Chapter X: Part 10

Pull out the hearts and blanched leaves, heap them within a salad bowl; strew with powdered sugar, and pour over them a dressing made according to directions given yesterday. Toss up well with a silver fork.

OATMEAL PUDDING WITH CREAM.

1 quart of boiling milk.
4 tablespoonfuls best Irish oatmeal.
4 tablespoonfuls of flour.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

Wet up flour, oatmeal, and salt, with cold milk and stir into the hot, which must be in a farina-kettle. Stir twenty minutes well from the bottom, and let it stand ten minutes in the boiling water without cooking before pouring into an uncovered deep dish. Eat with cream and sugar.

First Week. Wednesday.
——
Hot Pot.
Stewed Breast of Veal with Mushrooms.
Rhubarb Sauce. Spinach à la Reine.
Browned Mashed Potatoes.
——
Burnt Custard.
——

HOT POT.

4 lbs. coarse lean beef, cut up small.
2 good-sized crabs.
½ lb. of streaked salt pork.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
1 onion.
1 bunch of asparagus—the green tops only.
8 Boston crackers.
Cayenne pepper.
Butter for crackers.
6 quarts of water.
Juice of 1 lemon.

Boil beef, herbs and onion together in the water—cooking slowly—three hours. Cool, to throw up the fat, and skim well. Put away half of the liquor with the meat, well-seasoned, for another day. Strain the remainder back into the pot; add the meat of two boiled crabs nicely cut—not chopped—up, and the pork, also boiled and cut into dice; the asparagus-tops, with plenty of seasoning. Stew for half an hour, gently. Have ready in your tureen eight Boston crackers split, laid for five minutes in boiling water, then drained and buttered. Pour the soup over these, cover, and serve, having added the lemon-juice at the last. Send sliced lemon around with it.

STEWED BREAST OF VEAL WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE.

Trim neatly; take out the largest bone, and fill the cavity with a good force-meat. Skewer into a compact shape. Lay in a frying-pan with three tablespoonfuls of butter, and brown on both sides. Line the bottom of a large saucepan with slices of pork, pepper them, and lay in the veal. Cover _tightly_, and heat very slowly, one hour, without opening the pot. Then turn the meat, add half a can of chopped mushrooms, and half a Bermuda onion, sliced, with a cup of boiling water. Cover again, and cook for another hour—never fast. The meat should be cooked almost wholly in its own steam. Turn again, and simmer fifteen minutes. Take up the meat, thicken the gravy with browned flour, wet with cold water, adding a little boiling water, if needful; boil up, and pour over the veal. If these directions be exactly followed, this dish will be excellent.

SPINACH À LA REINE.

Wash well, pick off the leaves, and cook them twenty minutes in salted, boiling water. Drain and press out all the water; chop very fine. Return to the saucepan with a good lump of butter, pepper, salt, a pinch of mace, a teaspoonful of sugar, and three spoonfuls—large ones—of good gravy. Stir, beat, and toss, until nearly dry. Fill hot, wet egg-cups with the mixture, and turn out upon a heated, flat dish. Lay a slice of egg upon each.

RHUBARB (OR PIE-PLANT) SAUCE.

Skin, and cut up the stalks. Put into a saucepan, with just enough water to keep them from burning, and stew slowly until soft. Sweeten while hot, but not on the fire. Eat cold.

BROWNED POTATOES—MASHED.

Whip up boiled potatoes very light with a fork; beat in butter, milk, and salt. Heat roughly upon a neat bake-dish (one with a silver stand for the table, if you have it), and brown in a quick oven, glazing with butter, when done.

BURNT CUSTARD.

1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
3 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Nutmeg and flavoring extract to taste.

Scald the milk, but not to boiling; beat eggs light with the sugar, and pour upon them the hot milk. Mix well, and bake in a well-buttered dish. Turn out when cold; strew very thickly with white sugar. Set the plate containing the custard upon the upper grating of a hot oven. The sugar will melt, and run in brown streams all over the moulded pudding. Slip carefully to a dish, and eat cold.

First Week. Thursday.
——
Italian Minestra Soup.
Chicken Pudding. Boiled Potatoes.
Asparagus and Eggs. Crab-apple Jelly.
——
German Puffs.
——

ITALIAN MINESTRA SOUP.

Strain the stock reserved for to-day from the bones, after taking the fat from the top. Never neglect this. Greasy soups are not good, and plenty of dripping may be thus obtained for kitchen use. Heat the soup, season to taste, and add a little more than half a cupful of _minestra_, by some known as Italian Paste. It can be had at the best grocers in various shapes—like wheat-grains, in small squares, or in stars, circles, letters, etc. Simmer twenty minutes, and pour out. The _minestra_ should be tender, but not broken.

CHICKEN PUDDING.

Cut up a tender fowl into neat joints, and parboil, seasoning well, ten minutes before you take it up, with pepper, salt, and a generous spoonful of butter. It should cook slowly for half an hour. Take up and cool, setting aside the liquor for your gravy.

BATTER FOR THE PUDDING.

1 quart of milk.
3 cups of prepared flour, not heaping.
3 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
4 well-whipped eggs.
A little salt.

Make a hole in the flour, when you have sifted the salt through it. Mix eggs, milk, and butter together, and pour in by degrees, beating all up hard at the last. Put a layer of chicken in the bottom of a bake-dish; pour a cupful of batter upon it; then more chicken, and so on, until the dish is full, with batter for the upper crust. It will require about one hour to bake in a moderate oven. Skim the cooled gravy, and boil down one-half. Then, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in flour. Boil once, and pour over a beaten egg. Season with chopped parsley; return to the fire; let it almost boil, and serve in a sauce-boat. Pass with the pudding.

BOILED POTATOES.

Put on in cold water, and bring to a rapid boil. When nearly done, pour off all but a cupful of water. Cover closely, return to the fire, and steam until the skins crack, and the potatoes are soft. They will need about half an hour’s boiling in all. Uncover, strew with salt, leave for a few moments for the moisture to evaporate, and serve at once. Old potatoes, treated thus, can be made mealy.

