Chapter VII: Part 7

1 cup of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 eggs.
1 cup of sweet milk.
3 cups of prepared flour.
1 teaspoonful of butter.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the yolks, then the milk, salt, and the beaten whites alternately with the flour. Bake in a buttered mould until a straw will come out clean from the middle; turn out upon a plate. Eat hot with wine sauce.

WINE SAUCE.

½ cup of butter.
2½ cups of powdered sugar.
2 glasses of pale sherry.
½ cup of boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.

Cream butter and sugar, whipping up, by degrees, with the hot water. Beat five minutes before adding, gradually, the wine and sugar. Heat in a tin vessel set in boiling water, stirring often, but _not_ to a boil. Leave in warm water until you are ready for it. Stir up from the bottom as you serve.

Second Week. Saturday.
——
Bone Soup.
Pigeon Pie. Roast Sweet Potatoes.
Grape Jelly. Baked Hominy.
——
Willie’s Favorite Pudding.
——

BONE SOUP.

6 or seven lbs. of uncooked bones, beef, mutton, veal, and salt
pork, bought in market for a trifle, and pounded to pieces.
2 minced carrots.
2 turnips.
2 onions.
2 stalks of celery.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Salt and pepper.
½ cup tapioca, soaked two hours in one cup of cold water.
5 quarts of water.

Put on the bones and vegetables early in the day. _Purchase soup meat a day beforehand, whenever you can._ Cover with half the water. When the scum arises after the boil is reached, remove it, and pour in another quart of cold water. This will bring up more scum. Skim, after boiling again, and pour in the rest of the water. When no more scum comes up, cover the pot, and cook _gently_ four hours, if you can give it so much time. Divide the liquor into two parts. Set away half in a stone jar, with the bones in the bottom, fit on the lid, having salted the liquor. This is Sunday’s “stock.” Strain the rest through a fine soup-sieve, without pressing the residuum in the bottom, season it, and having skimmed it carefully after the boil, stir in the soaked tapioca. Simmer twenty minutes, and it is ready.

PIGEON PIE.

Clean, wash, and cut the pigeons into quarters. Wipe dry and fry lightly in butter or dripping. Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Have ready a greased pudding-dish and a good paste, made according to the receipt given on Friday of last week. Lay some pieces of pigeon in the bottom of the dish, and cover with a mixture of chopped eggs, and the giblets, boiled tender in a little water, then minced. More pigeons, and another layer of the force-meat. Stir two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in flour, into the hot water in which the giblets were boiled; season, and pour enough into the pie to half cover the birds. Cover with a thick crust with a slit in the middle, and bake an hour if the pie be of fair size. Glaze with beaten egg, just before you take it from the oven.

ROAST SWEET POTATOES.

Parboil them, and lay in a moderate oven until soft to the touch. Wipe, and serve with the skins on.

BAKED HOMINY.

1 cupful cold boiled hominy (the small grained).
2 cups of milk.
1 large spoonful melted butter.
2 teaspoonfuls of sugar.
3 eggs.
A little salt.

Rub the butter into the hominy until there are no lumps left. Work up very thoroughly. Scald the milk; pour upon the beaten yolks and sugar, add the salt, and beat, by degrees, into the hominy. At the last, whip in the frothed whites, and pour into a buttered bake-dish. Put at once into the oven and bake until lightly browned.

WILLIE’S FAVORITE PUDDING.

1 loaf stale baker’s bread.
½ cup of powdered suet.
¼ lb. of citron, chopped fine.
½ lb. sweet almonds, blanched and cut in thin strips.
5 pippins, also chopped.
2 cups of milk.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
A little salt, stirred into the milk.

Cut the bread into thick slices, and pare off the crust. Cover the bottom of a greased mould (with plain sides) with these, fitted in nicely. Soak with milk, spread with the suet and fruit mixed together. Sprinkle this with sugar, and strew almond shavings over it. Fit on another stratum of bread, soaking it likewise with milk, more of the suet and fruit mixture, sugar and almonds, and so on to the topmost layer which must be bread, and _very_ moist with milk. Cover the mould, set in a dripping-pan, which you must keep full of boiling water, and cook in the oven one hour and a half. Pass a knife carefully between the pudding and the sides of the mould; turn it out; sift white sugar thickly over it and eat with sweet sauce. You may have enough left from yesterday.

Third Week. Sunday.
——
Macaroni Soup.
Roast Mutton. Potato Rissoles.
Lettuce Salad. Spinach à la Crême.
——
Transparent Puddings.
Coffee.
——

MACARONI SOUP.

¼ lb. macaroni, broken into short pieces.
The stock set aside yesterday.
A heaping tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet up with cold water.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 onion sliced.
A little salt.

Boil the onion five minutes in a pint of salted water. Strain it out, and when the water again boils, put in the macaroni with the butter. Boil very gently until quite tender. Drain off the water, and spread the macaroni out to cool somewhat. Meanwhile, take the fat from the top of your cold soup; thin the latter with a cup of boiling water, and strain into the soup pot. Heat to a boil, skim, season, stir in the corn-starch, and when this has thickened it, put in the macaroni. Simmer ten minutes, and it can be put into the tureen.

ROAST MUTTON.

The breast, fore leg, and saddle are best for this purpose. A nice way of cooking the breast is to sew it up in stout tarlatan and boil it _eight_ minutes for each pound. Then take it out (saving the liquor), wipe as clean as possible, and put it into a dripping-pan; score the skin with a sharp knife, rub in pepper and salt; wash with beaten egg, strew thickly with bread-crumbs, and bake half an hour in a good oven. Baste twice with melted butter. Make a gravy of a cupful of the broth, thickened with a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour. When it has boiled, stir into it a little chopped parsley; a teaspoonful of minced onion, and three times as much chopped pickled cucumber, with the pounded yolks of two hard-boiled eggs. Stew three minutes; pour part of it over the mutton; the rest into a gravy-boat.

