Chapter XI: Part 11

Clean a fine bass, and sew up in a thin cloth. Put into boiling water in which you have mixed four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, with six whole black peppers, and a little salt. Cook about twelve minutes to the pound. Prepare a cupful of drawn butter, boil half a can of mushrooms twenty minutes; drain, chop up and stir, with the juice of half a lemon and a little pepper, into the drawn butter. Simmer together three minutes—put the fish upon a hot dish, and pour one-third of the sauce over it, serving the rest in a boat.

ROAST SWEETBREADS.

3 or 4 fine sweetbreads.
1 raw egg.
½ cup rolled crackers.
1 cup of gravy (saved from yesterday’s fricassee).
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
1 tablespoonful mushroom or walnut catsup.
Pepper and salt.
Rounds of fried bread.

Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads. Dry, and dip, first, in egg, then, in cracker-crumbs. Lay in a small dripping-pan; pour the butter over them, set in the oven, and roast, covered, three-quarters of an hour, basting often with the gravy. Dish upon fried bread. Add the catsup to the gravy; boil up and strain over the sweetbreads.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and pass with the fish.

SUCCOTASH.

Drain off the can liquor; cook the succotash half an hour in boiling water; drain, add a cup of hot milk, and stir in pepper, salt, and a great spoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer three minutes and pour out.

STRAWBERRY MÉRINGUE.

Make a good puff-paste, cut out large, and round as a dinner-plate, and bake to a light brown in a quick oven. Draw to the oven door; lay strawberries, rolled in sugar, over it, and cover these an inch deep with a _méringue_ made of the whites of four eggs whisked stiff, with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Bake until the _méringue_ is faintly tinged with yellow brown. Eat fresh, but not hot. It is delicious.

Third Week. Saturday.
——
Amber Soup.
Ham and Omelette. Ladies Cabbage.
Buttered Rice. Summer Salad.
——
Irish Potato Pie.
——

AMBER SOUP.

This soup should be prepared very early in the day; therefore, have the materials in the house overnight.

4 lbs. lean beef.
2 slices of _lean_ ham.
2 lbs. of veal-bones.
2 onions, sliced and fried.
1 carrot.
2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery.
Pepper, and, if required, salt.
½ cup granulated tapioca.
Whites and shell of an egg.
5 quarts of cold water.
Butter and dripping.
Burnt sugar.

Cut the meat into strips; put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a soup-pot, and lay the meat in it. Let it stand where it will heat slowly for half an hour. Then set over the fire, and stir until the meat is glazed with a brownish crust. Put a quart of water—cold—upon it, and bring gradually to a boil. Fry the onion and carrot in dripping to a fine brown, and drain off the fat, then put the vegetables into the pot with the meat, as soon as the latter is boiling hot. Cook half an hour; put in the rest of the cold water, the minced ham, and the bones broken to bits. Boil slowly four hours, then strain. Put meat and bones—highly seasoned—into a stone vessel, and pour half the soup over them for to-morrow. Put the rest back into the soup-kettle; season and boil up. Skim with care; put in the white and shell of an egg; boil three minutes; take from the fire and pour into a broad pan to cool. Burn two tablespoonfuls of sugar in a tin cup, on the hot range, and while still liquid, pour in half a cupful of boiling water. Let it stand thus until you are ready for it. The tapioca should have been soaking two hours in a little cold water. When the soup is cold, take off fat and scum—every particle; return to the scalded pot; boil up once, put in tapioca, and strain the sugar-water upon it. Simmer ten minutes, or until the tapioca is clear; skim once again, and pour out.

This is a fine company soup, but you should make it once or twice for family dinners in order to manage it properly. It is really not difficult.

HAM AND OMELETTE.

3 lbs. of ham, cut in _very_ thin slices.
7 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls of milk.
Pepper and a little salt.
1 large spoonful of butter.

Lay the ham in boiling water fifteen minutes, then let it get cold. Cut off all the rind and trim each slice neatly; then broil upon a greased gridiron. Pepper and keep hot while you prepare the omelette. Beat whites and yolks together with a few whirls of the beater; put in the milk and beat fast for one minute; season and pour into a frying-pan in which the butter is heating—not hissing. Shake briskly over the fire, slipping your cake-turner under it to prevent sticking, and in four minutes, double it over in the middle and turn out into a hot dish by a dexterous inversion of the pan. Lay the ham about it in the dish.

LADIES’ CABBAGE.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters, and let it get perfectly cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, pepper, salt, and a few spoonfuls of milk. Stir all up well; put into a buttered bake-dish, strew with fine crumbs; bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly. Eat hot.

BUTTERED RICE.

Boil a cup of rice soft in hot, salted water. Drain, and heap in a deep dish. Fry an onion (sliced) very lightly in two tablespoonfuls of butter; add pepper, and strain the hot butter over the rice in the dish. Pass grated cheese with it.

SUMMER SALAD.

3 heads of lettuce.
2 handfuls cresses.
1 cucumber, pared and sliced.
4 radishes, also pared and cut up.
3 hard-boiled eggs cut lengthwise into sixths.

Cut lettuces and cresses with a sharp knife, and mix with the other vegetables in a bowl. Pour over them a dressing made as directed on Thursday of the second week in this month. Lay the sliced eggs on the top of all.

IRISH POTATO PIE.

1 lb. mashed potato, rubbed through a colander.
½ lb. butter, creamed with the sugar.
6 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 lemon, squeezed into the hot potato.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg, and the same of mace.
2 cups of sugar.

Mix as you would cake, putting the whites in last, and bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.

Fourth Week. Sunday.
——
German Sago Soup.
Roast Lamb. Green Peas.
Young Onions, Stewed. Potato Puff.
——
Strawberries and Cream.
Silver Cake.
——

GERMAN SAGO SOUP.

Soak half a cup of German sago in a little cold water for two hours. Take the fat from the top of your soup stock, and pour off carefully from the bones, etc. If you have any left from the “amber soup,” add that, and a cupful of boiling water. Heat, season, and skim; put in the sago, and simmer half an hour.

