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Title: Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea
Author: Harland, Marion
Language: English
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Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea.
_“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES_
BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA
BY
MARION HARLAND,
AUTHOR OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.”
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
1886.
COPYRIGHT, 1875, BY
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
FAMILIAR TALKS.
PAGE
Familiar talk with the Reader—Introductory 1
“ “ “ Breakfast 61
“ “ “ Croquettes 75
“ “ “ Haste or Waste? 98
“ “ “ Gravy 141
“ “ “ Luncheon 168
“ “ “ What I know about Egg-beaters 196
“ “ “ Whipped Cream 203
“ “ “ Concerning Allowances 294
“ “ “ Ripe Fruit 308
“ “ “ Tea 356
“ “ “ Parting Words 398
“ “ “ Practical—or Utopian? 402
FAMILIAR TALK WITH THE READER.
I SHOULD be indeed flattered could I believe that you hail with as much
pleasure as I do the renewal of the “Common-Sense Talks,” to which I
first invited you four years ago. For I have much to say to you in the
same free-masonic, free-and-easy strain in which you indulged me then.
It is a wild March night. Winter and Summer, Spring-time and Autumn,
the wind sings, or plains at my sitting-room window. To-night its shout
is less fierce than jocund to my ear, for it says, between the castanet
passages of hail and sleet, that neither friend nor bore will interrupt
our conference. Shutters and curtains are closed; the room is still,
bright, and warm, and we are no longer strangers.
The poorest man of my acquaintance counts his money by the million,
has a superb mansion he calls “home,” a wife and beautiful children
who call him “husband” and “father.” He has friends by the score,
and admirers by the hundred, for human nature has not abated one jot
in prudential sycophancy since the Psalmist summed up a volume of
satirical truth in the pretended “aside”—“and men will praise thee
when thou doest well unto thyself.” For all that, he of whom I write
is a pauper, inasmuch as he makes his boast that he never experienced
the emotion of gratitude. He has worked his own way in the world, he
is wont to say: has never had helping hand from mortal man or woman.
It is a part of his religion to pay for all he gets, and never to
ask a favor. Nevertheless, he confesses, with a complacent smirk
that would be amusing were it not so pitiable an exhibition of his
real beggary—“that he would like to know what it feels like to be
grateful,—just for the sake of the novel sensation!”
Poor wretch! I am sorry I introduced him here and now. There is a
savage growl in the wind; our snuggery is a trifle less pleasant
since I began to talk of him. Although I only used him as a means of
“leading up” to the expression of my own exceeding and abundant wealth
of gratitude to you, dear Reader and Friend. If I had only time and
strength enough to bear me through the full relation of the riches and
happiness you have conferred upon me! There are letters in that desk
over there between the windows that have caused me to look down with
a sense of compassionate superiority upon Nathan Rothschild and the
Duke of Brunswick. I am too modest (or miserly) to show them; but now
and then, when threatened with a fit of self-depreciation, I come in
here, lock the door, stop the keyhole, get them out and read them anew.
For three days thereafter I walk on air. For the refrain of all is the
same. “You have been a help to me!” And only HE who knows the depths,
sad and silent, or rich and glad, of the human heart can understand how
much I wanted to help you. Verily, I have in this matter had my reward.
Again, I say, I am grateful. Had I “helped” you a hundred times as
well as I have, I should still be your debtor.
May I read you somewhat copious extracts from a letter I received, the
other day, from a wide-awake New England girl? Not only wide-awake,
but refined, original and sprightly; a girl whom though I have never
seen her face, I know to be a worker in life as well as a thinker. She
says some things much better than I could have put them, and others
as noteworthy, which I wish to answer,—or, try to answer—since I
recognize in her a representative of a class, not very large, perhaps,
but certainly one of the most respectable and honored of all those
for whom I write the “Common-Sense Series.” I should like to give
the letter in full, from the graphic touches with which she sketches
herself, “sitting upon the kitchen-table, reading ‘Common Sense in the
Household,’” one bright morning, when herself and sisters had taken
possession of the kitchen to make preparation for “an old New England
tea-party,” at which their only assistant was to be “a small maiden we
keep to have the privilege of waiting upon, and doing our own work into
the bargain; who, in waiting at table, was never known to pass anything
on the right side, and has an invincible objection to learning how”—to
the conclusion, over against which she has, like the frank woman she
is, set her name and address in full.
But the modesty (or miserliness) aforesaid rises in sudden arms to
forbid the reproduction at my hand of certain portions of the epistle,
and it would be neither kind nor honorable to set down in prospective
print her pictures of home life and _dramatis personæ_. Steering
clear, when possible, of these visible rocks and sunken reefs, I will
indulge you and myself with a part of that which has added sensibly to
my treasures—not debt—mind you! of gratitude.
“I want to tell you how much your compilation does for those poor
mortals whom it rescues from the usual class of cook-books.”
A reef, you see, before we are out of harbor! We will skip two pages to
get at one of the well-said things I spoke of just now.
“You speak of ‘company china’ and ‘company manners.’ I detest company
_anything_! This longing for show and display is the curse and
failing of Americans. I abhor the phrase ‘Anything will do for us.’
I do not believe that a person can be true clear through and without
affectations who can put on her politeness with her company china any
more than a real lady can deliberately put on stockings with holes in
them. I seriously think that, so far from its being self-sacrifice to
put up with the meanest every day, and hospitality to use the best for
company, it is a positive damage to one’s sense of moral fitness. I
knew a woman once who used to surprise me with the deceptions in which
she unconsciously and needlessly indulged. This ceased to be a surprise
when I saw her wear a twenty-dollar hat and a pair of unmended hose,
and not seem to know that it was not quite the proper thing.”
Orthodox, you perceive, thus far, is our New England correspondent.
Honest and outspoken in her hatred of shams and “dodges” of all kinds;
quick to see analogies and deduce conclusions. Now comes the pith of
the communication:—
“I wish you could set me right on one point that often perplexes me.
_Is housekeeping worth while?_ I do not despise the necessary work. On
the contrary, I hold that anything well done is worth doing. But with
the materials this country affords, _can_ housekeeping be well done?
Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has, and can
use to her own and her friends’ advantage, in order to have a perfectly
appointed house? to wear herself out chasing around after servants and
children that things may be always done well, and at the stated time? I
have seen so many women of brains wear out and die in harness, trying
to do their self-imposed duty; to see that the large establishments
their husbands’ wealth, position and wishes place in their care shall
be perfect in detail. And these women could have been so happy and
enjoyed the life they threw away, if they had only known how _not_
to keep house. While, on the other hand, with a small income and one
servant the matter is so much worse. I should not mind if one could
ever say ‘It is a well-finished thing!’ But you only finish one thing
to begin over again, and so on, until you die and have nothing to show
for your life’s work. It looks hopeless to me, I confess. I wish you
would show me the wisdom—or the folly of it all.”
Now, I do not propose to show the folly of anything such as a girl that
writes. She is a sincere inquirer after truth. When her letter came I
tucked it under my inkstand, and said, “There is a text ready-written,
and in clerkly hand, for my next ‘Familiar Talk!’” She is altogether
too sensible and has too true a sense of humor to be offended when I
tell her, as I shall, that her lament over unfinished work reminded me
comically of the story of the poor fellow who cut his throat, because,
as he stated in his letter of explanation and farewell—“He was tired
of buttoning and unbuttoning!” There is a deal that is specious in the
threadbare adage set forth in dolesome rhyme:—
“Man’s work is from sun to sun,
But woman’s work is never done.”
Nothing in this world, or in all time, is finished. Or, if finished,
it is _not_ well with it. We hear this truth reiterated in every
stroke of the artisan’s hammer, employed—from the day he enters upon
his apprenticeship to that on which the withered hand can no longer,
by reason of age, lift the ponderous emblem of his craft—in beating
upon what looks to the observer of to-day like that which engaged him
yesterday; which to the spectator of twenty to-morrows will seem the
same as that which calls out the full strength of the brawny arm this
hour. When he dies, who will care to chronicle the circumstance that he
made, in the course of a long and busy life, forty thousand horseshoes,
or assisted in the manufacture of one thousand engine-boilers? We learn
the same lesson from the patient eyes of the teacher while drilling one
generation after another in the details that are the tedious forging of
the wards of the key of knowledge;—the rudiments of “the three R’s,”
which, laugh or groan as we may, must be committed to memories more or
less reluctant. They were never, I am sure, “learned by heart.” It is
well, so far as they are concerned, that the old phrase has gone out of
fashion. We read the like tale of ever-renewed endeavor in the bent
brows and whitening locks of brain-toilers, the world over. Nature were
a false teacher were this otherwise. Birth, maturity, death; first, the
blade then the ear, and, after the full corn in the ear, ripening and
destruction for the good of man or beast, or decay in the earth that
resurrection may come to the buried seed. Seed-time and harvest, summer
and winter,—none of these are “finished things.” GOD hold our eyes from
seeing many things that are!
A life, the major part of which is spent in sweeping, that the dust
may re-settle; in washing, that clothes may be again worn and soiled;
in cooking, that the food prepared may be consumed; in cleansing
plates and dishes, to put back upon the table that they may return, in
grease and stickiness, to the hardly-dried pan and towel, does seem to
the superficial spectator, ignoble even for the wife of a struggling
mechanic or ill-paid clerk. But I insist that the fault is not that
Providence has made her a woman, but that Providence has made and kept
her poor. Her husband at his bench, or, rounding his shoulders over his
ledger, has as valid cause of complaint of never done work. Is there
any reason why he should stand more patiently in his lot, waiting to
see what GOD the LORD will do, than she?
But—“Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has,
and can use to her own and her friends’ advantage, in order to have a
perfectly-appointed house, etc.?”
Certain visions that stir me to reverential admiration, arise before
me, at that query. I see Emily Bronté reading German while she kneads
the batch of home-made bread; Charlotte, laying down the pen upon an
unfinished page of Shirley, to steal into the kitchen when poor blind
Tabby’s back is turned, and bear off the potatoes the superannuated
servant insists upon peeling every day, that the “dainty fingers”
may extract the black “eyes” the faithful old creature cannot see. I
see the Greek grammar fixed open in the rack above Elihu Burritt’s
forge; and Sherman, reciting to himself by day over his lapstone and
last, the lessons he learned at night after work-hours were over. I
recollect that the biographer of the “marvellous boy” has written of
him—“Twelve hours he was chained to the office; _i.e._, from eight in
the morning until eight at night, the dinner-hour only excepted; and in
the house he was confined to the kitchen; slept with the foot-boy, and
was subjected to indignities of a like nature. Yet here it was, during
this life of base humiliation, that Thomas Chatterton worked out the
splendid creations of his imagination. In less than three years of the
life of a poor attorney’s apprentice, fed in the kitchen and lodged
with the foot-boy, did he here achieve an immortality such as the whole
life of not one in millions is sufficient to create.”
Note here, too, that Chatterton died of a broken heart; was not driven
to suicide by hard work.
Please be patient with me while I tell you of an incident that seems to
me pretty, and comes in patly just at this point.
I have a friend—my heart bounds with prideful pleasure while I call her
such!—who is the most scholarly woman, and also the best housekeeper I
know. She is, moreover, one of the sweetest of our native poets—one
to whose genius and true womanhood even royalty has done grateful
honor; a woman who ‘has used her’ every ‘talent to her own and her
friends’ advantage’ in more ways than one. She had a call one day from
a neighbor, an eminent professor, learned in dead and spoken tongues.
In the passage of the conversation from trifles to weightier matters,
it chanced that she differed in opinion from him upon two points. He
refused to believe that potatoes could ever be made into a palatable
sweet by any ingenuity of the culinary art, and he took exception to
her rendering of a certain passage of Virgil. In the course of the
afternoon he received from his fair neighbor a folded paper and a
covered dish. Opening the former, he read a metrical translation of the
disputed passage, so beautiful and striking he could no longer doubt
that she had discovered the poet’s meaning more truly than had he. The
dish contained a delicious potato custard.
A foolscap page of rhymed thanks went back with the empty pudding-dish.
It was mere doggerel, for the pundit was no poet, and meant his note
for nothing more than jingle and fun, but his tribute of admiration
was sincere. I forget the form of its expression, except that the
concluding lines ran somewhat thus:—
“From Virgil and potatoes, too,
You bring forth treasures rich and new.”
Am I harsh and unsympathetic when I say, that in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, if a woman has genuine talent, she will find time
to improve it even amid the clatter of household machinery? I could
multiply instances by the thousand to prove this, did time permit.
But what of the poor rich woman who throws away her life in the vain
endeavor to bring servants and children “up to time?” Two things.
First, she dies of worry, not of work—a distinction with a difference.
Second, if she possess one-half enough strength of mind and strength of
purpose to have made herself mistress of a single art or science, or
sufficient tact to sustain her as a successful leader in society, or
the degree of administrative ability requisite to enable her to conduct
rightly a public enterprise of any note, be it benevolent, literary, or
social, she ought to be competent to the government of her household;
to administer domestic affairs with such wise energy as should insure
order and punctuality without self-immolation.
“If they have run with the footmen and they have wearied them, how
shall they contend with horses?”
Let us look at this matter fairly, and without prejudice on either
side. I should contradict other of my written and spoken opinions;
stultify myself beyond the recovery of your respect or my own, were
I to deny that more and wider avenues of occupation should be opened
to woman than are now conceded as their right by the popular verdict.
But _not_ because the duties of the housewife are overburdensome or
degrading. On the contrary, I would have forty trained cooks where
there is now one; would make her who looketh diligently to the ways
of her household worthy, as in Solomon’s day, of double honor. Of
co-operative laundries I have much hope. I would have washing-day
become a tradition of the past to be shuddered over by every
emancipated family in the land. In “co-operative housekeeping,” in the
sense in which it is generally understood, I have scanty faith as a
cure for the general untowardness of what my sprightly correspondent
styles “the materials this country affords.” Somebody must get the
dinners and somebody superintend the getting-up of these. I honestly
believe that the best method of reforming American domestic service and
American cookery is by making the mistress of every home proficient in
the art and a capable instructress of others. I know—no one better—how
women who have never cared to beautify their own tables, or to study
elegant variety in their bills of fare, who have railed at soups as
“slops,” and _entrées_ as “trash,” talk, after the year’s travel in
foreign lands their husband’s earnings and their own pinching have
gained for them. How they groan over native cookery and the bondage of
native mistresses, and tell how cheaply and luxuriously one can live in
_dear_ Paris.
“Will the time ever come,” they cry, “when we, too, can sit at ease in
our frescoed saloons surrounded by no end of artificial flowers and
mirrors, and order our meals from a restaurant?”
To which I, from the depths of my home-loving heart, reply, “Heaven
forbid!”
Have you ever thought how large a share the kitchen and dining-room
have in forming the distinctive characteristics of the home? It is
no marvel that the man who has had his dinners from an eating-house
all his life should lack a word to describe that which symbolizes to
the Anglo-Saxon all that is dearest and most sacred on earth. I avow,
without a tinge of shame, that I soon tire, then sicken of restaurant
and hotel dainties. I like the genuine wholesomeness of home-fare.
“Madame,” said a Frenchman whom I once met at an American
watering-place, “one of my compatriots could produce one grand
repast—one that should not want for the beautiful effects, with the
contents of that pail—tub—bucket—of what the peoples here call the
_svill_,” pointing to a mass of dinner _débris_ set just without a side
door.
“Monsieur,” I rejoined, with a grimace that matched his, “_moi, je
n’aime pas le svill_!”
He was right, without doubt, in the implication that very much is
thrown away as refuse which could be reproduced upon the table to the
satisfaction and advantage of host and guest. Perhaps my imagination
was more to blame than he for my unlucky recollection of his
countrywoman’s recommendation of a mayonnaise to a doubting guest:
“You need not fear to partake, madame. The fish has been preserved from
putrefaction by a process of vinegar and charcoal!”
It is a substantial comfort to the Anglo-Saxon stomach for its owner to
know what he is eating. Call it prejudice, if you like, but it may have
something to do with making one “true clear through,” as my Yankee girl
puts it.
“But such poetic repasts!” sighs my travelled acquaintance. “Such
heavenly garnishes, and flowers everywhere, and the loveliest
side-dishes, and everything so exquisitely served! When I think of
them, I abominate our great, vulgar joints and stiff dinner-tables!”
Yet Mrs. Nouveau Riche dawdles all the forenoon over a piece of
tasteless embroidery, and gives the afternoon to gossip; while Bridget
or Dinah prepares dinner, and serves it in accordance with her
peculiar ideas of right and fitness.
“Train American servants?” she says, in a transport of contemptuous
incredulity at my suggestion that here is good missionary ground, “I
have had enough of that! Just as soon as I teach them the rudiments of
decent cookery they carry off their knowledge to somebody else, trade
for double wages from my neighbor upon what they have gained from me!”
“But,” I remark, argumentatively, “do you not see, my dear lady, that
so surely as ‘ten times one is ten,’ if all your neighbors were, in
like manner, to instruct the servants who come to _them_ and desert,
so soon as they are taught their trade, the great work of securing
wholesome and palatable cookery and tasteful serving would soon be
an accomplished fact in your community? and, by the natural spread
of the leaven, the race of incompetent cooks and clumsy waiters
would before long become extinct? Would it not be worth while for
housekeepers to co-operate in the attempt to secure excellence in
these departments instead of ‘getting along somehow’ with ‘the
materials’—_i. e._, servants—‘this country affords?’ Why not compel the
country—wrong-headed abstraction that it is!—to afford us what we want?
Would not the demand, thus enforced and persisted in, create a supply?”
“Not in my day,” she retorts, illogically. “I don’t care to wear myself
out for the benefit of posterity.”
I do not gainsay the latter remark. If she had any desire that the
days to come should be better than these, she would see to it that her
daughters are rendered comparatively independent of the ungrateful
caprices of the coming Celt or Teuton, or the ambitious vagaries of
“the Nation’s Ward,” by a practical knowledge of housewifery. Perhaps
she is deterred from undertaking their instruction by the forecast
shadow of their desertion of the maternal abode for homes of their own.
The prettiest thing that has ever been said of the informal “talks” I
had with you, my Reader, in former days, was the too-flattering remark
of a Syracuse (N. Y.) editor, that they were “like a breath of fresh
air blowing across the ‘heated term’ of the cook.”
I quote it, partly that I may thank the author, principally that I
may borrow the illustration. The heavenly airs that really temper the
torrid heats of the kitchen are loving thoughts of those for whom the
house-mother makes the home. There is a wealth of meaning in the homely
old saying about “putting one’s name in the pot.” It is one thing,
I submit to the advocates of co-operative housekeeping, whether big
John’s and little John’s and Mamie’s and Susie’s and Tommy’s meals
are prepared according to the prescriptions of a salaried _chef_,
in the mammoth boilers, steamers and bakers of an “establishment”
along with the sustenance of fifty other families, or whether the
tender mother, in her “order of the day,” remembers that while Papa
likes smart, tingling dashes of cayenne, garlic, and curry, the
baby-tongues of her brood would cry out at the same; that Mamie has
an aversion to a dish much liked by her brothers and sisters; that
Susie is delicate, and cannot digest the strong meat that is the gift
of flesh and brains to the rest. So Papa gets his spiced ragoût under
a tiny cover—hot-and-hot—and the plainer “stew,” which was its base,
nourishes the bairns. Mamie is not forced to fast while the rest feast,
and by pale Susie’s plate is set the savory “surprise,” which is the
visible expression of loving kindness, always wise and unforgetting.
You remember the legend that tells how Elizabeth of Hungary, having
been forbidden by her lord to carry food to the poor, was met one
day by him outside the castle walls, as she was bearing a lapful of
meat and bread to her pensioners. Louis demanding sternly what she
carried in her robe, she was obliged to show him the forbidden burden.
“Whereupon,” says the chronicler, “the food was miraculously changed,
for his eyes, to a lapful of roses, red-and-white, and, his mind
disabused of suspicion, he graciously bade her pass on whithersoever
she would.”
I have bethought me many times of the legend when I have seen upon very
modest tables such proofs of thoughtful recollection of the peculiar
tastes and needs of the flock to which the home caterer ministered
as made my heart warm and eyes fill, and threw, to my imagination,
chaplets lovelier than Elizabeth’s roses around the platter and bowl.
This is the true poetry of serving, and the loving appreciation of it
is the reward, rich and all-sufficient, of thought, care, and toil.
A few words more before we proceed, in due order, to business.
This volume is not an amendment to “General Receipts, No. 1 of the
Common-Sense Series.” Still less is it intended as a substitute for it.
I have carefully avoided the repetition, in this volume, of a single
receipt which appeared in that. This is designed to be the second story
in the edifice of domestic economy, the materials of which I have
accumulated since the first was completed. As money makes money, and a
snow-ball gathers snow, so receipts, new, valuable, and curious, flowed
in upon me after “No. 1” was given to the world. Some of the earliest
to reach me were so good that I began a fresh compilation by the time
that book was fairly off the press.
Let me say here what you may find useful in your own researches and
collections. My best ally in the classification and preservation of the
materials for this undertaking has been the “The Household Treasury,”
published by Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, and arranged
by a lady of that city. It is a pretty volume of blank pages, a certain
number of which are devoted to each department of cookery, beginning
with soups, and running through the various kinds of sweets, pickles,
etc. Each is introduced by a handsome vignette and appropriate motto,
with a title at the top of every page. The paper is excellent and
distinctly ruled. I wish I could put a copy into the hands of every
housekeeper who believes in system of details, and development of her
individual capabilities. It has so far simplified and lightened the
task of preparing “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea” for my public, that I
cannot withhold this recommendation of it to others.
Yet if “General Receipts” was written _con amore_, its successor has
been, in a still higher degree, a work of love and delight. There were
times during the preparation of the trial volume when I could not feel
quite sure of my audience. There has not been a moment, since I began
that which I now offer for your acceptance, in the which I have not
been conscious of your full sympathy; have not tasted, in anticipation,
your enjoyment of that which I have taken such pleasure in making ready.
Do not think me sentimental when I ask that the Maltese cross, marking,
as in the former work, such receipts as I have tested and proved for
myself to be reliable, may be to you, dear friend and sister, like the
footprint of a fellow-traveler along the humble but honorable pathway
of every-day and practical life, bringing comfort and encouragement,
even in the “heated term.”
EGGS.
“Give me half-a-dozen eggs, a few spoonfuls of gravy and as much cream,
with a spoonful of butter and a handful of bread crumbs, and I can get
up a good breakfast or luncheon,” said a housekeeper to me once, in a
modest boastfulness that became her well, in my eyes.
For I had sat often at her elegant, but frugal board, and I knew she
spoke the truth.
“Elegant and frugal!” I shall have more hope of American housewives
when they learn to have faith in this combination of adjectives.
Nothing has moved me more strongly to the preparation of this work
than the desire to convert them to the belief that the two are not
incompatible or inharmonious. Under no head can practice in the
endeavor to conform these, the one to the other, be more easily and
successfully pursued than under that which begins this section.
Eggs at sixty cents per dozen (and they are seldom higher than this
price) are the cheapest food for the breakfast or lunch-table of a
private family. They are nutritious, popular, and never (if we except
the cases of omelettes, thickened with uncooked flour, and fried eggs,
drenched with fat) an unelegant or homely dish.
EGGS SUR LE PLAT. +
6 eggs.
1 table-spoonful of butter or nice dripping.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Melt the butter on a stone-china, or tin plate, or shallow baking-dish.
Break the eggs carefully into this; dust lightly with pepper and salt,
and put in a moderate oven until the whites are well “set.”
Serve in the dish in which they were baked.
TOASTED EGGS.
Cover the bottom of an earthenware or stone-china dish with rounds
of delicately toasted bread. Or, what is even better, with rounds of
stale bread dipped in beaten egg and fried quickly in butter or nice
dripping, to a golden-brown. Break an egg carefully upon each, and set
the dish immediately in front of, and on a level with a glowing fire.
Toast over this as many slices of _fat_ corned pork or ham as there are
eggs in the dish, holding the meat so that it will fry very quickly,
and all the dripping fall upon the eggs. When these are well “set,”
and a crust begins to form upon the top of each, they are done. Turn
the dish several times while toasting the meat, that the eggs may be
equally cooked.
Do not send the fried pork to table, but pepper the eggs lightly and
remove with the toast, to the dish in which they are to go to the
table, with a cake-turner or flat ladle, taking care not to break them.
BAKED EGGS. (No. 1.) +
6 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls good gravy—veal, beef or poultry. The latter is
particularly nice.
1 handful bread-crumbs.
6 rounds buttered toast or fried bread.
Put the gravy into a shallow baking-dish. Break the eggs into this,
pepper and salt them, and strew the bread-crumbs over them. Bake for
five minutes in a quick oven. Take up the eggs carefully, one by one,
and lay upon the toast which must be arranged on a hot, flat dish. Add
a little cream, and, if you like, some very finely-chopped parsley
and onion, to the gravy left in the baking-dish, and turn it into a
saucepan. Boil up once quickly, and pour over the eggs.
BAKED EGGS. (No. 2.) +
6 eggs.
1 cup of chicken, game, or veal gravy.
1 teaspoonful mixed parsley and onion, chopped fine.
1 handful very fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Pour enough gravy into a neat baking-dish to cover the bottom well,
and mix with the rest the parsley and onion. Set the dish in the oven
until the gravy begins to hiss and bubble, when break the eggs into it,
so that they do not crowd one another. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over
them, pepper and salt, and return to the oven for three minutes longer.
Then pour the rest of the gravy, which should be hot, over the whole.
More bread-crumbs, as fine as dust, and bake until the eggs are “set.”
Send to table in the baking-dish.
This dish will be found very savory.
FRICASSEED EGGS. +
6 hard-boiled eggs. When cold, slice with a sharp knife, taking care
not to break the yolk.
1 cup good broth, well seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley and a
suspicion of onion.
Some rounds stale bread, fried to a light-brown in butter or nice
dripping.
Put the broth on the fire in a saucepan with the seasoning and let it
come to a boil. Rub the slices of egg with melted butter, then roll
them in flour. Lay them gently in the gravy and let this become smoking
hot upon the side of the range, but do not let it actually boil, lest
the eggs should break. They should lie thus in the gravy for at least
five minutes. Have ready, upon a platter, the fried bread. Lay the
sliced egg evenly upon this, pour the gravy over all, and serve hot.
EGG CUTLETS. +
6 hard-boiled eggs.
1 raw egg well-beaten.
1 handful very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt, and a little parsley minced fine.
3 table-spoonfuls butter or dripping.
1 cup broth, or drawn butter, in which a raw egg has been beaten.
Cut the boiled eggs when perfectly cold, into rather thick slices
with a sharp, thin knife; dip each slice into the beaten egg; roll in
the bread-crumbs which should be seasoned with pepper, salt and minced
parsley. Fry them to a light-brown in the butter or dripping, turning
each piece as it is done on the under side. Do not let them lie in the
frying-pan an instant after they are cooked. Drain free from fat before
laying them on a hot dish. Pour the gravy, boiling hot, over the eggs,
and send to table.
STIRRED EGGS. +
6 eggs.
3 table-spoonfuls of gravy—that made from poultry is best.
Enough fried toast, from which the crust has been pared, to cover the
bottom of a flat dish.
A very little anchovy paste.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Melt the butter in a frying-pan, and when hot, break into this the
eggs. Stir in the gravy, pepper and salt to taste, and continue to stir
very quickly, and well up from the bottom, for about two minutes, or
until the whole is a soft, yellow mass. Have ready in a flat dish the
fried toast, spread thinly with anchovy paste.
Heap the stirred egg upon this, and serve before it has time to harden.
SCALLOPED EGGS (_Raw_). +
6 eggs.
4 or 5 table-spoonfuls of ground or minced ham.
A little chopped parsley.
A very little minced onion.
2 great spoonfuls of cream, and 1 of melted butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.
½ cup of bread crumbs moistened with milk and a spoonful of melted
butter.
Line the bottom of a small deep dish, well-buttered, with the soaked
bread-crumbs; put upon these a layer of chopped ham, seasoned with
the onion and parsley. Set these in the oven, closely covered, until
they are smoking hot. Meanwhile, beat up the eggs to a stiff froth,
season with pepper and salt, stir in the cream and a spoonful of melted
butter, and pour evenly upon the layer of ham. Put the dish, uncovered,
back into the oven, and bake five minutes, or until the eggs are “set.”
