Chapter VIII: Part 8

Sew up the fish neatly in a thin cloth, put on in scalding water with a little salt, half a small cup of vinegar, a quarter of an onion, six whole black peppers, and a blade of mace. Let it stand, _just_ below boiling heat, half an hour; then increase the heat and boil thirty minutes more. Take out, unwrap, lay upon a hot dish and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter, with a little lemon-juice stirred in it.

BAKED CALF’S HEAD.

Put on, having removed the brains, in four quarts of cold water, and boil gently one hour. Take out the head; salt and pepper the liquor and set by as the foundation of Monday’s soup, keeping out a cupful for gravy. Put the calf’s head in a dripping-pan, rub over with butter, pour the gravy into the pan, and bake, covered—basting four times—for half an hour. Uncover, wash over with a mixture of melted butter, pepper, and salt, and a teaspoonful of catsup. Dredge with browned flour, baste again, and when the surface is of a fine froth, dish the head. Strain and thicken the gravy, and serve in a boat. The brains should be washed well, boiled quickly, then cooled; mashed to a smooth paste with pepper, salt, a dust of flour, and a raw egg, and fried, by the spoonful, in hot lard. Drain, and lay about the head.

CANNED SUCCOTASH.

Drain from the liquor; cut the beans—if French or string beans—into short pieces; cook half an hour in salted boiling water; drain this off; add a cup of hot milk, thicken with a great spoonful of butter, cut up in flour, pepper, and salt, and simmer ten minutes more.

CASSEROLE OF RICE WITH TOMATO SAUCE.

Boil one cup of rice tender in hot water, a little salt, shaking up from time to time, but never stirring. Drain dry, add a very little milk in which has been stirred a beaten egg, a teaspoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt. Simmer for five minutes, and if the rice has not absorbed all the milk, drain it again. Pile it around the inner edge of a flat dish; smooth it neatly, rounding the top, into a sort of fence; wash over carefully with the beaten yolks of two eggs, and set it in the oven until firm.

Drain more than half the juice from a can of tomatoes; season with a little chopped onion, pepper, salt, and sugar. Stew twenty minutes; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and two tablespoonfuls of fine bread-crumbs; stew three or four minutes to thicken it well, and pour within the hedge of rice.

BELLE’S DUMPLINGS.

1 quart _prepared_ flour.
2½ tablespoonfuls of mixed lard and butter.
2 cups of milk, or enough for soft dough.

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick, cut into oblong pieces, rounded at the corners. Put a great spoonful of damson, cherry, or other tart preserve, in the middle, and roll into a dumpling. Bake about forty minutes, brush over with beaten egg, while hot, and shut up in the oven three minutes to glaze. Eat hot with brandy sauce. (_For receipt for sauce see Wednesday, 2d Week in January._)

APRIL.

First Week. Sunday.
——
Clear Soup.
Fricasseed Chickens, White. Buttered Parsnips.
Savory Potatoes. Lettuce Salad, Plain.
——
Pie-Plant (April) Fool.
Coffee and Cake.
——

CLEAR SOUP.

Take the grease from the soup-jelly you will find in the crock into which the stock was poured yesterday. Take it up by the ladleful, leaving the meat and sediment at the bottom, and put on to heat in a soup-kettle. When it boils, stir in the beaten white of an egg; take off the scum as fast as it rises, and when quite clear add two teaspoonfuls of Coxe’s gelatine, previously soaked in cold water. Add, meanwhile, a little boiling water to the sediment and meat dice in the pot; strain off the liquid; pick out the bits of meat, and see that they are clean. Drop into the soup at the same time that you add four tablespoonfuls of colored water, made by burning a tablespoonful or two of sugar in a tin cup, pouring a little boiling water upon it, and stirring until you get a clear brown liquor. After these go in, do not let your soup really boil, but simmer a few minutes to throw up and remove any remaining scum. Pass sliced lemon with the soup.

FRICASSEED CHICKENS—WHITE.

Clean, wash, and joint the fowls. Lay in cold salt and water for one hour. Put them into a pot, with half a pound of salt pork cut into strips, and cold water enough to cover them. Cover closely, and heat very slowly to a gentle boil. The excellence of the fricassee depends mainly upon care in this respect. If the fowls are full-grown and reasonably tender, stew more than one hour after they begin to boil. When done add half a chopped onion, parsley and pepper. Cover again for ten minutes. Stir up two tablespoonfuls of flour in cold water, then into a cup of hot milk, and this, in turn, into two beaten eggs. Then put in a great spoonful of butter, and pour all into the saucepan; mix well, boil fairly, and, having arranged the chickens upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them.

BUTTERED PARSNIPS.

Boil tender and scrape. Slice lengthwise. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan with pepper, salt and a little chopped parsley. When it heats, put in the parsnips, and shake and turn until the mixture boils. Lay the parsnips in order upon a hot dish, and pour the butter over them.

SAVORY POTATOES.

Pare and cut into squares some raw potatoes. Lay in cold water half an hour, put into a saucepan, cover with boiling water, slightly salted, and stew half an hour, not so fast as to break them. Then throw off the water and add a cupful of sauce made from the gravy of Friday’s chickens, thinned with a little hot water, and strained; seasoned to taste, and again thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Simmer all for ten minutes, and turn into a deep dish.

LETTUCE SALAD—PLAIN.

Wash the lettuce; pull leaf from leaf, and pile over a lump of ice in a salad-bowl. Pass the oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, and powdered sugar to each person, with the lettuce, that he may season for himself.

PIE-PLANT (APRIL) FOOL.

1 pint of stewed pie plant, rubbed through a colander.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 cup of sugar.
Yolks of four eggs.
_Méringue_ of the whites.
3 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Juice of half a lemon.

