook in a moderate oven about two hours, or until very tender.

VEAL CHOPS AND SPINACH

MOCK PIGEONS

BOILED CALF’S HEAD

VEAL AND BEEF]

When done remove the strings, put the hearts upon a hot dish, and thicken the gravy with browned flour. Add lemon juice and other seasoning if needed. Strain over the hearts. Garnish with Parisian potatoes alternately with small tomatoes, pared and baked. Pour melted butter and minced parsley over potatoes and tomatoes.

Larded liver

Wash a calf’s or lamb’s liver, lard it with narrow strips of salt pork, and put it into a covered roaster. Pour over the liver a pint of cold beef stock and cover the pan closely. Set in a moderate oven and cook an hour and a half. Transfer the liver to a deep dish and put the pan containing the gravy on the top of the range. Thicken the gravy with a heaping tablespoonful of browned flour and add to it a cupful of strained tomato liquor, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste. Boil up once and pour over the liver.

Salmi of liver

Boil a calf’s liver for one hour in slightly salted water, and let it get cold. Cut into dice of uniform size, and for each cupful allow one tablespoonful of butter, one cupful of stock, one teaspoonful of tomato sauce, and two tablespoonfuls of chopped olives. Brown the butter, add one tablespoonful of flour and brown again; add gradually the stock, and stir until smooth and thick. Put in the catsup, olives and liver dice, season to taste, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Serve hot.

A delightful and not inelegant _entrée_.

Roast sweetbreads

Parboil two pairs of sweetbreads and blanch by throwing them into cold water. Drain, pierce three or four holes in each and press into these holes narrow strips of fat salt pork, allowing the strips to project a half-inch on each side. Lay the sweetbreads in a roasting-pan, pour a cupful of weak veal stock over them and rub them with melted butter. Cover and bake for twenty-five minutes; remove from the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put a spoonful of the thickened and seasoned gravy upon each, and send to the table.

Baked calf’s head

The head should be cleaned with the skin left on, also the ears, and split down the under side, leaving the top unbroken. Remove the tongue and brains, parboil and set them on ice. Put the head on in plenty of cold water, boil quickly and for one minute after the boiling point is reached. Take the head off and lay in ice-cold water. Change this for colder in ten minutes, and leave in this for several hours.

Then put over the fire in boiling water, to which a tablespoonful of vinegar has been added, and a tablespoonful of salt. Cook gently until you can slip out the bones easily.

Do this, drawing the teeth, cheek-bones and skull, taking care not to break the upper skin. Put into a bake-dish, restoring the shape as well as you can. Cut the tongue into slices and lay close against the cheeks; wash plentifully with butter rubbed to a cream with lemon juice, sift dry crumbs all over it and bake, covered, half an hour. Then brown.

To make the gravy, rub the brains to a soft paste; pepper and salt, season with tomato catsup and onion juice, add enough of the liquor in which the head was boiled to make a boatful of gravy, thicken with butter rolled in flour, simmer five minutes and serve.

There is no more savory preparation of calf’s head than this. It goes to table in the bake-dish. The liquor from the pot in which it had the second boiling makes excellent soup stock.

Boiled calf’s head

Boil as directed in last recipe, but do not blanch or bone. When it has been cooked tender, dish, with the tongue (which should have been boiled with it), sliced and laid against the cheeks, and pour over it a brain gravy, made as for the baked head, with the addition of a great spoonful of minced olives.

Mock turtle

Boil and blanch a calf’s head, take out the bones and let the meat and tongue get cold in the liquor. Do not let it remain long enough to jelly. As soon as the meat is firm take it from the stock, wipe dry, and cut with the tongue into neat dice an inch long, and half as wide. Make a gravy of a large cupful of the pot liquor, thickened with butter rolled in browned flour and seasoned with lemon and onion juice, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a little salt and paprika. Put in the meat, and simmer fifteen minutes.

Have ready a sauce made by heating a cupful of cream (adding a pinch of soda) and pour it, stirring all the time, upon the beaten yolks of three eggs. Stir and beat for one minute, and add to the meat and gravy. Now add a glass of sherry and pour all into a deep dish, in which you have laid a pile of turtle eggs made by rubbing together the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs and the boiled brains of the calf, binding them with a raw egg and a little browned flour. They should be made into little marbles with floured hands and cooked in boiling butter for two minutes, then fished out and drained in a colander.

A delicious _entrée_!

Calf’s liver á la jardiniére

Lard a large liver with strips of fat salt pork. Cover the bottom of a large saucepan with a carrot and a young turnip (all cut into dice), six very small onions, a handful of green peas and the same of string beans cut into short lengths. Lay the liver upon these, pepper it and pour in a cupful of stock, or a cupful of hot water in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Cover closely and cook an hour and a half without opening. In a bake-pan cook four peeled tomatoes of medium size. Take up the liver and the vegetables, the latter with a split spoon. Lay the liver upon a hot dish, group the vegetables (the tomatoes included), each of a kind together, about it; keep hot in the oven while you strain the gravy into a saucepan, add a great spoonful of catsup and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet with cold water, and cook for one minute. Pour a few spoonfuls over liver and vegetables, the rest into a boat.

