Chapter VI: Part 6

To each cupful of mashed potato, add half a raw egg, beaten light, a little salt and pepper, and half a teaspoonful of butter. Beat well. Make into oblong balls, or rolls, flour well and fry, a few at a time, in boiling lard, or dripping. Drain off the fat and serve hot.

BOILED SWEET POTATOES.

Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and boil until a fork will penetrate them easily. Skin, set in the oven a moment to dry, and send to table.

COLD SLAW—CREAM DRESSING.

1 small head of white cabbage, shred fine.
1 cup of milk, scalding hot.
¾ of a cup of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 egg, beaten light.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
1 even tablespoonful of corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt to taste.

Rub butter and sugar together and pour over them the hot milk. Beat into these the frothed egg. Put into a vessel set within another of hot water, add the corn-starch wet up with cold water, boil slowly until it thickens, and set aside. In another saucepan scald the vinegar; put in the pepper and salt with essence of celery, and pour hot over the cabbage. Mix up well; put back into the saucepan, and stir briskly over the fire until it is smoking all through, but not until it boils. Turn it into a bowl, stir into it the custard with a silver fork, until well mixed; cover, to keep in the strength of the vinegar, and set it where it will cool suddenly. It is very fine.

POOR MAN’S PLUM PUDDING.

3 eggs.
1 quart of milk.
Small loaf of stale bread.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
½ lb. seeded raisins, cut in two.
Cinnamon to taste.
A pinch of salt.
Butter.

Slice the bread and cut off all the crust. Butter thinly and lay in order in a _well_-greased pudding-dish, strewing each layer with raisins. Heat the milk, put in sugar and salt, and pour over the beaten eggs. Lay a heavy saucer upon the top of the bread and soak with the custard. Let all stand half an hour, then set in a dripping-pan of boiling water, cover closely, and cook one hour, keeping the pan full of water at a hard boil. Turn out and eat with liquid sauce.

Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Wednesday’s Soup.
Boiled Cod.
Chicken Patés. Cheese Fingers.
Mashed Potatoes. Mashed Turnips.
——
Sweet Potato Pudding.
——

WEDNESDAY’S SOUP.

The Julienne soup which, as I stated in the receipt for making it, was sufficient for two days, will have kept perfectly well in the refrigerator, or in any cold closet. You have now only to warm it over—not quite to the boil, and it will be even better than upon the first day. It is wise, sometimes, to skip a day with a _réchauffé_, for fear of wearying those for whose comfort your bills-of-fare are made up.

BOILED COD.

Sew up the piece of fish in a thin cloth, fitted neatly to the shape, and boil in salted water (boiling from the first), allowing about fifteen minutes per pound. Unwrap carefully and pour over it a sauce made thus:

Heat half a cup of milk and as much water together; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour, and when it has thickened, pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Put back into the saucepan and stir for one minute; add salt, chopped parsley, and a dozen capers or nasturtium seeds. Take at once from the fire.

CHICKEN PATÉS.

Line your paté-pans with a good paste, made according to either of the receipts already given this month, and bake in a brisk oven.

Mince the chicken left from yesterday. Put the bones and stuffing into a saucepan with two cups of cold water, and stew down to one cup of gravy. Season this well, add three tablespoonfuls of milk when you have strained out the bones, a tablespoonful of butter, and a very little parsley. The stuffing should thicken it sufficiently. Stir in the chicken, warm until hot, but do not let it boil, or it will be spoiled. Fill the paste-shells, having taken them from the tins; arrange upon a _hot_ dish and set within an open oven until they are sent to table.

CHEESE FINGERS.

Cut good pastry, left from your patés, into strips three inches long and two inches wide. Strew with grated cheese, season with pepper and salt; double the paste upon this lengthwise, and bake in a quick oven. Brush over with beaten egg just before taking them up, and sift a little powdered cheese upon them.

Pile, log-cabin-wise, upon a folded napkin laid within a flat dish, and eat without delay, as they are not good cold.

MASHED POTATOES AND MASHED TURNIPS.

The receipts for these standard dishes having been already given this month, it is scarcely necessary to repeat them here. Bear in mind, always, that they must be served hot, and the turnips be well drained.

SWEET POTATO PUDDING.

1 lb. parboiled sweet potatoes.
½ cup of butter.
¾ cup of white sugar.
1 tablespoonful of cinnamon.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
1 lemon, juice and grated rind.
1 glass of brandy.

Let the potatoes get entirely cold, and grate them. Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolks, spice and lemon. Beat the potato in by degrees, to a light paste; then the brandy, lastly the whites. Bake in a buttered dish, and eat cold.

Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Bean and Celery Soup.
Jugged Pigeons. Shred Macaroni.
Currant Jelly. Brussels-Sprouts.
——
Sponge-Cake Fritters.
——

BEAN AND CELERY SOUP.

1 quart of dried beans, soaked all night.
1 bunch of celery—the blanched stalks only.
1 lb. of salt pork, cut into strips.
1 lb. of beef—lean, also cut up.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Pepper.
5 quarts of water—cold.
1 onion, minced.

Cover beans, meat, onions, and half the celery cut into bits, with the water, and boil to pieces, and until the liquid is reduced one-third. Rub the beans and celery through a fine colander into the soup. Return to the fire, season with pepper, put in the rest of the celery, cut into inch-lengths, and simmer half an hour, stirring often, that it may not “catch” on the bottom. Set aside a quart of it, if you can spare as much, for Monday’s soup.

JUGGED PIGEONS.

Clean and wash well, and stuff with a dressing made of the giblets boiled and chopped, a slice of fat pork also minced fine; the yolks of two hard eggs rubbed to powder, some bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, bound with a beaten raw egg. Tie the legs and wings close to their bodies, and pack the pigeons in a tin pail with a _tight_ top. Plunge this into a pot of boiling water; put a weight on top to keep it steady, and cook two hours and a half. The water should not boil over the top. Drain off the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Season, boil up, pour over the pigeons. Cover again, and leave in the hot water ten minutes before serving.

