Common Sense in the Household - A Manual of Practical Housewifery

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Title: Common Sense in the Household - A Manual of Practical Housewifery
Author: Harland, Marion
Language: English
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italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.]

COMMON SENSE

IN THE HOUSEHOLD

A MANUAL OF

PRACTICAL HOUSEWIFERY

BY
MARION HARLAND.

“We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby. When a
boy knows this out of book, he _goes and does it_. This is
our system. What do you think of it?”—_Nicholas Nickleby._

NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1883.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS,
ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS,
PHILADELPHIA.

TO MY

FELLOW-HOUSEKEEPERS,

NORTH, EAST, SOUTH AND WEST, THIS VOLUME,

THE GLEANINGS OF MANY YEARS,

IS CORDIALLY

DEDICATED.

INTRODUCTORY OF REVISED EDITION.

It is not yet quite ten years since the publication of “COMMON
SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD. GENERAL RECEIPTS.” In offering the work to
the publishers, under whose able management it has prospered so
wonderfully, I said: “I have written this because I felt that such
a Manual of Practical Housewifery is needed.” That I judged aright,
taking my own experience as a housekeeper as the criterion of the wants
and perplexities of others, is abundantly proved by the circumstance
which calls for this new and revised edition of the book. Through
much and constant use—nearly 100,000 copies having been printed from
them—the stereotype plates have become so worn that the impressions
are faint and sometimes illegible. I gladly avail myself of the
opportunity thus offered to re-read and so far to alter the original
volume as may, in the light of later improvements in the culinary art
and in my understanding of it, make the collection of family receipts
more intelligible and available. Nor have I been able to resist the
temptation to interpolate a few excellent receipts that have come into
my hands at a later period than that of the publication of the last,
and in my estimation, perhaps the most valuable of the “Common Sense
Series,” viz.: “THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK.”

I am grateful, also, to the courtesy of my publishers for the privilege
of thanking those to whom this book was, and is dedicated, “My
fellow-housekeepers—North, East, South and West”—for their substantial
endorsement of the work I have done in their behalf. A collection
of the private letters I have received from those who have used the
“General Receipts” would make a volume very nearly as large as this.
If I have, as the writers of these testimonials assure me—“done them
good,”—they have done me more in letting me know that I have not spent
my strength for naught. I acknowledge with pleasure sundry pertinent
suggestions and inquiries which have led me, in this revision, to
examine warily the phraseology of some receipts and to modify these,
I believe, for the better. But, by far, the best “good” done me
through this work has been the conscious sisterhood into which I have
come with the great body of American housewives. This is a benefit
not to be rated by dollars and cents, or measured by time. I hope my
fellow-workers will find their old kitchen-companion, in fresh dress,
yet more serviceable than before, and that their daughters may, at
the close of a second decade, demand new stereotype plates for still
another, and, like this, a progressive edition.

MARION HARLAND.

_October 1, 1880._

INDEX OF GENERAL SUBJECTS.

PAGE.
Blanc-mange 414
Bread 256
Brandied fruits 463
Butter 251
Cakes 299
Candy 468
Canned fruits 463
—— vegetables 463
Catsups 179
Clean, to, etc. 511
Company 140
Corn bread 283
Creams 432
Custards 432
Drinks 480
Eggs 239
Familiar talk 1
Fish 38
Fritters 403
Fruit, ripe, for dessert 442
Game 147
Gingerbread 330
Ices 432
Ice-cream 432
Icing 301
Jellies 414
Jellies, fruit 459
Meats 84
Milk 251
Nursery, the 511
Pancakes 403
Pickles 469
Pies 337
Preserves 445
Pork 114
Poultry 69
Puddings 371
Salads 187
Sauces for fish and meat 170
—— for puddings 408
Servants 358
Sick-room, the 492
Shell-fish 57
Soap 528
Soups 15
Sundries 517
Tarts 351
Vegetables 197
Vinegars, flavored 179

FAMILIAR TALK

WITH MY

FELLOW-HOUSEKEEPER AND READER.

A TALK as woman to woman, in which each shall say, “I” and “you,” and
“my dear,” and “you know,” as freely as she pleases. It would not be
a womanly chat if we omitted these forms of expression. An informal
preface to what I mean shall be an informal book—bristling with “I’s”
all the way through. If said bristles offend the critic’s touch, let
him remember that this work is not prepared for the library, but for
readers who trouble themselves little about editorial “we’s” and the
circumlocutions of literary modesty.

I wish it were in my power to bring you, the prospective owner of
this volume, in person, as I do in spirit, to my side on this winter
evening, when the bairnies are “folded like the flocks;” the orders
for breakfast committed to the keeping of Bridget, or Gretchen, or
Chloe, or the plans for the morrow definitely laid in the brain of that
ever-busy, but most independent of women, the housekeeper who “does her
own work.” I should perhaps summon to our cozy conference a very weary
companion—weary of foot, of hand—and I should not deserve to be your
confidant, did I not know how often heart-weary with discouragement;
with much producing of ways and means; with a certain despondent
looking forward to the monotonous grinding of the household machine;
to the certainty, proved by past experience, that toilsome as has been
this day, the morrow will prove yet more abundant in labors, in trials
of strength and nerves and temper. You would tell me what a dreary
problem this of “woman’s work that is never done” is to your fainting
soul. How, try as you may and as you do to be systematic and diligent,
something is always “turning up” in the treadmill to keep you on the
strain. How you often say to yourself, in bitterness of spirit, that
it is a mistake of Christian civilization to educate girls into a love
of science and literature, and then condemn them to the routine of a
domestic drudge. You do not see, you say, that years of scholastic
training will make you a better cook, a better wife or mother. You have
seen the time—nay, many times since assuming your present position—when
you would have exchanged your knowledge of ancient and modern
languages, belles-lettres, music, and natural science, for the skill of
a competent kitchen-maid. The “learning how” is such hard work! Labor,
too, uncheered by encouraging words from mature housewives, unsoftened
by sympathy even from your husband, or your father or brother, or
whoever may be the “one” to whom you “make home lovely.” It may be
that, in utter discouragement, you have made up your mind that you have
“no talent for these things.”

I have before me now the picture of a wife, the mother of four
children, who, many years ago, sickened me for all time with that
phrase. In a slatternly morning-gown at four in the afternoon, leaning
back in the laziest and most ragged of rocking-chairs, dust on the
carpet, on the open piano, the mantel, the mirrors, even on her own
hair, she rubbed the soft palm of one hand with the grimy fingers of
the other, and with a sickly-sweet smile whined out—

“Now, I am one of the kind who have no talent for such things! The
kitchen and housework and sewing are absolutely hateful to me—utterly
uncongenial to my turn of mind. The height of my earthly ambition is to
have nothing to do but to paint on velvet all day!”

I felt then, in the height of my indignant disgust, that there was
propriety as well as wit in the “Spectator’s” suggestion that every
young woman should, before fixing the wedding-day, be compelled by law
to exhibit to inspectors a prescribed number of useful articles as her
outfit—napery, bed-linen, clothing, etc., made by her own hands, and
that it would be wise legislation which should add to these proofs of
her fitness for her new sphere a practical knowledge of housework and
cookery.

If you have not what our Yankee grandmothers termed a “faculty” for
housewifery—yet are obliged, as is the case with an immense majority
of American women, to conduct the affairs of a household, bills of
fare included—there is the more reason for earnest application to your
profession. If the natural taste be dull, lay to it more strength
of will—resolution born of a just sense of the importance of the
knowledge and dexterity you would acquire. Do not scoff at the word
“profession.” Call not that common and unclean which Providence has
designated as your life-work. I speak not now of the labors of the
culinary department alone; but, without naming the other duties which
you and you only can perform, I do insist that upon method, skill,
economy in the kitchen, depends so much of the well-being of the rest
of the household, that it may safely be styled the root—the foundation
of housewifery. I own it would be pleasanter in most cases, especially
to those who have cultivated a taste for intellectual pursuits, to
live above the heat and odor of this department. It must be very fine
to have an efficient aide-de-camp in the person of a French cook, or
a competent sub-manager, or an accomplished head-waiter who receives
your orders for the day in your boudoir or library, and executes the
same with zeal and discretion that leave you no room for anxiety or
regret. Such mistresses do not need cookery-books. The few—and it must
be borne in mind that in this country these are _very_ few—born in an
estate like this would not comprehend what I am now writing; would not
enter into the depths of that compassionate yearning which moves me
as I think of what I have known for myself in the earlier years of my
wedded life, what I have heard and seen in other households of honest
intentions brought to contempt; of ill-directed toil; of mortification,
and the heavy, wearing sense of inferiority that puts the novice at
such a woful disadvantage in a community of notable managers.

There is no use in enlarging upon this point. You and I might compare
experiences by the hour without exhausting our store.

“And then”—you sigh, with a sense of resentment upon you, however
amiable your disposition, for the provocation is dire—“cookery-books
and young housekeepers’ assistants, and all that sort of thing, are
such humbugs!—Dark lanterns at best—too often Will-o’-the-wisps.”

My dear, would you mind handing me the book which lies nearest you on
the table there? “Dickens?” Of course. You will usually find something
of his in every room in this house—almost as surely as you will a
Bible. It rests and refreshes one to pick him up at odd times, and
dip in anywhere. Hear the bride, Mrs. John Rokesmith, upon our common
grievance.

“She was under the constant necessity of referring for advice and
support to a sage volume, entitled ‘The Complete British Family
Housewife,’ which she would sit consulting, with her elbows upon the
table, and her temples in her hands, like some perplexed enchantress
poring over the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete
British Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means
an expert Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British
tongue, and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose
in the Kamtchatkan language.”

Don’t interrupt me, my long-suffering sister! There is more of the same
sort to come.

“There was likewise a coolness on the part of ‘The Complete British
Housewife’ which Mrs. John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She
would say, ‘Take a salamander,’ as if a general should command a
private to catch a Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order,
‘Throw in a handful’ of something entirely unattainable. In these, the
housewife’s most glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up
and knock her on the table, apostrophizing her with the compliment—‘O
you ARE a stupid old donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think?’”

When I took possession of my first real home, the prettily furnished
cottage to which I came as a bride, more full of hope and courage
than if I had been wiser, five good friends presented me with as many
cookery-books, each complete, and all by different compilers. One day’s
investigation of my _ménage_ convinced me that my lately-hired servants
knew no more about cookery than I did, or affected stupidity to develop
my capabilities or ignorance. Too proud to let them suspect the truth,
or to have it bruited abroad as a topic for pitying or contemptuous
gossip, I shut myself up with _my_ “Complete Housewives,” and inclined
seriously to the study of the same, comparing one with the other, and
seeking to shape a theory which should grow into practice in accordance
with the best authority. I don’t like to remember that time! The
question of disagreeing doctors, and the predicament of falling between
two stools, are trivial perplexities when compared with my strife and
failure.

Said the would-be studious countryman to whom a mischievous
acquaintance lent “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” as an entertaining
volume,—“I wrastled, and I wrastled, _and_ I wrastled with it, but I
couldn’t get up much of an int’rest.”

My wrestling begat naught save pitiable confusion, hopeless distress,
and a three-days’ sick headache, during which season I am not sure
that I did not darkly contemplate suicide as the only sure escape from
the meshes that girt me. At the height—or depth—of my despondency a
friend, one with a great heart and steady brain, came to my rescue. Her
cheerful laugh over my dilemma rings down to me now, through all these
years, refreshingly as it then saluted my ears.

“Bless your innocent little heart!” she cried, in her fresh, gay voice,
“Ninety-nine out of a hundred cookbooks are written by people who never
kept house, and the hundredth by a good cook who yet doesn’t know how
to express herself to the enlightenment of others. Compile a receipt
book for yourself. Make haste slowly. Learn one thing at a time, and
when you have mastered it, ‘make a note on it,’ as Captain Cuttle
says—never losing sight of the principle that you _must do it in order
to learn how_.”

Then she opened to me her own neatly-written “Manual”—the work of
years, recommending, as I seized it that I should commence my novitiate
with simple dishes.

This was the beginning of the hoard of practical receipts I now offer
for your inspection. For twenty years, I have steadily pursued this
work, gleaning here and sifting there, and levying such remorseless
contributions upon my friends, that I fear the sight of my paper and
pencil has long since become a bugbear. For the kindness and courtesy
which have been my invariable portion in this quest, I hereby return
hearty thanks. For the encouraging words and good wishes that have
ever answered the hint of my intention to collect what had proved so
valuable to me into a printed volume, I declare myself to be yet more
a debtor. I do not claim for my compend the proud pre-eminence of the
“Complete American Housewife.” It is no boastful system of “Cookery
Taught in Twelve Lessons.” And I should write myself down a knave or
a fool, were I to assert that a raw cook or ignorant mistress can,
by half-a-day’s study of my collection, equal Soyer or Blot, or even
approximate the art of a half-taught scullion.

We may as well start from the right point, if we hope to continue
friends. You must learn the rudiments of the art for yourself.
Practice, and practice alone, will teach you certain essentials. The
management of the ovens, the requisite thickness of boiling custards,
the right shade of brown upon bread and roasted meats—these and dozens
of other details are hints which cannot be imparted by written or
oral instructions. But, once learned, they are never forgotten, and
henceforward your fate is in your own hands. You are mistress of
yourself, though servants leave. Have faith in your own abilities.
You will be a better cook for the mental training you have received
at school and from books. Brains tell everywhere, to say nothing of
intelligent observation, just judgment, a faithful memory, and orderly
habits. Consider that you have a profession, as I said just now, and
resolve to understand it in all its branches. My book is designed to
help you. I believe it will, if for no other reason, because it has
been a faithful guide to myself—a reference beyond value in seasons
of doubt and need. I have brought every receipt to the test of common
sense and experience. Those which I have not tried myself were obtained
from trustworthy housewives—the best I know. I have enjoyed the task
heartily, and from first to last the persuasion has never left me that
I was engaged in a good cause. Throughout I have had you, my dear
sister, present before me, with the little plait between your brows,
the wistful look about eye and mouth that reveal to me, as words could
not, your desire to “do your best.”

“In a humble home, and in a humble way,” I hear you add, perhaps. You
“are not ambitious;” you “only want to help John, and to make him and
the children comfortable and happy.”

Heaven reward your honest, loyal endeavors! Would you mind if I were
to whisper a word in your ear I don’t care to have progressive people
hear?—although progress is a grand thing when it takes the right
direction. My dear, John and the children, and the humble home, make
your sphere for the present, you say. Be sure you fill it—_full_!
before you seek one wider and higher. There is no better receipt
between these covers than that. Leave the rest to God. Everybody knows
those four lines of George Herbert’s, which ought to be framed and hung
up in the work-room of every house:—

“A servant, with this clause,
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th’ action fine.”

I wonder if the sainted poet knows—in that land where drudgery is one
of the rough places forever overpast, and work is unmingled blessing—to
how many sad and striving hearts those words have brought peace?

And by way of helping John, not only by saving money and preparing
palatable and wholesome dishes for his table, but by sparing the wife
he loves many needless steps and much hurtful care, will you heed a
homely hint or two relative to the practice of your art? Study method,
and economy of time and strength, no less than of materials. I take
it for granted that you are too intelligent to share in the vulgar
prejudice against labor-saving machines. A raisin-seeder costs a trifle
in comparison with the time and patience required to stone the fruit in
the old way. A _good_ egg-beater—the Dover, for instance—is a treasure.
So with farina-kettles, syllabub churns, apple-corers, potato-peelers
and slicers, clothes wringers and sprinklers, and the like. Most of
these are made of tin—are therefore cheap and easily kept clean. Let
each article have its own place in the closet and kitchen, to which
restore it so soon as you have done using it. Before undertaking the
preparation of any dish, read over the receipt carefully, unless you
are thoroughly familiar with the manufacture of it. Many excellent
housewives have a fashion of saying loftily, when asked how such things
are made—“I carry all my receipts in my head. I never wrote out one in
my life.”

And you, if timid and self-distrustful, are smitten with shame, keep
your receipt-book out of sight, and cram your memory with ingredients
and measures, times and weights, for fear Mrs. Notable should suspect
you of rawness and inefficiency. Whereas the truth is, that if you have
a mind worthy of the name, its powers are too valuable to be laden
with such details. Master the general principles, as I said just now,
and for particulars look to your marching-orders. Having refreshed
your memory by this reference, pick out from your household stores,
and set in convenient order, within reach of your hand, everything you
will need in making ready the particular compound under consideration.
Then, take your stand in the midst—or sit, if you can. It is common
sense—oftentimes a pious duty, to take judicious care of your physical
health. I lay it down as a safe and imperative rule for kitchen
use—_Never stand when you can do your work as well while sitting_. If I
could have John’s ear for a minute, I would tell him that which would
lead him to watch you and exercise wholesome authority in this regard.

Next, prepare each ingredient for mixing, that the bread, cake,
pudding, soup, or ragoût may not be delayed when half finished because
the flour is not sifted, or the “shortening” warmed, the sugar and
butter are not creamed, the meat not cut up, or the herbs not minced.
Don’t begin until you are ready; then go steadily forward, “without
haste, without rest,” and think of what you are doing.

“Dickens again?”

Why not, since there is no more genial and pertinent philosopher of
common life and every-day subjects? To quote, then—

“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in
his figurative, naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot
make it too hot, and that if you have only to swab a plank, you should
swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this
maxim is applicable to the medical as well as the nautical profession.”

“To all professions!” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by
Captain Swosser; beautifully said!”

But it will sometimes happen that when you have heated your pitch, or
swabbed your deck, or made your pudding according to the lights set
before you, the result is a failure. This is especially apt to occur
in a maiden effort. You have wasted materials and time, and suffered,
moreover, acute demoralization—are enwrapped in a wet blanket of
discouragement, instead of the seemly robe of complacency. Yet no
part of the culinary education is more useful, if turned to proper
account, than this very discipline of failure. It is a stepping-stone
to excellence—sharp, it is true, but often sure. You have learned how
_not_ to do it right, which is the next thing to success. It is pretty
certain that you will avoid, in your second essay, the rock upon which
you have split this time. And, after all, there are few failures which
are utter and irremediable. Scorched soups and custards, sour bread,
biscuit yellow with soda, and cake heavy as lead, come under the head
of “hopeless.” They are absolutely unfit to be set before civilized
beings and educated stomachs. Should such mishaps occur, lock the
memory of the attempt in your own bosom, and do not vex or amuse John
and your guests with the narration, still less with visible proof of
the calamity. Many a partial failure would pass unobserved but for the
clouded brow and earnest apologies of the hostess. Do not apologize
except at the last gasp! If there is but one chance in ten that a
single person present may not discover the deficiency which has changed
all food on the table to dust and gravel-stones to you, trust to the
one chance, and carry off the matter bravely. You will be astonished to
find, if you keep your wits about you how often even your husband will
remain in blissful ignorance that aught has gone wrong, if you do not
tell him. You know so well what should have been the product of your
labor that you exaggerate the justice of others’ perceptions. Console
yourself, furthermore, with the reflection that yours is not the first
failure upon record, nor the million-and-first, and that there will be
as many to-morrows as there have been yesterdays.

Don’t add to a trifling _contretemps_ the real discomfort of a
discontented or fretful wife. Say blithely, if John note your
misfortune—“I hope to do better another time,” and do not be satisfied
until you have redeemed your pledge. Experience and your quick wit will
soon teach you how to avert impending evils of this nature, how to
snatch your preparations from imminent destruction, and, by ingenious
correctives or concealments, to make them presentable. These you will
soon learn for yourself if you keep before you the truism I have
already written, to wit, that few failures are beyond repair.

Never try experiments for the benefit of invited guests nor, when
John is at home, risk the success of your meal upon a new dish.
Have something which you know he can eat, and introduce experiments
as by-play. But do not be too shy of innovations in the shape of
untried dishes. Variety is not only pleasant, but healthful. The
least pampered palate will weary of stereotyped bills of fare. It is
an idea which should have been exploded long ago, that plain roast,
boiled, and fried, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,
cod-fish on Friday, with pork-and-beans every Saturday, are means of
grace, because economical. And with this should have vanished the
prejudice against warmed-over meals—or _réchauffés_, as our French
friends term them. I have tried, in the following pages, to set forth
the attractions of these, and their claims to your attention as being
savory, economical, nourishing, and often elegant. In preparing these
acceptably, everything depends upon your own taste and skill. Season
with judgment, cook just enough and not a minute too long, and dish
nicely. The recommendation of the eye to the palate is a point no
cook can afford to disregard. If you can offer an unexpected visitor
nothing better than bread-and-butter and cold ham, he will enjoy the
luncheon twice as much if the bread be sliced thinly and evenly, spread
smoothly, each slice folded in the middle upon the buttered surface,
and piled symmetrically; if the ham be also cut thin, scarcely thicker
than a wafer, and garnished with parsley, cresses, or curled lettuce.
Set on mustard and pickles; let the table-cloth and napkin be white
and glossy; the glass clear, and plate shining clean; and add to these
accessories to comfort a bright welcome, and, my word for it, you need
fear no dissatisfaction on his part, however epicurean may be his
tastes. Should your cupboard be bare of aught more substantial than
crackers and cheese, do not yield to dismay; split the crackers (if
splittable), toast the inside lightly, and butter while hot. Grate your
cheese into a powdery mound, garnishing the edges of the plate. If you
have no beverage except water to set before him, let this be cool, and
pour it out for him yourself, into an irreproachable glass. A dirty
table-cloth, a smeared goblet, or a sticky plate, will spoil the most
luxurious feast. A table well set is half-spread.

I have not said one-tenth of that which is pressing upon my heart and
mind, yet I fear you may think me trite and tedious. One suggestion
more, and we will proceed to the details of business.

I believe that, so far as care can avail in securing such a result, my
receipts are accurate. But in the matter of seasoning and other minor
details, consult your judgment and John’s taste. Take this liberty with
whatever receipt you think you can improve. If I chance to find in
your work-basket, or upon the kitchen dresser, a well-thumbed copy of
my beloved “Common Sense,” with copious annotations in the margin, I
shall, so far from feeling wounded, be flattered in having so diligent
a student, and, with your permission, shall engraft the most happy
suggestions upon the next edition.

For the speedy issue of which, the petitioner doth humbly pray.

MARION HARLAND.

NOTE.

In looking over this book the reader will notice certain
receipts marked thus—✠. I do not claim for these greater
merit than should of right be accorded to many others. I
merely wish to call the attention of the novice to them as
certainly safe, and for the most part simple. Every one
thus marked has been tried by myself; most of them are in
frequent, some in daily use, in my own family.

My reason for thus singling out comparatively a small number
of receipts from the rest, is the recollection of my own
perplexities—the loss of time and patience to which I have
been subjected in the examination of a new cookery-book,
with an eye to immediate use of the directions laid down
for various dishes. I have often and vainly wished for a
finger-board to guide me in my search for those which were
easy and sure, and which would result satisfactorily. This
sort of directory I have endeavored to supply, taking care,
however, to inform the reader in advance that, so far as I
know, there is not an unsafe receipt in the whole work.

Of course it was not necessary or expedient to append the
above sign to plain “roast and boiled,” which are in common
use everywhere.

SOUPS.

THE base of your soup should always be uncooked meat. To this may be
added, if you like, cracked bones of cooked game, or of underdone beef
or mutton; but for flavor and nourishment, depend upon the juices of
the meat which was put in raw. Cut this into small pieces, and beat the
bone until it is fractured at every inch of its length. Put them on in
cold water, without salt, and heat very slowly. _Do not boil fast at
any stage of the operation._ Keep the pot covered, and do not add the
salt until the meat is thoroughly done, as it has a tendency to harden
the fibres, and restrain the flow of the juices. Strain—always through
a cullender, after which clear soups should be filtered through a
hair-sieve or coarse bobbinet lace. The bag should not be squeezed.

It is slovenly to leave rags of meat, husks of vegetables and bits of
bone in the tureen. Do not uncover until you are ready to ladle out
the soup. Do this neatly and quickly, having your soup-plates heated
beforehand.

Most soups are better the second day than the first, unless they are
warmed over too quickly or left too long upon the fire after they are
hot. In the one case they are apt to scorch; in the other they become
insipid.

VEGETABLE SOUPS.

GREEN PEA. (No. 1.) ✠

4 lbs. beef—cut into small pieces.
½ peck of green peas.
1 gallon water.
½ cup of rice-flour, salt, pepper and chopped parsley.

Boil the empty pods of the peas in the water one hour before putting
in the beef. Strain them out, add the beef, and boil slowly for an
hour and a half longer. Half an hour before serving, add the shelled
peas; and twenty minutes later, the rice-flour, with salt, pepper and
parsley. After adding the rice-flour, stir frequently, to prevent
scorching. Strain into a hot tureen.

GREEN PEA (No. 2.)

2 qts. of strong veal or beef broth.
½ teaspoonful sugar.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 qt. shelled peas.

Bring the broth to a boil; put in the peas, and boil for twenty
minutes. Add the sugar, and a sprig of green mint. Boil a quarter of an
hour more, and stir in the butter, with pepper and salt, if the broth
be not sufficiently salted already. Strain before serving, and send to
table with small squares of toasted bread floating upon the top.

SPLIT PEA (_dried_). ✠

1 gallon water.
1 qt. split peas, which have been soaked over night.
1 lb. salt pork, cut into bits an inch square.
1 lb. beef, cut into bits an inch square.
Celery and sweet herbs.
Fried bread.

Put over the fire, and boil slowly for two hours, or until the quantity
of liquor does not exceed two quarts. Pour into a cullender, and press
the peas through it with a wooden or silver spoon. Return the soup to
the pot, adding a small head of celery, chopped up, a little parsley,
or, if preferred, summer savory or sweet marjoram. Have ready three or
four slices of bread (stale) which have been fried in butter until they
are brown; cut into slices and scatter them upon the surface of the
soup after it is poured into the tureen.

PEA AND TOMATO. ✠

This is made according to either of the foregoing receipts, in summer
with green—in winter with dried and split peas. Just before straining
the soup, add a quart of tomatoes, which have already been stewed soft;
let the whole come to a good boil, and strain as above directed. If
the stewed tomato be watery, strain off the superfluous liquid before
pouring into the pea soup, or it will be too thin.

BEAN (_dried._) ✠

The beans used for this purpose may be the ordinary kidney, the rice
or field bean, or, best of all, the French mock-turtle soup bean.
Soak a quart of these over night in soft lukewarm water; put them
over the fire next morning, with one gallon of cold water and about
two pounds of salt pork. Boil slowly for three hours, keeping the pot
well covered; shred into it a head of celery, add pepper—cayenne, if
preferred—simmer half an hour longer, strain through a cullender, and
serve, with slices of lemon passed to each guest.

Mock-turtle beans, treated in this way, yield a very fair substitute
for the fine calf’s-head soup known by the same name.

BEAN AND CORN. ✠

This is a winter soup, and is made of white beans prepared according to
the foregoing receipt, but with the addition of a quart of dried or
canned corn. If the former is used—and the Shaker sweet corn is nearly,
salted corn quite as good for the purpose as the more expensive canned
green corn—soak it overnight in warm water—changing this early in the
morning, and pouring on more warm water, barely enough to cover the
corn, and keeping it in a close vessel until ready to put on the beans.
Let all boil together, with pork as in the bean soup proper. Strain out
as usual, rubbing hard through the cullender. Some persons have a habit
of neglecting the use of the cullender in making bean soup, and serving
it like stewed beans which have been imperfectly drained. The practice
is both slovenly and unwholesome, since the husks of the cereal are
thus imposed upon the digestive organs of the eater, with no additional
nutriment. To the beans and corn may be added a pint of stewed tomato,
if desired.

ASPARAGUS (_White soup._)

3 lbs. veal. The knuckle is best.
3 bunches asparagus, as well bleached as you can procure.
1 gallon water.
1 cup milk.
1 tablespoonful rice flour.
Pepper and salt.

Cut off the hard green stem, and put half of the tender heads of the
asparagus into the water with the meat. Boil in closely covered pot for
three hours, until the meat is in rags and the asparagus dissolved.
Strain the liquor and return to the pot, with the remaining half of
the asparagus heads. Let this boil for twenty minutes more, and add,
before taking up, a cup of sweet milk (cream is better) in which has
been stirred a tablespoonful of rice-flour, arrow-root, or corn-starch.
When it has fairly boiled up, serve without further straining, with
small squares of toast in the tureen. Season with salt and pepper.

ASPARAGUS (_Green soup._)

3 lbs. veal—cut into small pieces.
½ lb. salt pork.
3 bunches asparagus.
1 gallon water.

Cut the entire stalk of the asparagus into pieces an inch long, and
when the meat has boiled one hour, add half of the vegetable to the
liquor in the pot. Boil two hours longer and strain, pressing the
asparagus pulp very hard to extract all the green coloring. Add the
other half of the asparagus—(the heads only, which should be kept in
cold water until you are ready for them), and boil twenty minutes more.
Then proceed as with the asparagus white soup, omitting the milk,
thickening, and salt. The pork will supply the latter seasoning.

TOMATO (_Winter soup._) ✠

3 lbs. beef.
1 qt. canned tomatoes.
1 gallon water.
A little onion.
Pepper and salt.

Let the meat and water boil for two hours, until the liquid is reduced
to little more than two quarts. Then stir in the tomatoes, and stew all
slowly for three-quarters of an hour longer. Season to taste, strain,
and serve.

TOMATO (_Summer soup_). ✠

2½ lbs. veal, or lamb.
1 gallon water.
2 qts. fresh tomatoes, peeled and cut up fine.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
Pepper and salt. Chopped parsley.

Boil the meat to shreds and the water down to two quarts. Strain the
liquor, put in the tomatoes, stirring them very hard that they may
dissolve thoroughly; boil half an hour. Season with parsley or any
other green herb you may prefer, pepper, and salt. Strain again, and
stir in a tablespoonful of butter, with a teaspoonful of white sugar,
before pouring into the tureen.

This soup is more palatable still if made with the broth in which
chickens were boiled for yesterday’s dinner.

TURNIP.

Knuckle of veal, well cracked.
5 qts. water.

Cover closely and stew gently for four hours, the day before the soup
is wanted. On the morrow, skim off the fat and warm the stock gradually
to a boil. Have ready an onion and six large winter or a dozen small
summer turnips, sweet marjoram or thyme minced very finely. Put these
into the soup and let them simmer together for an hour. Strain:
return to the fire and add a cup of milk—in which has been stirred a
tablespoonful of rice-flour or other thickening—and a tablespoonful of
butter. Season with salt and pepper, let it boil up once, stirring all
the time, as is necessary in all soups where milk is added at last, and
remove instantly, or it will scorch.

POTATO.

A dozen large mealy potatoes.
2 onions.
1 lb. salt pork.
3 qts. water.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 cup milk or cream.
1 well-beaten egg.
Chopped onion.

Boil the pork in the clear water for an hour and a half, then take
it out. Have ready the potatoes, which, after being peeled and
sliced, should lie in cold water for half an hour. Throw them into
the pot, with the chopped onion. Cover and boil three-quarters of an
hour, stirring often. Beat in butter, milk and egg. Add the latter
ingredients carefully, a little at a time; stir while it heats to a
final boil, and then serve.

This is a cheap wholesome dish, and more palatable than one would
suppose from reading the receipt.

GRAHAM SOUP. ✠

3 onions.
3 carrots.
4 turnips.
1 small cabbage.
1 bunch celery.
1 pt. stewed tomatoes.

Chop all the vegetables, except the tomatoes and cabbage, very finely,
and set them over the fire with rather over three quarts of water. They
should simmer gently for half an hour, at the end of which time the
cabbage must be added, having previously been parboiled and chopped
up. In fifteen minutes more put in the tomatoes and a bunch of sweet
herbs, and give all a lively boil of twenty minutes. Rub through a
cullender, return the soup to the fire, stir in a good tablespoonful of
butter, pepper, and salt, half a cup of cream if you have it, thickened
with corn-starch; let it boil up, and it is ready for the table.

OCHRA, OR GUMBO.

Ochra, or _okra_, is a vegetable little known except in the far South,
where it is cultivated in large quantities and is very popular. A
favorite soup is prepared from it in the following manner:—

2 qts. of ochras, sliced thin.
1 qt. of tomatoes, also sliced.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter.
2 lbs. of beef, cut into small pieces.
½ lb. corned ham or pork, also cut up.

Put the meat and ochras together in a pot with a quart of cold
water—just enough to cover them—and let them stew for an hour. Then
add the tomatoes and two quarts of _boiling_ water—more, if the liquid
in the pot has boiled away so as to expose the meat and vegetables.
Boil three-quarters of an hour longer, skimming often with a _silver_
spoon. When the contents of the vessel are boiled to pieces, put in
the butter, with cayenne pepper and salt, if the ham has not seasoned
it sufficiently. Strain and send up with squares of light, crisp toast
floating upon it.

CORN. ✠

1 large fowl, cut into eight pieces.
1 doz. ears green corn—cut from the cobs.

Boil the chicken with the cobs in a gallon of water until the fowl is
tender—if tough, the boiling must be slow and long. Then, put the corn
into the pot, and stew an hour longer—still gently. Remove the chicken
with a cupful of the liquid, if you wish to make other use of the meat.
Set this aside, take out the cobs, season the corn-soup with pepper,
salt, and parsley; thicken with rice or wheat flour, boil up once, and
serve without straining, if the corn be young and tender.

A tolerable fricassee may be made of the chicken, unless it has
boiled to rags, by beating up an egg and a tablespoonful of butter,
adding this to the cupful of reserved liquor from which the corn must
be strained. Boil this for a moment, thicken with flour, throw in a
little chopped parsley, pepper, and salt; pour, while scalding, over
the chicken, which you have arranged in a dish; garnish with circular
slices of hard-boiled eggs and curled parsley.

MEAT SOUPS.

BEEF SOUP (_à la Julienne_). ✠

6 lbs. of lean beef. The shin is a good piece for this purpose.
Have the bones well cracked, carefully extracting the marrow,
every bit of which should be put into the soup.
6 qts. of water.

The stock must be prepared the day before the soup is needed. Put the
beef, bones and all, with the water in a close vessel, and set it where
it will heat gradually. Let it boil very slowly for six hours at least,
only uncovering the pot once in a great while to see if there is danger
of the water sinking too rapidly. Should this be the case, replenish
with boiling water, taking care not to put in too much. During the
seventh hour, take off the soup and set it away in a cool place, until
next morning. About an hour before dinner, take out the meat, which
you can use for mince-meat, if you wish; remove the cake of fat from
the surface of the stock, set the soup over the fire, and throw in a
little salt to bring up the scum. When this has been skimmed carefully
off, put in your vegetables. These should be:—

2 carrots.
3 turnips.
Half a head of white cabbage.
1 pt. green corn—or dried Shaker corn, soaked over night.
1 head celery.
1 qt. tomatoes.

These should be prepared for the soup by slicing them very small, and
stewing them in barely enough water to cover them, until they break to
pieces. Cook the cabbage by itself in two waters—throwing the first
away. The only exception to the general dissolution, is in the case
of a single carrot, which should likewise be cooked alone and whole,
until thoroughly done, and set aside to cool, when the rest of the
vegetables, with the water in which they were boiled, are added to the
soup. Return the pot to the fire with the vegetables and stock, and
boil slowly for half an hour from the time ebullition actually begins.
Strain without pressing, only shaking and lightly stirring the contents
of the cullender. The vegetables having been added with all their
juices already cooked, much boiling and squeezing are not needed, and
only make the soup cloudy. Cut the reserved carrot into dice and drop
into the clear liquor after it is in the tureen,—also, if you like,
a handful of vermicelli, or macaroni which has been boiled tender in
clear water.

The seasoning of this excellent soup is a matter of taste. Some use
only salt and white pepper. Others like with this a few blades of mace,
and boil in the stock a handful of sweet herbs. And others fancy that,
in addition to these, a glass of brown sherry imparts a flavor that
renders it peculiarly acceptable to most palates. Send to table very
hot, and have the soup-plates likewise heated.

VEAL SOUP WITH MACARONI. ✠

3 lbs. of veal knuckle or scrag, with the bones broken and meat
cut up.
3 qts. water.
¼ lb. Italian macaroni.

Boil the meat alone in the water for nearly three hours until it is
reduced to shreds; and the macaroni until tender, in enough water to
cover it, in a vessel by itself. The pieces should not be more than an
inch in length. Add a little butter to the macaroni when nearly done.
Strain the meat out of the soup, season to your taste, put in the
macaroni, and the water in which it was boiled; let it boil up, and
serve.

You can make macaroni soup of this by boiling a pound, instead of a
quarter of a pound, in the second vessel, and adding the above quantity
of veal broth. In this case, send on with it a plate of grated cheese,
that those who cannot relish macaroni without this accompaniment may
put it into their soup. Take care that the macaroni is of uniform
length, not too long, and that it does not break while stewing. Add
butter in proportion to the increased quantity of macaroni.

BEEF SOUP (_brown_).

3 lbs. beef cut into strips.
3 onions.
3 qts. water.

Put beef and water into the saucepan and boil for one hour. Meanwhile,
slice the onions and fry them in butter to a light brown. Drop into the
pot with a teaspoonful of cloves, half as much pepper, same quantity
of mace as pepper, a pinch of allspice, and a teaspoonful of essence
of celery, if you cannot get a head of fresh celery; also half a
teaspoonful of powdered savory or sweet marjoram, and a teaspoonful of
Worcestershire sauce. Stew all for two hours more, or until the beef
has boiled to pieces. Strain the soup and return to the fire. Salt to
taste, and just before taking it off, pour in a glass of brown sherry
or Madeira wine.

MUTTON OR LAMB BROTH. ✠

4 lbs. mutton or lamb—_lean_—cut into small pieces.
1 gallon water.
½ teacupful rice.

Boil the unsalted meat for two hours, slowly, in a covered vessel.
Soak the rice in enough warm water to cover it, and at the end of this
time add it, water and all, to the boiling soup. Cook an hour longer,
stirring watchfully from time to time, lest the rice should settle and
adhere to the bottom of the pot. Beat an egg to a froth and stir into a
cup of cold milk, into which has been rubbed smoothly a tablespoonful
rice or wheat flour. Mix with this, a little at a time, some of the
scalding liquor, until the egg is so far cooked that there is no danger
of curdling in the soup. Pour into the pot, when you have taken out the
meat, season with parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt. Boil up fairly, and
serve. If allowed to stand on the fire, it is apt to burn.

This soup may be made from the liquor in which a leg of mutton has been
boiled, provided too much salt was not put in with it. It is especially
good when the stock is chicken broth. For the sick it is palatable and
nutritious with the rice left in. When strained it makes a nice white
table soup, and is usually relished by all.

VERMICELLI SOUP. ✠

4 lbs. lamb, from which every particle of fat has been removed.
1 lb. veal.
A slice of corned ham.
5 qts. water.

Cut up the meat, cover it with a quart of water, and set it back on the
range to heat very gradually, keeping it covered closely. At the end
of an hour, add four quarts of boiling water, and cook until the meat
is in shreds. Season with salt, sweet herbs, a chopped shallot, two
teaspoonfuls Worcestershire sauce, and when these have boiled in the
soup for ten minutes, strain and return to the fire. Have ready about
a third of a pound of vermicelli (or macaroni), which has been boiled
tender in clear water. Add this; boil up once, and pour out.

MOCK-TURTLE OR CALF’S HEAD SOUP. ✠

1 large calf’s head, well cleaned and washed.
4 pig’s feet, well cleaned and washed.

This soup should always be prepared the day before it is to be served
up. Lay the head and feet in the bottom of a large pot, and cover with
a gallon of water. Let it boil three hours, or until the flesh will
slip easily from the bones. Take out the head, leaving in the feet,
and allow these to boil steadily while you cut the meat from the head.
Select with care enough of the fatty portions which lie on the top of
the head and the cheeks to fill a teacup, and set them aside to cool.
Remove the brains to a saucer and also set aside. Chop the rest of the
meat with the tongue very fine, season with salt, pepper, powdered
marjoram and thyme, a teaspoonful of cloves, the same of mace, half
as much allspice, and a grated nutmeg, and return to the pot. When the
flesh falls from the bones of the pig’s feet, take out the latter,
leaving in the gelatinous meat. Let all boil together slowly, without
removing the cover, for two hours more; take the soup from the fire
and set it away until the next day. An hour before dinner, set on the
stock to warm. When it boils strain carefully, and drop in the meat you
have reserved, which, when cold, should be cut into small squares. Have
these all ready as well as the force-meat balls. To prepare these, rub
the yolks of five hard-boiled eggs to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar,
or in a bowl, with the back of a silver tablespoon, adding gradually
the brains to moisten them, also a little butter and salt. Mix with
these two eggs beaten very light, flour your hands, and make this paste
into balls about the size of a pigeon’s egg. Throw them into the soup
five minutes before you take it from the fire; stir in three large
tablespoonfuls of browned flour rubbed smooth in three great spoonfuls
of melted butter, let it boil up well, and finish the seasoning by the
addition of a glass and a half of _good_ wine—Sherry or Madeira—and
the juice of a lemon. It should not boil more than half an hour on the
second day. Serve with sliced lemon. Some lay the slices upon the top
of the soup, but the better plan is to pass to the guests a small dish
containing these.

If the directions be closely followed, the result is sure to be
satisfactory, and the task is really much less troublesome than it
appears to be.

GIBLET SOUP.

Feet, neck, pinions, and giblets of three chickens, or of two
ducks or two geese.
1½ lb. veal.
½ lb. ham.
3 qts. water.

Crack the bones into small pieces, and cut the meat into strips. Put
all together with the giblets over the fire, with a bunch of sweet
herbs and a pinch of allspice. Stew slowly for two hours. Take out the
giblets and set them aside in a pan where they will keep warm. Take up
a teacupful of the hot soup and stir into this a large tablespoonful of
flour which has been wet with cold water and rubbed to a smooth paste;
then, two tablespoonfuls of butter. Return to the pot and boil for
fifteen minutes; season at the last with a glass of brown sherry and a
tablespoonful of tomato or walnut catsup. A little Worcestershire sauce
is an improvement. Finally, chop and add the giblets, and boil up once.

BROWN GRAVY SOUP.

3 lbs. beef.
1 carrot.
1 turnip.
1 head of celery.
6 onions, if small button onions—one, if large.
3½ qts. water.

Have ready some nice dripping in a frying-pan. Slice the onions and
fry them brown. Take them out and set them by in a covered pan to keep
warm. Cut the beef into bits an inch long and half an inch thick, and
fry them brown also, turning frequently lest they should burn. Chop the
vegetables and put them with the meat and onions into a covered pot.
Pour on the water and let all stew together for two hours. Then throw
in salt and pepper and boil one hour longer, skimming very carefully.
Strain; put back over the fire; boil up once more to make the liquid
perfectly clear, skim, and add a handful of vermicelli that has been
boiled separately and drained dry. The safest plan is to put in the
vermicelli after the soup is poured into the tureen. Do not stir
before it goes to table. The contents of the tureen should be clear
as amber. Some add half a glass of _pale_ Sherry. This is a fine show
soup, and very popular.

VEAL AND SAGO SOUP.

2½ lbs. veal chopped fine.
¼ lb. pearl sago.
1 pt. milk.
4 eggs.
3 qts. water.

Put on the veal and water, and boil slowly until the liquid is reduced
to about one-half the original quantity. Strain out the shreds of meat,
and put the soup again over the fire. Meanwhile the sago should be
washed in several waters, and soaked half an hour in warm water enough
to cover it. Stir it into the strained broth and boil—stirring very
often to prevent lumping or scorching—half an hour more. Heat the milk
almost to boiling; beat the yolks of the eggs very light; mix with the
milk gradually, as in making boiled custard, and pour—stirring all
the while—into the soup. Season with pepper and salt; boil up once to
cook the eggs, and serve. Should the liquid be too thick after putting
in the eggs, replenish with boiling water. It should be about the
consistency of hot custard.

This soup is very good, if chicken broth be substituted for the veal.
It is very strengthening to invalids, and especially beneficial to
those suffering from colds and pulmonary affections.

CHICKEN SOUP. ✠

2 young fowls, or one full-grown.
½ lb. corned ham.
1 gallon of water.

Cut the fowls into pieces as for fricassee. Put these with the ham into
the pot with a quart of water, or enough to cover them fairly. Stew for
an hour, if the fowls are tender; if tough, until you can cut easily
into the breast. Take out the breasts, leaving the rest of the meat
in the pot, and add the remainder of the water—boiling hot. Keep the
soup stewing slowly while you chop up the white meat you have selected.
Rub the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs smooth in a mortar or bowl,
moistening to a paste with a few spoonfuls of the soup. Mix with these
a handful of fine bread-crumbs and the chopped meat, and make it into
small balls. When the soup has boiled in all, two hours and a half, if
the chicken be reduced to shreds, strain out the meat and bones. Season
with salt and white pepper, with a bunch of chopped parsley. Drop in
the prepared force-meat, and after boiling ten minutes to incorporate
the ingredients well, add, a little at a time, a pint of rich milk
thickened with flour. Boil up once and serve.

A chicken at least a year old would make better soup than a younger
fowl.

VENISON SOUP. ✠

3 lbs. of venison. What are considered the inferior pieces will do.
1 lb. corned ham or salt pork.
1 onion.
1 head of celery.

Cut up the meat; chop the vegetables, and put on with just enough water
to cover them, keeping on the lid of the pot all the while, and stew
slowly for one hour. Then add two quarts of boiling water, with a few
blades of mace and a dozen whole peppers. Or, should you prefer, a
little cayenne. Boil two hours longer, salt, and strain. Return the
liquor to the pot; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, thicken with a
tablespoonful of browned flour wet into a smooth thin paste with cold
water; add a tablespoonful of walnut or mushroom catsup, a teaspoonful
of Worcestershire or other pungent sauce, and a generous glass of
Madeira or brown Sherry.

HARE OR RABBIT SOUP.

Dissect the rabbit, crack the bones, and prepare precisely as you would
the venison soup, only putting in three small onions instead of one,
and a bunch of sweet herbs. Hares which are too tough to be cooked in
any other way, make excellent game soup. Also, the large gray squirrel
of the Middle and Southern States.

OX-TAIL SOUP.

1 ox-tail.
2 lbs. lean beef.
4 carrots.
3 onions.
Thyme.

Cut the tail into several pieces and fry brown in butter. Slice the
onions and two carrots, and when you remove the ox-tail from the
frying-pan, put in these and brown them also. When done, tie them in a
bag with a bunch of thyme and drop into the soup-pot. Lay the pieces of
ox-tail in the same; then the meat cut into small slices. Grate over
them the two whole carrots, and add four quarts of cold water, with
pepper and salt. Boil from four to six hours, in proportion to the size
of the tail. Strain fifteen minutes before serving it, and thicken with
two tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil ten minutes longer.

FISH SOUPS.

OYSTER SOUP (No. 1). ✠

2 qts. of oysters.
1 qt. of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 teacupful water.

Strain the liquor from the oysters, add to it the water, and set it
over the fire to heat slowly in a covered vessel. When it is near
boiling, season with pepper and salt; add the oysters, and let them
stew until they “ruffle” on the edge. This will be in about five
minutes. Then put in the butter with the milk which has been heated in
a separate vessel, and stir well for two minutes.

Serve with sliced lemon and oyster or cream crackers. Some use mace
and nutmeg in seasoning. The crowning excellence in oyster soup is to
have it cooked just enough. Too much stewing ruins the bivalves, while
an underdone oyster is a flabby abomination. The plumpness of the main
body and ruffled edge are good indices of their right condition.

OYSTER SOUP (No. 2).

2 qts. of oysters.
2 eggs.
1 qt. of milk.
1 teacupful of water.

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, pour in with it
the water. Season with cayenne pepper and a little salt, a teaspoonful
of mingled nutmeg, mace, and cloves. When the liquor is almost
boiling, add half the oysters chopped finely and boil five minutes
quite briskly. Strain the soup and return to saucepan. Have ready some
force-meat balls, not larger than marbles, made of the yolks of the
eggs boiled hard and rubbed to a smooth paste with a little butter,
then mix with six raw oysters chopped very finely, a little salt, and
a raw egg well beaten, to bind the ingredients together. Flour your
hands well and roll the force-meat into pellets, laying them upon a
cold plate, so as not to touch one another until needed. Then put the
reserved whole oysters into the hot soup, and when it begins to boil
again, drop in the force-meat marbles. Boil until the oysters “ruffle,”
by which time the balls will also be done. Add the hot milk.

Serve with sliced lemon and crackers. A liberal tablespoonful of butter
stirred in gently at the last is an improvement.

CLAM SOUP.

50 clams.
1 qt. milk.
1 pint water.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.

Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire with a
dozen whole peppers, a few bits of cayenne pods, half a dozen blades
of mace, and salt to taste. Let it boil for ten minutes, then put in
the clams and boil half an hour quite fast, keeping the pot closely
covered. If you dislike to see the whole spices in the tureen, strain
them out before the clams are added. At the end of the half hour add
the milk, which has been heated to scalding, not boiling, in another
vessel. Boil up again, taking care the soup does not burn, and put in
the butter. Then serve without delay. If you desire a thicker soup stir
a heaping tablespoonful of rice-flour into a little cold milk, and put
in with the quart of hot.

CAT-FISH SOUP. ✠

Those who have only seen the bloated, unsightly “hornpouts” that play
the scavengers about city wharves, are excusable for entertaining a
prejudice against them as an article of food. But the small cat-fish
of our inland lakes and streams are altogether respectable, except in
their unfortunate name.

6 cat-fish, in average weight half a pound apiece.
½ lb. salt pork.
1 pint milk.
2 eggs.
1 head of celery, or a small bag of celery seed.

Skin and clean the fish and cut them up. Chop the pork into small
pieces. Put these together into the pot, with two quarts of water,
chopped sweet herbs, and the celery seasoning. Boil for an hour, or
until fish and pork are in rags, and strain, if you desire a regular
soup for a first course. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, which
should be already hot. Next the eggs, beaten to a froth, and a lump
of butter the size of a walnut. Boil up once, and serve with dice of
toasted bread on the top. Pass sliced lemon, or walnut or butternut
pickles with it.

EEL SOUP.

Eel soup is made in precisely the same manner as cat-fish, only boiled
longer. A chopped onion is no detriment to the flavor of either, and
will remove the muddy taste which these fish sometimes acquire from
turbid streams.

LOBSTER SOUP.

2 qts. veal or chicken broth, well strained.
1 large lobster.
2 eggs—boiled hard.

Boil the lobster and extract the meat, setting aside the coral in a
cool place. Cut or chop up the meat found in the claws. Rub the yolks
of the eggs to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter. Pound and rub the
claw-meat in the same manner, and mix with the yolks. Beat up a raw
egg, and stir into the paste; season with pepper, salt, and, if you
like, mace; make into force-meat balls, and set away with the coral to
cool and harden. By this time the stock should be well heated, when,
put in the rest of the lobster-meat cut into square bits. Boil fifteen
minutes, which time employ in pounding the coral in a Wedgewood mortar,
or earthenware bowl, rubbing it into a fine, even paste, with the
addition of a few spoonfuls of the broth, gradually worked in until it
is about the consistency of boiled starch. Stir _very_ carefully into
the hot soup, which should, in the process, blush into a roseate hue.
Lastly, drop in the force-meat balls, after which do not stir, lest
they should break. Simmer a few minutes to cook the raw egg; but, if
allowed to boil, the soup will darken.

Crab soup may be made in the same way, excepting the coralline process,
crabs being destitute of that dainty.

GREEN TURTLE SOUP.

A glass of Madeira.
2 onions.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of one lemon.
5 qts of water.

Chop up the coarser parts of the turtle-meat, with the entrails and
bones. Add to them four quarts of water, and stew four hours with the
herbs, onions, pepper, and salt. Stew very slowly, but do not let it
cease to boil during this time. At the end of four hours strain the
soup, and add the finer parts of the turtle and the green fat, which
has been simmered for one hour in two quarts of water. Thicken with
browned flour; return to the soup-pot, and simmer gently an hour
longer. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil them in a separate
vessel for four hours, and throw into the soup before taking it up.
If not, put in force-meat balls; then the juice of the lemon and the
wine; beat up once and pour out. Some cooks add the finer meat before
straining, boiling all together five hours; then strain, thicken,
and put in the green fat, cut into lumps an inch long. This makes a
handsomer soup than if the meat is left in.

For the mock eggs, take the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and
one raw egg well beaten. Rub the boiled eggs into a paste with a
teaspoonful of butter, bind with the raw egg, roll into pellets the
size and shape of turtle-eggs, and lay in boiling water for two minutes
before dropping into the soup.

_Force-meat balls for the above._

Six tablespoonfuls turtle-meat chopped very fine. Rub to a paste with
the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; tablespoonful of butter, and, if
convenient, a little oyster-liquor. Season with cayenne, mace, and half
a teaspoonful of white sugar. Bind with a well-beaten egg; shape into
balls; dip in egg, then powdered cracker, fry in butter, and drop into
the soup when it is served.

Green turtle for soups is now within the reach of every private family,
being well preserved in air-tight cans.

FISH.

BOILED CODFISH. (_Fresh._) ✠

Lay the fish in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour before it
is time to cook it. When it has been wiped free of the salt and water,
wrap it in a clean linen cloth kept for such purposes. The cloth should
be dredged with flour, to prevent sticking. Sew up the edges in such
a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but one thickness
of the cloth over any part. The wrapping should be fitted neatly to
the shape of the piece to be cooked. Put into the fish-kettle, pour on
plenty of hot water, and boil briskly—fifteen minutes for each pound.

Have ready a sauce prepared thus:—

To one gill boiling water add as much milk, and when it is
scalding-hot, stir in—leaving the sauce-pan on the fire—two
tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled thickly in flour; as this thickens,
two beaten eggs. Season with salt and chopped parsley, and when, after
one good boil, you withdraw it from the fire, add a dozen capers, or
pickled nasturtium seeds, or, if you prefer, a spoonful of vinegar in
which celery-seeds have been steeped. Put the fish into a hot dish,
and pour the sauce over it. Some serve in a butter-boat; but I fancy
that the boiling sauce applied to the steaming fish imparts a richness
it cannot gain later. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and circles of
hard-boiled eggs, laid around the edge of the dish.

ROCK-FISH.

Rock-fish and river-bass are very nice, cooked as above, but do not
need to be boiled so long as codfish.

BOILED CODFISH. (_Salt._)

Put the fish to soak over night in lukewarm water—as early as eight
o’clock in the evening. Change this for more warm water at bed-time and
cover closely. Change again in the morning and wash off the salt. Two
hours before dinner plunge into _very_ cold water. This makes it firm.
Finally, set over the fire with enough lukewarm water to cover it, and
boil for half an hour. Drain well; lay it on a hot dish, and pour over
it egg-sauce prepared as in the foregoing receipt, only substituting
the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a paste with butter, for
the beaten raw egg.

This is a useful receipt for country housekeepers who can seldom
procure fresh cod. Salt mackerel, prepared in the same way, will repay
the care and time required, so superior is it to the Friday’s dish of
salt fish, as usually served.

Should the cold fish left over be used for fish-balls—as it should
be—it will be found that the sauce which has soaked into it while hot
has greatly improved it.

CODFISH BALLS. ✠

Prepare the fish precisely as for boiling whole. Cut in pieces when it
has been duly washed and soaked, and boil twenty minutes. Turn off the
water, and cover with fresh from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil twenty
minutes more, drain the fish very dry, and spread upon a dish to cool.
When perfectly cold, pick to pieces with a fork, removing every vestige
of skin and bone, and shredding very fine. When this is done, add an
equal bulk of mashed potato; work into a stiff batter by adding a lump
of butter and sweet milk, and if you want to have them very nice, a
beaten egg. Flour your hands and make the mixture into balls or cakes.
Drop them into boiling lard or good dripping, and fry to a light brown.
Plainer fish-cakes may be made of the cod and potatoes alone, moulded
round like biscuit. In any shape the dish is popular.

SALT CODFISH STEWED WITH EGGS.

Prepare the fish as for balls. Heat almost to boiling a pint of rich,
sweet milk, and stir into it, gradually and carefully, three eggs, well
beaten, a tablespoonful of butter, a little chopped parsley and butter,
with pepper, lastly the fish. Boil up once and turn into a deep covered
dish, or chafing dish lined with buttered toast. Eat hot for breakfast
or supper.

CODFISH AND POTATO STEW. ✠

Soak, boil, and pick the fish, if salt, as for fish-balls. If fresh,
boil and pick into bits. Add an equal quantity of mashed potatoes, a
large tablespoonful of butter and milk, enough to make it very soft.
Put into a skillet, and add a little boiling water to keep it from
burning. Turn and toss constantly until it is smoking hot but not dry;
add pepper and parsley, and dish.

BOILED MACKEREL. (_Fresh._) ✠

Clean the mackerel and wipe carefully with a dry, clean cloth; wash
them lightly with another cloth dipped in vinegar; wrap each in a
coarse linen cloth (floured) basted closely to the shape of the fish.
Put them into a pot with enough salted water to cover them, and boil
them gently for three quarters of an hour. Drain them well. Take a
teacupful of the water in which they were boiled, and put into a
saucepan with a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, some anchovy paste or
sauce, and the juice of half a lemon. Let this boil up well and add a
lump of butter the size of an egg, with a tablespoonful browned flour
wet in cold water. Boil up again and serve in the sauce-boat. This
makes a brown sauce. You can substitute egg-sauce if you like. Garnish
with parsley and nasturtium blossoms.

BROILED MACKEREL. (_Fresh._)

Clean the mackerel, wash, and wipe dry. Split it open, so that when
laid flat the backbone will be in the middle. Sprinkle lightly with
salt, and lay on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, with the inside
downward, until it begins to brown; then turn the other. When quite
done, lay on a hot dish and butter it plentifully. Turn another hot
dish over the lower one, and let it stand two or three minutes before
sending to table.

BROILED MACKEREL. (_Salt._)

Soak over night in lukewarm water. Change this early in the morning
for very cold, and let the fish lie in this until time to cook. Then
proceed as with the fresh mackerel.

BOILED HALIBUT. ✠

Lay in cold salt and water for an hour. Wipe dry and score the skin in
squares. Put into the kettle with cold salted water enough to cover
it. It is so firm in texture that you can boil without a cloth if you
choose. Let it heat gradually, and boil from half to three-quarters of
an hour, in proportion to the size of the piece. Four or five pounds
will be enough for most private families. Drain and accompany by
egg-sauce—either poured over the fish, or in a sauce-boat.

Save the cold remnants of the fish and what sauce is left until next
morning. Pick out as you would cod, mix with an equal quantity of
mashed potato, moisten with the sauce, or with milk and butter if you
have no sauce, put it into a skillet, and stir until it is very hot. Do
not burn. Season with pepper and salt.

BAKED HALIBUT. ✠

Take a piece of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay in salt
and water for two hours. Wipe dry and score the outer skin. Set in the
baking-pan in a tolerably hot oven, and bake an hour, basting often
with butter and water heated together in a saucepan or tin cup. When
a fork will penetrate it easily it is done. It should be of a fine
brown. Take the gravy in the dripping-pan—add a little boiling water
should there not be enough—stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, a
teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the juice of a lemon, and thicken
with browned flour, previously wet with cold water. Boil up once and
put into sauce-boat.

There is no finer preparation of halibut than this, which is, however,
comparatively little known. Those who have eaten it usually prefer it
to boiled and broiled. You can use what is left for the same purpose
as the fragments of boiled halibut.

HALIBUT STEAK. ✠

Wash and wipe the steaks dry. Beat up two or three eggs, and roll out
some Boston or other brittle crackers upon the kneading-board until
they are fine as dust. Dip each steak into the beaten egg, then into
the bread crumbs (when you have salted the fish), and fry in hot fat,
lard, or nice dripping.

Or, you can broil the steak upon a buttered gridiron, over a clear
fire, first seasoning with salt and pepper. When done, lay in a hot
dish, butter well, and cover closely.

DEVILLED HALIBUT.

Mince a pound of cold boiled or baked halibut, or the fragments of
halibut steak, and make for it the following dressing: The yolks
of three hard-boiled eggs rubbed smooth with the back of a silver
spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, and when there remain no lumps in
it, work into a soft paste with a tablespoonful salad oil. Next beat
in two teaspoonfuls white sugar, a teaspoonful made mustard, a pinch
of cayenne, teaspoonful salt, one of Worcestershire sauce, a little
anchovy paste if you have it, and finally, a little at a time to
prevent lumping, a _small_ teacupful of vinegar in which celery-seed
have been steeped. It is easy to keep a bottle of this on hand for
salads and sauces. Stir all thoroughly into the minced fish, garnish
with a chain of the whites of the eggs cut into rings, with a small
round slice of pickled beet laid within each link, and you have a
_piquant_ and pretty salad for the supper-table.

BOILED SALMON. (_Fresh._) ✠

Wrap the fish, when you have washed and wiped it, in a clean
linen cloth—not too thick—baste it up securely, and put into the
fish-kettle. Cover with cold water in which has been melted a handful
of salt. Boil slowly, allowing about a quarter of an hour to each
pound. When the time is up, rip open a corner of the cloth and test
the salmon with a fork. If it penetrate easily, it is done. If not,
hastily pin up the cloth and cook a little longer. Skim off the scum as
it rises to the top. Have ready in another saucepan a pint of cream—or
half milk and half cream will do—which has been heated in a vessel set
in boiling water; stir into this a large spoonful of butter, rolled in
flour, a little salt and chopped parsley, and a half-gill of the water
in which the fish is boiled. Let it boil up once, stirring all the
while. When the fish is done, take it instantly from the kettle, lay it
an instant upon a folded cloth to absorb the drippings; transfer with
great care, for fear of breaking, to a hot dish, and pour the boiled
cream over it, reserving enough to fill a small sauce-boat. Garnish
with curled parsley and circular slices of hard-boiled yolks—leaving
out the whites of the eggs.

After serving boiled salmon with cream-sauce, you will never be quite
content with any other. If you cannot get cream, boil a pint of milk
and thicken with arrow-root. It is not so nice, but many will not
detect the difference—_real_ cream being a rare commodity in town.

You may pickle what is left, if it is in one piece. Or devil it, as I
have directed you to treat cold halibut. _Or_ mince, mixed with mashed
potato, milk, and butter, and stir into a sort of stew. Or, once again,
mix with mashed potato, milk, butter, and a raw egg well-beaten; make
into cakes or balls, and fry in hot lard or dripping. At any rate, let
none of it be lost, it being at once one of our most expensive and most
delicious fish.

BAKED SALMON. ✠

Wash and wipe dry, and rub with pepper and salt. Some add a soupçon of
cayenne and powdered mace. Lay the fish upon a grating set over your
baking-pan, and roast or bake, basting it freely with butter, and,
toward the last, with its own drippings only. Should it brown too fast,
cover the top with a sheet of white paper until the whole is cooked.
When it is done, transfer to a hot dish and cover closely, and add
to the gravy a little hot water thickened with arrow-root, rice, or
wheat flour,—wet, of course, first with cold water,—a great spoonful
of strained tomato sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Boil up and serve
in a sauce boat, or you can serve with cream sauce, made as for boiled
salmon. Garnish handsomely with alternate sprigs of parsley and the
bleached tops of celery, with ruby bits of firm currant jelly here
and there. This is a fine dish for a dinner-party. A glass of Sherry
improves the first-named sauce.

SALMON STEAKS. ✠

Dry well with a cloth, dredge with flour, and lay them upon a
well-buttered gridiron, over clear hot coals. Turn with a broad-bladed
knife slipped beneath, and a flat wire egg-beater above, lest the steak
should break. When done to a light brown, lay in a hot dish, butter
each steak, seasoning with salt and pepper, cover closely, and serve.

PICKLED SALMON. (_Fresh._) ✠

Having cleaned your fish, cut into pieces of a convenient size to go
into the fish-kettle, and boil in salted water as for the table. Drain
it very dry, wipe it with a clean cloth, and set it aside in a cool
place until next morning.

Make pickle enough to cover it in the following proportions: 2 quarts
vinegar, a dozen blades of mace, dozen white peppers, dozen cloves, two
teaspoonfuls made mustard, three tablespoonfuls white sugar, and a
pint of the water in which the fish was boiled. Let them boil up once
hard, that you may skim the pickle. Should the spices come away with
the scum in large quantities, pick them out and return to the kettle.
Set the liquor away in an earthenware jar, closely covered, to keep
in the flavor. Next morning hang it over a brisk fire in a bell-metal
kettle (covered), and heat to boiling. Meanwhile, prepare the salmon
by cutting into pieces an inch and a half long and half an inch wide.
Cut cleanly and regularly with a sharp knife. When they are all ready,
and the liquor is on the boil, drop them carefully into the kettle. Let
the pickle boil up once to make sure the salmon is heated through. Have
ready some air-tight glass jars, such as you use for canning fruit and
tomatoes. Take the salmon from the kettle, while it is still on the
stove or range, with a wire-egg-beater, taking care you do not break
the pieces. Drop them rapidly into the jar, packing closely as you go
on; fill with the boiling pickle until it overflows, screw on the top,
and set away in a dark, cool place. Proceed in the same way with each
can until all are full. Salmon thus put up will keep good for _years_,
as I can testify from experience, and will well repay the trouble of
preparation. You can vary the seasoning to your taste, adding a shallot
or two minced very fine, some celery and small pods of cayenne pepper,
which always _look_ well in vinegar.

Be sure that the contents of the kettle are boiling when transferred
to the cans, that they are not allowed time to cool in the transit,
that the elastic on the can is properly adjusted, and the top screwed
down tightly, and success is certain. I would call the attention of
those who are fond of the potted spiced salmon, sold at a high price in
grocery stores, to this receipt for making the same luxury at home. It
costs less by one-half, is as good, and is always on hand.

PICKLED SALMON. (_Salt._)

Wash the salmon in two or three waters, rubbing it lightly with a
coarse cloth to remove the salt-crystals. Then soak over night in tepid
water. Exchange this in the morning for ice-cold, and let the fish
lie in the latter for three hours. Take it out, wipe dry, and cut in
strips as directed in the foregoing receipt. Drop these, when all are
ready, in a saucepan of boiling water, placed alongside of a kettle of
pickle prepared as for fresh salmon. Beside these have your air-tight
jars, covers laid in readiness, and when the salmon has boiled five
minutes—fairly boiled, not simmered—fish out the pieces with your wire
spoon, pack rapidly into your can; fill up with the boiling pickle from
the other kettle, and seal instantly. In two days the pickled salmon
will be fit for use, and is scarcely distinguishable from that made of
fresh fish. It has the advantage of being always procurable, and of
comparative cheapness, and in the country is a valuable stand-by in
case of unexpected supper company.

SMOKED SALMON. (_Broiled._)

Take a piece of raw smoked salmon the size of your hand, or larger in
proportion to the number who are to sit down to supper. Wash it in two
waters, rubbing off the salt. Lay in a skillet with enough warm—not
hot—water to cover it; let it simmer fifteen minutes, and boil five.
Remove it, wipe dry, and lay on a buttered gridiron to broil. When
it is nicely browned on both sides, transfer to a hot dish; butter
liberally, and pepper to taste. Garnish with hillocks of grated
horse-radish interspersed with sprays of fresh or pickled fennel-seed,
or with parsley.

Raw smoked salmon is in common use upon the supper-table, cut into
smooth strips as long as the middle finger, and rather wider; arranged
neatly upon a garnished dish, and eaten with pepper-sauce or some other
pungent condiment.

BOILED SHAD. (_Fresh._) ✠

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish. A roe shad is best for this purpose.
Cleanse the roes thoroughly, and having sprinkled both shad and eggs
with salt, wrap in separate cloths and put into a fish-kettle, side
by side. Cover with salted water, and boil from half an hour to
three-quarters, in proportion to the size. Experience is the best rule
as to the time. When you have once cooked fish to a turn, note the
weight and time, and you will be at no loss thereafter. A good rule
is to make a pencilled memorandum in the margin of the receipt-book
opposite certain receipts.

Serve the shad upon a hot dish, with a boat of drawn butter mingled
with chopped eggs and parsley, or egg-sauce. Lay the roes about the
body of the fish. Garnish with capers and slices of hard boiled eggs.

BOILED SHAD. (_Salt._)

Soak the fish six or seven hours in warm water, changing it several
times; wipe off all the salt and immerse in ice-cold water. When it has
lain in this an hour, put into a fish-kettle with enough fresh water to
cover it, and boil from fifteen to twenty minutes, in proportion to the
size. Serve in a hot dish, with a large lump of butter spread over the
fish.

BROILED SHAD. (_Fresh._) ✠

Wash, wipe, and split the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay
it upon a buttered gridiron, inside downward. When the lower side is
browned, turn the fish. One of medium size will be done in about twenty
minutes. Serve upon a hot dish, and lay a good piece of butter upon
the fish.

BROILED SHAD. (_Salt._)

Soak over night in lukewarm water. Take out in the morning and transfer
to ice-cold for half an hour. Wipe very dry, and broil as you do fresh
shad.

FRIED SHAD.

This is a popular dish upon Southern tables, and is good anywhere.
Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad; split and cut each side into
four pieces, leaving out the head, and removing fins and tail. Sprinkle
with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying pan of
boiling hot lard or drippings; put in the fish and fry brown, turning
at the end of five minutes to cook the other side. Fry the roe in the
same way; lay the fish in the middle of the dish, and the roe outside
of it; garnish with water-cresses and sprigs of pickled cauliflower,
and eat with catsup.

BAKED SHAD. ✠

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish, which should be a large one. Make a
stuffing of grated bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs.
Stuff the shad and sew it up. Lay it in the baking-pan, with a cupful
of water to keep it from burning, and bake an hour, basting with butter
and water, until it is tender throughout and well browned. Take it up,
put in a hot dish and cover tightly, while you boil up the gravy with
a great spoonful of catsup, a tablespoonful of browned flour which has
been wet with cold water, the juice of a lemon, and, if you want to
have it very fine, a glass of Sherry or Madeira. Garnish with sliced
lemon and water-cresses. You may pour the gravy around the fish, or
serve in a sauce-boat. Of course you take out the thread with which it
has been sewed up before serving the fish.

BOILED SEA-BASS.

Clean and put the fish into the fish-kettle, with salted water
enough to cover it when you have enveloped it in the fish-cloth. A
medium-sized fish will be done in a little over half an hour. But do
not boil too fast. When done, drain and serve in a hot dish. Lay sliced
boiled eggs upon and about it, and serve with egg-sauce, mingled with
capers and nasturtium seed.

FRIED SEA-BASS.

Use smaller fish for this purpose than for boiling. Clean, wipe dry,
inside and out, dredge with flour and season with salt. Fry in hot
butter or dripping. A mixture, half butter, half lard, is good for
frying fish. The bass should be done to a delicate brown—not to a
crisp. The fashion affected by some cooks of drying fried fish to a
crust is simply abominable.

Fried bass are a most acceptable breakfast dish.

STURGEON STEAK.

Skin the steaks carefully and lay in salted water (cold) for an hour,
to remove the oily taste, so offensive to most palates. Then wipe each
steak dry, salt, and broil over hot coals on a buttered gridiron. Serve
in a hot dish when you have buttered and peppered them, and send up
garnished with parsley and accompanied by a small glass dish containing
sliced lemon.

_Or,_

You can pour over them a sauce prepared in this way:—

Put a tablespoonful of butter into a frying-pan, and stir until it is
brown—_not_ burned. Add a half-teacupful of boiling water in which has
been stirred a tablespoonful of browned flour previously wet with cold
water. Add salt, a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce or anchovy, the
juice of a lemon, and let it boil up well. Pour over the steaks when
you have arranged them in the dish.

BAKED STURGEON.

A piece of sturgeon weighing five or six pounds is enough for a
handsome dish. Skin it and let it stand in salt and water for half an
hour. Parboil it to remove the oil. Make a dressing of bread-crumbs,
minute bits of fat salt pork, sweet herbs, and butter. Gash the upper
part of the fish quite deeply, and rub this force-meat well in; put in
a baking-pan with a little water to keep it from burning, and bake for
an hour.

Serve with a sauce of drawn butter, in which has been stirred a
spoonful of caper sauce and another of catsup.

This is a Virginia receipt, and an admirable one.

MAYONNAISE. (_Fish._)

Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock, or cod), cut—not
chop—into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as
follows: the yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with
salad oil; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls white
sugar, and, lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture
until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly
the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with
half the dressing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the
top, and lay blanched lettuce-leaves around the edges, to be eaten with
it.

BAKED SALMON-TROUT. ✠

Those who have eaten this prince of game fish in the Adirondacks,
within an hour after he has left the lake, will agree with me that he
never has such justice done him at any other time as when baked with
cream.

Handle the beauty with gentle respect while cleaning, washing, and
wiping him, and lay him at full length, still respectfully, in a
baking-pan, with just enough water to keep him from scorching. If
large, score the back-bone with a sharp knife, taking care not to
mar the comeliness of his red-spotted sides. Bake slowly, basting
often with butter and water. By the time he is done—and he should
be so well-looked after that his royal robe hardly shows a seam or
rent, and the red spots are still distinctly visible—have ready in a
saucepan a cup of cream—diluted with a _few_ spoonfuls of hot water,
lest it should clot in heating—in which have been stirred cautiously
two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a little chopped parsley. Heat
this in a vessel set within another of boiling water, add the gravy
from the dripping-pan, boil up once to thicken, and when the trout is
laid—always respectfully—in a hot dish, pour the sauce around him as he
lies in state. He will take kindly to the creamy bath, and your guests
will take kindly to him. Garnish with a wreath of crimson nasturtium
blooms and dainty sprigs of parsley, arranged by your own hands on the
edge of the dish, and let no sharply-spiced sauces come near him. They
would but mar his native richness—the flavor he brought with him from
the lake and wild-wood. Salt him lightly, should he need it, eat and be
happy.

If the above savor of bathos rather than “common sense,” my excuse is,
I have lately eaten baked salmon-trout with cream-gravy.

BOILED SALMON-TROUT. ✠

Clean, wash, and dry the trout; envelop in a thin cloth fitted neatly
to the shape of the fish, lay within a fish-kettle, cover with salted
water (cold), and boil gently half an hour or longer, according to
the size. When done, unwrap and lay in a hot dish. Pour around it
cream-sauce made as for baked salmon-trout—only, of course, with the
omission of the fish-gravy—and serve.

FRIED TROUT.

Brook trout are generally cooked in this way, and form a rarely
delightful breakfast or supper dish.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish, roll lightly in flour, and fry in butter
or clarified dripping, or butter and lard. Let the fat be hot, fry
quickly to a delicate brown, and take up the instant they are done.
Lay for an instant upon a hot folded napkin, to absorb whatever grease
may cling to their speckled sides; then range side by side in a heated
dish, garnish, and send to the table. Use no seasoning except salt, and
that only when the fish are fried in lard or unsalted dripping.

FRIED PICKEREL. ✠

The pickerel ranks next to trout among game-fish, and should be fried
in the same manner. Especially—and I urge this with groaning of spirit,
in remembrance of the many times in which I have had my sense of
fitness, not to say my appetite, outraged by seeing the gallant fish
brought to table dried to a crisp throughout, all his juices wasted and
sweetness utterly departed—especially, do not fry him slowly and too
long; and when he is done, take him out of the grease!

CREAM PICKEREL. ✠

Reserve your largest pickerel—those over three pounds in weight—for
baking, and proceed with them as with baked salmon-trout—cream-gravy
and all. If you cannot afford cream, substitute rich milk, and thicken
with rice or wheat flour. The fish are better cooked in this way than
any other.

FRIED PERCH, AND OTHER PAN-FISH.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay them in a large flat dish, salt, and
dredge with flour. Have ready a frying-pan of hot dripping, lard, or
butter; put in as many fish as the pan will hold without crowding, and
fry to a light brown. Send up hot in a chafing-dish.

The many varieties of pan-fish—porgies, flounders, river bass,
weak-fish, white-fish, etc., may be cooked in like manner. In serving,
lay the head of each fish to _the tail of the one_ next him.

STEWED CAT-FISH. ✠

Skin, clean, and cut off the horribly homely heads. Sprinkle with salt,
to remove any muddy taste they may have contracted from the flats or
holes in which they have fed, and let them lie in a cool place for an
hour or so. Then put them into a saucepan, cover with cold water, and
stew very gently for from half to three-quarters of an hour, according
to their size. Add a chopped shallot or button-onion, a bunch of
chopped parsley, a little pepper, a large tablespoonful of butter, a
tablespoonful of flour mixed to a paste with cold water; boil up once,
take out the fish carefully, and lay in a deep dish. Boil up the gravy
once more, and pour over the fish. Send to table in a covered dish.

FRIED CAT-FISH. ✠

Skin, clean, and remove the heads. Sprinkle with salt, and lay aside
for an hour or more. Have ready two or three eggs beaten to a froth,
and, in a flat dish, a quantity of powdered cracker. Dip the fish
first in the egg, then in the cracker, and fry quickly in hot lard or
dripping. Take up as quick as done.

CAT-FISH CHOWDER.

Skin, clean, and cut off the heads. Cut the fish into pieces two inches
long, and put into a pot with some fat pork cut into shreds—a pound
to a dozen medium-sized fish, two chopped onions, or half a dozen
shallots, a bunch of sweet herbs, and pepper. The pork will salt it
sufficiently. Stew slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Then stir in a
cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of flour; take up a cupful
of the hot liquor, and stir, a little at a time, into two well-beaten
eggs. Return this to the pot, throw in half a dozen Boston or butter
crackers, split in half; let all boil up once, and turn into a tureen.
Pass sliced lemon or cucumber pickles, also sliced, with it. Take out
the backbones of the fish before serving.

STEWED EELS. ✠

Inquire, before buying, where they were caught, and give so decided a
preference to country eels as to refuse those fattened upon the offal
of city wharves. Nor are the largest eels the best for eating. One
weighing a pound is better for your purpose than a bulky fellow that
weighs three.

Skin and clean, carefully extracting all the fat from the inside. Cut
into lengths of an inch and a half; put into a saucepan, with enough
cold water to cover them; throw in a little salt and chopped parsley,
and stew slowly, closely covered, for at least an hour. Add, at the
last, a great spoonful of butter, and a little flour wet with cold
water, also pepper. Serve in a deep dish. The appearance and odor of
this stew are so pleasing as often to overcome the prejudices of those
who “Wouldn’t touch an eel for the world! They look like snakes!” And
those who have tasted them rarely enter a second demurrer.

FRIED EELS.

Prepare as for stewing; roll in flour, and fry, in hot lard or
dripping, to a light brown.

CHOWDER (_No. 1._) ✠

Take a pound of salt pork, cut into strips, and soak in hot water
five minutes. Cover the bottom of a pot with a layer of this. Cut
four pounds of cod or sea-bass into pieces two inches square, and
lay enough of these on the pork to cover it. Follow with a layer of
chopped onions, a little parsley, summer savory, and pepper, either
black or cayenne. Then a layer of split Boston, or butter, or whole
cream crackers, which have been soaked in warm water until moist
through, but not ready to break. Above this lay a stratum of pork,
and repeat the order given above—onions, seasoning, (not too much,)
crackers, and pork, until your materials are exhausted. Let the topmost
layer be buttered crackers, well soaked. Put in enough cold water to
cover all barely. Cover the pot, stew gently for an hour, watching
that the water does not sink too low. Should it leave the upper layer
exposed, replenish constantly from the tea-kettle. When the chowder
is thoroughly done, take out with a perforated skimmer and put into a
tureen. Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour and about the
same quantity of butter. Boil up and pour over the chowder. Send sliced
lemon, pickles, and stewed tomatoes to the table with it, that the
guests may add, if they like.

CHOWDER (_No. 2._)

Slice six large onions, and fry them in the gravy of fried salt pork.
Cut five pounds of bass or cod into strips three inches long and one
thick, and line the bottom of a pot with them. Scatter a few slices
of onion upon them, a little salt, half a dozen whole black peppers,
a clove or two, a pinch of thyme and one of parsley, a tablespoonful
tomato or mushroom catsup, and six oysters; then comes a layer of
oyster crackers, well-soaked in milk and buttered thickly. Another
layer of fish, onions, seasoning, and crackers, and so on until all
are used up. Cover with water, boil slowly for an hour and pour out.
Serve with capers and sliced lemon. A cup of oyster liquor added to the
chowder while boiling improves it.

SHELL-FISH.

TO BOIL A LOBSTER.

Choose a lively one—not too large, lest he should be tough. Put a
handful of salt into a pot of boiling water, and having tied the claws
together, if your fish merchant has not already skewered them, plunge
him into the prepared bath. He will be restive under this vigorous
hydropathic treatment; but allay your tortured sympathies by the
reflection that he is a cold-blooded animal, destitute of imagination,
and that pain, according to some philosophers, exists only in the
imagination. However this may be, his suffering will be short-lived.
Boil from half an hour to an hour, as his size demands. When done,
draw out the scarlet innocent, and lay him, face downward, in a sieve
to dry. When cold, split open the body and tail, and crack the claws
to extract the meat, throwing away the “lady fingers” and the head.
Lobsters are seldom served without dressing, upon private tables, as
few persons care to take the trouble of preparing their own salad after
taking their seats at the board.

DEVILLED LOBSTER.

Extract the meat from a boiled lobster, as for salad, and mince it
finely; reserve the coral. Season highly with mustard, cayenne, salt,
and some pungent sauce. Toss and stir until it is well mixed, and put
into a porcelain saucepan (covered), with just enough hot water to
keep it from burning. Rub the coral smooth, moistening with vinegar
until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir into the contents
of the saucepan. It is necessary to prepare the dressing, let me say,
before the lobster-meat is set on the fire. It ought to boil up but
once before the coral and vinegar are put in. Next stir in a heaping
tablespoonful of butter, and when it boils again, take the pan from the
fire. Too much cooking toughens the meat. This is a famous supper dish
for sleighing parties.

LOBSTER CROQUETTES. ✠

To the meat of a well-boiled lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt,
and powdered mace. Mix with this one-quarter as much bread-crumbs, well
rubbed, as you have meat; make into ovates, or pointed balls, with two
tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Roll these in beaten egg, then in
pulverized cracker, and fry in butter or very nice sweet lard. Serve
dry and hot, and garnish with crisped parsley. This is a delicious
supper dish or _entrée_ at dinner.

DEVILLED CRAB. ✠

This is prepared according to the receipt for devilled
lobster—substituting for the coral in the vinegar some pulverized
cracker, moistened first with a tablespoonful of rich cream. You can
serve up in the back-shell of the crab if you like. Send in with cream
crackers, and stick a sprig of parsley in the top of each heap, ranging
the shells upon a large flat dish.

CRAB SALAD.

Mince the meat and dress as in lobster salad. Send in the back-shell of
the crab.

SOFT CRABS. ✠

Many will not eat hard-shell crabs, considering them indigestible,
and not sufficiently palatable to compensate for the risk they run in
eating them. And it must be owned that they are, at their best, but an
indifferent substitute for the more aristocratic lobster. But in the
morning of life, for him so often renewed, his crabship is a different
creature, and greatly affected by epicures.

Do not keep the crabs over night, as the shells harden in twenty-four
hours. Pull off the spongy substance from the sides and the sand bags.
These are the only portions that are uneatable. Wash well, and wipe
dry. Have ready a pan of seething hot lard or butter, and fry them to a
fine brown. Put a little salt into the lard. The butter will need none.
Send up hot, garnished with parsley.

WATER-TURTLES, OR TERRAPINS.

Land-terrapins, it is hardly necessary to say, are uneatable, but the
large turtle that frequents our mill-ponds and rivers can be converted
into a relishable article of food.

Plunge the turtle into a pot of boiling water, and let him lie there
five minutes. You can then skin the underpart easily, and pull off the
horny parts of the feet. Lay him for ten minutes in _cold_ salt and
water; then put into more hot water—salted, but not too much. Boil
until tender. The time will depend upon the size and age. Take him
out, drain, and wipe dry; loosen the shell carefully, not to break
the flesh; cut open also with care, lest you touch the gall-bag with
the knife. Remove this with the entrails and sand-bag. Cut up all
the rest of the animal into small bits, season with pepper, salt, a
chopped onion, sweet herbs, and a teaspoonful of some spiced sauce, or
a tablespoonful of catsup—walnut or mushroom. Save the juice that runs
from the meat, and put all together into a saucepan with a closely
fitting top. Stew gently fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, and
add a great spoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet
in cold water, a glass of brown Sherry, and lastly, the beaten yolk of
an egg, mixed with a little of the hot liquor, that it may not curdle.
Boil up once, and turn into a covered dish. Send around green pickles
and delicate slices of dry toast with it.

STEWED OYSTERS.

Drain the liquor from two quarts of firm, plump oysters; mix with it
a small teacupful of hot water, add a little salt and pepper, and
set over the fire in a saucepan. Let it boil up once, put in the
oysters, let them boil for five minutes or less—not more. When they
“ruffle,” add two tablespoonfuls of butter. The instant it is melted
and well stirred in, put in a large cupful of boiling milk and take the
saucepan from the fire. Serve with oyster or cream crackers, as soon as
possible. Oysters become tough and tasteless when cooked too much, or
left to stand too long after they are withdrawn from the fire.

FRIED OYSTERS. ✠

Use for frying the largest and best oysters you can find. Take them
carefully from the liquor; lay them in rows upon a clean cloth, and
press another lightly upon them to absorb the moisture. Have ready some
crackers crushed fine. In the frying-pan heat enough nice butter to
cover the oysters entirely. Dip each oyster into the cracker, rolling
it over that it may become completely incrusted. Drop them carefully
into the frying-pan, and fry quickly to a light brown. If the butter
is hot enough they will soon be ready to take out. Test it by putting
in one oyster before you risk the rest. Do not let them lie in the pan
an instant after they are done. Serve dry, and let the dish be warm. A
chafing-dish is best.

OYSTER FRITTERS. ✠

Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to a cupful of this add the
same quantity of milk, three eggs, a little salt, and flour enough for
a thin batter. Chop the oysters and stir into the batter. Have ready
in the frying-pan a few spoonfuls of lard, or half lard, half butter;
heat very hot, and drop the oyster-batter in by the tablespoonful. Try
a spoonful first, to satisfy yourself that the lard is hot enough, and
that the fritter is of the right size and consistency. Take rapidly
from the pan as soon as they are done to a pleasing yellow brown, and
send to table very hot.

Some fry the oyster whole, enveloped in batter, one in each fritter.
In this case, the batter should be thicker than if the chopped oysters
were to be added.

SCALLOPED OYSTERS. ✠

Crush and roll several handfuls of Boston or other friable crackers.
Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Wet this with a
mixture of the oyster liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Next, have a
layer of oysters. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay small bits of
butter upon them. Then another layer of moistened crumbs, and so on
until the dish is full. Let the top layer be of crumbs, thicker than
the rest, and beat an egg into the milk you pour over them. Stick bits
of butter thickly over it, cover the dish, set it in the oven, bake
half an hour; if the dish be large, remove the cover, and brown by
setting it upon the upper grating of oven, or by holding a hot shovel
over it.

BROILED OYSTERS. ✠

Choose large, fat oysters; wipe them very dry; sprinkle salt and
cayenne pepper upon them, and broil upon one of the small gridirons
sold for that purpose. You can dredge the oyster with cracker-dust
or flour if you wish to have it brown, and some fancy the juices are
better kept in in this way. Others dislike the crust thus formed.
Butter the gridiron well, and let your fire be hot and clear. If the
oyster drip, withdraw the gridiron for an instant until the smoke
clears away. Broil quickly and dish hot, putting a tiny piece of
butter, not larger than a pea, upon each oyster.

CREAM OYSTERS ON THE HALF-SHELL.

Pour into your inner saucepan a cup of hot water, another of milk,
and one of cream, with a little salt. Set into a kettle of hot water
until it boils, when stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little
salt, with white pepper. Take from the fire and add two heaping
tablespoonfuls of arrow-root, rice-flour, or corn-starch, wet with
cold milk. By this time your shells should be washed and buttered, and
a fine oyster laid within each. Of course, it is _selon les régles_
to use oyster-shells for this purpose; but you will find clam-shells
more roomy and manageable, because more regular in shape. Range these
closely in a large baking-pan, propping them with clean pebbles or
fragments of shell, if they do not seem inclined to retain their
contents. Stir the cream _very_ hard and fill up each shell with a
spoon, taking care not to spill any in the pan. Bake five or six
minutes in a hot oven after the shells become warm. Serve on the shell.
Some substitute oyster-liquor for the water in the mixture, and use all
milk instead of cream.

OYSTER OMELET. ✠

12 oysters, if large; double the number of small ones.
6 eggs.
1 cup milk.
1 tablespoonful butter.
Chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

Chop the oysters very fine. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs
separately as for nice cake—the white until it stands in a heap. Put
three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, and heat while you are
mixing the omelet. Stir the milk into a deep dish with the yolk, and
season. Next put in the chopped oysters, beating vigorously as you add
them gradually. When they are thoroughly incorporated, pour in the
spoonful of melted butter; finally, whip in the whites lightly and with
as few strokes as possible. If the butter is hot, and it ought to be,
that the omelet may not stand uncooked, put the mixture into the pan.
_Do not stir it_, but when it begins to stiffen—“to set,” in culinary
phrase, slip a broad-bladed, round-pointed dinner-knife around the
sides, and cautiously under the omelet, that the butter may reach every
part. As soon as the centre is fairly “set,” turn out into a hot dish.
Lay the latter bottom upward over the frying-pan, which must be turned
upside-down dexterously. This brings the browned side of the omelet
uppermost. This omelet is delicious and easily made.

OYSTER PIE. ✠

Make a rich puff-paste; roll out twice as thick as for a fruit-pie
for the top crust—about the ordinary thickness for the lower. Line a
pudding-dish with the thinner, and fill with crusts of dry bread or
light crackers. Some use a folded towel to fill the interior of the
pie, but the above expedient is preferable. Butter the edges of the
dish, that you may be able to lift the upper crust without breaking.
Cover the mock-pie with the thick crust, ornamented heavily at the
edge, that it may lie the more quietly, and bake. Cook the oysters as
for a stew, only beating into them at the last two eggs, and thickening
with a spoonful of fine cracker-crumbs or rice-flour. They should stew
but five minutes, and time them so that the paste will be baked just
in season to receive them. Lift the top crust, pour in the smoking hot
oysters, and send up hot.

I know that many consider it unnecessary to prepare the oysters and
crust separately; but my experience and observation go to prove that,
if this precaution be omitted, the oysters are apt to be wofully
overdone. The reader can try both methods and take her choice.

PICKLED OYSTERS. ✠

100 large oysters.
1 pt. white wine vinegar.
1 doz. blades of mace.
2 doz. whole cloves.
2 doz. whole black peppers.
1 large red pepper broken into bits.

Put oysters, liquor and all, into a porcelain or bell-metal kettle.
Salt to taste. Heat slowly until the oysters are very hot, but not to
boiling. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, and set aside to
cool. To the liquor which remains in the kettle add the vinegar and
spices. Boil up fairly, and when the oysters are almost cold, pour over
them scalding hot. Cover the jar in which they are, and put away in a
cool place. Next day put the pickled oysters into glass cans with tight
tops. Keep in the dark, and where they are not liable to become heated.

I have kept oysters thus prepared for three weeks in the winter. If you
open a can, use the contents up as soon as practicable. The air, like
the light, will turn them dark.

It is little trouble for every housekeeper to put up the pickled
oysters needed in her family; and besides the satisfaction she will
feel in the consciousness that the materials used are harmless, and
the oysters sound, she will save at least one-third of the price
of those she would buy ready pickled. The colorless vinegar used by
“professionals” for such purposes is usually sulphuric or pyroligneous
acid. If you doubt this, pour a little of the liquor from the pickled
oysters put up by your obliging oyster-dealer into a bell-metal kettle.
I tried it once, and the result was a liquid that matched the clear
green of Niagara in hue.

ROAST OYSTERS.

