Chapter XV: Part 15

Make more coffee than needed for breakfast. Set by three or four cups of strong coffee, adding nearly one-third as much boiled milk, while both are hot. Set in ice, and, in serving, put a lump of ice in each glass.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
Tapioca Soup.
Beefsteak. Tomatoes and Corn, Stewed.
Potatoes in Jackets. Mashed Squash.
——
Peaches and Cream.
——

TAPIOCA SOUP.

2 lbs. lean veal; 2 lbs. beef-bones, cracked; 1 slice of corned ham; 1 carrot; bunch of herbs; 1 onion; 8 large tomatoes; 1 tablespoonful of sugar; pepper and salt; ¼ cup granulated tapioca, previously soaked two hours in a little cold water; 3 quarts of water.

Slice the meat and vegetables, and put on—leaving out the tomatoes—in the water, to boil slowly four hours. At the end of the second hour, skim well, and add the tomatoes. When the time is up, strain the soup, take out the meat, and rub the vegetables through the colander. Cool and skim; season with sugar, pepper, salt, and minced herbs, and heat up anew. When it boils, add the tapioca; stir clear, and serve.

BEEFSTEAK.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet, and broil upon a buttered gridiron over a clear fire. Lay upon a hot dish, pepper, salt, and put a bountiful spoonful of butter, cut into bits, upon it. Cover with a hot dish or lid for five minutes before it is to be carved.

TOMATOES AND CORN, STEWED.

Slice eight large tomatoes, when you have skinned them. Add the corn cut from six ears; put into a saucepan and stew twenty minutes; season with pepper, salt, and sugar. Add a great lump of butter rolled in flour, and cook ten minutes longer.

POTATOES IN JACKETS.

Put on in boiling salt water, and cook twenty minutes; then throw in a cup of cold water. Bring rapidly to the second boil, and, when a fork pierces the largest easily, turn off the water, and set the uncovered pot upon the range, to dry off the moisture. Serve in a dish lined with a napkin.

MASHED SQUASH.

Pare, quarter, lay in cold water ten minutes, and cook soft in hot, salted water. Mash in a hot colander very quickly; season with butter, pepper, and salt, and dish very hot.

PEACHES AND CREAM.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Cream Soup.
Baked Calf’s Head, with Mushrooms. Spinach.
Succotash. Lettuce.
——
Apple Pudding.
——

CREAM SOUP.

The liquor in which your calf’s head was boiled; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 1 blade of mace; 1 cup of milk; yolks of 2 eggs; pepper and salt; 1 teaspoonful corn-starch, rubbed in cold water.

Boil your calf’s head early in the day, until you can just handle it without breaking it to pieces. It will be firmer for baking if left to get cold at this juncture. Skim the pot-liquor, put in the sliced onion, parsley, and mace, and boil slowly two hours. Strain, cool, skim, season, and thicken slightly with the corn-starch. Beat the yolks in a bowl, add the boiling milk, and pour into the heated tureen. Add the soup, stir up well, and serve.

BAKED CALF’S HEAD, WITH MUSHROOMS.

Set the cold boiled calf’s head in the oven; pour a cup of pot-liquor, boiling hot, over it, and bake half an hour, basting very often. Then dredge well with flour and baste twice with butter. Now coat thickly with a paste made of the brains, boiled, cooled and beaten smooth with an egg, and seasoned with pepper and salt. When this has browned, dish the head. Strain the gravy, add half a cupful of mushrooms, boiled and chopped, a very little browned flour, the juice of a lemon, and, if needed, a little boiling water. Stew one minute and send up in a boat.

SPINACH.

Boil in hot water, a little salt, about twenty minutes. Drain and press; then chop very fine and return to the fire with a good lump of butter, salt, pepper, sugar, a few tablespoonfuls of cream, and beat to a smooth mixture like custard. Pour into a deep dish and serve.

SUCCOTASH.

Cut the corn from six or seven cobs; mix with it one-third the quantity of Lima beans; just cover with water, and stew gently half an hour. Turn off most of the water, add a cup of milk, and when this heats, a great lump of butter rolled in flour, with pepper and salt. Simmer half an hour longer, stirring up often.

LETTUCE.

Pick apart the heads and pile upon pounded ice, on a glass dish. Pass vinegar, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar with it.

APPLE PUDDING.

Sliced tart apples; bread-crumbs; butter; sugar; cinnamon.

Butter a pudding-dish very well, and put in a layer of crumbs; then dots of butter; next, sliced apples strewed with sugar and cinnamon—more buttered crumbs. Repeat the layers in this order until your dish is full, with crumbs on top. Bake, covered, half an hour—or forty minutes for a large dish. Turn out, pour liquid sauce over it, and eat hot with more.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Beef Bouillon.
Boiled Beef and Vegetables.
Mashed Potatoes. Raw Tomatoes.
——
Peach Pie.
——

BEEF BOUILLON.

6 lbs. of round of beef, bound into a good shape with tape; 3 small carrots; 3 turnips; 8 very small young onions, and one large one stuck with four cloves. Bunch of herbs; 1 pint of string-beans and same of green peas; 1 small head of cauliflower; 4 quarts of water; pepper and salt; noodles, rice or sago.

Put the beef whole into the water, and heat slowly to a boil. When you have taken off the scum, dip out a pint of the liquor, and put by for cooking the vegetables. Add to the liquor left with the beef one sliced carrot, one turnip, also sliced, the large onion and the herbs. Stew slowly four hours; take out the beef and keep hot over boiling water. Strain the soup, pulping the vegetables; cool and skim, return to the fire, and, when it heats, add noodles, boiled rice or soaked German sago. Simmer five minutes and pour into the tureen.

THE BEEF AND VEGETABLES.

Pare the two turnips and two carrots; string the beans; top, tail and skin the onions, and cook these, with the cauliflower, half an hour in the pint of hot broth, slightly salted. Then add the peas, and cook twenty minutes more. Serve the beef upon a hot dish; slice the turnips and carrots and clip the cauliflower into bunches, and lay, each kind of vegetable by itself, about the meat. Make a sauce by heating and skimming a cupful of the soup-broth, stirring into it a great spoonful of butter rolled in a heaping teaspoonful of flour, and, when it has thickened, seasoning with pepper, salt, a little French mustard, and the juice of half a lemon. Serve in a boat.