SCALLOPED EGGS (_Hard-boiled_). +
6 eggs boiled, and when cold, cut into thin slices.
1 cupful fine bread-crumbs, well moistened with a little good gravy and
a little milk or cream.
½ cup thick drawn butter, into which has been beaten the yolk of an egg.
1 small cupful minced ham, tongue, poultry, or cold halibut, salmon, or
cod.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Put a layer of moistened crumbs in the bottom of a buttered
baking-dish. On this lay the sliced eggs, each piece of which must have
been dipped in the thick drawn butter. Sprinkle the ground meat over
these, cover with another layer of bread-crumbs, and proceed in like
manner, until the egg is all used up. Sift on the top a good layer of
dry bread-crumbs. Cover the dish with an inverted plate, until the
contents are heated through, then remove the plate, and brown the top
upon the upper grating of the oven.
WHIRLED EGGS.
6 eggs.
1 quart of boiling water.
Some thin slices of buttered toast.
Pepper and salt to taste.
A table-spoonful of butter.
Put the water, slightly salted, in a saucepan over the fire, and keep
it at a fast boil. Stir with a wooden spoon or ladle in one direction
until it whirls rapidly. Break the eggs, one at a time, into a cup,
and drop each carefully into the centre, or vortex of the boiling
whirlpool, which must be kept in rapid motion until the egg is a soft,
round ball. Take it out carefully with a perforated spoon, and put it
on a slice of buttered toast laid upon a hot dish. Put a bit of butter
on the top. Set the dish in the oven to keep it warm, and proceed in
the same way with each egg, having but one at a time in the saucepan.
When all are done, dust lightly with salt and pepper, and send up _hot_.
POACHED EGGS _à la Bonne Femme_. +
6 eggs.
1 teaspoonful of vinegar.
½ cup nice veal or chicken broth.
Salt and pepper to taste.
½ cup butter or dripping.
Rounds of stale bread, and the beaten yolks of two raw eggs.
Prepare the bread first by cutting it into rather large rounds, and,
with a smaller cutter, marking an inner round on each, leaving a narrow
rim or wall on the outside. Excavate this cautiously, not to break the
bottom of the cup thus indicated, which should be three-quarters of
an inch deep. Dip each round thus prepared in the beaten egg, and fry
quickly to a yellow-brown in hot butter or dripping. Put in order upon
a flat dish, and set in the open oven while you poach the eggs.
Pour about a quart of boiling water into a deep saucepan. Salt
slightly, and add the vinegar. Break the eggs into a saucer, one at a
time, and, when the water is at a hard boil, slide them singly into
the saucepan. If the yolk be broken in putting it in, the effect of
the dish is spoiled. When the whites begin to curdle around the edges,
lessen the heat, and cook slowly until they are firm enough to bear
removal. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, trim each dexterously
into a neat round, and lay within the bread-cup described above. When
all are in their places, pour over them the gravy, which should be well
seasoned and boiling hot.
EGGS POACHED WITH MUSHROOMS. +
6 eggs.
1 tea-cupful of cold chicken or other fowl, minced fine.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
About a cupful of good gravy,—veal or poultry.
2 dozen mushrooms of fair size, sliced.
Some rounds of fried bread.
1 raw egg beaten light.
Mince the cold meat very fine and work into it the butter, with the
beaten egg. Season with pepper and salt, and stir it over the fire in
a saucepan until it is smoking-hot. Poach the eggs as in preceding
receipt, and trim off the ragged edges. The fried bread must be
arranged upon a hot, flat dish, the mince of chicken on this, and
the eggs upon the chicken. Have ready in another saucepan the sliced
mushrooms and gravy. If you use the French _champignons_—canned—they
should have simmered in the gravy fifteen minutes. If fresh ones, you
should have parboiled them in clean water as long, before they are
sliced into the gravy, and stewed ten minutes in it. The gravy must be
savory, rich and rather highly seasoned. Pour it very hot upon the eggs.
If you will try this receipt, and that for “Eggs _à la bonne femme_”
for yourself, your family and your guests will be grateful to you, and
you to the writer.
ANCHOVY TOAST WITH EGGS.
6 eggs.
1 cupful drawn butter—drawn in milk.
Some rounds of stale bread, toasted and buttered.
A little anchovy paste.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Spread the buttered toast thinly with anchovy paste, and with this
cover the bottom of a flat dish. Heat the drawn butter to boiling
in a tin vessel set in another of hot water, and stir into this the
eggs beaten very light. Season to taste, and heat—stirring all the
time—until they form a thick sauce, but do not let them boil. Pour over
the toast, and send to table very hot.
FORCEMEAT EGGS. +
6 eggs boiled hard.
1 cupful minced chicken, veal, ham or tongue.
1 cupful of rich gravy.
½ cupful bread-crumbs.
2 tea-spoonfuls mixed parsley, onion, summer savory or sweet marjoram,
chopped fine.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 raw egg beaten light.
While the eggs are boiling, make the forcemeat by mixing the minced
meat, bread-crumbs, herbs, pepper and salt together, and working well
into this the beaten raw egg. When the eggs are boiled hard, drop
for a minute into cold water to loosen the shells. Break these away
carefully. With a sharp knife divide each egg into halves; cut a piece
of the white off at each end (that they may stand firmly when dished),
and coat them thickly with the forcemeat. Brown them by setting them in
a tin plate on the upper grating of a very hot oven, and heap neatly
upon a hot dish. Pour the boiling gravy, in which a little lemon-juice
has been squeezed at the last, over them.
A HEN’S NEST. +
6 or 8 eggs boiled hard.
1 cup minced chicken, or other fowl, ham, tongue, or, if more
convenient, any cold firm fish.
1 cup of drawn butter into which have been stirred two or three
table-spoonfuls of good gravy and a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley.
When the eggs are quite cold and firm, cut the whites from the yolks
in long thin strips, or shavings, and set them aside to warm in a very
gentle oven, buttering them, now and then, while you prepare the rest.
Pound the minced meat or fish very fine in a Wedgewood mortar, mixing
in, as you go on, the yolks of the eggs, the parsley, and pepper and
salt to taste. When all are reduced to a smooth paste, mould with your
hands into small, egg-shaped balls. Heap in the centre of a dish,
arrange the shred eggs around them, in imitation of a nest, and pour
over all the hot sauce.
A simple and delightful relish.
OMELETTES.
For omelettes of various kinds, please see “Common Sense in the
Household, No. 1,” page 259.
FISH.
ENTRÉES AND RELISHES OF FISH.
WHAT TO DO WITH COLD FISH. +
1 cup drawn butter with an egg beaten in.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Mashed potato—(a cupful will do.)
1 cupful cold fish—cod, halibut or shad.
Roe of cod or shad, and 1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful minced parsley.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Dry the roe, previously well boiled. Mince the fish fine, and season.
Work up the roe with butter and the yolks of the boiled eggs. Cut the
white into thin rings. Put a layer of mashed potato at the bottom of
a buttered deep dish—then, alternate layers of fish, drawn butter
(with the rings of white embedded in this), roe,—more potato at top.
Cover the dish and set in a moderate oven until it smokes and bubbles.
Brown by removing the cover for a few minutes. Send to table in the
baking-dish, and pass pickles with it.
FRIED ROES OF COD OR SHAD. +
2 or three roes. If large, cut them in two.
1 pint of boiling water.
1 table-spoonful of vinegar.
Salt and pepper.
1 raw egg, well beaten.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls sweet lard, or dripping.
Wash the roes and dry with a soft, clean cloth. Have ready the boiling
water in which should be put the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Boil the
roes in this for ten minutes, then plunge at once into very cold water,
slightly salted. Wipe dry again; when they have lain about two minutes
in this, roll in the beaten egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry to a
fine brown in the fat.
_Sauce for the above._
1 cup drawn butter, into which beat a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce,
juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, with a little
minced parsley. Boil up once, and send around in a gravy-boat.
ROES OF COD OR SHAD STEWED.
Wash the roes, and parboil in water with a little vinegar, pepper,
and salt added. It should be at a hard boil when the roes go in. Boil
five minutes, lay in very cold water for two, wipe, and transfer to a
clean saucepan, with enough melted butter to half cover them. Set it
in a vessel of boiling water, cover closely, and let it stew gently
ten minutes. Should it boil too fast the roes will shrink and toughen.
While they are stewing prepare the—
_Sauce._
1 cup of boiling water.
2 teaspoonfuls corn-starch, or rice flour, mixed in cold water.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or good catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Beaten yolks of two eggs.
Salt and cayenne pepper.
Stir the corn-starch smoothly into the boiling water, and set it over
the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens up well. Add pepper,
salt, butter, and parsley; mix well together, put in the lemon-juice
and catsup, lastly the roes, which should have been frequently turned
in the melted butter. Set within a vessel of boiling water for about
eight minutes, but do not let the roes and sauce boil fast. Take them
up, lay on a flat, hot dish; add to the sauce the beaten yolks, stir
fast and well over the fire for two minutes, pour over the roes, and
serve.
Should the receipt for so simple a dish seem needlessly prolix, I beg
the reader to remember that I have made it minute to save her time and
trouble.
SCALLOPED ROES. +
3 large roes.
1 cup of drawn butter and yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
1 teaspoonful anchovy paste or essence.
1 teaspoonful of parsley.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
Salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
Boil the roes in water and vinegar, as directed in former receipts;
lay in cold water five minutes, then wipe perfectly dry. Break them
up with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, but not
so fine as to crush the eggs. When ready, they should be a granulated
heap. Set aside while you pound the hard-boiled eggs to a powder. Beat
this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning;
lastly, mix in, more lightly, the roes. Strew the bottom of a buttered
dish with bread-crumbs, put in the mixture, spread evenly, and cover
with very fine crumbs. Stick bits of butter thickly over the top, cover
and bake in a quick oven, until bubbling hot. Brown, uncovered, on the
upper grating of the oven.
FISH-BALLS. +
2 cupfuls cold boiled cod—fresh or salted.
1 cupful mashed potato.
½ cup drawn butter, with an egg beaten in.
Season to taste.
Chop the fish when you have freed it of bones and skin. Work in the
potato, and moisten with the drawn butter until it is soft enough to
mould, and will yet keep in shape. Roll the balls in flour, and fry
quickly to a golden-brown in lard, or clean dripping. Take from the fat
so soon as they are done; lay in a cullender or sieve and shake gently,
to free them from every drop of grease. Turn out for a moment on white
paper to absorb any lingering drops, and send up on a hot dish.
A pretty way of serving them is to line the dish with clean, white
paper, and edge this with a frill of colored tissue paper—green or
pink. This makes ornamental that which is usually considered a homely
dish.
STEWED EELS _à l’Allemande_.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup rather weak vinegar.
1 small onion, chopped fine.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
½ saltspoonful mace.
1 saltspoonful salt.
About 2 pounds of eels.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Chopped parsley to taste.
Make a liquor in which to boil the eels, of the vinegar, water, onion,
pepper, salt and mace. Boil—closely covered—fifteen minutes, when
strain and put in the eels, which should be cleaned carefully and cut
into pieces less than a finger long. Boil _gently_ nearly an hour.
Take them up, drain dry, and put into a sauce made of melted butter
and chopped parsley. Set the vessel containing them in another of hot
water, and bring eels and sauce to the boiling point, then serve in a
deep dish.
EELS STEWED _à l’Americain_. +
3 pounds eels, skinned and cleaned, and all the fat removed from the
inside.
1 young onion, chopped fine.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
Cut the eels in pieces about two inches in length; season, and lay in a
saucepan containing the melted butter. Strew the onion and parsley over
all, cover the saucepan (or tin pail, if more convenient) closely, and
set in a pot of cold water. Bring this gradually to a boil, then cook
very gently for an hour and a half, or until the eels are tender. Turn
out into a deep dish.
There is no more palatable preparation of eels than this, in the
opinion of most of those who have eaten it.
FRICASSEED EELS.
3 pounds fresh eels, skinned, cleaned, and cut into pieces about two
inches long.
1 small onion, sliced.
Enough butter, or good dripping, to fry the eels.
1 cup good beef or veal gravy, from which the fat has been skimmed.
Season with wine, catsup and lemon-juice.
Pepper and salt with minced parsley for seasoning.
A little flour.
Flour the eels and fry in the dripping, or butter, until brown. Take
them out and set aside to cool while you fry the sliced onion in the
same fat. Drain this, also the eels, from every drop of grease. When
the eels are almost cold, lay them in the bottom of a tin pail or
farina-kettle, sprinkle the onion, parsley and other seasoning over
them. Add to your gravy a little anchovy sauce, or flavorous catsup;
the juice of half a lemon, and a glass of brown sherry. Pour over
the eels, cover closely, and set in a pot of _warm_ water. Bring to
a gentle boil and simmer, after the contents of the inner vessel are
heated through, about twenty minutes. Too much, or hard cooking, will
spoil them.
Serve upon a chafing-dish.
CUTLETS OF HALIBUT, COD OR SALMON. +
3 pounds fish, cut in slices three-quarters of an inch thick, from the
body of the fish.
A handful of fine bread-crumbs, with which should be mixed pepper and
salt with a little minced parsley.
1 egg beaten light.
Enough butter, lard or dripping to fry the cutlets.
Cut each slice of fish into strips as wide as your two fingers. Dry
them with a clean cloth; rub lightly with salt and pepper; dip in the
egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry in enough fat to cover them well.
Drain away every drop of fat, and lay upon hot white paper, lining a
heated dish.
CUTLETS OF COD, HALIBUT OR SALMON _à la reine_.
Prepare the fish as in the last receipt until after frying it, when
have ready the following sauce:
1 cup strong brown gravy—beef or veal.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce or mushroom catsup.
Pepper, salt, a pinch of parsley and a _very_ little minced onion.
1 glass brown sherry and juice of half a lemon.
Thicken with browned flour.
Lay the fried cutlets evenly in a broad saucepan with a top, cover with
the gravy and heat slowly all through, _but do not let them boil_. Take
up the cutlets with care, and arrange upon a chafing-dish. Pour the
gravy over them.
These are very nice, and well worth the additional trouble it may cost
to prepare the sauce.
BAKED COD OR HALIBUT. +
A piece of fish from the middle of the back, weighing four, five or six
pounds.
A cupful of bread-crumbs, peppered and salted.
2 table-spoonfuls _boiled_ salt pork, finely chopped.
A table-spoonful chopped parsley, sweet marjoram and thyme, with a mere
suspicion of minced onion.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or Harvey’s, if you prefer it.
½ cupful drawn butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 beaten egg.
Lay the fish in very cold salt-and-water for two hours; wipe dry; make
deep gashes in both sides at right angles with the back-bone and rub
into these, as well as coat it all over with a force-meat made of the
crumbs, pork, herbs, onion and seasoning, bound with raw egg. Lay in
the baking-pan and pour over it the drawn butter (which should be quite
thin), seasoned with the anchovy sauce, lemon-juice, pepper and a pinch
of parsley. Bake in a moderate oven nearly an hour,—quite as long if
the piece be large, basting frequently lest it should brown too fast.
Add a little butter-and-water when the sauce thickens too much. When
the fish is done, remove to a hot dish, and strain the gravy over it.
A few capers or chopped green pickles are a pleasant addition to the
gravy.
BAKED SALMON WITH CREAM SAUCE. +
A middle cut of salmon.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter melted in hot water.
Butter a sheet of foolscap paper on both sides, and wrap the fish up
in it, pinning the ends securely together. Lay in the baking-pan, and
pour six or seven spoonfuls of butter-and-water over it. Turn another
pan over all, and steam in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an
hour to an hour, lifting the cover, from time to time, to baste and
assure yourself that the paper is not burning. Meanwhile, have ready in
a saucepan a cup of cream, in which you would do well to dissolve a bit
of soda a little larger than a pea. This is a wise precaution whenever
cream is to be boiled. Heat this in a vessel placed within another of
hot water; thicken with a heaping teaspoonful of corn starch, add a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, a liberal pinch of
minced parsley, and when the fish is unwrapped and dished, pour half
slowly over it, sending the rest to table in a boat. If you have no
cream, use milk, and add a beaten egg to the thickening.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (FRIED).
Cut slices from the middle of the fish, an inch thick.
1 table-spoonful butter to each slice, for frying.
Beaten egg and fine _cracker_ crumbs, powdered to dust, and peppered
with cayenne.
Wipe the fish dry, and salt slightly. Dip in egg, then in cracker
crumbs, fry very quickly in hot butter. Drain off every drop of grease,
and serve upon a dish lined with hot, clean paper, fringed at the ends.
Sprinkle green parsley in bunches over it.
The French use the best salad-oil in this receipt, instead of butter.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (BROILED).
Three or four slices of salmon.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
½ cup drawn butter, thickened with browned flour, and seasoned with
tomato catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub the steaks with the butter, pepper and salt slightly. Broil upon a
gridiron over a very clear fire, turning often, and rubbing each side
with butter as it comes uppermost. When nicely browned, lay on a hot
dish, and pour the sauce over them.
SALMON CUTLETS EN PAPILLOTE.
Dry and lay in melted butter ten minutes. Dust lightly with cayenne
pepper, and wrap securely in well buttered or oiled white paper,
stitching down the ends of each cover. Fry in nice dripping or sweet
lard. They will be done in ten minutes, unless very thick. Have ready
clean, _hot_ papers, fringed at both ends. Clip the threads of the
soiled ones when you have drained them free from fat, slip dexterously
and quickly, lest they cool in the process, into the fresh covers, give
the fringed ends a twist, and send up on a heated dish.
Salmon _en papillote_ is also broiled by experts. If you attempt this,
be careful that the paper is so well greased and the cutlets turned so
often that it does not scorch. The least taste of burnt paper ruins the
flavor of the fish, which it is the object of the cover to preserve.
SALMON IN A MOULD. (_Very good._) +
1 can preserved salmon or an equal amount of cold, left from a company
dish of roast or boiled.
4 eggs beaten light.
4 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Season with pepper, salt and minced parsley.
Chop the fish fine, then rub it in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl
with the back of a silver spoon, adding the butter until it is a smooth
paste. Beat the bread-crumbs into the eggs and season before working
all together. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, and boil or steam for
an hour.
_Sauce for the Above._
1 cupful milk heated to a boil, and thickened with a table-spoonful
corn-starch.
The liquor from the canned salmon, or if you have none, double the
quantity of butter.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 raw egg.
1 teaspoonful anchovy, or mushroom, or tomato catsup.
1 pinch of mace and one of cayenne.
Put the egg in last and very carefully, boil one minute to cook it, and
when the pudding is turned from the mould, pour over it. Cut in slices
at table.
A nice supper-dish.
STEWED SALMON. +
1 can preserved fresh salmon, or remains of roast or boiled.
1 cup drawn butter.
2 eggs well beaten.
1 teaspoonful anchovy or Harvey’s sauce.
Cayenne and salt to taste.
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
Some capers or minced green pickles.
Stew the salmon in the can liquor, or a very little water, slightly
salted, ten minutes. Have ready, in a larger saucepan, the drawn butter
thickened with rice-flour or corn-starch. Season and stir in cautiously
the beaten raw eggs, then the salmon. Let it come to a gentle boil, add
the chopped eggs and pickles and turn into a covered deep dish.
_Or—_
Add the hard-boiled eggs and capers to the salmon, with a
table-spoonful of butter, toss up lightly with a fork, pepper slightly,
and heap in the centre of a hot flat dish, then pour the boiling sauce
over all.
It is very appetizing served in either way.
MAYONNAISE OF SALMON.
If you use canned salmon, drain it very dry and pick into coarse flakes
with a silver fork. If the remnants of roast or boiled fish, remove all
bits of bone, skin and fat, and pick to pieces in the same way.
1 bunch of celery, or 2 heads of lettuce.
_For Dressing._
1 cup boiling water.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
½ cup vinegar.
1 small teaspoonful black pepper, or half as much cayenne.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2 raw eggs—yolks only,—beaten light.
2 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered sugar.
Wet the corn-starch with cold water and stir into the boiling water
until it thickens well; add half of pepper, salt, sugar, and all the
butter. Remove from the fire, and beat in the raw yolks while still
scalding hot. Set aside to cool, while you cut the celery or lettuce
into small pieces, tearing and bruising as little as may be. Mix this
lightly with the fish in a deep bowl. Rub the boiled yolks to a powder,
add the salt, sugar and pepper, then the oil, little by little, beating
it in with a silver spoon; next, the mustard. When the thick egg sauce
is quite cold, whip the other into it with an egg-beater, and when
thoroughly incorporated, put in the vinegar. Mix half the dressing
through the fish and celery, turn this into a salad-dish, mounding it
in the centre, and pour the rest of the dressing over it.
Garnish with rings of boiled white-of-egg or whipped raw whites, heaped
regularly on the surface, with a caper on top of each.
Do not be discouraged at the length of this receipt. It is easy and
safe. Your taste may suggest some modification of the ingredients, but
you will like it, in the main, well enough to try it more than once.
DEVILLED SALMON. +
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into strips half an inch wide and an inch
long.
4 table-spoonfuls good beef gravy, seasoned with onion.
1 table-spoonful tomato or walnut catsup.
1 table-spoonful vinegar.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter or best salad-oil.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Cayenne to taste.
Boil the salmon ten minutes in clear water. Have ready in a saucepan
the gravy and seasoning, hot and closely covered, but do not let it
boil. Lay the salmon for ten minutes more in the melted butter, turning
it several times. Then put into the hot gravy, cover and simmer five
minutes. Pile the fish upon a hot platter; pour the sauce over it, and
serve with split Boston crackers, toasted and buttered.
SMOKED SALMON (_Broiled_). +
½ pound smoked salmon, cut into narrow strips.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne pepper.
Parboil the salmon ten minutes; lay in cold water for the same length
of time; wipe dry, and broil over a clear fire. Butter while hot,
season with cayenne and lemon-juice, pile in a “log-cabin” square upon
a hot plate, and send up with dry toast.
SALT COD _an maître d’hôtel_. +
About a pound of cod which has been soaked over night, then boiled,
picked into fine flakes.
1 cup milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Bunch of sweet herbs.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the butter, then the corn-starch;
stir until it thickens, when add the fish; pepper and cook slowly
fifteen minutes. Turn out upon a dish, strew thickly with chopped green
herbs—chiefly parsley; squeeze the lemon-juice over all and serve.
Mashed potato is an improvement to this dish.
SALT COD WITH EGG SAUCE. +
1 pound salt cod, previously soaked, then boiled and allowed to cool,
picked or chopped fine.
1 small cup milk or cream.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch or flour.
2 eggs beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A little chopped parsley.
Half as much mashed potato as you have fish.
Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk, thicken with the corn starch; then the potato, rubbed
very fine; next the butter, the eggs and parsley, lastly the fish. Stir
and toss until smoking hot all through, when pour into a deep dish.
_Or,_
Make a sauce of all the ingredients except the fish and potato. Mix
these well together, with a little melted butter. Heat in a saucepan,
stirring all the while; heap in the centre of a dish, and pour the
sauce over all.
SALT COD WITH CHEESE.
1 pound boiled codfish, chopped fine.
1 cup drawn butter.
Pepper and parsley.
2 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.
Bread-crumbs.
Heat the butter to boiling, season and stir in the fish, then the
cheese; put into a baking-dish; strew fine bread-crumbs on the top, and
brown in the oven.
SALT COD SCALLOPED.
Boiled cold cod, minced fine.
1 cup oyster liquor.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Chopped parsley and pepper.
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
1 cup fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Boil the oyster liquor, thicken and stir in two tablespoonfuls of
butter with seasoning. Let it cool. Put a handful of bread-crumbs on
the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, cover these with the oyster
sauce, next comes a layer of fish; one of chopped egg; then more sauce,
and so on, leaving out the bread-crumbs until the dish is full, when
put a thick layer, with bits of butter set closely in it. Bake covered
until hot through, then brown.
FRICASSEED LOBSTER. +
Meat of a good-sized lobster, boiled.
1 cup rich veal, or chicken broth—quite thick.
½ cup cream.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the lobster-meat in pieces half an inch square; put with the gravy,
pepper and salt, into a saucepan. Cover and stew gently for five
minutes. Add the cream, and just as it is on the point of boiling, stir
in the butter. When this is melted, take the saucepan from the fire,
and stir in, very quickly, the lemon-juice.
Serve in a covered dish.
Boston crackers, split, delicately toasted, and buttered while hot, are
a nice accompaniment to this fricassee.
Canned lobster may be used if you cannot procure fresh.
LOBSTER RISSOLES. +
1 large lobster—boiled.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Yolks of 3 eggs.
Handful of bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful of anchovy sauce.
Cayenne, salt, and chopped parsley to liking.
Pick the meat from the boiled lobster, and pound it in a Wedgewood
mortar with half the coral, seasoning with salt and cayenne pepper.
When you have rubbed it to a smooth paste with the butter, add a
table-spoonful of anchovy sauce and the yolk of an egg, well beaten.
Flour your hands well and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll
these in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry to a light brown in
sweet lard, dripping, or butter.
_For the Sauce._
The coral of the lobster rubbed smooth.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
4 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 table-spoonful of cream.
Have ready in a saucepan 4 table-spoonfuls of melted butter; the
remainder of the coral of the lobster pounded fine, and stirred in
carefully, and a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce. Let this heat almost to
boiling; add the cream, and pour hot over the rissoles when you have
arranged these upon a heated dish.
Garnish with parsley or cresses.
LOBSTER CUTLETS +
Are made precisely as is the paste for rissoles, except that enough
flour is added to it to enable you to roll it out into a sheet about as
thick as your finger. Cut this into strips about three inches in length
and one in width. Fry these quickly and drain dry before arranging them
in the dish.
Pour the sauce over them. If properly made and fried, they are light
and palatable.
LOBSTER CROQUETTES. +
1 fine lobster, well boiled, or a can of lobster.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted, but not hot.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
Season with salt and cayenne pepper.
Pound the lobster-meat, coral and all, in a Wedgewood mortar. Mix with
this the bread-crumbs, then the seasoning and butter. Bind with the
yolk of one egg. Flour your hands and make into oblong croquettes. Dip
in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry quickly to a light-brown
in sweet lard or butter. Drain off fat, by laying upon a hot, clean
paper, before dishing them.
Make a border of parsley close about them when you have piled them
tastefully in the dish.
LOBSTER PUDDING.
1 large lobster well boiled, or a can of preserved lobster.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup cream or rich milk.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
1 teaspoonful of Worcestershire or Harvey’s sauce.
¼ pound fat, salt pork, or corned ham, cut into _very_ thin slices.
3 eggs.
Pound the meat and coral to a paste. Mix into this two eggs well
beaten, the seasoning, the bread-crumbs, and one table-spoonful of
cream. Stir all together until light. Line the pudding-mould with the
sliced ham. Pour the mixture into this and fit on the top. Set into a
pot or pan of boiling water, and boil steadily for one hour.
_Sauce for Pudding._
½ cup drawn butter.
The remainder of the cream.
A little chopped parsley.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Heat almost to boiling; stir in a beaten egg, and so soon as this
begins to thicken, take from the fire.
Turn the pudding out carefully upon a hot dish, and pour the sauce over
it. Cut with a sharp thin knife.
Send around lemon cut into eighths, to be squeezed over each slice,
should the guests wish to do so.
CURRIED LOBSTER.
1 large lobster, boiled.
1 large cup of strong veal or chicken broth.
1 shallot.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 great spoonful chopped thyme and parsley.
Juice of 1 lemon.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 table-spoonful curry-powder.
Pick the meat very fine and set aside in a cool place. Mince the onion,
and put it with the chopped herbs, the butter and a table-spoonful of
hot water, into a small covered saucepan. Set this over the fire until
it begins to simmer, then add the broth. Boil all together for five
minutes, strain as for soup, stir in the curry powder and corn-starch,
and stew gently ten minutes longer, stirring often. Season as directed,
and add the picked lobster. Let the saucepan stand in a pan of boiling
water ten minutes, but do not let the contents of the inner vessel
boil. Pour into a deep dish.
Send around wafery slices of toast buttered while hot, and pieces of
lemon to be added if necessary.