Casserole of calf’s liver

Wash and wipe a calf’s liver perfectly dry. Fry a few slices of fat bacon in a pan until the fat is all fried out. Strain and return the fat to the pan, lay in the liver and fry two minutes on each side, and then put into the casserole; add one pint of rich brown sauce, a cupful of button onions that have been browned in butter and three tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Fasten on the cover with a flour and water paste, put in a moderate, steady oven, and cook for two hours. Then remove the paste from the cover, put in potato balls that have been fried in hot fat, and send to the table in the casserole.

Fried brains for garnishing

Soak the brains in cold water for an hour, cover with fresh, cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for three minutes; drain, and set in a cold place for an hour. Cut in thick slices, sprinkle with salt and white pepper; dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker dust and set in a cold place long enough for the coating to stiffen. Fry in deep cottolene or other fat.

Scallop of calf’s brain

Soak brains in cold water for an hour, then boil for ten minutes. Drop into iced water, and when very cold cut into tiny dice. Butter a pudding dish, put in a layer of the brains, sprinkle with pepper, bits of butter and a few drops of onion juice; then put in a thin layer of minced ham. Add more brains, and proceed in this way until the dish is full. Sprinkle the top with buttered crumbs, pour a cupful of veal stock over all, and bake for twenty minutes.

Brain croquettes for garnishing

Prepare the brains as in the preceding recipe, chop and add to them butter, salt and pepper to taste. Into each cupful of the mixture stir a tablespoonful of crumbs and moisten all with cream. Heat in a double boiler, and when the boiling point is reached whip in slowly a beaten egg, and remove the mixture from the fire. Turn upon a dish to cool and stiffen before forming into small croquettes. Crumb these and set on the ice for two hours. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Any dish of liver or calf’s head—in fact of veal in any form—is made elegant by a garnish of brains, fried as croquettes, or in slices.

MUTTON

Roast leg of mutton with sorrel sauce

Wipe a leg of young mutton with a damp cloth, then with a dry. Put into a covered roaster, dash a cupful of boiling water over it and roast at the rate of twelve minutes to each pound of the meat. Fifteen minutes before serving remove the cover and brown. If you do not use a covered roaster baste the meat every fifteen minutes, while cooking, with the gravy in the pan.

Do not send made mutton gravy to the table with it. Pass currant jelly with it and such a sauce as this:

Mince a cupful of field sorrel—young and tender—and stir two tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed into one of browned flour into a cupful of boiling water. Add the sorrel, a dash of paprika and salt. Cook for one minute, take from the fire and beat into it, a very little at a time, the well-whipped yolk of an egg. Set in boiling water until the mutton is served. It must not cook.

Boiled leg of mutton

Carefully trim the meat, cutting off all loose or gristly portions, and wipe with a damp cloth. Have a kettle of boiling water and put in the meat, boiling fast for about ten minutes, when it may simmer until done. Do not put in salt or pepper until nearly cooked. Eat with caper sauce.

The water in which the mutton is boiled makes excellent Scotch broth, or plain mutton soup.

Roast shoulder of mutton

Carefully remove the bone, or shoulder blade, and fill the place with this forcemeat: One cupful of fine bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste, a half-dozen chopped mushrooms—canned or fresh—and melted butter to moisten the mixture. Sew up the slit left by the bone, and place in the covered roaster with a cupful of water or weak stock. Cook quickly at first, basting often, and allowing for cooking about fifteen minutes to the pound. Serve with sorrel or other meat sauce, never with made gravy.

Pass string-beans, tomatoes, green peas or young turnips with it.

Stuffed shoulder of lamb

Have the bone extracted neatly, and fill the cavity left with a stuffing of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a dozen raw oysters, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of butter, melted, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of onion juice, one-half teaspoonful of paprika. Roast in a quick oven. Into two tablespoonfuls of softened butter mix one tablespoonful, each, of chopped parsley, onion and lemon juice, and kitchen bouquet. Draw the meat, when done, from the oven, spread it with this prepared sauce, and return to the oven for four minutes. Garnish with small, round, fried potatoes.

Send around green peas with it.

Hotch-potch

Cut two pounds of _lean_ mutton into neat pieces an inch square. Peel and slice six medium-sized potatoes, cut into dice, and parboil for five minutes. Parboil also a dozen small, young onions, no larger than the end of your thumb. Have a couple of kidneys—calf’s or lamb’s—cut into dice, and drain the liquor from fifteen small oysters. Put a layer of meat dice in the dish, then a layer of onions, kidneys and potatoes. Season each layer of vegetables with pepper and salt. Then another layer of meat, onions and kidneys, and the remaining potatoes. Pour on a cupful of hot water, cover the pan closely and bake it in a moderate oven for three hours. Look at it occasionally and add more water if it seems dry.