ROAST LAMB.

Cook as you did the mutton, last Sunday, leaving out the stuffing and omitting the egg and crumb coating at the last. Roast about twelve minutes to the pound.

GREEN PEAS.

See receipt for Saturday of second week in May.

YOUNG ONIONS—STEWED.

Cook ten minutes in boiling water; throw this off, and pour on a cup of cold milk. Stew tender in this, add pepper, salt, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; simmer five minutes and turn out.

POTATO PUFF.

Mash the potatoes very soft, beating in butter, and milk, and finally, the whipped white of an egg. Whisk to a cream; heap roughly in a neat bake-dish and brown in a good oven.

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM.

Cap and pile the strawberries in a glass dish. Send around powdered sugar and a pitcher of cream with them.

SILVER CAKE.

This delicate and handsome cake should have been made on Friday or Saturday. Please see “COMMON-SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,” Series No. 1, General Receipts, page 332.

Fourth Week. Monday.
——
Baked Hotch-Potch.
Minced Lamb, with Poached Eggs.
Potato Cakes. Raw Tomatoes.
——
Bread Pudding.
——

BAKED HOTCH-POTCH.

2 lbs. of lean beef.
1 lb. of good sausage-meat.
1 sliced onion.
1 sliced cucumber.
3 raw tomatoes peeled and sliced.
Handful of asparagus-tops.
1 sliced carrot.
¼ of a cabbage-heart, chopped fine.
½ cup of raw rice.
2 cups of green peas.
Pepper and salt.
Cold water.

Cut the meat small and put in alternate layers with the vegetables and rice, into a stout stone jar. Pour in three quarts of water, when you have seasoned the vegetables. Fit a close cover on the jar, sealing around the edges with a paste of flour and water. Set in the oven early in the day and do not open for six hours; then pour into the tureen. This is a good soup for Monday, and almost a dinner in itself.

MINCED LAMB.

Cut the meat from the bone of your cold roast. Salt the bone and put by for another day’s soup. Mince the meat fine, season highly; put the gravy left from yesterday (or a cup of your Sunday’s soup would be even better) in a saucepan, when you have taken off the fat, heat it, and stir in the mince. Make it very hot; thicken with a little browned flour if it is too thin, and pile up in a flat dish, with poached eggs and toast about it.

POACHED EGGS.

Nearly fill a frying-pan with boiling water. Add a little salt and vinegar. Break your eggs, one at a time, into a wet saucer, and slip from this upon the surface of the water. Cook slowly three minutes; take up with a perforated skimmer, and lay carefully upon rounds of buttered toast laid around the minced lamb.

POTATO CAKES.

Work cold mashed potato—or the remains of your “puff,” soft with a little melted butter and milk; knead into it enough prepared flour to enable you to roll it out into a sheet half an inch thick. Cut into rounds like biscuit, and bake in a floured pan rather quickly to a good brown. Glaze with butter just before you take them out. Eat hot.

RAW TOMATOES.

Please see receipt for last Monday.

BREAD PUDDING.

2 cups fine crumbs.
1 quart of milk.
¼ lb. of citron cut into short shavings.
4 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
¼ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.
2 tablespoonfuls of brandy.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Soak the crumbs in the milk to a soft paste. Put a layer of this into a buttered bake-dish. Sprinkle with citron, then spice, and cover with more soaked crumbs. Having nearly filled the dish in this order, pour over all the eggs whipped light with sugar, butter, and brandy. Bake covered twenty-five minutes, then brown. Eat warm. It will need no sauce.

Fourth Week. Tuesday.
——
Cracker Soup.
Beefsteak and Onion. Green Peas.
Baked Corn. Cress-Salad.
——
Jersey Puffs.
——

CRACKER SOUP.

The cracked bone of the cold lamb.
1 lb. lean mutton, chopped up.
½ lb. Boston crackers, split.
2 quarts of cold water.
2 cups boiling milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in one teaspoonful of flour.
Pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace.
1 sliced onion.
A little chopped parsley.

Put meat, onion, and bones on in the water and cook slowly two hours. Strain and cool, and take off every particle of fat. While the soup is cooling, put your crackers into a bowl, or tin pail, salting and peppering them. Pour on the milk, cover closely, and set for half an hour in boiling water at one side of the range. Return the broth to the fire, season and skim as it heats. Now strain the milk from the crackers, if it be not all absorbed, and turn them, with care, into your tureen. They should be like a jelly, yet retain their shape. Stir into the soup the floured butter and parsley; boil one minute and pour slowly upon the crackers. Set the tureen in hot water—covered—ten minutes, before sending to the table.

BEEFSTEAK AND ONION.

Broil the steak in the usual manner and lay upon a hot dish. Pepper and salt, and strain over it three tablespoonfuls of butter in which a sliced Bermuda onion has simmered—not browned—for ten minutes. Cover with a hot tin platter for five minutes, and make cuts in the steak, here and there, to draw out the juices and enable the butter to penetrate it. This is a nicer way of flavoring a steak than the usual fashion of serving the onion with it.

GREEN PEAS.

Boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water, with a lump of white sugar, unless the peas are newly gathered from the home garden. When tender, drain well, pepper, and add a generous lump of butter. Serve hot.

BAKED CORN.

Open a can of sweet corn; drain and chop it fine. Beat up three eggs with a tablespoonful of sugar, the same of butter, two cups of milk, pepper and salt to taste. Stir in the corn and bake forty-five minutes in a buttered pudding-dish.

CRESS-SALAD.

Cut up—not too small—pile in a salad-bowl, sprinkle with sugar, and pour over it a dressing made by working up a saltspoonful each of salt, pepper, and made mustard with two tablespoonfuls of oil, and when this is well mixed, adding, a few drops at a time, and whipping these in with an egg-beater, four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Toss up with a silver fork.

