Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Cut three pounds of lean mutton into dice. In a pot fry six slices of fat salt pork; when crisp, remove them with a skimmer and lay in the grease the mutton, dredged with flour and half an onion sliced. Cook for five minutes, then cover with cold water and simmer until the meat is very tender. Remove the meat, lay it on a platter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and keep it hot while you thicken the gravy in the pot with a brown roux, and season it to taste with a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and salt and pepper to taste. Now add the contents of a can of peas. These peas should have been drained and exposed to the air for an hour. Bring the stew to a boil, cook for five minutes, return the meat to the pot for a minute, then pour all into the hot platter.

Mince turnovers

Two cupfuls of flour, sifted twice with one rounded teaspoonful of baking-powder and half as much salt. Chop into it two tablespoonfuls of butter, and wet up with a cupful of milk, quickly and lightly. Roll into a sheet less than a quarter-inch thick, and this into squares about six inches across. Put into the middle of each square a large tablespoonful of minced poultry, veal, ham or lamb—or a mixture of these well-seasoned and wet with gravy. Double the paste into a triangle, enfolding the meat; pinch or print the edges to hold them together, and bake.

They are good hot or cold.

Beef with sauce piquante

Cut slices from yesterday’s roast of beef, mutton or veal. Put into a saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter, a teaspoonful of vinegar, a half-teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of made mustard, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir these ingredients well together and lay the sliced meat into the sauce thus prepared. Turn the meat over and over until heated through, and serve with the sauce poured over it.

Larded beef

With a sharp knife make through a round of beef incisions an inch apart. Into the holes thus made stick long strips of fat salt pork. Rub the meat with a dressing made of equal parts of oil and vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper. Let the meat lie in this for eight hours. Put the meat into a covered roaster, pour a pint of beef stock around it and roast for four hours. Set away in the gravy with a weight on the top. When cold, slice very thin and serve.

Beef loaf

Mix together three pounds of chopped raw beef, one-quarter of a pound of minced salt pork, one cup of cracker dust, two teaspoonfuls, each, of salt and pepper, and moisten all with two beaten eggs and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Work in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and pack in a greased mold. Cover; set in a roasting-pan of boiling water, and cook in a steady oven for two hours. Let the loaf get cold in the mold before turning out.

Veal loaf

Chop two pounds of cold cooked veal very fine, and work into it a teaspoonful, each, of salt, pepper and onion juice, a dozen chopped olives and as many minced mushrooms. Wet with a half-pint of veal or chicken stock. Pack in a greased mold and cook as in the preceding recipe. Have the loaf very cold before turning it out.

Pressed veal

Boil two pounds of lean veal in enough water to cover it. When cold, remove the meat from the liquor, skim the grease from the latter and chop the meat fine. To the chopped veal add a cupful of minced boiled ham and two hard-boiled eggs, chopped. Season the veal liquor with celery salt, pepper, a little tomato catsup and a dash of nutmeg. Make the chopped meat very moist with this liquor and press the mass hard into a buttered mold. Cover and set in the oven for half an hour. Remove from the oven; keep in a cool place for twenty-four hours, and turn from the mold upon a chilled platter.

Jellied tongue

Boil a tongue, and when cold place it in a brick-shaped mold. Into a pint of seasoned and heated beef stock stir a half-box of soaked gelatine, and when this is dissolved pour the stock around the tongue in the mold. When cool, set on the ice until the jelly is very firm. Turn out on a cold platter.

Jellied chicken

Boil a chicken the day before it is to be used. When the liquor is cold skim from it every bit of fat.

Soak a half-cup of gelatine in a cup of cold water for two hours. Remove all skin from the chicken and cut the meat into neat dice. Cut two dozen canned French mushrooms into halves. Stone and halve one dozen large olives.

Bring to a boil and strain a pint of the chicken liquor; stir into it the soaked gelatine, and set aside to cool. As it begins to thicken prepare your chicken loaf in the following manner: In a buttered mold lay a stratum of the chicken, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and a few halved olives and mushrooms, pour upon this the thickening, but still liquid, jelly. Then add more chicken, mushrooms and olives; pour upon them more jelly, and proceed in this manner until the mold is full. Set in a cool place for twenty-four hours before using. Lay a warm cloth for a moment about the mold, then invert it upon a chilled platter. This loaf is delicious served with lettuce and mayonnaise.

Beefsteak and sherry sauce

Broil a porterhouse steak over a clear fire until done. Lay on a hot platter. Make a sauce of a cupful of beef bouillon, thickened with a tablespoonful of brown roux, and when this is smooth add to it a wineglassful of sherry, a tablespoonful of onion juice and a half-cupful of French mushrooms, cut in half. Boil up once and pour over the steak.

Mock roast chicken

Boil and chop fine the giblets from three chickens saved from roast or fricassee. Trim the fat from a good-sized, but not thick, round steak. Make a forcemeat in the following manner:

Mix together the chopped chicken giblets, two hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine, and a half-cupful of fine bread-crumbs. Moisten all with chicken stock. Lay the steak upon the table, cover thickly with the forcemeat and roll it up, as you would a sheet of music, tying it in shape with stout strings. Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan and cook the steak in this just long enough to brown it lightly. Remove the meat from the pan and put over the fire in a large pot. Add to the fat in the pan a tablespoonful of browned flour and pour upon it two cups of chicken stock. Stir to a smooth sauce, season to taste and pour over the steak in the pot. Cover closely and simmer for an hour and a half. Transfer the meat to a hot platter, remove the string, and pour the sauce over it.