When nearly ready to serve take up the mixture with a skimmer, arrange it in a deep hot dish. Add the oysters to the gravy left in the pan, cook till they ruffle, add more seasoning if needed, and pour it over the whole.

Family stew of lamb and peas

Cut two pounds of coarse _lean_ lamb into dice. There must be neither fat nor bone in it. Fry a sliced onion brown in two tablespoonfuls of dripping or butter. Strain the fat back into the pan, dredge the meat with flour and fry for three minutes in it, turning to sear both sides. Turn meat and fat into a saucepan, add a cupful of stock or of butter and water, cover closely and stew for an hour, or until the lamb is tender. Put in then a cupful of green peas with three leaves of green mint. Cover again and cook until the peas are tender, but not until they break. Have ready a broad dish lined with slices of toast soaked in tomato sauce. Take up meat and peas in a perforated skimmer and lay upon the toast. Keep hot, while you thicken the gravy left in the pot with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of browned flour; season, boil up and pour over the stew. Let it stand one minute and serve.

Casserole of lamb chops

Trim two pounds of lean chops and proceed as with the meat in last recipe until they have been browned in the fat.

Now turn meat and fat into your casserole, in the bottom of which is a layer of pared and sliced tomatoes. Have ready half a cupful of potato balls cut with a “gouge” and parboiled for five minutes, a dozen button onions, also parboiled, and half a can of champignons (mushrooms). Sprinkle these over and between the chops. Pour in a cupful of good stock, or gravy, well seasoned; lastly, another layer of sliced tomatoes, salted, peppered, sprinkled with sugar and dotted with butter. Cover the casserole and set in a moderate oven for two hours.

Drain off all the gravy without disturbing the rest of the contents of the casserole. Skim, thicken with browned flour, add the juice of half a lemon, boil up, pour in a glass of sherry, pour gently back into the casserole, cover, set in the oven for three minutes and send to table, covered.

If you once try this recipe you will not be satisfied until the dish it represents becomes a frequent visitor to your table.

MEAT AND POULTRY PIES

Chicken pie

Cut at every joint a pair of _young_ chickens. Lay on ice while you make a gravy of the pinions, necks and feet—scalding and skinning the feet before putting with the rest over the fire, covering deep with cold water and bringing slowly to the boil. Cook until the flesh is in rags, and the liquor reduced by one-half. Strain, season highly with onion juice, salt and paprika, thicken with browned flour and let the gravy get cold.

Meanwhile, arrange your chicken in a bake-dish; lay among the pieces either well-seasoned forcemeat balls no larger than marbles, made of bread-crumbs and hard-boiled yolks, bound with a raw egg, or canned mushrooms. Of course, fresh mushrooms are better if you can afford them. Put in a cupful of cold water, cover with a good crust, half an inch thick, and bake for an hour and a half. Lay a piece of stout paper over the pie to keep it from browning too fast. When you remove this at the end of an hour draw the pie to the door of the oven, fit a funnel into a slit left in the center of the crust and pour in all the gravy it will hold. Do this very quickly, shut up the oven and leave the pie in until done. Remove the paper ten minutes before the time is up and brown lightly.

SMALL CHICKEN PIE

CHICKEN PIE IN SILVER STAND]

Cold chicken pie

Make precisely as in last recipe, but add to the gravy while hot a tablespoonful of gelatine soaked for two hours in cold water enough to cover it. Pour into the pie as already directed. Let the pie get cold before eating it. The gravy will be jellied.

This is a nice dish for Sunday dinners in hot weather.

Fowl pie

Cut an old fowl into joints, splitting the back and dividing the breast into quarters. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water, season with onion juice and the juice of half a lemon. No salt and no pepper. Cover closely and simmer very gently for several hours until you find it tender. Strain off the gravy and season with onion juice, celery salt, a bay-leaf, minced parsley, paprika and salt. Return the gravy to the fire, stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook one minute. Arrange the chicken in a deep bake-dish, pour in the gravy, lay over the top two hard-boiled eggs cut into thin slices, cover with a good crust, and bake.

Chicken pot pies

For these have several stoneware or other fire-proof deep dishes, about the size of a bird bath. Cut up a young fowl into joints, cover with cold water and cook tender, but not until the meat leaves the bones. Lay a piece of dark meat and one of light in each dish; sprinkle with minced salt pork, and drop in each dish potato marbles which have been parboiled for ten minutes. Add small cubes of pastry, three to each dish, and two small young onions, no bigger than the end of your thumb. Unless they are mere infants, parboil them five minutes before they go in. Have ready two cupfuls of the liquor in which the chicken was cooked. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in browned flour; season with paprika and minced parsley. The pork should salt it sufficiently. Fill the dishes, cover each with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake, covered with paper, half an hour. Then brown.