Put the strained pie-plant into a saucepan; set it in boiling water, and, when hot, beat in the butter, sugar, and beaten yolks. Stir two minutes, and turn out to cool. This can be done on Saturday. On Sunday, a few minutes’ whirl of your egg-beater will give you the _méringue_. Beat in the powdered sugar with a few more, and when you have poured the stewed fruit (or vegetable) into a glass bowl, pile the _méringue_ (the “fool”?) on the top.

COFFEE AND CAKE

Can be handed with, or after the sweets.

First Week. Monday.
——
Milk and Bread Soup.
Larded Mutton Chops. Mashed Potatoes.
Green Peas. Tomato Catsup.
——
Corn-meal Hasty Pudding.
——

MILK AND BREAD SOUP.

Boil down the liquor in which Saturday’s calf’s head was cooked, to less than two quarts. Add a pint of milk previously heated, and mixed with three beaten eggs. Thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, and take at once from the fire. Salt and pepper, if needed. Have ready in a tureen a cupful of fine, dry crumbs. Pour on the soup, stir up for a moment, cover and send to table with a plate of grated cheese.

LARDED MUTTON CHOPS.

Trim off superfluous fat and skin; beat flat with the broad side of a hatchet, and lard each with four strips of fat, salt pork, drawn quite through, so as to project on both sides. Put into a saucepan, sprinkle with minced onion, pepper, and parsley, and barely cover with weak broth. The gravy from yesterday’s chickens will do, or any other you may chance to have. Put on the saucepan lid, set it where it will not boil under an hour, and think no more about it until the time is up. Then increase the heat and simmer half an hour, or until tender. Take up the chops and keep hot. Thicken the gravy with browned flour; add the juice of a lemon, a great spoonful of mushroom catsup, a glass of sherry, and boil one minute. Put back the chops; cover, and heat just to a feeble boil. Lay the chops in order upon a dish and pour the gravy over them.

GREEN PEAS.

Open a can of peas; turn out into a bowl, and let alone for an hour. Then, strain off the liquor, put the peas into a saucepan, and cover with salted, boiling water. Cook twenty minutes; drain, pepper, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and dish.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as usual, and heap in a covered dish. Wet a pretty butter-print and press firmly upon the top.

CORN-MEAL HASTY PUDDING.

1 heaping cup of Indian meal.
½ cup of flour.
1 quart of boiling _milk_.
2 cups of boiling water.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 tablespoonful of brown sugar.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
½ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.

Wet up meal and flour with the water and stir into the boiling milk. Mem.—Cook all sorts of milk-puddings (boiled) in a farina-kettle. Boil steadily half an hour, stirring very often from the bottom. Put in salt, sugar, butter, and spice, and cook ten minutes more. Pour into a bowl, or other uncovered dish. Eat hot with sugar and butter.

First Week. Tuesday.
——
Bean and Corn Soup.
Beefsteak Pudding. Stewed Potatoes.
Mashed Turnips. Cold Slaw.
——
Baked Chocolate Custards.
Fancy Cakes.
——

BEAN AND CORN SOUP.

1 quart of dried beans, soaked overnight in soft water.
1 lb. of streaked salt pork, cut into shreds.
1 lb. of lean beef also cut up.
2 stalks of celery, minced.
1 bunch of chopped parsley.
1 small onion, sliced.
Pepper and salt.
1 can of corn.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in two of flour.
5 quarts of water.

Put on the beans, pork, beef, and all the vegetables except the corn, with the water, and boil slowly until the beans are thoroughly broken, and the meat in rags. Meanwhile, cook the corn tender in just enough boiling water to cover it. When done, stir in half the butter and flour, salt and pepper, and cover to keep hot while you strain the soup, rubbing the beans, onion, and celery to a pulp through a colander. Set aside half for to-morrow. Return the rest to the fire; pepper to taste; add the corn with the water in which it was cooked. Simmer fifteen minutes; stir in the rest of the butter and flour; boil up well, and serve.

BEEFSTEAK PUDDING.

1 quart of prepared flour.
¼ lb. powdered suet.
1 cup of ice-water.
2 lbs. good steak without bone.
Pepper and salt.
1 tablespoonful of tomato catsup.

Rub the suet into the flour, salt slightly, and make, with the water, into a paste just soft enough to roll out. Roll into a sheet nearly half an inch thick. Butter well a round-bottomed pudding mould; line with the paste, and leave in a cold place while you cut the steak into small squares, seasoning with pepper, salt, and catsup. Fill the paste-lined mould (or bowl) with this. Cut a piece of paste for the top. Cover with this, pinching the two sheets of paste tightly together at the edges. Let an assistant hold up the bowl while you cover with a stout pudding-cloth and tie tightly under the bottom, not straining the cloth so strongly over the top as to hinder the paste from swelling. (Flour the cloth before tying it over the bowl.) Plunge into a gallon of boiling water, and keep it at a fast boil for two hours, filling up from the tea-kettle when the water sinks. Turn the bowl bottom upward and dip in cold water; untie the cloth, invert a hot dish upon the mould, and turn over carefully, to get the pudding out without breaking. This is a favorite English dish.

STEWED POTATOES.

Old potatoes, by this time, need a little management to make them acceptable at a season when appetites crave fresh vegetables. This is a good way to cook them. Pare very thin, and leave in cold water one hour. Put on to cook in _cold_ water, bringing it soon to a boil. When a fork will run easily into the largest, strain off the water, throw in a handful of salt, and dry, for a minute, on the stove. Then take out the potatoes; crack each one by pressing with a wooden spoon; put into a deep dish, and pour over them a cup of hot milk thickened with two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in flour; cooked for a minute, then seasoned with pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful _very_ finely-minced parsley. Cover the dish; set in boiling water ten minutes, and serve.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Boil tender; press all the water out in a colander, as you mash them; return to the fire with a good lump of butter, pepper, and salt, and stir until smoking hot.

COLD SLAW.

Shred the heart of a white cabbage, and pour over it a dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil, four of vinegar, one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar, and half as much pepper and mustard, beaten up well with the whipped yolks of two eggs. The mixture should be quite thick. Use an egg-beater in mixing.