MASHED POTATOES.

Treat as directed on Monday of this week.

RAW TOMATOES.

See Friday of First Week in August.

PEACH PIE.

Pare, but do not stone ripe, rich peaches. Have ready your pie-plates lined with a good paste; put in the fruit; sweeten well; cover with pastry, and bake. Eat fresh—not warm—with powdered sugar sifted over them.

Second Week. Friday.
——
Eel Soup.
Broiled Chickens. Broiled Tomatoes.
Scalloped Squash. Grape Jelly.
——
Watermelons and Nutmeg Melons.
——

EEL SOUP.

4 lbs. of eels; 3 quarts of water; 1 chopped onion; minced parsley; a blade of mace; pepper, salt, and lemon-juice; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; dripping.

Clean the eels, removing all the fat, and cut into short pieces. Fry a chopped onion brown in plenty of dripping; wipe the eels dry and fry them in the same. Put into a pot with the onion and mace; cover with three quarts of cold water, and stew slowly two hours. Then season; stir in the floured butter; simmer three minutes, add the lemon-juice, and pour out.

BROILED CHICKENS.

Clean, wash off the blood, but do not soak; split down the backs, and lay upon a gridiron, or sticks laid over a dripping-pan of boiling water. Cover with another pan and steam half an hour, in the oven or upon the range. Wipe off the moisture lightly, and cook upon a buttered gridiron over hot coals, turning when it drips. Let it get tender and brown without scorching. When done, lay upon a hot dish; butter well, pepper and salt, and send up at once.

BROILED TOMATOES.

Slice fine ripe tomatoes without peeling them, and cook, held between the wires of an oyster-broiler, until hissing hot and slightly browned. Lay upon a hot dish, and dress with a mixture of butter heated almost to boiling, with a little vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

SCALLOPED SQUASH.

Mash in the usual way; put upon a layer of crumbs laid in the bottom of a pudding-dish, having seasoned the squash with butter, pepper, and salt. Pour a little cream on top, and strew with buttered crumbs. Bake, covered, half an hour, then brown.

NUTMEG AND WATER MELONS.

Keep both on ice for several hours. Serve, by wiping the watermelon and laying it whole upon a long dish, to be carved at table. If cut up too long before it is to be eaten, it becomes insipid. Cut the nutmeg melons in two; take out the seeds, and put a lump of ice in each half.

Second Week. Saturday.
——
Vegetable Soup with Eggs.
Larded Mutton Chops. Green Peas.
Boiled Green Corn. Whole Boiled Potatoes.
——
Blackberry Roley-Poley.
——

VEGETABLE SOUP WITH EGGS.

3 lbs. of beef—coarse and cut into strips; 2 lbs. veal, from the scrag; 2 lbs. marrow-bones of any kind; 2 carrots; 1 turnip; 1 large onion; 6 tomatoes; corn from three ears, _grated_ off; 1 pint of green peas; sweet herbs; pepper and salt; 6 quarts of water; 6 or 8 eggs.

Put the meat, bones, and all the vegetables on in the water, early in the day, and boil slowly five or six hours. Should the liquid sink more than one-third, add boiling water. The meat should be in rags, and the vegetables broken to pieces. Strain; pulp the vegetables through the colander; cool, and skim the stock, and season well. Divide, and set aside a goodly portion for Sunday, keeping it on ice. Boil up, skim again, pour into the tureen, and lay on the surface the poached _yolks_ of as many eggs as there are people to be served. Use the whites for white, silver, or lady cake.

LARDED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim off all the fat and skin, leaving a bare piece of bone at the end of each. Lard closely with fat salt pork, passing the lardoons quite through the meat. Put on in a saucepan, with enough gravy to cover them, and what remains of your can of mushrooms from day before yesterday. They will have kept well on ice. Cut each mushroom in two. Cover, and simmer gently until the chops are tender. (The gravy should be cold when it is poured upon them.) Take up the chops; arrange upon a dish. Add a heaping teaspoonful of currant jelly and a little browned flour to the gravy, boil once, and pour over the meat. Garnish with sliced lemon.

GREEN PEAS.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

BOILED GREEN CORN.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

POTATOES BOILED WHOLE.

Treat as directed on Tuesday of this week, only stripping off the skins after they are boiled, and, when they are dished, dressing them with hot butter mixed with minced parsley and pepper and salt. Serve very hot.

BLACKBERRY ROLEY POLEY.

1 quart of prepared flour; 1 heaping tablespoonful of lard; and the same of butter, rubbed with a little salt, into the flour; enough milk—about two cups—to make soft dough.

Roll out into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick. Strew, leaving a narrow margin at the sides, with sound blackberries, sprinkled with sugar. Roll tightly. Sew up with a “felled” seam, in a cloth, leaving room for swelling. Put into a pot of boiling water, and keep at the boil an hour and a quarter. Dip the cloth in cold water to loosen it, and turn out. Eat cold with hard sauce.

Third Week. Sunday.
——
Tomato Soup.
Fillet of Veal. Chopped Potatoes.
Green Corn Pudding. String-Beans.
——
Peach Lèche-Crêma.
Marbled Cake.
——

TOMATO SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of your soup-stock; heat, and add a pint of strained tomato sauce well seasoned. Simmer ten minutes, and it is ready.

FILLET OF VEAL.

Boil, blanch, and chop two sweetbreads; mix with them a slice of cooked corned ham, minced, and some fine bread-crumbs; season with pepper, salt, a pinch of lemon-peel, and bind with a beaten egg. Stuff a fillet of veal with this mixture. Bind a broad strip of muslin about it, as wide as the meat is high; set in a dripping-pan, and pour a cup of hot water around it. Cover the top with milk in which has been mixed a tablespoonful of melted butter. Pour on carefully so as not to run down the sides. Bake, basting for one hour with milk and butter, for another hour with _cream_, in which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Unbind the muslin from the fillet, dish it; add to the gravy a little hot water and a teaspoonful of corn-starch wet in cold water; boil up, and pour half upon the veal, the rest into a boat.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop cold, boiled potatoes into rather coarse dice; cover with warm milk in which a pinch of soda has been dropped; when very hot, stir in a lump of floured butter and a little minced parsley and onion. Simmer five minutes and serve.