N. B.—Test your mutton with a skewer before taking it from the oven. If not done, leave it in a while longer.

POTATO RISSOLES.

Work into cold mashed potato, a beaten egg, a little butter, pepper and salt. Make into egg-shaped balls; roll in beaten egg, then in pounded cracker, and fry in hot lard, or dripping, to a light brown. Drain _well_ in a colander, and serve in a hot napkin-lined dish.

LETTUCE SALAD.

One-third as much oil as you have vinegar; pepper and salt at discretion. Cut up the young lettuces with a sharp knife; pile in a salad-bowl; sprinkle with powdered sugar, and pour the rest of the ingredients mixed together over the salad. Toss up with a silver fork, to mix all well.

SPINACH À LA REINE.

Boil the spinach in salted water twenty minutes. Drain very thoroughly. Chop fine; return to the saucepan with a teaspoonful of sugar, two tablespoonfuls of butter, three tablespoonfuls of cream, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt. Stir constantly until almost dry. Have ready an egg-cup dipped in boiling water. Fill it with spinach, press hard and turn out upon a hot dish. Do this until all is moulded. Put a slice of egg upon the top of each.

TRANSPARENT PUDDINGS.

½ lb. butter.
1 lb. of sugar.
6 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
Juice of 1 lemon and grated rind of two.
½ teaspoonful of nutmeg.
½ glass of brandy.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in all the yolks and the whites of three eggs, the lemon, spice and brandy. Bake in open shells of good paste. (Add another “baste” of butter to the crust made for your pigeon pie; roll out and line paté-pans with it.) When nearly done, spread each with a _méringue_ made of the reserved whites, whipped up with a little powdered sugar. Color very lightly.

As they are to be eaten cold make them on Saturday.

COFFEE,

Hot and strong, should be handed at the close of dinner particularly if you attend afternoon service!

Third Week. Monday.
——
Savory Porridge.
Minced Mutton and Eggs. Potatoes au Maître d’Hôtel.
String-Beans, Sauté. Sweet Pickles.
——
Jaune Mange.
——

SAVORY PORRIDGE.

Cut the meat from yesterday’s roast, and take the least desirable portions, with any remains of other meat you may have—veal, pork, or poultry. Chop extremely fine; and rub them through a coarse sieve or colander. Skim the fat from the liquor in which your mutton was boiled; add a chopped onion, a bunch of sweet herbs and a stalk of celery, chopped. Boil down to three pints; strain, season, and when it boils up again, skim and stir in your chopped meat, with half a cupful of dry bread-crumbs. Cook, covered, twenty minutes; put in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, and a little minced parsley. Stew five minutes before serving.

MINCED MUTTON AND EGGS.

Mince the cold mutton. Have ready warmed a cupful of gravy, left from yesterday, or made from the bones of the roast. Season the meat well and stir into this, but do not cook it as yet. Strew the bottom of a buttered bake-dish thickly with dry crumbs; pour the mince upon it; cover with crumbs, and set in the oven, covered, until bubbling hot. Then break enough eggs over the top to cover the mince well; stick bits of butter here and there, pepper and salt, and bake quickly until well “set.” Serve in the bake-dish.

POTATOES AU MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL.

Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a saucepan with four or five tablespoonfuls of milk, two or three of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Heat quickly, stirring all the time until ready to boil, when stir in a tablespoonful of flour, and two minutes later, the juice of a lemon. Take instantly from the fire so soon as this last ingredient goes in.

STRING-BEANS—SAUTÉ.

Open a can of string-beans and drain off the water. Cut them into inch lengths; cook twenty minutes in salted boiling water. Drain them, put them back into the saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, a pinch of salt and a little pepper. Toss them over a clear fire for three minutes, until they are very hot; then turn out into a deep dish.

JAUNE MANGE.

1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a cup of cold water.
2 cups of boiling water.
Yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light.
1 orange—juice and one-half the grated rind.
Juice of one lemon and one-third of the grated peel.
1 cup sherry wine.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
A good pinch of cinnamon.

Put gelatine (soaked), sugar, juice, peels, and spice into a bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Stir until dissolved; put over the fire in a saucepan, and heat almost to boiling. Pour, very gradually, upon the beaten yolks. Return to the fire—in a farina-kettle—and stir _one minute_. It must not boil. Take it off, add the wine, and strain through double tarlatan.

If you have ice, or if the weather be cold, set the mould containing this in the refrigerator, or in a very cool closet from Saturday to Monday. By making it on the former day, you can add to the excellence of your _méringue_ on the transparent puddings by using the whites of the four eggs required for the receipt. Pass light cakes with the jaune mange.

Third Week. Tuesday.
——
Quick Lobster Soup.
Roast Tenderloin of Beef. Mashed Potatoes.
Made Mustard. Canned Succotash.
——
Apple Trifle.
Lady’s-Fingers.
——

QUICK LOBSTER SOUP.

Three lbs. of fish—the less choice parts of halibut or cod will do—those which are too bony for table use. Cover with three quarts of cold water and boil down to less than two or until the fish is in rags. Strain through a fine sieve and put on to boil. Season with salt and pepper. When you have skimmed it well, stir in a cup of milk in which has been mixed two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. Boil up well; then add two tablespoonfuls of butter. Stir it in, take out a cupful of soup and beat it into two eggs. Return to the soup and leaving the saucepan on the range, but not over the fire, stir in a can of preserved lobster, freed from bones and cut up small. Cover and stand in a pot of hot water ten minutes before pouring out.

ROAST TENDERLOIN OF BEEF.

