Chapter IV: Part 4

Pick over and wash the rice, and boil in a farina-kettle, with enough cold water, a little salted, to cover it an inch deep. Shake now and then as the rice swells. Take from your hare soup, when you have strained it, a cupful of the liquor and about half as much of the boiled shreds of meat. Chop these extremely fine, season with salt and pepper. Heat the cup of liquor to a boil, stir into it a scant tablespoonful of browned flour, then the chopped meat and a tablespoonful of butter, and stew gently five minutes. Pile the boiled rice, which should be almost dry, in a dish, and pour the gravy over it. It is very savory, and makes a pleasant variety in the list of winter vegetables.

CABINET PUDDING.

½ lb. of prepared flour.
¼ lb. of butter.
5 eggs.
½ lb. of sugar.
¼ lb. of raisins seeded and cut into three pieces each.
¼ lb. of currants, washed and dried.
½ cup of milk.
½ lemon, grated peel and juice.

Cream the butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks; the milk and the flour alternately with the whites. Lastly, stir in the fruit, well dredged with flour; beat up thoroughly, pour into a buttered mould; put into a pot of boiling water and do not let it relax its boil for two hours and a half. Dip the mould into cold water for one moment before turning it out.

CABINET PUDDING SAUCE.

Yolks of 2 eggs, whipped very light.
1 lemon, juice and half the grated peel.
1 glass of wine.
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
1 cup of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.

Rub the butter into the sugar; add the yolks, lemon, and spice. Beat five minutes and put in the wine, stirring hard. Set within a saucepan of boiling water, and stir until it is scalding hot. Do not let it boil. Pour over the pudding.

FEBRUARY.

First Week. Sunday.
——
Clear Vermicelli Soup.
Stewed Ducks. Fried Apples and Bacon.
Mashed Carrots. Potatoes à la Reine.
Potato Pie.
——
Oranges and Bananas.
——

CLEAR VERMICELLI SOUP.

6 lbs. of veal—the knuckle is best.
1 lb. of lean ham, cut fine.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
¼ lb. of vermicelli.
5 quarts of water.
Pepper and salt with half a teaspoonful ground mace.

Cut the meat from the bones in thin shreds, and crack the bones to splinters. Mince the ham and herbs. Put into a soup-kettle, add the water, cover very tightly with a weight upon the lid, and stand where it will slowly boil, for five hours. Then turn into a jar, salt and pepper, and shut up while hot. Leave the jar all Saturday night upon the side of the range, where it will keep warm until morning. Pour into a bowl before breakfast and let it get cold. Take off the cake of fat two hours before dinner, turn the soup-jelly, bones and all, into the soup-pot, and when it is melted strain through your wire sieve. Put in the mace, boil for an hour and a half, and skim. Put the vermicelli, already broken into short bits and boiled tender, into the tureen (but not the water in which it was boiled) and strain the soup over it through double tarlatan. Let it stand ten minutes before serving. This is a showy soup, and easily made, really requiring little attention.

STEWED DUCKS.

On Saturday, draw, wash, and stuff your ducks, adding a touch of onion and sage to the dressing. On Saturday, also, make a gravy of the giblets, cut small, an onion, sliced, with a pint of water. Stew, closely covered, for two hours; take off, season, and set away with the giblets in it still. Next day—on Sunday—lay the ducks in the dripping-pan, put in the gravy, adding water if there is not enough to half cover the fowls, at least. Invert another pan of the same size over them, and let them stew, at a moderate heat, for two hours. Or, you can put them into a large saucepan, pour in the gravy, fit on the lid, and cook upon the range for the same time. In either case they will take care of themselves, as will the soup, if Bridget be reasonably obedient to orders, while you go to church. When the ducks are done, lay them upon a hot dish, thicken the gravy with browned flour, add a glass of brown sherry and the juice of a lemon. Lay three-cornered bits of fried bread around the inside of the dish, and pour the gravy over all.

FRIED APPLES AND BACON.

Pare, core, and slice round, some well-flavored pippins, or greenings. Cut into thin slices some streaked middling of excellent bacon, and fry in their own fat almost to crispness. Take out the meat and arrange it upon a hot chafing-dish, while you fry the apples in the fat left in the pan from the bacon. Drain and lay upon the slices of meat.

This is a Southern dish, and not so homely as it would seem from the mere reading.

POTATOES À LA REINE.

Mash as usual, beating up light with butter and milk, but not so soft as not to take any shape you like to give them. Make a rounded hillock, or a four-sided pyramid of them upon a flat dish. Brush this all over with beaten yolk of egg, set in the oven a few minutes to harden the coating, and send to table.

MASHED CARROTS.

Scrape, wash, lay in cold water half an hour; then cook tender in boiling water. Drain well, mash with a wooden spoon, or beetle, work in a good piece of butter, and season with pepper and salt. Heap up in a vegetable dish, and serve very hot.

POTATO PIE.

1 lb. mashed potato, rubbed through a colander.
¼ lb. of butter, creamed with the sugar.
6 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 lemon, squeezed into the potato while hot.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg and the same of mace.
2 cups of white sugar.

Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolks, the spice, and beat in the potato gradually until it is very light. At last, whip in the whites. Bake in open shells of paste. Eat cold.

When making these pies on Saturday—forecasting Monday’s needs and superabundance of cares—prepare more pastry than you need for the two large pies which the above quantity of potato mixture will fill, and set aside a trim roll of raw crust to be rolled out in due time—we shall see to what end. I take it for granted (once more) that all of Sunday’s receipts will be diligently conned on the day when the old distich tells us, even “lazy people work the best.”

This potato pie will be pronounced delicious.