There is no pleasanter frolic for an Autumn evening, in the regions
where oysters are plentiful, than an impromptu “roast” in the kitchen.
There the oysters are hastily thrown into the fire by the peck. You may
consider that your fastidious taste is marvellously respected if they
are washed first. A bushel basket is set to receive the empty shells,
and the click of the oyster-knives forms a constant accompaniment to
the music of laughing voices. Nor are roast oysters amiss upon your
own quiet supper-table, when the “good man” comes in on a wet night,
tired and hungry, and wants “something heartening.” Wash and wipe the
shell-oysters, and lay them in the oven, if it is quick; upon the top
of the stove, if it is not. When they open, they are done. Pile in a
large dish and send to table. Remove the upper shell by a dexterous
wrench of the knife, season the oyster on the lower, with pepper-sauce
and butter, or pepper, salt, and vinegar in lieu of the sauce, and you
have the very aroma of this pearl of bivalves, pure and undefiled.

Or, you may open while raw, leaving the oysters upon the lower shells;
lay in a large baking-pan, and roast in their own liquor, adding
pepper, salt, and butter before serving.

RAW OYSTERS.

It is fashionable to serve these as one of the preliminaries to a
dinner-party; sometimes in small plates, sometimes on the half-shell.
They are seasoned by each guest according to his own taste.

STEAMED OYSTERS.

If you have no steamer, improvise one by the help of a cullender and
a pot-lid fitting closely into it, at a little distance from the top.
Wash some shell oysters and lay them in such a position in the bottom
of the cullender that the liquor will not escape from them when the
shell opens, that is, with the upper shell down. Cover with a cloth
thrown over the top of the cullender, and press the lid hard down upon
this to exclude the air. Set over a pot of boiling water so deep that
the cullender, which should fit into the mouth, does not touch the
water. Boil hard for twenty minutes, then make a hasty examination of
the oysters. If they are open, you are safe in removing the cover.
Serve on the half-shell, or upon a hot chafing dish. Sprinkle a little
salt over them and a few bits of butter; but be quick in whatever you
do, for the glory of the steamed oyster is to be eaten hot.

OYSTER PÂTÉS. ✠

1 qt. oysters.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Pepper, and a pinch of salt.

Set the oysters, with enough liquor to cover them, in a saucepan upon
the range or stove; let them come to a boil; skim well, and stir in
the butter and seasoning. Two or three spoonsful of cream will improve
them. Have ready small tins lined with puff paste. Put three or four
oysters in each, according to the size of the _pâté_; cover with paste
and bake in a quick oven twenty minutes. For open _pâtés_, cut the
paste into round cakes: those intended for the bottom crust less than
an eighth of an inch thick; for the upper, a little thicker. With a
smaller cutter, remove a round of paste from the middle of the latter,
leaving a neat ring. Lay this carefully upon the bottom crust; place a
second ring upon this, that the cavity may be deep enough to hold the
oysters; lay the pieces you have extracted also in the pan with the
rest, and bake to a fine brown in a _quick_ oven. When done, wash over
with beaten egg, around top and all, and set in the oven three minutes
to glaze. Fill the cavity with a mixture prepared as below, fit on the
top lightly, and serve.

_Mixture._

Boil half the liquor from a quart of oysters. Put in all the oysters,
leaving out the uncooked liquor; heat to boiling, and stir in—

½ cup of hot milk.
1 tablespoonful butter.
2 tablespoonfuls corn starch, wet with a little milk.
A little salt.

Boil four minutes, stirring all the time until it thickens, and fill
the cavity in the paste shells. These _pâtés_ are very nice.

SCALLOPS.

The heart is the only part used. If you buy them in the shell, boil and
take out the hearts. Those sold in our markets are generally ready for
frying or stewing.

Dip them in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs and fry in hot lard.

_Or,_

You may stew like oysters. The fried scallops are generally preferred.

SCALLOPED CLAMS.

Chop the clams fine, and season with pepper and salt. Cayenne pepper
is thought to give a finer flavor than black or white; but to some
palates it is insufferable. Mix in another dish some powdered cracker,
moistened first with warm milk, then with the clam liquor, a beaten
egg or two, and some melted butter. Stir in with this the chopped
clams. Wash as many clam-shells as the mixture will fill; wipe and
butter them; fill, heaping up and smoothing over with a silver knife
or teaspoon. Range in rows in your baking-pan, and cook until nicely
browned. Or, if you do not care to be troubled with the shells, bake
in patty-pans, sending to table hot in the tins, as you would in the
scallop-shells.

CLAM FRITTERS. ✠

12 clams, minced fine.
1 pint of milk.
3 eggs.

Add the liquor from the clams to the milk; beat up the eggs and put to
this, with salt and pepper, and flour enough for thin batter; lastly,
the chopped clams. Fry in hot lard, trying a little first to see that
fat and batter are right. A tablespoonful will make a fritter of
moderate size. Or, you can dip the whole clams in batter and cook in
like manner. Fry quickly, or they are apt to be too greasy.

CLAM CHOWDER. ✠

Fry five or six slices of fat pork crisp, and chop to pieces. Sprinkle
some of these in the bottom of a pot; lay upon them a stratum of clams;
sprinkle with cayenne or black pepper and salt, and scatter bits of
butter profusely over all; next, have a layer of chopped onions, then
one of small crackers, split and moistened with warm milk. On these
pour a little of the fat left in the pan after the pork is fried, and
then comes a new round of pork, clams, onion, etc. Proceed in this
order until the pot is nearly full, when cover with water, and stew
slowly—the pot closely covered—for three-quarters of an hour. Drain
off all the liquor that will flow freely, and, when you have turned
the chowder into the tureen, return the gravy to the pot. Thicken with
flour, or, better still, pounded crackers; add a glass of wine, some
catsup, and spiced sauce; boil up, and pour over the contents of the
tureen. Send around walnut or butternut pickles with it.

POULTRY.

Poultry should never be eaten in less than six or eight hours after
it is killed; but it should be picked and drawn as soon as possible.
There is no direr disgrace to our Northern markets than the practice of
sending whole dead fowls to market. I have bought such from responsible
poultry dealers, and found them uneatable, from having remained undrawn
until the flavor of the craw and intestines had impregnated the whole
body. Those who are conversant with the habit of careful country
housewives, of keeping up a fowl without food for a day and night
before killing and dressing for their own eating, cannot but regard
with disgust the surcharged crops and puffy sides of those sold _by
weight_ in the shambles. If you want to know what you really pay for
poultry bought in these circumstances, weigh the offal extracted from
the fowl by your cook, and deduct from the market weight. “But don’t
you know it actually poisons a fowl to lie so long undressed?” once
exclaimed a Southern lady to me. “In _our_ markets they are offered for
sale ready picked and drawn, with the giblets—also cleaned—tucked under
their wings.”

I know nothing about the poisonous nature of the entrails and crops. I
do assert that the custom is unclean and unjust. And this I do without
the remotest hope of arousing my fellow-housekeepers to remonstrance
against established usage. Only it relieves my mind somewhat to grumble
at what I cannot help. The best remedy I can propose for the grievance
is to buy live fowls, and, before sending them home, ask your butcher
to decapitate them; the probabilities being greatly in favor of the
supposition that your cook is too “tinder-hearted” to attempt the job.

One word as to the manner of roasting meats and fowls. In this day
of ranges and cooking-stoves, I think I am speaking within bounds
when I assume that not one housekeeper in fifty uses a spit, or even
a tin kitchen, for such purposes. It is in vain that the writers of
receipt-books inform us with refreshing _naïveté_ that all our meats
are baked, not roasted, and expatiate upon the superior flavor of
those prepared upon the English spits and in old fashioned kitchens,
where enormous wood-fires blazed from morning until night. I shall
not soon forget my perplexity when, an inexperienced housekeeper and
a firm believer in all “that was writ” by older and wiser people, I
stood before my neat Mott’s “Defiance,” a fine sirloin of beef ready
to be cooked on the table behind me, and read from my Instruction-book
that my “fire should extend at least eight inches beyond the roaster
on either side!” I am not denying the virtues of spits and tin
kitchens—only regretting that they are not within the reach of every
one. In view of this fact, let me remark, for the benefit of the
unfortunate many, that, in the opinion of excellent judges, the
practice of roasting meat in close ovens has advantages. Of these I
need mention but two, to wit, the preservation of the flavor of the
article roasted, and the prevention of its escape to the upper regions
of the dwelling.

ROAST TURKEY.

After drawing the turkey, rinse out with several waters, and in next to
the last mix a teaspoonful of soda. The inside of a fowl, especially
if purchased in the market, is sometimes very sour, and imparts an
unpleasant taste to the stuffing, if not to the inner part of the legs
and side-bones. The soda will act as a corrective, and is moreover very
cleansing. Fill the body with this water, shake well, empty it out,
and rinse with fair water. Then prepare a dressing of bread-crumbs,
mixed with butter, pepper, salt, thyme or sweet marjoram. You may, if
you like, add the beaten yolks of two eggs. A little chopped sausage
is esteemed an improvement when well incorporated with the other
ingredients. Or, mince a dozen oysters and stir into the dressing. The
effect upon the turkey-meat, particularly that of the breast, is very
pleasant.

Stuff the craw with this, and tie a string tightly about the neck, to
prevent the escape of the stuffing. Then fill the body of the turkey,
and sew it up with strong thread. This and the neck-string are to be
removed when the fowl is dished. In roasting, if your fire is brisk,
allow about ten minutes to a pound; but it will depend very much upon
the turkey’s age whether this rule holds good. Dredge it with flour
before roasting, and baste often; at first with butter and water,
afterward with the gravy in the dripping-pan. If you lay the turkey in
the pan, put in with it a teacup of hot water. Many roast always upon
a grating placed on the top of the pan. In that case the boiling water
steams the underpart of the fowl, and prevents the skin from drying too
fast, or cracking. Roast to a fine brown, and if it threaten to darken
too rapidly, lay a sheet of white paper over it until the lower part is
also done.

Stew the chopped giblets in just enough water to cover them, and when
the turkey is lifted from the pan, add these, with the water in which
they were boiled, to the drippings; thicken with a spoonful of browned
flour, wet with cold water to prevent lumping, boil up once, and pour
into the gravy-boat. If the turkey is fat, skim the drippings well
before putting in the giblets.

Serve with cranberry sauce. Some lay fried oysters in the dish around
the turkey.

BOILED TURKEY.

Chop about two dozen oysters, and mix with them a dressing compounded
as for roast turkey, only with more butter. Stuff the turkey as for
roasting, craw and body, and baste about it a thin cloth, fitted
closely to every part. The inside of the cloth should be dredged with
flour to prevent the fowl from sticking to it. Allow fifteen minutes to
a pound, and boil slowly.

Serve with oyster-sauce, made by adding to a cupful of the liquor in
which the turkey was boiled, eight oysters chopped fine. Season with
minced parsley, stir in a spoonful of rice or wheat flour, wet with
cold milk, a tablespoonful of butter. Add a cupful of hot milk. Boil up
once and pour into an oyster-tureen. Send around celery with it.

TURKEY SCALLOP. ✠

Cut the meat from the bones of a cold boiled or roasted turkey left
from yesterday’s dinner. Remove the bits of skin and gristle, and chop
up the rest very fine. Put in the bottom of a buttered dish a layer of
cracker or bread-crumbs; moisten slightly with milk, that they may not
absorb all the gravy to be poured in afterward; then spread a layer of
the minced turkey, with bits of the stuffing, pepper, salt, and small
pieces of butter. Another layer of cracker, wet with milk, and so on
until the dish is nearly full. Before putting on the topmost layer,
pour in the gravy left from the turkey, diluted—should there not be
enough—with hot water, and seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, or
catsup, and butter. Have ready a crust of cracker-crumbs soaked in warm
milk, seasoned with salt, and beaten up light with two eggs. It should
be just thick enough to spread smoothly over the top of the scallop.
Stick bits of butter plentifully upon it, and bake. Turn a deep
plate over the dish until the contents begin to bubble at the sides,
showing that the whole is thoroughly cooked; then remove the cover,
and brown. A large pudding-dish full of the mixture will be cooked in
three-quarters of an hour.

This, like many other economical dishes, will prove so savory as to
claim a frequent appearance upon any table.

Cold chicken may be prepared in the same way

_Or,_

The minced turkey, dressing, and cracker-crumbs may be wet with
gravy, two eggs beaten into it, and the force-meat thus made rolled
into oblong shapes, dipped in egg and pounded cracker, and fried like
croquettes, for a side dish, to “make out” a dinner of ham or cold meat.

RAGOÛT OF TURKEY.

This is also a cheap, yet nice dish. Cut the cold turkey from the bones
and into bits an inch long with knife and fork, tearing as little as
possible. Put into a skillet or saucepan the gravy left from the roast,
with hot water to dilute it should the quantity be small. Add a lump
of butter the size of an egg, a teaspoonful of pungent sauce, a large
pinch of nutmeg, with a little salt. Let it boil, and put in the meat.
Stew very slowly for ten minutes—not more—and stir in a tablespoonful
of cranberry or currant jelly, another of browned flour which has been
wet with cold water; lastly, a glass of brown Sherry or Madeira. Boil
up once, and serve in a covered dish for breakfast. Leave out the
stuffing entirely; it is no improvement to the flavor, and disfigures
the appearance of the ragoût.

ROAST CHICKENS.

Having picked and drawn them, wash out well in two or three waters,
adding a little soda to the last but one should any doubtful odor
linger about the cavity. Prepare a stuffing of bread-crumbs, butter,
pepper, salt, &c. Fill the bodies and crops of the chickens, which
should be young and plump; sew them up, and roast an hour or more, in
proportion to their size. Baste two or three times with butter and
water, afterward with their own gravy. If laid flat within the dripping
pan, put in at the first a little hot water to prevent burning.

Stew the giblets and necks in enough water to cover them, and, when you
have removed the fowls to a hot dish, pour this into the drippings;
boil up once; add the giblets, chopped fine; thicken with browned
flour; boil again, and send to table in a gravy-boat.

Serve with crab-apple jelly or tomato sauce.

BOILED CHICKENS.

Clean, wash, and stuff as for roasting. Baste a floured cloth around
each, and put into a pot with enough boiling water to cover them
well. The hot water cooks the skin at once, and prevents the escape
of the juices. The broth will not be so rich as if the fowls are put
on in cold water, but this is a proof that the meat will be more
nutritious and better flavored. Stew very slowly, for the first half
hour especially. Boil an hour or more, guiding yourself by size and
toughness.

Serve with egg or bread sauce. (See _Sauces_.)

FRICASSEED CHICKEN. (_White._) ✠

Clean, wash, and cut up the fowls, which need not be so tender as
for roasting. Lay them in salt and water for half an hour. Put them
in a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and half a pound of
salt pork cut into thin strips. Cover closely, and let them heat very
slowly; then stew for over an hour, if the fowls are tender. I have
used chickens for this purpose that required four hours stewing, but
they were tender and good when done. Only put them on in season, and
cook very slowly. If they boil fast, they toughen and shrink into
uneatableness. When tender, add a chopped onion or two, parsley, and
pepper. Cover closely again, and, when it has heated to boiling, stir
in a teacupful of milk, to which have been added two beaten eggs and
two tablespoonfuls of flour. Boil up fairly; add a great spoonful of
butter. Arrange the chicken neatly in a deep chafing-dish, pour the
gravy over it, and serve.

In this, as in all cases where beaten egg is added to hot liquor, it is
best to dip out a few spoonfuls of the latter, and drop a little at a
time into the egg, beating all the while, that it may heat evenly and
gradually before it is put into the scalding contents of the saucepan
or pot. Eggs managed in this way will not curdle, as they are apt to do
if thrown suddenly into hot liquid.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN. (_Brown._) ✠

Clean, wash, and cut up a pair of young chickens. Lay in clear water
for half an hour. If they are old, you cannot brown them well. Put them
in a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them well, and set over
the fire to heat slowly. Meanwhile, cut half a pound of salt pork into
strips, and fry crisp. Take them out, chop fine, and put into the
pot with the chicken. Fry in the fat left in the frying-pan one large
onion, or two or three small ones, cut into slices. Let them brown
well, and add them also to the chicken, with a quarter teaspoonful of
allspice and cloves. Stew all together slowly for an hour or more,
until the meat is very tender; you can test this with a fork. Take out
the pieces of fowl and put in a hot dish, covering closely until the
gravy is ready. Add to this a great spoonful of walnut or other dark
catsup, and nearly three tablespoonfuls of browned flour, a little
chopped parsley, and a glass of brown Sherry. Boil up once; strain
through a cullender, to remove the bits of pork and onion; return to
the pot, with the chicken; let it come to a final boil, and serve,
pouring the gravy over the pieces of fowl.

BROILED CHICKEN.

It is possible to render a tough fowl eatable by boiling or stewing
it with care. _Never_ broil such! And even when assured that your
“broiler” is young, it is wise to make this doubly sure by laying it
upon sticks extending from side to side of a dripping-pan full of
boiling water. Set this in the oven, invert a tin pan over the chicken,
and let it steam for half an hour. This process relaxes the muscles,
and renders supple the joints, besides preserving the juices that would
be lost in parboiling. The chicken should be split down the back, and
wiped perfectly dry before it is steamed. Transfer from the vapor-bath
to a buttered gridiron, inside downward. Cover with a tin pan or common
plate, and broil until tender and brown, turning several times; from
half to three-quarters of an hour will be sufficient. Put into a hot
chafing-dish, and butter very well. Send to table smoking hot.

FRIED CHICKEN (_No. 1_).

Clean, wash, and cut to pieces a couple of Spring chickens. Have
ready in a frying-pan enough boiling lard or dripping to cover them
well. Dip each piece in beaten egg when you have salted it, then in
cracker-crumbs, and fry until brown. If the chicken is large, steam
it before frying, as directed in the foregoing receipt. When you have
taken out the meat, throw into the hot fat a dozen sprigs of parsley,
and let them remain a minute—just long enough to crisp, but not to dry
them. Garnish the chicken by strewing these over it.

FRIED CHICKEN (_No. 2_).

Cut up half a pound of fat salt pork in a frying-pan, and fry until the
grease is extracted, but not until it browns. Wash and cut up a young
chicken (broiling size), soak in salt and water for half an hour; wipe
dry, season with pepper, and dredge with flour; then fry in the hot
fat until each piece is a rich brown on both sides. Take up, drain,
and set aside in a hot covered dish. Pour into the gravy left in the
frying-pan a cup of milk—half cream is better; thicken with a spoonful
of flour and a tablespoonful of butter; add some chopped parsley, boil
up, and pour over the hot chicken. This is a standard dish in the Old
Dominion, and tastes nowhere else as it does when eaten on Virginia
soil. The cream gravy is often omitted, and the chicken served up dry,
with bunches of fried parsley dropped upon it.

CHICKEN POT-PIE.

Line the bottom and sides of a pot with a good rich paste, reserving
enough for a top crust and for the square bits to be scattered through
the pie. Butter the pot very lavishly, or your pastry will stick to it
and burn. Cut up a fine large fowl, and half a pound of corned ham or
salt pork. Put in a layer of the latter, pepper it, and cover with
pieces of the chicken, and this with the paste dumplings or squares.
If you use potatoes, parboil them before putting them into the pie,
as the first water in which they are boiled is rank and unwholesome.
The potatoes should be sliced and laid next the pastry squares; then
another layer of pork, and so on until your chicken is used up. Cover
with pastry rolled out quite thick, and slit this in the middle. Heat
very slowly, and boil two hours. Turn into a large dish, the lower
crust on top, and the gravy about it.

This is the old-fashioned pot-pie, dear to the memory of men who were
school-boys thirty and forty years ago. If you are not experienced in
such manufactures, you had better omit the lower crust; and, having
browned the upper, by putting a hot pot-lid or stove-cover on top of
the pot for some minutes, remove dexterously without breaking. Pour out
the chicken into a dish, and set the crust above it.

Veal, beef-steak, lamb (not mutton), hares, &c., may be substituted for
the chicken. The pork will salt it sufficiently.

BAKED CHICKEN PIE ✠

Is made as above, but baked in a buttered pudding-dish, and, in place
of the potatoes, three hard-boiled eggs are chopped up and strewed
among the pieces of chicken. If the chickens are tough, or even
doubtful, parboil them before making the pie, adding the water in
which they were boiled, instead of cold water, for gravy. If they are
lean, put in a few bits of butter. Ornament with leaves cut out with a
cake-cutter, and a star in the centre. Bake an hour—more, if the pie is
large.

CHICKEN PUDDING. ✠

Cut up as for fricassee, and parboil, seasoning well with pepper,
salt, and a lump of butter the size of an egg, to each chicken. The
fowls should be young and tender, and divided at every joint. Stew
slowly for half an hour, take them out, and lay on a flat dish to cool.
Set aside the water in which they were stewed for your gravy.

Make a batter of one quart of milk, three cups of flour, three
tablespoonfuls melted butter, half a teaspoonful soda, and one spoonful
of cream tartar, with four eggs well beaten, and a little salt. Put
a layer of chicken in the bottom of the dish, and pour about half a
cupful of batter over it—enough to conceal the meat; then, another
layer of chicken, and more batter, until the dish is full. The batter
must form the crust. Bake one hour, in a moderate oven, if the dish is
large.

Beat up an egg, and stir into the gravy which was set aside; thicken
with two teaspoonfuls of rice or wheat flour, add a little chopped
parsley; boil up, and send it to table in a gravy-boat.

CHICKEN AND HAM. ✠

Draw, wash, and stuff a pair of young fowls. Cut enough large, thick
slices of cold boiled ham to envelop these entirely, wrapping them up
carefully, and winding a string about all, to prevent the ham from
falling off. Put into your dripping-pan, with a little water to prevent
scorching; dashing it over the meat lest it should dry and shrink.
Invert a tin pan over all, and bake slowly for one hour and a quarter,
if the fowls are small and tender—longer, if tough. Lift the cover from
time to time to baste with the drippings—the more frequently as time
wears on. Test the tenderness of the fowls, by sticking a fork through
the ham into the breast. When done, undo the strings, lay the fowls in
a hot dish, and the slices of ham about them. Stir into the dripping a
little chopped parsley, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet in cold
water; pepper, and let it boil up once. Pour some of it over the
chickens—not enough to float the ham in the dish; serve the rest in a
gravy-boat.

ROAST DUCKS.

Clean, wash, and wipe the ducks very carefully. To the usual dressing
add a little sage (powdered or green), and a minced shallot. Stuff,
and sew up as usual, reserving the giblets for the gravy. If they
are tender, they will not require more than an hour to roast. Baste
well. Skim the gravy before putting in the giblets and thickening. The
giblets should be stewed in a very little water, then chopped fine, and
added to the gravy in the dripping-pan, with a chopped shallot and a
spoonful of browned flour.

Accompany with currant or grape jelly.

TO USE UP COLD DUCK. ✠

I may say, as preface, that cold duck is in itself an excellent supper
dish, or side dish, at a family dinner, and is often preferred to hot.
If the duck has been cut into at all, divide neatly into joints, and
slice the breast, laying slices of dressing about it. Garnish with
lettuce or parsley, and eat with jelly.

But if a warm dish is desired, cut the meat from the bones and lay in
a saucepan, with a little minced cold ham; pour on just enough water
to cover it, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter. Cover, and heat
gradually, until it is _near_ boiling. Then add the gravy, diluted with
a little hot water; a great spoonful of catsup, one of Worcestershire
sauce, and one of currant or cranberry jelly, with a glass of wine and
a tablespoonful of browned flour.

_Or,_

You may put the gravy, with a little hot water and a lump of butter, in
a frying-pan, and when it is hot lay in the pieces of duck, and warm
up quickly, stirring in at the last a teaspoonful of Worcestershire
sauce and a tablespoonful of jelly.

Serve in a hot chafing-dish.

(For wild ducks, see GAME.)

STEWED DUCK.

This is a good way to treat an old tough fowl.

Clean and divide, as you would a chicken for fricassee. Put in a
saucepan, with several (minced) slices of cold ham or salt pork which
is not too fat, and stew slowly for at least an hour—keeping the lid
on all the while. Then stir in a chopped onion, a half-spoonful of
powdered sage, or of the green leaves cut fine, half as much parsley,
a tablespoonful catsup, and black pepper. Stew another half-hour, or
until the duck is tender, and add a teaspoonful brown sugar, and a
tablespoonful of browned flour, previously wet with cold water. Boil
up once, and serve in a deep covered dish, with green peas as an
accompaniment.

GUINEA FOWLS.

Many are not aware what an excellent article of food these speckled
Arabs of the poultry-yard are. They are kept chiefly for the beauty
of their plumage, and their delicious eggs, which are far richer than
those of chickens.

Unless young they are apt to be tough, and the dark color of the meat
is objected to by those who are not fond of, or used to eating game.
Cooked according to the foregoing receipt they are very savory, no
matter how old they may be. Put them on early, and stew _slowly_, and
good management will bring the desired end to pass. There is nothing
in the shape of game or poultry that is not amenable to this process,
providing the salt be omitted until the meat is tender.

But a pair of young Guinea fowls, stuffed and roasted, basting them
with butter until they are half done, deserve an honorable place upon
our bill of fare. Season the gravy with a chopped shallot, parsley,
or summer savory, not omitting the minced giblets, and thicken with
browned flour. Send around currant, or other tart jelly, with the fowl.
A little ham, minced fine, improves the dressing.

ROAST GOOSE.

Clean and wash the goose—not forgetting to put a spoonful of soda in
next to the last water, rinse out well, and wipe the inside quite
dry. Add to the usual stuffing of bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, etc., a
tablespoonful melted butter, an onion chopped fine, a tablespoonful
chopped sage, the yolks of two eggs, and some minute bits of fat pork.
Stuff body and craw, and sew up. It will take fully two hours to roast,
if the fire is strong. Cover the breast, until it is half done, with
white paper, or a paste of flour and water, removing this when you are
ready to brown.

Make a gravy as for roast duck, adding a glass of Sherry or Madeira, or
(if you can get it) old Port.

Send to table with cranberry or apple sauce.

GOOSE PIE.

An old goose is as nearly good for nothing as it is possible for
anything which was once valuable, and is not now absolutely spoiled,
to be. The best use to put it to is to make it into a pie, in the
following manner. Put on the ancient early in the morning, in cold
water enough to cover it, unsalted, having cut it to pieces at every
joint. Warm it up gradually, and let it stew—not boil hard—for four or
five hours. Should the water need replenishing, let it be done from
the boiling kettle. Parboil a beef’s tongue (corned), cut into slices
nearly half an inch thick; also slice six hard-boiled eggs. Line a deep
pudding-dish with a good paste; lay in the pieces of goose, the giblets
chopped, the sliced tongue and egg, in consecutive layers; season with
pepper, salt, and bits of butter, and proceed in this order until the
dish is full. If the goose be large, cut the meat from the bones after
stewing, and leave out the latter entirely. Intersperse with strips
of paste, and fill up with the gravy in which the goose was stewed,
thickened with flour. Cover with a thick paste, and when it is done,
brush over the top with beaten white of egg.

In cold weather this pie will keep a week, and is very good.

ROAST PIGEONS.

Clean, wash, and stuff as you would chickens. Lay them in rows,
if roasted in the oven, with a little water in the pan to prevent
scorching. Unless they are very fat, baste with butter until they are
half done, afterwards with their own gravy. Thicken the gravy that
drips from them, and boil up once; then pour into a gravy-boat. The
pigeons should lie close together in the dish.

STEWED PIGEONS.

Pick, draw, clean and stuff as above directed. Put the pigeons in a
deep pot with enough cold water to cover them, and stew gently for
an hour, or until, testing them with a fork, you find them tender.
Then season with pepper, salt, a few blades of mace, a little sweet
marjoram, and a good piece of butter. Stew, or rather simmer, for five
minutes longer—then stir in a tablespoonful of browned flour. Let it
boil up once; remove the pigeons, draw out the strings with which they
were sewed up, and serve, pouring the hot gravy over them. A little
salt pork or ham, cut into strips, is an improvement. This should be
put in when the pigeons have stewed half an hour.

BROILED PIGEONS OR SQUABS.

Young pigeons or “squabs” are rightly esteemed a great delicacy. They
are cleaned, washed, and dried carefully with a clean cloth; then split
down the back, and broiled like chickens. Season with pepper and salt,
and butter liberally in dishing them. They are in great request in a
convalescent’s room, being peculiarly savory and nourishing.

They may, for a change, be roasted whole, according to the receipt for
roast pigeons.

PIGEON PIE.

Is best made of wild pigeons. (SEE GAME.)

MEATS.

ROAST BEEF.

The best pieces for roasting are the sirloin and rib pieces. The latter
are oftenest used by small families. Make your butcher remove most of
the bone, and skewer the meat into the shape of a round. If you roast
in an oven, it is a good plan to dash a small cup of _boiling_ water
over the meat in first putting it down, letting it trickle into the
pan. This, for a season, checks the escape of the juices, and allows
the meat to get warmed through before the top dries by said escape. If
there is much fat upon the upper surface, cover with a paste of flour
and water until it is nearly done. Baste frequently, at first with
salt and water, afterward with the drippings. Allow about a quarter of
an hour to a pound, if you like your meat rare; more, if you prefer
to have it well done. Some, when the meat is almost done, dredge with
flour and baste with butter—only once.

Remove the beef, when quite ready, to a heated dish; skim the
drippings; add a teacupful of boiling water, boil up once, and send
to table in a gravy-boat. Many reject made gravy altogether, and
only serve the red liquor that runs from the meat into the dish as
it is cut. This is the practice with some—indeed most of our best
housekeepers. If you have made gravy in a sauce-boat, give your guest
his choice between that and the juice in the dish.

Serve with mustard, or scraped horse-radish and vinegar.

ROAST BEEF WITH YORKSHIRE PUDDING. ✠

Set a piece of beef to roast upon a grating, or several sticks laid
across a dripping-pan. Three-quarters of an hour before it is done,
mix the pudding and pour into the pan. Continue to roast the beef, the
dripping meanwhile falling upon the latter below. When both are done,
cut the pudding into squares, and lay around the meat when dished. If
there is much fat in the dripping-pan before the pudding is ready to be
put in, drain it off, leaving just enough to prevent the batter from
sticking to the bottom.

_Receipt for Pudding._

1 pint of milk.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 cups of prepared flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Be careful, in mixing, not to get the batter too stiff.

This pudding, which the cook who introduced it into my family persisted
in calling “_Auction_ pudding,” is very palatable and popular, and not
so rich as would be thought from the manner of baking. It should be a
yellow-brown when done.

BEEF-STEAK.

It is not customary to fry beef-steaks for people who know what
really good cookery is. To speak more plainly, a steak, _killed_ by
heat and swimming in grease, is a culinary solecism, both vulgar and
indigestible.

Cut the steak thick, at least three-quarters of an inch in thickness,
and if you cannot get tender meat for this purpose, it is best to
substitute some other dish for it. But since tender meat is not always
to be had, if the piece you have purchased is doubtful, lay it on a
clean cloth, take a blunt heavy carving-knife, if you have not a steak
mallet, and hack _closely_ from one end to the other; then turn and
repeat the process upon the other side. The knife should be so dull
you cannot cut with it, and the strokes not the sixtieth part of an
inch apart. Wipe all over on both sides with _lemon-juice_, cover, and
leave it in a cool place for one hour. Lay on a buttered gridiron over
a clear fire, turning very often as it begins to drip. Do not season
until it is done, which will be in about twelve minutes, if the fire
is good and the cook attentive. Rub your hot chafing dish with a split
raw onion, lay in the steak, salt and pepper on both sides, and put a
liberal lump of butter upon the upper. Then put on a hot cover, and
let it stand five minutes to draw the juices to the surface before it
is eaten. If you have neither chafing-dish nor cover, lay the steak
between two hot platters for the same time, sending to table without
uncovering. A gridiron fitting _under_ the grate is better than any
other. If a gridiron is not at hand, rub a little butter upon the
bottom of a hot, clean frying-pan, put in the meat, set over a bright
fire, and turn frequently. This will not be equal to steak cooked upon
a gridiron, but it is infinitely preferable to the same fried.

I shall never forget the wondering distrust with which my first cook,
a sable “professional,” watched me when I undertook to show her how
to prepare a steak for the third breakfast over which I presided as
mistress of ceremonies. And when, at the end of twelve minutes, I
removed the meat, “rare and hot,” to the heated dish in readiness, her
sniff of lofty contempt was as eloquent as indescribable.

“Call dat _cooked_! Folks ’bout here would ’a had dat steak on by
day-break!”

A remark that has been recalled to my mind hundreds of times since at
the tables of so-called capital housewives.

The best—nay, the only pieces for steak are those known as porter-house
and sirloin. The former is the more highly esteemed by gourmands; but
a really tender sirloin is more serviceable where there are several
persons in the family, the porter-house having a narrow strip of
extremely nice meat lying next the bone, while the rest is often
inferior to any part of the sirloin. If the meat be tender omit the
hacking process and lemon-juice.

BEEF-STEAK AND ONIONS.

Prepare the steak as above directed. While it is broiling put three
or four chopped onions in a frying-pan with a little beef-dripping or
butter. Stir and shake them briskly until they are done, and begin to
brown. Dish your steak and lay the onions thickly on top. Cover and
let all stand five or six minutes, that the hot onions may impart the
required flavor to the hot meat. In helping your guests, inquire if
they will take onions with the slices of steak put upon their plates. I
need hardly remind the sensible cook how necessary it is to withdraw
the gridiron from the fire for an instant, should the fat drip upon
the coals below, and smoke or blaze. Yet those who have eaten steaks
flavored with creosote may thank me for the suggestion.

BEEF À-LA-MODE. ✠

Take a round of beef; remove the bone from the middle, and trim away
the tougher bits about the edges, with such gristle, &c., as you can
reach. Set these aside for soup-stock.

Bind the beef into a symmetrical shape by passing a strip of stout
muslin, as wide as the round is high, about it, and stitching the
ends together at one side. Have ready at least a pound of fat salt
pork, cut into strips as thick as your middle finger, and long enough
to reach from top to bottom of the trussed round. Put a half pint of
vinegar over the fire in a tin or porcelain saucepan; season with
three or four minced shallots or button onions, two teaspoonfuls made
mustard, a teaspoonful nutmeg, one of cloves, half as much allspice,
half-spoonful black pepper, with a bunch of sweet herbs minced fine,
and a tablespoonful brown sugar. Let all simmer for five minutes, then
boil up once, and pour, while scalding hot, upon the strips of pork,
which should be laid in a deep dish. Let all stand together until
cold. Remove the pork to a plate, and mix with the liquor left in the
dish enough bread-crumbs to make a tolerably stiff force-meat. If the
vinegar is very strong, dilute with a little water before moistening
the crumbs. With a long, thin-bladed knife, make perpendicular
incisions in the meat, not more than half an inch apart, even nearer is
better; thrust into these the strips of fat pork, so far down that the
upper ends are just level with the surface, and work into the cavities
with them a little of the force-meat. Proceed thus until the meat is
fairly riddled and plugged with the pork. Fill the hole from which the
bone was taken with the dressing and bits of pork; rub the upper side
of the beef well with the spiced force-meat. Put into a baking-pan;
half-fill this with boiling water; turn a large pan over it to keep
in the steam, and roast slowly for five or six hours, allowing half
an hour to each pound of meat. If the beef be tough, you had better
stew the round by putting it in a pot with half enough cold water to
cover it. Cover tightly and stew very slowly for six hours; then set
in the oven with the gravy about it, and brown half an hour, basting
frequently.

If you roast the round, do not remove the cover, except to baste (and
this should be done often), until fifteen minutes before you draw it
from the oven. Set away with the muslin band still about it, and pour
the gravy over the meat.

When cold, lift from the gravy,—which, by the way, will be excellent
seasoning for your soup-stock,—cut the stitches in the muslin girdle,
remove carefully and send the meat to table, cold, garnished with
parsley and nasturtium blossoms. Carve horizontally, in slices thin
as a shaving. Do not offer the outside to any one; but the second cut
will be handsomely marbled with the white pork, which appearance should
continue all the way down.

I cannot too highly commend this as a side-dish at dinner, and a supper
and breakfast stand-by. In winter it will keep a week and more, and as
long in summer, if kept in the refrigerator—except when it is on the
table.

BREAKFAST STEW OF BEEF. ✠

Cut up two pounds of beef—not too lean—into pieces an inch long; put
them into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, and stew
gently for two hours. Set away until next morning, when season with
pepper, salt, sweet marjoram or summer savory, chopped onion, and
parsley. Stew half an hour longer, and add a teaspoonful of sauce or
catsup, and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold water;
finally, if you wish to have it very good, half a glass of wine. Boil
up once, and pour into a covered deep dish.

This is an economical dish, for it can be made of the commoner parts
of the beef, and exceedingly nice for winter breakfasts. Eaten with
corn-bread and stewed potatoes, it will soon win its way to a place in
the “stock company” of every judicious housewife.

ANOTHER BREAKFAST DISH.

Cut thin slices of cold roast beef, and lay them in a tin saucepan
set in a pot of boiling water. Cover them with a gravy made of three
tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful
of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, a spoonful of currant jelly, a
teaspoonful made mustard, and some warm water. Cover tightly, and steam
for half an hour, keeping the water in the outer vessel on a hard boil.

If the meat is underdone, this is particularly nice.

BEEF HASH.

To two parts cold roast or boiled corned beef, chopped fine, put one of
mashed potatoes, a little pepper, salt, milk, and melted butter. Turn
all into a frying-pan, and stir until it is heated through and smoking
hot, but not until it browns. Put into a deep dish, and if stiff
enough, smooth as you would mashed potato, into a hillock.

Or, you can cease stirring for a few minutes, and let a brown crust
form on the under side; then turn out whole into a flat dish, the brown
side uppermost.

Or, mould the mixture into flat cakes; dip these in beaten egg flour,
and fry in hot drippings.

The remains of beef _à-la-mode_ are very good prepared in any of these
ways. A little catsup and mustard are an improvement to plain cold
beef, thus hashed.

BEEF-STEAK PIE.

Cut the steak into pieces an inch long, and stew with the bone
(cracked) in just enough water to cover the meat until it is half-done.
At the same time parboil a dozen potatoes in another pot. If you wish
a bottom crust—a doubtful question—line a pudding-dish with a good
paste, made according to the receipt given below. Put in a layer of the
beef, with salt and pepper, and a very little chopped onion; then one
of sliced potatoes, with a little butter scattered upon them, and so
on, until the dish is full. Pour over all the gravy in which the meat
is stewed, having first thrown away the bone and thickened with browned
flour. Cover with a crust thicker than the lower, leaving a slit in the
middle.

CRUST FOR MEAT-PIES. ✠

1 quart of flour.
3 tablespoonfuls of lard.
2½ cups milk.
1 teaspoonful of soda wet with hot water, and stirred into the milk.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream-tartar sifted into the dry flour.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

Work up very lightly and quickly, and do not get too stiff.

If you can get prepared flour, omit the soda and cream-tartar.

BEEF PIE, WITH POTATO CRUST. ✠

Mince some rare roast beef or cold corned beef, if it is not too salt;
season with pepper and salt, and spread a layer in the bottom of a
pudding-dish. Over this put one of mashed potato, and stick bits of
butter thickly all over it; then another of meat, and so on until you
are ready for the crust.

To a large cupful of mashed potato add two tablespoonfuls of melted
butter, a well-beaten egg, two cups of milk, and beat all together
until very light. Then work in enough flour to enable you to roll
out in a sheet—not too stiff—and, when you have added to the meat
and potato in the dish a gravy made of warm water, butter, milk, and
catsup, with what cold gravy or dripping remains from “roast,” cover
the pie with a thick, tender crust, cutting a slit in the middle.

You can use the potato crust, which is very wholesome and good, for any
kind of meat-pie. It looks well brushed over with beaten white of egg
before it goes to table.

BEEF’S HEART—STEWED.

Wash the heart well, and cut into squares half an inch long. Stew them
for ten minutes in enough water to cover them. Salt the water slightly
to draw out the blood, and throw it away as it rises in scum to the
top. Take out the meat, strain the liquor, and return the chopped heart
to it, with a sliced onion, a great spoonful of catsup, some parsley, a
head of celery chopped fine, and cayenne pepper, with a large lump of
butter. Stew until the meat is very tender, when add a tablespoonful of
browned flour to thicken. Boil up once, and serve.

TO CORN BEEF.

Rub each piece of beef well with salt mixed with one-tenth part of
saltpetre, until the salt lies dry upon the surface. Put aside in a
cold place for twenty-four hours, and repeat the process, rubbing in
the mixture very thoroughly. Put away again until the next day, by
which time the pickle should be ready.

5 gallons of water.
1 gallon of salt.
4 ounces saltpetre.
1½ lb. brown sugar.

Boil this brine ten minutes; let it get perfectly cold; then pour over
the beef, having wiped the latter entirely dry.

Examine the pickle from time to time to see if it keeps well; if not,
take out the meat without delay, wipe it, and rub in dry salt, covering
it well until you can prepare new and stronger brine.

BOILED CORNED BEEF.

If your piece is a round, skewer it well into shape, and tie it up with
stout tape or twine when you have washed it in three or four waters and
removed all the salt from the outside. Put into a pot, and cover with
cold water. Allow, in boiling, about twenty minutes to a pound. Turn
the meat three times while cooking.

When done, drain very dry, and serve with drawn butter in a sauce-boat.
Send around mashed turnips with the meat. They should be boiled in a
separate pot, however, or they will impart a disagreeable taste to the
beef.

The brisket is a good piece for a family dinner.

BEEF TONGUE.

Soak over night in cold water when you have washed it well. Next
morning put into a pot with plenty of cold water, and boil slowly
until it is tender throughout. This you can determine by testing it
with a fork. Leave in the liquor until quite cold.

Pare off the thick skin, cut in round slices, and dish for tea,
garnishing with fresh parsley.

Tongue sandwiches are generally held in higher esteem than those made
of ham.

DRIED BEEF.

The most common way of serving dried or smoked beef is to shave it into
thin slices or chips, raw; but a more savory relish may be made of it
with little trouble.

Put the slices of uncooked beef into a frying-pan with just enough
boiling water to cover them; set them over the fire for ten minutes,
drain off all the water, and with a knife and fork cut the meat
into small bits. Return to the pan, which should be hot, with
a tablespoonful of butter and a little pepper. Have ready some
well-beaten eggs, allowing four to a half-pound of beef; stir them into
the pan with the minced meat, and toss and stir the mixture for about
two minutes. Send to table in a covered dish.

MUTTON AND LAMB.

ROAST MUTTON.

The parts which are usually roasted are:—

The shoulder,
The saddle, or chine, and
The loin and haunch (a leg and part of the loin).

The leg is best boiled, unless the mutton is young and very tender.
To roast—wash the meat well, and dry with a clean cloth. Let your
fire be clear and strong; put the meat on with a little water in the
dripping-pan. If you think well of the plan (and I do), let there be a
cupful of boiling water dashed over the meat when it is first put down
to roast, and left to trickle into the pan. I have elsewhere explained
the advantages of the method. Allow, in roasting, about twelve minutes
per pound, if the fire is good. Baste often—at first with salt and
water, afterward with the gravy. If it is in danger of browning too
fast, cover with a large sheet of white paper. Roast lamb in the same
manner, but not so long. Skim the gravy well, and thicken very slightly
with browned flour. Serve with currant jelly.

ROAST MUTTON _à la Venison_.

A Christmas saddle of mutton is very fine prepared as follows: Wash it
well, inside and out, with vinegar. Do not wipe it, but hang it up to
dry in a cool cellar. When the vinegar has dried off, throw a clean
cloth over it, to keep out the dust. On the next day but one, take down
the meat and sponge it over again with vinegar, then put it back in
its place in the cellar. Repeat this process three times a week for a
fortnight, keeping the meat hung in a cold place, and covered, except
while you are washing it. When you are ready to cook it, wipe it off
with a dry cloth, but do not wash it. Roast—basting for the first hour
with butter and water; afterward with the gravy, and keeping the meat
covered with a large tin pan for two hours. A large saddle of mutton
will require four hours to roast. When it is done, remove to a dish,
and cover to keep it hot. Skim the gravy, and add half a teacupful
of walnut, mushroom or tomato catsup, a glass of Madeira wine, and a
tablespoonful of browned flour. Boil up once, and send to table in a
sauce-boat. Always send around currant or some other tart jelly with
roast mutton. If properly cooked, a saddle of mutton, prepared in
accordance with these directions, will strongly resemble venison in
taste. An old Virginia gentleman whom I used to know, always hung up
the finest saddle his plantation could furnish _six weeks_ before
Christmas, and had it sponged off with vinegar every other day, until
the morning of the important 25th; and the excellence of his mutton
was the talk of the neighborhood. It can certainly be kept a fortnight
anywhere at that season.

BOILED MUTTON.

Wash a leg of mutton clean, and wipe dry. Do not leave the knuckle
and shank so long as to be unshapely. Put into a pot with hot water
(salted) enough to cover it, and boil until you ascertain, by probing
with a fork, that it is tender in the thickest part. Skim off all the
scum as it rises. Allow _about_ twelve minutes to each pound. Take
from the fire, drain perfectly dry, and serve with melted butter, with
capers, or nasturtium seed; or, if you have neither of these, some
cucumber or gherkin-pickle stirred into it. If you wish to use the
broth for soup, put in very little salt while boiling; if not, salt
well, and boil the meat in a cloth.

MUTTON STEW. ✠

Cut up from three to four pounds of mutton,—the inferior portions will
do as well as any other,—crack the bones, and remove all the fat. Put
on the meat—the pieces not more than an inch and a half in length—in
a pot with enough cold water to cover well, and set it where it will
heat gradually. Add nothing else until it has stewed an hour, closely
covered; then throw in half a pound of salt pork cut into strips, a
little chopped onion, and some pepper; cover and stew an hour longer,
or until the meat is very tender. Make out a little paste, as for the
crust of a meat-pie; cut into squares, and drop in the stew. Boil ten
minutes, and season further by the addition of a little parsley and
thyme. Thicken with two spoonfuls of flour stirred into a cup of cold
milk. Boil up once, and serve in a tureen or deep covered dish.

If green corn is in season, this stew is greatly improved by adding, an
hour before it is taken from the fire, the grains of half a dozen ears,
cut from the cob.

Try it for a cheap family dinner, and you will repeat the experiment
often. Lamb is even better for your purpose than mutton.

MUTTON CHOPS.

If your butcher has not done it,—and the chances are that he has not,
unless you stood by to see it attended to,—trim off the superfluous fat
and skin, so as to give the chops a certain litheness and elegance of
shape. Dip each in beaten egg, roll in pounded cracker, and fry in hot
lard or dripping. If the fat is unsalted, sprinkle the chops with salt
before rolling in the egg. Serve up dry and hot.

_Or,_

You may omit the egg and cracker, and broil on a gridiron over a bright
fire. Put a little salt and pepper upon each chop, and butter them
before they go to table. Cook lamb chops in the same way.

MUTTON CUTLETS. (_Baked_).

Cut them from the neck, and trim neatly. Lay aside the bits of bone
and meat you cut off, to make gravy. Pour a little melted butter over
the cutlets, and let them lie in it for fifteen minutes, keeping them
just warm enough to prevent the butter from hardening; then dip each in
beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and lay them in your dripping-pan
with a _very_ little water at the bottom. Bake quickly, and baste often
with butter and water. Put on the bones, etc., in enough cold water to
cover them; stew, and season with sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, with a
spoonful of tomato catsup. Strain when all the substance is extracted
from the meat and bones; thicken with browned flour, and pour over the
cutlets when they are served.

MUTTON HAM.

For a leg of mutton weighing 12 lbs., take—

1 ounce of black pepper, or ½ ounce of cayenne,
¼ lb. brown sugar,
1 ounce saltpetre,
1¼ lb. salt.

The day after the sheep is killed, mix the sugar, pepper, and
saltpetre, and rub well into the meat for nearly fifteen minutes, until
the outer part of it is thoroughly impregnated with the seasoning. Put
the ham into a large earthenware vessel, and cover it with the salt.
Let it remain thus for three weeks, turning it every day and basting
it with the brine; adding to this, after the first week, a teacupful
of vinegar. When the ham is removed from the pickle, wash with cold
water, then with vinegar, and hang it up in a cool cellar for a week,
at least, before it is used.

Soak an hour in fair water before boiling.

Or if you choose to smoke it for several days after it is corned, it
can be chipped and eaten raw, like jerked venison or dried beef.

Most of the receipts above given will apply as well to lamb as to
mutton. There are several exceptions, however, which you will do well
to note. Lamb should never be boiled except in stews. It is tasteless
and sodden cooked in this manner, on account of its immaturity. But, on
the other hand, a lamb-pie, prepared like one of beef or venison, is
excellent, while mutton-pies have usually a strong, tallowy taste, that
spoils them for delicate palates.

Roast lamb should be eaten with mint sauce (if you fancy it), currant
jelly, and asparagus or green peas. Lettuce-salad is likewise a
desirable accompaniment.

MUTTON OR LAMB RÉCHAUFFÉ. ✠

Cut some slices of cold underdone mutton or lamb; put them in a
frying-pan with enough gravy or broth to cover them. Or, if you have
neither of them, make a gravy of butter, warm water, and catsup. Heat
to boiling, and stir in pepper and a great spoonful of currant jelly.
Send to table in a chafing-dish, with the gravy poured about the meat.

_Or,_

You can put a lump of the butter in the bottom of the pan, and when it
boils, lay in the slices of meat, turning them before they have time
to crisp. As soon as they are thoroughly heated take them out, lay
upon a hot dish, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and serve with a small
spoonful of jelly laid upon each.

VEAL.

Despite the prejudice, secret or expressed, which prevails in many
minds against veal,—one which the wise and witty “Country Parson”
has as surely fostered among reading people, as did Charles Lamb the
partiality for roast pig,—the excellent and attractive dishes that
own this as their base are almost beyond number. For soups it is
invaluable, and in _entrees_ and _réchauffés_ it plays a distinguished
part. From his head to his feet, the animal that furnishes us with
this important element of success in what should be the prime object
of cookery, to wit, to please while we nourish, has proved himself
so useful as an ally that it behooves us to lift the stigma from the
name of “calf,” provided he be not _too_ infantine. In that case he
degenerates into an insipid mass of pulpy muscle and gelatine, and
deserves the bitterest sneers that have been flung at his kind.

ROAST VEAL.

LOIN.

Veal requires a longer time to roast than mutton or lamb. It is fair to
allow _at least_ a quarter of an hour to each pound. Heat gradually,
baste frequently—at first with salt and water, afterward with gravy.
When the meat is nearly done, dredge lightly with flour, and baste once
with melted butter. Skim the gravy; thicken with a tablespoonful of
flour, boil up, and put into the gravy-boat.

Should the meat brown too fast, cover with white paper. The juices,
which make up the characteristic flavor of meat, are oftener dried out
of veal than any other flesh that comes to our tables.

BREAST.

Make incisions between the ribs and the meat, and fill with a
force-meat made of fine bread-crumbs, bits of pork, or ham chopped
“exceeding small,” salt, pepper, thyme, sweet marjoram, and beaten egg.
Save a little to thicken the gravy. Roast slowly, basting often, and
the verdict of the eaters will differ from theirs who pronounce this
the coarsest part of the veal. Dredge, at the last, with flour, and
baste well once with butter, as with the loin.

FILLET.

Make ready a dressing of bread-crumbs, chopped thyme and parsley; a
little nutmeg, pepper and salt, rubbed together with some melted
butter or beef suet; moisten with milk or hot water, and bind with a
beaten egg.

Take out the bone from the meat, and pin securely into a round with
skewers; then pass a stout twine several times about the fillet, or
a band of muslin. Fill the cavity from which the bone was taken with
this stuffing, and thrust between the folds of the meat, besides making
incisions with a thin, sharp knife to receive it. Once in a while slip
in a strip of fat pork or ham. Baste at first with salt and water,
afterward with gravy. At the last, dredge with flour and baste with
butter.

SHOULDER.

Stuff as above, making horizontal incisions near the bone to receive
the dressing, and roast in like manner.

VEAL CUTLETS.

Dip in beaten egg when you have sprinkled a little pepper and salt over
them; then roll in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping or lard. If
you use butter or dripping, add a little boiling water to the gravy
when the meat is dished; thicken with browned flour, boil up once,
sending to table in a boat.

_Or,_

You can rub the cutlets well with melted butter, pepper, and broil on a
gridiron like beef-steak, buttering _very_ well after dishing.

VEAL CHOPS

Are more juicy and less apt to be tough and solid than cutlets. Trim
the bone as with mutton chops, and fry, dipping in beaten egg and
cracker-crumbs. Add a little parsley and a minced shallot to the gravy.

VEAL STEAK.

This should be thinner than beef-steak, and be done throughout. Few
persons are fond of rare veal. Broil upon a well-greased gridiron
over a clear fire, and turn frequently while the steaks are cooking.
Put into a saucepan four or five young onions minced fine, a great
teaspoonful of tomato catsup, or twice the quantity of stewed tomato,
a lump of butter the size of an egg, and a little thyme or parsley,
with a small teacupful of hot water. Let them stew together while the
steaks are broiling, thickening, before you turn the gravy out, with a
spoonful of browned flour. Add, if you please, a half-glass of wine.
Boil up once hard, and when the steaks are dished, with a small bit of
butter upon each, pour the mixture over and around them.

Spinach is as natural an accompaniment to veal as are green peas to
lamb.

VEAL PIES.

Let your veal be juicy and not too fat. Take out all the bone, and put
with the fat and refuse bits, such as skin or gristle, in a saucepan,
with a large teacupful of cold water to make gravy. Instead of chopping
the veal, cut in thin, even slices. Line a pudding-dish with a good
paste and put a layer of veal in the bottom; then one of hard-boiled
eggs sliced, each piece buttered and peppered before it is laid upon
the veal; cover these with sliced ham or thin strips of salt pork.
Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon the ham. Then another layer of
veal, and so on until you are ready for the gravy. This should have
been stewing for half an hour or so, with the addition of pepper and a
bunch of aromatic herbs. Strain through a thin cloth and pour over the
pie. Cover with crust and bake two hours.

_Or,_

Butter a large bowl very thickly, and line with sliced hard-boiled
eggs. Then put in, in perpendicular layers, a lining of veal cut in
thin slices, and seasoned with pepper. Next, one of sliced ham, each
slice peppered and sprinkled with lemon-juice, more veal and more ham,
until the dish is packed to the brim. Cover with a thick paste made of
flour and hot water, just stiff enough to handle with ease. Press this
closely to the outside of the bowl, which should not be at all greasy.
Let it overlap the rim about half an inch. Some cooks substitute a
cloth well floured, but it does not keep in the essence of the meats
as well as the paste. Set the bowl in a pot of hot water, not so deep
that it will bubble over the top. It is better that it should not touch
the paste rim. Boil steadily—not hard—for at least three hours. Remove
the paste the next day, when bowl and contents are perfectly cold,
and turn out the pie into a large plate or flat dish. Cut in circular
slices—thin as a wafer—beginning at the top, keeping your carver
horizontal, and you have a delicious relish for the supper-table, or
side-dish for dinner. Set in a cool place, and in winter it will keep
several days.

This is the “weal and hammer pie” endorsed by Mr. Wegg as a good thing
“for mellering the organ,” and is a great favorite in England. It is
a good plan to butter the eggs as well as the dish, as much of the
success of the pie depends upon the manner in which it is turned out.
Also, upon the close packing of the sliced meat. The salt ham prevents
the need of other salt.

STEWED FILLET OF VEAL.

Stuff, and bind with twine as for roasting. Then cover the top and
sides with sliced ham which has been already boiled, securing with
skewers, or twine crossing the meat in all directions. Lay in a pot,
put in two large cups of boiling water, cover immediately and closely,
and stew gently—never letting it cease to boil, yet never boiling hard,
for four or five hours. A large fillet will require nearly five hours.
Remove the cover as seldom as possible, and only to ascertain whether
the water has boiled away. If it is too low, replenish from the boiling
kettle. Take off the strings when the meat is done; arrange the ham
about the fillet in the dish, and serve a bit with each slice of veal.
Strain the gravy, thicken with flour, boil up once, and send in a boat.

Serve with stewed tomatoes and spinach.

STEWED KNUCKLE OF VEAL.

Put the meat into a pot with two quarts of boiling water, half a pound
of salt pork or ham cut into strips, a carrot, two onions, a bunch
of parsley and one of summer savory—all cut fine—two dozen whole
pepper-corns, and stew, closely covered, for three hours. When done,
take the meat from the pot and lay in the dish. Strain the gravy,
thicken with rice-flour, boil up once, and pour over the meat.

VEAL SCALLOP. ✠

Chop some cold roast or stewed veal very fine, put a layer in the
bottom of a buttered pudding dish, and season with pepper and salt.
Next have a layer of finely powdered crackers. Strew some bits of
butter upon it and wet with a little milk; then more veal seasoned as
before, and another round of cracker-crumbs, with butter and milk.
When the dish is full, wet well with gravy or broth, diluted with warm
water. Spread over all a thick layer of cracker seasoned with salt, wet
into a paste with milk and bound with a beaten egg or two, if the dish
be large. Stick butter-bits thickly over it; invert a tin pan so as
to cover all and keep in the steam, and bake—if small, half an hour;
three-quarters will suffice for a large dish. Remove the cover ten
minutes before it is served, and brown.

This simple and economical dish should be an acquaintance with all who
are fond of veal in any shape. Children generally like it exceedingly,
and I have heard more than one gentleman of excellent judgment in
culinary affairs declare that the best thing he knew about roast veal
was that it was the harbinger of scallop on the second day.

Try it, and do not get it too dry.

VEAL PÂTÉS.

Mince the veal as above, and roll three or four crackers to powder.
Also, chop up some cold ham and mix with the veal in the proportion of
one-third ham and two-thirds veal. Then add the cracker, and wet well
with gravy and a little milk. If you have no gravy, stir into a cup of
hot milk two tablespoonfuls of butter and a beaten egg. Season well to
your taste, and bake in pâté pans lined with puff-paste. If eaten hot,
send to table in the tins. If cold, slip the pâtés out and pile upon
a plate, with sprigs of parsley between. A little oyster liquor is a
marked improvement to the gravy.

STEWED CALF’S-HEAD.

Wash the head in several waters, and taking out the brains, set them
by in a cool place. Tie the head in a floured cloth and boil it two
hours in hot water slightly salted. Wash the brains carefully, picking
out all the bits of skin and membrane, cleansing them over and over
until they are perfectly white. Then stew in just enough water to cover
them. Take them out, mash smooth with the back of a wooden spoon, and
add gradually, that it may not lump, a small teacupful of the water
in which the head is boiled. Season with chopped parsley, a pinch
of sage, pepper, salt, and powdered cloves, with a great spoonful of
butter. Set it over the fire to simmer in a saucepan until you are
ready. When the head is tender, take it up and drain very dry. Score
the top, and rub it well over with melted butter; dredge with flour and
set in the oven to brown. Or, you can use beaten egg and cracker-crumbs
in place of the butter and flour.

When you serve the head, pour the gravy over it.

Never skin a calf’s-head. Scald as you would that of a pig. A little
lye in the water will remove the hair—as will also pounded rosin,
applied before it is put into the water.

CALF’S-HEAD (_Scalloped._) ✠

Clean the head, remove the brains, and set in a cool place. Boil the
head until the meat slips easily from the bones. Take it out and chop
fine, season with herbs, pepper, and salt; then put in layers into a
buttered pudding-dish with bits of butter between each layer. Moisten
well with the liquor in which the head was boiled. Wash the brains very
thoroughly, removing all the membrane. Beat them into a smooth paste,
season with pepper and salt, and stir in with them two eggs beaten
very light. Spread this evenly over the scallop, dredge the top with a
little flour, and bake to a delicate brown. Half an hour will be long
enough.

SWEET-BREADS (_Fried._) ✠

Wash very carefully, and dry with a linen cloth. Lard with narrow
strips of fat salt pork, set closely together. Use for this purpose a
larding-needle. Lay the sweet-breads in a clean, hot frying-pan, which
has been well buttered or greased, and cook to a fine brown, turning
frequently until the pork is crisp.

SWEET BREADS (_Broiled._) ✠

Parboil, rub them well with butter, and broil on a clean gridiron. Turn
frequently, and now and then roll over in a plate containing some hot
melted butter. This will prevent them from getting too dry and hard.

SWEET-BREADS (_Stewed._) ✠

When you have washed them, and removed all bits of skin and fatty
matter, cover with cold water, and heat to a boil. Pour off the hot
water, and cover with cold until the sweet-breads are firm. If you
desire to have them very rich, lard as for frying before you put in
the second water. They are more delicate, however, if the pork be left
out. Stew in a very little water the second time. When they are tender,
add for each sweet-bread a heaping teaspoonful of butter, and a little
chopped parsley, with pepper, and salt, and a little cream. Let them
simmer in this gravy for five minutes, then take them up. Send to table
in a covered dish, with the gravy poured over them.

If you lard the sweet-breads, substitute for the cream in the gravy a
glass of good wine. In this case, take the sweet-breads out before it
is put into the gravy. Boil up once and pour over them.

SWEET-BREADS (_Roasted._)

Parboil and throw into cold water, where let them stand for fifteen
minutes. Then change to more cold water for five minutes longer. Wipe
perfectly dry. Lay them in your dripping-pan, and roast, basting with
butter and water until they begin to brown. Then withdraw them for an
instant, roll in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and return to
the fire for ten minutes longer, basting meanwhile twice with melted
butter. Lay in a chafing-dish while you add to the dripping half a cup
hot water, some chopped parsley, a teaspoonful browned flour, and the
juice of half a lemon. Pour over the sweet-breads before sending to
table.

JELLIED VEAL.

Wash a knuckle of veal, and cut it into three pieces. Boil it slowly
until the meat will slip easily from the bones; take out of the liquor;
remove all the bones, and chop the meat fine. Season with salt, pepper,
two shallots chopped as fine as possible, mace and thyme, or, if you
like, sage. Put back into the liquor, and boil until it is almost dry
and can be stirred with difficulty. Turn into a mould until next day.
Set on the table cold, garnish with parsley, and cut in slices. The
juice of a lemon, stirred in just before it is taken from the fire, is
an improvement.

CALF’S-HEAD IN A MOULD.

Boil a calf’s-head until tender, the day before you wish to use it.
When perfectly cold, chop—not too small—and season to taste with
pepper, salt, mace, and the juice of a lemon. Prepare half as much cold
ham, fat and lean—also minced—as you have of the chopped calf’s-head.
Butter a mould well, and lay in the bottom a layer of the calf’s-head,
then one of ham, and so on until the shape is full, pressing each layer
hard, when you have moistened it with veal gravy or the liquor in which
the head was boiled. Pour more gravy over the top, and when it has
soaked in well, cover with a paste made of flour and water. Bake one
hour. Remove the paste when it is quite cold, and turn out carefully.
Cut perpendicularly.

This is quite as good a relish when made of cold roast or stewed veal
and ham. It will keep several days in cool weather.

VEAL OLIVES WITH OYSTERS.

Cut large, smooth slices from a fillet of veal, or veal chops will do
quite as well. Trim them into a uniform shape and size, and spread each
neatly with forced-meat made of bread-crumbs and a little chopped pork,
seasoned with pepper and salt. Over this spread some chopped oysters,
about three to a good-sized slice of veal. Roll them up carefully and
closely, and pin each with two small tin or wooden skewers. Lay them in
a dripping-pan; dash a teacupful of boiling water over them, and roast,
basting at least twice with melted butter. When they are brown, remove
to a chafing-dish, and cover, while you add a little oyster-liquor to
the gravy left in the dripping-pan. Let this simmer for three or four
minutes; thicken with a teaspoonful of browned flour, and boil up at
once. Withdraw the skewers cautiously, so as not to break the olives;
pour the gravy over and around them, and serve. If you have no skewers,
bind the olives with pack-thread, cutting it, of course, before sending
to table.

Serve with cranberry jelly.

MINCED VEAL.

Take the remains of a cold roast of veal fillet, shoulder, or breast,
and cut all the meat from the bones. Put the latter, with the outside
slices and the gristly pieces, into a saucepan, with a cup of cold
water, some sweet herbs, pepper, and salt. If you have a bit of bacon
convenient, or a ham-bone, add this and omit the salt. Stew all
together for an hour, then strain, thicken with flour, return to the
fire, and boil five minutes longer, stirring in a tablespoonful of
butter.

Meanwhile, mince the cold veal, and when the gravy is ready put
this in a little at a time. Let it _almost_ boil, when add two
tablespoonfuls of cream, or three of milk, stirring all the while.
Lastly, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and a moment later half a
glass of Sherry or Madeira wine.

The mince-meat should be dry enough to heap into a shape in a flat dish
or chafing-dish. Lay triangles of buttered toast about the base of the
mound, and on the top a poached egg.

The remains of cold roast beef treated in this manner, substituting for
the toast balls of mashed potato, will make a neat and palatable dish.

Send around spinach or stewed tomatoes with minced veal; scraped
horseradish steeped in vinegar with the beef.

VEAL CUTLETS À LA MAINTENON.

The cutlets should be nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, and trim
in shape. Dip each in beaten egg, then into pounded cracker which has
been seasoned with powdered sweet herbs, pepper, and salt. Wrap each
cutlet in a half-sheet of note or letter paper, well buttered; lay them
upon a buttered gridiron and broil over a clear fire, turning often
and dexterously. You can secure the papers by fringing the ends, and
twisting these after the cutlets are put in. This is neater than to
pin them together. In trying this dish for the first time, have ready
a sufficient number of duplicate papers in a clean, hot dish. If your
envelopes are much soiled or darkened while the cutlets are broiling,
transfer quickly when done to the clean warm ones, twist the ends,
and serve. Cutlets prepared in this manner are sent to table in their
cloaks, ranged symmetrically upon a hot chafing-dish.

The expedient of the clean papers is a “trick of the trade,” amateur
housewives will observe with satisfaction. Epicures profess to enjoy
veal cooked in covers far more than when the flavor and juices escape
in broiling without them. Empty every drop of gravy from the soiled
papers into the clean over the cutlets.

CROQUETTES OF CALF’S BRAINS.

Wash the brains very thoroughly until they are free from membranous
matter and perfectly white. Beat them smooth; season with a pinch
of powdered sage, pepper, and salt. Add two tablespoonfuls fine
bread-crumbs moistened with milk, and a beaten egg. Roll into balls
with floured hands, dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry in
butter or veal-drippings.

These make a pleasant accompaniment to boiled spinach. Heap the
vegetable in the centre of the dish, arrange the balls about it, and
give one to each person who wishes spinach.

CALF’S LIVER (_Roasted._)

Soak the liver in salt and water an hour to draw out the blood. Wipe
perfectly dry, and stuff with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs, two
slices of fat salt pork, chopped small, a shallot, pepper, salt, and
nutmeg; sweet marjoram and thyme, and if you choose, a little sage.
Moisten this with butter melted in a very little hot water, and two
raw eggs, well beaten. In order to get this into the liver, make an
incision with a narrow sharp knife, and without enlarging the aperture
where the blade entered, move the point dexterously to and fro, to
enlarge the cavity inside. Stuff this full of the force-meat, sew or
skewer up the outer orifice; lard with strips of salt pork, and roast
for an hour, basting twice with butter and water, afterward with the
gravy in the dripping-pan. Pour the gravy over the liver when done.

Roasted liver is very good cold, cut into slices like tongue.

CALF’S LIVER (_Fried_).

Slice the liver smoothly, and lay in salt and water to draw out the
blood. Lard each slice, when you have wiped it dry, with slices of fat
salt pork, drawn through at regular distances, and projecting slightly
on each side. Lay in a clean frying-pan and fry brown. When done,
take out the slices, arrange them neatly on a hot dish, and set aside
to keep warm. Add to the gravy in the frying-pan a chopped onion, a
half-cup of hot water, pepper, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with
brown flour. Boil up well, run through a cullender to remove the onion
and the bits of crisped pork that may have been broken off in cooking,
pour over the liver, and serve hot.

Pigs’ livers can be cooked in the same way.

CALF’S LIVER (_Stewed_).

Slice the liver and lay in salt and water an hour. Then cut into dice
and put over the fire, with enough cold water to cover it well. Cover
and stew steadily for an hour, when add salt, pepper, a little mace,
sweet marjoram, parsley, and a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce. Stew
again steadily, not fast, for half an hour longer, when put in a
tablespoonful of butter, two of browned flour—wet with cold water, a
teaspoonful of lemon-juice and one of currant jelly. Boil five minutes
longer, and dish. A little wine is an improvement.

_Or,_

Put in with the liver-dice some of salt pork—say a handful—and when you
season, a chopped onion, and omit the jelly at the last, substituting
some tomato catsup.

IMITATION PÂTÉS DE FOIE GRAS. ✠

Boil a calf’s liver until very tender in water that has been slightly
salted, and in another vessel a nice calf’s tongue. It is best to
do this the day before you make your _pâté_, as they should be not
only cold, but firm when used. Cut the liver into bits, and rub these
gradually to a smooth paste in a Wedgewood mortar, moistening, as you
go on, with melted butter. Work into this paste, which should be quite
soft, a quarter-teaspoonful of cayenne pepper, or twice the quantity of
white or black, half a grated nutmeg, a little cloves, a teaspoonful
of Worcestershire sauce, salt to taste, a full teaspoonful of made
mustard, and a tablespoonful of boiling water, in which a minced onion
has been steeped until the flavor is extracted. Work all together
thoroughly, and pack in jelly-jars with air-tight covers, or, if you
have them, in _pâté_-jars. They give a foreign air to the compound, and
aid imagination in deceiving the palate. Butter the inside of the jars
well, and pack the _pâté_ very hard, inserting here and there square
and triangular bits of the tongue, which should be pared and cut up
for this purpose. These simulate the truffles imbedded in the genuine
_pâtés_ from Strasbourg. When the jar is packed, and smooth as marble
on the surface, cover with melted butter. Let this harden, put on the
lid, and set away in a cool place. In winter it will keep for weeks,
and is very nice for luncheon or tea. Make into sandwiches, or set on
in the jars, if they are neat and ornamental.

The resemblance in taste to the real _pâté de foie gras_ is remarkable,
and the domestic article is popular with the lovers of that delicacy.
Pigs’ livers make a very fair _pâté_. If you can procure the livers
of several fowls and treat as above, substituting bits of the inside
of the gizzard for truffles, you will find the result even more
satisfactory.

VEAL MARBLE.

Boil a beef-tongue the day before it is to be used, and a like
number of pounds of lean veal. Grind first one, then the other, in a
sausage-cutter, keeping them in separate vessels until you are ready to
pack. If you have no machine for this purpose, chop _very_ fine. Season
the tongue with pepper, powdered sweet herbs, a teaspoonful of made
mustard, a little nutmeg, and cloves—just a pinch of each; the veal in
like manner, with the addition of salt. Pack in alternate spoonfuls, as
irregularly as possible, in cups, bowls, or jars, which have been well
buttered. Press very hard as you go on, smooth the top, and cover with
melted butter. When this cools, close the cans, and keep in a cool, dry
place. Turn out whole, or cut in slices for tea. It is a pretty and
savory relish, garnished with parsley or the blanched tops of celery.

You can use ground ham instead of tongue. It is hardly so good, but is
more economical.

PORK.

At the South, where, in spite of the warm climate, the consumption
of pork is double that of the North, the full-grown hog is seldom
represented by any of his parts at the table, fresh or pickled, unless
it be during killing-time, when fresh spare-ribs, chine, and steak,
with other succulent bits, are welcome upon the choicest bills of fare.
The rest of the animal—ham, shoulders, and middlings—is consigned to
the packing barrel, and ultimately to the smoke-house. But, in cool
weather, “shoat”—_i. e._, pig under six months of age—is abundantly
displayed in market, and highly esteemed by all classes. The meat
is fine and sweet, and, unless too fat, nearly as delicate as that
of chicken—a very different-looking and tasting dish from the gross
oleaginous joints and “chunks” offered for sale in many other regions
as “nice young pork.” Those of my readers who can command “shoat”
are to be heartily congratulated. Those whose butchers dispense only
portions of the mature porker will do well, in my opinion, if they
rarely admit him to their families before he has been salted, and been
thereby purged of many unwholesome properties. Few stomachs, save those
of out-door laborers, can digest the fresh meat of a two or three, or
even one year old hog. This is the truthful, but, to unaccustomed ears,
offensive name for him at the South and West, where his qualities and
habits are best known.

The parts of a properly dissected hog are the hams, shoulders, griskin
or chine, the loin, middlings, spare-ribs, head, feet, liver, and
haslet. The choice portions are hams, shoulders, and, for roasting,
the loin. All hogs should be kept up and well fed for three weeks,
at least, before they are killed; their styes be frequently cleaned,
and furnished with abundance of water, renewed every day. Sir Grunter
would be a more cleanly creature if he were allowed more extensive
water privileges. If it were possible—and in the country this may
sometimes be done—to build his pen on the bank of a running stream,
he would speedily redeem his character from the stain cast upon it
by the popular verdict, and the superior quality of the meat repay
the thoughtful kindness of his owner. It is a disgrace to humanity,
hardly second to the barbarities of swill-milk manufactories, this
compulsory filth of any domestic animal. Those who, like myself,
have been loathing witnesses of the pig-pens upon the premises of
well-to-do farmers—the receptacles of the vilest slops and offal, never
cleaned except during the yearly removal of manure from barnyard to
field—cannot marvel at the growing prejudice against pork in all its
varieties that pervades our best classes. We feed the hog with the
offscourings (this is literal) of house, garden, and table; bed him
in mire, and swell him with acetous fermentation, not to say active
decomposition, and then abuse him for being what we have made him.
I am persuaded—and wiser people than I declare—that hog-scrofula
and cholera, and the rest of the train of fleshly ills that are the
terror of pork-raisers, have, one and all, their root in this unseemly
inhumanity. Eschew fresh pork we may, but we cannot dispense with hams,
shoulders, and, most valuable of all to the cook, lard and pickled
pork. Real sausage, porcine and home-made, is still sweet and pleasant
to the unpampered palate; and of roast pig, the gentlest and most
genial of English essayists did not disdain to become the eulogist. In
memory of his usefulness, in belief of the healthfulness which should
be his birthright, and the safeguard of his consumers, let us treat
Bristle well—I do not say philosophically, but sensibly and kindly.

A pig should not be allowed to eat anything for twenty-four hours
before he is killed. After he is butchered, great care should be
exercised to keep the pork from tainting; it spoils more readily, when
fresh, than any other meat. Cook all kinds of pork thoroughly. When
underdone it is not only unpalatable, but exceedingly unwholesome.

ROAST LEG OF PORK.

One weighing about seven pounds is enough, even for a large family.
If the pig be young, the leg will be even smaller. Score the skin
in squares, or parallel lines running from side to side, for the
convenience of the carver. Put it down to roast with a _very_ little
water in the pan below. Heat gradually until the fat begins to ooze
from the meat, when quicken the fire to a red, steady glow. Baste only
with its own gravy, and do this often, that the skin may not be hard or
tough. When done take it up, skim the gravy thoroughly, put in half a
cup of boiling water, thicken with brown flour, add pepper, salt, and
the juice of a lemon, and serve in a boat.

_Or,_

If the joint be that of a full-grown hog, rub into the top, after
scoring it deeply, a force-meat of bread-crumbs seasoned with sage and
chopped onion, wet with the juice of a lemon or a very little vinegar;
pepper and salt to taste. Rub this in hard until the cracks are filled.
With a sharp knife make incisions close to the knuckle-bone, and stuff
with the force-meat, tying a string tightly about it afterward, to
prevent the escape of the seasoning. Rub over once with butter, when
the meat is warm throughout; then baste with the fat. Skim all the fat
from the drippings that can be removed before making the gravy.

Send around tomato or apple sauce, and pickles, with roast pork.

LOIN OF PORK.

Cook as you would a leg, allowing twenty minutes to a pound in
roasting. This is a good rule for fresh pork, the flesh being coarser
and of closer grain than are more delicate meats.

A shoulder is roasted in the same way.

ROAST SPARE-RIB.

When first put down to the fire, cover with a greased paper until it is
half-done. Remove it then, and dredge with flour. A few minutes later,
baste once with butter, and afterward, every little while, with its
own gravy. This is necessary, the spare-rib being a very dry piece.
Just before you take it up, strew over the surface thickly with fine
bread-crumbs seasoned with powdered sage, pepper, and salt, and a small
onion minced into almost invisible bits. Let it cook five minutes and
baste once more with butter. Skim the gravy, add a half cupful of hot
water, thicken with brown flour, squeeze in the juice of a lemon,
strain, and pour over the meat in the dish.

Send tomato catsup around with it, or if you prefer, put a liberal
spoonful in the gravy, after it is strained.

ROAST CHINE.

A chine is treated precisely as is the spare-rib, except that the strip
of skin running along the back is scored closely. If you wish, you can
omit the bread-crumb crust, the onion and sage. In carving, cut thin
horizontal slices from the ribs. Chine is best cold. The meat next the
ribs is delicious when scraped off and made into sandwiches, or laid
upon buttered toast.

_Or,_

You can wash the chine over with beaten egg, dredge with
cracker-crumbs, seasoned with salt and pepper, and roast, basting with
butter and water once when the meat is heated through, afterward with
its own gravy. This is a palatable supper-dish when cold. Garnish with
cucumber pickles cut in round slices.

ROAST PIG.

A month-old pig, if it be well-grown and plump, is best for this
purpose. It is hardly possible that any lady-housekeeper will ever be
called upon to do the butcher’s work upon the bodies of full-grown
hogs, or even “shoat”—a task that requires the use of hatchet or
cleaver. It is well that she should know how to clean and dress the
baby pig, which is not larger than a Thanksgiving turkey.

As soon as it is really cold, make ready a large boiler of scalding
water. Lay the pig in cold water for fifteen minutes; then, holding it
by the hind-leg, plunge it into the boiling water, and shake it about
violently until you can pull the hair off by the handful. Take it out,
wipe it dry, and with a crash cloth or whisk broom rub the hair off,
brushing from the tail to the head, until the skin is perfectly clean.
Cut it open, take out the entrails, and wash very thoroughly with cold
water, then with soda and water, to remove any unpleasant odor; next
with salt and water. Rinse with fair water and wipe inside. Then wrap
in a wet cloth, and keep this saturated with cold water until you are
ready to stuff it. If these directions be followed implicitly, the pig
will be fair and white, as if intrusted to a professional butcher.

For stuffing, take a cupful of bread-crumbs, half a chopped onion,
two teaspoonfuls powdered sage, three tablespoonfuls melted butter, a
saltspoonful of pepper, half a grated nutmeg, half a teaspoonful of
salt, two well-beaten eggs. Mix all these ingredients, except the egg,
together, incorporating them well; beat in the eggs, and stuff the pig
into his natural size and shape. Sew him up, and bend his fore-feet
backward, his hind-feet forward, under and close to the body, and
skewering them into the proper position. Dry it well, and dredge with
flour. Put it to roast with a little hot water, slightly salted, in
the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water three times, as the pig
gradually warms, afterward with the dripping. When it begins to smoke
or steam, rub it over every five minutes or so, with a cloth dipped in
melted butter. Do not omit this precaution if you would have the skin
tender and soft after it begins to brown. A month-old pig will require
about an hour and three-quarters or two hours—sometimes longer—to
roast, if the fire be brisk and steady.

Should you or your guests dislike onion, prepare your stuffing without
it. The following is a good receipt for rich and savory force-meat for
a pig:—

One cup of bread-crumbs, an ounce of suet, a bunch of parsley minced
fine, teaspoonful of powdered sage, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, a
little thyme, half a glass Madeira or Sherry, juice of a lemon,
two tablespoonfuls melted butter, a cup of oyster-liquor, and two
well-beaten eggs. For a Christmas pig, it is worth one’s while to take
the trouble to prepare this stuffing.

If your pig is large, you can cut off his head and split him down the
back before sending to table. Do this with a sharp knife, and lay the
backs together. But it is a pity! I have before me now the vision of
a pig I once saw served whole on the table of a friend, that forbids
me ever to mutilate him before the guests have a chance to feast their
eyes upon the goodly picture. He was done to a turn—a rich, even brown,
without a seam or crack from head to tail, and he knelt in a bed of
deep-green parsley, alternately with bunches of whitish-green celery
tops (the inner and tender leaves); a garland of the same was about his
neck, and in his mouth was a tuft of white cauliflower, surrounded by a
setting of curled parsley. Very simple, you see; but I never beheld a
more ornamental roast.

Skim your gravy well; add a little hot water, thicken with brown flour,
boil up once, strain, and, when you have added half a glass of wine and
half the juice of a lemon, serve in a tureen.

In carving the pig, cut off the head first; then split down the back,
take off hams and shoulders, and separate the ribs. Serve some of the
dressing to each person.

I have been thus minute in describing the preparation of this holiday
dish, because it is erroneously considered a difficult task. Any cook
with a moderate degree of judgment and experience can undertake it with
a reasonable expectation of success.

PORK STEAKS.

Those from the loin are best, but they can be cut from the neck. Remove
the skin and trim neatly. Broil over a clear fire, without seasoning,
adding pepper, salt, a pinch of sage, another of minced onion, and a
lump of butter after they are put into the hot dish. Then cover closely
and set in the oven for five minutes, until the aroma of the condiments
flavors the meat. Try this method. You can cook spare-rib in the same
manner.

PORK CHOPS.

Remove the skin, trim them, and dip first in beaten egg, then in
cracker-crumbs seasoned with salt, pepper, minced onion, and a little
sage. Fry in hot lard or drippings twenty or thirty minutes, turning
often. The gravy of this dish is usually too rich or fat to accompany
the meat.

Pork cutlets are cooked in like manner. Send apple-sauce to the table
with them, and season with tomato catsup.

STEWED PORK.

Take some lean slices from the leg, or bits left from trimming the
various pieces into shape. Cut into dice an inch square, put into
a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and stew gently for
three-quarters of an hour, closely covered. Meanwhile parboil half a
dozen Irish potatoes, cut in thick slices, in another vessel. When
the pork has stewed the allotted time, drain off the water from these
and add to the meat. Season with pepper, salt, a minced shallot, a
spoonful of pungent catsup, and a bunch of aromatic herbs. Cover again,
and stew twenty minutes longer, or until the meat is tender throughout.

If your meat be not too fat, this stew will be very good, especially on
a cold day.

You can stew cutlets in the same way.

PIG’S HEAD (_Roasted_).

Take the head of a half-grown pig; clean and split it, taking out the
brains and setting these aside in a cool place. Parboil the head in
salted water, drain off this, wipe the head dry, and wash all over with
beaten egg; dredge thickly with bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper,
sage, and onion, and roast, basting twice with butter and water; then
with the liquor in which the head was boiled; at last with the gravy
that runs from the meat. Wash the brains in several waters until
they are white; beat to a smooth paste, add one-quarter part fine
bread-crumbs, pepper, and salt; make into balls, binding with a beaten
egg; roll in flour and fry in hot fat to a light brown. Arrange about
the head when it is dished. Skim the gravy left in the dripping-pan,
thicken with brown flour, add the juice of a lemon, and boil up once.
Pour it over the head.

PIG’S HEAD WITH LIVER AND HEART (_Stewed_).

Clean and split the head, taking out the brains and setting aside.
Put the head in a pot with water enough to cover it and parboil it.
Have ready another pot with the liver and heart, cut into inch-long
pieces, stewed in just enough water to keep them from scorching. When
the head is half-done, add the entire contents of the second vessel to
the first, and season with salt, pepper, a little onion, parsley, and
sage. Cover and stew until the head is very tender, when take it out
and lay it in the middle of a flat dish. With a perforated skimmer
remove the liver and heart and spread about the head, surrounding, but
not covering it. Strain the gravy and return to the pot, thicken with
brown flour, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and drop in carefully
force-meat balls of the brains, prepared according to the foregoing
receipt and fried a light brown. Boil once and pour about the head,
arranging the balls upon it, to cover the split between the two sides
of the head.

You may improve this dish, which is very savory, by boiling a couple of
pigs’ feet with the head until the meat will slip from the bones. Take
them from the liquor, cut off and chop the meat, and put into the large
pot when you add the liver, etc.

SOUSE OF PIGS’ EARS AND FEET.

Clean the ears and feet well; cover them with cold water slightly
salted, and boil until tender. Pack in stone jars while hot, and cover
while you make ready the pickle. To half a gallon of good cider vinegar
allow half a cup of white sugar, three dozen whole black peppers, a
dozen blades of mace, and a dozen cloves. Boil this one minute, taking
care that it really boils, and pour while hot over the still warm feet
and ears. It will be ready to use in two days, and will keep in a cool,
dry place two months.

If you wish it for breakfast, make a batter of one egg, one cup of
milk, salt to taste, and a teaspoonful of butter, with enough flour for
a thin muffin-batter; dip each piece in this, and fry in hot lard or
dripping. Or dip each in beaten egg, then in pounded cracker, before
frying.

Souse is also good eaten cold, especially the feet.

HEAD CHEESE. (OR SOUSE.)

This is made of the head, ears and tongue. Boil them in salted water
until very tender. Strip the meat from the bones and chop fine. Season
with salt, pepper, sage, sweet marjoram, a little powdered cloves,
and half a cup of strong vinegar. Mix all together thoroughly, taste
to see that it is flavored sufficiently, remembering that the spice
tends to keep it, and pack hard in moulds or bowls, interspersing the
layers with bits of the tongue cut in oblongs, squares and triangles
not less than an inch in length. Press down and keep the meat in shape
by putting a plate on the top of each mould (first wetting the plate)
and a weight upon this. In two days the cheese will be ready for use.
Turn out from the shapes as you wish to use it; or, should you desire
to keep it several weeks, take the cheese from the moulds and immerse
in cold vinegar in stone jars. This will preserve it admirably, and
you have only to pare away the outside, should it be too acid for your
taste.

This is generally eaten cold for tea, with vinegar and mustard; but it
is very nice cut in slices, seasoned slightly with mustard, and warmed
in a frying-pan with enough butter to prevent burning. Or, you may dip
in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry for breakfast.

If the tongue is arranged judiciously the slices will be prettily
marbled.

PORK POT-PIE.

You can make this of lean pork cut from any part of the pig, but
the chine is best. Crack the bones well, and cut up the chine into
_riblettes_ two inches long. Line your pot, which should be round at
the bottom and well greased, with a good light paste; put in the meat,
then a layer of parboiled potatoes, split in half, seasoning with
pepper and salt as you go on. When the pot is nearly full, pour in a
quart of cold water and put on the upper crust, cutting a small round
hole out of the middle, through which you can add hot water should the
gravy boil away too fast. Slips of paste may also be strewed among
the meat and potatoes. Put on the pot-lid, and boil from one hour and
a half to two hours. When done, remove the upper crust carefully, turn
out the meat and gravy into a bowl, that you may get at the lower. Lay
this upon a hot dish, put the meat, etc., in order upon it, pour the
gravy over it, and cover with the top crust. This can be browned with a
red-hot shovel, or oven-lid.

CHESHIRE PORK-PIE.

Cut two or three pounds of lean fresh pork into strips as long and as
wide as your middle finger. Line a buttered dish with puff-paste; put
in a layer of pork seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg or mace;
next a layer of juicy apples, sliced and covered with about an ounce
of white sugar; then more pork, and so on until you are ready for the
paste cover, when pour in half a pint of sweet cider or wine, and stick
bits of butter all over the top. Cover with a thick lid of puff-paste,
cut a slit in the top, brush over with beaten egg, and bake an hour and
a half.

This is an English dish, and is famous in the region from which it
takes its name. It is much liked by those who have tried it, and is
considered by some to be equal to our mince-pie.

Yorkshire pork-pie is made in the same way, with the omission of the
apples, sugar, and nutmeg, and the addition of sage to the seasoning.

SAUSAGE (_No. 1_).

6 lbs. lean fresh pork.
3 lbs. fat fresh pork.
12 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
6 teaspoonfuls black pepper.
6 teaspoonfuls salt.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered mace.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered cloves.
1 grated nutmeg.

Grind the meat, fat and lean, in a sausage-mill, or chop it very fine.
The mill is better, and the grinding does not occupy one-tenth of
the time that chopping does, to say nothing of the labor. One can be
bought for three or four dollars, and will well repay the purchaser.
Mix the seasoning in with your hands, taste to be sure all is right,
and pack down in stone jars, pouring melted lard on top. Another good
way of preserving them is, to make long, narrow bags of stout muslin,
large enough to contain, each, enough sausage for a family dish. Fill
these with the meat, dip in melted lard, and hang from the beams of the
cellar.

If you wish to pack in the intestines of the hog, they should be
carefully prepared as follows: Empty them, cut them in lengths, and lay
for two days in salt and water. Turn them inside out, and lay in soak
one day longer. Scrape them, rinse well in soda and water, wipe, and
blow into one end, having tied up the other with a bit of twine. If
they are whole and clear, stuff with the meat; tie up and hang in the
store-room or cellar.

These are fried in the cases, in a clean, dry frying-pan, until
brown. If you have the sausage-meat in bulk, make into small, round
flat cakes, and fry in the same way. Some dip in egg and pounded
cracker—others roll in flour before cooking. Their own fat will cook
them. Send to table dry and hot, but do not let them fry hard. When
one side is done, turn the other. The fire should be very brisk. Ten
minutes, or twelve at the outside, is long enough to cook them.

SAUSAGE (_No. 2._)

4 lbs. pork, lean.
1½ lbs. pork, fat.
10 teaspoonfuls sage.
5 teaspoonfuls pepper.
5 teaspoonfuls salt.

Grind and season as directed in No. 1.

* * * * *

This will not keep so long as that made according to the former
receipt, but is very good for immediate family use.

SAUSAGE (_No. 3._)

2 lbs. lean pork.
2 lbs. lean veal.
2 lbs. beef suet.
Peel of half a lemon.
1 grated nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful black pepper.
1 teaspoonful cayenne.
5 teaspoonfuls salt.
3 teaspoonfuls sweet marjoram and thyme, mixed.
2 teaspoonfuls of sage.
Juice of a lemon.

Stuff in cases. This is very fine.

BOLOGNA SAUSAGE (_Uncooked._)

6 lbs. lean pork.
3 lbs. lean beef.
2 lbs. beef suet.
4 ounces salt.
6 tablespoonfuls black pepper.
3 tablespoonfuls cayenne.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered cloves.
1 teaspoonful allspice.
One minced onion, very finely chopped.

Chop or grind the meat, and mix the seasoning well through it. Pack it
in beef-skins (or entrails) prepared as you do those of pork. In the
city, you can have these cleaned by your butcher, or get them ready for
use from a pork merchant. Tie both ends tightly, and lay them in brine
strong enough to bear up an egg. Let them be in this for a week; change
the brine, and let them remain in this a week longer. Turn them over
every day of the fortnight. Then take them out, wipe them, and send
them to be smoked, if you have no smoke-house of your own. When well
smoked, rub them over with sweet oil or fresh butter, and hang them in
a cool, dark place.

Bologna sausage is sometimes eaten raw, but the dread of the fatal
_trichinæ_ should put at end to this practice, did not common sense
teach us that it must be unwholesome, no less than disgusting. Cut in
round, thick slices, and toast on a gridiron, or fry in their own fat.
If you mean to keep it some time, rub over the skins with pepper to
keep away insects.

BOLOGNA SAUSAGE (_Cooked._)

2 lbs. lean beef.
2 lbs. lean veal.
2 lbs. lean pork
2 lbs. _fat_ salt pork—not smoked.
1 lb. beef suet
10 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
1 oz. marjoram, parsley, savory, and thyme, mixed.
2 teaspoonfuls cayenne pepper, and the same of black.
1 grated nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 minced onion.
Salt to taste.