JERSEY PUFFS.

1 quart Hecker’s prepared flour, sifted with a saltspoonful of salt.
1 tablespoonful of butter melted in 2 cups of hot milk.
5 eggs—very well whisked.

While milk and butter are cooling—a little above blood-heat—beat in the yolks, then the flour, and let the batter get stone cold before whipping in the frothed whites. Bake in greased muffin rings in a quick oven. Serve as soon as they are baked. Tear open with your fingers, and eat with liquid sauce.

Fourth Week. Wednesday.
——
Scotch Broth.
Roast Chickens and Pork. Asparagus Pudding.
Mashed Potatoes. Tomato Salad.
——
Chocolate Blanc-Mange.
——

SCOTCH BROTH.

3 lbs. scrag of mutton, the meat sliced and bones broken.
2 chopped carrots.
2 young turnips, sliced.
1 onion.
Rather more than ½ cup of barley.
3 quarts of water.
1 quart of green peas.
Pepper and salt.

Put on the mutton and all the vegetables, except the peas, in the water, and cook slowly four hours. Meanwhile, soak the barley in a cup of tepid water. Strain the broth, pulping the vegetables through the colander. Let it cool, and take off the fat. Season, put over the fire, skim when it reaches the boil, and add peas and barley. Simmer steadily half an hour, and serve.

ROAST CHICKENS AND PORK.

Clean, wash, and stuff a pair of chickens. Slice half a pound of fat salt pork very thin and bind with soft strings over the breasts and upper parts of the bodies. Lay in a dripping-pan; pour in a cup of boiling water, and roast one hour in a good oven, basting often. Then clip the strings, lay the pork in the pan; dredge the chickens with flour, and, as this colors, baste once with butter, and twice afterwards with gravy. When the chickens are done to a fine brown, lay upon a hot dish with the pork about them. Strain and skim the gravy, pepper it, thicken with a little browned flour and serve in a boat.

ASPARAGUS PUDDING.

The green tops of two bunches of asparagus, boiled tender, left to
cool, and cut up small.
4 eggs, well beaten.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
3 tablespoonfuls prepared flour.
1 scant cup of milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
Pepper and salt.

Beat eggs, butter, pepper and salt together; add the flour; then, by degrees, the milk, finally the asparagus. Put into a well-greased mould with a top, and cook in a pot of boiling water nearly two hours. Turn out upon a dish and pour a cup of drawn butter over it. It is very nice.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare in the customary way, taking care not to have them too stiff.

TOMATO SALAD.

Pare with a sharp knife; slice and lay in a salad-bowl. Make a dressing such as was directed yesterday for your cresses, with the addition of the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, _powdered_, and worked in with the oil, pepper, etc. Pour over the tomatoes, and set upon ice for an hour.

CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart milk.
1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked for one hour in a cup of cold water.
4 heaping tablespoonfuls of chocolate wet in a little milk.
¾ of a cup of sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla essence.

Boil the milk; stir in sugar and gelatine, and when these are dissolved, the chocolate. Cook five minutes, stirring all the time, and strain through double tarlatan, into a wet mould. Set upon ice to form. When firm, turn out and eat with sweet cream.

Fourth Week. Thursday.
——
Mock Turtle Soup.
Boiled Corned Beef. Young Turnips.
Casserole of Rice with Calf’s Brains. Green Pea Fritters.
——
Bananas, Oranges, Nuts, and Raisins.
Tea, Toasted Crackers, and Cheese.
——

MOCK TURTLE SOUP.

As I stated, after writing out the receipt in full for this soup (see Wednesday—Third Week in March), I shall not repeat it in this volume. Please, therefore, refer to the minute directions then given, and follow them in preparing to-day’s soup—_only_ leaving out the brains in the force-meat. You may make enough soup for two days, keeping that for Friday upon the ice.

BOILED CORNED BEEF.

Select a piece not too salt. The brisket is a good cut for family use, when not too fat. Boil in plenty of hot water, allowing fifteen minutes per pound. Make a good cup of drawn butter, taking some of the beef-liquor—strained—as a base. Chop up a little parsley and half a pickled onion, and stir into the butter one minute before pouring it out into a sauce-boat. Save the liquor for Saturday. For directions for making drawn butter and other sauces, please consult “General Receipts,” page 183.

YOUNG TURNIPS.

Peel and quarter. Cook in boiling water, a little salted, about half an hour, or until tender. Drain, but do not mash. Pepper and salt, then butter, after dishing them.

CASSEROLE OF RICE WITH CALF’S BRAINS.

Make a cupful of gravy from the bones and stuffing of yesterday’s chickens. Cool and skim it. Soak a cup of rice two hours in two cups of cold water; drain this off; put the rice into a farina-kettle with the gravy, previously heated to a boil, and a cup of boiling water. Season with salt and pepper, and cook tender, shaking up once in a while, but not stirring. When the rice is nearly dry, make a rounded hillock of it in the middle of a dish; strew with grated cheese, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven.

Boil the calf’s brains ten minutes; lay in cold water twice as long. Then dry well and beat up with an egg, pepper, salt, and a very little flour. Fry, by the spoonful, in hot fat, drain, and lay around the rice.

GREEN PEA FRITTERS.

1 pint boiled green peas, mashed while hot, with pepper, butter, and
salt.
2 beaten eggs.
1 cup of milk.
Less than ½ cup prepared flour.

Beat eggs, milk, and mashed peas smooth, then add the flour and fry upon a griddle as you would breakfast-cakes.

BANANAS, ORANGES, NUTS AND RAISINS.

Pile bananas and oranges together, garnishing with green leaves. Put nuts and raisins upon two smaller dishes. Pass all at the same course.

TEA, TOASTED CRACKERS, AND CHEESE.

If you have a hot-water pot and a spirit-lamp, make the tea upon the table a few minutes before it is needed, then cover the pot with a “cozy.” This is a pretty English fashion which, I am glad to see, is gaining ground in our country. Butter the split crackers while hot, and send around with the tea and cheese.

Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Yesterday’s Soup.
Lobster Fricassee. Potato Pasty.
String-Beans. Boiled Asparagus.
——
Strawberry Shortcake with Cream.
——

YESTERDAY’S SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of the cake of soup-jelly you will find in the refrigerator, and warm the stock cautiously, lest it should scorch. It should not quite boil.

LOBSTER FRICASSEE.

Meat of one large lobster, boiled and cold.
1 cup of your soup.
½ cup of milk.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour.
Pepper and salt to liking.

Cut the lobster into dice. Put the gravy, pepper, and salt into a saucepan, and, when hot, the lobster. Cook gently five minutes, and put in the lemon. Heat the milk in another vessel, stir in the floured butter; boil up; turn into a deep bowl. Pour the lobster in also, stir up faithfully, and turn into a deep dish.

POTATO PASTY.

Chop your cold, boiled beef fine; season with pepper and add the remains of yesterday’s drawn butter, or make more if you have none, putting in parsley and onion pickle, chopped. Pour this mixture into a greased bake-dish; cover with hard-boiled eggs, sliced. Work a large cup of mashed potato soft with a cup of milk and two tablespoonfuls of butter. Add prepared flour until you can just roll it out—the softer the better, so long as you can handle it. Roll into a thick sheet; spread upon the surface of your mince, printing the edges, and bake in a moderate oven to a fine brown.

STRING-BEANS.

See Tuesday, Third Week in May.

BOILED ASPARAGUS.

Receipt given First Sunday in May.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE WITH CREAM.

1 cup of powdered sugar, creamed with one tablespoonful of butter.
3 eggs.
1 cup of prepared flour, heaping.
2 tablespoonfuls of cream.

Beat the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar; the cream, then the whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in three jelly-cake tins. When cold, lay between the cakes nearly a quart of fresh, ripe strawberries. Sprinkle each layer with powdered sugar, and sift the same whitely over the top. Eat fresh with cream poured upon each slice.

Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Pea and Potato Soup.
Stewed Mutton Cutlets. Green Peas.
Raw Tomatoes. Potato Scallops.
——
Fig Pudding.
——

PEA AND POTATO SOUP.

The liquor in which your beef was boiled on Thursday.
10 parboiled potatoes.
1 pint of green peas.
1 sliced onion.
½ cup raw rice.
Pepper and parsley.

Take the fat from the liquor, and put on with the onion and potatoes, sliced. Cook one hour; strain, rubbing the vegetables through the sieve. Pepper, and return to the fire with the rice, parsley, and peas. Stew half an hour, or until the rice is tender. Pour out and serve. Dip up from the bottom in helping it out.

STEWED MUTTON CUTLETS.

3 lbs. of mutton cutlets.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
2 raw tomatoes, chopped.
Pepper and salt.
½ cup of boiling water.
Browned flour and currant jelly.

Put the butter into a saucepan, and lay in the cutlets, then the tomatoes. Set where they will heat very slowly for one hour. Then turn the meat, add the boiling water, and stew steadily—not fast—half an hour, keeping the pan closely covered. Lay the cutlets upon a hot dish, strain the gravy back into the saucepan, thicken with a little browned flour, stir in a heaping teaspoonful of currant jelly, and when this has melted, pour over the meat.

GREEN PEAS.

Cook as directed on Tuesday of this week.

RAW TOMATOES.

See “Tomato Salad” on Wednesday. Leave out the boiled eggs.

POTATO SCALLOPS.

Mash the potatoes light with a little milk, and an _even_ tablespoonful of butter for every cupful. Salt and pepper to taste. Fill buttered patty-pans, or scallop-shells with the mixture, sift fine crumbs over the tops, and brown in a good oven. Serve in the shells.

FIG PUDDING.

½ lb. best white figs, washed, dried, and minced.
2 cups of fine crumbs.
3 eggs.
½ cup of beef-suet, powdered.
2 scant cups of milk.
½ cup of white sugar.
A little salt.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water, and stirred into the milk.

Soak the crumbs in the milk. Stir in the eggs beaten light with the sugar, suet, salt, and figs. Beat hard three minutes; pour into a buttered mould and boil two hours and a half. Eat hot with wine sauce.

JUNE.

First Week. Sunday.
——
All-night Soup.
Roast Beef and Round Potatoes.
Boiled Macaroni. Green Peas.
——
Snow Custard.
——

ALL-NIGHT SOUP.

4 lbs. of coarse lean beef.
3 slices of lean ham.
2 onions.
2 turnips.
2 carrots.
2 blades of mace.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
6 tomatoes.
Pepper and salt.
½ cupful of German sago.
4 quarts of water.
1 tablespoonful of walnut catsup.

Cut the meat into dice, and chop the vegetables. Season, as you put them with sago and herbs in close layers, into a jar with a tight top. About eight o’clock on Saturday night, set this in a pot of boiling water (having tied a thick cloth over the lid of the jar) and cook until bed-time. Leave pot and jar upon the range. When the fire is built next day see that there is plenty of water in the pot, and pay no more attention to your soup, except to replenish the water in the pot with more, as hot from the tea-kettle, until half an hour before dinner is served. Then strain the contents of the jar, pressing the vegetables to a pulp. Divide the broth into two portions. Return one to the jar, with the meat, and set, when cold, in the refrigerator for to-morrow. Put the other into a saucepan, boil two minutes, skim, add the catsup, and pour into the tureen. Mem.: _Never_ forget to let the soup stand in a broad bowl after straining, long enough for the fat to rise and be skimmed off.

ROAST BEEF AND ROUND POTATOES.

Roast the meat in the usual manner, and, about half an hour before taking it out, pour off three-quarters of the gravy from the dripping-pan and lay about the meat some balls of mashed potato, worked smooth, with pepper, salt and a raw egg, moulded in your hands, and rolled in flour. Turn as they brown, and, when done, drain off the grease, and dish with the beef.