BAKED CHOCOLATE CUSTARDS.

1 quart of milk.
6 eggs.
1 cup of sugar.
4 great spoonfuls grated chocolate.
Vanilla flavoring.

Scald the milk; wet up the chocolate and stir in. Boil two minutes. Beat the yolks into the sugar, and pour the hot mixture slowly upon them, stirring constantly. Season and fill small cups, which should be set ready in a dripping-pan of boiling water. See that there is no danger of their boiling over the tops. Cook twenty minutes, or until the custards are firm. While they cool whip the whites to a stiff _méringue_ with a little powdered sugar. When the custards are cold, heap this upon the tops.

FANCY CAKES,

Macaroons, lady’s-fingers, or jumbles, should go around with the custards.

First Week. Wednesday.
——
“Red Pottage.”
Boiled Cod with Caper Sauce. Scalloped Chicken.
Mashed Potatoes, Browned. Split Pea Pancakes.
——
Queen of Puddings.
——

“RED POTTAGE.”

To the bean-stock set by on yesterday add a can of red tomatoes, cut small, and two lumps of sugar, and simmer, set in boiling water for fear of burning, until they are one mass of pulp. Strain through a colander, add seasoning, and stir in a generous glass of claret which was poured, two hours before, upon a sliced, deep-colored _beet_, warm from the boil. Strain the juice from the beet by squeezing in a cloth. Put a double-handful of fried bread into a tureen, and pour the soup upon it.

This, if not “that same red pottage” for which poor hungry Esau—who certainly came honestly, by hereditary right, by his love of “good eating”—bartered his birthright, is yet very pretty and savory.

BOILED COD WITH CAPER SAUCE.

Sew the fish up neatly in a thin cloth and cook in boiling water, fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap, lay upon a hot dish, and pour over it the following sauce:

Put a cupful of boiling water into a saucepan, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in a heaping teaspoonful of flour. Beat in, when thick, the whipped yolk of an egg, the juice of a lemon, and twenty-four capers. Stir up well, cook half a minute, and take from the fire.

SCALLOPED CHICKEN.

Clean, wash, and cut an old fowl to pieces. Put into a pot with four quarts of cold water and cook _very_ slowly until tender. Take it out, salt and pepper the broth, and put by for to-morrow’s soup, reserving one cupful for your gravy.

Let the chicken cool, and cut—cleanly—into pieces an inch long by one fourth that width. Put the gravy, well-seasoned, over the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of butter, cut up and rolled in flour; stir in the chicken, and just before it boils, take from the fire, and beat in two whisked eggs, with a little finely minced parsley. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; pour in the chicken; cover with a deeper coating of bread-crumbs; stick bits of butter over this, and bake, covered, until bubbling hot; then brown delicately.

MASHED POTATOES—BROWNED.

Mash soft with milk and butter, season, and round into a heap upon a greased pie-dish. Brown in a quick oven; glaze with butter; slip carefully to a hot dish.

SPLIT PEA PANCAKES.

Soak a pint of split peas all night. Put on, in the morning, in cold water and cook soft. Rub through a fine colander. While hot, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and season with pepper and salt. When quite cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, and half a cupful of flour in which has been sifted—twice—a quarter teaspoonful of soda and twice as much cream-of-tartar. Beat hard and long, and fry as you would griddle-cakes.

QUEEN OF PUDDINGS.

1½ cups of sugar.
5 eggs.
2 cups of dry bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla, or other extract—Colgate’s, if you can get it.
1 quart of fresh milk.
½ cup sweet fruit-jelly, or jam.

Cream butter and sugar and whip in the yolks. Soak the crumbs in the milk and add next—then flavor. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish, filling it two-thirds of the way to the top, and bake until well “set” in the middle. Draw to the oven door, spread quickly with the jelly, and this with a _méringue_ of the whites and half a cup of sugar. Shut the oven and bake quickly until the _méringue_ begins to color. Eat cold with cream.

First Week. Thursday.
——
Chicken Soup.
Mayonnaise of Fish. Veal Chops with Tomato Sauce.
Potato Strips. Macaroni and Eggs.
——
Jelly Cake Fritters.
——

CHICKEN SOUP.

Take the fat from the top of the liquor in which your chicken was boiled yesterday, and put on the soup to heat. Meanwhile, boil half a cupful of rice tender in a pint of salted milk, and when the rice is soft, stir in a tablespoonful of butter worked up in flour to prevent oiling. When the soup boils up clear, skim and add the rice and milk, with two tablespoonfuls of minced parsley. Pepper and salt to taste; simmer ten minutes. Chop up three hard-boiled eggs fine; put into the tureen and pour the soup upon them.

MAYONNAISE OF FISH.

Yolks of 3 boiled eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls of best oil.
2 teaspoonfuls of sugar.
6 tablespoonfuls of vinegar.
1 teaspoonful of salt, and half as much each of pepper and made mustard.
White of 1 raw egg.
2 cupfuls of cold boiled fish (yesterday’s cod).
2 heads of lettuce.

Rub the yolks smooth with the oil, add sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, and, when all are mixed, the vinegar, a little at a time. Set by, covered, while you cut—not chop—the fish into strips an inch long, and shred the lettuce. Mix these in a bowl. Whip the frothed white of egg into the dressing, and pour upon the salad. Stir up with a silver fork and put into a glass dish. Garnish with rings of the whites of boiled eggs.

VEAL CHOPS WITH TOMATO SAUCE.

Trim and flatten the chops. Dip in raw egg, then in cracker dust, and fry, rather slowly, in lard or dripping. Open a can of tomatoes, and drain off the liquor. Salt the rest of the tomatoes and reserve for Friday’s soup. Put the liquor into a saucepan with a sliced onion, and stew ten minutes. Strain out the onion, return the juice to the fire; thicken with a great spoonful of butter, worked up in a teaspoonful of corn-starch; pepper and salt. Boil up sharply, and when you have laid the chops upon a dish, pour the sauce over them.