Chop or grind the meat and suet; season, and stuff into beef-skins;
tie these up; prick each in several places to allow the escape of
the steam; put into hot—not boiling water, and heat gradually to the
boiling-point. Cook slowly for one hour; take out the skins and lay
them to dry in the sun, upon clean, sweet straw or hay. Rub the outside
of the skins with oil or melted butter, and hang in a cool, dry cellar.
If you mean to keep it more than a week, rub pepper or powdered ginger
upon the outside. You can wash it off before sending to table. This
is eaten without further cooking. Cut in round slices, and lay sliced
lemon around the edge of the dish, as many like to squeeze a few drops
upon the sausage before eating.

LARD.

Every housekeeper knows how unfit for really nice cooking is the
pressed lard sold in stores as the “best and cheapest.” It is close and
tough, melts slowly, and is sometimes diversified by fibrous lumps. And
even when lard has been “tried out” by the usual process, it is often
mixed with so much water as to remind us unpleasantly that it is bought
by weight.

The best way of preparing the “leaf lard,” as it is called, is to skin
it carefully, wash, and let it drain; then put it, cut into bits, into
a large, clean tin kettle or bucket, and set this in a pot of boiling
water. Stir from time to time until it is melted; throw in a very
little salt, to make the sediment settle; and when it is hot—(it should
not boil fast at any time, but simmer gently until clear)—strain
through a close cloth into jars. Do not squeeze the cloth so long as
the clear fat will run through, and when you do, press the refuse into
a different vessel, to be used for commoner purposes than the other.

Most of the lard in general use is, however, made from the fatty
portions of pork lying next the skin of the hog, and are left for this
purpose by the butcher. Scrape from the rind, and cut all into dice.
Fill a large pot, putting in a teacupful of water to prevent scorching,
and melt very slowly, stirring every few minutes. Simmer until there
remains nothing of the meat but fibrous bits. Remove these carefully
with a perforated skimmer; throw in a little salt, to settle the
fat, and when it is clear strain through a fine cullender, a sieve,
or a coarse cloth. Dip the latter in boiling water, should it become
clogged by the cooling lard. Observe the directions about squeezing the
strainer. If your family is small, bear in mind that the lard keeps
longer in small than large vessels. Set away the jars, closely covered,
in a cool, dry cellar or store-room.

In trying out lard, the chief danger is of burning. Simmer gently over
a steady fire, and give it your whole attention until it is done. A
moment’s neglect will ruin all. Stir very often—almost constantly at
the last—and from the bottom, until the salt is thrown in to settle
it, when withdraw to a less hot part of the fire. Bladders tied over
lard jars are the best protection; next to these, paper, and outside of
this, cloths dipped in melted grease.

BRAWN (No. 1.)

Pig’s head weighing 6 lbs.
1 lb. lean beef.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful pepper (black or white).
½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper.
½ teaspoonful mace.
A pinch of cloves.
A small onion minced very fine.

Clean and wash the head, and stew with the beef in enough cold water to
cover. When the bones will slip out easily, remove them, after draining
off the liquor. Chop the meat finely while it is hot, season, and pour
all into a mould, wet inside with cold water. If you can have a tin
mould made in the shape of a boar’s head, your brawn will look well at
a Christmas feast.

BRAWN (No. 2.)

Pig’s head, feet, and ears.
½ teaspoonful of black pepper, and same of cayenne.
4 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
1 teaspoonful mace.
An onion minced.
Salt and saltpetre.

Soak the head twelve hours, and lay in a strong brine, with a
tablespoonful of saltpetre. Let it lie three days in this; rinse; then
boil it until you can draw out the bones. Do this very carefully from
the back and under-side of the head, breaking the outline of the top as
little as possible. Chop the meat of the feet and ears, which should
have been boiled with the head, season to taste with the spices I
have indicated (tastes vary in these matters), beat in the brains, or
two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Fill up the hollows left by the
removal of the bones with this mixture. Tie in a flannel cloth, sewing
this tightly into the shape of the head; boil an hour and a quarter,
and set aside to drain and cool. Do not remove the cloth until next
day. This will be found very nice.

SAVELOYS.

8 lbs. pork.
4 teaspoonfuls black pepper.
1 teaspoonful cayenne.
1 teaspoonful cloves or mace.
8 teaspoonfuls sage, sweet marjoram, and thyme, mixed.
1 teacupful bread-crumbs.

Lay the meat, which should be young pork, in a brine of salt and water,
with a tablespoonful of saltpetre, and leave it for three days. Dry and
mince it, season, and add the grated bread. Stuff in skins, and bake,
closely covered, in an oven for half an hour. Or, what is better, steam
over boiling water one hour.

Eat either hot or cold.

TO PICKLE PORK. (NO. 1.)

Hams, shoulders, chines, and “middlings,” are the parts of the hog
which are usually pickled. This should be done as soon as may be after
the meat is fairly cold—especially in moderate weather. When you can
pack down pork, within twenty-four hours after butchering, it is best
to do so, unless the cold be severe enough to preserve it longer.

4½ lbs. salt.
1 lb. brown sugar.
1 oz. saltpetre in 3 gallons of water.

Put into a large saucepan and boil for half an hour, skimming off the
scum. When cold, pour over the meat, and let it lie for a few days.

This is intended to corn a small quantity of meat for family use.

(NO. 2.)

80 lbs. of meat.
2 quarts and 1 pint of fine salt.
4 lbs. sugar, or 1 quart best molasses.
3 oz. saltpetre.

Pulverize and mix the seasoning, with the exception of the two quarts
of salt, using the one pint only. Rub the meat _well_ all over, and lay
upon boards on the cellar-floor for twenty-four hours. Then, put a few
clean stones in the bottom of a barrel; lay sticks across these, that
the meat may not soak in the liquor that drains from it. Pack the meat
in layers, strewing between these the remaining two quarts of salt. Let
it lie in the cask for fifteen or sixteen days, every day during this
time tipping the cask to drain off the liquor, or drawing it through a
bung-hole near the bottom. Pour this back in cupfuls over the meat.

If you do not mean to smoke the meat, take it out at the end of the
fortnight, rub each piece well over with dry salt, and return to the
barrel. If the liquor does not cover it, make fresh brine in the
proportion of two pounds of salt, a quarter of an ounce of saltpetre,
and a quart of water, and pour in when you have boiled it half an hour
and let it cool. Lay a round piece of board upon the upper layer and
keep this down with stones. Examine from time to time, to be sure the
meat is keeping well. Should it seem likely to taint, throw away the
pickle, rub each piece over with dry salt, and pack anew. Pork pickled
in this way will keep two years.

TO CURE HAMS.

Having pickled your hams with the rest of your pork as just directed,
take them, after the lapse of sixteen days, from the packing barrel,
with the shoulders and jowls. At the South they empty the cask, and
consign the “whole hog” to the smoke-house. Wash off the pickle, and,
while wet, dip in bran. Some use saw-dust, but it is not so good.
Others use neither, only wipe the meat dry and smoke. The object in
dipping in bran or saw-dust is to form a crust which prevents the
evaporation of the juices. Be sure that it is well covered with the
bran, then hang in the smoke, the hock end downward. Keep up a good
smoke, by having the fire partially smothered with hickory chips and
saw dust, for four weeks, taking care the house does not become hot.
Take down the meat, brush off the bran, examine closely, and if you
suspect insects, lay it in the hot sun for a day or two.

The various ways of keeping hams—each strongly recommended by those who
have practised it—are too numerous to mention here. Some pack in wood
ashes; others, in dry oats; others, in bran. But the best authorities
discard packing altogether. I will name one or two methods which I
know have been successful. “I hang mine on hooks from wires, at the
top of my granary, which is tight and dark,” says an excellent judge
and manufacturer of hams. “They are good and sweet when a year old.”
Another admirable housekeeper covers with brown paper, then with coarse
muslin stitched tightly and fitting closely, then whitewashes. But for
the paper, the lime would be apt to eat away the grease. Still another
covers with muslin, and coats with a mixture of bees-wax and rosin.
There is no doubt that the covers are an excellent precaution—provided
always, that the insects have not already deposited their eggs in the
meat. The bran coating tends to prevent this.

I have eaten ham twenty years old in Virginia, which had been kept
sweet in _slaked_ ashes. Unslaked will act like lime upon the fat.

BOILED HAM.

Soak in water over night. Next morning wash hard with a coarse cloth
or stiff brush, and put on to boil with plenty of cold water. Allow a
quarter of an hour to each pound in cooking, and do not boil too fast.
Do not remove the skin until cold; it will come off easily and cleanly
then, and the juices are better preserved than when it is stripped hot.
Send to table with dots of pepper or dry mustard on the top, a tuft of
fringed paper twisted about the shank, and garnish with parsley.

Cut very thin in carving.

GLAZED HAM. ✠

Brush the ham—a cold boiled one, from which the skin has been
taken—well, all over with beaten egg. To a cup of powdered cracker
allow enough rich milk or cream to make into a thick paste, salt, and
work in a teaspoonful of melted butter. Spread this evenly a quarter of
an inch thick over the ham, and set to brown in a moderate oven.

STEAMED HAM.

This is by far the best way of cooking a ham. Lay in cold water for
twelve hours; wash very thoroughly, rubbing with a stiff brush, to
dislodge the salt and smoke on the outside. Put into a steamer, cover
closely, and set it over a pot of boiling water. Allow at least twenty
minutes to a pound. Keep the water at a hard boil.

If you serve ham hot, skin, and immediately strew thickly with cracker
or bread-crumbs, to prevent the waste of the essence. Put a frill of
paper about the knuckle. Send around cabbage or other green vegetables
with it.

BAKED HAM.

Soak for twelve hours. Trim away the rusty part from the under side
and edges, wipe very dry, cover the bottom with a paste made of flour
and hot water, and lay it upside down in the dripping-pan, with water
enough to keep it from burning. Bake five hours, or allow fully
twenty-five minutes to a pound. Baste now and then, to prevent the
crust from cracking and scaling off. When done, peel off this and the
skin, and glaze as you would a cold ham.

Put cut paper about the knuckle, and garnish with parsley and sliced
red beet—pickled.

ROAST HAM.

Soak for two days in lukewarm water, changing at least six times a
day. Take it out, wash very well, scrubbing the under part hard, and
trimming away the black and rusty edges. Skin with care, lest you
mangle the meat and spoil the symmetry of the shape. Lay in a dish and
sponge with a cloth dipped in a mixture of wine, vinegar, sugar, and
mustard—about a tablespoonful of white sugar, a saltspoonful of made
mustard, and a glass of wine to half a gill of vinegar. Do this at
intervals of an hour, washing every part of the ham well, all day and
until bed-time. Renew the process next morning until six hours before
you need the meat. Put it upon the spit or in the dripping-pan, with a
cup of hot water to prevent burning. Add to the mixture—or what is left
of it in the dish—a cupful of boiling water. Keep this on the stove and
baste continually with it until the liquor flows freely from the ham as
it cooks; then substitute the gravy. When done (you must test with a
fork), cover with cracker-crumbs, worked to a paste with milk, butter,
and a beaten egg, and return to the oven to brown.

Skim the gravy; add a glass of good wine, a tablespoonful of
catsup,—walnut, if you have it,—the juice of a lemon, and a little
nutmeg. Boil up, and send to table in a boat.

Troublesome as the mode of cooking it may seem, roast ham is so
delicious—especially when cold—as fully to recompense the housekeeper
who may be tempted to try it.

BROILED HAM.

Cut in slices. Wash well, and soak in scalding water in a covered
vessel for half an hour. Pour off the water, and add more boiling
water. Wipe dry when the ham has stood half an hour in the second
water, and lay in cold for five minutes. Wipe again and broil over (or
under) a clear fire.

Cold boiled ham, that is not too much done, is better for broiling than
raw. Pepper before serving.

BARBECUED HAM. ✠

If your ham is raw, soak as above directed; then lay the slices flat in
a frying-pan; pepper each and lay upon it a quarter of a teaspoonful of
made mustard. Pour about them some vinegar, allowing half a teaspoonful
to each slice. Fry quickly and turn often. When done to a fine brown,
transfer to a hot dish: add to the gravy in the pan half a glass of
wine and a very small teaspoonful of white sugar. Boil up and pour over
the meat.

Underdone ham is nice barbecued.

FRIED HAM.

If raw, soak as for broiling. Cook in a hot frying-pan turning often
until done. Serve with or without the gravy, as you please. In some
parts of the country it is customary to take the meat first from the
pan, and add to the gravy a little cream, then thicken with flour. Boil
up once and pour over the ham. A little chopped parsley is a pleasant
addition to this gravy.

_Or,_

You may dip some slices of cold boiled ham—cut rather thick—in beaten
egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry them in fat extracted from some
bits of salt pork. Take the dry fried pork from the pan before putting
in the ham. Garnish with crisped parsley.

HAM SANDWICHES.

Cut some slices of bread in a neat shape, and trim off the crust,
unless it is very tender. Butter them and lay between every two some
thin slices of cold boiled ham. Spread the meat with a little mustard
if you like.

Ground ham makes delicious sandwiches. Cut the bread very thin, and
butter well. Put in a good layer of ham, and press the two sides of the
sandwiches firmly, but gently, together. Then roll lengthwise, and pile
in a plate or basket.

HAM AND CHICKEN SANDWICHES.

Mince some cold roast chicken, and a like quantity of cold boiled ham.
Put the mixture into a saucepan, with enough gravy—chicken or veal—to
make a soft paste. If you have no gravy, use a little hot water, a
few spoonfuls of cream, and a fair lump of butter. Season with pepper
to your taste. Stir while it heats almost to boiling, working it very
smooth. In about five minutes after it begins to smoke, take from the
fire and spread in a dish to cool. With a good-sized cake-cutter, or
a plain thin-edged tumbler, cut some rounds of cold bread, and butter
one side of each. Sprinkle the buttered sides with grated cheese, and,
when the chicken is cold, put a layer between these.

These sandwiches are simple and very good.

HAM AND CHICKEN PIE.

Cut up and parboil a tender young chicken—a year old is best. Line a
deep dish with a good pie-crust. Cut some thin slices of cold boiled
ham, and spread a layer next the crust; then arrange pieces of the fowl
upon the ham. Cover this, in turn, with slices of hard-boiled eggs,
buttered and peppered. Proceed in this order until your materials are
used up. Then pour in enough veal or chicken gravy to prevent dryness.
Unless you have put in too much water for the size of the fowl, the
liquor in which the chicken was boiled is best for this purpose. Bake
one hour and a quarter for a large pie.

HAM AND EGGS.

Cut your slices of ham of a uniform size and shape. Fry quickly, and
take them out of the pan as soon as they are done. Have the eggs ready,
and drop them, one at a time, in the hissing fat. Have a large pan
for this purpose, that they may not touch and run together. In three
minutes they will be done. The meat should be kept hot, and when the
eggs are ready, lay one upon each slice of ham, which should have been
cut the proper size for this. Do not use the gravy.

PORK AND BEANS.

Parboil a piece of the middling of salt pork, and score the skin. Allow
a pound to a quart of dried beans, which must be soaked over night in
lukewarm water. Change this twice for more and warmer water, and in the
morning put them on to boil in cold. When they are soft, drain off the
liquor, put the beans in a deep dish, and half-bury the pork in the
middle, adding a very little warm water. Bake a nice brown.

This is a favorite dish with New England farmers and many others.
Although old-fashioned, it still makes its weekly appearance upon the
tables of hundreds of well-to-do families.

PORK AND PEAS PUDDING.

Soak the pork, which should not be a fat piece, over night in cold
water; and in another pan a quart of dried split peas. In the morning
put on the peas to boil slowly until tender. Drain and rub through
a cullender; season with pepper and salt, and mix with them two
tablespoonfuls of butter and two beaten eggs. Beat all well together.
Have ready a floured pudding-cloth, and put the pudding into it. Tie it
up, leaving room for swelling; put on in warm, not hot water, with the
pork, and boil them together an hour. Lay the pork in the centre of the
dish, turn out the pudding, slice and arrange about the meat.

COMPANY.

LAYING to your conduct the line and plummet of the Golden Rule, never
pay a visit (I use the word in contradistinction to “call”) without
notifying your hostess-elect of your intention thus to favor her.

Perhaps once in ten thousand times, your friend—be she mother,
sister, or intimate acquaintance—may be enraptured at your unexpected
appearance, travelling-satchel in hand, at her door, to pass a day,
a night, or a month; or may be pleasantly surprised when you take
the baby, and run in to tea in a social way. But the chances are so
greatly in favor of the probability that you will upset her household
arrangements, abrade her temper, or put her to undue trouble or
embarrassment, by this evidence of your wish to have her feel quite
easy with you, to treat you as one of the family, that it is hardly
worth your while to risk so much in order to gain so little.

Mrs. Partington has said more silly things than any other woman of her
age in this country; but she spoke wisely in declaring her preference
for those surprise-parties “when people sent word they were coming.”
Do not be ashamed to say to your nearest kin, or the confidante of
your school-days—“Always let me know when to look for you, that
I may so order my time and engagements as to secure the greatest
possible pleasure from your visit.” If you are the woman I take you to
be—methodical, industrious, and ruling your household according to just
and firm laws of order and punctuality, you need this notice. If you
are likewise social and hospitable, your rules are made with reference
to possible and desirable interruptions of this nature. It only
requires a little closer packing of certain duties, an easy exchange
of times and seasons, and leisure is obtained for the right enjoyment
of your friend’s society. The additional place is set at table; your
spare bed, which yesterday was tossed into a heap that both mattresses
might be aired, and covered lightly with a thin spread, is made up with
fresh sheets that have not gathered damp and must from lying packed
beneath blankets and coverlets for may be a month, for fear somebody
might happen in to pass the night, and catch you with the bed in
disorder. Towels and water are ready; the room is bright and dustless;
the dainty dish so far prepared for dinner or tea as to be like Mrs.
Bagnet’s greens, “off your mind;” John knows whom he is to see at his
home-coming; the children are clean, and on the _qui vive_—children’s
instincts are always hospitable. The guest’s welcome is half given in
the air of the house and the family group before you have time to utter
a word. It may have appeared to her a useless formality to despatch the
note or telegram you insisted upon. She knows you love her, and she
would be wounded by the thought that she could ever “come amiss” to
your home. Perhaps, as she lays aside her travelling-dress, she smiles
at your “ceremonious, old-maidish ways,” and marvels that so good a
manager should deem such forms necessary with an old friend.

If she had driven to your house at nightfall, to discover that you
had gone with husband and children to pass several days with John’s
mother, in a town fifty miles away, and that the servants were out
“a-pleasuring” in the mistress’ absence; if she had found you at home,
nursing three children through the measles, she having brought her
youngest with her; if you were yourself the invalid, bound hand and
foot to a Procrustean couch, and utterly unable even to see her—John,
meanwhile, being incapacitated from playing the part of agreeable
host by worry and anxiety; if, on the day before her arrival, your
chambermaid had gone off in a “tiff,” leaving you to do her work and
to nurse your cook, sick in the third story; if earlier comers than
herself had filled every spare mattress in the house;—if any one of
these, or a dozen other ills to which housekeepers are heirs, had
impressed upon her the idea that her visit was inopportune, she might
think better of your “punctilio.”

But since unlooked-for visitors will occasionally drop in upon the best
regulated families, make it your study to receive them gracefully and
cordially. If they care enough for you to turn aside from their regular
route to tarry a day, or night, or week with you, it would be churlish
not to show appreciation of the favor in which you are held. Make them
welcome to the best you can offer at so short a notice, and let no
preoccupied air or troubled smile bear token to your perturbation—if
you are perturbed. If you respect yourself and your husband, the
appointments of your table will never put you to the blush. John, who
buys the silver, glass, china, and napery, is entitled to the every-day
use of the best. You may have—I hope this is so—a holiday set of each,
put away beyond the reach of hourly accidents; but if this is fit
for the use of a lord, do not make John eat three hundred and sixty
days in the year from such ware as would suit a ditcher’s cottage. If
your children never see bright silver unless when “there is company,”
you cannot wonder, although you will be mortified, at their making
looking-glasses of the bowls of the spoons, and handling the forks
awkwardly. Early impress upon them that what is nice enough for Papa,
is nice enough for the President. I have noticed that where there is
a wide difference between family and company table furniture, there
usually exists a corresponding disparity between every-day and company
manners.

Especially, let your welcome be ready and hearty when your husband
brings home an unexpected guest. Take care he understands clearly
that this is his prerogative: that the rules by which you would
govern the visits of your own sex are not applicable to his. Men
rarely set seasons for their visits. They snatch an hour or two with
an old chum or new friend out of the hurry of business life, as one
stoops to pluck a stray violet from a dusty roadside. John must take
his chances when he can get them. If he can walk home, arm in arm,
with the school-fellow he has not seen before in ten years, not only
fearlessly, but gladly, anticipatory of your pleasure at the sight
of his; if, when the stranger is presented to you, you receive him as
your friend because he is your husband’s, and seat him to a family
dinner, plain, but nicely served, and eaten in cheerfulness of heart;
if the children are well-behaved, and your attire that of a lady who
has not lost the desire to look her best in her husband’s eyes—you have
added to the links of steel that knit your husband’s heart to you;
increased his affectionate admiration for the best little woman in the
world. Many a man has been driven to entertain his friends at hotels
and club-rooms, because he dared not take them home without permission
from the presiding officer of his household. The majority of healthy
men have good appetites and are not disposed to be critical of an
unpretending bill of fare. The chance guest of this sex is generally
an agreeable addition to the family group, instead of _de trop_—always
supposing him to be John’s friend.

As to party and dinner-giving, your safest rule is to obey the usage of
the community in which you live in minor points, letting common sense
and your means guide you in essentials. Be chary of undertaking what
you cannot carry through successfully. Pretension is the ruin of more
entertainments than ignorance or lack of money. If you know how to
give a large evening party (and think it a pleasant and remunerative
investment of time and several hundred dollars)—if you understand the
machinery of a handsome dinner-party, and can afford these luxuries,
go forward bravely to success. But creep before you walk. Study
established customs in the best managed houses you visit; take counsel
with experienced friends; now and then make modest essays on your own
responsibility, and, insensibly, these crumbs of wisdom will form
into a comely loaf. There is no surer de-appetizer—to coin a word—to
guests than a heated, over-fatigued, anxious hostess, who betrays her
inexperience by nervous glances, abstraction in conversation, and,
worst of all, by apologies.

A few general observations are all I purpose to offer as hints of a
foundation upon which to build your plans for “company-giving.” Have
an abundance of clean plates, silver, knives, &c., laid in order in a
convenient place,—such as an ante-room, or dining-room pantry,—those
designed for each course, if your entertainment is a dinner, upon
a shelf or stand by themselves, and make your waiters understand
distinctly in advance in what order these are to be brought on.

Soup should be sent up accompanied only by bread, and such sauce as may
be fashionable or suitable. Before dinner is served, however, snatch
a moment, if possible, to inspect the table in person, or instruct a
trustworthy factotum to see that everything is in place, the water
in the goblets, a slice of bread laid upon a folded napkin at each
plate, &c. Unless you have trained, professional waiters, this is a
wise precaution. If it is a gentleman’s dinner, you can see to it for
yourself, since you will not be obliged to appear in the parlor until a
few minutes before they are summoned to the dining-room. If there are
ladies in the company, you must not leave them.

To return, then, to our soup: It is not customary to offer a second
plateful to a guest. When the table is cleared, the fish should come
in, with potatoes—no other vegetable, unless it be stewed tomatoes.
After a thorough change of plates, &c., come the substantials. If
possible, the carving of game and other meats is done before they are
brought in. One or more vegetables are passed with each meat course.
Salad is a course of itself, unless when it accompanies chicken or
pigeon. If wine be used, it is introduced after the fish. Pastry is
the first relay of dessert, and puddings may be served from the other
end of the table. Next appear creams, jellies, charlotte-russes, cakes,
and the like; then fruit and nuts; lastly, coffee, often accompanied
with crackers and cheese. Wine, of course, goes around during the
dessert—if it flows at all.

Evening parties are less troublesome to a housekeeper, because less
ceremonious than dinners. If you can afford it, the easiest way to
give a large one is to put the whole business into the hands of the
profession, by intrusting your order, not only for supper, but waiters
and china, to a competent confectioner. But a social standing supper
of oysters, chicken-salad, sandwiches, coffee, ice-cream, jellies,
and cake, is not a formidable undertaking when you have had a little
practice, especially if your own, or John’s mother, or the nice,
neighborly matron over the way will assist you by her advice and
presence. The “Ladies’ Lunch” and afternoon “Kettle-Drum” are social
and graceful “modern improvements.”

We make this matter of company too hard a business in America; are
too apt to treat our friends as the Strasburgers do their geese; shut
them up in overheated quarters, and stuff them to repletion. Our rooms
would be better for more air, our guests happier had they more liberty,
and our hostess would be prettier and more sprightly were she not
overworked before the arrivals begin, and full of trepidation after
they come,—a woman cumbered with many thoughts of serving, while she
is supposed to be enjoying the society of her chosen associates. It is
so well understood that company is weariness, that inquiries as to how
the principal agent in bringing about an assembly has “borne it,” have
passed into a custom. The tender sympathies manifested in such queries,
the martyr-like air with which they are answered, cannot fail to bring
to the satirical mind the Chinaman’s comment upon the British officers’
dancing on shipboard in warm weather.

“Why you no make your servants do so hard work, and you look at dem?”

We pervert the very name and meaning of hospitality when we pinch our
families, wear away our patience, and waste our nervous forces with
our husbands’ money in getting up to order expensive entertainments
for comparative strangers, whose utmost acknowledgment of our efforts
in their behalf will consist in an invitation, a year hence it may be,
to a party constructed on the same plan, managed a little better or a
little worse than ours. This is not hospitality without grudging, but
a vulgar system of barter and gluttony more worthy of Abyssinians than
Christian gentlefolk.

GAME.

VENISON.

I ONCE received a letter from the wife of an Eastern man who had
removed to the Great West, in which bitter complaints were made of
the scarcity of certain comforts—ice-cream and candy among them—to
which she had been accustomed in other days. “My husband shot a fine
deer this morning,” she wrote, “but I could never endure _venzon_.
Can you tell me of any way of cooking it so as to make it tolerably
eatible?” I did not think it very singular that one whose chief craving
in the goodly land in which she had found a home was for cocoanut
cakes and chocolate caramels, should not like the viand the name of
which she could not spell. Nor did I wonder that she failed to make
it “eatible,” or doubt that her cooking matched her orthography. But
I am amazed often at hearing really skilful housewives pronounce
it an undesirable dish. In the hope of in some measure correcting
this impression among Eastern cooks, who, it must be allowed, rarely
taste really fresh venison, I have written out, with great care and
particularity, the following receipts, most of which I have used in my
own family with success and satisfaction.

The dark color of the meat,—I mean now not the black, but rich
reddish-brown flesh,—so objectionable to the uninitiated, is to the
gourmand one of its chief recommendations to his favor. It should also
be fine of grain and well coated with fat.

Keep it hung up in a cool, dark cellar, covered with a cloth, and use
as soon as you can conveniently.

HAUNCH OF VENISON. ✠

If the outside be hard, wash off with lukewarm water; then rub all over
with fresh butter or lard. Cover it on the top and sides with a thick
paste of flour and water, nearly half an inch thick. Lay upon this a
large sheet of thin white wrapping-paper well buttered, and above this
thick foolscap. Keep all in place by greased pack-thread, then put
down to roast with a little water in the dripping-pan. Let the fire be
steady and strong. Pour a few ladlefuls of butter and water over the
meat now and then, to prevent the paper from scorching. If the haunch
is large, it will take at least five hours to roast. About half an hour
before you take it up, remove the papers and paste, and test with a
skewer to see if it is done. If this passes easily to the bone through
the thickest part, set it down to a more moderate fire and baste every
few minutes with Claret and melted butter. At the last, baste with
butter, dredge with flour to make a light froth, and dish. It should be
a fine brown by this time. Twist a frill of fringed paper around the
knuckle.

For gravy, put into a saucepan a pound or so of scraps of raw venison
left from trimming the haunch, a quart of water, a pinch of cloves,
a few blades of mace, half a nutmeg, cayenne and salt to taste. Stew
slowly to one-half the original quantity. Skim, strain, and return
to the saucepan when you have rinsed it with hot water. Add three
tablespoonfuls of currant jelly, a glass of claret, two tablespoonfuls
of butter, and thicken with browned flour. Send to table in a tureen.

Send around currant jelly with venison _always_.

NECK.

This is roasted precisely as is the haunch, allowing a quarter of an
hour to a pound.

SHOULDER.

This is also a roasting-piece, but may be cooked without the paste and
paper. Baste often with butter and water, and toward the last, with
Claret and butter. Do not let it get dry for an instant.

TO STEW A SHOULDER,

Extract the bones through the under-side. Make a stuffing of several
slices of fat mutton, minced fine and seasoned smartly with cayenne,
salt, allspice, and wine, and fill the holes from which the bones were
taken. Bind firmly in shape with broad tape. Put in a large saucepan
with a pint of gravy made from the refuse bits of venison; add a glass
of Madeira or Port wine, and a little black pepper. Cover tightly, and
stew very slowly three or four hours, according to the size. It should
be very tender. Remove the tapes with care; dish, and when you have
strained the gravy, pour over the meat.

This is a most savory dish.

VENISON STEAKS. ✠

These are taken from the neck or haunch. Have your gridiron well
buttered, and fire clear and hot. Lay the steaks on the bars and broil
rapidly, turning often, not to lose a drop of juice. They will take
three or four minutes longer to broil than beef-steaks. Have ready
in a hot chafing-dish a piece of butter the size of an egg for each
pound of venison, a pinch of salt, a little pepper, a tablespoonful
currant-jelly for each pound, and a glass of wine for every four
pounds. This should be liquid, and warmed by the boiling water under
the dish by the time the steaks are done to a turn. If you have no
chafing-dish, heat in a saucepan. Lay each steak in the mixture singly,
and turn over twice. Cover closely and let all heat together, with
fresh hot water beneath—unless your lamp is burning—for five minutes
before serving. If you serve in an ordinary dish, cover and set in the
oven for the same time.

_Or,_

If you wish a plainer dish, omit the wine and jelly; pepper and salt
the steaks when broiled, and lay butter upon them in the proportion I
have stated, letting them stand between hot dishes five minutes before
they go to table, turning them three times in the gravy that runs from
them to mingle with the melted butter. Delicious steaks corresponding
to the shape of mutton chops are cut from the loin and rack.

VENISON CUTLETS. ✠

Trim the cutlets nicely, and make gravy of the refuse bits in the
proportion of a cup of cold water to half a pound of venison. Put in
bones, scraps of fat, etc., and set on in a saucepan to stew while you
make ready the cutlets. Lard with slips of fat salt pork a quarter
of an inch apart, and projecting slightly on either side. When the
gravy has stewed an hour, strain and let it cool. Lay the cutlets in
a saucepan, with a few pieces of young onion on each. Allow one onion
to four or five pounds. It should not be flavored strongly with this.
Scatter also a little minced parsley and thyme between the layers of
meat, with pepper, and a very little nutmeg. The pork lardoons will
salt sufficiently. When you have put in all your meat, pour in the
gravy, which should be warm—not hot. Stew steadily twenty minutes,
take up the cutlets and lay in a frying-pan in which you have heated
just enough butter to prevent them from burning. Fry five minutes very
quickly, turning the cutlets over and over to brown, without drying
them. Lay in order in a chafing-dish, and have ready the gravy to pour
over them without delay. This should be done by straining the liquor
left in the saucepan and returning to the fire, with the addition of a
tablespoonful of currant jelly, a teaspoonful Worcestershire or other
piquant sauce, and half a glass of wine. Thicken with browned flour,
boil up well and pour over the cutlets. Let all stand together in a hot
dish five minutes before serving. Venison which is not fat or juicy
enough for roasting makes a relishable dish cooked after this receipt.

HASHED VENISON. ✠

The remains of cold roast venison—especially a stuffed shoulder—may
be used for this dish, and will give great satisfaction to cook and
consumers. Slice the meat from the bones. Put these with the fat and
other scraps in a saucepan, with a large teacupful of cold water, a
small onion—one of the button kind, minced, parsley and thyme, pepper
and salt, and three or four whole cloves. Stew for an hour. Strain and
return to the saucepan, with whatever gravy was left from the roast,
a tablespoonful currant jelly, one of tomato or mushroom catsup, a
teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, and a little browned flour. Boil for
three minutes; lay in the venison, cut into slices about an inch long,
and let all heat over the fire for eight minutes, but do not allow the
hash to boil. Stir frequently, and when it is smoking hot, turn into a
deep-covered dish.

ROAST FAWN.

Clean, wash thoroughly; stuff with a good force-meat made of
bread-crumbs, chopped pork, pepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg,
the juice of a lemon. Moisten with water and cream, bind with beaten
egg and melted butter. Sew up the fawn, turning the legs under, and
binding close to the body. Cover with thin slices of fat pork, bound
on with pack-thread, crossing in every direction, and roast at a quick
fire. Allow twenty-two minutes to a pound. Twenty minutes before it is
dished, remove the pork, and set down the fawn to brown, basting with
melted butter. At the last, dredge with flour, let this brown, froth
with butter, and serve.

Garnish with abundance of curled parsley, dotted with drops of red
currant jelly. A kid can be roasted in the same way—also hares and
rabbits.

VENISON PASTY. ✠

This is a name dear to the heart of the Englishman since the days when
Friar Tuck feasted the disguised Cœur de Lion upon it in the depths of
Sherwood Forest, until the present generation. In this country it is
comparatively little known; but I recommend it to those who have never
yet been able to make venison “tolerably eatable.”

Almost any part of the deer can be used for the purpose, but the neck
and shoulders are generally preferred.

Cut the raw venison from the bones, and set aside these, with the
skin, fat, and refuse bits, for gravy. Put them into a saucepan with
a shallot, pepper, salt, nutmeg and sweet herbs, cover well with cold
water, and set on to boil. Meanwhile, cut the better and fairer pieces
of meat into squares an inch long, and cook in another saucepan until
three-quarters done. Line a deep dish with good puff-paste. That for
the lid should be made after the receipt appended to this. Put in the
squares of venison, season with pepper, salt, and butter, and put in
half a cupful of the liquor in which the meat was stewed, to keep it
from burning at the bottom. Cover with a lid of the prepared pastry an
inch thick. Cut a round hole in the middle, and if you have not a small
tin cylinder that will fit this, make one of buttered paper; stiff
writing-paper is best. The hole should be large enough to admit your
thumb. Bake steadily, covering the top with a sheet of clean paper so
soon as it is firm, to prevent it from browning too fast. While it is
cooking prepare the gravy. When all the substance has been extracted
from the bones, etc., strain the liquor back into the saucepan; let it
come to a boil, and when you have skimmed carefully, add a glass of
Port wine, a tablespoonful of butter, the juice of a lemon, and some
browned flour to thicken. Boil up once, remove the plug from the hole
in the pastry, and pour in through a small funnel, or a paper horn, as
much gravy as the pie will hold. Do this very quickly; brush the crust
over with beaten egg and put back in the oven until it is a delicate
brown, or rather, a golden russet. The pie should only be drawn to
the door of the oven for these operations, and everything should be
in readiness before it is taken out, that the crust may be light and
flaky. If you have more gravy than you need for the dish, serve in a
tureen.

CRUST OF PASTY.

1½ lb. of flour.
12 oz. butter.
Yolks of 3 eggs.
Salt.
Ice-water.

Dry and sift the flour and cut up half the butter in it with a knife
or chopper until the whole is fine and yellow; salt, and work up with
ice-water, lastly adding the yolks beaten very light. Work out rapidly,
handling as little as possible, roll out three times _very_ thin,
basting with butter, then into a lid nearly an inch thick, reserving
a thinner one for ornaments. Having covered in your pie, cut from the
second sheet with a cake-cutter, leaves, flowers, stars, or any figures
you like to adorn the top of your crust. Bake the handsomest one upon a
tin plate by itself, and brush it over with egg when you glaze the pie.
After the pasty is baked, cover the hole in the centre with this.

If these directions be closely followed the pasty will be delicious.
Bake two or three hours, guiding yourself by the size of the pie. It is
good hot or cold.

VENISON HAMS.

These are eaten raw, and will not keep so long as other smoked meats.

Mix together in equal proportions, salt and brown sugar, and rub them
hard into the hams with your hand. Pack them in a cask, sprinkling
dry salt between them, and let them lie eight days, rubbing them over
every day with dry salt and sugar. Next mix equal parts of fine salt,
molasses, and a teaspoonful of saltpetre to every two hams. Take the
hams out of the pickle, go over them with a brush dipped in cider
vinegar, then in the new mixture. Empty the cask, wash it out with cold
water, and repack the hams, dripping from the sticky bath, scattering
fine salt over each. Let them lie eight days longer in this. Wash off
the pickle first with tepid water, until the salt crystals are removed;
then sponge with vinegar, powder them with bran while wet, and smoke a
fortnight, or, if large, three weeks. Wrap in brown paper that has no
unpleasant odor, stitch a muslin cover over this, and whitewash, unless
you mean to use at once. Chip or shave for the table.

VENISON SAUSAGES.

5 lbs. lean venison.
2 lbs. fat salt pork.
5 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
4 teaspoonfuls salt.
4 teaspoonfuls black pepper.
2 teaspoonfuls cayenne.
1 small onion.
Juice of one lemon.

Chop the meat very small, season, and pack in skins or small stone
jars. Hang the skins, and set the jars, tied down with bladders, in a
cool, dry place.

Fry as you do other sausages.

RABBITS OR HARES.

The tame rabbit is rarely if ever eaten. The wild hare of the South—in
vulgar parlance, “old hare,” although the creature may be but a day
old—exactly corresponds with the rabbit of the Northern fields, and
when fat and tender may be made into a variety of excellent dishes.

Hares are unfit for eating in the early spring. There is thus much
significance in “Mad as a March hare.” The real English hare is a much
larger animal than that which is known in this country by this name. To
speak correctly, all our “old field hares” are wild rabbits.

ROAST RABBIT.

Clean, wash, and soak in water slightly salted for an hour and a half,
changing it once during this time. It is best to make your butcher
or hired man skin it before you undertake to handle it. Afterward,
the task is easy enough. Parboil the heart and liver, chop fine,
and mix with a slice of fat pork, also minced. Make a force-meat of
bread-crumbs, well seasoned, and working in the minced meat. Stuff the
body with this, and sew it up. Rub with butter and roast, basting with
butter and water until the gravy flows freely, then with the dripping.
It should be done in an hour. Dredge with flour a few minutes before
taking it up, then froth with butter. Lay in a hot dish, add to the
gravy a little lemon-juice, a young onion minced, a tablespoonful of
butter, and thicken with browned flour. Give it a boil up, and serve in
a tureen or boat.

Garnish the rabbit with sliced lemon, and put a dot of currant jelly in
the centre of each slice. Cut off the head before sending to table.

RABBITS STEWED WITH ONIONS.

Clean a pair of nice rabbits; soak in cold salt and water for an hour,
to draw out the blood; put on in a large saucepan with cold water
enough to cover them, salt slightly, and stew until tender. Slice into
another pot half a dozen young onions, and boil in a very little water
until thoroughly done. Drain off the water, and stir the onions into
a gill of drawn butter, pepper to taste, and when it simmers, add the
juice of a lemon. Cut off the heads of the hares, lay in a hot dish and
pour over them the onion-sauce. Let the dish stand in a warm place,
closely covered, five minutes before sending to table.

FRICASSEED RABBIT. (_White._) ✠

Clean two young rabbits, cut into joints, and soak in salt and water an
hour. Put into a saucepan with a pint of cold water, a bunch of sweet
herbs, an onion finely minced, a pinch of mace, one of nutmeg, pepper,
and half a pound of fat salt pork, cut into slips. Cover, and stew
until tender. Take out the rabbits and set in a dish where they will
keep warm. Add to the gravy a cup of cream (or milk), two well-beaten
eggs stirred in a little at a time, and a tablespoonful of butter. Boil
up once—when you have thickened with flour wet in cold milk—and take
the saucepan from the fire. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, stirring
all the while, and pour over the rabbits. Do not cook the head or neck.

FRICASSEED RABBIT. (_Brown._)

Cut off the head—joint, and lay in soak for an hour. Season the pieces
with pepper and salt, dredge with flour, and fry in butter or nice
dripping until brown. Take from the fat, lay in a saucepan, and cover
with broth made of bits of veal or lamb. Add a minced onion, a great
spoonful of walnut catsup, a bunch of sweet herbs, a pinch of cloves
and one of allspice, half a teaspoonful of cayenne. Cover closely, and
simmer for half an hour. Lay the pieces of hare in order upon a hot
dish and cover to keep warm. Strain the gravy, return to the saucepan,
thicken with browned flour, put in a tablespoonful of butter, squeeze
in the juice of a lemon, pour over the rabbits, and send to table.

LARDED RABBIT.

Cut off the head and divide the body into joints. Lard with slips of
fat pork; put into a clean hot frying-pan and fry until half done. Have
ready some strained gravy made of veal or beef—the first is better;
put the pieces of rabbit into a saucepan, with a bunch of sweet herbs,
a minced onion, and some pepper. Stew, closely covered, half an hour,
or until tender; take out the rabbits and lay in a hot covered dish.
Strain the gravy, add a tablespoonful of butter, the juice of a lemon,
and thicken with flour. Boil up and pour over the meat.

FRIED RABBIT.

They must be very tender for this purpose. Cut into joints; soak for an
hour in salt and water; dip in beaten egg, then in powdered cracker,
and fry brown in nice sweet lard or dripping. Serve with onion sauce.
Garnish with sliced lemon.

BARBECUED RABBIT. ✠

Clean and wash the rabbit, which must be plump and young, and having
opened it all the way on the under-side, lay it flat, with a small
plate or saucer to keep it down, in salted water for half an hour. Wipe
dry and broil whole, with the exception of the head, when you have
gashed across the back-bone in eight or ten places that the heat may
penetrate this, the thickest part. Your fire should be hot and clear,
the rabbit turned often. When browned and tender, lay upon a very hot
dish, pepper and salt and butter profusely, turning the rabbit over and
over to soak up the melted butter. Cover and set in the oven for five
minutes, and heat in a tin cup two tablespoonfuls of vinegar seasoned
with one of made mustard. Anoint the hot rabbit well with this, cover
and send to table garnished with crisped parsley.

The odor of this barbecue is most appetizing, and the taste not a whit
inferior.

RABBIT PIE.

Cut a pair of rabbits into eight pieces each, soak in salted water half
an hour, and stew until half done in enough water to cover them. Cut a
quarter of a pound of fat pork into slips, and boil four eggs hard. Lay
some bits of pork in the bottom of a deep dish and upon these a layer
of the rabbit. Upon this spread slices of boiled egg, peppered and
buttered. Sprinkle, moreover, with a little powdered mace, and squeeze
a few drops of lemon-juice upon each piece of meat. Proceed in this
order until the dish is full, the top layer being pork. Pour in the
water in which the rabbit was boiled, when you have salted it and added
some lumps of butter rolled in flour. Cover with puff-paste, cut a slit
in the middle, and bake one hour, laying paper over the top should it
brown too fast.

SQUIRRELS.

The large gray squirrel is seldom eaten at the North, but is in
great request in Virginia and other Southern States. It is generally
barbecued, precisely as are rabbits; broiled, fricasseed, or—most
popular of all—made into a Brunswick stew. This is named from Brunswick
County, Virginia, and is a famous dish—or was—at the political and
social pic-nics known as barbecues. I am happy to be able to give a
receipt for this stew that is genuine and explicit, and for which I am
indebted to a Virginia housekeeper.

BRUNSWICK STEW. ✠

2 squirrels—3, if small.
1 quart of tomatoes—peeled and sliced.
1 pint butter-beans, or Lima.
6 potatoes—parboiled and sliced.
6 ears of green corn cut from the cob.
½ lb. butter.
½ lb. fat salt pork.
1 teaspoonful ground black pepper.
Half a teaspoonful cayenne.
1 gallon water.
1 tablespoonful salt.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
1 onion, minced small.

Put on the water with the salt in it, and boil five minutes. Put in the
onion, beans, corn, pork or bacon cut into shreds, potatoes, pepper,
and the squirrels, which must first be cut into joints and laid in cold
salt and water to draw out the blood. Cover closely and stew two and a
half hours very slowly, stirring frequently from the bottom. Then add
the tomatoes and sugar, and stew an hour longer. Ten minutes before
you take it from the fire add the butter, cut into bits the size of a
walnut, rolled in flour. Give a final boil, taste to see that it is
seasoned to your liking, and turn into a soup-tureen. It is eaten from
soup-plates. Chickens may be substituted for squirrels.

RAGOÛT OF SQUIRRELS.

Skin, clean, and quarter a pair of fine young squirrels, and soak in
salt and water to draw out the blood. Slice an onion and fry brown in a
tablespoonful of butter. Stir into the frying-pan five tablespoonfuls
of boiling water, and thicken with two teaspoonfuls of browned flour.
Put the squirrels into a saucepan, with a quarter of a pound of bacon
cut into slips; season with pepper and salt to taste, add the onion
and gravy, and half a cupful of tepid water. Cover and stew for forty
minutes, or until tender; pour in a glass of wine and the juice of half
a lemon, shake around well, and turn into a deep covered dish.

BROILED SQUIRRELS.

Clean and soak to draw out the blood. Wipe dry and broil over a hot,
clear fire, turning often. When done, lay in a hot dish and anoint
with melted butter, seasoned with pepper and salt. Use at least a
tablespoonful for each squirrel, and let it lie between two hot dishes
five minutes before sending to table.

PHEASANTS, PARTRIDGES, QUAILS, GROUSE, ETC.

The real pheasant is never sold in American markets. The bird known as
such at the South is called a partridge at the North, and is, properly
speaking, the ruffled grouse. The Northern quail is the English and
Southern partridge. The wild fowls brought by the hundred dozen from
the Far West to Eastern cities, and generally styled prairie-fowls, are
a species of grouse. The mode of cooking all these is substantially the
same.

ROAST.

Clean, truss, and stuff as you do chickens; roast at a hot fire, and
baste with butter and water until brown; sprinkle with salt, dredge
lightly at the last with flour to froth the birds, and serve hot.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up, and serve in a boat.
Wash the inside of all game—prairie-fowls in particular—with soda and
water, rinsing out carefully afterward with fair water.

BROILED.

Clean, wash, and split down the back. Lay in cold water half an hour.
Wipe carefully, season with salt and pepper, and broil on a gridiron
over a bright fire. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter on both sides
well, and serve at once.

Broiled quails are delicious and nourishing fare for invalids.

GROUSE ROASTED WITH BACON. ✠

Clean, truss, and stuff as usual. Cover the entire bird with thin
slices of corned ham or pork, binding all with buttered pack-thread.
Roast three-quarters of an hour, basting with butter and water three
times, then with the dripping. When quite done, dish with the ham laid
about the body of the bird. Skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour,
season with pepper and the juice of a lemon. Boil up once.

QUAILS ROASTED WITH HAM. ✠

Proceed as with the grouse, but cover the ham or pork with a sheet
of white paper, having secured the slices of meat with pack thread.
Stitch the papers on, and keep them well basted with butter and water,
that they may not burn. Roast three quarters of an hour, if the fire
is good. Remove the papers and meat before sending to table, and brown
quickly. This is the nicest way of cooking quails.

SALMI OF GAME.

Cut cold roast partridges, grouse, or quails into joints, and lay aside
while you prepare the gravy. This is made of the bones, dressing, skin,
and general odds and ends, after you have selected the neatest pieces
of the birds. Put these—the scraps—into a saucepan, with one small
onion, minced, and a bunch of sweet herbs; pour in a pint of water,
and whatever gravy you may have, and stew, closely covered, for nearly
an hour. A few bits of pork should be added if you have no gravy. Skim
and strain, return to the fire, and add a little brown Sherry and
lemon-juice, with a pinch of nutmeg; thicken with brown flour, if the
stuffing has not thickened it sufficiently, boil up, and pour over the
reserved meat, which should be put into another saucepan. Warm until
all is smoking-hot, but do not let it boil. Arrange the pieces of bird
in a symmetrical heap upon a dish, and pour the gravy over them.

GAME PIE—(_Very fine_).

This may be made of any of the birds named in the foregoing receipts.
Grouse and quails together make a delightful Christmas pie. Clean and
wash the birds; cut the quails in half, the grouse into four pieces.
Trim off bits of the inferior portions, necks, lower ribs, etc., and
put them with the giblets into a saucepan, with a pint and a half of
water, if your pie requires six birds. While this is stewing make a
good puff-paste and line a large pudding-dish, reserving enough for
a lid half an inch thick. When the livers are tender, take them out,
leaving the gravy to stew in the covered saucepan. Lard the breasts of
the birds with tiny strips of salt pork, and mince a couple of slices
of the same with the livers, a bunch of parsley, sweet marjoram, and
thyme, also chopped fine, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and a very
small shallot. Make a force-meat of this, with bread-crumbs moistened
with warm milk. Put some thin strips of cold corned (not smoked) ham in
the bottom of the pie, next to the crust; lay upon these pieces of the
bird, peppered and buttered, then a layer of the force-meat, and so on,
until you are ready for the gravy. Strain this, return to the fire,
and season with pepper and a glass of wine. Heat to a boil, pour into
the pie, and cover with the upper crust, cutting a slit in the middle.
Ornament with pastry leaves, arranged in a wreath about the edge, and
in the middle a pastry bird, with curled strips of pastry about it.
This last should be baked separately and laid on when the pie is done,
to cover the hole in the middle.

Bake three hours if your pie be large, covering with paper if it
threaten to brown too fast.

QUAIL PIE.

Clean, truss, and stuff the birds. Loosen the joints with a penknife,
but do not separate them. Parboil them for ten minutes, while you
prepare a puff-paste. Line a deep dish with this; put in the bottom
some shreds of salt pork or ham; next, a layer of hard-boiled eggs,
buttered and peppered; then the birds, sprinkled with pepper and
minced parsley. Squeeze some lemon-juice upon them, and lay upon the
breasts pieces of butter rolled in flour. Cover with slices of egg,
then with shred ham; pour in some of the gravy in which the quails were
parboiled, and put on the lid, leaving a hole in the middle. Bake over
an hour.

WILD PIGEONS. (_Stewed._) ✠

Clean and wash very carefully, then lay in salt and water for an hour.
Rinse the inside with soda and water, shaking it well about in the
cavity; wash out with fair water and stuff with a force-meat made of
bread-crumbs and chopped salt pork, seasoned with pepper. Sew up the
birds, and put on to stew in enough cold water to cover them, and allow
to each a fair slice of fat bacon cut into narrow strips. Season with
pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Boil slowly in a covered saucepan until
tender; take from the gravy and lay in a covered dish to keep warm.
Strain the gravy, add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of
currant jelly, thickening with browned flour. Boil up and pour over the
pigeons.

WILD-PIGEON PIE. ✠

This is made precisely as is quail pie, except that the pigeons are cut
into four pieces each, and not stuffed. Parboil and lay in the dish in
alternate layers with the bacon and boiled eggs. Make the gravy richer
than for the quails, by the addition of a good lump of butter, rolled
in flour, stirred in and boiled up to thicken before you put it on the
fire. Wild pigeons are usually tougher and leaner than the tame.

WILD DUCKS.

Nearly all wild ducks are liable to have a fishy flavor, and when
handled by inexperienced cooks, are sometimes uneatable from this
cause. Before roasting them, guard against this by parboiling them
with a small carrot, peeled, put within each. This will absorb the
unpleasant taste. An onion will have the same effect; but, unless you
mean to use onion in the stuffing, the carrot is preferable. In my own
kitchen I usually put in the onion, considering a suspicion of garlic a
desideratum in roast duck, whether wild or tame.

ROAST DUCK. (_Wild._)

Parboil as above directed; throw away the carrot or onion, lay in fresh
water half an hour; stuff with bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper, salt,
sage, and onion, and roast until brown and tender, basting for half
the time with butter and water, then with the drippings. Add to the
gravy, when you have taken up the ducks, a tablespoonful of currant
jelly, and a pinch of cayenne. Thicken with browned flour and serve in
a tureen.

WILD DUCKS. (_Stewed._) ✠

Parboil ten minutes, when you have drawn them, and put in a raw carrot
or onion. Lay in very cold water half an hour. Cut into joints, pepper,
salt, and flour them. Have ready some butter in a frying-pan, and fry
them a light brown. Put them in a saucepan and cover with gravy made of
the giblets, necks, and some bits of lean veal. Add a minced shallot,
a bunch of sweet herbs, salt, and pepper. Cover closely and stew half
an hour, or until tender. Take out the duck, strain the gravy when you
have skimmed it; put in a half-cup of cream or rich milk in which an
egg has been beaten, thicken with browned flour, add a tablespoonful of
wine and the juice of half a lemon, beaten in gradually not to curdle
the cream; boil up and pour over the ducks. This is about the best way
of cooking wild ducks.

WILD TURKEY.

This stately stalker of Southern forests and Western prairies is
eagerly sought after by the lovers of good eating in those regions.
The dark meat and game flavor proclaim his birthright of lordly
freedom as truly after he is slain and cooked, as did his lithe grace
of figure, lofty carriage, and bright eye while he trod his native
wilds. I have heard sportsmen declare that when they have inveigled
him up to a blind by imitating the call of his harem or younglings,
they have stood in covert, gun at shoulder and finger on the trigger,
spell-bound by pitying admiration of his beauty. But I have never seen
that sensibility curbed appetite while they told the story at the
table adorned by the royal bird; have noted, indeed, that their mouths
watered rather than their eyes, as he crumbled, like a dissolving view,
under the blade of the carver.

Draw and wash the inside very carefully, as with all game. Domestic
fowls are, or should be, kept up without eating for at least twelve
hours before they are killed; but we must shoot wild when we can
get the chance, and of course it often happens that their crops are
distended by a recent hearty meal of rank or green food. Wipe the
cavity with a dry soft cloth before you stuff. Have a rich force-meat,
bread-crumbs, some bits of fat pork, chopped fine, pepper, and salt.
Beat in an egg and a couple of tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Baste
with butter and water for the first hour, then three or four times with
the gravy; lastly, five or six times with melted butter. A generous and
able housekeeper told me once that she always allowed a pound of butter
for basting a large wild turkey. This was an extravagant quantity, but
the meat is drier than that of the domestic fowl, and not nearly so
fat. Dredge with flour at the last, froth with butter, and when he is
of a tempting brown, serve. Skim the gravy, add a little hot water,
pepper, thicken with the giblets chopped fine and browned flour, boil
up, and pour into a tureen. At the South the giblets are not put in the
gravy, but laid whole, one under each wing, when the turkey is dished.
Garnish with small fried sausages, not larger than a dollar, crisped
parsley between them.

Send around currant jelly and cranberry sauce with it.

SMALL BIRDS.

ROAST SNIPE OR PLOVERS.

Clean and truss, but do not stuff. Lay in rows in the dripping-pan, or
tie upon a spit, sprinkle with salt, and baste well with butter, then
with butter and water. When they begin to brown, which will be in about
ten minutes, cut as many rounds of bread (without crust) as there are
birds. Toast quickly, butter, and lay in the dripping-pan, a bird upon
each. When the birds are done, serve upon the toast, with the gravy
poured over it. The toast should lie under them while cooking at least
five minutes, during which time the birds should be basted with melted
butter seasoned with pepper.

The largest snipe will not require above twenty minutes to roast.

WOODCOCK.

This is the most delicious of small birds, and may be either roasted or
broiled.

_Roast._

The English do not draw woodcock, regarding the _trail_ as a _bonne
bouche_, and I have known American housekeepers who copied them in this
respect. In this case roast precisely as you would snipe or plover,
only putting the toast under the birds so soon as they begin to cook,
to catch the trail.

To my taste, a better, and certainly to common sense people a less
objectionable plan, is to fill the birds with a rich force-meat of
bread-crumbs, peppered and salted, shortened with melted butter. Sew
them up and roast, basting with butter and water, from twenty minutes
to half an hour. When half done, put circular slices of buttered toast
beneath, and serve upon these when you take them up.

_Broiled._

Split down the back, and broil over a clear fire. Butter, pepper,
and salt when done, and let them lie between two hot dishes for five
minutes before sending to table. Small snipe are nice broiled in this
way; also robins and doves.

SALMI OF WOODCOCK OR SNIPE.

Clean and half-roast the birds; cut in quarters, and put in a saucepan
with gravy made of the giblets, necks, and some bits of fat pork,
stewed in a little water. Add a minced button onion, salt, and a
pinch of cayenne, and stew fifteen minutes or until tender, closely
covered. Take out the birds, and pile neatly upon buttered toast in
a chafing-dish. Strain the gravy and return to the fire, adding some
small pieces of butter rolled in flour, the juice of a lemon and a
little wine. Boil up, and pour over the salmi.

ORTOLANS, REED-BIRDS, RAIL, AND SORA

may be roasted or broiled. A good way is to roll an oyster in melted
butter, then in bread-crumbs seasoned with pepper and salt, and put
into each bird before roasting. Baste with butter and water three
times, put the rounds of toast underneath, and baste freely with melted
butter. They will require about twenty minutes to cook, and will be
found delicious.

TO KEEP GAME FROM TAINTING.

Draw so soon as they come into your possession; rinse with soda and
water, then with pure cold water; wipe dry, and rub them lightly with
a mixture of fine salt and black pepper. If you must keep them some
time, put in the cavity of each fowl a piece of charcoal; hang them in
a cool, dark place, with a cloth thrown over them. Small birds, unless
there are too many of them, may be kept in a refrigerator after you
have drawn, washed, and wiped them.

The charcoal is an admirable preventive of decomposition.

SAUCES FOR MEAT AND FISH.

These are no longer the appendages of the rich man’s bill of fare only.
A general knowledge of made sauces, as well as the more expensive ones
imported from abroad and sold here at high prices, is a part of every
intelligent housekeeper’s culinary education. Few are so ignorant as
to serve a fish sauce with game, or _vice versâ_. From the immense
number of receipts which I have collected and examined, I have selected
comparatively few but such as I consider “representative” articles.
The ingenious housewife is at liberty, as I said before, elsewhere, to
modify and improve upon them.

First, _par excellence_, as the most important, and because it is the
groundwork of many others, I place

MELTED OR DRAWN BUTTER.

NO. 1.

2 teaspoonfuls flour.
1½ ounce butter.
1 teacupful hot water or milk.
A little salt.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, and add a little at a time of the
water or milk, working it very smooth as you go on. Put into a tin cup
or saucepan, and set in a vessel of boiling water. As it warms, stir,
and when it has boiled a minute or more, add the butter by degrees,
stirring all the time until it is entirely melted and incorporated with
the flour and water. Boil one minute.

Mix with milk when you wish to use for puddings, with water for meats
and fish.

NO. 2.

1½ teaspoonful of flour.
2 ounces butter.
1 teacupful (small) hot water.

Wet the flour to a thin smooth paste with cold water, and stir into the
hot, which should be in the inner vessel. When it boils, add the butter
by degrees, and stir until well mixed. Boil one minute.

NO. 3.

3 ounces butter.
Half-pint water (hot).
A beaten egg.
1 heaping teaspoonful flour.

Wet the flour to a smooth paste with a little cold milk, and add to the
hot water in the inner vessel, stirring until thick. Have ready the
beaten egg in a cup. Take a teaspoonful of the mixture from the fire,
and beat with this until light; then another, and still another. Set
aside the cup when this is done, and stir the butter into the contents
of the inner saucepan gradually, until thoroughly mixed, then add the
beaten egg in the same way. There is no danger of clotting the egg, if
it be treated as I have described.

EGG SAUCE. ✠

3 hard-boiled eggs.
A good teacupful drawn butter.
A little salt.

Chop the yolks only of the eggs very fine, and beat into the hot drawn
butter, salting to taste.

This is used for boiled fowls and boiled fish. For the former, you can
add some minced parsley; for the latter, chopped pickles, capers, or
nasturtium seed. For boiled beef, a small shallot minced fine.

_Or,_

Omit the boiled eggs, and beat up two raw ones very light, and put into
the drawn butter instead, as directed in No. 3. For boiled beef or
chicken, you may make the drawn butter of hot liquor taken from the pot
in which the meat is cooking, having first carefully skimmed it.

SAUCE FOR BOILED OR BAKED FISH.

4 ounces butter.
1 tablespoonful flour.
2 anchovies.
1 teaspoonful chopped capers, or nasturtium seed, or green pickle.
1 shallot.
Pepper and salt to taste.
1 tablespoonful vinegar.
1 teacupful hot water.

Put the water into the inner saucepan, chop the anchovies and shallot,
and put in with the pepper and salt. Boil two minutes, and strain back
into the saucepan when you have rinsed with hot water. Now add the
flour wet smooth with cold water, and stir until it thickens; put in
the butter by degrees, and when it is thoroughly melted and mixed, the
vinegar; lastly, the capers and a little nutmeg.

WHITE SAUCE FOR FISH. ✠

Make drawn butter by receipt No. 2, but with double the quantity of
flour, and use, instead of water, the liquor in which the fish was
boiled. Add four tablespoonfuls of milk, in which a shallot and a head
of celery or a pinch of celery-seed has been boiled, then strained out.
Boil one minute, and stir in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

OYSTER SAUCE. ✠

1 pint oysters.
Half a lemon.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 tablespoonful flour.
1 teacupful milk or cream.
Cayenne and nutmeg to taste.

Stew the oysters in their own liquor five minutes, and add the milk.
When this boils, strain the liquor and return to the saucepan. Thicken
with the flour when you have wet it with cold water; stir it well in;
put in the butter, next the cayenne (if you like it), boil one minute;
squeeze in the lemon-juice, shake it around well, and pour out.

_Or,_

Drain the oysters dry without cooking at all; make the sauce with the
liquor and other ingredients just named. Chop the raw oysters, and stir
in when you do the butter; boil five minutes, and pour into the tureen.
Some put in the oysters whole, considering that the sauce is handsomer
than when they are chopped.

Oyster sauce is used for boiled halibut, cod, and other fish, for
boiled turkey, chickens, and white meats generally.

CRAB SAUCE.

1 crab, boiled and cold.
4 tablespoonfuls of milk.
1 teacupful drawn butter.
Cayenne, mace, and salt to taste.

Make the drawn butter as usual, and stir in the milk. Pick the meat
from the crab, chop very fine, season with cayenne, mace, and salt to
taste; stir into the drawn butter. Simmer three minutes, but do not
boil.

Lobster sauce is very nice made as above, with the addition of a
teaspoonful of made mustard and the juice of half a lemon. This is a
good fish sauce.

ANCHOVY SAUCE.

6 anchovies.
A teacupful drawn butter.
A wineglass pale Sherry.

Soak the anchovies in cold water two hours; pull them to pieces, and
simmer in just enough water to cover them for half an hour. Strain the
liquor into the drawn butter (No. 3), boil a minute, add the wine; heat
gradually to a boil, and stew five minutes longer. You may substitute
two teaspoonfuls of anchovy paste for the little fish themselves.

Serve with boiled fish.

SAUCE FOR LOBSTERS.

5 tablespoonfuls fresh butter.
Teacupful vinegar.
Salt and pepper to taste, with a heaping teaspoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Minced parsley.

Beat the butter to a cream, adding gradually the vinegar, salt, and
pepper. Boil a bunch of parsley five minutes, chop small; beat into
the butter; lastly the sugar and mustard. The butter must be light as
whipped egg.

BREAD SAUCE.

1 pint milk.
1 cup bread-crumbs (very fine).
1 onion, sliced.
A pinch of mace.
Pepper and salt to taste.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.

Simmer the sliced onion in the milk until tender; strain the milk and
pour over the bread-crumbs, which should be put into a saucepan. Cover
and soak half an hour; beat smooth with an egg-whip, add the seasoning
and butter; stir in well, boil up once, and serve in a tureen. If it is
too thick, add boiling water and more butter.

This sauce is for roast poultry. Some people add some of the gravy from
the dripping-pan, first straining it and beating it well in with the
sauce.

WHITE CELERY SAUCE.

2 large heads of celery.
1 teacupful of broth in which the fowl is boiled.
1 teacupful cream or milk.
Salt and nutmeg.
Heaping tablespoonful flour, and same of butter.

Boil the celery tender in salted water; drain, and cut into bits half
an inch long. Thicken the gravy from the fowl—a teacupful—with the
flour; add the butter, salt, and nutmeg, then the milk. Stir and beat
until it is smooth; put in the celery; heat almost to boiling, stirring
all the while; serve in a tureen, or, if you prefer, pour it over the
boiled meat or fowls.

ONION SAUCE.

4 white onions.
1 teacupful hot milk.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Peel the onions, boil tender, press the water from them, and mince
fine. Have ready the hot milk in a saucepan; stir in the onions, then
the butter, salt, and pepper. Boil up once.

If you want to have it particularly good, make nice melted or drawn
butter (No. 3); beat the mashed onion into it; add a teacupful of
cream or new milk, season, boil up, and serve.

MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL SAUCE. ✠

1 teacupful drawn butter.
1 teaspoonful minced parsley.
1 lemon.
Cayenne and salt to taste.

Draw the butter (No. 2); boil the parsley three minutes; take it out
and lay in cold water five minutes, to cool; chop and stir into the
butter; squeeze in the lemon-juice, the pepper and salt; beat hard with
an egg-whip, return to the fire, and boil up once.

This is a “stock” sauce, being suitable for so many dishes, roast or
boiled.

MINT SAUCE FOR ROAST LAMB.

2 tablespoonfuls green mint, chopped fine.
1 tablespoonful powdered sugar.
Half a teacupful cider vinegar.

Chop the mint, put the sugar and vinegar in a sauce boat, and stir in
the mint. Let it stand in a cool place fifteen minutes before sending
to table.

MUSHROOM SAUCE.

1 teacupful young mushrooms.
4 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 teacupful cream or milk.
1 teaspoonful flour.
Nutmeg, mace, and salt to taste.

Stew the mushrooms in barely enough water to cover them until tender.
Drain, but do not press them, and add the cream, butter, and seasoning.
Stew over a bright fire, stirring all the while until it begins to
thicken. Add the flour wet in cold milk, boil up and serve in a boat,
or pour over boiled chickens, rabbits, etc.

CAULIFLOWER SAUCE.

1 small cauliflower.
3 tablespoonfuls butter, cut in bits, and rolled in flour.
1 onion.
1 small head of celery.
Mace, pepper, and salt.
1 teacupful water.
1 teacupful milk or cream.

Boil the cauliflower in two waters, changing when about half done, and
throwing away the first, reserve a teacupful of the last. Take out the
cauliflower, drain and mince. Cook in another saucepan the onion and
celery, mincing them when tender. Heat the reserved cupful of water
again in a saucepan, add the milk; when warm put in the cauliflower and
onion, the butter and seasoning—coating the butter thickly with flour;
boil until it thickens.

This is a delicious sauce for boiled corned beef and mutton.

ASPARAGUS SAUCE.

A dozen heads of asparagus.
2 teacupfuls drawn butter.
2 eggs.
The juice of half a lemon.
Salt and white pepper.

Boil the tender heads in a very little salted water. Drain and chop
them. Have ready a pint of drawn butter, with two raw eggs beaten into
it; add the asparagus, and season, squeezing in the lemon-juice last.
The butter must be hot, but do not cook after putting in the asparagus
heads. This accompanies boiled fowls, stewed fillet of veal, or boiled
mutton.

APPLE SAUCE.

Pare, core, and slice some ripe tart apples, stew in water enough to
cover them until they break to pieces. Beat up to a smooth pulp, stir
in a good lump of butter, and sugar to taste.

Apple sauce is the invariable accompaniment of roast pork—or fresh pork
cooked in any way. If you wish, you can add a little nutmeg.

PEACH SAUCE.

Soak a quart of dried peaches in water four hours. Wash them, rubbing
them against one another by stirring around with a wooden spoon. Drain,
and put into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Stew
until they break to pieces. Rub to a soft smooth pulp, sweeten to taste
with white sugar. Send to table cold, with roast game or other meats.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Wash and pick a quart of ripe cranberries, and put into a saucepan with
a teacupful of water. Stew slowly, stirring often until they are thick
as marmalade. They require at least an hour and a half to cook. When
you take them from the fire, sweeten abundantly with white sugar. If
sweetened while cooking, the color will be bad. Put them into a mould
and set aside to get cold.

_Or,_ ✠

And this is a nicer plan—strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve,
or coarse mosquito-net, into a mould wet with cold water. When firm,
turn into a glass dish or salver. Be sure that it is sweet enough.

Eat with roast turkey, game, and roast ducks.

TO BROWN FLOUR.

Spread upon a tin plate, set upon the stove, or in a _very_ hot oven,
and stir continually after it begins to color, until it is brown all
through.

Keep it always on hand. Make it at odd minutes, and put away in a glass
jar, covered closely. Shake up every few days to keep it light and
prevent lumping.

TO BROWN BUTTER.

Put a lump of butter into a hot frying-pan, and toss it around over a
clear fire until it browns. Dredge browned flour over it, and stir to
a smooth batter until it begins to boil. Use it for coloring gravies,
such as brown fricassees, etc.; or make into sauce for baked fish and
fish-steaks, by beating in celery or onion vinegar, a _very_ little
brown sugar and some cayenne.

CATSUPS AND FLAVORED VINEGARS.

MADE MUSTARD. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls best English mustard.
2 teaspoonfuls salt.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful white pepper.
2 teaspoonfuls salad oil.
Vinegar to mix to a smooth paste—celery or Tarragon vinegar if you
have it.
1 small garlic, minced very small.

Put the mustard in a bowl and wet with the oil, rubbing it in with a
silver or wooden spoon until it is absorbed. Wet with vinegar to a
stiff paste; add salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic, and work all together
thoroughly, wetting little by little with the vinegar until you
can beat it as you do cake-batter. Beat five minutes very hard; put
into wide-mouthed bottles—empty French mustard bottles, if you have
them—pour a little oil on top, cork tightly, and set away in a cool
place. It will be mellow enough for use in a couple of days.

Having used this mustard for years in my own family, I can safely
advise my friends to undertake the trifling labor of preparing it in
consideration of the satisfaction to be derived from the condiment.
I mix in a Wedgewood mortar, with pestle of the same; but a bowl is
nearly as good. It will keep for weeks.

HORSE-RADISH.

Scrape or grind, cover with vinegar, and keep in wide-mouthed bottles.
To eat with roast beef and cold meats.

WALNUT CATSUP.

Choose young walnuts tender enough to be pierced with a pin or needle.
Prick them in several places, and lay in a jar with a handful of salt
to every twenty-five, and water enough to cover them. Break them with
a billet of wood or wooden beetle, and let them lie in the pickle a
fortnight, stirring twice a day. Drain off the liquor into a saucepan,
and cover the shells with boiling vinegar to extract what juice remains
in them. Crush to a pulp and strain through a cullender into the
saucepan. Allow for every quart an ounce of black pepper and one of
ginger, half an ounce of cloves and half an ounce of nutmeg, beaten
fine. Put in a pinch of cayenne, a shallot minced fine for every _two_
quarts, and a thimbleful of celery-seed tied in a bag for the same
quantity. Boil all together for an hour, if there be a gallon of the
mixture. Bottle when cold, putting an equal quantity of the spice in
each flask. Butternuts make delightful catsup.

MUSHROOM CATSUP.

2 quarts of mushrooms.
¼ lb. of salt.

Lay in an earthenware pan, in alternate layers of mushrooms and salt;
let them lie six hours, then break into bits. Set in a cool place,
three days, stirring thoroughly every morning. Measure the juice
when you have strained it, and to every quart allow half an ounce of
allspice, the same quantity of ginger, half a teaspoonful of powdered
mace, a teaspoonful of cayenne. Put into a stone jar, cover closely,
set in a saucepan of boiling water over the fire, and boil five hours
_hard_. Take it off, empty into a porcelain kettle, and boil slowly
half an hour longer. Let it stand all night in a cool place, until
settled and clear. Pour off carefully from the sediment, and bottle,
filling the flasks to the mouth. Dip the corks in melted rosin, and tie
up with bladders.

The bottles should be very small, as it soon spoils when exposed to the
air.

IMITATION WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE.

3 teaspoonfuls cayenne pepper.
2 tablespoonfuls walnut or tomato catsup (strained through muslin).
3 shallots minced fine.
3 anchovies chopped into bits.
1 quart of vinegar.
Half-teaspoonful powdered cloves.

Mix and rub through a sieve. Put in a stone jar, set in a pot of
boiling water, and heat until the liquid is so hot you can not bear
your finger in it. Strain, and let it stand in the jar, closely
covered, two days, then bottle for use.

OYSTER CATSUP.

1 quart oysters.
1 tablespoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful cayenne pepper, and same of mace.
1 teacupful cider vinegar.
1 teacupful sherry.

Chop the oysters and boil in their own liquor with a teacupful of
vinegar, skimming the scum as it rises. Boil three minutes, strain
through a hair-cloth; return the liquor to the fire, add the wine,
pepper, salt, and mace. Boil fifteen minutes, and when cold bottle for
use, sealing the corks.

TOMATO CATSUP. ✠

1 peck ripe tomatoes.
1 ounce salt.
1 ounce mace.
1 tablespoonful black pepper.
1 teaspoonful cayenne.
1 tablespoonful cloves (powdered).
7 tablespoonful ground mustard.
1 tablespoonful celery seed (tied in a thin muslin bag).

Cut a slit in the tomatoes, put into a bell-metal or porcelain kettle,
and boil until the juice is all extracted and the pulp dissolved.
Strain and press through a cullender, then through a hair sieve.
Return to the fire, add the seasoning, and boil _at least_ five hours,
stirring constantly for the last hour, and frequently throughout the
time it is on the fire. Let it stand twelve hours in a stone jar on the
cellar floor. When cold, add a pint of strong vinegar. Take out the bag
of celery seed, and bottle, sealing the corks. Keep in a dark, cool
place.

Tomato and walnut are the most useful catsups we have for general
purposes, and either is in itself a fine sauce for roast meat, cold
fowl, game, etc.

LEMON CATSUP.

12 large, fresh lemons.
4 tablespoonfuls white mustard-seed.
1 tablespoonful turmeric.
1 tablespoonful white pepper.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful mace.
1 saltspoonful cayenne.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls grated horse-radish.
1 shallot, minced fine.
Juice of the lemons.
2 tablespoonfuls table-salt.

Grate the rind of the lemons; pound or grind the spices, and put all
together, including the horse-radish. Strew the salt over all, add
the lemon-juice, and let it stand three hours in a cool place. Boil
in a porcelain kettle half an hour. Pour into a covered vessel—china
or stone—and let it stand a fortnight, stirring well every day. Then
strain, bottle, and seal.

It is a fine seasoning for fish sauces, fish soups, and game ragoûts.

“EVER-READY” CATSUP. ✠

2 quarts cider vinegar.
12 anchovies, washed, soaked, and pulled to pieces.
12 small onions, peeled and minced.
1 tablespoonful mace.
3 tablespoonfuls fine salt.
3 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 tablespoonful cloves.
3 tablespoonfuls whole black pepper.
2 tablespoonfuls ground ginger.
1 tablespoonful cayenne.
1 quart mushrooms, minced, _or_
1 quart ripe tomatoes, sliced.

Put into a preserving kettle and boil slowly four hours, or until the
mixture is reduced to one-half the original quantity. Strain through a
flannel bag. Do not bottle until next day. Fill the flasks to the top,
and dip the corks in beeswax and rosin.

This catsup will keep for years. Mixed with drawn butter, it is used as
a sauce for boiled fish, but is a fine flavoring essence for gravies of
almost any kind.

A GOOD STORE SAUCE.

2 tablespoonfuls horse-radish (grated).
1 tablespoonful allspice.
A grated nutmeg.
3 large pickled onions (minced fine).
2 dozen whole black peppers.
A pinch of cayenne.
1 tablespoonful salt.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
1 quart vinegar from walnut or butternut pickle.

Mix all the spices well together; crush in a stone jar with a
potato-beetle or billet of wood; pour the vinegar upon these, and let
it stand two weeks. Put on in a porcelain or clean bell-metal kettle
and heat to boiling; strain and set aside until next day to cool and
settle. Bottle and cork very tightly. It is an excellent seasoning for
any kind of gravy, sauce, or stew.

MOCK CAPERS. ✠

Gather green nasturtium seed when they are full-grown, but not yellow;
dry for a day in the sun; put into small jars or wide-mouthed bottles,
cover with boiling vinegar, slightly spiced, and when cool, cork
closely. In six weeks they will be fit for use. They give an agreeable
taste to drawn butter for fish, or boiled beef and mutton.

CELERY VINEGAR.

A bunch of fresh celery, _or_
A quarter of a pound of celery seed.
1 quart best vinegar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.

Cut up the celery into small bits, or pour the seed into a jar; scald
the salt and vinegar, and pour over the celery stalks or seed; let it
cool, and put away in one large jar tightly corked. In a fortnight
strain and bottle in small flasks, corking tightly.

ONION VINEGAR.

6 large onions.
1 tablespoonful salt.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
1 quart best vinegar.

Mince the onions, strew on the salt, and let them stand five or six
hours. Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved,
pour over the onions; put in a jar, tie down the cover, and steep a
fortnight. Strain and bottle.

ELDERBERRY CATSUP.

1 quart of elderberries.
1 quart of vinegar.
6 anchovies, soaked and pulled to pieces.
Half a teaspoonful mace.
A pinch of ginger.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 tablespoonful whole peppers.

Scald the vinegar and pour over the berries, which must be picked from
the stalks and put into a large stone jar. Cover with a pane of glass,
and set in the hot sun two days. Strain off the liquor, and boil up
with the other ingredients, stirring often, one hour, keeping covered
unless while stirring. Let it cool; strain and bottle.

This is used for flavoring brown gravies, soups, and ragoûts, and,
stirred into browned butter, makes a good piquant sauce for broiled or
baked fish.

PEPPER VINEGAR.

6 pods red peppers broken up.
3 dozen black pepper-corns.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 quart of best vinegar.

Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved; pour over the
pepper, put into a jar, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.

This is eaten with boiled fish and raw oysters, and is useful in the
preparation of salads.

HORSE-RADISH VINEGAR.

6 tablespoonfuls scraped or grated horse-radish.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
1 quart vinegar.

Scald the vinegar; pour boiling hot over the horseradish. Steep a week,
strain and bottle.

SALADS.

“The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned
with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from
this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the
specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than
useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be
dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more
equally distributed throughout the salad.”—_Chaptal, a French chemist._

The Spanish proverb says, “that to make a perfect salad, there should be
a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a
madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together.”

SYDNEY SMITH’S RECEIPT FOR SALAD DRESSING.

Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,
Softness and smoothness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;
Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
True taste requires it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And lastly, in the flavored compound toss
A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.
Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!
’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.
Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.

At least twenty-five years ago I pasted the above doggerel in my
scrap-book, and committed it to memory. The first salad I was ever
trusted to compound was dressed in strict obedience to the directions
of the witty divine, and to this day these seem to me pertinent and
worthy of note. The anchovy sauce can be omitted if you like, and a
spoonful of Harvey’s or Worcestershire substituted. This is best suited
for chicken or turkey salad.

LOBSTER SALAD. ✠

Pick out every bit of the meat from the body and claws of a cold boiled
lobster. Lay aside the coral for the dressing, and mince the rest. For
the dressing you will need—

4 eggs, boiled hard.
2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teaspoonful salt.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper. _Vinegar at discretion._
1 teaspoonful of Harvey’s, Worcestershire, or anchovy sauce.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste in a mortar or bowl, with a Wedgewood
pestle, a silver or wooden spoon, until _perfectly_ free from lumps.
Add gradually, rubbing all the while, the other ingredients, the coral
last. This should have been worked well upon a plate with a silver
knife or wooden spatula. Proceed slowly and carefully in the work of
amalgamating the various ingredients, moistening with vinegar as they
stiffen. Increase the quantity of this as the mixture grows smooth,
until it is thin enough to pour over the minced lobster. You will need
a teacupful at least. Toss with a silver fork and do not break the
meat. Some mix chopped lettuce with the salad; but unless it is to be
eaten within a few minutes, the vinegar will wither the tender leaves.
The better plan is to heap a glass dish with the inner leaves of
several lettuce-heads, laying pounded ice among them, and pass with the
lobster, that the guests may add the green salad to their taste.

When lettuce is out of season, the following dressing, the receipt for
which was given me by a French gourmand, may be used.

Prepare the egg and coral as above, with the condiments there
mentioned, but mix with the lobster-meat four tablespoonfuls of fine
white cabbage, chopped small, with two small onions, also minced into
almost invisible bits, a teaspoonful of anchovy or other sauce, and a
tablespoonful of celery vinegar.

All lobster salad should be eaten as soon as possible after the
dressing is added, else it becomes unwholesome. If you use canned
lobster, open and turn out the contents of the can into a china dish
several hours before you mix the dressing, that the close, airless
smell may pass away.

Garnish the edges of the dish with cool white leaves of curled lettuce,
or with a chain of rings made of the whites of the boiled eggs.

EXCELSIOR LOBSTER SALAD WITH CREAM DRESSING. ✠

1 fine lobster, boiled and when cold picked to pieces, or two
small ones.
1 cup of best salad oil.
½ cup sweet cream, whipped light to a cupful of froth.
1 lemon—the juice strained.
1 teaspoonful mustard wet up with vinegar.
1 tablespoonful powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
4 tablespoonfuls vinegar.
Beaten yolks of two eggs.

Beat eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, and pepper until light; then, and very
gradually, the oil. When the mixture is quite thick, whip in the lemon.
Beat five minutes before putting in the vinegar. Just before the salad
goes to table add half the whipped cream to this dressing and stir well
into the lobster. Line the salad-bowl with lettuce-leaves; put in the
seasoned meat and cover with the rest of the whipped cream.

This salad deserves its name.

CHICKEN SALAD. ✠

The white meat of a cold boiled or roasted chicken (or turkey).
Three-quarters the same bulk of chopped celery.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
1 raw egg, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
3 teaspoonfuls salad oil.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
½ teacupful of vinegar.

Mince the meat well, removing every scrap of fat, gristle, and skin;
cut the celery into bits half an inch long, _or less_, mix them, and
set aside in a cold place while you prepare the dressing.

Rub the yolks of the eggs to a fine powder, add the salt, pepper, and
sugar, then the oil, grinding hard, and putting in but a few drops at a
time. The mustard comes next, and let all stand together while you whip
the raw egg to a froth. Beat this into the dressing, and pour in the
vinegar spoonful by spoonful, whipping the dressing well as you do it.
Sprinkle a little dry salt over the meat and celery; toss it up lightly
with a silver fork; pour the dressing over it, tossing and mixing until
the bottom of the mass is as well saturated as the top; turn into the
salad-bowl, and garnish with white of eggs (boiled) cut into rings or
flowers, and sprigs of bleached celery-tops.

If you cannot get celery, substitute crisp white cabbage, and use
celery vinegar in the dressing. You can also, in this case, chop some
green pickles, gherkins, mangoes, or cucumbers, and stir in.

Turkey makes even better salad than chicken.

You can make soup of the liquor in which the fowl is cooked, since it
need not be boiled in a cloth.

LETTUCE SALAD. ✠

Two or three heads white lettuce.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls salad oil.
½ teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
½ teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
4 tablespoonfuls vinegar.

Rub the yolks to a powder, add sugar, pepper, salt, mustard, and oil.
Let it stand five minutes, and beat in the vinegar. Cut the lettuce up
with a knife and fork,—a chopper would bruise it,—put into a bowl, add
the dressing, and mix by tossing with a silver fork.

_Or,_

You can dress on the table with oil and vinegar only, pulling the
heart of the lettuce out with your fingers, and seasoning to taste.

SUMMER SALAD.

3 heads of lettuce.
2 teaspoonfuls green mustard leaves.
A handful of water-cresses.
Four or five very tender radishes.
1 cucumber.
3 hard-boiled eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teacupful vinegar.
2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.

Mix the dressing as for lettuce salad. Cut up the hearts of the
lettuce, the radishes and cucumber, into very small pieces; chop the
mustard and cress. Pour over these the dressing, tossing very lightly,
not to bruise the young leaves; heap in a salad-bowl upon a lump of
ice, and garnish with fennel-heads and nasturtium-blossoms.

This is a delightful accompaniment to boiled or baked fish.

WATER-CRESSES.

Wash and pick over the cresses carefully, pluck from the stems, and
pile in the salad bowl, with a dressing of vinegar, pepper, salt, and
sugar, well stirred in.

CABBAGE SALAD, OR COLD SLAW. ✠

1 head of fine white cabbage, minced fine.
3 hard-boiled eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teacupful vinegar.

Mix as for lettuce and pour upon the chopped cabbage.

_Or,_ ✠

Shred the head of cabbage fine, and dress with—

1 cup vinegar.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls sour cream.
A pinch of pepper, and the same of salt.

Put the vinegar, with all the ingredients for the dressing, except the
cream, in a saucepan, and let them come to a boil. Pour while scalding
over the cabbage, and set away until perfectly cold. Add the cream just
before serving, stirring in with a silver fork.

This is a very nice preparation of cabbage, and far more wholesome than
the uncooked. Try it!

TOMATO SALAD. ✠

12 medium-sized tomatoes, peeled and sliced.
4 hard-boiled eggs.
1 raw egg, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful salt.
¼ spoonful cayenne pepper.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 tablespoonful salad oil.
2 teaspoonfuls made mustard.
1 teacupful vinegar.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste, adding by degrees the salt, pepper,
sugar, mustard, and oil. Beat the raw egg to a froth and stir
in—lastly the vinegar. Peel the tomatoes, slice them a quarter of an
inch thick, and set the dish on ice, while you are making ready the
dressing. Stir a great lump of ice rapidly in this—the dressing—until
it is cold; take it out, cover the tomatoes with the mixture, and set
back on the ice until you send to table.

This salad is delicious, especially when ice-cold.

CELERY SALAD. ✠

1 boiled egg.
1 raw egg.
1 tablespoonful salad oil.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 saltspoonful pepper.
4 tablespoonfuls vinegar.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.

Prepare the dressing as for tomato salad; cut the celery into bits half
an inch long, and season. Eat at once, before the vinegar injures the
crispness of the vegetable.

SALMON SALAD. ✠

1½ lb. cold boiled or baked salmon.
2 heads white lettuce (or celery).
3 hard-boiled eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.
1 teaspoonful salt, and same of cayenne.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful Worcestershire or anchovy sauce.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teacupful vinegar.

Mince three-quarters of the salmon, laying aside four or five pieces
half an inch wide and four or five long; cut smoothly and of uniform
size. Prepare the dressing in the usual way, and pour over the minced
fish. Shred the lettuce, handling as little as possible, and heap in a
separate bowl, with pounded ice. This must accompany the salmon, that
the guests may help themselves to their liking. Or you may mix the
lettuce with the fish, if it is to be eaten immediately. Celery, of
course, is always stirred into the salad, when it is used. The reserved
pieces of salmon should be laid in the dressing for five minutes before
the latter is added to the minced fish, then dipped in vinegar. When
you have transferred your salad (or mayonnaise) to the dish in which
it is to be served, round it into a mound, and lay the strips upon it
in such a manner as to divide it into triangular sections, the bars
all meeting at the top and diverging at the base. Between these have
subdivisions of chain-work made of the whites of the boiled eggs, each
circle overlapping that next to it.

You can dress halibut in the same way.

POTATO SALAD. ✠ (_Very good._)

2 cups of mashed potato, rubbed through a cullender.
¾ of a cup of chopped cabbage—white and firm.
2 tablespoonfuls cucumber pickle, also chopped.
Yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs, pounded fine.
Mix all well together.

_Dressing._

1 raw egg, well beaten.
1 saltspoonful of celery-seed.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
1 teaspoonful of flour.
½ cupful of vinegar.
Salt, mustard, and pepper to taste.

Boil the vinegar and pour it upon the beaten egg, sugar, butter, and
seasoning. Wet the flour with cold vinegar, and beat into this. Cook
the mixture, stirring until it thickens, when pour, scalding hot, upon
the salad. Toss with a silver fork, and let it get very cold before
eating.

CHEESE SALAD, OR MOCK CRAB.

½ lb. pickled shrimps.
¼ lb. good old cheese.
1 tablespoonful salad oil.
½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
4 tablespoonfuls celery or onion vinegar.

Mince the shrimps and grate the cheese. Work into the latter, a little
at a time, the various condiments enumerated above, the vinegar last.
Let all stand together ten minutes before adding the shrimps. When this
is done, stir well for a minute and a half and serve in a glass dish,
garnished with lemon, or (if you can get one) in a clean crab-shell.

_Or,_ ✠

½ lb. old cheese, grated.
1 hard-boiled egg.
½ teaspoonful cayenne.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 tablespoonful onion vinegar.
1 tablespoonful salad oil.

Rub the yolk of the egg to a paste with the oil, adding in order the
salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard, lastly the cheese. Work all well
together before putting in the vinegar. Serve in a crab-shell.

These mixtures bear a marvellous resemblance in taste to devilled crab,
and make a good impromptu relish at tea or luncheon. Eat with crackers
and butter. This is still better if you add a cupful of cold minced
chicken.

Use none but the best and freshest olive salad oil (_not_ sweet oil,
falsely so called) in compounding your salad-dressing. If you cannot
obtain this, melted butter is the best substitute I know of.

VEGETABLES.

RULES APPLICABLE TO THE COOKING OF ALL VEGETABLES.

1. Have them as fresh as possible. Stale and withered ones are
unwholesome and unpalatable. Summer vegetables should be cooked on the
same day they are gathered, if possible.

2. Pick over and wash well, cutting out all decayed or unripe parts.

3. Lay them, when peeled, in _cold_ water for some time before cooking.

4. If you boil them, put a little salt in the water.

5. Cook them steadily after you put them on.

6. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Rare vegetables are neither good
nor fashionable.

7. _Drain well._

8. Serve hot!

POTATOES.

BOILED POTATOES (_with the skins on._)

Boil in cold water with a pinch of salt. Have them of uniform size,
and cook steadily until a fork will pierce easily to the heart of the
largest. Then pour off the water, every drop; sprinkle with salt and
set back on the range, a little to one side, with the lid of the pot
off. Let them dry three or four minutes; peel very quickly and serve in
an uncovered dish.

_Without the Skins._

Pare very thin. The glory of a potato is its mealiness, and much of the
starch, or meal, lies next the skin—consequently is lost by slovenly
paring, which likewise defaces the shape. Lay in cold water for half an
hour, have ready a pot of boiling water slightly salted, drop in the
potatoes, and keep at a rapid boil until tender. Drain off the water,
sprinkle with fine salt, and dry as just described.

And here comes a conflict of authorities. Says my kind friend and
neighbor, Mrs. A., an excellent housewife—“I boil my potatoes in cold
water always—with a pinch of salt, of course, and when half-done, throw
away the boiling water and fill up with cold, then boil again. This
makes the potatoes mealy.” Mrs. B., whose reputation as a housekeeper
and cook is in every kitchen, interposes:—“I have tried both ways.
My experience is that potatoes melt into a sort of starchy gruel
when boiled in cold water. The philosophy of the operation is to
heat quickly and thoroughly, and, the instant they are done, to dry
out every drop of water. And—” with a touch of pardonable pride—“we
generally have delightful potatoes.” This is true, but remembering that
Mrs. A.’s are like snow hillocks, ready to crumble at a breath, I come
home and try the cold water plan. My cook, unlike most of her tribe,
is too sensible to suppose that she knows everything, and willingly
abets me. The result of our experiments stands somewhat thus—Garnet,
White Mountain, and Early Rose potatoes _are_ apt to dissolve in cold
water, giving off their starch too readily, perhaps. We boil them in
hot water. Peach Blows, Prince Alberts, and other late varieties are
best cooked as Mrs. A. recommends—_always_ pouring off the water the
instant they are done, and letting the potatoes dry for a few minutes.
My housewifely friends can decide for themselves which method is
preferable.