You may, if you like, make one dish of this, but many prefer the individual “portions.”

Chicken and ham pie

Cut up and stew the chickens, as in last recipe. Have ready four good-sized slices of corned ham (not smoked), boiled and cold, and cut into strips. Put a layer of ham in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish, season with chopped mushrooms and parsley, salt and pepper, and add a layer of white sauce, the base of which is the liquor in which the chickens were cooked. Next, place in the dish the pieces of chicken in regular order, and upon these the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Repeat the seasoning and the sauce, lay a few strips of ham over the top, cover with a good paste, wash the pie with beaten egg, and bake for an hour and a half. If you have no mushrooms you may substitute a little mushroom catsup.

Veal pie (No. 1)

Cut three pounds of lean veal into inch-square cubes; put into a saucepan with a cupful of cold water, and heat slowly. Remove the scum as it begins to boil; add two small onions, sliced, two tablespoonfuls of carrot cubes, and one teaspoonful of salt. Let it simmer until very tender. Put the meat then into a deep baking-dish.

Let the liquor boil down to one cupful and a half, strain it and remove most of the fat. Add one-half cupful of cream or of rich milk, and pepper to taste. Thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed in one of butter; cook it five minutes, and strain it over the meat. If you have any cold boiled ham you may add a little of it to the veal, cutting it into tiny pieces.

Cover with a rich biscuit dough, half an inch thick, and bake one hour, covered with thick paper. Uncover and brown.

Veal pie (No. 2)

Cut two pounds of coarse lean veal into cubes and cook tender in enough cold water to cover it. Have ready half a pound of finely-minced pork, an onion, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of finely-minced olives, a stalk of celery cut fine, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Put a stratum of veal in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish; cover with this mixture and sprinkle with paprika and with butter. When all the materials are used up in this order fill the dish with gravy made by thickening the liquor in which the veal was stewed with browned flour, adding a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and boiling one minute. Cover with a good crust; make a slit in the top and bake, covered, one hour; then brown.

Beef and tomato pie

Cut a pint of cold roast beef into small dice of uniform size, and mix with it two or three slices of bacon, also cut small. Line a deep dish with good puff paste, put a layer of the beef and bacon in the bottom of the dish, season with pepper and salt, cover with a layer of peeled and sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dots of butter rolled in flour; add more meat and more tomatoes, until the dish is full. Cover the top layer with bits of butter, then with a crust of puff paste, making holes in this for the escape of steam. Bake until brown.

Beef and potato pie

Moisten three cupfuls of minced roast beef with a little stock, season to taste, and put it into a greased pudding-dish. Into a large cupful of mashed potatoes beat a little milk and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season this potato and spread it over the top of the minced beef. Set it in the oven and bake, covered, for twenty minutes; uncover, wash over with beaten white of eggs and cook for fifteen minutes longer, or until it is lightly browned.

Beefsteak pie

Cut two pounds of round steak into small squares. Cover (barely) with cold water and cook tender, very slowly. Cut two veal kidneys into cubes and (if you can get it) a sweetbread, blanched by throwing it into cold water, after parboiling it. Drain the liquor from the beef, and let both get almost cold. Make a good gravy by thickening this liquor with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in browned flour, seasoning well with kitchen bouquet, onion juice, salt and pepper. Let it simmer two minutes. Arrange the beef, kidneys and sweetbread in neat layers in the dish, interspersing these with a dozen small oysters. Pour in the gravy, cover with a good crust, half an inch thick, and cook, covered, one hour; then brown.

Kidney pie

Cut four kidneys into neat squares and stew gently in weak stock for half an hour. Cook a quarter-pound of macaroni till tender, and cut it into inch lengths. Butter a baking-dish and put in a layer of macaroni; over that spread a layer of sliced kidneys, seasoned with pepper, salt and made mustard. Sprinkle over a little flour, and add a layer of tomatoes. Repeat these layers and cover with fine bread-crumbs when the dish is filled. Pour in a rich gravy made from the stock in which the kidneys were stewed; put small bits of butter over the crumbs on top, and bake steadily for one hour.

Sweetbread pie

Blanch two sweetbreads by parboiling for ten minutes, then leaving in ice-cold water for the same length of time. When firm cut into half-inch squares. Make a white roux by cooking in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of flour in two of butter, add gradually a cupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda, season with half a teaspoonful of salt and half a saltspoonful of white pepper, a few grains of cayenne, and two tablespoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato. Put the sweetbreads and sauce into a deep dish, cover with a rich crust, make a slit in the center; bake, covered, half an hour, then brown. Beat one egg, add half a cupful of hot cream, and pour into the opening in the crust just before serving.