BOILED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces; cook about twenty minutes in salted boiling water. It should be clear at the edges, but not ragged. Drain well, pepper and salt, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter. Strew grated cheese over the top when dished, and pass more with it at table.

GREEN PEAS.

Cook from twenty to twenty-five minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Drain very well when tender, stir in a great lump of peppered butter, and serve hot in a vegetable dish.

SNOW CUSTARD.

½ package of Coxe’s gelatine.
3 eggs.
2 cups of milk.
2 cups of sugar.
Juice of one lemon.
2 cups of boiling water.
Vanilla, or other essence.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a cup of cold water. Add then a pint of boiling water, and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Put in two-thirds of the sugar and all the lemon-juice. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff, and when the gelatine is quite cold, whip it in, a spoonful at a time, for half an hour with the “Dover”—an hour, if you use the common egg-whisk. When all is a white sponge, put into a wet mould to form. Make a custard of the milk, yolks, and the reserved sugar, flavor as you like, and when the “snow” is turned out into a glass dish, pour this around the base. Prepare this dessert on Saturday, and keep in the refrigerator. It is very nice.

First Week. Monday.
——
Tomato Soup.
Larded Beef. Stewed Cream Potatoes.
Spinach Dressed with Egg. Green Pickles.
——
Strawberries and Cream.
Martha’s Cake.
——

TOMATO SOUP.

Peel, by pouring boiling water over them, a dozen fine tomatoes, cut them up, throwing aside the hard cores and unripe portions. Take the fat from the surface of your soup stock; pour it off from the meat and sediment; add the tomatoes, and stew gently half an hour. Strain, rubbing the tomatoes through the sieve; return to the pot; add a little pepper and salt, a lump of sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil one minute, and pour out. It will be a delicious soup.

LARDED BEEF.

Make perpendicular incisions in your cold roast, having trimmed the top smoothly, and thrust in lardoons of fat salt pork, set closely together. Take the fat from the cold gravy, and add to the latter a little minced onion, a tablespoonful of catsup, and a large cup of boiling water. Lay the meat in a dripping-pan, pour the gravy upon it, invert another pan over it, and cook in a moderate oven about an hour. Turn the meat once, and baste six times with the gravy. Dish the meat; strain the gravy, thicken it with browned flour, boil up and pour into a boat.

STEWED CREAM POTATOES.

Peel and cut into neat dice. Leave in cold water half an hour; then cook as long in boiling water, salted. Drain this off before the potatoes break; add half a cup of milk (or cream) with a pinch of soda. When it heats, stir in a generous lump of butter cut up in a teaspoonful of flour, and a mere pinch of finely-grated lemon-peel. Stew one minute and pour into a deep dish.

SPINACH DRESSED WITH EGG.

Boil the spinach in plenty of hot water, salted, for twenty minutes. Drain and press out the water. Chop fine; put back over the fire with a large spoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of sugar, with salt and pepper to taste, also a little nutmeg. Beat until hot and smooth; turn into a hot, deep dish, and cover with a dressing of the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs, left to cool, then pounded in a Wedgewood mortar, and rubbed to a paste with a teaspoonful of melted butter, one of cream, and lastly, one of lemon-juice. Spread over the surface of the spinach and garnish with a border of the sliced whites.

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM.

Cap the berries, and pile in a glass bowl. Do _not_ sugar them, but pass powdered sugar and cream with each saucerful.

MARTHA’S CAKE.

An economical and very nice variety of jelly-cake, easily made, and which keeps well. Please see “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” Series No. 1, “General Receipts,” page 314.

First Week. Tuesday.
——
Quick Beef Soup.
Lamb Chops. Purée of Potatoes.
Asparagus Rolls. Lettuce.
——
Rosie’s Rice Custard.
——

QUICK BEEF SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean beef, chopped _very_ fine.
3 pints of water.
1 grated carrot.
1 onion, sliced.
1 grated turnip.
1 clove.
1 tablespoonful of tomato catsup.
Pepper and salt.

Put onion and other vegetables with spice on in two quarts of water, and boil down to three pints. Strain and press over the beef. Season with pepper, salt, and catsup; simmer half an hour, or until the meat is nearly white and the soup brown, and serve with the meat in it. The vegetable liquor must be boiling when it is poured upon the minced beef.

LAMB CHOPS.

Broil quickly over a clear fire; pepper and salt; butter on both sides, and lay in a heap, symmetrically arranged, in the centre of a dish, surrounded by the potato purée.

PURÉE OF POTATOES.

2 cups of hot, mashed potatoes, rubbed through a colander.
½ cup of milk.
1 large spoonful of butter.
Pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg.

Mix all up well; put into a _greased_ saucepan, and stir until hot, never allowing it to stick to the sides or scorch, and lay, in a white hedge, about the chops.

ASPARAGUS ROLLS.

8 or 10 stale French rolls.
2 bunches of asparagus.
Yolks of 2 raw eggs.
1 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter, rolled in a very little flour.
Salt and pepper.

Cut off the top of each roll; pick out the crumb carefully, and set the hollowed rolls, with their tops, in a slow oven to dry to crispness. Boil the asparagus twenty minutes, cut off the green tops, and let them get perfectly cold. Then heat the milk; stir in the butter; pour upon the beaten yolks; beat one minute with your egg-whisk; return to the fire; put in the asparagus-tops—minced—leaving out as many whole tops as you have rolls—stir until very hot, but not until it boils. Fill your rolls with the mixture; make a round hole in the top of each crust-cover; fit in a bit of asparagus, as if it had sprouted from below; fit each cover upon its roll, and the pretty and delightful dish is ready.

LETTUCE.

Pick hearts and blanched leaves from the stems; pile in a salad-bowl, and cover with a dressing made of two tablespoonfuls of oil, one teaspoonful of white sugar, half as much each of salt, pepper, and made mustard—all rubbed smooth together—then thickened, rather than thinned, by whipping in a few drops at a time, four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Stir up with a silver fork after the dressing goes on.