Stewed rump steak

Trim the fat from the edge of a thick rump steak, and put the steak over the fire in a large pot. Pour over it a cup of cold water, cover closely and set at the side of the range, where it will simmer for three-quarters of an hour after it reaches the boil. Remove the meat from the pot and transfer to a baking-pan; season the gravy and pour it over the top, and cook for fifteen minutes longer, basting three times during the process. Remove the steak to a hot platter and set in the open oven while you add to the gravy a cup of soup stock and thicken it with a little browned flour rubbed to a paste with a spoonful of butter. Season with kitchen bouquet, celery salt and a half-teaspoonful of good sauce. Add a dozen canned mushrooms cut in half. Cook one minute and pour over the steak.

Rump steak and tomatoes

With a sharp carving-knife split a thick rump steak, thus making two thin steaks. Spread the lower half of this with bits of butter, a little minced ham and a cupful of tomatoes. (Use the canned tomatoes, straining off the juice and using it for the sauce.) Lay the upper half of the steak, sandwich-wise, upon the lower, and fasten the two together with small, stout skewers. Lay the meat in a covered roasting-pan, dash a cup of boiling water over it, and cook, allowing twenty minutes to each pound. Transfer to a hot dish, remove the skewers and pour over the steak a savory tomato sauce.

Mutton mince with tomatoes

Make three cups of good tomato sauce thickened with a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Keep hot in a double boiler set at the side of range.

Toast slices of bread, butter, spread on a platter, and put a tablespoonful of tomato sauce on each. Into the remainder of the tomato sauce turn two cupfuls of minced mutton, put the saucepan over the fire, stir until the meat is thoroughly heated, season to taste and pour upon the toast.

Porterhouse steak with oysters

Broil a fine tender steak on both sides and transfer it to a hot dish. Pepper and salt well, then rub into the steak a mixture of butter rubbed to a cream with the juice of half a lemon.

Put one pint of oysters into a saucepan without any of the liquor. Stir until the edges ruffle, add one tablespoonful of butter creamed with an equal amount of flour and cooked to a roux. Pour over the hot steak and serve at once.

Savory stew of beef

Cut two pounds of raw lean beef into very small strips, almost like straws, with a keen blade. Put into a saucepan; cover with cold weak stock, or, if you have none, with cold water, and cook slowly two hours. Put into another saucepan a cupful of rich brown stock, one small onion chopped fine, a little grated nutmeg, cayenne pepper and the juice of half a lemon; boil these ingredients a few minutes and mix with the beef, adding a little browned flour if necessary. Dish upon a hot platter, lay triangles of fried toast about the base, and serve.

Roulades of beef

Cut two pounds of lean steak into pieces about five inches long and half as wide, and less than half an inch thick. Make a forcemeat of cooked sausage, chopped fine, and mixed with one-fourth as much fine, buttered and seasoned bread-crumbs. Place two tablespoonfuls of this mixture on each piece of meat, roll them into the shape of a small cylinder, and sew both ends with fine thread. Let them brown in butter in a frying-pan, then put them into a saucepan with the juice of a lemon, two cupfuls of brown stock, a carrot and an onion, sliced, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover closely, and cook for two hours. Transfer to a hot platter, clip and draw out the thread; thicken the gravy left in the saucepan with browned flour, add a little Worcestershire sauce and a glass of sherry; boil up once and pour over the roulades.

How to use up the cold tongue

Cut cold boiled beef-tongue into dice. Make a roux in a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same amount of flour, salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lemon. Add a cupful of strained tomato. Simmer slowly for ten minutes. Strain, return to the saucepan, lay in the tongue and let it stand where it will keep hot without boiling for five minutes. Serve in a hot platter.

This is still better if made of fresh beef’s tongue.

Galantine

Cut a strip of lean veal from the loin or the breast, about six inches wide and twice as long. Prepare a forcemeat of cooked ham, chopped mushrooms, any scraps of poultry you may have, the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, one-third as much crumbs as you have meat, season with paprika and grated onion.

Lay this forcemeat in the center of the veal, roll up carefully, wrap in cheese-cloth and sew up closely. Lay it in a plate in a kettle, cover with cold water, add one-half teaspoonful of salt, one bay leaf and a sprig of thyme, cover and boil for fifteen minutes. Then put it at one side of the fire where it can only simmer for two hours. When done set aside, with a plate upon it and a heavy weight upon the plate, until next day. Clip the threads, unwrap the meat and serve, garnished with cress and nasturtiums. Cut perpendicularly.

Chipped smoked beef

Shred the beef into thin straws. Make a white sauce, lay in the beef and simmer for five minutes. Then stir in a beaten egg, a little onion juice and pepper. Stir until the egg is set, and serve upon toast.

Brains on toast

Scald and blanch the brains, beat smooth, add three eggs and beat hard. Have ready a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan hissing hot; turn in the mixture and stir steadily for three minutes. Serve upon rounds of toast.