SHRED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into pieces two inches long, and cook in boiling water, a little salted, ten minutes. Drain off the water, and spread the macaroni out to cool upon a dish. When cold, take a sharp knife or a pair of scissors, and split each piece in half, lengthwise. Put on in a farina-kettle with a cup of hot milk and a tablespoonful of butter, seasoning with pepper and salt. Cover and stew tender, but not to breaking. Ten minutes after the boil should do this. Then stir in three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Serve in a deep dish.

BRUSSELS-SPROUTS.

Wash and pick over very carefully. Put on in plenty of boiling water with a little salt, and cook fifteen minutes after the water begins to boil anew. Drain well and pile upon a dish, with drawn butter poured over them.

SPONGE-CAKE FRITTERS.

8 penny sponge-cakes—very stale.
1 cup of boiling milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
4 eggs whipped light.
1 tablespoonful of flour wet up in cold milk.
¼ lb. currants, washed and dried.

Roll the cakes into fine crumbs; pour over them the hot milk, with the soda and flour stirred into it. Cover for fifteen minutes, then beat until cold. Add the whipped eggs—the yolks first, then the whites; finally, the currants dredged with flour. Beat all well. Drop in great spoonfuls in boiling lard, trying one first to be sure that the batter is of the right consistency; drain quickly in a hot colander; sprinkle with powdered sugar mixed with nutmeg, and serve hot.

MARCH.

First Week. Sunday.
——
Mushroom Soup.
Roast Ducks. Savory Scotch Pudding.
Spinach in a Mould. Grape Jelly.
Green Peas.
——
Turret Cream.
Coffee.
——

MUSHROOM SOUP.

3 lbs. of knuckle of veal, well cracked.
1 onion.
Bunch of parsley.
A slice of ham, or some ham or salt-pork bones.
1 can of French mushrooms.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of flour.
2 beaten eggs.
Pepper and salt.
1 cup of milk.
4 quarts of cold water.

Crack the bones and mince the meat, onion, and parsley. Cover with the water, and boil gently three hours, or until the stock has diminished one-half. Strain, season, boil up and skim. Add the mushrooms, drained from the can liquor, and sliced. Stew twenty minutes; put in the milk, the flour, wet up in cold water, and when it thickens, beat a cupful into the whipped eggs. Stir into this the butter, return to the soup, let it almost boil, and pour out.

To the lovers of mushrooms this is a delicious soup.

ROAST DUCKS.

Draw, clean and wash a pair of ducks. Stuff _one_ only with a dressing made of bread-crumbs, the hard-boiled yolk of an egg, a little minced sage and onion. Rub the inside of the other with melted butter, pepper and salt. Many do not like the taste of onion and sage, while others do not enjoy roast duck without the flavor of these condiments. Put the fowls into the dripping-pan, pour a cup of boiling water over them, and roast about an hour, basting frequently. At the last, dredge with flour, and baste with butter; then brown. Chop the giblets fine, pour the fat from the top of the gravy in the dripping-pan, thicken with browned flour that which is left, and stir in the giblets.

GREEN PEAS

Have, from time immemorial, been the adjunct of roast ducks. As the best substitute to be had at this season, open a can of preserved green peas—the French cans are best; let them stand an hour to get rid of the airless taste that is apt to cling to canned vegetables; pour off the liquor; cook twenty minutes in boiling water, a little salt; drain dry, and stir up in them a teaspoonful of butter, with pepper to your liking.

SAVORY SCOTCH PUDDING.

1 quart of milk.
1 cup of best oatmeal, soaked all night in cold water.
1 cup of gravy.
4 tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
3 eggs.
Pepper and salt.

When your soup is ready to strain, dip out a cupful and set by to cool. Take off the fat and stir into the soaked oatmeal. Mix up well; put in a farina-kettle with boiling water around it, and add by degrees, as it thickens, the milk heated to scalding. When all is in, salt and pepper to taste and cook fast, stirring often, ten minutes. Take from the fire, and let it cool.

N.B. If you have the gravy, all this can be done on Saturday.

When cold, beat in the butter, melted, working out all the lumps and taking the skin from the top. Beat in the whipped eggs, working up fast and hard. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish; bake, covered, one hour, then brown. Serve in the bake-dish.

SPINACH IN A MOULD.

Pick over carefully, clip off the stems and put on the leaves in boiling water, with salt stirred in. Boil hard fifteen minutes. When done, drain, pressing out all the water. Chop fine; put back into the saucepan with a piece of butter—a large spoonful for a good dish—a little powdered sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir and toss until very hot; press hard into a mould wet with hot water, and turn out with care upon a heated dish. Lay round slices of hard-boiled eggs on the top.

TURRET CREAM.

1 quart of milk.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine.
1 heaping cup of white sugar.
3 eggs beaten light, whites and yolks separately.
½ lb. crystallized fruit.
Vanilla flavoring.
Juice of a lemon in which half the grated peel has been soaked,
then strained out.

Soak the gelatine three hours in a large cup of cold water. Scald the milk, stir in the sugar, and when this has melted, the gelatine. Stir over the fire five minutes; pour out half of the mixture into a bowl, and add the whipped yolks to that left in the saucepan. Stir one minute, and take from the fire. Flavor the yellow gelatine with lemon—the white with vanilla. As soon as the yellow begins to congeal, whip one-half of the stiffened whites into it, a little at a time, with a Dover egg-beater. Add the rest to the white gelatine, in the same manner, whipping each in until it stiffens before adding more, and not ceasing until both are heaps of “sponge.” Wet the inside of a tall fluted mould with water, and arrange in the bottom, close to the outside of the mould, a row of crystallized cherries. Then, put in a layer of the white mixture; on this, close to the outside, strips of apricots or peaches; then a layer of yellow mixture, another border of cherries, and so on, until the materials are used up. Do this on Saturday. Next day, dip for one instant in hot water, and invert upon a flat dish.