As I have before stated, this is the best, and not the least economical cut for the table, there being no waste and scarcely any bone. Put in the dripping-pan, pour a cup of _boiling_ water over it, and roast carefully, basting often with its own gravy. When nearly done, dredge with flour and baste once with butter. Do not let it once get dry while cooking. Allow about ten minutes per pound if you like it rare and juicy—that is, if your oven be of moderate heat. Pour the fat from the gravy, thicken what is left with browned flour, pepper, and salt, boil up, and put into a gravy-boat. Pass made mustard with it.

MASHED POTATOES.

Please see receipt given last Friday.

CANNED SUCCOTASH.

Open the can an hour before it is to be cooked, and turn into a bowl. Drain off the liquor, put the succotash into a saucepan, cover with boiling water, and stew half an hour. Throw off half the water, and add as much cold milk. When it boils, put in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into quarters and rolled in flour; pepper and salt; simmer five minutes and serve in a vegetable-dish.

APPLE TRIFLE.

2 heaping cupfuls of good apple sauce, well sweetened and flavored
with grated lemon peel.
4 eggs.
2 cups of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.

Heat the milk, and pour over the beaten yolks and sugar. Put back in a farina-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken, say about eight minutes. Set by in a shallow vessel to cool. Beat the whites very stiff, then whip gradually into the apple. When all is in, and well beaten, pile up in a glass dish, and pour the cold custard about the base.

LADY’S-FINGERS,

Or small, fresh sponge-cakes, should be passed with the trifle.

Third Week. Wednesday.
——
Mock-Turtle Soup.
Veal Cutlets and Brains. Potatoes au Gratin.
Lettuce. Stewed Tomatoes and Onion.
——
Steamed Bread Pudding.
——

MOCK-TURTLE SOUP.

1 calf’s head, well-cleaned, with the skin on.
2 onions.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
5 tablespoonfuls of butter.
5 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
1 tablespoonful of allspice.
½ teaspoonful of mace.
1 teaspoonful of pepper.
2 teaspoonfuls, at least, of salt.
2 raw eggs.
A little flour.
2 glasses of brown sherry.
1 tablespoonful mushroom, or walnut catsup.
5 quarts of water, cold, of course.
1 sliced lemon.

Soak the calf’s head an hour in cold water, and boil in the five quarts of water until the bones will slip easily from the flesh. Take out the head, leaving the bones and broth in the pot. Take out the tongue and brains, and put them in separate plates. Set aside, also, the cheeks and the fleshy parts of the scalp to cool. Chop the rest, including the ears, very fine. Reserve four spoonfuls of this for force-meat balls. Season the rest with pepper, salt, onion, allspice, herbs, and mace, and put back into the pot. Cover closely, and cook four hours. Should the liquor sink to less than four quarts, replenish with boiling water. Just before straining the soup, take out half a cupful; put into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the browned flour, wet up in cold water, also the butter. Simmer these together ten minutes, stirring almost constantly. Strain the soup; scald the pot and return the broth to the fire. _Have ready_ the tongue and fleshy parts of the head cut, after cooling, into small squares; also, about fifteen balls made of the chopped meat, highly seasoned, worked into the proper consistency with a little flour and bound with the raw eggs, beaten into the paste. They should be as soft as can be handled. Grease a pie-plate, flour the balls and set in a quick oven until a crust forms upon them, then cool. Now, thicken the strained broth with the mixture in the frying-pan, stirred in well. Should there not be enough to make it almost like custard, add more flour. Then drop in the dice of tongue and fat meat. Cook slowly five minutes. Put the force-meat balls and thin slices of a peeled lemon into the tureen. Pour the soup upon them, add catsup and wine; cover five minutes and serve.

This king of soups having, of right, received such a long and minute notice, I shall not repeat the receipt in full in this work, but take the liberty of referring you, from time to time, to that just given.

VEAL CUTLETS AND BRAINS.

Flatten the cutlets with the broad side of a hatchet; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry rather slowly in ham-dripping, if you have it; if not, in salted lard. Drain off the fat; put into a hot-water dish, pepper, and cover while you fry, in the same fat, after straining it, the brains from the head of which your soup was made. They should first have been boiled for ten minutes, drained, and cooled; then beaten to a paste with egg, seasoned with pepper and salt, and dropped by the spoonful into the scalding fat. Drain, and lay about the cutlets as a garnish.

POTATOES AU GRATIN.

Mash as usual; put into a shallow pie-plate well greased; strew thickly with dry crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Glaze with butter, when the _gratin_ begins to brown well. Slip dexterously to a flat dish.

STEWED TOMATOES AND ONION.

To one can of tomatoes add a small onion, minced fine. Season with pepper, salt, a _little_ sugar, and stew twenty-five minutes. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter; cook two minutes, and serve.

LETTUCE.

Treat as directed on last Sunday.

STEAMED BREAD PUDDING.

2 cups of milk.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
½ lb. suet, powdered.
½ lb. Sultana raisins, picked, washed, dried, and dredged with flour.
3 eggs.
1 even tablespoonful of corn-starch.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
A little salt.

Heat the milk; pour over the eggs and sugar, beaten together. Stir in the corn-starch; cook one minute, and pour upon the bread-crumbs, beating all to a batter. Put a layer of this in the bottom of a buttered pudding-mould. Cover this with suet; then with raisins; sprinkle with sugar; then more butter, and proceed in the foregoing order until the mould is nearly full. Fit on the top, put into the steamer over a pot of boiling water, and steam at least two hours. If you have no steamer, boil one hour and a half. When done, dip the mould into cold water for half a minute, and turn out, with care, upon a hot, flat dish. Eat hot with wine sauce.

Third Week. Thursday.
——
Curry Soup.
Stewed Beef. Bermuda Potatoes, au Naturel.
Macaroni, Baked. Gherkin Pickles.
White Puffs.
——
Custard Sauce.
——

CURRY SOUP.