GREEN CORN PUDDING.

See Friday of First Week in August.

STRING-BEANS.

See Tuesday of First Week in August.

PEACH LÈCHE-CRÊMA.

12 ripe peaches, pared, stoned and cut in halves; 3 eggs, and the whites of 2 more; ½ cup of powdered sugar; 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet in cold milk; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 pint of milk.

Scald the milk, stir in the corn-starch, and, when it begins to thicken, take from the fire and put in the butter. When lukewarm, whip in the beaten yolks until all are very light. Put a thick substratum of peaches into a dish; strew with sugar, and pour the creamy compound over them. Bake in a quick oven ten minutes and spread with a _méringue_ made of five whites whipped stiff with a little powdered sugar. Shut the oven-door until this is firm. Eat cold with cream.

Third Week. Monday.
——
Quick Soup.
Dijon Paté. Lima Beans.
Mashed Potatoes. Raw Tomatoes.
——
Pears, Peaches, and Bananas.
Iced Coffee, Crackers and Cheese.
——

QUICK SOUP.

2 lbs. of raw lean beef, chopped _very_ fine; 3 pints of boiling water in which an onion, a turnip, and a carrot—all pared and sliced—have been boiled twenty minutes; pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup.

Put the beef into a tin pail and set in cold water. Bring this slowly to a boil, then pour in the boiling water upon the smoking hot meat inside. Cover closely, boil for half an hour in the hot water; turn into a saucepan; season, simmer ten minutes, strain, pressing and wringing the meat, and pour into the tureen.

DIJON PATÉ.

1 large cup of cold boiled rice; 2 raw eggs; ½ cup of milk; 2 cups of minced veal; ½ cupful of gravy or drawn butter; 4 hard boiled eggs, sliced; pepper and salt.

Butter a pudding-mould—one without a cylinder—and line it with a thick coating of the rice worked to a paste with the milk and beaten eggs, and seasoned with pepper and salt. The paste should be quite stiff. Line the inside of this in turn with the sliced eggs, and within this pack the minced veal, wet with gravy and seasoned to taste. The stuffing of the fillet of veal should be chopped with the meat. Cover with rice; put on the lid of the mould; set it in boiling water and cook one hour. Turn out carefully, and serve with a good gravy in a boat. The gravy, if you have no other, can be made of odds-and-ends of the veal boiled down in water. Or a cup of your tomato soup of yesterday will make a good sauce.

LIMA BEANS.

See Wednesday, First Week in August.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and do not brown.

RAW TOMATOES.

See Friday of First Week in August.

PEARS, PEACHES, AND BANANAS.

Arrange tastefully in fruit dishes or baskets, with green leaves about them.

ICED COFFEE, CRACKERS, AND CHEESE.

See Monday of Second Week in August.

Third Week. Tuesday.
——
Mutton Broth.
Brunswick Stew. Onions Stewed Brown.
Potatoes à la Duchesse. Cucumbers.
——
Peaches and Cream.
Sponge-Cake.
——

MUTTON BROTH.

3 lbs. of lean mutton; 2 turnips; 1 carrot; 2 onions; bunch of parsley; 1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch; 3 quarts of water.

Boil meat, cut into strips, and the vegetables, sliced, in the water two hours and a half. The water should be reduced one-third. Strain, taking out the meat, and rubbing the vegetables to a pulp through the colander. Cool, skim, season, and return to the fire. Heat, stir in the corn-starch wet up with water, and pour into the tureen. Add the milk, boiling hot, stir well, and serve.

BRUNSWICK STEW.

3 fine gray squirrels, skinned and cleaned—joint as you would chickens for a fricassee; ½ lb. of fat salt pork; 1 onion, sliced; 12 ears of corn cut from the cob; 6 large tomatoes, pared and sliced; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour; parsley; enough water to cover the squirrels.

Put on squirrels, pork—cut up small—onion, and parsley in the water, and bring to a boil. When this has lasted ten minutes, put in the corn, and stew until the squirrels are tender. Then add the tomatoes, cut up thin. Twenty minutes later, stir in the butter and flour. Simmer ten minutes, and pour into a large, deep dish.

ONIONS STEWED BROWN.

10 or 12 small onions; 1 cup of gravy from your soup, before it is strained; seasoning.

Top, tail, and skin the onions. Parboil for ten minutes; throw off the water, and cover with the cooled and skimmed gravy. Season, and stew until the onions are tender. Then stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed up with browned flour. Simmer five minutes.

POTATOES À LA DUCHESSE.

Work a beaten egg and a little butter into each cup of mashed potatoes; put a tablespoonful of butter into a saucepan, and stir and turn the potato in it until very hot. Do not let it “catch” on the sides. Turn out, and mould in greased muffin-rings. Leave it to cool in these; then loosen gently upon a greased baking-pan, and bake until delicately browned.

CUCUMBERS.

See Monday of Second Week in August.

PEACHES AND CREAM, WITH SPONGE-CAKE.

See Wednesday of First Week in August.

Third Week. Wednesday.
——
Ox-cheek Soup.
Roast Beef. Mashed Squash.
Green Corn cut from the Cob. Fried Egg-plant.
——
Open Apple Custard Tart.
——

OX-CHEEK SOUP.

The meat from the cheeks of an ox-head; 2 sliced onions, fried brown; sweet herbs; 1 small cup of rice; 1 teaspoonful of curry-powder; 3 quarts of water; pepper and salt; bones of the head.

Cut the meat very small; put with the fried onions and bones into a pot, and pour on the water. Stew slowly three hours. Strain, cool, skim; put in seasoning, herbs, and the rice, previously soaked two hours. Stew half an hour; add the curry-powder, wet in cold water; boil up, and pour out.

ROAST BEEF.