DEVILLED LOBSTER. +
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 wine glass of vinegar.
Cayenne pepper and salt.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
Pick the meat carefully from the shell, breaking it as little as may
be. Rub the coral to a smooth paste with the back of a silver spoon.
Chop the meat fine. Stir into this the butter, melted, but not hot, the
yolks of the eggs, rubbed smooth with the coral, the pepper, mustard
and salt, and put all together in a saucepan over the fire. Stir until
it is smoking hot, then turn into the shell, which should be washed and
heated.
STEWED LOBSTER.
1 large lobster, well boiled.
1 cup good gravy—veal is best.
1 blade of mace.
2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Juice of half a lemon.
Cayenne and salt to liking.
1 glass sherry.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the meat of the lobster into pieces an inch long and half as
wide, keeping the coral until the last. Put the meat, with the broth
and seasoning, into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring frequently
until it is near boiling. Then add the coral and butter (which should
previously be well rubbed together) and the chopped parsley. When the
mixture again nears the boiling point, add the wine and lemon-juice and
turn into a deep dish.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER (No. 1).
1 boiled lobster.
4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
½ cup bread-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls butter.
1 tea-spoonful anchovy sauce.
Season to taste with cayenne, salt and nutmeg.
Juice of half a lemon.
Rub the meat of the lobster, including the coral, a little at a time,
in a Wedgewood mortar with the butter, until it is a soft paste. Put
this into a saucepan with the seasoning, and heat to boiling, stirring
constantly. Remove from the fire, and add the cream and lemon-juice,
stirring in well. Fill the lobster shell with this mixture. Strew
bread-crumbs over the top, and set on the upper grate of a quick oven
until the crumbs begin to brown.
Send to table in the shell, laid upon a hot dish.
You can scallop crab in the same manner.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER (No. 2).
1 lobster, well boiled.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce.
½ cup of bread-crumbs.
½ cup of cream.
2 eggs well beaten.
Season with cayenne pepper and salt.
Cut the lobster carefully into halves with a sharp knife. Pick out the
meat carefully, and set aside while you prepare the sauce. This is
done by rubbing the coral and the soft green substance, known as the
“pith,” together in a mortar or bowl, adding, a little at a time, a
table-spoonful of butter. Put this on the fire in a covered saucepan,
and stir until it is smoking hot. Then, beat in the anchovy sauce,
pepper and salt before adding the cream. Heat quickly to a boil, lest
the cream should curdle, put in the picked meat, and again stir up well
from the sides and bottom until very hot. The eggs, whipped to a froth,
should now go in. Remove the saucepan from the fire so soon as this is
done.
Have the upper and lower halves of the shell ready buttered, strew
bread-crumbs thickly in the bottom of each, moisten these with cream,
and pour in the lobster mixture while still very hot. Put another layer
of bread-crumbs, well moistened with the remainder of the cream, on the
top. Stick bits of butter all over it, and brown on the upper grating
of a hot oven.
In either of these preparations of scalloped lobster, should the canned
lobster be used, or should you chance to break the shell in getting
out the meat, you may bake the mixture prepared, as directed, in a
pudding-dish or small _paté_ pans.
CRABS
Are so near of kin to the lobster family that the same receipts may
easily be used for both. Only, bear in mind that the lesser and tougher
shell-fish needs more boiling than does the aristocratic lobster. If
underdone, crabs are very unwholesome. Also, in consideration of the
crab’s deficiency in the matter of the coral which lends lusciousness
and color to lobster salads and stews, use more butter and cream in
“getting him up” for the table.
Cayenne pepper is regarded by many as necessary in dishes of lobster or
crab, because of its supposed efficacy in preventing the evil effects
which might otherwise follow indulgence in these delicacies.
SOFT CRABS.
For a receipt for preparing these, please see “Common Sense in the
Household, No. 1,” page 71.
TURTLE FRICASSEE. +
3 pounds turtle steak.
1 large cup strong veal gravy.
4 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
1 teaspoonful Harvey’s sauce.
Juice of half a lemon.
2 dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion, minced fine.
1 bunch sweet herbs, minced.
1 glass wine, and butter for frying.
Browned flour for thickening, with cayenne and salt.
Cut the steak in strips as wide and as long as three of your fingers;
fry brown (when you have floured them) in butter. Take up; drain off
the grease; put with the gravy, which should be ready heated, into a
tin vessel with a close cover and set in a pot of hot water. It must
not boil until you have put in the rest of the ingredients. Slice the
onion and mushrooms, and fry in the same butter; add with the herbs and
other seasoning to the meat in the pail, or inner saucepan. Cover and
set to stew gently. To the butter left in the frying-pan, add three
spoonfuls of browned flour (large ones) and stir to a smooth unctuous
paste, without setting it on the range. Add the lemon-juice to this,
and set aside until the turtle has simmered half an hour in the broth.
Take up the meat, and arrange upon a covered hot-water dish; transfer
the gravy to a saucepan, and boil hard five minutes uncovered. Put in
the brown flour paste; stir up until it thickens well; add the wine and
yolks of eggs, each cut in three pieces, and pour over the turtle.
PANNED OYSTERS. +
1 quart of oysters.
Rounds of thin toast, delicately browned.
Butter, salt and pepper.
Have ready several small pans of block tin, with upright sides. The
ordinary “patty-pan” will do, if you can get nothing better, but it
is well, if you are fond of oysters cooked in this way, to have the
neat little tins made, at a moderate price, at a tinsmith’s. Cut stale
bread in thin slices, then round—removing all the crust—of a size that
will just fit in the bottoms of your pans. Toast these quickly to a
light-brown, butter and lay within your tins. Wet with a great spoonful
of oyster liquid, then, with a silver fork, arrange upon the toast as
many oysters as the pans will hold without heaping them up. Dust with
pepper and salt, put a bit of butter on top and set the pans, when
all are full, upon the floor of a quick oven. Cover with an inverted
baking-pan to keep in steam and flavor, and cook until the oysters
“ruffle.” Eight minutes in a brisk oven, should be enough. Send very
hot to the table in the tins in which they were roasted.
Next to roasting in the shell, this mode of cooking oysters best
preserves the native flavor of the bivalves.
FRICASSEED OYSTERS. +
1 pint good broth—veal or chicken—well strained.
1 slice of ham—corned is better than smoked.
3 pints oysters.
1 small onion.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup of milk.
1 table-spoonful of corn-starch.
1 egg beaten light.
A little chopped parsley and sweet marjoram.
Pepper to taste and juice of a lemon.
If the ham be raw, soak in boiling water for half an hour before
cutting it into very small slices, and putting it into the saucepan
with the broth, the oyster liquor, the onion minced _very_ fine, the
herbs and pepper. Let these simmer for fifteen minutes, and boil fast
for five, then skim and put in the oysters. Boil up once briskly,
keeping the contents of the saucepan well stirred. Have ready the
corn-starch, rubbed smoothly into the milk. Stir this in and heat
carefully, using the spoon constantly until it boils and begins to
thicken, when the butter should go in. So soon as this is melted take
out the oysters with a skimmer; put into a hot covered dish, heat the
broth again to a boil, remove the saucepan from the fire, and stir in
cautiously the beaten egg. A better way is to cook the latter gradually
by beating in with it a few tablespoonfuls of the scalding liquor,
before putting the egg into the saucepan.
Turn the gravy over the oysters, and serve at once. Squeeze in the
lemon-juice after the tureen is on the table, as it is apt to curdle
the mixture if left to stand.
Send around cream crackers, and green pickles or olives with this
savory dish.
OYSTERS BOILED IN THE SHELL.
Large shell-oysters, washed very clean and scraped, but not opened.
Pot of boiling water over a hot fire.
Sauce of melted butter with chopped or powdered parsley.
A lemon, cut in half.
Put the oysters, one by one, quickly and carefully into the water,
which must be kept at a hard boil all the time. In five minutes, turn
off every drop of the water by inverting the pot over a cullender, dry
the shells rapidly with a soft cloth and send to table upon a hot dish.
Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each oyster, and put a little
hot melted butter with pepper over it before eating it from the shell.
The epicurean oyster-lover may consider boiled oysters insipid, but
they are liked by many.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 1). +
Large, fine shell-oysters.
Butter.
Fine bread-crumbs, or rolled cracker.
Minced parsley, pepper and salt.
Lemon-juice.
Open the shells, setting aside for use the deepest ones. Have ready
some melted butter, _not_ hot, seasoned with minced parsley and pepper.
Roll each oyster in this, letting it drip as little as may be, and lay
in the shells, which should be arranged in a baking-pan. Add to each a
little lemon-juice, sift bread-crumbs over it, and bake in a quick oven
until done.
Serve in the shells.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 2). +
1 quart of oysters.
1 teacupful very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded cracker.
2 great spoonfuls butter.
½ cup of milk, or cream, if you can get it.
Pepper to taste.
A little salt.
Cover the bottom of a baking-dish (well buttered) with a layer of
crumbs, and wet these with the cream, put on spoonful by spoonful.
Pepper and salt, and strew with minute bits of butter. Next, put
in the oysters, with a little of their liquor. Pepper them, stick
bits of butter in among them, and cover with dry crumbs until the
oysters are entirely hidden. More pieces of butter, very small, and
arranged thickly on top. Set in the oven, invert a plate over it to
keep in the flavor, and bake until the juice bubbles up to the top.
Remove the cover, and brown on the upper grating for two or three
minutes—certainly not longer.
Send to table in the bake-dish.
This is a good intermediate course between fish and meat, and is always
popular.
BROILED OYSTERS. +
1 quart of the finest, firmest oysters you can procure.
½ cup very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded crackers, sifted almost as fine
as flour.
Pepper to taste.
½ cup melted butter.
Dry the oysters by laying them on a clean cloth and covering them with
another. Dip each in the melted butter, which should be peppered,
roll over and over in the cracker-crumbs, and broil upon one of the
wire gridirons, made for this purpose, over a clear fire. These wire
“broilers” hold the oysters firmly, and can be safely turned when one
side is done. Five or six minutes should cook them. Butter and pepper a
hot dish, lay in the oysters, and serve immediately.
DEVILLED OYSTERS. +
1 quart fine oysters.
Cayenne pepper.
Lemon-juice.
Some melted butter.
1 egg, beaten light.
½ cup rolled cracker.
Wipe the oysters dry, and lay in a flat dish. Cover with a mixture of
melted butter, cayenne pepper (or pepper-sauce), and lemon-juice. Let
them lie in this for ten minutes, turning them frequently; roll in the
crumbs, then in the beaten egg, again in the crumbs, and fry in mixed
lard and butter, made very hot before the oysters are dropped in.
OYSTERS IN BATTER.
1 quart of oysters.
2 eggs, whipped light.
1 cup of milk.
Flour to make a good batter.
Pepper and salt.
Dry the oysters with a soft cloth, dip in the batter twice, turning
each one dexterously, that it may be thickly coated, and fry in a
mixture of butter and lard.
STEWED OYSTERS.
1 quart of oysters.
1 cup of milk.
Salt very slightly, and pepper to taste.
1 great spoonful butter.
Drain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan and heat to a boil.
At the same time, put on the milk to heat in another vessel set within
a pot or pan of boiling water. When the liquor in the saucepan boils
up, put in the oysters and stew until they begin to ruffle or crimp at
the edges. Stir in the butter, and when this is quite dissolved, turn
the stew into a tureen. Add the milk immediately (which should be
boiling hot), cover closely, and send to table. Send around pickles, or
olives, and crackers with them. There is no danger, when oysters are
stewed in this way, of the milk curdling.
OYSTER PATÉS.
1 quart of oysters, minced fine with a sharp knife, with a thin
blade,—not a “chopper.”
1 great spoonful butter “drawn” in a cupful of milk, or cream, if
you can get it, and thicken with a teaspoonful of corn-starch or
rice-flour, previously wet up with cold milk.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Drain the liquor from the oysters, and chop them as directed. When the
milk has been boiled and thickened, and the butter well incorporated
with it, stir in the minced oysters, and stew about five minutes,
stirring all the while. Have ready some shapes of nice pastry, baked,
and fill with the mixture. Set in the oven about two minutes to heat
them well, and send to table.
_Or,_
You can heat the chopped oysters in a very little of their own liquor
before adding to the thickened milk. Unless you are sure that the
latter is quite fresh, this is a prudent precaution.
CREAM OYSTER PIE.
Line a pie-plate with good puff paste; fill it with slices of _stale_
bread, laid evenly within it; butter that part of the crust lining
the rim of the dish, and cover with a top crust. Bake quickly in a
brisk oven, and while still hot, dexterously and carefully lift the
upper crust. The buttered rim will cause it to separate easily from
the lower. Have ready a mixture of minced oysters and thickened cream,
prepared according to the foregoing receipt, and having taken out the
stale bread (put there to keep the top crust in shape), fill the pie
with the oyster cream. Replace the cover, set in the oven for two
minutes, or until hot, and serve. This is a nice luncheon dish, and not
amiss for supper.
BREAKFAST.
He was a shrewd Cœlebs who restrained his loverly impatience to throw
himself, in unconditional surrender, at the feet of his beloved, by
the resolution to see her first at the breakfast-table. It is to be
regretted that his admiring biographer has not recorded the result of
the experiment. Let us hope, for the sake of preserving the “unities of
the drama,” that Cecilia was “in good form” on the momentous occasion;
not a thread ironed awry in bib or tucker; not a rebellious hair in her
sleek locks. Cœlebs—Hannah More’s Cœlebs—and every other that I ever
read or heard of, was a pragmatical prig; the complacent proprietor of
a patent refrigerator, very commodious and in excellent repair, but
which ought never, even by his conceited self, to have been mistaken
for a heart.
Knowing you, my reader, as I do, I would not insult your good sense by
intimating that the husband of your choice resembles him in any leading
trait. Being a sensible (and avowedly a fallible) man, therefore, John
does not expect you to appear at the breakfast-table in the flowing
robes and elaborate laces that belong to the leisure hours of the day.
If he does, he should don dress-coat and white cravat to keep you in
countenance. He will not find fault with a neat _peignoir_ (if it
_be_ neat), or a plainly-trimmed dress, or a white apron before the
same. He ought to look for, and to see a clean collar put on straight
and fastened snugly at the throat, or a white ruffle and cuffs, or
wrist-ruffles, to correspond, and hair in irreproachable order. I have
seen women who called themselves ladies, who could never find time to
give their hair what they called “a good combing,” until afternoon.
And time and patience would fail me, and I fear the equanimity of your
diaphragm as well, were I to attempt even a partial recapitulation
of the many and disgustful varieties of morning toilettes, of which
I have been the unwilling spectator. You should hear my John,—whose
profession takes him into what the renowned Ann Gale styles the
“buzzom of families,” at all sorts of unconventional hours,—dilate
upon this theme. Not invalid attire. When the work of wearing the robe
of flesh becomes a matter of pain and difficulty, he must be indeed
hypercritical who notes the ill-fitting wrapper, or roughened hair.
“But the queens of the breakfast-table!” he says, with lifted eyebrows.
“The grimy chrysalids of the afternoon butterflies! It is not a casual
glimpse of Cinderella on sweeping-day, or during house-cleaning week,
that I complain of; but my heart swells with sincerest pity for the
husbands before whose eyes the play is enacted three hundred and
sixty-five times every year; to whom the elf-locks and collarless neck,
the greasy, lank, torn dressing-gown of dark calico appear as surely
and regularly as the light of each new day.”
I do not say that you should bring to the breakfast-table a face like
a May morning. I hate stereotyped phrases and stereotyped smiles. But
try to look as gracious as though a visitor sat between you and the
gentleman at the foot of the board. It is not always easy to appear
even moderately cheerful at breakfast-time. An eminent physician told
me once, as the result of many years’ study and observation, that no
woman should be up in the morning more than an hour before breaking
her fast. My own experience has so far corroborated the wisdom of the
advice that I always strive to impress upon my domestics, especially
the not strong ones, the expediency of eating a slice of bread and
drinking a cup of tea during the interval that must elapse between
their rising-hour and the kitchen breakfast. I practise the like
precaution against faintness and headache, in my own case, when I have
to give my personal superintendence to the morning meal, or when it
is later than usual. But with all precautionary measures, I believe
“before breakfast” to be the most doleful hour of the twenty-four to
a majority of our sex. In winter, the house is at a low temperature;
dressing, a hurried and disagreeable business; the children are drowsy,
lazy, and cross; John “doesn’t want to seem impatient, but would like
to have breakfast on time, to-day, my dear, as I have an important
engagement.” While the mother, who has slept with one ear quite open
all night, and one eye half shut, because she fancied, at bed-time,
that baby’s breathing was not quite natural, fights twenty battles with
bodily discomfort and spiritual irritability before she takes her seat
behind the coffee-urn, and draws her first long breath at the beginning
of the “blessing,” that reminds her of the mercies, new every morning,
which are still hers. For all this, try womanfully to launch John upon
the day’s voyage with a smile and word of cheer. Think twice before you
tell him of the cook’s indolence and stupidity, and the housemaid’s
petulance. In the hope that the nauseating pain in your head may yield
to a “good cup of tea”—(bless it, with me, O my sisters, one and all!)
it is as well to withhold the fact of its existence from him. If he
_will_ read the morning paper over his coffee, his cakes growing cold
meanwhile, and thereby obliges the cook to bake twice as many as would
be necessary for the meal were all to partake of it at the same time,
restrain the censure that trembles on your tongue, and chat merrily
with the children. A silent, hasty breakfast is one of the worst things
imaginable for their digestion and tempers.
You would often rather have “a comfortable cry” in a corner than act
thus, but persuade yourself bravely that nine-tenths of your miserable
sensations are hysterical, and, therefore, ephemeral. If we women do
not know what the “morning cloud” is, nobody does. Still, remember it
“passeth away.”
If possible, let your eating-room be light and pleasant,—warm in
winter, breezy in summer. Not only should the table be neat, orderly,
and, so far as you can make it so, pretty, but guard against what I
have mentally characterized, in some very grand _salles-à-manger_, as
the “workshop look”—the look that says to all who enter—“This is the
place where you must eat.” There are tall beaufets with loads of plate
and glass, side-tables with reserves of implements for the labors of
the hour and place; pictures of game, fish and fruit;—more eating;—and
if the walls are frescoed, more game, sheep and oxen, or, at the best,
hunting, seem to reassure the consumers of to-day that there will be
more creatures killed in season for to-morrow’s dinner. Therefore,
eat, drink and be solemn while doing it, as befits the season and
surroundings. There is nothing like having a single eye to business.
Do not fret yourself if your dining-room boasts neither paintings nor
frescoes. Throw open all the shutters in the morning, and coax in
every available ray of sunlight. Press the weather into service to
adorn the repast. If fine, remark upon the blueness of the sky and the
enjoyment of the outer world in the glory of the day. If stormy, make
the best of home-cheer, and promise something attractive as an evening
entertainment, should the weather continue wet, or snowy. A canary-bird
in the sunniest window is a good thing to have in a breakfast-room if
you like his shrill warbling. A pot of English ivy, brave and green,
twisting over the face of the old clock, and festooning the windows,
is a choice bit of brightness in the winter time. In summer, when
flowers are cheap and plentiful, never set the table without them if
you can get nothing more than a button-hole bouquet to lay on John’s
napkin. Insist that the children shall make themselves tidy before
coming to the table, whatever may be the meal, even if they will meet
nobody except yourself there. Teach them early that it is a disgrace to
themselves and to you to eat with unclean hands and faces. Inculcate,
further, the propriety of introducing, while at table, topics that
will interest and please all. Let wrangling, fault-finding and
recrimination be never so much as named among them. These are little
things, but whatever detracts from the idea that the family repast
is a tri-daily festival, and should be honored and enjoyed as such,
is a wrong to those whose happiness it is your mission to guard and
maintain. A wrong to health as to heart. Food swallowed in bitterness
of spirit engenders dyspepsia and bile as surely as do acrid fruit
and heavy bread. A sharp reprimand will take away sensitive Mamie’s
appetite, and a frown between the eyes that, when serene, seem to John
to mirror heaven itself, will beget in his bosom that indescribable
sinking of heart we know as “goneness,” which is yet not physical
faintness.
I have jotted down these hints under the heading of “Breakfast,”
although most of them are applicable to all meals, because, as a rule,
people bring less keenness of hunger to this than to any other. It is
as if the longest fast that separates our stated time of eating from
another were the hardest to break; as if we had got out of the habit of
desiring and receiving food. It behooves us, then, as wise housewives,
to make provision against mortifying rejection of our viands by various
and artful devices to tempt the dull or coy appetite. Especially should
we study to avoid sameness in our breakfast bills of fare; an easy
thing to compass by a moderate exercise of foresight and ingenuity on
the part of the housewife.
The American breakfast should be a pleasing medium between the heavy
cold beef and game pie of the English and the—for our climate and
“fast” habits of life—too light morning refreshment of the French.
That in order to accomplish these ends it is not necessary greatly
to increase the market bills of the household, or the cares of the
mistress, I have tried to prove in these pages, while I have not deemed
it well to specify, in all cases, which are exclusively breakfast
dishes. Very many of those I have described might appear with equal
propriety at breakfast, at luncheon, at what is spoken of in provincial
circles as “a hearty supper,” or as an _entrée_ or side-dish at dinner.
PATÉS.
No form of meat, _entrée_, or made dish is more popular, and, if
rightly prepared, more elegant than the _paté_. It is susceptible of
variations, many and pleasant, chiefly in the form of the crust and the
nature of its contents. The celebrated _patés de foie gras_, imported
from Strasbourg, are usually without the paste enclosure, and come to
us in hermetically sealed jars.
PATÉ OF SWEETBREADS. +
Make a good puff paste, basting two or three times with butter, and
set in a cold place for at least half an hour. The best _paté_ covers
I have ever made were from paste kept over night in a cool dry safe,
before it was rolled into a sheet for cutting. When the paste is crisp
and firm, roll quickly, and cut into rounds about a quarter of an
inch thick. Reserving one of these whole for the bottom crust of each
_paté_, lay it in a floured baking-pan, cut the centre from two or
three others, as you desire your _paté_ to be shallow or deep, and lay
these carefully, one after another, upon the whole one, leaving a neat
round well, a little over an inch in diameter, in the middle. Bake in a
quick oven, and when lightly browned, glaze by brushing each over with
white of egg and returning to the oven for a minute. Make ready as
many sweetbreads as you need (two of fair size will make a good dish),
previously prepared by boiling fifteen minutes in hot water, then made
firm by plunging into very cold. Cut them into slices, season with
pepper and salt, put into a covered saucepan with a great spoonful of
butter and a _very_ little water, and simmer gently until tender all
through. Cut these in turn into very small squares, and mix with less
than a cupful of white sauce. Return to the saucepan and heat almost
to boiling, stirring carefully all the time. Fill the _patés_, arrange
upon a hot dish, and send up at once.
_White Sauce for the above._
1 small cupful of milk, heated to boiling in a custard-kettle, or tin
pail set in hot water.
1 heaping teaspoonful corn-starch, wet with cold milk.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 table-spoonful butter.
A little chopped parsley.
Stir the corn-starch into the boiling milk until it thickens well, then
the butter and seasoning.
This mixture is useful in all similar preparations, but should be a
little thicker for oysters than for meats.
CHICKEN PATÉS. +
Line small _paté_-pans with good puff paste, let this get crisp in
a cool place, and bake in a brisk oven. Stir minced chicken, well
seasoned, into a good white sauce, heat through, fill the shells, set
in the oven to brown _very_ slightly, and serve.
_Or,_
Thicken the gravy left from the roast chicken with browned flour,
add to the minced meat the yolk of one or two hard-boiled eggs,
mashed fine; stir all together in a saucepan until hot, and fill the
paste-shells. This is a brown mixture, and if not over-cooked, is very
savory.
The remains of cold fowls, of any kind of game, and of veal, can be
served up acceptably in this way. The _patés_ should be small, that
each person at table may take a whole one. If preferred, the paste can
be cut round, as before directed, and baked without the tins.
PATÉS OF FISH.
The cold remains of baked or boiled salmon, fresh cod or halibut.
Some good white sauce, richer than if intended for meat.
About one-fourth as much mashed potato as you have fish.
Yolks of two or three hard-boiled eggs rubbed to a paste with a
spoonful, or so, of butter. This paste should be smooth and light.
Pepper and salt to taste, and a little chopped parsley.
Shells of good puff paste, baked quickly to a delicate brown and glazed
with beaten egg.
Rub the sauce gradually into the mashed potato until both are free from
lumps. When mixed, beat together to a cream. Season and stir in the
fish (which should be “picked” very fine) with a silver fork, heaping
it as you stir, instead of beating the mixture down. Do this quickly
and lightly, fill the shells, set in the oven to heat through, and when
smoking-hot draw to the oven door, and cover with the paste of egg and
butter. A little cream may be added to this paste if it be not soft
enough to spread easily. Shut the oven-door for two minutes, to heat
the paste.
Serve the dish very hot, and send around sliced lemon with it, as some
persons like to squeeze a few drops over the _paté_ before eating.
Canned lobster and salmon are very good, thus prepared. Smoked salmon
can be made palatable for this purpose by soaking over night, and
boiling in two waters.
SWISS PATÉS.
Some slices of stale bread.
A little good dripping or very sweet lard mixed with the same quantity
of butter.
Two or three eggs beaten light.
_Very_ fine cracker-crumbs.
Minced fowl or veal mixed with white sauce, and well seasoned. Cut
_thick_ slices of stale bread—baker’s bread is best—into rounds with
a cake-cutter. With a smaller cutter extract a piece from the middle
of each round, taking care not to let the sharp tin go quite through
the bread, but leaving enough in the cavity to serve as a bottom to
the _paté_. Dip the hollowed piece of bread in the beaten egg, sift
the pulverized cracker over it, and fry in the dripping, or lard and
butter, to a delicate brown. Drain every drop of fat from it. Arrange
upon a hot dish when all are done, heap up with the “mince,” and eat
without delay.
Devilled crab or lobster is nice served in this style.
Bread _patés_ are a convenience when the housekeeper has not time to
spare for pastry-making. You can, if you like, fry them without the egg
or cracker; but most persons would esteem them too rich.
STELLA PATÉ.
3 cups minced veal or lamb—either roast or boiled. If underdone, it is
an advantage, and if lamb be used, every particle of fat must be left
out.
1 can French mushrooms, or a pint of fresh ones.
4 hard-boiled eggs cut into slices, and a sliced onion.
4 table-spoonfuls melted butter, or a cupful strong veal, lamb or fowl
gravy.
3 cups fine bread-crumbs soaked in a cup of milk.
2 raw eggs beaten light and mixed with the milk.
Fry the mushrooms brown in dripping, or butter, with the onion, then
chop rather coarsely. Work the crumbs, milk and raw eggs into a thick,
smooth batter, with which line the bottom and sides of a well-greased
mould or baking dish. Within this put a layer of the minced meat,
seasoned to taste, wet with gravy or a little melted butter, and lay
sliced egg over it. Next should come a layer of mushrooms, then another
of meat, and so on, repeating the order given above until all your
materials are used up, or the mould is full. The upper layer should be
of the soaked crumbs. Cover closely and bake in a moderate oven half
an hour, or until the outer crust is well “set.” Then set the mould,
still covered, in a baking-pan half full of _boiling_ water. Keep in
the oven, which should be hotter than at first, fifteen minutes longer.
Pass a thin sharp knife around the inside of the mould to loosen the
_paté_ from the sides, and turn out with care upon a hot flat dish.
You should have a little brown gravy ready to pour over it.
If veal be the only meat used in preparing this dish, a layer of minced
ham will improve the flavor.
If these directions be strictly followed, the _entrée_ will be pleasing
to both eye and palate.
PATÉ OF BEEF AND POTATO.
This is made according to the foregoing receipt, but substituting for
the bread-crumb crust one of mashed potato beaten soft and smooth
with a few spoonfuls of cream and raw egg. In place of mushrooms, put
a layer of chopped potatoes (previously boiled), mixed with a boiled
onion also chopped. Season with beef gravy, from which the fat has been
skimmed.
IMITATION PATÉ DE FOIE GRAS. +
Livers of four or five fowls and as many gizzards.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
A chopped onion.