Mutton chop pie

Trim two pounds of tender chops by cutting away skin, fat, and two inches of the rib bone. With the refuse trimmings make a gravy by cooking slowly three hours in just enough water to cover them. Let it cool, skim off all the fat, season highly, thicken well with browned flour, boil up once and again let it cool.

Arrange the chops on the inside of a bake-dish, overlapping one another; fill the central space with chopped mushrooms, a chopped tomato, six small button onions and a pint of green peas. Pour in the gravy; cover with a good crust, make a slit in the middle and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown.

Veal chop pie

May be made as above, substituting chopped tomatoes for the green peas. In this case have the gravy very thick, as the tomato juice will thin it.

Small pork pies

(A Devonshire recipe.)

Chop fine a quarter of a pound of beef kidney suet and mix with it an equal quantity of butter. Rub both into a pound of flour and set all over the fire in a saucepan until the butter and suet are melted and the flour very hot. Knead together then into a stiff paste, cover with the cloth and put it near the fire while you make ready the meat. There should be about two pounds of the neck of pork, and this should be cut into very small pieces, seasoned liberally with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of powdered sage, and cooked gently for twenty-five minutes before it goes into the pie. The paste must then be divided into as many pieces as you wish to have pies, and these must be made into round shapes—“built up” into the shape of round pies. The way to do this must be studied carefully, for it is a knack in itself. The fist is put into the middle of the piece of dough from which the pie is to be raised, and by working it in a circular fashion the hollow is formed which is to receive the meat. The process should really be seen to be adequately understood. When the pie is “raised” the meat is put into it, a round of paste laid on the top and its edge pinched to that of the lower crust. It is then baked in a steady, rather slow, oven.

An English pork pie

Cook two pounds of lean pork for half an hour in enough weak stock to cover it. Let it get cold in the liquor (which reserve for the gravy). Take out the cold meat and cut into neat dice. Butter a deep dish and lay in some of the meat. Cover with a layer of hard-boiled eggs, chopped coarsely; season with onion juice, pepper, salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Stick bits of butter here and there. Dust with browned flour.

Strain and reheat the liquor in which the meat was cooked; stir in a lump of butter rolled in browned flour, cook one minute, add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce; pour into the pie, and let it cool before covering with a good paste. Cut a slit in the middle of the crust; bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour. Uncover, wash with white of egg and brown.

Send around apple sauce with it.

A New England pork pie

Boil half a pound of “streaked” salt pork with a sliced onion and four parsnips of moderate size. Put them on in enough cold water to cover them, and boil until the parsnips are tender, the onion cooked to rags. Have ready three fair-sized potatoes, sliced and parboiled. Slice the parsnips. Cut the pork into very small, thin slices, and line a deep dish with it. Put in a layer of sliced potatoes, sprinkle with flour, salt and pepper, a layer of sliced parsnips, then another layer of each. Add enough of the water in which the pork and parsnips were boiled to fill the dish. Cover with a good crust, and bake in a good oven one hour.

It is said by those who like parsnips to be very good—considering!

Pigeon pie

Dress, draw and singe carefully four young pigeons; stuff them with the chopped livers, hearts and gizzards and fine crumbs, mixed with chopped parsley, a good lump of butter, pepper and salt. Run a small wooden skewer through the body of each, fastening the wings to the sides. Cover the bottom of your bake-dish with thin strips of corned ham; season with chopped parsley, mushrooms, pepper and salt; over these lay the pigeons; between every two birds put the yolk of an egg boiled hard, and two or three in the center also. Add to the dish sufficient thick brown gravy to cover the pigeons, cover the pie with puff-paste, and bake for an hour and a half.

PORK

Roast pig

Lay the pig, which has been prepared by the butcher, in cold water for fifteen minutes, then wipe dry, inside and out. Make a stuffing as for a turkey, and work into it two beaten eggs. Stuff the pig to his original size and shape. Sew him up, bend his fore legs backward, and his back legs forward under him, and skewer him thus. Dredge him with flour and put it, with a little salted water, into a covered roaster. Roast for an hour and a half; remove the cover, rub the pig well with butter and return the cover, leaving the slide open. At the end of twenty minutes remove the cover again, rub the pig once more with butter, and brown him for ten minutes. Serve very hot with apple sauce.

A pig for roasting should not weigh over six or seven pounds after it is cleaned. If larger, it is gross food. The meat should be as delicate as chicken.

Roast pork

Score the skin until the knife touches the meat under it. Rub into these lines or squares a mixture of fine crumbs seasoned with onion juice, a little grated lemon-peel and the juice of half a lemon, with pepper and salt to taste. Work in well until the stuffing stands out of the cracks. Put into your roaster, with a cupful of hot water under it, and after covering bring quickly to the point at which the water begins to steam. Slacken the heat then, and cook twenty-five minutes to the pound, basting often with its own gravy.

Pour off this gravy twenty minutes before taking the meat up, and set in a bowl of ice to send all the fat to the top. Greasy pork gravy is an offense to the educated palate. Thicken with browned flour.