Baked calf’s liver (larded)

Lard with strips of fat salt pork, inserted perpendicularly. The lardoons should project on both sides. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with minced pork, place the liver on it; add a carrot, two small onions, a half-dozen stalks of celery, all chopped fine; the juice of a lemon and a quart of strong stock; cover the saucepan and bake slowly for two hours and a half, basting often with the liquor in the pan. When done remove the liver, and put into the oven for a few minutes to brown; make a rich gravy of the remainder of the gravy in the pan; put the liver in the center of the dish, strain the sauce and pour over it.

Mock pâté de foie gras

When poultry is in full season and the weather is cold, save the giblets from half a dozen fowls, boiling them, salting slightly to keep them and setting them in a cold place. When you have enough, chop them, rejecting tough portions, and run through a vegetable press. Work to a smooth paste with melted butter, season with paprika, salt, and a dash of onion juice. Pack down in small jars, pour melted butter over the top, and keep in a cool, dry place. If you will boil a few mushrooms in salted water, strain, cut them into coarse dice and intersperse throughout the paste, you will have a veritable imitation of the famous Strasburg _pâtés_.

You may substitute calf’s, lamb’s or pig’s liver for those of fowls if you can not get the latter.

Savory ham

Fry slices of boiled ham on both sides. Transfer to a hot dish. Cook together in a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a teaspoonful of granulated sugar, a teaspoonful of French mustard, and a dash of paprika. Stir until very hot, and pour over the fried ham.

Cottage pie

(Contributed)

Chop cold meat very fine. To each cupful add one saltspoonful of salt and one-and-a-half saltspoonfuls of pepper, a pinch of summer savory and one-half cupful of stock. Put into a baking dish and cover with a crust of mashed potatoes. Brush over the top with milk and bake in an oven to a golden brown.

Breaded tongue with tomato sauce

(Contributed)

Take six slices of cooked tongue, one-half can of tomatoes, one slice of onion, three tablespoonfuls of butter and a bit of bay leaf, three tablespoonfuls of flour, one-third cupful of bread-crumbs and one egg. Cut the tongue in slices about one-half inch thick. Dip into the crumbs, then in the egg and then in the crumbs again, and sauté in butter. Place on a dish and pour around it a sauce made by cooking together the tomatoes, onion and bay leaf fifteen minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Steamed beef

(Contributed)

Select a piece of lean beef, wipe well with a cloth wrung out of cold water; remove all pieces of fat and gash with a sharp knife. Put the meat into a stone crock, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put in a few cloves. Cover with a tight lid. Cook in an oven slowly for several hours allowing no steam to escape. When done the meat will be very tender.

Irish stew

Take a pound of meat from the neck of beef or mutton and cut into neat pieces. Stew gently, and about an hour before it is done season and add two onions cut into dice and two carrots also cut into dice. About half an hour before the meat is done add two potatoes and three stalks of celery cut into dice. Serve on a platter, putting the vegetables around the meat.

Veal loaf (raw meat)

Put three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of salt pork through the meat chopper; add to this one teacupful of fine bread crumbs, one tablespoonful of butter, three beaten eggs to which four tablespoonfuls of cream have been added, one teaspoonful of pepper, three teaspoonfuls of salt and two teaspoonfuls of powdered sage. Mix well together and form into a loaf. Bake in a mold two and a half hours, basting with butter and water.

Peppers stuffed with giblets

Extract the seeds from large sweet green peppers, and cut the latter into halves. Pour boiling water over them to mellow their pungency. Leave them in this until they are cold and set them on ice to get firm. When ready to cook them fill each half with minced giblets seasoned and moistened with gravy. Put the halves together, fasten in place with skewers or toothpicks, set in a bake-dish; pour in enough stock to prevent scorching and bake, covered, twenty minutes.

FAMILIAR TALK

LIVING TO LEARN

When one is too old to learn anything, his day of life is virtually over, so far as usefulness to his kind goes. The ten or twenty years left to him upon earth are a blunder on the part of some one, and we know that the Creator and Father of us all makes no mistakes. In the eloquent (and pessimistic) description of old age from the pen of the royal preacher-poet, we read that the aged shall be afraid of that which is high. The shrinking from new emprises, characteristic of the days when the almond-tree shall blossom and the knees that upbear (or keep) the house, shall tremble, is excusable when physical infirmity has enfeebled nervous forces and digestion. There is no excuse except this for the cessation of mind-growth.

This may sound didactic. It is written with a purpose. Given a sane mind in a sane body, and learning should go on indefinitely. The man or woman of mature years leaves off lessons because he chooses to get out of the habit of study. The prejudice against old cooks—said by one authority to be either drunk or crazy as a class—is founded upon this disinclination to learn novel methods. She who honestly aspires after excellence never thinks that she has reached it. When, in saying, “that is not MY WAY,” a cook believes that she has put an end, not only to controversy, but to any suspicion that the world may have moved an inch or two since she learned her trade—she registers herself among the incurables.

The mistress who yields to the earliest manifestations of an inclination to draw the dead line in housewifely progress is weakly indulgent or blindly foolish. In one wealthy family, not a hundred miles from a great city, “a valued old servant” played the tyrant for over a score of years. Little by little, the employers, mindful of her long term of faithful service, admitted her pleas that this or that new-fangled way was opposed to her habits and inclination, until family bills of fare were monotonous to boredom, the style of serving that of a preceding generation. At last Elizabeth died and was buried at the master’s expense.