MASHED POTATOES. ✠

Old potatoes are best mashed. Pare, and let them lie in cold water from
half to three-quarters of an hour. A longer time will not hurt them.
Boil in hot or cold water, according to the toughness of texture. A
coarse, waxy potato is best cooked in cold water. In either case, put
in a pinch of salt. Drain thoroughly when done, sprinkle with salt, and
mash them in the pot with a potato-beetle, or whip with a split spoon,
working in a tablespoonful of butter and enough milk to make the paste
about the consistency of soft dough. Leave no lumps in it, and when
smooth, dish. Form into a mound with a wooden spoon, and leave dots of
pepper here and there on the surface, as large as a half-dime.

_Or,_

Brown by setting in the oven until a crust is formed. Glaze this with
butter, and serve.

TO BOIL NEW POTATOES.

If very young, rub the skin off with a rough towel. If almost ripe,
scrape with a blunt knife. Lay in cold water an hour, cover with cold
water slightly salted, boil half an hour. Drain, salt, and dry for two
or three minutes. Send to table plain.

_Or,_

You may crack each by pressing lightly upon it with the back of a
wooden spoon, lay them in a deep dish, and pour over them a cupful
of cream or new milk, heated to a boil, in which a great spoonful of
butter has been dissolved.

TO STEW OLD POTATOES. ✠

This is a good way to cook potatoes which are so rank and tough as
hardly to be eatable in any other form.

Pare and quarter, if large. Soak in cold water one hour. Put into a pot
with enough cold salted water to cover them. When almost done, turn off
the water, add a like quantity of milk, and bring to a boil. Before
taking up, stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, a
handful of chopped parsley, and thicken slightly with flour previously
wet in cold milk. Boil one minute, and pour all into a deep dish.

STEWED POTATOES FOR BREAKFAST. ✠

Pare, cut into dice, and soak in cold water half an hour. Stew in
enough hot salted water to cover them. Before taking up, and when they
are breaking to pieces, drain off half the water, and pour in a cupful
of milk. Boil three minutes, stirring well; put in a lump of butter the
size of an egg rolled in flour, a little salt and a pinch of pepper;
add a little parsley; boil up well and turn into a covered dish.

This is an excellent family dish. Children are usually fond of it and
it is very wholesome.

BAKED POTATOES.

Wash and wipe some large ripe potatoes, and bake in a quick oven until
tender, say from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, if of a good
size. Serve in a napkin with the skins on. Tear or cut a hole in the
top when you eat them, put in a bit of butter with salt and pepper.
They are good for boys’ cold fingers at supper-time on winter nights.

POTATO PUFF. ✠

Take two cupfuls of cold mashed potato, and stir into it two
tablespoonfuls of melted butter, beating to a white cream before adding
anything else. Then put with this two eggs whipped very light and a
teacupful of cream or milk, salting to taste. Beat all well, pour into
a deep dish, and bake in a quick oven until it is nicely browned.
If properly mixed, it will come out of the oven light, puffy, and
delectable.

POTATOES WARMED OVER—_alias 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 some chopped parsley. Heat quickly, stirring
all the time until ready to boil, when stir in the juice of half a
lemon. This last ingredient entitles the dish to the foreign title.
Pour into a deep dish, and serve very hot.

POTATO CROQUETTES. ✠

Season cold mashed potato with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Beat to a
cream, with a tablespoonful of melted butter to every cupful of potato.
Bind with two or three beaten eggs, and add some minced parsley. Roll
into oval balls, dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in
hot lard or drippings.

Pile in a pyramid upon a flat dish, and serve.

FRIED POTATOES. ✠

Pare, wash, and slice some raw potatoes as thin as wafers. This can
be done with a sharp knife, although there is a little instrument for
the purpose, to be had at the house-furnishing stores, which flutes
prettily as well as slices evenly. Lay in ice-water for half an hour,
wipe dry in two cloths, spreading them upon one, and pressing the other
upon them. Have ready in the frying-pan some boiling lard or nice
dripping, fry the potatoes to a light brown, sprinkle with salt, and
serve in a napkin laid in a deep dish and folded over them. To dry them
of the fat, take from the frying-pan as soon as they are brown, with a
perforated skimmer, put into a cullender and shake for an instant. They
should be crisp and free from grease.

_Or,_

Chop cold boiled potatoes into bits, season with pepper and salt, and
fry lightly in dripping or butter, turning them constantly until nicely
browned.

POTATO RIBBON.

Pare and lay in ice-water for an hour. Choose the largest and soundest
potatoes you can get for this dish. At the end of the hour, pare, with
a small knife, round and round in one continuous curling strip. There
is also an instrument for this purpose, which costs but a trifle, and
will do the work deftly and expeditiously. Handle with care, fry—a few
at a time, for fear of entanglement—in lard or clarified drippings,
drain, and arrange neatly upon a hot flat dish.

POTATOES À LA CRÈME. ✠

Put into a saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter, a small handful of
parsley chopped small, salt and pepper to taste. Stir up well until
hot, add a small teacupful of cream or rich milk, thicken with two
teaspoonfuls of flour, and stir until it boils. Chop some cold boiled
potatoes, put into the mixture, and boil up once before serving.

STUFFED POTATOES. ✠

Take large, fair potatoes, bake until soft, and cut a round piece
off the top of each. Scrape out the inside carefully, so as not to
break the skin, and set aside the empty cases with the covers. Mash
the inside very smoothly, working into it while hot some butter and
cream—about half a teaspoonful of each for every potato. Season with
salt and pepper, with a good pinch of grated cheese for each; work it
very soft with milk, and put into a saucepan to heat, stirring, to
prevent burning. When scalding hot, stir in one well-beaten egg for
six large potatoes. Boil up once, fill the skins with the mixture,
replacing the caps, return them to the oven for three minutes; arrange
upon a napkin in a deep dish, the caps uppermost; cover with a fold of
the napkin, and eat hot.

_Or,_

You may omit the eggs and put in a double quantity of cheese. They are
very good.

POTATO SCALLOPS.

Boil, and mash the potatoes soft with a little milk. Beat up light with
melted butter—a dessertspoonful for every half-pint of the potato—salt
and pepper to taste. Fill some patty-pans or buttered scallop shells
with the mixture, and brown in an oven, when you have stamped a pattern
on the top of each. Glaze, while hot, with butter, and serve in the
shells.

If you like, you can strew some grated cheese over the top.

BROWNED POTATOES.—(_Whole._)

Boil and peel some large, ripe potatoes, and three-quarters of an hour
before a piece of roast beef is removed from the fire, skim the fat
from the gravy; put the potatoes in the dripping-pan, having dredged
them well with flour. Baste them, to prevent scorching, with the gravy,
and when quite brown, drain on a sieve. Lay them about the meat in the
dish.

BROWNED POTATO.—(_Mashed._)

This is also an accompaniment to roast beef or mutton. Mash some boiled
potatoes smoothly with a little milk, pepper, salt, and a boiled onion
(minced); make into small cones or balls; flour well, and put under or
beside the meat, half an hour or so before you take it up. Skim off
all the fat from the gravy before putting them in. Drain them dry when
brown, and lay around the meat when dished.

These are nice with roast spare-rib, or any roast pork that is not
_too_ fat.

BROILED POTATOES.

Cut whole boiled potatoes lengthwise, into slices a quarter of an inch
thick, and lay upon a gridiron over a hot, bright fire. Brown on both
sides, sprinkle with pepper and salt, lay a bit of butter upon each,
and eat very hot.

POTATO CAKES.

Make cold mashed potato into flat cakes; flour and fry in lard, or good
sweet dripping, until they are a light-brown.

ROAST SWEET POTATOES.

Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and roast until you can tell,
by gently pressing the largest between the finger and thumb, that it is
mellow throughout. Serve in their jackets.

Sweet, as well as Irish potatoes, are very good for pic-nic luncheon,
roasted in hot ashes. This, it will be remembered, was the dinner
General Marion set before the British officer as “quite a feast, I
assure you, sir. We don’t often fare so well as to have sweet potatoes
and salt.”

The feast was cleansed from ashes by the negro orderly’s shirt-sleeve,
and served upon a natural trencher of pine-bark.

BOILED SWEET POTATOES.

Have them all as nearly the same size as possible; put into cold water,
without any salt, and boil until a fork will easily pierce the largest.
Turn off the water, and lay them in the oven to dry for five minutes.
Peel before sending to table.

_Or,_ ✠

Parboil, and then roast until done. This is a wise plan when they are
old and watery. Boiling is apt to render them tasteless. Another way
still is to boil until they are almost done, when peel and bake brown,
basting them with butter several times, but draining them dry before
they go to the table.

FRIED SWEET POTATOES ✠

Parboil them, skin, and cut lengthwise into slices a quarter of an inch
thick. Fry in sweet dripping or butter.

Cold boiled potatoes may be cooked in this way. Or you can chop them
up with an equal quantity of cold Irish potatoes, put them into a
frying-pan with a good lump of butter, and stir until they are hot and
slightly brown.

CABBAGE.

BOILED CABBAGE.

Pick off the outer green leaves, quarter, examine carefully to be sure
there are no insects in it, and lay for an hour in cold water. Then
put into a pot with plenty of boiling water, and cook fifteen minutes.
Throw away the water, and fill up the pot from the boiling tea-kettle.
Cook until tender all through. Three-quarters of an hour will do
for a good-sized cabbage when young. Late in the season you must be
guided by the tenderness of the stalk. Drain well, chop, and stir in a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt. Serve very hot. If you boil
corned beef or pork to eat with cabbage, let the second water be taken
from the pot in which this is cooking. It will flavor it nicely.

_Always_ boil cabbage in two waters.

BACON AND CABBAGE.

This, I need hardly say, is a favorite country dish at the South.
The old-fashioned way of preparing it was to boil meat and cabbage
together, and serve, reeking with fat, the cabbage in quarters,
soaking yet more of the essence from the ham or middling about which
it lay. In this shape it justly earned a reputation for grossness and
indigestibility that banished it, in time, from many tables.

Yet it is a savory and not unwholesome article of food in winter, if
the cabbage be boiled in two waters, the second being the “pot liquor”
from the boiling meat. Drain thoroughly in a cullender, pressing out
every drop of water that will flow, without breaking the tender leaves;
and when the meat is dished, lay the cabbage neatly about it, and upon
each quarter a slice of hard-boiled egg.

When you eat, season with pepper, salt, and vinegar.

STUFFED CABBAGE.

Choose for this purpose a large, firm cabbage. Take off the outer
leaves, and lay in boiling water ten minutes, then in very cold. Do
this several hours before you are ready to stuff it. When perfectly
cold, bind a broad tape about it, or a strip of muslin, that it may
not fall apart when the stalk is taken out. Remove this with a thin
sharp knife, leaving a hole about as deep as your middle-finger.
Without widening the mouth of the aperture, excavate the centre until
you have room for four or five tablespoonfuls of the force-meat—more,
if the head be large. Chop the bits you take out very small; mix with
some cold boiled pork or ham, or cooked sausage-meat, a _very_ little
onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme, and some bread-crumbs. Fill the
cavity with this, bind a wide strip of muslin over the hole in the top,
and lay the cabbage in a large saucepan with a pint of “pot-liquor”
from boiled beef or ham. Stew gently until very tender. Take out the
cabbage, unbind carefully, and lay in a dish. Keep hot while you add to
the gravy, when you have strained it, pepper, a piece of butter rolled
in flour, and two or three tablespoonfuls rich milk or cream. Boil up,
and pour over the cabbage.

“COLLARDS,” OR CABBAGE-SPROUTS.

Pick over carefully, lay in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour;
shake in a cullender to drain, and put into boiling water, keeping at
a fast boil until tender. A piece of pork seasons them pleasantly.
In this case put the meat on first, adding the greens when it is
parboiled, and cooking them together. Boil in an uncovered vessel.
Drain very well; chop and heap in a dish, laying the meat on top.

LADIES’ CABBAGE. ✠

Boil a firm white cabbage fifteen minutes, changing the water then
for more from the boiling tea-kettle. When tender, drain and set
aside until perfectly cold. Chop fine, and add two beaten eggs, a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, three tablespoonfuls rich milk
or cream. Stir all well together, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish
until brown. Eat very hot.

I can conscientiously recommend this dish even to those who are not
fond of any of the ordinary preparations of cabbage. It is digestible
and palatable, more nearly resembling cauliflower in taste than its
coarser and commoner cousin—_German_.

FRIED CABBAGE.

Chop cold boiled cabbage, and drain very dry, stirring in a little
melted butter, pepper, and salt, with three or four tablespoonfuls
of cream. Heat all in a buttered frying-pan, stirring until smoking
hot; then let the mixture stand just long enough to brown slightly on
the under-side. It is improved by the addition of a couple of beaten
eggs. Turn out by putting a flat dish above the pan, upside-down, and
reversing the latter. This is a breakfast dish.

SAUERKRAUT.

Shred or chop the cabbage fine. Line a barrel, keg, or jar with
cabbage-leaves on the bottom and sides. Put in a layer of the cut
cabbage, three inches in depth; press down well and sprinkle with four
tablespoonfuls of salt. When you have packed five layers in this way,
press hard with a board cut to fit loosely on the inside of the barrel
or jar. Put heavy weights on this, or pound with a wooden beetle until
the cabbage is a compact mass, when remove the board and put in more
layers of salt and shred cabbage, repeating the pounding every four or
five layers, until the vessel is full. Cover with leaves, and put the
board on the top of these with a heavy weight to keep it down. Set all
away to ferment. In three weeks remove the scum, and if need be, cover
with water. Keep in a cool, dry cellar. It can be eaten raw or boiled,
and seasoned with pork.

This is the mode _simple_ if not _pure_ of preparing this, to nostrils
unaccustomed to it, malodorous compound. Some add to the salt whole
black peppers, cloves, garlic, and mace,—“then put it away,” as a
mild, motherly Teuton dame once told me, “in the cellar to r—”—“Rot!”
interpolated a disgusted bystander, anticipating her deliberate
utterance. “No, my dear,” drawled the placid Frau, “to _ripen_.”

CAULIFLOWER.

BOILED CAULIFLOWER.

Pick off the leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom of the bunch
of flowers. Lay in cold water for half an hour. Unless _very_ large,
do not cut it; if you do, quarter neatly. Tie a close net of coarse
bobbinet lace or tarlatan about it to prevent breaking or bruising; put
into boiling water salted, and cook until tender. Undo and remove the
net, and lay the cauliflower in a hot dish. Have ready a large cupful
of nice drawn butter and pour over it. A little lemon-juice makes of
this a _sauce tartare_.

Cut with a silver knife and fork in helping it out, and give a little
of the sauce to each person. Take it out of the water as soon as it is
done, serve quickly, and eat hot. It darkens with standing.

STEWED CAULIFLOWER.

Use for this dish the smaller and more indifferent cauliflowers. Cut
them into small clusters; lay in cold salt and water half an hour,
and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn most of this off,
leaving but half a teacupful in the saucepan. Add to this a half-cupful
of milk thickened with a very little rice or wheat flour, and two
tablespoonfuls of melted butter, pepper, and salt. Shake the saucepan
over the fire gently until it boils; take out the cauliflowers with a
perforated skimmer, lay in order upon a dish, and pour the sauce over
them.

SCALLOPED CAULIFLOWER.

Boil until tender, clip into neat clusters, and pack—the stems
downward—in a buttered pudding-dish. Beat up a cupful of bread-crumbs
to a soft paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and six of
cream or milk; season with pepper and salt, bind with a beaten egg, and
with this cover the cauliflower. Cover the dish closely and bake six
minutes in a quick oven; brown in five more, and serve very hot in the
dish in which they were baked.

BROCCOLI AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS.

Pick over, wash carefully, cut off the lower part of the stems and lay
in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour. Cook quickly in boiling
water, with a little salt, until tender. This will be in twelve or
fifteen minutes. Cook in an uncovered saucepan. Drain well, lay in a
neat pile lightly heaped in the centre of a dish, and pour drawn butter
over them, or serve this in a tureen.

BROCCOLI AND EGGS.

Boil two or three heads of broccoli until tender. Have ready two
cupfuls of butter drawn in the usual way, and beat into it, while
hot, four well-whipped eggs. Lay buttered toast in the bottom of
a hot dish, and on this the largest head of broccoli whole, as a
centre-piece. Arrange close about this the others cut into clusters,
the stems downward, and pour the egg-sauce over all.

MASHED TURNIPS.

Peel and lay in cold water, slightly salted, until the water boils in
the saucepan intended for them. Put them in and boil until very tender.
The time will depend upon their age. Drain and mash in the cullender
with a wooden spoon, stirring in at the last a tablespoonful of butter
with pepper and salt to taste, and serve hot.

If eaten with boiled corned beef, you may take a little of the liquor
from the pot in which the meat is cooking; put it into a saucepan, boil
up once to throw off the scum, skim clean, and cook the turnips in this.

_Or,_

If the turnips are young, rub them when tender _through_ the cullender;
add a little milk, butter, pepper, and salt; heat to boiling in a clean
saucepan and serve.

YOUNG TURNIPS BOILED WHOLE.

Pare smoothly, and trim all into the same size and shape. Lay in cold
water half an hour. Put on in boiling water, with a tablespoonful of
butter, and stew until tender. Drain dry, without crushing or breaking
them; pile in a deep dish, and cover with a white sauce made of butter
drawn in milk. Turnips should be eaten very hot always.

BOILED SPINACH.

In respect to quantity, spinach is desperately deceitful. I never see
it drained after it is boiled without bethinking myself of a picture
I saw many years since, illustrative of the perils of innocent
simplicity. A small (lucky) boy and big (unlucky) one have been
spending their holiday in fishing. While the former, well satisfied
with the result of his day’s sport, is busy putting up his rod and
tackle, the designing elder dexterously substitutes his own string of
minnows for the other’s store of fine perch. The little fellow, turning
to pick it up, without a suspicion of the cruel cheat, makes piteous
round eyes at his fellow, ejaculating, “How they have _swhrunk_!”

A young housekeeper of my acquaintance, ordering a spring dinner for
herself and husband, purchased a quart of spinach. When it should have
appeared upon the table, there came in its stead a platter of sliced
egg, she having given out one for the dressing. “Where is the spinach?”
she demanded of the maid of all work. “Under the egg, ma’am!” And it
was really all there.

_Moral._—Get enough spinach to be visible to the naked eye. A peck is
not too much for a family of four or five.

Pick it over very carefully; it is apt to be gritty. Wash in several
waters, and let it lie in the last half an hour at least. Take out
with your hands, shaking each bunch well, and put into boiling water,
with a little salt. Boil from fifteen to twenty minutes. When tender,
drain thoroughly, chop _very_ fine; put into a saucepan with a piece of
butter the size of an egg, and pepper to taste. Stir until very hot,
turn into a dish and shape into a flat-topped mound with a silver or
wooden spoon; slice some hard-boiled eggs and lay on top.

_Or,_

Rub the yolks of the eggs to a powder; mix with butter, and when your
mound is raised, spread smoothly over the flat top. Four eggs will
dress a good-sized dish. Cut the whites into rings and garnish, laying
them on the yellow surface. This makes a pleasant dressing for the
spinach.

SPINACH À LA CRÈME.

Boil and chop _very_ fine, or rub through a cullender. Season with
pepper and salt. Beat in, while warm, three tablespoonfuls melted
butter (this is for a large dish). Put into a saucepan and heat,
stirring constantly. When smoking hot, add three tablespoonfuls of
cream and a teaspoonful white sugar. Boil up once, still stirring, and
press firmly into a hot bowl or other mould. Turn into a hot dish and
garnish with boiled eggs.

GREEN PEAS.

Shell and lay in cold water until you are ready to cook them. Put into
salted boiling water, and cook from twenty minutes to half an hour.
If young and fresh, the shorter time will suffice. If just gathered
from your own vines and tender, season only with salt. Market peas are
greatly improved by the addition of a small lump of white sugar. It
improves taste and color. The English always put it in, also a sprig
of mint, to be removed when the peas are dished. Drain well, and dish,
with a great lump of butter stirred in, and a little pepper. Keep hot.

PEA FRITTERS OR CAKES. ✠

Cook a pint or three cups more peas than you need for dinner. Mash
while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter.
Put by until morning. Make a batter of two whipped eggs, a cupful of
milk, quarter teaspoonful soda, a half teaspoonful cream tartar, and
half a cup of flour. Stir the pea-mixture into this, beating very hard,
and cook as you would ordinary griddle-cakes.

I can testify, from experience, that they make a delightful morning
dish, and hereby return thanks to the unknown friend to whom I am
indebted for the receipt.

ASPARAGUS (_boiled._)

Cut your stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody or lower portions,
and scraping the white part which remains. Throw into cold water as
you scrape them. Tie in a bunch with soft strings—muslin or tape—and
put into boiling water slightly salted. If very young and fresh, it is
well to tie in a piece of coarse net to protect the tops. Boil from
twenty to forty minutes, according to the age. Just before it is done,
toast two or three slices of bread, cutting off the crust; dip in the
asparagus liquor, butter, and lay in a hot dish. When you take up the
asparagus, drain, unbind the bundle, and heap it upon the toast, with
bits of butter between the stalks.

ASPARAGUS AND EGGS.

Cut twenty-five or thirty heads of asparagus into bits half an inch
long, and boil fifteen minutes. Have a cupful of rich drawn butter in a
saucepan, and put in the asparagus when you have drained it dry. Heat
together to a boil, seasoning with pepper and salt, and pour into a
buttered bake dish. Break five or six eggs carefully over the surface;
put a bit of butter upon each; sprinkle with salt, and pepper, and put
in the oven until the eggs are set.

_Or,_ ✠

You may beat the eggs—yolks and whites separately—to a froth; season
with butter, pepper, and salt; stir them together, with the addition
of three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, and pour evenly over the
asparagus mixture in the dish. This is decidedly the better way of the
two, although somewhat more troublesome.

ASPARAGUS IN AMBUSH. ✠

Cut off the tender tops of fifty heads of asparagus; boil and drain
them. Have ready half a dozen (or more) stale biscuit or rolls, from
which you have cut a neat top slice and scraped out the crumb. Set them
in the oven to crisp, laying the tops beside them that the cavities
may be well dried. Meanwhile, put into a saucepan a sugarless custard
made of a pint—if you need so much—of milk, and four well-whipped eggs.
Boil the milk first, before beating in the eggs; set over the fire and
stir until it thickens, when add a great spoonful of butter, a little
salt and pepper; lastly, the asparagus tops, minced fine. Do not let
it boil, but take from the fire so soon as the asparagus is fairly
in; fill the rolls with the mixture, put on the tops, fitting them
accurately; set in the oven three minutes, and arrange on a dish, to be
eaten hot.

The number of rolls will depend upon their size. It is better to have
them small, so that one can be served to each person. They will be
found extremely nice.

BOILED ONIONS.

Cut off tops and tails, and skin them. Lay in cold water half an hour,
then put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Cook
fifteen minutes and drain off the water, re-covering them with more
from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil until a straw will pierce them; drain
and put into a dish with pepper, salt, and plenty of butter. Send
around drawn butter with them. Never cook onions in an iron pot.

STEWED ONIONS. ✠

Young onions should always be cooked in this way. Top, tail, and skin
them, lay them in cold water half an hour or more, then put into a
saucepan with hot water enough to cover them. When half done, throw off
all the water, except a small teacupful—less, if your mess be small;
add a like quantity of milk, a great spoonful of butter, with pepper
and salt to taste. Stew gently until tender, and turn into a deep dish.

If the onions are strong and large, boil in three waters, throwing away
all of the first and second, and reserving a very little of the third
to mix with the milk.

It ought to be more generally known that the disagreeable odor left by
any of the onion family upon the breath may be removed by chewing and
swallowing a few grains of roasted coffee. No more nutritious vegetable
ever finds its way to our tables, and it is greatly to be regretted
that the unpleasant result just named should deter so many from
eating it. It is especially beneficial to brain-workers and nervous
invalids—the very people who are least likely to taste it.

BAKED ONIONS.

The large Spanish or Bermuda onions are the only kinds which are
usually baked. Wash clean, but do not remove the skins. Boil an
hour—the water should be boiling when they are put in, and slightly
salt. Change it twice during this time, always replenishing with more,
boiling-hot. Turn off the water, take the onions out and lay upon a
cloth, that all the moisture may be absorbed or evaporate. Roll each
in a round piece of buttered tissue-paper, twisting it at the top to
keep it closed, and bake in a slow oven nearly an hour. When tender
all through, peel them, put them into a deep dish, and brown slightly,
basting with butter freely. This will take perhaps a quarter of an hour
more. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pour the melted butter over them
when you have sprinkled with pepper and salt.

STUFFED ONIONS.

Wash and skin very large Bermuda onions. Lay in cold water an hour.
Parboil in boiling water half an hour. Drain, and while hot extract
the hearts, taking care not to break the outer layers. Chop the inside
thus obtained very fine, with a little cold fat pork or bacon. Add
bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, and wet with a spoonful or two of
cream. Bind with a well-beaten egg, and work into a smooth paste.
Stuff the onions with this; put into a dripping-pan with a very little
hot water, and simmer in the oven for an hour, basting often with
melted butter. When done, take the onions up carefully, and arrange
the open ends uppermost in a vegetable dish. Add to the gravy in the
dripping-pan the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of cream or
milk, and a little browned flour wet with cold milk. Boil up once, and
pour over the onions.

STEWED TOMATOES. ✠

Loosen the skins by pouring scalding water upon them; peel and cut them
up, extracting the cores or hard parts of the stem end, and removing
all unripe portions. Stew in a saucepan (tin or porcelain) half an
hour, when add salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of white sugar,
and a tablespoonful of butter. Stew gently fifteen minutes longer, and
serve.

Some cooks thicken the tomatoes with a little grated bread. A minced
onion—a small one—improves the flavor. Another pleasant variety is to
put a quarter as much green corn as you have tomatoes into the saucepan
when it is first set on the fire, and stew gently.

STUFFED BAKED TOMATOES. ✠

Choose large, smooth tomatoes, and cut a thin slice from the blossom
end of each, laying it aside for further use. Scoop out the inside, and
chop fine with a little grated bread, some green corn, salt, pepper,
a teaspoonful white sugar, and a tablespoonful butter. Mix well, and
stuff the hollowed tomatoes. Fit the tops on neatly, place in circular
rows in a deep dish and bake three-quarters of an hour, to a light
brown. Fill the interstices with the force-meat if you have any left,
before you bake. Do not peel them.

SCALLOPED TOMATOES. ✠

Peel and cut in slices a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a
pudding-dish in alternate layers, with a force-meat made of
bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and a little white sugar. Spread
thickly upon each stratum of tomatoes, and when the dish is nearly
full, put tomatoes uppermost, a good bit of butter upon each slice.
Dust with pepper and a little sugar. Strew with dry bread-crumbs, and
bake covered half an hour; remove the lid and bake brown.

SCALLOP OF TOMATOES AND GREEN CORN. ✠

This is made as above, substituting for the bread-crumbs in the
force-meat, green corn cut from the cob, and seasoning with some fat
pork chopped very fine, a minced shallot, pepper, salt, and sugar.
Let the top layer be tomatoes, butter and season, and sift grated
bread-crumbs over it to brown the scallop. Bake covered half an hour;
uncover and leave in the oven as much longer. This time is for a large
dishful.

BROILED TOMATOES.

Select large, firm ones, and do not peel. Slice half an inch thick,
and broil upon an oyster gridiron. A few minutes will suffice to cook
them. Have ready in a cup some hot butter, seasoned with pepper, salt,
a little sugar, and a half a teaspoonful of made mustard. As soon as
the tomatoes are done, dip each piece in this mixture and lay upon
a hot chafing-dish. When all are dished, heat what remains of the
seasoning to a boil, pour upon them, and serve at once.

Broiled tomatoes are much liked by those who have eaten them cooked in
this manner.

BAKED TOMATOES (_Plain._)

Peel and slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a pudding-dish,
seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, butter, and a very little white
sugar. Bake covered half an hour, remove the lid, and brown for fifteen
minutes. Five minutes before taking from the oven, pour over the top
three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up for a few minutes with
melted butter.

RAW TOMATOES.

Do not loosen the skins with scalding water. It impairs the flavor and
destroys the crispness. Pare with a keen knife, slice and lay in a
glass dish. Season with pepper, salt, and vinegar, stirring a piece of
ice rapidly around in the dressing before pouring it over the tomatoes,
and setting the dish in the refrigerator until wanted.

There is no salad, excepting, perhaps, lettuce and cucumbers, that is
more improved by the use of ice than tomatoes.

RAW CUCUMBERS.

Pare neatly from end to end, and lay in ice-water one hour. Wipe them
and slice thin. Season with pepper, salt and vinegar—and oil, if you
wish—laying some bits of ice among them, with thin slices of onion.
Cucumbers should be gathered while the dew is on them, and eaten the
same day. Leave them in a cool place until you are ready to pare them.

FRIED CUCUMBERS. ✠

Pare and lay in ice-water half an hour. Cut lengthwise, into slices
_nearly_ half an inch thick, and lay in ice-water ten minutes longer.
Wipe each piece dry with a soft cloth, sprinkle with pepper and salt,
and dredge with flour. Fry to a delicate brown in sweet clarified
dripping, nice lard, or butter.

Many declare that cucumbers are never fit to eat unless fried, and they
are assuredly far more wholesome than when served raw.

STEWED CUCUMBERS.

Pare, lay in ice-water an hour; then, slice a quarter of an inch
thick. Pick out the seeds with a penknife, and put into a saucepan
with enough boiling water to cover them. Stew fifteen minutes, and
drain off the water. Add enough from the boiling tea-kettle to keep
them from burning; season with salt and pepper, and stir carefully
in a tablespoonful of butter—or two, should the quantity of cucumber
be large. Stew gently ten minutes, and add half a cupful of rich
milk; thicken with a little flour, boil up, and serve in a deep dish,
squeezing some lemon-juice in at the last.

This is a popular English dish, although it seems a strange one to
American ideas.

BOILED GREEN CORN.

Choose young sugar-corn, full grown, but not hard; test with the nail.
When the grain is pierced, the milk should escape in a jet, and not be
thick. Clean by stripping off the outer leaves, turn back the innermost
covering carefully, pick off every thread of silk, and recover the ear
with the thin husk that grew nearest it. Tie at the top with a bit
of thread, put into boiling water salted, and cook fast from twenty
minutes to half an hour, in proportion to size and age. Cut off the
stalks close to the cob, and send whole to table wrapped in a napkin.

Or, you can cut from the cob while hot, and season with butter, pepper
and salt. Send to table in a vegetable dish.

CORN AND TOMATOES.

Take equal quantities of green corn cut from the cob, and tomatoes
sliced and peeled. Stew together half an hour; season with pepper,
salt, and a _very_ little sugar. Stew fifteen minutes longer, and stir
in a great lump of butter. Five minutes later, pour out and serve.

SUCCOTASH.

This is made of green corn and Lima beans, although you can substitute
for the latter string or butter beans. Have a third more corn than
beans, when the former has been cut from the cob and the beans shelled.
Put into boiling water enough to cover them—no more—and stew gently
together until tender—perhaps half an hour—stirring now and then. Pour
off nearly all the water, and add a large cupful of milk. Stew in this,
watching to prevent burning, for an hour; then stir in a great lump of
butter, a teaspoonful of flour wet with cold milk, pepper and salt to
taste. Boil up once, and pour into a deep vegetable-dish. If you use
string-beans, string and cut up into half-inch lengths before cooking.

GREEN CORN PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
1 dozen ears of corn—large ones.

Grate the corn from the cob; beat the whites and yolks of the eggs
separately. Put the corn and yolks together, stir _hard_, and add the
butter; then the milk gradually, beating all the while; next the sugar
and a little salt; lastly the whites. Bake slowly at first, covering
the dish, for an hour. Remove the cover, and brown finely.

This is a most delicious accompaniment to a meat course, when properly
mixed and baked. Warm up what is left from dinner for breakfast, by
moistening it with a little warm milk, and stirring in a saucepan until
smoking hot. You can make this pudding from canned corn in winter,
chopping the corn fine.

GREEN CORN FRITTERS OR CAKES. ✠

Grate the corn, and allow an egg and a half for every cupful, with
a tablespoonful of milk or cream. Beat the eggs well, add the corn
by degrees, beating very hard; salt to taste; put a tablespoonful of
melted butter to every pint of corn; stir in the milk, and thicken with
just enough flour to hold them together—say a tablespoonful for every
two eggs. You may fry in hot lard, as you would fritters, but a better
plan is to cook upon a griddle, like batter cakes. Test a little first,
to see that it is of the right consistency.

Eaten at dinner or breakfast, these always meet with a cordial welcome.

STEWED GREEN CORN.

Cut from the cob, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn off
most of this, cover with cold milk, and stew until very tender, adding,
before you take it up, a large lump of butter cut into bits and rolled
in flour. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Boil five minutes, and
serve.

Cold corn left from dinner should be cut from the cob and stewed a
few minutes in a little milk, adding seasoning as above. Or, you can
mix it with chopped cold potatoes—Irish or sweet; heat a piece of
butter or beef-dripping in a frying-pan, and stir in the mixture until
smoking-hot. Never throw away a good ear of sweet corn.

ROASTED GREEN CORN.

Turn back the husks upon the stalk, pick off the silk, recover with
the husks as closely as possible, and roast in the hot ashes of a
wood-fire. Eat with butter, salt, and pepper, out of doors, in the
forest, or on the beach.

SALSIFY OR OYSTER-PLANT. (_Stewed._) ✠

Scrape the roots, dropping each into cold water as soon as it is
cleaned. Exposure to the air blackens them. Cut in pieces an inch long,
put into a saucepan with hot water enough to cover them, and stew until
tender. Turn off nearly all the water, and add a cupful of cold milk.
Stew ten minutes after this begins to boil; put in a great lump of
butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour; pepper and salt to taste.
Boil up once, and serve. The taste is curiously like that of stewed
oysters.

FRIED SALSIFY, OR MOCK OYSTERS. ✠

Scrape the roots thoroughly, and lay in cold water ten or fifteen
minutes. Boil whole until tender, drain, and when cold, mash with a
wooden spoon to a smooth paste, picking out all the fibres. Moisten
with a little milk; add a tablespoonful of butter, and an egg and a
half for every cupful of salsify. Beat the eggs light. Make into round
cakes, dredge with flour, and fry brown.

FRIED EGG-PLANT. ✠

Slice the egg-plant at least half an inch thick; pare each piece
carefully, and lay in salt and water, putting a plate upon the topmost
to keep it under the brine, and let them alone for an hour or more.
Wipe each slice, dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in
hot lard until well done and nicely browned.

STUFFED EGG-PLANT. ✠

Parboil for ten minutes. Slit each down the side, and extract the
seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood or china, and lay
in cold salt and water while you prepare the force-meat. Make this of
bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley,
and a _very_ little onion, chopped up together. Moisten with cream, and
bind with a beaten egg. Fill the cavity in the egg-plant with this;
wind soft pack-thread about them to keep the slit shut, and bake,
putting a little water in the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water
when they begin to cook. Test with a straw when they are tender, and
baste twice at the last with butter. Lay the egg-plants in a dish,
add two or three tablespoonfuls of cream to the gravy, thicken with a
little flour, put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, boil up once,
and pour over the vegetable.

BOILED CARROTS.

Wash and scrape well, and lay in cold water half an hour. If large,
split them, or cut across in two or three pieces. Put into boiling
water, slightly salted, and boil until tender. Large ones will require
nearly an hour and a half to cook. Young carrots should only be washed
before they are boiled, and the skin be rubbed off with a cloth
afterward. Butter well, and serve hot.

STEWED CARROTS.

Scrape, and lay in cold water half an hour or more. Boil whole
three-quarters of an hour, drain, and cut into round slices a quarter
of an inch thick. Put on in a saucepan with a teacupful of broth—veal,
or beef, or mutton; pepper and salt to taste, and stew gently half an
hour. Just before they are done, add four tablespoonfuls cream or milk,
and a good lump of butter cut into bits, and rolled in flour. Boil up
and serve.

If you have not the broth, use water, and put in a tablespoonful
of butter when the saucepan is set on the fire, in addition to the
quantity I have specified.

_Another Way._

Scrape and boil until nearly done. Cut into small squares, and put into
a saucepan, with two small onions, minced; a little chopped parsley,
pepper and salt to taste, and half a cup of rather thin drawn butter.
They will require half an hour’s simmering. Serve hot.

MASHED CARROTS.

Wash, scrape, and lay in cold water a while. Boil very tender in hot
water, slightly salted. Drain, and mash with a beetle or wooden spoon,
working in a large spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. A little
cream will improve them. Mound as you would mashed potatoes, and stamp
a figure upon them, or mark in squares with a knife.

FRENCH, OR STRING OR “SNAP” BEANS.

Break off the tops and bottoms and “string” carefully. _Then_ pare both
edges with a sharp knife, to be certain that no remnant of the tough
fibre remains. Not one cook in a hundred performs this duty as deftly
and thoroughly as it should be done. I have heard several gentlemen
say that they could always tell, after the first mouthful, whether the
mistress or the hireling had “strung” the beans. It is a tedious and
disagreeable business, this pulling bits of woody thread out of one’s
mouth when he wants to enjoy his dinner.

Cut the beans thus cleared of their troublesome _attachés_, in pieces
an inch long, and lay in cold water with a little salt for fifteen or
twenty minutes. Drain them, and put into a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil quickly, twenty minutes if well-grown—less if small—at any rate,
until tender. Drain in a cullender until the water ceases to drip from
them. Dish with a great spoonful of butter stirred in.

To my taste, beans _need_ to have a bit of bacon boiled with
them—whole, or chopped into bits that dissolve in the boiling. It
mellows the rank taste you seek to remove by boiling.

LIMA AND BUTTER BEANS.

Shell into cold water; let them lie a while; put into a pot with plenty
of boiling water and a little salt, and cook fast until tender. Large
ones sometimes require nearly an hour’s boiling. The average time is
forty minutes. Drain and butter well when dished, peppering to taste.

KIDNEY AND OTHER SMALL BEANS.

Shell into cold water, and cook in boiling until tender. A small piece
of fat bacon boiled with them is an advantage to nearly all. If you do
this, do not salt them.

DRIED BEANS.

Wash and soak over night in lukewarm water, changing it several times
for warmer. If this is done they will require but two hours’ boiling.
Drain very thoroughly, pressing them firmly, but lightly, in the
cullender with a wooden spoon; salt, pepper and mix in a great lump of
butter when they are dished.

BOILED BEETS.

Wash, but do not touch with a knife before they are boiled. If cut
while raw, they bleed themselves pale in the hot water. Boil until
tender—if full-grown at least two hours. When done, rub off the skins,
slice round if large, split if young, and butter well in the dish. Salt
and pepper to taste.

A nice way is to slice them upon a hot dish, mix a great spoonful of
melted butter with four or five of vinegar, pepper and salt, heat to
boiling, and pour over the beets.

Instead of consigning the cold ones “left over” to the swill pail, pour
cold vinegar upon them and use as pickles with cold or roast meat.

STEWED BEETS.

Boil young, sweet beets, until nearly done; skin and slice them. Put
into a saucepan with a minced shallot and parsley, two tablespoonfuls
melted butter, a like quantity of vinegar, some salt and pepper. Set on
the fire and simmer twenty minutes, shaking the saucepan now and then.
Serve with the gravy poured over them.

BOILED PARSNIPS.

If young, scrape before cooking. If old, pare carefully, and if large,
split. Put into boiling water, salted, and boil, if small and tender,
from half to three-quarters of an hour, if full-grown, more than an
hour. When tender, drain and slice lengthwise, buttering well when you
dish.

FRIED PARSNIPS. ✠

Boil until tender, scrape off the skin, and cut in thick lengthwise
slices. Dredge with flour and fry in hot dripping or lard, turning when
one side is browned. Drain off every drop of fat; pepper, and serve hot.

PARSNIP FRITTERS. ✠

Boil tender, mash smooth and fine, picking out the woody bits.
For three large parsnips allow two eggs, one cup rich milk, one
tablespoonful butter, one teaspoonful salt, three tablespoonfuls flour.
Beat the eggs light, stir in the mashed parsnips, beating hard; then
the butter and salt, next the milk, lastly the salt. Fry as fritters,
or as griddle-cakes.

MASHED PARSNIPS.

Boil and scrape them, mash smooth with the back of a wooden-spoon, or a
potato beetle, picking out the fibres; mix in three or four spoonfuls
of cream, a great spoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Heat to
boiling in a saucepan, and serve. Heap in a mound as you would potato
cooked in the same way.

BUTTERED PARSNIPS.

Boil tender and scrape. Slice a quarter of an inch thick lengthwise.
Put into a saucepan with three tablespoonfuls melted butter, pepper
and salt, and a little chopped parsley. Shake over the fire until the
mixture boils. Lay the parsnips in order upon a dish, pour the sauce
over them, and garnish with parsley. It is a pleasant addition to this
dish to stir a few spoonfuls of cream into the sauce after the parsnips
are taken out; boil up, and pour upon them.

BOILED SEA-KALE.

Tie up in bunches when you have picked it over carefully, and lay in
cold water for an hour. Put into salted boiling water, and cook twenty
or thirty minutes until tender. Lay some slices of buttered toast
in the bottom of a dish, clip the threads binding the stems of the
sea-kale, and pile upon the toast, buttering it abundantly. Or, you can
send around with it a boat of drawn butter.

STEWED SEA-KALE.

Clip off the stems, wash well, tie in neat bunches, and when it has
lain in cold water an hour or so, put into a saucepan of boiling water,
slightly salted. Boil fifteen minutes, drain well, clip the threads,
and return to the saucepan, with a little rich gravy if you have it.
If not, pour in three or four tablespoonfuls of butter drawn in milk,
pepper and salt, and simmer eight or ten minutes.

ARTICHOKES.

Strip off the outer leaves, and cut the stalks close to the bottom.
Wash well and lay in cold water two hours. Immerse in boiling water,
the stalk-ends uppermost, with an inverted plate upon them to keep them
down. Boil an hour and a half, or until very tender. Arrange in circles
upon a dish, the tops up, and pour drawn butter over them.

SUMMER SQUASH OR CYMBLING.

There are many varieties of this vegetable, but the general rules
for cooking them are the same. Unless they are extremely tender, it
is best to pare them, cutting away as little as possible besides the
hard outer rind. Take out the seeds, when you have quartered them,
and lay the pieces in cold water. Boil until tender throughout. Drain
well, pressing out all the water; mash soft and smooth, seasoning with
butter, pepper, and salt. Do this quickly, that you may serve up hot.

WINTER SQUASH.

Pare, take out the seeds, cut into small pieces, and stew until soft
and tender. Drain, press well, to rid it of all the water, and mash
with butter, pepper, and salt. It will take much longer to cook than
the summer squash, and before you put it into hot water, should lie in
cold at least two hours.

STEWED PUMPKIN.

Cut in two, extract the seeds, slice, and pare. Cover with cold
water for an hour; put over the fire in a pot of boiling water and
stew gently, stirring often, until it breaks to pieces. Drain and
squeeze, rub through a cullender, then return to the saucepan with a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt to taste. Stir rapidly from
the bottom until very hot, when dish, rounding into a mound, with
“dabs” of pepper on the top.

BAKED PUMPKIN.

Choose the richest pumpkin you can find; take out the seeds, cut in
quarters or eighths, pare, and slice lengthwise half an inch thick.
Arrange in layers—not more than two or three slices deep—in a shallow
but broad baking-dish. Put a _very_ little water in the bottom, and
bake very slowly until not only done, but dry. It requires a long
time, for the heat should be gentle. Butter each strip on both sides
when you dish, and eat hot with bread and butter for tea.

I have been assured, by people who have tried it, that this is a
palatable dish to those who are fond of the flavor of pumpkin. I insert
it here upon their recommendation—not my own.

POKE STALKS.

When the young stalks are not larger than a man’s little finger, and
show only a tuft of leaves at top a few inches above ground, is the
time to gather them. They are unfit for table-use when larger and
older. Scrape the stalks, but do not cut off the leaves. Lay in cold
water, with a little salt, for two hours. Tie in bundles, as you
do asparagus, put into a saucepan of boiling water, and cook fast
three-quarters of an hour. Lay buttered toast in the bottom of a
dish, untie the bundles, and pile the poke evenly upon it, buttering
very well, and sprinkling with pepper and salt. This is a tolerable
substitute for asparagus.

MUSHROOMS.

_Imprimis._—Have nothing to do with them until you are an excellent
judge between the true and false. That sounds somewhat like the advice
of the careful mother to her son, touching the wisdom of never going
near the water until he learned how to swim—but the caution can hardly
be stated too strongly. Not being ambitious of martyrdom, even in the
cause of gastronomical enterprise, especially if the instrument is to
be a contemptible, rank-smelling fungus, I never eat or cook native
mushrooms; but I learned, years ago, in hill-side rambles, how to
distinguish the real from the spurious article. Shun low, damp, shady
spots in your quest. The good mushrooms are most plenty in August
and September, and spring up in the open, sunny fields or commons,
after low-lying fogs or soaking dews. The top is a dirty white,—_par
complaisance_, pearl-color,—the under side pink or salmon, changing to
russet or brown soon after they are gathered. The poisonous sport all
colors, and are usually far prettier than their virtuous kindred. Those
which are dead-white above and below, as well as the stalk, are also to
be let alone.

Cook a peeled white onion in the pot with your mushrooms. If it turn
black, throw all away, and be properly thankful for your escape. It is
also deemed safe to reject the mess of wild pottage, if in stirring
them, your silver spoon should blacken. But I certainly once knew a
lady who did not discover until hers were eaten and partially digested,
that the silver had come to grief in the discharge of duty. It was
very dark, and required a deal of rubbing to restore cleanliness and
polish; but the poison—if death were, indeed, in the pot—was slow in
its effects, since she lived many years after the experiment. It is as
well perhaps, though, not to repeat it too often.

To re-capitulate.—The eatable ones are round when they first show their
heads in a critical world. As they grow, the lower part unfolds a
lining of salmon fringe, while the stalk and top are dirty white. When
the mushroom is more than twenty-four hours old, or within a few hours
after it is gathered, the salmon changes to brown. The skin can also be
more easily peeled from the edges than in the spurious kinds.

STEWED MUSHROOMS.

Choose button mushrooms of uniform size. Wipe clean and white with
a wet flannel cloth, and cut off the stalks. Put into a porcelain
saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently fifteen minutes.
Salt to taste; add a tablespoonful of butter, divided into bits and
rolled in flour. Boil three or four minutes; stir in three or four
tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up with an egg, stir two minutes
without letting it boil, and serve.

_Or,_

Rub them white, stew in water ten minutes; strain partially, and cover
with as much warm milk as you have poured off water; stew five minutes
in this; salt and pepper, and add some veal or chicken gravy, or drawn
butter. Thicken with a little flour wet in cold milk, and a beaten egg.

BAKED MUSHROOMS.

Take fresh ones,—the size is not very important,—cut off nearly all the
stalks, and wipe off the skin with wet flannel. Arrange neatly in a
pie-dish, pepper and salt, sprinkle a little mace among them, and lay a
bit of butter upon each. Bake about half an hour, basting now and then
with butter and water, that they may not be too dry. Serve in the dish
in which they were baked, with _maître d’hôtel_ sauce poured over them.

BROILED MUSHROOMS.

Peel the finest and freshest you can get, score the under side, and
cut the stems close. Put into a deep dish and anoint well, once and
again, with melted butter. Salt and pepper, and let them lie in the
butter an hour and a half. Then broil over a clear, hot fire, using an
oyster-gridiron, and turning it over as one side browns. Serve hot,
well buttered, pepper and salt, and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice
upon each.

CELERY.

Wash and scrape the stalks when you have cut off the roots. Cut off
the green leaves and reject the greenest, toughest stalks. Retain the
blanched leaves that grow nearest the heart. Keep in cold water until
you send to table. Serve in a celery glass, and let each guest dip in
salt for himself. (_See Celery Salad._)

STEWED CELERY. ✠

1 bunch of celery—scraped, trimmed, and cut into inch lengths.
1 cup milk.
1 great spoonful of butter, rolled in flour.
Pepper and salt.

Stew the celery in clear water until tender. Turn off the water, add
the milk, and as soon as this boils, seasoning and butter. Boil up once
and serve very hot.

RADISHES.

A friend of mine, after many and woful trials with “the greatest plague
of life,” engaged a supercilious young lady who “only hired out in the
best of families as a professed cook.” She arrived in the afternoon,
and was told that tea would be a simple affair—bread-and-butter, cold
meat, cake, and a dish of radishes, which were brought in from the
garden as the order was given. The lady was summoned to the parlor
at that moment, and remarked in leaving—“You can prepare those now,
Bridget.” Awhile later she peeped into the kitchen, attracted by the
odor of hot fat. The frying-pan hissed on the fire, the contents were a
half-pound of butter, and the “professional” stood at the table with a
radish topped and tailed in one hand, a knife in the other. “I’m glad
to see ye,” thus she greeted the intruder. “Is it paled or _on_paled
ye’ll have them radishes? Some of the quality likes ’em fried wid the
skins on—some widout. I thought I’d wait and ask yerself.”

My readers can exercise their own choice in the matter of peeling,
putting the frying out of the question. Wash and lay them in ice-water
so soon as they are gathered. Cut off the tops when your breakfast or
supper is ready, leaving about an inch of the stalks on; scrape off
the skin if you choose, but the red ones are prettier if you do not;
arrange in a tall glass or a round glass saucer, the stalks outside,
the points meeting in the centre; lay cracked ice among them and send
to table. Scrape and quarter the large white ones.

Good radishes are crisp to the teeth, look cool, and taste hot.

OKRA.

Boil the young pods, in enough salted hot water to cover them, until
tender. Drain thoroughly, and when dished pour over them a sauce of
three or four spoonfuls melted (not drawn) butter, a tablespoonful of
vinegar, pepper, and salt to taste. Heat to boiling before covering the
okras with it.

BOILED HOMINY.

The large kind, made of cracked, not ground corn, is erroneously
termed “samp” by Northern grocers. This is the Indian name for the
fine-grained. To avoid confusion, we will call the one large, the other
small. Soak the large over night in cold water. Next day put it into
a pot with at least two quarts of water to a quart of the hominy, and
boil slowly three hours, or until it is soft. Drain in a cullender,
heap in a root-dish, and stir in butter, pepper, and salt.

Soak the small hominy in the same way, and boil in as much water,
slowly, stirring very often, almost constantly at the last. It should
be as thick as mush, and is generally eaten at breakfast with sugar,
cream, and nutmeg. It is a good and exceedingly wholesome dish,
especially for children. The water in which it is boiled should be
slightly salt. If soaked in warm water, and the same be changed once or
twice for warmer, it will boil soft in an hour. Boil in the last water.

FRIED HOMINY.

If large, put a good lump of butter or dripping in the frying-pan, and
heat. Turn in some cold boiled hominy, and cook until the under-side
is browned. Place a dish upside down on the frying-pan and upset the
latter, that the brown crust may be uppermost.

Eat with meat.

Cut the small hominy in slices and fry in hot lard or drippings. Or,
moisten to a soft paste with milk; beat in some melted butter, bind
with a beaten egg, form into round cakes with your hands, dredge with
flour and fry a light brown.

HOMINY CROQUETTES. ✠

To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small-grained) add a tablespoonful
melted butter and stir hard, moistening, by degrees, with a little
milk, beating to a soft light paste. Put in a teaspoonful of white
sugar, and lastly, a well-beaten egg. Roll into oval balls with floured
hands, dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard.

Very good!

BAKED HOMINY. ✠

To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small kind) allow two cups of milk,
a heaping teaspoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of white sugar, a little
salt, and three eggs. Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites
separately. Work the yolks first into the hominy, alternately with the
melted butter. When thoroughly mixed, put in sugar and salt, and go on
beating while you soften the batter gradually with the milk. Be careful
to leave no lumps in the hominy. Lastly stir in the whites, and bake in
a buttered pudding-dish, until light, firm, and delicately browned.

This can be eaten as a dessert, but it is a delightful vegetable, and
the best substitute that can be devised for green corn pudding.

RICE CROQUETTES. ✠

Half a cup of rice.
1 pint milk.
2 tablespoonfuls sugar.
3 eggs.
A little grated lemon-peel.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
A saltspoonful salt.

Soak the rice three hours in warm water enough to cover it. Drain
_almost_ dry, and pour in the milk. Stew in a farina-kettle, or one
saucepan set in another of hot water, until the rice is very tender.
Add the sugar, butter and salt, and simmer ten minutes. Whisk the eggs
to a froth, and add cautiously, taking the saucepan from the fire while
you whip them into the mixture. Return to the range or stove, and stir
while they thicken, not allowing them to boil. Remove the saucepan,
and add the grated lemon-peel; then turn out upon a well-greased dish
to cool. When cold and stiff, flour your hands and roll into oval or
pear-shaped balls; dip in beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs, and
fry in nice lard.

_Or,_

You can make a plainer dish of cold boiled rice, moistened with milk
and a little melted butter to a smooth paste. Add sugar and salt, bind
with two or three beaten eggs; make into cakes or balls, and proceed as
directed above. Eat hot with roast or boiled fowls. If you shape like a
pear, stick a clove in the small end for the stem.

BOILED RICE.

Pick over carefully and wash in two waters, letting it stand in the
last until you are ready to boil. Have ready some boiling water
slightly salted, and put in the rice. Boil it just twenty minutes, and
do not put a spoon in it, but _shake_ up hard and often, holding the
cover on with the other hand. When done, drain off the water, and set
the saucepan uncovered upon the range, where the rice will dry, not
burn, for five minutes.

Eat with boiled mutton or fowls.

BAKED MACARONI. ✠

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni in pieces an inch long, and put
into a saucepan of boiling water slightly salted. Stew gently twenty
minutes. It should be soft, but not broken or split. Drain well and
put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pie or pudding-dish; upon this
grate some mild, rich cheese, and scatter over it some bits of butter.
Spread upon the cheese more macaroni, and fill the dish in this order,
having macaroni at the top, buttered well, without the cheese. Add a
few spoonfuls of cream or milk, and a very little salt. Bake covered
half an hour, then brown nicely, and serve in the bake-dish.

STEWED MACARONI—ITALIAN STYLE.

Break the macaroni into inch lengths, and stew twenty minutes, or until
tender. Prepare the sauce beforehand. Cut half a pound of beef into
strips and stew half an hour. The water should be cold when the meat
is put in. At the end of that time, add a minced onion and a pint of
tomatoes peeled and sliced. Boil for an hour, and strain through a
cullender when you have taken out the meat. The sauce should be well
boiled down by this time. You do not want more than a pint for a large
dish of macaroni. Return the liquid to the saucepan, add a good piece
of butter, with pepper and salt, and stew until you are ready to dish
the macaroni. Drain this well, sprinkle lightly with salt, and heap
upon a chafing-dish or in a root-dish. Pour the tomato-sauce over it;
cover and let it stand in a warm place ten minutes before sending to
table. Send around grated cheese with it. The Italians serve the meat
also in a separate dish as a ragoût, adding some of the sauce, highly
seasoned with pepper and other spices.

MACARONI À LA CRÈME. ✠

Cook the macaroni ten minutes in boiling water. Drain this off, and add
a cupful of milk, with a little salt. Stew until tender. In another
saucepan heat a cup of milk to boiling, thicken with a teaspoonful of
flour, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and lastly, a beaten egg.
When this thickens, pour over the macaroni after it is dished.

This is a simple and good dessert, eaten with butter, sugar, and
nutmeg, or sweet sauce. If set on with meat, grate cheese thickly over
it, or send around a saucer of grated cheese with it.

EGGS.

To guess (I do not say determine) whether an egg is good, shut one eye;
frame the egg in the hollow of the hand, telescope-wise, and look at
the sun through it with the open eye. If you can distinctly trace the
outline of the yolk and the white looks clear around it, the chances
are in favor of the egg and the buyer. Or, shake it gently at your ear.
If addled, it will gurgle like water; if there is a chicken inside, you
may distinguish a slight “thud” against the sides of the egg. Or, still
again, you may try eggs from your own poultry-yard by putting them into
a pan of cold water. The freshest sink first. Those that float are
questionable—generally worse.

The best plan is to break them. In making cake, or anything that
requires more than one, break each over a saucer, that it may be alone
in its condemnation, if bad. Reject doubtful ones without hesitation.
Yield implicit trust, or none at all.

Keep eggs in a cool, not cold place. Pack in bran or salt, with the
small end downward, if you wish to use within two or three weeks; and
furthermore, take the precaution to grease them well with linseed oil,
or wash them over with a weak solution of gum tragacanth or varnish.
This excludes the air. Another way is to make some pretty strong
lime-water, allowing a pound of lime to a gallon of boiling water. When
perfectly cold, fill a large jar with it in which you have packed the
eggs, small end downward; lay a light saucer upon the top to keep them
under water, and keep in a cool place. Renew the lime-water every three
weeks. You may add an ounce of saltpetre to it.

Eggs for boiling may be “canned” as follows: So soon as they are
brought in from the nests, put two or three dozen at a time in a deep
pan; pour scalding water over them; let it stand thirty seconds, and
turn it all off. Cover immediately with more scalding water, and repeat
the process yet the third time. Wipe dry, and pack in bran or salt when
they cool. This hardens the albumen into an air-tight case for the
yolk. Of course, you cannot use these eggs for cake or syllabubs, or
anything that is prepared with whipped eggs. Pack with the small end
down.

BOILED EGGS.

Put into a saucepan of _boiling_ water with a tablespoon, not to break
or crack them. Only a slovenly cook, or a careless one, drops them
in with her fingers. Boil steadily three minutes, if you want them
soft—ten, if hard.

Another way is to put them on in cold water, and let it come to a boil,
which will be in ten minutes. The inside, white and yolk, will be then
of the consistency of custard. Many gourmands like them best thus.
Still another is to put them in one of the silver egg-boilers used on
the breakfast-table (a covered bowl will do as well); cover them with
boiling water, and let them stand three minutes. Pour this off, and
refill with more, also boiling hot, and leave them in it five minutes
longer. Wrap in a napkin in a deep dish, if you have not a regular
egg-dish.

DROPPED OR POACHED EGGS.

Strain some boiling water into a frying-pan, which must also be
perfectly clean. The least impurity will mar the whiteness of the eggs.
When the water boils, break the eggs separately into a saucer. Take
the frying-pan off, and slip the eggs, one by one, carefully upon the
surface. When all are in, put back over the fire and boil gently three
minutes. Take out with a perforated skimmer, drain, and lay upon slices
of buttered toast in a hot dish. Garnish with parsley, and dust with
pepper and salt.

POACHED EGGS À LA CRÈME. ✠

Nearly fill a clean frying-pan with strained water boiling hot; strain
a tablespoonful of vinegar through double muslin, and add to the water
with a little salt. Slip your eggs from the saucer upon the top of the
water (first taking the pan from the fire.) Boil three minutes and a
half, drain, and lay on buttered toast in a hot dish. Turn the water
from the pan and pour in half a cupful of cream or milk. If you use the
latter, thicken with a very little corn-starch. Let it heat to a boil,
stirring to prevent burning, and add a great spoonful of butter, some
pepper and salt. Boil up once, and pour over the eggs. A better way
still is to heat the milk in a separate saucepan, that the eggs may not
have to stand. A little broth improves the sauce.

HAM AND EGGS.

Fry the eggs in a little very nice salted lard; drain off every drop
of grease, and lay them upon a hot dish, with neat slices of fried ham
around the edges, half the size of the slice as first carved from the
ham. Trim off the rough edges of the eggs, and cut the ham evenly in
oblong pieces before dishing. Garnish with parsley.

FRIED EGGS.

Melt some butter in a frying-pan, and when it hisses drop in the eggs
carefully. Fry three minutes; dust with pepper and salt, and transfer
to a hot dish.

FRICASSEED EGGS. ✠

Boil the eggs hard, cut in half crosswise, and take out the yolks. Chop
these fine, or rub to a paste, with a little ground tongue or ham or
cold fowl, some minced parsley, some melted butter, and a _very_ little
made mustard. Work well together and fill the whites with it, setting
them close together in a deep covered dish, the open ends up. Have
ready some veal gravy or chicken broth; heat to boiling in a saucepan
with a half teaspoonful chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and lastly three
tablespoonfuls of cream to a cup of broth. Boil up; pour smoking hot
over the eggs, let them stand five minutes, closely covered, and send
to table.

This is not an expensive dish. Eggs are always a cheaper breakfast-dish
for a small family than meat, even at fifty cents a dozen. Six will
make a nice quantity of the fricassee, and it is a delicious relish.
Always drop hard-boiled eggs into cold water as soon as they are done,
to prevent the yolks from turning black.

BREADED EGGS. ✠

Boil hard, and cut in round thick slices. Pepper and salt; dip each
in beaten raw egg, then in fine bread-crumbs or powdered cracker, and
fry in nice dripping or butter, hissing hot. Drain off every drop of
grease, and serve on a hot dish for breakfast, with sauce, like that
for fricasseed eggs, poured over them.

BAKED EGGS.

Break six or seven eggs into a buttered dish, taking care that each
is whole, and does not encroach upon the others so much as to mix or
disturb the yolks. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and put a bit of
butter upon each. Put into an oven and bake until the whites are well
set. Serve very hot, with rounds of buttered toast, or sandwiches.

SCRAMBLED EGGS. ✠

Put a good piece of butter in a frying-pan, and when it is hot drop in
the eggs, which should be broken whole into a bowl. Stir in with them a
little chopped parsley, some pepper and salt, and keep stirring to and
fro, up and down, without cessation, for three minutes. Turn out at
once into a hot dish, or upon buttered toast and eat without delay.

CHINESE BIRD’S-NEST OF EGGS.

Make a white sauce as follows: Stew half a pound of lean veal, cut
into strips, with a large sprig of parsley, in a quart of water, until
the meat is in rags, and the liquor reduced one-half. Strain through
tarlatan or lace, and return to the saucepan with half a cupful of
milk. When it boils, thicken with a little rice or wheat flour, season
with white pepper and salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Set in the
corner to keep hot. Have ready six, or eight, or ten hard-boiled eggs.
Take out the yolks carefully, and cut the whites into thin shreds. Pile
the yolks in the centre of a round, shallow dish, arrange the shreds of
white about them in the shape of a bird’s nest; give a final stir to
the sauce, and pour carefully over the eggs. It should not rise higher
in the dish than half way to the top of the nest, when it flows down to
its level. Garnish with parsley.

SCALLOPED EGGS. ✠

Make a force-meat of chopped ham—ground is better—fine bread-crumbs,
pepper, salt, a little minced parsley, and some melted butter.
Moisten with milk to a soft paste, and half fill some patty-pans or
scallop-shells with the mixture. Break an egg carefully upon the
top of each, dust with pepper and salt, and sift some very finely
powdered cracker over all. Set in the oven, and bake until the eggs are
_well_ set—about eight minutes. Eat hot. They are very nice. You can
substitute ground tongue for the ham.

POACHED EGGS, WITH SAUCE. ✠

Make the sauce by putting half a cupful of hot water in a saucepan,
with a teaspoonful of lemon-juice, three tablespoonfuls of veal or
chicken broth (strained), pepper, salt, mace, and a tablespoonful of
butter, with a little minced parsley. Boil slowly ten minutes, and stir
in a well-whipped egg carefully, lest it should curdle. Have ready some
poached eggs in a deep dish, and pour the sauce over them.

EGGS UPON TOAST. ✠

Put a good lump of butter into the frying-pan. When it is hot, stir in
four or five well-beaten eggs, with pepper, salt, and a little parsley.
Stir and toss for three minutes. Have ready to your hand some slices
of buttered toast (cut round with a tin cake-cutter before they are
toasted); spread thickly with ground or minced tongue, chicken, or
ham. Heap the stirred egg upon these in mounds, and set in a hot dish
garnished with parsley and pickled beets.

EGGS AU LIT (_in bed_). ✠

Mince some cold fowl—chicken, turkey, or duck (or some cold boiled veal
and ham in equal quantities)—very fine, and rub in a Wedgewood mortar,
adding by degrees some melted butter, pepper, salt, minced parsley, and
two beaten eggs. Warm in a frying-pan when it is well mixed, stirring
in a little hot water should it dry too fast. Cook five minutes,
stirring to keep it from scorching or browning. Form, on a hot platter
or flat dish, into a mound, flat on top, with a ridge of the mixture
running all around. It is easily moulded with a broad-bladed knife. In
the dish thus formed, on the top of the mince-meat, lay as many poached
eggs as it will hold, sprinkling them with pepper and salt. Arrange
triangles of buttered toast in such order, at the base of the mound,
that they shall make a pointed wall against it.

DEVILLED EGGS.

Boil six or eight eggs hard; leave in cold water until they are cold;
cut in halves, slicing a bit off the bottoms to make them stand
upright, _à la_ Columbus. Extract the yolks, and rub to a smooth paste
with a very little melted butter, some cayenne pepper, a touch of
mustard, and just a dash of vinegar. Fill the hollowed whites with
this, and send to table upon a bed of chopped cresses, seasoned with
pepper, salt, vinegar, and a little sugar. The salad should be two
inches thick, and an egg be served with a heaping tablespoonful of it.
You may use lettuce or white cabbage instead of cresses.

EGG-BASKETS. ✠

Make these for breakfast the day after you have had roast chicken,
duck, or turkey for dinner. Boil six eggs hard, cut neatly in half
and extract the yolks. Rub these to a paste with some melted butter,
pepper, and salt, and set aside. Pound the minced meat of the cold fowl
fine in the same manner, and mix with the egg-paste, moistening with
melted butter as you proceed, or with a little gravy, if you have it to
spare. Cut off a slice from the bottoms of the hollowed whites of the
egg, to make them stand; fill with the paste; arrange close together
upon a flat dish, and pour over them the gravy left from yesterday’s
roast, heated boiling hot, and mellowed by a few spoonfuls of cream or
rich milk.

OMELETTE (_plain_). ✠

Beat six eggs very light, the whites to a stiff froth that will stand
alone, the yolks to a smooth thick batter. Add to the yolks a small
cupful of milk, pepper, and salt; lastly stir in the whites lightly.
Have ready in a hot frying-pan a good lump of butter. When it hisses,
pour in your mixture gently and set over a clear fire. It should cook
in ten minutes at most. Do not stir, but contrive, as the eggs “set,”
to slip a broad-bladed knife under the omelette to guard against
burning at the bottom. The instant “hiss” of the butter as it flows to
the hottest part of the pan will prove the wisdom and efficacy of the
precaution. If your oven is hot, you may put the frying-pan into it as
soon as the middle of the omelette is set. When done, lay a hot dish
bottom upward on the top of the pan, and dexterously upset the latter
to bring the browned side of the omelette uppermost. Eat soon, or it
will fall.

I _know_ these directions to be worthy of note. I have never seen
lighter or better omelettes anywhere than in households where these
have been the rule for years in the manufacture of this simple and
delightful article of food.

OMELETTE WITH HAM, TONGUE, OR CHICKEN. ✠

Make precisely as above; but when it is done, scatter thickly over the
surface some minced ham, tongue, or seasoned chicken, slip your broad
knife under one side of the omelette and double in half, enclosing the
meat. Then upset the frying-pan upon a hot dish.

_Or,_

You can stir the minced meat into the omelette after all the
ingredients are put together, adding, if you like, some chopped parsley.

CAULIFLOWER OMELETTE.

Chop some cold cauliflower very fine, and mix in when your omelette is
ready to go into the pan. Season highly with cayenne pepper and salt.

ASPARAGUS OMELETTE. ✠

Is made of the tops only, minced and seasoned, and stirred in as is
the cauliflower. _Tomato omelette_ has stewed tomato spread over the
surface, and is then doubled in half.

EGG-BALLS FOR SOUP. ✠

Rub the yolks of three or four hard-boiled eggs to a smooth paste with
a _very_ little melted butter, pepper, and salt. To these add two raw
ones, beaten light, and enough flour to hold the paste together. Mince
into balls with floured hands and set in a cool place until just before
your soup comes off, when put in carefully and boil one minute.

OMELETTE AUX FINES HERBES.

After the yolks and whites are mixed together with the milk, stir in,
with two or three strokes of the spoon or whisk, two tablespoonfuls of
chopped parsley, green thyme, and sweet marjoram, with pepper and salt.
Fry instantly.

CHEESE OMELETTES.

Grate some rich old cheese, and having mixed the omelette as usual,
stir in the cheese with a swift turn or two of the whisk, and at the
same time some chopped parsley and thyme. If you beat long the cheese
will separate the milk from the eggs. Cook at once.

_Or,_

Make the omelette in the usual way; grate cheese upon it and fold it
over.

SWEET OMELETTES.

_Omelette Soufflée_—(_Fried._)

6 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls sugar (powdered.)
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.

Beat the whites and yolks separately. Add the sugar to the yolks, a
little at a time, beating very thoroughly, until they are smooth and
thick. The whites should stand alone. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter
in a frying-pan, heat to boiling, and when you have added the vanilla
to the omelette, pour it in and cook very quickly, as you would a plain
one. Slip the knife frequently under it, to loosen from the sides and
bottom. It is more apt to scorch than an omelette without sugar. Turn
out upon a _very_ hot dish, sift powdered sugar over the top, and serve
instantly, or it will fall and become heavy.

_Omelette Soufflée_—(_Baked._)

6 eggs.
6 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
Juice of a lemon and half the peel, grated.

Beat yolks and whites separately and very well. Add to the yolks
by degrees the powdered sugar, and beat until it ceases to froth,
and is thick and smooth. The whites should be stiff enough to cut
with a knife. Stir together lightly with the seasoning, pour into a
well-buttered dish, and bake in a quick oven five or six minutes. The
dish should be warmed when it is buttered, not to chill the eggs. Send
around with a spoon, and let each one help himself before it can fall.

APPLE OMELETTE. ✠

6 large pippins.
1 tablespoonful butter.
8 eggs.
5 or 6 tablespoonfuls sugar.
Nutmeg to taste.
1 teaspoonful rose-water.

Stew the apples, when you have pared and cored them, as for
apple-sauce. Beat them very smooth while hot, adding the butter, sugar,
and nutmeg. When perfectly cold, put with the eggs, which should be
whipped light, yolks and whites separately. Put in the yolks first,
then the rose-water, lastly the whites, and pour into a deep bake-dish,
which has been warmed and buttered. Bake in a moderate oven until it
is delicately browned. Eat warm—not hot—for tea, with Graham bread.
It is better for children—I say nothing of their elders—than cake and
preserves.

OMELETTE WITH JELLY.

Currant or other tart jelly.
5 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls cream, or the same of milk, thickened with
a teaspoonful of rice-flour or arrow-root.
2 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful bitter almond or vanilla flavoring.

Beat whites and yolks separately, adding to the latter the sugar and
milk after they are thick and smooth. Next, chop in the seasoning;
lastly, stir in the whites with a few swift strokes. Put a large
spoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and, when it is hot, pour in
the omelette. Spread upon it when done, which will be in a very few
minutes, some nice jelly. Take the pan from the fire to do this, spread
quickly, slip your knife or tin spatula under one-half of the omelette,
and double it over. Turn over on a hot platter, sift powdered sugar
upon it, and eat at once.

MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, ETC.

A cool cellar is the best place in which to keep milk, if you have
no dairy or milk-room. Strain it into broad shallow pans, which are
lukewarm from recent scalding. You can get them made in one piece, with
no seams in which sour cream or dirt may lurk unsuspected. Set upon
swing shelves, to avoid the possibilities of drowned mice, and keep the
cellar dark to save it from flies. In twelve hours skim for the table,
and, unless you have need of the milk, let it stand twelve hours more
for the second rising of cream. Put this into the stone jar or crock
in which the cream is kept for churning. Even in butter-making, I have
found it a good plan to take off at night the cream clean from the
morning churning, instead of letting it stand twenty-four hours, as is
the usual custom. The “second rising” will repay one for the additional
trouble. Churn as soon as convenient after the cream “loppers” or
thickens. If it stands too long, it becomes bitter or musty. The churn
should be well scalded and aired between the churnings. Scrupulous
cleanliness should be the unbending rule of dairy arrangements. All
strongly-flavored substances must be kept from the neighborhood of milk
and butter. They are ready absorbents, and when they contract odor or
taste, never get rid of it. Have earthen and tin milk vessels, and
never allow them to be put to any other use.

Scald the churn, and cool with ice or spring water; pour in the thick
cream. Churn rather fast, until the butter-flakes, left by the dasher
upon the top, show that the end to be gained is near—then more slowly.
The motion should always be regular. In warm weather pour a little
cold water into the churn, should the butter come slowly. Take it up
with the perforated dasher, turning it dexterously just below the
surface of the butter-milk, to catch every stray bit. Have ready some
clean, _very_ cold water, in a deep wooden tray, and into this plunge
the dasher when you draw it from the churn. The butter will float off,
leaving the dasher free. Having collected every particle, gather behind
a wooden butter-shovel and drain off the water, squeezing and pressing
the butter with the shovel. Set in a cool place for an hour to harden—a
necessary measure in summer—then work and knead it with a wooden
ladle until not another drop of water exudes, and the butter is like
yellow marble in polish and closeness of pores. When you have worked
out the butter-milk, add by degrees fine salt in the proportion of a
dessertspoonful to every pound. Then set aside for some hours, _always_
in a cool place. The last working is a slight affair, comparatively.
Still using the paddle, and never, from beginning to end of the
operation, touching with your hands, mould into rolls or pound “pats.”
Mark with grooves or checkers with the ladle, or stamp with a print.
Wrap each roll in a clean wet linen cloth, which has no touch of soap
or starch about it, and pack in a stone jar, sprinkling a little salt
between the layers.

If you wish to keep it a long time, work with especial care, and pack
down _hard_ in a perfectly clean stone jar. Do not, above all things,
take one that has ever been used for pickles. You may not detect the
faintest odor lingering about it, but the butter will, and absorb it,
too. Some cover the butter with strong brine, but a better way is to
press a fine linen cloth closely to the surface, and cover this with a
thick layer of clean fine salt. Set in a cool, dry place, and keep the
cloth over it all the time; also a tightly-fitting lid. When you begin
to use it, take out enough to last a week, and re-cover. If you admit
the air every day, it is apt to grow strong. A pretty plate of butter
for the table is made of balls half the size of an egg, rolled in the
little fluted paddles sold for the purpose.

BONNY-CLABBER, OR LOPPERED-MILK. ✠

Set a china or glass dish of skimmed milk away in a warm place,
covered. When it turns—_i. e._, becomes a smooth, firm, but not tough
cake, like blanc-mange—serve in the same dish. Cut out carefully with a
large spoon, and put in saucers, with cream, powdered sugar, and nutmeg
to taste. It is better, if set on the ice for an hour before it is
brought to table. Do not let it stand until the whey separates from the
curd.

Few people know how delicious this healthful and cheap dessert can
be made, if eaten before it becomes tart and tough, with a liberal
allowance of cream and sugar. There are not many jellies and creams
superior to it.

RENNET.

Clean the stomach of a calf (or have your butcher do it for you) as
soon as it is killed, scouring inside and out with salt. When perfectly
clean, tack upon a frame to dry in the sun for a day. Cut in squares,
and pack down in salt, or keep in wine or brandy. When you wish to
use the salted, soak half an hour in cold water, wash well, and put
into the milk to be turned, tied to a string, that it may be drawn
out without breaking the curd. The liquor rennet sold by druggists is
sometimes good, quite as often worthless. You can, however, get the
dried or salted in the markets, and often in the drug-stores.

MOUNTAIN CUSTARD, OR JUNKET. ✠

Take a piece of rennet an inch long, or a teaspoonful of the wine in
which rennet is kept, to each quart of milk. Season with vanilla or
lemon, a little nutmeg, and a tablespoonful of sugar to each part. More
will retard the formation. Set in a warm place—near the fire, or on
the kitchen table—closely covered. Look at it from time to time, and
if, in the course of an hour, there are no signs of stiffening, add
more rennet. When it is firm, like blanc-mange, and before the whey
separates from the curd, remove the rennet, and set upon ice until it
is wanted. Serve with powdered sugar and cream.

THICKENED MILK.

Boil a quart of milk, add a very little salt, and two tablespoonfuls
of rice or wheat flour wet in cold milk. Stir in smoothly, and let it
thicken in a vessel of boiling water, keeping the outer saucepan at a
hard boil for half an hour. Eat with butter and sugar, or with cream
and sugar. For invalids, or children who are suffering with summer
disorders, boil at least an hour, stirring very often.

CHEESE.

I have doubted the utility of inserting a receipt for regular
cheese-making. The apparatus necessary for the manufacture is seldom,
if ever, found in a private family, while cheese can be had in every
country store at one-third the expense to an amateur of making it. But,
remembering that it may be a pleasant, if not profitable experiment,
for the mistress of many cows to make at her odd moments, I have
secured what purports to be an exact description of “cheese-making on a
small scale.”

To each gallon of milk warm from the cow, add a piece of rennet six
inches long and three wide, or two tablespoonfuls rennet water—_i. e._,
water in which rennet has been boiled. Cover, and set in a warm place
until it becomes a firm curd; this should be, at the most, not more
than three-quarters of an hour. When the whey has separated entirely,
and looks clear and greenish, wash your hands very clean, and with
them gently press all the curd to one side of the pan or tub, while an
assistant dips out the whey. Have ready a stout linen bag, pour the
curd into it, and hang it up to dry until not another drop of whey
can be pressed out; then put the curd into a wooden dish, and chop it
fine. Empty into a finer bag, and put into a small cheese-box, or other
circular wooden box with a perforated bottom, and a lid that slides
down easily but closely on the inside. Your bag should be as nearly
as possible the same shape and size as this box. Lay heavy weights
upon the top, in lack of a cheese-press, and let it stand an hour. The
cloth should be wet _inside_ as well as out, before you put the curds
in. At the end of the hour, take out the cheese and chop again, adding
salt this time. Have ready a fresh wet cloth; pack in the curd hard.
There should be a circular cover for this bag, which must be basted all
around, and very smooth on top. Scald the box and cover, then rinse
with cold water, and put the cheese again under press for twelve hours.
Next day, take it out, rub all over with salt, and fit on a clean wet
cloth. Look at it sixteen hours later, pare off the rough edges, and
scrape the sides of inequalities before returning to the press for the
last time. Let it remain under the weights for twenty-four hours. Strip
off the cloth, rub the cheese well with butter, and lay upon a clean
cloth spread on a shelf in a cool, dry place. A wire-safe is best. Wipe
clean; then rub every day with butter for a week, and turn also every
twenty-four hours. At the end of the week, omit the greasing, and rub
hard with a coarse cloth. Do this every day for a month. Your cheese
will then be eatable, but it will be much finer six months later.

Stilton cheeses—renowned over the world—are buried in dry heather
when they are firm enough to remove from the shelves, and kept there a
month. This is called “ripening.”

COTTAGE CHEESE.

Heat sour milk until the whey rises to the top. Pour it off, put the
curd in a bag and let it drip six hours, without squeezing it. Put in a
wooden bowl, chop fine with a wooden spoon, salt to taste, and work to
the consistency of soft putty, adding a little cream and butter as you
proceed. Mould with your hands into round “pats” or balls, and keep in
a cool place. It is best when fresh.

CREAM CHEESE.

Stir a little salt into a pan of “loppered” cream. Pour into a linen
bag, and let it drain three days, changing the bag every day. Then pack
into a wooden cup or mould with holes in the bottom, and press two
hours. Wet the mould with cold water before putting in the cream-curd.
Wrapped in soft white paper—two or three folds of tissue paper will
do—to exclude the air, they will keep in a cool place for a week.

This is the cheese sold in this country under the name of _Neufchatel_.

BREAD.

If eminence of importance entitled a subject to pre-eminence of
position, that of which we are now about to speak should have stood
foremost in this work. It is not a pleasant thing to think or write
about, but it is a stubborn fact, that upon thousands of tables, in
otherwise comfortable homes, _good_ bread is an unknown phenomenon. I
say phenomenon, because it would indeed be a marvellous estrangement
of cause and effect were indifferent flour, unskillfully mixed with
flat yeast, badly risen and negligently baked, to result in that pride
of the notable housekeeper—light, sweet, wholesome bread. I know a
household where sour, stiff bread is the rule, varied several times
during the week by muffins scented and colored with soda, clammy
biscuit, and leathery griddle-cakes; another where the bread is
invariably over-risen, and consequently tasteless, sometimes slightly
acid; yet another in which home-made bread is not used at all because
it is “so troublesome and uncertain,” the mistress preferring to feed
her family, growing children and all, upon the vari-colored sponges
bought at the bakers—sponges inflated with sal volatile, flavorless,
and dry as chips when a day old, and too often betraying, in the dark
streaks running through the interior of the loaf, want of cleanliness
in the kneader. Yet these are all well-to-do people, who submit to
these abominations partly because they do not know how badly off they
are—chiefly because it is their way of doing, and they see no reason
for changing. “I have been a housekeeper for thirty years, and have
always mixed my bread just so,” retorted a mistress once, when I mildly
set forth the advantages of “setting a sponge” over-night. “I put in
flour, yeast, and milk if I have it, and give them a good stir; then
set the dough down to rise. Our folks don’t fancy very light bread.
There don’t seem to be any substance in it—so to speak. Mine generally
turns out pretty nice. It’s all luck, after all, about bread.”

“I’m told you have a receipt for making bread,” laughed another to me;
“I never heard of such a thing in my life, and I’ve been keeping house
eighteen years. So I thought I’d call and ask you for it—just as a
curiosity, you know. I want to see what it is like.”

I wisely kept _my_ thoughts to myself, and dictated the receipt, which
she jotted down in a memorandum-book laughing all the while at the
“excellent joke.”

“You really use this?” she demanded, when this was done.

“I do. I have used no other for many years.”

“And the bread I ate upon your table, the other night, was made
according to this?”

Again an affirmative answer.

“I guess your cook could tell another story,” rejoined the skeptic.
“You can’t make me believe that bread is made by rule. I put my
materials together anyhow, and I have as good luck as most of my
neighbors.”

I regarded my visitor as an impertinent simpleton; but I have been
amazed, in subsequent years, at finding that her creed is that of
hundreds of housewives more or less sensible. “Luck” rules the baking,
and upon the shoulders of this Invisible are laid the deficiencies
of the complacent cook. Cheap flour and laziness are at the bottom
of more mishaps in the bread line than any other combination of
circumstances. From the inferior grades of flour, it is possible to
make tolerable biscuit, crumpets, and muffins, plain pastry, and
very good griddle-cakes. You cannot, by any stretch of art, produce
excellent bread from poor flour. It is no economy to purchase it for
this purpose. It _is_ judicious to lay in two barrels at a time, and to
use the best only for the semi- or tri-weekly baking.

Chiefest then among the conditions to good bread, I place good
“family” flour—dry, elastic, and odorless. Whiteness is a secondary
consideration, although, to American eyes, this is a recommendation.
A little experience will teach you to detect the signs that foretell
satisfactory baking-days, and _vice versâ_. If in handling the flour
you discern a heaviness like that of ground plaster; if in squeezing
a handful tightly you discover that it retains the imprint of palm
and fingers, and rolls back into the tray a compact ball or roll;
if it is in the least musty, or sour, use it very sparingly in your
trial-baking, for the chances are as ten to one that you will head the
barrel up again and return it to your grocer.

Sometimes new flour can be ripened for use by sifting enough for each
baking into a large tray, and exposing it to the hot sun for some
hours, or by setting it upon the kitchen hearth for the same time.
And it not unfrequently happens that flour improves greatly after
the barrel has been open for several days or weeks. It dries out and
becomes lighter, more elastic. Next in importance to the quality of
the flour is that of the yeast. This should be light in color and
lively, effervescing easily when shaken, and emitting an odor like weak
ammonia. If dull or sour, it is bad. In cities it is easiest, perhaps
cheapest, to buy yeast from a brewery or bakery, exercising your
discrimination as to quality. Unless you can satisfy yourself in this
regard, you had better make your own. I can confidently recommend the
receipts given in this work as easy and safe, having tried them in my
own family.

Novices in bread-making, and many who should have learned better by
long experience, fall into a sad mistake in the consistency of the
dough. It should be mixed as _soft as it can be handled_. Bread will
rise sooner and higher, be lighter and more digestible, and keep fresh
much longer, if this rule be followed. Stiff bread is close in texture,
often waxy to the teeth, and after a day or so becomes very hard.

Set the dough to rise in a moderately warm place, and keep it in an
even temperature. There is force in the old lament—“My bread took cold,
last night.” Cold arrests the process of fermentation. There is a
chance, should this occur, that a removal to a more genial atmosphere
and careful nursing may cure the congestion, should it be only partial.
Too much heat carries forward the work too rapidly. In this case,
you will find your dough puffy and sour. Correct the latter evil by
dissolving a little soda or saleratus in hot water, and working it well
in.

Knead your bread faithfully and from all sides, until it rebounds like
india-rubber after a smart blow of the fist upon the centre of the mass.

The oven should not be too hot. If you cannot hold your bare arm within
it while you count thirty, it is too quick. Keep the heat steady after
the bread goes in. Too much fire at first, and rapidly cooling, produce
the effect upon the bread which is technically called “slack-baked,”
_i. e._, the inside of the loaf is never properly done. Practice
and intelligent observation will, in time, make you an adept in the
management of your ovens. If the bread rises rapidly while baking, and
the crust begins to form before the lower part of the loaf is baked,
cover the top with clean paper until you are ready to brown it.

Grate away the burned portions of the crust, should there be such. This
is better than chipping with a knife. One of the best bread-makers I
know bakes in round pans, each loaf by itself, and grates the whole
outer surface, top, bottom, and sides, quickly and lightly, toning down
the brown to a uniform and pleasing tint. Tilt your loaves upon the
edge, the lower part resting upon the table, the upper supported by the
wall or other upright object, and throw a coarse dry cloth over them
until they cool. This position allows the air to get at all sides, and
prevents “sweating.” A tin bread-box is best, with a cloth at bottom
and enwrapping the loaves.

YEAST (_Hop._) ✠

4 large potatoes, or six small.
2 quarts cold water.
Double handful hops, tied in a coarse muslin bag.
4 tablespoonfuls flour.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

Peel the potatoes, and put them with the hop-bag into a saucepan
containing two quarts cold water. Cover and boil until the potatoes
break and fall apart. Take these out with a perforated skimmer, leaving
the water still boiling, mash them fine with a potato-beetle, and work
in the flour and sugar. Moisten this gradually with the _boiling_
hop tea, stirring it to a smooth paste. When all the tea has been
mixed in, set it aside to cool. While still slightly warm, add four
tablespoonfuls of lively yeast, and turn all into a large open vessel
to “work.” Keep this in a warm place until it ceases to bubble up, or
until next day. In summer it will work well in a few hours. When quite
light, put in earthen jars with small mouths, in which fit corks, or
bottle it, and remove to ice-house or cellar. It will keep good for a
fortnight—longer in winter.

When you wish to use it for baking, send a small vessel to the cellar
for the desired quantity, and re-cork at once. A half-hour in a hot
kitchen may spoil it.

YEAST (_Self-working_).

8 potatoes.
2 ounces hops.
4 quarts cold water.
1 lb. flour.
½ lb. white sugar.
1 tablespoonful salt.

Tie the hops in a coarse muslin bag, and boil one hour in four quarts
of water. Let it cool to lukewarmness before removing the bag. Wet
with the tepid liquor—a little at a time—the flour, making to a smooth
paste. Put in the sugar and salt, beat up the batter three minutes
before adding the rest of the tea. Set it away for two days in an open
bowl covered with a thin cloth, in a closet which is moderately and
evenly warm.

On the third day peel, boil, and mash the potatoes, and when entirely
free from lumps and specks, stir in gradually the thickened hop-liquor.
Let it stand twelve hours longer in the bowl, stirring often, and
keeping it in the warm kitchen. Then bottle or put away in corked jars,
which must be perfectly sweet and freshly scalded. This will keep a
month in a cool cellar. It is more troublesome to make it than other
kinds of yeast, but it needs no other “rising” to excite fermentation,
and remains good longer than that made in the usual way.

YEAST (_Potato._) ✠

6 potatoes.
2 quarts cold water.
4 tablespoonfuls flour.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

Peel and boil the potatoes until they break. Leaving the water on the
fire, take them out and mash fine with the flour and sugar, wetting
gradually with the hot water until it is all used. When lukewarm, add a
gill of good yeast, and set aside in an open vessel and warm place to
ferment. When it ceases to effervesce, bottle and set in ice-house.

This yeast is very nice and white, and is preferred by many who dislike
the bitter taste of hops. It is also convenient to make when hops
cannot be obtained.

YEAST CAKES. ✠

2 quarts water (cold.)
1 quart pared and sliced potatoes.
Double-handful hops, tied in coarse muslin bag.
Flour to make stiff batter.
1 cup Indian meal.

Boil the potatoes and hop-bag in two quarts of water for three-quarters
of an hour. Remove the hops, and while boiling hot, strain the potatoes
and water through a cullender into a bowl. Stir into the scalding
liquor enough flour to make a stiff batter. Beat all up well; add two
tablespoonfuls lively yeast and set in a warm place to rise. When
light, stir in a cup of Indian meal, roll into a sheet a quarter of an
inch thick, and cut into round cakes. Dry these in the hot sun, or in
a _very_ moderate oven, taking care they do not heat to baking. It is
best to put them in after the fire has gone down for the night, and
leave them in until morning. When entirely dry and cold, hang them up
in a bag in a cool, dry place.

Use one cake three inches in diameter for a loaf of fair size; soak in
tepid water until soft, and add a pinch of soda or saleratus, then mix.

These cakes will remain good a month in summer, two in winter.

BAKING POWDERS.

1 ounce super-carbonate soda.
7 drachms tartaric acid—(in powder.)

Roll smoothly and mix thoroughly. Keep in a tight glass jar or bottle.
Use one teaspoonful to a quart of flour.

_Or,_

12 teaspoonfuls carb. soda.
24 teaspoonfuls cream tartar.

Put as above, and use in like proportion.

BREAD SPONGE (_Potato._) ✠

6 potatoes, boiled and mashed fine while hot.
6 tablespoonfuls baker’s yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls lard.
1 even teaspoonful soda.
1 quart warm—_not_ hot—water.
3 cups flour.

Mash the potatoes, and work in the lard and sugar. Stir to a cream,
mixing in gradually a quart of the water in which the potatoes were
boiled, which should have been poured out to cool down to blood warmth.
_Beat_ in the flour, already wet up with a little potato-water to
prevent lumping, then the yeast, lastly the soda. Cover lightly if the
weather is warm, more closely in winter, and set to rise over night in
a warm place.

BREAD SPONGE (_Plain._) ✠

1 quart warm water.
6 tablespoonfuls baker’s yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls lard.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda.
Flour to make a soft batter.

Melt the lard in the warm water, add the sugar, then the flour by
degrees, stirring in smoothly. A quart and a pint of flour will usually
be sufficient if the quality is good. Next comes the yeast, lastly the
soda. Beat up hard for several minutes, and set to rise as above.

Bread mixed with potato-sponge is more nutritious, keeps fresh longer,
and is sweeter than that made with the plainer sponge, But there
are certain seasons of the year when good _old_ potatoes cannot be
procured, and new ones will not do for this purpose.

The potato-sponge is safer, because surer for beginners in the
important art of bread-making. After using it for fifteen years, I
regard it as almost infallible—given the conditions of good flour,
yeast, kneading, and baking.