A better plan is not to attempt to make gravy, but to send around apple sauce alone with the roast.

Chine of pork braised with apples

Instruct your butcher to cut the chine with plenty of meat on both sides of the bone. Sprinkle it well with pepper and salt, and lightly with sage and sweet marjoram. Pare, core and cut into thick slices three large, tart apples. Cover the grating of your roaster with them, strew with sugar and lay the chine upon them. Dot the meat with butter; cover and roast twenty-five minutes to the pound. At the end of that time transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, turning it over that the side which has lain upon the apples may be uppermost. Wash with butter, cover thick with salted and peppered crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of a hot oven while you make the gravy.

To do this rub the cooked apple and the liquor with them through a colander into a saucepan, add a little hot water, a lump of butter rolled in flour, and, if very tart, a little sugar; pepper and salt to taste, boil up and turn into a boat.

Serve peas, pudding or beans in some shape with the chine.

Pork tenderloins

Broil over a clear, steady fire, turning as often as they begin to drip. Allow twenty minutes, if small; more when large. Lay upon a heated dish, cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, onion juice, pepper, salt and a dash of powdered sage. Turn over and over in this as it melts; cover closely and leave over hot water several minutes to let the seasoning sink into the meat.

Serve browned whole potatoes and apple sauce with them.

Boiled ham

Soak eight hours, and scrub it hard with a stiff brush or whisk to get out salt and dirt. Cover with an abundance of cold water, and put into it two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Heat very gradually. At the end of the first hour it should not have reached the boiling point. Simmer gently four or five hours. Allow twenty minutes to every pound for a corned ham; twenty-five for a smoked. Let it get almost cold in the liquor—entirely cold before you skin it.

Barbecued fresh ham

Score the rind with a sharp knife. Mix one tablespoonful of mustard seed, half a teaspoonful, each, of celery seed and pepper corns with one cupful of sugar, one cupful of vinegar and two cupfuls of water. Let these stand ten minutes, then pour it over the ham. Turn it in this pickle several times during the day. Next morning put the ham into your covered roaster in a slow oven, fat side down, for the first hour. Strain the pickle and keep it hot on the back of the stove. Baste the ham frequently with it and bake four hours, or until tender.

All of the pickle should have been used in basting. Lay the ham upon a heated dish and keep hot over boiling water while you make the gravy. Strain the liquor, thicken with browned flour, add salt to taste, simmer for five minutes and pour part over the meat, the rest into a boat.

Those who are fond of hot fresh pork can not do better than to try this. It is also delicious cold.

Breaded ham

Boil as directed in recipe for boiled ham. When cold, skin and rub all over with flour. Next, brush with beaten egg, sift fine crumbs thickly ever the egg, then more egg and another coat of crumbs. Dust with pepper and brown gradually.

Eat cold, garnished with parsley.

Baked ham

Is seldom really “baked.” Boil a ham eighteen minutes to the pound; leave it one hour in the liquor in which it was cooked; take it out and let it get really cold and firm before stripping off the skin. Rub the upper side with white of egg and sift over it bread dust a quarter of an inch thick. Pepper lightly, and set in the oven for half an hour, or until the coating is well shortened by the oozing fat, and of a nice brown. Let it get cold to the very bone before serving it. If you like a suspicion of onion flavoring, wash the surface to be breaded with onion juice before going over it with the white of an egg.

Baked corned ham

Soak over night. In the morning scrub hard and pare away the underside until the meat and fat show red and white. Wash well with vinegar and do not wipe. Lay, skin downward, in your roaster, covering the side you have pared with a thick paste of flour and water. Have ready a mixture of one cupful of cold water and half as much vinegar, a tablespoonful of molasses and one of onion juice. Pour around the ham; cover closely and bake half an hour to the pound, after the water is hot. Baste six times with the liquor in the pan.

Take up, scrape off the paste, remove the skin, dusting instantly and thickly with fine cracker-crumbs to stop the escape of the juices. There should be a cracker crust a quarter-inch thick. Set upon the upper grating to brown.

Stuffed ham

Wash a ham and soak over night; then, with a narrow, sharp blade, remove the bone. Fill the cavity thus left with a forcemeat of bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper and moistened with a little water in which a spoonful of butter has been melted. Sew the ham up closely in a piece of cheese-cloth and boil until done, allowing twenty minutes to the pound. Leave it in the water until cold, transfer to a platter and put under a heavy weight for twelve hours. Now remove the cloth and the skin, and sprinkle the ham with pepper before sending to the table.

To pickle pork

Mix together four and a half pounds of salt, a pound of brown sugar and one ounce of saltpeter, stirred into three gallons of water. Boil for half an hour, skimming every ten minutes. Set aside to cool, and when cold pour over the meat packed in a crock or keg.