“It’s dreadful, I suppose,” piped the youngling of the long-suffering band on the way home from the funeral. “But it ought to be some comfort that we won’t be obliged to have rice pudding three times a week any more.”

Faithful Elizabeth had her epitaph.

Nothing is more solemnly and sadly sure in this rushing age than that he who does not keep up with it will be thrown down and trampled out of sight. It is a trifle, apparently, when a woman tabooes oil in salad dressing because she “has never been used to putting it in,” when she thinks mint sauce a “trashy” accompaniment to roast lamb, and “won’t hear of hot sauce with cold pudding,” or whipped cream as an accompaniment to ice-cold raw tomatoes. When the vegetable dishes must all be set on the table with the meat, “as she has always had them,” and lettuce be cut up and dressed in the kitchen at the cook’s convenience, instead of being served, crisp and cool, from the deft fingers of some member of the family who is “up in salads.”

Each protest is a symptom of decadence which is wilful, not inevitable. She has stopped learning because she _has_ “stopped.” In time, mental muscles become stiff, but disuse is the cause of the change.

“I account that day lost in which I have learned no new thing,” said an aged sage.

Our housewife may lay the saying to heart. If there be a better way than hers of doing anything—from making pickles to giving a wedding supper—she should be on the alert to possess herself of it. It is not true that it is easier for young people to keep themselves and their houses abreast of the times than it is for their elders. The first step that counts in the downward road is the tendency not to take any step at all. To stand still is to be left.

Many who believe that they cultivate the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the willing, receptive mind, live and die without learning the great truth that the mighty thing we call Life is made up of minute matters. They see and admire the coral reef that heaves a back a mile long out of the surf, and give never a thought to the coral builders.

A man who thinks much and observes much, once told me that one essential difference between a man’s work and a woman’s is that he grasps general principles while she gives her attention to details.

A man, according to this authority, is an impressionist painter, handling his brush boldly, dashing in broad effects of light and shadow, while a woman finishes each object carefully, sometimes, after the manner of the Dutch school of painting, showing the very hairs upon the brawny peasant’s arm.

(I may be excused for saying, in passing, that, being a woman, I founded upon his general principle the particular moral that one sex supplements the other, and that the Creator meant the work of the world to be done by them in concert.)

He had turned from his desk to talk with me and, while talking, looked ruefully at an inky forefinger.

“I should keep some pumice stone, or acetic acid, or acetate of soda, or ammonia, here to remove ink-stains,” he said. “I always spill ink in filling my fountain pen.”

A box of matches was in a pigeonhole; a wet sponge, used for stamping and sealing letters, was close to the disfigured hand. I bade him wet the match and rub it upon the stain until it disappeared—the work of a minute. The sulphur in the ever-convenient match acted upon the black spots without blackening the skin, whereas any one of the four detersives he had mentioned would have left a hard, disagreeable sensation upon the cuticle. He was all right as to the principles. The one driblet of practical wisdom was for the moment worth them all.

A bright young woman whom I am glad to know, has written a little book entitled, “FIRST AID TO THE YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER.” It includes scores of things which everybody ought to know, and which everybody else, especially the writer of household manuals, takes it for granted that the housewife _does_ know. It is intelligent attention to this very matter of detail that constitutes the “finish” of work of whatever kind. One of the “Sunday books” of my childhood was a series called “THE WEEK,” a story of English cottage life. I can recall many sentences and the whole story in substance. One remark was to this effect: “Mary was a good housekeeper; Nanny an indifferent. Nanny’s hearth was free of ashes and cinders, but dusty in the corners. Mary’s was not only swept, but pipe-clayed. Mary’s kettle was bright and black; Nanny’s clean, but brown and dull.”

That is, Nanny had mastered general principles; Mary looked to details.

I read last week in a woman’s corner of a daily paper a letter from a grateful housewife whose hall carpet had been deluged by the kerosene from a broken lamp. By the advice of a visitor she promptly covered the great spot with dry oatmeal. When this was swept off in the morning not a trace of the oil remained.

“My husband explains this by saying that the oatmeal is at once an alkali and an absorbent,” she writes. “I pass the useful knowledge on.”

A careless servant knocked a lamp from the table in the bedroom of my summer cottage and the matting got a full quart of the best kerosene. I had the floating oil wiped up with a clean, soft cloth, opened the windows, shut the door, and let no one enter the room for twelve hours. Not a trace of grease remained at the end of that time. The volatile oil had effaced itself. The alkaline absorbent was not needed.

“We are all fond of cauliflower; my husband and sons like young onions in the season,” said the mistress of a big house. “We can not have either of these vegetables cooked on account of the odor. It fills the house from cellar to attic.”

A housewife who lives in a tiny city flat has both of these dishes whenever she likes. The vegetables are put over the fire in cold water; a little salt is thrown in, and the pot is left uncovered. If these rules be strictly obeyed, the rising odor during cooking will be scarcely perceptible.

A physician, driving with his wife through a lonely country neighborhood, heard screams issuing from the open door of a cottage and went in to see if he could be of use. A child had upset a kettle of boiling water upon its legs and feet and was in agony from the scald.