FAMILY BREAD (_White._) ✠

Having set your sponge over night, or, if you bake late in the
afternoon, early in the morning, sift dry flour into a deep bread-tray,
and strew a few spoonfuls of fine salt over it. The question of the
quantity of flour is a delicate one, requiring judgment and experience.
Various brands of flour are so unequal with respect to the quantity
of gluten they contain, that it is impossible to give any invariable
rule on this subject. It will be safe, however, to sift two quarts and
a pint, if you have set the potato-sponge; two quarts for the plain.
This will make two good-sized loaves. Make a hole in the middle of the
heap, pour in the risen sponge (which should be very light and seamed
in many places on the top), and work down the flour into it with your
hands. If too soft, add more flour. If you can mould it at all, it is
not too soft. If stiff, rinse out the bowl in which the sponge was set
with a little lukewarm water, and work this in. When you have it in
manageable shape, begin to knead. Work the mass into a ball—your hands
having been well floured from the first; detach it from the tray, and
lift it in your left hand, while you sprinkle flour with the right
thickly over the bottom and sides of the tray. Toss back the ball
into this, and knead hard—always toward the centre of the mass, which
should be repeatedly turned over and around, that every portion may be
manipulated. Brisk and long kneading makes the pores fine and regular.
Gaping holes of diverse sizes are an unerring tell-tale of a careless
cook. Spend at least twenty minutes—half an hour is better—in this kind
of useful gymnastics. It is grand exercise for arms and chest. This
done, work the dough into a shapely ball in the centre of the tray,
sprinkle flour over the top; throw a cloth over all and leave it on the
kitchen-table to rise, taking care it is not in a draught of cold air.
In summer, it will rise in four or five hours—in winter, six are often
necessary. It should come up steadily until it at least trebles its
original bulk and the floured surface cracks all over. Knead again for
ten or fifteen minutes. Then, divide it into as many parts as you wish
loaves, and put these in well-greased pans for the final rising. In a
large household baking, it is customary to mould the dough into oblong
rolls, three or four, according to the number of loaves you desire,
and to lay these close together in one large pan. The second kneading
is done upon a floured board, and should be thorough as the first, the
dough being continually shifted and turned. Set the pans in a warm
place for an hour longer, with a cloth thrown over them to keep out the
air and dust. Then bake, heeding the directions set down in the article
upon bread in general. If your ovens are in good condition, one hour
should bake the above quantity of bread. But here again experience must
be your guide. Note carefully for yourself how long a time is required
for your first successful baking, as also how much dry flour you have
worked into your sponge, and let these data regulate future action. I
have known a variation of two quarts in a large baking, over the usual
measure of flour. I need not tell you that you had better shun a brand
that requires such an excessive quantity to bring the dough to the
right consistency. It is neither nutritious nor economical. When you
make out the loaves, prick the top with the fork.

Do not make your first baking too large. Practice is requisite to
the management of an unwieldy mass of dough. Let your trial-loaf be
with say half the quantity of sponge and flour I have set down, and
increase these as skill and occasion require, carefully preserving the
proportions. Seven or eight quarts of flour will be needed for the
semi-weekly baking of a family of moderate size.

If I have seemed needlessly minute in the directions I have laid down,
it is because I wish to be a guide, not a betrayer, and because I am
deeply impressed with the worth of such advice as may tend to diminish
the number of those who know not for themselves the comfort and delight
of eating from day to day, and year to year, good family bread.

FAMILY BREAD (_Brown._) ✠

I wish it were in my power, by much and earnest speaking and writing,
to induce every housekeeper to make brown bread—that is, bread made
of unbolted, usually called Graham flour—a staple article of diet in
her family. I only repeat the declaration of a majority of our best
chemists and physicians when I say that our American fondness for fine
white bread is a serious injury to our health. We bolt and rebolt
our flour until we extract from it three-quarters of its nutritive
qualities, leaving little strength in it except what lies in gluten or
starch, and consign that which makes bone and tissue, which regulates
the digestive organs, and leaves the blood pure, the brain clear, to
the lower animals. Growing children especially should eat brown bread
daily. It supplies the needed phosphate to the tender teeth and bones.
If properly made, it soon commends itself to their taste, and white
becomes insipid in comparison. Dyspeptics have long been familiar
with its dietetic virtues, and, were the use of it more general, we
should have fewer wretches to mourn over the destroyed coats of their
stomachs. It is wholesome, sweet, honest, and should be popular.

Prepare a sponge as for white bread, using potatoes or while flour. My
rule is to take out a certain quantity of the risen sponge on baking
day, and set aside for brown bread. Put into a tray two parts Graham
flour, one-third white, and to every quart of this allow a handful of
Indian meal, with a teaspoonful of salt. Wet this up with the sponge,
and when it is mixed, add, for a loaf of fair size, half a teacupful
of molasses. The dough should be _very_ soft. If there is not enough
of the sponge to reduce it to the desired consistency, add a little
blood-warm water. Knead it diligently and long. It will not rise so
rapidly as the white flour, having more “body” to carry. Let it take
its time; make into round, comfortable loaves, and set down again for
the second rising, when you have again kneaded it. Bake steadily,
taking care it does not burn, and do not cut while hot. The result will
well repay you for your trouble. It will take a longer time to bake
than white bread. Brown flour should not be sifted.

BOSTON BROWN BREAD.

Set a sponge over night, with potatoes or white flour, in the following
proportions:—

1 cup yeast.
6 potatoes, mashed fine with three cups of flour.
1 quart warm water.
2 tablespoonfuls lard (_or_, if you leave out the potatoes, one
quart of warm water to three pints of flour).
2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar.

Beat up well and let it rise five or six hours.

When light, sift into the bread-tray—

1 quart rye-flour.
2 quarts Indian meal.
1 tablespoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful soda, or saleratus.

Mix this up very soft with the risen sponge, adding warm water, if
needed, and working in gradually

Half a teacupful of molasses.

Knead well, and let it rise from six to seven hours. Then work over
again, and divide into loaves, putting these in well-greased, round,
deep pans. The second rising should last an hour, at the end of which
time bake in a moderate oven about four hours. Rapid baking will ruin
it. If put in late in the day, let it stay in the oven all night.

RYE BREAD.

Set a sponge, as above, but with half the quantity of water.

In the morning mix with this:

1 quart warm milk.
1 tablespoonful salt.
1 cup Indian meal.
And enough rye flour to make it into pliable dough.

Proceed as with wheat bread, baking it a little longer.

It is a mistake to suppose that acidity, greater or less, is the normal
state of rye bread. If you find your dough in the slightest degree
sour, correct by adding a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in warm water.
It is safest to add this always in warm weather.

MILK BREAD.

1 quart of milk.
½ teacupful of yeast.
¼ lb. butter, one tablespoonful white sugar.

Stir into the milk, which should be made blood-warm, a pint of flour,
the sugar, lastly the yeast. Beat all together well, and let them rise
five or six hours. Then melt the butter, and add with a little salt.
Work in flour enough to make a stiff dough; let this rise four hours,
and make into small loaves. Set near the fire for half an hour, and
bake.

In warm weather, add a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, to
the risen sponge, as all bread mixed with milk is apt to sour.

BUTTERMILK BREAD.

1 pint buttermilk heated to scalding.

Stir in, while it is hot, enough flour to make a tolerably thick
batter. Add half a gill of yeast, and let it rise five or six hours.
If you make it over night you need not add the yeast, but put in,
instead, a tablespoonful of white sugar. In the morning, stir into
the sponge a tablespoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water, a little
salt, and two tablespoonfuls melted butter. Work in just flour enough
to enable you to handle the dough comfortably; knead well, make into
loaves, and let it rise until light.

This makes very white and wholesome bread.

RICE BREAD.

Make a sponge of—

1 quart warm water.
1 teacupful yeast.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls lard.
1 quart wheat flour.

Beat well together, and when it has risen, which will be in about five
hours, add three pints of warm milk and three teacupfuls rice-flour wet
to a thin paste with cold milk, and boiled four minutes as you would
starch. This should be a little more than blood-warm when it is stirred
into the batter. If not thick enough to make out into dough, add a
little wheat-flour. Knead thoroughly, and treat as you would wheat
bread in the matter of the two risings and baking.

This is nice and delicate for invalids, and keeps well. If you cannot
procure the rice-flour, boil one cup of whole rice to a thin paste,
mashing and beating it smooth.

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 1._) ✠

In kneading dough for the day’s baking, after adding and working in
the risen sponge, set aside enough for a loaf of tea-rolls. Work into
this a heaping tablespoonful of lard or butter, and let it stand in
a tolerably cool place (not a cold or draughty one) for four hours.
Knead it again, and let it alone for three hours longer. Then make into
rolls, by rolling out, _very_ lightly, pieces of the dough into round
cakes, and folding these, not quite in the centre, like turn-overs. The
third rising will be for one hour, then bake steadily half an hour or
less, if the oven is quick.

Having seen these rolls, smoking, light, and delicious, upon my own
table, at least twice a week for ten years, with scarcely a failure in
the mixing or baking, I can confidently recommend the receipt and the
product. You can make out part of your Graham dough in the same manner.

FRENCH ROLLS. (_No. 2._)

1 quart milk; new, warm milk is best.
1 teacup yeast.
1 quart and a pint of flour.

When this sponge is light, work in a well-beaten egg and two
tablespoonfuls melted butter, with a teaspoonful of salt, half a
teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water, one tablespoonful white sugar
and enough white flour to make a soft dough. Let this stand four
or five hours, roll out into round cakes and fold as in No. 1, or
shape with your hands into balls. Set these closely together in the
baking-pan; let them rise one hour, and just before putting them into
the oven, cut deeply across each ball with a sharp knife. This will
make the cleft roll, so familiar to us in French restaurants. Bake half
an hour.

RISEN BISCUIT. ✠

1 quart milk.
¾ cup lard or butter—half-and-half is a good rule.
¾ cup of yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour to make a soft dough.

Mix over night, warming the milk slightly and melting the lard or
butter. In the morning, roll out into a sheet three-quarters of an inch
in thickness; cut into round cakes, set these closely together in a
pan, let them rise for twenty minutes, and bake twenty minutes.

These delightful biscuits are even better if the above ingredients be
set with half as much flour, in the form of a thin sponge, and the rest
of the flour be worked in five hours later. Let this rise five hours
more, and proceed as already directed. This is the best plan if the
biscuits are intended for tea.

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 1._) ✠

1 quart of flour.
4 eggs.
½ cup melted butter.
1 cup warm milk.
1 cup warm water.
4 tablespoonfuls yeast.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Beat the eggs to a stiff froth, add the milk, water, butter, soda,
and salt; stir in the flour to a smooth batter, and beat the yeast
in well. Set to rise in a buttered pudding-dish, in which it must be
baked and sent to table. Or, if you wish to turn it out, set to rise
in a _well_-buttered mould. It will not be light under six hours. Bake
steadily three-quarters of an hour, or until a straw thrust into it
comes up clean. Eat while hot.

This is the genuine old-fashioned Sally Lunn, and will hardly give
place even yet to the newer and faster compounds known under the same
name.

SALLY LUNN. (_No. 2._) ✠

1 scant quart flour.
4 eggs.
1 teacupful milk.
1 teacupful lard and butter mixed.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites separately, melt the
shortening, sift the cream-tartar into the flour; add the whites the
last thing.

POTATO BISCUIT.

8 potatoes of medium size, mashed very fine.
4 tablespoonfuls butter, melted.
2 cups milk, blood-warm.
1 cup yeast.
Flour to make a thin batter.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

Stir all the above ingredients together except the butter, and let the
sponge rise until light—four or five hours will do; then add the melted
butter with a little salt and flour, enough to make soft dough. Set
aside this for four hours longer, roll out in a sheet three-quarters of
an inch thick, cut into cakes; let these rise one hour, and bake.

MRS. E——‘S BISCUIT (_Soda._) ✠

1 quart flour.
2 heaping tablespoonfuls of lard.
2 cups sweet—if you can get it—_new_ milk.
1 teaspoonful soda.
2 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Rub the soda and cream-tartar into the flour, and sift all together
before they are wet; then put in the salt; next the lard, rubbed into
the prepared flour quickly and lightly; lastly, pour in the milk.
Work out the dough rapidly, kneading with as few strokes as possible,
since handling injures the biscuit. If properly prepared the dough
will have a rough surface and the biscuit be flaky. The dough should
also be _very_ soft. If the flour stiffen it too much, add more milk.
Roll out lightly, cut into cakes at least half an inch thick, and bake
in a quick oven. The biscuit made by the friend from whom I had this
receipt were marvels of lightness and sweetness. I have often thought
of them since with regretful longing, when set down to so-called
“soda-biscuit,” marbled with greenish-yellow streaks, and emitting,
when split, an odor which was in itself an eloquent dissuasive to an
educated appetite. Few cooks make really good, quick biscuit—why, I am
unable to say, unless upon the principle of “brains will tell.” I have
had more than one in my kitchen, who, admirable in almost every other
respect, were absolutely unfit to be intrusted with this simple yet
delicate manufacture. The common fault is to have too “heavy a hand”
with soda, and to “guess at” the quantities, instead of measuring them.
Eat while warm.

GRAHAM BISCUIT. ✠

3 cups Graham flour.
1 cup white flour.
3 cups milk.
2 tablespoonfuls lard.
1 heaping tablespoonful white sugar.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.

Mix and bake as you do the white soda-biscuit (Mrs. E——‘s). They are
good cold as well as hot.

MINUTE BISCUIT.

1 pint sour, or buttermilk.
1 teaspoonful soda.
2 teaspoonfuls melted butter.

Flour to make soft dough—just stiff enough to handle. Mix, roll, and
cut out rapidly, with as little handling as may be, and bake in a quick
oven.

GRAHAM WHEATLETS.

1 pint Graham flour.
Nearly a quart of boiling water or milk.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Scald the flour, when you have salted it, into as soft dough as you
can handle. Roll it nearly an inch thick, cut in round cakes, lay upon
a hot buttered tin or pan, and bake them in the hottest oven you can
get ready. Everything depends upon heat in the manufacture of these.
Some cooks spread them on a hot tin, and set this upon a red-hot stove.
Properly scalded and cooked, they are light as puffs, and very good;
otherwise they are flat and tough. Split and butter while hot.

SWEET RUSK. ✠

1 pint warm milk.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of sugar.
2 eggs.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
2 tablespoonfuls yeast.

Make a sponge with the milk, yeast, and enough flour for a thin batter,
and let it rise over night. In the morning add the butter, eggs, and
sugar, previously beaten up well together, the salt, and flour enough
to make a soft dough. Mould with the hands into balls of uniform size,
set close together in a pan, and let them rise until very light. After
baking, wash the tops with a clean soft cloth dipped in molasses and
water.

DRIED RUSK. ✠

1 pint of warm milk.
2 eggs.
½ teacup of butter.
Half a cup of yeast.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Set a sponge with these ingredients, leaving out the eggs, and stirring
in flour until you have a thick batter. Early next morning add the
well-beaten eggs, and flour enough to enable you to roll out the dough.
Let this rise in the bread-bowl two hours. Roll into a sheet nearly an
inch thick, cut into round cakes, and arrange in your baking-pan two
deep, laying one upon the other carefully. Let these stand for another
half-hour, and bake.

These are now very nice for eating, and you may, if you like, reserve
a plateful for tea; but the rule for the many, handed down through,
I am afraid to say how many generations, in the family where I first
ate this novel and delightful biscuit, is to divide the twins, thus
leaving one side of each cake soft, and piling them loosely in the
pan, set them in the oven when the fire is declining for the night,
and leave them in until morning. Then, still obeying the traditions of
revered elders, put them in a clean muslin bag, and hang them up in
the kitchen. They will be fit to eat upon the third day. Put as many
as you need in a deep dish, and pour over them iced milk, or water, if
you cannot easily procure the former. Let them soak until soft, take
them out, drain them for a minute in a shallow plate, and eat with
butter. Invalids and children crave them eagerly. Indeed, I have seen
few refuse them who had ever tasted them before. There is a pastoral
flavor about the pleasant dish, eaten with the accompaniment of fresh
berries, on a summer evening, that appeals to the better impulses of
one’s appetite.

Try my soaked rusk—not forgetting to ice the milk—and you will find out
for yourself what I mean, but cannot quite express.

Dried rusk will keep for weeks, and grow better every day. The only
risk is in their being eaten up before they attain maturity.

BUTTER CRACKERS.

1 quart of flour.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 saltspoonful salt.
2 cups sweet milk.

Rub the butter into the flour, or, what is better, cut it up with a
knife or chopper, as you do in pastry; add the salt, milk, and soda,
mixing well. Work into a ball, lay upon a floured board, and beat with
a rolling-pin half an hour, turning and shifting the mass often. Roll
into an even sheet, a quarter of an inch thick, or less, prick deeply
with a fork, and bake hard in a moderate oven. Hang them up in a muslin
bag in the kitchen for two days to dry.

WAFERS. ✠

1 pound of flour.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
A little salt.

Mix with sweet milk into a stiff dough, roll out very thin, cut into
round cakes, and again roll these as thin as they can be handled. Lift
them carefully, lay in a pan, and bake very quickly.

These are extremely nice, especially for invalids. They should be
hardly thicker than writing-paper. Flour the baking-pan instead of
greasing.

CRUMPETS (_Sweet._)

1 pint raised dough.
3 eggs.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
½ cup white sugar.

When your bread has passed its second rising, work into the above-named
quantity the melted butter, then the eggs and sugar, beaten together
until very light. Bake in muffin-rings about twenty minutes.

CRUMPETS (_Plain._) ✠

3 cups warm milk.
½ cup yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
1 saltspoonful salt, and the same of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Flour to make good batter.

Set these ingredients—leaving out the butter and soda—as a sponge.
When very light, beat in the melted butter, with a _very_ little flour,
to prevent the butter from thinning the batter too much; stir in the
soda hard, fill pattypans or muffin-rings with the mixture, and let
them stand fifteen minutes before baking.

This is an excellent, easy, and economical receipt.

GRAHAM MUFFINS. ✠

3 cups Graham flour.
1 cup white flour.
1 quart of milk.
¾ cup yeast.
1 tablespoonful lard or butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

Set to rise over night, and bake in muffin-rings twenty minutes in a
quick oven. Eat hot.

QUEEN MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart of milk.
¾ cup of yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 tablespoonful of lard or butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour to make a good batter.
4 eggs.

Set the batter—leaving out the eggs—to rise over night. In the
morning beat the eggs very light, stir into the batter, and bake in
muffin-rings twenty minutes in a quick oven.

CREAM MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart sweet milk (half-cream, if you can get it).
1 quart flour—heaping.
6 eggs.
1 tablespoonful butter, and the same of lard—melted together.

Beat the eggs light—the yolks and whites separately; add the milk,
with a little salt, then the shortening, lastly the flour, stirring in
lightly. Bake immediately in well-greased rings half-filled with the
batter. Your oven should be hot, and the muffins sent to table so soon
as they are taken up.

BUTTERMILK MUFFINS.

1 quart buttermilk, or “loppered” sweet milk.
2 eggs.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour to make good batter.

Beat the eggs well and stir them into the milk, beating hard all the
while; add the flour and salt, and at the last the soda. Bake at once
in a quick oven.

“MOTHER’S” MUFFINS. ✠

1 pint milk.
1 egg.
1 tablespoonful lard.
½ cup yeast.
Flour for stiff batter.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Set to rise over night.

CHARLOTTE MUFFINS. ✠

1 quart of flour.
3 eggs—the whites and yolks beaten separately and until stiff.
3 cups of milk. If sour, no disadvantage, if soda be added.
A little salt.

The excellence of these depends upon thorough beating and quick baking.

RICE MUFFINS. ✠

1 cup cold boiled rice.
1 pint of flour.
2 eggs.
1 quart of milk, or enough to make thin batter.
1 tablespoonful lard or butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat hard and bake quickly.

HOMINY MUFFINS. ✠

2 cups fine hominy—boiled and cold.
3 eggs.
3 cups sour milk. If sweet, add one teaspoonful cream tartar.
½ cup melted butter.
2 teaspoonfuls salt.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 large cup flour.
1 teaspoonful soda.

Beat the hominy smooth; stir in the milk, then the butter, salt, and
sugar; next the eggs, which should first be well beaten; then the soda,
dissolved in hot water; lastly the flour.

There are no more delicious or wholesome muffins than these, if rightly
mixed and quickly baked.

BELLE’S MUFFINS.

3 pints of flour.
1 quart of milk.
2 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls cream tartar.
1 tablespoonful soda.
1 tablespoonful salt.

Sift the cream tartar with the flour. Beat the eggs very light.
Dissolve the soda in hot water. Bake in rings in a quick oven.

CORN BREAD.

There is a marked difference between the corn-meal ground at the South,
and that which is sent out from Northern mills. If any one doubts this,
it is not she who has perseveringly tried both kinds, and demonstrated
to her own conviction that the same treatment will not do for them. An
intelligent lady once told me that the shape of the particles composing
the meal was different—the one being round and smooth, the other
angular. I am inclined to believe this. The Southern meal is certainly
coarser, and the bread made from it less compact. Moreover, there is a
partiality at the North for yellow meal, which the Southerners regard
as only fit for chicken and cattle-feed. The yellow may be the sweeter,
but I acknowledge that I have never succeeded in making really nice
bread from it.

Indian meal should be purchased in small quantities, except for a very
large family. It is apt to heat, mould, and grow musty, if kept long in
bulk or in a warm place. If not sweet and dry, it is useless to expect
good bread or cakes. As an article of diet, especially in the early
warm days of spring, it is healthful and agreeable, often acting as a
gentle corrective to bile and other disorders. In winter, also, it is
always acceptable upon the breakfast or supper table, being warming and
nutritious. In summer the free use of it is less judicious, on account
of its laxative properties. As a kindly variation in the routine of
fine white bread and baker’s rolls, it is worth the attention of every
housewife. “John and the children” will like it, if it approximates the
fair standard of excellence; and I take it, my good friend—you who have
patiently kept company with me from our prefatory talk until now—that
you love them well enough to care for their comfort and likings.

“My husband is wild about corn bread,” a wife remarked to me not a
hundred years ago, “but I won’t make it for him; it is such a bother!
And if I once indulge him, he will give me no peace.”

Beloved sister, I am persuaded better things of you. Good husbands
cannot be spoiled by petting. Bad ones cannot be made worse—they may be
made better. It seems a little thing, so trifling in its consequences,
you need not tire further your aching back and feet to accomplish
it—the preparation of John’s favorite dish when he does not expect the
treat—to surprise him when he comes in cold and hungry, by setting
before him a dish of hot milk-toast, or a loaf of corn bread, brown and
crisp without, yellow and spongy within, instead of the stereotyped
pile of cold slices, brown or white. If he were consulted, he would
say, like the generous soul he is—“Don’t take one needless step for
me, dear.” And he would mean it. But for all that, he will enjoy your
little surprise—ay! and love you the better for it. It is the “little
by little” that makes up the weal and woe of life.

May I make this digression longer yet, by telling you what I overheard
a husband say to a wife the other day when he thought no one else was
near enough to hear him. He is no gourmand, but he is very partial to
a certain kind of cruller which nobody else can make, he thinks, so
well as his little wife. It so chanced that in frying some of them,
she scalded her hand badly. After it was bandaged, she brought up a
plate of the cakes for luncheon. He looked at them, then at her, with a
loving, mournful smile.

“I can understand now,” said he, “how David felt when his men-of-war
brought him the water from the well of Bethlehem.”

Then he stooped and kissed the injured fingers. Yet he has been married
twenty years. I was not ashamed that my eyes were moist. I honored him
the more that his were dim.

This is my lesson by the wayside _apropos_ to corn-bread.

And now again to business.

_Receipts for Bread made of Northern Indian Meal._

NONPAREIL CORN BREAD. ✠

2 heaping cups of Indian meal.
1 cup of flour.
3 eggs.
2½ cups milk.
1 tablespoonful lard.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda.
2 tablespoonfuls cream-tartar.
1 tablespoonful salt.

Beat the eggs very thoroughly—whites and yolks separately—melt the
lard, sift the cream-tartar and soda into the meal and flour while
yet dry, and stir this in at the last. Then, to borrow the direction
scribbled by a rattle-tongued girl upon the above receipt, when she
sent it to me—“_beat like mad!_” Bake quickly and steadily in a
buttered mould. Half an hour will usually suffice. In cutting corn
bread _hold the knife perpendicularly_ and cut toward you.

CORN MEAL MUFFINS.

Mix according to the foregoing receipt, only a little thinner, and bake
in rings or small pattypans. All kinds of corn bread should be baked
quickly and eaten while hot.

RISEN CORN BREAD.

1 pint Indian meal.
2 cups risen sponge, taken from your regular baking of wheat bread.
½ cup molasses, _or_, what is better, 4 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 tablespoonful lard, melted.
1 cup flour, or enough for stiff batter.

Mix well, put to rise in a buttered mould until very light. Bake one
hour. It is well to scald the meal and stir in while blood-warm.

STEAMED CORN BREAD. ✠

2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup flour.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2½ cups “loppered” milk, or buttermilk.
1 teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 heaping tablespoonful lard, melted.

Beat very hard and long, put in buttered mould, tie a coarse cloth
tightly over it, and if you have no steamer, fit the mould in the top
of a pot of boiling water, taking care it does not touch the surface of
the liquid. Lay a close cover over the cloth tied about the mould, to
keep in all the heat. Steam one hour and a half, and set in an oven
ten minutes. Turn out upon a hot plate, and eat while warm.

This will do for a plain dessert, eaten with pudding-sauce.

CORN-MEAL CRUMPETS.

1 quart Indian meal.
1 quart boiled milk.
4 tablespoonfuls yeast.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2 heaping tablespoonfuls lard, or butter, or half-and-half.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Scald the meal with the boiling milk, and let it stand until lukewarm.
Then stir in the sugar, yeast, and salt, and leave it to rise
five hours. Add the melted shortening, beat well, put in greased
muffin-rings, set these near the fire for fifteen minutes, and bake.
Half an hour in a quick oven ought to cook them.

Never cut open a muffin or crumpet of any kind, least of all one made
of Indian meal. Pass the knife lightly around it to pierce the crust,
then break open with the fingers.

_Receipts for Corn Bread made of Southern Indian Meal._

JOHNNY CAKE.

1 teacupful sweet milk.
1 teacupful buttermilk.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful soda.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Enough meal to enable you to roll it into a sheet half an inch thick.
Spread upon a buttered tin, or in a shallow pan, and bake forty
minutes. As soon as it begins to brown, baste it with a rag tied to a
stick and dipped in melted butter. Repeat this five or six times until
it is brown and crisp. Break—not cut it up—and eat for luncheon or tea,
accompanied by sweet or buttermilk.

AUNT JENNY’S JOHNNY CAKE.

Mix as above; knead well, and bake upon a perfectly clean and sweet
board, before a hot fire, with something at the back to keep it up.
Incline at such an angle as will prevent the cake from slipping off,
until it is hardened slightly by baking, then place upright. Baste
frequently with butter until nicely crisped.

BATTER BREAD, OR “EGG BREAD.” ✠

Half a cup cold boiled rice.
2 eggs.
2 cups Indian meal.
1 tablespoonful lard or butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 pint milk.

Beat the eggs light, and the rice to a smooth batter in the milk. Melt
the shortening. Stir all together very hard, and bake in shallow tins
very quickly.

RISEN CORN BREAD.

Mix a tolerably stiff dough of corn-meal and boiling water, a little
salt, and a tablespoonful butter. Let it stand four or five hours until
light; make into small loaves and bake rather quickly.

CORN-MEAL PONE.

1 quart Indian meal.
1 teaspoonful salt.
A little lard, melted.
Cold water to make a soft dough.

Mould with the hands into thin oblong cakes, lay in a well-greased pan,
and bake very quickly.

The common way is to mould into oval mounds, higher in the middle
than at the ends, shaping these rapidly and lightly with the hands,
by tossing the dough over and over. This is done with great dexterity
by the Virginia cooks, and this corn-meal pone forms a part of every
dinner. It is broken, not cut, and eaten very hot.

ASH CAKE

is mixed as above. A clean spot is swept upon the hot hearth, the bread
put down and covered with hot wood ashes. It must be washed and wiped
dry before it is eaten. A neater way is to lay a cabbage-leaf above and
below the pone. The bread is thus steamed before it is baked, and is
made ready for eating by stripping off the leaves.

FRIED PONE.

Instead of moulding the dough with the hands, cut into slices with a
knife. Try out some fat pork in a frying-pan, and fry the slices in the
gravy thus obtained to a light-brown.

GRIDDLE-CAKES, WAFFLES, ETC.

If you have not used your griddle or waffle-iron for some time, wash it
off hard with hot soap and water; wipe and rub well with dry salt. Heat
it and grease with a bit of fat salt pork on a fork. It is a mistake,
besides being slovenly and wasteful, to put on more grease than is
absolutely necessary to prevent the cake from sticking. A piece of pork
an inch square should last for several days. Put on a great spoonful
of butter for each cake, and before filling the griddle test it with
a single cake, to be sure that all is right with it as well as the
batter.

The same rules apply to waffles. Always lay hot cakes and waffles upon
a hot plate as soon as baked.

BUCKWHEAT CAKES. ✠

1 quart buckwheat flour.
4 tablespoonfuls yeast.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 handful Indian meal.
2 tablespoonfuls molasses—_not_ syrup.

Warm water enough to make a thin batter. Beat very well and set to rise
in a warm place. If the batter is in the least sour in the morning,
stir in a very little soda dissolved in hot water.

Mix in an earthen crock, and leave some in the bottom each morning—a
cupful or so—to serve as sponge for the next night, instead of getting
fresh yeast. In cold weather this plan can be successfully pursued for
a week or ten days without setting a new supply. Of course you add the
usual quantity of flour, &c., every night, and beat up well.

Do not make your cakes too small. Buckwheats should be of generous
size. Some put two-thirds buckwheat, one-third oat-meal, omitting the
Indian.

FLANNEL CAKES. ✠

1 quart milk.
3 tablespoonfuls yeast.
1 tablespoonful butter, melted.
2 eggs, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Flour to make a good batter. Set the rest of the ingredients as a
sponge over night, and in the morning add the melted butter and eggs.

CORN-MEAL FLAPJACKS.

1 quart sour buttermilk.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
2 tablespoonfuls molasses.
1 tablespoonful lard, melted.
½ cup flour.

Meal to make a batter a trifle thicker than flannel cakes.

GRAHAM CAKES. ✠

2 cups brown flour.
1 cup white flour.
3 cups sour or buttermilk.
1 full teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 heaping tablespoonful lard.
3 eggs, beaten very light.

If you use sweet milk, add two teaspoonfuls cream-tartar. Bake as soon
as they are mixed.

AUNTIE’S CAKES (_without eggs_). ✠

1 quart sour or buttermilk.
2 teaspoonfuls soda (small ones).
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour to make a tolerably thick batter.

Stir until smooth—no longer—and bake immediately.

EGGLESS FLANNEL CAKES.

1 quart milk.
½ teacupful yeast.
2 cups white flour.
1 cup Indian meal.
1 tablespoonful lard, melted.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Set over night, adding the lard in the morning.

GRANDPA’S FAVORITES. ✠

1 quart milk.
2 cups stale bread-crumbs.
1 good handful of flour.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
3 eggs, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Work the bread and milk smooth, stir in the butter and eggs, then the
salt, lastly just enough flour to bind the mixture. If too thick, add
milk. These are wholesome and good. Take care they do not stick to the
griddle.

RISEN BATTER-CAKES.

3 cups white Indian meal.
1 cup white flour.
1 tablespoonful butter, melted and added in the morning.
1 quart milk.
4 tablespoonfuls of yeast.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water, and added in the morning.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Mix over night.

RICE CAKES. ✠

One cup cold boiled rice.
One pint flour.
One teaspoonful salt.
Two eggs, beaten light.
Milk to make a tolerably thick batter.

Beat all together well.

HOMINY CAKES. ✠

2 cups fine hominy, boiled and cold.
1 cup white flour.
1 quart milk.
3 eggs, very well beaten.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat smooth the hominy, work in the milk and salt, then the flour,
lastly the eggs. Bake at once, and keep the mixture well stirred.

CREAM CAKES. ✠

1 pint cream and same quantity of milk, slightly sour.
4 eggs, whites and yolks whipped separately.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour to make a good batter, well beaten in.

VELVET CAKES.

1 quart new unskimmed milk—half cream and half milk is preferable.
3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, and very stiff.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Rice flour.

Mix the beaten yolks with the milk, add the salt, then rice flour to
make a batter as thick as that for flannel cakes; lastly, whip in the
stiffened whites very lightly, and bake immediately.

RISEN WAFFLES.

1 quart milk.
1 heaping quart flour.
5 tablespoonfuls yeast.
2 eggs.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Set the mixture—minus the eggs and butter—over night as a sponge; add
these in the morning, and bake in waffle-irons.

“MOTHER’S” WAFFLES. ✠

2 cups milk.
2 eggs.
3 cups flour.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Sift the cream-tartar into the flour with the salt. Dissolve the soda
in a little hot water. Beat the eggs very well. Add the flour the last
thing. If the batter is too stiff, put in more milk.

RICE WAFFLES (_No. 1._) ✠

1 cup boiled rice.
1 pint milk.
2 eggs.
Lard, the size of a walnut.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Flour for a thin batter.

RICE WAFFLES (_No. 2._)

1 quart milk.
1 cup cold boiled rice.
3 cups rice flour, or enough for thin batter.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful salt.

QUICK WAFFLES.

1 pint milk.
3 eggs, beaten very light.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar sifted in the flour.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful salt.
A heaping pint of flour, or enough to make soft batter.

RICE AND CORN-MEAL WAFFLES.

1 cup cold boiled rice.
½ cup white flour, and same of corn-meal.
2 eggs well whipped, and milk to make soft batter.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

Beat the mixture smooth before baking.

Be especially careful in greasing your irons for these waffles, as for
all which contain rice.

SHORTCAKE, &C.

_Sunnybank Shortcake_ (_for fruit._) ✠

2 scant quarts flour.
2 tablespoonfuls lard.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
2½ cups sour or buttermilk. ”Loppered“ cream is still better.
2 eggs, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Chop up the shortening in the salted flour, as for pastry. Add the
eggs and soda to the milk; put all together, handling as little as
may be. Roll lightly and quickly into two sheets, the one intended
for the upper crust half an inch thick, the lower less than this. Lay
the latter smoothly in a well-greased baking-pan, strew it _thickly_
with raspberries, blackberries, or, what is better yet, huckleberries;
sprinkle four or five tablespoonfuls of sugar over these, cover with
the thicker crust, and bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes, until
nicely browned, but not dried. Eat hot for breakfast with butter and
powdered sugar.

If sweet milk be used, add two teaspoonfuls cream-tartar sifted into
the dry flour. It should be mixed as soft as can be rolled. This
shortcake is very nice made with the common “black-caps” or wild
raspberries.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE. ✠

1 quart flour.
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 _large_ cup sour cream or very rich “loppered” milk.
1 egg.
4 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Proceed, in mixing and baking, as with the huckleberry short-cake,
except that, instead of putting the berries between the crust, you lay
one sheet of paste smoothly upon the other, and bake until done. While
warm—not hot—separate these. They will come apart easily, just where
they were joined. Lay upon the lower a thick coating several deep,
of strawberries; sprinkle powdered sugar among and over them; cover
with the upper crust. It is best to bake strawberry shortcake in round
jelly-cake tins, or round pans a little deeper than these, as they
should be sent to table whole, while the hot short-cake is generally
cut into square slices, and piled upon a plate.

Strawberry shortcake is esteemed a great delicacy in its season. It is
eaten at tea, cut into triangles like pie, and sweet cream poured over
each slice, with more sugar sifted over it, if desired.

SCOTCH SHORT-BREAD.

2 lbs. flour.
1 lb. best butter.
½ lb. powdered sugar.

Chop the flour and butter together, having made the latter quite soft
by setting it near the fire. Knead in the sugar, roll into a sheet half
an inch thick, and cut in shapes with a cake-cutter. Bake upon buttered
paper in a shallow tin until crisp and of a delicate yellowish brown.

GRANDMA’S SHORTCAKE.

1 lb. flour, dried and sifted.
¼ lb. butter, and half as much lard.
1 saltspoonful salt.
A pinch of soda, thoroughly dissolved in just enough vinegar
to cover it, and well worked in.

Enough ice-water to enable you to roll out into paste half an inch
thick. Cut into squares, prick with a fork, and bake light brown.
Split, butter, and eat while hot.

EASTER BUNS (“_Hot Cross._”) ✠

3 cups sweet milk.
1 cup yeast.
Flour to make thick batter.

Set this as a sponge over night. In the morning add—

1 cup sugar.
½ cup butter, melted.
½ nutmeg.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Flour enough to roll out like biscuit. Knead well, and set to rise for
five hours. Roll half an inch thick, cut into round cakes, and lay in
rows in a buttered baking-pan. When they have stood half an hour, make
a cross upon each with a knife, and put instantly into the oven. Bake
to a light brown, and brush over with a feather or soft bit of rag,
dipped in the white of an egg beaten up stiff with white sugar.

These are the “hot cross-buns” of the “London cries.”

PLAIN BUNS

Are made as above, but not rolled into a sheet. Knead them like
biscuit-dough, taking care not to get it too stiff, and after the
five-hour rising, work in two or three handfuls of currants which have
been previously well washed and dredged with flour. Mould with your
hands into round balls, set these closely together in a pan, that they
may form a loaf—“one, yet many”—when baked. Let them stand nearly an
hour, or until very light; then bake from half to three-quarters of
an hour until brown. Wash them over while hot with the beaten egg and
sugar.

These are generally eaten cold, or barely warm, and are best the day
they are baked.

CAKE.

Use none but the best materials for making cake. If you cannot afford
to get good flour, dry white sugar, and the best family butter, make
up your mind to go without your cake, and eat plain bread with a clear
conscience.

There are no intermediate degrees of quality in eggs. I believe I have
said that somewhere else, but it ought to be repeated just here. They
should be, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. A tin whisk or whip
is best for beating them. The “Dover Egg-beater” is the best in the
market. All kinds of cake are better for having the whites and yolks
beaten separately. Beat the former in a large shallow dish until you
can cut through the froth with a knife, leaving as clear and distinct
an incision as you would in a solid substance. Beat the yolks in an
earthenware bowl until they cease to froth, and thicken as if mixed
with flour. Have the dishes _cool_—not too cold. It is hard to whip
whites stiff in a warm room.

Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Cakes often fail because this
rule is not followed. Beat these as faithfully as you do the eggs,
warming the butter very slightly if hard. Use only a silver or wooden
spoon in doing this.

Do not use fresh and stale milk in the same cake. It acts as
disastrously as a piece of new cloth in an old garment. Sour milk makes
a spongy cake; sweet, one closer in grain.

Study the moods and tenses of your oven carefully before essaying a
loaf of cake. Confine your early efforts to tea-cakes and the like.
Jelly-cake, baked in shallow flat tins, is good practice during the
novitiate. Keep the heat steady, and as good at bottom as top.

Streaks in cake are caused by unskilful mixing, too rapid or unequal
baking, or a sudden decrease in heat before the cake is quite done.

Don’t delude yourself, and maltreat those who are to eat your cake, by
trying to make soda do the whole or most of the duty of eggs. Others
have tried it before, with unfortunate results. If curiosity tempt you
to the experiment, you had better allay it by buying some sponge-cake
at the corner bakery.

Test whether a cake is done by running a clean straw into the thickest
part. It should come up clean.

Do not leave the oven-door open, or change the cake from one oven to
the other, except in extreme cases. If it harden too fast on the top,
cover with paper. It should rise to full height before the crust forms.

Except for gingerbread, use none but white sugar.

Always sift the flour.

Be accurate in your weights and measures.

_There is no royal road to good fortune in cake-making. What is worth
doing at all is worth doing well._ There is no disgrace in not having
time to mix and bake a cake. You may well be ashamed of yourself if you
are too lazy, or careless, or hurried to beat your eggs, cream your
butter and sugar, or measure your ingredients.

Yet, sometimes, when you believe you have left no means untried to
deserve success, failure is your portion. What then?

If the cake be uneatable, throw it away upon the first beggar-boy who
comes for broken meat, and say nothing about it. If streaky or burned,
cut out the best parts, make them presentable as possible, and give
them to John and the children as a “second-best” treat. Then keep up a
brave heart and try again. You _may_ not satisfy yourself in a dozen
trials. You certainly _will_ not, if you never make another attempt.

Cake should be wrapped in a thick cloth as soon as cool, and kept in
tight tin boxes. Do not cut more at a time than you are likely to use,
as it is not good when dry. Jelly-cakes are best set away upon plates,
cloths wrapped closely about them, and a box enclosing all.

Cream your sugar and butter, measure milk, spices, etc., before
beginning work. For fruit-cake it is best to prepare the materials the
day before. Let your icing dry thoroughly before wrapping up the cake.

_Sift your flour before measuring_, as all the following receipts are
for sifted flour.

ICING. ✠

Whites of 4 eggs.
1 pound powdered white sugar.
Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning.

Break the whites into a broad, clean, cool dish. Throw a small handful
of sugar upon them, and begin whipping it in with slow, steady strokes
of the beater. A few minutes later, throw in more sugar, and keep
adding it at intervals until it is all used up. Beat perseveringly
until the icing is of a smooth, fine, and firm texture. Half an hour’s
beating should be sufficient, if done well. If not stiff enough, put in
more sugar. A little practice will teach you when your end is gained.
If you season with lemon-juice, allow, in measuring your sugar, for the
additional liquid. Lemon-juice or a very little tartaric acid whitens
the icing. Use _at least_ a quarter of a pound of sugar for each egg.

This method of making icing was taught me by a confectioner, as easier
and surer than the old plan of beating the eggs first and alone. I
have used no other since my first trial of it. The frosting hardens in
one-fourth the time required under the former plan, and not more than
half the time is consumed in the manufacture. I have often iced a cake
but two hours before it was cut, and found the sugar dry all through.

Pour the icing by the spoonful on the top of the cake and near the
centre of the surface to be covered. If the loaf is of such a shape
that the liquid will settle of itself to its place, it is best to let
it do so. If you spread it, use a broad-bladed knife, dipped in cold
water. If it is as thick with sugar as it should be, you need not lay
on more than one coat. You may set it in a moderate oven for three
minutes, if you are in great haste. The better plan is to dry in a
sunny window, where the air can get at it, and where there is no dust.

Color icing yellow by putting the grated peel of a lemon or orange in a
thin muslin bag, straining a little juice through it, and squeezing it
hard into the egg and sugar.

Strawberry-juice colors a pretty pink, as does also cranberry-syrup.

ALMOND ICING.

Whites of four eggs.
1 pound sweet almonds.
1 pound powdered sugar.
A little rose-water.

Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them and stripping
off the skins. When dry, pound them to a paste, a few at a time, in
a Wedgewood mortar, moistening it with rose-water as you go on. When
beaten fine and smooth, beat gradually into icing, prepared according
to foregoing receipt.

Put on very thick, and, when nearly dry, cover with plain icing.

This is very fine.

_Or,_

Mingle a few bitter almonds with the sweet. The blended flavor of these
and the rose-water is very pleasant.

MARTHA’S CAKE (_For Jelly._) ✠

3 eggs.
1 cup sugar.
Butter, the size of an egg.
1 cup flour.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted in the flour.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in a tablespoonful milk.

Bake in jelly-cake tins, and spread, when cold, with fruit-jelly.

This is, although so simple and inexpensive, an admirable foundation
for the various kinds of jelly, cream, and _méringue_ cake, which are
always popular. It seldom fails, and when well mixed and baked, is very
nice. If prepared flour be used leave out soda and cream-tartar.

MRS. M.’S CUP CAKE. ✠

1 cup butter.
2 cup sugar.
3 cups _prepared_ flour.
4 eggs.
1 cup sweet milk.

Bake in a loaf, or as jelly-cake.

CREAM-CAKE. ✠

2 cups powdered sugar.
⅔ cupful butter.
4 eggs.
½ cupful milk.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
3 cups flour.

Bake in thin layers as for jelly-cake, and spread between them, when
cold, the following mixture:—

½ pint of milk.
2 small teaspoonfuls corn-starch.
1 egg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
½ cup sugar.

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, wet with a
little cold milk; take out a little and mix gradually with the beaten
egg and sugar; return to the rest of the custard, and boil, stirring
constantly until quite thick. Let it cool before you season, and spread
on cake. Season the icing also with vanilla.

JELLY-CAKE.

1 lb. sugar.
1 lb. flour.
½ lb. butter.
6 eggs.
1 cup milk.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

Bake in shallow tins, and when cold put jelly between.

COCOANUT-CAKE. ✠

2 cups powdered sugar.
½ cup butter.
3 eggs.
1 cup milk.
3 cups flour.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
1 teaspoonful soda.

Bake as for jelly-cake.

_Filling._

1 grated cocoanut.
To one half of this add whites of three eggs, beaten to a froth,
and one cup of powdered sugar. Lay this between the layers.

Mix with the other half of the grated cocoanut four tablespoonfuls
powdered sugar, and strew thickly on top of cake.

ROSIE’S COCOANUT-CAKE.

2 cups flour.
1½ cups sugar.
½ cup butter.
½ cup sweet milk.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
¼ teaspoonful soda.

Sift cream-tartar and soda into the dry flour; cream the butter and
sugar; add the beaten eggs, then the milk; lastly the flour. Bake in
jelly-cake tins.

Grate one cocoanut; mix with it a cup and a half of white sugar, also
the milk of the cocoanut. Set the mixture in the oven until the sugar
melts; then spread between the cakes.

LOAF COCOANUT-CAKE.

1 lb. sugar.
½ lb. butter.
6 eggs.
½ lb. prepared flour.
1 lb. finely grated cocoanut, stirred lightly in the last thing.

Bake immediately.

“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR” COCOANUT-CAKE.

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
3 cups flour.
4 eggs (the whites only).
1 cup milk.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, }
½ teaspoonful soda, } sifted into the flour.
½ small cocoanut, stirred in at the last.

COCOANUT-CAKES (_Small._)

1 cocoanut, carefully skinned and grated.
Milk of the same.
1½ lb. powdered sugar.
As much water as you have cocoanut milk.
Whites of three eggs.

Dissolve one pound of sugar in the milk and water. Stew until it
becomes a “ropy” syrup, and turn out into a buttered dish. Have ready
the beaten white of egg, with the remaining half-pound of sugar
whipped into it; mix with this the grated cocoanut, and little by
little—beating all the while—the boiled syrup, so soon as it cools
sufficiently not to scald the eggs. Drop in tablespoonfuls upon
buttered papers. Try one first, and if it runs, beat in more sugar.
Bake in a very moderate oven, watching to prevent scorching. They
should not be suffered to brown at all.

These will keep some time, but are best quite fresh.

COCOANUT CONES.

1 lb. powdered sugar.
½ lb. grated cocoanut.
Whites of 5 eggs.
1 teaspoonful best arrowroot.

Whip the eggs as for icing, adding the sugar as you go on, until it
will stand alone, then beat in the cocoanut and arrowroot.

Mould the mixture with your hands into small cones, and set these
far enough apart not to touch one another upon buttered paper in a
baking-pan. Bake in a very moderate oven.

LEE CAKE. ✠

10 eggs.
1 lb. sugar.
½ lb. flour.
2 lemons.
1 orange.

Beat whites and yolks separately; add to all the yolks and the whites
of seven eggs the sugar, the rind of two lemons, and juice of one. Bake
as for jelly-cake.

To the whites of three eggs allow a pound and a quarter of powdered
sugar; beat stiff as for icing, take out enough to cover the top of
the cake and set aside. Add to the rest the juice and half the grated
rind of a large orange. When the cake is nearly cold, spread this
between the layers. Beat into the icing reserved for the top a little
lemon-juice, and, if needed, more sugar. It should be thicker than that
spread between the cakes.

You can make a very delightful variation of this elegant cake, by
spreading the orange icing between layers made according to the receipt
given for “Martha’s Jelly-Cake” several pages back, and frosting with
lemon _méringue_, as above.

WHITE-MOUNTAIN CAKE.

3 cups sugar.
1 cup butter.
½ cup sweet milk.
Whites of ten eggs.
½ teaspoonful soda, }
1 teaspoonful cream tartar,} sifted with the flour.
4 cups flour.
Flavor with essence of bitter almond.

Icing, whites of three eggs, 1 lb. powdered sugar. Flavor with
lemon-juice. Bake in jelly-cake tins, and fill with grated cocoanut,
sweetened with a quarter of its weight of powdered sugar, or with icing
such as is made for Lee cake, only flavored with lemon entirely.

FRENCH CAKE.

1 lb. sugar.
½ lb. butter.
1 lb. currants, washed clean and dredged with flour.
3 cups flour.
4 eggs.
Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in three tablespoonfuls milk.

LEMON CAKE (_No. 1._)

1 lb. sugar.
12 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
¾ lb. flour.
Juice and rind of a lemon.
Icing flavored with same.

Baked in small square tins, and iced on sides and top, these are
sometimes called biscuits _glacés_.

LEMON-CAKE (_No. 2._)

1 cup of butter (packed).
2 scant cups of sugar.
10 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.
1 small cup of milk.
Juice and rind of a lemon.
1 small teaspoonful soda.

Flour to make tolerably thin batter (a little over three cups). Of some
qualities of flour four cups will be needed.

Bake in a quick oven.

LADY-CAKE (_No. 1._)

½ lb. butter.
1 lb. flour.
8 eggs.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar,
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 lb. sugar.
½ pint milk.

LADY-CAKE (_No. 2._) ✠

1 lb. sugar.
¾ lb. sifted flour.
6 oz. butter.
The whipped _whites_ of ten eggs.

Flavor with bitter almond, and bake in square, not very deep tins.
Flavor the frosting with vanilla. The combination is very pleasant.

SISTER MAG’S CAKE. ✠

2½ cups powdered sugar.
¾ cup of butter.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 cups flour.
4 eggs.
1 lemon, juice and rind.
1 small teaspoonful soda.

Bake in a square or oblong tin, and frost with whites of two eggs
beaten stiff with powdered sugar.

DOVER CAKE. ✠

1 lb. flour.
1 lb. white sugar.
½ lb. butter, rubbed with the sugar to a _very_ light cream.
6 eggs.
1 cup sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in vinegar.
1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon.
1 tablespoonful rose-water.

Flavor the frosting with lemon-juice.

CHOCOLATE CAKE. ✠

2 cups of sugar.
1 cup butter.
The yolks of five eggs and whites of two.
1 cup of milk.
3½ cups flour.
⅓ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted into the flour.

Bake in jelly-cake tins.

_Mixture for filling._

Whites of three eggs.
1½ cup sugar.
3 tablespoonfuls grated chocolate.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.

Beat well together, spread between the layers and on top of cake.

CARAMEL CAKE. ✠

3 cups sugar.
1½ cups butter.
1 cup milk.
4½ cups prepared flour.
5 eggs.

_Caramel for Filling._

1½ cup brown sugar.
½ cup milk.
1 cup molasses.
1 teaspoonful butter.
1 tablespoonful flour.
2 tablespoonfuls cold water.

Boil this mixture five minutes, add half a cake Baker’s chocolate
(grated), boil until it is the consistency of rich custard. Add a pinch
of soda, stir well, and remove from fire.

When cold, flavor with a large teaspoonful vanilla, and spread between
the layers of cake, which should be baked as for jelly-cake. Cover the
top with the same, and set in an open, sunny window to dry.

The above quantity will make two large cakes.

MARBLE CAKE.

_Light._

1 cup white sugar.
½ cup butter.
½ cup milk.
Whites of three eggs.
2 cups prepared flour.

_Dark._

½ cup brown sugar.
¼ cup butter.
½ cup molasses.
¼ cup milk.
½ cup nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ teaspoonful allspice.
½ teaspoonful soda.
2 cups flour.
Yolks of three eggs.

Butter your mould, and put in the dark and light batter in alternate
tablespoonfuls.

MARBLED CAKE. ✠

1 cup butter.
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 cups flour.
4 eggs.
1 cup sweet milk.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar sifted with flour.

When the cake is mixed take out about a teacupful of the batter, and
stir into this a great spoonful of grated chocolate, wet with a _scant_
tablespoonful of milk. Fill your mould about an inch deep with the
yellow batter, and drop upon this, in two or three places, a spoonful
of the dark mixture. Give to the brown spots a slight stir with the tip
of your spoon, spreading it in broken circles upon the lighter surface.
Pour in more yellow batter, then drop in the brown in the same manner
as before, proceeding in this order until all is used up. When cut, the
cake will be found to be handsomely variegated.

_Or,_

You may color the reserved cupful of batter with enough prepared
cochineal to give it a fine pink tint, and mix as you do the brown.

CHOCOLATE ICING (_Simple._)

¼ cake chocolate.
½ cup sweet milk.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.

Mix together these ingredients, with the exception of the vanilla; boil
it two minutes (after it has fairly come to a boil), flavor, and then
sweeten to taste with powdered sugar, taking care to make it sweet
enough.

CARAMELS (_Chocolate._)

2 cups brown sugar.
1 cup molasses.
1 tablespoonful (heaping) of butter.
3 tablespoonfuls flour.

Boil twenty-five minutes; then stir in half a pound of grated
chocolate wet in half a cup of sweet milk, and boil until it hardens
on the spoon, with which you must stir it frequently. Flavor with a
teaspoonful of vanilla.

CHOCOLATE ÉCLAIRS.

4 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in sugar.
Half their weight in flour.
¼ teaspoonful soda, }
½ teaspoonful cream-tartar,} sifted _well_ with the flour.

If you bake these often, it will be worth your while to have made at
the tinner’s a set of small tins, about five inches long and two wide,
round at the bottom, and kept firm by strips of tin connecting them.
If you cannot get these, tack stiff writing-paper into the same shape,
stitching each of the little canoes to its neighbor after the manner
of a pontoon bridge. Have these made and buttered before you mix the
cake; put a spoonful of batter in each, and bake in a steady oven.
When nearly cold, cover the rounded side with a caramel icing, made
according to the foregoing receipt.

These little cakes are popular favorites, and with a little practice
can be easily and quickly made.

ELLIE’S CAKE. ✠

1 cup of sugar.
½ cup of butter.
3 eggs.
½ cup sweet milk.
2½ cups prepared flour.

Bake in jelly-cake tins, and fill with jelly or chocolate. A simple and
excellent cake.

SPONGE CAKE.

1 teacup powdered sugar.
3 eggs.
½ teaspoonful cream-tartar.
¼ teaspoonful soda.
1 teacupful flour.

Flavor with lemon—half the juice and half the rind of one. Bake twenty
minutes in shallow tins.

MRS. M.’S SPONGE-CAKE. ✠

12 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in sugar.
Half their weight in flour.
1 lemon, juice and rind.

Beat yolks and whites _very_ light, the sugar into the former when they
are smooth and stiff; next, the juice and grated peel of the lemon,
then the beaten whites; lastly, the flour, _very_ lightly.

The lady from whom I had this admirable receipt was celebrated among
her acquaintances for her beautiful and delicious sponge-cake.

“Which should always be baked in tins like these,” she said to me once,
sportively, “or it does not taste just right.”

The moulds were like a large brick in shape, with almost perpendicular
sides. I instantly gave an order for a couple precisely like them,
and really fancied that cake baked in them was a little better than
in any other form. But you can hardly fail of success if you prepare
yours precisely as I have directed, bake in whatever shape you will.
Be careful that your oven is steady, and cover the cake with paper to
prevent burning.

It is a good plan to line the pans in which sponge-cake is baked with
buttered paper, fitted neatly to the sides and bottom.

POUND CAKE (_No. 1._)

1 lb. sugar.
1 lb. flour.
¾ lb. butter.
9 eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
1 teaspoonfuls soda.

Cream the butter and sugar with great care; beat the yolks and whites
separately; sift the cream-tartar well through the flour. Add the flour
last.

POUND CAKE (_No. 2._)

1 lb. flour.
1 lb. eggs.
1 lb. sugar.
¾ lb. butter.
1 glass brandy.
1 nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful mace.

Cream half the flour with the butter, and add brandy and spice. Beat
the yolks until light, add the sugar, then the beaten whites and the
rest of the flour alternately. When this is thoroughly mixed, put all
together and beat steadily for half an hour.

If properly made and baked this is a splendid cake.

WASHINGTON CAKE.

3 cups sugar.
2 cups butter.
5 eggs.
1 cup milk.
4 cups flour.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
1 teaspoonful soda.

Mix as usual and stir in, at the last—

½ lb. currants well washed and dredged.
¼ lb. raisins seeded and chopped fine, then floured.
A handful of citron sliced fine.
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.

Fruit-cake takes longer to bake than plain, and the heat must be kept
steady.

LINCOLN CAKE.

¾ lb. butter.
1 lb. sugar.
1 lb. flour.
6 eggs.
2 cups sour cream or milk.
1 grated nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon.
¼ lb. citron.
1 tablespoonful rose-water.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water, and stirred into the
milk just before adding the latter to the cake.

Cream the butter and sugar, put with them the yolks whipped light,
then the cream and spice, next the flour, then the rose-water, and a
double-handful of citron cut in slips and dredged; finally, the beaten
whites of the eggs. Stir all well, and bake in a loaf or in a “card,”
using a square shallow baking-pan.

This is a good cake, and keeps well.

BLACK OR WEDDING CAKE.

1 lb. powdered sugar.
1 lb. butter.
1 lb. flour.
12 eggs.
1 lb. currants well washed and dredged.
1 lb. raisins seeded and chopped.
½ lb. citron cut into slips.
1 tablespoonful cinnamon.
2 teaspoonfuls nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 wineglass brandy.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the beaten yolks of the eggs, and stir
all _well_ together before putting in half of the flour. The spice
should come next, then the whipped whites stirred in alternately with
the rest of the flour, lastly the brandy.

The above quantity is for two large cakes. Bake at least two hours in
deep tins lined with well-buttered paper.

The icing should be laid on stiff and thickly. This cake, if kept in a
cool, dry place, will not spoil in two months.

I have eaten wedding-cake a year old.

Test the cakes well, and be sure they are quite done before taking them
from the oven.

FRUIT-CAKE (_plainer._)

1 lb. powdered sugar.
1 lb. flour.
¾ lb. butter.
7 eggs.
½ lb. currants—washed, picked over, and dredged.
½ lb. raisins—seeded and chopped, then dredged.
¼ lb. citron cut into slips.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 glass brandy.

Cream butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, then the spice and the
whipped whites alternately with the flour; the fruit and brandy last.

ALMOND CAKE.

1 lb. powdered sugar.
1 lb. flour.
¼ lb. butter.
8 eggs.
1 coffee-cupful sweet almonds, blanched by putting them into hot
water, and, when stripped of their skins and perfectly cold,
beaten to a smooth paste in a Wedgewood mortar, with a little
rose-water and half a teaspoonful essence of bitter almonds.

Beat whites and yolks separately; stir butter and sugar to a cream; add
to this the yolks; beat very hard before putting in the flour; stir in
the almond-paste alternately with the whites. Put in the brandy last.

Season the icing with rose-water.

NUT-CAKE. ✠

2 cups sugar.
1 cup butter.
3 cups flour.
1 cup cold water.
4 eggs.
1 teaspoonful soda.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
2 cupfuls kernels of hickory-nuts or white walnuts, carefully
picked out, and added last of all.

GOLD CAKE. ✠

1 lb. sugar.
½ lb. butter.
1 lb. flour.
Yolks of ten eggs—well beaten.
Grated rind of one orange, and juice of two lemons.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.

Cream the butter and sugar, and stir in the yolks. Beat very hard for
five minutes before putting in the flour. The soda next, and lastly the
lemon-juice, in which the grated orange-peel should have been steeped
and strained out in a piece of thin muslin, leaving the flavoring and
coloring matter in the juice.

Flavor the icing also with lemon.

SILVER CAKE. ✠

1 lb. sugar.
¾ lb. flour.
½ lb. butter.
Whites of ten eggs—whipped very stiff.
1 large teaspoonful essence bitter almonds.

Cream butter and sugar; put next the whites of the eggs; then the
flour, lastly the flavoring.

Make gold and silver cake on the same day; bake them in tins
of corresponding size, and lay them in alternate slices in the
cake-basket. Flavor the icing of silver cake with rose-water.

ALMOND MACAROONS.

Prepare the almonds the day before you make the cakes, by blanching
them in boiling water, stripping off the skins, and pounding them
when _perfectly_ cold—a few at a time—in a Wedgewood mortar, adding
from time to time a little rose-water. When beaten to a smooth paste,
stir in, to a pound of the sweet almonds, a generous tablespoonful of
essence of bitter almonds; cover closely, and set away in a cold place
until the morrow. Then to a pound of the nuts allow:—

1 lb. powdered sugar.
The beaten whites of eight eggs.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful arrowroot.

Stir the sugar and white of egg lightly together; then whip in
gradually the almond-paste.

Line a broad baking-pan with buttered white paper; drop upon this
spoonfuls of the mixture at such distances apart as shall prevent their
running together. Sift powdered sugar thickly upon each, and bake in a
quick oven to a delicate brown.

Try the mixture first, to make sure it is of the right consistency, and
if the macaroons run into irregular shapes, beat in more sugar. This
will hardly happen, however, if the mixture is already well beaten.

HUCKLEBERRY CAKE. ✠

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
3 cups flour.
5 eggs.
1 cup sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and the same of cinnamon.
1 qt. ripe, fresh huckleberries, thickly dredged with flour.

Stir the butter and sugar to a cream, add the beaten yolks; then the
milk, the flour, and spice, the whites whipped stiff, and the soda. At
the last stir in the huckleberries with a wooden spoon or paddle, not
to bruise them. Bake in a loaf or card, in a moderate but steady oven,
until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part.

This is a delicious cake, and deserves to be better known. It is best
on the second day after baking.

CORN-STARCH CAKE. ✠

2 cups sugar,}
1 cup butter,} rubbed to a cream.
1 cup milk.
2 cups flour.
3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
½ cup corn-starch.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar, sifted well through the flour.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Sift the corn-starch with the flour, and add the last thing. Bake in
small tins and eat while fresh. They dry in two or three days and
become insipid, but are very nice for twenty-four hours after they are
baked.

WHITE CAKE. ✠

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
Whites of five eggs.
3 cups prepared flour.

COOKIES, ETC.

MRS. B.’S COOKIES. ✠

6 eggs, whites and yolks separately.
1 cup butter.
3 cups sugar.

Flour to make batter _just_ stiff enough to be moulded with
well-floured hands.

Flavor with lemon.

Make into round cakes and bake in a quick oven.

SMALL SUGAR CAKES.

1 heaping teacup of sugar.
¾ teacup of butter.
¼ teacup sweet milk.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
Flour sufficient to enable you to roll out the dough.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.

Cut in round cakes and bake quickly.

NEW YEAR’S CAKES. (_Very nice._) ✠

1¼ lb. sugar.
1 lb. butter.
½ pint cold water.
3 eggs.
3 lbs. flour.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
4 tablespoonfuls caraway seed sprinkled through the flour.

Rub the butter, or, what is better, chop it up in the flour; dissolve
the sugar in the water; mix all well with the beaten eggs, cut in
square cakes, or with oval mould, and bake quickly.

“MOTHER’S” COOKIES.

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
3 eggs, well beaten.
¼ teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cloves.

Flour to make soft dough, just stiff enough to roll out. Try two cups
to begin with, working it in gradually. Cut in round cakes, stick a
raisin or currant in the top of each, and bake quickly.

CORIANDER COOKIES. ✠

1 cup butter.
3 cups sugar.
1 cup “loppered” milk or cream.
4 eggs.
6 cups flour, or just enough to stiffen into a _rollable_ paste.
2 tablespoonfuls coriander seed (ground or beaten).
1 tablespoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.

If you use sweet milk, add two teaspoonfuls cream-tartar. You may
substitute caraway for the coriander-seed.

RICE-FLOUR COOKIES.

½ lb. ground rice.
1 lb. rice-flour, dried and sifted.
1 lb. powdered sugar.
½ lb. butter.
4 eggs.
Juice and half the grated rind of a lemon.
1 tablespoonful orange-flower water.

Beat yolks and whites _very_ light; then put the sugar with the yolks.
Beat ten minutes, add the orange-flower water and lemon; lastly, the
flour and whites alternately. Beat the mixture half an hour. Bake
immediately in patty-pans. Eat while fresh.

MOLASSES COOKIES (_Good._)

1 cup butter.
2 cups molasses.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 tablespoonful ginger.

Sufficient flour to make _soft_ dough. Mould with the hands into small
cakes, and bake in a steady rather than quick oven, as they are apt to
burn.

GINGER-SNAPS. (_No. 1._)

1 cup butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup sugar.
¾ cup sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful saleratus.
2 teaspoonfuls ginger.

Flour for tolerably stiff dough.

GINGER-SNAPS (_No. 2._)

1 large cup butter and lard mixed.
1 coffee-cup sugar.
1 cup molasses.
½ cup water.
1 tablespoonful ginger.
1 tablespoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
Flour for pretty stiff dough.

Roll out rather thinner than sugar cakes, and bake quickly. These
ginger-snaps will keep for weeks, _if locked up_.

GINGER-SNAPS (_No. 3._)

1 pint molasses.
1 teacup sugar.
1 teaspoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful allspice.
1 cup butter.
5 cups flour.

Roll thin and cut into small cakes. Bake in quick oven.

AUNT MARGARET’S JUMBLES.

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
1 teacup milk.
5 eggs.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.

Sufficient flour to make _soft_ dough. Roll out, cut into shapes and
sift sugar over them before they go into the oven.

LEMON JUMBLES.

1 egg.
1 teacupful sugar.
½ teacupful butter.
3 teaspoonfuls milk.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
½ teaspoonful soda.
2 small lemons, juice of two and grated rind of one.

Mix rather stiff. Roll and cut out with a cake-cutter.

RING JUMBLES.

1 lb. butter.
1 lb. sugar.
4 eggs.
1 lb. flour, or enough to make out a soft dough.
Wineglass (small) rose-water.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the beaten yolks, then the rose-water,
next half the flour, lastly the whites, stirred in very lightly,
alternately with the remaining flour. Have ready a pan, broad and
shallow, lined on the bottom with buttered paper. With a tablespoon
form regular rings of the dough upon this, leaving a hole in the centre
of each. Bake quickly, and sift fine sugar over them as soon as they
are done.

You may substitute lemon or vanilla for the rose-water.

MRS. M.’S JUMBLES.

1 cup sugar.
1 cup butter.
½ cup sour cream.
1 egg.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Nutmeg to taste.
Flour for soft dough.

Bake in rings, as directed in previous receipt.

ALMOND JUMBLES.

1 lb. sugar.
½ lb. flour.
¼ lb. butter.
1 teacup “loppered” milk.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls rose-water.
¾ lb. almonds, blanched and chopped small, but not pounded.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.

Cream butter, and sugar; stir in the beaten yolks, the milk, the flour,
and the rose-water, the almonds, lastly the beaten whites very lightly
and quickly. Drop in rings or round cakes upon buttered paper, and bake
immediately.

You may substitute grated cocoanut, or the chopped kernels of white
walnuts, for the almonds, in which case add a little salt.

CURRANT CAKES.

1 lb. flour.
½ lb. butter.
¾ lb. sugar.
4 eggs.
½ lb. currants, well washed and dredged.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
½ lemon, grated rind and juice.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.

Drop from a spoon upon well buttered paper, lining a baking-pan. Bake
quickly.

DROP SPONGE-CAKES.

½ lb. powdered sugar.
¼ lb. flour.
4 eggs—yolks and whites separate, and beaten very stiff.
1 lemon—all the juice, and half the grated rind.

Drop upon buttered paper, not too near together. Try one, and if it
runs, beat the mixture some minutes longer _hard_, adding a very little
flour. Your oven should be very quick, and the cakes a delicate yellow
brown.

LADY’S FINGERS

Are mixed like drop sponge-cakes, but disposed upon the paper in long,
narrow cakes. They are very nice dipped in chocolate icing, or caramel.

AUNT MARGARET’S CRULLERS. ✠

1 lb. butter.
1½ lb. powdered sugar.
12 eggs.
Mace and nutmeg to taste.
Flour to roll out stiff.

This is for a large quantity of crullers. Roll out in a thin sheet, cut
into shapes with a jagging-iron, and fry in _plenty_ of boiling lard.
Test the heat first by dropping in one. It should rise almost instantly
to the surface. Crullers and doughnuts soak in fat at the bottom of the
kettle. These should be a fine yellow.

The most delicious and the nicest-looking crullers I have ever seen
were made by the dear old lady from whom I had this receipt. They were
as pretty and perfect a picture of their kind as she was of hers.

Crullers are better the second day than the first. If the fat becomes
so hot that the crullers brown before they puff out to their full
dimensions, take the kettle from the fire for a few minutes. Have
enough cut out before you begin to fry them, to keep a good supply all
the while on the fire. If you undertake the task alone, cut out all
before cooking one.

KATIE’S CRULLERS.

1 lb. sugar.
¼ lb. butter.
6 eggs.
1 tablespoonful sweet milk.
1 small teaspoonful soda.
1 nutmeg.
Sufficient flour to roll out stiff.

“MOTHER’S” CRULLERS.

1½ teacup sugar.
½ teacup sour cream or milk.
⅓ teacup butter.
1 egg.
1 small teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
Flour to roll out a tolerably stiff paste.

ANNIE’S CRULLERS.

2 cups sugar.
1 cup butter.
2 eggs.
2 cups sour milk.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
Flour to roll out tolerably stiff.

RISEN DOUGHNUTS.

1 lb. butter.
1¾ lb. sugar.
1 quart sweet milk.
4 eggs.
1 large cup yeast.
1 tablespoonful mace or nutmeg.
2 teaspoonfuls cinnamon.
Flour to make all stiff as bread dough.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the milk, yeast, and one quart and a
pint of flour. Set to rise over night. In the morning beat the eggs
very light, and stir into the batter with the spice and rest of the
flour. Set to rise three hours, or until light; roll into a pretty
thick sheet, cut out, and fry in boiling lard. Sift powdered sugar over
them while hot.

QUICK DOUGHNUTS.

1 cup butter.
2 cups sugar.
4 eggs.
1 cup sour milk or cream.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
Flour to roll out in pretty soft dough.

Cut into shapes and fry in hot lard.

SOFT GINGERBREAD. ✠

1 cup butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup sugar.
1 cup sour or buttermilk.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water.
1 tablespoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
2 eggs.

_About_ five cups of flour—enough to make it thick as cup-cake batter,
perhaps a trifle thicker. Work in four cups first, and add very
cautiously.

Stir butter, sugar, molasses, and spice together to a light cream, set
them on the range until slightly warm; beat the eggs light; add the
milk to the warmed mixture, then the eggs, the soda, and lastly the
flour. Beat very hard ten minutes, and bake at once in a loaf, or in
small tins. Half a pound raisins, seeded and cut in half, will improve
this excellent gingerbread. Dredge them well before putting them in.
Add them at the last.

SPONGE GINGERBREAD (_eggless._) ✠

5 cups flour.
1 heaping tablespoonful butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup sugar.
1 cup milk (sour is best).
2 teaspoonfuls saleratus, _not_ soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.

Mix the molasses, sugar, butter, and spice together; warm them
slightly, and beat until they are lighter in color by many degrees than
when you began. Add the milk, then the saleratus, and having mixed all
well, put in the flour. Beat very hard five minutes, and bake in a
broad, shallow pan, or in _pâté_-tins. Half a pound of seeded raisins
cut in pieces will be a pleasant addition.

Try this gingerbread warm for tea or luncheon, with a cup of hot
chocolate to accompany it, and you will soon repeat the experiment.

PLAIN GINGERBREAD.

2 cups molasses.
½ cup lard.
½ cup butter.
2 tablespoonfuls soda dissolved in hot water.
2 tablespoonfuls ginger.
1 cup sour milk.
Thicken with flour to a soft dough.

Warm the molasses, lard, butter, and ginger, and beat them ten minutes
before adding the milk, soda, and flour. Roll out, cut into shapes, and
bake in a quick, but not too hot oven. Keep in a tight tin box. Brush
over with white of egg while hot.

GINGERBREAD LOAF (_No. 1._)

1 cup butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup sugar.
½ cup cold water.
1 tablespoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.
Flour to make stiff batter.

Melt the butter, slightly warm the molasses, spice, and sugar, and beat
together ten minutes. Then put in the water, soda, and flour. Stir very
hard, and bake in three small loaves. Brush them over with syrup while
hot, and eat fresh.

LOAF GINGERBREAD (No. 2.)

1 cup butter.
2 cups molasses.
1 tablespoonful ginger.
2 eggs, very well beaten.
1 teaspoonful saleratus.
1 cup milk, sweet or sour. If sour, heap your spoon with saleratus.
Flour to the consistency of pound cake.

SPICED GINGERBREAD.

1 lb. flour.
1 lb. sugar.
⅛ lb. butter.
5 eggs.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.
3 tablespoonfuls sweet milk.
1 large tablespoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.

Cream the sugar and butter, stir in the beaten yolks, the milk and
spice, the soda, and when these are well mixed, the flour. Bake in two
square or round loaves.

SUGAR GINGERBREAD.

1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup sour cream or milk.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
5 cups of flour, or enough to roll out _soft_.

Cut in shapes, brush over with white of egg while hot, and bake.

BREAD CAKE.

On baking-day, take from your dough, after its second rising—2 cups
risen dough. Have ready, also—

2 cups white sugar.
1 cup butter, creamed with the sugar.
3 eggs.
1 even teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 tablespoonfuls sweet milk—cream is better.
½ lb. currants, well washed and dredged.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cloves.

Beat the yolks very light, add the creamed butter and sugar, the spice,
milk, soda, and dough. Stir until all are well mixed; put in the beaten
whites, lastly the fruit. Beat hard five minutes, let it rise twenty
minutes in two well-buttered pans, and bake half an hour or until done.

FRUIT GINGERBREAD.

2 lbs. flour.
¾ lb. butter.
1 lb. sugar.
1 lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
1 lb. currants, well washed.
2 cups molasses.
½ cup sour cream.
6 eggs.
1 heaping teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
2 tablespoonfuls ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful cloves.

Cream the butter and sugar, warm the molasses slightly, and beat these
together; then the beaten yolks, next the milk and spice, the soda,
the flour and whites well whipped; lastly, the fruit, which must be
thickly dredged. Beat well before baking.

A little citron, shred fine, is an improvement. Bake in two broad pans,
in a moderate oven. This cake will keep a long time.

SWEET WAFERS.

6 eggs.
1 pint flour.
2 oz. melted butter.
1½ cup powdered sugar.
1 cup milk.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.

Beat whites and yolks separately and very stiff, rub the sugar and
butter together, and work in first the yolks, then the milk, then the
flour and whites. Bake in well-buttered wafer or waffle-irons, very
quickly, browning as little as possible. Roll them while hot upon a
smooth, round stick, not larger than your little finger, slipping it
out carefully when the cake takes the right shape.

These little cakes are an acceptable addition to any tea or supper
table, and look well among fancy cakes in a basket.

BOSTON CREAM CAKES. ✠

½ lb. butter.
¾ lb. flour.
8 eggs.
1 pint water.

Stir the butter into the water, which should be warm, set it on the
fire in a saucepan, and slowly bring to a boil, stirring it often. When
it boils, put in the flour, boil one minute, stirring all the while;
take from the fire, turn into a deep dish, and let it cool. Beat the
eggs very light, and whip into this cooled paste, first the yolks, then
the whites.

Drop, in great spoonfuls, upon buttered paper, taking care not to let
them touch or run into each other, and bake ten minutes.

_Cream for filling._

1 quart milk.
4 tablespoonfuls corn-starch.
2 eggs.
2 cups sugar.

Wet the corn-starch with enough milk to work it into a smooth paste.
Boil the rest of the milk. Beat the eggs, add the sugar and corn-starch
to these, and so soon as the milk boils pour in the mixture gradually,
stirring all the time until smooth and thick. Drop in a teaspoonful of
butter, and when this is mixed in, set the custard aside to cool. Then
add vanilla or lemon seasoning; pass a sharp knife lightly around the
puffs, split them, and fill with the mixture.

The best cream cakes I have ever tasted were made by this somewhat odd
receipt. Try it.

NOUGAT.

1 lb. sweet almonds.
¾ lb. fine white sugar.
1 tablespoonful rose-water.

Blanch the almonds in boiling water. When stripped of their skins,
throw them into ice-water for five minutes. Take them out and dry
between two cloths. Shave with a small knife into thin slips. Put them
into a slow oven until they are _very_ slightly colored. Meanwhile,
melt the sugar—_without adding water_—in a farina kettle over the
fire, stirring it all the while. When it bubbles up and is quite melted
take off the kettle and instantly stir in the hot almonds. Have ready
a tin pan or mould, well buttered and slightly warmed. Pour in the
nougat; press it thin and flat to the bottom of the pan if you mean to
cut into strips; to all sides of the mould if you intend to fill it
with syllabub or macaroons. Let it cool in the mould, for the latter
purpose, withdrawing it carefully when you want it. If you cut it up,
do it while it is still warm—not hot.

The syrup should be a bright yellow before putting in the almonds.

PIES.

Use none but the best butter in pastry.

“Cooking butter is a good thing,” said a grave epicure to me once, “an
admirable thing—in its place, which is in the soap-fat kettle or upon
wagon-wheels!”

It is certainly out of place in biscuits, cake, or in any substance
destined for human palates and stomachs. It is never less in place than
in pastry; never betrays its vileness more surely and odiously.

Butter intended for pastry should be washed carefully in several clear,
cold waters, and kneaded while under water, to extract the salt. Then
wipe it dry and lay it in a cold place until you are ready to work it
in.

“Keep cool,” is a cardinal motto for pastry-makers. A marble slab is a
good thing to roll out paste upon. Next to this, the best article is a
_clean_ board of hard wood, which is never used for any other purpose.
It is harder to make good pastry in warm weather than cold, on account
of the tendency of the butter to oil, and thus render the crust heavy
and solid.

Few people know what really good pastry is. Fewer still can make it.
It has no inevitable resemblance either to putty or leather. It _is_
light, crisp, flaky, goodly to behold—goodlier to the taste.

“Pork fat and pies kill more people yearly in the United States than do
liquor and tobacco,” said a popular lecturer upon conservatism.

Perhaps so; but I incline to the belief that bad pastry is answerable
for a vast majority of the murders. Not that I recommend pies of any
description as healthful daily food—least of all for children. But
since they are eaten freely all over our land, let us make them as
wholesome and palatable as possible.

FAMILY PIE-CRUST (No. 1.) ✠

1 quart flour.
⅓ lb. lard, sweet and firm.
½ lb. butter.
1 small teacup ice-water.

Sift the flour into a deep wooden bowl. With a broad-bladed knife, or
a small keen “chopper,” cut up the lard into the flour until it is
fine as dust. Wet with ice-water into a stiff dough, working it with
a wooden spoon until obliged to make it into a roll or ball with your
hands. Flour these, and knead the paste into shape with as few strokes
as will effect your end. Lay the lump upon a floured kneading-board
and roll it out into a thin sheet, always rolling from you with quick,
light action. When thin enough, stick bits of butter in regular close
rows all over the sheet, using a knife for this purpose rather than
your hands. Roll up the paste into close folds as you would a sheet
of music. Flatten it that your rolling-pin can take hold, and roll
out again as thin as before. Baste, roll up and then out, until your
butter is gone. It is a good plan to sprinkle the inside of each sheet
with a little flour after buttering it, before making it into a roll.
Finally, make out your crust; butter your pie-plates, lay the paste
lightly within them, cut it off evenly about the edges after fitting it
neatly; gather up the scraps left from cutting, and make into another
sheet. If the pies are to have a top crust, fill the plates with fruit
or whatever you have ready, lay the paste on this, cut it to fit, and
press down the edges to prevent the escape of the juice, with a spoon,
knife, or jagging-iron, ornamenting it in a regular figure.

Bake in a moderate oven until a light brown. Be particularly careful to
have your heat as great at the bottom as at the top, or the lower crust
will be clammy and raw.

Pastry is always best when fresh.

It is well, when you can spare the time, to lay the roll, when all
the butter is used up, in a very cold place for fifteen minutes or so
before rolling it into crust. Indeed, some good housewives let it stand
on the ice an hour in hot weather. They say it tends to make it flaky
as well as firm.

Touch as little with your hands as may be practicable.

FAMILY PIE-CRUST (No. 2.) ✠

1 lb. flour.
¾ lb. butter.
1 teaspoonful soda.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
Ice-water to make into a stiff dough.

Chop half the butter into the flour until it looks like yellow sand
(sift the soda and cream-tartar with the flour, passing it through the
sieve twice to make sure it is well mixed); work with ice-water into
stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet, baste with one-third the remaining
butter, fold up closely into a long roll, flatten and re-roll, then
baste again. Repeat this operation three times, until the butter is
gone, when make out your crust.

This is an easy and sure receipt, and the paste very fine.

FRENCH PUFF PASTE. ✠

1 lb. flour.
¾ lb. butter.
1 egg; use the yolk only.
Ice-water.

Chop half the butter into the flour; stir the beaten egg into half a
cup ice-water, and work the flour into a stiff dough; roll out _thin_,
baste with one-third the remaining butter, fold closely, roll out
again, and so on until the butter is used up. Roll very thin, and set
the last folded roll in a very cold place ten or fifteen minutes before
making out the crust. Wash with beaten egg while hot. This paste is
very nice for oyster-_pâtés_ as well as for fruit-pies.

PUFF-PASTE.

1 pint flour.
½ lb. butter.
1 egg, well beaten. Use the yolk only.
1 gill ice-water.

Mix the flour, a tablespoonful of butter, the beaten egg and ice-water
into a paste with a wooden spoon. Flour your pastry-board, and roll
out the crust very thin. Put the rest of the butter, when you have
washed it, in the centre of this sheet, in a flat cake. Turn the four
corners of the paste over it, and roll out carefully, not to break the
paste. Should it give way, flour the spot, that it may not stick to the
roller. When very thin, sprinkle lightly with flour, fold up, and roll
out four times more. Set in a cool place for an hour, roll out again,
and cut into tartlet-shells or top crust for pies.

The bottom crust of pies may often be made of plainer pastry than the
upper.

TRANSPARENT CRUST. (_Very rich._)

1 lb. flour.
1 lb. butter.
1 egg—the yolk only.

Wash the butter, dry, and then melt it in a vessel set in another
of boiling water, stirring gently all the while to prevent oiling.
Take off the salty scum from the top, and when almost cold beat up
the butter little by little with the egg, which should be previously
whipped light. When these are thoroughly incorporated, work in the
flour, roll out twice, sprinkling lightly with flour before you fold it
up; let it stand folded five minutes in a cold place, and make out for
tartlets or _pâtés_. It is not suitable for large pies. Bake before you
fill them, and brush over with a beaten egg while hot.

MINCE PIES (_No. 1._)

4 lbs. meat—_i. e._, two-thirds apple, one-third meat.
3 lbs. raisins, seeded and chopped.
2 lbs. currants, washed, picked over, and dried.
3 quarts cider.
1 pint brandy.
1 heaping teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 heaping teaspoonful nutmeg.
The same of cloves, and half the quantity of mace.
Make very sweet with brown sugar.

The meat should be a good piece of lean beef, boiled the day before it
is needed. Half a pound of raw suet, chopped fine, may be added. Chop
the meat, clean out bits of skin and gristle, and mix with twice the
quantity of fine juicy apples, also chopped; then put in the fruit,
next the sugar and spice, lastly the liquor. Mix very thoroughly, cover
closely, and let all stand together for twenty-four hours before making
the pies.

MINCE PIES (_No. 2._) ✠

2 lbs. lean fresh beef, boiled, and when cold, chopped fine.
1 lb. beef-suet, cleared of strings and minced to powder.
5 lbs. apples, pared and chopped.
2 lbs. raisins, seeded and chopped.
1 lb. sultana raisins, washed and picked over.
2 lbs. currants, washed and _carefully_ picked over.
¾ lb. citron, cut up fine.
2 tablespoonfuls cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful powdered nutmeg.
2 tablespoonfuls mace.
1 tablespoonful cloves.
1 tablespoonful allspice.
1 tablespoonful fine salt.
2½ lbs. brown sugar.
1 quart brown Sherry.
1 pint best brandy.

Mince-meat made by this receipt will keep all winter in a cool place.
Keep in stone jars, tied over with double covers. Add a little more
liquor (if it should dry out), when you make up a batch of pies. Let
the mixture stand at least twenty-four hours after it is made before it
is used.

Lay strips of pastry, notched with a jagging-iron, in a cross-bar
pattern, upon the pie, instead of a top-crust.

I take this opportunity of warning the innocent reader against placing
any confidence whatever in dried currants. I years ago gave over trying
to guess who put the dirt in them. It is always there! Gravel-stones
lurking under a specious coating of curranty-looking paste, to crucify
grown people’s nerves and children’s teeth; mould that changes to mud
in the mouth; twigs that prick the throat, not to mention the legs,
wings, and bodies of tropical insects—a curious study to one interested
in the entomology of Zante. It is all _dirt!_ although sold to us at
_currant_ prices.

Wash your currants, therefore, first in warm water, rolling up your
sleeves, and rubbing the conglomerate masses apart, as you would scrub
a muddy garment. Drain them in a cullender, and pass them through
three more waters—cold now, but cleansing. Then spread them upon a
large dish, and enter seriously upon your geological and entomological
researches. “Sultanas”—sweet and seedless—are nearly as troublesome,
but their specialty is more harmless, being stickiness and stems.

Nevertheless, since John has a weakness for mince-pies (I never saw an
un-dyspeptic man who had not), it is worth your while to make them,
having this consolation, that if you are wise you need not engage in
the manufacture oftener than once, or at most, twice a winter. But let
the children taste them sparingly, and never at night, if you value
their health and your own sound slumbers.

APPLE MINCE-MEAT.

2 lbs. apples—pared and chopped.
¾ lb. beef suet—cleared of strings and powdered.
1 lb. currants.
½ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
½ lb. sultana raisins.
¼ lb. citron, cut into shreds.
1 lemon—juice and grated rind.
1 tablespoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful mace.
1 tablespoonful allspice.
2 lbs. brown sugar.
Half-pint best brandy.
A glass of wine.
2 teaspoonfuls salt.

Pack down in a stone jar, with close cover, and keep in a cool place.

MOCK MINCE-MEAT. ✠

6 soda crackers—rolled fine.
2 cups cold water.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup brown sugar.
1 cup _sour_ cider.
1½ cup melted butter.
1 cup raisins—seeded and chopped.
1 cup currants.
2 eggs—beaten light.
1 tablespoonful cinnamon and allspice mixed.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful black pepper.
1 wineglass of brandy.

“Mince-pie in summer is a pleasant rarity,” was the remark of a party
of hungry travellers, in semi-apology for the fact that every plate
made a return journey to the comely landlady, who was dispensing
generous triangles of pie. She smiled gratifiedly, but said nothing
in reply, until, when the gentlemen had strolled off to the woods
with their cigars, she came upon me, seated alone on the piazza, and
grew confidential under the influence of that sort of free-masonic
understanding housekeepers have with one another, almost at sight.

“I had to laugh,” said the good soul, “when they praised my mince-pies.
They’re healthfuller in summer time than the real thing.”

I took down the receipt on the spot from her lips. If any one doubts
the merits of the counterfeit, let her do as I did—try it.

APPLE PIE (_No. 1._) ✠

Pare, core, and slice ripe, tart winter apples—Pippins, Greenings, or
Baldwins—line your dish with a good crust, put in a layer of fruit,
then sprinkle light-brown sugar thickly over it, scatter half a dozen
whole cloves upon this, lay on more apples, and so on, until the dish
is well filled. Cover with crust and bake. Sift powdered sugar over the
top before sending to table.

APPLE PIE (_No. 2._) ✠

Stew green or ripe apples, when you have pared and cored them. Mash
to a smooth compote, sweeten to taste, and, while hot, stir in a
teaspoonful butter for each pie. Season with nutmeg. When cool, fill
your crust, and either cross-bar the top with strips of paste, or bake
without cover.

Eat cold, with powdered sugar strewed over it.

APPLE CUSTARD PIE. ✠

3 cups stewed apple.
Nearly a cup white sugar.
6 eggs.
1 quart milk.

Make the stewed apple very sweet, and let it cool. Beat the eggs light,
and mix the yolks well with the apple, seasoning with nutmeg only.
Then stir in gradually the milk, beating as you go on; lastly add the
whites; fill your crust and bake without cover.

APPLE MÉRINGUE PIES. ✠

Stew and sweeten ripe, juicy apples, when you have pared and sliced
them. Mash smooth, and season with nutmeg. If you like the flavor, stew
some lemon-peel with the apple, and remove when cold. Fill your crust,
and bake until just done. Spread over the apple a thick méringue, made
by whipping to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs for each pie,
sweetening with a tablespoonful of powdered sugar for each egg. Flavor
this with rose-water or vanilla; beat until it will stand alone, and
cover the pie three-quarters of an inch thick. Set back in the oven
until the méringue is well “set.” Should it color too darkly, sift
powdered sugar over it when cold. Eat cold.

They are very fine.

Peach pies are even more delicious, made in this manner.

PIPPIN PIES.

12 fine ripe pippins, pared and grated.
1 lb. white sugar.
½ lb. butter.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separately beaten.
1 lemon—grated peel and juice, with nutmeg.

Cream the butter and sugar, stir in the beaten yolks, then the lemon,
nutmeg, and apple; lastly the whites, very lightly. Bake in paste, with
cross-bars of the same on top.

PUMPKIN PIE (No. 1.) ✠

1 quart stewed pumpkin—pressed through a sieve.
9 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 scant quarts milk.
1 teaspoonful mace.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon, and the same of nutmeg.
1½ cup white sugar, or very light brown.

Beat all well together, and bake in crust without cover.

PUMPKIN PIE (No. 2.)

1 quart pumpkin—stewed and strained.
1 quart milk.
1 cup sugar.
7 eggs—beaten very light.
1 teaspoonful ginger, and same of mace and cinnamon each.

SQUASH PIE

Is made precisely like pumpkin pie, except that, being less rich, it
requires one more egg for each pie.

SWEET-POTATO PIE (No. 1.)

Parboil, skin, and slice crosswise firm sweet potatoes. Line a dish
with paste, put in a layer of sliced potato, sprinkle thickly with
sugar, scatter among them a few whole cloves, and cover with more
slices. Fill the dish in this order; put a tablespoonful of melted
butter in each pie; pour in a little water; cover with crust, and bake.

Eat cold.

SWEET POTATO PIE (No. 2.) ✠

1 lb. mealy sweet potatoes. The firm yellow ones are best.
½ cup butter.
¾ cup white sugar.
1 tablespoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
4 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 cup of milk.
1 lemon, juice and rind, and glass of brandy.

_Parboil_ the potatoes, and grate them when quite cold. If grated hot,
they are sticky and heavy. Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolk,
the spice, and lemon; beat the potato in by degrees and until all is
light; then the milk, then the brandy, and stir in the whites. Bake in
dishes lined with good paste—without cover.

You may make a pudding of this by baking in a deep dish—well buttered,
without paste. Cool before eating.

IRISH POTATO PIE (_or pudding._) ✠

1 lb. mashed potato, rubbed through a cullender.
½ lb. butter—creamed with the sugar.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separately.
1 lemon—squeezed into the potato while hot.
1 cup of milk.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and same of mace.
2 cups white sugar.

Mix as you do sweet potato pudding, and bake in open shells of paste.
To be eaten cold.

LEMON PIE (_or Transparent Pudding._) ✠

½ lb. butter.
1 lb. sugar.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separately.
Juice of one lemon.
Grated rind of two.
1 nutmeg.
½ glass brandy.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, the lemon, spice, and
brandy, stirring in the whites at the last.

Bake in pie-crust, open.

You may, if you wish to have these very nice, beat up the whites of
but four eggs in the mixture, and whip the whites of four more into a
méringue with four tablespoonfuls sugar and a little lemon-juice, to
spread over the top of each pie.