Eat with brandied fruit. It will be a beautiful dessert.

COFFEE.

Pass with light cakes or sweet biscuits.

First Week. Monday.
——
Tomato and Bean Soup.
Ham and Eggs. Fricassee of Duck.
Stewed Corn. Glazed Potatoes.
——
Queen’s Pudding.
——

TOMATO AND BEAN SOUP.

Open a can of tomatoes; take out the hard and unripe portions, cut up the rest in small pieces, and heat to a boil before adding the bean soup set aside from Saturday. Simmer all together half an hour, season to taste, and pour over the dice of fried bread you have put in the bottom of the tureen.

HAM AND EGGS.

Pour a little hot water in a frying-pan, if you use smoked raw ham for this dish, and cook the slices in it ten minutes. Let them get perfectly cold. Fry in their own fat until tender throughout and crisp at the edges. Drain the fat from them and arrange them upon a hot dish. Strain the fat, return to the pan, and fry the eggs without turning. Cut the ham in neat slices, lay an egg upon each, and serve.

FRICASSEE OF DUCK.

Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, dividing the joints neatly, and slicing the breast, etc. Crack the skeleton to pieces, and put it, with the skin, stuffing, and gristly bits, into a saucepan. Cover with cold water, and stew until a cupful of good gravy is extracted. Strain and season this; put in the sliced duck. Set within a pot of hot water and bring the contents of the inner saucepan _almost to_ a boil. Add a couple of beaten eggs; stir up well and set aside in the hot water, covered, for five minutes. The meat must not actually boil once.

STEWED CORN.

Open a can of corn, an hour before cooking it. Put it into a saucepan when you are ready for it; cover with boiling water, and let it stand without cooking, for ten minutes. Drain off the water; cover the corn with hot milk, a little salted; set within a vessel of hot water, and cook for half an hour, or until tender. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into thirds, each rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes, pepper, and turn into a deep covered dish.

GLAZED POTATOES.

Parboil them in their skins; peel quickly and lay in the dripping-pan within a hot oven. As soon as they begin to “crust” over, baste with good dripping or butter. Repeat this three times until they are of a glossy brown. Eat hot.

QUEEN’S PUDDING.

10 fine pippins, pared and cored.
½ lb. macaroons, pounded fine.
2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ cup crab-apple or quince jelly.
1 tablespoonful of brandy.
1 pint of milk.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch.
Whites of 3 eggs.
A little salt.

Put the apples into a buttered pudding-dish. Fill this half full of cold water; cover _closely_ and bake until a straw will pierce them. Let them stand, covered, until cold. (Do this on Saturday.) Drain off the water the day you mean to use them. Put a spoonful of jelly and a few drops of brandy into each apple. Strew with cinnamon and sugar. Cover and let them stand while you scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons, the salt and the corn-starch wet up in cold milk. Boil for one minute. Take from the fire, beat up well, and let it cool before whipping in the frothed whites. Pour this mixture over the apples and bake half an hour in a brisk oven. Eat warm with a sauce made of the water in which the apples were stewed, well sweetened and spiced, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour and the beaten yolk of an egg. Heat the liquor, sweeten and season; thicken with butter and flour; boil up; pour gradually over the egg, and set in hot water until it is needed.

First Week. Tuesday.
——
German Sago Broth.
Beefsteak and Onions. French Beans Garnis with Sausages.
Hot Slaw.
——
Hasty Farina Pudding.
——

GERMAN SAGO SOUP.

3 lbs. knuckle of veal, well cracked.
1 onion.
2 stalks of celery.
Some pork bones, if you have them.
Bunch of sweet herbs, minced.
4 quarts of cold water.
Pepper and salt.
¾ of a cup of German sago, soaked two hours in cold water.

Chop the meat, celery, herbs, and onion, and crack the bones. Cover with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until the meat is boiled to shreds. Strain, season, boil up and skim well, put in the soaked sago and cook slowly half an hour. The sago should be entirely dissolved.

BEEFSTEAK AND ONIONS.

Broil your steak as usual. Fry in a little butter one onion, sliced, until brown. Strain it out, and when your steak is done, and laid upon a hot dish, pour the butter in which the onion was fried over it. Add pepper and salt, and the faintest suspicion of made mustard, turn over it a hot cover and let it stand five minutes before serving.

FRENCH BEANS GARNIS WITH SAUSAGES.

Open a can of “string” beans, cut in short pieces, cover with boiling water, slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain well, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and heap upon a hot dish. Surround with sausages, in cakes or in cases, fried in their own fat, and drained from the grease. Serve hot.

HOT SLAW.

1 small, firm head of cabbage, shred fine.
1 cup of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of sour cream.
½ teaspoonful of made mustard.
1 saltspoonful of pepper and the same of salt.

Put the vinegar, and all the other ingredients for the dressing, except the cream, in a saucepan, and heat to a boil. Pour scalding hot over the cabbage; return to the saucepan, and stir and toss until all is smoking again. Take from the fire, stir in the cream, turn into a covered dish and set in hot water ten minutes before you send to the table.

HASTY FARINA PUDDING.

1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls (heaping) of farina, previously soaked in a little
cold water for one hour.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
2 eggs, beaten.

Scald the milk; stir in the salt, then the soaked farina, and cook steadily (always in a farina-kettle) three quarters of an hour. Add the butter; take a cupful of the boiling mixture, and beat into the whipped eggs. Put back into the saucepan, stir for two minutes and pour into a deep, open dish. Eat with milk, or cream, and sugar.