Lay a neat cut of rib-roast, trimmed and skewered, in a dripping-pan; dash a cupful of boiling water all over it, and roast ten minutes to the pound, if you like it rare. Just before taking it up, baste it with butter—the previous and abundant bastings should have been with its own gravy—dredge with flour, and, as it browns, again with butter. Pour off the fat from the gravy before thickening and seasoning it. Much of the so-called beef gravy is only fit for the dripping-pot.

MASHED SQUASH.

Pare, quarter, seed, and boil in hot, salted water. Drain, and mash in a hot colander; season with pepper, salt, and butter, and dish hot.

GREEN CORN CUT FROM THE COB.

After boiling, cut the corn, with a sharp knife, from the cob, into a hot dish; stir in butter, pepper, and salt, and cover to keep hot until eaten.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

Please see Sunday, First Week in August.

OPEN APPLE CUSTARD TART.

12 juicy, tart apples; 1 cup of sugar; grated peel of a lemon; 1 pint of milk; 3 eggs, and 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, for the custard; good pie-paste.

Put a border of pie-crust around the flat brim of a pie-plate, without lining the bottom. Fill the plate with sliced apple, sugared, with lemon-peel scattered here and there. Put in a _little_ water. Cover with a crust, in the centre of which you have marked a circle with a cake-cutter, or large tumbler. Bake the pie; with a sharp knife, cut out the marked circle, lift the centre-piece, and fill the inside of the pie with a warm custard made of the milk, eggs, and sugar, boiled until it begins to thicken. Eat cold.

Third Week. Thursday.
——
Mrs. B.’s Corn Soup.
Smothered Chicken. Stuffed Tomatoes.
Scalloped Potatoes. Beets.
——
Cottage Pudding.
——

MRS. B.’S CORN SOUP.

15 ears of corn, grated from the cob as close as the grater will take off the grains; the bones and other “trimmings” of yesterday’s roast beef, both raw and cooked; 1 onion; 1 cup of milk; 2 great spoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour; pepper and salt; 3 quarts of water.

Put the empty cobs, the bones, etc., with the onion, on in the water, and stew two hours. Strain off the water, and put the grated corn into it with pepper and salt. Stew gently one hour; add the floured butter; simmer ten minutes, and pour into the tureen. Add the milk, boiling hot; stir up and serve.

SMOTHERED CHICKEN.

Split a pair of young, but well-grown chickens down the back, as for broiling. Lay flat in a dripping-pan; pour a cup of boiling water over them, and invert another pan over them so as to cover closely. Roast half an hour, and baste very freely with butter and water. Ten minutes later baste with gravy from the pan. In five more, with melted butter, profusely. Bake until the fowls are tender and well colored. Dish, salt and pepper them; thicken and season the gravy; pour some over the chickens and send up the rest in a boat.

STUFFED TOMATOES.

Choose large, smooth tomatoes; cut a piece from the top of each; take out the inside, taking care not to cut the skin. Chop up the tomato-pulp with a little cold beef; add one-fourth as much bread-crumbs as you have pulp, and wet all with beef-gravy, seasoning with a little sugar, pepper, and salt. Fill the tomatoes with this force-meat; put on the top slices; pack the stuffing that remains between the tomatoes, and pour gravy upon this; cover and bake from forty to forty-five minutes.

SCALLOPED POTATOES.

2 cups of mashed potatoes; 3 tablespoonfuls of cream; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 raw beaten egg; handful fine crumbs; pepper and salt.

Beat up the hot potatoes light with butter, cream, raw egg and seasoning. Put a layer in the bottom of a bake-dish; cover with thin slices of yolk; salt and pepper; put on more potato, and go on thus until the dish is full. Cover the top layer of potato with crumbs, and bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly. Serve in the bake-dish.

BEETS.

Cut off the tops, taking care not to scratch the skins. Boil at least one hour in hot salted water; scrape and slice. Put into a deep dish and season with a few spoonfuls of hot water mixed with as much vinegar and a little pepper and salt.

COTTAGE PUDDING.

1 cup of milk; 1 tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a cup of sugar; 2 eggs; 3 cups of prepared flour; a little salt.

Beat the yolks into the butter and sugar; add the milk, then the flour, alternately with the whisked whites. Bake in a cake-mould; turn out hot upon a plate, cut in slices, and eat with sweet sauce.

Third Week. Friday.
——
Fish Chowder.
Omelette with Gravy. Boiled Corn.
Potato Salad.
——
Peach Batter Pudding.
——

FISH CHOWDER.

3 lbs. of cod, or halibut, or any other firm white fish; 8 potatoes, sliced and parboiled; 1 sliced onion, large; ½ lb. fat salt pork, cut into dice; 2 cups of boiling milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; 6 Boston crackers, split and buttered thickly; chopped parsley, pepper, and salt to taste; 1 lemon, pared and cut into thin slices; claret.

Fry the pork in its own fat; add the onions, and, when they are brown, drain from the fat. Put a layer of pork into the soup pot; then, one of potatoes, peppered; next, fish, onions, more pork, and so on. Pour in a glass of claret, then just enough boiling water to cover all. Stew gently half an hour. Line the tureen with buttered crackers; pour on the boiling milk, and set the tureen in boiling water until the chowder is done. Just before taking it up add the parsley. Boil one minute, and pour out.

OMELETTE WITH GRAVY.

6 or 8 eggs; 1 tablespoonful of cream; 1 scant cup of gravy left from or made of the remains of yesterday’s chickens; butter for frying.

Put a good piece of butter in a frying-pan, and when it hisses, pour in the beaten eggs. Shake and loosen them as they form; fold over in the middle; invert the pan over a hot dish, and pour hot, savory gravy around it.

BOILED CORN.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

POTATO SALAD.

See Sunday of First Week in August.

PEACH BATTER PUDDING.

12 rich ripe peaches, pared, but not stoned; 1 quart of milk; about 10 tablespoonfuls of prepared flour; 5 beaten eggs; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 saltspoonful of salt.

Set the peaches closely together in a buttered pudding-dish; strew with sugar, and pour over them a batter made of the ingredients above named.