ROSIE’S RICE CUSTARD.

1 quart of milk.
3 well-beaten eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
1 small cup of boiled and still warm rice.
1 scant tablespoonful of butter.
A little salt.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten eggs, salt, then, the rice stirred warm into the milk. Bake in a buttered dish half an hour in a quick oven. Eat warm.

First Week. Wednesday.
——
Chicken Broth.
Milanaise Pudding. Fried Shad au Gratin.
Mashed Potatoes. Navy Beans.
——
Cottage Pudding.
——

CHICKEN BROTH.

1 large chicken, jointed as for fricassee.
½ cup of raw rice.
5 quarts of cold water.
Chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.
1 cup of milk.
2 beaten eggs.

Put water and chicken on quite early in the day, and cook slowly until the water has boiled down to about three and a half quarts, and the chicken slips easily from the bones. Take off all the meat, and return the bones to the pot. Cook gently until an hour before dinner, when strain, and let it cool. Take off the fat; return to the fire—with the seasoning and rice—and simmer half an hour, or until the rice is soft. Have the milk heated in a separate vessel, with a pinch of soda; pour upon the beaten eggs; put back over the fire, and stir until it begins to thicken. Turn into the tureen. Boil up the chicken broth once sharply, and add to the milk in the soup-tureen, stirring up well.

FRIED SHAD AU GRATIN.

Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad. Take off head, tail, and fins, and cut into eight pieces. Pepper and salt these; dip into beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping or lard. Drain, and serve on a hot, flat dish. The roes should be parboiled, then cooled—afterward dipped in egg and cracker, fried in the same manner as the fish, and dished with it.

=Milanaise Pudding.=

½ lb. cold cooked ham.
The meat of your soup-chicken.
Nearly ½ lb. of macaroni.
2 eggs.
A cup of your soup, strained and skimmed before the rice is put in.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste.

Boil the macaroni in the broth until tender; then let it cool somewhat, and, with a pair of old scissors, clip it into inch lengths. Chop ham and chicken, and pepper. Mix with the macaroni—which should have absorbed the broth—stir in the melted butter and eggs. Put into a well-greased mould, and boil an hour and a half. Turn out; pour over it a cup of drawn butter, and serve. Pass grated cheese with it.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual and pass with the fish course.

NAVY BEANS.

This is a variety of white kidney beans. Shell and lay them in cold water half an hour, to take off the raw, rank taste. Cook about twenty-five minutes in boiling water, a little salt. Drain well; pepper, salt, and butter. Eat hot.

COTTAGE PUDDING.

1 cup of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 eggs.
1 cup of sweet milk.
3 cups of flour, or enough for pretty stiff batter. (Use Hecker’s
prepared flour.)
½ teaspoonful of salt.

Cream butter and sugar; beat in the yolks, then the salted flour, alternately with the whites. Bake in a buttered cake-mould until a straw will come up clean from the middle. Turn out and eat hot with sweet sauce.

First Week. Thursday.
——
White Asparagus Soup.
Stuffed Fillet of Veal with Bacon. Scooped Potatoes.
Tomato Salad. Hominy Pudding.
——
Cocoanut Puddings.
——

WHITE ASPARAGUS SOUP.

3 lbs. knuckle of veal.
1 slice of corned ham.
3 bunches of well-bleached asparagus, cut into short pieces.
4 quarts of water.
1 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.
Pepper, salt, chopped parsley, and dice of fried bread.

Crack the bones to splinters and chop the meat. Put on with all the asparagus stalks and one-half of the heads. Cover with the water and cook gently, covered, three hours. Strain; cool to let the grease rise; skim and return to the pot with the seasoning and reserved heads of asparagus. Boil slowly for twenty minutes longer. Heat the milk separately, salt and pepper, and stir in the corn-starch, boiling one minute to thicken it. Pour into the tureen upon the dice of fried bread; stir into this the boiling soup, and send to table.

STUFFED FILLET OF VEAL WITH BACON.

Take out the bone from the meat, and pin into a round with skewers. Bind securely with soft tapes. Fill the cavity left by the bone with a force-meat of crumbs, chopped pork; thyme, and parsley, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of lemon-peel. Cover the top of the fillet with thin slices of cold, _cooked_, fat bacon or salt pork, tying them in place with twines crossing the meat in all directions. Put into a pot with two cups of boiling water, and cook slowly and steadily two hours. Then take from the pot and put into a dripping-pan. Undo the strings and tapes. Brush the meat all over with raw egg, sift rolled cracker thickly over it, and set in the oven for half an hour, basting often with gravy from the pot. When it is well browned, lay upon a hot dish with the pork about it. Strain and thicken the gravy, and serve in a boat.

If your fillet be large, cook twice as long in the pot. The time given above is for one weighing five pounds.

SCOOPED POTATOES.

Pare and cut round with a potato-gouge—a neat little instrument that costs but a trifle. The waste bits can be boiled, mashed, and set by for to-morrow’s uses. Boil the scooped pellets in hot, salted water twenty minutes; throw this off and put in a cup of cold milk. Simmer gently until the potatoes are tender; stir in a good lump of butter rolled in flour, and when this is melted, a little minced parsley, with pepper and salt. Stew three minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

TOMATO SALAD.

Pare with a keen knife; arrange upon a glass dish and cover with a dressing like that made on Tuesday for lettuce, but adding the beaten yolks of two raw eggs, whipped in the last thing.

HOMINY PUDDING.

1 cupful cold, boiled, small-grained hominy.
2 cups of milk.
1 heaping tablespoonful of melted butter.
3 eggs.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
A little salt.

Rub the hominy very smooth with the butter; then the yolks, beaten up with the sugar. Beat well before thinning with the salted milk. Lastly, add the frothed whites. Bake in a greased pudding-dish until nicely browned.