ORANGES AND BANANAS.

These will make a pretty finish to what I flatter myself with the hope that you will find a good, and not inelegant repast.

First Week. Monday.
——
Blanche’s Soup.
Duck Paté. Succotash.
Sweet Potatoes, Boiled. Crab-apple Jelly.
——
Cup Custard, Boiled.
Cut or Fancy Cake.
——

BLANCHE’S SOUP.

Strain out the vermicelli left in yesterday’s “stock.” Heat very hot, and add two cups of milk in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of rice-flour, or, if you cannot get that, corn-starch. Stir until it thickens; take out a cupful and pour it over two beaten eggs. Return to the soup, taste, and supply what seasoning is needed; lift from the fire and leave covered five minutes before pouring into the tureen.

DUCK PATÉ.

Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, in season to make gravy. Do this by breaking the skeletons to pieces, and putting them, with the stuffing, into a saucepan, pouring in a quart of cold water, and letting it in two hours boil down to half as much, or even one-third. Boil slowly, with the lid slightly lifted after the boiling begins. Let this get cold; skim and season. In the bottom of a pudding-dish put some neat slices of duck; on this a layer of boiled egg sliced thin; then, a few slices of corned tongue. (That of a calf will do as well as beef, and be cheaper. It should be boiled and cold.) Sprinkle each layer with pepper and a little salt, with a tiny pinch of mace upon the tongue. When your materials are used up, pour in the gravy, and, just before it goes into the oven, cover with a crust of pastry kept over from Saturday. Bake about three-quarters of an hour for a large dish—half an hour for one of medium size. There must be a slit in the centre of the crust to let out the steam.

By proper foresight, the manufacture of this very palatable pie will consume but little of a busy woman’s time on Monday. Do not forget that with gravies and soups, after you have placed them over the fire in a well-chosen location, they will need nothing more than a hasty glance for, perhaps, several hours, during which much work in other parts of the household can be done.

SWEET POTATOES, BOILED.

It is poor economy, in buying sweet or Irish potatoes, to get either very large or very small ones. So, in cooking, select those of uniform size. Put on in hot water; boil until a fork will go easily into the largest. Peel quickly and set in the oven for a few minutes to dry. Eat hot, with butter.

SUCCOTASH.

1 can of sweet corn.
1 can of string beans.
1 great spoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt.
1 cup of milk.
A little flour.

Cut the beans into inch lengths; put them into a saucepan with the corn, and cover with cold water. Stew half an hour, after they begin to cook, turn off most of the water and put in the milk—cold. When it is hot, stir in the butter, rolled in flour. Season, simmer for five minutes, and pour into a deep dish.

This will make a large quantity of succotash for a small family, but what is not eaten will be nice warmed over for breakfast.

CUP CUSTARDS—BOILED.

1 quart of milk.
Yolks of 5 eggs and whites of 3 (reserving 2 for the _méringue_).
6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Vanilla flavoring, 1 teaspoonful to the pint.

Heat the milk almost to boiling. Take out a cupful and add, slowly, to the beaten yolks and sugar, whipped up with three of the whites. Return to the fire and stir until it begins to thicken, but not until it curdles. Pour into a bowl and, when cold, flavor. Fill glass, or china cups with it. Whip the reserved whites to a _méringue_ with a little powdered sugar, and heap a spoonful upon the top of each cup.

Watch your opportunity for boiling the custard. I have often slipped into the kitchen and made it while the coffee was boiling for breakfast. This once off the fire, no more cooking is needed.

CUT, OR FANCY CAKE,

Of which every housewife keeps a supply in her pantry, for luncheon and tea, makes, with these custards, a nice dessert, to which you need never be ashamed to seat John and his friends.

First Week. Tuesday.
——
Family Soup.
Rolled Beef. Baked Tomatoes.
Browned Potatoes Whole. Apple Sauce.
——
Unity Pudding.
Cream Sauce.
——

FAMILY SOUP.

2 lbs. fresh beef bones, broken small.
1 lb. calf’s liver, sliced.
1 slice of ham, minced.
1 lb. of coarse mutton, also minced.
1 turnip.
3 stalks of celery.
1 onion.
Bunch sweet herbs.
¼ cup of raw rice.
Pepper and salt.
4 quarts of cold water.

Put the cracked bones, the meat, and the chopped vegetables into the soup-pot, and cover with the water. The liver should lie in salted water one hour before it is sliced. Stew very slowly five hours. Then strain, rubbing hard; cool enough to bring the fat to the top. Take it off, season the soup, put over the fire, and when it boils stir in the rice, previously cooked soft in a little salted water. Simmer together half an hour, and pour out.

ROLLED BEEF.

Get a fillet of beef—that is, the tenderloin of several steaks cut in one piece. It will not be cheap, but there will be no waste. Therefore, as one weighing four or five pounds will make a roast for one day, your dinner will not be really expensive. Roll it up round; pin tightly with skewers not to be removed, except by the carver, and roast with care, basting often that it may not dry up. Carve horizontally.

BROWNED POTATOES—WHOLE.

Peel and parboil some fine potatoes, and half an hour before your beef is taken up, lay them in the dripping-pan. Baste with the meat and turn several times. Drain off the grease when they are done to a fine brown, and lay about the meat in the dish when it goes to table.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Open a can of tomatoes, and turn into a bowl. After an hour, season them with a teaspoonful of sugar, half as much salt, a little pepper and a tablespoonful of butter cut into bits, each bit rolled in flour and all distributed evenly throughout the tomatoes. Cover with very dry bread-crumbs. Bake in a pudding-dish, covered, about thirty minutes, then brown on the upper grating of the oven.