First Week. Wednesday.
——
Baked Soup.
Devilled Lobster. Calf’s Liver à la Mode.
Baked Celery. Potatoes au Gratin, with Vermicelli.
——
Lemon Pudding.
——

BAKED SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean beef, cut into dice.
3 stalks of _blanched_ celery.
2 turnips.
Handful of chopped cabbage.
1 onion.
1 carrot.
2 roots of salsify, cut small.
Chopped parsley.
½ cup of rice, previously boiled for fifteen minutes.
½ can of tomatoes, cut up.
Pepper and salt.
1 quart cold water.

Prepare beef and vegetables early in the day; mix all up well, and put into a strong earthenware jar, with a good cover of the same material. Coat this top thickly with a stiff paste of flour and water to exclude the air, and set in the oven for six hours. Once in a while, grease the paste to prevent it from scorching or cracking. It is also well to set the jar in a dripping or bake pan of boiling water. Serve without straining.

DEVILLED LOBSTER.

1 can of preserved lobster.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
½ teaspoonful of made mustard.
A good pinch of cayenne pepper.
Boiled eggs for garnishing.
Salt.

Open the lobster-can and empty it into a bowl an hour before using it. Mince evenly. Put vinegar, butter and seasoning into a saucepan, and when it simmers, add the lobster. Cook slowly, covered, half an hour, stirring occasionally. Turn into a deep dish, and garnish with slices of egg. Eat hot with buttered Boston crackers.

CALF’S LIVER À LA MODE.

1 fine, fresh liver.
½ lb. salt pork, cut into lardoons.
3 tablespoonfuls good dripping.
2 sliced onions, small ones.
1 tablespoonful Harvey’s Sauce.
2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
1 teaspoonful mixed spices.
1 tablespoonful sweet herbs, chopped.
Pepper.

Wash the liver, and soak half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe dry and lard with the fat pork, allowing it to project on both sides. Heat dripping, onion, herbs, and spice in a frying-pan. Put in the liver and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, add the vinegar, and water enough to cover it; put on a close lid and stew gently one hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, add the sauce to the gravy, strain it, thicken with browned flour, boil up; pour half over the liver, and send the rest up in a sauce-boat.

BAKED CELERY.

Cut two bunches of celery, the best stalks only, into inch-lengths, and stew in boiling water, a little salt, for ten minutes. Drain off the water, and add a cup of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled thickly in flour, a little pepper and salt. Simmer three minutes after heating, and pour into a shallow bowl to cool. Butter a bake-dish, strew the bottom with fine bread-crumbs. When the celery is almost or quite cold, beat into it two eggs, and pour into the dish. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over the top, turn a tin plate over all, and bake twenty minutes. Remove the cover and brown.

POTATOES AU GRATIN, WITH VERMICELLI.

Mash the potatoes as usual, with butter, milk, and salt. Smooth into a hillock upon a pie-plate, and strew with a handful of vermicelli broken small, cooked soft in boiling water, a little salt, then drained perfectly dry and spread out to cool. Brown all in a quick oven, glaze with butter, slip to a hot dish, and it is ready.

LEMON PUDDING.

6 butter crackers, soaked in water, and beaten smooth.
Juice of three lemons and half the grated peel.
1 cup of molasses.
A pinch of salt.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Pie-paste for shells.

Chop the pulp of the lemons, leaving out the thick white peel, _very_ fine; stir into the crushed crackers, with the butter and salt. Beat the molasses into this, gradually, with the grated peel. Line two pie-dishes with good paste, fill with the mixture and bake, without upper crusts. Eat warm, or cold. They are best fresh.

First Week. Thursday.
——
Beef Soup with Barley.
Stuffed Loin of Veal.
Baked Tomatoes. Kidney Beans with Sauce.
——
Plain Boiled Pudding.
Hard Sauce.
——

BEEF SOUP WITH BARLEY.

3 lbs. of beef from the shin.
2 lbs. of bones.
1 onion stuck with cloves.
2 stalks of celery.
The half can of tomatoes left from yesterday’s soup.
2 turnips.
Nearly a cup of pearl barley.
4 quarts of water.
Pepper and salt.

Cut up the meat and crack the bones. Cut up celery, turnips, and tomatoes. Put all these, with the onion, into the soup-pot, with the gallon of cold water, and boil gently three hours. The liquor should be reduced one-third. Wash the barley and boil fifteen minutes in a very little water. Strain the soup, pressing hard. Season; let it boil up once, and skim before adding the barley and the water in which it has boiled. Simmer half an hour, and serve.

STUFFED LOIN OF VEAL.

Prepare a dressing of bread-crumbs, a little chopped _corned_ ham, parsley, pepper and salt, moistened with milk. Have the bones taken out of the meat, and fill the holes thus left with the stuffing. Secure the meat into a good shape with skewers, and cover the top and sides with thick foolscap paper, binding it with strings. Grease paper and strings, put the veal into your dripping-pan with a cup of hot water, and bake, basting the paper now and then with dripping, to prevent scorching. At the end of an hour, take out the meat and remove the paper. Pour off the gravy, carefully setting it by; return the meat to the oven with a cupful of _milk_ in the pan instead of the gravy. Baste with butter, lavishly, once,—afterwards, and often with the milk as it heats. Roast, not too fast, nearly an hour more, or until your meat is tender. Should the milk evaporate too rapidly, add a little hot water. Indeed, this is a wise precaution against scorching. Take up the veal, thicken the gravy left in the oven, with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, salt, and pepper, heat carefully that the milk may not “catch,” and pour some over the meat, serving the rest in a boat. Veal cooked in this way is very nice, but requires much attention at the last.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Strew the bottom of a pie-dish with fine crumbs, having greased it first. Drain off much of the liquor from a can of tomatoes, add it to the soup, pour the tomatoes upon the crumbs, season with pepper, salt, and butter; strew more crumbs thickly over the top. Bake, covered, twenty minutes; then brown.