MACARONI WITH EGGS.

Break half a pound of macaroni into short bits; cook tender in boiling, salted water. Drain well; put into a deep dish and pour over it a cupful of drawn butter in which have been stirred two beaten eggs, and two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, with salt and pepper. Loosen the macaroni to allow the sauce to penetrate the mass. Pass more grated cheese with it.

POTATO STRIPS.

Pare, cut in long, even strips; lay in cold water for one hour; dry by spreading them upon a towel and pressing another upon them. Fry to a light brown in salted lard. Shake off the fat in a hot colander. Line a deep dish with a napkin and put in the strips. They should not be crowded in frying, but each should be distinct and free from the rest.

JELLY-CAKE FRITTERS.

Cut stale sponge or very plain cup cake into rounds with a cake-cutter. Fry to a nice brown in sweet lard. Dip each round in _boiling_ milk, to soften it and get rid of the grease. Lay upon a hot dish and spread with sweet jelly or jam. Pile neatly one upon another. Send around hot, sweetened cream to pour over them.

First Week. Friday.
——
Graham Soup.
Scalloped Oysters. Stewed Sweetbreads, Brown.
Moulded Potato. Lettuce.
——
Quaking Custard.
——

GRAHAM SOUP.

2 onions.
2 carrots.
4 turnips.
½ cabbage.
A little celery-seed tied in a thin muslin bag.
The tomatoes set by yesterday.
½ cup raw rice.
½ cup of cream (with a pinch of soda added to prevent curdling).
2 lumps of white sugar.
Pepper, salt, and parsley.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter cut up in flour.
3 quarts of cold water.

Chop the cabbage and slice the onions; pare and _grate_ the other vegetables, and put over the fire with the rice, the bag of celery-seed, and the water. Stew one hour; add the tomatoes and stew twenty minutes more. Rub all to a pulp through a colander; return to the soup-pot, season, and when it boils, stir in the butter. Heat the cream to scalding in a separate vessel, and pour into the tureen. Stir the soup into it by degrees, and serve. Pass Boston crackers—split and buttered—with it.

SCALLOPED OYSTERS.

Butter a pudding-dish, and strew the bottom with rolled cracker. Wet this with oyster-liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Then lay on oysters, set closely together. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and bits of butter, with a few drops of lemon-juice. Another stratum of moistened crumbs, and so on, until the dish is full. Let the top layer be of crumbs, with butter dots here and there. Bake, covered, half an hour, then brown quickly.

STEWED SWEETBREADS—BROWN.

4 sweetbreads.
1 cup of gravy (yesterday’s broth will do).
1 onion.
½ cup butter.
½ pint of mushrooms.
Pepper and salt.

Boil the sweetbreads quickly—ten minutes are enough—blanch by throwing them into cold water, then leaving them to cool. Slice them lengthwise. Slice, also, the onion and mushrooms, and fry brown in half the butter. Strain them out, return the fat to the pan, with the rest of the butter. Heat, and fry the sweetbreads. When the latter are done, put all into a tin pail, with a tight top; add the gravy; set, covered, in boiling water, and stew gently, at the side of the range, half an hour. Arrange the sweetbreads upon a hot dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour, and pour over them. Garnish with triangles of fried bread.

MOULDED POTATO.

Mash soft with butter and hot milk in which has been stirred a beaten egg. Salt and put into a buttered cake or pudding mould. Set in a pan of hot water, put on the lid of the mould, and keep the water at a hard boil half an hour. Dip the mould in cold water, and turn out the potatoes upon a flat dish.

LETTUCE.

Treat as directed upon last Sunday.

QUAKING CUSTARD.

3 cups of milk.
Yolks of 4 eggs, reserving the whites for the _méringue_.
½ package Cooper’s gelatine.
6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Vanilla flavoring.
Juice of 1 lemon for _méringue_.

Soak the gelatine two hours in a cup of the cold milk. Then add to the rest of the milk, which must be boiling hot, and stir until dissolved. Let it stand a few minutes, and strain through muslin over the beaten yolks and sugar. Put over the fire and stir five minutes, or until you can feel it thickening. Stir up well when nearly cold, flavor, and let it alone until it congeals around the edges of the bowl into which you have poured it; then stir again, and put into a wet mould. Set upon ice, or in cold water until firm. Turn it, when you are ready for it, into a glass bowl. Have ready a _méringue_ made by whipping the whites stiff with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and the lemon-juice. Heap irregularly about the base.

First Week. Saturday.
——
Vermicelli Soup.
Glazed Ham. Spinach à la Parisienne.
Chow-chow. Baked Potatoes.
——
Rhubarb Tart.
——

VERMICELLI SOUP.

4 lbs. knuckle of veal.
2 lbs. of coarse, lean beef.
2 slices of corned ham, or some bones of salt pork.
2 onions.
Thyme and parsley.
¼ lb. vermicelli.
Pepper and salt.
6 quarts of water.

Crack the bones into splinters; cut the meat into strips; slice the onions and chop the herbs. Put on in six quarts of water, and cook slowly five hours. Strain, pressing meat, etc., hard in the colander. There should be about four quarts of soup. Set aside half, when you have salted it, for Sunday. Return the rest to the clean kettle, season and skim. The vermicelli should have been broken small, and boiled in a little hot, salted water, three minutes. Strain, without squeezing; butter and pepper; stir into the soup; simmer very gently five minutes, and pour out.

GLAZED HAM.