ASPARAGUS AND EGGS.

Cut about two dozen stalks of asparagus—leaving out the hard parts—into inch lengths, and boil tender. Drain; pour upon them a cupful of drawn butter; stir until hot, then turn into a bake-dish. Break six eggs upon the top; put a bit of butter upon each; salt and pepper, and put into a quick oven until the eggs are “set.”

GERMAN PUFFS.

3 cups of prepared flour.
3 cups of milk.
3 eggs—whites and yolks whipped separately, and very light.
3 teaspoonfuls of melted butter.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Make a batter as directed for your chicken pudding, beat up hard, and bake in nine cups, such as you used for measuring, to a fine brown. The oven should be a quick one, and the puffs be served immediately in their cups.

First Week. Friday.
——
Canned Corn Soup.
Boiled Shad. Scalloped Roes.
Potato Snow. Green Peas.
Cress Salad.
——
Lemon Trifle.
Tea and Cake.
——

CANNED CORN SOUP.

1 can of sweet corn.
1 quart of boiling water.
1 quart of milk.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in one tablespoonful of flour.
2 eggs.
Pepper and salt.
1 tablespoonful tomato catsup.

Drain the corn and chop it in a chopping-tray. Put on in the boiling water and cook steadily one hour. Rub through a colander, leaving the husks behind and return, with the water in which it has boiled, to the fire. Season; boil gently three minutes and stir in the butter and flour. Have ready the boiling milk, pour it upon the beaten eggs, and these into the soup. Simmer one minute, stirring all the while; take up, add the catsup and pour out.

BOILED SHAD.

Clean, wash and wipe a large roe shad. Set aside the roes for your scallop. Sew up the fish in a thin cloth fitted to its shape; cover well with boiling salted water, and cook from forty-five minutes to an hour, according to its size. Unwrap and butter and pepper, after laying it upon a hot dish. Pour over it a few spoonfuls of drawn butter in which have been mixed the chopped yolks of two eggs, a little parsley, and the juice of a lemon. Serve the same in a boat. Garnish the fish with rings of the whites of the boiled eggs, with a sprig of parsley in each.

SCALLOPED ROES.

The roes of the shad.
1 cup of drawn butter, and the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs.
1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
Parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Boil the roes in water with a little vinegar stirred in. Lay in cold water five minutes and wipe dry. Break up with the back of a spoon, but do not crush the eggs. Set by, and pound the boiled yolks to a powder. Beat this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning, finally the roes. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; pour in the mixture, and cover thickly with fine crumbs. Stick dots of butter over the top, and bake, covered, until it begins to bubble, then brown upon the upper grating of the oven.

POTATO SNOW.

Mash with a beetle very fine, working in salt only. Then rub hard and fast through a colander into a hot dish. The potato should fall in light spiral threads. Set in the oven three minutes to renew the heat, but do not let it “crust” or brown.

GREEN PEAS.

See receipt given on Sunday.

CRESS SALAD.

Pull the sprigs to pieces and pour over them a dressing such as was made for your potato salad on Monday.

LEMON TRIFLE.

Juice of 2 lemons and grated peel of one.
1 pint cream, well sweetened and whipped stiff.
1 cup of sherry.
A little nutmeg.

Let sugar, lemon-juice, and peel lie together two hours before you add wine and nutmeg. Strain through double tarlatan, and whip gradually into the frothed cream. Serve very soon, heaped in small glasses. Pass cake with this as well as with the tea.

TEA AND CAKE.

Whereas pound, jelly, or cup-cake should accompany your trifle, small sponge-cakes, or cookies—not too sweet—taste better with tea, and do not detract so much from its flavor.

First Week. Saturday.
——
Minced Beef Soup.
Ragoût of Mutton. Boiled Potatoes.
French Beans with Force-meat Balls. Boiled Rice.
——
Neapolitan Pudding.
——

MINCED BEEF SOUP.

4 lbs. lean beef, minced fine, as for beef-tea.
2 lbs. mutton-bones.
2 carrots, grated.
2 sliced onions.
Bunch of sweet herbs, and small bunch of asparagus, also chopped.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts of water.
Strips of buttered toast.

Crack the bones to splinters, and put on with the vegetables in three quarts of cold water and boil two hours. Strain, rubbing the vegetables to a pulp, and add, with the rest of the water, also cold, to the minced beef. Bring to a boil, cook gently one hour after it boils, and strain, pressing hard. Reserve a little of the beef for force-meat, and put away the rest well seasoned, after pouring back over it half the soup, as stock for to-morrow. Keep in a cool place. Chop the herbs and put into that meant for to-day, with pepper and salt. Boil and skim fifteen minutes. Have ready some long strips of buttered crisp toast in the tureen and pour on the soup.

RAGOÛT OF MUTTON.

3 lbs. of mutton, without bone, cut into strips three inches long by
one wide.
2 lamb sweetbreads.
1 cup of gravy made from bones, skin, etc.—the “trimmings” of the
meat.
2 eggs.
¼ lb. streaked salt pork.
1 fried onion.
1 cup of green peas.
Pepper, salt, and parsley.
Dripping for frying.
Browned flour.

Fry the onion in plenty of dripping; then the meat for five minutes. Parboil the sweetbreads, throw into cold water to blanch; wipe and slice; then fry also in the fat. Lay sliced pork in the bottom of a saucepan, upon this the mutton, then the sweetbreads, next the onion, the green peas, then pepper and salt. Cover with the gravy; put on a close lid and stew gently for an hour after the boil sets in. Take up the meat and sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour; pour it upon two beaten eggs, stir one minute over the fire and pour upon the meat.

BROILED POTATOES.

Cut cold boiled potatoes lengthwise; cook over a clear fire upon a greased gridiron, until they begin to brown. Lay upon a hot dish, butter, pepper, and salt.