You can, if you dislike the taste of curry, warm up what was left from your mock-turtle soup, just as it is. But you can vary it, agreeably to most palates, by stirring into it, when melted, and almost on the boil, a tablespoonful of curry powder, if there be more than three pints of soup—half as much, should there be but a quart. Wet the powder up in cold water, add to the soup, and cook three minutes.

STEWED BEEF.

3 lbs. of beef—not _too_ lean—coarse steak or brisket.
1 chopped onion.
Bunch of thyme, sweet marjoram, and summer savory.
Pepper, salt, parsley.
½ teaspoonful of allspice.
1 tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce.
1 tablespoonful of browned flour.
1 pint of cold water.
½ glass of wine.

Cut the meat into strips about an inch long. Cover with a pint of water, and stew _gently_ two hours. The meat should be ready to fall to pieces. Add the onion and herbs cut up fine, the spice, salt and pepper, and stew half an hour, closely covered. Then stir in the browned flour, and when it has thickened, the sauce and wine. Cover the bottom of a deep dish with strips of fried bread, and pour the stew over it. If cooked long and slowly enough, it will be a rich brown mixture, with no hard lumps of meat in it. Save half a cupful of gravy for to-morrow.

BERMUDA POTATOES—AU NATUREL.

Wash and boil in hot salted water, until a fork will easily pierce them. Drain off the water, throw salt over them, and “dry off” upon the range for a few minutes. Peel, and serve whole.

BAKED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces; cook in boiling water, salted, twenty minutes. Drain, put a layer into a greased bake-dish; strew thickly with grated cheese, and stick bits of butter over it. Go on in this order until the dish is full, strewing cheese and butter on top. Pour in a cup of milk; bake, covered, thirty minutes; then brown nicely. Serve in the pudding-dish.

WHITE PUFFS.

2 cups of rich milk.
Whites of 4 eggs whipped stiff.
2 cups prepared flour.
1 scant cup of powdered sugar.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
A little salt.

Whisk eggs, lemon, and sugar to a _méringue_, and add alternately with the flour to the milk. The salt should be sifted with the flour. Beat very light, and bake in small, well-buttered tins, or cups. Turn out, sift powdered sugar over them, and eat with custard sauce.

CUSTARD SAUCE.

2 beaten eggs.
1 large cup of sugar.
1 scant cup of scalding milk.
½ teaspoonful of arrowroot, wet with cold milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
½ teaspoonful of nutmeg.

Rub the butter into the sugar, add the eggs, and beat light. Put in corn-starch and spice; finally, pour upon this mixture, by degrees, the boiling milk. Set within a saucepan of boiling water five minutes, stirring all the while, but do not let it really boil.

Third Week. Friday.
——
Clam Chowder.
Braised Duck. Weak Fish, Fried.
Grape Jelly. Purée of Green Peas.
Cauliflower à la Crème.
——
Corn Meal Pudding without Eggs.
——

CLAM CHOWDER.

Fry five or six slices of fat salt pork crisp, and chop fine. Sprinkle a layer in the bottom of a pot; cover with clams; sprinkle with pepper, salt, and bits of butter, then with minced onion. Next, have a stratum of small crackers, split and soaked in warm milk. When the pot has been filled in this order, cover all with cold water, and cook slowly (after the water is heated) three-quarters of an hour. Strain the chowder, without pressing or shaking; put clams, etc., into a covered tureen; return the liquor to the pot. Thicken with rolled crackers; add a glass of wine, a tablespoonful of catsup; boil up, and pour over the chowder. Pass sliced lemon with it.

FRIED WEAK FISH.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay in a broad pan or dish; salt, and dredge with flour. Fry in hot lard or very nice dripping to a light brown. In serving, lay the fish side by side, the head of each to the tail of the one next him. Garnish with parsley.

BRAISED DUCK.

Clean and wash the duck. Stuff with a dressing of bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper and salt, a little onion and sage. Sew up the vent, and tie the neck to keep in the flavor. Fry the duck in a great spoonful of butter until lightly browned, turning it often. Add the butter used for frying to the gravy saved from yesterday; thin with boiling water, and, having put the duck into a saucepan, strain this gravy over it. It should half cover the fowl. Stew slowly forty-five minutes, or until tender, keeping the lid on all the while. Take up the duck, cover to keep it warm, strain the gravy, and if very oily, take off the top. Boil sharply ten minutes in an open saucepan; thicken with browned flour; put back the duck into it, and set the saucepan, again covered, in boiling water for a quarter of an hour. Serve the gravy in a boat.

PURÉE OF GREEN PEAS.

Open a can of peas, drain off the liquor, and cook twenty minutes in boiling water slightly salted. Strain off the water through a colander; mash the peas with the back of a wooden spoon, and rub through the colander into a bowl below. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, with pepper, salt, and a little sugar, and, if you fancy it, three mint leaves finely chopped. Heat, but not to boiling, stir in the pulped peas, and toss about with a silver fork or spoon until they are a smoking mass. Pile in a hot dish, with triangles of fried bread laid up around the base.

CAULIFLOWER À LA CRÈME.

Boil a fine cauliflower, tied up snugly in coarse tarlatan, in hot water, a little salt. Drain and lay in a deep dish, flower uppermost. Heat a cup of milk; thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour. Add pepper, salt, the beaten white of an egg, and boil up one minute, stirring well. Take from the fire, squeeze the juice of a lemon through a hair sieve into the sauce, and pour half into a boat, the rest over the cauliflower.

CORN-MEAL PUDDING WITHOUT EGGS.

2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup of flour.
2 tablespoonfuls of molasses.
3 cups of sour milk—“loppered,” or “bonny-clabber,” if you can get it.
1 great spoonful of melted butter.
1 _full_ teaspoonful of soda.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
½ teaspoonful of cinnamon.