Wash a fine _corned_—not smoked—ham; soak all night in cold water, and boil about eighteen minutes to the pound. There should be plenty of water in the pot, cold at first, and brought gradually to a boil. Skim well from time to time. Let it get cold in the water in which it was boiled, if you can spare the time. _We_ always boil a ham the day before it is to be eaten. Take it out; remove the skin carefully, and put the latter back into the cold liquor when you have skimmed all the fat—which makes excellent dripping—from the surface of the liquid. Press soft paper on the top of the ham, to take off the clinging drops of grease. Brush all over with beaten egg. Work a cup of rolled cracker into a paste with warm milk, butter, pepper, salt, and a beaten egg. Coat the ham thickly with this, and set to brown in a moderate oven. Twist frilled paper around the knuckle, and garnish with cresses.

SPINACH À LA PARISIENNE.

Pick off the leaves from the stalks; put on in boiling water, a little salt, and cook twenty minutes. Drain hard and dry, chop fine, return to the fire with a good piece of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, and stir two minutes. Then, beat in two or three tablespoonfuls of cream, or rich milk, and whip as you would a custard. It should be smooth to taste and sight. Boil up—barely—and dish.

CHOW-CHOW

“Goes well,” as the French say, with ham.

BAKED POTATOES.

Parboil, peel, and lay in a dripping-pan, with a bit of butter upon each. As they brown, put on each a teaspoonful of warm milk mixed with butter, salt, and pepper. They should be of a light brown. Butter again just before you dish them.

RHUBARB TART.

Scrape the stalks, cut into small bits, and stew in a very little water. When tender, take from the fire and sweeten. Have ready some open shells of pastry, freshly baked. Fill with the fruit, and sift sugar on top. Eat warm or cold—never _hot_. Make more paste than you need, and keep—raw—in a cold place.

Second Week. Sunday.
——
Pea and Rice Soup.
Fillet of Veal with Ham. Potato Balls.
Stuffed Cabbage. French Beans.
——
Charlotte Cachée.
Bird’s Nest in Jelly.
——

PEA AND RICE SOUP.

Open a can of green peas, and turn them into a bowl for an hour. Boil half a cup of rice soft in a cup of milk. Skim the stock made yesterday, and heat to a boil before adding the peas (drained) and the rice, which should have absorbed all the milk. Stew slowly half an hour; add what seasoning you like, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter cut up in flour. Simmer five minutes and pour out.

FILLET OF VEAL WITH HAM.

Have the fillet rolled and skewered by your butcher. Stuff a good force-meat of crumbs and minced fat ham between the folds of meat, and lay sliced ham over the top and sides, binding it in place with packthread. Put into a dripping-pan with a cup of boiling water, and roast twelve minutes for each pound. Baste very often. Half an hour before you take it up, remove the ham, and lay on one side of the pan; dredge the meat with flour and baste abundantly and frequently until well browned. Dish with the ham cut into strips and laid next the edge of the dish—the potato balls close to the meat. Send around sweet pickles with it. Strain the gravy, thicken with browned flour, add pepper and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup; boil up and pour into a boat.

POTATO BALLS.

To one cup of mashed potato add a beaten egg, pepper, and salt, and work smooth. Make into balls; roll them in flour. When the veal is half done, skim off the fat from the gravy, lay the balls in the pan, basting, now and then, and turning until they are browned all over. Drain well, and lay about the dished veal.

STUFFED CABBAGE.

Boil a large, firm cabbage, whole, on Saturday, tying coarse net over it to keep it in shape. Do not remove the net until next day. Then, bind a broad strip of muslin about it that it may not crack in the stuffing. Extract the stalk with a thin, sharp knife. Without making a wide external aperture, “dig out” the heart, until you have room for nearly a cupful of force-meat. Chop the bits you have taken out, mix with cooked sausage-meat, a very little onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme and bread-crumbs. Stuff the cabbage with this, remove the band, tie up firmly again in a net bag, and put it into a pot, covering with the liquor in which your ham was boiled yesterday, having first again skimmed the latter. Stew gently one hour. Take out the cabbage, unbind, with care, and pour a cup of drawn butter over it. Strain the useful “pot liquor,” and put away heedfully.

FRENCH BEANS.

Cut into short lengths, when you have poured off the can liquor; cook half an hour in boiling water, salted. Drain well, stir up with a tablespoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste.

CHARLOTTE CACHÉE.

1 thick loaf of sponge or plain cup cake.
2 kinds of fruit-jelly, tart and sweet.
Whites of 5 eggs.
1 heaping cup of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon.

Cut the cake into horizontal slices of uniform width. Spread each with jelly—first, the tart, then the sweet, and fit into their former places. Ice thickly with a frosting made of the whites, sugar, and lemon-juice. Set in a sunny window, or slow oven, to harden. The former is the better plan.

BIRD’S NEST IN JELLY.

1 quart of wine jelly—not too thin.
3 cups of white blanc-mange.
9 empty egg-shells.
Rind of 2 oranges cut into strips and stewed in water, until tender,
then in syrup until clear, or, if you have it, use preserved
orange-peel.

Empty the eggs carefully through a hole in the small end; wash them out with cold water, and while wet inside set firmly in a pan of bran or meal, to keep them steadily upright. Fill them with blanc-mange. Next morning, fill a glass dish two-thirds full with clear jelly, reserving a large cupful. So soon as the jelly is firm enough to bear their weight, break the shells, with care, from the blanc-mange eggs, and pile them upon the jelly. Lay the “straw”—_i. e._, the orange-peel—over and about them; pour the rest of the half congealed jelly over all, and set in a _very_ cold place.

A beautiful variation of this dessert can be made for Easter Sunday, by coloring part of the blanc-mange brown with chocolate, part pink with currant jelly or cranberry juice, part yellow with yolk of egg, and leaving the rest white.

Second Week. Monday.
——
Ham and Egg Soup.
Veal Patés. Creamed Parsnips.
Salad of Lettuce and Veal. Mashed Potatoes.
——
Corn-Starch Hasty Pudding.
——

HAM AND EGG SOUP.

Skim once more and re-heat the liquor in which your ham was cooked, and, when boiling, take off the scum; stir in two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, wet in a half cup of milk. Take out a pint of the soup, and pour slowly, stirring well, upon four beaten eggs. Return to the soup, with a handful of very finely minced parsley. Stir one minute, without letting it boil, and pour upon half a dozen split Boston crackers, lining the tureen.