FRENCH BEANS WITH FORCE-MEAT BALLS.

Chop the beef taken from the soup when cold. Add one-third as much bread-crumbs, and season well. Put a spoonful of butter into a saucepan, and when it hisses, stir in the meat, then a little browned flour wet up with cold water. Beat an egg light, pour the meat upon it, and mix well. Make into floured balls and fry in hot dripping. Cook the beans as usual and lay the balls about them when dished.

BOILED RICE.

Wash well and cook in hot salted water, shaking up from time to time until the water is nearly all absorbed, and the rice soft, with every grain distinct. Put a good piece of butter upon the top after it is dished.

NEAPOLITAN PUDDING.

1 large cup of bread-crumbs soaked in milk.
¾ cup of sugar.
5 eggs.
1 lemon, juice and grated rind.
½ lb. stale sponge-cake.
½ lb. almond maccaroons.
½ cup jelly or jam.
1 small tumbler of sherry wine.
½ cup of milk for the crumbs.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks; then the crumbs, the lemon, and when this is a smooth paste, the whites. Butter a mould thickly, and cover the bottom with dry bread-crumbs, and these with maccaroons, laid evenly. Wet with wine, and pour on a layer of the mixture just made; next, put sliced cake spread with jelly, then more maccaroons wet with wine, more custard, cake and jam, until all the materials are used up, with a layer of custard on top. Cover closely; set in a pan of boiling water and cook three-quarters of an hour in the oven, then remove the top and brown. Turn out carefully, and pour over it a sauce made of currant-jelly warmed, and beaten up with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a glass of wine. A plain round mould is best for this pudding.

Second Week. Sunday.
——
Soup à l’Italienne.
Beef à la Mode. Asparagus upon Toast.
Green Peas. Mashed Potatoes.
——
Tropical Snow with Jelly Cake.
——

SOUP À L’ITALIENNE.

Take the fat from the top of the reserved stock, strain it and heat to scalding. Heat in another vessel a pint of milk, pour it upon three beaten eggs; return to the saucepan with a little salt and a pinch of soda, and cook two minutes, stirring all the while. Have ready four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese in the bottom of a tureen, pour in, first, the milk and eggs, then the soup. Stir all up well, and serve.

BEEF À LA MODE.

Remove the bone from a round of beef, and trim away the gristle and tough bits from the edges. (Cover these with water and boil down for soup-stock. Season highly and put by in a cool place for Monday.) Bind the beef into a good shape by sewing about it a broad band of stout muslin, as wide as the round is high. Cut a pound of salt pork into strips long enough to reach from top to bottom of the beef—make incisions in it with a thin, long-bladed knife, and thrust these in closely together. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with a force-meat of minced pork and crumbs, highly spiced. Put the meat thus prepared in a deep earthenware dish, and rub well into it a mixture of one cup of vinegar, a teaspoonful of mixed cloves and allspice, a teaspoonful of salt, and the same of made mustard; a tablespoonful of sugar and a bunch of sweet herbs minced, with as much pepper as salt. Leave the beef in the pan with the spiced vinegar about the base from Saturday until Sunday morning, turning several times. Early on Sunday, put it into a large pot, with enough boiling water to half-cover it; cover tightly with a weight upon the lid, and stew at least four hours—or half an hour for each pound. Open once, when half-done, to turn the meat. Dish the meat; cut the stitches in the band, and withdraw it carefully. Keep hot while you prepare the gravy. Pour off all but a cupful, and set aside for soup-stock. Thicken that reserved with browned flour, and serve in a boat. Cut the beef in horizontal slices.

When dinner is over, pin another band tightly about the meat; pour gravy on the top, and set a plate with a heavy weight upon it, on the round, before putting it away for Monday’s dinner.

ASPARAGUS UPON TOAST, AND GREEN PEAS.

Please see receipts given on last Sunday.

MASHED POTATOES.

Mash in the usual manner, working in milk, butter, and salt. Make into a smooth mound in a deep dish, and score deeply on top with the back of a knife.

TROPICAL SNOW.

10 sweet oranges.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
2 glasses sherry.
1 cup powdered sugar.
6 bananas.

Peel and cut the oranges small, taking out the seeds. Put a layer in a glass-bowl and wet with wine, then strew with sugar. Next, put a layer of grated cocoanut, slice the bananas thin, and cover the cocoanut with them. When the dish has been filled in this order, heap with cocoanut. Eat soon, or the oranges will toughen.

JELLY CAKE,

In some of its pretty variations, and sliced in triangles, should go around with the snow.

Second Week. Monday.
——
Macaroni Soup.
Pressed Beef. Spinach.
Potato Puff. Chow-chow.
——
Southern Rice Pudding.
——

MACARONI SOUP.

Take the fat from both portions of stock set by for to-day; put them together, and strain into a soup-kettle. Heat to a boil, skim well, and after fifteen minutes’ cooking, add a quarter of a pound of macaroni, boiled tender in salted hot water, and cut into pieces about an inch long. Simmer ten minutes and pour out.

PRESSED BEEF.

Take the weight from your round of beef; undo the bandage, and set on the table cold, garnished with cresses. Cut in thin horizontal slices. It will be handsomely mottled with the pork. Many prefer to eat à la mode beef cold, always.

SPINACH.

Cook as directed upon last Wednesday, but leaving out the gravy and not drying out so much. Beat to a smooth cream, and turn into a deep dish, with sippets of fried bread at the base.

POTATO PUFF.

2 cupfuls of cold mashed potatoes.
2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
2 beaten eggs.
½ cup of milk.
Salt to taste.

Beat in butter, then milk and salt, finally the eggs. Whip all up to a cream. Pile in a bake-dish and cook in a good oven until lightly colored.

SOUTHERN RICE PUDDING.

1 quart fresh milk.
1 cup raw rice.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 cup of sugar.
4 eggs, beaten light.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
Pinch of cinnamon and the same of mace.