“Have you linseed oil and lime water in the house?” asked the doctor.

Before the distracted mother could say that there was neither, the doctor’s wife said, “Do you burn wood in any room?”

There was a wood-stove in the parlor. There is always lard in the country pantry. In three minutes an ointment of lard and soot from the stovepipe was beaten up and spread upon old linen; in five minutes the scalds were covered with it. The relief was speedy; the cure complete in a day or two.

The wise housewife gleans a great store of precious driblets against the hour and minute of need. Such study of details is like sweeping up gold filings. The separate particles are nominally valueless, compared with the mastery of great principles. When massed and assorted, they go far toward making life easy.

A suggestive German fable is of a trooper who saw a loose horseshoe on the ground as he was going into battle, got down, picked it up and hung it about his neck by a string. In the first charge a bullet struck the horseshoe and glanced aside harmlessly.

“Ha!” said the trooper. “Even a little armor is a good thing, if rightly placed.”

The horseshoe was “a detail.”

GENERAL DIRECTIONS

(_Which the housewife is particularly requested to read_)

Two things are essential to the excellence of croquettes. The mixture composing them must not be too stiff. The fat in which they are cooked must be boiling when they go in, and deep enough to float them. If these conditions are neglected, you will have a pasty, sticky compound, soaked with grease and misshapen, perhaps scorched on the under side. The hot fat should form a crust instantly which prevents the fat from touching the interior of the croquette.

_Always_ make out croquettes at least a couple of hours before they are to be cooked; roll in egg, then in fine crumbs, or in cracker-dust; arrange upon a floured dish, not touching one another, and leave upon ice, or in a very cold place to stiffen.

Oyster croquettes

Cook twenty-five oysters in their liquor until they just begin to ruffle, remove from the fire, drain (reserving half a cupful of the liquor), and chop fine. Stir together over the fire two tablespoonfuls of flour and two of butter and pour on them a half-cupful of cream with a pinch of soda in it, and the half-cupful of oyster liquor. When beaten to a smooth sauce add slowly the beaten yolk of two eggs, then the chopped oysters, salt and pepper and a pinch of grated nutmeg. Remove at once from the fire and set aside to cool. When very cold form into croquettes.

Lobster croquettes

(Contributed)

Two cupfuls of minced lobster seasoned well with paprika, salt and a little mace. One-fourth the quantity of bread-crumbs, i. e. about half a cupful. Four tablespoonfuls of cream, heated (with a pinch of soda), and thickened with a teaspoonful of butter rolled in flour. Make a thick paste of the mixture; let it get stiff and cold; make into croquettes, roll in egg and cracker-crumbs; set on the ice for an hour; roll again in cracker-dust and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, which has been heated slowly. Drain, garnish with lemon and parsley and serve.

Chicken croquettes

Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter until they are blended. Pour upon this white roux a cupful of rich milk, and when you have a smooth white sauce stir in a cupful and a half of minced boiled or roast chicken. Season to taste with celery salt, white pepper and a dash of nutmeg. Cook until well heated, then add the yolks of two eggs and cook for just two minutes before removing from the fire. Set aside until cold and stiff; mold into croquettes, roll in cracker-dust, in beaten egg and yet again in cracker-dust, and set on the ice for two hours before frying.

Turkey croquettes

Make in the same way, but mince more finely, as the meat is firmer and harder.

Veal croquettes

Make a forcemeat of two cupfuls of minced veal, two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, one scant teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of paprika, one-eighth teaspoonful of mace, one teaspoonful of onion juice, a tablespoonful of butter and the yolks of two raw eggs. Stir in a saucepan over the fire until the mixture is heated through, and set aside to cool. When cool, make up into croquettes, dip in beaten egg, roll in egg and fine crumbs and fry. Serve with tomato sauce.

Veal and spaghetti croquettes

Mix together a cupful, each, of cold cooked veal and of cold boiled spaghetti, both minced fine. Season with salt, paprika and onion juice. Stir into a cupful of drawn butter, well thickened; cook together in a saucepan until smoking hot, when add the yolk of a raw egg and a tablespoonful of Parmesan cheese (powdered). Form into croquettes, dip into beaten egg, roll in breadcrumbs and fry in smoking hot cottolene or other fat, or dripping until brown. Serve with tomato sauce.

Chicken and macaroni croquettes

Make as directed in the foregoing recipe, omitting the cheese. A nice sauce for either of these dishes is stewed and strained tomatoes, thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour and cooked one minute before a large tablespoonful of grated Parmesan cheese is stirred in.

Rice croquettes

Beat an egg light and stir it into a cupful of boiled rice; add a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and melted butter, salt to taste, add enough cream to form the mixture into croquettes of the right consistency. Dip each croquette into beaten egg, then in cracker-dust and set all for two hours in a cold place before frying in boiling cottolene, or other fat, to a golden brown.

Croquettes of brains

Calf’s, or lamb’s or pig’s brains may be used for this dish.

Wash the brains in cold water, put them over the fire in boiling water, cook for two minutes, drain and lay in ice-cold water until cold and stiff.

Beat them into a paste. Have ready some thick drawn butter and beat into the brains until the paste is smooth and stiff enough to handle; add, then, flour to stiffen it yet more; season with pepper, salt and a little very finely minced parsley; flour your hands, make the paste into croquettes; roll in egg and cracker-crumbs; set on the ice for two hours—or more—and fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve.