Eat cold. They are very nice baked in pattypans.

LEMON PIE (No. 2.) ✠

1 apple, chopped fine.
1 egg.
1 lemon, chop the inside very fine and grate the rind.
1 cup sugar.
Butter, the size of a walnut.

This is just enough for one pie. Take the thick white rind off the
lemon before you chop it. Take out the seeds carefully.

LEMON CREAM PIE. ✠

1 teacup powdered sugar.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 egg.
1 lemon—juice and grated rind, removing the seeds with care.
1 teacupful boiling water.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch, dissolved in cold water.

Stir the corn-starch into the water, cream the butter and sugar, and
pour over them the hot mixture. When quite cool, add lemon and the
beaten egg. Take the inner rind off the lemon and mince very small.

Bake in open shell.

LEMON PIE (No. 3.)

3 eggs.
1 great spoonful butter.
¾ cup white sugar.
Juice and grated peel of lemon.
Bake in open shells of paste.

Cream the sugar and butter, stir in the beaten yolks and the lemon, and
bake. Beat the whites to a stiff méringue with three tablespoonfuls
powdered sugar and a little rose-water. When the pies are done, take
from the oven just long enough to spread the méringue over the top, and
set back for three minutes. This mixture is enough for two small, or
one good-sized pie.

Eat cold.

ORANGE PIE. ✠

3 eggs.
¾ cup of white sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 orange—juice and half the grated rind.
½ lemon—juice and grated peel.
Nutmeg to taste.

Cream the butter and sugar, beating in the orange and lemon until very
light; add the beaten yolks, fill two pastry shells and bake. Beat the
whites stiff with two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, and when the pies
are done, spread over them, returning to the oven for three or four
minutes.

LEMON TART.

1 cup sugar.
2 lemons—all the juice, and a teaspoonful grated peel.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch, dissolved in a little cold water.
A dozen raisins stewed, cut in two and seeded.

Beat up well, and bake with upper and lower crust.

ORANGE TARTLETS.

2 fine Havana oranges, juice of both, and grated peel of one.
¾ cup of sugar-½ cup if the oranges are very sweet.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
½ lemon—juice only, to wet 1 teaspoonful corn-starch.

Beat all well together, and bake in tartlet shells without cover.

CHOCOLATE TARTS. ✠

4 eggs, whites and yolks.
½ cake of Baker’s chocolate, grated.
1 tablespoonful corn-starch dissolved in water.
3 tablespoonfuls milk.
4 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.
1 saltspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful butter, melted.

Rub the chocolate smooth in the milk and heat to boiling over the fire,
then stir in the corn-starch. Stir five minutes until well thickened,
remove from the fire, and pour into a bowl. Beat all the yolks and the
whites of two eggs well with the sugar, and when the chocolate mixture
is almost cold, put all together with the flavoring, and stir until
light. Bake in open shells of pastry. When done, cover with a méringue
made of the whites of two eggs and two tablespoonfuls of sugar flavored
with a teaspoonful of lemon-juice. Eat cold.

These are nice for tea, baked in pattypans.

COCOA-NUT PIE (No. 1.) ✠

½ lb. grated cocoa-nut.
¾ lb. white sugar (powdered.)
6 oz. butter.
5 eggs—the whites only.
1 glass white wine.
2 tablespoonfuls rose-water.
1 tablespoonful nutmeg.

Cream the butter and sugar, and when well mixed, beat very light, with
the wine and rose-water. Add the cocoanut with as little and as light
beating as possible; finally, whip in the stiffened whites of the eggs
with a few skillful strokes, and bake at once in open shells. Eat cold,
with powdered sugar sifted over them.

These are very pretty and delightful pies.

COCOA-NUT PIE (No. 2.)

1 lb. grated cocoa-nut.
½ lb. butter.
½ lb. powdered sugar.
1 glass of brandy.
2 teaspoonfuls lemon-juice.
4 eggs—white and yolks separated.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.

Rub the butter and sugar together; beat light with the brandy and
lemon-juice; stir in the beaten yolks; lastly the cocoa-nut and the
whites, alternately. Bake in open shells.

Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.

COCOA-NUT CUSTARD PIE. ✠

1 lb. cocoa-nut, grated.
½ lb. powdered sugar.
1 quart milk, _unskimmed_.
6 eggs beaten to a froth.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla or rose-water.

Boil the milk, take it from the fire, and whip in gradually the
beaten eggs. When nearly cold, season; add the cocoa-nut, and pour
into paste-shells. Do not boil the egg and milk together. Bake twenty
minutes.

Some put the custard quite raw into the pie-dishes, but the cocoa-nut
is apt, in that case, to settle at the bottom.

You may, however, pour the raw mixture into cups, and bake by setting
in a pan of boiling water, stirring well once, as they begin to warm.
This is cocoa-nut cup-custard, and is much liked.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARD-PIE.

1 quarter-cake of Baker’s chocolate, grated.
1 pint boiling water.
6 eggs.
1 quart milk.
½ cup white sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.

Dissolve the chocolate in a very little milk, stir into the boiling
water, and boil three minutes. When nearly cold, beat up with this the
yolks of all the eggs and the whites of three. Stir this mixture into
the milk, season, and pour into shells of good paste. When the custard
is “set”—but not more than half done—spread over it the whites, whipped
to a froth, with two tablespoonfuls sugar.

You may bake these custards without paste, in a pudding-dish or cups
set in boiling water.

CORN-STARCH CUSTARD PIE. ✠

6 eggs.
3 pints milk.
6 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls corn-starch.
2 teaspoonfuls essence bitter almonds.

Boil the milk, stir in the corn-starch wet in a little cold milk,
and boil one minute. When nearly cold, stir in the sugar, the yolks
of all the eggs, and the whites of two; flavor, and pour into your
paste-shells. Whip the remaining whites to a méringue, with two
tablespoonfuls white sugar and a teaspoonful of vanilla, and when the
custard is just “set,” draw your pies to the edge of the oven to spread
this over them. Do it quickly, lest the custard fall by exposure to the
air.

You may bake this as a pudding by omitting the pastry. Eat cold.

If you have not corn-starch, substitute arrow-root or rice-flour.

CUSTARD PIE.

4 eggs.
1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
Flavor with vanilla or other essence.

Beat the yolks and sugar light, and mix with the milk; flavor, whip in
the whites, which should be already a stiff froth, mix well, and pour
into shells. Grate nutmeg upon the top.

Bake this as cup-custard, or a custard pudding, in cups or a deep dish
set in a pan of boiling water.

PEACH PIE. ✠

Peel, stone, and slice the peaches. Line a pie-plate with a good
crust, and lay in your fruit, sprinkling sugar liberally over them in
proportion to their sweetness. Very ripe peaches require comparatively
little. Allow three peach-kernels, chopped fine, to each pie; pour in a
very little water, and bake with an upper crust, or with cross-bars of
paste across the top.

Some simply pare the peaches and put in whole, packing them well, and
sweetening freely. In this case they should be covered entirely with
crust.

For one of the most delightful pies that can be made of any fruit, look
for _apple méringue pie_, and substitute peaches. Peach méringue pie
may be made in winter from canned peaches.

CHERRY PIE.

Line the dish with a good crust, and fill with ripe cherries,
regulating the quantity of sugar you scatter over them by their
sweetness. Cover and bake.

Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over the top.

BLACKBERRY, RASPBERRY, AND PLUM PIES

Are made in the same manner.

CURRANT AND RASPBERRY TART. ✠

To three cups of currants allow one of raspberries. Mix well together
before you fill the crust, and sweeten abundantly. Cover with crust and
bake.

Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over it.

CURRANT TART

Is made as above, with more sugar. The most common fault of currant
pie is extreme sourness. Small fruits should be looked over carefully
before they are cooked. Currants are troublesome, but they must
nevertheless be looked after warily on account of their extreme
stemminess.

GREEN GOOSEBERRY TART. ✠

Top and tail the gooseberries. Put into a porcelain kettle with enough
water to prevent burning, and stew slowly until they break. Take them
off, sweeten _well_, and set aside to cool. When cold pour into pastry
shells, and bake with a top crust of puff-paste. Brush all over with
beaten egg while hot, set back in the oven to glaze for three minutes.

Eat cold.

RIPE GOOSEBERRY PIE.

Top and tail the berries. Line your dish with crust, and fill with
berries, strewing white sugar among them. Cover and bake.

DAMSON TART.

Pick over the fruit, put in a dish lined with pastry, sweeten very
freely, cover and bake. Brush with beaten egg when done, and return to
the oven for a few minutes to glaze.

CRANBERRY TART.

Wash and pick over the berries. Put into a porcelain saucepan with a
very little water, and simmer until they burst open and become soft.
Run through a cullender to remove the skins, and sweeten to taste. Bake
in pastry shells, with a cross-bar of pastry over the top.

STRAWBERRY PIE.

Cap and pick over the berries, arrange in layers, besprinkle with a
good coating of sugar, in a shell of pastry. Fill it very full, as
strawberries shrink very much in cooking. Cover with crust and bake.

Huckleberry pie is made in the same way.

CREAM RASPBERRY TART. ✠

Line a dish with paste and fill with raspberries, made very sweet with
powdered sugar. Cover with paste, but do not pinch it down at the
edges. When done, lift the top crust, which should be thicker than
usual, and pour upon the fruit the following mixture:—

1 small cup of milk—half cream, if you can get it, heated to boiling.
Whites of two eggs, beaten light and stirred into the boiling milk.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
½ teaspoonful corn-starch wet in cold milk.

Boil these ingredients three minutes; let them get perfectly cold
before you put them into the tart. Replace the top crust, and set the
pie aside to cool. Sprinkle sugar over the top before serving.

You can make strawberry cream tart in the same manner.

RHUBARB TART. (_Open._)

Skin the stalks with care, cut into small pieces; put into a saucepan
with very little water, and stew slowly until soft. Sweeten while hot,
but do not cook the sugar with the fruit. It injures the flavor, by
making it taste like preserves. Have ready some freshly-baked shells.
Fill up with the fruit and they are ready to serve.

_Or—_ ✠

You may, after sweetening the stewed rhubarb, stir in a lump of butter
the size of a hickory-nut for each pie, also a well-beaten egg for
each, and bake in pastry. Lay cross-bars of pastry over the top.

RHUBARB PIE (_Covered._)

Skin the stalks, cut in lengths of half an inch; strew lavishly with
sugar, and fill the crusts with the raw fruit. Some scatter seedless
raisins among the rhubarb. Cover, and bake nearly three-quarters of an
hour. Brush with egg while hot, and return to the oven to glaze.

Eat cold, as you do all fruit-pies.

SERVANTS.

SOME years ago—more than I care to count over—I read a lively little
book entitled, “The Greatest Plague of Life.” I have forgotten who
wrote it, if I ever knew. It was in the form of an autobiography; the
heroine called herself, with an amusing affectation of disguise, Mrs.
S-k-n-s-t-n,“ and it was illustrated by George Cruikshank. I read it
aloud in my home-circle, and many a hearty laugh we had over the poor
lady’s perplexities and calamities.

Regarding the history as a clever burlesque, I suffered no appreciable
draught upon my sympathies until time and experience brought me in
contact with so many who echoed her plaint, that I could not but recur,
now and then, with a half-sad smile, to her sufferings under the rule
of Norah, who chased her up-stairs with a carving-knife; with Mary,
who drank up the cherry-brandy, filled the bottle with cold weak tea,
and kept her pitying employers up all night to pull her through an
epileptic fit; with John, who never answered the parlor bell “unless
they persewered;” whose stomach could not bear cold meat at dinner,
but rallied bravely under a couple of pounds at supper. There was one
nursery-maid who whipped Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n’s child, and another who
upset the perambulator in the park, and, too much absorbed in the suit
of a whiskered Guardsman to note what had happened, went on dragging
the carriage upon its side until the baby’s cheek was cruelly scarified
by the gravel—besides a host of other _un_worthies set for the distress
of Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n’s mind, body, and estate.

“Douglas Jerrold wrote that book,” interrupts a friend at my elbow.
“And, _apropos de bottes_, have you seen Punch’s recent article,
‘Servantgalism; or, What Shall Be Done With the Missusses?’”

“The malady in America must bear another name,” remarks a lady, gayly.
“We have no servants—at least in this region. My cook is forty-seven
years old, and my chambermaid a widow, who has buried two children;
yet they would be highly affronted were I to speak of them except as
‘girls.’ It is a generic term that belongs to the class ‘who live out,’
from sixteen up to sixty. I had a lesson on this head not a month
since. My laundress, who has lived with me six years, was thanking me
for a service I had done her brother.

“‘I’ll never forget you for it, mem,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ll bless you for
it, on me knees, night and morning.’

“I am glad I have been able to help your friends, Katy,” I said. “You
have been a faithful servant to me——”

She cut my sentence in the middle by walking out of the room—I
supposed, to conceal her emotions. I was undeceived, five minutes
later, when her angry tones reached me from the kitchen, the door of
which she had left open.

“I’ll never believe a person has a good heart, or deserves to be called
a Christian, who names an honest, respectable girl, who tries to do her
duty, a _servant!_ ‘A faithful servant!’ says she; ‘as if she was a
queen, and meself a beggar!’”

“What did you say to the ungrateful wretch?” asks a listener,
indignantly.

“Nothing. I went quietly out of hearing, reminded, for the hundredth
time, of Solomon’s warning, ‘Take no heed unto all words that are
spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee.’ I recalled, too, the
saying of a mightier than the Royal Preacher: ‘Whosoever will be
greatest among you, let him be your _servant_.’”

“I thought you were one of the favored few who had no trouble
with them,” says another housekeeper, sighingly. “There is real
comfort,—excuse me, my dear Mrs. Sterling—but it is refreshing to a
wearied soul to know that you have felt some of our tribulations. It
seems to me, at times, that there is no other affliction worthy the
name when compared with what we endure from the ‘Necessary Evil.’
I have tried all sorts—the representatives from every nation under
heaven, I verily believe—and _they are all alike_! They will wear me
into an untimely grave yet.”

“I wouldn’t let them, my dear Martha,” replies Mrs. Sterling, with
her sunny smile. “If evils, they are surely minor afflictions. And,
after all, I imagine ‘they’ are a good deal like the rest of man and
womankind—pretty much as you choose to take them. The truth is, there
is no justice in wholesale denunciation of any class. You recollect
the Western orator’s truism, ‘Human nature, Mr. President, nine cases
out of ten, is human nature.’ When I consider the influences under
which a majority of our servants have been reared—ignorance, poverty,
superstition, often evil example in their homes—my wonder is, not at
the worthlessness of some, but that so many are virtuous, honest, and
orderly. You will allow that, as a general thing, they are quite as
industrious as their mistresses, and control their tempers almost as
well. And we make so many mistakes in our dealings with them!”

My old friend does not often lecture, but she has something to say now,
and forgets herself in her subject.

“We err so grievously in our management, that a sense of our failures
should teach us charity. Do we understand, ourselves, what is
the proper place of a hired ‘help’ in our families? If it is the
disposition of Mrs. Shoddy to trample upon them as soulless machines,
Mrs. Kindly makes a sort of elder daughter of her maid; indulges,
consults, and confides in her, and wonders, by-and-by, to find herself
under Abigail’s thumb—her husband and children subject to the caprices
of a pampered menial. I never hear a lady say of a valued domestic, ‘I
could not get along without her,’ without anticipating as a certainty
the hour when she shall announce, ‘There _is_ such a thing as keeping a
servant too long.’ The crisis comes, then, to Mrs. Kindly. In a moment
of desperation she frees her neck from the yoke. Abigail packs her six
trunks, having entered Mrs. Kindly’s service, seven years before, with
her worldly all done up in a newspaper, shakes the dust off the neat
Balmoral boots which have replaced her brogans, against the heartless
tyrant who sits crying, in her own room up-stairs, over thoughts of how
Abigail has been so clean, quick, and devoted to her interests; how she
has nursed her through a long and dangerous illness, and had the charge
of Emma and Bobby from their birth. She has prepared a handsome present
for her in memory of all this, and is hurt more than by anything else
when she learns that the girl has taken her final departure without
even kissing the baby.

“It is not strange that the deceived mistress should, from that day,
write down Abigail a monster of ingratitude, and forget the faithful
service of years in the smart of wounded feeling; when the truth is
that she did the maid more injury by injudicious petting, than the
latter could do her mistress had she absconded with all the plate in
the house. She has, as might have been expected, proved Abigail’s
unfitness to be her confidante and co-adviser; but, at the same time,
she has filled her brain with notions of her superiority to her
fellow-servants, her heart with burnings for the higher station she can
never occupy.

“I speak feelingly upon this subject,” continues Mrs. Sterling, with
a laugh; “for I was once led into this very mistake myself, by the
attractive qualities of a young woman who lived with me nine years as
seamstress and chambermaid. She was so even-tempered, so sensible,
industrious, and respectful, that she gained upon the esteem of us
all. One day, while we sat together at work, I told her of some family
changes in prospect, prefacing the communication by the remark, ‘I want
to speak to you of something, Eliza, which you must not mention to any
one else at present. The interests of an employer and a servant should
be the same.’

“Then, very foolishly, I opened up my mind freely on the subject
that engaged it. She answered modestly, but intelligently, entering
into my plans with such cordial interest and pledges of co-operation,
that I went to prepare for a walk, feeling really strengthened and
cheered by the talk. At the front door I was met by a letter requiring
an immediate reply. Returning to my chamber to lay off my hat and
shawl, I heard Eliza talking loudly and gleefully in the adjoining
sewing-room, with the cook, whom she must have called up-stairs through
the speaking-tube. You cannot imagine, nor I describe, my sensations at
listening, against my will, to an exaggerated account of the interview
which had just taken place. Not only my language, but my tones were
mimicked with great gusto and much laughter by my late confidante—the
phrase ‘The interests of the employer and the servant should be the
same’ occurring again and again, and forming, apparently, the cream
of the joke. I was very angry. But for the rule adopted early in my
married life, never to reprove a servant when out of humor, I should
instantly have ordered the treacherous creature—as I named her—from the
house. I sat down instead, to cool off and to think. With reflection,
common sense rallied to my aid.

“‘The girl does well enough in her place, which is that of a hired
chambermaid and seamstress,’ said this monitor. ‘She knew her position,
and would have kept it, but for your folly in dragging her up to
temporary equality with yourself. You made yourself ridiculous, and she
was shrewd enough to see it. Take the lesson to heart; write it out in
full for future guidance, and keep your own counsel.’

“Eliza never suspected my discovery. She remained with me until her
marriage a year afterward, and we parted upon good terms.”

I have quoted from my friend at length, because I honor her excellent
judgment and mature experience, and because I agree so fully with her
touching the evil of so-called confidential servants. The principle
of acknowledged favoritism is ruinous to domestic comfort, let who
may be the object thus distinguished. Rely upon it, my dear lady, at
least one third of home-wrangles and social scandal arises from this
cause. Be assured, also, that if you do not perceive the impropriety of
lowering yourself to the level of your subordinates, _they_ will, and
gauge their behaviour accordingly. The connection is an unnatural one,
and, like all others of the kind, must terminate disastrously in time.
Then the discarded favorite, aggrieved and exasperated, leaves your
house to tattle in the ears of some other indiscreet mistress, of your
sayings and doings. Show your servant that you respect yourself and
her too truly to forget what is due to both. Be kind, pleasant, always
reasonable and attentive to her needs, willing to hearken to and meet
any lawful request. Make her comfortable, and, so far as you can, happy.

Excuse one more quotation from Mrs. Sterling, whom, when I was much
younger than I am now, I consulted with regard to the just medium
between familiarity and austerity.

“Remember they are human beings, and treat them as such,” she said.
“Not that you are likely to reap a large reward in their gratitude,
but because it is right, and because you find no exceptions to the
practice of the Golden Rule laid down in the Bible. Be faithful in your
obedience to the law of kindness. With the return tide you have nothing
to do. This is a safe and straight path. I believe it to be also the
smoothest. You will be better and more cheerfully served than your
neighbor, who, recognizing in every hireling a natural enemy, is always
on the defensive.”

I have found the most serious obstacle to a comfortable pursuance of
her safe path, to lie in this same prejudice—rooted by centuries of
misunderstandings and caste-wars—the belief of necessary antagonism
between employers and employed. Mrs. Sterling’s Eliza only expressed
the prevailing sentiment of her class, when she ridiculed her mistress’
proposition that their interests ought to be identical. I have failed
so often and so signally in the endeavor to impress the merits of
this policy upon domestics, that I rarely attempt it now. There is
always a suspicion—more or less apparent—that you have a single eye
to self-interest in all your regulations and counsels. “What does she
hope to gain? What am I in danger of losing?” are the queries that
invariably present themselves to the subordinate’s mind. The arguments
by which your plans are supported are thrown away upon ignorant and
illogical listeners—your array of facts totally disbelieved. Your
auditor does not say this, but in divers and ingenious ways she
contrives to let you know that she is not so silly as to be imposed
upon by the specious array of evidence.

For how much of this are mistresses responsible? Has this creed of
distrust been learned by experience of injustice or exaction, or is
it one of the popular prejudices, which are harder to overthrow than
sound and well-established principle? Of one thing I am certain:
Mistresses and maids would more speedily come to a right understanding
of oneness of interest but for the influence exerted over the former
by Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Robinson, and Mrs. Brown, who don’t allow this,
and couldn’t think of that, and never heard of the other privilege or
immunity being granted to servants. Before they would yield such a
point, or submit to one syllable of dictation, they would do all their
own work, etc., etc. Poor Mrs. Pliable, listening dumbly and meekly,
goes home with a low-spirited sense of her own pusillanimity upon her,
and tries to assert her authority and redeem past faults by a sudden
tightening of the reins, that results in a runaway and general smash-up.

Cannot we remember—you and I, my dear reader—that we may sometimes be
as nearly right as those who talk more loudly and strongly than we upon
domestic economy, laying down rules we never thought of suggesting;
splitting into ninths a hair our short-sighted eyes cannot make out
when whole, and annihilating our timid objections with a lordly “_I_
always do so,” which is equal to a decree of infallibility? Cannot we
make up our minds, once and for all, to be a law unto ourselves in all
matters pertaining to our households? Mrs. Jones’ rule may be good for
her; Mrs. Robinson’s better than any other in her particular case, and
Mrs. Brown’s best of all for one in her peculiar circumstances; yet any
one or all of them be unsuitable for our use.

Avoid talking about your domestic affairs with people whose gossip on
these topics is incessant. You are angry when a whiff of some such
discussion as enlightened Mrs. Sterling, with regard to her mistake,
is wafted to you through the dumb-waiter or register, an accident that
will occur while the tones of the plaintiffs are loud and untrained by
education or policy. It is mean and unkind—traitorous, in fact, you
say, for them so to misrepresent and revile you—after all the kindness
you have showed to them, too! Bridget, Chloe, or Gretchen, passing the
parlor-door and catching the sound of her name as roughly handled,
may have her own sensations, and draw her own inferences—_being human
like yourself_. It is tiresome and vulgar, this everlasting exchange
of experiences about “my girl,” and “your girl,” and everybody else’s
“girl.” It is time sensible women ceased, in this respect, to imitate
the fashion of the class they censure, and put down the bootless
tattle with a strong will. Order your household, then, so far aright
as you can by the help of common sense and grace from on high, and let
Mesdames Jones, Robinson, and Brown look to the ways of their own, and
expend their surplus energies upon their neighbors’ concerns—counting
you out.

(I believe that is slang, but let it stand!)

These worthy and fussy housewives act upon the supposition that all
“girls” are cast in the same mould. Being human (do not let us forget
that!), the probability is, that there are varieties of the species.

But, if the mistresses are led by their associates, the “girl’s”
“acquaintances” sway her yet more powerfully. Every conscientious,
well-meaning housewife knows what a brake is this informal, but
terrible “Union” upon her endeavors to improve and really benefit those
under her direction. I have been amazed and disgusted at the tyranny
exercised by this irresponsible body over the best servants I have ever
seen.

“We would be hooted at, ma’am, if we didn’t give in to them,” said
one, when I represented how senseless and almost suicidal was the
course recommended by these evil advisers. “There’s not a girl in the
town would speak to us if we didn’t join in with the rest. It’s like a
strike, you see—awful upon them as holds back.”

Do not, then, my discouraged fellow-laborer, imagine that I am ignorant
of your trials, your doubts, your disheartening experiences. If I
disagree with Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n and do not pronounce our servants to be
the greatest plague of life, inclining rather to the belief that—always
allowing for human nature and the drawbacks I have enumerated—good
mistresses are apt to make good servants, it is in consequence of
long and careful study and observation of the practical working of
Mrs. Sterling’s rule. Like begets like. Pleasant words are more likely
to be answered by pleasant than are tart or hasty ones. If you would
have your servants respectful to you, be respectful to them. The best
way to teach them politeness is by example. It should not cost you an
effort to say, “Thank you,” or “If you please.” The habit exerts an
unconscious refining influence upon them, and you dignify instead of
degrading your ladyhood by being pitiful and courteous to all. If you
can only maintain your position by haughtiness and chilling disregard
of the feelings of inferiors, your rank is false, or you unfit to hold
it.

To begin, then: Be mistress of yourself. Amid all your temptations to
angry or sarcastic speech (and how many and how strong these are, you
and I know), curb yourself with the recollection that it is despicable,
no less than useless, to say cutting things to one who has no right to
retort upon you in kind.

“Ma’,” says Miss Aurelia in Miss Sedgwick’s admirable story, “Live and
let Live”—“how can you let your help be so saucy to you?”

Master Julius, who was standing by, took a different view of the matter.

“If Ma’ doesn’t want her help to be _sarcy_ to her,” he said, “she
hadn’t ought to be _sarcy_ to them.”

Teach your children the like forms of kindly speech and habits of
consideration for the comfort and happiness of your domestics, checking
with equal promptness undue freedom and the arrogance of station. It is
as graceful to bend as it is mean to grovel.

Learn not to see everything, and, so soon as you can, put far from you
the delusive hope that anybody else—unless it be dear old John—will
ever serve you as well as you would serve yourself. This failure is
attributable to some one of the nine-tenths we spoke of just now. She
is a prudent housekeeper who can wink at trifling blemishes without
effort or parade. There is one text which has come into my troubled
mind hundreds of times on such occasions, calming perturbation into
solemnity, and bringing, I hope, charity with humility—

“If _Thou_, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”

But if your hold of the rein be gentle, let it also be firm. Never
forget that the house is yours, and that you—not hirelings—are
responsible for the disposition of the stores purchased with John’s
money.

“I was much amused the other day,” said an easy-tempered lady to me,
“at a talk that passed under my window between my new cook and one of
her visitors.

“‘And how are ye gitting along?’ asked the guest.

“‘Oh! pretty well-ish, now,’ was the reply. ‘I was a-feard, when I
first come, that _she_ would bother me a-trotting down into the kitchen
so constant. But I give her a hint as how that wasn’t the trick of a
raal lady, and she’s kep’ out nicely sence then. You’ve got to stand up
for your own rights in this wurrld, or you’ll be trod upon.’”

Now, it would be throwing away words to reason with a woman like that
cook, or a mistress might show that in no other department of labor
would such a principle be tolerated—that from the Secretary of State
down to the scavenger who empties your ash-pan, every employé who draws
wages has an overlooker, to whom he is accountable for the manner in
which his work is done and his money earned; and that the fact that she
is an ignorant, high-tempered woman is no just cause of exemption. Yet
in how many families is this point tacitly yielded, and the mistress
admitted upon sufferance to her own kitchen—the room furnished with
her money, and in which she hardly dare touch or look at the articles
intended for the consumption of her own family?

One often hears such remarks as, “It isn’t every girl who will stand
having the mistress popping in and out while she is at work.” When,
in any other situation, the very fact of this unwillingness to have
the owner of the materials used in that work present, would be strong
presumptive proof of negligence or dishonesty. The principle is
pernicious from beginning to end, and should not be tolerated for an
instant.

It gives me pleasure to state here, that I know nothing personally of
this curious reversal of the rights of employer and domestic. I am
inclined to believe, if one-half I hear of other housewives’ trials
be true, that I have been highly favored among American women. My
authority in the kitchen, as in other parts of the household, has never
been disputed—in my hearing or presence, that is. I have always met
with a cheerful reception below-stairs when I appeared there to direct
or share the labors of my cooks; have found them willing to undertake
new dishes, and ready to learn my “way,” however unlike it might be to
their own. As a rule, also,—to which the exceptions have been few and
very far between—those employed by me have been cleanly, industrious,
kind-hearted, and respectful; patient under inconveniences, and
attentive in sickness. I should not, therefore, do my duty, did I not
lift my voice in a plea for charitable judgment, just and generous
treatment of a class which, however faulty, have much to do and to
endure. Mrs. Skinflint’s grocer’s account may be less than yours, if
you adopt this policy—Mrs. Sharp’s coal-cellar be better dusted, and
the paint in her attic scrubbed oftener; but I believe, in the long
run, you will be the most comfortable in body, as in conscience. Your
machinery will move with fewer jerks and less friction. Your servants
will remain with you longer, and be better-tempered while they stay,
if you show that you appreciate the fact of a common humanity; that
you owe them duties you are resolved to fulfil during their sojourn
under your roof, however mercenary may be their performance of those
devolving upon them.

Finally, dear sister, do not add to the real miseries of life by
regarding the annoyance of a careless, slothful, or impertinent
domestic as a real trouble. Class it with petty vexations which
are yet curable as well as endurable, and live above it—a noble,
beneficent existence in the love of your fellow-creatures and the fear
of GOD—a life that can not suffer perceptible disturbance from such a
contemptible rootlet of bitterness as this. It is only the feeble, the
inefficient, or the indolent mistress whose peace of mind is dependent
upon such casualties as a breeze, a hurricane, or a sudden vacancy in
the department of the interior.

Recollect, when the infliction is sharpest, that brier-pricks are
disagreeable, but never serious, unless the blood be _very_ impure.

PUDDINGS.

I have, for convenience sake, classed among pies all preparations baked
_in crust_ in a pie-dish. Many of these, however, are called puddings,
such as custards of various kinds, lemon, cocoa-nut, and orange
puddings. The reader will have no trouble in finding the receipts for
these, if she will bear the above remark in mind.

BAKED PUDDINGS.

Beat your eggs very light—and, if you put in only one or two, whip
white and yolk separately, beating the latter into the sugar before
adding the whites.

Fruit, rice, corn-starch, and bread puddings require a steady,
moderate oven in baking. Custard and batter puddings should be put
into the dish, and this into the oven, the instant they are mixed, and
baked quickly. _No_ pudding, unless it be raised with yeast, should
be allowed to stand out of the oven after the ingredients are put
together. Give one final hard stir just before it goes in, and be sure
the mould is well greased.

APPLE MÉRINGUE PUDDING.

1 pint stewed apples.
3 eggs—whites and yolks separate.
½ cup white sugar, and one teaspoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg and cinnamon mixed.
1 teaspoonful essence bitter almond (for the méringue.)

Sweeten and spice, and, while the apple is still very hot, stir in the
butter, and, a little at a time, the yolks. Beat all light, pour into
a buttered dish, and bake ten minutes. Cover, without drawing from the
oven, with a méringue made of the beaten whites, two tablespoonfuls
white sugar, and the bitter almond seasoning. Spread smoothly and
quickly, close the oven again, and brown very slightly.

Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over the top, and send around cream
to pour over it instead of sauce.

BAKED APPLE PUDDING.

6 large firm pippins (grated.)
3 tablespoonfuls butter.
½ cup sugar.
4 eggs—whites and yolks separate.
Juice of one lemon, and half the peel.

Beat butter and sugar to a cream, stir in the yolks, the lemon, the
grated apple, lastly the whites. Grate nutmeg over the top, and bake
until nicely browned.

Eat cold with cream.

SWEET APPLE PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk.
4 eggs.
3 cups chopped apple.
1 lemon—all the juice and half the rind.
Nutmeg and cinnamon.
¼ teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little vinegar.
Flour for a stiff batter.

Beat the yolks very light, add the milk, seasoning, and flour. Stir
hard five minutes, and beat in the apple, then the whites, lastly the
soda, well mixed in.

Bake in two square shallow pans one hour, and eat hot, with sweet
sauce. Much of the success of this pudding depends upon the
mixing—almost as much upon the baking. Cover with paper when half done,
to prevent hardening.

PIPPIN PUDDING. ✠

8 fine pippins, pared, cored, and sliced, breaking them as
little as possible.
½ cup very fine bread-crumbs.
2 teaspoonfuls butter—melted.
5 eggs—whites and yolks separate.
¾ cup sugar.
1 oz. citron, shred finely.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and a dozen whole cloves.
1 cup milk or cream.

Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk, cream the butter and sugar, and
beat into this the yolks. Next, adding the milk and soaked bread, stir
until very smooth and light. Put in the nutmeg and citron, and whip
in the whites lightly. Butter a deep dish, and put in your sliced
apple, sprinkling each piece well with sugar, and scattering the cloves
among them. Pour the custard you have prepared over them, and bake
three-quarters of an hour.

Sift powdered sugar over the top, and eat cold.

BROWN BETTY. ✠

1 cup bread-crumbs.
2 cups chopped apples—tart.
½ cup sugar.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
2 tablespoonfuls butter cut into small bits.

Butter a deep dish, and put a layer of the chopped apple at the bottom;
sprinkle with sugar, a few bits of butter, and cinnamon; cover with
bread-crumbs; then more apple. Proceed in this order until the dish
is full, having a layer of crumbs at top. Cover closely, and steam
three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven; then uncover and brown
quickly.

Eat warm with sugar and cream, or sweet sauce.

This is a homely but very good pudding, especially for the children’s
table. Serve in the dish in which it is baked.

APPLE BATTER PUDDING. ✠

1 pint rich milk.
2 cups flour.
4 eggs.
1 teaspoonful salt.
¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Peel and core eight apples carefully, and range them closely together
in a deep dish. Beat the batter very light and pour over them. Unless
the apples are very ripe and sweet (for tart apples), fill the centre
of each with white sugar. Bake an hour, and eat hot with sweet sauce.

APPLE AND PLUM PUDDING.

¾ lb. fine tart apples, pared and chopped.
¾ lb. sugar.
¾ lb. flour.
½ lb. beef suet, rubbed fine.
¾ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
6 eggs.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg and the same powdered cloves.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ glass brown Sherry and the same of brandy.

Stir the beaten yolks and sugar very light, add the suet and apples
with the spice; then the raisins, well dredged with flour; next the
flour, and when this is all in, the liquor; lastly the whites beaten
_very_ stiff. Bake in two buttered moulds, in a moderate oven, an hour
and a half at least. Eat hot, with sauce.

You may boil this pudding if you like.

APPLE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

1 teacupful tapioca.
6 apples—juicy and well-flavored pippins—pared and cored.
1 quart water.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Cover the tapioca with three cups of lukewarm water, and set it in a
tolerably warm place to soak five or six hours, stirring now and then.
Pack your apples in a deep dish, adding a cup of lukewarm water; cover
closely and steam in a moderate oven until soft all through, turning
them as they cook at bottom. If the dish is more than a quarter full
of liquid, turn some of it out before you pour the soaked tapioca over
all. Unless your apples are _very_ sweet fill the centre with sugar and
stick a clove in each, just before you cover with the tapioca. Indeed,
I always do this. It softens the hard acid of the fruit. Bake, after
the tapioca goes in, one hour.

Eat warm, with sweet hard sauce.

BAKED APPLE DUMPLINGS. ✠

1 quart flour.
2 tablespoonfuls lard—or half butter is better.
2 cups of milk.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar sifted into the dry flour.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Chop the shortening into the flour after you have sifted this and the
cream-tartar together; put in the soda and wet up quickly—just stiff
enough to roll into a paste less than half an inch thick. Cut into
squares, and lay in the centre of each a juicy, tart apple, pared and
cored; bring the corners of the square neatly together and pinch them
slightly. Lay in a buttered baking-pan, the joined edges downward, and
bake to a fine brown. When done, brush over with beaten egg, and set
back in the oven to glaze for two or three minutes. Sift powdered sugar
over them, and eat hot with rich sweet sauce.

I greatly prefer the above simple crust for all kinds of dumplings, to
the rich paste which becomes heavy so soon as it begins to cool. It is
also more quickly and easily made, and far more wholesome than pastry.

TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

1 cup tapioca.
1 quart milk.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 tablespoonfuls butter, melted.
2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

Soak the tapioca, in enough cold water to cover it, two hours; drain
off the water, if it be not all absorbed; soak two hours longer in
the milk, which should be slightly warmed. When the tapioca is quite
soft, beat the sugar and butter together; add the yolks, the milk and
tapioca, lastly the whites. Stir very well, and bake in a buttered
dish. Eat warm with sweet sauce.

You may make a sago pudding in the same way.

CORN-STARCH PUDDING. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls corn-starch.
1 quart milk.
4 eggs—whites and yolks separate.
¾ cup sugar.
Nutmeg and cinnamon.
1 tablespoonful butter.

Dissolve the corn-starch in a little cold milk, and having heated the
rest of the milk to boiling, stir this in and boil three minutes,
stirring all the time. Remove from the fire, and while still very hot,
put in the butter. Set away until cold; beat the eggs very light—the
sugar and seasoning with them, and stir into the corn-starch, beating
thoroughly to a smooth custard. Turn into a buttered dish, and bake
half an hour. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.

CORN-STARCH MÉRINGUE. ✠

5 eggs.
1 quart of milk.
¾ cup sugar.
4 teaspoonfuls corn-starch.
½ cup fruit-jelly or jam.

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, which has
previously been dissolved in a little cold milk. Boil fifteen minutes,
stirring all the while. Remove from the fire, and while still hot, add
gradually the yolks of the eggs beaten up with the sugar and seasoned
with vanilla, lemon, or bitter almond. Pour this into a buttered
pudding-dish and bake fifteen minutes, or until the custard begins to
“set.” Without withdrawing it further than the door of the oven, spread
lightly and _quickly_ upon this a méringue of the whites whipped up
stiff with a half-cup jelly—added gradually. Use crab-apple jelly, if
bitter almond has been put into the custard; currant, for vanilla;
strawberry or other sweet conserve, if you season the custard with
lemon. Bake, covered, for five minutes. Then remove the lid, and brown
the méringue _very_ slightly.

Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted thickly over the top.

ARROW-ROOT PUDDING

Is made according to either of the foregoing receipts, substituting
arrow-root for corn-starch. Farina pudding also.

BREAD PUDDING. ✠

1 quart of milk.
2 cups of fine bread crumbs—_always_ stale and dry.
4 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
Nutmeg to taste.
¼ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.

Beat the yolks very light, and having soaked the bread-crumbs well in
the milk, stir these together; then the butter and seasoning, with
the soda; lastly the whites. Bake to a fine brown, and eat hot with
pudding-sauce.

This, if well mixed and baked, is quite a different dish from the
traditional and much-despised bread-pudding of stingy housekeepers and
boarding-house landladies. “Which,” says an English Josh. Billings,
“nothing can be more promiskus than a boarding-house bread-pudding.”
Try mine instead, putting all the sugar into the sauce, and enough
there, and you will cease to sneer.

You may boil this pudding, if you like, in a floured cloth or buttered
mould.

FRUIT BREAD PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
2 tablespoonfuls (heaping) sugar.
¼ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
¼ lb. currants, well washed and picked over.
Handful of shred citron, and 1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in
hot water.
2 _scant_ cups fine bread-crumbs, from a stale loaf.

Beat the yolks light with the sugar, add the bread-crumbs when they
have been well soaked in the milk, and stir until smooth. Next put in
the fruit, well dredged with flour, the soda, and finally the whites,
whipped to a stiff froth.

This will require longer and steadier baking than if the fruit were not
in. Cover it if it threatens to harden too soon on top. Send to table
hot in the dish in which it was baked, or turn out very carefully upon
a hot plate. Eat warm, with pudding-sauce.

BREAD-AND-BUTTER PUDDING.

4 eggs.
3 cups milk.
¾ cup sugar.
Vanilla or other extract.
Nutmeg to taste.
Bread and butter.

Cut thin slices of bread (stale), spread thickly with butter, and
sprinkle with sugar. Fit them neatly and closely into a buttered
pudding-dish until it is half full. Lay a small, heavy plate upon them
to prevent them from floating, and saturate them gradually with a hot
custard made of the milk, heated almost to boiling, then taken from
the fire, and the beaten eggs and sugar stirred in with the seasoning.
Let the bread soak in this fifteen minutes or so, adding by degrees
all the custard. Just before you put the pudding in the oven, take up
the plate gently. If the bread still rise to the top, keep down with a
silver fork or spoon, laid upon it from the side of the dish, until the
custard thickens, when slip it out. Eat cold.

BREAD-AND-MARMALADE PUDDING ✠

Is made precisely as above, except that each slice is spread with
marmalade or jam besides the butter.

Either of these puddings is good boiled.

ALICE’S PUDDING. ✠

1 quart of milk.
4 eggs.
1 cup very fine dry bread-crumbs.
½ cup strawberry or other sweet jam.
½ cup sugar.

Butter a pudding-dish; sprinkle the bottom with bread-crumbs; pour over
these half a cup jam, and cover this well with the rest of the crumbs,
wet with a very little milk. Heat the quart of milk until _near_
boiling, take it from the fire and add, gradually, the beaten yolks and
sugar, stirring in the beaten whites lightly at the last. Heat this
by degrees, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken; put it,
spoonful by spoonful, upon the layer of bread-crumbs, taking care not
to disturb these, and when all is in, bake until well “set” and very
slightly browned.

Eat cold. Cream is a delicious accompaniment to it.

THE QUEEN OF PUDDINGS. ✠

1½ cup white sugar.
2 cups fine dry bread-crumbs.
5 eggs.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
Vanilla, rose-water, or lemon seasoning.
1 quart fresh rich milk, and one half cup jelly or jam.

Rub the butter into a cup of sugar; beat the yolks very light, and stir
these together to a cream. The bread-crumbs, soaked in milk, come next,
then the seasoning. Bake this in a buttered pudding-dish—a large one
and but two-thirds full—until the custard is “set.” Draw to the mouth
of the oven, spread over with jam or other nice fruit-conserve. Cover
this with a méringue made of the whipped whites and half a cup of
sugar. Shut the oven and bake until the méringue begins to color.

Eat cold, with cream.

You may, in strawberry season, substitute the fresh fruit for
preserves. It is then truly delightful.

CRACKER PUDDING. ✠

1 quart milk.
1 cup powdered cracker.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
½ teaspoonful soda—dissolved in boiling water.

Heat the milk slightly, and pouring it over the cracker, let them stand
together fifteen minutes. Stir into this first the beaten yolks, then
the butter and soda; beat all smooth and add the whipped whites.

Eat hot, with pudding sauce.

DORCHESTER CRACKER PLUM PUDDING.

2 quarts milk.
6 Boston crackers—split and buttered.
8 eggs—beaten very light.
2 cups sugar. Nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to taste.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
1 lb. raisins, seeded and cut in two.

Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and sugar, seasoned with the spices,
by heating the milk _almost_ to boiling, then taking it from the fire
and adding gradually the yolks, sugar, seasoning, and whites. Do not
boil it again. Butter a pudding-dish; put a layer of crackers in the
bottom, moistening with a few spoonfuls of the hot custard. On this lay
some of the raisins—a thick stratum; cover with crackers—the buttered
side downward; moisten with the custard, and proceed in this order
until your crackers and fruit are used up. Pour in custard until only
the top of the upper layer is visible, but not enough to float them;
cover closely and set in the cellar over night. In the morning add the
rest of the custard, at intervals of five or six minutes between the
cupfuls.

Bake two hours in a moderate oven. Cover with paper if it should seem
likely to harden too fast.

Eat hot, with sauce.

CRACKER SUET PUDDING. ✠

¼ lb. beef suet, freed from strings, and powdered.
1 cup fine cracker-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs.
3 cups milk.
Pinch of soda.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat the yolks with the sugar; add to these the milk in which the
cracker has been soaked for half an hour; work into a smooth paste
before putting in the suet and soda. Whip the whites in last, and bake
nearly, if not quite an hour. Cover, should the crust form too rapidly.
Eat hot, with wine sauce.

You may also steam or boil this pudding.

FRUIT CRACKER PUDDING.

1 cup powdered cracker soaked in one pint of milk.
¼ lb. beef suet, cleared from strings and powdered.
½ lb. raisins, seeded and cut in two.
¼ lb. currants, washed and dried.
3 oz. almonds.
5 eggs.
½ cup sugar.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and same of cinnamon. Rose-water to taste.

Blanch the almonds and cut with a sharp knife into thin shavings. Beat
the yolks with the sugar until light and thick; mix in the cracker and
milk; the suet and the fruit well dredged; the spice and rose-water;
then the whipped whites, finally the almonds.

Bake in a buttered mould one hour and a half. Turn out and eat with
wine sauce.

_Or,_

Boil in a well-buttered mould. In this case, blanch, but do not cut the
almonds, and do not stone the raisins. Butter the mould so thickly that
you can stick the almonds to the sides in regular rows, alternately
with rows of whole raisins. Put in the mixture gently, not to disturb
these; cover the mould and boil or steam three hours. Treated in this
way, it makes a pretty-looking pudding. It is palatable in any shape.

CRACKER AND JAM PUDDING.

3 eggs.
½ cup cracker-crumbs.
½ cup sugar.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 teacup milk.
½ lemon—juice and grated rind.
3 tablespoonfuls jam.

Soak the cracker in the milk; rub the butter and sugar together, adding
the lemon, and beating to a cream; then stir in the beaten yolks; next
the cracker and milk; lastly, the whites. Butter a deep dish, and put
the jam, which should be pretty stiff, at the bottom. Fill up with the
mixture, and bake about half an hour.

Eat cold, with sugar sifted over the top.

RICE PUDDING (_Plain._) ✠

1 coffee-cup rice.
2 quarts milk.
8 tablespoonfuls sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Butter the size of an egg—melted.
Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.

Wash and pick over the rice, and soak in one pint of the milk two
hours. Then add the rest of the milk, the sugar, salt, butter and
spice. Bake two hours, and eat cold.

RICE AND TAPIOCA PUDDING. ✠

½ cup rice.
½ cup tapioca.
¾ cup sugar.
3 pints milk.
Cinnamon to taste.

Soak the tapioca in a cup of the milk three hours; wash the rice in
several waters, and soak in another cup of milk as long as you do the
tapioca. Sweeten the remaining quart of milk; put all the ingredients
together, and bake two hours in a slow oven. Eat cold.

RICE PUDDING WITH EGGS. ✠

1 quart milk.
4 eggs.
½ cup rice.
¾ cup sugar.
1 tablespoonful butter.
Handful of raisins, seeded and cut in two.

Soak the rice in a pint of the milk an hour, then set the saucepan
containing it where it will slowly heat to a boil. Boil five minutes;
remove and let it cool. Beat the yolks, add the sugar and butter, the
rice and the milk in which it was cooked, with the pint of unboiled;
the beaten whites, and finally the raisins. Grate nutmeg on the top,
and bake three-quarters of an hour, or until the custard is well set
and of a light brown. Eat cold.

RICE-FLOUR PUDDING.

2 quarts of milk.
½ lb. rice flour.
1 cup sugar.
6 eggs.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 small teaspoonful nutmeg.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla or rose-water.
1 lemon—juice of the whole, and half the grated rind.

Heat the milk to a boil, and stir in the rice-flour wet to a smooth
paste with a little cold milk; boil until well thickened, stirring
all the time. Take from the fire, and while still hot stir in the
butter, the yolks beaten light with the sugar, the lemon, nutmeg,
and the whites of three eggs. Mix well, and bake in a buttered dish
three-quarters of an hour. Just before you take it up, draw to the
mouth of the oven and cover with a méringue of the remaining whites,
beaten stiff with two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, and flavored with
vanilla or rose-water. Bake until the méringue begins to brown. Sift
sugar on the top and eat cold.

BATTER PUDDING. ✠

1 pint of milk.
4 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 even cups flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 pinch of soda.

Bake in a buttered dish three-quarters of an hour. Serve in the
pudding-dish as soon as it is drawn from the oven, and eat with rich
sauce.

_Or,_

You may boil it in a buttered mould or floured bag, flouring it _very_
thickly. Boil two hours, taking care the boiling does not cease for a
moment until the pudding is done.

BATTER PUDDING (_No. 2._)

1 quart milk.
10 tablespoonfuls flour.
7 eggs.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted into the flour.

Wet the flour gradually with the milk to a very smooth paste; next add
the beaten yolks, then the salt and soda, lastly the whites, whipped to
a stiff froth. Bake in a buttered dish for an hour, and serve at once.
Eat hot, with sauce.

If you boil it, leave plenty of room to swell in the bag, and boil two
hours.

COTTAGE PUDDING. ✠

1 cup of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
2 eggs.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 cups flour, or enough to make a tolerably stiff batter.
½ teaspoonful of soda.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted with the flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.

Rub the butter and sugar together, beat in the yolks, then the milk and
soda, the salt, and the beaten whites, alternately with the flour. Bake
in a buttered mould; turn out upon a dish; cut in slices, and eat with
liquid sauce.

This is a simple but very nice pudding.

GERMAN PUFFS. ✠

3 cups flour.
3 cups milk.
3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and _very_ light.
3 teaspoonfuls melted butter.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Pour in nine well-buttered cups of same size as that used for
measuring, and bake to a fine brown. Eat as soon as done, with sauce.

CUP PUDDINGS.

4 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in sugar and in flour.
Half their weight in butter.
2 tablespoonfuls milk.
¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

Rub the sugar and butter together; beat the yolks light, and add then
the milk and soda; lastly the flour and beaten whites alternately. Fill
six small cups, well buttered, and bake twenty minutes, or until a
nice brown. Eat warm.

LEMON PUDDING. ✠

1 cup of sugar.
4 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls corn-starch.
2 lemons—juice of both and rind of one.
1 pint milk.
1 tablespoonful butter.

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, wet with a few
spoonfuls of cold water. Boil five minutes, stirring constantly. While
hot, mix in the butter, and set it away to cool. Beat the yolks light,
and add the sugar, mixing very thoroughly before putting in the lemon
juice and grated rind. Beat this to a stiff cream, and add gradually to
the corn-starch milk, when the latter is cold. Stir all smooth, put in
a buttered dish, and bake. Eat cold.

LEMON MÉRINGUE PUDDING (_very nice._)

1 quart milk.
2 cups bread-crumbs.
4 eggs.
½ cup butter.
1 cup white sugar.
1 large lemon—juice and half the rind, grated.

Soak the bread in the milk; add the beaten yolks, with the butter and
sugar rubbed to a cream, also the lemon. Bake in a buttered dish until
firm and slightly brown. Draw to the door of the oven and cover with a
méringue of the whites whipped to a froth with three tablespoonfuls
of powdered sugar, and a little lemon-juice. Brown very slightly; sift
powdered sugar over it, and eat cold.

You may make an orange pudding in the same way.

COCOANUT PUDDING.

½ lb. grated cocoanut.
½ cup stale sponge cake, crumbed fine.
1 cup sugar.
1 _large_ cup rich milk—cream, if you can get it.
6 eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla, or rose-water.

Cream the butter and sugar, and add the beaten yolks. When these are
well mixed, put in the cocoanut; stir well before adding the milk,
cake-crumbs, flavoring; and lastly, the whites of three eggs. Whip the
other whites stiff with three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar; flavor
with vanilla, and just before taking the pudding from the oven, spread
this méringue over the top, and close the oven until the icing is
slightly browned.

Bake in all three-quarters of an hour.

ORANGE MARMALADE PUDDING. ✠

1 cup fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup sugar.
1 cup milk or cream.
4 eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls butter.
1 cup orange or other sweet marmalade.

Rub the butter and sugar together; add the yolks well beaten, the milk,
bread-crumbs, and the whites whipped to a froth. Put a layer of this in
the bottom of a well-buttered mould, spread thickly with some pretty
stiff marmalade—orange is nicest—then another layer of the mixture,
and so on until the mould is full, having the custard mixture at top.
Bake in a moderate oven about an hour, turn out of the mould upon a
dish and serve, with sweetened cream or custard.

MACARONI PUDDING. ✠

1 cup macaroni broken into inch lengths.
1 quart milk.
4 eggs.
½ lemon—juice and grated peel.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
¾ cup sugar.

Simmer the macaroni in half the milk until tender. While hot stir in
the butter, the yolks, well beaten up with the sugar, the lemon, and
lastly the whipped whites. Bake in a buttered mould about half an hour,
or until nicely browned.

VERMICELLI PUDDING

May be made according to the foregoing receipt.

NEAPOLITAN PUDDING.—(_Very fine._) ✠

1 large cup fine bread-crumbs soaked in milk.
¾ cup sugar.
1 lemon—juice and grated rind.
6 eggs.
½ lb. stale sponge-cake.
½ lb. macaroons—almond.
½ cup jelly or jam, and one small tumbler of Sherry wine.
½ cup milk poured upon the bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful melted butter.

Rub the butter and sugar together; put the beaten yolks in next;
then the soaked bread-crumbs, the lemon, juice, and rind, and beat
to a smooth, light paste before adding the whites. Butter your mould
_very_ well, and put in the bottom a light layer of dry bread-crumbs;
upon this one of macaroons, laid evenly and closely together. Wet this
with wine, and cover with a layer of the mixture; then with slices of
sponge-cake, spread thickly with jelly or jam; next macaroons, wet with
wine, more custard, sponge-cake, and jam, and so on until the mould is
full, putting a layer of the mixture at the top. Cover closely, and
steam in the oven three-quarters of an hour; then remove the cover to
brown the top. Turn out carefully into a dish, and pour over it a sauce
made of currant jelly warmed, and beaten up with two tablespoonfuls
melted butter and a glass of pale Sherry.

A plain round mould is best for the pudding, as much of its comeliness
depends upon the manner in which the cake and macaroons are fitted in.

It is a pretty and good pudding, and will well repay the trifling
trouble and care required to manage it properly.

It is also nice boiled in a buttered mould.

RHUBARB PUDDING.

Prepare the stalks as for pies; cover the bottom of a buttered
pudding-dish with slices of bread and butter; cover with the rhubarb
cut into short pieces; sprinkle abundantly with sugar; then put on
another layer of bread and butter, and so on until your dish is full.
Cover and steam, while baking, for half an hour. Remove the lid and
bake ten minutes, or until browned.

Eat with hot sauce.

GOOSEBERRY PUDDING. ✠

1 pint ripe or nearly ripe gooseberries.
6 or 8 slices toasted stale bread.
1 cup milk.
½ cup sugar.
1 tablespoonful butter, melted.

Stew the gooseberries ten minutes—very slowly, not to break them. Cut
your slices of bread to fit your pudding-dish, and toast to a light
brown on both sides. (Cut off all the crust before toasting.) Dip each
slice, while hot, in milk, and spread with the melted butter. Cover the
bottom of the dish with them; put next a layer of the gooseberries,
sprinkled thickly with sugar; more toast, more berries, and so on,
until the dish is full. Cover closely and steam in a moderate oven
twenty or twenty-five minutes. Turn out upon a hot dish and pour over
it a good pudding-sauce.

This is considered a wholesome breakfast dish, and is certainly good.
In this case omit the sauce, sift powdered sugar over the top, and eat
with the same.

NEWARK PUDDING.

1 cup fine bread-crumbs soaked in a pint of the milk.
1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls rice-flour.
½ lb. raisins seeded, cut in two, and dredged with flour.
Vanilla or bitter almond extract.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter, and a half-teaspoonful soda.

Beat the yolks light; add the soaked bread-crumbs and milk; stir to a
smooth batter, put in the rice-flour, wet up first with cold milk; the
reserved pint of milk, the seasoning, butter, the fruit, lastly the
whites whipped stiff. Bake an hour in a buttered mould; turn out and
pour sauce over it, serving hard sauce also with it.

_Or,_

You may boil the mixture two hours in a floured cloth or buttered mould.

BAKED PLUM PUDDING.

1¼ lb. of flour.
1 lb. raisins seeded, cut in two, and dredged with flour.
½ lb. suet, freed from strings and powdered.
1 cup sugar.
2 oz. citron, shred fine.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
Nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves—one teaspoonful each.
Milk to make a thick batter of the flour. Begin with two cups, and
add more if necessary.

Beat the yolks and sugar together; add the suet and spice, then the
flour, moistening the mixture gradually with milk until you can move
the spoon in it. Dredge the fruit and put in by degrees; finally, stir
in the beaten whites. Beat all very hard and long before baking in a
buttered mould. It will require _at least_ an hour and a half in a
moderate oven.

Turn out, and eat with rich sweet sauce.

BELLE’S DUMPLINGS.

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

Roll out a quarter of an inch thick, cut into oblong pieces, rounded
at the corners; put a great spoonful damson, cherry, or other tart
preserve in the middle and roll into a dumpling. Bake three-quarters
of an hour, brush over with beaten egg while hot, set back in the oven
three minutes to glaze.

Eat hot with brandy or wine sauce.

_Or,_

You may make a roll-pudding of it by rolling out the paste into an
oblong sheet, spreading thickly with the preserves, folding it up as
one would a travelling-shawl to be put into a strap, pinching the ends
together that the juice may not escape, and boiling in a floured cloth
fitted to the shape of the “roley-poley.” Boil an hour and a half.

BOILED PUDDINGS.

You can boil puddings in a bowl, a mould, or a cloth. The mould should
have a closely-fitting top, and be buttered well—top and all—before the
batter or dough is put in. These moulds are usually made with hasps or
other fastening. In lack of this, you had better tie down the cover
securely. I once boiled a pudding in a tin pail, the top of which I
made more secure by fitting it over a cloth floured on the inside, lest
the pudding should stick. The experiment succeeded admirably, and I
commend the suggestion to those who find, after the pudding is mixed,
that their mould leaks, or the bowl that did duty as a substitute has
been broken, and nothing said to “the mistress” about it. If you use
a bowl, butter it, and tie a floured cloth tightly over the top. If a
cloth, have it clean and sweet, and flour bountifully on the inside. In
all, leave room for batter, bread, rice, and cracker puddings to swell.
Tie the string very tightly about the mouth of the bag, which must be
made with _felled_ seams at sides and bottom, the better to exclude the
water.

The water must be boiling when the pudding goes in, and not stop
boiling for one instant until it is done. If it is in a bag, this
must be turned several times, _under water_, to prevent sticking or
scorching to the sides of the pot. The bag must also be entirely
covered, while the water should not quite reach to the top of a mould.
If you use a basin, dip the cloth in boiling water before dredging with
flour on the inside.

When the time is up, take mould, basin, or cloth from the boiling pot,
and plunge _instantly_ into cold water; then turn out without the loss
of a second. This will prevent sticking, and leave a clearer impression
of the mould upon the contents.

Boiled puddings should be served as soon as they are done, as they soon
become heavy.

Many of the baked puddings I have described are quite as good boiled.
As a safe rule, _double the time of baking if you boil_.

BERRY PUDDING.

1 pint of milk.
2 eggs.
1 saltspoonful salt.
¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
½ teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted through a cup of flour, and
added to enough flour to make a thick batter.
1 pint blackberries, raspberries, currants, or huckleberries,
well dredged with flour—stirred in at the last.

HUCKLEBERRY PUDDING. ✠

1 pint milk.
2 eggs.
1 quart flour—or enough for thick batter.
1 gill baker’s yeast.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.
Nearly a quart of berries—well dredged with flour.

Make a batter of eggs, milk, flour, yeast, salt, and soda, and set it
to rise in a warm place about four hours. When you are ready to boil
it, stir in the dredged fruit quickly and lightly. Boil in a buttered
mould or a floured cloth for two hours.

This will be found lighter and more wholesome than boiled pastry.

Eat hot with sweet sauce.

FRUIT VALISE PUDDING. ✠

1 quart flour.
1 tablespoonful lard, and same of butter.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonful cream-tartar—sifted through the flour.
1 saltspoonful salt.
2 cups milk, or enough to make the flour into soft dough.
1 quart berries, chopped apples, sliced peaches, or other fruit;
jam, preserves, canned fruit, or marmalade may be substituted
for the berries.

Roll out the crust less than half an inch thick—indeed, a quarter of
an inch will do—into an oblong sheet. Cover thickly with the fruit
and sprinkle with sugar. Begin at one end and roll it up closely, the
fruit inside. In putting this in, leave a narrow margin at the other
end of the roll, which should be folded down closely like the flap of a
pocket-book. Pinch the ends of the folded roll together, to prevent the
escape of the fruit, and baste up in a bag, the same size and shape as
the “valise.” Flour the bag well before putting in the pudding, having
previously dipped it—the cloth—into hot water, and wring it out.

Boil an hour and a half. Serve hot with sauce, and cut crosswise in
slices half an inch thick.

BOILED APPLE DUMPLINGS. (No. 1.) ✠

Make a paste according to the above receipt; cut in squares, and put
in the centre of each an apple, pared and cored. Bring the corners
together; enclose each dumpling in a small square cloth, tied up
bag-wise, leaving room to swell. Each cloth should be dipped in hot
water, wrung out and floured on the inside before the apple is put in.

Boil one hour.

APPLE DUMPLINGS. (No. 2.) ✠

1 quart flour.
¼ lb. suet.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar sifted in the flour.
Cold water enough to make into a tolerably stiff paste.

Roll out, cut into squares, put in the middle of each a fine, juicy
apple, pared and cored. Fill the hole left by the core with marmalade,
or with sugar wet with lemon-juice. Stick a clove in the sugar. Close
the paste, tie up in the cloths, when you have wet them with hot water
and floured them, and boil one hour.

A pleasing idea for dumpling cloths is to crochet them in a close
stitch with stout tidy cotton. They are easily done, wash and wear
well, and leave a very pretty pattern upon the paste when they are
opened. Crochet them round, with a cord for drawing run into the outer
edge.

BOILED FRUIT PUDDING.

Prepare a paste in accordance with either of the foregoing receipts,
but roll into one sheet. Lay apples, peaches, or berries in the centre,
paring and slicing the fruit; sprinkle with sugar, and close the paste
over them as you would a dumpling. Dip a stout cloth in hot water,
flour the inside, put in the pudding, tie tightly, and boil two hours
and a half.

Eat hot with sauce.

RICE DUMPLINGS. ✠

1 lb. rice boiled without stirring, until soft, and at the top dry.
12 pippins, pared and cored.
Strawberry marmalade or crab-apple jelly.

Let the rice cool upon a sieve or coarse cloth, that it may dry at the
same time. Dip your dumpling cloths in hot water; wring them out and
flour well inside. Put a handful of the cold rice upon each, spreading
it out into a smooth sheet. Lay in the centre an apple; fill the hole
left by the core with marmalade or jelly; draw up the cloth carefully
to enclose the apple with a coating of rice; tie, and boil one hour.

Turn over with care; pour sweet sauce or rich sweetened cream over
them, and send around more in a boat with them.

SUET DUMPLINGS (_plain._)

2 cups fine bread-crumbs, soaked in a very little milk.
1 cup beef suet, freed from strings, and powdered.
4 eggs, whites and yolks separated, and beaten very light.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted into the flour.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in boiling water
1 teaspoonful salt.
Enough milk to mix into a stiff paste.

Make into large balls with floured hands; put into dumpling cloths
dipped into hot water and floured inside; leave room to swell, and tie
the strings very tightly.

Boil three-quarters of an hour. Serve hot with wine sauce.

FRUIT SUET DUMPLINGS

Are made as above, with the addition of ½ lb. raisins, seeded, chopped,
and dredged with flour, and ¼ lb. currants, washed, dried, and dredged.

Boil one hour and a quarter.

BOILED INDIAN MEAL PUDDING.

1 quart milk.
1 quart Indian meal.
3 eggs.
3 heaping tablespoonfuls sugar, and 1 teaspoonful salt.
½ lb. beef suet, chopped into powder.

Scald the milk, and while boiling hot stir in the meal and suet with
the salt. When cold add the yolks, beaten light with the sugar, then
the whites. Dip your bag in hot water, flour it, and fill half-full
with the mixture, as it will swell very much. Boil five hours.

Eat very hot with butter and sugar.

CABINET PUDDING.

½ lb. flour.
¼ lb. butter.
5 eggs,
1½ lb. sugar.
½ lb. raisins, seeded and cut in three pieces each.
¼ lb. currants, washed and dried.
½ cup cream or milk.
½ lemon—juice and rind grated.

Cream the butter and sugar; add the beaten yolks, then the milk and the
flour, alternately, with the whites. Lastly, stir in the fruit, well
dredged with flour, turn into a buttered mould, and boil two hours and
a half at least.

Serve hot, with cabinet pudding sauce over it. (_See Sweet Sauces._)

EVE’S PUDDING.

1 heaping cup of fine dry bread-crumbs.
½ lb. pared and chopped apples.
½ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
6 oz. currants, washed and dried.
6 eggs.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, and same of allspice.
1 glass brandy.
1 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoonful salt.
½ lb. suet, chopped to powder.

Work the sugar into the beaten yolks; then the suet and crumbs, with
the chopped apples; next the brandy and spice, then the whipped whites;
lastly the fruit, well dredged with flour.

Boil in a buttered bowl or mould three hours. Eat hot with sauce.

THE QUEEN OF PLUM PUDDINGS.

1 lb. butter.
1 lb. of suet, freed from strings and chopped fine.
1 lb. of sugar.
2½ lbs. of flour.
2 lbs. of raisins, seeded, chopped, and dredged with flour.
2 lbs. of currants, picked over carefully after they are washed.
¼ lb. of citron, shred fine.
12 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 pint of milk.
1 cup of brandy.
½ oz. of cloves.
½ oz. of mace.
2 grated nutmegs.

Cream the butter and sugar; beat in the yolks when you have whipped
them smooth and light; next put in the milk; then the flour,
alternately with the beaten whites; then the brandy and spice; lastly
the fruit, well dredged with flour. Mix all thoroughly; wring out your
pudding-cloth in hot water; flour well inside, pour in the mixture, and
boil five hours.

I can confidently recommend this as the best plum pudding I have ever
tasted, even when the friend at whose table I had first the pleasure
of eating it imitated the example of “good King Arthur’s” economical
spouse, and what we “couldn’t eat that night,” “next _day_ fried,” by
heating a little butter in a frying-pan, and laying in slices of her
pudding, warmed them into almost their original excellence. It will
keep a long time—in a _locked_ closet or safe.

ORANGE ROLEY-POLEY. ✠

Make a light paste as for apple dumplings or valise pudding, roll in an
oblong sheet, and lay oranges (sweet ones), peeled, sliced, and seeded,
thickly all over it. Sprinkle with white sugar; scatter a teaspoonful
or two of the grated yellow peel over all and roll up closely, folding
down the end to secure the syrup. Boil in a pudding-cloth one hour and
a half.

Eat with lemon sauce.

CHERRY OR CURRANT PYRAMID. ✠

Wash and stone the cherries, or pick the currants from their stems.
Make some good light crust, roll it out a quarter of an inch thick,
and cut for the bottom a round piece about the size of a tea-plate.
You can use the top of a tin pail for a cutter. Spread your fruit upon
this, and sprinkle with sugar, leaving a half inch margin all around.
Roll out a second sheet an inch less in diameter than the first, lay
it carefully upon the fruit, and turn up the margin of the lower piece
over the edge of this. Spread this, in turn, with fruit and sugar, and
cover with a third and lessening round; proceeding in this order until
the sixth and topmost cover is not more than three inches across. Have
ready a conical cap of stout muslin adapted to the proportions and
dimensions of your pile; dip it in boiling water, flour inside, and
draw gently over all. It should be large enough to meet and tie under
the base without cramping the pyramid.

Boil two hours, and eat with sweet sauce.

FRITTERS, PANCAKES, ETC.

Have plenty of nice sweet lard in which to fry fritters, and test the
heat by dropping in a teaspoonful before you risk more. If right, the
batter will rise quickly to the surface in a puff-ball, spluttering
and dancing, and will speedily assume a rich golden-brown. Take up, as
soon as done, with a skimmer, shaking it to dislodge any drops of lard
that may adhere; pile in a hot dish, sift sugar over them, and send
instantly to the table. Fry as many at a time as the kettle will hold,
and send in hot fresh ones while the batter lasts. A round-bottomed
saucepan or kettle, rather wide at top, is best for frying them.

Use a frying-pan for pancakes; heat it; put in a teaspoonful or two of
lard and run it quickly over the bottom; then pour in a large ladleful
of batter—enough to cover the bottom of the pan with a thin sheet. Turn
with a tin spatula, very carefully, to avoid tearing it. The frying-pan
should be a small one. Have ready a hot dish; turn out the pancake upon
it, cover with powdered sugar, and roll up dexterously like a sheet of
paper. Send half a dozen to table at once, keeping them hot by setting
the dish in the oven until enough are baked.

I am thus explicit in these general instructions to save myself the
trouble, and the reader the tedium, of a repetition under each receipt.

In olden times it was a boast of notable cooks that they could toss
a pancake from the pan out of the top of the chimney with such
accuracy of calculation, that it would turn itself on the way back,
and settle in its place, ready, like St. Lawrence, to have the other
side fried. _I_ never saw a pancake tossed, although in my childish
days I saw hundreds fried by the honorable tribe—now so fast passing
away—of Old Virginia cooks. I do not advise this acrobatic system of
culinary exploit, especially for beginners. Indeed, I doubt if the
pancakes would be found equal to the journey in these days of tight
chimney-throats and cooking stoves. They must be out of practice as
well as their manufacturers. Be careful not to have too much grease in
the pan.

FRITTERS (_No. 1._) ✠

1 pint flour.
4 eggs.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 pint boiling water.

Stir the flour into the water by degrees, and stir until it has boiled
three minutes. Let it get almost cold, when beat in the yolks, then the
whites of the eggs, which must be previously whipped _stiff_.

FRITTERS (_No. 2._)

6 eggs.
1 quart milk.
3 cups flour.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream-tartar sifted into the flour.
A little salt.

Beat the yolks and whites separately, of course; stir the milk in with
the former, then the soda, the flour, and salt, finally the whites.
Beat very hard, and fry _at once_, in great ladlefuls.

APPLE FRITTERS. ✠

A batter according to the preceding receipt.
3 large juicy apples, pared and quartered.
1 glass brandy.
1 tablespoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.

Put the brandy, a very little water, the sugar, and the spice into a
covered saucepan with the apples. Stir gently until half done; drain
off the liquor, every drop; mince the apple when cold, and stir into
the batter.

_Or,_

You may parboil the apples in clear water, with a very little sugar,
and proceed as just directed.

JELLY FRITTERS.

1 scant cup sponge-cake crumbs—very fine and dry.
1 cup boiling milk.
4 eggs.
2 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch, wet in a little cold milk.
2 tablespoonfuls currant or cranberry jelly.

Soak the cake-crumbs in the boiling milk, and stir in the corn-starch.
Heat all together to a boil, stirring all the time. Beat the yolks
light, and add to this as it cools, with the sugar. Whip in the jelly,
a little at a time, and put in the whites—beaten to a stiff froth—at
the last.

Fry immediately.

BREAD FRITTERS.

1 quart milk—boiling-hot.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs (aërated bread is best).
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
1 tablespoonful butter—melted.
1 saltspoonful salt, and the same of soda, dissolved in hot water.

Soak the bread in the boiling milk ten minutes, in a covered bowl. Beat
to a smooth paste; add the whipped yolks, the butter, salt, soda, and
finally the whites, whipped stiff.

QUEEN’S TOAST. ✠

Fry slices of stale baker’s bread—aërated, if you can get it—in
boiling lard to a fine brown. Dip each slice quickly in boiling water
to remove the grease. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and pile upon a hot
plate. Before toasting, cut the slices with a round cake-cutter, taking
off all the crust. They look better when piled up. Pour sweet wine
sauce over them when hot, and serve at once.

JELLY-CAKE FRITTERS (_very nice_). ✠

Some stale sponge, or _plain_ cup cake, cut into rounds with
a cake-cutter.
Hot lard.
Strawberry or other jam, or jelly.
A little boiling milk.

Cut the cake carefully and fry a nice brown. Dip each slice for a
second in a bowl of boiling milk, draining this off on the side of the
vessel; lay on a hot dish and spread thickly with strawberry jam, peach
jelly, or other delicate conserve. Pile them neatly and send around
hot, with cream to pour over them.

This is a nice way of using up stale cake, and if rightly prepared, the
dessert is almost equal to Neapolitan pudding.

PANCAKES.

1 pint of flour.
6 eggs.
1 saltspoonful salt, and same of soda dissolved in vinegar.

Milk to make a _thin_ batter. Begin with two cups and add until the
batter is of the right consistency. Beat the yolks light, add the
salt, soda, and two cups of milk, then the flour and beaten whites
alternately, and thin with more milk.

JELLY OR JAM PANCAKES.

A batter as above. When the pancakes are fried, lay upon a hot plate,
spread quickly with nice jam or jelly, and roll up neatly upon the
preserves. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar, and send around with
wine sauce or sweetened cream.

SWEET, OR PUDDING SAUCES.

HARD SAUCE. ✠

Stir to a cream 1 cup of butter.
3 cups of powdered sugar.
When light, beat in ¾ teacup wine.
Juice of a lemon.
2 teaspoonfuls nutmeg.

Beat long and hard until several shades lighter in color than at first,
and creamy in consistency. Smooth into shape with a broad knife dipped
in cold water, and stamp with a wooden mould, first scalded and then
dipped in cold water. Set upon the ice until the pudding is served.

BEE-HIVE SAUCE. ✠

Mix a hard sauce according to the previous receipt, and when light, set
aside three or four tablespoonfuls in a plate. To the larger quantity
left add gradually, cherry, currant, or cranberry juice enough to color
it a good pink. Red jelly will do if berries are out of season. Beat
the coloring matter in thoroughly, and shape into a conical mound.
Roll half a sheet of note-paper into a long, narrow funnel, tie a
string about it to keep it in shape, and fill with the uncolored sauce.
Squeeze it out gently through the small end in a ridge, beginning at
the base of the cone and winding about it to the top, filling your
funnel as it is emptied, and guiding it carefully. The effect of the
alternate white-and pink lines is very pretty.

If the pudding is one to which chocolate would be a pleasant addition,
color with grated chocolate, rubbed smooth in a little of the wine, and
ridge with white. Set upon the ice or upon the cellar-floor until firm.
Stick a colored almond or other ornamental candy upon the top.

This bee-hive is easily made, and will set off even a plain pudding
handsomely.

BRANDY SAUCE (_hard._) ✠

½ cup butter.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 wineglass brandy.
1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.

Warm the butter very slightly, work in the sugar, and, when this is
light, the brandy and spice. Beat hard—shape into a mould and set in a
cold place until wanted.

WHITE WINE SAUCE (_liquid._) ✠

½ cup butter.
2½ cups powdered sugar.
2 wineglasses pale Sherry or white wine.
½ cup boiling water.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.

Work the butter into the sugar, moistening, as you go on, with boiling
water. Beat long and hard until your bowl is nearly full of a creamy
mixture. Then add gradually the wine and nutmeg, still beating hard.
Turn into a tin pail, set within a saucepan of boiling water, and stir
frequently until the sauce is hot, but _not_ until it boils. Take
the saucepan from the fire and leave the pail standing in the water,
stirring the contents now and then, until you are ready to serve the
pudding.

If rightly made, this sauce will be nearly as white as milk.

LEMON SAUCE. ✠

1 _large_ cup of sugar.
Nearly half a cup of butter.
1 egg.
1 lemon—all the juice and half the grated peel.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.
3 tablespoonfuls boiling water.

Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the egg whipped light; the lemon
and nutmeg. Beat hard ten minutes, and add, a spoonful at a time, the
boiling water. Put in a tin pail and set within the uncovered top of
the tea-kettle, which you must keep boiling until the steam heats the
sauce very hot, but not to boiling. Stir constantly.

MILK PUDDING SAUCE. ✠

2 eggs, beaten stiff.
1 large cup of sugar.
5 tablespoonfuls boiling milk.
½ teaspoonful arrow-root or corn-starch, wet with cold milk.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg, or mace.
1 tablespoonful butter.

Rub the butter into the sugar, add the beaten eggs, and work all
to a creamy froth. Wet the corn-starch and put in next with the
spice—finally, pour in by the spoonful the boiling milk, beating well
all the time. Set within a saucepan of boiling water five minutes,
stirring all the while, but do not let the sauce boil.

This is a good sauce for bread and other simple puddings.

CABINET PUDDING SAUCE. ✠

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

Rub the butter into the sugar, add the yolks, lemon, and spice. Beat
ten minutes and put in the wine, still stirring hard. Set within a
saucepan of boiling water, and beat while it heats, but do not let it
boil.

Pour over the pudding.

FRUIT PUDDING SAUCE. ✠

½ cup butter.
2½ cups sugar.
1 dessert spoonful corn-starch wet in a little cold milk.
1 lemon—juice and half the grated peel.
1 glass of wine.
1 cup boiling water.

Cream the butter and sugar well; pour the corn-starch into the boiling
water and stir over a clear fire until it is well thickened; put all
together in a bowl and beat five minutes before returning to the
saucepan. Heat once, almost to the boiling point, add the wine, and
serve.

CUSTARD SAUCE.

1 pint of milk.
2 eggs, beaten very light.
½ wineglass of brandy.
1 cup powdered sugar, stirred into the eggs.
Nutmeg to taste.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.

Heat the milk to boiling, and add by degrees to the beaten eggs and
sugar; put in the nutmeg, and set within a saucepan of boiling water.
Stir until it begins to thicken. Take it off and add the brandy
gradually. Set, until it is wanted, within a pan of boiling water.

Pour over the pudding when it comes from the mould.

JELLY SAUCE. ✠

½ cup currant jelly.
1 tablespoonful butter, melted.
½ dessert spoonful arrowroot or corn-starch; wet with cold water.
1 glass pale Sherry.
3 tablespoonfuls boiling water.

Stir the arrowroot into the boiling water and heat, stirring all the
time, until it thickens; add the butter, and set aside until almost
cool, when beat in, spoonful by spoonful, the jelly to a smooth pink
paste. Pour in the wine, stir hard, and heat in a tin vessel, set
within another of boiling water, until very hot.

Pour over and around Neapolitan, bread-and-marmalade puddings, cake
fritters, and Queen’s toast.

SWEETENED CREAM (_cold._)

1 pint of cream.
4 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.

Mix all well together, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Eat
with jam puddings, queen of all puddings, Alice’s pudding, and peach
roley-poley.

CREAM SAUCE (_hot._) ✠

1 pint cream.
4 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar.
Whites of two eggs, beaten stiff.
Extract of vanilla or bitter almonds, one teaspoonful.
1 teaspoonful nutmeg.

Heat the cream slowly in a vessel set in a saucepan of boiling water,
stirring often. When scalding, but not boiling hot, remove it from the
fire, put in the sugar and nutmeg; stir three or four minutes and add
the whites. Mix thoroughly and flavor, setting the bowl containing it
in a pan of hot water until the pudding is served, stirring now and
then.

JELLY SAUCE. (_No. 2_). ✠

½ cup currant jelly.
2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
1 lemon—juice and half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
2 glasses wine, and a tablespoonful powdered sugar.

Heat the butter a little more than blood-warm; beat the jelly to a
smooth batter and add gradually the butter, the lemon, and nutmeg. Warm
almost to a boil, stirring all the while; beat hard, put in the sugar,
lastly the wine. Set in a vessel of hot water stirring now and then,
until it is wanted. Keep it covered to hinder the escape of the wine
flavor. Stir well before pouring out.

This is a very fine sauce, particularly for cabinet and Neopolitan
puddings.

CUSTARDS, BLANC-MANGE, JELLIES, AND CREAMS.

A good rule for custard is five eggs to a quart of milk, and a
tablespoonful of sugar to each egg, although a good plain custard can
be made with an egg for each cup of milk and four tablespoonfuls of
sugar to the quart. Creams and custards that are to be frozen must have
at least one-third more sugar than those which are not to undergo this
process.

In heating the milk for custard, do not let it quite boil before adding
the yolks. My plan, which has proved a safe one thus far, is to take
the scalding milk from the fire, and instead of pouring the beaten
eggs into it, to put a spoonful or two of the milk to _them_, beating
well all the while, adding more and more milk as I mix, until there is
no longer danger of sudden curdling. Then, return all to the fire and
boil gently until the mixture is of the right consistency. From ten to
fifteen minutes should thicken a quart. Stir constantly. A pinch of
soda added in hot weather will prevent the milk from curdling.

_Always boil milk and custard in a vessel set within another of boiling
water._ If you have not a custard or farina kettle, improvise one by
setting a tin pail inside of a pot of hot water, taking care it does
not float, also that the water is not so deep as to bubble over the
top. Custards are better and lighter if the yolks and whites are beaten
separately, the latter stirred in at the last.

BOILED CUSTARD. ✠

1 quart of milk.
Yolks of five eggs and the whites of seven—(two for the méringue).
6 tablespoonfuls sugar.
Vanilla flavoring—1 teaspoonful to the pint.

Heat the milk almost to boiling; beat the yolks light and stir in the
sugar. Add the milk in the manner described in “general directions”
at head of this section; stir in five whites whipped stiff; return
to the fire and stir until thick, but not until it breaks. Season it
with vanilla, pour into glass cups; whip the whites of two eggs to a
méringue with a heaping tablespoonful of powdered sugar, and when the
custard is cold, pile a little of this upon the top of each cup. You
may lay a preserved strawberry or cherry, or a bit of melon sweetmeat,
or a little bright jelly upon each.

ALMOND CUSTARDS.

1 pint milk (half cream).
¼ lb. almonds, blanched and pounded to a paste, a few at a time in
a Wedgewood mortar, adding gradually—
2 tablespoonfuls of rose-water.
Yolks of three eggs and whites of four—(two for méringue).
4 tablespoonfuls sugar.
1 teaspoonful extract bitter almond in méringue.

Scald the milk, add the beaten yolks, the sugar, the almond paste, and
the whites of two eggs. Boil, stirring constantly until it thickens.
Stir up well when almost cold and pour into cups. Make a méringue of
the whites of two eggs and two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, flavored
with bitter almond, and heap upon each cup.

QUAKING CUSTARD. ✠

3 cups milk.
Yolks of four eggs—reserving the whites for méringue.
½ package Cooper’s or Coxe’s gelatine.
6 tablespoonfuls sugar.
Vanilla or lemon flavoring. Juice of a lemon in méringue.

Soak the gelatine in a cup of the cold milk two hours. Then heat the
rest of the milk to boiling, add that in which the gelatine is, and
stir over the fire until the latter is quite dissolved. Take from
the fire, and let it stand five minutes before putting in the beaten
yolks and sugar. Heat slowly until it begins to thicken perceptibly,
not boil—say seven or eight minutes, stirring constantly. When nearly
cold, having stirred it every few minutes during the time, flavor it,
wash out your mould in cold water, and without wiping it, pour in the
custard and set on the ice or in a cold place to harden. When quite
firm, turn into a cold dish, loosening it by wrapping about the mould
a cloth wrung out in hot water, or dipping the mould for an instant in
warm, not boiling water. Have ready the whites whipped to a froth with
three tablespoonfuls powdered sugar and juice of a lemon. Heap neatly
about the base of the moulded custard, like snow-drifts. If you like,
you may dot this with minute bits of currant jelly.

This is a pleasing dish to the eye and taste,

FLOATING ISLAND. ✠

1 quart of milk.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
4 tablespoonfuls (heaping) white sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls extract bitter almond or vanilla.
½ cup currant jelly.

Beat the yolks well, stir in the sugar, and add the hot, not boiling
milk, a little at a time. Boil until it begins to thicken. When cool,
flavor and pour into a glass dish, first stirring it up well. Heap upon
it a méringue of the whites into which you have beaten, gradually,
half a cup of currant, cranberry, or other bright tart jelly. Dot with
bits of jelly cut into rings or stars, or straight slips laid on in a
pattern.

SPANISH CREAM. ✠

½ box of gelatine.
1 quart of milk.
Yolks of three eggs.
1 small cup of sugar.

Soak the gelatine an hour in the milk; put on the fire and stir well as
it warms. Beat the yolks very light with the sugar, add to the scalding
milk, and heat to boiling point, stirring all the while. Strain through
thin muslin or tarlatan, and when almost cold, put into a mould wet
with cold water. Flavor with vanilla or lemon.

BAVARIAN CREAM (_Very fine._) ✠

1 quart sweet cream.
Yolks only of four eggs.
½ oz. of gelatine or isinglass.
1 cup (small) of sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla or bitter almond extract.

Soak the gelatine in just enough cold water to cover it, for an hour.
Drain, and stir into a pint of the cream made boiling hot. Beat the
yolks smooth with the sugar, and add the boiling mixture, beaten in a
little at a time. Heat until it begins to thicken, but do not actually
boil; remove it from the fire, flavor, and while it is still hot stir
in the other pint of cream, whipped or churned in a syllabub churn to
a stiff froth. Beat in this “whip,” a spoonful at a time, into the
custard until it is the consistency of sponge-cake batter. Dip a mould
in cold water, pour in the mixture, and set on the ice to form.

SNOW CUSTARD. ✠

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

Soak the gelatine one hour in a teacupful of cold water. To this,
at the end of this time, add one pint boiling water. Stir until the
gelatine is thoroughly dissolved; add two-thirds of the sugar and the
lemon-juice. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the
gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time,
for an hour. Whip steadily and evenly, and when all is stiff, pour into
a mould, previously wet with cold water, and set in a cold place. In
four or five hours turn into a glass dish.

Make a custard of the milk, eggs, and remainder of the sugar, flavor
with vanilla or bitter almond, and when the méringue is turned out of
the mould, pour this around the base.

BAKED CUSTARD. ✠

1 quart of milk.
5 eggs, beaten light—whites and yolks separately.
5 tablespoonfuls sugar, mixed with the yolks.
Nutmeg and vanilla.

Scald but not boil the milk; add by degrees to the beaten yolks, and
when well mixed, stir in the whites. Flavor, and pour into a deep dish,
or custard-cups of white stone-china. Set these in a pan of hot water,
grate nutmeg upon each, and bake until firm. Eat cold from the cups.

FRENCH TAPIOCA CUSTARD. ✠

5 dessert spoonfuls tapioca.
1 quart of milk.
1 pint of cold water.
3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful vanilla, or other essence.
1 heaping cup of sugar.
A pinch of salt.

Soak the tapioca in the water five hours. Let the milk come to a boil;
add the tapioca, the water in which it was boiled, and a good pinch of
salt. Stir until boiling hot, and add gradually to the beaten yolks
and sugar. Boil again (_always_ in a vessel set within another of hot
water), stirring constantly. Let it cook until thick, but not too long,
as the custard will break. Five minutes after it reaches the boil will
suffice. Pour into a bowl, and stir gently into the mixture the whites
of the eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Flavor, and set aside in a glass
dish until very cold.

Eat with an accompaniment of light cake and brandied, or canned
peaches or pears. This will be found a very delightful dessert.

TAPIOCA BLANC-MANGE. ✠

½ lb. tapioca, soaked in a cup of cold water four hours.
1 pint rich new milk.
¾ cup of sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls bitter almond or vanilla essence.
A little salt.

Heat the milk, and stir in the soaked tapioca. When it has dissolved,
add the sugar. Boil slowly fifteen minutes, stirring all the time; take
from the fire, and beat until nearly cold. Flavor and pour into a mould
dipped in cold water. Turn out, and pour cold sweetened cream around it.

SAGO BLANC-MANGE.

May be made in the same way as tapioca.

CORN-STARCH BLANC-MANGE. ✠

1 quart of milk.
4 tablespoonfuls corn-starch, wet in a little cold water.
3 eggs, well beaten—whites and yolks separately.
1 cup of sugar.
Vanilla, lemon, or other essence.
1 saltspoonful salt.

Heat the milk to boiling; stir in the corn-starch and salt, and boil
together five minutes (in a farina-kettle), then add the yolks, beaten
light, with the sugar; boil two minutes longer, stirring all the while;
remove the mixture from the fire, and beat in the whipped whites while
it is boiling hot. Pour into a mould wet with cold water, and set in a
cold place. Eat with sugar and cream.

FARINA BLANC-MANGE

Is made according to the above receipt, but boiled fifteen minutes
before the eggs are added. You may omit the eggs if you like, and only
want a plain dessert.

ARROWROOT BLANC-MANGE. ✠

3 cups of new milk.
2½ tablespoonfuls of arrowroot, wet up with cold milk.
¾ cup of sugar.
Vanilla, lemon, or bitter almond flavoring, with a little white wine.

Mix the arrowroot to a smooth batter with one cup of the milk. Heat the
remainder to boiling; add the arrowroot, stirring constantly. When it
begins to thicken put in the sugar, and cook ten minutes longer, still
stirring it well from the sides and bottom. Take it off; beat well five
minutes; flavor with the essence and a small wineglass of white wine.
Give a hard final stir before putting it into a mould wet with cold
water.

This is very nourishing for invalids and young children. For the latter
you may omit the wine.

ALMOND BLANC-MANGE. ✠

1 quart of milk.
1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine.
3 ozs. of almonds, blanched and pounded in a mortar, with
1 tablespoonful of rose-water, added to prevent oiling.
¾ cup sugar.

Heat the milk to boiling, having previously soaked the gelatine in a
cup of it for an hour. Turn in this when the milk is scalding hot; add
the pounded almond-paste, and stir all together ten minutes before
putting in the sugar. When the gelatine has dissolved, remove the
blanc-mange from the vessel of boiling water in which you have cooked
it, and strain through a thin muslin bag, pressing it well to get out
the flavor of the almonds. There should be three or four bitter ones
among them. Wet a mould with cold water, put in the blanc-mange, and
set in a cold place until firm.

You may make blanc-mange without the almonds, although it will not be
so nice—and substitute vanilla for the rose-water.

NEAPOLITAN BLANC-MANGE. ✠

Make according to the foregoing receipt, and, after straining, separate
into four different portions, allowing about a cupful of the mixture
for each. Have ready

1 great tablespoonful chocolate, wet with a very little boiling
water, and rubbed to a smooth paste, for the brown coloring.
Yolk of an egg beaten light for the yellow.
1 great tablespoonful of currant jelly for the pink.

Beat the chocolate into one portion, mixing it well; the jelly into
another, the egg into a third, returning this and that flavored with
chocolate, to the fire, and stirring until very hot, but not boiling.
Leave the fourth uncolored. When quite cold and a little stiff, pour
carefully into a wet mould—the white first; then the pink; next the
yellow; and the chocolate last. Of course, when the blanc-mange is
turned out, this order of colors will be reversed. Set in a cold
place. Loosen, when firm, by dipping the mould for a moment in warm
water, and working the top free from the edge with a few light touches
of your fingers. This is a handsome dish and easily managed. Currant
juice or cranberry color a finer pink than jelly, but are apt to thin
the blanc-mange, unless used cautiously. A little vanilla improves the
chocolate.

JAUNE-MANGE. ✠

1 oz. Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in half a cup cold water one hour.
1 cup of boiling water.
Yolks of four eggs beaten very light.
1 orange, juice and half the grated peel.
1 lemon, juice and one-third the grated peel.
1 cup white wine or clear pale Sherry.
1 cup powdered sugar and a good pinch cinnamon.

Stir the soaked gelatine in the boiling water until dissolved; take
from the fire and beat, a little at a time, into the yolks; return to
the inner saucepan with the sugar, orange, lemon and cinnamon. Stir
over a clear fire until it is boiling hot; put in the wine and strain
through a hair-sieve or a piece of tarlatan. Set away in a mould wet
with cold water.

The success of this dish depends much upon the stirring and the
watchfulness of the cook. The mixture should not be allowed to boil at
any moment.

VELVET BLANC-MANGE. ✠

2 cups of sweet cream.
½ oz. Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in a very little cold water one hour.
½ cup white sugar (powdered.)
1 teaspoonful extract of bitter almonds.
1 glass white wine.