Soak the rice in the milk for two hours in a farina-kettle, surrounded by warm water. Then increase the heat, and simmer until the rice is tender. Cream butter and sugar, and whisk into the eggs, until very light. When the rice is almost cold, stir all together, and bake in a buttered dish three-quarters of an hour. Eat warm with sauce, or cold with sugar and cream.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
Green Pea Soup.
Mutton Chops, Breaded. Stewed Tomatoes.
Mashed Potatoes. Lettuce.
——
Batter Pudding.
——

GREEN PEA SOUP.

3 lbs. lean beef.
3 quarts of water.
½ peck of green peas.
Salt and pepper.
4 tablespoonfuls of rice-flour.
Chopped parsley.

Boil the empty pea-pods in the water one hour. Strain these out, put in the beef, cut up fine, and cook gently one hour and a half longer, or until the beef is in rags. Add the peas; boil half an hour, and rub hard through a colander to pulp the peas. Return to the fire, season, and stir in the rice-flour wet up in cold water, and the parsley. Stir ten minutes, and serve.

BREADED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim neatly, cutting off all the fat and skin. Roll in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping, turning as the under-side browns. Drain well and serve, standing upon the thick part around the base of your potatoes.

MASHED POTATOES.

After mashing soft and smooth with butter, milk, and salt, mound upon a flat, hot dish, with the chops laid up against them.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Empty a can of tomatoes an hour before you mean to use them, and leave in a crockery bowl. Put on in a saucepan, and stew twenty minutes; add salt, pepper, a little sugar, and a good spoonful of butter, and simmer ten minutes more.

LETTUCE.

Cut up—not chop—and pour over them a dressing made of—

2 tablespoonfuls of salad-oil.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
5 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
½ teaspoonful of made mustard.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
Yolks of 2 boiled eggs.

Rub the eggs to a powder, add all the ingredients except the vinegar, and let alone five or ten minutes. Then beat in the vinegar with your “Dover” egg-whisk until the mixture is smooth. Garnish with a chain of the whites.

BATTER PUDDING.

1 pint of milk.
4 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 even cups of prepared flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat up the eggs, and add the yolks to the milk. Salt the flour, and stir in alternately with the whites. Beat hard and bake in a buttered pudding-dish forty-five minutes. Eat with sweet sauce, at once, as it soon falls.

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Fine White Soup.
Calf’s Liver, Larded. Green Pea Pancakes.
Asparagus in Ambush.
Bermuda Potatoes _en robe de chamber_.
——
Pine-Apple Pie.
——

FINE WHITE SOUP.

3 lbs. veal knuckle, cracked to pieces.
1 old chicken, cut up as for fricassee.
1 onion.
¼ lb. of almonds blanched some hours before you use them, and when
quite dry and brittle, pounded to a paste.
Lump of white sugar.
1 pint of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter, cut up in two tablespoonfuls of
corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts cold water.
Soda.

Cut the meat from the knuckle; put this, the chicken, bones and onion, with the water, and boil slowly two hours. Take out the chicken, and put into a deep jar or bowl, sprinkling well with salt. Cook the soup an hour longer; strain back into the pot, pressing the meat hard. Take out half of the liquid, season well, and pour upon the chicken, cover, and set in a cold place for to-morrow’s “stock.” Season the soup in the kettle with pepper and salt. Boil and skim. Chop the veal-shreds very fine, and mix with the almonds. Have ready the milk, scalding hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in, and pour upon the veal-and-almond paste. Set over the fire in a saucepan, and stir in the butter and corn-starch, simmering five minutes. Add the sugar, and turn into the tureen, then pour in the soup. Stir all up well, and let them stand, covered, in hot water, a few minutes. Stir up again and send to table.

CALF’S LIVER, LARDED.

Cut half a pound of fat salt pork into lardoons, and thrust them, about half an inch apart, into a fresh liver, so that they will project on both sides. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with a small onion minced, pepper, and some sweet herbs chopped, also a few spoonfuls of strained tomato (left over from yesterday). Cover closely, and set in a frying-pan of boiling water for one hour, keeping the outer pan full all the time, and turning the liver twice. Then, take out the saucepan, and set over the fire, but cook _slowly_. When the liver is nicely browned below, turn it. At the end of forty minutes, boil up once sharply—and for the first time. Take out the liver, and keep hot. Add a little boiling water to the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and pour over the liver.

GREEN PEA PANCAKES.

Two cups of green peas, boiled, and mashed when hot. Season with butter, pepper, and salt, and when cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, half a teaspoonful of soda, and twice as much cream of tartar, sifted twice through half a cupful of flour. Beat well, and bake as you would griddle-cakes. Eat very hot.

ASPARAGUS IN AMBUSH.

The green tops of two bunches of asparagus.
8 or 9 stale biscuits, or small, light rolls.
2 cups of milk.
4 eggs.
1 great spoonful of butter, rolled in flour.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Take out the crumb from the rolls, when you have cut off the tops to serve as covers, and set them open in the oven to crisp, laying the tops by them. Heat the milk, pour upon the beaten eggs; stir over the fire until they begin to thicken, when add the butter and flour. Lastly, put in the asparagus, boiled tender, and chopped fine. Fill the rolls with this mixture, put on the tops, and serve hot. _Good!_

BERMUDA POTATOES _en robe de chambre_.

Put on in boiling water, and cook until a fork will pierce them. Throw off the water and set back, uncovered, upon the range to dry off, strewing with salt at the same time, Send to table in a dish lined with a napkin, peeling as you eat them.

PINE-APPLE PIE.

1 large pine-apple, pared and grated.
1 cup of sugar.
½ cup of butter.
5 beaten eggs.
A little nutmeg.
Some good pie-paste.

Cream, butter and sugar. Beat in the yolks for three minutes; add pine-apple and spice; lastly, the whites. Bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Mulligatawny Soup.
Chicken Patés. Sea-Kale.
Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel. Lettuce and Cress Salad.
——
Queen of Puddings with Strawberry Méringue.
——

MULLIGATAWNY SOUP.