VEAL PATÉS.

Chop up the meat left from Sunday’s fillet—reserving some for salad—also the crisped ham. Season well, warm up the gravy, when you have removed the fat; mix a little oyster liquor with it, and stir in the mince. Heat _almost_ to boiling, and set by, covered, where it will keep warm. Line _paté_-pans with the paste reserved for this purpose from Saturday. If kept in the refrigerator or cool cellar, it will be perfectly good. Bake these “shells,” buttering the tins well; slip out while hot; arrange on a warm dish; fill with the mince, sprinkling the top of each with fine, dry crumbs; set upon the upper grating of your oven for a minute or so, and send to table.

CREAMED PARSNIPS.

Boil, scrape, and slice lengthwise. Have ready in a saucepan a great spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. Put in the parsnips, shake and turn until very hot; lay the parsnips upon a dish; add to the sauce three tablespoonfuls of cream, or four of milk, in which has been rubbed a teaspoonful of flour. Boil up briskly, and pour over the sliced vegetable.

SALAD OF LETTUCE AND VEAL.

Cut half a pound of your cold veal into inch-long strips, and strew with salt and pepper. Shred a head of lettuce, and chop two boiled eggs—not too finely. Mix these together in a bowl. Prepare a dressing thus: Beat the yolks of two eggs (add the whites to the soup); salt lightly, and beat in, a few drops at a time, four tablespoonfuls of oil; then, as gradually, three teaspoonfuls of best vinegar, and half a teaspoonful of celery essence—Colgate’s, if you can get it. The mixture should be thick as cream. Pour over the meat and lettuce, toss up with a silver fork, and transfer to a glass dish.

MASHED POTATOES.

Prepare as often before directed.

CORN-STARCH HASTY PUDDING.

1 quart of fresh milk.
3 full tablespoonfuls of corn-starch.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

Scald the milk, and stir in the corn-starch, previously wet in cold water to a white liquid. Boil steadily, stirring constantly, ten minutes. Salt and butter. Let the pudding stand three minutes in hot water, after you take it from the fire, and turn out into a deep, open dish. Cook, of course, in a farina-kettle.

Second Week. Tuesday.
——
Mélange Soup.
Ragoût of Mutton. Canned Corn Pudding.
Baked Tomatoes. Damson, or Plum Pickles.
——
Peach Batter Pudding.
——

MÉLANGE SOUP.

1 cup of rice (scant).
3 lbs. of coarse, lean beef.
Some mutton bones.
2 carrots.
2 turnips.
1 onion.
Essence of celery, two teaspoonfuls.
Pepper and salt.
4 quarts of cold water.
1 cup of tomato-juice.

Cut the meat into dice, and put on in the water. Boil gently two hours, when add the rice, tomato-juice, and the vegetables cut into small squares, and already cooked five minutes in hot water, to take off the rank taste. Stew half an hour, or until the vegetables and rice are tender, but not a pulp; season; boil up once and pour out—meat, vegetables, and all—into the tureen.

Ragoût of Mutton.

3 lbs. of mutton—lean and boneless—cut into strips four inches long
by one inch wide.
1 cup of gravy, made of bones, etc.
A tablespoonful of walnut catsup.
Browned flour.
Salt and pepper.
1 slice of lemon.
Parsley.
A slice of ham or fat pork, cut small.
Dripping.

Fry the mutton to a nice brown, quickly, in the dripping. Lay in a saucepan, the chopped ham upon it, and cover with the gravy, highly seasoned. Stew slowly until very tender; take up, and keep hot, while you add the lemon to the gravy, with the catsup. Boil five minutes; strain, and return the gravy to the saucepan. Thicken, and put in the parsley minced fine. Boil up, and pour over the meat in a flat dish. Put sippets of fried bread around the edge of the dish.

CANNED CORN PUDDING.

1 can of corn, drained.
3 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
1 tablespoonful of sugar.
A little salt.
2 cupfuls of milk.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet up in the milk.

Beat eggs, sugar, and butter together; then add the corn. Salt the milk, and dissolve the corn-starch well in it, and pour, by degrees, upon the rest, mixing well. Bake in a greased bake-dish three-quarters of an hour. Keep covered until nearly done; then, brown.

BAKED TOMATOES.

Drain off the liquor from a can of tomatoes, and put it into your soup. Pare the crust from some slices of bread, cut them to fit the bottom of a greased pie-dish, and fry to a light brown in dripping. Dip each in boiling, salted milk, fit to their places in the dish, pour the tomatoes upon them, season with pepper, salt, butter, and a little sugar. Strew thickly with crumbs, and bake, covered, twenty minutes; then, brown.

PEACH BATTER PUDDING.

1 quart of milk.
2 cups of prepared flour, or enough for _soft_ batter.
4 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of butter, slightly warmed.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
1 can of peaches, drained.

Lay the drained peaches in a buttered bake-dish. Salt the flour, and sift into a pan. Beat eggs and butter together, stir in the milk, and pour, by degrees, into a hole in the middle of the flour, until you have a smooth batter. Pour upon the peaches, and bake in a brisk oven. Add a glass of brandy to the peach syrup; sweeten to taste; stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, and set in boiling water until the butter is melted. Serve the pudding in the bake-dish and eat with this sauce.

Second Week. Wednesday.
——
Eel Soup.
Boiled Chicken. Potatoes à la Crème.
Egg Sauce. Rice Croquettes.
——
Steamed Corn-Meal Pudding.
——

EEL SOUP.

4 lbs. of eels.
1 onion.
12 whole peppers.
3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Tablespoonful of chopped parsley.
1 cup of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of flour, rubbed into the butter.
2 quarts of water.
2 slices of toast cut into strips.
Dripping.