1 table-spoonful Worcestershire, or other pungent sauce.
Salt and white pepper to taste.
A few truffles, if you can get them.
Boil the livers until quite done, drain and wipe dry, and when cold,
rub them to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar. Let the butter and chopped
onion simmer together very slowly at the side of the range for ten
minutes. Strain them through thin muslin, pressing the bag hard to
extract the full flavor of the onion, and work this well into the
pounded liver. Turn into a larger vessel, and mix with it the rest of
the seasoning, working all together for a long while. Butter a small
china or earthen-ware jar or cup, and press the mixture hard down
within it, interspersing it with square bits of the boiled gizzards to
represent truffles. Of course, the latter are preferable, but being
scarce and expensive, they are not always to be had. If you have them,
boil them and let them get cold before putting them into the _paté_.
Cover all with melted butter and set in a cool, dry place. If well
seasoned it will keep for a fortnight in winter, but should be kept
closely covered.
This _paté_ is a delicious relish, and is more easily attainable than
would at first appear. The livers of a turkey and a pair of chickens
or ducks will make a small one, and these can be saved from one
poultry-day to another by boiling them in salt water, and keeping in a
cool place. Or, one can often secure any number of giblets by previous
application at the kitchen of a restaurant or hotel.
_Or,—_
A fair imitation of the foregoing dish can be made from the liver of a
young calf, with bits of the tongue for mock truffles.
CROQUETTES.
THESE popular little _roulettes_, although comparatively new to the
tables of most private families in America, hold their place well where
they have been once introduced. Like the _paté_, their name is Legion
as regards shape, nature and quality.
In a housewifely conversation with a lady a few months since, the word
“croquette” chanced to escape me, and I was caught up eagerly.
“Now,” with an ingenuous blush, “do you know, I was offered some at a
dinner-party the other day, and was completely nonplussed! I thought
croquet was a game.”
“Croq_uette_!” I interposed, making the most of the final _t_, and _e_.
“The gentleman who sat next me said ‘cro_quay_,’ very plainly, I assure
you. But never mind the name. What are they made of? Hominy?”
“Yes,” returned I. “Or rice, or potato, or lobster, crab, salmon,
halibut, cod, chicken, turkey, duck, game, veal, lamb, or beef. In
short, of all kinds of fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetable. The smaller
varieties are familiarly known to readers of cookery-books as ‘olives’
of meat, poultry, or game; the larger as _rissoles_ or _croquettes_,
the largest as _cannelons_ or _mirotons_.”
“Good gracious!” uttered my overwhelmed friend. “Before I would bother
my brain with such puzzling nonsense, I would set my family down to
cold meat three times a day three days in a week!”
I believed she meant what she said. But not the less is it a “good”
and a “gracious” thing for the housewife to conjure out of such
unconsidered and unsightly trifles as the mutilated cold fowl from
which half the breast and both legs are missing, or the few chops
“left over,” or “that bone” of lamb or veal, or three square inches of
cold fish, a pretty _plat_ for breakfast or luncheon, of golden-brown
croquettes, imbedded in parsley, or in a ruby setting of pickled beets,
that shall quicken John’s flagging appetite, and call from the little
ones the never stale plaudit, “Mamma can always get up something nice.”
“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost,” is a text
from which the thoughtful house-mother may preach to herself, as well
as to her servants. That no opportunity of making home fairer, and even
one hour of the day a little brighter, be lost or overlooked. That no
possibility of proving her constant, active love for the least of her
flock be passed by. These daily cares and hourly assiduities are the
rivets in the chain that binds her best beloved ones unto THE FAMILY.
Lacking them, the relation, instituted by law and continued by custom,
has no stancher securities than habit and convenience—a hay-rope that
will shrivel at the first touch of Passion, be rent by one resolute
wrench of Expediency.
“A serious view to take of croquettes?” do I hear you say. Then hearken
to something positive and practical.
_Unpalatable food is not wholesome._ It may be medicinal. Nothing
forced upon an unwilling appetite, and that does not gratify the
palate, can impart that freshness of animal spirit and vigor which we
call Life—spontaneous vitality. Indifferent fuel—green or sodden wood,
or slaty coal—may keep a fire from going out. There is not begotten
from these the leaping flame that gladdens, while it warms. And cold
meat and bread, dried into sawdusty innutrition, should no more form
the staple of John’s meals, even three times a week, than his grate be
filled, on December nights, with coke-dust and mica.
CHICKEN CROQUETTES. +
Minced chicken.
About one-quarter as much fine bread-crumbs as you have meat.
1 egg, beaten light, to each cupful of minced meat.
Gravy enough to moisten the crumbs and chicken. Or, if you have no
gravy, a little drawn butter.
Pepper and salt, and chopped parsley to taste.
Yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed fine with the back of a silver
spoon, added to the meat.
Mix up into a paste, with as little handling as may be. Nor must the
paste be too wet to mould readily. Make, with floured hands, into
rolls, or ovate balls, roll in flour until well coated, and fry, a few
at a time, lest crowding should injure the shape, in nice dripping, or
a mixture, half lard and half butter. As you take them out, lay in a
hot cullender, that every drop of fat may be drained off. Serve in a
heated dish, and garnish with cresses or parsley.
Turkey, duck, and veal croquettes can be made in the same manner. They
are even nicer if dipped in egg and cracker-crumbs before frying.
BEEF CROQUETTES. +
Minced cold roast or boiled beef.
One-quarter as much potato.
Gravy enough to moisten meat and potato, in which an onion has been
stewed and strained out. Season also with catsup.
Pepper and salt to taste, and a pinch of marjoram.
Beaten egg to bind the whole, and one or two more beaten in a separate
bowl.
Powdered cracker-crumbs.
Mash the potatoes, while hot, very smooth, or, if cold mashed potato
be used, be careful that no lumps remain in it. Mix in the meat,
gravy, and one raw egg, season, and form into the desired shape. Dip
each croquette in beaten egg, then roll in the cracker-crumbs, and fry
quickly to a light brown. Drain carefully, and lay upon a hot dish.
VENISON OR MUTTON CROQUETTES.
Some slices of cold roast venison, or roast or boiled mutton—the lean
only, if mutton be used—minced.
One-fifth as much stale bread, crumbed fine.
Some good gravy or drawn butter, thickened with browned flour.
Beaten egg for a _liaison_.
A pinch of mace, a very little grated lemon-peel, and chopped parsley
to taste.
Some currant jelly, in the proportion of a small teaspoonful to each
cup of gravy.
Stir the jelly well into the gravy, season and wet up with this the
meat and crumbs, add the beaten egg, make into rolls, and flour these,
or dip in egg and cracker-crumbs before frying.
_A Nice Breakfast Dish_
May be made of these by piling them in the centre of a flat dish,
within a wall, about two inches high, of mashed potato, moulded to fit
the inside of the dish, and browned in the oven. You had best use the
platter of a chafing-dish for this purpose, or one of stone china. You
can, if you like, brush the “wall” over with beaten egg before setting
in the oven. Have ready some good, brown gravy, with a little currant
jelly stirred into it; also, a small glass of claret. Thicken with
browned flour, boil up once, and pour over the croquettes.
_Or,_
This is still nicer, if you add to the gravy some mushrooms, previously
fried in butter, and chopped up. If you use these, you may, if you
like, omit the potato wall, garnishing the pile instead, with triangles
of fried bread.
FISH CROQUETTES.
Some cold fish—boiled, baked or fried—from which all fat, bones and
skin have been removed, chopped fine.
One-third as much mashed potato, rubbed to a cream with a little melted
butter.
A little white sauce, made of butter “drawn” in milk and thickened with
corn-starch, and a beaten egg.
Chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and anchovy sauce, or walnut catsup, for
seasoning.
Mix all well together, make into balls, which may be rolled in flour,
or in beaten egg, and then cracker-crumbs before they are fried.
Send around sliced lemon with these, which are not good unless eaten
hot.
These are, as will be seen, a modification of the well-known and
time-honored “fish-ball,” but, if properly made, will be found much
better.
CROQUETTES OF LOBSTER OR CRAB. +
Meat of one fine lobster, or six crabs well boiled.
2 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Yolks of two eggs, boiled hard and rubbed to a powder, then beaten into
the butter.
1 good teaspoonful lemon-juice.
Season well with salt and cayenne pepper; also, a pinch of mace and
lemon-peel.
Yolks of two raw eggs, beaten very light.
Mince the meat, work in the butter—melted, but not hot; then the
seasoning, the raw eggs, and lastly, the bread-crumbs. Make into
oblong balls, and fry quickly in sweet lard, dripping, or half lard,
half butter. Drain them of every drop of fat by rolling each, for an
instant, very lightly upon a hot, clean cloth. Be sure your dish is
well heated.
These are very delicious, and should be accompanied by milk or cream
crackers, with slices of lemon passed to such guests as would like the
additional relish.
CROQUETTES OF GAME. +
Remains of cold grouse, quail, etc.
Giblets of the same, or of poultry, boiled and cold.
Gravy.
One-fourth the quantity of fine bread-crumbs that you have of meat.
Season with pepper and salt.
Raw egg, beaten, for binding the mixture together, also some in a
separate vessel for coating the croquettes.
Fine cracker-crumbs.
Mince the meat, and pound the giblets in a Wedgewood mortar, when you
have removed skin and cartilage from the gizzards. Moisten with gravy
as you pound, until all are smooth. Mix into this the raw egg and
seasoning, then the meat, lastly the bread-crumbs. Mould, dip in egg,
then in cracker-powder and fry in _boiling_ fat. The dripping from
roast poultry may be used for this purpose. _Not_ that from beef or
mutton, as it spoils the flavor of the game.
It is easy to reserve giblets for this dish by a little foresight, and
in no other shape are they more useful.
VEAL AND HAM CROQUETTES.
Cold roast or stewed veal, the remnants of cutlets or chops, freed
from bone, skin and gristle, and minced fine.
Half the quantity of cold boiled ham. A little fat on a slice, now and
then, is an improvement.
Gravy or drawn butter thickened with browned flour to moisten the meat.
One-fourth as much fine bread-crumbs as you have meat.
Yolks of one or two eggs, boiled hard and powdered, then beaten into
the gravy.
Season with chopped parsley and pepper. The ham usually supplies
sufficient salt.
Beaten egg and powdered cracker.
Raw egg for the _liaison_.
Mix veal and ham well together; wet with the gravy and season before
putting in the raw egg. Stir up well, but do not beat, and add the
crumbs.
Boll in egg and cracker, and fry.
Mem. _The fat in which croquettes are fried must be boiling, yet must
not burn._
Try a bit of the mixture before risking the well-being of your whole
dish.
HOMINY CROQUETTES. +
2 large cups of fine-grained hominy, boiled and cold.
2 eggs, well beaten.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Salt to taste.
Work the butter well into the hominy until the latter is smooth and
soft, then the eggs, beating hard for two or three minutes with a
wooden spoon, season, and make into balls or rolls with floured hands.
Roll each in flour, and fry to a yellow-brown in sweet lard.
POTATO CROQUETTES. +
2 cups mashed potato, cold and free from lumps.
2 eggs beaten to a froth.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 egg beaten in a separate vessel.
1 teacupful cracker-crumbs.
Mix as you do hominy croquettes, roll in egg and cracker, and fry in
boiling lard. Take up as soon as they are done, and drain perfectly dry.
This is an excellent preparation of potato, and particularly acceptable
at breakfast or luncheon.
RICE CROQUETTES. +
2 cups cold boiled rice.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
3 eggs, beaten light.
A little flour.
1 raw egg and half a cup of powdered cracker.
2 table-spoonfuls white sugar.
A large pinch of finely grated lemon-peel, and salt to taste.
Beat eggs and sugar together until light, and work the butter well into
the rice. Next, stir up with this the beaten eggs. Season and make into
croquettes of whatever shape you may fancy. They are pretty, moulded
into the form of pears, with a clove blossom, end outward, at the large
end, and the stalk of another projecting from the small, to represent
the pear-stem. You may find it advisable to use a little flour in
working the rice paste, but be careful not to get it too stiff,
in which event the croquette, of whatever composed, ceases to be a
delicacy. Roll in flour, then in the beaten egg, lastly in the powdered
cracker, and fry, a few at a time, in sweet lard or butter.
Rice croquettes are sometimes eaten, with powdered sugar sprinkled
thickly over them, as a dessert, or sweet sauce is served with them.
They are delicious when properly mixed and cooked.
* * * * *
CANNELON OF VEAL. +
2 pounds of cold roast or stewed veal. The remains of a stewed and
stuffed fillet are good for this purpose, especially if underdone.
1 pound cold boiled ham.
1 large cupful gravy. If you have none left over, make it of the refuse
bits of the cold meat, such as fat, skin, etc.
1 small teaspoonful finely minced lemon-peel, the same of mace, and a
table-spoonful chopped parsley.
Salt and pepper.
1 cupful bread-crumbs, dry and fine.
Yolks of 3 eggs beaten light, reserving the whites for glazing the
cannelon when done.
Chop the meat very well, season it and stir in the beaten yolks; wet
with half the gravy, and mix in the bread-crumbs. It should be just
soft enough to handle without running into a shapeless mass. Flour your
hands and make it into a roll about three times as long as it is broad.
Flour the outside well and lay it in a greased baking-pan. Cover and
set in the oven until it is smoking hot, when remove the cover and
brown quickly. Draw to the oven-door and brush over with white of egg,
shut the door for one minute to set this, and transfer the cannelon,
by the help of a cake-turner or a wooden paddle, to a hot dish. Lay
three-cornered pieces of fried bread close about it, and pour a rich
gravy over all.
You can make a really elegant dish of this by adding to the gravy a
half-pint of sliced mushrooms, and stewing them in it until they are
tender and savory, then pouring them over the _rouleau_ of meat.
A savory and inexpensive dish, and a good _entrée_ at a family dinner.
Of course you can vary the size to suit the remnants of meat.
CANNELON OF BEEF
Is made precisely like one of veal, except that mashed potato is
substituted for bread-crumbs, and an onion is stewed in the gravy
before the latter is strained over the baked roll of meat.
Green pickles or olives are a palatable accompaniment to it.
A PRETTY BREAKFAST DISH
May be made of croquettes of fish, lobster, fowl or meat in the shape
of hen’s eggs, heaped upon a dish and surrounded by very thin strips of
fried potato, arranged to look as much as possible like straw. If sauce
is poured over the croquettes, be careful not to let it deluge the
potato that forms the nest.
SWEETBREADS.
IT is usually necessary to bespeak sweetbreads several days in
advance, as they are both scarce and popular. But if your butcher be
accommodating, and yourself a valued customer, there is seldom much
difficulty in procuring enough to make a dish for a family of ordinary
size.
Keep sweetbreads in a cold, dry place, and cook as soon as possible
after getting them, as they soon spoil. Be careful, moreover, in
cooking them, to see that they are thoroughly done.
BROWN FRICASSEE OF SWEETBREADS. (No. 1.) +
4 sweetbreads.
2 cups brown veal gravy, strong and well-seasoned.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pinch of mace, and twice as much cloves.
Browned flour for thickening.
1 teaspoonful chopped onion, stewed in, and then strained out of the
gravy.
Wash the sweetbreads carefully in warm water, removing every bit of
skin and gristle. Lay them in a saucepan, and cover with _boiling_
water. Boil them ten minutes hard, turn off the hot water, and plunge
them instantly into very cold, in which you have dissolved a little
salt. Leave them in this about fifteen minutes, or until they are
cool, white and firm. Cut each crosswise into slices nearly half an
inch thick. Have ready the butter in the frying-pan, and fry the
slices, turning frequently, until they are a good brown, but do not
dry them up. Drain off the fat through a cullender, lay the sliced
sweetbreads within a saucepan, pour the hot brown gravy, already
seasoned, over them, cover closely, and simmer, not boil, fifteen
minutes longer.
BROWN FRICASSEE. (No. 2.) +
4 sweetbreads.
2 cups good brown gravy—veal is best. Spice with mace and cloves.
1 onion.
½ cup butter.
1 pint mushrooms.
Prepare the sweetbreads by boiling and blanching as in previous
receipt. Slice the onion and mushrooms, and fry quickly to a fine brown
in half the butter. Strain the fat from these, and return it to the
frying-pan, adding the rest of the butter. When hissing hot, put in the
sliced sweetbreads. Turn over and over in the fat for three minutes.
Meanwhile, let the fried onions and mushrooms be stewing in the gravy.
Pour this gravy, when the sweetbreads are ready, into a jar or tin pail
with a closely-fitting top; set it in a pot of boiling water, taking
care there is not enough to bubble over the top, put in the sliced
sweetbreads, cover, and stew _gently_ at the side of the range for
twenty minutes—half an hour, should the sweetbreads be large. Arrange
the slices symmetrically upon a hot platter, pour the gravy over them,
when you have added a thickening of browned flour, and serve.
There is no more palatable preparation of sweetbreads than this,
especially if you add to the gravy a glass of brown sherry. Garnish
with triangles of fried bread.
WHITE FRICASSEE OF SWEETBREADS. +
3 fine sweetbreads.
3 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
A good pinch of nutmeg.
1 cup strong veal or lamb broth—never mutton.
Wash the sweetbreads well. Soak them in very cold or ice-water,
slightly salted, for half an hour. Blanch by plunging them for an
instant into boiling water, after which lay for five minutes in
ice-water. This process makes them white and firm. Put them into a
covered saucepan with the broth, which must be well seasoned with
pepper and salt, and, if you like, a very slight touch of onion.
Sprinkle with nutmeg, cover closely, and stew steadily for an hour, if
the sweetbreads are of a fair size, and you mean to serve them whole.
If they have been sliced, three-quarters of an hour is sufficient.
Heat the cream in another saucepan until scalding hot, but not boiling.
Take it from the fire, and stir carefully, a little at a time, into the
beaten eggs. Just before the sweetbreads are taken from the fire, add
this mixture slowly, stirring all the time. Leave it in the saucepan
just long enough to cook the eggs, but do not let it boil. Stir in the
parsley at the same time. Turn out in a hot covered dish.
LARDED SWEETBREADS STEWED.
3 fine sweetbreads.
¼ pound fat salt pork, cut into long narrow strips.
1 cup good veal gravy.
1 small pinch of cayenne pepper.
1 table-spoonful of mushroom catsup.
Juice of half a lemon.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should be boiling
when they are put in. Plunge immediately into very cold salt water. Let
them lie in this for five minutes, wipe them dry with a soft, clean
cloth, and lay upon a cool dish until perfectly cold. Lard them closely
with the strips of salt pork. Stew gently for twenty-five minutes in
the gravy, which must be rich and thick. Add lemon-juice, catsup,
cayenne, and, if needed, a little salt. Lay the sweetbreads in order on
a flat dish, pour the gravy over them, and garnish with sliced lemon
laid in the triangular spaces left between three-cornered bits of fried
toast.
N.B. A pleasant addition to this dish, as to the brown fricassee of
sweetbreads, is force-meat of chopped beef or veal very finely minced
and worked to a paste with hard-boiled yolk of egg, a little crumbed
bread, a spoonful or two of gravy or butter. Season very highly, work
in the beaten yolk of a raw egg to bind the mixture, and make into oval
balls a little larger than olives. Flour these, and lay on a floured
plate, so as not to touch one another. Set in a quick oven until they
are firm and hissing hot, garnish the dish with them instead of the
sliced lemon, and pour the hot gravy over them and the triangles of
toast as well as the sweetbreads. An outer circle of parsley looks well
with these.
LARDED SWEETBREAD—FRIED. +
3 or 4 sweetbreads.
4 or 5 slices very fat salt pork.
A little pepper.
Parboil, blanch and lard, as in preceding receipt. Have ready a
clean, hot frying-pan barely greased with a little butter. Put in the
sweetbreads, and fry without other fat than that of the pork lardoons
which should project half an inch on each side of the sweetbreads.
Cook steadily, turning the sweetbreads frequently, until they are of a
nice brown. Cut into one with a small sharp knife, to assure yourself
that it is done. Remove to a hot, well-buttered dish, and garnish with
sprigs of parsley, which have been crisped, but not burned, in a little
boiling butter.
BROILED SWEETBREADS. +
Parboil and blanch, as already directed, by putting first into hot
water, and keeping it at a fast boil for five minutes, then plunging
into ice-cold, a little salted. When the sweetbreads have lain in this
ten minutes, wipe them very dry, and with a sharp knife split each in
half, lengthwise. Broil over a clear, hot fire, turning every minute as
they begin to drip. Have ready upon a deep plate some melted butter,
well salted and peppered, mixed with catsup or pungent sauce. When the
sweetbreads are done to a fine brown lay them in this, turning them
over several times, and set, _covered_, in a warm oven.
Lay rounds of fried bread or toast within a chafing-dish, and a piece
of sweetbread on each. Pour the rest of the hot butter, in which they
have been lying, over them, and send to table.
ROASTED SWEETBREADS.
3 sweetbreads.
1 cup brown gravy—veal, if you can get it.
2 eggs, beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted.
Large handful of bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful mushroom or tomato catsup.
1 small glass brown sherry.
A very little onion, minced fine, and stewed in the gravy.
Soak the sweetbreads in tepid water for half an hour; then boil in
hot water ten minutes, plunging into very cold at the end of this
time. Wipe perfectly dry, coat with the beaten egg, then with the
bread-crumbs. Repeat this until they are thickly and closely covered.
Lay upon a baking-pan, put the butter, a little at a time, over them,
that it may soak into the crumbs; set in a moderate oven, turn another
pan over them, and bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour, if of fair
size, basting from time to time with the veal gravy. Dish them upon
toast or fried bread, give the gravy a boil-up when you have added the
catsup and wine, and strain it over the sweetbreads.
SWEETBREADS SAUTÉS AU VIN. +
3 sweetbreads.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful chopped onion and parsley, mixed.
1 cup brown gravy—veal or fowl.
1 glass brown sherry or fresh champagne.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 table-spoonful mushroom, or tomato catsup.
Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads, as usual; let them get perfectly
cold; cut lengthwise into slices about a quarter of an inch thick. Have
the butter hot in a frying-pan, and lay them in. Cook ten minutes,
shaking, tossing and turning them all the while; then add the gravy,
catsup, onion, parsley and other seasoning previously heated together.
Shake all until they have stewed and bubbled at boiling-heat for five
minutes, put in the wine, boil up once, and pour into a hot dish.
KIDNEYS,
Although less liked generally, are yet esteemed a _bonne bouche_ by the
epicure whose appetite has been educated by what is commonly styled
“fancy” cookery. They are cheaper than sweetbreads, and less difficult
to keep, if less delicate in flavor.
FRIED KIDNEYS.
3 fine large kidneys—the fresher the better.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
½ cup of good brown gravy—veal, mutton or beef.
A teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and half as much minced onion.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Skin the kidneys, and cut crosswise into round slices a quarter of an
inch thick. Roll them in flour. Have ready in a frying-pan the butter
well seasoned with pepper, a little salt, the parsley and onion. When
it begins to simmer over the fire, lay in evenly and carefully the
slices of kidney. Fry gently for two minutes, turn, and let them fry
as long on the other side, or until they are of a light brown. If
cooked too much, or too fast, they become tough and tasteless. Remove
instantly from the frying-pan with an egg-beater or perforated skimmer,
and arrange in order on a hot dish. Add to the gravy in the pan, a few
tablespoonfuls of broth, thicken with browned flour, boil up once, and
pour over the kidneys.
_Or,_
You can substitute for the butter in the pan three or four
table-spoonfuls of chopped _fat_ salt pork. Let it heat to hissing,
put in the seasoning, stir up well and fry the kidneys with the bits
of pork. Then, proceed according to the latter part of the foregoing
receipt.
TOASTED KIDNEYS.
3 kidneys skinned and split lengthwise, each into 3 pieces.
¼ pound of fat salt pork, cut into slices.
Pepper and salt.
Slices or rounds of toasted bread from which the crust has been pared.
Lay the kidneys upon a _very_ hot plate (a tin one is best) in front
of, and on a level with a clear brisk fire. Toast the pork upon a fork,
slice by slice, holding it so that the gravy will drip upon the kidneys
beneath. When the pork is done, lay it upon another hot plate, and set
this in the place just occupied by the kidneys. Toast these in their
turn, so that the gravy which falls from them shall drop upon the pork.
Turn them frequently, and be careful not to lose a drop of the gravy
from kidneys or pork. When the gravy ceases to flow the kidneys are
done. Serve upon the toast on a hot dish; cut the pork into strips,
and lay along the sides of the dish. Pour the gravy over kidneys and
toast. This latter should either be fried previously in butter, or be
well buttered if toasted in the usual way. Pepper and salt just before
sending to table, as salt hardens and toughens the kidneys.
KIDNEYS STEWED WITH WINE.
3 kidneys.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 onion, minced.
1 table-spoonful mushroom, or walnut catsup.
3 table-spoonfuls rich brown gravy.
1 glass of claret.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the kidneys into round slices. Heat the butter to a boil in a
frying-pan, stir in the chopped onion, then lay in the slices of
kidney, and fry two minutes. Have in another vessel the gravy, catsup
and wine, ready heated. Take up the kidneys, draining from them every
drop of fat, and transfer to this gravy. Cover closely, stew gently for
five minutes, or until tender, and serve directly.
BROILED KIDNEYS.
2 kidneys.
2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
Pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley.
Skin the kidneys carefully, but do not slice or split them. Lay for
ten minutes in _warm_ (not hot) melted butter, rolling them over and
over, that every part may be well basted. Broil on a gridiron over a
clear fire, turning them every minute. They should be done in about
twelve minutes, unless very large. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and
lay on a hot dish, with a bit of butter upon each. Cover and send up
immediately.
STEWED KIDNEYS.
3 kidneys.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel.
A very little mace, and pepper and salt to taste.
1 teaspoonful chopped onion.
1 cup good brown gravy.
Cut each kidney lengthwise into three pieces; wash these well and wipe
dry. Warm the butter in a frying-pan; put in the kidneys before this is
really hot, with the seasoning and gravy. Simmer all together, closely
covered, about ten minutes. Add the lemon-juice; take up the kidneys
and lay upon a hot dish, with fried or toasted bread underneath.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up once, pour over all, and
serve.
KIDNEYS À LA BROCHETTE.
4 kidneys—those of medium size are preferable to large.
2 great spoonfuls of butter.
1 great spoonful chopped parsley, onion, and very fine bread-crumbs.
Juice of half a lemon.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Split the kidneys lengthwise, but not quite through, leaving enough
meat and skin at one side to act as a sort of hinge. Rub them well
inside with melted butter, and lay them open, as you would small birds,
the back downward, upon a buttered gridiron, over a bright fire. They
should be done in about eight minutes. Turn often while broiling.
Have ready the stuffing of crumbs, parsley, onion, and butter, well
seasoned. Heat in a saucepan, stirring until smoking hot. Add the
lemon-juice; dish the kidneys, put some of this mixture inside of each,
close the two sides upon it, butter and pepper them, and serve.
A few bits of fat salt pork, minced very fine, gives a good flavor to
the stuffing. The pork should have been previously cooked.
HASTE OR WASTE?
“AH! you forget my sedan-chair,” said Madame de Staël, when, at the
height of her social and literary fame some one wondered how she found
time for writing amid her many and engrossing engagements.
The sedan-chair was the fashionable conveyance for ladies, at that day,
in their round of daily calls or evening festivities, and the brilliant
Frenchwoman secured within its closed curtains the solitude and silence
she needed for composition.
An American authoress who wrote much and with great care—never sending
her brain-bantlings into the world _en déshabille_—replied to a similar
question: “My happiest thoughts come to me while I am mixing cake. My
most serious study-hours are those devoted apparently to darning the
family stockings.”
I entered a street-car, not many days ago, and sat down beside a
gentleman who did not lift his eyes from a book he was reading,
or show, by any token, his consciousness of others’ presence. A
side-glance at the volume told me it was Froude’s “History of England,”
and I cheerfully forgave his inattention to myself. The conductor
notified him when he reached his stopping-place, and, with a readiness
that betrayed admirable mental training, he came out of the world
through which the fascinating historian was leading him, pocketed his
book, recognized me with a pleasant word, and stepped to the pavement
in front of his store, the thorough business man.