Heat the cream to boiling, stir in the gelatine and sugar, and, so soon
as they are dissolved, take from the fire. Beat ten minutes, or, what
is better, churn in a syllabub-churn until very light; flavor, and add
by degrees the wine, mixing it in well. Put into moulds wet with cold
water.

CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE.

1 quart of milk.
1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in a cup of the milk one hour.
4 heaping tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate, rubbed up with
a little milk.
3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
¾ cup sugar and 2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla.

Heat the milk to boiling; pour in the gelatine and milk, and stir
until it is dissolved; add the sugar to the beaten yolks and stir
until smooth; beat the chocolate into this, and pour in, spoonful by
spoonful, the scalding milk upon the mixture, stirring all the while
until all is in. Return to the inner saucepan and heat gently, stirring
faithfully until it almost boils. Remove from fire, turn into a bowl,
and whip in lightly and briskly the beaten whites with the vanilla. Set
to form in moulds wet with cold water.

CHARLOTTE RUSSE. ✠

1 lb. of lady’s-fingers.
1 quart of rich sweet cream.
¾ cup powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla or other extract.

Split and trim the cakes, and fit neatly in the bottom and sides of two
quart moulds. Whip the cream to a stiff froth in a syllabub-churn when
you have sweetened and flavored it; fill the moulds, lay cakes closely
together on the top, and set upon the ice until needed.

_Or,_

You may use for this purpose a loaf of sponge-cake, cutting strips from
it for the sides and leaving the crust for the bottom and top, each in
one piece.

A TIPSY CHARLOTTE. ✠

1 large stale sponge-cake.
1 pint rich sweet cream.
1 cup Sherry wine.
½ oz. Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in a cup of cold water two hours.
1 teaspoonful vanilla or bitter almond extract.
3 eggs, whites and yolks beaten together, but very light.
1 pint milk.
1 cup sugar.

Heat the cream almost to boiling; put in the soaked gelatine and half a
cup of sugar, and stir until dissolved. Remove from the fire, flavor,
and when cool, beat or churn to a standing froth. Cut off the top of
the cake in one piece, and scoop out the middle, leaving the sides and
bottom three-quarters of an inch thick. Over the inside of these pour
the wine in spoonfuls, that all may be evenly moistened. Fill with the
whipped cream, replace the top, which should also be moistened with
wine and set in a cold place until needed.

Serve with it, or pour around it, a custard made of the eggs, milk, and
the other half cup of sugar.

CHOCOLATE CHARLOTTE RUSSE. ✠

½ oz. Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in a very little cold water.
3 tablespoonfuls grated chocolate rubbed smooth in a little milk.
½ cup powdered sugar.
4 eggs.
½ lb. sponge-cake.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
1 pint cream.

Heat the cream to boiling, slowly, stirring frequently; add the sugar,
chocolate, and gelatine, and, when these are dissolved, add, a spoonful
at a time, to the beaten yolks. Set back in the saucepan of boiling
water, and stir five minutes, until very hot, but do not let it boil.
Take it off, flavor, and whip or churn to a standing froth, adding the
beaten whites toward the last. Line a mould with cake, fill with the
mixture, and set upon the ice.

FLUMMERY.

2 oz. almonds—a few bitter among them.
1 tablespoonful orange-flower or rose-water.
1 pint cream.
1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine, soaked one hour in one cup cold water.
1 cup milk.
½ cup sugar.

Blanch the almonds, and, when cold, pound them to a paste in a
Wedgewood mortar, adding orange-flower or rose-water to prevent
oiling. Heat the _milk_ to boiling, put in the gelatine, the sugar
and almonds, and stir five minutes, or until they are thoroughly
dissolved. Strain through thin muslin, pressing the cloth well. When
cool, beat in the cream, a little at a time, with an egg-whip, or churn
in a syllabub-churn until thick and stiff. Wet your mould, put in the
mixture, and let it stand seven or eight hours in a cold place.

GELATINE CHARLOTTE RUSSE. (_Very nice._) ✠

1 pint of cream, whipped light.
½ oz. gelatine, dissolved in 1 gill of hot milk.
Whites of 2 eggs, beaten to a stiff froth.
1 small teacup of powdered sugar.
Flavor with bitter almond and vanilla.

Mix the cream, eggs, and sugar; flavor, and beat in the gelatine and
milk last. It should be quite cold before it is added.

Line a mould with slices of sponge-cake, or with lady’s fingers, and
fill with the mixture.

Set upon the ice to cool.

WHIPPED SYLLABUBS.

1 pint of cream, rich and sweet.
½ cup sugar, powdered.
1 glass of wine.
Vanilla or other extract, 1 large teaspoonful.

Sweeten the cream, and, when the sugar is thoroughly dissolved, churn
to a strong froth. Lastly, stir in wine and seasoning, carefully. Serve
at once.

Heap in glasses, and eat with cake.

GOOSEBERRY FOOL.

1 quart of gooseberries, ripe.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 cup of sugar.
Yolks of four eggs.
Méringue of whites, and 3 tablespoonfuls sugar.

Stew the gooseberries in just water enough to cover them. When soft and
broken, rub them through a sieve to remove the skins. While still hot
beat in the butter, sugar, and the whipped yolks of the eggs. Pile in
a glass dish, or in small glasses, and heap upon the top a méringue of
the whipped whites and sugar.

CREAM MÉRINGUES.

4 eggs (the whites only), whipped stiff, with 1 lb. powdered sugar.
Lemon or vanilla flavoring.
1 teaspoonful arrowroot.

When _very_ stiff, heap in the shape of half an egg upon stiff
letter-paper lining the bottom of your baking-pan. Have them half
an inch apart. Do not shut the oven-door closely, but leave a space
through which you can watch them. When they are a light yellow-brown,
take them out and cool quickly. Slip a thin-bladed knife under each;
scoop out the soft inside, and fill with cream whipped as for Charlotte
Russe.

They are very fine. The oven should be very hot.

CALF’S-FOOT JELLY.

4 calf’s feet, cleaned carefully.
4 quarts of water.
1 pint of wine.
3 cups of sugar—or sweeten to taste.
Whites of 3 eggs, well beaten.
2 teaspoonfuls of nutmeg.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.

Boil the calf’s feet in the water until it is reduced one half; strain
the liquor, and let it stand ten or twelve hours. Skim off every
particle of the fat, and remove the dregs; melt slowly in a porcelain
or bell-metal kettle, add the seasoning, sugar, and the whipped whites
of the eggs, and boil fast about twelve minutes, skimming well. Strain
through a double flannel bag suspended between the four legs of an
upturned high stool or backless chair, the bowl set beneath. Do not
squeeze or shake it, until the jelly ceases to run freely; then slip
out the bowl, and put under another, into which you may gently press
what remains. The first will be the clearer jelly, although the second
dripping will taste quite as well. Wet your moulds, put in the jelly,
and set in a cool place.

There are still some housekeepers who insist that the jellies made
from the modern gelatine are not comparable in beauty and flavor to
those prepared from the genuine feet. Seeing means taste as well
as belief with them, and when they handle and behold the beloved
feet, they know what they are about. Gelatine, they will darkly and
disgustfully assert, is made of horn-shavings and hoofs and the like,
and no more fit to be used for cooking purposes than so much glue.

Nevertheless, while gelatine is so clean, bright, and convenient,
housewives who find the days now but half as long as did their mothers,
despite labor-saving machines, will turn a deaf ear to these alarmists,
and escape the tedious process above-described by using the valuable
substitute.

WINE JELLY. ✠

3 cups of sugar.
1 pint of wine—pale Sherry or White.
1 cup of cold water.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine.
Juice of two lemons and grated peel of one.
1 quart of boiling water.
1 good pinch of cinnamon.

Soak the gelatine in the cold water one hour. Add to this the sugar,
lemons, and cinnamon; pour over all a quart of boiling water, and stir
until the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Put in the wine, strain
through a double flannel bag, without squeezing, wet your moulds with
cold water, and set the jelly away in them to cool.

CIDER JELLY. ✠

May be made by the receipt just given, substituting a pint of clear,
sweet cider for the wine.

Fever patients may use cider jelly when wine is forbidden, and they
will find this both refreshing and nutritious.

BIRD’S NEST IN JELLY. ✠

1 quart of jelly, made according to either of the receipts just
given, but with a cup less of boiling water, that it may be
very firm.
3 cups of white blanc-mange.
9 empty eggshells.
Fresh rinds of two oranges.
1 cup of sugar.

Cut the rind from the oranges in long narrow strips, and stew these
gently in enough water to cover them until they are tender. Add to them
a cup of sugar, and simmer fifteen minutes longer in the syrup. Lay
them out upon a dish to cool, taking care not to break them. If you
have preserved orange-peel in the house, it will save you the trouble
of preparing this.

The blanc-mange should be made the day before you want it, and the
eggshells filled. The original contents, yolk and white, should be
poured out through a hole, not larger than a half-dime, in the small
end, and the interior washed with pure water, shaken around well in
them. Then fill with blanc-mange and set in a pan of flour or sugar—the
open end up—that they may not be jostled or overturned.

Next morning fill a glass dish two-thirds full of the jelly, which
should be very clear, reserving a large cupful. Break the shells from
about the blanc-mange, and lay the artificial eggs upon the jelly so
soon as the latter is firm enough to bear them. Pile them neatly, but
not too high in the middle, bearing in mind that what is the top now
will be the bottom when the jelly is turned out. Lay the orange peel
which represents _straw_, over these and around them. Warm the reserved
jelly, so that it will flow readily, but do not get it hot; pour over
the straw and eggs, and set away in a cold place to form. When firm,
turn out upon a glass dish or salver.

This pretty and fanciful dish is yet easily made. The materials are so
simple and inexpensive, and the effect of the work, if deftly done, so
pleasing, that I have no hesitation in calling the attention even of
novices to it.

WINE JELLY (_boiled._)

1 box Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 pint of cold water one hour.
1 quart of boiling water poured over this, and stirred until
the gelatine is dissolved.
1½ lb. white sugar.
2 lemons—juice and peel.
1 pint of wine.

Put all over the fire, boil up once well, and strain through a double
flannel bag into moulds.

ORANGE JELLY. ✠

2 oranges—juice of both and grated rind of one.
1 lemon—juice and peel.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a very little water, one hour.
1 quart boiling water.
1½ cup sugar, and 1 small cup of wine.
1 good pinch of cinnamon.

Squeeze the juice of the fruit into a bowl, and put with them the
grated peel and the cinnamon. Pour over them the boiling water, cover
closely, and let them stand half an hour. Strain, add the sugar,
let it come to a boil, stir in the gelatine, and, when this is well
dissolved, take the saucepan from the fire. Strain through a double
flannel bag into moulds.

VARIEGATED JELLY. ✠

1 quart of clear jelly.
½ teaspoonful prepared cochineal or red currant juice.
1 cup white blanc-mange.

Divide the jelly into two equal portions, and color one with a _very_
little prepared cochineal, leaving the other as it is, of a pale amber.
Wet a mould with cold water and pour in a little of the latter. Set the
mould in the ice, that the jelly may harden quickly, and so soon as it
is firm pour in carefully some of the red. Set back upon the ice to
get ready for the amber, adding the two colors in this order until you
are ready for the base, which should be wider than the other stripes,
and consist of the white blanc-mange. Keep both jelly and blanc-mange
near the fire until you have filled the mould—I mean, of course, that
intended for the latest layers. Let all get very firm before you turn
it out.

You may vary two moulds of this jelly by having the blanc-mange base of
one colored with chocolate, a narrow white stripe above relieving the
grave effect of the brown.

ICE-CREAM AND OTHER ICES.

If you wish to prepare ice-cream at an hour’s notice, you cannot do
better than to purchase the best patent freezer you can procure. I had
one once which would freeze cream admirably in half an hour. I have
forgotten the patentee’s name, and perhaps this is well for him, since
truth would oblige me to record an unlucky habit his machine had of
getting out of order just when I wanted it to do its best. My earliest
recollections of ice-cream are of the discordant grinding of the
well-worn freezer among the blocks of ice packed about it—a monotone
of misery, that, had it been unrelieved by agreeable associations of
the good to which it was “leading up,” would not have been tolerated
out of Bedlam. For one, two, three, sometimes four hours, it went on
without other variety than the harsher sounds of the fresh ice and the
rattling “swash” as the freezer plunged amid the icy brine when these
were nearly melted; without cessation save when the unhappy operator
nodded over his work, or was relieved by another predestined victim of
luxury and ennui—a battalion of the laziest juveniles upon the place
being detailed for this purpose. I verily believed in those days that
the freezing could not be facilitated by energetic action, and used to
think how fortunate it was that small darkies had a predilection for
this drowsy employment. I shall never forget my amazement at seeing
a brisk Yankee housewife lay hold of the handle of the ponderous tin
cylinder, and whirl it with such will and celerity, back and forth,
back and forth, that the desired end came to pass in three-quarters of
an hour.

That day has gone by. Time has grown too precious now even to juvenile
contrabands for them to sit half the day shaking a freezer under the
locust-tree on the old plantation lawn. Machines that will do the
work in one-tenth of the time, with one-fiftieth of the labor, are
sold at every corner. But, so far as I know, it was reserved for a
nice old lady up in the “Jersey” mountains—the tidiest, thriftiest,
most cheerful bee I ever knew—to show her neighbors and acquaintances
that ice-cream could be made to freeze itself. For twelve years I
have practised her method, with such thankfulness to her, and such
satisfaction to my guests and family, that I eagerly embrace the
opportunity of circulating the good news.

SELF-FREEZING ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart rich milk.
8 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very light.
4 cups sugar.
3 pints rich sweet cream.
5 teaspoonfuls vanilla or other seasoning, or 1 vanilla bean,
broken in two, boiled in the custard, and left in until
it is cold.

Heat the _milk_ almost to boiling, beat the eggs light, add the sugar,
and stir up well. Pour the hot milk to this, little by little, beating
all the while, and return to the fire—boiling in a pail or saucepan
set within one of hot water. Stir the mixture steadily about fifteen
minutes, or until it is thick as boiled custard. Pour into a bowl
and set aside to cool. When quite cold, beat in the cream, and the
flavoring, unless you have used the bean.

Have ready a quantity of ice, cracked in pieces not larger than a
pigeon egg—the smaller the better. You can manage this easily by
laying a great lump of ice between two folds of coarse sacking or an
old carpet, tucking it in snugly, and battering it, through the cloth,
with a sledge-hammer or mallet until fine enough. There is no waste
of ice, nor need you take it in your hands at all—only gather up the
corners of the carpet or cloth, and slide as much as you want into the
outer vessel. Use an ordinary old-fashioned upright freezer, set in a
deep pail; pack around it closely, first, a layer of pounded ice, then
one of rock salt—_common salt will not do so well_. In this order fill
the pail; but before covering the freezer-lid, remove it carefully
that none of the salt may get in, and, with a long wooden ladle or
flat stick (I had one made on purpose), beat the custard as you would
batter, for five minutes, without stay or stint. Replace the lid,
pack the ice and salt upon it, patting it down hard on top; cover all
with several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it for one hour.
Then remove the cover of the freezer when you have wiped it carefully
outside. You will find within a thick coating of frozen custard upon
the bottom and sides. Dislodge this with your ladle, which should be
thin at the lower end, or with a long carving-knife, working every
particle of it clear. Beat again hard and long until the custard is a
smooth, half-congealed paste. The smoothness of the ice-cream depends
upon your action at this juncture. Put on the cover, pack in more ice
and salt, and turn off the brine. Spread the double carpet over all
once more, having buried the freezer out of sight in ice, and leave it
for three or four hours. Then, if the water has accumulated in such
quantity as to buoy up the freezer, pour it off, fill up with ice and
salt, but do not open the freezer. In two hours more you may take
it from the ice, open it, wrap a towel, wrung out in boiling water,
about the lower part, and turn out a solid column of cream, firm,
close-grained, and smooth as velvet to the tongue.

Should the ice melt very fast, you may have to turn off the water more
than twice; but this will seldom happen except in very hot weather.
You need not devote fifteen minutes in all to the business after the
custard is made. You may go into the cellar before breakfast, having
made the custard overnight, stir in the cold cream and flavoring,
get it into the freezer and comfortably packed down before John has
finished shaving, and by choosing the times for your stolen visits
to the lower regions, surprise him and the children at a one-o’clock
dinner by the most delicious dessert in the world. I have often
laughed in my sleeve at seeing _my_ John walk through the cellar in
search of some mislaid basket or box, whistling carelessly, without a
suspicion that his favorite delicacy was coolly working out its own
solidification under the inverted barrel on which I chanced to be
leaning at his entrance.

Any of the following receipts for _custard_ ice-cream may be frozen in
like manner. Do not spare salt, and be sure your ice is finely cracked,
and after the second beating do not let the air again into the freezer.
If you cannot get dry rock salt, that which settles at the bottom of
fish-barrels will do just as well. Keep the freezer hidden, from first
to last, by the ice heaped over it, except when you have to lift the
lid on the occasions I have specified.

CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart of cream.
1 pint new milk.
2 cups sugar.
2 eggs beaten very light.
5 tablespoonfuls chocolate rubbed smooth in a little milk.

Heat the milk almost to boiling, and pour, by degrees, in with the
beaten egg and sugar. Stir in the chocolate, beat well three minutes,
and return to the inner kettle. Heat until it thickens well, stirring
constantly; take from the fire and set aside to cool. Many think a
little vanilla an improvement. When the custard is cold, beat in the
cream. Freeze.

ALMOND ICE-CREAM.

3 oz. sweet almonds and 1 oz. of bitter, blanched, and, when cold,
pounded to a paste, a few at a time, in a Wedgewood mortar,
adding
2 tablespoonfuls of rose-water to prevent oiling.
3 pints cream—fresh and sweet.
Nearly 2 cups of sugar.
1 tablespoonful of arrowroot, wet up with cold water.

Heat one pint cream almost to boiling, add the sugar, and when this is
melted, the almonds. Simmer ten minutes, stirring often, remove from
the fire, and let it stand together ten minutes longer in a covered
vessel. Strain the cream, pressing the bag hard to get the full flavor
of the almonds, return to the inner saucepan and stir in the arrowroot
until the cream thickens—say five minutes. When cold, beat very light
with an egg-whip, adding gradually the rest of the cream. It should be
light in half an hour. Then freeze.

If you wish to mould your cream in fancy shapes, open your freezer
two hours after the second stirring and transfer the cream to a tight
mould, having given it a third vigorous beating. Pack this down in ice
and salt, and let it stand two hours longer than you would have done
had it remained in the freezer.

COFFEE ICE-CREAM.

3 pints of cream.
1 cup of black coffee—very strong and clear.
2 cups sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls arrowroot, wet up with cold water.

Heat half the cream nearly to boiling, stir in the sugar, and, when
this is melted, the coffee; then the arrowroot. Boil all together five
minutes, stirring constantly. When cold, beat up very light, whipping
in the rest of the cream by degrees. Then freeze.

I cannot say certainly that this can be frozen without turning,
although I see no reason why it should not, since the arrowroot gives
it the consistency of custard.

ITALIAN CREAM. ✠

2 pints of cream.
2 cups of sugar.
2 lemons—juice and grated peel.
2 tablespoonfuls of brandy.

Sweeten the cream and beat in the lemons gradually, not to curdle it;
add the brandy and freeze in a patent freezer, or by turning quickly.
In turning the freezer, open twice during the operation, to stir and
beat the contents smooth.

LEMON ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart cream.
2 lemons—the juice of one and the grated peel of one and a half.
2 cups of sugar.

Sweeten the cream, beat the lemon gradually into it, and put at once
into the freezer. Freeze rapidly in a patent freezer, or the acid is
apt to turn the milk.

You may make orange ice-cream in the same way.

PINE-APPLE ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart of cream.
1 large ripe pine-apple.
1 lb. powdered sugar.

Slice the pine-apple thin, and scatter the sugar between the slices.
Cover it, and let the fruit steep three hours. Then cut, or chop it
up in the syrup, and strain it through a hair sieve or bag of double
coarse lace. Beat gradually into the cream, and freeze as rapidly as
possible.

You may, if you like, reserve a few pieces of pine-apple, unsugared,
cut into square bits, and stir them through the cream when half frozen.

PEACH ICE-CREAM ✠

Is very nice made after the preceding receipt, with two or three
handfuls of freshly cut bits of the fruit stirred in when the cream is
half frozen.

RASPBERRY OR STRAWBERRY ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 quart ripe sweet berries.
1 lb. sugar.
1 quart fresh cream.

Scatter half the sugar over the berries and let them stand three hours.
Press and mash them, and strain them through a thin muslin bag. Add
the rest of the sugar, and when dissolved beat in the cream little by
little. Freeze rapidly, opening the freezer (if it is not a patent one)
several times to beat and stir.

_Or,_

You may have a pint of whole berries, unsugared, ready to stir in when
the cream is frozen to the consistency of stiff mush. In this case add
a cup more sugar to the quart of crushed berries.

FROZEN CUSTARD WITH THE FRUIT FROZEN IN. ✠

1 quart milk.
1 quart cream.
6 eggs, and three cups of sugar beaten up with the yolks.
1 pint fresh peaches, cut up small, or fresh ripe berries.

Heat the quart of milk almost to boiling, and add gradually to the
beaten yolks and sugar. Whip in the frothed whites, return to the
custard-kettle, and stir until it is a thick, soft custard. Let it get
perfectly cold, beat in the cream and freeze. If you let it freeze
itself, stir in the fruit after the second beating; if you turn the
freezer, when the custard is like congealed mush.

TUTTI FRUTTI ICE-CREAM. ✠

1 pint of milk.
1 quart of cream.
Yolks of 5 eggs—beaten light with the sugar.
3 cups of sugar.
1 lemon—juice and grated peel.
1 glass of pale Sherry, and ½ lb. crystallized fruits, chopped.

Heat the milk almost to boiling; pour by degrees over the eggs and
sugar, beating all together well. Return to the fire, and _boil_ ten
minutes, or until set into a good custard. When cold, beat in the
cream, and half freeze before you stir in half a pound of crystallized
fruit—peaches, apricots, cherries, limes, etc., chopped very fine. Beat
in with these the lemon and wine; cover again, and freeze hard.

In all fruit ice-creams the beating of the custard should be very hard
and thorough, if you would have them smooth.

LEMON ICE. ✠

6 lemons—juice of all, and grated peel of three.
1 large sweet orange—juice and rind.
1 pint of water.
1 pint of sugar.

Squeeze out every drop of juice, and steep in it the rind of orange
and lemons one hour. Strain, squeezing the bag dry; mix in the sugar,
and then the water. Stir until dissolved, and freeze by turning in a
freezer—opening three times to beat all up together.

ORANGE ICE. ✠

6 oranges—juice of all, and grated peel of three.
2 lemons—the juice only.
1 pint of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water.

Prepare and freeze as you would lemon ice.

PINEAPPLE ICE.

1 juicy ripe pineapple—peeled and cut small.
Juice and grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 pint of sugar.
1 pint water, or a little less.

Strew the sugar over the pineapple and let it stand an hour. Mash all
up together, and strain out the syrup through a hair-sieve. Add the
water and freeze.

CHERRY ICE.

1 quart cherries, with half the stones pounded in a Wedgewood mortar.
2 lemons—the juice only.
1 pint of water, in which dissolve 1 pint of sugar.
1 glass of fine brandy.

Squeeze out the bruised cherries and stones, in a bag over the sugar;
add the water, then the brandy, and freeze.

It will require a longer time to freeze than other ices, on account of
the brandy.

CURRANT AND RASPBERRY ICE (_Fine._)

1 quart red currants.
1 pint raspberries—red or white.
1 pint of water.
1½ pint of sugar.

Squeeze out the juice; mix in the sugar and water, and freeze.

STRAWBERRY OR RASPBERRY ICE.

1 quart berries. Extract the juice and strain.
1 pint sugar—dissolved in the juice.
1 lemon—juice only.
½ pint of water.

RIPE FRUIT FOR DESSERT.

ORANGES

May be put on whole in fruit-baskets, or the skin be cut in eighths
half way down, separated from the fruit and curled inward, showing half
the orange white, the other yellow. Or, pass a sharp knife lightly
around the fruit, midway between the stem and blossom end, cutting
through the rind only. Slip the smooth curved handle of a teaspoon
carefully between the peel and body of the orange, and gently work it
all around until both upper and lower halves are free, except at stem
and blossom. Turn the rind, without tearing it, inside out, making a
white cup at each end—the round white fruit between them.

SALADE D’ORANGE.

Pare and slice large sweet oranges; sprinkle powdered sugar thickly
over each slice, and pour a couple of glasses of wine on the top.
Sprinkle powdered sugar over all, and serve at once, or the fruit will
lose its freshness.

You may omit the wine if you like.

Do not let any fruit intended to be eaten fresh for dessert lie in the
sugar longer than is absolutely necessary. It extracts the flavor and
withers the pulp.

AMBROSIA.

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

Arrange the orange in a glass dish, scatter the grated cocoanut thickly
over it, sprinkle this lightly with sugar, and cover with another layer
of orange. Fill up the dish in this order, having cocoanut and sugar
for the top layer. Serve at once.

APPLES.

Wash and polish with a clean towel, and pile in a china fruit-basket,
with an eye to agreeable variety of color.

PEACHES AND PEARS.

Pick out the finest, handling as little as may be, and pile upon a
salver or flat dish, with bits of ice between them, and ornament with
peach leaves or fennel sprigs.

One of the prettiest dishes of fruit I ever saw upon a dessert-table
was an open silver basket, wide at the top, heaped with rich red
peaches and yellow Bartlett pears, interspersed with feathery bunches
of green, which few of those who admired it knew for _carrot-tops_.
Wild white clematis wreathed the handle and showed here and there among
the fruit, while scarlet and white verbenas nestled amid the green.

Send around powdered sugar with the fruit, as many like to dip peaches
and pears in it after paring and quartering them.

STRAWBERRIES, RASPBERRIES, AND BLACKBERRIES.

Never wash strawberries or raspberries that are intended to be eaten as
_fresh_ fruit. If they are so gritty as to require this process, keep
them off the table. You will certainly ruin the flavor beyond repair
if you wash them, and as certainly induce instant fermentation and
endanger the coats of the eaters’ stomachs, if, after profaning the
exquisite delicacy of the fruit to this extent, you complete the evil
work by covering them with sugar, and leaving them to leak their lives
sourly away for one or two hours.

Put them on the table in glass dishes, piling them high and lightly,
send around powdered sugar with them and cream, that the guests may
help themselves. It is not economical perhaps, but it is a healthful
and pleasant style of serving them—I had almost said the only decent
one.

“But I don’t know who picked them!” cries Mrs. Fussy.

No, my dear madam! nor do you know who makes the baker’s bread, or
confectioner’s cakes, creams, jellies, salads, etc. Nor, for that
matter, how the flour is manufactured out of which you conjure your
dainty biscuit and pies. I was so foolish as to go into a flour-mill
once, and having seen a burly negro, naked to the waist, with his
trousers rolled up to his knees, stand in a bank of “fine family
flour,” a foot deep in the lowest part, on a July day, shovelling it
into barrels for the market, I rushed into the outer air a sicker and a
wiser woman.

I _know_ GOD made strawberries. “Doubtless,” says Bishop Butler, “HE
could have made a better berry, but HE never did!” The picker’s light
touch cannot mar flavor or beauty, nor, were her fingers filthy as a
chimney-sweep’s, could the delicate fruit suffer from them as from your
barbarous baptism. You would like to know who picked them. I should
inquire instead, “Who washed them, and in what?” I recollect seeing a
housekeeper, who was afflicted with your inquiring turn of mind, wash
strawberries in a wash-hand basin!

CURRANTS AND RASPBERRIES.

Pick the currants from the stems, and mix with an equal quantity of
raspberries. Put into a glass bowl, and eat with powdered sugar.

FROSTED CURRANTS.

Pick fine even bunches, and dip them, one at a time, into a mixture
of frothed white of egg, and a very little cold water. Drain them
until nearly dry, and roll in pulverized sugar. Repeat the dip in the
sugar once or twice, and lay them upon white paper to dry. They make a
beautiful garnish for jellies or charlottes, and look well heaped in a
dish by themselves or with other fruit.

Plums and grapes are very nice frosted in the same way.

PRESERVES AND FRUIT JELLIES.

Use none but porcelain, or _good_ bell-metal kettles for preserves and
jellies. If the latter, clean thoroughly just before you put in the
syrup or fruit. Scour with sand, then set it over the fire, with a
cupful of vinegar and a large handful of salt in it. Let this come to a
boil, and scour the whole of the inside of the kettle with it. Do not
let your preserves or anything else stand one moment in it after it is
withdrawn from the fire; fill the emptied kettle instantly with water
and wash it perfectly clean, although you may mean to return the syrup
to it again in five minutes. By observing these precautions, preserves
and pickles made in bell-metal may be rendered as good and wholesome as
if the frailer porcelain be used.

Use only fine sugar for nice preserves. Moist or dark sugar cannot be
made to produce the same effect as dry white.

Do not hurry any needful step in the process of preserving. Prepare
your fruit with care, weigh accurately, and allow time enough to do
your work well. Put up the preserves in small jars in preference to
large, and, when once made, keep them in a cool, dark closet that
is perfectly dry. Keep jellies in small stone china jars, or glass
tumblers closely covered. You can procure at most china and glass
stores, or house-furnishing establishments, metal covers with elastic
rims for these, which can be used from year to year.

Cover jellies and jams with tissue paper, double and wet with brandy,
pressed closely to the conserve before you put on the lid, or paste on
the thick paper. Examine your shelves frequently and narrowly for a few
weeks to see if your preserves are keeping well. If there is the least
sign of fermentation, boil them over, adding more sugar.

If jellies are not so firm after six or eight hours as you would have
them, set them in the sun, with bits of window glass over them to
keep out the dust and insects. Remove these at night and wipe off the
moisture collected on the under sides. Repeat this every day until the
jelly shrinks into firmness, filling up one cup from another as need
requires. This method is far preferable to boiling down, which both
injures the flavor and darkens the jelly.

PRESERVED PEACHES. ✠

Weigh the fruit after it is pared and the stones extracted, and allow
a pound of sugar to every one of peaches. Crack one-quarter of the
stones, extract the kernels, break them to pieces and boil in just
enough water to cover them, until soft, when set aside to steep in
a covered vessel. Put a layer of sugar at the bottom of the kettle,
then one of fruit, and so on until you have used up all of both; set
it where it will warm slowly until the sugar is melted and the fruit
hot through. Then strain the kernel-water and add it. Boil steadily
until the peaches are tender and clear. Take them out with a perforated
skimmer and lay upon large flat dishes, crowding as little as possible.
Boil the syrup almost to a jelly—that is, until clear and thick,
skimming off all the scum. Fill your jars two-thirds full of the
peaches, pour on the boiling syrup, and, when cold, cover with brandy
tissue-paper, then with cloth, lastly with thick paper tied tightly
over them.

The peaches should be ready to take off after half an hour’s boiling;
the syrup be boiled fifteen minutes longer, _fast_, and often stirred,
to throw up the scum. A few slices of pineapple cut up with the peaches
flavor them finely.

PRESERVED PEARS

Are put up precisely as are peaches, but are only pared, not divided.
Leave the stems on.

PEACH MARMALADE. ✠

Pare, stone, and weigh the fruit; heat slowly to draw out the juice,
stirring up often from the bottom with a wooden spoon. After it is hot,
boil quickly, still stirring, three-quarters of an hour. Add, then, the
sugar, allowing three-quarters of a pound to each pound of the fruit.
Boil up well for five minutes, taking off every particle of scum. Add
the juice of a lemon for every three pounds of fruit, and a very little
water in which one-fourth of the kernels have been boiled and steeped.
Stew all together ten minutes, stirring to a smooth paste, and take
from the fire. Put up hot in air-tight cans, or, when cold, in small
stone or glass jars, with brandied tissue-paper fitted neatly to the
surface of the marmalade.

A large, ripe pineapple, pared and cut up fine, and stirred with the
peaches, is a fine addition to the flavor.

PRESERVED QUINCES. ✠

Choose fine yellow quinces. Pare, quarter, and core them, saving both
skins and cores. Put the quinces over the fire with just enough water
to cover them, and simmer until they are soft, but not until they begin
to break. Take them out carefully, and spread them upon broad dishes
to cool. Add the parings, seeds, and cores, to the water in which the
quinces were boiled, and stew, closely covered, for an hour. Strain
through a jelly-bag, and to every pint of this liquor allow a pound of
sugar. Boil up and skim it, put in the fruit and boil fifteen minutes.
Take all from the fire and pour into a large deep pan. Cover closely
and let it stand twenty-four hours. Drain off the syrup and let it
come to a boil; put in the quinces carefully and boil another quarter
of an hour. Take them up as dry as possible, and again spread out upon
dishes, setting these in the hottest sunshine you can find. Boil the
syrup until it begins to jelly; fill the jars two-thirds full and
cover with the syrup. The preserves should be of a fine red. Cover with
brandied tissue-paper.

PRESERVED APPLES.

Firm, well-flavored pippins or bell-flower apples make an excellent
preserve, prepared in the same manner as quinces. A few quinces cut up
among them, or the juice of two lemons to every three pounds of fruit
improves them.

QUINCE MARMALADE. ✠

Pare, core, and slice the quinces, stewing the skins, cores, and seed
in a vessel by themselves, with just enough water to cover them. When
this has simmered long enough to extract all the flavor, and the
parings are broken to pieces, strain off the water through a thick
cloth. Put the quinces into the preserve-kettle when this water is
almost cold, pour it over them and boil, stirring and mashing the fruit
with a wooden spoon as it becomes soft. The juice of two oranges to
every three pounds of the fruit imparts an agreeable flavor. When you
have reduced all to a smooth paste, stir in a scant three-quarters
of a pound of sugar for every pound of fruit; boil ten minutes more,
stirring constantly. Take off, and when cool put into small jars, with
brandied papers over them.

QUINCE CHEESE

Is marmalade boiled down _very_ thick, packed into small pots. It will
turn out as firm as cheese, and can be cut in slices for luncheon or
tea.

APPLE BUTTER.

This is generally made by the large quantity.

Boil down a kettleful of cider to two-thirds the original quantity.
Pare, core, and slice juicy apples, and put as many into the cider as
it will cover. Boil slowly, stirring often with a flat stick, and when
the apples are tender to breaking, take them out with a perforated
skimmer, draining well against the sides of the kettle. Put in a second
supply of apples and stew them soft, as many as the cider will hold.
Take from the fire, pour all together into a tub or large crock; cover
and let it stand twelve hours. Then return to the kettle and boil down,
stirring all the while until it is the consistency of soft soap, and
brown in color. You may spice to taste if you please.

Keep in stone jars in a dry, cool place. It should keep all winter.

PRESERVED CRAB-APPLES. ✠

The red Siberian crab is best for this purpose. Pick out those that are
nearly perfect, _leaving the stems on_, and put into a preserve-kettle,
with enough warm water to cover them. Heat this to boiling, slowly, and
simmer until the skins break. Drain, cool, and skin them; then, with a
penknife, extract the cores through the blossom ends. Weigh them; allow
a pound and a quarter of sugar and a teacupful of water to every pound
of fruit. Boil the water and sugar together until the scum ceases to
rise; put in the fruit, cover the kettle, and simmer until the apples
are a clear red, and tender. Take out with a skimmer; spread upon
dishes to cool and harden; add to the syrup the juice of one lemon to
three pounds of fruit, and boil until clear and rich. Fill your jars
three-quarters full of the apples, pour the syrup in, and, when cool,
tie up.

PRESERVED GREEN-GAGES AND LARGE PURPLE PLUMS. ✠

Weigh the fruit and scald in boiling water to make the skins come off
easily. Let them stand in a large bowl an hour after they are peeled,
that the juice may exude. Drain this off; lay the plums in the kettle,
alternately with layers of sugar, allowing pound for pound; pour the
juice over the top and heat slowly to a boil. Take out the plums at
this point, very carefully, with a perforated skimmer, draining them
well through it, and spread upon broad dishes in the sun. Boil the
syrup until thick and clear, skimming it faithfully. Return the plums
to this, and boil ten minutes. Spread out again until cool and firm;
keeping the syrup hot on the fire, fill your jars three-quarters full
of the fruit; pour on the scalding syrup, cover to keep in the heat,
and, when cold, tie up.

_Or,_

If you do not care to take the trouble of peeling the fruit, prick it
in several places with a needle, and proceed as directed.

UNIQUE PRESERVES. ✠

Gather young cucumbers, a little longer than your middle finger, and
lay in strong brine one week. Wash them and soak a day and a night in
fair water, changing this four times. Line a bell-metal kettle with
vine-leaves, lay in the cucumbers, with a little alum scattered among
them; fill up with clear water; cover with vine-leaves, then with a
close lid, and green as for pickles. Do not let them boil. When well
greened, drop in ice-water. When perfectly cold, wipe, and with a small
knife slit down one side; dig out the seeds; stuff with a mixture of
chopped raisins and citron; sew up the incision with fine thread.
Weigh them, and make a syrup, allowing a pound of sugar for every one
of cucumbers, with a pint of water. Heat to a lively boil, skim, and
drop in the _fruit_. Simmer half an hour, take out and spread upon a
dish in the sun while you boil down the syrup, with a few slices of
ginger-root added. When thick, put in the cucumbers again; simmer five
minutes and put up in glass jars; tying them up when cold.

DAMSONS

Are put up in the same manner as plums, but pricked instead of skinned.

PRESERVED ORANGE PEEL. (_Very nice._) ✠

Weigh the oranges whole, and allow pound for pound. Peel the oranges
neatly and cut the rind into narrow shreds. Boil until tender, changing
the water twice, and replenishing with hot from the kettle. Squeeze
the _strained_ juice of the oranges over the sugar; let this heat to a
boil; put in the shreds and boil twenty minutes.

Lemon peel can be preserved in the same way, allowing more sugar.

ORANGE MARMALADE. ✠

Allow pound for pound. Pare half the oranges and cut the rind into
shreds. Boil in three waters until tender, and set aside. Grate the
rind of the remaining oranges; take off and throw away every bit of the
thick white inner skin; quarter all the oranges and take out the seeds.
Chop, or cut them into small pieces; drain all the juice that will
come away, without pressing them, over the sugar; heat this, stirring
until the sugar is dissolved, adding a _very_ little water, unless the
oranges are very juicy. Boil and skim five or six minutes; put in the
boiled shreds, and cook ten minutes; then the chopped fruit and grated
peel, and boil twenty minutes longer. When cold, put into small jars,
tied up with bladder or with paper next the fruit, cloths dipped
in wax over all. A nicer way still is to put away in tumblers with
self-adjusting metal tops. Press brandied tissue-paper down closely to
the fruit.

LEMON MARMALADE

Is made as you would prepare orange—allowing a pound and a quarter of
sugar to a pound of the fruit, and using but half the grated peel.

PRESERVED PINEAPPLE. ✠

Pare, cut into slices, take out the core of each one, and weigh,
allowing pound for pound of sugar and fruit. Put in alternate layers
in the kettle and pour in water, allowing a teacupful to each pound of
sugar. Heat to a boil; take out the pineapple and spread upon dishes in
the sun. Boil and skim the syrup half an hour. Return the pineapple to
the kettle and boil fifteen minutes. Take it out, pack in wide-mouthed
jars, pour on the scalding syrup; cover to keep in the heat, and, when
cold, tie up, first putting brandied tissue-paper upon the top.

PINEAPPLE MARMALADE.

Pare, slice, core, and weigh the pineapple; then cut into small bits.
Make a syrup of a teacup of water to two pounds of sugar; melt, and
heat to a boil. Heat the chopped pineapple in a vessel set within one
of boiling water, covering it closely to keep in the flavor. When it is
smoking hot all through, and begins to look clear, add to the syrup.
Boil together half an hour, stirring all the while, or until it is a
clear, bright paste.

PRESERVED CITRON OR WATER-MELON RIND.

Pare off the green skin, and the soft, white, inner rind. Cut into
strips or into fanciful shapes. Allow a pound and a quarter of sugar to
each pound of rind. Line your kettle with vine leaves and fill with the
rind, scattering a little pulverized alum over each layer. Cover with
vine-leaves, three thick; pour on water enough to reach and wet these,
and lay a close lid on the top of the kettle. Let all steam together
for three hours; but the water must not actually boil. Take out your
rind, which should be well greened by this process, and throw at once
into very cold water. It should lie in soak, changing the water every
hour, for four hours.

For the syrup, allow two cups of water to a pound and a quarter of
sugar. Boil, and skim it until no more scum comes up; put in the rind,
and simmer gently nearly an hour. Take it out, and spread upon dishes
in the sun until firm and almost cool. Simmer in the syrup for half an
hour; spread out again, and, when firm, put into a large bowl, and pour
over it the scalding syrup.

Twelve hours later put the syrup again over the fire, adding the juice
of a lemon and a tiny strip of ginger-root for every pound of rind.
Boil down until thick; pack the rind in jars and pour over it the
syrup. Tie up when cool.

A very handsome sweetmeat, although rather insipid in flavor. The
reader can judge whether, as the charity boy said of the alphabet, and
the senior Weller of matrimony, it is worth while to go through so much
and get so little.

PRESERVED GINGER. ✠

Pare the roots of fresh green ginger and lay in cold water fifteen
minutes. Boil in three waters, changing the hot for cold every time,
until very tender; drain, and lay in ice-water. For the syrup, allow a
pound and a quarter of sugar for every pound of ginger, and a cupful
of water for each pound of sugar. Boil, and skim until the scum ceases
to rise. When the syrup is _cold_, wipe the ginger dry and drop it in.
Let it stand twenty-four hours. Drain off and reheat the syrup. This
time put the ginger in when blood warm. Do not look at it again for two
days. Then reboil the syrup, and pour over the ginger scalding hot.
In a week drain off once more, boil, and add again while hot to the
ginger; cover closely. It will be fit for use in a fortnight.

PRESERVED CHERRIES. ✠

Stone the cherries, preserving every drop of juice. Weigh the fruit,
allowing pound for pound of sugar. Put a layer of fruit for one of
sugar until all is used up; pour over the juice and boil gently until
the syrup begins to thicken.

The short-stem red cherries, or the Morellas are best for preserves.
Sweet cherries will not do.

PRESERVED STRAWBERRIES. ✠

Pound for pound. Put them in a preserving kettle over a slow fire until
the sugar melts. Boil twenty-five minutes, fast. Take out the fruit in
a perforated skimmer and fill a number of small cans three-quarters
full. Boil and skim the syrup five minutes longer, fill up the jars,
and seal while hot.

Keep in a cool, dry place.

STRAWBERRY JAM. ✠

For every pound of fruit three-quarters of a pound of sugar.
1 pint red currant juice to every 4 pounds strawberries.

Boil the juice of the currants with the strawberries half an hour,
stirring all the time. Add the sugar when you have dipped out nearly
all the juice, leaving the fruit quite dry, and boil up rapidly for
about twenty minutes, skimming carefully. Put in small jars, with
brandied tissue-paper over the top.

You can omit the currant juice, but the flavor will not be so fine.

RASPBERRY JAM. ✠

¾ lb. of sugar to every lb. fruit.

Put the fruit on alone, or with the addition of a pint of currant juice
to every four pounds of fruit. Boil half an hour, mashing and stirring
well. Dip out most of the boiling juice before adding sugar, and cook
twenty minutes more. Blackberry jam is very nice made as above, leaving
out the currant juice.

GOOSEBERRY JAM

Is made in the same manner as raspberry, only the currant juice is
omitted, and the gooseberries boiled one hour without the fruit, and
another after it is put in. The fruit must be ripe.

RIPE TOMATO PRESERVES. ✠

7 lbs. round yellow, or egg tomatoes—_peeled_.
7 lbs. sugar, and juice of three lemons.

Let them stand together over night. Drain off the syrup and boil it,
skimming well. Put in the tomatoes and boil gently twenty minutes. Take
out the fruit with a perforated skimmer, and spread upon dishes. Boil
the syrup down until it thickens, adding, just before you take it up,
the juice of three lemons. Put the fruit into the jars and fill up with
hot syrup. When cold, seal or tie up.

GREEN TOMATO PRESERVES. (_Good._)

8 lbs. small green tomatoes. Pierce each with a fork.
7 lbs. sugar.
4 lemons—the juice only.
1 oz. ginger and mace mixed.

Heat all together slowly, and boil until the fruit is clear. Take it
from the kettle in a perforated skimmer, and spread upon dishes to
cool. Boil the syrup thick. Put the fruit into jars and cover with hot
syrup.

PRESERVED FIGS. ✠

The weight of ripe figs in sugar.
Peel of one lemon and juice of two.
A little ginger.

Cover the figs with cold water for twelve hours. Then simmer in water
enough to cover them until tender, and spread out upon a sieve to
cool and harden. Make a syrup of the sugar, and a cup of cold water
for every pound. Boil until clear of scum; put in the figs and simmer
ten minutes. Take them out and spread upon dishes in the sun. Add the
lemons and ginger; boil the syrup thick; give the figs another boil of
fifteen minutes, and fill the jars three-quarters of the way to the
top. Fill up with boiling syrup, cover, and, when cold, seal up.

BAKED APPLES. ✠

Cut out the blossom end of sweet apples—Campfields or Pound Sweets—with
a sharp penknife; wash, but do not pare them; pack them in a large
pudding-dish; pour a cupful of water in the bottom, cover closely with
another dish or pan; set in a moderate oven, and steam until tender all
through. Pour the liquor over them while hot, and repeat this as they
cool. Set on the ice several hours before tea, and, when you are ready,
transfer them to a glass dish, pouring the juice over them again.
Eat with powdered sugar and cream. Apples baked in this way are more
tender and digestible, and better flavored, than those baked in an open
vessel. Campfields are particularly good.

APPLES STEWED WHOLE. ✠

Pare, and with a small knife extract the cores of fine juicy apples
that are not too tart; put into a deep dish with just enough water to
cover them; cover and bake, or stew, in a moderate oven, until they are
tender and clear; take out the apples, put in a bowl, and cover to keep
hot; put the juice into a saucepan, with a cupful of sugar for twelve
apples, and boil half an hour. Season with mace, ginger, or whole
cloves, adding the spice ten minutes before you remove the syrup from
the fire. Pour scalding over the apples, and cover until cold.

Eat with cream.

BAKED PEARS.

Sweet pears may be baked just as sweet apples are—_i. e._, steamed
without being pared or cored.

_Or,_

If large, cut in half, put into a deep dish, with a very little water;
sprinkle them with sugar, and put a few cloves, or bits of cinnamon, or
a pinch of ginger among them. Cover closely, and bake until tender.

STEWED PEARS. ✠

If small and ripe, cut out the blossom-end, without paring or coring;
put into a saucepan, with enough water to cover them, and stew until
tender; add a half cupful of sugar for every quart of pears, and stew
all together ten minutes; take out the pears, lay in a covered bowl
to keep warm; add to the syrup a little ginger or a few cloves, boil
fifteen minutes longer, and pour over the fruit hot.

_Or,_

If the pears are not quite ripe, but hard and disposed to be tough,
peel them, cut out the blossom-end, leaving on the stems, and stew
until tender in enough water to cover them. Take them out, set by in a
covered dish to keep warm; add to the liquor in the saucepan an equal
quantity of the best molasses and a little ginger; boil half an hour,
skim, and return the pears to the saucepan. Stew all together twenty
minutes, and pour out.

These are very good, and will keep a week or more, even in warm
weather. I have canned them while boiling hot, and kept them sweet a
whole year.

BAKED QUINCES.

Pare and quarter; extract the seeds and stew the fruit in clear water
until a straw will pierce them; put into a baking-dish with a half
cupful of sugar to every eight quinces; pour over them the liquor in
which they were boiled; cover closely, and steam in the oven one hour;
take out the quinces, lay them in a covered bowl to keep warm; return
the syrup to the saucepan, and boil twenty minutes; pour over the
quinces, and set away covered, to cool. Eat cold.

FRUIT JELLIES.

CURRANT, BLACKBERRY, STRAWBERRY, ETC. ✠

Put the fruit into a stone jar; set this in a kettle of tepid water,
and put it upon the fire. Let it boil, closely covered, until the
fruit is broken to pieces; strain, pressing the bag (a stout coarse
one) hard, putting in but a few handfuls at a time, and between each
squeezing turning it inside out to scald off the pulp and skins. To
each pint of juice allow a pound of sugar. Set the juice on alone to
boil, and while it is warming divide the sugar into several different
portions, and put into shallow pie-dishes or pans that will fit in your
ovens; heat in these, opening the ovens now and then to stir it and
prevent burning. Boil the juice just _twenty minutes_ from the moment
it begins fairly to boil. By this time the sugar should be so hot you
cannot bear your hand in it. Should it melt around the edges, do not
be alarmed. The burned parts will only form into lumps in the syrup,
and can easily be taken out. Throw the sugar into the boiling juice,
stirring rapidly all the while. It will “hiss” as it falls in, and melt
very quickly. Withdraw your spoon when you are sure it is dissolved.
Let the jelly just come to a boil, to make all certain, and take the
kettle instantly from the fire. Roll your glasses or cups in hot water,
and fill with the scalding liquid. If these directions be strictly
followed, and the fruit is at the proper state of ripeness, there need
be no dread of failure. I have often had the jelly “form” before I
filled the last glass.

I wish it were in my power, by making known the advantages of the
process I have described, to put an end to the doubts and anxieties
attendant upon the old-fashioned method of boiling jelly into a
preserve. This plan is so simple and safe, the jelly made so superior
in flavor and color to that produced by boiling down juice and fruit,
that no one who has ever tried both ways can hesitate to give it the
preference. I have put up jelly in no other way for eighteen years, and
have never failed once.

Strawberry jelly should have a little lemon-juice added to that of the
fruit. Both it and blackberry, and very ripe raspberry jelly, are apt
to be less firm than that made from more tart fruits; still, do not
boil it. Set it in the sun, as I have directed at the beginning of the
section upon preserves and fruit jellies, filling one cup from another
as the contents shrink. The sun will boil it down with less waste,
and less injury to color and taste, than the fire will. Cooking jelly
always darkens it.

Put brandied tissue-paper over the top of each glass when cold and
firm, paste a thick paper over it, and keep in a dry place.

RASPBERRY AND CURRANT JELLY. ✠

To two parts red raspberries or “Blackcaps,” put one of red currants,
and proceed as with other berry jelly.

The flavor is exquisite. This jelly is especially nice for cake.

WILD CHERRY AND CURRANT JELLY. ✠

Two-thirds wild cherries (stones and all) and one of red currants. A
pound of sugar to a pint of juice, and make as you do plain currant
jelly.

This, besides being very palatable and an excellent table jelly, is
highly medicinal, good for coughs and any weakness of the digestive
organs. I put it up first as an experiment, and because I chanced to
have the cherries. Now I would not pass the winter without it, unless
obliged to do so by a failure of the fruit crop.

PEACH JELLY. ✠

Crack one-third of the kernels and put them in the jar with the
peaches, which should be pared, stoned, and sliced. Heat in a pot of
boiling water, stirring from time to time until the fruit is well
broken. Strain, and to every pint of peach juice add the juice of a
lemon. Measure again, allowing a pound of sugar to a pint of liquid.
Heat the sugar very hot, and add when the juice has boiled twenty
minutes. Let it come to a boil, and take instantly from the fire.

This is very fine for jelly-cake.

GREEN FOX GRAPE JELLY ✠

Is made after the receipt for currant jelly, only allowing a pound and
a half of sugar to a pint of juice.

Ripe grapes require but pound for pint.

QUINCE JELLY. ✠

Pare and slice the quinces, and add for every five pounds of fruit a
cup of water. Put peelings, cores, and all into a stone jar; set this
in a pot of boiling water, and, when the fruit is soft and broken,
proceed as with other jellies.

CRAB-APPLE JELLY. ✠

Cut Siberian crab-apples to pieces, but do not pare or remove the
seeds. The latter impart a peculiarly pleasant flavor to the fruit. Put
into a stone jar, set in a pot of hot water, and let it boil eight or
nine hours. Leave in the jar all night, covered closely. Next morning,
squeeze out the juice, allow pound for pint, and manage as you do
currant jelly.

Should the apples be very dry, add a cup of water for every six pounds
of fruit.

There is no finer jelly than this in appearance and in taste.

CANNED FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Within a few years canned fruits have, in a great measure, superseded
preserves. They are cheaper, more wholesome, and far less difficult to
prepare. Attention to a few general rules will insure success to every
housekeeper who sensibly prefers to put up her own season’s supply of
these to purchasing those for double the cost, which are not nearly so
good.

First, examine cans and elastics narrowly before you begin operations.
See that the screw is in order, the can without crack or nick, the
elastic firm and closely fitting.

Secondly, have the fruit boiling hot when sealed. Have upon the range
or stove a pan in which each empty can is set to be filled after it is
rolled in hot water. Lay elastic and top close to your hand, fill the
can to overflowing, remembering that the fruit will shrink as it cools,
and that a vacuum invites the air to enter; clap on the top without the
loss of a second, screw as tightly as you can, and as the contents and
the can cool, screw again and again to fit the contraction of metal and
glass.

Thirdly, if you use glass cans (and they are cheapest in the end, for
you can use them year after year, getting new elastics when you need
them) keep them in a cool, dark place, and dry as well as cool. The
light will cause them to ferment, and also change the color.

CANNED BERRIES. ✠

Heat slowly to boiling, in a large kettle. When they begin to boil, add
sugar in the proportion of one tablespoonful to each quart of fruit.
Before doing this, however, if there is much juice in the kettle, dip
out the surplus with a dipper or cup. It will only increase the number
of cans to be filled, without real advantage to you. Leave the berries
almost dry before putting in the sugar. This will make syrup enough.
Boil all together fifteen minutes, and can.

Huckleberries, grapes, blackberries, currants, raspberries, cherries,
and strawberries put up in this way are very good, eaten as you would
preserves, and make pies which are scarcely inferior to those filled
with fresh fruit.

CANNED PEACHES. ✠

Pare, cut in half and stone, taking care not to break the fruit; drop
each piece in cold water so soon as it is pared. The large, white
freestone peaches are nicest for this purpose. Firmness of texture is
a desideratum. The fruit should be ripe, but not soft. Allow a heaping
tablespoonful of sugar to each quart of fruit, scattering it between
the layers. Fill your kettle and heat slowly to a boil. Boil three
minutes, just to assure yourself that every piece of fruit is heated
through. Can and seal. It is safe to put a cupful of water in the
bottom of the kettle before packing it with fruit, lest the lower layer
should burn.

CANNED PEARS. ✠

For the finer varieties, such as the Bartlett and Seckel, prepare a
syrup, allowing a pint of pure water and a quarter of a pound of sugar
to a quart of fruit. While this is heating, peel the pears, dropping
each, as it is pared, into a pan of clear water, lest the color should
change by exposure to the air. When the syrup has come to a fast boil,
put in the pears carefully, not to bruise them, and boil until they
look clear and can be easily pierced by a fork. Have the cans ready,
rolled in hot water, pack with the pears and fill to overflowing with
the scalding syrup, which must be kept on the fire all the while, and
seal.

The tougher and more common pears must be boiled in water until tender;
thrown while warm into the hot syrup, then allowed to boil ten minutes
before they are canned.

Apples may be treated in either of the above ways as their texture may
seem to demand.

CANNED PLUMS. ✠

Prick with a needle to prevent bursting; prepare a syrup allowing a
gill of pure water and a quarter of a pound of sugar to every three
quarts of fruit. When the sugar is dissolved and the water blood-warm,
put in the plums. Heat slowly to a boil. Let them boil five minutes—not
fast or they will break badly, fill up the jars with plums, pour in the
scalding syrup until it runs down the sides, and seal.

Greengages are very fine put up in this way; also damsons for pies.

CANNED TOMATOES. ✠

“I don’t hold with any of these new-fangled notions,” said an old lady
to me, when I mentioned that my canning was over for the summer. “I was
beguiled, two years ago, into putting up some _tomaytesses_ in cans,
and if I’m forgiven for that folly I’ll never tempt Providence in the
same manner again.”

“They didn’t keep, then?”

“Keep! they sp’iled in a week! ’Twas no more’n I expected and deserved
for meddling with such a humbug.”

“Perhaps you did not follow the directions closely?”

“Indeed I did! I cooked the tormented things, and seasoned ’em with
butter and salt, all ready for the table, and screwed the tops down
tight. But, in course, they sp’iled!”

“Were you careful to put them into the cans boiling hot?”

“’Twould have cracked the glass! I let ’em get _nice and cold_ first. I
didn’t suppose it made any difference about such a trifle as that!”

Poor old lady! I think of her and her mighty temptation of Providence
whenever I can tomatoes, for heat _does_ make a difference—all the
difference in the world in this sort of work.

Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to loosen the skins. Remove these;
drain off all the juice that will come away without pressing hard; put
them into a kettle and heat slowly to a boil. Your tomatoes will look
much nicer if you remove all the hard parts before putting them on the
fire, and rub the pulp soft with your hands. Boil ten minutes, dip out
the surplus liquid, pour the tomatoes, boiling hot, into the cans, and
seal. Keep in a cool, dark place.

CANNED TOMATOES AND CORN. ✠

Boil the corn on the cob, when it is in nice order for roasting, twenty
minutes over a good fire, and cut off while hot. Have your tomatoes
skinned and rubbed to a smooth pulp. Put in two measures of them for
every one of the cut corn; salt as for the table, stirring it well in,
and bring to a hard boil. Then, can quickly, and as soon as they are
cold set away in a cool, dark place.

PRESERVED GREEN CORN. ✠

Boil on the cob until the milk ceases to flow when the grain is
pricked. Cut off the corn and pack in stone jars in the following
order:—A layer of salt at the bottom, half an inch deep. Then one of
corn two inches in depth, another half-inch of salt, and so on until
the jar is nearly filled. Let the topmost layer of salt be double the
depth of the others, and pour over all melted—not hot—lard. Press upon
this, when nearly hard, thick white paper, cut to fit the mouth of the
jar. Keep in a cool place. Soak over night before using it.

Green corn is difficult to can, but _I know_ it will keep well if put
up in this way. And, strange to tell, be so fresh after the night’s
soaking as to require salt when you boil it for the table. Should the
top layer be musty, dig lower still, and you will probably be rewarded
for the search.

BRANDIED FRUITS.

BRANDIED PEACHES OR PEARS. ✠

4 lbs. fruit.
4 lbs. sugar.
1 pint best white brandy.

Make a syrup of the sugar and enough water to dissolve it. Let this
come to a boil; put the fruit in and boil five minutes. Having removed
the fruit carefully, let the syrup boil fifteen minutes longer, or
until it thickens well; add the brandy, and take the kettle at once
from the fire; pour the hot syrup over the fruit, and seal.

If, after the fruit is taken from the fire, a reddish liquor oozes from
it, drain this off before adding the clear syrup. Put up in glass jars.

Peaches and pears should be peeled for brandying. Plums should be
pricked and watched carefully for fear of bursting.

BRANDIED CHERRIES OR BERRIES. ✠

Make a syrup of a pound of sugar and a half gill of water for every two
lbs. of fruit. Heat to boiling, stirring to prevent burning, and pour
over the berries while warm—_not_ hot. Let them stand together an hour;
put all into a preserving-kettle, and heat slowly; boil five minutes,
take out the fruit with a perforated skimmer, and boil the syrup twenty
minutes. Add a pint of brandy for every five pounds of fruit; pour over
the berries hot, and seal.

CANDIES.

MOLASSES CANDY. ✠

1 quart good molasses.
½ cup vinegar.
1 cup sugar.
Butter the size of an egg.
1 teaspoonful saleratus.

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar, mix with the molasses, and boil,
stirring frequently, until it hardens when dropped from the spoon into
cold water; then stir in the butter and soda, the latter dissolved in
hot water. Flavor to your taste, give one hard final stir, and pour
into buttered dishes. As it cools, cut into squares for “taffy,” or,
while soft enough to handle, pull white into sticks, using only the
buttered tips of your fingers for that purpose.

SUGAR-CANDY. ✠

6 cups of sugar.
1 cup of vinegar.
1 cup of water.
Tablespoonful of butter, put in at the last, with
1 teaspoonful saleratus dissolved in hot water.

Boil fast _without stirring_, an hour, or until it crisps in cold
water. Pull white with the tips of your fingers.

Since children must eat candy, this is the best you can give them. It
is very nice. Flavor to taste.

PICKLES.

Use none but the best cider vinegar; especially avoid the sharp
colorless liquid sold under that name. It is weak sulphuric acid,
warranted to riddle the coat of any stomach, even that of an ostrich,
if that bird were so bereft of the instinct of self-preservation as to
make a lunch of bright-green cucumber-pickle seven times a week.

If you boil pickles in bell-metal, do not let them stand in it one
moment when it is off the fire; and see for yourself that it is
perfectly clean and newly scoured before the vinegar is put in.

Keep pickles in glass or hard stoneware; look them over every month;
remove the soft ones, and if there are several of these, drain off and
scald the vinegar, adding a cup of sugar for each gallon, and pour
hot over the pickles. If they are keeping well, throw in a liberal
handful of sugar for every gallon, and tie them up again. This tends to
preserve them, and mellows the sharpness of the vinegar. This does not
apply to _sweet_ pickle.

Pickle, well made, is better when a year old than at the end of six
months. I have eaten walnut pickle ten years old that was very fine.

Keep your pickles well covered with vinegar.

If you use ground spices, tie them up in thin muslin bags.

CUCUMBER OR GHERKIN PICKLE. ✠

Choose small cucumbers, or gherkins, for this purpose. They are more
tender, and look better on the table. Reject all over a finger in
length, and every one that is misshapen or specked, however slightly.
Pack in a stone jar or wooden bucket, in layers, strewing salt thickly
between these. Cover the top layer out of sight with salt, and pour on
cold water enough to cover all. Lay a small plate or round board upon
them, with a clean stone to keep it down. You may leave them in the
brine for a week or a month, stirring up from the bottom every other
day. If the longer time, be sure your salt and water is strong enough
to bear up an egg. If you raise your own cucumbers, pick them every
day, and drop in the pickle. When you are ready to put them up, throw
away the brine, with any cucumbers that may have softened under the
process, and lay the rest in cold fresh water for twenty-four hours.
Change the water then for fresh, and leave it for another day. Have a
kettle ready, lined with green vine-leaves, and lay the pickles evenly
within it, scattering powdered alum over the layers. A bit of alum as
large as a pigeon-egg will be enough for a two-gallon kettleful. Fill
with cold water, cover with vine-leaves, three deep; put a close lid or
inverted pan over all, and steam over a slow fire five or six hours,
not allowing the water to boil. When the pickles are a fine green,
remove the leaves and throw the cucumbers into very cold water. Let
them stand in it while you prepare the vinegar. To one gallon allow
a cup of sugar, three dozen whole black peppers, the same of cloves,
half as much allspice, one dozen blades of mace. Boil five minutes;
put the cucumbers into a stone jar, and pour the vinegar over them
scalding hot. Cover closely. Two days afterward scald the vinegar again
and return to the pickles. Repeat this process three times more, at
intervals of two, four, and six days. Cover with a stoneware or wooden
top; tie stout cloth over this, and keep in a cool, dry place. They
will be ready for eating in two months. Examine every few weeks.

PICKLED MANGOES. ✠

Young musk or nutmeg melons.
English mustard-seed two handfuls, mixed with
Scraped horseradish, one handful.
Mace and nutmeg pounded, 1 teaspoonful.
Chopped garlic, 2 teaspoonfuls.
A little ginger.
Whole pepper-corns, 1 dozen.
½ tablespoonful of ground mustard to a pint of the mixture.
1 teaspoonful sugar to the same quantity.
1 teaspoonful best salad oil to the same.
1 teaspoonful celery-seed.

Cut a slit in the side of the melon; insert your finger and extract all
the seeds. If you cannot get them out in this way, cut a slender piece
out, saving it to replace,—but the slit is better. Lay the mangoes in
strong brine for three days. Drain off the brine, and freshen in pure
water twenty-four hours. Green as you would cucumbers, and lay in cold
water until cold and firm. Fill with the stuffing; sew up the slit, or
tie up with pack thread; pack in a deep stone jar, and pour scalding
vinegar over them. Repeat this process three times more at intervals of
two days, then tie up and set away in a cool, dry place.

They will not be “ripe” under four months, but are very fine when they
are. They will keep several years.

PEPPER MANGOES. ✠

Are put up in the same way, using green peppers that are full grown,
but not tinged with red.

They are very good, but your fingers will smart after thrusting them
into the peppers to pull out the seeds. For this purpose I have used,
first, a small penknife, to cut the core from its attachment to the
stem-end of the pepper, then a smooth bit of stick, to pry open the
slit in the side and work out the loose core or bunch of seed. By the
exercise of a little ingenuity you may spare yourself all suffering
from this cause. Should your fingers burn badly, anoint them with
sweet-oil and wear gloves that night. Cream will also allay the smart.

PICKLED CABBAGE (_Yellow._)

2 gallons vinegar.
1 pint white mustard seed. }
4 oz. ginger. }
3 oz. pepper-corns. }
1 oz. allspice. } pounded fine.
2 oz. cloves. }
1 oz. mace. }
1 oz. nutmeg. }
2 oz. turmeric. }
1 large handful of garlic, chopped.
1 handful scraped horseradish.
4 lbs. sugar.
2 oz. celery seed.
3 lemons, sliced thin.

Mix all and set in the sun for three days.

To prepare the cabbage, cut in quarters—leaving off the outer and green
leaves—and put in a kettle of boiling brine. Cook three minutes. Take
out, drain, and cover thickly with salt. Spread out in the sun to dry;
then shake off the salt, and cover with cold vinegar in which has been
steeped enough turmeric to color it well. Leave it in this two weeks,
to draw out the salt and to plump the cabbage. They are then ready to
pack down in the seasoned vinegar. Do not use under six weeks or two
months.

PICKLED CABBAGE (_Purple._)

Quarter the cabbage. Lay in a wooden tray, sprinkle thickly with salt,
and set in the cellar until next day. Drain off the brine, wipe dry,
lay in the sun two hours, and cover with cold vinegar for twelve hours.
Prepare the pickle by seasoning enough vinegar to cover the cabbage
with equal quantities of mace, cloves, whole white peppers; a cup of
sugar to every gallon of vinegar, and a teaspoonful of celery seed
for every pint. Pack the cabbage in a stone jar; boil the vinegar and
spices five minutes and pour on hot. Cover and set away in a cool, dry
place.

This will be ripe in six weeks.

PICKLED ONIONS.

Peel the onions, which should be fine white ones—not _too_ large. Let
them stand in strong brine for four days, changing it twice. Heat more
brine to a boil, throw in the onions, and boil three minutes. Throw
them at once into cold water, and leave them there four hours. Pack in
jars, interspersing with whole mace, white pepper-corns, and cloves.
Fill up with scalding vinegar in which you have put a cupful of sugar
for every gallon. Cork while hot.

They will be ready for use in a month, but will be better at the end of
three months.

GREEN BEANS AND RADISH PODS.

Take young French or “string” beans, and radish pods just before they
change color; green and pickle as you do cucumbers and gherkins.

NASTURTIUM-SEED. ✠

Take the green seed after the flower has dried off. Lay in salt and
water two days, in cold water one day; pack in bottles and cover with
scalding vinegar, seasoned with mace and white pepper-corns, and
sweetened slightly with white sugar. Cork, and set away four weeks
before you use them.

They are an excellent substitute for capers.

PICKLED BUTTERNUTS AND WALNUTS. ✠

Gather them when soft enough to be pierced by a pin. Lay them in strong
brine five days, changing this twice in the meantime. Drain, and wipe
them with a coarse cloth; pierce each by running a large needle through
it, and lay in cold water for six hours.

To each gallon of vinegar allow a cup of sugar, three dozen each of
whole cloves and black pepper-corns, half as much allspice, and a dozen
blades of mace. Boil five minutes; pack the nuts in small jars and pour
over them scalding hot. Repeat this twice within a week; tie up and set
away.

They will be good to eat in a month—and very good too.

PICKLED CAULIFLOWER. ✠

Pick the whitest and closest bunches. Cut into small sprays or
clusters. Plunge into a kettle of scalding brine and boil three
minutes. Take them out, lay upon a sieve or a cloth, sprinkle thickly
with salt, and, when dry, brush this off. Cover with cold vinegar for
two days, setting the jar in the sun. Then pack carefully in glass or
stoneware jars, and pour over them scalding vinegar seasoned thus:

To one gallon allow a cup of white sugar, a dozen blades of mace, a
tablespoonful of celery-seed, two dozen white peppercorns and some bits
of red pepper pods, a tablespoonful of coriander-seed, and the same
of whole mustard. Boil five minutes. Repeat the scalding once a week
for three weeks; tie up and set away. Keep the cauliflowers under the
vinegar by putting a small plate on top.

SLICED CUCUMBER PICKLE. (_Very nice._)

2 dozen large cucumbers, sliced, and boiled in vinegar enough
to cover them, one hour. Set aside in the hot vinegar.
To each gallon of cold vinegar allow—
1 lb. sugar.
1 tablespoonful of cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful black pepper.
1 teaspoonful celery-seed.
1 teaspoonful of mace.
1 teaspoonful allspice.
1 teaspoonful cloves.
1 tablespoonful turmeric.
1 tablespoonful horseradish, scraped.
1 tablespoonful garlic, sliced.
½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper.

Put in the cucumbers and stew two hours.

The pickle will be ready for use so soon as it is cold.

PICKLED WATER-MELON RIND. (_Extremely nice._)

Equal weight of rind and white sugar.
½ ounce white ginger to a gallon of pickle.
1 pint vinegar to every pound of sugar.
1 tablespoonful turmeric to a gallon of pickle.
Mace, cloves, and cinnamon to taste.

Take the thickest rind you can get, pare off the hard green rind,
also the soft inner pulp. Lay the pieces—narrow strips or fanciful
cuttings—in brine strong enough to float an egg, and let them remain
in it ten days. Then soak in fair water, changing it every day for
ten days. Cover them with clear water in a preserving-kettle, heat
slowly and boil five minutes. Take them out and plunge instantly into
ice-water. Leave them in this until next day. Give them another gentle
boil of five minutes in strong alum-water. Simmer carefully, as a hard
boil will injure them. Change _directly_ from the alum to the ice-water
again, and do not disturb them for four hours. After a third boil of
five minutes, let them remain all night in the last water to make them
tender. Next day add to enough water to cover the rinds sufficient
sugar to make it quite sweet, but not a syrup. Simmer the rinds in
this ten minutes, throw the water away, and spread them upon dishes to
cool. Meanwhile prepare a second syrup, allowing sugar equal in weight
to the rind, and half an ounce of sliced white ginger to a gallon of
the pickle, with a cup of water for every two pounds of sugar. When
the sugar is melted and the syrup quite hot, but not boiling, put in
the rinds and simmer until they look quite clear. Take it out, spread
upon the dishes again, while you add to the syrup a pint of vinegar for
every pound of the sugar you have put in, one tablespoonful of turmeric
to a gallon of pickle; mace, cloves and cinnamon to taste. Boil this
up, return the rind to it, and simmer fifteen minutes. Put up in glass
jars. It will be fit for use in two weeks.

This is a very handsome and delicious pickle, although it may seem to
be made upon the principle of the Frenchman’s pebble-soup.

GREEN TOMATO SOY. ✠

2 gallons tomatoes, green, and sliced without peeling.
12 good-sized onions, also sliced.
2 quarts vinegar.
1 quart sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls salt.
2 tablespoonfuls ground mustard.
2 tablespoonfuls black pepper, ground.
1 tablespoonful allspice.
1 tablespoonful cloves.

Mix all together, and stew until tender, stirring often lest they
should scorch. Put up in small glass jars.

This is a most useful and pleasant sauce for almost every kind of meat
and fish.

SWEET TOMATO PICKLE. (_Very good._) ✠

7 lbs. ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced.
3½ lbs. sugar.
1 oz. cinnamon and mace mixed.
1 oz. cloves.
1 quart of vinegar.

Mix all together and stew an hour.

RIPE TOMATO PICKLE. (_No. 2._)

2 gallons tomatoes, peeled, but not sliced.
1 pint vinegar.
2 lbs. sugar.
Mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon to taste.

Put all on together, heat slowly to a boil, and simmer one hour. Put up
in glass jars.

SWEET PICKLE—PLUMS, PEARS, PEACHES, OR OTHER FRUITS. ✠

7 lbs. fruit, pared.
4 lbs. white sugar.
1 pint strong vinegar.
Mace, cinnamon, and cloves.

Pare peaches and pears; prick plums and damsons, tomatoes, “globes” or
husk-tomatoes (otherwise known as ground-plums). Put into the kettle
with alternate layers of sugar. Heat slowly to a boil; add the vinegar
and spice; boil five minutes; take out the fruit with a perforated
skimmer and spread upon dishes to cool. Boil the syrup thick; pack the
fruit in glass jars, and pour the syrup on boiling hot.

Examine every few days for the first month, and should it show signs
of fermenting set the jars (uncovered) in a kettle of water, and heat
until the contents are scalding.

Husk-tomatoes—a fruit which looks like a hybrid between the tomato and
plum—are particularly nice put up in this way.

PICKLED PEACHES.

10 lbs. fruit—pared.
4½ lbs. sugar.
1 quart vinegar.
Mace, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

Lay the peaches in the sugar for an hour; drain off every drop of
syrup, and put over the fire with about a cup of water. Boil until the
scum ceases to rise. Skim; put in the fruit and boil five minutes. Take
out the peaches with a perforated skimmer, and spread upon dishes to
cool. Add the vinegar and spices to the syrup. Boil fifteen minutes
longer, and pour over the fruit in glass jars.

PICKLED PEACHES (_unpeeled_.)

Rub the fur off with a coarse cloth, and prick each peach with a fork.
Heat in _just_ enough water to cover them until they almost boil; take
them out, and add to the water sugar in the following proportions:—

For every 7 lbs. of fruit
3 lbs. of sugar.
Boil fifteen minutes; skim, and add—
3 pints of vinegar.
1 tablespoonful (each) of allspice, mace, and cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful celery-seed.
1 teaspoonful cloves.

Put the spices in thin muslin bags. Boil all together ten minutes, then
put in the fruit, and boil until they can be pierced with a straw. Take
out the fruit with a skimmer, and spread upon dishes to cool. Boil the
syrup until thick, pack the peaches in glass jars, and pour this over
them scalding hot.

You may pickle pears in the same way without peeling.

PICKLED CHERRIES. ✠

Morella, or large red tart cherries, as fresh as you can get them. To
every quart allow a large cup of vinegar and two tablespoonfuls of
sugar, with a dozen whole cloves and half a dozen blades of mace.

Put the vinegar and sugar on to heat with the spices. Boil five
minutes; turn out into a covered stoneware vessel, cover, and
let it get perfectly cold. Strain out the spices, fill small jars
three-quarters of the way to the top with fruit, and pour the cold
vinegar over them. Cork or cover tightly. Leave the stems on the
cherries.

PICKLETTE. ✠

4 large crisp cabbages, chopped fine.
1 quart onions, chopped fine.
2 quarts of vinegar, or enough to cover the cabbage.
2 lbs. brown sugar.
2 tablespoonfuls ground mustard.
2 tablespoonfuls black pepper.
2 tablespoonfuls cinnamon.
2 tablespoonfuls turmeric.
2 tablespoonfuls celery-seed.
1 tablespoonful allspice.
1 tablespoonful mace.
1 tablespoonful alum, pulverized.

Pack the cabbage and onions in alternate layers, with a little salt
between them. Let them stand until next day. Then scald the vinegar,
sugar, and spices together, and pour over the cabbage and onion. Do
this three mornings in succession. On the fourth, put all together over
the fire and heat to a boil. Let them boil five minutes. When cold,
pack in small jars.

It is fit for use as soon as cool, but keeps well.

DRINKS.

COFFEE.

Never buy the ground coffee put up in packages, if you can get any
other. The mere fact that after they have gone to the expense of the
machinery and labor requisite for grinding it, the manufacturers can
sell it cheaper per pound than grocers can the whole grains, roasted or
raw, should convince every sensible person that it is adulterated with
other and less expensive substances. Be that as it may, coffee loses
its aroma so rapidly after it is ground that it is worth your while to
buy it whole, either in small quantities freshly roasted, or raw, and
roast it yourself; or stand by and see your respectable grocer grind
what you have just bought. You can roast in a pan in the oven, stirring
every few minutes, or in the same upon the top of the range. Stir often
and roast quickly to a bright brown—not a dull black. While still hot,
beat up the white of an egg with a tablespoonful of melted butter and
stir up well with it. This will tend to preserve the flavor. Grind just
enough at a time for a single making.

TO MAKE COFFEE (_boiled._)

1 full coffee-cup (½ pint) of ground coffee.
1 quart of boiling water.
White of an egg, and crushed shell of same.
½ cup of cold water to settle it.

Stir up the eggshell and the white (beaten) with the coffee, and a very
little cold water, and mix gradually with the boiling water in the
coffee-boiler. Stir from the sides and top as it boils up. Boil pretty
fast twelve minutes; pour in the cold water and take from the fire,
setting gently upon the hearth to settle. In five minutes, pour it
off carefully into your silver, china, or Britannia coffee-pot, which
should be previously well scalded.

Send to table _hot_.

TO MAKE COFFEE WITHOUT BOILING.

There are so many patent coffee-pots for this purpose, and the
directions sold with these are so minute, that I need give only a few
general rules here. Allow rather more coffee to a given quantity of
water than if it were to be boiled, and have it ground _very_ fine. Put
the coffee in the uppermost compartment, pour on the water very slowly
until the fine coffee is saturated, then more rapidly. The water should
be boiling. Shut down the top, and the coffee ought to be ready when it
has gone through the double or treble set of strainers. Should it not
be strong enough, run it through again.

CAFÉ AU LAIT.

1 pint very strong _made_ coffee—fresh and hot.
1 pint boiling milk.

The coffee should be poured off the grounds through a fine strainer
(thin muslin is the best material) into the table coffee-pot. Add the
milk, and set the pot where it will keep hot for five minutes before
pouring it out.

TEA.

2 teaspoonfuls of tea to one _large_ cupful of boiling water.

Scald the teapot well, put in the tea, and, covering close, set it on
the stove or range one minute to warm; pour on enough boiling water to
cover it well, and let it stand ten minutes to “draw.” Keep the lid of
the pot shut, and set in a warm place, but do not let it boil. Fill up
with as much boiling water as you will need, and send hot to the table,
after pouring into a heated china or silver pot.

The bane of tea in many households is unboiled water. It can never
extract the flavor as it should, although it steep for hours. The
kettle should not only steam, but bubble and puff in a hard boil before
you add water from it to the tea-leaves.

Boiling after the tea is made, injures the flavor either by deadening
or making it rank and “herby.”

The English custom of making tea upon the breakfast or tea-table is
fast gaining ground in America. It is at once the best and prettiest
way of preparing the beverage.

CHOCOLATE. ✠

6 tablespoonfuls grated chocolate to each pint of water.
As much milk as you have water.
Sweeten to taste.

Put on the water boiling hot. Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold
water, and stir into the boiling water. Boil twenty minutes; add the
milk and boil ten minutes more, stirring frequently. You can sweeten
upon the fire or in the cups.

COCOA NIBS, OR SHELLS. ✠

1 quart of boiling water.
2 ozs. of cocoa nibs.
1 quart fresh milk.

Wet the shells or nibs up with a little cold water; add to the boiling,
and cook one hour and a half; strain, put in the milk, let it heat
almost to boiling, and take from the fire.

This is excellent for invalids.

PREPARED COCOA. ✠

1 quart of water, boiling.
2 ozs. prepared cocoa—Baker’s is best.
1 quart of milk.

Make as you do chocolate—only boil nearly an hour before you add the
milk, afterward heating _almost_ to boiling. Sweeten to taste.

MILK TEA (FOR CHILDREN.)

1 pint fresh milk and the same of _boiling_ water. Sweeten to taste.

RASPBERRY ROYAL. ✠

4 quarts ripe berries.
1 quart best cider vinegar.
1 lb. white sugar.
1 pint fine brandy.

Put the berries in a stone jar, pour the vinegar over them, add the
sugar, and pound the berries to a paste with a wooden pestle, or mash
with a spoon. Let them stand in the sun four hours; strain and squeeze
out all the juice, and put in the brandy. Seal up in bottles; lay them
on their sides in the cellar, and cover with sawdust.

Stir two tablespoonfuls into a tumbler of ice-water when you wish to
use it.

RASPBERRY VINEGAR. ✠

Put the raspberries into a stone vessel and mash them to a pulp. Add
cider-vinegar—no specious imitation, but the genuine article—enough
to cover it well. Stand in the sun twelve hours, and all night in the
cellar. Stir up well occasionally during this time. Strain, and put
as many fresh berries in the jar as you took out; pour the strained
vinegar over them; mash and set in the sun all day. Strain a second
time next day. To each quart of this juice allow

1 pint of water.
5 lbs. of sugar (best white) for every 3 pints of this liquid,
juice and water mingled.

Place over a gentle fire and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Heat
slowly to boiling, skimming off the scum, and as soon as it fairly
boils take off and strain. Bottle while warm, and seal the corks with
sealing wax, or bees’-wax and rosin.

A most refreshing and pleasant drink.

BLACKBERRY VINEGAR

Is made in the same manner as raspberry, allowing 5½ lbs. sugar to 3
pints of juice and water.

BLACKBERRY CORDIAL.

1 quart of blackberry juice.
1 lb. white sugar.
½ oz. grated nutmeg.
½ oz. powdered cinnamon.
¼ oz. allspice.
¼ oz. cloves.
1 pint best brandy.

Tie the spices in thin muslin bags; boil juice, sugar, and spices
together fifteen minutes, skimming well; add the brandy; set aside in
a closely covered vessel to cool. When perfectly cold, strain out the
spices, and bottle, sealing the corks.

ELDERBERRY WINE.

8 quarts of berries.
4 quarts of boiling water poured over the berries.

Let it stand twelve hours, stirring now and then. Strain well, pressing
out all the juice. Add

3 lbs. of sugar to 4 quarts of juice.
1 oz. powdered cinnamon.
½ oz. powdered cloves.

Boil five minutes, and set away to ferment in a stone jar, with a
cloth thrown lightly over it. When it has done fermenting, rack it off
carefully, not to disturb the lees. Bottle and cork down well.

CRANBERRY WINE.

Mash ripe berries to a pulp; put into a stone jar.
Add 1 quart of water to 2 quarts of berries.

Stir well and let it stand two days. Strain through a double flannel
bag; mash a second supply of berries, equal in quantity to the first,
and cover with this liquid. Steep two days more; strain; add

1 lb. sugar for 3 quarts of liquor,

and boil five minutes. Let it ferment in lightly covered jars; rack off
and bottle.

This is said to be very good for scrofula.

STRAWBERRY WINE.

3 quarts of strawberries, mashed and strained. To the juice (there
should be about a quart, if the berries are ripe and fresh) add

1 quart of water.
1 lb. of sugar.

Stir up well and ferment in a clean, sweet cask, leaving the bung out.
When the working subsides close tightly, or rack off into bottles.

This is said by those who have tasted it to be very good.

CURRANT WINE.

Pick, stem, mash, and strain the currants, which should be very ripe.

To 1 quart of juice add
¾ lb. white sugar.
½ pint of water.

Stir all together long and well; put into a clean cask, leaving out the
bung, and covering the whole with a bit of lace or mosquito net. Let it
ferment about four weeks—rack off when it is quite still, and bottle.

JAMAICA GINGER-BEER.

1 bottle Jamaica Ginger Extract.
1 oz. cream-tartar.
6 quarts water.
1 lb. sugar.

Stir until the sugar is melted, then put in the grated peel of a lemon,
and heat until blood-warm. Add a tablespoonful of brewers’ yeast; stir
well and bottle, wiring down the corks. It will be fit for use in four
days.

This is a refreshing and healthful beverage mixed with pounded ice in
hot weather.

RAISIN WINE.

1 lb. white sugar.
2 lbs. raisins, seeded and chopped.
1 lemon—all the juice and half the grated peel.
2 gallons boiling water.

Put all into a stone jar, and stir every day for a week. Strain, then,
and bottle it. It will be fit for use in ten days.

LEMONADE OR SHERBET.

3 lemons to a quart of water.
6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.

Pare the yellow peel from the lemons, and, unless you mean to use the
Sherbet immediately, leave it out. It gives a bitter taste to the sugar
if left long in it. Slice and squeeze the lemons upon the sugar, add
a very little water, and let them stand fifteen minutes. Then fill up
with water; ice well, stir, and pour out.

ORANGEADE

Is made in the same manner, substituting oranges for lemons.

STRAWBERRY SHERBET. (_Delicious._) ✠

1 quart of strawberries.
3 pints of water.
1 lemon—the juice only.
1 tablespoonful orange-flower water.
¾ lb. white sugar.

The strawberries should be fresh and ripe. Crush to a smooth paste; add
the rest of the ingredients (except the sugar), and let it stand three
hours. Strain over the sugar, squeezing the cloth hard; stir until the
sugar is dissolved; strain again and set in ice for two hours or more
before you use it.

REGENT’S PUNCH. (_Fine._)

1 lb. loaf-sugar or rock candy.
1 large cup strong black tea—(made).
3 wineglasses of brandy.
3 wineglasses of rum.
1 bottle champagne.
2 oranges—juice only.
3 lemons—juice only.
1 large lump of ice.

This receipt was given me by a gentleman of the old school, a
connoisseur in the matter of beverages as of cookery. “Tell your
readers,” he writes, “that better punch was never brewed.” I give
receipt and message together.

ROMAN PUNCH.

3 coffee cups of lemonade—(strong and sweet.)
1 glass champagne.
1 glass rum.
2 oranges—juice only.
2 eggs—whites only—well whipped.
½ lb. powdered sugar, beaten into the stiffened whites.

You must ice abundantly—or, if you prefer, freeze.

SHERRY COBBLER.

Several slices of pineapple, cut in quarters.
A lemon, sliced thin.
An orange, sliced thin.
½ cup of powdered sugar.
1 tumbler of Sherry wine.
Ice-water.
Pounded ice.

Take a wide-mouthed quart pitcher and lay the sliced fruit in order at
the bottom, sprinkling sugar and pounded ice between the layers. Cover
with sugar and ice, and let all stand together five minutes. Add then
two tumblers of water and all the sugar, and stir well to dissolve
this. Fill the pitcher nearly full of pounded ice, pour in the wine,
and stir up from the bottom until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
In pouring it out put a slice of each kind of fruit in each goblet
before adding the liquid.

It is best sucked through a straw or glass tube.

NECTAR. ✠

Make as above, substituting a little rose-water for the pineapple, and
squeezing out the juice of the orange and lemon, instead of putting in
the slices. Sprinkle nutmeg on the top.

This forms a delicious and refreshing drink for invalids.

CLARET PUNCH. ✠

1 bottle of claret.
¼ the quantity of ice-water.
2 lemons, sliced.
½ cup powdered sugar.

Cover the sliced lemon with sugar and let it stand ten minutes. Add the
water; stir hard for a whole minute, and pour in the wine. Put pounded
ice in each glass before filling with the mixture.

EGG NOGG. ✠

6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very stiff.
1 quart rich milk.
½ cup of sugar.
½ pint best brandy.
Flavor with nutmeg.

Stir the yolks into the milk with the sugar, which should first be
beaten with the yolks. Next comes the brandy. Lastly whip in the whites
of three eggs.

CHERRY BOUNCE.

4 lbs. of sour and the same quantity of sweet cherries.
2½ lbs. white sugar.
1 gallon best whiskey.

Crush the cherries to pieces by pounding in a deep wooden vessel with
a smooth billet of wood. Beat hard enough to crack all the stones.
Put into a deep stone jar, mix in the sugar well, and cover with the
whiskey. Shake around briskly and turn into a demijohn. Cork tightly
and let it stand a month, shaking it every day, and another month
without touching it. Then strain off and bottle.

It is better a year than six months old.

If the Maltese cross appears but seldom in the section devoted
to drinks, it is because most of my information respecting their
manufacture is second-hand. In my own family they are so little used,
except in sickness, that I should not dare to teach others, upon my own
authority, how to prepare them. Indeed, the temptation I felt to omit
many of them reminded me of a remark made, introductory of preserves,
by one of the “Complete Housewives,” who, all five together, drove me
to the verge of an attack of congestion of the brain, before I had
been a housekeeper for a week. Said this judicious lady:—“Preserves
of all kinds are expensive and indigestible, and therefore poisonous.
_Therefore_”—again—“I shall not give directions for their manufacture,
except to remark that barberries stewed in molasses are economical, and
a degree less hurtful than most others of that class of compounds.”

Then I reflected that I might, upon the same principle, exclude all
receipts in which cocoanut is used, because it is rank poison to me;
while a dear friend of mine would as soon touch arsenic as an egg. A
large majority of the beverages I have named are highly medicinal, and
deserve a place in the housekeeper’s calendar on that account. Many, so
far from being hurtful, are beneficial to a weak stomach or a system
suffering under general debility. _None which contain alcohol in any
shape should be used daily, much less semi- or tri-daily by a well
person._

This principle reduced to practice would prove the preventive ounce
which would cure, all over the land, the need for Temperance Societies
and Inebriate Asylums.

THE SICK-ROOM.

The sick-chamber should be the most quiet and cheerful in the house—a
sacred isle past which the waves of domestic toil and solicitude glide
silently. This is not an easy rule to obey. Whoever the invalid may
be, whether the mother, father, or the sweet youngling of the flock,
the foundations of the household seem thrown out of course while the
sickness lasts. You may have good servants and kind friends to aid
you, but the hitch in the machinery is not to be smoothed out by their
efforts. The irregularity does not annoy you: you do not notice it if
the attack be severe or dangerous. All other thoughts are swallowed
up in the all-absorbing, ever-present alarm. You count nothing an
inconvenience that can bring present relief, or possible healing to the
beloved one; disdain for yourself rest or ease while the shadow hangs
above the pillow crushed by the helpless head. But when it passes,
when the first transport of thankfulness has subsided into an abiding
sense of safety, the mind swings back to the accustomed pivot, and
your eyes seem to be suddenly unbound. You find, with dismay, that
the children have run wild, and the comfort of the whole family been
neglected during your confinement to the post of most urgent duty; with
displeasure, that the servants have, as you consider, taken advantage
of your situation to omit this task, and to slur over that;—in fine,
that nothing has been done well, and so many things left altogether
undone, that you are “worried out of your senses”—a phrase that too
often signifies, out of your temper.

And it is just at this juncture—when you are called to fifty points of
attention and labor at once, and are on the verge of despair at the
conglomeration worse conglomerated arising before you; fidgetting to
pick up dropped stitches in the web you were wont to keep so even—that
the invalid becomes most exacting. “Unreasonable,” you name it to
yourself, even though it be John himself who calls upon you every third
minute for some little office of loving-kindness; who wants to be
amused and fed and petted, and made generally comfortable as if he were
a six-months-old baby; who never remembers that you must be wearied out
with watching and anxiety, and that everything below-stairs is going to
destruction for the want of a balance-wheel. The better he loves you
the more apt is he to fancy that nobody but you can do anything for
him; the more certain to crave something which no one else knows how
to prepare. And when you have strained muscle and patience a _little_
further to get it ready, and with prudent foresight made enough to
last for several meals, it is more than probable that his fickle taste
will suggest something entirely different for “next time.” “Just for a
change, you know, dear. One gets so tired of eating the same thing so
often!”

He might be more considerate—less childish—you think, turning away that
he may not see your change of countenance. When you have taken so much
pains to suit him exactly! It is harder yet when he refuses to do more
than taste the delicacy you hoped would tempt him.

