Chapter XXXVII

GÂTEAU DE RIZ—FRENCH RICE CAKE—PREPARING CALF’S HEAD—MOCK-TURTLE SOUP—MORE NOODLES—PIGEON PIE.

OF course Molly’s supper was a success, and of course there were many who thought it must have cost a great deal more than the amount usually expended; but when there was a comparison of expenses there was nothing to be said, for Molly was well within the lowest, and then every one wanted to know how it was done, and especially how the sandwiches were made, such a pleasant change were they from the usual thing, good as it is. Molly was not experienced in quantities needed, and had feared something might fall short, but there were both _consommé_ and cakes left.

“Shall we have to live on ‘stale party’ the rest of the week, Molly?” Harry had asked.

“You’ll have ‘stale party’ soup a couple of times, but no other reminiscence shall be served up.”

And to give Marta an opportunity of showing her way of making noodles to Mrs. Welles, Molly decided to have noodle soup and roast beef for dinner.

They all three set to work to remove the traces of the night before. While Marta swept, Molly and her friend washed up dishes and returned them to their places. When all was done, Molly said, “What can I make with the spare yolks of eggs from yesterday?”

“How many are there?”

“Four,—two from the omelette soufflé and two from clearing the soup.”

“Then make a French rice cake for dinner.”

“You make it, for I don’t know how. And now you are here, I want to cook a calf’s head. You are fond of it, I know, and one is too much for us alone; besides, there are so many English ways of cooking it. I only know one.”

“Get the head, and I will show you half a dozen dishes from it. Do you want mock-turtle soup?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then we will use half for that purpose, and the other we will do various things with.”

Molly had already ordered her butcher to get one for her one day this week. He had sent word it would be ready this morning, and she was expecting it.

Calf’s head, although a fashionable dish, either as mock-turtle or any of the several ways in which it is served, is, like some other things with an awe-inspiring name, a very economical one, especially in country places, where calves’ heads have few buyers. For this reason Molly wanted to perfect herself in preparing it. By the time Mrs. Welles had put a small cup of rice on to boil in a pint and a half of milk, the head came. She watched the rice come to the boil, then put it where it would simmer slowly, and turned her attention to the head. It was a very good one, for Molly had said if it were not fat she would not care to have it. She had also directed it to be split. He had asked her if she wanted it skinned.

“No, indeed; only scalded and the hair scraped off.”

“I only asked, because some folks like them skinned.”

Molly was relating this to Mrs. Welles and preparing her to see the head either skinned in spite of her order, or else sent with the hair half on when it came, but it was really very well dressed.

“I’m going to let you prepare it, Charlotte, and look on, for I have only seen it done once at a cooking-demonstration.”

“Very well, you attend to the rice, then, and keep it from burning. It must stew slowly, with the cover tight on it, till it will mash into a paste, and more milk added if required.”

Mrs. Welles laid the head open on a meat-board, and then removed the tongue and brains, being very careful not to injure them. She laid them in a dish of water, in which was a small cup of vinegar, until they were needed for use; then she took out the membrane of the nasal passages and washed the head in salt and water. This done, she put the head in a pot and covered it with six quarts of cold water. It was to boil very slowly two hours. Into the water she put a large carrot, a turnip, and an onion, with six sprigs of parsley, two bay leaves, half a tea-spoonful of marjoram and the same of thyme (these herbs were tied up in a bit of muslin), and a small table-spoonful of salt, with half a tea-spoonful of pepper.

By the time this was done the rice was cooked thoroughly, and it was as stiff as could be stirred and turned out into a bowl, when it was sweetened, a tiny pinch of salt put into it, a large tea-spoonful of vanilla extract, and the grated rind of a lemon; and when a little cool, the beaten yolks of eggs, and all was stirred together. It was now about the consistence of stiff mush. A square shallow pan was thickly buttered, and strewed with bread crumbs, and the rice put into it. The pan used was a small-sized dripping-pan, and the rice formed a layer an inch and a half deep. It was made very smooth over the top, and then a little butter was oiled and poured on it; the pan was then so moved that the butter ran over the rice in every direction; sugar was then sifted all over it a quarter of an inch deep, and the whole was put in the oven to bake till a fine brown.

“If you want that to be extra fine, Molly, at any time, chop a cup of almonds quite fine, and strew them over with the sugar. When it is baked, let it get cold in the pan, then turn it out and cut it into strips or tablets an inch broad and two or three in length. They should be put on a dish in the ice-box before serving, to be ice cold.”

When the calf’s head had been boiling very slowly two hours, it was taken carefully from the water and one half of it was laid aside; the other half was to be for dinner. This was wiped, the inside bones carefully taken out, and it was closely scored through the outer skin; then it was washed over with a beaten egg and thickly covered with fine bread crumbs, in a cup of which half a tea-spoonful of salt, half a salt-spoonful of pepper, a tea-spoonful of finely-chopped parsley, and the third of one of thyme or savory, had been thoroughly mixed. This was to be basted with butter melted in a cup until all the crumbs were moistened, and then baked till brown. If the crumbed surface looked dry in the oven, it must be again basted. This was to be garnished with little rolls of bacon, made by cutting thinnest slices, trimmed from rind and smoke, rolled round the finger, and laid on a tin in a quick oven till clear and crisp, but not overdone.

Mrs. Welles got everything ready early, put the half head on the dish ready to go into the oven at five o’clock, cut the bacon, and told Molly what the gravy was to be, so that she might make it while she herself went on with mock-turtle soup, which was for next day’s (Sunday) dinner.