APPLE SAUCE.

Make this on Saturday, by stewing sliced tart apples in a little water until soft, draining and mashing them, adding a bit of butter while doing this. Sweeten abundantly and season with nutmeg.

UNITY PUDDING.

1 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 egg.
1 _generous_ pint of prepared flour.
1 cup of sugar.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat in the egg, and whip up very light. Then, milk and salt, finally the flour. Bake in a buttered mould, until a straw thrust into the thickest part comes out clean. Turn out upon a plate. Cut in slices and eat hot.

If for this and other receipts which prescribe prepared flour, you cannot conveniently procure it, add one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream of tartar to each quart of flour. Sift all several times through a sieve. You can keep this for a week or two in a dry place.

CREAM SAUCE.

2 cups rich milk—half cream, if you can get it.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Whites of 2 eggs whipped stiff.
1 teaspoonful extract of bitter almonds.
½ teaspoonful of nutmeg.
1 _even_ tablespoonful of corn-starch wet up with cold water.

Heat the milk to scalding; add the sugar, stir in the corn-starch. When it thickens beat in the stiffened whites, then the seasoning. Take from the fire, and set in boiling water to keep warm—but not cook—until wanted.

First Week. Wednesday.
——
Split Pea Soup.
Fricasseed Chicken, Brown. Ladies’ Cabbage.
Baked Potatoes. Stewed Salsify.
——
Soft Gingerbread.
Café au Lait.
——

SPLIT PEA SOUP.

1 quart of split peas, soaked in soft water all night.
1 lb. streaked salt pork, cut into thin strips.
2 lbs. of beef bones, cracked well.
3 stalks of celery, and 1 onion, chopped.
Salt and pepper to taste.
4 quarts of cold water.
A sliced lemon.

Put soaked peas, pork, bones and vegetables over the fire, with the water, and boil slowly for three hours, until the liquid is reduced nearly one half. Strain through a colander, rubbing the peas into a tolerably thick _purée_ into the vessel below. Season, simmer ten minutes over the fire, and pour over the lemon, sliced and pared and laid in the tureen.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN—BROWN.

1 pair of chickens.
½ lb. salt pork, minced.
1 small onion.
Tablespoonful of chopped parsley.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Browned flour.
Pepper, and a little salt.

Joint the chickens, cutting them with a sharp knife. Put, with the pork, into a pot with a quart of water, and stew until tender. Do not boil fast, especially at first. Strain off the liquor and cover the chickens while you prepare the gravy. Put it into a large frying-pan. There will not be too much after the chickens are taken out of it. Add to it the parsley and chopped onion, with seasoning. Boil up, thicken with browned flour; stir in the butter and cook rapidly, stirring often, ten minutes. Arrange the chickens upon a hot dish and pour the gravy over it. Let all stand for five minutes before sending to the table.

LADIES’ CABBAGE.

1 firm white cabbage, boiled and left to get cold.
2 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
3 tablespoonfuls of rich milk.
Pepper and salt.

Boil the cabbage in two waters. When it is cold, chop fine, and mix with it the beaten eggs, butter, milk, pepper and salt to your liking. Beat up well and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until brown. Serve in the dish in which it was cooked, and eat hot.

BAKED POTATOES.

Select large, fair potatoes of equal size, wash, wipe and put into the oven to bake until soft all through. Send to table wrapped in a napkin.

STEWED SALSIFY.

Scrape and drop into cold water as fast as you clean them. Cut into inch lengths; cover with hot water and stew tender. Turn off the water; put in a cupful of cold milk. Stew in this ten minutes after the boil begins; add a lump of butter rolled thickly in flour; pepper and salt as you fancy. Boil up once and pour into a deep dish.

SOFT GINGERBREAD.

1 cup of butter.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of sour or butter milk.
½ lb. of raisins, seeded and cut in half.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
2 eggs.
Nearly 5 cups of sifted flour, enough for tolerably thick batter.

Cream butter, sugar, molasses, and spice; set the mixture on the range until lukewarm. Add the milk, then the beaten eggs, the soda, and at last the flour. Beat _hard_ five minutes; put in the fruit dredged with flour; beat three minutes, and bake in small round tins.

Eat warm all that is needed for dessert. The rest will keep well. This gingerbread is uncommonly fine.

CAFÉ AU LAIT.

2 cups strong _made_ coffee—fresh and hot.
2 cups of boiling milk.

Strain the coffee from the boiler into the table coffee-pot, through thin muslin. Add the boiling milk and set in a vessel of hot water, a “cozey,” or a thick cloth wrapped about it, for five minutes. Then it is ready for use. Pass with the gingerbread.

First week. Thursday.
——
Dundee Broth.
Baked Calf’s Head. French Beans and Fried Brains.
Stewed Tomatoes. Potatoes in cases.
——
Snowballs.
Sweet Cream.
——

DUNDEE BROTH.

3 lbs. of mutton cut into strips.
2 lbs. of bones cracked.
1 carrot.
2 turnips.
2 onions.
Bunch of herbs.
Handful of chopped cabbage.
Pepper and salt.
¼ lb. of barley.
4 quarts of cold water.

Put on the meat, bones, and sweet herbs, to stew in four quarts of water. Do not disturb for four hours. Meanwhile, pare and cut the vegetables into dice, and boil until tender in just enough water to cover them. Drain this off and throw it away. Cover the vegetables with cold water, a little salt, and let them stand until you have strained the soup. This should be allowed to cool to throw up the fat. Skim it with care; put back over the fire. Salt and pepper, boil up, and skim again before putting in the vegetables, _without_ the water in which they have been standing. The barley should, all this time, be soaking in warm water, just deep enough to cover it. Turn it now, with the water in which it has lain, into the soup. Let all simmer together one hour, and serve the vegetables in the soup.