Third Week. Saturday.
——
White Mock Turtle Soup.
Calf’s Liver and Bacon. Breaded Egg-plant.
Corn and Tomatoes. Made Mustard.
String-Beans.
——
Nutmeg Melons and Peaches.
——

WHITE MOCK TURTLE SOUP.

1 calf’s head, cleaned with the skin on; ½ lb. lean ham, cut into strips; 1 carrot; 1 onion; 1 turnip; bunch of sweet herbs; 4 tablespoonfuls of flour and the same of butter; 1 cup of milk; 6 quarts of water; pepper and salt.

Boil the head in the water with the ham, onion, turnip, and carrot sliced, and the chopped herbs. Cover, and stew slowly until the bones fall from the meat. Take out the head; return the bones to the soup. Divide the meat into two portions; set by one to cool for present use; put the other, highly seasoned, into a large bowl, and strain half the stock over it. When cool, set on the ice for to-morrow. Chop the calf’s ears, and the less desirable parts of the meat reserved for to-day, fine, and put back upon the bones in the soup. Boil gently half an hour. Meantime, put the butter into a frying-pan, and when hot, stir in the flour. It must not get at all brown. When it is again bubbling hot, stir in a cupful of the soup; boil one minute, and pour it out to cool. Strain your soup; stir in the cooled mixture; boil up and skim, when you have seasoned quite highly; put in three or four handfuls of meat-dice cut up from the fat, gelatinous parts of the cold head; simmer to a boil; pour into the tureen, add the milk, boiling hot, and send to table.

CALF’S LIVER AND BACON.

3 lbs. of fresh liver; 1 lb. of streaked bacon; juice of a lemon; 1 tablespoonful of flour, and same of butter; pepper, salt, and onion.

Soak the liver in cold water fifteen minutes; wipe dry, and cut in strips an inch wide, and three long. Cut as many thinner strips of bacon, and fry these three minutes in their own fat; take out and keep hot while you fry an onion—sliced—with the liver in the same fat. Salt, pepper, and dredge the liver in flour before it goes in. When it is done lay in two rows, the length of the dish, with a strip of bacon between each piece and the next. Strain the fat, and return to the pan with a cupful of hot water, the butter rubbed into the flour, and, when it has boiled up, the juice of a lemon. Pour over the liver. Pass mustard with this dish.

BREADED EGG-PLANT.

Slice half an inch thick, and lay in salt and water one hour, with a heavy plate on top to keep them under. Then wipe dry, dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard or dripping. Drain, pepper and salt them, and serve.

STRING-BEANS.

Be doubly careful, as the season advances, to pare off the toughening fibres on both sides. Cut in short pieces; boil in hot salted water forty minutes, drain, pepper, salt, and butter.

CORN AND TOMATOES.

8 large tomatoes, pared and sliced thin; 6 ears of corn, the grains _shaved_ from the cob by successive strokes of a keen knife; sugar, pepper, salt, and butter.

Put corn and tomatoes together, and cook forty minutes. Season, and simmer ten minutes more. Pour out.

NUTMEG MELONS AND PEACHES.

Halve the melons, take out the seeds, and put a piece of ice in each half. Pile the peaches in a fruit-dish, or basket, with green leaves between.

Fourth Week. Sunday.
——
Clear Soup.
Larded Ducks. Succotash.
Stewed Squash. Boiled Potatoes.
——
Peach Ice-Cream.
Cake.
——

CLEAR SOUP.

Take the fat from your soup-jelly; pour into a pot and heat until you can strain it off from the meat. Cut up the latter; season with salt and a little spice, and put back on the ice. There is still gelatine enough in it to make it valuable. Boil and skim your soup two or three minutes, and add a small cup of German sago which has been soaked in a little water one hour. When clear, serve.

LARDED DUCKS.

After cleaning and washing, lard the breasts of a pair of ducks with narrow strips of bacon. You _must_ have a larding-needle for this, since both ends of the lardoons must project upon the same surface. Half roast the ducks; put on in a saucepan, with two cups of broth made by abstracting a cup of jelly from your soup-stock, thinning it with boiling water and seasoning it. Add a chopped onion and a glass of claret. Stew half an hour, or until tender; dish; take the fat from the gravy, thicken, boil and pour half over the ducks, the rest into a boat.

SUCCOTASH.

8 ears of corn—the grains cut off; about a pint of Lima beans; 1 tablespoonful of floured butter; pepper and salt; 1 cup of milk.

Boil corn and beans for nearly an hour in enough boiling water to cover them. Turn this off, add the milk; when this heats, butter, pepper and salt. Simmer ten minutes.

STEWED SQUASH.

Pare, seed, quarter, and cook soft in boiling salted water. Pour this off, and add a few tablespoonfuls of strained gravy from your ducks—or any other you may have. Beat the squash to pieces in this, in the saucepan; season well and stir until as stiff and smooth as apple sauce; then dish upon crustless slices of fried bread.

BOILED POTATOES.

See Saturday, Second Week in August.

PEACH ICE-CREAM.

1 quart of rich milk and as much sweet cream; 4 cups of sugar; 6 eggs; 1 quart of very ripe peaches pared and cut small.

Make as directed in full on Sunday of Second Week in July; but stir in the peaches just before closing the freezer for the second time, beating them well into the congealing cream. Unless they are very sweet, you would do well to dredge them in sugar before they go in.

Fourth Week. Monday.
——
A Medley Soup.
Casserole of Ducks, and Macaroni.
Broiled Ham. Stewed Onions.
Chopped Potatoes.
——
Watermelons and Pears.
——

A MEDLEY SOUP.

Cut up the cold calf’s head—or the remains of it set by for the second time on yesterday—into dice. Save half to be added as a final touch to your soup. Put the rest with the skeleton of your ducks into the soup-pot, and cover with three quarts of water. When it has simmered three hours and boiled down one-third, strain and return to the fire, with half a cup of green peas, and the same of tomato-sauce—or you can put in, if more convenient, the remnants of the succotash and squash left from Sunday’s dinner. If you use the raw peas, simmer half an hour; if the cooked vegetables, but ten minutes. Add the meat-dice, boil up once, and serve.