Skim the stock set aside yesterday, and strain from the chicken into a soup-pot. Add a small onion and half a cupful of raw rice, and simmer forty minutes, or until the rice is tender. Wet up a tablespoonful of curry powder with the juice of a lemon, and stir in then a large spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil once and serve.

CHICKEN PATÉS.

Chop the meat of your cold chicken fine, and season well. Make a large cupful of rich drawn butter, and while it is on the fire, stir in two eggs boiled hard and minced very fine, also a little chopped parsley—then the chicken-meat. Let it almost boil. Have ready some _paté_ pans of good paste, baked quickly to a light brown. Slip while hot from the pans, fill with the mixture, and set in the oven to heat. Arrange upon a dish and send up hot.

SEA-KALE.

Choose fresh, and pick over carefully; cook twenty-five minutes in boiling, salted water; drain and press well. Chop fine; put back in the saucepan with a great lump of butter, pepper, salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir and beat, and heap upon slices of buttered crustless toast laid upon a hot dish.

POTATOES AU MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL.

Put a cup of milk into a saucepan, and when it heats, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley; then about two cupfuls cold boiled potatoes, sliced rather thick. Heat scalding hot, take from the fire and add a pinch of grated lemon-peel with the juice of half a lemon. Serve in a deep dish.

LETTUCE AND CRESS SALAD.

Cut up lettuce and cresses, having washed both well, and pile in a salad bowl; then pour over them a dressing made by beating together four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar, half as much mustard, and when these are well mixed, adding, gradually, two tablespoonfuls of best salad oil. Toss with a silver fork, and serve.

QUEEN OF PUDDINGS WITH STRAWBERRY MÉRINGUE.

1½ cups of sugar.
5 eggs.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Lemon flavoring.
1 quart fresh milk.
1 pint fresh strawberries.

Cream the butter, and a cup of sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks; the crumbs, soaked in the milk; lastly, the seasoning. Fill a pudding-dish two-thirds full and bake until the custard is “set.” Draw to the mouth of the oven, and cover with the strawberries, rolled in sugar, then with a _méringue_ made of the whipped whites and the half-cup of sugar. Bake until the _méringue_ begins to color. Eat cold with cream.

Second Week. Friday.
——
A Soup Maigre.
Fried Shad. Roe Croquettes.
Mashed Potatoes. Stewed Tomatoes with Onion and Bread.
——
Cup Custards, Baked.
Corn-Starch Cake.
——

A SOUP MAIGRE.

2 carrots.
2 onions.
1 large potato.
1 pint of green peas.
½ cup of raw rice.
1 tablespoonful of white sugar.
2 great spoonfuls of butter rolled in flour.
Pepper and salt.
4 quarts of cold water.
Dripping for frying.
Bunch of sweet herbs.

Slice the vegetables, with the exception of the peas, and fry them in dripping until brown. Put with the herbs into a kettle and cover with the water. Cook slowly two hours, reducing the liquid one-third. Pulp the vegetables through a colander, return the soup to the fire with the rice and peas, and stew half an hour. Season, stir in the butter and flour with the sugar. Simmer five minutes and serve.

FRIED SHAD.

Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad. Split it and cut each side into four or five pieces, leaving out the head and tail, and cutting off the fins: Sprinkle with salt and pepper; roll in flour and fry to a fine brown in plenty of lard or dripping, turning as each piece browns. Drain well, and serve hot. Garnish with sliced cucumber, pickle and parsley, and pass sliced lemon with it. Send around mashed potatoes with this dish.

ROE CROQUETTES.

The roes of your shad, parboiled, cooled, and rubbed into a loose,
granulated mass.
One fourth as much mashed potato as you have roes.
½ cup of drawn butter with a raw egg beaten in it.
Chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and ½ teaspoonful of anchovy paste
for seasoning.
Beaten egg and cracker-crumbs.
Dripping.

Work roes, potato, drawn butter, and seasoning together; put over the fire in a saucepan and stir well until hot. When almost cold, make into short rolls, dip in raw egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a nice brown. Drain in a heated colander, and pile upon a hot dish.

MASHED POTATOES.

Proceed with this oft-repeated and ever-welcome dish as I have directed upon other pages.

STEWED TOMATOES WITH ONION AND BREAD.

Empty a can of tomatoes into a saucepan, and when hot, add a small onion, sliced, with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Stew twenty minutes, and add a tablespoonful of butter and a good handful of bread-crumbs. Simmer five minutes more and pour out.

CUP CUSTARDS—BAKED.

1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
5 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Nutmeg and vanilla.
Powdered sugar for _méringue_.

Scald the milk, and pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Add to this, when you have flavored it, the whites of two eggs. Fill small stone-ware cups and set in a dripping-pan of boiling water. Bake until “set,” cover with a _méringue_ made of the whisked whites (reserved) and a little powdered sugar. Bake until they begin to be tinged. Eat cold from the cups.

CORN-STARCH CAKE.

Please see “COMMON-SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 333.

Second Week. Saturday.
——
Sweetbread Soup.
Beefsteaks. Green Peas.
Baked Rice. Roast Potatoes.
——
Omelette aux Confitures.
Tea and Albert Biscuits.
——

SWEETBREAD SOUP.

4 lbs. of lean, coarse veal.
½ lb. corned ham.
2 lbs. beef bones.
2 fine sweetbreads.
Bunch of parsley.
1 onion.
2 tablespoonfuls of tapioca, soaked in cold water one hour.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts of cold water.

Cut the meat into strips; crack the bones; mince the onion and parsley, and put on with the water. Cook slowly four hours. Strain; set aside some bits of “ragged” veal and ham for your dish of rice. Put the rest into a crock; season highly and pour on half your soup stock—setting this by, as usual, in a cool place for Sunday. Season the remainder of the broth; boil and skim; put in the sweetbreads, and cook half an hour. Take them out and drop into cold water. Add the tapioca to the soup; simmer ten minutes; chop the sweetbreads, and put them back; boil one minute and serve.