“That is an affected prig,” said a fellow-passenger, by the time
the other had left the car. “He and I take this ride in company
every morning and afternoon. It takes him half an hour to go from
his house to his store; and, instead of amusing himself with his
newspaper, as the rest of us do, he always has some heavy-looking book
along—biography, or history, or a scientific treatise. He begins to
read by the time he is seated, and never leaves off until he gets out.
It is in wretched taste, such a show of pedantic industry.”
After this growl of disapprobation, the speaker buried himself anew
in the advertising columns of the _Herald_, and I lapsed into a
brown study, which had for its germ the query, “Is it, then, more
respectable, even among men, to kill time than to save it?”
I knew the reader of Froude well. He was, as I have intimated, a
successful and a busy merchant; and I had often marvelled at his
familiarity with English _belles-lettres_, and graver literature, the
study of which is usually given up to so-called professional men.
That hour a day explained it all. The crowded street-car was his
sedan-chair. I also knew his critic; had seen him placed at such a
woful disadvantage in the society of educated men and women, that my
heart ached and my cheeks burned in sympathy with his mortification;
had heard him deplore the deficiencies of his early training, and
that the exigencies of his business-cares now made self-improvement
impracticable. He would have protested it to be an impossibility that
he could find a spare hour a day to devote to the neglected task;
six hours a week—a whole day in a month, two weeks in a year. Yet a
fortnight of newspaper-reading and idle gossip would be a sorry entry
in his year-book. For this lazy murder of time cannot, by any stretch
of conscience, be classed as healthful recreation, any more than can
the one, two, three, ten hours a week during which Mrs. Neverthink sits
with folded hands, discussing fashions and her neighbors’ frailties,
the while her work is steadily doubling itself up, snowball-like,
before the lever of each idle minute. All work and no play would make
Mrs. Neverthink a dull and a diseased woman; but the fact is, she is
not playing any more than she is working, as she sits, or stands to
parley about trifles. She is only wasting time, making inevitable
the haste. Oh! these “few words more,” with which the Neverthink
tribe prolong the agony of their would-be-if-they-could industrious
sisters, and heap up the burden of their own coming cares! The words
which mean nothing, the driblets of a shallow, sluggish stream that
meanders into anybody’s meadow, and spreads itself harmfully over the
nearest pastures, instead of being directed into a straight, beneficent
channel! “I haven’t a bit of system about me!” wails the worried
creature, when the ponderous snow-ball has finally to be heaved out of
the way by her own hands.
It would be a matter of curious interest could I recount how often I
have heard this plaint from those of my own sex who are thus straining
and suffering. From some it comes carelessly—a form of words they
have fallen into the habit of repeating without much thought of what
they mean. With a majority (I wish I were not obliged to say it!) it
is rather a boast than a lament. The notable housekeeper who would
be ashamed to admit that she does not look narrowly after paper and
twine, bits of cold meat and scraps of butter, does not calculate
wisely concerning coal, candle-ends and crusts—confesses, without a
blush, that she takes no thought of the gold-dust, known among us as
minutes and seconds, sifting through her lax fingers. By and by, she
is as truly impoverished as if she had thrown away the treasure in
nuggets, and then comes the lament, not repentance. She is “run to
death with work, but she doesn’t see how it is to be helped. All other
housekeepers are the same. She never could economize time; has no
genius for arranging her labors to advantage.”
The building of such an one is the heaping together of boulders
with crevices between, through which the winds of disappointment
whistle sharply. System,—by which we mean a sagacious and economical
apportionment of the duty to the hour and the minute; an avoidance of
needless waste of time; a courageous putting forth of the hand to the
plough, instead of talking over the work to be done while the cool
morning moments are flying,—“System,” then, is not a talent! I wish
I could write this in terms so strong and striking as to command the
attention, enforce the belief of those whom I would reach. It is not
a talent. Still less is it genius. It is a duty! and she who shirks
it does herself and others wrong. If you cannot order your household
according to this rule, the fault is yours, and the misfortune theirs.
“We are living too fast!” is the useless note of alarm sounded from
press, and pulpit, and lecture-room; echoed in a thousand homes, in
various accents of regret and dismay; most fearfully by the rattling
clods upon the coffin-lid, that hides forever the careworn face of wife
and mother, who has been trampled to death by the press of iron-footed
cares. Is not this haste begotten by waste?
Is there any good reason why, in our homes—yours and mine, my toiling
sister—and in those of our neighbors to the right and left of us,
should not reign such method as prevails in our husbands’ places of
business? Why, instead of meeting the morning with uplifted hands and
the already desponding cry, “I have so much to do I cannot decide what
to lay hold of first!” we should not behold our path already mapped
out by our provident study over-night—its certain duties; its probable
stumbling-blocks; recreation, devotion and rest—each in its proper
place? Why we should not be ready, “heart within and God o’erhead,”
to make the new day an event in our lives, a stepping-stone to higher
usefulness to our kind and toward heaven? Why we should not bring
to hindrance, as to duty, the resolute, hopeful purpose with which
the miner bends over his pickaxe, the gardener over his spade, the
book-keeper over his ledger? Why, in short, we should not magnify
our office—make of housewifery, and child-tending, and sewing a
profession—to be studied as diligently and pursued as steadily as are
the avocations of the other sex?
I should not dare ask these questions, were I not already convinced, by
years of patient examination of the subject, that it is feasible for a
clear-headed, conscientious woman to do all this, and more. Would not
“dare,” because I know by what a storm of indignant protest the queries
will be met, not only from those who pride themselves upon the amiable
foible of “having no system,” but on the part of deep-hearted women who
are really anxious to do their share of this world’s great work.
The pale-faced mother over the way will tell me of the clutch of
baby-fingers upon her garments whenever she essays to move steadily
onward, and how the pressure of the same holds her eyes waking through
the night-watches; how the weight of baby-lips upon the breast saps
strength and vitality together. Dear and precious cares she esteems
these; but they leave little time or energy for anything else. The
matron, whose younglings have outgrown childhood, is ready with her
story of the toils and distractions of a family of merry girls who
are “in society,” and inconsiderate, unpunctual “boys,” who look to
“mother” to supply, for the present, the place of the coming wife
to each of them. Martha, wedded and middle-aged, but childless, is
overpowered by cares, “put upon her by everybody,” she relates, with
an ever-renewed sense of injury wearing into her soul, “because it is
believed that women without children have nothing to do.”
One and all, they are eloquent upon the subject of unforeseen
vexations, the ever-hindering “happenings” that, like the knots tied
in wire-grass across the path by mischievous fairies, are continually
tripping them up.
“Moreover,” says Mrs. Practical, “there is little use in attempting to
be methodical and to save the scraps of time unless other people do.
We are liable to have our precious hoard stolen at any moment. If my
next-door neighbor persists in ‘dropping in’ whenever she feels lonely,
or wants a receipt, or has a morsel of news she cannot keep, and cannot
withdraw her unseasonable foot from my house under an hour at each
visit, of what avail are my watchfulness and diligence?”
With her accustomed shrewdness, Mrs. Practical has put her finger upon
the hardest knot of the tangle. Says that other model of sterling,
every-day sense, Miss Betsy Trotwood, touching Mr. Micawber’s
difficulties: “If he is going to be continually arrested, his friends
have got to be continually bailing him out—that is all!”
The family of Neverthinks (“may their tribe _de_crease!”) act upon the
reverse principle. If their acquaintances will be continually working
themselves into line with the flying hours, they—the Neverthinks—must
be zealous in pulling them to the rear. They are like an army of
mice scampering through the tidy cupboards of Mesdames Practical
and Notable. They claim, like Death, all seasons for their own.
Against such there is no recognized law, and no redress except in the
determined will and wise co-operation of their victims.
Dropping the fictitious personages, let us talk of this matter plainly,
as face-to-face, dear reader! Why have women, as a class, such an
imperfect conception of the value of time to themselves and to others?
To Mrs. Trollope belongs, I believe, the credit of bringing into
general use a word which, if not elegant, is so expressive that I
cannot do without it in this connection. Why do women _dawdle_ away
seconds and minutes and hours in playing at work, or affecting to play?
A clever young girl was once showing me a set of chairs embroidered by
herself. Knowing that she was her mother’s efficient aid in the cares
entailed by a large family, I asked her how she had made the time for
the achievement.
“O! I did it in the _betweenities_!” she returned, gayly. “Between
prayers and breakfast; between the children’s lessons; between the
spring and fall sewing; between morning and evening calls, and in a
dozen other gaps. I had a piece of it always within reach, and every
stitch taken was a gain of one.”
We all need play—recreation, wholesome and hearty diversion. I would
guard this point carefully. God-willing, we will talk of it, more at
length, some time, but to make the day’s work even and close, our
life’s work rich and ample, we must look well after the “betweenities.”
Let me probe a little more deeply yet. Have not the prejudices and
gallantries of generations had their effect upon the formation of
feminine opinions on this head? begotten in many minds the impression
that we are unjustly dealt with in being obliged to take up and carry
forward as a life-long duty any business whatsoever? Is not the
unspoken thought of such persons one of impatient disappointment at
finding that earth is not a vast pleasure-ground and existence one
long, bright holiday? If men will speak of and treat women as pretty
playthings, they at least should not complain when the dainty toy
proves to be an unserviceable domestic machine. A man who acknowledges
that he dislikes the business by which he earns his living is looked
upon with instant distrust, as silly, indolent, or, at the best,
unphilosophical. If his auditor has occasion to avail himself of the
services of one of the craft to which the unwilling workman belongs,
he will assuredly seek a man who would be likely to do himself and
his employer more credit than can be given by his half-hearted labor.
But housewives confess freely that they loathe housekeeping and all
pertaining thereto. I speak that which I do know when I say that where
you find one who works _con amore_ in her profession, there are two who
drudge on grumblingly, and consider themselves aggrieved because the
morning brings labor and the evening care. The fault begins very far
back.
“If girls knew when they were well off, they would never marry.”
“A butterfly before marriage—a grub afterward.”
“Let well enough alone.”
“She who weds may do well. She who remains single certainly does
better.”
These are specimens of the choice maxims shouted from the reefs
of matrimony to the pleasure-shallops gliding over the summer sea
beyond the breakers. By the time the boy begins to walk and talk, the
sagacious father studies his tastes and capacity in selecting a trade
for him; puts him fairly in training for the same so soon as he is well
embarked in his teens; sees for himself that his drill is thorough and
his progress satisfactory. Of the lad’s sisters their mother will tell
you, with tears in her eyes, that she “cannot bear to tie the dear
girls down to regular duties. Let them take their pleasure now, for
when they marry, trouble and responsibility must come.”
Not seeing that to the unskilled apprentice the practice of his art
must be cruelly hard; that her own loving hands are making tight the
lashings of the load which the tender shoulders must bear until death
cuts the sharp cords; that in her mistaken indulgence she is putting
darkness for light, and light for darkness; bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter.
MEATS, INCLUDING POULTRY AND GAME.
CALF’S LIVER _à l’Anglaise_. +
2 pounds fresh liver.
¼ pound fat salt pork.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 small shallot, minced very fine.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the liver into slices half an inch thick. Lay these smoothly in a
saucepan in which the butter has already been melted, but not allowed
to get hot. Chop the pork into very small bits, and spread upon the
liver. Sprinkle over this the minced parsley and onion, and season
to your fancy with salt and pepper. Cover the saucepan closely, and
set it where it will heat so moderately that the juices will be drawn
out without simmering. Care must be taken to observe this direction
exactly, as both the tenderness and flavor of the liver are impaired by
stewing. At the end of an hour and a half increase the heat gradually
until the contents of the saucepan begin to bubble. Remove from the
fire; arrange the liver neatly upon a hot chafing-dish, and keep this
covered while you boil up and thicken with a little browned flour the
gravy left in the saucepan. Pour over the liver and serve.
This process renders calf’s liver tender and juicy to a degree that
would seem incredible to those who know the much-abused edible only
through the medium of the usual modes of cookery.
Try it, when you are at a loss for something new, yet not expensive.
CALF’S LIVER _au Domino_.
2 pounds liver.
½ pound fat salt pork.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Seasoning of pepper, parsley and onion.
Cut the liver in pieces less than half an inch thick, and rather more
than an inch square. String these evenly upon a slender skewer (an old
knitting-needle will do) alternately with bits of fat pork of the same
shape and width. When the skewer is full, lay for ten minutes in the
melted butter, season with pepper (the pork salting it sufficiently),
minced onion, and parsley, then lay in a baking-pan, and cover with a
tin plate or shallow pan. Cook slowly in a moderate oven until the pork
begins to crisp. Remove to a hot dish, draw out the skewer carefully,
so as to leave the liver in the form in which it was cooked; add a
little hot water and butter to the gravy, thicken with browned flour,
boil up once, and pour over the _dominoes_ of pork and liver.
OLLAPODRIDA OF LAMB. (_Good._)
The sweetbreads, liver, heart, kidneys, and brains of a lamb. (Your
butcher can easily procure all with timely notice.)
Handful of bread-crumbs.
1 raw egg, beaten light.
One small, young onion, minced.
1 table-spoonful currant jelly.
Season with salt, pepper, and parsley.
1 cup good broth.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes, then simmer for ten in the
gravy. Take them up, and set aside to cool, while you boil the brains
in the same broth. When both brains and sweetbreads are cold and firm,
slice, dip in the egg, then the crumbs, and fry in good dripping or
butter. After the brains are taken from the broth, put in the slices of
heart, and stew very gently for at least half an hour. Let them cool,
then fry with the minced liver in dripping seasoned with the onion,
minced fine. Slice the kidneys, and having strained the useful broth
from the liver, return it to the saucepan, and stew the kidneys in it
for five minutes. Next, fry these for two minutes—no more—in butter.
Arrange all in a hot dish; add to the fat left in the frying-pan the
broth, thicken with browned flour and the jelly, season to taste, and
pour over the sweetbreads, etc.
You can make a larger stew—or fry—of calf’s sweetbreads, liver, heart,
and brains, and by most people this would be relished more than the
lamb ollapodrida.
It is a good plan to stew the various articles the day before you mean
to eat them, and have them all cold to your hand, ready for frying.
CALF’S LIVER _sauté_. +
2 pounds calf’s liver, cut into slices half an inch thick.
2 small young onions, minced.
1 small glass of sherry.
1 table-spoonful mushroom or tomato catsup.
Salt, pepper, and parsley, with juice of a lemon.
Good dripping or butter for frying.
Slice the liver, when you have washed and soaked it well, and fry it,
turning often, to a light-brown. Drain and lay in a hot chafing-dish.
Mix with the dripping or butter the onions, seasoning, lemon-juice, and
browned flour for thickening. Boil up, put in the catsup and wine, heat
almost to boiling again, and pour over the liver.
FRICASSEE OF CALF’S LIVER. +
2 pounds liver, cut into strips more than half an inch thick, and as
long as your finger.
2 young onions, minced.
1 glass wine.
Pepper, salt and parsley.
Butter or dripping for frying.
½ cup good gravy.
Dredge the sliced liver with flour, and fry to a light-brown, quickly,
and turning often. Mince the onions and parsley, and heat them in the
gravy in a saucepan; put in the fried liver, let all stew together
gently for ten minutes, when pour in the wine, and as soon as this is
hot, serve—the liver piled neatly and the gravy poured over it.
CALF’S LIVER _à la mode_. +
1 fine liver, as fresh as you can get it.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into lardoons.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
2 young onions.
1 table-spoonful Worcestershire or Harvey’s sauce.
2 table-spoonfuls vinegar and a glass of wine.
½ teaspoonful cloves.
½ teaspoonful allspice.
½ teaspoonful mace.
1 table-spoonful sweet herbs, cut fine.
Pepper and salt to taste—very little of the latter, as the pork should
salt it sufficiently.
Wash the liver in two waters and soak ten minutes in cold water,
slightly salted. Wipe dry, make incisions in it about half an inch
apart, and insert the lardoons, allowing them to project slightly on
each side. Have ready in a frying-pan the sliced onion, butter, sweet
herbs and spice. Put in the liver and fry to a good brown. Turn all
into a saucepan, add the vinegar and just enough water to cover the
liver. Cover closely, and simmer slowly an hour and a half. Take out
the liver and lay on a hot dish, add the wine and sauce to the gravy,
thicken with browned flour; let it boil up once, pour about the liver,
and send up the surplus in a boat.
This is good cold as well as hot, cut in thin slices.
RAGOÛT OF CALF’S HEAD, OR IMITATION TURTLE. +
Half of a cold boiled calf’s head.
1 cup good gravy.
4 hard-boiled eggs.
About a dozen force-meat balls made of minced veal with bread-crumbs
and bound with beaten egg, then rolled in flour.
1 teaspoonful sweet herbs, chopped fine.
A very little minced onion.
Browned flour for thickening; pepper and salt for seasoning.
1 glass brown sherry.
Cut the meat of the calf’s head evenly into slices of uniform size.
Heat the gravy almost to a boil, with the seasoning, herbs and onion.
Put in the meat, simmer, closely covered, for fifteen minutes; add the
force-meat balls, wine and the eggs sliced. Let all become smoking hot;
take up the meat; pile neatly on a hot dish, lay the eggs on it; the
force-meat balls at the base of the heap, and pour a cupful of gravy
over all, sending up the rest in a boat.
This ragoût is very nice, and easily provided for by setting aside
enough meat for it, on the day you have calf’s head soup, if the head
be large.
It is also a cheap dish, as even a large head seldom costs more than a
dollar, and half will make a good ragoût.
RAGOÛT OF CALF’S HEAD AND MUSHROOMS. +
Half a cold boiled calf’s head, sliced and free from bones, also the
tongue cut in round slices.
1 can French mushrooms (_champignons_).
1 onion sliced.
1 cup strong gravy—beef, veal, game or fowl.
Season with pepper, salt and sweet herbs.
Browned flour for thickening.
½ teaspoonful mixed allspice and mace.
Juice of a lemon.
1 glass wine—claret or sherry.
3 table-spoonfuls butter for frying, unless you have very nice dripping.
Drain the liquor from the mushrooms and slice them. Fry the slices
of meat five minutes in the hot butter or dripping. Take them out and
put into a tin pail or inner compartment of a farina kettle. Pour
warm, not boiling, water into the outer vessel, cover the inner and
set over the fire while you fry the mushrooms, then, the onion, in the
fat left in the frying-pan. Drain them and lay upon the meat in the
inner sauce-pan. Have ready in another the broth, spiced and seasoned,
and now pour this hot upon the meat and mushrooms. Cover closely and
_simmer_ for fifteen minutes. Strain off the gravy into a saucepan,
thicken; let it boil up once; add wine and lemon-juice, and when it is
again smoking hot, pour over the meat and mushrooms in a deep dish.
Some strips of fried toast are an acceptable addition to this ragoût.
These should be laid on the heap of meat.
I have also varied it satisfactorily, by putting in sliced hard-boiled
eggs. It is a good _entrée_ at dinner, and a capital luncheon or
breakfast-dish.
A MOULD OF CALF’S HEAD. +
A cold boiled calf’s head freed from bones and cut into thin slices—or
so much of it as you need for your mould.
6 hard-boiled eggs—also sliced.
Five or six slices of cold boiled ham—corned is better than smoked.
1 large cupful of the liquor in which the head was boiled, stewed down
to a rich gravy and well seasoned with pepper, salt, mace and minced
onion. Strain before using.
Line the bottom of a buttered mould with the slices of egg also
buttered on the outer side, that they may easily leave the mould.
Salt and pepper them, then fill the mould with alternate layers of
sliced calf’s head, ham, sliced eggs, seasoning, etc., pouring in the
gravy last. If you have no top for the mould, make a stiff paste of
flour and water to close it in and preserve flavor and juices.
When done, set it, still covered, in a cool place. When cold and firm,
slice for luncheon or tea.
_Or,_
You can chop both kinds of meat fine, also the eggs, and pack in
successive layers within your mould.
A little lemon-juice and minced parsley, with a touch of catsup, will
improve the gravy.
CALF’S BRAINS FRIED.
The brains, well washed, and scalded in _boiling_ water for two
minutes, then laid in very cold.
2 eggs well beaten.
A little flour and butter.
Salt and pepper.
Beat the brains, when perfectly cold, into a paste; season, add
the eggs and enough flour to make a good batter, with less than a
teaspoonful of butter to prevent toughness. Have ready some good
dripping in the frying-pan, and when it is hissing hot, drop in the
batter in spoonfuls and fry.
_Or—_
You can fry on the griddle, like cakes.
They are very palatable either way when cooked quickly and freed of
every clinging drop of grease.
CALF’S BRAINS ON TOAST.
The brains.
3 eggs, beaten light.
Salt, pepper and parsley.
Six or eight rounds of fried bread.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Soak the brains fifteen minutes; free from skin and fibre; then drop
them into boiling water in which you have put a little salt and a
teaspoonful of vinegar. Boil hard for ten minutes, then throw the
brains into ice-cold water. When well cooled break them up with
a wooden or silver spoon; and stir into the beaten eggs with the
seasoning. Have ready the butter in a hot frying-pan, pour in the
mixture and stir rapidly for two minutes, or until it is a soft mass
like stirred eggs. Lay the toast upon a hot dish and heap the brains
upon it.
This dish is rendered yet more savory, if you will pour some good
well-seasoned gravy over the mounds of brains and the toast.
VEAL CUTLETS (_Stewed_). +
2 pounds veal cutlets, nicely trimmed.
1 small onion, sliced.
4 table-spoonfuls strained tomato sauce.
Enough butter or clear dripping to fry the cutlets.
Salt and pepper with a bunch of sweet herbs.
½ cup gravy.
Fry the cutlets to a light brown, but not crisp; take them out and put
into a covered saucepan. Have ready the gravy in another, with the
tomato sauce stirred into it. Fry the onion in the fat from which you
have taken the cutlets, and add with the fat to the gravy. Pour all
over the cutlets and simmer, covered, twenty minutes.
MOCK PIGEONS. +
3 or 4 fillets of veal.
Force-meat of bread-crumbs and minced pork, seasoned.
½ cup mushrooms and a little minced onion.
1 sweetbread.
A dozen oysters.
½ cup strong brown gravy.
1 glass of wine.
Take the bone, if there be any, out of the fillets (or cutlets, or
steaks) of veal; spread each thickly with the force-meat, and roll up
tightly, binding with packthread. Put into a baking-pan with enough
cold water to half-cover them; turn another pan over them and bake
from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in proportion to their size.
Meanwhile, boil the sweetbread fifteen minutes, blanch in cold water;
cut into dice, and put into a saucepan with the gravy, which let simmer
on the hob. Cut the mushrooms into small pieces and fry with the onion
in a little butter, then add to the heating gravy. In still another
vessel, when the veal is nearly done, heat the oysters, also chopped
fine, seasoning with salt and pepper. When the “pigeons” are tender
throughout, uncover, baste generously with butter, and brown. Transfer
to a hot flat dish; clip the packthread and gently withdraw it, not to
injure the shape of the rolled meat. Let the gravy in which they were
roasted come to a fast boil, thicken with browned flour and pour into
the saucepan containing the sauce, sweetbreads, etc. Boil up once, add
the wine; take from the fire and put in the chopped oysters. Stir all
together well in the saucepan, pour a dozen spoonfuls, or so, over the
“pigeons,” taking up the thickest part; send the rest to table in a
gravy tureen.
You can make a simpler sauce by leaving out the sweetbreads, etc., and
seasoning the gravy in the baking-pan with tomato sauce.
These “pigeons” will make an attractive variety in the home bill of
fare, and do well as the _pièce de résistance_ of a family dinner.
A VEAL TURNOVER. +
Remains of roast veal—cold, minced fine, and seasoned.
2 or 3 eggs.
1 cup milk.
Flour to make a good batter—about 4 table-spoonfuls.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Chopped parsley, pepper, and salt.
Heat the butter to a boil in the frying-pan. Mix the eggs, milk,
flour, parsley, pepper, and salt into a batter, and pour it into the
frying-pan. Lay in the middle, as soon as it begins to “form,” the
minced meat. Fry rather slowly, taking care that the batter does not
burn. When done on one side, fold the edges of the pancake over to the
middle, enclosing the meat, and turn with a cake spatula. When both
sides are of a delicate brown, put the cake “turner” under it, and slip
over to a hot dish.
Send around a little gravy in a boat.
MEAT AND POTATO PUFFS. +
Slices of cold roast beef or mutton, and as many of corned ham.
2 eggs.
1 cup milk.
Enough potatoes and flour to make a good paste.
Pepper, salt, and mustard, or catsup.
Mash the potatoes, mix with them the eggs, well beaten, and whip up to
a cream, adding the milk gradually. Add flour enough to enable you to
roll it out into a sheet. Cut into squares, and in the centre of each
lay a slice of beef or mutton, well seasoned with pepper and salt,
and spread with made mustard or catsup. Lay on this a slice of ham of
the same shape and size; fold the paste into a triangular “turnover,”
printing the edges deeply with a jagging-iron, and fry in butter or
beef-dripping to a nice brown. Take up so soon as they are done; lay on
white paper for a moment to absorb the grease, and serve hot.
SCALLOPED CHICKEN. +
Cold roast or boiled chicken—chiefly the white meat.
1 cup gravy.
1 table-spoonful butter, and 1 egg, well beaten.
1 cup of fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt.
Rid the chicken of gristle and skin, and cut—_not_ chop—into pieces
less than half an inch long. Have ready the gravy, or some rich drawn
butter, in a saucepan on the fire. Thicken it well, and stir in the
chicken, boil up once, take it off, and add the beaten egg. Cover the
bottom of a buttered dish with fine bread-crumbs, pour in the mixture,
and put another thick layer of crumbs on top, sticking bits of butter
all over it. Bake to a delicate brown in a quick oven.
_Or—_
Instead of the gravy make a white sauce, as follows:
1 cup cream or rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter and 1 beaten egg.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in cold milk.
Pepper, salt and parsley.
Heat the cream to a boil, stir in the corn-starch until it thickens;
then the butter, seasoning and egg. Take at once from the fire, add the
minced chicken, and proceed as already directed.
Turkey may be used instead of chicken; also veal.
SCALLOPED BEEF (_Very good_). +
Some minced beef or lean mutton.
1 young onion, minced.
½ cup gravy.
Some mashed potato.
1 table-spoonful of butter to a cup of potato.
1 table-spoonful of cream to the same.
Pepper and salt.
Catsup, if mutton be used; made mustard for beef.
1 beaten egg for each cupful of potato.
Mash the potato while hot, beating _very_ light with the butter and
cream—lastly, the egg. Too much attention cannot be paid to this part
of the work. Fill a buttered baking-dish, or scallop shells with the
minced meat, seasoned with onion, pepper, salt and mustard or catsup,
moisten with gravy, and cover with the mashed potato at least half an
inch thick if your dish be large. Smooth this over and bake to a light
brown. Just before you draw them from the oven glaze by putting a bit
of butter on the top of each scallop.
MINCE OF VEAL OR LAMB. +
1 cup gravy, well thickened.
The remains of cold roast meat—minced, but not very fine.
2 table-spoonfuls cream, or rich milk.
1 saltspoonful mace.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
1 small onion.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 eggs well whipped.
Heat the gravy to a boil, add the milk, butter, seasoning, onion,
lastly the eggs, and so soon as these are stirred in, the minced meat,
previously salted and peppered. Let it get smoking hot, but it must not
boil. Heap in the middle of a dish, and enclose with a fence of fried
potato or fried triangles of bread.
If well cooked and seasoned, this is a savory _entrée_.
WHITE FRICASSEE OF RABBIT. +
1 young rabbit.
1 pint weak broth.
¼ pound fat salt pork.
1 onion, sliced.
Chopped parsley, pepper and salt.
A very little mace.
1 cup of milk or cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch or rice flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
Joint the rabbit neatly and cut the pork into strips. Put on the rabbit
to boil (when it has lain in salt-and-water half an hour) in the broth,
which should be cold. Put in the pork with it, and stew, closely
covered, and very gently, an hour, or, until tender, before adding the
onion, seasoning and parsley. When you do this, take out the pieces of
rabbit, put in a covered dish to keep warm and boil down the gravy very
fast, for fifteen minutes. Take out the pork, then strain the gravy
through your soup-strainer. Let it stand five or six minutes in a cold
place that the fat may rise. Skim this off; return the gravy to the
saucepan, and when it is almost on the boil, stir in the cream or milk
in which the corn-starch has been dissolved. Stir until it thickens,
put in the butter, then the pieces of rabbit and the pork. All must
simmer together five minutes, but not boil. When it is smoking hot, lay
the rabbit neatly on a dish, pour over the gravy, garnish with parsley
and sliced lemons and serve.