“You can have almost any sauce; English sauce piquante is very nice, or brown mushroom sauce.”

“What is English sauce piquante?”

“I call it so, although the old-fashioned name for it is _Wow Wow_ sauce.”

“Let’s try it, if you like it.”

“I do. This is the recipe: Chop fine a dessert-spoonful of capers, the same of parsley, and one large pickled walnut or two small. Put a table-spoonful of flour and one of butter to get brown together in a saucepan; put to them, stirring all the time, half a pint of stock or the broth you have—that in which the head was boiled will do; when it boils, mix a tea-spoonful of dry mustard with a table-spoonful of wine, half one of vinegar, and a tea-spoonful of red currant or cranberry jelly, and one of Worcestershire sauce. Let all simmer till of a creamy thickness, season to taste, and last add the capers and pickles. It is a convenient sauce, because you can vary the flavor as you like, putting pickled cucumber instead of walnut or capers, any other store sauce instead of Worcestershire, and cider in place of wine, and if you have no jelly, a lump of sugar. The characteristic of the sauce is to be a very little sour, a very little sweet, and a little hot, with an agreeable flavor beside.”

The bones that had been taken from the part of the head that was to bake were put back in the pot, the meat was cut from the other half in neat pieces and laid between two dishes to keep it flat, and all the liquor that ran from it, with the rest of the bones, was put back to boil with the liquor till it was reduced to three quarts.

“Now, Molly, as it is impossible to tell how strong or weak dried herbs are, and mock-turtle is a highly flavored soup, I am going to adopt the plan of making essence of the herbs and use just enough.”

So saying, she put into a little saucepan two tea-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, three quarters of one of marjoram, three quarters of one of savory and the same of lemon thyme, and a bay leaf and a half.

“Now I’ll put these to boil, closely covered, in half a pint of water for twenty minutes, then squeeze out as much of the goodness as I can, and add this herb juice to the soup, little by little, till we get the right flavor.”

As the soup was more than sufficient to serve for two dinners, it was decided to flavor it all, then divide it, and have one half thick mock-turtle, the other clear. The thick was for Sunday’s dinner, as Mr. Welles, who was coming to dinner, was particularly fond of it. While the soup was boiling down Mrs. Welles prepared egg balls to serve with it, Molly made some rough puff paste (see Chapter VI.) for pigeon pie, and when that was done Marta was ready to make noodles.

The egg balls were made as follows: Two eggs boiled hard, the yolks pounded with a half tea-spoonful of finely chopped parsley, half a salt-spoonful of salt, a scant quarter one of _white_ pepper, made into stiff paste with raw yolk of egg, and moulded into balls, size of marbles. Each ball was rolled in white of egg beaten a little; when well coated they were dipped in flour and dropped into boiling water for two minutes. These were part to be served in the thick soup next day, the rest left for the clear mock-turtle.

Marta used one egg for the noodles, a pinch of salt, and flour enough to make part of it into a smooth paste about as large as a small egg; this she worked smooth and laid aside; to the rest she added more flour, and did _not work into a smooth paste_, but into a rough, crumbly sort of ball; this, she explained, was for the quickest made and most generally used noodles, in the part of Germany she came from. She took a coarse grater and grated the rough ball into coarse crumbs that looked like yellow tapioca; these could be dried carefully in a very cool oven, and used whenever wanted. Then she took the smooth ball she had made, and asked Molly whether she would like her to make the ribbon noodles as before (see recipe, Chapter XXV.), or another sort.

“Oh, another, by all means!”

She then grated on the smooth ball of paste just a suspicion of nutmeg, put the least bit of butter on her hand,—a bit as large as a small hazel nut,—and rolled the ball and worked it over till the nutmeg and butter were in it; then she cut the paste into pieces as large as a hazel nut, made each into olive shapes, and they were finished.

“Thank you, Marta, we will have those in our soup to-night. I think I remember eating them in Germany.”

Molly had already prepared a pair of pigeons. She now put on to stew very slowly, with half a pint of water, a pound of juicy round steak, for the pigeon pie, which she intended to make next day. When the steak had simmered an hour and a half, it was taken up and put away. The calf’s tongue was parboiled, to be used on Monday.

The next morning Molly made the pie directly after breakfast. Laying the steak, cut into finger-lengths, at the bottom of a deep oval dish, the birds were divided into halves, and both steak and pigeons seasoned highly with pepper and salt. The birds were laid over the steak, placing them so that the pie would be dome-shaped when covered; two eggs were hard boiled and cut in four and the pieces laid among the meat; then a _small_ half cup of water was poured in; the gravy from the steak was left to pour in hot when the pie was cooked. The pie was then finished in the same way as the veal and ham pie (see recipe Chapter XXXII.), except that the feet of the two birds were put in boiling water for a moment, the skin rubbed off them, leaving them a bright crimson, and a slit was made at each end of the groove that went round the pie, and two of the little feet put in each, the claws outwards.

Mrs. Welles gave Marta the pieces of calf’s head that were to go into the soup, told her to put them in half an hour before dinner, let them simmer, and just before serving she was to put into the quart, which was all that was to be made hot, a table-spoonful of brown thickening, a glass of wine, and the juice of half a lemon, with half the egg balls. The pigeon pie would need an hour to bake, and was to be kept in a very cold place until twelve.