BEEFSTEAKS.

Flatten your steaks with the side of an axe or hatchet, taking out the bones for your soup. Butter a gridiron—if you have no “broiler”—and cook the steaks quickly over a bright fire, turning often as they drip. Lay upon a hot dish; butter abundantly and season. Cover with another heated platter, and let them stand five minutes before serving.

BAKED RICE.

Wash a cup of rice well. Take a cupful of broth from your soup-pot; strain through a thin cloth, and add twice as much boiling water, with a little salt. Put in the rice and cook slowly until it has taken up all the water and is soft. Pour in a large cup of hot milk in which have been mixed two eggs (raw), two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, and a tablespoonful of butter. Stir up well; add about half a cupful of minced veal and ham, taken from your soup; turn into a greased mould; cover and bake one hour in a dripping-pan of hot water. Dip in cold water, and invert upon a flat dish.

GREEN PEAS.

See receipts for last Sunday week.

ROAST POTATOES.

Roast in a moderate oven until soft. Cut a piece _nearly_ off the top of each; thrust a thin-bladed knife into the heart, and slip in a bit of butter. Replace the skin and send up hot.

OMELETTE AUX CONFITURES.

7 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
½ cup of milk (or cream).
Grated peel of ½ lemon.
½ cup of marmalade or jam.

Beat yolks and whites apart and very stiff. Add sugar, lemon, and milk to the yolks; then, with a few rapid whirls of your “beater,” the whites. Put the marmalade in the bottom of a neat bake-dish (buttered), pour on the omelette, and bake until it has puffed up high and begins to “crust” well. Serve at once, or it will fall. Eight minutes should suffice to cook it—at the outside.

TEA AND ALBERT BISCUITS

May be partaken of at the same time with the omelette, or afterwards.

Third Week. Sunday.
——
Sago Soup.
Stuffed Shoulder of Mutton with Potato Edging.
Boiled Asparagus. Purée of Peas.
——
Neapolitan Blanc-Mange.
——

SAGO SOUP.

The stock made on yesterday.
Little more than ½ cup of pearl sago.
3 eggs.
1 cup of milk.
Pepper and salt.

Take the fat from your cold stock; pour off carefully from the sediment and strain. Heat to boiling. Wash the sago well; soak in warm water half an hour; put into the soup, and simmer twenty-five minutes. Meanwhile, heat the milk in another vessel, and pour upon the eggs. Heat this until it begins to thicken, pour into the tureen, season with a little salt and pepper, and turn in the boiling soup. It should be about as thick as hot custard when all the ingredients are in.

STUFFED SHOULDER OF MUTTON.

Get your butcher to take out the bone. (It will help out to-morrow’s soup.) Fill the hole from which it was taken with a good force-meat of crumbs, minced pork, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and one raw egg. Sew up the edges of the skin to keep in the stuffing, and roast about fifteen minutes—not more—for each pound, basting often, at first with the boiling water you have poured upon it, at the last twice with butter. When done, brush with beaten egg; sift crumbs all over it; put into a stout stone-ware dish—or one of block-tin—surround with the potato-edging, and brown in a quick oven. Pour off the fat from the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour, and serve in a boat.

POTATO EDGING.

Mash the potatoes very soft with milk and butter; beat in two eggs; return to the saucepan and stir until smoking hot all through. Let them get quite cool; then, mould by pressing firmly into a wet egg-cup, and turning out each form upon the mutton-dish. Arrange the little cones side by side until you have a barricade about the meat. Set in the oven and brown, glazing with butter just before you take the dish out. Serve a cone with each slice of mutton.

BOILED ASPARAGUS.

See receipt on first Sunday in May.

PURÉE OF GREEN PEAS.

Take for half a peck of peas—
1 small onion.
3 tablespoonfuls of cream.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in one tablespoonful of flour.
1 lump of white sugar.
Pepper and salt.

Boil the empty pods twenty minutes in hot, salted water. Strain these out, and put in the peas with the sugar. Boil gently until they are very soft. Rub through a fine colander. Add a cupful of the water in which they were cooked, pepper and salt, and put over the fire. When very hot, stir in the floured butter, and, when this is mixed, the cream. Stir three minutes and pour out into a dish lined with strips of fried bread.

NEAPOLITAN BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk.
1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked two hours in a cup of cold water.
¾ of a cup of sugar.
1 great spoonful grated chocolate, wet in a little boiling water.
Beaten yolk of an egg.
1 great spoonful currant jelly, or cranberry jam.
Rose-water for flavoring.

Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the sugar, then the gelatine. Cook about five minutes, and strain through thin muslin. Divide the blanc-mange into four equal portions. Beat the chocolate well into one; heat for one minute, and put by in a cup or bowl. Do the same with the egg to a second, and the currant jelly for the third. This last must be heated carefully, and a little sugar added, that the milk may not curdle. Leave the fourth white, and flavor with rose-water. When cold and a little stiff, pour into a wet mould—the white first; when this is so firm as to bear the weight of the next without mixing, the pink; then, the yellow; lastly, the brown. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday dip the mould in warm water, work the surface free with your fingers, and turn out upon a flat dish. Eat with cream and sugar, or brandied fruit.

Third Week. Monday.
——
Clam Soup.
Cold Mutton. Brussels-Sprouts.
Raw Tomatoes. Stewed Potatoes.
——
Oranges and Bananas.
Coffee and Cake.
——

CLAM SOUP.