BROWN FRICASSEE OF RABBIT, _or_ “JUGGED RABBIT.” +
1 young but full-grown rabbit, or hare.
½ pound fat salt pork, or ham.
1 cup good gravy.
Dripping or butter for frying.
1 onion, sliced.
Parsley, pepper, salt and browned flour.
1 glass of wine.
1 table-spoonful currant jelly.
Let the rabbit lie, after it is jointed, for half an hour in cold
salt-and-water. Wipe dry, and fry to a fine brown with the onion. Have
ready a tin pail, or the inner vessel of a farina-kettle; put in the
bottom a layer of fat salt pork, cut into thin strips; then, one of
rabbit, seasoning well with pepper, but scantily with salt. Sprinkle
the fried onion over the rabbit, and proceed in this order until your
meat is used up. Cover the vessel, and set in another of warm water.
Bring slowly to a boil, and let it stand where it will cook steadily,
but not fast, for three-quarters of an hour, if the rabbit be large.
Take out the meat, arrange it on a dish, add the jelly, beaten up with
the browned flour, to the gravy, then the wine. Boil up quickly and
pour over the rabbit.
Do not fail to give this a trial.
CURRIED RABBIT.
1 rabbit, jointed.
½ pound fat salt pork.
1 onion, sliced.
½ cup cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Pepper, salt and parsley, and 2 eggs well beaten.
1 dessert spoonful good curry-powder.
Soak the jointed rabbit half an hour in cold salt-and-water, then put
into a saucepan with the pork cut into strips, the onion and parsley,
and stew steadily, not fast, in enough cold water to cover all, for
an hour, or until the rabbit is tender. Take out the meat and lay on
a covered chafing-dish to keep warm, while you boil the gravy five
minutes longer. Let it stand a few minutes for the fat to rise, skim it
and strain. Return to the fire; let it almost boil, when put in the
corn-starch. Stir to thickening, put in the curry-powder, the rabbit
and pork, and let all stand covered, in a vessel of boiling water,
fifteen minutes. Take up the meat, pile upon the chafing-dish; add to
the gravy the cream and eggs, and stir one minute before pouring over
the meat. All should stand, covered, in the hot-water chafing-dish
about five minutes before going to table.
No arbitrary rule can be given as to the length of time it is necessary
to cook game before it will be tender, since there are so many degrees
of toughness in the best of that recommended by your reliable provision
merchant as “just right.”
Hence, my oft-reiterated clause, “or, until tender.”
You can curry chicken in the same manner as rabbit.
DEVILLED RABBIT.
1 rabbit, jointed, as for fricassee.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
A little cayenne, salt and mustard.
1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, and 1 table-spoonful vinegar.
Parboil the rabbit, and let it get perfectly cold; then score to the
bone, the gashes about half an inch apart. Melt together in a saucepan
the butter and seasoning. Stir up well, and rub each piece of the
rabbit with the mixture, working it into the gashes. Broil over a clear
fire, turning as soon as they begin to drip. When they are brown lay
on a hot dish, and pour melted butter over them. Let them lie in this,
turning several times, for three or four minutes. Put the rest of the
mixture on them, if any be left, and serve.
DEVILLED FOWL.
Use only the legs and upper part of the wings of roasted or boiled
fowls. Treat precisely as you do the rabbit in the foregoing receipt.
SALMI OF GAME. +
An underdone roast duck, pheasant, or grouse.
1 great spoonful of butter.
2 onions, sliced and fried in butter.
1 large cup strong gravy.
Parsley, marjoram and savory.
Pepper and salt.
A pinch of cloves, and same of nutmeg.
Cut your game into neat joints and slices, taking all the skin off.
Put refuse bits, fat, skin, etc., into a saucepan with the gravy, the
fried onions, herbs, spice, pepper and salt. Boil gently one hour; let
it cool until the fat rises, when skim it off and strain the gravy.
Return it to the saucepan, and, when it heats, stir into it the butter
and thicken with browned flour. Boil up sharply for five minutes and
put in the pieces of duck. After this, the salmi _must not boil_.
Neglect of this rule ruins most of the so-called salmis one sees upon
private as well as upon hotel tables. Set the saucepan in a vessel of
boiling water, and heat it through, letting it stand thus ten minutes.
Arrange the meat upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it. Garnish
with triangles of fried bread, and serve a piece to each guest with the
salmi.
ROAST RABBITS. +
A pair rabbits.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into thin slices.
2 table-spoonfuls butter, and 1 glass of wine.
Bread-crumbs, chopped pork, parsley, grated lemon-peel, salt and pepper
for the stuffing.
1 egg, beaten light, and 1 onion, sliced.
Skin and clean the rabbits (or hares), and lay in cold salt-and-water
half an hour. Prepare the dressing as above directed, binding with
the egg. Wipe the rabbits dry inside and out, stuff with the prepared
mixture, and sew them up closely. Cover the backs of the rabbits with
the sliced pork, binding it in place with packthread wound around and
around the bodies. Lay them in the baking-pan, backs uppermost; pour
into it about two cupfuls of cold water, cover closely, and steam for
an hour, raising the upper pan now and then to pour a few spoonfuls of
the boiling water about the rabbits over their backs, that the pork may
not crisp; then remove the cover, clip the packthread, and take off
the pork. Brown the rabbits, basting bountifully and frequently with
butter. Chop the pork, and crisp in a frying-pan with the sliced onion.
When the rabbits are done transfer to a hot dish; pour the gravy into
a saucepan with the pork and onion. Boil up once, and strain before
thickening with browned flour. Add the wine, give a final boil, and
pour over and about the rabbits, sending up the surplus in a tureen.
Pigeons and grouse are very fine roasted in this way, also partridges.
BRAISED WILD DUCK OR GROUSE. +
A pair of ducks or grouse.
1 onion, minced fine.
Bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, a pinch of sage, and a little chopped
pork for stuffing.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter, or good dripping.
1 cup gravy.
Browned flour.
Prepare and stuff the fowls as for roasting. Have ready the butter or
dripping hot in a large frying-pan, and fry first one fowl, then the
other in this, turning as it browns below. Then lay them in a large
sauce-pan and pour the gravy, previously heated, in with them. Cover
closely and stew gently for an hour, or until the game is tender.
Transfer the fowls to a hot dish and cover it, to keep in flavor and
warmth while you strain the gravy. Let it cool a little to throw up the
grease. Skim, thicken with browned flour, and boil up well for five
minutes. Skim again, put back the duck into the gravy, and let all
stand heating—_not_ boiling—five minutes more, before dishing. Pour
a few spoonfuls of gravy over the ducks on the dish; the rest into a
tureen.
Send around green peas and currant jelly with them.
ROAST QUAILS. +
6 plump quails.
12 fine oysters.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
Pepper and salt, and fried bread for serving.
Clean the quails and wash out very carefully with cold water in which
been dissolved a little soda. Cleanse finally with pure water and wipe
dry, inside and out. Place within the body of each bird a couple of
oysters or one very large one, sew it up and range all, side by side,
in a baking-pan. Pour a very little boiling water over them to harden
the outer skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, about half
an hour. Then uncover and baste frequently with butter while they are
browning. Serve upon rounds of fried bread, laid on a hot dish. Put a
spoonful of gravy upon each, and send up the rest in a boat, when you
have thickened and strained it.
If you like, you may add a glass of claret and a table-spoonful of
currant jelly to the gravy after the quails are taken up.
Be careful to sew up small game with fine cotton that will not tear the
meat when it is drawn out.
FRICASSEED CHICKEN _à l’Italienne_ (_Fine_).
Pair of chickens.
½ pound fat salt pork, cut into strips.
2 sprigs of parsley.
1 sprig thyme.
1 bay leaf.
A dozen mushrooms.
1 small onion.
1 clove.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful of salad oil.
2 glasses wine—white, or pale sherry.
Cut the chickens into joints; put them with the pork into a saucepan
with a very little water, and stew, covered, until tender. Remove the
chicken to a hot-water chafing-dish and keep warm while you prepare
the gravy. Turn the liquor in which the chickens were cooked into a
frying-pan, thicken with browned flour; put into it the herbs, onion,
clove and the mushrooms chopped very fine. Boil up sharply; add the
butter and stew fast half an hour. Then add the wine and oil. Simmer a
few minutes, and strain through a coarse cullender over the chicken.
I have understated the merits of this admirable fricassee by styling
it “fine.” The dear friend upon whose table I first saw it, will, I am
sure, earn the thanks of many other housewives, with my own, by giving
the receipt.
MINCED CHICKEN AND EGGS. +
Remains of roast or boiled chicken.
Stuffing of the same.
1 onion cut fine.
½ cup of cream.
1 table-spoonful flour or corn-starch.
Parsley, salt, and pepper.
6 or 8 eggs.
½ cup gravy, and handful of bread-crumbs.
Cut the meat of the fowls into small, neat squares. Put the bones, fat,
and skin into a saucepan, with the onion and enough cold water to cover
them, and stew gently for an hour or more. Strain, let it stand for a
little while that the fat may rise, skim, and return to the saucepan.
When hot to boiling, add the cream and thickening, with the seasoning.
When it thickens, put in the chicken, after which it must not boil.
Butter a deep dish; cover the bottom with the stuffing of the fowls,
crumbled or mashed up; wet with gravy; pour in the mince; strew fine,
dry bread-crumbs over this, and break the eggs carefully upon the
surface. More, and if possible, finer crumbs should cover these; put a
bit of butter on each egg, pepper and salt, and bake in a quick oven
until the top begins to bubble and smoke. The whites of the eggs should
be well “set,” the yolks soft.
I can safely recommend this receipt. Few “pick-up” dishes are more
popular with those for whom it is my duty and delight to cater.
A mince of veal can be made in the same way, in which case a little ham
is an improvement, also two or three hard-boiled eggs, cut into dice,
and mixed with the meat.
QUENELLES. +
Some cold, white meat of fowls or veal.
1 cup fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls cream or milk.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 egg, well beaten.
1 cup well-flavored gravy.
Pepper and salt.
Chop the meat very fine. Wet the crumbs with milk, and drain as dry as
you can. Work into this paste the meat and egg, seasoning well. Flour
your hands, and make the mixture into round balls, rolling these in
flour when formed. Have ready the gravy hot in a saucepan; drop in the
quenelles, and boil fast five minutes. Take them up and pile upon a hot
dish; thicken the gravy with browned flour; boil up once and pour over
them.
_Or,_
After making out the quenelles, roll them in beaten egg, then in
cracker-crumbs, and fry in good dripping seasoned with onion. Dry every
drop of grease from them by rolling them upon paper, and serve with the
gravy poured over them.
These quenelles are nice served up with fricasseed sweetbreads, or as a
garnish for them, or game.
RECHAUFFÉE OF VEAL AND HAM.
Cold veal (if underdone all the better) and ham.
2 eggs, beaten light.
Handful of very fine bread-crumbs.
A little tart jelly.
Dripping or butter for frying.
Pepper, salt, and made mustard, or catsup.
Cut the veal and ham into rather thick slices of exactly the same size.
Spread one side of a slice of veal with jelly, one side of the ham
with mustard or thick catsup. Press these firmly together, that they
may adhere closely, dip in the beaten egg, and roll in the bread (or
cracker) crumbs, which should be seasoned with pepper and salt. Fry
very quickly; dry off the grease by laying them on soft paper, and pile
upon a dish.
ROULADES OF BEEF.
Some slices of rare roast beef.
Some slices of boiled ham.
2 eggs, beaten light.
Butter or dripping for frying.
Pepper and mustard.
A little thick gravy.
Cut the beef into even, oblong slices, the ham rather thinner and
smaller. Spread one side of the beef with mustard, and pepper the ham.
Lay the ham upon the beef and roll up together as tightly as possible;
roll in the egg, then the cracker, and pierce with a slender steel, tin
or wooden skewer in such a manner as to keep the roll pinned together.
Put several on each skewer, but do not let them touch one another. Fry
brown; lay on a dish, and gently withdraw the skewers. Pour the gravy
boiling hot over them.
Small _roulades_ are a convenient and toothsome garnish for game and
roast poultry.
ROULADES OF MUTTON.
Can be made in the same way, but leaving out the ham, and spreading the
inside of each slice with currant jelly.
FRIED CHICKEN. +
1 tender young chicken, cut into joints.
2 eggs, beaten light.
½ cup of cracker-crumbs.
Sweet lard, dripping, or the best salad-oil for frying.
Lay the chicken in salt-and-water fifteen minutes; wipe dry, pepper and
salt, dip in the egg, then in the cracker-crumbs, and fry slowly in
hot lard or dripping. Drain dry, pile on a hot dish, and lay sprigs of
parsley over it.
CHICKEN FRIED WHOLE.
1 young, tender chicken, trussed as for roasting, but not stuffed.
Butter or _very_ nice dripping for frying.
Clean the chicken, wash out well, and dry, inside and out. Put it in
your steamer, or cover in a cullender over a pot of boiling water,
keeping it at a fast boil for fifteen or twenty minutes. Have ready the
boiling hot fat in a deep frying-pan, or cruller-kettle. It should half
cover the chicken, when having floured it all over, you put it in. When
one side is a light brown, turn it. When both are cooked, take up, put
into a covered kettle or tin pail, and set in a pot of hot water, which
keep at a _slow_ boil, half an hour. If you like a delicate flavor of
onion, put a few slices in the bottom of the kettle before the chicken
goes in. Anoint the chicken plentifully, after laying it on a hot dish,
with melted butter in which you have stirred pepper and chopped parsley.
This is a new and attractive manner of preparing chickens for the
table. None but tender ones should be fried in any way.
“SMOTHERED” CHICKEN. +
2 tender chickens, roasting size, but not very large.
Pepper, salt and browned flour for gravy.
Clean and wash the chickens, and split down the back as for broiling.
Lay flat in a baking-pan, dash a cupful of boiling water upon them;
set in the oven, and invert another pan over them so as to cover
_tightly_. Roast at a steady, but moderate heat, about half an hour,
then lift the cover and baste freely with butter and a little of the
water in which the fowls are cooking. In ten minutes more, baste again
with gravy from the baking-pan. In five more, with melted butter and
abundantly, going all over the fowls, which should now begin to brown.
Increase the heat, still keeping the chickens covered. A few minutes
before dishing them, test with a fork to ascertain if they are tender.
When done they should be of a mellow brown hue all over the upper
part—a uniform and pleasing tint. Dish, salt and pepper them; thicken
the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, adding a little water, if
necessary, season with pepper, salt and parsley, and send up in a gravy
boat.
The flavor of “smothered” chicken—so named by the Virginia housewife of
the olden time—is peculiar, and to most palates delightful.
SMOTHERED CHICKEN WITH OYSTERS. +
1 fine, fat chicken.
1 pint of oysters, or enough to fill the chicken.
Dressing of chopped oysters, parsley and crumbs.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 table-spoonfuls cream.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
Yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley for sauce.
Clean the chicken, washing it out with two or three waters. Fill the
“craw” with the prepared stuffing, tying up the neck very securely.
Then, pack the main cavity of the body with oysters and sew up the
vent. Have ready a clean tin pail with a closely-fitting top. Put the
fowl, neatly trussed, into it, cover and set in a pot of cold water.
Bring to a boil, and cook slowly for more than an hour after the water
in the outer vessel begins to boil. If the fowl be not young, it may
be needful to keep it in two hours. _Do not open the inner vessel in
less than an hour._ Having ascertained that the chicken is tender
throughout, take it out and lay on a hot dish, covering immediately.
Turn the gravy into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, add the
cream, parsley, seasoning and the boiled yolks chopped fine. Boil
up once; pour a little over the chicken, and serve the rest in a
sauce-boat.
FONDU OF CHICKEN OR OTHER WHITE MEAT.
Some cold chicken, veal, or turkey minced fine.
1 cupful bread-crumbs—baker’s bread is best.
1 cupful boiling milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 slice cold boiled ham—minced.
½ onion boiled in, and then strained out of the milk.
2 eggs, beaten very light.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in the milk.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Soak the crumbs in the boiling milk, stir in the batter, and beat very
light. Let the mixture cool, while you mince the meat and whip the
eggs. Stir in the meat first when the bread is nearly cold, season,
and lastly put in the beaten eggs. Beat all up well and pour into a
well-greased baking-dish. Set in a brisk oven. When the fondu is a
light, delicately-browned puff, send at once to table in the dish in
which it was baked.
GALANTINE. +
“A sort of glorified head-cheese—isn’t it?” said a blunt collegian at
the height of his vacation-appetite, in passing his plate for a third
reinforcement from the dish in front of his hostess.
The phrase always recurs to me, when I taste or see a galantine, for
this was the foreign name of the spicy relish aptly characterized by
the youth. If spicy and appetizing, it is also a convenient stand-by
for the lunch or supper-table, since it keeps well and pleases most
people, even those who do not affect “head-cheese” proper.
A rind of fat salt pork, about six inches wide and eight long.
A little sausage, some minced ham, and odds and ends of game and
poultry, with giblets of all kinds, chopped up.
Salt, pepper, cloves, allspice, mace and cinnamon; sweet marjoram,
savory, thyme, a little grated lemon-peel; a pinch of cayenne.
1 small onion, minced very fine.
1 cup rich gravy, thick and savory.
A little butter and bits of fat meat cut into dice.
A pint of weak broth, seasoned with pepper, salt and onion.
Cut from a piece of fat salt pork (the loin or sides) the rind in one
piece, leaving on about a half-inch of fat. Soak in water over night
to make it more pliable. Spread, next day, upon a flat dish, and lay
on it layers of sausage (_or_, if you have it, potted ham or tongue),
game, poultry, giblets—minced meat of almost any kind, although
these named are most savory—well seasoned with the condiments above
enumerated, and sprinkled sparsely with onion. Moisten as you go on,
with the rich broth; put in occasional bits of butter and fat meat,
else it will be dry. Fold all up in the pork rind, joining the edges
neatly.
About the roll wrap a stout cloth, fitting closely and sew it up
on all sides. Bind, for further security, stout tape all about the
bundle. Put the weak broth into a pot, and while it is still cold,
drop the galantine into it, and boil slowly for five hours. The broth
should cover it entirely all the time. Let it get perfectly cold in
the liquor; then take it out, and without removing tape or cloth, put
it under heavy weights between two plates, and do not touch it for
twenty-four hours. At the end of that time, cut tape and threads,
remove the cloth carefully, trim the ragged edges of the galantine,
and send to table whole. Cut as it is asked for, with a keen knife, in
smooth, thin slices.
JELLIED TONGUE. +
1 large boiled tongue (cold).
2 ounces of gelatine dissolved in
½ pint of water.
1 tea-cup of browned veal gravy.
1 pint of liquor in which the tongue was boiled.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
1 table-spoonful burnt sugar for coloring.
3 table-spoonfuls of vinegar.
1 pint boiling water.
Put together the gravy, liquor, sugar, vinegar and a table-spoonful of
burnt sugar dissolved in cold water.
Add the dissolved gelatine and mix well—then the boiling water, and
strain through flannel. Cut the tongue in slices as for the table. Let
the jelly cool and begin to thicken. Wet a mould with cold water, put a
little jelly in the bottom, then a layer of tongue, more jelly, and so
on, until the mould is full. Cover and set in a cool place.
To turn it out, dip the mould in hot water for an instant, invert upon
a dish, and garnish with celery-sprigs, and nasturtium-flowers. Cut
with a thin, sharp knife, perpendicularly.
This is a handsome and delicious dish, and easily made.
GAME OR POULTRY IN SAVORY JELLY. +
A knuckle of veal, weighing 2 pounds.
1 slice of lean ham.
1 shallot, minced.
Sprig of thyme and one of parsley.
6 pepper-corns (white), and one teaspoonful salt.
3 pints of cold water.
Boil all these together until the liquor is reduced to a pint, when
strain without squeezing, and set to cool until next day. It should
then be a firm jelly. Take off every particle of fat.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in
1 cup cold water for 3 hours.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls strained lemon-juice.
2 table-spoonfuls currant jelly, dissolved in cold water, and strained
through a muslin cloth.
Nearly a quart of _boiling_ water.
Pour the boiling water over the gelatine, stir swiftly for a moment;
add the jellied “stock,” and when this is dissolved, the sugar,
lemon-juice and coloring. Stir until all are mixed and melted together.
Strain through a flannel bag until quite clear. Do not shake or squeeze
the bag.
Have ready—4 or 5 hard-boiled eggs.
The remains of roast game, roast or boiled poultry, cut in neat thin
slices, with no jagged edges, and salted slightly.
Wet a mould with cold water, and when the jelly begins to congeal, pour
some in the bottom. Cut the whites of the eggs in pretty shapes—stars,
flowers, leaves, with a keen penknife. If you have sufficient skill,
carve the name or initials of some one whom you wish to honor. Unless
you can do this, however, content yourself with smooth thin rings
overlapping one another, like a chain, when they are arranged on the
lowest stratum of jelly, which, by the way, should be a thin one, that
your device may be visible. Pour in more jelly, and on this lay slices
of meat, close together. More jelly, and proceed in this order until
the mould is full, or all the meat used up.
Set in a cool place until next day, when turn out upon a flat dish.
An oblong or round mould, with smooth, upright sides, is best for this
purpose.
There is no need for even a timid housekeeper to be appalled at the
suggestion of attempting a task such as is described above, or
below. The very minuteness with which I have detailed the by-no-means
difficult process should encourage, not daunt the tyro. “Nothing
venture, nothing have,” is a telling motto, in this connection.
A TONGUE JELLIED WHOLE.
Make the jelly and stock as in preceding receipt, leaving out the
currant jelly, and coloring with a little burnt sugar, dissolved in
cold water. This gives an amber tinge to the jelly. Should it not be
clear after first straining, run it through the bag—a clean one—again.
Trim a small tongue—boiled and perfectly cold—neatly, cutting away the
root and paring it skilfully from tip to root with a sharp, thin-bladed
knife. Wet an oblong mould (a baking-pan used for “brick” loaves of
bread will do) with cold water, and put a thin layer of the congealing
jelly in the bottom. Upon this lay the tongue, bearing in mind that
what is the bottom now will be the top when the jelly is turned out.
Encircle it with a linked chain made of rings of white of egg, or, if
you prefer, let the rings barely touch one another, and fit in the
centre of each a round of bright pickled beet. The effect of this is
very pretty. Fill up the mould with jelly; cover and set in a cold
place for twelve hours.
This is a beautiful show-piece for luncheon or supper, and when it has
served the end of its creation in this respect, can easily be carved
with a sharp knife and remain, even in partial ruin, a thing of beauty.
GRAVY.
“PRESIDING over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the
features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,” said Mrs. Todgers. “The gravy alone
is enough to add twenty years to one’s age. The anxiety of that one
item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch.”
Without following the worthy landlady further into the depths of her
dissertation upon the fondness of commercial gentlemen for the “item,”
I would answer a question addressed to me by a correspondent who
“believes”—she is so kind as to inform me—“in Common Sense.”
“I notice that many of your made dishes are dependent for savoriness
upon ‘a cup of good broth,’ or, ‘half a cup of strong gravy.’ Let me
ask, in the spirit of sincere desire for useful information, where is
the gravy or broth to come from?”
In return I plagiarize the words of a lady who accomplishes more with
less noise and fretting than any other person I ever saw.
“I don’t see how you find time for it all!” exclaimed an admiring
visitor.
“I _make_ it, if I can get it in no other way,” was the rejoinder.
Never throw away so much as a teaspoonful of gravy of any kind. Season
it rather highly, and set it away in a cool place until it is wanted.
For a while you will have some difficulty in impressing the importance
of this rule upon your cook, especially if she is allowed to have all
the “soap-fat” she can save as one of her “perquisites.” This is a
ruinous leak in any household, whether the oleaginous “savings” be
exchanged for soap (hard or soft), or for money. It is so easy to “let
it go into the fat-crock,” and when the cook is to gain anything for
herself by the _laisser-aller_ the temptation is cruelly strong—even if
she have a conscience. I have known the pile of unclean fat collected
for the soap-man to be swelled not only by the bits of butter left
upon the plates after meals, but by quarter and half-pounds abstracted
bodily from butter tub or pot, and the abstraction never, in the
phraseology of the “conveyer,” to be “scrupled.” “The wise convey it
call!” said honest Pistol, and to no other ethical motto has heartier
response been made by the comptrollers of culinary treasuries.
In a family of ordinary size nothing should find its way into the
buckets of the unsavory caller at basement-door or back-gate. The
drippings from most kinds of roast meat, if settled, strained and
skimmed, and kept in a clean vessel, answer for many purposes quite
as well as butter, and better than lard. Even that from mutton should
be “tried out,” strained through muslin, slightly salted, and, if you
choose, perfumed with rose-water, in which shape it is better than cold
cream, or glycerine for chapped hands, and is a useful cerate for cuts,
scratches, etc. The oil-cake should be removed from the top of all
gravies before they are used upon the table; for, be it understood,
_grease is not gravy_.
How often I have wished, from the depths of a loathing stomach, that
certain well-meaning housekeepers—at whose boards I have sat as guest
or boarder—who fry beefsteak in lard, and send ham to table swimming in
fat; upon the surface of whose soups float spheroids of oil that encase
the spoon with blubber, and coat the lips and tongue of the eater
with flaky scales—that these dear souls who believe in “old-fashioned
cookery,” understood this simple law of digestive gravity!
A “rich gravy,” or “a strong broth,” is not of necessity, then, one
surcharged with fat. Beef-tea—which is the very essence of the meat,
and contains more nourishment in small bulk than any other liquid
used in the sick-room—should be made of lean, but tender beef, and
every particle of suet be removed from the cooled surface before it is
re-heated for the patient’s use.
If you have no gravy ready when you wish to prepare ragoût, or other
dish requiring this ingredient, “make it.” Crack up the bones from
which you have cut the flesh, and put them into a saucepan with the
refuse bits of meat, gristle, skin, etc.; cover with cold water,
and stew very gently until you have extracted all the nourishment,
and from two cups of liquid in the pot when the boiling commenced,
you have one cup of tolerable gravy. A few minutes of thought and
preparation in your kitchen after breakfast will enable you to have
anything of this kind in season for a luncheon dish, or an _entrée_
at the early dinner. Foresight in these matters is to be forearmed.
Teach your cook, furthermore, never to toss “that carcass” of fowl,
or the ham, or mutton-bone, “with next to nothing upon it,” to the
dogs, or into the scavenger’s barrel. It will not, by itself, make
good soup, unless it be very much underdone, and even then the broth
will not be equal to that made from raw meat or marrow bones. But,
seasoned and thickened—adding sweet herbs and a dash of catsup to the
flavoring—it will be useful as gravy in many ways; always remembering
that it must be skimmed before it is used. It is also well worth your
while to see for yourself, when the meat comes home from market, that
it has been properly trimmed for the table. Much goes into the oven or
upon the spit to be roasted, or upon the gridiron to be broiled, that
is unfit to be eaten after it has been baked or grilled. All bits of
tough skin—all gristly portions, soft bones, and the cartilage known
as “whitleather” should be removed before cooking from roasts, chops,
and steaks, when this can be done without injuring the shape of the
meat. The place for these is the stew-pot. Cover them with cold water;
put in no seasoning until they have simmered slowly for a long time
in a close vessel, and the liquid is reduced to at most one-half of
the original quantity; then season, boil up once hard, strain, and set
aside until you want to try a receipt in which “a little good gravy” is
a desideratum.
If you buy meat for gravy—which you need not do very often, if you
(and your cook) are reasonably careful about “scraps,” cooked and
raw—get the coarser pieces and marrow-bones pounded to bits. Cut up
the meat fine, also. You cannot, by never so long boiling; extract the
strength so completely from a solid “chunk” of flesh as from the same
quantity shred into strips or cut into dice. It should be reduced to
rags for gravies and soups, and invariably put on in _cold_ water. Fast
boiling hardens the meat and injures the flavor of the gravy. For the
first hour, it should barely simmer. After that, stew very slowly and
steadily. The best gravy is like jelly when cold.