COCOANUT PUDDINGS.

1 lb. of cocoanut, grated.
½ lb. of powdered sugar.
1 quart rich milk.
5 beaten eggs.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla.

Scald the milk and pour, gradually, upon the beaten eggs. Do not return to the fire, but, when nearly cold, season, add the cocoanut; stir up well; pour into buttered cups, and bake by setting in a pan of boiling water, and stirring again as the custard begins to heat, that the cocoanut may not settle to the bottom. Bake until well “set,” and slightly browned. Eat cold.

First Week. Friday.
——
Clam Chowder.
Baked Pickerel. Veal Scallop.
Mashed Potatoes, Browned. Green Peas.
——
Strawberry Shortcake.
Tea.
——

CLAM CHOWDER.

100 clams.
1 sliced onion.
12 butter or other small crackers, that can be split.
12 tomatoes, peeled and chopped.
1 tablespoonful minced parsley and half the quantity of mixed
thyme, summer savory and sweet marjoram.
A large pinch of mace and the same of cayenne pepper.
1 cup of milk—hot—for soaking the crackers, and butter for
spreading them.
3 tablespoonfuls butter for chowder.
Salt.

Put a layer of clams in the bottom of a soup-pot, next one of sliced tomatoes and onion. Sprinkle with seasoning, and drop bits of butter upon them. More clams, more tomato, etc., until all are in. Pour on the liquor—there should be at least three pints—cover, heat slowly for half an hour, then boil quite briskly for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, soak the split crackers—covered—in the boiling milk. When soft all through, butter thickly, and keep warm over boiling water until the soup is ready. Then line a hot tureen with them, and pour in the chowder. Pass sliced lemon with it.

BAKED PICKEREL.

Select a couple of large, fresh fish; score the back-bones with a sharp knife, and lay them in a baking-pan. Pour a cupful of boiling water over them, cover, and bake slowly, basting with butter and water, at least six times. The fish should be tender, yet firm when done. Transfer them carefully to a hot-water dish. Have ready a cupful of rich, drawn butter; strain the gravy from the dripping-pan into it, with a little minced parsley. Heat almost to a boil and pour over the fish. There is no better way of cooking large pickerel than this.

VEAL SCALLOP.

Chop the remains of your fillet fine, and season with pepper and salt. Put a layer of dry crumbs in a buttered bake-dish; stick bits of butter over it; cover with the meat and wet this with gravy and warm milk. Repeat this order of strata until your dish is full, covering deep with crumbs. Fit a tin cover on the top and bake half an hour; remove the lid and brown nicely. Serve in the bake-dish.

MASHED POTATOES—BROWNED.

Mash soft with milk and butter; whip up to a cream; season, and make into a four-sided pyramid upon a greased pie-dish. Brown in a good oven and slip to a warm dish. Pass with the fish.

GREEN PEAS.

Please see receipt given on Sunday of this week.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE.

Please see receipt given on Friday of Fourth Week in May. The strawberry season is so short that you can hardly give this popular dessert often enough to weary your family while the scarlet, flavorous beauties last.

TEA,

Hot and strong, will be the better for a little cream borrowed from the supply meant for your shortcake.

First Week. Saturday.
——
Marlowe Soup.
Beefs Tongue (Langue du Bœuf). Squeezed Potatoes.
French Beans, Sautés. Young Beets.
——
Cherry Pie.
——

MARLOWE SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean veal and the same of lean beef.
1 lb. of lean ham.
2 onions.
1 carrot.
1 turnip.
¼ of a head of cabbage, chopped and parboiled.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
6 tomatoes, peeled and sliced.
½ cup of rice.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts of cold water.

Cut up meat and vegetables fine, and put with the water into the soup-kettle. Cook slowly four hours. Strain the soup, rubbing the vegetables through the colander. Divide the liquor into two parts. Put with the meat—all highly seasoned—into a stoneware vessel and set by in the refrigerator. Let the other portion cool; take off the fat; season; put over the fire; boil and skim for a few minutes, and put in the rice. Simmer very gently half an hour, or until the rice is very soft.

BEEF’S TONGUE—(LANGUE DU BŒUF).

Wash a large, perfectly fresh tongue in three waters. Then cover well with boiling water, a little salt—plenty of it—and cook about twelve minutes to the pound. Strip off the skin; dish, when you have trimmed away the root, and pour over it the following sauce: Strain a cup of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled; set over the fire, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in flour, pepper to taste; the juice of a lemon, and when this has thickened, two small pickled cucumbers, chopped. This is a dish whose merits deserve to be better known. (Save the liquor.)

SQUEEZED POTATOES.

Put on in cold water, and bring quickly to a boil. When soft enough to be pierced by a fork, turn off the water; throw in a little salt, and dry on the range. Tear off the skins quickly, and as soon as each is bare, envelop it in the corner of a dry, hot towel and twist the same tightly around it for a second, but not _quite_ breaking it. Pile within a napkin-lined dish, and send up hot.

FRENCH BEANS—SAUTÉS.

Top, tail, and “string” with care. Cut into short pieces. Cook in boiling water, a little salt, until tender—say thirty minutes, if they are full-grown. Drain well; return to the saucepan with two great spoonfuls of butter, salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of vinegar. Toss until very hot, and turn into a hot, deep dish.

YOUNG BEETS.

Boil in hot, salt water one hour. When done, rub off the skins; split the beets lengthwise and lay upon a hot dish. Have ready a great spoonful of melted butter, mixed with two of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, heated to boiling, and pour over the beets. Be careful not to break the skin of raw beets, or they will lose their color in the hot water while cooking.

CHERRY PIE.

Line your pie-dish with a good paste; fill with a mixture of sour and sweet cherries; sweeten plentifully; cover with paste printed at the edge and slit in the middle, and bake until nicely colored. Eat fresh, but not warm, with white sugar sifted over the top.