Early in the morning crack your mutton-bone, and put on in a quart of cold water, at the back of the range. When little more than a large cupful of liquor remains, take it off and strain into a bowl to cool. When perfectly cold take off the fat, put in a quart of clam liquor and the hard parts of fifty clams. Season with a teaspoonful of minced onion, as much chopped parsley, a pinch of mace, pepper and salt to taste, and cook, covered, half an hour after the boil begins. Heat in another vessel two cups of milk; when hot, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a heaping tablespoonful of flour, and set in boiling water to keep hot, after it has boiled two minutes. Strain the soup back into the pot, put in the soft parts of the clams—the only digestible portions—and simmer five minutes. Pour the thickened milk into the tureen, stir in the soup, and serve.

This is a delightful and nutritious soup, and since you are to have cold meat for dinner, you need not grudge the care of preparing it, even on Job’s birthday.

COLD MUTTON.

Your stuffed shoulder will be nearly as nice cold as hot. Garnish it tastefully with curled parsley and bleached lettuce-leaves.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS.

Cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes; drain well; add a liberal lump of butter, with pepper and salt to taste, and put into a deep dish.

RAW TOMATOES.

Peel with a sharp knife; slice, and lay in a salad-bowl. Season with a dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the proportions given on last Thursday.

STEWED POTATOES.

Boil whole until a fork will pierce them. Peel quickly; crack, without breaking, each, by pressing it, and drop into a saucepan containing a large cup of milk, almost on the boil. When all the potatoes are in, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, with salt and pepper. Cover and heat—below the boiling point—until the potatoes begin to crumble. Pour into a deep dish.

ORANGES AND BANANAS.

Serve whole, upon china plates, with a knife for each.

COFFEE AND CAKE.

You need not be ashamed of “cold meat on Monday,” even should John have “picked up” his unexpected friend on the street, when your bright coffee-urn, with the fragrant contents, flanked by a basket of sliced home-made cake, comes in as a reserved force.

Third Week. Tuesday.
——
Brown Beef Soup.
Veal Cutlets with Ham. String Beans.
Chopped Potatoes. Lettuce.
——
Graham Hasty Pudding.
——

BROWN BEEF SOUP.

3 lbs. of coarse, lean beef, cut into strips.
3 onions—small ones.
3 quarts of cold water.
1 teaspoonful mixed allspice and mace.
Bunch of sweet herbs chopped.
1 teaspoonful Colgate’s essence of celery.
Glass of brown sherry.
Dripping.
Toasted bread.

Fry the sliced onion brown in good dripping; then the beef, quickly. Put into a soup-pot, cover with the water; put on a tight lid, and stew four hours. Strain and press hard. Let the soup cool to throw up the fat. Skim, and return to the pot, with the salt, pepper, herbs, and spice. Simmer fifteen minutes; add wine and celery, and pour into a tureen upon dice of crisp, buttered toast.

VEAL CUTLETS AND HAM.

2 lbs. veal cutlets without bone.
1½ lbs. of ham.
Grated lemon-peel.
Pepper and salt.
1 raw, beaten egg.
Rolled cracker.
Dripping or lard.

Boil the slices of ham ten minutes; let them get cold, and cut of the same size and shape as the strips of veal, viz., about three inches long by one and a half wide. Salt and pepper the veal; sprinkle each cutlet with a pinch of lemon-peel; roll in egg, then cracker, and fry to a good brown. Fry the ham in its own fat in another pan, and lay upon a hot dish, alternately with the cutlets.

STRING-BEANS.

If fresh, top and tail, and, with a sharp knife, take off the strings on both sides. Cut into short pieces, and cook tender in boiling water, and a little salt. Drain well, heap upon a hot dish; butter freely, and season to taste.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop cold boiled potatoes rather coarsely. Have ready a great spoonful of butter in a saucepan, with a little grated lemon-peel, pepper and salt. Stir in the potatoes until very hot, but do not let them brown. Serve in a deep dish, after draining.

LETTUCE.

Pick out and pull apart the hearts and best blanched leaves. Pour over it a dressing such as was directed on last Thursday.

GRAHAM HASTY PUDDING.

2 eggs.
1 quart of milk.
2 even cups of Graham flour.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 tablespoonful of butter.

Heat half the milk in a _greased_ saucepan or farina-kettle. Wet the flour with the rest, and beat very light with the butter—melted—the eggs and salt. Stir this into the hot milk—or, better still—pour the milk upon it. When thoroughly mixed, return to the fire, and stir fifteen minutes, surrounded by boiling water at its highest bubble. Take from the range, leave in the water five minutes; stir up again, and serve in a deep, uncovered dish. Eat with butter, sugar, and nutmeg.

Third Week. Wednesday.
——
Green Asparagus Soup.
Stewed Chicken. Scalloped Tomatoes.
Corn Fritters. Grape Jelly.
Marmalade Roll.
——

GREEN ASPARAGUS SOUP.

3 lbs. knuckle of veal.
½ lb. streaked salt pork.
3 bunches of asparagus.
4 quarts of water.
1 pint of spinach leaves.
Pepper and salt.
1 small onion, sliced.
Butter and sugar.

Put the veal, pork, onion, and the hard parts of the asparagus-stalks—all cut up fine—on in the water, and boil gently four hours. Meanwhile cook the spinach tender in a little water; chop and squeeze it through double tarlatan back into the cupful of water in which it was boiled. Add a lump of sugar to the green liquid. Strain the soup; season, boil once, and skim; put in the green heads of the asparagus (kept until now in cold water) and boil slowly twenty minutes. Stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, and when this has boiled a minute, the green water. Simmer five minutes more, and pour out. Dip up from the bottom with each ladleful in helping the soup.

STEWED CHICKEN.