Veal and ham croquettes

Mince enough cold veal to make a cupful when chopped; mix with it half as much cold boiled ham and one-fourth as much fine crumbs. Rub the yolk of a hard-boiled egg through a colander or vegetable press, and add to the mixture. Season with pepper and onion juice and moisten with thickened gravy or with drawn butter. Lastly, whip in a raw egg to bind the mixture and make into croquettes. Roll in egg and in crumbs, set aside to form and stiffen, and fry.

Potato croquettes

Work to a paste two cupfuls of mashed potatoes and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season with salt and pepper and beat light with a raw egg. Form into balls or croquettes; roll in egg and then in cracker-dust; let them stand on ice until stiff and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain off every drop of fat and serve hot.

Hominy croquettes

Make precisely as you would potato croquettes, beating hard until the mixture is entirely free from lumps, hominy being more adhesive and _co_hesive than potato.

Fish and potato croquettes

One cupful of cold cooked fish picked to pieces with a fork, and one-third the quantity of mashed potato worked to a stiff cream with a little drawn butter and seasoned with pepper, salt and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Make into croquettes; roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs; let them get cold and firm and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat.

Beef croquettes

Two cups of minced cold roast beef or steak—(never corned beef). One-quarter as much mashed potato. Season well with pepper, salt and onion juice, with a little very finely minced parsley. Enough gravy to moisten the mixture and a raw egg to bind it.

Work together well, mold into cones, cover with egg and cracker-dust; let them get chilled for two hours and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or dripping.

Potato and nut croquettes

Blanch the kernels of two dozen English walnuts, or twice that number of pecans, by pouring scalding water over them and leaving them in it until the skins crack and curl. Strip them bare, spread on a dish, sprinkle lightly with celery salt and paprika, and let them get perfectly cold. When crisp, pound in a mortar, or chop and crush fine. Mix with them two cupfuls of mashed potatoes, into which you have worked a little cream, butter and salt while hot. Beat into the mixture the raw yolk of an egg. Mold into croquettes; set aside until stiff; roll in egg and then in cracker-crumbs, and fry. Dry in a hot colander and serve at once.

Celery croquettes

Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter, and when they bubble pour upon them a cupful of milk. When this is thick and free from lumps pour it gradually upon the beaten yolks of two eggs. Now add a cupful of celery cut (not chopped) into tiny bits, season with celery salt and white pepper and turn out to cool. When cold form with floured hands into small croquettes, roll these in cracker-dust, then in beaten egg, again in cracker-dust and set aside for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, always brought gradually to the boil.

Oyster-plant croquettes

(Contributed)

Boil, mash and season the oyster-plant, mold into shapes, sprinkle with bread-crumbs, dip in egg and again in crumbs and fry in hot fat.

Sweetbread croquettes

(Contributed)

Take four sweetbreads, removing pipes and membranes soak for an hour in cold salted water. Plunge into boiling salted water to which has been added a tablespoonful of vinegar; cook twenty minutes. Drop again into cold water to harden. Chop them very fine and season with salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of grated onion. Add the beaten yolks of three eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, one-half cupful of cream and enough fine bread-crumbs to make soft enough to roll into balls. Dip in egg and then in bread-crumbs and fry in hot fat to a nice brown. Take up and drain on brown paper. Serve hot with sliced lemon.

Mushroom croquettes

Mince fresh mushrooms fine with a keen blade; season with pepper and salt; add a tablespoonful of fine crumbs to each cupful of the chopped mushrooms; work in a little melted butter and the beaten yolk of an egg. When the mixture is cold form into croquettes and set on the ice until you are ready to cook them. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs and fry in deep fat.

WITH THE CASSEROLE

The French name “casserole” has a certain amount of terror for the American housewife. The foreign word startles her and awakens visions of cooking as done by a Parisian _chef_, or by one who has made the culinary art his profession. She, a plain, every-day housekeeper, would not dare aspire to the use of a casserole.

And yet the casserole itself is no more appalling than a saucepan. It is simply a covered dish, made of fireproof pottery, which will stand the heat of the oven or the top of the range. And the dainty cooked in this dish is “casserole” of chicken, rice, etc., as the case may be. Like many another object of dread this, when once known, is converted into a friend.

Casserole of chicken

Clean and joint a tender spring chicken. Put into a frying-pan three tablespoonfuls of butter and fry in this a small onion and a carrot, both cut into tiny dice. When these vegetables are lightly browned, turn into the casserole, add to them two cupfuls of clear soup stock, in which three bay leaves and a little thyme have been boiled and then removed. In this consommé lay the jointed chicken, put the closely-fitting cover on the casserole and set it in a steady oven. It should cook for an hour. At the end of this time stir into the chicken a dessertspoonful of tomato catsup. Recover and cook for half an hour longer. Then add two dozen small French mushrooms which have been previously stewed for ten minutes, lastly, a glass of sherry. Season the whole to taste with pepper and salt and leave uncovered in the oven long enough for the chicken to brown. Fresh mushrooms are, of course, better than canned when you can get them.