Are these details trivial to absurdity? If they seem so to you, pray
bear with my over-carefulness when I tell you how ignorant I was of
minute economies when I assumed the name, and, so far as I could, the
duties of a housewife, and how many others I have seen and talked with
who are as anxious as was I, to stop the deadly little drains from the
domestic system, yet know not where to begin.
SALADS.
THIS subject has been treated of so fully—so exhaustively, I
thought, then,—in No. 1 of the “Common Sense Series,”[A] that I have
comparatively few receipts to set down here. I can, however, heartily
endorse these as especially good of their kind. Indeed, the neatest
compliment ever paid any receipt in my _répertoire_ was when an
epicure—not a _gourmande_—styled the oyster salad made in obedience to
it, an “inspiration.”
OYSTER SALAD. +
1 quart oysters, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.
1 bunch celery, cut—not chopped—into small pieces.
2 hard-boiled eggs.
2 raw eggs, well whipped.
1 great spoonful salad oil.
1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.
1 small spoonful salt.
1 small spoonful pepper.
1 small spoonful made mustard.
Half cup best cider vinegar.
Drain the liquor well from the oysters and cut them with a sharp knife
into dice. Cut the celery, which should be white and crisp, into
pieces of corresponding size. Set them aside in separate vessels, in a
cold place while you prepare the dressing. Beat the eggs light (with
a “Dover” egg-beater, if you have one), mix in the sugar; then whip
in gradually the oil until it is a light cream. Have ready, rubbed
to a powder, the boiled yolks; add to _them_ the salt, pepper, and
lastly the mustard. Beat these into the oil and yolk, and then, two or
three drops at a time, the vinegar, whipping the dressing briskly, but
lightly for two or three minutes. It should, if properly managed, be
like rich yellow cream—or custard.
With a silver fork toss up the oysters and celery together in a glass
dish; pour half of the dressing over them; toss up—not stir it down—for
a minute, and pour the rest on the top.
Lay a border of light-green celery tufts close within the edge of the
bowl, with a cluster in the middle of the salad. Serve as soon as may
be, after it is mixed. Meanwhile, keep on the ice.
CABBAGE SALAD. (_Very good._) +
1 small firm head of cabbage—chopped or sliced fine.
1 cup of sweet milk, boiling hot.
A little less than a cup of vinegar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
2 eggs, well beaten.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
Pepper and salt to taste.
Heat the milk and vinegar in separate vessels. When the vinegar boils,
put in the butter, sugar and seasoning. Boil up once and stir in the
chopped cabbage. Heat to scalding, but do not let it actually boil. To
the hot milk add the eggs; cook one minute after they begin to thicken.
Turn the scalding cabbage into a deep bowl; pour the custard over it,
stir in quickly, tossing up the mixture with a silver fork, until the
ingredients are thoroughly incorporated; cover to keep in the strength
of the vinegar, and set where it will cool suddenly.
Serve perfectly cold, and garnish with some slices of cold boiled eggs
and cresses.
This will be found a vast improvement upon the old-fashioned
“coldslaw,” however prepared, and is more wholesome.
LOBSTER SALAD—WITHOUT OIL. +
1 fine lobster—boiled thoroughly, and carefully picked out. Cut into
small pieces; put in a broad dish, and sprinkle with a teaspoonful of
salt and one of pepper. Set aside in a cold place.
2 bunches of white crisp celery, also cut into small pieces. Toss up
lightly with the lobster.
_Dressing._
2 large table-spoonfuls of butter.
1½ large table-spoonfuls of flour or corn-starch.
1 pint boiling water.
Stir the flour, previously wet, into the boiling water; let it boil two
minutes and add the butter. Boil one minute longer and set aside to
cool. Meantime, mix well and smoothly.
1 large table-spoonful of mustard.
1 teaspoonful of sugar—(powdered).
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 table-spoonful boiling water.
1 small cup of vinegar.
Beat this up well, then add to the drawn butter—beat to a cream and
pour over the lobster.
Garnish the dish with celery tops and hard-boiled eggs.
It gives me great pleasure to present this receipt to those who, from
prejudice or taste, do not like the presence of salad oil in any dish.
I have known many who would not knowingly partake of salad, fricassee,
or ragoût, that had oil, in however small quantity, as one of its
ingredients. And, unlike mince-pie, with the brandy left out, or
pie-crust, _minus_ shortening, this oil-less salad is really delicious.
Especially if a couple of raw eggs, well whipped, be added to the drawn
butter, when almost cold.
CHICKEN SALAD. (_Excellent._) +
2 full-grown chickens, boiled tender, and cold.
3 bunches of celery.
2 cups boiling water.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with cold water.
1 great spoonful fat, skimmed from liquor in which the fowls were
boiled.
2 table-spoonfuls oil.
1 cup of vinegar.
2 teaspoonfuls made mustard.
3 raw eggs, whipped light.
3 hard-boiled eggs.
1 table-spoonful powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt, or to taste.
1 teaspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce.
Remove from the chicken every bit of fat and skin. Cut the best
portions of the meat into dice with a sharp knife. Chopping is apt to
make it ragged and uneven in appearance. Cut the celery in like manner,
and set both aside in a cool place, when you have strewed a little salt
over the chicken. To the boiling water add the corn-starch, and boil
fast until it thickens well. Then stir in the chicken-essence, skimmed
from the top of the cold liquor in which the fowls were boiled. If the
pot is clean, it will be of a fine golden color. Take from the fire,
and begin to whip into the sauce the beaten eggs. Continue this until
the mixture is nearly cold. Rub the hard-boiled yolks to a fine powder
in a Wedgewood mortar or earthenware bowl; add the mustard, sugar,
pepper, and salt; the Worcestershire sauce; then, a few drops at a
time, the oil, lastly, also gradually, the vinegar. Strain through a
wire sieve, or coarse tartelane, rubbing through all that will pass
the net. Put the chicken and celery together in a glass salad-dish,
and wet up with half of the vinegar mixture. Be careful not to do more
than moisten it well, tossing up lightly with a silver fork. Then beat
the rest of the vinegar sauce into the thicker mixture, which should by
this time be perfectly cold. Pour over the salad; ornament the centre
of the dish with flower-cups made of the hollowed halves of the whites
of boiled eggs, with celery-tufts for petals. Lay a chain of sliced
whites nearer the edge of the bowl, with a tender-celery leaf in each
link, and set in a very cold place until wanted.
In obedience to this last injunction, I once left my salad on the shelf
of a “very cold” pantry, until it was slightly frozen all through—a
misadventure I did not suspect until it came to table. With a desperate
attempt at facetiousness, I introduced the compound as a novelty—“a
_salade glacée_”—and, to my relief and surprise, found in the accident
a parallel to the “Irish blackguard” snuff story. The spoiled dish was
pronounced by all far more delightful than the usual form of salad. I
do not advise a repetition of the adventure on the part of any of my
readers. Perhaps other guests might be less complaisant and flattering.
It is hardly worth while to risk a cut glass dish on the chances of
success.
Use the liquor in which the chickens were boiled for soup.
CREAM DRESSING FOR SALAD.
1 cup sweet cream. It must be perfectly fresh.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, or very fine flour.
Whites of two eggs, beaten stiff.
3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.
2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.
2 tea-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful (scant) of salt.
½ teaspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Heat the cream in a farina-kettle almost to boiling; then stir in the
flour, previously wet with cold milk. Boil for two minutes, stirring
all the time; add the sugar, and take from the fire. When half cold
beat in the whipped whites of egg with swift strokes, but not many. Set
aside to cool. When quite cold, whip in the oil, pepper, mustard and
salt, and if your salad is ready, add the vinegar, and pour at once
over it.
This dressing is especially nice for lettuce salad. If made for
chickens, only the white meat should be used.
GOLDEN SALAD-DRESSING. +
4 hard-boiled eggs.
3 table-spoonfuls of best salad oil.
4 table-spoonfuls vinegar.
Yolks of 2 eggs, well beaten.
1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful essence of celery.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
1 saltspoonful pepper.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
Rub the boiled yolks to a powder; add sugar, mustard, salt, pepper.
Work up well with the oil; put in gradually. Beat hard; stir in the
vinegar, and strain out all lumps, rubbing or squeezing the mixture to
get the full strength. Put over the fire and heat almost to boiling.
Take a spoonful at a time from the saucepan while still on the fire,
and beat into the whipped raw yolks. When all the ingredients are
mixed, return to the saucepan; simmer slowly for three minutes,
stirring all the time. Do not let it boil, as it will be apt to curdle.
Put in the celery-essence after withdrawing it from the range. Let it
get perfectly cold; pile up lobster and lettuce—the first cut into
dice, the latter pulled lightly apart—in a deep dish, and pour half
the dressing over it. Give a few tosses with a silver fork; mound up
neatly, and pour the rest of the sauce over all.
This dressing is very fine for a mayonnaise of fish. In this case, add
a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce after it comes from the fire.
POTATO SALAD DRESSING. +
2 large boiled potatoes.
1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful oil.
1 saltspoonful made mustard.
1 saltspoonful salt, and same of pepper.
1 teaspoonful Harvey’s sauce.
1 egg, beaten light—white and yolk separate.
3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.
Boil the potatoes until mealy, drain every drop of water from them; let
them dry on the range for an instant, and _beat_ up (not mash) them
with a fork, tossing them into lightness and dryness. When fine and
dry, beat in the salt, oil, and egg; the yolk first, then the white,
which should be a stiff froth. In another vessel have ready mixed the
mustard, sauce, sugar, pepper, and vinegar. Add by degrees to the
potato-mixture until it is like thick cream. If not perfectly smooth,
rub through a coarse wire sieve or a bit of coarse lace, such as is
used for mosquito netting.
This, also, is peculiarly nice with salmon, or halibut mayonnaise,
although excellent with chicken or turkey salad.
VARIOUS PREPARATIONS OF CHEESE.
TOASTED CHEESE. +
½ pound cheese—dry—grated.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
1 table-spoonful very fine, stale bread-crumbs—soaked in cream.
Rounds or slices of thin toast, from which the crust has been pared.
Rub the bottom of a heated frying-pan with a cut onion, then with
butter. Put the cheese into it, stirring fast to prevent burning. When
it has melted, put in the butter, the mustard, pepper; lastly the
bread-crumbs, which have been previously soaked in cream, then pressed
almost dry. Spread smoking hot upon the toast, and eat at once.
CHEESE TOASTED WITH EGGS. +
½ pound good English cheese.
3 eggs, beaten light.
3 table-spoonfuls bread-crumbs, soaked in cream.
1 table-spoonful of mustard.
Salt and pepper to taste.
A little minced parsley.
Slices of delicate toast.
3 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.
Beat the soaked crumb into the eggs; the butter; seasoning; lastly, the
cheese. Beat very light; spread smoothly on the toast and brown quickly
upon the upper grating of the oven. Be sure the bars are perfectly
clean.
CHEESE WITH MACARONI. +
½ pound macaroni.
½ cup cream.
1½ table-spoonfuls butter.
Pepper, salt and parsley.
1 egg, beaten well, and 1 table-spoonful flour.
4 table-spoonfuls grated cheese, and a little crumbed bread.
Break the macaroni into inch lengths; boil in water slightly salted;
drain _perfectly_ dry in a cullender. Take out two table-spoonfuls of
cream, and put the rest into a farina-kettle or saucepan, set within
another of boiling water. When it is scalding hot, salt to taste; add
half a table-spoonful of butter, then the macaroni, and heat together
slowly. They should not boil. Meanwhile put the reserved cream into
a small saucepan. Heat, stir in the table-spoonful of butter, pepper
and parsley; the flour, wet with cold milk, the grated cheese, and
when this is dissolved, the beaten egg. Pour the macaroni into a neat
baking-dish, cover with the cheese mixture. Strew the top with _very_
fine bread-crumbs, and brown quickly on the upper grating of a hot oven.
This is very good.
CHEESE FINGERS.
Some good pie pastry, “left over” from pie-making.
3 or 4 table-spoonfuls best English cheese, dry and old—grated.
A little salt and pepper.
1 raw egg.
Roll the paste out thin; cut into strips about four inches long and
less than half as wide. Strew each with grated cheese, season with
pepper and salt, double the paste upon it lengthwise, pinch the edges,
and when all are ready, bake in a quick oven. Wash over with beaten
egg just before taking them up, and sift a little powdered cheese
upon the top. Shut the oven-door an instant to glaze them well; pile
log-cabin-wise upon a hot napkin in a warm dish, and eat at once, as
they are not good cold.
This will make a savory side-relish for John’s luncheon on a hurried
baking-day. Pastry is none the worse for standing a day or longer in a
cold, dry place, and this uses up the “odds and ends” satisfactorily
and economically.
CHEESE BISCUITS.
Some pie-paste.
Grated cheese.
1 beaten egg.
Pepper and salt.
Cayenne pepper, if you like.
Roll out the pastry thin; strew grated cheese, seasoned, over the
whole sheet and roll it up tightly. Roll out again, even thinner than
before; strew the rest of the cheese; roll up and set in a cold place,
half an hour, until crisp. Roll again into a sheet, cut into squares
or triangles with a cake-cutter, or your jagging-iron; prick with a
fork, and bake very quickly in a hot oven. Brush with beaten egg before
taking up, and sift raspings of cheese over the top, shutting up in
the oven for an instant to glaze the biscuits. Serve at once, on a hot
napkin.
These are, it will be seen, a modification of the “fingers,” and will
be preferred by some. Of course, to those who object to cooked cheese
as indigestible, none of the combinations that smell so appetizing and
taste so savory, will be a temptation. Cayenne is said to make these
more wholesome.
CHEESE FONDU. + (_Delicious._)
1 cup bread-crumbs—very dry and fine.
2 scant cups of milk—rich and fresh, or it will curdle.
½ pound dry old cheese, grated.
3 eggs—whipped very light.
1 small table-spoonful melted butter.
Pepper and salt.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water and stirred into the milk.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat into these the eggs, the butter,
seasoning, lastly the cheese. Butter a neat baking-dish; pour the
_fondu_ into it, strew dry bread-crumbs on the top, and bake in a
rather quick oven until delicately browned. Serve immediately in the
baking-dish, as it soon falls.
The day on which this cheese-pudding first appeared on my table is
marked with a “very good.” It is a pretty, cheap and palatable
_entrée_, such as you need never be ashamed to set before any guest,
however fastidious.
Let me say, in this connection, in explanation not apology, for my
running commentary upon receipts like the above, that it is made—the
commentary, I mean, “with a purpose.” The unexpected guest is sometimes
an embarrassment, sometimes a horror to the inexperienced housewife.
“I remembered the cold duck in the pantry with exceeding joy; summed
up the contents of bread and cake box to a crumb, between the foot of
the stairs and the front-door,” confessed one to me. “By the time I had
said ‘How do you do?’ all around, and kissed the babies, I remembered,
with a sick thrill, that the butter was low and the coffee out (we
don’t drink it ourselves), and that the whole party of new-comers must,
at that hour of the evening, be ravenously hungry.”
It is wise and provident to arm oneself against such occasions by
practice in the manufacture of what may be called “surprise-dishes.”
With a crust of cheese in the larder, half a loaf of dry bread, an
egg, a few spoonfuls of milk and a bit of butter, one is tolerably
armed against an unlooked-for and unseasonable arrival. Give the
guest my _fondu_, with a good cup of coffee, or tea, or glass of ale;
bread-and-butter, cut thin, and your brightest smile, and he will not
complain, even inwardly, should the cold duck be wanting.
CREAM CHEESE. (No. 1.)
3 pints of cream, with a teaspoonful of salt put in after it sours.
An empty salt-box, and ¼ yard of very stout, coarse lace.
Knock top and bottom out of one of the small boxes used for holding
table-salt, and cleanse the broad and the narrow rims remaining,
thoroughly. When dry, fit over the bottom of the box itself a piece
of new strong net lace, or mosquito-netting. Fasten it in place
by pressing down over it the rim of the top. The net should be
drawn tightly and smoothly. Tack both rim and net to the outside
of the box with small tacks driven through the former, leaving the
heads protruding, that they may be easily withdrawn. This is your
cheese-press. If you can get a small wire sieve with _coarse_ meshes,
it will save you trouble. The cream should have been set aside until
it thickens or “loppers,” in a solid curd. Inside of your mould lay a
piece of clean white tarletane, fitted neatly to the sides and bottom,
and projecting all around above the press. Pour in the cream, opening
the flakes gently with a spoon to allow the whey to reach the bottom of
the press, but do not stir it. Set the mould upon two slender sticks
laid on a bowl, and let it drip two days. If the mould will not hold
all the cream, add it during the first day, as the curd sinks. By the
third day it will be a rich, smooth mass. If not quite firm, trim down
the round board you took out of the top, cover the cheese with a thin
cloth, and press the board firmly upon it. Lay a weight on this—not
heavy enough to break the net—and leave for some hours longer. A saucer
or small plate will do almost as well as the board. When the cheese is
ready to eat, which will be when it is firm, remove the oil from the
top by laying a piece of blotting or tissue paper upon it, and lift
from the mould by taking hold of the projecting edges of cloth. It will
be found very nice. This is the famous English cream cheese.
CREAM CHEESE. (No. 2.) +
Make cottage cheese as directed in “Common Sense in the Household,”
page 268, or, what is easier, buy two or three “pats” of the same from
some honest countrywoman in the market. To each little cheese allow a
table-spoonful of melted butter, and three or four of good sweet cream,
with a little salt and pepper. Work in the butter first with a silver
spoon, and very thoroughly, then the cream, until all is light and
smooth. Make into neat rolls, or shape into miniature cheeses upon a
plate; print as you would butter, and set in a cold place half an hour.
They should be eaten fresh.
CHEESE PATÉS. +
Rounds of bread, cut and fried as for Swiss patés.
5 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.
½ cup hot water.
2 eggs, yolks only.
Pepper and salt.
Handful bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Put the water on the fire, and, when it boils, stir in the butter
and seasoning, the cheese, and, when this is melted, the eggs. Heat
together one minute; put in the bread-crumbs and pour a good spoonful
of the mixture into each of the cavities left in the rounds of fried
bread. Brown very quickly in the oven, and serve on a folded napkin.
CHEESE SANDWICHES. +
¼ pound good English cheese—grated.
3 eggs, boiled hard—use the yolks only.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Thin slices of buttered bread.
Pepper and salt.
Rub the yolks to a smooth paste with the butter, season, and work in
the cheese. Spread the bread, and fold upon the mixture.
RAMAKINS.
3 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Pepper—cayenne is best.
1 teaspoonful flour, wet with cream.
Rounds of lightly-toasted bread.
Beat the butter and seasoning in with the eggs; then the cheese; lastly
the flour; working until the mixture is of creamy lightness. Spread
thickly upon the bread, and brown quickly.
This is a Dutch compound, but eatable despite the odd name.
CHEESE PUDDING.
½ pound dry cheese, grated fine.
1 cup dry bread-crumbs.
4 eggs, well beaten.
1 cup minced meat—one-third ham—two-thirds fowl.
1 cup milk and one of good gravy—veal or fowl.
1 teaspoonful butter, and a pinch of soda in the milk.
Season with pepper and a very little salt.
Stir the milk into the beaten eggs, then the bread-crumbs, seasoning,
meat, lastly, the cheese. Beat up well, but not too long, else the milk
may, in spite of the soda, curdle.
Butter a mould; pour in the pudding, cover, and boil three-quarters of
an hour steadily. Turn out upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it.
POTATOES.
POTATOES À LA LYONNAISE. +
12 potatoes, _parboiled_, and when cold, sliced, or cut into dice.
1 onion, chopped.
Butter or dripping for frying.
Chopped parsley, pepper and salt.
Heat the butter in a frying-pan; put in the onion; fry one minute; then
the potatoes. Stir briskly and fry slowly five minutes. There should be
butter enough to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan; and
they should not brown. Add the seasoning just before you take them up.
Drain perfectly dry by shaking them to and fro in a heated cullender.
Serve in a hot dish.
STEWED POTATOES. +
12 fine potatoes.
1 egg, beaten light.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful flour, wet with cold milk.
1 cup of milk.
Chopped parsley, salt and pepper.
Peel and lay the potatoes in cold water for half an hour. Then slice
or cut into dice into more cold water, just enough to cover them. Boil
gently in this until tender; but not until they are a paste. Drain
off nearly all the water; put pepper, salt, and the milk in with
the potatoes left in the saucepan, and heat again to boiling before
stirring in the flour. Cook two minutes, stirring up from the bottom
to prevent scorching; add the egg, parsley and butter, and pour into a
covered dish.
FRIED POTATOES. +
12 potatoes.
Butter or dripping for frying.
Salt to taste.
Peel the potatoes; cut from end to end in even strips, by first
halving, then quartering each; cutting into eighths, and if the potato
be large, into sixteenths. The more regular the shape and uniform the
size the better the dish will look. Lay these in cold—ice-water if you
have it—for at least half an hour; then upon a dry cloth, covering with
another and patting the upper gently to dry each piece. The butter or
dripping should be boiling hot. Fry the potatoes briskly, turning as
the lower side is done to a yellow-brown. As you take them out of the
fat—which should be done the instant they are of the right color—put
into a hot cullender set over a plate in the open oven, and sprinkle
with salt. Serve in a napkin laid within a hot dish and folded lightly
over them. A dish-cover would make them “soggy,” whereas they should be
crisp.
SCALLOPED POTATOES.
3 cups mashed potatoes.
3 table-spoonfuls cream.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Salt and pepper.
Yolks of four hard-boiled eggs.
1 raw egg, beaten well.
Handful dry, fine bread-crumbs.
Beat up the potatoes while hot, with the cream, butter and raw egg,
seasoning well. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered baking-dish;
cover this with thin slices of yolk, salt and pepper; then another
layer of potato, and so on, until all the materials are used up. The
top layer should be potato. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over this. Bake
covered until hot through, then brown quickly. Serve in the baking-dish.
POTATOES À L’ITALIENNE. (_Extremely nice._) +
Enough mealy potatoes to make a good dish, boiled dry.
2 table-spoonfuls of cream.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Salt and pepper.
2 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.
Whip up the potatoes, while hot, with a silver fork, instead of using
the potato-beetle. This is, by the way, a much better method of
mashing potato than that usually adopted. The potato is dried of all
superfluous moisture, made whiter and lighter than by pounding. When
it is fine and mealy, beat in the cream, the butter, salt, pepper, and
whip up to a creamy heap before mixing in, with few dexterous strokes,
the whites, which should be first whipped stiff. Pile irregularly upon
a buttered pie-dish; brown quickly in the oven; slip carefully, with
the help of a cake-turner, to a heated flat dish, and send up.
POTATOES À LA DUCHESSE. +
When you cook potatoes _à l’Italienne_ prepare more than will be needed
for one day. Cut the remnants, when perfectly cold, into squares or
rounds with a cake-cutter, wet in cold water. Grease the bottom of a
baking-pan and set these in it in rows, but not touching one another,
and bake quickly, brushing them all over, except, of course, on the
bottom, with beaten egg when they begin to brown. Lay a napkin, folded,
upon a hot dish, and range these regularly upon it.
They are very fine, and considered quite a fancy dish.
POTATO EGGS. +
2 cups cold (or hot) mashed potato.
¾ cup of cold ham, minced very fine.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2 table-spoonfuls cream or rich milk.
Pepper and salt, and dripping for frying.
1 cup good gravy.
Work the butter into the potato, the cream, seasoning, and, when the
mixture is free from lumps, the beaten eggs. Beat all up light before
the ham goes in. Flour your hands; make this paste into egg-shaped
balls; roll these in flour and fry in good dripping; turning them
carefully, not to spoil the shape. Pile upon a flat dish, and pour some
good gravy, hot, over them.
If you have nothing else of which gravy can be made, boil the ham-bone
or a few slices of ham in a little water; thicken with flour; add
a little butter, parsley, pepper and a beaten egg; boil up until it
thickens.
The above is a simple, but very good preparation of potato. You will
not grudge the little additional time and trouble required to make
pretty and palatable the remnants of ham and potato, that, served
plain, would tempt no one except a very hungry man.
For many other ways of cooking this invaluable vegetable, for breakfast
and luncheon, as well as for dinner, the reader is referred to the
section—“Potatoes,” in “Common Sense in the Household,” page 210.
LUNCHEON.
A YOUNG friend of mine who had not long been a wife and housekeeper,
on returning from a morning drive, one day, was met at the door by the
intelligence that her widower brother, who was a member of her family,
had brought three gentlemen home with him to dinner. Her husband had
not yet come in, and although not naturally nervous, she repaired
forthwith, and in some trepidation, to the kitchen, to see for herself
that the early dinner, which was then customary in the household,
because more convenient for the master’s business, was in satisfactory
progress.
The range was hot and the top empty; the tables clean and also empty;
ditto the cook’s hands, while her terrified face had the hue of her
whitest dish-towel.
“Don’t you think, ma’am,” was her salutation, “that the marketing has
never come home at all, at all, and not a bit of meat, nor so much as a
pertater in the house! Whatever will we do? and lashin’s of company in
onexpected!”
The mistress was equally dismayed when a glance at the clock showed
that it was past twelve. The market-house closed at noon; her residence
was out of the region of butchers’ and green-grocers’ shops. It was
evident that the plethoric hamper, she had seen filled by her usually
careful provision merchant and left at his stand in the market to be
delivered at her door early in the forenoon, had miscarried, or been
overlooked.
“Whatever shall we do?” The despairing cry rang through her like a
knell; a cold trembling seized her limbs, and she dropped helplessly
into a chair.
“Has nothing come, Mary? Not even the meat for soup?”
“Sorra a sup, ma’am.”
“Cannot you think of something that can be made quickly? You told me
you were a good hand at getting up nice dishes at short notice!”
The Celt’s _pose_ was tragic.
“An’ it was a thrue word I spake, whin I said it. But an angel couldn’t
make something out of nothing, or it’s meself that would thry!”
Matters were too serious for the poor lady to suffer her to smile at
the implied assumption of angelic relationship.
“Something must be done, nevertheless,” she uttered, desperately, and,
with a woman’s instinct of leaning upon rugged masculine strength when
deserted by feminine wit, she sought the billiard-room, whither the
inconsiderate brother had conducted his visitors, happily unsuspicious
as themselves of the poverty-stricken larder, or the qualms that were
racking the secretary of the interior.
He showed an exasperatingly good-humored face at the door in answer to
her knock.
“Come in!” he said blithely, and would have flung wide the door, but
for the agonized gesture that beckoned him into the entry.
In a whisper as agonized, she explained the situation. He reflected a
moment.
“Any pie, or cake in the house? fruit, fresh or preserved?”
“Yes, all,” impatiently. “But it isn’t a question of dessert. There is
literally nothing for _dinner_.”
“I understand! I have it! We’ll be fashionable for once. Set on
sardines, cheese, pie, cake, claret and sauterne, and a dish or two of
fruit. Make a royally strong cup of coffee to wind up with, and _call
it luncheon_!”
In fifteen minutes the guests were summoned to the dining-room, where
the pretty hostess, in a becoming _demi-toilette_, welcomed them as the
friends of her husband and brother, and presided over the collation
from which not one of them perceived that anything was lacking, like a
gracious little queen. A lisp of apology would have spoiled all, and
she had tact enough to avoid the danger.
“That man is a Napoleon in small matters!” said I, when she told me the
story. “If he never says another good thing, his—‘Call it luncheon,’
should win him lasting fame with all housekeepers who hearken to the
tale of his masterly strategy.”
I have given the anecdote at length, that the reader may have the
benefit of all the lessons it conveys.
First—Assure yourself, whenever it is practicable, that the materials
for dinner are in the house several hours before the time for serving
it arrives.
Secondly—It is a wise plan to keep sardines, canned salmon and lobster,
cheese, and potted meats on hand always, with preserved fruits, and not
to let the stores of cake and crackers run too low.
Thirdly—There is scarcely an imaginable domestic disaster on an
ordinary scale, that cannot be rectified, or, at least, modified
into passableness by presence of mind and energetic action. “Call it
luncheon,” is a capital motto in other and graver perplexities than
the non-arrival of a day’s marketing, and where higher interests are
concerned than the feasting or fasting of half a dozen people.