Sift the salt with the flour, and mix up well with the meal. Make a hole in the middle, and pour in the milk, stirring the meal and flour down into it. Beat smooth. Mix molasses, spice, butter, and the soda—this last dissolved in hot water—all together, and beat into the batter—well and _hard_. Butter a tin mould with a cover; pour in the pudding, and boil steadily an hour and a half. Eat hot with butter and sugar.

Third Week. Saturday.
——
Chicken Broth.
Paté of Salt Cod. Boiled Chicken and Rice.
Mashed Turnips. Egg Sauce.
——
Ambrosia.
Café au Lait and Sponge-Cake.
——

CHICKEN BROTH.

Clean, wash, and truss, but do not stuff, a full-grown fowl. Set aside the giblets for another use. Bind the legs and wings of the fowl closely to its sides. Put into a pot with four quarts of water (cold), and cook gently until the liquor has fallen one-third. Then add a full cup of rice, soaked for one hour in a very little water, and boil half an hour more, or until the chicken is tender and the rice soft, but not broken to pieces. Take out the chicken. Wipe off the adhering grains of rice, wash over with butter, salt and pepper, and set, covered, upon a pot of boiling water to keep hot. Season the soup with pepper and salt, and simmer ten minutes more. Then strain out the rice, and cover _it_ to keep hot. Return the soup to the pot, stir in a cup of hot milk, a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet with cold water, and a handful of very finely minced parsley. Boil up, take from the fire, and pour by degrees upon two beaten eggs. Cover for three minutes; then pour into the tureen.

PATÉ OF SALT COD.

1 cup of cold salt cod, soaked all night in soft water, boiled in
the morning, left to cool, then “picked” into boneless
flakes.
1 cup of oyster-liquor.
2 even tablespoonfuls of rice flour, or corn starch.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Chopped parsley and pepper.
3 hard-boiled eggs, minced.
Some rich paste. (See “French Puff Paste,” page 352, NO. 1, COMMON
SENSE SERIES—GENERAL RECEIPTS.)

Boil the oyster-liquor, stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. When it thickens, add the butter and pepper; next the parsley and fish. Heat almost to boiling, and stir in the chopped egg. Take from the fire, and cover, over a pot of boiling water, ten minutes.

Make the shell by lining a profusely buttered cake-mould, or round pan with nearly straight sides, with a thick sheet of puff-paste, pricking it at the bottom to prevent too much puffing. Cut a round piece exactly the size of the top, for a cover, and bake separately. Bake both in a quick oven. Let them get almost cool, turn out the shell with the utmost care; fill slowly with the prepared fish, that the sides may not give way; fit on the top; hold an inverted hot plate firmly upon it and reverse the paté skilfully, leaving the closed side uppermost. It is easily done, if one is only fearless yet dexterous. Eat hot.

BOILED CHICKEN AND RICE.

Boil the giblets tender in a little salted water; chop fine, and when the rice is strained from the soup, mix them well through it. Pile the rice, when you are ready to serve it, upon a meat dish; lay the chicken upon the top; pour a few spoonfuls of egg sauce over it, and send to table.

EGG SAUCE.

One cup of the broth in which the chicken was boiled, heated; thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled thickly in flour; poured over two beaten eggs; boiled one minute, with a tablespoonful of parsley stirred in; then seasoned and poured upon the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs placed in the bottom of a bowl. Stir up well, and it is ready.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Boil in salted water, until tender; mash and drain in a hot colander, working in butter, salt, and pepper. Mound up in a hot, deep dish, covered.

AMBROSIA.

8 fine oranges, peeled and sliced.
½ grated cocoanut.
½ cup of powdered sugar.

Arrange slices of orange in a glass dish; scatter grated cocoanut thickly over them; sprinkle this lightly with sugar, and cover with another layer of orange. Fill the dish in this order, having a double quantity of cocoanut and sugar at top. Serve soon after it is prepared.

CAFÉ AU LAIT AND SPONGE-CAKE.

To one pint _strong_ made coffee, add the same quantity of boiling milk. The coffee should be first strained through muslin into the table-urn, then the milk poured in with it. Wrap the urn in a woollen cloth, if you have no “cozy,” for five minutes before serving. Send around sponge-cake, home-made or bought, with it.

Fourth Week. Sunday.
——
A Good Stock Soup.
Beef à la Mode de Rome. Potato Puff.
Hominy Croquettes. Spinach.
Chow-chow.
——
Snow Custard.
Nuts and Raisins.
——

A GOOD STOCK SOUP.

5 lbs. brisket of beef.
2 lbs. mutton-bones.
2 onions, sliced and fried.
2 carrots.
2 turnips.
4 stalks of celery.
Bones of chicken or duck, if you have them.
6 cloves.
½ cup of sago or barley.
6 quarts of cold water.
Sweet herbs.
Pepper and salt.

Slice the meat, crack the bones, chop the vegetables, and put all on over the fire with the water. Boil slowly five or six hours; strain; pick out the meat as well as you can, and set aside. Then, rub the vegetables through a colander, prior to straining all through your soup-sieve. Set aside half the stock for Monday. Do this much on Saturday. Or, if you choose, do not strain the soup at all until Sunday morning. It will be the richer for cooling with meat, etc., in it. In either case, season before setting it away, or it may sour. Put Sunday’s stock back into the pot; boil up and skim, before adding the half cup of pearl sago, previously soaked for two hours in a very little cold water. Simmer twenty minutes and pour out.

BEEF À LA MODE DE ROME.

Cut a quarter of a pound of streaked salt pork, and the same quantity of lean beef into strips, and fry, with a sliced onion, in good dripping. Put them in the bottom of a pot and lay a rib roast of beef, rolled round, upon them. Add a pint of boiling water, cover, and cook ten minutes to the pound, turning the beef three times meanwhile. Transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, dredge the top with flour, then baste with its own gravy, once. Keep hot, without cooking, while you strain the gravy left in the pot, thicken it with browned flour (always _after_ taking the fat from the top), season with pepper, and stir in a teaspoonful of sugar, a handful of Sultana raisins, picked and washed, and the same quantity of blanched almonds, cut into tiny strips. Boil gently three minutes, dish the beef, and pour the sauce over it.