“It is very nice, I suppose, my love,” says the poor fellow, with the
air of a martyr. “But it does not taste right, somehow. Maybe the
children can dispose of it. If I had a lemon ice, or some wine jelly
such as my mother used to make, I am sure I could relish it. I always
did detest sick peoples’ diet!”

If he is very much shaken as to nerves, he will be likely to say,
“_messes_.”

“I am fairly wild!” said a loving wife and mother, and thrifty
housekeeper, to me one day, when I called to see her.

She had just nursed her husband and three children through the
influenza. All had been down with it at once. That form of demoniacal
possession is generally conducted upon the wholesale principle. One of
her servants had left in disgust at the increased pressure of work; the
weather was rainy, blowy, raw; the streets were muddy, and there was no
such thing as keeping steps and halls clean, while the four invalids
were cross as only toothache or influenza can make human beings.

“I am fairly wild!” said the worthy creature, with tears in her eyes.
“I cannot snatch a minute, from morning until night, to put things
straight, and yet I am almost tired to death! I was saying to myself
as you came in, that I wouldn’t try any longer. I would just sit still
until the dirt was piled up to my chin, and _then I would get upon the
table!_”

How often I have thought of her odd speech since! sometimes with a
smile—more frequently with a sigh. But with all my pity for the nurse
and housekeeper, I cannot conceal from myself—I would not forget,
or let you forget for a moment—the truth that the sick one is the
greater sufferer. It is never pleasant to be laid upon the shelf. The
resting-place—falsely so-called—is hard and narrow and uneven enough,
even when the tramp of the outer world does not jar the sore and
jaded frame; when there is no apparent need for the sick person to be
upon his feet, and for aught that others can see, or he can say, he
might just as well stay where he is for a month or two. But when, the
rack of pain having been removed, the dulled perceptions of the mind
re-awaken to sensitiveness, and there comes to his ear the bugle-call
of duty—sharp, imperative;—when every idle moment speaks to him of a
slain opportunity, and the no longer strong man shakes his fetters
with piteous cries against fate, do not despise, or be impatient
with him. He is feverish and inconsiderate and capricious because he
is not himself. You see only the poor wreck left by the demon as he
tore his way out of him at the Divine command. Gather it up lovingly
in your arms, and nurse it back to strength and comeliness. The sick
should always be the chief object of thought and care with all in the
household.’ If need be, let the dirt lie chin-deep everywhere else, so
long as it is kept out of that one room. There be jealous in your care
that nothing offends sight and smell.

There should be _no_ smell in a sick-chamber. To avoid this, let in
the air freely and often. Cologne-water will not dispel a foul odor,
while disinfectants are noisome in themselves. Bathe the patient as
frequently and thoroughly as prudence will allow, and change his
clothing, with the bed-linen, every day. Do not keep the medicines
where he can see them, nor ever let him witness the mixing of that
which he is to swallow. So soon as his meals are over, remove every
vestige of them from the room. Even a soiled spoon, lying on table or
bureau, may offend his fastidious appetite. Cover the stand or waiter
from which he eats with a spotless napkin, and serve his food in your
daintiest ware.

My heart softens almost to tearfulness when I recall the hours, days,
weeks, I have myself spent in the chamber of languishing, and the
ingenuity of tenderness that, from my babyhood, has striven to cheat
the imprisonment of weariness, and make me forget pain and uselessness.
The pretty surprises daily invented for my entertainment; the exceeding
nicety with which they were set out before me; the loving words that
nourished my spirit when the body was faint unto death,—these are
events, not slight incidents, in the book of memory. When I cease to be
grateful for them, or to learn from them how to minister unto others of
the like consolation, may my heart forget to beat, my right hand lose
her cunning!

Do not ask your charge what he would like to eat to-day. He will, of a
surety, sicken with the effort at selection, and say, “Nothing!” But
watch attentively for the slightest intimation of a desire for any
particular delicacy, and if you are assured that it cannot hurt him,
procure it, if you can, without letting him guess at your intention.
Feed him lightly and often, never bringing more into his sight than he
may safely eat. A big bowl of broth or jelly will either tempt him to
imprudence, or discourage him. “Am I to be burdened with all that?”
cries the affrighted stomach, and will have none of it. While he is
very weak, feed him with your own hand, playfully, as you would a
child, talking cheerily of something besides his food, and coaxing him
into taking the needed nutriment as only a wife and mother can, or as
nobody but John could beguile you to effort in the same direction.

Study all pleasant and soothing arts to while away the time, and keep
worry of every kind away from him. A trifle at which you can laugh will
be a burden to the enfeebled mind and body, and he has nothing to do
but lie still and roll it over until it swells into a mountain. When
he can be removed without danger, let him have his meals in another
room, changing the air of each when he is not in it. Every one who has
suffered from long sickness knows the peculiar loathing attendant upon
the idea that all food is tainted with the atmosphere of the chamber
in which it is served, and if eaten in bed, tastes of the mattress and
pillows. The room and all in it may be clean, fresh, and sweet, but the
fancy cannot be dismissed. And it is wiser to humor than to reason with
most sick fancies.

A hired nurse is a useful, often a necessary thing, but while you are
upon your feet, and mistress of your own house, delegate to no one
the precious task of catering for the dear sufferer. It is an art in
itself. I hope a practical knowledge of it will be taught in Women’s
Medical Colleges, when they are an established “institution” with us.

I wish it were proper to record here the name of one of the kindest
and best family physicians I ever knew, who had charge of my not very
firm health during my girlhood. He owed much—I suppose no one ever knew
really how much—of his success in his practice to his tact and skill in
devising palatable and suitable nourishment for his patients. I well
remember the childish pleasure with which I would hear him say when the
violence of the attack had passed—“Now, my dear child, we must begin
with kitchen physic!” and the glow of amused expectation with which I
used to watch him, as, with an arch show of mystery, he would beckon my
mother from the room to receive his “prescription;” the impatience with
which I awaited the result of the conference, and the zest with which I
ate whatever he ordered.

If I could have persuaded him to manage this department of my work,
it would win for me the degree of M.D. with a new meaning—Mistress of
Dietetics.

THE SICK-ROOM.

BEEF TEA. ✠

1 lb. _lean_ beef, cut into small pieces.

Put into a jar without a drop of water; cover tightly, and set in a pot
of cold water. Heat gradually to a boil, and continue this steadily
for three or four hours, until the meat is like white rags, and the
juice all drawn out. Season with salt to taste, and when cold, skim.
The patient will often prefer this ice-cold to hot. Serve with Albert
biscuit or thin “wafers,” unleavened, made by a receipt given under the
head of BREAD.

MUTTON BROTH. ✠

1 lb. lean mutton or lamb, cut small.
1 quart water—cold.
1 tablespoonful rice, or barley, soaked in a very little warm water.
4 tablespoonfuls milk.
Salt and pepper, with a little chopped parsley.

Boil the meat, unsalted, in the water, keeping it closely covered,
until it falls to pieces. Strain it out, skim, add the soaked barley or
rice; simmer half an hour, stirring often; stir in the seasoning and
the milk, and simmer five minutes after it heats up well, taking care
it does not burn.

Serve hot with cream crackers.

CHICKEN BROTH. ✠

Is excellent made in the same manner as mutton, cracking the bones well
before you put in the fowl.

VEAL AND SAGO BROTH.

2 lbs. knuckle of veal, cracked all to pieces.
2 quarts of cold water.
3 tablespoonfuls best pearl sago, soaked in a cup of cold water.
1 cup cream, heated to boiling.
Yolks of two eggs, beaten light.

Boil the veal and water in a covered saucepan very slowly until reduced
to one quart of liquid; strain, skim, season with salt, and stir in the
soaked sago (having previously warmed it by setting for half an hour in
a saucepan of boiling water, and stirring from time to time.) Simmer
half an hour, taking care it does not burn; beat in the cream and eggs;
give one good boil up, and turn out.

This is excellent for consumptives.

BEEF AND SAGO BROTH.

2 lbs. of beef—cut up small.
2 quarts of water.
1 cup of sago, soaked soft in a little lukewarm water.
Yolks of three eggs.
Salt to taste.

Stew the beef until it falls to pieces; strain it out, salt the liquid
and stir in the sago. Simmer gently one hour, stirring often. Add the
beaten yolks: boil up once and serve.

This is a strengthening and nice soup. Eat with dry toast.

ARROWROOT JELLY (_Plain._) ✠

1 cup _boiling_ water.
2 heaping teaspoonfuls of best Bermuda arrowroot.
1 teaspoonful lemon juice.
2 teaspoonfuls of white sugar.

Wet the arrowroot in a little cold water, and rub smooth. Then stir
into the hot, which should be on the fire and actually boiling at the
time, with the sugar already melted in it. Stir until clear, boiling
steadily all the while, and add the lemon. Wet a cup in cold water, and
pour in the jelly to form. Eat cold with sugar and cream flavored with
rose-water.

An invaluable preparation in cases where wine is forbidden.

ARROWROOT WINE JELLY. ✠

1 cup boiling water.
2 heaping teaspoonfuls arrowroot.
2 heaping white sugar.
1 tablespoonful brandy _or_ 3 tablespoonfuls of wine.

An excellent corrective to weak bowels.

ARROWROOT BLANC MANGE. ✠

1 cupful _boiling_ milk.
2 dessertspoonfuls best arrowroot, rubbed smooth in cold water.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
Vanilla or other essence.

Boil until it thickens well, stirring all the while. Eat cold with
cream, flavored with rose-water, and sweetened to taste.

SAGO

May be substituted for arrowroot in any of the foregoing receipts,
when you have soaked it an hour in water poured over it cold, and
gradually warmed by setting the cup containing it in hot water. Boil
rather longer than you do the arrowroot.

SAGO GRUEL. ✠

2 cups water.
2 tablespoonfuls sago.
3 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
1 glass of wine.
1 tablespoonful lemon juice.
Nutmeg to taste, and a pinch of salt.

Put the sago in the water while cold, and warm by setting in a saucepan
of boiling water. Stir often, and let it soften and heat for one
hour. Then _boil_ ten minutes, stirring all the while; add the sugar,
wine, and lemon, and pour into a bowl or mould to cool. Eat warm, if
preferred. The wine and nutmeg should be omitted if the patient be
feverish.

INDIAN MEAL GRUEL. ✠

2 quarts of boiling water.
1 cup of Indian meal, and
1 tablespoonful flour, wet up with cold water.
Salt to taste—and, if you like, sugar and nutmeg.

Wet the meal and flour to a smooth paste, and stir into the water while
it is actually boiling. Boil slowly one hour, stirring up well from
the bottom. Season with salt to taste. Some sweeten it, but I like it
better with a little pepper added to the salt.

If a cathartic is desired, omit the wheat flour altogether.

OATMEAL GRUEL

Is made in the same way.

MILK AND RICE GRUEL.

1 quart boiling milk.
2 tablespoonfuls (heaping) of ground rice, wet with cold milk.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Stir in the rice-paste and boil ten minutes, stirring all the while.
Season with sugar and nutmeg, and eat warm with cream.

You may use Indian meal instead of rice-flour, which is an astringent.
In this case, boil an hour.

DRIED FLOUR FOR TEETHING CHILDREN.

1 cup of flour, tied in a stout muslin bag and dropped into cold
water, then set over the fire.

_Boil_ three hours steadily. Turn out the flour ball and dry in the hot
sun all day; or, if you need it at once, dry in a moderate oven without
shutting the door.

_To use it—_

Grate a tablespoonful for a cupful of boiling milk and water (half and
half). Wet up the flour with a very little cold water, stir in and boil
five minutes. Put in a little salt.

TAPIOCA JELLY. ✠ (_Very good._)

1 cup of tapioca.
3 cups of cold water.
Juice of a lemon, and a pinch of the grated peel.
Sweeten to taste.

Soak the tapioca in the water four hours. Set within a saucepan of
boiling water; pour more lukewarm water over the tapioca if it has
absorbed too much of the liquid, and heat, stirring frequently. If too
thick after it begins to clear, put in a very little boiling water.
When quite clear, put in the sugar and lemon. Pour into moulds. Eat
cold, with cream flavored with rose-water and sweetened.

TAPIOCA BLANC-MANGE. ✠

1 cup of tapioca soaked in two cups cold water.
3 cups boiling milk.
3 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
Rose-water or vanilla.

Soak the tapioca four hours, and stir, with the water in which it was
soaked, into the boiling milk. Sweeten and boil slowly, stirring all
the while, fifteen minutes. Take off, flavor and pour into moulds.

Eat cold with cream. Wash tapioca well before soaking.

ARROWROOT CUSTARD. (_Nice._)

2 cups of _boiling_ milk.
3 heaping teaspoonfuls arrowroot, wet up with a little cold milk.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar, beaten with the egg.
1 egg very well beaten.

Mix the arrowroot paste with the boiling milk; stir three minutes; take
from the fire and whip in the egg and sugar. Boil two minutes longer,
flavor with vanilla or rose-water, and pour into moulds.

RICE-FLOUR MILK.

2 cups of milk, _boiling_.
2 tablespoonfuls rice-flour, wet up with cold milk.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

Boil ten minutes, stirring all the while, and flavor to taste. Eat warm
with cream.

SAGO MILK. ✠

3 tablespoonfuls sago, soaked in a large cup cold water one hour.
3 cups boiling milk.
Sweeten and flavor to taste.

Simmer slowly half an hour. Eat warm.

TAPIOCA MILK

Is made in the same way.

BOILED RICE. ✠

½ cup whole rice, boiled in just enough water to cover it.
1 cup of milk.
A little salt.
1 egg, beaten light.

When the rice is nearly done, turn off the water, add the milk and
simmer—taking care it does not scorch—until the milk boils up well.
Salt, and beat in the egg.

Eat warm with cream, sugar, and nutmeg.

PANADA. ✠

6 Boston crackers, split.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
A good pinch of salt, and a little nutmeg.
Enough _boiling_ water to cover them well.

Split the crackers, and pile in a bowl in layers, salt and sugar
scattered among them. Cover with boiling water and set on the hearth,
with a close top over the bowl, for at least one hour. The crackers
should be almost clear and soft as jelly, but not broken.

Eat from the bowl, with more sugar sprinkled in if you wish it. If
properly made, this panada is very nice.

BREAD PANADA, OR JELLY. ✠

Pare some slices of stale baker’s bread and toast nicely, without
burning. Pile in a bowl, sprinkling sugar and a very little salt
between; cover well with _boiling_ water, and set, with a tight lid
upon the top, in a pan of boiling water. Simmer gently, until the
contents of the bowl are like jelly. Eat warm with powdered sugar and
nutmeg.

CHICKEN JELLY. (_Very nourishing._) ✠

Half a raw chicken, pounded with a mallet, bones and meat together.
Plenty of cold water to cover it well—_about_ a quart.

Heat slowly in a covered vessel, and let it simmer until the meat is
in white rags and the liquid reduced one half. Strain and press, first
through a cullender, then through a coarse cloth. Salt to taste, and
pepper, if you think best; return to the fire, and simmer five minutes
longer. Skim when cool. Give to the patient cold—just from the ice—with
unleavened wafers. Keep on the ice. You can make into sandwiches by
putting the jelly between thin slices of bread spread lightly with
butter.

CALVES’ FEET BROTH.

2 calves’ feet.
2 quarts cold water.
1 egg, beaten up with two tablespoonfuls milk for each cupful
of broth.
Pepper and salt.

Boil the feet to shreds; strain the liquor through a double muslin
bag; season to taste, and set by for use, as you need it. Warm by
the small quantity, allowing to each cupful a beaten egg and two
tablespoonfuls of milk. Give a good boil up to cook these, and serve
“with thin, crisp toast. If the patient can take it, a dash of
lemon-juice improves the broth.

TOAST WATER. ✠

Slices of toast, nicely browned, without a symptom of burning.
Enough boiling water to cover them.

Cover closely, and let them steep until cold. Strain the water, sweeten
to taste, and put a piece of ice in each glassful. If the physician
thinks it safe, add a little lemon-juice.

APPLE WATER. ✠

1 large juicy pippin, the most finely-flavored you can get.
3 cups of cold water—1 quart if the apple is very large.

Pare and quarter the apple, but do not core it. Put it on the fire in
a tin or porcelain saucepan with the water, and boil, closely covered,
until the apple stews to pieces. Strain the liquor _at once_, pressing
the apple hard in the cloth. Strain this again through a finer bag, and
set away to cool. Sweeten with white sugar, and ice for drinking.

It is a refreshing and palatable drink.

JELLY WATER. ✠

1 large teaspoonful currant or cranberry jelly.
1 goblet ice-water.

Beat up well for a fever-patient.

Wild cherry or blackberry jelly is excellent, prepared in like manner
for those suffering with summer complaint.

FLAX-SEED LEMONADE. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls flax-seed (whole.)
1 quart boiling water poured upon the flax-seed.
Juice of two lemons, leaving out the peel.
Sweeten to taste.

Steep three hours in a covered pitcher. If too thick, put in cold water
with the lemon-juice and sugar. Ice for drinking.

It is admirable for colds.

SLIPPERY-ELM BARK TEA.

Break the bark into bits, pour boiling water over it, cover and let it
infuse until cold. Sweeten, ice, and take for summer disorders, or add
lemon-juice and drink for a bad cold.

APPLE TODDY. ✠

Boil a large juicy pippin in a quart of water, and when it has broken
to pieces strain off the water. While it is still boiling-hot, add a
glass of fine old whiskey, a little lemon-juice, and sweeten to taste.

Take hot at bed-time for influenza.

MILK PUNCH. ✠

1 tumbler of milk, well sweetened.
2 tablespoonfuls best brandy, well stirred in.

I have known very sick patients to be kept alive for days at a time by
this mixture, and nothing else, until Nature could rally her forces.
Give very cold with ice.

EGG AND MILK PUNCH ✠

Is made by the preceding receipt, with an egg beaten very light with
the sugar, and stirred in before the brandy is added.

ICELAND OR IRISH MOSS LEMONADE. ✠

1 handful Irish or Iceland moss, washed in five waters.
2 quarts boiling water, poured upon the moss, and left until cold.
2 lemons, peeled and sliced, leaving out the peel.
Sweeten very well and ice.

Do not strain, and if it thicken too much, add cold water.

Excellent for feverish colds and all pulmonary troubles.

ICELAND OR IRISH MOSS JELLY. ✠

1 handful moss, washed in five waters, and soaked an hour.
1 quart _boiling_ water.
2 lemons—the juice only.
1 glass of wine.
¼ teaspoonful cinnamon. (Measure scantily.)

Soak the washed moss in a very little cold water; stir into the
boiling, and simmer until it is dissolved. Sweeten, flavor, and strain
into moulds. You may use two glasses of cider instead of one of wine
for a fever-patient, putting in a little less water.

Good for colds, and very nourishing.

SEA-MOSS BLANC-MANGE

Is made in the same way, using boiling milk instead of water, and
leaving out the lemons and wine. Flavor with vanilla or rose-water.

DRY TOAST.

Pare off the crust from stale light bread; slice half an inch thick and
toast _quickly_. Graham bread is very nice toasted.

Butter lightly if the patient can eat butter.

MILK TOAST. ✠

Toast as just directed; dip each slice, as it comes from the toaster,
in boiling water; butter, salt slightly, and lay in a deep covered
dish. Have ready in a saucepan enough boiling milk to cover all well.
When your slices are packed, salt this very slightly; melt in it a
bit of butter and pour over them. Cover closely and let it stand five
minutes before using it. It is excellent when made of Graham bread.

This is a good dish for a family tea as well as for invalids.

UNLEAVENED BISCUIT, OR WAFERS. ✠

Mix good, dry flour to a stiff dough with milk; salt, and roll out
thin. Cut into round cakes and roll these again almost as thin as
letter-paper. Bake very quickly.

They may also be mixed with water. These are very simple and palatable,
and go well with all kinds of broth, especially oyster-soup.

DRIED RUSK. (See _Bread_.)

BEEF STEAK AND MUTTON CHOPS.

Choose the tenderest cuts and broil over a clear hot fire with your
wisest skill. Let the steak be rare—the chops well-done. Salt and
pepper, lay between two _hot_ plates three minutes, and serve to your
patient. If he is very weak, do not let him swallow anything except
the juice, when he has chewed the meat well.

The essence of rare beef—roast or broiled—thus expressed, is considered
by some physicians to be more strengthening than beef-tea, prepared in
the usual manner.

SANGAREE OR PORTEREE.

One-third wine or porter mixed with two-thirds cold water. Sweeten,
grate nutmeg on the top, and ice.

Serve dry toast with it. Taken hot, it is good for a sudden cold.

WINE WHEY.

1 pint boiling milk.

1 large glass pale wine, poured in when the milk is scalding hot. Boil
up once, remove from the fire and let it cool. Do not stir it after the
wine is put in. When the curd forms, draw off the whey and sweeten.

HERB TEAS

Are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling
water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a
gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.

Catnip tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and
colic, known to nurses.

Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden
check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies’ thin shoes.

Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or
hot.

The tea made from blackberry-root is said to be good for summer
disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and
soothing wash for a cankered mouth.

Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm,
will often cure strangury and kindred affections, as will that made
from dried pumpkin-seed.

Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds
steeped in brandy.

A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any
simple case of summer complaint in infants.

Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and
sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

MINT JULEP. ✠

Some sprigs of green mint, slightly bruised in a tumbler with a
teaspoon. Put in a generous teaspoonful of white sugar; add gradually,
stirring and rubbing lightly, enough water to fill the glass
three-quarters of the way to the top. Fill up with pounded ice; stir
hard; pour into a larger glass that you may shake up well, and put in
two tablespoonfuls fine brandy.

This is called a “hail-storm julep.”

EAU SUCRÉ. ✠

Dissolve three or four lumps of loaf sugar in a glass of ice-water, and
take a teaspoonful every few minutes for a “tickling in the throat,” or
a hacking cough. Keep it ice-cold.

A simple, but often an efficacious remedy.

THE NURSERY.

All food intended for infants should be very thoroughly cooked. The
numerous varieties of farinaceous substances—biscotine, farina,
rice-flour, arrowroot, etc., however nourishing may be their properties
when rightly prepared, are harsh and drastic when underdone. Unless you
have a nurse whom you know for yourself to be faithful and experienced,
always superintend the cooking of baby’s food. It can do no harm—it may
prevent much—if you examine it every day to see that it is right as
to quality and quantity. Do not aim at variety in this branch of your
profession. Confine a child under three years of age to a very limited
bill of fare. His stomach is too delicate an organ to be tampered with.
Let milk—scalded or boiled, as a rule—be the staple, mixed with farina,
barley, or something of the sort. Let him munch Graham bread and light
crackers freely. Remove far from him hot bread and griddle-cakes. When
he has cut his carnivorous teeth, Nature says—“This creature wants
meat.” And Nature’s supply is seldom in advance of the demand. If he
did not need what the teeth are designed to chew, you may be sure they
would not be given him. Grant him the novel food sparingly and with
discretion as to kind. Rare beef and well-boiled mutton, tender roast
or boiled chicken and turkey are safe. Withhold fried meats of every
description. Do not let him touch veal or pork in any shape. Mince
the meat very finely to save his digestive apparatus all unnecessary
work. Mealy old potatoes—_never_ new or waxy—young onions, boiled in
two waters; fresh asparagus, green peas, and dry sweet potatoes should
suffice for vegetables, with, of course, rice and hominy. For dessert,
once in a while, a simple custard, a taste of home-made ice-cream,
rice and farina puddings, Graham hasty pudding; the inner part of a
well-roasted apple, and, in their season, ripe peaches and apples, will
not harm him, taken in moderation, if he be well and strong.

_Pare the fruit always._ The skin of an apple is as bad for him as a
bit of your kid gloves would be; that of a grape more indigestible than
sole-leather. Raisins—“skins and all”—are unfit for anybody to eat.
Pulp and pits, they are poisonous for baby. Ditto, pickles, pastry, and
preserves. Ditto, most kinds of cake and all sorts of fruit puddings.

Give him light suppers, and put him to bed early in a dark room. He
will not grow better in a glare of artificial light than will your
camellias and azalias.

Always see for yourself that his last waking thoughts are pleasant;
that he shuts his eyes at peace with the world and in love with you;
that his feet are warm, his stomach easy, and his body not overloaded
with blankets and quilts; also, that the nursery is clean and freshly
aired. These are better prescriptions for sound slumber than all the
old wives’ fables of the excellent properties of that pernicious
drug—Soothing Syrup.

FARINA. ✠

1 cup _boiling_ water.
1 cup fresh milk.
1 large tablespoonful Hecker’s Farina, wet up with cold water.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.
A pinch of salt.

Stir the farina into the boiling water (_slightly_ salted) in the
farina kettle (_i. e._, one boiler set within another, the latter
filled with hot water). Boil fifteen minutes, stirring constantly until
it is well-thickened. Then add the milk, stirring it in gradually, and
boil fifteen minutes longer. Sweeten, and give to the child so soon as
it is cool enough.

You may make enough in the morning to last all day; warming it up with
a little hot milk as you want it. Keep in a cold place. Some of the
finest children I have ever seen were reared upon this diet. Do not get
it too sweet, and cook it well. Be sure the farina is sweet and dry.

BARLEY.

It sometimes happens that milk disagrees with a delicate infant so
seriously that it is necessary to substitute some other article of diet
for a few days. I have known barley water to be used, in such cases,
with great success.

2 cups _boiling_ water.
2 tablespoonfuls pearl barley—picked over and washed.
A pinch of salt.
2 teaspoonfuls white sugar—_not_ heaping.

Soak the barley half an hour in a very little lukewarm water, and stir,
without draining, into the boiling water, salted very slightly. Simmer
one hour, stirring often, and strain before sweetening.

ARROWROOT. ✠

1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup fresh milk.
2 teaspoonfuls best Bermuda arrowroot, wet with cold water.
1 _small_ pinch of salt.
2 even teaspoonfuls white sugar, dissolved in the milk.

Stir the arrowroot paste into the salted boiling water; stir and boil
five minutes or until it is clear; add the sweetened milk, and boil ten
minutes, slowly, still stirring.

If the child has fever, or cannot digest milk, substitute hot water for
it. It is, however, a dangerous experiment to forbid milk altogether
for an infant. I should rather diminish the quantity, putting in, say,
one-third or one-fourth as much as the receipt names, and filling up
with boiling water.

RICE JELLY. ✠

½ cup whole rice, well-washed and soaked two hours in a little warm
water; then added, with the water, to that in the kettle.
3 pints cold water.
1 small pinch of salt, put into the water.
Sweeten to taste with loaf sugar.

Simmer the rice half an hour; then boil it until it is a smooth paste,
and the water is reduced one-half. Strain through double tarlatan,
sweeten, and give to the child.

This is an admirable preparation for an infant suffering with weakness
of the bowels. If there is no fever, you may put one-third part milk,
boiled with the rice. Give a few spoonfuls every hour or half hour.

MILK AND BREAD. ✠

1 cup boiled milk.
2 tablespoonfuls stale Graham bread.
A very little sugar.

Crumble the bread into the boiled milk, sweeten, and when cool enough,
feed to the child with a spoon.

WHEATEN GRITS. ✠

4 tablespoonfuls grits (cracked wheat) soaked in a little cold
water one hour, and then put into the kettle.
1 quart boiling water.
1 cup milk.
A pinch of salt.

Boil the soaked grits in the quart of water one hour, stirring up
often; add the milk and boil half an hour longer. Sweeten to taste, and
if the child is well, pour cream over it. This is designed for children
over a year old. It is slightly cathartic; especially if the milk be
omitted, and is most useful in regulating the bowels. When this can be
done without drugs, it is far better.

HOMINY AND MILK. ✠

½ cup _small_ hominy.
1 scant quart of cold water.
Pinch of salt.

Boil one hour, stirring often. While hot, mix some soft with new milk,
sweeten to taste and feed to baby with a spoon.

This is also relaxing to the bowels, and should not be given if the
child is disposed to summer complaint.

GRAHAM HASTY PUDDING. ✠

1 cup Graham flour, wet up with cold water.
1 large cup _boiling_ water and same quantity of milk.
1 saltspoonful of salt.

Stir the wet flour into the boiling water, slightly salted. Boil
fifteen minutes, stirring almost constantly. Add the milk and cook,
after it has come again to a boil, ten minutes longer. Give with sugar
and milk for breakfast.

Eaten with cream, nutmeg, and powdered sugar, this is a good plain
dessert for grown people as well as children.

RICE FLOUR HASTY PUDDING

Is made as above, substituting two heaping tablespoonfuls rice flour
for the Graham.

MILK PORRIDGE.

1 tablespoonful Indian meal } wet to a paste with cold
1 tablespoonful white flour } water.
2 cups boiling water.
2 cups milk.
A _good_ pinch of salt.

Boil the paste in the hot water twenty minutes; add the milk and cook
ten minutes more, stirring often.

Eat with sugar and milk, stirred in while hot.

MUSH AND MILK.

1 cup Indian meal, wet up with cold water.
2 quarts cold water.
Salt to taste.

Boil two hours; stirring often with a wooden spoon or a stick.

To be eaten hot with milk and sugar.

CONDENSED MILK.

This is perhaps the safest substitute for the “good milk from one cow,”
which few mothers in town can procure. Keep the can in a cool place and
mix according to directions.

SUNDRIES.

CLEANING POTS, KETTLES, AND TINS.

Boil a double handful of hay or grass in a new iron pot, before
attempting to cook with it; scrub out with soap and sand; then set on
full of fair water, and let it boil half an hour. After this, you may
use it without fear. As soon as you empty a pot or frying-pan of that
which has been cooked in it, fill with hot or cold water (hot is best)
and set back upon the fire to scald thoroughly.

New tins should stand near the fire with boiling water in them, in
which has been dissolved a spoonful of soda, for an hour; then be
scoured inside with soft soap; afterward rinsed with hot water. Keep
them clean by rubbing with sifted _wood_-ashes, or whitening.

Copper utensils should be cleaned with brickdust and flannel.

Never set a vessel in the pot-closet without cleaning and wiping it
thoroughly. If grease be left in it, it will grow rancid. If set aside
wet, it is apt to rust.

KNIVES.

Clean with a soft flannel and Bath brick. If rusty, use wood-ashes,
rubbed on with a newly cut bit of Irish potato. This will remove spots
when nothing else will. Keep your best set wrapped in _soft_ white
paper; then in linen, in a drawer out of damp and dust.

Never dip the ivory handles of knives in hot water.

SILVER.

Wash, after each meal, all that is soiled, in _very_ hot soft water,
with hard soap. Wipe hard and quickly on a clean towel; then polish
with dry flannel. If discolored with egg, mustard, spinach, or beans,
by any other means, rub out the stain with a stiff toothbrush (used
only for this purpose), and silver soap.

For years I have used no other preparation for cleaning silver than the
Indexical silver soap, applied as I have described. After rubbing with
a stiff lather made with this, wash off with hot water, wipe and polish
while hot. There is no need for the weekly silver cleaning to be an
event or a bugbear, if a little care and watchfulness be observed after
each meal. Silver should never be allowed to grow dingy. If Bridget
or Chloe will _not_ attend properly to this matter, take it in hand
yourself. Have your own soap-cups—two of them—one with common soap, the
other with a cake of silver soap in the bottom. Have for one a mop, for
the other a stiff brush—a toothbrush is best. Use your softest towels
for silver.

Besides being clean and easy of application, the silver soap will not
wear away the metal as will whiting or chalk, or plate-powder, however
finely pulverized.

CHINA AND GLASS.

There are few of the minor crooks in the lot of the careful housewife
that cause her more anxiety and more discouragement than the attempt to
teach domestics how to wash up dishes.

“I’ve heard that Mrs. —— is very _exact_ about some things, such as
washing up dishes and the likes of that!” said a woman to me, with an
affected laugh, having called to apply for the then vacant position of
cook in my kitchen. She had high recommendations, a whine engrafted
upon her native brogue, and spoke of me in the third person—a trick of
cheap (and bogus) gentility that tries my nerves and temper to the very
marrow of my spine. “I was a-saying to myself, as I came along, that
Mrs. —— must have been _very_ onlucky in her girls if she had to tache
them how to wash up dishes. I always thought that was one of the things
that came _kinder nat’ral_ to every cook.”

“Mrs. ——’s” experience goes to prove that the wrong way of doing
this must “come natural” to the class mentioned, and that Nature is
mighty in woman. The fact that the right way is _not_ to pile unrinsed
dishes and plates in a big pan with a loose bit of soap on top, and
pour lukewarm water over all; then with a bit of rag to splash said
water over each separately, and make another pile of them upon the
kitchen-table, until the last is drawn, reeking with liquid grease,
sticky and streaming, from the now filthy puddle of diluted swill; then
to rub them lightly and leisurely with one towel—be they many or few—is
as difficult of comprehension to the scullionly mind as would be a
familiar lecture upon the _pons asinorum_.

Yet the right and only neat method is so simple and easy! Rinse the
greasy plates, and whatever is sticky with sugar or other sweet, in hot
water and transfer to a larger pan of _very_ hot. Wash glass first;
next silver; then china—one article at a time, although you may put
several in the pan. Have a mop with a handle; rub upon the soap (over
which the water should have been poured) until you have strong suds.
There is a little implement made by the “Dover Stamping Co.,” a cup
of tinned wire, called a “soap-shaker,” that greatly facilitates this
process of suds-making, without waste of soap. Wash both sides of plate
and saucer, and wipe _before putting it out of your hand_. Draining
leaves streaks which can be felt by sensitive finger-tips, if not seen.
If china is rough to the touch, it is dirty. Hot, clean suds, a dry,
clean towel, and quick wiping leave it bright and shining. Roll your
glasses around in the water, filling them as soon as they touch it, and
you need never crack one. A lady did once explain the dinginess of her
goblets to me by saying that she was “afraid to put them in hot water.
It _rots_ glass and makes it so tender! I prefer to have them a little
cloudy.” This is literally true—that she said it, I mean. Certainly not
that a year’s soak in hot water could make glass tender.

WASHING WINDOWS.

Dissolve a little washing-soda in the water if the glass is very dim
with smoke or dirt. Do not let it run on the sash, but wash each pane
with old flannel; dry quickly with a soft, clean towel, wiping the
corners with especial care. Polish with chamois skin, or newspapers
rubbed soft between the hands.

TO CLEAN CARPETS.

Sprinkle the carpet with tea-leaves; sweep well; then use soap and
soft, warm water for the grease and dirt spots. This freshens up old
carpets marvellously. Rub the wet spots dry with a clean cloth.

TO CLEAN PAINT.

Scour with a flat brush, less harsh than that used for floors, using
warm soft suds; before it dries wash off with old flannel dipped in
clean cold water, and wipe dry with a linen towel or cloth. Go through
the whole process quickly, that the water may not dry upon and streak
the paint.

TO KEEP WOOLENS.

Beat out all the dust, and sun for a day; shake very hard; fold neatly
and pin—or, what is better, sew up—closely in muslin or linen cloths,
putting a small lump of gum-camphor in the centre of each bundle. Wrap
newspapers about all, pinning so as to exclude dust and insects.

These are really all the precautions necessary for the safety even of
furs, if they are strictly obeyed. But you may set moths at defiance
if you can, in addition to these, secure, as a packing-case, a whiskey
or alcohol barrel, but lately emptied, and still strongly scented by
the liquor. Have a close head, and fit it in neatly. Set away in the
garret, and think no more of your treasures until next winter.

TO WASH DOUBTFUL CALICOES.

Put a teaspoonful of sugar of lead into a pailful of water, and soak
fifteen minutes before washing.

TO CLEAN A CLOTH COAT.

Rub soap upon the wristbands and collar; dip them in boiling-hot
suds—and scrub with a stiff clean brush. Treat the grease and dirt
spots in the same way. Change the suds for clean and hot as it gets
dirty. Wet and brush the whole coat, the right way of the cloth,
with fresh suds, when you have scoured out the spots, adding three
or four tablespoonfuls of alcohol to the water. Stretch the sleeves,
pocket-holes, wristbands, and collar into shape, folding the sleeves
as if they had been ironed, also the collar. Lay upon a clean cloth,
spread upon the table or floor, and let it get perfectly dry in the
shade, turning over three or four times without disturbing the folds.

TO CLEAN SILK.

_To Remove Grease Spots._—Scrape Venetian or French chalk fine;
moisten to a stiff paste with soap-suds; make it into flat cakes by
pressing between two boards, and dry in the sun or oven. Keep these
for use. When you need them, scrape one to powder and cover the spot
with it, laying the silk upon a fine clean linen or cotton cloth. Lay
two or three folds of tissue-paper upon the chalk, and press it with
a hot iron for a minute or more, taking care it does not touch the
silk. Raise the paper and scrape off the grease with the chalk. Split
a visiting-card, and rub the place where the spot _was_, with the
inside, to restore the lustre. The silk should be pressed on the wrong
side.

If the spot be discovered at once, simply rub the wrong side hard with
powdered French chalk, and leave it to wear off.

_To Wash Silk._—Mix together

2 cups cold water.
1 tablespoonful honey.
1 tablespoonful soft soap.
1 wineglass alcohol.

Shake up well; lay the silk, a breadth at a time, on a table, and
sponge both sides with this, rubbing it well in; shake it about well
and up and down in a tub of cold water; flap it as dry as you can, but
do not wring it. Hang it by the edges, not the middle, until fit to
iron. Iron on the wrong side while it is very damp.

Black and dark or sober-colored silks may be successfully treated in
this way.

_To Smooth Wrinkled Silk._—Sponge on the right side with very weak
gum-arabic water, and iron on the wrong side.

TO RENEW WRINKLED CRAPE.

Stretch over a basin of boiling water, holding it smooth, but not
tight, over the top, and shifting as the steam fairly penetrates it.
Fold, while damp, in the original creases, and lay under a heavy book
or board to dry. It will look almost as well as new.

TO RESTORE THE PILE OF VELVET.

If but slightly pressed, treat as you would crape. Steam on the right
side until heated through. If very badly crushed, wet on the wrong
side; let an assistant hold a hot iron, bottom upward, and pass
the wet side of the velvet slowly over the flat surface—a sort of
upside-down ironing. When the steam rises thickly through to the right
side, it will raise the pile with it. Dry without handling.

TO CURL TUMBLED FEATHERS.

Hold over the heated top of the range or stove, not near enough to
burn; withdraw, shake them out, and hold them over it again until
curled.

TO CLEAN STRAW MATTING.

Wash with a cloth dipped in clean salt and water; then wipe dry at
once. This prevents it from turning yellow.

TO WASH LAWN OR THIN MUSLIN.

Boil two quarts of wheat-bran in six quarts, or more, of water, half
an hour. Strain through a coarse towel and mix in the water in which
the muslin is to be washed. Use no soap, if you can help it, and no
starch. Rinse lightly in fair water. This preparation both cleanses and
stiffens the lawn. If you can conveniently, take out all the gathers.
The skirt should always be ripped from the waist.

TO WASH WOOLENS.

Wash in clean, hot soap suds; rinse out in clear, hot water, and shake
out the wet without passing through the wringer. Worsted dress-goods
should never be wrung when washed.

TO WASH WHITE LACE EDGING.

Have a quart bottle covered with linen, stitched smoothly to fit the
shape. Begin at the bottom and wind the lace about it, basting fast at
both edges, even the minutest point, to the linen. Wash on the bottle,
soaping it well, rinse by plunging in a pail of fair water, and boil as
you would a white handkerchief, bottle and all. Set in the hot sun to
dry. When quite dry, clip the basting-threads, and use the lace without
ironing. If neatly basted on, it will look nearly as well as new—if not
quite.

BLACK LACE.

½ cup rain water, or very soft spring water.
1 teaspoonful borax.
1 tablespoonful spirits of wine.

Squeeze the tumbled rusty lace through this four times, then rinse in a
cup of hot water in which a black kid glove has been boiled. Pull out
the edges of the lace until almost dry; then press for two days between
the leaves of a heavy book.

TO SPONGE BLACK WORSTED DRESSES.

Sponge on the right side with a strong tea made of _fig leaves_, and
iron on the wrong.

This process restores lustre and crispness to alpaca, bombazine, etc.

TO CLEAN VERY DIRTY BLACK DRESSES.

2 parts soft water to 1 part alcohol, or if there be paint spots upon
the stuff, spirits turpentine. Soap a sponge well, dip in the mixture
and rub, a breadth at a time, on both sides, stretching it upon a
table. Iron on the wrong side, or that which is to be inside when the
stuff is made up. Sponge off with fair water, hot but not scalding,
_before you iron_. Iron while damp.

TO REMOVE STAINS FROM MARBLE.

Make a mortar of unslacked lime and very strong lye. Cover the spot
thickly with it and leave it on for six weeks. Wash it off perfectly
clean, and rub _hard_ with a brush dipped in a lather of soap and
water. Polish with a smooth, hard brush.

IRON MOULD

Is as nearly ineradicable as it is possible for stain to be. _Try_
moistening the part injured with ink, and while this is wet, rub in
muriatic acid diluted with five times its weight of water. I have heard
that the old and new stain can sometimes be removed together by this
operation.

MILDEW

Is likewise obstinate. If anything will extract it, it is lemon-juice
mixed with an equal weight of salt, powdered starch, and soft soap.
Rub on thickly and lay upon the grass in the hot sun; renewing the
application two or three times a day until the spot fades or comes out.

I have also used salt wet with tomato-juice, often renewed, laying the
article stained upon the grass. Sometimes the stain was taken out,
sometimes not.

INK.

While the stains are yet wet upon the carpet, sponge them with
skim-milk _thoroughly_. Then wash out the milk with a clean sponge
dipped again and again in fair water, cold. Exchange this presently for
warm; then rub dry with a cloth. If the stain is upon any article of
clothing, or table, or bed linen, wash in the milk well, afterward in
the water.

_Dry_ ink stains can be removed from white cloth by oxalic acid, or
lemon-juice and salt.

STAINS OF ACIDS AND ALKALIES.

Treat acid stains with hartshorn; alkaline with acids. For instance,
if the color be taken out of cloth by whitewash, wash with strong
vinegar.

GREASE SPOTS.

1 quart boiling water.
1 oz. pulverized borax.
½ oz. of gum camphor.

Shake up well and bottle. It is excellent for removing grease spots
from woolens.

CURE FOR BURNS.

One-third part linseed oil.
Two-thirds lime water.

Shake up well; apply and wrap in soft linen.

Until you can procure this keep the part covered with _wood-soot_ mixed
to a soft paste with lard, _or_, if you have not these, with common
molasses.

TO STOP THE FLOW OF BLOOD.

Bind the cut with cobwebs and brown sugar, pressed on like lint. _Or_,
if you cannot procure these, with the fine dust of tea. When the blood
ceases to flow, apply laudanum.

TO RELIEVE ASTHMA.

Soak blotting or tissue paper in _strong_ saltpetre water. Dry, and
burn at night in your bed-room.

I _know_ this to be an excellent prescription.

ANTIDOTES TO POISON.

For _any_ poison swallow instantly a glass of cold water with a heaping
teaspoonful of common salt and one of ground mustard stirred in. This
is a speedy emetic. When it has acted, swallow the whites of two raw
eggs.

If you have taken corrosive sublimate take half a dozen raw eggs
besides the emetic. If laudanum, a cup of _very_ strong coffee. If
arsenic, first the emetic, then half a cup of sweet oil or melted lard.

COLOGNE WATER. (_Fine._) (_No. 1._)

1 drachm oil lavender.
1 drachm oil bergamot.
2 drachm oil lemon.
2 drachm oil rosemary.
50 drops tincture of musk.
8 drops oil of cinnamon.
8 drops oil of cloves.
1 pint of alcohol.

COLOGNE WATER. (_No. 2._)

60 drops oil of lavender.
60 drops oil of bergamot.
60 drops oil of lemon.
60 drops orange-flower water.
1 pint of alcohol.

Cork and shake well.

HARD SOAP.

6 lbs. washing soda.
3 lbs. unslaked lime.

Pour on 4 gallons boiling water.

Let it stand until perfectly clear, then drain off. Put in 6 lbs. clean
fat.

Boil until it begins to harden—about two hours—stirring most of the
time.

While boiling, thin with two gallons of cold water, which you have
poured on the alkaline mixture after draining off the four gallons.
This must also settle clear before it is drawn off. Add it when there
is danger of boiling over.

Try the thickness by cooling a little on a plate. Put in a handful of
salt just before taking from the fire. Wet a tub to prevent sticking;
turn in the soap and let it stand until solid. Cut into bars; put on a
board and let it dry.

This will make about forty pounds of nice soap; much better for washing
(when it has dried out for two or three months) than yellow turpentine
soap.

BAR SOAP.

Buy a box at a time; cut into small squares and lay upon the
garret-floor to dry for several weeks before it is used.

SOFT SOAP.

10 lbs. grease.
6 lbs. soda (washing).
8 gallons hot water.

Let it stand for several days until the grease is eaten up. If too
thick, add more water. Stir every day. If wood-ashes are used instead
of soda, boil the mixture.

INDEX.

PAGE
FAMILIAR TALK 1

SOUPS 15

_Vegetable Soups_ 16
Asparagus soup (_white_) 19
—— —— (_green_) 20
Bean soup (_dried_) 18
Bean and corn soup 18
Corn soup 23
Graham soup 22
Green Pea soup (_No. 1._) 16
—— —— (_No. 2._) 16
Gumbo, or okra —— 23
Pea and tomato —— 18
Pea (_split and dried_) soup 17
Potato soup 22
Tomato (_winter_) soup 20
—— (_summer_) soup 21
Turnip soup 21

_Meat Soups_ 24
Beef soup _à la Julienne_ 24
—— (_brown_) 26
Brown gravy soup 30
Chicken soup 31
Giblet soup 29
Hare or rabbit soup 33
Mock turtle soup 28
Mutton or lamb broth 27
Oxtail soup 33
Veal and macaroni soup 26
Veal and sago soup 31
Vermicelli soup 28
Venison soup 32

_Fish Soups_ 34
Cat-fish soup 35
Clam soup 35
Eel soup 36
Green turtle soup 37
Lobster soup 36
Oyster soup (_No. 1_) 34
—— soup (_No. 2_) 34

FISH 38

Bass (_sea_), boiled 50
—— fried 50
Cat-fish, stewed 54
—— fried 54
—— chowder 55
Chowder, clam 68
—— (_No. 1_) 56
—— (_No. 2_) 56
Codfish balls 40
—— (_fresh_), boiled 38
—— —— (_salt_), boiled 39
—— and potato stew 40
—— (_salt_), stewed with eggs 40
Eels, fried 56
—— stewed 55
Fish, mayonnaise of 51
Halibut, baked 42
—— boiled 42
—— devilled 43
—— steak 43
Mackerel (_fresh_), boiled 41
—— (_salt_), broiled 41
—— (_fresh_), broiled 41
Perch and other pan-fish 54
Pickerel, fried 53
—— baked with cream 53
Rock-fish and river bass 39
Salmon, baked 44
—— boiled 43
—— (_fresh_), pickled 45
—— (_salt_), pickled 47
—— (_smoked_), broiled 47
—— steak 45
Salmon-trout, baked with cream 51
Salmon-trout, boiled 52
—— fried 53
Shad, baked 49
—— (_fresh_), boiled 48
—— (_salt_), boiled 48
—— (_fresh_), broiled 48
—— (_salt_), broiled 49
—— fried 49
Sturgeon, baked 51
—— steak 50

_Shell-fish_ 57
Clam chowder 68
—— fritters 68
—— scallop 67
Crab, devilled 58
—— salad 58
Crabs, soft 59
Lobster, to boil 57
—— croquettes 58
—— devilled 57
—— salad. (_See Salads_) 189
Oysters, cream on half-shell 62
—— broiled 61
—— fried 60
—— fritters 61
—— omelette 62
—— pâté 66
—— pie 63
—— pickled 64
—— raw 65
—— roast 65
—— scalloped 61
—— steamed 66
—— stewed 60
Scallops 67
Terrapin or turtle 59

POULTRY 69

Chicken, boiled 74
—— broiled 76
—— fricasseed (_brown_) 75
—— —— (_white_) 75
—— fried (_No. 1_) 76
—— —— (_No. 2_) 77
—— and ham 79
Chicken-pie (_baked_) 78
—— pot-pie 77
—— pudding 78
—— roast 74
Ducks, roast 80
—— stewed 81
Duck, cold, to use up 80
Goose-pie 82
—— roast 82
Guinea-fowl, roast 81
Pigeons, broiled 84
Pigeon-pie 84
Pigeons, roast 83
—— stewed 83
Turkey, boiled 72
—— ragoût of 73
—— roast 71
—— scallop of 72

MEATS 84

_Beef_ 84
Beef _à la mode_ 88
—— breakfast stew of 89
—— (_corned_), boiled 93
—— hashed 90
—— heart, stewed 92
—— (_dried_) 94
Beef-steak 86
—— and onions 87
—— pie 91
Beef, roast 84
—— tongue, boiled 93
—— to corn 93
roast, with Yorkshire pudding 85
Beef-pie, potato crust 92

_Mutton and Lamb_ 94
Mutton _à la venison_ 95
—— boiled 96
—— or lamb chop 97
—— —— cutlets, baked 97
Mutton-ham 98
—— or lamb _réchauffé_ 99
—— —— roast 94
Mutton-stew 96

_Veal_ 99
Calf’s head in a mould 108
Calf’s head scalloped 106
—— stewed 105
Calf’s brains, croquettes of 111
—— liver, fried 112
—— —— roast 111
—— —— stewed 112
Imitation _pâté de foie gras_ 113
Sweet-breads, broiled 107
—— fried 106
—— roasted 107
—— stewed 107
Veal, breast of (roast) 100
—— chops 101
—— cutlets _à la_ Maintenon 110
—— cutlets (_plain_) 101
—— fillet of (roast) 100
—— fillet stewed 104
—— jellied 108
—— loin of (roast) 101
—— marbled 114
—— minced 109
—— olives with oysters 109
—— pâtés 105
—— pie 102
—— scallop 105
—— shoulder of (roast) 101
—— steak 102
—— stewed 103
—— knuckle of (stewed) 104

_Pork_ 114
Brawn (_No. 1_) 130
—— (_No. 2_) 131
Chine, roast 118
Chops 121
Ham, to cure 134
—— baked 136
—— barbecued 137
—— boiled 135
—— broiled 137
—— glazed 135
—— fried 137
—— roast 136
—— sandwiches 138
—— and chicken sandwiches 138
—— and chicken pie 139
—— and eggs 139
—— steamed 135
Lard 129
Leg of pork, roast 116
Loin of pork, roast 117
Pig’s head, roast 122
—— with liver and heart 122
Pig, roast (_whole_) 113
Pork-steak 121
—— stewed 121
Pot-pie of pork 124
—— Cheshire 125
Pork, to pickle (_No. 1_) 132
—— —— (_No. 2_) 133
—— —— and beans 139
Pudding, pork and peas 140
Spare-rib, roast 117
Sausage, Bologna (cooked) 128
—— —— (uncooked) 127
Sausage (_No. 1_) 125
—— (_No. 2_) 127
—— (_No. 3_) 127
Saveloys, 132
Souse, or head-cheese 123
Souse of pig’s feet and ears 123

COMPANY 140

GAME 147

_Venison_ 147
Cutlets of venison 150
Fawn, roast 152
Ham—venison 154
Hash venison 150
Haunch venison 148
Neck venison 149
Pasty venison 152
Sausage venison 155
Shoulder venison of, roast 149
—— venison of, stewed 149
Steak venison 150

_Rabbits or Hares_ 155
Barbecued rabbit 158
Fried rabbit 158
Fricassee of rabbit (_brown_) 157
—— rabbit (_white_) 157
Larded rabbit 158
Pie of rabbit 159
Rabbit roast 156
—— stewed with onions 156

_Squirrels_ 159
Broiled squirrel 161
Brunswick stew 160
Ragoût of squirrel 160

_Pheasants, partridges, quails, grouse, etc._ 161
Grouse, broiled 162
—— roast 162
—— —— with bacon 162
Quails, broiled 162
—— roast 162
—— —— with ham 162
Quail-pie 164
Pheasant and partridge, roast 161
Pie of game 163
Salmi of game 162
Wild ducks 165
—— —— roast 165
—— —— stewed 166
Wild pigeon pie 165
—— —— stewed 164
Wild turkey 166

_Small birds_ 167
Game, to keep from tainting 169
Ortolans, reed-birds, rail and sora 169
Salmi of woodcock or snipe 169
Snipe, roast 167
Woodcock, roast 168
—— broiled 168

SAUCES FOR MEAT AND FISH 170

Anchovy sauce 174
Apple sauce 178
Asparagus sauce 177
Bread sauce 174
Butter, to Brown 179
Cauliflower sauce 177
Crab sauce 173
Cranberry sauce 178
Drawn butter (_No. 1_) 170
—— —— (_No. 2_) 170
—— —— (_No. 3_) 171
Egg sauce 171
Flour, to brown 179
Maître d’hôtel sauce 176
Mint sauce 176
Mushroom sauce 176
Onion sauce 175
Oyster sauce 172
Peach sauce 178
Sauce for boiled or baked fish 172
—— lobster 174
White celery sauce 175
—— sauce for fish 172

CATSUPS AND FLAVORED VINEGARS 179

A good store sauce 184
Celery vinegar 185
Elderberry catsup 185
“Ever-ready” catsup 183
Horse-radish catsup 180
—— vinegar 186
Imitation Worcestershire sauce 181
Lemon catsup 183
Made mustard 179
Mock capers 184
Mushroom catsup 181
Onion vinegar 185
Oyster catsup 182
Pepper vinegar 186
Tomato catsup 182
Walnut catsup 180

SALADS 187

Cabbage salad, or cold slaw 192
Celery salad 194
Chicken salad 190
Excelsior lobster salad with cream dressing 189
Lettuce salad 191
Lobster salad 188
Mock crab 196
Potato salad 195
Salmon salad 194
Sydney Smith’s salad dressing 187
Summer salad 192
Tomato salad 193
Water cresses 192

VEGETABLES 197

Artichokes 229
Asparagus, boiled 214
—— in ambush 215
—— and eggs 214
Beans, butter, or Lima 226
—— (_dried_) 227
—— French, string or “snap” 226
—— kidney, and other small 226
Beets, boiled 227
—— stewed 227
Broccoli and Brussels sprouts 210
Broccoli and eggs 210
Cabbage, boiled 206
—— fried 208
—— ladies’ 208
Cabbage and bacon 206
—— sprouts, or ”collards“ 207
—— stuffed 207
Carrots, boiled 224
—— mashed 225
—— stewed 225
Cauliflower, boiled 209
—— scalloped 210
—— stewed 209
Celery 233
—— stewed 234
Corn (_green_), boiled 220
—— —— fritters, or cakes 222
Corn (_green_), pudding 222
—— —— roast 223
—— —— stewed 223
—— —— and tomatoes 221
—— —— and beans (succotash) 221
Cucumbers, fried 220
—— raw 219
—— stewed 220
Cymblings (summer squash) 229
Egg-plant, fried 224
—— stuffed 224
Hominy croquettes 236
—— boiled 235
—— baked 236
—— fried 236
Macaroni _à la crème_ 239
—— baked 238
—— stewed, Italian style 238
Mushrooms 231
—— baked 233
—— broiled 233
—— stewed 232
Okra 235
Onions, baked 216
—— boiled 215
—— stewed 215
—— stuffed 217
Parsnips, boiled 227
—— buttered 228
—— fried 228
—— fritters 228
—— mashed 228
Peas (_green_), fritters or cakes 213
—— green 213
Poke-stalks 231
Potatoes, baked 200
—— boiled with skins on 197
—— boiled without skins 198
—— (_new_), boiled 199
—— browned (_whole_) 203
—— —— (_mashed_) 204
—— broiled 204
—— _à la crème_ 202
Potato-cakes 204
—— croquettes 201
Potatoes, fried 201
—— mashed 199
—— maître d’hôtel 201
Potato-puff 201
—— ribbon 202
—— scallop 203
Potatoes (stewed for breakfast) 200
Potatoes (_old_), stewed 200
—— stuffed 203
—— (_sweet_), boiled 205
—— —— fried 205
—— —— roast 204
Pumpkin, baked 230
—— stewed 230
Radishes 234
Rice, boiled 233
—— croquettes 237
Salsify (or oyster-plant), fried 223
Salsify (or oyster-plant), stewed 223
Sea-kale, boiled 229
—— stewed 229
Squash (summer) 229
—— (winter) 230
Sauerkraut 208
Spinach _à la crème_ 213
—— boiled 211
Succotash 221
Tomatoes, baked 219
—— broiled 218
—— raw 219
—— scalloped 218
—— and corn scallop 218
—— stewed 217
—— stuffed and baked 218
Turnips, boiled (whole) 211
—— mashed 211

EGGS 239

Eggs _au lit_ (in bed), 245
—— baked 243
Egg-baskets 246
Eggs, boiled 241
—— breaded 243
—— Chinese bird’s nest of 244
—— devilled 246
—— dropped or poached 241
—— fried 242
—— fricasseed 242
—— with ham 242
—— poached _à la crème_ 241
—— —— with sauce 244
—— scalloped 244
—— scrambled 243
—— upon toast 245
Egg-balls for soup 248
Omelette, asparagus 248
—— _aux fines herbes_ 248
—— cauliflower 247
—— cheese 248
—— plain 246
—— with ham, chicken, or tongue 247

_Sweet omelettes_ 248
Omelette, apple 249
—— jelly 250
—— soufflée, baked 249
—— —— fried 248

MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, ETC. 251

Bonny clabber, or “loppered milk” 253
Butter (to make) 251
Cheese 254
Cottage cheese 256
Cream cheese 256
Junket, or mountain custard 253
Rennet 253
Thickened milk 254

BREAD 256

Bread (family), brown 267
Boston, brown 269
Bread (family), white 265
Buttermilk bread 270
Bread, milk 270
—— rice 271
—— rye 269
Biscuit, Graham 275
—— minute 276
—— Mrs E’s (_soda_) 274
—— risen 272
—— potato 274
Crackers, butter 278
Crumpets (_plain_) 279
—— (_sweet_) 279
Muffins, Belle’s 282
—— buttermilk 281
—— Charlotte 281
—— cream 280
—— Graham 280
—— hominy 281
—— queen 280
Muffins, ”Mother’s“ 281
—— rice 282
Powders, baking 264
Rolls, French (_No. 1_) 271
—— —— (_No. 2_) 272
Rusk (dried) 277
—— (sweet) 276
Sally Lunn (_No. 1_) 273
—— —— (_No. 2_) 274
Sponge for bread (potato) 264
—— —— —— (plain) 264
Wafers 279
Wheatlets, Graham 276
Yeast cakes 263
—— (hop) 261
—— (potato) 262
—— (self-working) 261

_Corn bread_ 283
Ash-cake 289
Batter-bread, or egg-bread 288
Corn-bread, nonpareil 285
—— risen (_No. 1_) 286
—— —— (_No. 2_) 288
—— steamed 286
Crumpets, Corn-meal 287
Johnny-cake 287
—— Aunt Jenny’s 288
Muffins, Corn-meal 286
Pone 288
—— fried 289

_Griddle-cakes, waffles, etc._ 289
Cakes, Auntie’s (_without eggs_) 291
—— buckwheat 290
—— batter (risen) 292
—— cream 293
—— flannel 290
—— —— (eggless) 291
—— Graham 291
—— Grandpa’s favorite 292
—— hominy 293
—— rice 292
—— velvet 293
Flapjacks, corn-meal 291
Waffles, ”Mother’s“ 294
—— rice (_No. 1_) 294
—— —— (_No. 2_) 295
—— —— and corn-meal 295
—— risen 294
—— quick 295

_Shortcake, etc._ 295
Buns, Easter (“hot cross”) 298
—— plain 298
Shortcake, Grandma’s 297
—— Scotch 297
—— strawberry 296
—— Sunnybank 295

CAKE.

Almond cake 318
Black cake 317
Caramel cake 310
Chocolate cake 310
—— caramels 313
—— éclairs 313
Cocoanut cake 304
—— —— (Rosie’s) 305
—— cakes (small) 306
—— cake (_loaf_) 305
—— cones 306
Corn-starch cake 321
Cream cake 303
Dover cake 310
Ellie’s cake 314
French cake 308
Fruit cake 318
Gold cake 319
Huckleberry cake 321
Jelly cake 304
Lady cake (_No. 1_) 309
—— —— (_No. 2_) 309
Lee cake 307
Lemon cake (_No. 1_) 308
—— —— (_No. 2_) 308
Lincoln cake 316
Marble cake 311
Marbled cake 312
Martha’s cake 303
Mrs. M.’s cup cake 303
Mrs. M.’s sponge-cake 314
Macaroons, almond 320
Nut-cake 319
“One, two, three, four” cake (cocoanut) 305
Pound cake (_No. 1_) 315
—— —— (_No. 2_) 315
Silver cake 320
Sister Mag’s cake 309
Sponge cake 314
Washington cake 316
White cake 322
White Mountain cake 307

_Icing_ 301
Almond icing 302
Chocolate icing 313
Plain icing 301

_Small Cakes, Cookies, etc._ 322
Boston cream cakes 335
Cakes, bread 334
—— currant 327
—— New Year’s 323
—— small sugar 322
—— (_drop_), sponge 327
Cookies, Mrs. B.’s 322
—— coriander 323
—— molasses 324
—— ”Mother’s“ 323
—— rice flour 324
Crullers, Annie’s 329
—— Aunt Margaret’s 328
—— Katie’s 329
—— ”Mother’s“ 329
Doughnuts, quick 330
—— risen 329
Ginger snaps (_No. 1_) 324
—— —— (_No. 2_) 325
—— —— (_No. 3_) 325
Jumbles, almond 327
—— Aunt Margaret’s 325
—— lemon 326
—— Mrs. M.’s 326
—— ring 326
Lady’s fingers 328
Macaroons, almond 320
Nougat 336
Wafers (_sweet_) 335

_Gingerbread_ 330
Gingerbread fruit 334
—— loaf (_No. 1_) 332
—— —— (_No. 2_) 332
—— plain 332
—— soft 330
—— spiced 333
—— sponge 331
—— sugar 332

PIES 337

Apple pie (_No. 1_) 345
—— —— (_No. 2_) 345
Blackberry pie 355
Cherry pie 355
Cocoanut pie (_No. 1_) 352
—— —— (_No. 2_) 352
Crust for pies (_No. 1_) 338
—— —— —— (_No. 2_) 339
—— —— —— transparent 341
Custard pie 354
—— apple pie 346
—— chocolate pie 353
—— corn-starch pie 354
—— cocoanut pie 353
Lemon pie (_No. 1_) 349
—— —— (_No. 2_) 349
—— —— (_No. 3_) 350
—— cream pie 349
Méringue apple-pie (and peach) 346
Mince-meat, apple, for pies 344
Mince pie (_No. 1_) 341
—— —— (_No. 2_) 342
Mock mince-meat 344
Orange pie 350
Paste, French puff 340
—— puff 340
Peach pie 355
Pippin pie 346
Potato pie, Irish 348
—— —— sweet (_No. 1_) 347
—— —— —— (_No. 2_) 348
Plum pie 356
Pumpkin pie (_No. 1_) 347
—— —— (_No. 2_) 347
Raspberry pie 355
Ripe gooseberry pie 356
Rhubarb Pie 358
Squash pie 347
Strawberry pie 357

_Tarts._
Tart, chocolate 351
—— eam raspberry 357
—— cranberry 356
—— currant 355
—— currant and raspberry 355
—— damson 356
—— green gooseberry 356
—— lemon 351
Tartlets, orange 351
—— rhubarb 357

SERVANTS 358

PUDDINGS 371

_Baked Puddings_ 372
Alice’s pudding 381
Apple, pudding, baked 372
—— dumplings baked 376
—— batter pudding 374
—— méringue pudding 372
—— and plum pudding 375
—— sweet pudding 373
—— and tapioca pudding 375
Arrowroot pudding 378
Batter pudding (_No. 1_) 386
—— —— (_No. 2_) 387
Bread pudding 378
—— and butter pudding 380
—— fruit pudding 379
Bread and marmalade pudding 380
“Brown Betty” 374
Cocoanut pudding 390
Corn-starch pudding 377
—— —— méringue pudding 378
Cottage pudding 387
Cracker pudding 382
—— Dorchester plum pudding 382
—— fruit pudding 383
—— and jam pudding 384
—— suet pudding 382
Cup puddings 388
Dumplings, apple (_baked_) 376
—— Belle’s 394
German puffs 388
Gooseberry pudding 393
Lemon pudding 389
—— méringue pudding 389
Macaroni pudding 391
Neapolitan pudding 391
Newark pudding 393
Orange marmalade pudding 390
Pippin pudding 373
Plum pudding 394
Queen of puddings 381
Rhubarb pudding 392
Rice pudding (_plain_) 385
—— and tapioca pudding 385
Rice-pudding with eggs 385
Rice-flour pudding 386
Tapioca pudding 377
Vermicelli pudding 391

_Boiled puddings_ 395
Berry pudding 396
Cabinet pudding 400
Cherry or currant pyramid 403
Dumpling, apple (_No. 1_) 398
—— —— (_No. 2_) 398
Dumpling, fruit suet 400
—— rice 399
—— suet 399
Eve’s pudding 401
Fruit pudding 399
—— valise pudding 397
Huckleberry pudding 396
Indian meal pudding 400
Orange roley-poley 402
Queen’s plum-puddings 401

FRITTERS, PANCAKES, ETC. 403

Fritters (_No. 1_) 405
—— (_No. 2_) 405
—— apple 405
—— bread 406
—— jelly-cake 407
—— jelly 406
Pancakes 407
—— jelly or jam 408
Queen’s toast 406

SWEET, OR PUDDING SAUCES 408

Bee-hive sauce 408
Brandy sauce (_hard_) 409
Cabinet pudding sauce 411
Cream sauce (_hot_) 413
Cream, sweetened (_cold_) 413
Custard sauce 412
Fruit-pudding sauce 411
Jelly sauce (_No. 1_) 412
—— —— (_No. 2_) 413
Hard sauce 408
Lemon sauce 410
Milk sauce 410
White wine sauce (_liquid_) 409

CUSTARDS, BLANC-MANGE, JELLIES AND CREAMS 414

Blanc-mange, almond 421
—— arrowroot 421
—— corn-starch 420
—— chocolate 424
—— farina 421
—— Neapolitan 422
—— tapioca 420
—— sago 420
—— velvet 423
Charlotte Russe, chocolate 424
—— —— gelatine 426
—— —— cream 425
—— —— tipsey 425
Cream, Bavarian 417
—— Spanish 417
Custard, almond 415
—— baked 419
—— boiled 415
—— French tapioca 419
—— quaking 416
—— snow 418
Floating Island 417
Flummery 426
Gooseberry fool 427
Jaune mange 423
Jelly, calf’s-foot 428
—— bird’s nest in 430
—— cider 429
—— orange 431
—— wine (_boiled_) 431
—— —— (_cold_) 429
—— variegated 432
Méringue, cream 427
Whipped syllabub 427

ICE-CREAM AND OTHER ICES 432

Custard, frozen with fruit 439
Ice-cream, almond 436
—— chocolate 436
—— coffee 437
—— Italian 438
—— lemon 438
—— peach 439
—— pine-apple 438
—— raspberry or strawberry 439
—— self-freezing 434
—— tutti frutti 440
Ice, cherry 441
—— currant and raspberry 442
—— lemon 440
—— orange 441
—— pine-apple 441
—— strawberry or raspberry 442

RIPE FRUIT FOR DESSERT

Ambrosia 442
Apples 442
Blackberries 444
Currants 445
—— frosted 445
Oranges 442
Peaches and Pears 442
Raspberries 444
Salade d’orange 442
Strawberries 444

PRESERVES AND FRUIT JELLIES 445

_Preserves._
Apples, baked 457
Apple butter 449
Apples, preserved 449
—— stewed whole 458
Cherries, preserved 455
Crab apple 450
Damson, preserved 452
Figs, preserved 457
Ginger, preserved 454
Gooseberry jam 456
Greengage, preserved 450
Lemon marmalade 453
Orange marmalade 452
—— peel, preserved 452
Peach marmalade 447
—— preserves 447
Pears, baked 458
—— preserved 447
—— stewed 458
Pine-apple marmalade 453
—— preserved 453
Quinces, baked 459
Quince cheese 449
—— marmalade 449
Quinces, preserved 448
Raspberry jam 456
Strawberry 455
Strawberries, preserved 455
Tomato, preserved (_green_) 457
—— —— (_ripe_) 456
Unique preserves 451
Water-melon rind, or citron 454

_Fruit jellies_ 459
Blackberry jelly 459
Cherry (wild) and currant jelly 461
Crab-apple jelly 462
Currant jelly 459
Fox grape (_green_) jelly 462
Grape (_ripe_) jelly 462
Peach jelly 461
Quince jelly 462
Raspberry and currant jelly 461
Strawberry jelly 459

CANNED FRUITS AND VEGETABLES 463

Berries (brandied) 468
—— (canned) 463
Corn and tomatoes (canned) 466
Green corn (preserved in salt) 466
Peaches (brandied) 467
—— (canned) 464
Pears (brandied) 467
—— (canned) 464
Plums (brandied) 467
—— (canned) 465
Tomatoes (canned) 465

_Candy._
Molasses candy 468
Sugar candy 468

PICKLES 469

Beans (green), and radish-pods 474
Cabbage, purple 473
—— yellow 472
Cauliflower, pickled 474
Cherries, pickled 479
Cucumbers or gherkins, pickled 470
Cucumbers, sliced pickle 475
Mangoes, melon pickle 472
Mangoes, pepper pickle 471
Nasturtium seed, pickle 474
Onion, pickle 473
Peach (sweet), pickle 478
—— (unpeeled), pickle 479
Pear (sweet), pickle 478
Picklette 480
Plums, pickled 478
Tomato (green), pickle 477
—— —— soy 477
—— ripe, pickle 477
Walnut or butternut pickle 474
Water-melon rind pickle 476

DRINKS 480
Blackberry cordial 485
—— vinegar 485
Café au lait 482
Claret punch 490
Cherry bounce 490
Chocolate 483
Cocoa-nibs, or shells 483
—— prepared 483
Coffee (_boiled_) 481
Coffee 480
—— (without boiling) 481
Cranberry wine 486
Currant wine 486
Egg-nogg 490
Elderberry wine 485
Jamaica ginger-beer 487
Lemonade, or sherbet 487
Milk tea for children 484
Nectar 490
Orangeade 488
Raisin wine 487
Raspberry royal 484
—— vinegar 484
Regent’s punch 488
Roman punch 489
Sherry cobbler 489
Strawberry sherbet 488
—— wine 486
Tea 482

THE SICK-ROOM 492

Blanc-mange, arrowroot 500
—— sea-moss 508
—— tapioca 503
Beef-steak and mutton-chops 509
Biscuit or wafers 509
Broth, beef and sago 499
—— calf-foot 505
—— chicken 498
—— mutton 498
—— veal and sago 499
Custard, arrowroot 503
Dried rusk 509
Dried flour for teething children 502
Eau sucré 511
Gruel, Indian-meal 501
—— milk and rice 502
—— oatmeal 502
—— sago 500
Jelly, arrowroot (_plain_) 500
—— —— (_wine_) 500
Jelly, chicken 505
—— Iceland, or Irish moss 508
—— tapioca 502
Lemonade, flax-seed 507
—— Iceland, or Irish moss 508
Milk, rice-flour 503
—— sago 504
Milk, tapioca 504
Mint julep 511
Panada 504
Panada, bread or jelly 505
Punch, egg and milk 508
—— milk 507
Rice, boiled 504
Sangaree, or porteree 510
Tea, beef 498
Teas 510
Tea, slippery-elm bark 507
Toast, dry 509
—— milk 509
Toddy, apple 507
Water, apple 506
—— jelly 506
—— toast 506
Wine-whey 510

THE NURSERY 511

Arrowroot 514
Barley 514
Farina 513
Hominy and milk 516
Jelly, rice 515
Milk and bread 515
—— condensed 517
—— porridge 517
Mush and milk 517
Pudding, Graham 516
—— rice flour 516
Wheaten grits 515

SUNDRIES 517

Antidotes for poison 527
Asthma, to relieve 527
Blood, to stop the flow of 527
Burns, to cure 527
Clean, carpets to 521
—— knives 518
—— kettles, pots and tins 517
—— china and glass 519
—— cloth coat, a 522
—— black worsted dress 525
—— dirty black dress 525
—— paint 521
—— silk 512
—— straw matting 524
—— silver 518
—— windows 521
Crape, wrinkled, to renew 523
Feathers, tumbled, to curl 524
Grease-spots, to remove 527
Soap, bar 529
—— hard 528
Soap, soft 529
Stains, acids and alkalies 526
Stains, ink, to remove 526
—— iron-mould, to remove 526
Stains, from marble, to remove 525
Stains, mildew, to remove 526
Velvet, to restore the pile of 523
Wash, doubtful calicoes to 522
—— lace, black to 525
—— lace, white to 524
—— lawn, or thin muslin 524
—— woolens 524
Water, cologne (_No. 1_) 528
—— —— (_No. 2_) 528
Woolens, to keep 521

ICE-CREAM AND CAKES

A NEW COLLECTION OF STANDARD FRESH AND ORIGINAL
RECEIPTS FOR HOUSEHOLD AND COMMERCIAL USE.
————
=By AN AMERICAN=
————
_=1 Vol., 12mo, - - Price, $1.50.=_
————

Fond as Americans are of Ice-Cream and Ices, there has never been a
book giving directions for the preparation of the various forms of iced
dainties, some of which are quite unknown in this country, or are only
procurable from the best confectioners of our large cities. This book
contains the fruit of many years’ experience and experiment, together
with a description of the processes followed by the great French and
Italian confectioners.

More than a hundred different receipts for Ice-Creams and Water Ices
are given, with rules for preparing all the various flavorings. The
directions are both minute and systematic, and being the production of
a person of education and refinement, specially qualified for the task,
the work will be found to be thoroughly accurate and complete in all
points. Any capable housewife, with the resources of a well-equipped
kitchen, will be able to follow the directions given, without
difficulty and with certainty of success.

Extreme care has been taken to avoid ambiguity and looseness of
statement, the exact amount of an ingredient is always stated, so
that the most inexperienced cannot go astray. _The various utensils
necessary are described, and full advice given as to their use._

Following this section is a collection of receipts for Cake, embracing
several hundred different sorts, many of them new and original, and all
carefully tested and of prime excellence. Some of these receipts have
hitherto been the property of individuals by whom they were sold singly
at a high price. The book, as a whole, contains a greater number of
original and choice receipts for ice-cream and cakes than any other in
existence. It will be found indispensable wherever choice and dainty
cookery is appreciated.

————
⁂ _For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid, upon receipt
of price, by_

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

_WOMAN’S HANDIWORK IN MODERN HOMES._

BY
CONSTANCE CARY HARRISON.

One Volume, 8vo, Richly Bound in Illuminated Cloth, with numerous
Illustrations
and Five Colored Plates from designs by SAMUEL COLMAN, ROSINA
EMMET, GEORGE GIBSON, and others.

=Price, $2.00.=
————

Mrs. Harrison’s book combines a discussion of the principles
of design and decoration, practical chapters on embroidery,
painting on silk and china, etc., with most helpful hints
as to the domestic manufacture of many objects of use and
beauty in house-furnishing, and also suggestions for the
arrangement and decoration of rooms in the details of
screens, portieres, the mantel-piece, etc.

=CRITICAL NOTICES.=

“A volume quite the most comprehensive of its kind ever
published.”—_The Art Interchange._

“It is, indeed, the most comprehensive and practical guide
to the amateur decorative arts that has yet appeared.”—_Art
Amateur._

“The work supplies a current need of the day, which nothing
else has met.”—_Boston Traveller._

“Unquestionably one of the very best of its class that we
have.”—_N. Y. Evening Post._

“Mrs. Harrison has grouped together in her book about as
much useful information as it is possible to get together in
the same number of pages.”—_Baltimore Gazette._

“Mrs. Harrison’s book is one of the very few books on
household art which can be unreservedly commended.”—_The
World._

“Mrs. Harrison’s suggestions are within the reach of the
most limited means.”—_The Critic._

“Full of suggestions, descriptions, and illustrations, of
the kind that fascinate all those whose chief joy is in
making home beautiful and happy.”—_N. Y. Observer._

“Everything important that relates to the furnishing and
ornamentation of houses will be found in this work, which
is rich in important information, and noticeable for its
good taste, sound judgment, and practical wisdom.”—_Boston
Saturday Eve. Gazette._

“Mrs. Harrison seems to have included in her work
instructions for every æsthetic emergency that can arise in
a household.”—_Providence Journal._

⁂ _For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of
price, by_

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHER,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

=“Externally and internally the book is a book of beauty.”=—NEW YORK
EVENING POST.

The House Beautiful.

By CLARENCE COOK.
————
WITH OVER ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL
DRAWINGS BY FRANCIS LATHROP, MISS MARIA R. OAKEY,
A. SANDIER, J. S. INGLIS, AND OTHERS; ENGRAVED BY
HENRY MARSH, F. S. KING, AND OTHERS.
————
A NEW EDITION. PRICE REDUCED FROM $7.50 TO $4.00.
————
One vol. small 4to, superbly printed on superfine paper, cloth extra
(design by Cottier), gilt top, $4.00.
————

“The air of elegance and taste which first breathes upon us
from the cover, and comes as with a spicy aroma from the
title-page, pervades every feature of the book—paper and
type, text and illustration—from beginning to end; indeed,
no work of the kind, which has yet appeared in this country,
quite equals it in a certain combination of richness and
simplicity.”—_The N. Y. Tribune._

“The text and illustrations have also the unmistakable stamp
of original investigation and independent feeling for the
tasteful and refined in household decoration.”—_The N. Y.
Times._

“The charm of it lies deeper than in paper surface and
letter-press and graver’s lines; and wherever it goes it
will educate, inspire and refine.”—_The Literary World._

“It is one of the most practical and useful books of its
kind, and hits exactly the wants of to-day.”—_Hartford
Courant._

“Mr. Cook’s book—it seems as if any dwelling, no matter
how humble, might make itself to blossom with touches
of real beauty by the following of some of his wise
suggestions.”—_The Congregationalist._

“The book is a beautiful one, and it will be a treasure in
the hands of all who can appreciate the beautiful, and are
asking the important question—‘How shall we furnish our
homes?’”—_Christian at Work._

“Mr. Cook is not a slave to any one style of furniture or
furnishing.”—_Cincinnati Gazette._

“In the simple adoption of the means to the end to be
reached will be found the true artistic elegance and
comfort. We commend this volume to the perusal of all who
are interested in making home-life beautiful.”—_Baltimore
Gazette._

⁂ _The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or
express charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers_,

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK

Uniform with the Revised Edition of Common Sense in the Household.
————

THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK.

By MARION HARLAND,

Author of “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,” “BREAKFAST,
LUNCHEON, AND TEA,” etc., etc.
————
One vol. 12mo, 720 pages, beautifully bound in Cloth. Price $1.75.

KITCHEN EDITION IN OIL-CLOTH COVERS AT SAME PRICE.
————

THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK is, in its name, happily descriptive of its
purposes and character. It occupies a place which, amid all the
publications upon cookery—and their name is Legion—=has never yet been
occupied=.

The author truly says that there have been _dinner-giving_ books
published, that is, books of _menus_ for company dinings, “Little
Dinners,” for especial occasions, etc., etc.; but that she has never
yet met with a =practical directory= of this important meal =for every
day in the year=. In this volume she has furnished the programme in
all its details, and has superintended the preparation of each dish,
proceeding even to the proper manner of serving it at table. =The book
has been prepared for the family, for the home of ordinary means, and
it has hit the happy line where elegance and economy meet.=

The most numerous testimonials to the value of Marion Harland’s “Common
Sense” books which the publishers have received, both in newspaper
notices and in private communications, are to the effect—always
expressed with some astonishment—that =the directions of these
receipts, actually followed, produce the promised result=. We can
prophesy the same for the new volume.

The purchaser will find that he has bought what the name purports—_The
Dinner Year-Book_—a practical guide for the purchase of the material
and preparation, serving, etc. of the ordinary home dinner for every
day of the year. To these are added =twelve company dinners=, one
for each month, from which a selection can be made—according to the
time of the year—equal to any occasion which will be presented to the
housekeeper.

This book, however, is not valuable merely as a directory for dinners
appropriate to various seasons. It contains =the largest number
of receipts= for soups, fish, meat, vegetables, entrees of all
descriptions, and desserts, =ever offered to the American public=. The
material for this work has been collected with great care both at home
and abroad, representing the diligent labor of many months.

_Note.—The Dinner Year-Book, with six colored plates,
illustrating twenty-eight subjects, handsomely bound in
cloth, will be continued in print at the regular price,
$2.25._

⁂ _The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post
or express charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers_,

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK

=“The charm of these nearly perfect stories lies in their exquisite
simplicity and most tender humor.”=—PHILADELPHIA TIMES.

RUDDER GRANGE.

By FRANK R. STOCKTON.

_One Volume, 16mo, Extra Cloth, $1.25. Paper, 60 cents._

“Humor like this is perennial.”—_Washington Post._

“Mr. Stockton has rare gifts for this style of
writing, and has developed in these papers remarkable
genius.”—_Pittsburgh Gazette._

“A certain humorous seriousness over matters that are not
serious surrounds the story, even in its most indifferent
parts, with an atmosphere, an aroma of very quaint and
delightful humor.”—_N. Y. Evening Post._

“Mr. Stockton’s vein of humor is a fresh and rich one, that
affords pleasure to mature people as well as to young ones.
Thus far, ‘Rudder Grange’ is his best effort.”—_Philadelphia
Bulletin._

“Rudder Grange is an ideal book to take into the country for
summer reading.”—_Portland Press._

“Rudder Grange is really a very delightful piece of fooling,
but, like all fooling that is worth the while, it has point
and purpose.”—_Phil. Telegraph._

“The odd conceit of making his young couple try their hands
at house-keeping first in an old canal boat, suggests
many droll situations, which the author improves with a
frolicsome humor that is all his own.”—_Worcester Spy._

“There is in these chapters a rare and captivating
drollery.... We have had more pleasure in reading them
over again than we had when they first appeared in the
magazine.”—_Congregationalist._

⁂ _The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent,
prepaid, upon receipt of price, by_

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Standard Works of Fiction,

PUBLISHED BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT’S NOVELS.

=THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S.= One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50;
paper, 90 cents.

“We know of no more powerful work from a woman’s hand in the
English language.”—_Boston Transcript._

=HAWORTH’S.= One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

“Haworth’s is a product of genius of a very high order.”—_N.
Y. Evening Post._

=LOUISIANA.= One vol., 12mo, $1.00.

“We commend this book as the product of a skillful,
talented, well-trained pen. Mrs. Burnett’s admirers are
already numbered by the thousand, and every new work like
this one can only add to their number.”—_Chicago Tribune._

=SURLY TIM, and other Stories.= One vol., 16mo, cloth, $1.25.

“Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be
profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not
only with true art, but deep pathos.”—_Boston Post._

=EARLIER STORIES.= Each, one vol., 16mo, paper.

=Pretty Polly Pemberton.= =Kathleen.= Each, 40 cents.

=Lindsay’s Luck.= =Theo.= =Miss Crespigny.= Each, 30 cents.

“Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be
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only with true art, but deep pathos.”—_Boston Post._

DR. J. G. HOLLAND’S POPULAR NOVELS.

_=Each one volume, 16mo, cloth, $1.25.=_

_“To those who love a pure diction, a healthful tone, and
thought that leads up to higher and better aims, that gives
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that awakens the mind to renewed activity, and makes one
mentally better, the prose and poetical works of Dr. Holland
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draw.”_—NEW HAVEN PALLADIUM.

=NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story.=

“_Nicholas Minturn_ is the most real novel, or
rather life-story, yet produced by any American
writer.”—_Philadelphia Press._

=SEVENOAKS. A Story of To-Day.=

“As a story, it is thoroughly readable; the action is
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=ARTHUR BONNICASTLE. A Story of American Life.=

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touches of heartfelt pathos, and the admirable wisdom and
soundness of its ethical suggestions.”—_N. Y. Tribune._

=THE BAY PATH. A Tale of New England Colonial Life.=

“A conscientious and careful historical picture of early New
England days, and will well repay perusal.”—_Boston Sat.
Eve. Gazette._

=MISS GILBERT’S CAREER. An American Story.=

The life and incidents are taken in about equal proportions
from the city and country—the commercial metropolis and a
New Hampshire village. It is said that the author has drawn
upon his own early experiences and history for a large part
of the narrative.

GEORGE W. CABLE’S NOVELS.

=THE GRANDISSIMES. A Story of Creole Life.= One vol., 12mo,
$1.50.

“_The Grandissimes_ is a novel that repays study. It
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most original contribution to American fiction.”—_Hartford
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=OLD CREOLE DAYS.= One vol., 16mo, extra cloth, $1.00.

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by their quaint delicacy of style, their faithful
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The careful rendering of the dialect reveals patient study
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to the broken English, as heard in parts of our city
every day, its truth to nature is striking.”—_New Orleans
Picayune._

=MADAME DELPHINE.= One vol., square 12mo, cloth, 75 cents.

“This is one of the books in which the reader feels a kind
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=ROXY.= One vol., 12mo, cloth, with twelve full-page
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Price, $1.50.

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=THE CIRCUIT RIDER. A Tale of the Heroic Age.= One
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=FALCONBERG. A Novel.= Illustrated. One vol., $1.50.

“It is a good story, out of the ordinary rut, and wholly
enjoyable.”—_Chicago Inter-Ocean._

=GUNNAR. A Tale of Norse Life.= One vol., square 12mo, $1.25.

“This little book is a perfect gem of poetic prose; every
page is full of expressive and vigorous pictures of
Norwegian life and scenery. _Gunnar_ is simply beautiful as
a delicate, clear, and powerful picture of peasant life in
Norway.”—_Boston Post._

=ILKA ON THE HILL-TOP, and Other Stories.= One vol., square
12mo, $1.00.

“Mr. Boyesen’s stories possess a sweetness, a tenderness,
and a drollery that are fascinating, and yet they are no
more attractive than they are strong.”—_Home Journal._

=TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES. A New Edition.= One vol.,
square 12mo, $1.00.

“The charm of Mr. Boyesen’s stories lies in their strength
and purity; they offer, too, a refreshing escape from
the subtlety and introspection of the present form of
fiction. They are robust and strong without caricature or
sentimentality.”—_Chicago Interior._

=QUEEN TITANIA.= One vol., square 12mo, $1.00.

“One of the most pure and lovable creations of modern
fiction.”—_Boston Sunday Herald._

“The story is a thoroughly charming one, and there is much
ingenuity in the plot.”—_The Critic._

⁂ _For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt
of price, by_

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

=“Transmuting the pleasant paths of travel into a pleasant book for
home.”=—_N. Y. Tribune._

A NEW BOOK BY MARION HARLAND.

Loiterings in Pleasant Paths.

One volume, 12mo, - - - - $1.75

Books of travel have multiplied of late years almost in a
direct ratio to the increased facilities for journeying, and
it may be said that the quality has also proportionately
improved. We have works profusely adorned with superb
illustrations, and others without pictorial embellishments,
relying for their attractiveness on the charm of a skilled
pen and the freshness of first impressions. Such a book is
LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS, by “Marion Harland,” whose
_Common Sense_ books have made her name a household word in
every part of the land.

“These ‘familiar talks from afar’ are no fancy sketches, but actual
experiences and impressions of a shrewd observer, whose mind
was enriched and fully prepared to observe accurately and write
intelligently and profitably. Marion Harland always writes books with a
purpose, and the present volume is no exception to her rule.”—_Chicago
Inter-Ocean._

“The observations of so clever a woman, who carries her head with her
upon her travels and ventures to make use of all her faculties, are
worth writing about and reading about, and this particular traveller
has the good gift of so writing about them that the reading is a
constant and unfailing source of pleasure.”—_Evangelist._

“Those who are going abroad will find this volume a delightful
companion by the way; while those who are compelled to stay at home
will find it the best possible substitute for the pleasure of foreign
travel as proved by actual experience.”—_N. Y. Evening Post._

⁂ _For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid upon receipt of
price, by_

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation retained where
a majority could not be ascertained as in cocoanut and cocoa-nut;
cream-tartar and cream tartar. Text uses both “preserves” and
“preserved” in the index where our usage would usually be “preserves.”

Ditto marks for the recipes have been replaced with the actual word.
In the index, they have been replaced with long dashes or words as
appropriate.

Page 4, “assisttants” changed to “assistants” (young housekeepers’
assistants)

Page 10, “ragout” changed to “ragoût” (soup, or ragoût may not) Page
44, “droppings” changed to “drippings” (absorb the drippings)

Page 45, “teasponfuls” changed to “teaspoonfuls” (two teaspoonfuls made
mustard)

Page 66-67, for the recipe, “OYSTER PÂTÉS.”, all uses of “pàté” have
been changed to “pâté” to conform to the rest of the book’s usage.
(Oyster Pâtés) (size of the _pâté_) (For open _pâtés_) (These _pâtés_
are)

Page 91, “a la-mode” changed to “à-la-mode” (of beef _à-la-mode_)

Page 95, “a” changed to “à” (ROAST MUTTON _à la Venison_.)

Page 99, “Rechauffé” changed to “Réchauffé” (OR LAMB RÉCHAUFFÉ)

Page 99, “rechauffes” changed to “réchauffés” (and _réchauffés_ it)

Page 105, “paté” changed to “pâté” (and bake in pâté pans)

Page 110, “a” changed to “à” (VEAL CUTLETS À LA MAINTENON.)

Page 147, “conparative” changed to “comparative” (entertainments for
comparative)

Page 176, “d’Hotel” changed to “d’Hôtel” (MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL SAUCE.)

Page 193, _Or,_ under CABBAGE SALAD, OR COLD SLAW., no measurement for
sugar given. Ditto mark was presumed and added.

Page 214, “buiscuit” changed to “biscuit” (biscuit or rolls, from)

Page 236, “upppermost” changed to “uppermost” (crust may be uppermost)

Page 261, under YEAST (_Hop._), no measurement for sugar given. Ditto
mark was presumed and added.

Page 273, “biscuit” changed to “biscuits” (if the biscuits are intended)

Page 276, “flour” added to recipe list after “white” for the second
ingredient under “GRAHAM BISCUIT.”

Page 281, “stirrring” changed to “stirring” (flour, stirring in lightly)

Page 285, under NONPAREIL CORN BREAD., “teaspoonsful” changed to
“tablespoonsful” after checking recipe in another text of Harland’s (1
tablespoonful lard)

Page 331, in recipe instructions, “soda” changed to “saleratus” to
follow recipe ingredient list (then the saleratus)

Page 415, “sweatmeat” changed to “sweetmeat” (bit of melon sweetmeat)

Page 475, “tumeric” changed to “turmeric” (1 tablespoonful turmeric)

Page 500, “plain” changed to “Plain” (ARROWROOT JELLY (_Plain._))

Index:

Page 531, “a” changed to “à” (Beef soup _à la Julienne_)

Page 533, “á” changed to “à” (Beef _à la mode_)

Page 533, “Calf’” changed to “Calf’s” (Calf’s head scalloped)

Page 534, under Rabbit, “brown” was italicized to match rest of layout.

Page 535, under SAUCES FOR MEAT AND FISH, “Asparag” changed to
“Asparagus”.

Page 536, under VEGETABLES, Carrots, the page for “stewed” was changed
from “224” to “225”.

Page 538, under _Corn bread_, two recipes titles were changed from
“Indian-meal” to “Corn-meal” as those titles are used in the text.
Both recipes list “Indian-meal” in their ingredient lists. (Crumpets,
Corn-meal) (Muffins, Corn-meal)

Page 540, “mice” changed to “mince” (Mock mince-meat)

Page 547, “succcess” changed to “success” (with certainty of success)

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Common Sense in the Household - A Manual of Practical Housewifery" ***

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