Virginia recipe for curing ham

Put the ham into pickle made by putting into one and one-half gallons of water one-half pound of brown sugar, one-half ounce of saltpeter and two and one-quarter pounds of salt. Boil this mixture for half an hour, skimming frequently; then set aside to cool and pour over the ham. Leave for two weeks, remove the ham, wash it in fresh water; dip it, still wet, in bran, and coat thickly with it. Now take to the smokehouse and hang, hock end down, in smoke from hickory chips and sawdust for four weeks. Brush off the bran, wrap in brown paper and hang up until needed.

POULTRY

ROAST TURKEY

Draw, with care not to break the gall-bag. Wash out the cavity three times with cold water, adding a little soda to the second water. You can not be too careful in this part of your task.

Fill the body and craw with some one of the stuffings or “dressings” given below. Sew up the body and tie the skin covering the craw securely about the “scrag” or neck with cotton twine. Bind the legs and wings snugly to the body with cotton tape or strips of muslin. If the fowl be rather scrawny cover the breast with thin slices of fat salt pork. Put upon the grating of your covered roaster. Pour a cupful of boiling water over it to sear the skin and keep in the juices; cover and cook fifteen minutes to the pound, quite fast for twelve minutes or so, afterward steadily but slowly. Baste four times, each time very thoroughly, with the gravy from the pan.

A quarter of an hour before taking the turkey up, uncover and wash over with butter, then dredge with flour, and shut up in the oven to brown.

Make the gravy by stirring into the contents of the dripping-pan (when you have removed the turkey and are keeping it hot) the giblets, minced almost to powder, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold water, salt and pepper to taste. Skim before you add anything. Boil one minute and pour into a gravy-boat.

Always serve cranberry sauce with turkey, when you can get it.

Bread dressing for turkey

To a large cupful of crumbs allow a tablespoonful of minced fat pork. Season with pepper and, if you like, a little minced parsley. A little onion juice is an improvement. Moisten very slightly with cream, or milk.

Sausage dressing for turkey

Make as in last recipe, substituting sausage-meat for the pork. If partially cooked before it goes into the dressing, it is more wholesome.

Oyster stuffing for turkey

Make a stuffing for turkey in the ordinary way of dried breadcrumbs seasoned with parsley, thyme and sweet marjoram, and moistened with melted butter. To this add twenty small oysters chopped fine, and with this stuff the breast of the turkey.

Or to the ordinary seasoned bread-stuffing for a turkey add two dozen small oysters, moisten the crumbs slightly with the oyster liquor, and fill the breast of the turkey with the mixture.

Chestnut stuffing for turkey

Boil one quart of the large French or Italian chestnuts, shell and peel them. Mash smooth and rub into them two tablespoonfuls of butter, and salt and white pepper to taste. Stuff the turkey with this as you would any other kind of dressing.

Fillets of turkey with rice

Skin the breast of a plump turkey, and slice away the breast. Use a sharp knife and hold it almost horizontal while at work. The slices should be nearly half an inch thick, and as nearly uniform in size as possible. Dip in beaten egg, then in salted and peppered cracker-crumbs; again in the egg, and once more in the crumbs. Set on the ice while you cook the rice.

Put one cupful of clear chicken or turkey stock into a saucepan; add a cupful of rice, one-half teaspoonful of onion juice, and the same of salt, and simmer slowly until the liquid is absorbed. When the rice is tender add two tablespoonfuls of butter; one tablespoonful of grated cheese, and season to taste. Cover and let it stand at the side of the fire until the fillets are ready. Heat five or six spoonfuls of pure salad oil slowly in a frying-pan, and when it boils, cook the fillets in it to a nice brown. Mound the savory rice in the center of a hot dish and lay the fillets about it.

When properly made this is an elegant _entrée_.

Roast turkey, réchauffé

When but half of a large turkey has been cut away, the remainder can be made presentable for a second serving by “braising” it thus:

Cut very thin slices of fat salt pork and cover the untouched side with them, binding in place with soft twine. Lay the turkey, cut-side downward, in your covered roaster; pour a large cupful of weak stock or gravy under the grating, put on the lid and cook one hour, slowly, basting several times with the gravy in the pan below the roast. Take up the turkey, remove the pork, dredge with flour and set back in the oven, basting it with butter to “glaze” it as soon as the flour is wet through. Shut up to brown when you have drained away the gravy.

Strain this through a colander, thicken with browned flour, add half a can of minced champignons, cook two minutes, and pour into a boat.

Scallop of turkey and oysters

Cut cold roast or boiled turkey into inch-lengths, free from skin and gristle, and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish. Season with salt and pepper, dot with butter and cover with minced raw oysters. Season this layer, scatter fine crumbs over it, put in more seasoned turkey, and go on in this order until your materials are used up. Pour in, then, a cupful of gravy made by boiling down bones and stuffing in a quart of water until reduced to one-third the original quantity of liquid, and straining out the bones. Cover with fine crumbs, dot with butter and bake, covered, forty-five minutes, then brown. You may omit the oysters, and have a plain turkey scallop.