Odd as this receipt may seem to an American housewife, the result is extremely palatable, and a good change of fare at this season.

POTATO PUFF.

Mash the potatoes soft with milk and butter, season and beat very light with two raw eggs. Smooth and bake to a light brown in a greased pudding-dish, in which, also, serve it.

HOMINY CROQUETTES.

2 cups of fine-grained hominy, boiled and cold.
2 beaten eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
Salt to taste.
¾ cup of finely chopped beef, left over from your soup, after
straining the latter.
Pepper.

Work hominy, butter, and salt to a smooth paste; beat in the eggs, finally the chopped meat, after peppering and salting it. Stir up in a farina-kettle until hot, and pour out to cool. When cold, make into long rolls with floured hands, flour each well by rolling upon a dish, and fry to a yellow-brown in sweet lard. Drain off the fat and pile upon a hot dish.

SPINACH.

Boil in hot, salted water, twenty minutes, drain and press hard; chop fine, and return to the saucepan with a large spoonful of butter, pepper, salt, a little sugar and a pinch of mace. Stir, and beat until very hot; then pour into a deep dish.

SNOW CUSTARD.

½ package of Coxe’s gelatine.
3 eggs.
1 pint of milk.
2 cups of sugar.
Juice of one lemon.
1 large cup boiling water.

Soak the gelatine one hour in a teacupful of cold water, then stir in two-thirds of the sugar, the lemon-juice and the _boiling_ water. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the strained gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time for half an hour, if you use the Dover egg-beater (at least one hour with any other). When all is white and stiff, pour into a wet mould, and set in a cold place. Make this on Saturday, and on Sunday dip the mould into hot water, and turn out into a glass dish. Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and the rest of the sugar, flavoring with vanilla; boil until it begins to thicken. When the _méringue_ is turned into the dish, pour this custard, cold, about the base.

NUTS AND RAISINS

Serve as another and a last course.

Fourth Week. Monday.
——
Vermicelli Soup.
Browned Mince of Beef. Stewed Potatoes, Creamed.
Mixed Pickles. Broccoli.
——
Canned Peaches and Cream.
Myrtle’s Cake.
Tea.
——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

Boil a quarter of a pound of vermicelli in a little salted water fifteen minutes. Heat the stock set aside for to-day, when you have taken the fat from the top, and when scalding, add the vermicelli.

N. B.—Always break vermicelli and macaroni small before cooking. Add a little chopped parsley; simmer fifteen minutes and pour out.

BROWNED MINCE OF BEEF.

Cut all the meat from the bones of yesterday’s roast, setting away the bones for another day’s soup. Mince the beef fine; mix with it one-fourth as much mashed potato, season highly with pepper, salt, a little mustard and catsup; work soft with the remains of yesterday’s gravy; heat in a saucepan, then heap upon a stone china dish, cover the mound with fine crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of your oven. Put bits of butter thickly over the top as it begins to brown.

STEWED POTATOES—CREAMED.

Chop cold boiled potatoes _coarse_; put on in a saucepan with a cup of milk, and heat in an outer vessel of hot water. When scalding, pepper and salt; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut up and rolled in flour, and when this has melted, a beaten egg, stirred in while the potatoes are not boiling. Simmer one minute, and turn out.

BROCCOLI.

Wash, and let stand in salt and water one hour. Cook in boiling salted water fifteen minutes. When tender, drain dry, and serve with melted butter (peppered) poured over it.

CANNED PEACHES AND CREAM.

Open the can at least an hour before using, and turn into a glass dish; sprinkle with sugar. Serve in saucers, sending around powdered sugar and cream to each person.

MYRTLE’S CAKE,

Or any other good cup cake, made last week, may be sliced and passed with the fruit and cream. If you desire a receipt for this particular cake please consult “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,”—NO. 2, COMMON SENSE SERIES, page 334.

Fourth Week. Tuesday.
——
Barley Broth.
Boiled Leg of Mutton. Kidney Beans.
Oyster Sauce. Bermuda Potatoes, Baked.
——
Cocoanut Pudding.
——

BARLEY BROTH.

2 lbs. knuckle of veal. Beef bones from yesterday.
1 onion.
1 turnip.
1 stalk of celery.
Chopped parsley.
1 cup Scotch barley.
3 quarts of water.

Break the bones to splinters and chop the meat. Mince the vegetables, and put all into a soup-kettle, with the water. Boil slowly three hours, until the liquor has fallen one-third. Meanwhile wash the barley and boil half an hour in a little salted water. Strain your soup; cool to let the fat arise, and take this off. Season with pepper and salt and boil up. Skim, put in the barley, and cook gently half an hour longer.

BOILED LEG OF MUTTON.

The mutton will be cleaner and in better shape if boiled tied up in coarse net or tarlatan. Put on in boiling water, plenty of it, slightly salt, and cook steadily fifteen minutes to the pound. Save the broth for soup. Undo the net from the meat, rub the latter over with butter, lay on a hot dish, and send the oyster sauce in a boat. Garnish the mutton with sliced cucumber pickles.

OYSTER SAUCE.

1 pint of oysters.
Half a lemon.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled well in flour.
1 teacupful of milk.
Cayenne and nutmeg to taste.

Heat the oyster liquor, and when it boils, skim, and put in the oysters. So soon as they boil, stir in the butter, cut up and well floured, the spice and lemon-juice. Boil five minutes, take from the fire and put with the milk which has been heated in another vessel. Stir up well, and pour out.

KIDNEY BEANS.