Casserole of rice and liver

Boil a cupful of rice in a quart of water until reduced to a soft paste. Mash this rice paste smooth with two tablespoonfuls of butter and salt and pepper to taste. Line a well-greased casserole with the mixture, pressing the paste firmly against bottom and sides, and leaving a large hollow in the center. Set in a cold place until stiff and firm. Meanwhile boil a pound of lamb’s liver, drain and chop fine. Heat in a saucepan two cupfuls of soup stock, season with a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, thicken with browned flour and stir into this sauce the minced liver. Fill the hollow in the center of the rice with the liver mixture, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and set in the oven to brown.

Casserole of potato and cheese

Boil a sufficient number of potatoes to make three cupfuls when mashed. Return the mashed potatoes to a saucepan and stir over the fire, as you add slowly the beaten yolks of three eggs. When the smoking mass is hot and stiff, turn it into a greased casserole and press firmly against the sides, leaving a hollow in the middle about the size of a kitchen teacup. Brush the top and sides of the potato with the white of an egg and set in the oven until glazed and firm. Meanwhile, heat in a frying-pan or chafing-dish six tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese in a gill of milk and when hot add to it the yolk of an egg, a pinch of salt and a dash of paprika. When this cheese-sauce is thick and hot, remove the casserole from the oven, fill the hollow in the middle of the potato with the cheese mixture, sprinkle cracker-crumbs over the top of the potato and cheese and return to the oven to brown. Serve in the casserole and at once.

Casserole of lamb or mutton chops

Trim the chops neatly, removing every bit of fat and skin. In the bottom of the casserole put a layer of pared and shredded tomatoes; sprinkle with salt, pepper, a little sugar and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Lay three or four chops upon the tomatoes; season them with salt and pepper; arrange about them small pellets of parboiled potato, cut with a gouge, after the manner of Parisian potatoes,—also a dozen or so champignons (canned mushrooms). Now, more tomato, seasoned as before, then more chops, potatoes and mushrooms, until all are used up in this order. The upper layer should be tomatoes. Pour in a generous cupful of stock—bouillon, consommé, mutton broth, or whatever you have; cover and cook steadily for two hours if the casserole be large.

When the meat is tender to the trial-fork, pour off the gravy carefully into a saucepan, thicken with browned flour; add the juice of half a lemon, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and a glass of brown sherry. Pour back over the contents of the casserole, set in the oven for three minutes, covered, and serve in the dish.

An elegant dish can be made of unpromising chops by following these directions.

Mock casseroles of chicken

Select large, smooth, tart apples of good flavor and of uniform size. Remove core with corer. Mince cold chicken fine, season with salt, a dash of cayenne, pinch of powdered thyme, one-half cupful of bread-crumbs, moistened with three or four teaspoonfuls of sweet cream. Fill each apple and bake in oven. Serve hot or cold with mayonnaise as a salad.

Creamed chicken

Carve enough meat from a cold roast chicken to make a pint when cut into small dice. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour; when they are blended pour upon them a cup of white stock, and when this is thick, a cup of milk. Stir to a smooth sauce and add the minced chicken. Season to taste; cook until the meat is very hot and serve.

Creamed chicken and macaroni

Cut cold boiled or roast chicken into small dice of uniform size, and into half-inch lengths half the quantity of cold, cooked macaroni. Make a good white sauce, season highly with paprika, salt and a suspicion of onion juice. Beat two eggs light and stir into them four tablespoonfuls of cream, heated, with a pinch of soda. Mix well with the chicken and spaghetti; put over the fire in a frying-pan, or broad saucepan, and stir and toss until smoking hot. Serve in a deep dish.

Scallops of turkey or chicken

Chop the meat fine and to two cupfuls add a tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, half a cupful of boiling water, salt and pepper to taste. Put these all into a saucepan and stir while heating. Lastly, put in two raw eggs, beaten light, and take from the fire. Fill baking cups two-thirds full of the mixture, set in a pan of boiling water and bake about twenty-five minutes. Turn out carefully into a heated dish and pour white sauce around them.

Philadelphia scrapple

(Contributed)

Take a cleaned pig’s head and boil until the flesh slips easily from the bones. Remove all the bones and chop fine. Set the liquor in which the meat was boiled aside until cold, take the cake of fat from the surface and return the liquor to the fire. When it boils, put in the chopped meat and season well with pepper and salt. Let it boil again and thicken with corn-meal as you would in making ordinary corn-meal mush, by letting it slip slowly through the fingers to prevent lumps.

Cook an hour, stirring constantly at first, afterward putting back on the range in a position to boil gently. When done, pour into a long, spare pan, not too deep, and mold. In cold weather this can be kept several weeks. Slice and sauté in butter or dripping.

CHEESE DISHES FOR LUNCHEON

A fondu of cheese

Grate cheese and crush broken and dried bread and crusts into fine crumbs. There should be two cupfuls of these to one of cheese. Wet the crumbs with two cupfuls of milk in which has been dissolved a bit of soda no larger than a Lima bean. Beat two eggs light, whites and yolks apart; whip the yolks into the soaked crumbs with a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season with salt and a dust of cayenne, add the frothed whites, deftly and rapidly; bake in a greased pudding dish in a brisk oven, keeping the dish covered until the fondu has puffed high and is crusty on top. Then brown lightly and serve at once, as it soon falls. Pass crackers and pickles with it.