Clean the eels with care, removing all the fat; cut them into short pieces, and fry for five minutes in dripping. Drain, put into a saucepan with the water, onion, and pepper, and stew slowly one hour, or until they are tender, without breaking. Strain through a colander; pick out the eels and cover in a tureen, the bottom of which is lined with strips of buttered toast. Strain the soup, through a soup-sieve, back into the saucepan; heat, and stir in butter, flour, and parsley. Boil up, add the milk, already heated, and pour over the eels and toast.

BOILED CHICKEN.

Clean and stuff as for roasting. Bind legs and wings to the sides; tie in a net, and put on in boiling water—if tender. If doubtful, use cold water, and cook very slowly. When the fork-test shows that it is done, unwrap and lay on a dish. Salt, pepper, and butter well, and cover while preparing the sauce. Take out a cup of the liquor, cool, and skim, put on in a saucepan; put in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, and stir to a boil. Take off, and pour gradually over two beaten eggs. Return to the fire, with minced parsley, _almost_ boil, and pour over the fowl.

Salt the liquor and set aside for soup.

POTATOES À LA CRÈME.

Mash thin, whip up with a fork, at first, with butter, salt, and milk; at last, with the frothed white of an egg. Heap roughly upon a dish, set upon the upper grating of the oven until they begin to color, and serve.

RICE CROQUETTES.

2 cups cold boiled rice.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
2 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of flour.
1 raw egg, and some cracker dust.
2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
A pinch of grated lemon peel, and the same of nutmeg.
Lard for frying.

Work the butter into the rice, then the seasoning, lastly, the beaten eggs. Make into long balls, roll in egg, then in powdered cracker, and fry, a few at a time, in hot lard.

STEAMED CORN-MEAL PUDDING.

2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup of flour.
2 tablespoonfuls of white sugar.
2½ cups of “loppered” milk, or buttermilk.
1 teaspoonful of soda, sifted twice through the flour.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
1 heaping tablespoonful of butter, melted.

Put meal, flour, salt, sugar, and soda in a bowl; mix thoroughly; make a hole in the middle and work in the milk and butter. Beat hard and long when all are in; put into a buttered mould with a tight top, and steam one hour and a half. If you have no regular steamer, fit the mould in the top of a pot of boiling water, taking care it does not hang into the water. Lay a thick wet towel, folded, over the top of the mould to keep in all the heat. Or, you may simply boil it. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.

Second Week. Thursday.
——
Cream Almond Soup.
Beefsteak. Chopped Potatoes.
Chicken Salad. Moulded Spinach.
——
Soft Gingerbread and Chocolate.
——

CREAM ALMOND SOUP.

Broth in which yesterday’s chickens were boiled.
½ lb. of almonds.
1 cup rich milk—half cream, if you can get it.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter, rubbed up with two of flour.
Pepper and salt.
3 boiled eggs.
2 blades of mace.

Skim and heat the soup. Meanwhile, blanch (that is, scald and skin) the almonds, and pound in a mortar. Rub to a powder the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and work up, with the butter, flour, and almonds, to a paste. When the soup boils, pepper and salt, and put in the mace. Skim clean, strain out the mace; return to the pot and stir in the paste of almonds, etc. Boil up gently, have the milk scalding hot in the tureen, and pour in the soup, mixing all up well. Serve at once.

BEEFSTEAK.

Flatten with the broad side of a hatchet; broil over (or under) a clear fire upon a buttered gridiron—turning often. Lay upon a hot dish; salt, pepper, and butter, plentifully. Cover with a hot dish or lid, and let it stand five minutes to draw out the juices.

CHOPPED POTATOES.

Chop cold boiled potatoes into dice. Put some butter or nice dripping into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the potatoes. Shake to prevent them from sticking to the pan, and when very hot, and glazed with the butter, pepper and salt, and turn into a hot colander. Shake and toss for a moment, and pour into a deep dish.

CHICKEN SALAD.

Cut the meat from the “carcasses” of yesterday’s chickens. If you have but a little it may be worth while to give John a piquant side-dish. Add an equal quantity of shred lettuce, when you have cut your chicken into narrow strips, two inches long. Mix in a bowl; prepare a dressing according to the receipt given on Monday; pour over it, mix well and lightly; put into a salad-dish, and lay sections of two hard-boiled eggs on top, with a chain of sliced whites—left from the yolks used for the soup—around the outer edge.

MOULDED SPINACH.

Boil twenty minutes in hot, salted water; drain, pressing hard. Chop _fine_, and put into a saucepan, with a good lump of butter, a little pepper, salt and sugar. Beat and toss until nearly dry. Press hard into an oblong pan or mould. Invert this upon a hot dish. Lay slices of egg upon the top.

SOFT GINGERBREAD.

1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup of butter.
1 cup of sweet milk.
4 cups of flour.
4 eggs.
1 tablespoonful mixed ginger and mace.
1 small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in the milk.

Beat molasses, butter, sugar, and spice to a cream; whip in the beaten yolks, the milk, and lastly, the whites, alternately with the flour. Bake in two loaves, or in round tins or cups.

CHOCOLATE.

6 tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate.
2 cups of boiling water and the same of milk.

Wet the chocolate in cold water; stir into the hot. Boil fifteen minutes; add the milk, and simmer ten minutes longer. Sweeten upon the fire, or as you pour it out.

Second Week. Friday.
——
Oyster Soup.
Fillets of Halibut. Potato Marbles.
Paté of Sweetbreads. Lima Beans.
——
Boston Cream Cakes.
——

OYSTER SOUP.

2 quarts of oysters.
1 quart of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teacupful of water.
2 eggs.
Cayenne pepper, salt, mace.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, mixing in the water. Season and spice to taste. When the liquor boils, add a quarter of the oysters chopped fine. Boil five minutes; strain through muslin and put back into the saucepan. Thicken with the butter rubbed up in a tablespoonful of corn-starch. When this boils, drop in the whole oysters. Cook until they “ruffle.” Meanwhile, make a sugarless custard by heating and salting the milk, adding the beaten eggs, and stirring four minutes over the fire. Put some split crackers into the tureen; pour on the custard, then the oyster-soup, stirring all up well. Send around oyster crackers and sliced lemon with it.