KIDNEY BEANS WITH SAUCE.

Soak the beans overnight. The next day boil them until soft in salted water. Drain this off. Strain the first gravy taken from the roast veal—before the milk is substituted—into a saucepan; add a tablespoonful of butter, and half a small onion, minced. Boil five minutes, strain through a soup-sieve, pressing the onion hard; season with pepper, salt, and a little chopped parsley; pour over the beans, simmer fifteen minutes, closely covered, drain off half of the liquor, and serve in a covered dish.

PLAIN BOILED PUDDING.

3 cups—full ones—of good flour.
2 cups of “loppered” milk or buttermilk; sour cream is best of all.
1 _full_ teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
A little salt.
½ cup finely-powdered suet.

Stir the milk and soda gradually into the flour, working it smooth. Put suet and salt in, and beat all thoroughly. Boil in a buttered mould an hour and a half.

HARD SAUCE.

1 cup of sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
½ glass of wine.
Juice of a lemon and half of the grated peel.

Warm the butter, and rub into the sugar, working into a light cream. Add lemon and wine. Mould as you like, and set aside to cool.

First Week. Friday.
——
Oyster Soup.
Brown Fricassee of Chicken. Ladies’ Cabbage.
Potatoes au naturel. Grape Jelly.
——
Sliced Apple Pie.
——

OYSTER SOUP.

Drain the liquor from the oysters through a colander. Put the liquor over the fire with half as much water, salt, pepper, and a large tablespoonful of butter for each quart of soup. Let it boil up well, and put in the oysters. Heat slowly, and as soon as they “ruffle,” which should be about five minutes after they reach the boil, strain off the soup. Have in another vessel as much boiling milk as there was oyster liquor. Pour the oysters into a hot tureen, put a large spoonful of butter upon them; when it melts entirely, turn in the milk. Stir in well, add the hot soup, cover, and serve with sliced lemon and crackers.

BROWN FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN.

Joint the chicken neatly, and lay in salted cold water half an hour. Cut a quarter of a pound of salt pork into strips, and fry in good dripping. Strain it out, skin the chicken as far as possible, and fry in the same fat, with a sliced onion. Chop the pork fine and put into a saucepan; next, the onion; at last, the fowl. Sprinkle a teaspoonful of mixed allspice and cloves over all, pour on cold water to cover them well, put on a tight lid, and stew gently for an hour or more, until the meat is tender. Arrange the fowl upon a hot dish; strain the gravy; season to taste with pepper, salt, and parsley; thicken with browned flour; boil up once; pour over the chicken; cover, and let all stand for five minutes before serving.

LADIES’ CABBAGE.

Boil a firm cabbage in two waters. Drain, then set aside to get cold. Chop fine; add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, and three tablespoonfuls of milk. Stir all well, and bake brown in a buttered pudding-dish. Eat very hot.

POTATOES AU NATUREL.

Choose those of uniform size; put on in their skins, in boiling water. When about half done, check the boil suddenly by a cupful of cold water. This is said to make old potatoes mealy. Boil again until a fork will pierce them. Drain off the water; sprinkle with salt to make the skins crack, and dry out in the uncovered pot, on the range, for a few minutes before peeling.

SLICED APPLE PIE.

1 lb. of prepared flour.
¾ lb. of butter.
Ice-water to make stiff dough.

Chop half of the butter into the flour. Work up with ice-water. Roll out thin; baste all over with butter, and sprinkle lightly with flour; fold closely into a long roll; flatten, and re-roll as thin as at first; then baste again. Repeat this three times. Set the last roll in a cold place for at least an hour. Roll out, and line two buttered pie-plates, reserving enough for upper crusts.

Pare, core and slice juicy pippins; put a layer within the crust; sprinkle sugar liberally over it, strew half a dozen whole cloves upon this; then more apples, etc., until the dish is full. Cover with crust and bake.

Eat barely warm, with sugar and cream.

First Week. Saturday.
——
A Plain Soup.
Breaded Mutton Chops. Milanaise Potatoes.
Currant Jelly. Green Peas.
——
Cocoanut Sponge Pudding.
——

A PLAIN SOUP.

5 lbs. shin of beef.
2 stalks of celery.
2 carrots.
2 onions.
2 turnips.
5 quarts of water.
2 tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup.
½ cup coarse corn-meal.
Pepper and salt.
1 cup of boiling milk.

Slice the meat and crack the bones. Cut the vegetables into strips and fry the onions in good dripping. Then put all, with meat and bones, into a soup-pot with the water. Cover and cook gently five hours. Strain the liquor from the shreds of meat and rub the vegetables through the colander. Season and set aside half the stock for to-morrow. Put that meant for to-day into a soup-kettle; season and boil up for a minute, that you may skim it; then add the corn-meal, previously scalded with a cup of boiling milk. Stir in well, and simmer half an hour before adding the catsup and pouring into the tureen.

BREADED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim the chops from fat and skin, leaving a bit of bone clean at the end of each. Beat up a raw egg; dip the chops in this—having peppered and salted them; roll in cracker-dust, and fry brown in good dripping or sweet lard. Drain, and arrange in rows upon a hot dish, the large end of each overlapping the small end of the next. Garnish with parsley.

MILANAISE POTATOES.

12 boiled potatoes.
¾ cupful of gravy left from yesterday’s fricassee.
Juice of half a lemon.
Yolks of 2 raw eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls of dry grated cheese.
½ cup stale bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt.

Heat and strain your gravy. Put into a saucepan with the seasoning, butter, and lemon, bring to a boil, and stir it into the beaten egg. Slice the potatoes; lay a row within the outer round of a neat pie-plate. (I hope you have one with a silver stand for the table.) Pour a few teaspoonfuls of sauce upon these; lay another and smaller row inside of the first; more sauce, and so on, until you have a low cone of sliced potato; pour sauce over all, coat with the bread-crumbs and cheese, mixed together; pepper and salt, and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.