Rice and cheese pudding

Boil a cupful of rice tender; drain dry in a hot colander; set at the side of the range for ten minutes. Mix, then, with two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Line a well-greased dish with this paste, leaving a hollow in the middle. The walls of rice should be about an inch thick. Set in the hot oven for five minutes. Have ready a cupful of hot milk; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, half a cupful of grated cheese, a generous pinch of paprika, with salt to taste, and a pinch of baking-soda. Lastly, and quickly, add a beaten egg. Pour this mixture into the hollowed rice, sift fine crumbs over it, and set covered in the oven. At the end of ten minutes uncover and brown slightly. Serve at once, as it falls into heaviness with standing.

Cheese rice

Boil a cupful of rice in two quarts of water. When tender, turn into a colander, drain, shake hard and stand at the side of the range ten minutes to dry. Now stir into the rice, first, a tablespoonful of melted butter, then four tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese and a dash of cayenne pepper. Serve very hot.

Tomatoes and cheese

Cut the stem-end from large tomatoes, and with a small spoon scoop out the insides. To two tablespoonfuls of the tomato pulp add a teaspoonful of bread-crumbs and the same quantity of cheese crumbled into bits. Season to taste and return this mixture to the tomatoes. Replace the stem-ends and bake the tomatoes for twenty minutes in a roasting-pan. Transfer to a hot platter and serve.

Cheese straws

To a half pint of prepared flour add two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, moisten with the yolk of an egg and enough milk to make a paste that can be rolled out. Roll into a thin sheet and cut into narrow “straws.” Bake to a delicate brown. While they are hot sift grated cheese over them.

Cheese puffs

In a saucepan of boiling water melt two tablespoonfuls of butter. When the water and butter are boiling, stir into them four tablespoonfuls of flour, wet with a little cold water, and four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Cook for three minutes, stirring all the time. Remove from the fire, and when the mixture is cold add two eggs and beat hard for fifteen minutes. Line a baking-pan with greased paper and drop the mixture upon it, a spoonful at a time, leaving ample space between each puff for the swelling caused by baking. When puffed up and brown they are done and must be eaten at once.

Cheese fritters

Make small sandwiches of buttered white bread (from which the crust has been removed) sliced thin and thin slices of cheese. Press each sandwich firmly, that the two pieces of bread may not separate in the cooking, and drop into boiling fat. Fry to a golden brown and remove to a colander lined with tissue paper.

Egg and cheese timbales

Beat six eggs very light and add to them a gill of warm milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, five tablespoonfuls of grated cheese and a pinch, each, of paprika and salt. Butter small timbale molds, or pâté pans, fill with the egg mixture and set in a baking-pan of boiling water until the egg is set. Turn out carefully on a hot platter and pour hot tomato sauce about them. Serve at once, as they soon fall. A nice luncheon _entrée_.

Cheese soufflé

Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and flour, and when they are blended pour upon them a half pint of milk. Stir to a smooth white sauce and stir into this eight tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a saltspoonful of salt, a pinch of baking-soda and a dash of paprika. Have ready beaten four eggs, white and yolks separate. Remove the cheese mixture from the fire and gradually beat into it the yolks of the eggs; last of all, fold in lightly the stiffened whites. Turn the mixture into a greased pudding-dish and bake in a steady oven to a golden brown. Serve immediately.

Cheese ramakins

Cut slices of bread very thick, pare off the crusts and press a round cake-cutter half-way through the middle of each slice. Take out the crumb enclosed in this circle. Butter the bread and set in the oven until dry and crisp. Now fill the hollow in each slice with a mixture made of a tablespoonful of butter, four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a tablespoonful of cream and a little salt and pepper. Set for five minutes in a hot oven.

Cheese biscuits

Cook together in a small saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter and four of flour. When these are blended pour upon them a half pint of boiling water and stir until thick and smooth; add four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a dash of celery salt and of cayenne pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until very thick; remove from the fire and add, slowly, two beaten eggs. Beat for ten minutes and drop by the spoonful upon a greased baking-pan. Drop these cakes so far apart that they will not touch each other. Lay a sheet of brown paper over the top of the pan and set in a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes. When the biscuits are puffed up and seem nearly done, remove the paper and brown them. Slip a thin-bladed knife carefully under the biscuits to loosen them from the pan and serve at once, as they soon fall.

Cheese crackers

On buttered crackers lay slices of American cheese cut thin; arrange in a baking-pan and set in the oven until the cheese is melted. Serve hot. A little cayenne sprinkled upon the crackers is liked by many.

Cheese fingers

Cut puff-paste into strips as long and as wide as your middle finger, sprinkle with a layer of cheese (grated), press upon this another strip of pastry, sprinkle with more cheese and bake in a quick oven.

Cream cheese

To every quart of rich milk you use allow a pinch of salt and a teaspoonful of rennet, taking care to buy that which is not flavored in any way. When it is solid, turn into a bag and let it drip. When it is well drained so that all the whey is taken from the curd—it may take more than a day for this, and in that case you must change the bag at the end of the first twelve hours—take it out, chop the curd fine, put it into a cheese box and press two hours. Wrap in two or three folds of tissue paper or in tinfoil, to exclude the air.

Deviled crackers and cheese