FILLETS OF HALIBUT.

Cut a tolerably thick halibut steak into strips four inches long by two wide. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter, with pepper and salt, into a saucepan, and simmer gently—not frying—until tender. Then drain, and put upon a hot water dish to keep hot. Cut some potatoes into small balls. There is a little instrument for this purpose, like a rounded gouge, which turns them out rapidly and neatly. A _small_ iron spoon will give you oval balls. Or, if you find it easier, cut the potatoes into equal cubes; lay in cold water half an hour, then cook fifteen minutes in boiling water. Drain and dry, and after taking your fish from the butter, strain the latter, put in the potatoes, and shake over a hot fire until they begin to brown. Drain, and lay about the fish-fillets. Add a tablespoonful of butter to that in the pan (previously cut up in flour), a teaspoonful of anchovy-sauce, and the juice of a lemon, with a little minced parsley. Boil once, and pour over fish and potatoes.

PATÉ OF SWEETBREADS.

Cut good puff-paste into rounds a quarter of an inch thick. Reserve one of these for the bottom of each paté. With a smaller cutter take out the centre of three others and pile upon this, making a deep well over an inch across. Bake quickly, glazing with white of egg when nearly done.

Boil three sweetbreads ten minutes, leave in cold water as long; cut into dice, put into a saucepan with a great spoonful of butter, a little pepper and salt, and a few spoonfuls of boiling water, and stew twenty minutes. Stir, meanwhile, into half a cup of boiling milk a tablespoonful of butter, cut up in as much flour. Add to the sweetbreads with a little minced parsley. Boil up. Fill the patés, and arrange upon a heated dish.

LIMA BEANS.

If dried, soak over night, put on next day in cold water, salted, and cook gently until soft. Drain, stir in butter and pepper. If you use the canned beans, put on in boiling water, then proceed as above directed.

BOSTON CREAM CAKES.

½ lb. of butter.
¾ lb. of flour.
6 eggs.
1 pint water—warm—not scalding.

Stir the butter into the warm water, and heat slowly to a boil. Then put in the flour, boil and stir one minute; empty into a dish to get cold. Beat the eggs light, and whip, first the yolks, then the whites, into the cooled paste. Drop in great spoonfuls, upon buttered paper, not letting them touch each other, and bake, in a quick oven, ten minutes. They should puff up to quadruple their original size. Pass a sharp knife lightly around each, split, and fill with the following mixture:

1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch.
2 eggs.
2 cups of sugar.
1 teaspoonful butter.
Vanilla.

Heat three cups of milk, and stir in the corn-starch wet with the other cupful. Beat the eggs and sugar together, and add the boiling mixture, by degrees. Put in the butter; mix well and cool before adding the vanilla.

Second Week. Saturday.
——
Soup Verte.
Baked Mutton Cutlets. Hominy Pudding.
Potato Cakes. Lettuce.
——
Tapioca Pudding.
——

SOUP VERTE.

2 lbs. coarse beef, chopped fine.
1 turnip.
1 onion.
Celery-seed tied in a bag.
1 grated carrot.
Nearly a quart of spinach leaves.
2 lumps of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter, rubbed in flour.
Bunch of parsley.
Pepper and salt.
A little of yesterday’s pastry, cut into strips—like “noodles.”
2 quarts of cold water.

Stew the beef with the celery-seed in a quart of water for two hours, or until the meat is in rags. Strain _hard_ in a bag. Add the other quart of water in which have been simmering, for half an hour, the grated carrot, the spinach cut small, and the other vegetables sliced. Stew all together fifteen minutes; rub _entirely_ through a colander; return to the fire, season; add sugar, chopped parsley, butter and flour; boil up and drop in the noodles, one by one. Simmer ten minutes, and pour out. It is a very good and wholesome soup for the spring-time.

BAKED MUTTON CUTLETS.

Trim neatly and put the bits of bone, skin, etc., on in a pint of cold water to stew down into gravy. Pour a little melted butter upon the cutlets and set over hot water, fifteen minutes. Then dip each in egg, next in rolled cracker, and lay in your dripping-pan with a very little water. Bake rapidly, basting with butter and water. When the gravy has boiled down to one cupful, strain into a saucepan; season with pepper, salt, and tomato catsup. Thicken with browned flour; strain into it the gravy from the dripping-pan; lay the chops carefully in a frying-pan, as being broad and easily managed. Pour over them the gravy, simmer ten minutes; arrange the chops upon a dish, and serve the gravy in a boat.

HOMINY PUDDING.

1 cupful cold boiled hominy—the small-grained kind.
2 cups of milk.
1 great spoonful of melted butter.
1 teaspoonful of white sugar.
3 eggs.
A little salt.

Work the butter into the hominy; then the beaten yolks and sugar; then, by degrees, the milk, and when all are smoothly mixed, the whites. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish.

POTATO CAKES.

Make cold mashed potatoes into flat cakes, seasoning well, and flouring all over. Fry to a good brown in dripping. Take up and drain as soon as they are done, and serve hot.

LETTUCE.

Wash and pile the best parts in a salad-dish. Pass oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and powdered sugar to each one and let him season for himself. It is well to do this, once in a while, that the children may learn how to prepare their own salad.

TAPIOCA PUDDING.

1 cup of tapioca.
1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and the same of sugar.

Soak the tapioca in cold water three hours; drain off the water, if it be not all absorbed. Soak another hour in the warmed milk. Then, beat eggs and sugar up with the butter, add the milk and tapioca, stir up well from the bottom, after it goes into the oven, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until firm and nicely browned. Eat warm with sweet sauce. It is also good cold, eaten with sugar and cream.