GREEN PEAS.

Open a can of green peas; turn off the liquor and cover with boiling water, a little salt. Boil fast until tender; drain well; stir in a tablespoonful of butter; pepper and salt, and serve in a deep dish.

COCOANUT SPONGE PUDDING.

2 cups of stale sponge-cake crumbs.
2 cups of milk.
1 cup of grated cocoanut.
Yolks of two eggs and whites of four.
1 cup of white sugar.
1 tablespoonful rose-water.
A little nutmeg.

Scald the milk and beat into this the cake-crumbs. When nearly cold add the eggs, sugar, rose-water, and lastly the cocoanut. Bake three-quarters of an hour in a buttered pudding-dish. Should it brown too fast, cover with white paper. Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over it.

Second Week. Sunday.
——
Tapioca Soup.
Roast Beef and Potato Balls. Sliced Sweet Potatoes.
Gherkin Pickle. Cauliflower au Gratin.
——
Southern Rice Pudding, méringued.
——

TAPIOCA SOUP.

Take the fat from the stock reserved for to-day. Bring the soup to a boil and stir in half a teacupful of “grained” tapioca, which has been soaked three hours in a little cold water. Add also seasoning, if needed; simmer half an hour and pour out. Send around grated cheese with it.

ROAST BEEF AND POTATO BALLS.

When your beef is about three-quarters done, pour nearly all of the gravy from the dripping-pan. Have ready some mashed potato worked smooth with a beaten egg, pepper and salt, then made into balls and rolled in flour. Place them in the pan around the meat and baste until well browned. Serve in the same dish with the beef.

SLICED SWEET POTATOES.

Boil in their skins until a fork will go easily into them. Pare and slice with a sharp knife lengthwise; fry lightly and quickly in good dripping, or butter; drain off the grease, and serve hot.

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.

Wash the cauliflower, cut off green leaves and stalks, and divide into neat bunches. Boil in hot water, salted, until tender. Drain well; dip each piece in melted butter, and strew thickly with fine, dry crumbs, mixed with pepper and salt. Arrange flower end uppermost, in a pudding-dish, and brown the crumbs upon the upper grating of an oven. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pass a boat of drawn butter with them.

SOUTHERN RICE PUDDING—MÉRINGUED.

1 qt. of fresh milk.
1 cup of raw rice.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 cup of sugar.
4 eggs beaten light.
1 teaspoonful grated lemon-peel.
A pinch of cinnamon, and the same of mace.

Soak the rice two hours in the milk. Simmer in a farina-kettle until tender. Rub butter and sugar to a cream. Beat up the eggs, and whip the mixture into them while the rice is cooling. Stir all together; flavor, and bake three-quarters of an hour in a buttered dish. If baked too long, the custard will break. So soon as it is well set in the middle of the dish, draw to the oven-door, and spread with a _méringue_ made of the whites of three eggs whisked stiff with one tablespoonful of powdered sugar and juice of half a lemon. Close the oven-door, and brown delicately. Eat cold. Make it on Saturday.

Second Week. Monday.
——
Hasty Soup.
Larded Beef. Stewed Parsnips.
Browned Potatoes. Made Mustard.
——
“Brown Betty.”
Tea and Albert Biscuit.
——

HASTY SOUP.

The trimmings of your roast beef, and any other cold meat you may have—about two and a half pounds in all, chopped very fine.

2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
2 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
2 quarts of water.
2 handfuls of fried bread.
Pepper and salt.
1 tablespoonful of walnut catsup.

Put meat, butter, salt and pepper into a saucepan; add two quarts of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil. Cook half an hour after the boil fairly begins. Strain hard through a thin cloth; thicken with browned flour; add the catsup; boil up once, and pour over the fried bread in the tureen.

LARDED BEEF.

Trim yesterday’s roast on top, bottom, and sides, saving all the fragments for your soup. Then make incisions quite through the meat, and thrust in numerous lardoons of fat salt pork, projecting above and below. Rub the meat all over with vinegar, and then with melted butter, rubbing both in well. Put in a dripping-pan. Take the fat from the top of yesterday’s gravy; thin it with a little hot water; strain this into the dripping-pan, and baste the meat plentifully with it, keeping another pan inverted over it between times. If your oven be moderately good, the beef should be ready for table in forty-five minutes. Pour a few spoonfuls of gravy over it when dished. Put the rest into a sauce-boat.

STEWED PARSNIPS.

Scrape, slice lengthwise, and lay in cold water half an hour. Cook tender in boiling water, a little salt. Drain off half the water, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in flour. Pepper and salt to your taste, and stew gently five minutes before pouring into a deep, covered dish.

BROWNED POTATOES.

Mash soft with butter, milk, and salt. Heap as irregularly as possible upon a pie-dish, and set in a quick oven. Mem.: The dish should be well greased. As the potato browns, glaze it with butter. Slip carefully to a hot dish.

“BROWN BETTY.”

1 cup bread-crumbs.
2 cups chopped tart apples.
½ cup of sugar.
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Put a layer of chopped apple in a buttered pudding-dish; strew with sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Cover with bread-crumbs; then more apple. When your dish is full, cover with crumbs. Invert a tin plate over it, and “steam” forty-five minutes in a good oven. Then, uncover and brown. Eat warm, with sugar and butter, or cream.

TEA AND ALBERT BISCUIT.

Pass these after the pudding. Tea-drinking is restful as well as refreshing on a busy day. Weary housekeepers can have no more innocent nervine.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
White Soup.
Boiled Shoulder of Mutton, with Oysters.
Creamed Potatoes.
Baked Beans. Sweet Pickles.
——
Cottage Puffs.
——

WHITE SOUP.