BAKED CALF’S HEAD.

Take out the brains and set aside. Wash the head carefully. It should, of course, be cleaned with the skin on. Soak it in cold, salted water, one hour, then in hot water ten minutes. Boil in three quarts of cold water for about an hour after the water begins to bubble. Take it out, saving the liquor when you have salted it, as stock for to-morrow’s soup. Plunge the head into cold water for five minutes. Wipe carefully, put into your dripping-pan, brush it over with beaten egg, sprinkle with bread-crumbs, and bake until nicely browned, basting three times with butter. Make a gravy of a cupful of the liquor, seasoned and thickened. Fry strips of ham, about an inch wide by four inches long, almost crisp in their own fat, and having laid the head upon a flat dish, dispose these about it. Serve a piece with each plate of the head.

FRENCH BEANS AND FRIED BRAINS.

Open a can of string-beans one hour at least before they are to be cooked. Cut into short pieces, cover with hot water, and stew thirty minutes, but not until they break. Drain well; stir into them two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, in which have been mixed salt, pepper, and a tablespoonful of lemon-juice. Heap within a deep dish, and garnish with the brains.

Wash the brains and lay in cold salt and water for an hour, then boil ten minutes. Leave in very cold water until firm—say a quarter of an hour. Wipe, and chop fine, add a little parsley, pepper and salt; make into small cakes by flouring your hands; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping. Drain thoroughly.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Season a can of tomatoes with salt, pepper, sugar, and a little chopped onion. Stew for twenty-five minutes and stir in a large tablespoonful of butter. Simmer ten minutes, and serve.

POTATOES IN CASES.

Roast large potatoes. Cut off a piece from the top of each, and lay it aside. Empty the insides carefully by the help of a small spoon—not tearing the skins. To this potato, when mashed, add butter, grated cheese, pepper and salt, as suits your taste. Bind the mixture with a beaten egg; heat in a saucepan, stirring to prevent scorching; refill the cases, fit on the top of each, and set in a hot oven three minutes before sending to table in a warm napkin.

SNOWBALLS.

¼ lb. raw rice.
1 quart fresh milk.
5 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
A little nutmeg.

Wash the rice in several waters, and boil in the milk (always in a farina-kettle), adding a little salt and five tablespoonfuls of sugar, with a pinch of nutmeg. Stew gently until the rice is soft and has soaked up the milk. Fill small cups with the rice, pressing it down firmly, and let it get cold. At dinner-time, turn it out upon a large flat dish, or pile within a glass bowl. Eat with sweetened cream.

SWEET CREAM.

2 cups of cream.
3 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls of rose-water.

Stir the sugar into the cream until it is dissolved; then the rose-water.

First Week. Friday.
——
Calf’s Feet Soup.
Salt Mackerel with Cream Sauce. Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed.
Mashed Potatoes. Stewed Celery.
——
Omelette Soufflé.
Tea and Toasted Crackers.
——

CALF’S FEET SOUP.

4 calf’s feet.
1 onion.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
2 stalks of celery.
4 cloves.
2 eggs.
1 cup of milk.
Pepper and salt.
1 quart of cold water, and the liquor in which the calf’s head was
boiled, yesterday.

In bespeaking your calf’s head from your butcher, ask also for four nice feet, already cleaned. (You can secure your sweetbreads at the same time.) Put on the feet in a quart of cold water. Cover closely and heat gradually to a very gentle boil. Keep this up until the feet begin to shrink from the bones—about two hours. Should the water fall perceptibly, fill up from the tea-kettle. Have ready the vegetables, herbs, and spice, the former cut up small. Put them into the liquor left from yesterday’s head, and when you have heated this to a boil, add the feet with the water in which they are cooking. Boil for another hour, still slowly. Strain the soup, cool to make the grease rise. Skim, season, and return to the fire. When again boiling, stir in the milk, and the meat from the feet, cut into dice. Take out a cupful of the soup and pour, by degrees, over the beaten eggs. Return to the pot, stir two minutes, and serve.

A very nice soup, and nutritious. If you cannot get calf’s feet, use those of a pig instead, cooking exactly in the same way.

SALT MACKEREL, WITH CREAM SAUCE.

Soak overnight in lukewarm water, changing this in the morning for ice-cold. Rub all the salt off, and wipe dry. Grease your gridiron with butter, and rub the fish on both sides with the same, melted. Then broil quickly over a clear fire, turning with a cake-turner so as not to break it. Lay upon a hot-water dish, and cover until the sauce is ready.

Heat a small cup of milk to scalding. Stir into it a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet up with a little water. When this thickens, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Beat an egg light, pour the sauce gradually over it, put the mixture again over the fire, and stir one minute, not more. Pour upon the fish, and let all stand, covered, over the hot water in the chafing-dish. Put fresh boiling water under the dish before sending to table.

MASHED POTATOES,

Beaten light with milk and butter, and smoothed into a mound, should be served with the fish. If you have a pretty butter-print, wet it, and stamp the top of the mound.

Remember that _everything tastes better for looking well_.

LARDED SWEETBREADS, STEWED.

3 or 4 fine sweetbreads.
¼ lb. fat salt pork, cut into “lardoons,” or long narrow strips.
1 cup of gravy (saved from the roast calf’s head of yesterday).
1 tablespoonful of tomato or other catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Season with pepper.

Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should boil when they are dropped in. Take out and lay at once in ice-cold water. This makes them firm. Leave in this five minutes, wipe dry, and set aside to get cold. Then lard with the strips of pork, passing them quite through, so as to project on both sides. If you have no larding-needle, use a long-bladed penknife. Put them into a saucepan; cover with the gravy. If there is not enough, put in a few spoonfuls from the boiling soup. The gravy should be cold, however, when poured over the sweetbreads. Stew about twenty-five minutes after the boil begins. Take out the sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add catsup, lemon, and pepper, the lardoons having salted it sufficiently. Lay the sweetbreads upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve; in carving, cut perpendicularly.

STEWED CELERY.

2 bunches of celery, the white stalks only, scraped and cut into
short pieces.
2 beaten eggs.
1 cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.
Pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender. Drain off the water and put in the milk, cold. So soon as it boils, stir in the butter, rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Add a few spoonfuls of the hot milk to the beaten eggs that they may not curdle in the saucepan; put with the celery and sauce over the fire; boil up once, and dish.

OMELETTE SOUFFLÉ.

8 eggs.
5 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Vanilla or rose-water flavoring.

Whip the whites to a very stiff froth, thick enough to be cut with a knife. Beat the yolks smooth and long; add to these the sugar, whip up well, and flavor. Grease a neat pudding-dish _abundantly_ with the tablespoonful of butter. The last thing before you take your seat at the table, do all this; stir whites and yolks together, and put into a steady, not _too_ hot, oven. If you have a teachable cook, let her learn how to put the prepared ingredients together after dinner has gone in. The oven-door should be opened as seldom as possible, certainly not under fifteen minutes. By this time the omelette should have risen high, and be of a golden brown. Partly close the oven-door, to keep it hot, and let it be served as soon as possible in the bake-dish.

Never attempt this or any other nerve-trying dish, for the first time, for others than a family party. Yet it is easy enough when you have once learned for yourself how long to cook it, and how soon it will fall.

TEA AND TOASTED CRACKERS.

Split Boston crackers, toast, butter; put where they will keep hot, and pass with an after-dinner cup of tea.

First Week. Saturday.
——
Gravy and Sago Soup.
Boiled Corned Beef. Baked Macaroni.
Cauliflower, with Sauce. Mashed Turnips.
——
Jelly Tartlets.
Apples and Nuts.
——

GRAVY AND SAGO SOUP.

4 lbs. coarse beef, cut into strips.
3 lbs. of bones.
1 slice of lean corned ham.
4 onions.
4 cloves.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
¼ lb. of German sago.
Pepper and salt.
5 quarts of water.
2 stalks of celery, cut small.

Cut the beef into narrow strips, the onions into slices. Fry the latter brown in dripping, strain them out, and set aside. Return the dripping to the pan, and fry the meat until it is nicely browned, but not crisp. Lastly, fry the bones in the same fat. They should be broken up small. Put meat, bones, celery, spice, and onions into a pot with a quart of cold water; cover closely, and put where it will not boil under an hour, but will heat all the time. This is to draw out color and open the pores (so to speak) of the meat. So soon as it boils add four quarts more of cold water. Set where it will boil steadily, but never fast, for five hours. Strain, and cool sufficiently to make the fat rise. Take it off, put back over the fire, season, boil up and skim; put in the sago, which should have been soaked two hours in a little water, simmer fifteen minutes and serve.

Save all that is left from dinner, for Monday.

BOILED CORNED BEEF.

Wash well, and put over the fire in hot water—plenty of it—and boil twenty minutes for each pound of meat. Turn three times while cooking. Drain dry, and serve with drawn butter in a boat. “Draw” the butter in liquor taken from the pot. Keep the rest of the liquor for the base of Sunday’s soup.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Pare, quarter, and lay in cold water half an hour. Put on in boiling water, and cook until tender. Drain, mash, and press to get out the water, work in pepper, salt, and a generous lump of butter. Do all this quickly not to cool the turnips, and pile smoothly in a hot, deep dish.

CAULIFLOWER, WITH SAUCE.

Pick off the leaves and cut the stem close. Do not cut the cauliflower unless very large. Lay in cold water for thirty minutes, tie in coarse bobbinet lace or mosquito net, and cook in boiling water, slightly salted, until tender. Lay the cauliflower, flower upward, within a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it.

SAUCE FOR THE ABOVE.

Stir into a cup of boiling water a tablespoonful of flour, wet up with cold. When it has boiled two minutes, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, the white of an egg whipped stiff, pepper and salt, and the juice of a lemon. Boil one minute, and pour over the cauliflower.

BAKED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of macaroni into pieces an inch long, and cook in boiling water, slightly salted, twenty minutes. Drain, and put a layer in the bottom of a greased bake-dish, upon this some grated cheese—Parmesan, if you can get it—and tiny bits of butter. Then more macaroni, and so on, filling the dish, with grated cheese on top. Wet with a little milk, and salt lightly. Bake, covered half an hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

JELLY TARTLETS.

1 lb. of flour.
½ lb. of butter.
¼ lb. of lard.
Yolk of an egg.
Ice-water.

Wash the butter in three waters, working it over well to get out the salt. Melt it in a tin cup set in boiling water, take the scum from the top, and let it get almost cold, when beat, little by little, into the whipped egg. Work these into the flour, adding just enough ice-water to make the paste soft enough to roll out. When you have rolled it into a thin sheet, spread all over with the lard, put on with a knife. Sprinkle lightly with flour, roll up, and flatten with three or four strokes of the rolling-pin. Roll again into a yet thinner sheet; again lubricate with the lard and sprinkle with flour, and, once more, make into a tight roll. Set for an hour in a cold place. Cut in two. Set aside enough for your Monday’s dessert; line small “patty-pans” with the rest, pricking the paste on the bottom to keep it from puffing too high. Bake in a quick oven, and when cold put a tablespoonful of sweet jelly or jam in each.