Soak all night. In the morning put on in warm—not hot—water slightly salted, and cook tender. Drain dry, stir in a great lump of butter, a little salt and pepper, and turn into a deep dish.

BERMUDA POTATOES—BAKED.

Select those of uniform size; wash, and bake in a moderate oven until soft to the pinching fingers. Wipe clean, and serve in their skins, wrapped in a napkin.

COCOANUT PUDDING.

1 heaping cup fine bread-crumbs.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet in cold water.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
2 cups of milk.
5 eggs.
Nutmeg and rose-water to taste.

Soak the crumbs in the milk. Rub butter and sugar to a cream, and whip in the beaten yolks. Beat this into the soaked crumbs; stir in the corn-starch, then the whisked whites—finally, the grated cocoanut. Beat very hard, pour into a neat pudding-dish, well buttered, and bake in a moderate oven forty-five minutes. Eat cold, with powdered sugar on top.

Fourth Week. Wednesday.
——
Tomato Soup.
Swiss Turnovers. Salmon Pudding.
Mashed Potatoes. Lettuce Salad with Cream Dressing.
——
Wayne Pudding.
——

TOMATO SOUP.

Open a can of tomatoes, and cut them up small. Take the fat from the top of the liquor in which your mutton was cooked yesterday; put over the fire with the tomatoes and half a cup of raw rice, and cook slowly one hour. Season to taste, adding a lump of loaf sugar and a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour; simmer five minutes, and pour into the tureen.

SALMON PUDDING.

1 can preserved salmon.
4 eggs, beaten light.
4 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper, salt, and minced parsley.

Chop the fish fine, rub to a paste with the butter. Beat the bread-crumbs up with the eggs and seasoning; work all together; put into a buttered mould, with a tight top, and boil one hour. Dip in cold water; turn it out upon a hot dish. Have ready a cupful of drawn butter with a raw egg beaten into it, and pour over the pudding.

SWISS TURNOVERS.

Mince the cold mutton left from yesterday. Put half a cupful of hot water into a saucepan; stir in a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour; season with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Pour over a beaten egg, mix well, and, returning to the saucepan, add the mince, well seasoned with pepper, salt, a little grated lemon-peel and nutmeg. Stir up until very hot, but not boiling. Set by to keep hot while you make a batter of one pint of flour, four eggs, a little salt, and a quarter spoonful of soda, dissolved in vinegar, and _about_ four cups of milk—enough for _thin_ batter. Beat very light. Put a spoonful of lard (a small one) into a hot frying-pan, run it over the bottom, turn in a half cupful of batter, and fry quickly. Invert the pan upon a hot plate, and this, in turn, upon another, to have the browned side of the pancake downward; cover the lighter side with the mince; fold up neatly and lay upon a hot dish in the open oven to keep warm, while you fry and spread the rest.

They are very nice.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and pass with both fish and meat.

LETTUCE SALAD WITH CREAM DRESSING.

½ cupful of new milk, if you have no cream.
1 teaspoonful of corn-starch.
Whites of 2 eggs, beaten stiff.
3 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
2 tablespoonfuls best salad oil.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
½ teaspoonful of pepper.
1 teaspoonful of made mustard.

Heat the milk (or cream) almost to boiling; stir in the corn-starch wet up with cold milk. Boil up, add the sugar, and take from the fire. Cool, beat in the frothed whites, oil, pepper, mustard and salt, and, when the lettuce is shred fine, add the vinegar to the dressing, and pour over it. Toss up with a silver fork. Eat very soon.

WAYNE PUDDING.

2 full cups of prepared flour.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 lemon, the juice and half the grated peel.
½ lb. of citron, cut into very thin strips.
5 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks; whip up light with the lemon, then add the whites, alternately with the flour. Butter a mould abundantly, line it with the strips of citron; put in the batter, a few spoonfuls at a time; cover and set in a pan of boiling water, in a good oven. Keep plenty of boiling water in the pan, and cook steadily one hour and a half. Dip into cold water and turn out upon a hot plate. Eat warm with wine or brandy sauce. Leave room in the mould for the pudding to swell. _Never heat a pudding or cake mould before greasing it or the batter will stick._

Fourth Week. Thursday.
——
Ox-tail Soup.
Irish Stew. Corn Pudding.
Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.
——
Queen’s Toast.
——

OX-TAIL SOUP.

1 ox-tail.
2 lbs. of lean beef.
4 carrots.
3 onions.
Thyme and parsley.
Pepper and salt.
2 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
4 quarts of cold water.

Cut the tail into joints and fry brown in good dripping. Slice the onions and two carrots, and fry in the same, when you have taken out the pieces of tail. When done, tie them, with thyme and parsley, in a lace bag, and drop into the soup-pot. Put in the tail, then the beef, cut into strips. Grate over them the two whole carrots, pour over all the water, and boil slowly four hours. Strain and season; thicken with brown flour wet with cold water; boil fifteen minutes longer, and pour out.

IRISH STEW.

3 lbs. of lean beef—a sirloin steak is best.
8 parboiled potatoes.
2 onions, or one, if it be large, also parboiled.
Browned flour for thickening.
Thyme and sweet marjoram.
Pepper and salt.
A little pie-paste—not rich—for dumplings.

Cut the meat into pieces an inch wide by two long. Slice the parboiled potatoes and onions. Put a layer of meat in a pot; then one of potatoes, next one of onions. Pepper and salt each sparingly; scatter the herbs upon the onions; put in more meat, and so on. When all are in, cover—barely—with cold water, and stew _slowly_ two hours. Strain out the meat, and put into a covered dish—a chafing-dish, if you have one. Return the gravy to the saucepan; thicken with browned flour; cut your paste into narrow strips two inches long, and drop, one by one, into the boiling gravy. Stew about eight minutes, and pour over meat, potatoes, etc., which await it in the dish.

CORN PUDDING.

To one can of corn add
3 beaten eggs.
1 cupful of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
A little salt.