Cut into joints, leaving none of the pieces large. Put the scrags, feet (having scalded off the skin), and giblets into two cupfuls of water, and stew until the meat is in rags. Put a quarter of a pound of pork, cut as fine as shavings, in the bottom of a saucepan; lay on this a teaspoonful of minced onion, and then the uncooked chicken. Strain, and partly cool the gravy, which should have boiled down to one cupful—setting by the giblets. Pour this over the chicken, pepper and salt; put on a tight top, and cook very slowly one hour. Then increase the heat, but still do not let it boil hard, for half an hour longer. Open the saucepan at the end of the first hour to change the upper pieces to lower places—and again when the half hour is up, to see if they are all tender. If not, cover and cook until they are. Take out the chicken, lay in order upon a hot-water dish, and add to the gravy the giblets, minced fine, and a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Boil one minute, and pour upon a half cup of milk in which have been beaten two eggs. Set over the fire, and stir one minute, but do not let the gravy boil. Pour upon the chicken.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

If raw tomatoes are dear still, drain off most of the liquor from a can of the vegetable. Cover the bottom of a pie-dish with bread-crumbs, lay in the tomatoes, well seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, and sugar; cover thickly with fine, dry crumbs; put dots of butter, with pepper and salt, over all, and bake, covered, half an hour—then, brown quickly.

CORN FRITTERS.

Drain the liquor from a can of corn, and chop the grains in a chopping-tray. Beat into this paste three eggs, one cup of milk, a heaping tablespoonful of sugar, and as much warmed butter, with two tablespoonfuls of prepared flour. Beat thoroughly, season with pepper and salt, and fry, by the spoonful, upon a greased griddle.

MARMALADE ROLL.

1 quart prepared flour—Hecker’s _always_, when you can get it.
1 tablespoonful of lard and two of butter.
1 pint of milk, or enough for soft dough.
1 cup of sweet marmalade.

Rub the lard into the flour; wet into a soft paste with the milk, and roll out very thin. Baste thickly with the butter, sprinkle with flour lightly, and roll up in close folds. Lay upon ice, or in a very cold place, one hour. Roll out into a square sheet, a quarter of an inch thick, spread with the marmalade, leaving a narrow margin all around, and roll up neatly. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, the joined edge downward, and bake three-quarters of an hour. Wash over with white of egg, beaten with a little sugar, just before you take it up. Eat hot with a good sauce.

Third Week. Thursday.
——
Sheep’s Head Soup.
Roast Beef. Fried Potatoes.
Asparagus with Eggs. Spinach on Toast.
——
Corn-Starch Blanc-Mange with Preserves.
——

SHEEP’S HEAD SOUP.

1 sheep’s head, dressed with the skin on.
2 onions.
2 carrots.
Bunch of parsley.
Crumbs and egg for force-meat balls.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.
Pepper and salt.
Dripping.
4 quarts of cold water.

You will probably have to coax your butcher to dress the head properly, but the head itself he will be willing to give you, as almost worthless in his eyes. Be sure it is quite clean, even to the mouth. Soak it in tepid water, one hour—then put into a pot with the vegetables, sliced, the chopped herbs and the cold water. Cook gently four hours. Strain off the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the sieve; let it get almost cool, that you may remove the fat from the top, and put back over the fire with pepper and salt. Chop the brains and mix them into a paste with an equal quantity of crumbs; also pepper, salt, and raw egg, with enough flour to enable you to roll into little balls. Fry these to a nice brown, drain in a colander, and put into your tureen. Skim the boiling soup and stir in the corn-starch wet with half a cup of milk, then the tongue, skinned and cut into dice. Boil once and pour into the tureen.

ROAST BEEF.

Put into your dripping-pan; pour a cupful of boiling water over it, and roast, basting often, allowing a quarter of an hour to the pound. Towards the last, pepper and salt, dredge with flour, and baste once well with butter. If you send made gravy to the table, take off all the “top-grease,” thicken the brown juice in the dripping-pan with browned flour, boil up, and pour out into a boat.

FRIED POTATOES.

Cut peeled potatoes into long strips, not too thin. Lay in cold water one hour, dry between two towels, and fry in boiling fat, a little salt, to a light brown. Drain and dish upon a napkin.

SPINACH UPON TOAST.

Wash well. Cook twenty minutes in boiling, salted water. Drain and chop very fine. Put a tablespoonful of butter into a saucepan with a teaspoonful of sugar, a pinch of nutmeg, and pepper and salt. Stir in the spinach, and beat smooth while it heats. At the last add a tablespoonful of cream, or two of milk. Pour upon crustless slices of buttered toast laid upon a flat dish.

ASPARAGUS WITH EGGS.

Boil a bunch of asparagus twenty minutes; cut off the tender tops and lay in a deep pie-plate, buttering, salting, and peppering well. Beat four eggs just enough to break up the yolks, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, with pepper and salt, and pour upon the asparagus. Bake eight minutes in a quick oven, and serve immediately.

CORN-STARCH BLANC-MANGE WITH PRESERVES.

1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet in cold water.
3 beaten eggs.
1 cup of sugar.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Scald the milk in a farina-kettle; stir in corn-starch, lemon, and salt, and cook five minutes. Pour this upon the beaten eggs and sugar, return to the fire and stir two minutes more. Pour into a wet mould and set in a cold place for four or five hours. Turn out upon a broad glass dish, and pour rich, sweet preserves about the base.

In helping it out, put a spoonful of preserve upon each share of blanc-mange.

Third Week. Friday.
——
Purée of Tomatoes.
Boiled Bass with Mushrooms. Roast Sweetbreads.
Mashed Potatoes. Succotash.
——
Strawberry Méringue.
——

PURÉE OF TOMATOES.

1 can of tomatoes.
2 cups boiling milk with half a teaspoonful of soda stirred in.
1 heaping teaspoonful sugar.
1 small minced onion.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed up with one of flour.
Pepper and salt.
Handful of dry bread-crumbs.
1 cup of boiling water.

Put tomatoes and onion over the fire with the hot water. Boil half an hour; strain and rub through a colander, working the tomatoes to a pulp. Meanwhile, boil the milk, stir in soda, butter and flour, and after one boil, keep hot. Put pepper, salt, and sugar with the tomatoes; simmer five minutes; pour into the tureen; stir in the crumbs, and one minute later the thickened milk. Serve at once. If the milk be cooked with the _purée_, it will almost surely curdle.

BOILED BASS WITH MUSHROOMS.