APPLES AND NUTS,

Especially the former, are better for very young stomachs than pastry.

Second Week. Sunday.
——
Mock Turtle Bean Soup.
Haunch of Venison. Moulded Potatoes.
Lima Beans. Sweet Potatoes, Browned.
——
Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream.
Coffee and Fancy Cakes.
——

MOCK TURTLE BEAN SOUP.

1 quart of mock turtle soup beans.
2 onions, chopped.
4 stalks of celery, cut small.
Liquor in which the corned beef of yesterday was boiled.
Pepper.
Dice of fried bread.
1 quart of cold water.
1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.

Soak the beans overnight. In the morning, pour on a quart of cold water, and set them where they will heat for an hour, without burning. Stir up often from the bottom. At the end of this time add the beef liquor (after taking off the fat), the onions, and celery. Cook gently three hours, until the beans are boiled to pieces. Strain, season, put back into the kettle, boil up, season with pepper, stir in the butter rolled in flour. Simmer five minutes, and pour upon the fried bread in the tureen.

If you cannot get the purple “mock turtle soup beans,” use the common white ones.

HAUNCH OF VENISON.

Wash all over with lukewarm vinegar and water; then rub well with butter or lard to soften the skin. Cover the top and sides with foolscap paper, well greased, and coat it with a paste of flour and water, half an inch thick. Lay over this a large sheet of thin wrapping-paper, and over this another of stout foolscap. Tie all down in place by greased pack-thread. The papers should also be thoroughly greased.

Thus much on Saturday—and set the venison in a very cold place. Next day, about three hours before it will be needed, put into the dripping-pan, with two cups of boiling water in the bottom. Invert another pan over it to keep in the steam; be sure that the fire is good, and leave it to itself for an hour. Then see that the paper is not scorching; wet it all over with hot water and a ladleful of gravy; cover and let it alone for an hour and a half more. Remove the papers and paste, and test with a skewer in the thickest part. If it goes in readily, close the oven, and let it brown for half an hour. Baste freely four times with claret and butter; at last dredge with flour and rub over with butter to make a froth. Take it up, put upon a hot dish. Skim the gravy left in the dripping pan, strain it, thicken with browned flour; add two teaspoonfuls of currant-jelly, a glass of claret, pepper and salt. Boil up for an instant, and serve in a gravy-boat. Allow a quarter of an hour to the pound in roasting venison. The neck can be roasted in the same way as the haunch.

MASHED POTATOES—MOULDED.

Having mashed and seasoned them as usual, grease _well_ the inside of a fluted pudding or cake mould, put in the potato, cover, and set for half an hour in a dripping-pan half full of boiling water, within a moderate oven. Then remove the lid, dip, for a moment, the mould in cold water, and turn the potato out upon a flat dish.

LIMA BEANS.

You can get them canned, but they are nearly, if not quite as good dried. In this case soak them overnight in soft water. Change this in the morning for fresh, and put them on to boil in hot water, a little salted. Cook slowly until soft. Do not boil so fast as to break the skins. Drain well, stir in a good piece of butter, a little pepper and salt, and eat very hot.

SWEET POTATOES—BROWNED.

Boil in their skins, peel while hot, and set them in a quick oven. Glaze presently with butter, repeating the process, several times, as they brown.

WINE JELLY WITH WHIPPED CREAM.

1 package of Coxe’s gelatine, soaked for two hours in a large cup of
cold water.
2 cups of white wine, or pale sherry.
1 lemon, all the juice and half the grated peel.
1 teaspoonful of bitter almond extract.
2 cups of white sugar.
2 cups of _boiling_ water.

Put soaked gelatine, lemon, sugar, and flavoring extract together, and cover closely for half an hour. Pour on boiling water, stir and strain. Add the wine, strain again through a flannel bag, without squeezing, and leave in a mould wet with cold water, until just before the Sunday dinner.

Whip a cup of rich cream to a thick froth in a syllabub-churn. The jelly should have been formed in an open mould—one with cylinder in the middle. Fill the hollow left by this with the whipped cream; or, if your jelly be a solid mass, heap the cream about the base.

COFFEE AND MACAROONS

Should be the final course. I make no apology for hot and good Sunday dinners. There is a vast deal of straining out infinitesimal gnats and swallowing gigantic camels upon this, as upon most other questions of conscience. We have neither time nor space for their discussion. I have simply tried to deal with the fact that most husbands, brothers, and fathers expect a better dinner on Sabbath, and enjoy it more, than upon other days, by showing, to the best of my ability, how they can be gratified without imposing heavy duties upon mistress and servants at a season when both mind and body need comparative rest.

Second Week. Monday.
——
“Second Thoughts” Soup.
Larded Venison. Scalloped Tomatoes.
Grape Jelly. Fried Sweet Potatoes.
——
Raspberry and Currant Jelly Tart.
——

“SECOND THOUGHTS” SOUP.

Heat Saturday’s soup to a boil; add two cups of milk, and when this heats, pour a little of it upon two beaten eggs. Return these to the soup, add whatever seasoning is necessary; simmer all together for one minute, and pour upon three or four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese placed in the bottom of the tureen. Stir up well, and it is ready.

LARDED VENISON.