Second Week. Sunday.
——
Tomato and Pea Soup.
Stewed Lamb with Mushroom Sauce. Lima Beans.
Green Peas. Stewed Turnips.
——
Lemon Blanc-Mange.
Coffee and Cake.
——

TOMATO AND PEA SOUP.

Take the fat from the liquor in which the tongue was boiled yesterday; set it over the fire, and, when boiling, put in the empty pods of two quarts of peas. Boil half an hour; take from the fire and strain out the pods. About half an hour before dinner, take the fat from the “stock” set aside yesterday, and pour off from the meat and sediment into the soup-pot. While it is slowly heating, put on the water in which the pods were boiled, with the peas and two quarts of peeled and sliced tomatoes, in another pot, and bring more rapidly to the boil. Cook twenty-five minutes, then stir in two lumps of white sugar, two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, pepper well, boil up, and rub through a colander into the main soup-kettle. Simmer all together three minutes, and it is fit for use. Pour half into the tureen; cool the rest and remand to the refrigerator.

STEWED LAMB WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE.

Let your butcher take out the bones from the lower side of a shoulder of lamb, leaving in the shank. Fill the cavity thus left with a good force-meat of crumbs, chopped pork, and sweet herbs, and sew the meat edges together to hold it in. If you have no gravy ready make a pint on Saturday of the lamb trimmings and a few veal-bones, with seasoning. It need not be strong. Put the lamb into a broad pot, with some thin slices of fat pork laid in the bottom; pour in the gravy, cover tightly, and stew gently one hour. Turn the meat then, and cook twenty minutes longer. Lay the lamb upon a hot dish, and butter it all over. Cover, and keep warm over hot water while you make the sauce. Have ready half a can of mushrooms, boiled and chopped. Strain the gravy left in the pot, add the mushrooms, and stew five minutes; thicken with browned flour; boil up and pour over the lamb. Garnish with alternate slices of green pickle and boiled beets.

LIMA BEANS.

Shell; lay in cold water twenty minutes, and cook in slightly salted boiling water _about_ half an hour, or until tender. The time depends much upon age and size. Drain well; pour into a deep dish; pepper, salt, and butter.

GREEN PEAS.

Receipt given on Sunday of First Week in this month.

STEWED TURNIPS.

Peel and slice young turnips. Boil fifteen minutes in hot, salted water; throw this off, and add half a cup of milk and as much boiling fresh water. When this heats, stir in a generous lump of butter, rolled in a teaspoonful of flour, with pepper and salt to taste. Simmer ten minutes longer, or until tender, and pour into a deep dish. Eat very hot.

LEMON BLANC-MANGE.

1 large lemon, or two small ones—all the juice and half the grated peel.
Whisked whites of 4 eggs.
1 package of gelatine soaked two hours in one cup of cold water.
1 pint and 1 cup of _boiling_ water.
2 cups of powdered sugar—even ones.
½ teaspoonful of nutmeg.
1 glass of good claret.

Add to the soaked gelatine the lemon-juice and peel, sugar and spice. Leave standing one hour. Then pour on the boiling water. Stir until clear, add the wine, and strain through double tarlatan. While it is cooling, whip the whites very stiff. When the gelatine begins to coagulate around the edge of the dish, whip it, little by little, into the frothed whites until it is stiff. Put into a wet mould, and set upon the ice. On Sunday turn it out, and pour a rich liqueur—that from brandied peaches is best—about the base. Preserved strawberries are also very nice with it if you have no liqueur.

COFFEE AND CAKE.

If you prefer, you can give the cake with the blanc-mange, and drink the coffee afterwards.

Second Week. Monday.
——
“Once-Again” Soup.
Cold Lamb. Cheese Fondu.
Raw Tomatoes. Potatoes en Robe de Chambre.
——
Floating Island.
——

“ONCE-AGAIN” SOUP.

A good soup, founded upon such stock as you made on Saturday, is better the third day than the first. Therefore, take off the fat from the portion kept on the ice since yesterday’s providential division, and warm it slowly, _almost_ to a boil. If you have time, cut some fried bread into dice and put into the tureen before you pour in the soup.

COLD LAMB.

Do not murder the well-cooked, juicy innocent of yesterday by hashing and reheating. A nice dish of cold lamb, trimmed and garnished with cresses and cool, white lettuce, is goodly to the eyes—and taste—on a sultry June day.

CHEESE FONDU.

2 cups milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
1 cup very dry, fine crumbs.
½ lb. of dry cheese, grated.
4 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Butter a pudding-dish; put in the mixture; strew the top with fine crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown quickly. Eat soon, as it will fall in cooling.

RAW TOMATOES.

See receipt for Tuesday of first week in this month for dressing lettuce, when you have peeled and sliced the tomatoes.

POTATOES EN ROBE DE CHAMBRE.

If you use Bermuda potatoes, cook in boiling water. If you take old potatoes, put on in cold and bring rapidly to a boil. Throw off the water when they are done, set back on the range, uncovered, to dry out, and send to table with the skins on.

FLOATING ISLAND.

1 quart of milk.
4 beaten eggs.
4 heaping tablespoonfuls of sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls extract of bitter almond.
½ cup of currant jelly.

Beat yolks and sugar light, and pour on, by degrees, the boiling milk. Pour back into the farina-kettle, and heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. When cold, flavor, and pour into a glass dish. Pile with a _méringue_ of the whites beaten up with half a cup of currant jelly. Ornament with dots of jelly.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
A Summer Mélange Soup.
Rolled Beef. Boiled Onions.
Stuffed Tomatoes. Baked Omelettes aux Fines Herbes.
——
Strawberries and Cream.
Orange Cake.
——

A SUMMER MÉLANGE SOUP.

2 lbs. lean beef, chopped fine.
1 quart green peas.
1 quart tomatoes, peeled and sliced.
1 cucumber, sliced thin.
1 sliced onion.
1 pint of small string-beans, cut into pieces.
3 great spoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour.
Pepper and salt.
4 quarts of cold water.