CASSEROLE OF DUCKS AND MACARONI.

Make according to directions given for “Dijon Paté,” on Monday of Third Week in August, substituting macaroni boiled twenty minutes in hot salted water, then cut into quarter-inch lengths, for the boiled rice, and minced duck for the veal.

BROILED HAM.

Cut smooth slices of cooked ham, and broil five minutes over—or under—clear coals. Pepper and butter each, and give also a mere touch of French mustard.

STEWED ONIONS.

Top, tail, and skin the onions. Cook twenty minutes in boiling water; throw this off, and cover with milk. Simmer ten minutes, or until tender; stir in a lump of floured butter, season with pepper and salt; cook two minutes, and dish.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop coarsely cold boiled potatoes. Have ready in a saucepan a little good dripping, well flavored. As it heats, put in the potatoes, and stir until smoking hot all through.

WATERMELONS AND PEARS.

Keep the watermelons on ice for some hours before you send them to table. Lay upon a large flat dish, and serve the pears in a fruit-dish or basket.

Fourth Week. Tuesday.
——
Farina Soup.
Haricot of Mutton. Moulded Potato.
Raw Tomatoes.
——
Baked Berry Dumplings.
Iced Tea.
——

FARINA SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean coarse beef; 2 lbs. of mutton-bones; 1 onion; 1 grated carrot, and 1 grated turnip; bunch of herbs; pepper and salt; ½ cup of farina, soaked two hours in a cup of milk; 3 qts. of water.

Crack the bones and chop the meat and onion. Put these on with the other vegetables, the herbs, and water, and boil slowly three or four hours. Strain, cool, skim and season. Put in the farina with a pinch of soda, and simmer half an hour.

HARICOT OF MUTTON.

3 lbs. of lean mutton; 1 onion; 1 cup of gravy taken from your soup; 1 dessertspoonful of tomato catsup; 1 carrot; 1 cup of green peas; 1 glass of sherry; 2 spoonfuls of butter; browned flour for thickening the gravy; pepper and salt.

Cut the mutton into strips three inches long by one wide, and fry these, with the sliced onion, in the butter. Have ready the gravy in a saucepan, and put in the meat. Stew slowly nearly an hour. Then add the carrot, parboiled and sliced, and the peas. Stew twenty minutes; thicken the butter used for frying with browned flour, add pepper, salt, and the catsup; pour into the stew, and cook three minutes. Add the wine; boil up, and serve in a deep dish.

MOULDED POTATO.

Mash the potato smooth, working in a little milk, butter, and salt. Grease a pudding-mould; press the potato in firmly, and turn out upon a hot dish.

RAW TOMATOES.

See Friday of First Week in August.

BAKED BERRY DUMPLINGS.

1 quart of prepared flour; 2½ tablespoonfuls of lard and butter mixed; 2 cups of milk, or enough to make a soft dough.

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick; cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put blackberries or huckleberries in the middle, sprinkle with sugar, and bring the edges together, pinching them to keep them from parting. Put into the oven with the joined edges downward, and bake forty minutes. Glaze with butter just before taking them up.

Fourth Week. Wednesday.
——
Squirrel Soup.
Fricasseed Chicken. Boiled Rice.
Scalloped Tomatoes. Lima Beans.
——
Fruit.
Iced Coffee and Ellie’s Cake.
——

SQUIRREL SOUP.

2 large fine gray squirrels, skinned, cleaned and cut up, 1 lb. lean corned ham, cut into dice; 1 onion; 2 blades of mace; a little cayenne; juice of a lemon; browned flour; 3 quarts of cold water; dripping; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Fry squirrel and onion in the dripping to a light brown. Drain off the fat and put them into the soup-pot with the water, ham, and mace. Cover closely, and stew until the meat is in rags, and the water reduced one-third. Strain, cool, and skim; season and put over the fire. When it boils, skim well, and stir in the butter, cut up in browned flour. When it has thickened, add the lemon-juice and serve.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN.

Clean, wash and cut up a pair of full-grown chickens. Wash, but do not soak. Put into a pot with half a pound of fat salt pork, cut very thin, and enough cold water to cover them. Heat very slowly, and cook until tender. When done add a chopped onion, with chopped parsley and pepper. Cover again, and five minutes later, stir in a great tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Heat in another saucepan a cup of milk; add two beaten eggs; boil one minute. Arrange the chickens upon a dish; strain the gravy; stir in the milk and eggs, and without putting again over the fire, pour over the fowls.

BOILED RICE.

Wash well in several waters. Strain a half cupful of your chicken gravy with an equal quantity of soup; add a little boiling water, and put on with the rice in a farina-kettle. When it is quite soft, and has absorbed all the broth, salt it, and stir in a little boiling milk in which has been melted a teaspoonful of butter, and a little minced parsley. Turn into a hot dish, when it has soaked up the milk, and pass grated cheese with it.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

Pare and slice fine ripe tomatoes. Put into a bake-dish with alternate layers of buttered bread-crumbs. Season each stratum of tomato with pepper, salt and sugar. Bake covered, until very hot—then, brown. The uppermost layer should be of crumbs.

LIMA BEANS.

See Wednesday, First Week in August.

FRUIT.

Dispose to the best advantage in baskets or dishes, with a garnishing of green leaves.

ICED COFFEE AND ELLIE’S CAKE.

See Monday, Second Week in August, for Iced Coffee. For Ellie’s Cake, please consult “GENERAL RECEIPTS, NO. 1, OF COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD SERIES,” page 326.

Fourth Week. Thursday.
——
Ham and Veal Soup.
Beefsteak Pudding. Stuffed Egg-plant.
Mashed Potatoes. Summer Salad.
——
Peach Trifle.
——

HAM AND VEAL SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean ham—that near the hock will do—cut into strips; 2 lbs. of lean veal; 2 carrots; 2 onions; 1 blade of mace; ¼ of a cabbage heart, minced and parboiled; 2 lemons; pepper; 4 quarts of water; 1 tablespoonful of flour wet up in cold water.