Trim the remains of the roast haunch into a neat shape, and lard with strips of fat pork, making incisions to receive it with a thin, sharp-edged knife. Pour what gravy you have over it, or should there be none, use butter and water instead. Put into a dripping-pan, turn another over it and roast—or steam—for one hour. Meantime, make a gravy of the trimmings, bits of bone, etc., by covering them well with cold water, and adding half an onion, sliced. Stew until the gravy is reduced one-half. Strain, season with pepper; a tablespoonful of currant-jelly, one of catsup and two of claret. Thicken slightly with browned flour, boil up to mix well, and pour gradually over the meat. Baste abundantly with this for half an hour if the piece of meat be large. Less time may suffice for a small roast. Never let it dry for an instant. When done, it should seem to have been stewed rather than roasted. Serve the gravy in a sauce-boat.

Like some other “second thoughts,” this dish will be even better than at its first appearance.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

Turn nearly all the juice off from a can of tomatoes. Salt and pepper this, by the way, and put aside in a cool place for some other day’s soup. Put a layer of bread-crumbs in the bottom of a buttered pie-dish; on them one of tomatoes; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and some bits of butter, also a little sugar. Another layer of crumbs, another of tomatoes—seasoned—then a top layer of very fine, dry crumbs. Bake covered until bubbling hot, and brown quickly.

FRIED SWEET POTATOES.

Slice cold ones left from yesterday, or boiled this fore-noon; roll in flour and fry in dripping. Drain well.

RASPBERRY AND CURRANT JELLY TART.

Roll out the raw paste reserved for to-day from Saturday, and line two pie-dishes. Fill them nearly full of canned raspberries, sweetened to your liking. Spread a coating of currant jelly over the top, and cover with a lattice-work of pastry, cut with a jagging-iron. Watch your chance of putting them into the oven, as they are better when not hot.

You will like them, I think.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
Clam Soup.
Ragoût of Veal. Rice and Cheese.
Potato Puff. Celery Salad.
——
A Mere Trifle.
——

CLAM SOUP.

50 clams, ready opened.
1 quart of milk.
1 pint of water.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
12 whole peppers.
A few bits of red pepper pods.
6 blades of mace.
Salt to taste.
1 stalk of celery, cut small.
1 tablespoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.

Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire in a large farina-kettle, with a pint of water, the peppers, mace, celery, and salt. When it has boiled ten minutes, strain and put back into the kettle with the clams. Shut the lid down closely, and boil, fast, thirty minutes. Heat the milk in another vessel, stir into it the rice-flour, wet up with cold water, and the butter. Pour into the kettle with the clams, take at once from the fire, pour into the tureen, in the bottom of which you have laid four or five Boston crackers, split. Cover, and wait five minutes before serving.

RAGOÛT OF VEAL.

5 lbs. of knuckle of veal.
1 onion.
2 stalks of celery.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of tomatoes set aside yesterday.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
¼ lb. of streaked fat pork.
Pepper and salt.

Crack the bones, when you have taken the meat off, and put them into a saucepan with the minced onion, celery, and herbs, with a quart of water. Stew slowly until the liquor has boiled down to a pint. Meanwhile, cut the veal into neat slices, and fry until they begin to brown, in some good dripping. Strain the gravy made from the bones and vegetables over this, and put all on to stew, adding the tomato-juice, pepper, and pork, the last cut up fine. Simmer, with the lid on, for two hours. Then add the browned flour, wet up in cold water, salt, if needed, the butter and lemon-juice. Boil up once, and dish.

RICE AND CHEESE.

Boil a cup of rice in a quart of water, slightly salted, and when half-done add two tablespoonfuls of butter. By the time the rice is soft, the water should have been soaked up entirely, and each grain stand out whole in the mass. Never stir boiling rice, but shake up the saucepan instead. Stir into the rice, at this point, three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Toss up with a fork until the cheese is dissolved, and pour into a deep dish.

POTATO PUFF.

Mash the potatoes while hot. Beat in butter, milk, and two whipped eggs, with salt to your liking, until you have a light, soft paste. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish in a quick oven.

CELERY SALAD.

Cut up blanched stalks of celery into short pieces. Mix a dressing of one tablespoonful of oil to one teaspoonful of sugar, one of salt, half as much pepper, and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar with half a teaspoonful of made mustard. Heat the vinegar to scalding, and pour over a beaten egg, a little at a time, and beating it in well. To this add the oil and other ingredients, whipping up the mixture with an egg-beater. When cold, pour over the salad, toss up with a silver fork, and put into a glass bowl.

A MERE TRIFLE.

1 quart of fresh milk.
5 eggs.
6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Vanilla, or other essence, 2 teaspoonfuls.

Heat the milk to boiling, and pour, gradually, upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Put again over the fire, stir steadily for about ten minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Take it off, and while still very hot, stir in with a few light strokes half of the frothed whites. Let it get cold before flavoring it. Pour into a glass bowl. Whip the remaining whites to a _méringue_ with a little powdered sugar. Heap upon the custard. Put bits of bright jelly, or preserved strawberries, here and there upon the snowy mass.

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Hotch-Potch.
Stewed Pigeons. Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.
Kidney Beans. Mixed Pickles.
——
English Tapioca Pudding.
——

HOTCH-POTCH.

2 lbs. of lean beef, without bones, and cut into mince-meat.
2 onions.
2 carrots.
2 turnips.
2 stalks of celery.
½ small cabbage, cut fine.
2 potatoes.
1 cup of corn.
Half a can of tomatoes.
Bunch of sweet herbs, chopped.
Pepper and salt.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Wash, scrape, and slice the vegetables, and put all except the tomatoes into a pot; cover with hot water and boil gently ten minutes. Drain off the water, put a handful of the mixed vegetables, including now the tomatoes, in the bottom of a stone jar. Pepper and salt, strew thickly with the minced raw beef, repeat the order until your materials are all in the jar. Fit a top or a small plate over the mouth; tie down with stout greased paper, set it within the oven, and let it alone for five or six hours, except that you must look, now and then, to see that the paper does not take fire. Prevent this by greasing it abundantly. At the end of this time, turn out the hotch-potch; stir in the butter, and, if needed, additional seasoning through it, and serve in a tureen.