Knuckle of veal—weight 5 or 6 pounds.
¼ lb. lean ham—raw or cooked.
2 onions.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
4 blades of mace.
2 cups of milk.
2 eggs.
½ cup raw rice.
5 qts. of cold water.
¼ lb. almonds, blanched and pounded.

Crack the veal-bones, and cut off the meat in small pieces. Put into the soup-pot with the chopped ham; the onion sliced, the herbs and spice. Pour on the water, and boil very slowly five hours. The water should be reduced to three quarts. Strain off the liquor. Season three pints, and pour back upon the bones, etc. Cover tightly in a stone crock, and put away for to-morrow’s stock. To the remainder add the rice and the pint of water in which it has been soaking for two hours. Season, and cook gently, taking care it does not burn, while you blanch the almonds by scalding off their skins, and pound them in a Wedgewood mortar. When the rice is soft, put in these, and cook slowly ten minutes. Scald the milk, pour it upon the beaten eggs by degrees, add to the soup; stir one minute, but not to the boil, and pour into the tureen.

BOILED SHOULDER OF MUTTON WITH OYSTERS.

Take the main bones out of a shoulder of mutton; fill the cavity with oysters, and bind the meat firmly over the incision. Sew the shoulder into a neat shape in a piece of stout tarlatan; put on in boiling water, slightly salted, allowing eighteen minutes to each pound in cooking. When done, unbind carefully upon the dish in which you are to serve it. Pour over it a sauce made of equal parts of oyster liquor and the broth from the boiling meat, seasoned, then thickened with a generous lump of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour, and some chopped parsley. Boil up once well, and put half upon the meat, the rest in a sauce-boat.

CREAMED POTATOES.

Mash in the usual way, whipping very light with a fork, adding a cupful of rich milk and two tablespoonfuls of softened butter, beating in gradually. Return to the saucepan; stir constantly for three minutes; turn into a bowl and whip with an egg-beater, hard, one minute. Pile in a hot deep dish, and set in the open oven until you are ready to send it to table.

BAKED BEANS.

Soak overnight. Next day, put on in cold water—salted—and cook soft. Drain dry, turn into a greased bake-dish, stir in a great spoonful of butter, and when this has melted, enough milk to fill the dish one quarter full. Season with pepper and salt; cover and bake forty minutes. Remove the top, and brown.

COTTAGE PUFFS.

2 cups of rich milk—half cream if you can get it.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 good tablespoonful of butter, chopped into the flour.
A pinch of salt.
Enough prepared flour for thick batter. Try two cups, and add, by
degrees, as you need more.

Mix the beaten yolks with the milk; then the salt and whites; at last, the flour. Bake in greased iron pans, such as are used for “gems” and corn-bread. The oven should be quick. Turn out and eat with sweet sauce.

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Giblet Soup.
Smothered Chickens. Macaroni with Tomato Sauce.
Peach Pickles. Potato Chips.
——
Apple Cake.
Coffee.
——

GIBLET SOUP.

Clean and cut the giblets of your fowls into three pieces each. Stew tender in a pint of water. Take the cake of fat from the broth set by yesterday. Put a half cupful aside for your macaroni sauce. Warm the rest and strain out the bones, etc. Return to the fire, boil up and skim, chop the giblets fine and put them in with the water in which they were boiled. Simmer a quarter of an hour; stir in half a cupful of fine, dry bread-crumbs. Season, if necessary; boil ten minutes longer, stirring often, and pour out.

SMOTHERED CHICKENS.

Prepare the chickens as for broiling, splitting each down the back. Lay flat in a dripping-pan, pour a cupful of boiling water upon them; set in the oven and invert another pan over them, so as to cover them _tightly_. Roast half an hour, lift the cover and baste freely with butter. In ten minutes more, baste with gravy from the dripping-pan. In five more, with melted butter—abundantly—going all over the fowls. Keeping the chickens covered except while basting them, increase the heat, until you ascertain, by testing with a fork, that they are done. They should be coffee-colored all over, rather than brown. Dish, salt and pepper them; cover while you thicken the gravy with browned flour, adding a little hot water, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Boil up; put a few spoonfuls over the chickens—the rest in a gravy tureen.

They are extremely nice, if faithfully basted.

MACARONI WITH TOMATO SAUCE.

Break half a pound of macaroni into inch lengths. Cover with salted boiling water, and cook twenty minutes, or until tender. Have ready a sauce prepared as follows: open a can of tomatoes; take out half the contents and cut up very small. Add, with pepper and salt, and a little minced onion, to the half cup of broth reserved for this purpose, and stew together twenty minutes. Put the macaroni into a deep dish, stir well into it a large tablespoonful of butter. Add to the sauce two great spoonfuls grated cheese; boil once and strain over the macaroni, loosening the latter with a fork that the sauce may penetrate. Serve hot.

POTATO CHIPS.

Peel and slice, round, some fine potatoes. Lay in cold water for one hour. Dry by laying them upon a dry towel and pressing with another. Fry in salted lard, quickly, to a delicate brown. Take out as soon as they are done; shake briskly in a hot colander to free them from fat, and send to table in a deep dish—uncovered—lined with a napkin.

APPLE CAKE.

2 cups of powdered sugar.
3 even cups of prepared flour.
½ cup of corn-starch, wet up with a little milk.
½ cup of butter, rubbed to a cream with the sugar.
½ cup of sweet milk.
The whites of 6 eggs whipped stiff.

Add the milk to the creamed butter and sugar; then the corn-starch, lastly the flour and whites alternately. Bake in greased jelly-cake tins.

FILLING.

3 tart pippins, grated.
1 beaten egg.
1 cup of sugar.
Juice and grated peel of one lemon.

Beat sugar, egg, and lemon together. Grate the apples into this mixture. Put into a farina-kettle and stir until it boils. Cool before putting between the cakes.