Put on meat, chopped vegetables, and water, and cook for four hours. Strain, cool, and take off the fat. The vegetables should be pulped through the colander. Return to the fire, boil and skim for five minutes; having seasoned with pepper, stir in the flour; boil three minutes, and pour out.

BEEFSTEAK PUDDING.

2½ lbs. of rumpsteak; 1 quart of prepared flour; ¼ lb. powdered suet, chopped with the flour; pepper; salt; a very little minced parsley; 1 small pickled onion, chopped; nearly a cupful of broth, taken from the soup, cooled and skimmed.

Make a paste of the suet and salted flour mixed with a little ice-water. Roll it out and line a round bowl with it. Cut the meat into dice; pepper and salt each piece, and roll in flour. Put them inside of the paste; strew over them the parsley and pickle, and pour in the _cold_ gravy. Cover the top with a paste-crust, overlapping the greased edges of the bowl; press this down firmly all around; envelop all in a stout cloth, tied tightly under the bottom of the bowl; plunge into boiling water and cook, at a steady boil, two hours and a quarter. Untie the cloth, invert the bowl with care over a hot dish; turn out the pudding, and serve at once.

STUFFED EGG-PLANT.

Parboil for ten minutes. Slit down the side, and take out the seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood, and lay in salt and water for one hour. Stuff with a force-meat of crumbs, fat salt pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and a bit of onion, all chopped. Moisten with a good gravy. Wind soft string about the egg-plant, to keep the cut closed, and bake, putting a cupful of weak broth in the dripping pan. Baste frequently; at first, with butter and water, then with the gravy. Baste twice with butter at the last. Lay the egg-plant in a deep dish; add to the gravy a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, and, when this boils, two or three spoonfuls of milk or cream. Just boil, and pour upon the egg-plant.

MASHED POTATOES.

Whip boiled potatoes light with a fork; beat in milk, butter, and salt, and heap like rock-work upon a hot dish.

SUMMER SALAD.

2 heads of lettuce; a handful of water-cresses; 5 very tender radishes, scraped and cut up; 1 cucumber, pared, laid in ice-water for an hour, then sliced; 3 hard-boiled eggs; 2 teaspoonfuls of white sugar, and 1, each, of salt, pepper, and made mustard; 2 tablespoonfuls of salad oil, and 6 of vinegar.

Rub sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, to a paste with the oil. Pound the yolks fine, and work in. Then whip in, very gradually, the vinegar. Arrange the vegetables, all cut up neatly, in a salad-bowl, and _strain_ the dressing over it. Garnish with the whites, sliced, laid around in a chain, with a nasturtium flower in every two or three links.

PEACH TRIFLE.

12 fine peaches, pared and sliced very thin; 1 package Coxe’s gelatine; 2 cups white sugar; 1 pint of boiling and 1 cup of cold, water; 1 cup of rich, sweet cream, with a pinch of soda dissolved in it, then whipped light in a syllabub-churn.

Soak the gelatine two hours in the cup of cold water. Put it, with peaches and sugar, into a bowl; cover, and let stand an hour. Then pour on the boiling water; stir and mash the peaches, and strain through muslin. When cold and slightly congealed, beat in quickly, a spoonful at a time, the whipped cream. It should be thick and white, or faintly colored. Form in a wet mould set an ice. Eat with cake.

Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Cauliflower Soup, without Meat. Fillets of Halibut, with Potatoes.
Beef’s Tongue, with Peas.
Green Corn Pudding. Raw Cucumbers.
——
Melons, Peaches, and Pears.
——

CAULIFLOWER SOUP, WITHOUT MEAT.

1 fine cauliflower; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in 1 of flour; 1 onion; bunch of parsley; 2 blades of mace; 2 quarts of water; 2 cups of milk; pepper and salt; a pinch of soda in the milk.

Cut the cauliflower into bunches, reserving about a cupful of small clusters to put whole into the soup. Chop the rest, also the onion and herbs, and put on in the water, with the mace. Cook an hour, and rub through a colander. Return the _purée_, thus obtained, to the pot, and season with pepper and salt. As it boils, stir in the whole clusters, previously boiled tender in hot, salted water, and left to cool. When the soup is again hot, put in the floured butter; stir until this has thickened; pour into the tureen, and add the boiling milk. Pass sliced lemon and cream crackers with it.

FILLETS OF HALIBUT, WITH POTATOES.

3 lbs. of halibut, cut into strips three inches long, one wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick; 3 tablespoonfuls of butter; pepper; salt; 1 teaspoonful of anchovy paste; a pinch of cayenne; a little boiling water; juice of a lemon.

Lay the slices of fish in salt and water for half an hour. Wipe them dry. Have ready the butter in a saucepan, with pepper and salt. When it is hot, put in the pieces of fish, and cook gently, without browning, until tender.

Meanwhile, cut some potatoes round with your “gouge,” or, if you have none, into neat squares; parboil and drain them, and simmer ten minutes in enough hot milk to cover them; then stir in a lump of butter; season with pepper and salt. Cook five minutes; drain the liquid into another saucepan, and keep the potatoes hot. Lay the fish in order upon a hot dish, the potatoes around it, and set over hot water, while you thicken the milk in which the potatoes were boiled (never omitting the pinch of soda), with a little flour. Boil up, add the butter used for cooking the fish, and the anchovy sauce. Squeeze a small lemon over the fish, and pour on the hot sauce.

BEEF’S TONGUE WITH GREEN PEAS.

Parboil a corned tongue. Take it from the water, trim off the root and pare away the skin. Put into a broad saucepan with a cup of yesterday’s soup, half a minced onion, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little parsley and pepper. Cover, and cook slowly one hour, or until tender. Slice round, and lay upon a hot dish. Heap each slice with a great spoonful of green peas boiled in hot salted water, drained well, and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper. Strain the gravy, add a little of the water in which the tongue was boiled, a small spoonful of made mustard—French mustard if you have it—the juice of half a lemon, and thicken with browned flour. Boil up and serve in a boat.

GREEN CORN PUDDING.

See Friday of First Week in August.