STEWED PIGEONS.

Pick, clean, and wash the pigeons, and put into a pot with a cupful of water to keep them from burning, and a tablespoonful of butter for each one. Shut the lid down tightly, and subject to a slow heat until they are of a nice brown—about nut-color. Once in a great while turn them, and see that each is well wet with the liquor. Take them out and cover in a warm place—a colander set over a pot of hot water is best—while you make the gravy. Chop the giblets of the pigeon “exceeding small” with a little onion and parsley. Put into the gravy, pepper and salt, boil up and thicken with browned flour. Return the pigeons to the pot, cover again tightly, and cook slowly until tender. If there should not be liquor enough in the pot to make the gravy, add boiling water before the giblets go in.

This is an admirable receipt.

POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE.

Cut parboiled potatoes into dice. Chop an onion and fry it, with a little minced parsley, in good dripping or butter, for one minute. Then put in the potatoes. Stir briskly until they have fried slowly for five minutes. They must never stick to the bottom, nor brown. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, drain free of fat by shaking them in a heated colander, and send up hot.

KIDNEY BEANS.

Soak over night in soft water; next morning cover with lukewarm, and cook slowly for one hour. Salt slightly and boil until tender, but not to actual breaking. Drain very well, stir in a liberal spoonful of butter, pepper, and serve.

ENGLISH TAPIOCA PUDDING.

1 cup of tapioca.
5 eggs.
3 pints of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
½ lb. of raisins.
Half the grated peel of a lemon.
A _little_ salt.

Soak the tapioca for one hour in a pint of the milk; pour into a farina-kettle, surround with warm water, salt very slightly, and bring to a boil. When soft throughout, turn out to cool, while you make the custard. Heat a quart of milk to scalding; pour over the beaten eggs and sugar, this last having been rubbed to a cream with the butter. Mix with the tapioca—lemon-peel and raisins last. Dredge the fruit lightly with flour, and beat all up hard. Bake in a buttered dish one hour—at first covered.

Eat warm, with powdered sugar. It is better for not being too hot.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Celery Soup.
Mutton Cutlets—Fried. Stewed Corn and Tomatoes.
Brussels Sprouts. Mashed Potatoes.
——
Apple Méringue Pie.
——

CELERY SOUP.

2 lbs. of veal.
1 slice of corned ham, or a ham-bone.
2 bunches of celery.
2 cups of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch wet up in water.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
1 onion.
Dice of fried bread.
Pepper and salt.
3 quarts of water.

Chop the meat, onion, and herbs; cover with the water and put on to stew early in the day. When the meat has boiled to rags and the liquid reduced one-half, strain, and put in the celery, cut into small pieces. Use the best parts only. Stew soft; rub through a colander and return with the broth to the saucepan. Season, add the sugar, boil up and skim, and put in the milk. Heat, and add corn starch. When it again boils, you stirring all the while, put in the butter.

Take off so soon as this has melted, and pour over the fried bread in the tureen.

MUTTON CUTLETS—FRIED.

Beat them flat with the broad side of a hatchet; season with pepper and salt, dip first in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in lard or dripping. Drain perfectly free from the fat, and arrange them, standing on end and touching one another, around a mound of mashed potatoes.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and shape with a knife into a smooth mound, with a hedge of cutlets about the base.

STEWED CORN AND TOMATOES.

Take a half-can of tomatoes and the same of corn, the rest of that which was opened for your “hotch-potch” yesterday, and, after mixing them up well, season with pepper, salt, and a little sugar. Set on where they will cook slowly. At the end of twenty-five minutes, stir in a great spoonful of butter. Put on the lid and stew _very_ gently ten minutes more. Serve in a deep dish.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS.

Pick over, trim, and lay in cold water for half an hour cook quickly in boiling water, a little salt, for fifteen minutes. Drain carefully, put upon a flat dish, and pour drawn butter over them.

APPLE MÉRINGUE PIE.

1 quart of flour.
½ lb. of butter.
¼ lb. of lard.
Ice-water.

Chop the lard in flour, wet up with ice-water to a stiff paste. Roll thin, and baste with one-third of the butter, sprinkle lightly with flour, and roll up. Again roll out, even thinner than before, baste again with half the remaining butter, sprinkle with flour, and make a second roll. Repeat this process yet a third time, and set in a cold place for one hour.

Cut the roll of paste into two pieces, reserving one for to-morrow’s oyster-pie. With the other, line two pie-dishes and fill with good apple-sauce, well sweetened, and seasoned with nutmeg. Bake until just done. Draw to the oven door, and spread with a méringue made by whipping stiff the whites of three eggs for each pie, sweetening with a tablespoonful of sugar for each egg. Flavor with a little rose-water or lemon-essence, beat until you can make a clean cut in it, and spread three-quarters of an inch thick upon each pie. Shut the oven door until the méringue is well set. Do not let it scorch. Eat cold.

Second Week. Friday.
——
Friars’ Soup.
Oyster Pie. Calf’s Liver à l’Anglaise.
Apple Sauce. Stewed Parsnips.
Potatoes au gratin. Picklette.
——
Chocolate Custard.
——

FRIARS’ SOUP.

4 onions.
3 stalks of celery.
¼ of a small cabbage.
2 turnips.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter.
½ cup raw rice.
2 eggs.
Pepper and salt to taste.
1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley.
3 quarts of water.