COFFEE

May to-day be passed with the cake.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Chicken Broth.
Rolled Beefsteak. Salsify Fritters.
Scalloped Tomatoes. Cucumber Pickles.
——
Fig Custard Pudding.
——

CHICKEN BROTH.

Cut an old fowl into quarters. Lay in salt and water an hour; put on in a soup-kettle with an onion, and four quarts of water. Bring _very_ slowly to a gentle boil, and keep this up until the liquid has diminished one-third, and the meat shrinks from the bones. Take out the chicken, salt it, and set aside with a cupful of the broth, in a bowl (covered), until to-morrow. Season the rest of the broth and put back over the fire. Boil up and skim, and add nearly a teacupful of rice, previously soaked for two hours in a cup of water. Cook slowly until the rice is tender. Stir a cup of hot milk into two beaten eggs, and then into the soup. Let all come to the boil—barely—when you have added a handful of finely-minced parsley, pour out into the tureen.

ROLLED BEEFSTEAK.

Beat a large sirloin steak flat with the broad side of a hatchet. Fry a sliced onion in a little butter. Take it out with a skimmer, and put the meat into the pan. Fry quickly on both sides, soaking up all the butter and leaving a brown glaze upon the steak. Spread it upon a dish. Chop the onion, mix with bread-crumbs, minced herbs and a few chopped mushrooms, and lay this force-meat upon the steak. Roll the meat up tightly upon the dressing. Fasten with soft packthread and skewers. Put into a saucepan with a cupful of cold water. Set where it will heat very slowly, keeping on a close lid. Simmer thus two hours, turning now and then. Transfer the meat to a hot dish. Strain the gravy, add a little hot water, if needed; thicken with browned flour; stir in some minced mushrooms, a tablespoonful of catsup and another of butter. Boil about three minutes, pour over the steak, when you have removed the threads. The skewers are to be withdrawn by the carver.

SALSIFY FRITTERS.

Scrape, wash, and grate the roots into a mixture made of a beaten egg, one cup of milk, and enough flour for a very thin batter. Thicken with the grated salsify; salt and pepper, and drop, in large spoonfuls, into boiling lard or dripping. Drain in a hot colander. Eat while fresh.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES.

Drain off the liquor from a can of tomatoes; salt it, and put aside for another day’s soup. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with fine crumbs; cover with tomatoes, sliced thin. Scatter over these a little minced onion and some bits of butter, with pepper, salt, and sugar. Proceed thus until the tomatoes are used up. Cover thickly with crumbs, fit a plate or tin lid over the scallop, and bake half an hour. Brown quickly upon the upper grating of the oven.

FIG CUSTARD PUDDING.

1 lb. best Naples figs.
1 quart of milk.
Yolks of five eggs and whites of two.
½ package of gelatine soaked in half cup of water.
1 cup sweet fruit jelly, slightly warmed.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Flavor to taste.

Soak the figs in warm water until quite soft. Split them; dip each piece in jelly, and line a buttered mould with them. Heat the milk, stir into the beaten eggs and sugar, return to the farina-kettle, and cook until it thickens well. Set by to cool. Beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth. Melt the soaked gelatine by adding two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and setting it within a vessel of hot water. Stir until melted, and let it cool. When it begins to congeal, whip with the Dover egg-beater, gradually, into the whisked whites, until all is white and thick. Beat into the cold custard rapidly and thoroughly, and fill the fig-lined mould. Set on ice, or in a cold place, until firm. Dip the mould in hot water to loosen the pudding when you are ready for it. It is delicious.

Second Week. Friday.
——
Split Pea Soup, without Meat.
Baked Halibut. Chicken and Ham Pudding.
Mashed Potatoes. Mixed Pickles.
——
Cottage Pudding.
Wine Sauce.
——

SPLIT PEA SOUP, WITHOUT MEAT.

1 pint of split peas.
2 onions.
2 stalks of celery.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
1 carrot.
1 turnip.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour.
Tomato juice, saved from yesterday.
Pepper, salt, and fried bread.
3 quarts of water.

Soak the peas all night. In the morning, put them on, with the vegetables and herbs cut small, and the tomato juice; cover with the water, and cook slowly three hours, or until you can rub all to a pulp through a colander. Season; simmer fifteen minutes, stir in the butter, cook five minutes longer, and pour upon the fried bread in the tureen.

BAKED HALIBUT.

Lay a cut of halibut, weighing five pounds, in salt and water for two hours. Wipe dry, and score on top. Bake an hour, basting often with butter and water melted together. Test with a fork to see if it be done, and transfer to a hot dish. Strain the gravy from the dripping-pan to a saucepan. Stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, the juice of a lemon, and a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in three tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil, and pour into a sauce-boat.

CHICKEN AND HAM PUDDING.

The meat from yesterday’s chickens, minced fine.
Half as much cooked ham, also minced.
½ lb. pipe macaroni, broken into inch lengths.
2 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 cup of gravy.
Pepper and salt.

Add a little hot water to the chicken broth reserved yesterday; strain, heat, and cook the macaroni tender in it. Drain the latter; mix well with the ham and chicken, beaten eggs, butter, and seasoning. Pour into a greased pudding-mould with a tight top, and boil for two hours. Dip the mould into cold water for half a minute; invert a hot dish, and strike gently upon top and upon sides to turn it out.

MASHED POTATOES.

Pare and boil until a fork will pierce the largest. Drain off the water, leaving the potatoes in the pot. Set back on the range, strew with salt, and dry for three minutes. Whip up with a stout, four-tined fork until they are a mass of meal. Add, then, a great spoonful of butter, a cup of milk, salt, if necessary, whipping all in lightly. Form into a smoothed mound in a vegetable-dish. Pass with the fish.

MIXED PICKLES

Should go around with both fish and meat, to-day.

COTTAGE PUDDING.