Or substitute chopped mushrooms for the minced oysters.

Turkey and sausage pudding

This is a good way of using yesterday’s turkey, if there is not a sightly half left to be set on again.

Into a buttered bake-dish put a layer of turkey, cut—not chopped—into half-inch lengths. Drop bits of butter over it, but no other seasoning. Cover with minced, cooked sausage-meat, and this with three or four olives chopped fine. Proceed in this way until the dish is ready for the crust. Pour in a cupful of rich gravy made of bones and stuffing; cover with a good biscuit-dough half an inch thick; cut a hole in the middle and bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour, then brown.

Ragout of turkey

Break the carcass of a roast turkey all to pieces, and chop what remnants of stuffing you have. Add a quart of cold water, and cook slowly until you have but a cupful of liquid. Strain and let it get cold. Skim off the fat, season with onion juice, kitchen bouquet, salt and paprika, and set over the fire with the turkey meat, cut into neat cubes, and a half cupful of champignons (or fresh mushrooms, if you have them). Bring quickly to a boil, thicken well with browned flour, boil up, add a glass of claret and serve. Lay sippets of fried bread around the ragout.

Boiled turkey

An undeniably tough turkey would be better boiled than roasted.

Clean, wash and fill with oyster-stuffing, for which a recipe was given a few pages back. Truss closely and sew up in a clean piece of white mosquito-netting. Lay in a pan and pour boiling water all over it from the tea-kettle, slowly, to toughen the skin and keep in the juices. Roll the turkey over and over in his hot bath, take out at the end of two minutes; put into a pot, cover deep with cold water, and heat gradually to a boil. Cook fifteen minutes to the pound, always gently. If the turkey be large and old, give him twenty minutes for each pound. Take the pot from the range, leave it covered for twenty minutes with the bird in it. Take him out, unwrap quickly, dish, wash freely with hot butter well-seasoned with salt and white pepper; pour a few spoonfuls of hot drawn butter over him, and serve. Send oyster sauce around with boiled turkey.

DUCKS

Roast ducks

Draw and clean, washing the inside in three waters, the second having a teaspoonful of baking-soda mixed with it.

Plunge into ice-cold water; leave them there for fifteen minutes; wipe well inside and out, and stuff with a forcemeat of dry crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice and finely minced parsley.

Personally, I do not like sage in the stuffing. It gives a “medicated tang,” to my way of thinking—or tasting. Many people, however, insist upon adding the venerable simple to the forcemeat. Do not moisten the stuffing. Put it in dry, packing well. Dredge the ducks with peppered and salted flour; lay upon the grating of your roaster, pour a cupful of boiling water over them, and roast, covered, from twelve to fifteen minutes to the pound, according to age. Baste four times with the gravy from the dripping-pan. Uncover, wash with butter, dredge with flour and brown.

To make the gravy, drain off the liquor from the pan; set in ice-water to throw up the grease, strain, add the giblets minced very fine, thicken with browned flour, and boil for two minutes.

PAIR ROAST DUCKS

ROAST TURKEY

PAIR BOILED FOWLS GARNISHED WITH SLICED EGG

SCALLOPED CHICKEN

POULTRY AND ENTREES]

Serve with currant jelly, or apple sauce, and pass green peas with them.

Braised ducks

Young ducks are essential for this purpose. Lay three slices of fat corned ham upon the grating of your roaster, and upon them a minced onion, a stalk of celery, chopped, a sliced carrot and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Clean and truss, but do not stuff the ducks; lay them upon the prepared “bed,” and pour a cupful of boiling water over them. Cover the pan and let them cook, closely covered, in a moderate oven for about two hours. Take up the ducks, strain the liquor from the pan, and let it cool enough to remove all the fat. Then put it into a saucepan, and let it boil. Add one teaspoonful of lemon juice, and thicken it slightly with browned flour. Return the fowls to the sauce till hot again, then serve with the sauce poured over them.

Creole salmi of duck

Melt in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter, and stir into this a half tablespoonful, each, of chopped ham, onion, celery, sweet pepper and parsley, with a tablespoonful of flour, a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, and a half teaspoonful of paprika. Stir for three minutes, then add a cupful of consommé, two cloves and a blade of mace. Simmer for an hour; strain and add to it two cupfuls of cold duck, cut into neat pieces an inch long. Boil one minute to heat the meat thoroughly, and serve.

Garnish with sippets of fried bread.

CHICKENS

Roast chickens

Singe to get rid of down, draw and wash well, rinsing the cavity of each fowl with soda and water. Wipe and fill bodies and craws with a stuffing of dry crumbs, well-seasoned with pepper, salt and butter. Tie up the neck and bind legs and wings close to the body with soft cord or tapes.