RAW CUCUMBERS.

Pare, lay in ice-water one hour; slice, and pile upon pounded ice in a glass dish, passing the condiments with them.

MELONS, PEACHES, AND PEARS.

Serve the melons upon flat dishes; the peaches and pears in fruit-salvers or in fancy baskets, with green leaves and flowers disposed tastefully among them. All would be the more refreshing for having lain in the ice-box or refrigerator awhile.

Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Beef Stock Soup.
Boiled Ham. Onion Tomato Sauce.
Squash au Gratin. Stripped Potatoes.
——
Whole Peach Pie.
——

BEEF STOCK SOUP.

5 lbs. of beef, and as many of bones; 2 carrots; 2 onions, sliced and fried in dripping; 2 turnips; bunch of herbs; 7 quarts of water; 2 teaspoonfuls essence of celery, or 3 stalks of the green plant, with the tops cut off; pepper and salt; dice of fried bread; 1 large spoonful of tomato catsup.

Cut up the meat, and chop the vegetables. Put with the herbs and cracked bones into a pot, and pour on two quarts of water. Heat slowly, and after it has boiled one hour, skim well, and add the other five quarts—also cold. Cook steadily four or five hours longer, then strain, rubbing the vegetables to pieces. There should be at least five quarts of liquid. If, in the boiling, it has lost too much, you should have replenished the pot with boiling water. Take out two quarts for to-day’s soup. Return meat and bones to the fire, and pour the rest of the soup over them with another quart of cold water. Cover very closely and simmer at the back of the range two hours longer. Then set away in an earthenware vessel, having seasoned it, and when cold, put on ice. You will now have made soup-stock for three days.

Cool the portion kept out for to-day; take off all the fat, season and re-heat it. Boil gently and skim well. Stir in the catsup, and pour upon the fried bread already put into the tureen.

BOILED HAM.

Wash a ham thoroughly, scrubbing off all the rusty parts with the dust. Put on in plenty of cold water, and boil twenty minutes to the pound. Let it get almost cold in the water. If possible, do this on Friday, and do not skin until perfectly cold on Saturday. The fat will then be white and prettily pitted, and the skin leave it easily. Twist frilled paper about the shank, and lay in a bed of curled fresh parsley. Carve in thin slices.

ONION TOMATO SAUCE.

2 quarts of ripe tomatoes; 1 onion, chopped; 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley; 2 teaspoonfuls sugar; pepper and salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.

Pare the tomatoes, and slice thin. Stew with the onion half an hour; then pulp through a colander; return to the saucepan with the seasoning, and when again hot, stir in the parsley and floured butter. Boil gently three minutes.

SQUASH AU GRATIN.

Boil and mash, as usual, pressing out the water. Beat up with a good bit of butter, season with pepper and salt; finally whip in two or three tablespoonfuls of milk and a raw egg. Pour into a buttered pudding dish; strew thickly with fine crumbs and bake in a quick oven to a light brown.

STRIPPED POTATOES.

Peel and cut potatoes lengthwise into strips. Lay in ice-water half an hour. Dry between two clean towels, and fry to a pale brown in hot, salted lard. Shake in a heated colander to clear them of the fat, and turn into a dish lined with a napkin.

WHOLE PEACH PIE.

Pare ripe peaches without removing the stones. Have your pie-dishes ready lined with a good paste, fill with the peaches; strew these with sugar, and cover with crust. Bake in a steady oven. Sift sugar over it, and eat fresh, with cream poured upon each slice.

SEPTEMBER.

First Week. Sunday.
——
Vermicelli Soup.
Roast Beef and Browned Potatoes. Fried Egg-plant.
Boiled Green Corn. Raw Tomatoes.
——
Narcissus Blanc-Mange.
Iced Coffee and Sliced Cake.
——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of your soup-stock; dip out rather more than half. Add a little seasoning to that which remains, and return to the ice. Should the weather be very warm it will be wise to heat all together, and then divide, returning the smaller portion to the ice. Warm the stock designed for to-day with the remains of yesterday’s tomato sauce; and when it begins to boil, strain through thin, coarse muslin. Put back over the fire, and take off all the scum that rises in ten minutes’ boil. Then put in a scant cupful of vermicelli, which has been broken up small, boiled five minutes in very hot water, and drained. Simmer five minutes, and pour out.

ROAST BEEF AND BROWNED POTATOES.

Have all gristly parts of the beef cut away, and such bones removed as will injure the shape, or embarrass the carver. Put the beef into a dripping-pan, throw a cupful of boiling water over it, and roast ten minutes per pound, basting _very_ often and copiously. Just before taking it up, dredge with flour and baste once with butter. After dishing the meat, pour the top from the gravy; add a little boiling water; put it into a saucepan, and thicken with browned flour. Pepper, and serve after a brief boil.

BROWNED POTATOES.

Boil, and strip off the skins of large, fair potatoes. Half an hour before you take up the meat pour off the fat from the gravy; lay your potatoes in the dripping-pan, and cook brown, basting frequently. Lay about the meat when dished.

FRIED EGG-PLANT.

Slice half an inch thick, and lay in salt water one hour, with a heavy plate on top to keep under the water. Pare each slice. Make a batter of two eggs, a cup of milk, a little salt, and flour for thin batter. Wipe the egg-plant perfectly dry; dip each slice in the batter, and fry in hot dripping. Drain well, and serve on a heated flat dish.

BOILED GREEN CORN.

Strip off all but the thin husk next the corn. Turn this down, and pick off the silk from the grains. Replace the husk, tie a thread about it to keep it smooth, and cook the corn from thirty to forty minutes, according to size and age. Pull off the husk; break the stalk close to the ear, and serve, wrapped in a napkin.

RAW TOMATOES.

Pare and slice; put into a salad dish, and dress as follows: Rub one teaspoonful of sugar, and half as much each of pepper, salt, and French or other made mustard, smooth with two tablespoonfuls of salad-oil. Beat in, a little at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and half a teaspoonful extract of celery. Pour over the tomatoes, and set on ice until wanted.

NARCISSUS BLANC-MANGE.