Rub butter and sugar together; beat in the eggs; salt the milk, and put in next; lastly, the corn, drained of can liquor. Beat up well; pour into a greased bake-dish, and set, covered, in the oven. At the end of half an hour, take off the lid, and brown.

POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE.

Parboil double the quantity of potatoes required for your Irish stew, and lay aside eight for this dish. Cut, when cold, into dice; fry a small chopped onion in a heaping spoonful of butter, for one minute, then put in the potatoes. Stir briskly to keep them from browning; cook until very hot; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley; stir a minute longer; turn all into a heated colander; shake hard to get rid of the grease, and serve hot in a vegetable-dish.

QUEEN’S TOAST.

Cut slices of stale baker’s bread round with a cake-cutter, taking off all the crust. Fry in sweet lard to a light brown. Dip each round quickly into _boiling_ water to remove the fat. Sprinkle thickly on both sides with a mixture of powdered sugar and nutmeg, and pile upon a hot plate. You may dispense with sauce if you will heat a glass of wine, and put a teaspoonful, or less, upon each piece, after dipping it into the water, and before sugaring it. Serve hot.

Fourth Week. Friday.
——
Réchauffé Soup.
Chickens with Mushroom Sauce. Lobster Croquettes.
Cabbage Sprouts. Boiled Macaroni.
——
Nursery Plum Pudding.
——

RÉCHAUFFÉ SOUP.

An excellent a soup as ox-tail deserves repetition, and the probability is that, since Friday is a fast day from meat with Roman Catholic servants, you have enough soup left over for your family proper. Warm it up, making very hot, but not to boiling. If you like, you can put some dice of crisp fried bread in the tureen.

LOBSTER CROQUETTES.

To a can of preserved lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt, and powdered mace. Mix with this one-fourth as much bread-crumbs as you have meat, work in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and make into egg-shaped rolls. Roll these in raw egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry in butter or very sweet lard. Serve dry and hot with cresses or parsley laid around them.

CHICKENS WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE.

Split a pair of chickens down the back as for broiling, and lay in a dripping-pan, with two cups of _boiling_ water, a little salt, poured over them. Cover very securely with another pan of the same size—inverted—and cook an hour and a half if the fowls are of fair size. Baste at least six times; twice with butter in which has been mixed a little pepper; three times, copiously, with their own gravy, and, just before they are done, again with butter. Boil half a can of mushrooms ten minutes in clear, hot water. Drain and mince them very fine. Take up the chickens and keep hot in a covered dish. Put the gravy into a saucepan; add a little chopped onion; boil three minutes, thicken with browned flour; and stir in the chopped mushrooms. Simmer, covered, five minutes, and pour half over the chickens, the rest into a sauce-boat. Save all the gravy left after dinner.

CABBAGE SPROUTS.

Wash, trim, and boil in hot, salted water, with a bit of streaked salt pork, an inch square. When tender, drain, season, and chop fine. Stir in a tablespoonful of melted butter and the juice of half a lemon. Eat very hot.

BOILED MACARONI.

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into short lengths. Cover well with boiling water, salted, and boil—not too fast—about twenty minutes, or until tender and clear at the edges. Drain well; pour a little into a hot, deep dish, and butter it, then strew with grated cheese. Do this three times in filling the dish, with cheese scattered over the top.

NURSERY PLUM PUDDING.

1 scant cup of raw rice.
3 pints of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
½ lb. raisins, seeded, and cut in half.
3 well-beaten eggs.

Soak the rice two hours in a farina-kettle, just covered with warm water. When all the water is soaked up, shake the rice hard, to reach that at the bottom, and add a pint of milk. Simmer gently, still in the inner kettle, until the rice is again dry, and quite tender. Shake up anew, and add another pint of milk. When this is hot, put in the raisins, dredged with flour; cover the saucepan and cook twenty minutes. Turn into a bowl; put with it the butter, rice-flour, the remaining pint of milk, heated and mixed with the beaten eggs and sugar, and stir all up thoroughly. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish, about forty minutes. Eat warm with butter and sugar, or sugar and cream.

Fourth Week. Saturday.
——
Dresden Soup.
Boiled Blue Fish. Baked Calf’s Head.
Canned Succotash.
Casserole of Rice with Tomato Sauce.
——
Belle’s Dumplings.
——

DRESDEN SOUP.

2 lbs. of lean beef, cut into strips.
4 pig’s feet, cleaned well.
4 lbs. of mutton and beef bones, cracked.
2 onions.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
2 carrots.
2 blades of mace.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter, and the same of rice-flour.
Juice of a lemon.
1 tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce.
1 raw egg for force-meat.
Salt and pepper.
6 quarts of cold water.
1 glass of claret.

Early in the day, put on the meat, pig’s feet and bones, and cook slowly five hours in six quarts of water. Skim then, carefully, add the onions, mace, and herbs, cut small, and the carrots, _grated_. Stew half an hour; take out the meat and the feet, leaving the bones, etc., on the fire. Cut the flesh from the feet, and return the bones to the pot. Set aside half this flesh, with a few pieces of beef, to get cold. Chop the rest fine, and make up with pepper, salt, and a raw egg, into small force-meat balls. Roll them in flour, lay upon a greased plate, and set within the oven to “crust.” When quite firm, take out and cool. Cut the reserved meat into small, square bits. When the soup has cooked half an hour after the meat was taken out, strain and season it. Divide into two portions. Into that designed for Sunday drop the dice of meat, from the pig’s feet as well as the beef, and set away, covered, in an earthenware vessel. Return the rest to the fire; thicken with the butter, melted and worked up into the rice-flour; add the sauce, lemon-juice, and a glass of claret. Put the force-meat balls into the heated tureen; pour on the soup, cover five minutes, and serve.

BOILED BLUE FISH.