VEGETABLES.
FRIED EGG PLANT. +
1 fine egg-plant.
2 eggs.
½ cup milk.
A little salt.
Flour for thin batter, and lard, or dripping, for frying. Slice and
pare the egg-plant, and lay in salt-and-water one hour. Wipe perfectly
dry, make a batter as directed above, dip each piece in it, and fry to
a fine brown. Drain dry, and serve on hot, flat dish.
MOCK FRIED OYSTERS. +
1 bunch oyster-plant, or salsify.
2 eggs—well beaten.
½ cup milk.
Flour for thin batter, and lard or dripping for frying.
Pepper and salt.
Wash, scrape and grate the salsify, and stir into the batter, beating
hard at the last. It should be about as thick as fritter batter.
Season, and drop, by the spoonful, into the hot fat. Try a little, at
first, to see if batter and fat are right. As fast as they are fried,
throw into a hot cullender, set over a bowl in the oven. Send to table
dry and hot.
They are delicious if eaten at once.
MOCK STEWED OYSTERS. +
1 bunch oyster-plant.
4 table-spoonfuls butter.
A little flour or corn-starch.
Vinegar-and-water for boiling.
Pepper and salt.
½ cup milk.
Wash and scrape the oyster-plant very carefully; drop into weak
vinegar-and-water, bring quickly to a boil, and cook ten minutes; turn
off the vinegar-water; rinse the salsify in boiling water; throw this
out, and cover with more from the tea-kettle. Stew gently ten minutes
longer; add pepper and salt and two table-spoonfuls butter. Stew in
this until tender.
Meanwhile, heat, in a farina-kettle, the milk, thicken, add the
remaining butter, and keep hot until the salsify is done, when transfer
it to this sauce. Pepper and salt; let all lie together in the inner
kettle, the water in the outer at a slow boil, for five minutes. Pour
into a covered dish.
FRITTERS OF CANNED CORN. +
1 can sweet corn, drained in a cullender.
3 eggs—very light.
1 cup of milk.
Pepper and salt.
1 table-spoonful butter.
Flour for thin batter.
Dripping for frying.
A pinch of soda.
Beat up the batter well, stir in the corn and drop the mixture in
spoonfuls into the boiling fat. Drain off all the grease in a cullender.
_Or,_
You may fry on the griddle as you would cakes.
DEVILLED TOMATOES.
Fine, firm tomatoes—about a quart.
3 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.
2 raw eggs, whipped light.
1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful made mustard.
A good pinch of cayenne pepper.
Pound the boiled yolks; rub in the butter and seasoning. Beat light,
add the vinegar, and heat almost to a boil. Stir in the beaten egg
until the mixture begins to thicken. Set in hot water while you cut the
tomatoes in slices nearly half an inch thick. Broil over a clear fire
upon a wire oyster-broiler. Lay on a hot chafing-dish, and pour the hot
sauce over them.
BAKED TOMATOES. +
1 quart fine smooth tomatoes. The “Trophy,” if you can get them.
1 cup bread-crumbs.
1 small onion, minced fine.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter—melted.
Cayenne and salt.
½ cup good broth.
Cut a piece from the top of each tomato. With a teaspoon take out
the inside, leaving a hollow shell. Chop the pulp fine, mix with the
crumbs, butter, sugar, pepper, salt and onion. Fill the cavities of
the tomatoes with this stuffing; replace the tops; pack them in a
baking-dish and fill the interstices with the stuffing. Pour the gravy
also into these; set the dish covered in an oven, and bake half an
hour, before uncovering, after which brown lightly, and send to table
in the baking-dish.
BREAKFAST-ROLLS, MUFFINS, TEA-CAKES, ETC.
CORN CAKE. +
3 eggs, whipped light, yolks and whites separately.
2 cups sour, or buttermilk.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 small teaspoonful of salt.
Corn-meal enough to make a rather thin batter. Bake in a shallow pan,
or in small tins 30 minutes in a hot oven.
ADIRONDACK CORN-BREAD. +
5 great spoonfuls Indian meal.
3 great spoonfuls wheat flour.
5 eggs, well-beaten—whites and yolks separately.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 small teacupful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted into the flour.
1 pint milk, or enough to make batter about the consistency of
pound-cake.
Melt, but do not heat the butter; add to the milk and beaten yolks;
next, the soda; then, the meal, alternately with the whites; then,
the sugar, lastly the flour, through which the cream tartar has been
sifted, stirring it lightly and swiftly. Bake in a broad, shallow pan,
in a tolerably brisk oven,—or, if you prefer, in muffin-rings.
LOAF CORN-BREAD. (_Excellent._) +
2 heaping cups white Indian meal.
1 heaping cup flour.
3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2½ cups of milk.
1 large table-spoonful of butter—melted, but not hot.
1 large table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar, sifted with the flour, and added the last
thing.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Bake steadily, but not too fast, in a well-greased mould. Turn out,
when done, upon a plate, and eat at once, cutting it into slices as you
would cake.
After twelve years’ trial of this receipt, I have come to the
conclusion that there is no better or more reliable rule for the
manufacture of corn-bread. In all that time, there has hardly been a
Sunday morning, winter or summer, when the family was at home, on which
a loaf of this bread has not graced my breakfast-table, and unless
when, through negligence, it has been slightly scorched or underdone, I
have never known it to come short of excellence.
In cutting corn-bread, do not forget to hold the knife
_perpendicularly_, that the spongy interior of the loaf may not be
crushed into heaviness. Very good corn-bread is often ruined by neglect
of this precaution.
CORN-MEAL MUFFINS. (_Raised._) +
3 cups white Indian meal.
3 table-spoonfuls yeast.
1 cup flour.
1 quart scalding milk.
3 eggs, beaten to a froth, yolks and whites apart.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 table-spoonful lard.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Pour the milk boiling hot upon the meal; stir well and leave until
nearly cold. Then beat in gradually the yeast, sugar and flour, and set
in a moderately warm place. It should be light enough in five or six
hours. Melt, without overheating, the butter and lard; stir into the
batter, with the salt, lastly the beaten eggs. Beat all together three
minutes; put in greased muffin-rings; let these rise on the hearth for
a quarter of an hour, with a cloth thrown lightly over them. Bake about
twenty minutes in a quick, steady oven, or until they are of a light
golden-brown.
Send at once to table, and in eating them, _break_, not cut them open.
CORN-MEAL MUFFINS. (_Quick._) +
2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup flour.
3 eggs, beaten very light.
3 cups milk.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted with flour.
Mix quickly, beating all the ingredients well together; pour into
greased muffin-rings, or, better still, into the small round or oval
iron pans, now sold for baking corn-bread. Bake in a brisk oven, and
send directly to table. _All kinds of corn-bread are spoiled if allowed
to cool before they are eaten._
CHRISSIE’S CORN-BREAD.
1 cup white corn-meal.
1 cup flour.
½ cup white sugar.
1 cup cream and 1 egg, _or_ 1 cup half-milk, half-cream, and 2 eggs.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in the flour.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Bake in two loaves, or several small tins.
SOUTHERN BATTER-BREAD OR EGG-BREAD. +
2 cups white Indian meal.
1 cup cold boiled rice.
3 eggs, well beaten.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2½ cups milk, or enough for soft batter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
A pinch of soda.
Stir the beaten eggs into the milk; the meal, salt, butter, last of all
the rice. Beat up well from the bottom for two or three minutes, and
bake quickly in a round, shallow pan.
BATTER BREAD. (No. 2.)
2 cups Indian meal.
3½ cups milk.
2 eggs, well beaten.
1 small cup stale, fine bread-crumbs.
1 teaspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful melted lard.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water, and mixed with the milk.
1 teaspoonful cream tartar.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk, and rub to a smooth paste. Into this
stir the beaten eggs, the lard, the salt, and finally the meal, into
which the cream tartar has been sifted.
Bake in shallow pans in a hot oven.
BOILED MUSH, TO BE EATEN WITH MILK.
1 quart boiling water.
2 cups Indian meal.
2 table-spoonfuls flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Wet up meal and flour in a little cold water. Stir them into the hot
water, which should be actually boiling on the fire when they go in.
Boil at least half an hour, slowly, stirring deeply every few minutes,
and constantly toward the last. Send to table in a deep dish, but not
covered, or the steam will render it clammy.
Eat in saucers, with cream or milk poured over it.
OATMEAL PORRIDGE (_for breakfast_).
1 quart boiling water.
2 scant cups best Scotch or Irish oatmeal, previously soaked over night
in enough cold water to cover it well.
Salt to taste.
Stir the oatmeal into the water while boiling, and let it boil
steadily, stirring up frequently from the bottom, for at least
three-quarters of an hour. Send to table in an uncovered deep dish, to
be eaten with cream, and, if you like, with powdered sugar.
This is a wholesome and pleasant article of food. If you give it a
place upon your regular bill of fare, you would do well to provide
yourself with a farina-kettle expressly for cooking it.
OATMEAL GRUEL (_For Invalids_). +
2 cups Irish or Scotch oatmeal.
2 quarts water.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Set the oatmeal to soak over night in half the water. In the morning
strain through a coarse tartelane bag, pressing through all the
farinaceous matter that will go. Add the rest of the water with the
salt, and boil down until it begins to thicken perceptibly. Let it cool
enough to become almost a jelly, and eat with powdered sugar and cream.
It is very good for others besides invalids.
MILK PORRIDGE. (_Very nice._) +
2 cups best oatmeal.
2 cups water.
2 cups milk.
Soak the oatmeal over night in the water; strain in the morning, and
boil the water half an hour. Put in the milk with a little salt, boil
up well and serve. Eat warm, with or without powdered sugar.
TEA ROLLS.
1 quart of flour.
2 eggs.
1 table-spoonful butter, melted.
2 great spoonfuls yeast.
Enough milk to work into a soft dough.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 teaspoonful white sugar.
Rub the butter into the sifted flour. Beat the eggs well with a cup of
milk, and work into the flour, adding more milk, if necessary, to make
the dough of right consistency. Stir the sugar into the yeast, and work
this into the dough with a wooden spoon, until all the ingredients are
thoroughly incorporated. _Do not knead it with the hands._ Set to rise
in a moderately warm place until very light. Make into rolls lightly
and quickly, handling as little as possible. Set these in rows in your
baking-pan, just close enough together to touch. Throw a cloth lightly
over them, and set on the hearth for the second rising, until they
begin to “plump,” which should be in about fifteen minutes.
Bake half an hour in a steady oven. They are best eaten hot.
FRENCH ROLLS.
1 pint of milk.
2 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls of yeast.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
3 pints of flour, or enough to work into a soft dough.
1 table-spoonful of white sugar.
Warm the milk slightly, and add to it the beaten eggs and salt. Rub
the butter into the flour quickly and lightly, until it is like yellow
powder. Work into this gradually, with a wooden spoon, the milk and
eggs, then the yeast. Knead well, and let it rise for three hours, or
until the dough is light and begins to crack on top. Make into small
rolls; let them stand on the hearth twenty minutes before baking in a
quick oven. Just before taking them up, brush over with white of egg.
Shut the oven door one minute to glaze them.
PLAIN LIGHT ROLLS.
1 quart of flour.
1 heaping table-spoonful butter or lard.
3 large table-spoonfuls yeast.
1 cup of warm milk.
Salt to taste.
Rub the butter and flour together; add milk and yeast. Knead well; let
it rise until light; make into rolls; let these stand in a warm place
half an hour, and bake in a steady oven.
RICE CRUMPETS. +
2 cups of milk.
4 table-spoonfuls yeast.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Nearly a cup of well-boiled rice.
4 cups flour, or enough to make good batter.
Salt to taste.
¼ teaspoonful of soda added just before baking.
Beat the ingredients well together; set to rise for six hours, or until
very light. Put into muffin-tins (having stirred in the soda, dissolved
in a little hot water), let them stand fifteen minutes, and bake
quickly. Eat hot.
HOMINY CRUMPETS
Are made as above, substituting boiled hominy (or samp) for the rice.
ALL-DAY ROLLS.
1 quart flour.
1 cup scalded milk, _not_ boiled.
2 table-spoonfuls yeast.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
A very little salt.
Let the milk cool, mix with yeast, sugar, and one cup of flour. Put the
rest of the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle, pour in the
mixture, and set aside in a moderately warm place until next day. In
the morning melt the butter, and add to the sponge; work all together
well, and let the dough rise six hours, at least. Make into oblong
rolls; range them in baking-pan, at such a distance from one another
that they will not run together, and let them rise three hours longer.
Bake in a steady quick oven, glazing, when done, with white of egg.
I have never tried this receipt myself, but having eaten the rolls
made according to it, can cordially recommend it.
UNITY LOAF. +
1 quart flour.
1 pint milk.
1 tablespoonful butter, melted.
1 egg.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 dessertspoonful (equal to 2 teaspoonfuls) cream tartar, sifted in the
flour.
Mix the beaten egg with the milk, then the butter, sugar, salt and
soda; next, the flour. Beat well, and bake in buttered cake-mould. The
oven should be quite hot, and very steady. Turn out, and cut in slices
at table. Eat hot.
A simple, easy and excellent breakfast or tea-loaf.
QUICK LOAF. +
3 cups flour.
1 cup milk.
2 table-spoonfuls white sugar.
2 eggs, thoroughly beaten.
1 table-spoonful butter—a liberal one.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in flour.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Beat well, but quickly together, and bake in well-greased mould. One
with a cylinder in the middle is best. Test with a straw to see when it
is done; turn out upon a plate, and cut hot at table into slices.
EXCELLENT MUFFINS.
3 cups milk.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
2 eggs—beaten stiff.
3 table-spoonfuls good yeast.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 teaspoonful salt, and ¼ teaspoonful soda.
Flour to make a pretty stiff batter.
Make all the ingredients except the eggs, into a sponge, and set to
rise over night. Half an hour before breakfast, add the eggs and
the soda (dissolved in hot water); beat all together hard; put into
muffin-rings; let them stand on the hearth ten minutes, and bake about
twenty in a brisk oven.
BROWN BISCUIT. +
2 cups Graham flour.
1 cup white flour.
1 cup milk.
2 table-spoonfuls brown sugar.
4 table-spoonfuls home-made yeast, or half as much brewer’s.
1 great spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Set a dough made of all the ingredients except the butter and soda,
to rise over night. In the morning, add these; knead quickly, roll
into a sheet half an inch thick, cut with a cake-cutter; range in the
baking-pan. When it is full, set on the warm hearth ten minutes before
baking.
MINUTE BISCUIT, (_brown_.) +
2 cups Graham flour.
1 cup white flour.
2 table-spoonfuls mixed butter and lard.
1 table-spoonful light-brown sugar.
3 cups milk, or enough for _soft_ dough.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted in flour.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Chop the shortening into the flour; add sugar and salt, at last the
milk in which the soda has been put. Roll out, with as little handling
as may be, into a rather thick sheet. Cut into round cakes; prick with
a fork, and bake immediately in a brisk oven.
These biscuits are very good and wholesome.
GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 1.)
1 quart water.
1 cup molasses.
1 yeast-cake, or 4 table-spoonfuls best yeast.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Flour to make thick batter.
When light, bake in hot “gem” pans, or iron muffin-rings, in a very
quick oven.
Break open and eat hot.
GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 2.)
1 quart of milk.
4 eggs.
1 saltspoonful salt, and 2 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Flour for tolerably thick batter, about the consistency of pound cake.
Stir the eggs until whites and yolks are mixed, but do not whip them.
The milk should be blood-warm when these are put into it. Add the
flour, handful by handful, and when of the right consistency, the
melted butter. Beat long and hard.
Bake in greased iron pans—“gem” pans, as they are called—previously
heated on the range. The oven can hardly be over-heated for any kind of
“gems.”
GRAHAM GEMS. (No. 3.)
3 eggs, beaten very light.
3 cups of milk—blood-warm.
3 cups flour, or enough to make good batter.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
1 saltspoonful salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
RUSK. (No. 1.)
1 quart flour.
3 cups milk, slightly warmed.
3 eggs—whites and yolks separate.
¾ cup of butter, rubbed with the sugar to a cream, and flavored with 1
saltspoonful nutmeg.
1 gill yeast.
Make a sponge of milk, yeast, and enough flour for rather thick batter.
Let it rise over night. In the morning add the rest of the flour.
The dough should be quite soft. Work in the eggs, butter and sugar.
Knead well, and set to rise where it will not “take cold.” When light,
mould into rolls. Set close together in a baking-pan, and bake about
twenty minutes. Glaze while hot with white of egg, in which has been
stirred—not beaten, a little powdered sugar.
SUSIE’S RUSK. (No. 2.) +
1 quart milk.
½ cup yeast.
Flour for thick batter.
Set a sponge with these ingredients. When it is very light, add,—
1 cup butter rubbed to a cream, with
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 eggs—well beaten.
Flour to make soft dough. Knead briskly, and set to rise for four
hours. Then make into rolls, and let these stand an hour longer, or
until light and “puffy,” before baking. Glaze, just before drawing them
from the oven, with a little cream and sugar.
Rusk are best fresh.
SODA BISCUIT WITHOUT MILK. +
1 quart of flour.
2 heaping table-spoonfuls butter, chopped up in the flour.
2 cups cold water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream tartar, sifted thoroughly with the flour.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in boiling water.
A little salt.
When flour, cream of tartar, salt and butter are well incorporated,
stir the soda into the cold water, and mix the dough very quickly,
handling as little as may be. It should be just stiff enough to roll
out. Stiff soda biscuits are always failures. Roll half an inch thick
with a few rapid strokes, cut out, and bake at once in a quick oven.
CREAM TOAST. (_Very nice._) +
Slices of stale baker’s bread, from which the crust has been pared.
1 quart of milk.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Whites of 3 eggs, beaten stiff.
Salt, and 2 table-spoonfuls best flour or corn-starch.
Boiling water.
Toast the bread to a golden brown. Burnt toast is _detestable_. Have on
the range, or hearth, a shallow bowl or pudding-dish, more than half
full of boiling water, in which a table-spoonful of butter has been
melted. As each slice is toasted dip in this for a second, sprinkle
lightly with salt, and lay in the deep heated dish in which it is to
be served. Have ready, by the time all the bread is toasted, the milk
scalding hot—but not boiled. Thicken this with the flour; let it simmer
until cooked; put in the remaining butter, and when this is melted,
the beaten whites of the eggs. Boil up once, and pour over the toast,
lifting the lower slices one by one, that the creamy mixture may run in
between them. Cover closely, and set in the oven two or three minutes
before sending to table.
If you can get real cream, add only a teaspoonful of flour and the
whites of two eggs, but the same quantity of butter used in this
receipt.
GRIDDLE CAKES.
SOUR MILK CAKES. (_Good._) +
1 quart sour, or “loppered” milk.
About 4 cups sifted flour.
2 teaspoonfuls soda, dissolved in boiling water.
3 table-spoonfuls molasses.
Salt to taste.
Mix the molasses with the milk. Put the flour into a deep bowl, mix
the salt through it; make a hole in the middle, and pour in the milk,
gradually stirring the flour down into it with a wooden spoon. The
batter should not be too thick. When all the milk is in, beat until the
mixture is free from lumps and very smooth. Add the soda-water, stir up
fast and well, and bake immediately.
These cakes are simple, economical, wholesome, and extremely nice.
“Loppered” milk, or “clabber,” is better than buttermilk. Try them!
BUTTERMILK CAKES.
3 cups buttermilk.
3 cups flour, or enough for good batter.
1 great spoonful melted butter.
1 table-spoonful brown sugar.
1 full teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Salt to taste.
Mix as directed in last receipt, and bake at once.
GRANDMA’S CAKES. +
1 quart loppered milk—if half cream, all the better.
1 table-spoonful molasses—_not_ syrup.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 _good_ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Salt to taste.
Flour for good batter. Begin with three even cups.
Stir the molasses into the milk, then the eggs and salt. Make a hole in
the flour, and mix as you would “sour milk cakes” (the last receipt but
one). Beat in the soda at the last.
RICE OR HOMINY CAKES. +
1 quart milk.
2 cups soft-boiled rice or hominy.
3 eggs, beaten light.
1 great spoonful melted butter or lard.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
About one large cup of _prepared_ flour—just enough to hold the mixture
together.
A little salt.
Work the butter into the rice, then the sugar and salt;—the eggs,
beating up very hard; lastly the milk and flour, alternately, until the
batter is free from lumps of dry flour.
These are wholesome and delicious, and not less so if the batter be
made a little thicker, and baked in muffin-rings.
CORN-MEAL FLAPJACKS. +
1 quart boiling milk.
2 cups Indian meal—white. That known as “corn-flour” is best.
1 scant cup flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 table-spoonful brown sugar, or molasses.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in a little hot milk.
1 teaspoonful salt.
2 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
Scald the meal over night with the hot milk. Put with this the butter
and sugar. Cover and let it stand until morning. Add the yolks of the
eggs, the salt and flour. If the batter has thickened up too much, thin
with cold milk, before stirring in the soda. The whites should go in
last, and be whipped in lightly.
These are the “cakes trimmed with lace” of which we read in Mrs.
Whitney’s always charming—“We Girls.”
RICE CAKES. +
1 cup raw rice.
1 quart milk.
3 eggs—very light.
¼ cup rice-flour.
1 table-spoonful sugar, and same of butter.
¼ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
½ teaspoonful cream of tartar.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Soak the rice five or six hours (all night is not too long) in warm
water enough to cover it. Then boil slowly in the same until it is very
soft. While still warm—not hot, stir in the butter and sugar, the salt
and milk. When cold, put in the eggs. Sift the cream of tartar into
the rice-flour, and when you have beaten the soda into the batter, add
these.
These cakes should be so tender as almost to melt in the mouth.
SUSIE’S FLANNEL CAKES. (_Without eggs._) +
2 cups white Indian meal.
2 quarts milk.
½ cup yeast.
Flour for good batter.
Boiling water.
A little salt.
Scald the meal with a pint or so of boiling water. While still warm
stir in the milk, and strain through a cullender; then, add the flour,
lastly the yeast. Cover and let the batter stand until morning. Salt,
and if at all sour stir in a little soda.
These cakes will make a pleasant variety with “buckwheats,” in the
long winter season. They will be found very good—so good that one will
hardly believe that they contain neither “shortening” nor eggs.
“You can put in an egg or two, if you wish,” says “Susie,” modestly,
“but to my notion they are quite as nice without.”
And we, who have tested the “flannel” of her making, are content to
“let well enough alone.”
FARINA GRIDDLE CAKES. +
4 table-spoonfuls farina.
1 quart milk.
2 eggs, well beaten.
Enough prepared flour for good batter.
Boiling water.
Salt to taste.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Scald the farina over night with a pint or more of boiling water, and
let it stand until morning. Thin with the milk, beating it in gradually
to avoid lumping. Next, the beaten eggs, the salt and butter. At last
the flour stirred in with light, swift strokes. Do not get the batter
too thick.
Bake at once.
If you have not prepared flour at hand, use family flour, with a
teaspoonful of soda and two of cream tartar.
GRAHAM GRIDDLE CAKES. +
1 cup Indian meal scalded with a pint of boiling water.
1 quart of milk.
½ cup yeast.
1 cup cold water.
1 cup white flour.
1 cup Graham flour.
1 great spoonful molasses.
1 great spoonful butter or lard.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Salt to taste.
Scald and strain the meal over night; thin with the milk, and make into
a sponge with the Graham flour, molasses and yeast. In the morning, add
salt, white flour, soda and butter, and stir in enough cold water to
make batter of the right consistency.
Graham and Indian cakes are far more wholesome in the spring of the
year than any preparation of buckwheat.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT EGG-BEATERS.
IN no department of nice cookery are the effects of lax or hasty
manipulation more sadly and frequently apparent than in such dishes
as are dependent for excellence upon the lightness and smoothness of
beaten eggs. Unless yolks are whipped to a thick cream, and whites to a
froth that will stand alone, the texture of cake will be coarse, and if
the loaf be not heavy or streaked, there will be a crude flavor about
it that will betray the fault at once to the initiated. The same is
emphatically true with regard to muffins, waffles, and griddle-cakes.
Mr. Greeley said, and aptly, of two publishers of note: “One will
make a louder rattle with a hundred dollars than the other can with a
thousand.” I have often recalled the remark in contrasting the tender,
puffy products of one housewife’s skill with the dense, clammy cakes
and crumpets of another, who used double the quantity of eggs and
butter, and cream instead of milk.
“I think,” observed a friend, at whose house I was visiting, “there
must be a mistake about the muffin receipt you gave me the other day.
It calls for three eggs. My cook insists that five are none too many,
yet hers, when made, do not look or taste like those I ate at your
table.”
In reply I craved permission to see the batter mixed by the critical
cook. Entering the kitchen in company with the mistress, we found
Chloe in the act of breaking the five eggs directly into the flour,
milk, etc., already mixed in a large bowl. Half a dozen strokes of
the wooden spoon she held would have completed the manufacture of the
raw material. Eggs are inveterate tell-tales, and they had given no
uncertain warning in this case, had the mistress been on the alert.
Some eggs cannot be frothed. The colored “mammys” used to tell me that
they were “bewitched,” when, with every sweep of the wisp they were
depressed and dwindled before my wondering eyes. I have learned since
that, whether this non-inflative state be the result of undue warmth
of the dish into which the eggs are broken, or staleness of the ovates
themselves, it is a hopeless task to attempt rehabilitation. Their
demoralization is complete and fatal. The wise housewife will give up
her cake or dessert for that day, unless she is willing to throw the
obdurate eggs away, cleanse the bowl, wiping it perfectly dry, and let
it cool before attacking another batch.
Nor will whites froth to stiffness if a single drop of the yolk has
found its way into them. Regardless, as a leader of the cod-fish
aristocracy, of the claims of early associations upon memory and
respect, they sullenly assert the impossibility of rising in the world
if they are to be clogged by that which lay so close to them before the
shells were broken. All the beating of the patent egg-whip in impatient
fingers will not suffice to make them see reason. The fact that there
is ten-fold more nourishment and sweetness in one yolk than in a pint
of their snowy nothingness; that it is, in truth, the life, without
which an egg would be a nullity, has no more effect in changing their
exclusive notions than have volumes of argument proving the solidity
and vitality of the middle classes upon the gaseous brains of the _bon
ton_. Humor their folly—for whites are useful, because ornamental, if
rightly handled—by carefully taking out the offensive plebeian speck.
Our mothers whipped up yolks with a spoon, and the whites with a
broad-bladed knife, or clean switches, peeled and dried. Miss Leslie’s
“Complete Cookery” will tell you all about it. (And, by the way, if you
doubt that fashions change in cookery as in all else, I commend to your
perusal this ancient manual.) Then came a rush of patent egg-beaters,
and a rush of purchasers as well, whose aching wrists and shoulders
pleaded for relief from long hours of incessant “beating,” “whipping,”
and “frothing.” There were wire spoons with wooden handles that broke
off, and tin handles that turned the perspiring hand black; wire
whirligigs that ran up and down upon a central shaft and spattered the
eggs over the face and bust of the operator; cylindrical tin vessels
with whirligigs fastened in the centre, almost as good fun for the
children as a monkey on a stick, but which bound the housewife to place
and circumstance, since her eggs, many or few, yolks and whites, must
all be churned in that vessel—not an easy one to keep clean, on account
of the fixture within it. There was altogether too much machinery for
the end to be accomplished, and the white of a single egg was so hard
to find in the bottom of a quart pail! After a few trials, the cook
tossed the “bothering thing” into a dark corner of the closet, and
improvised a better beater out of two silver forks, held dexterously
together. Then, our enterprising “general furnishing” merchant
overwhelmed us with a double compound back (and forward) action machine
that was “warranted to whip up a stiff _méringue_ in a minute and a
half.”
“I will not quite endorse that, ladies,” said the most important
tradesman in a community of housekeepers and housekept. “But I will
stake my reputation upon its doing this in two minutes.”
We all bought the prize. It looked cumbrous, and it _was_ expensive,
but time is money, and we remembered that a large snow-custard must be
beaten ninety minutes with an ordinary egg-whip, and cake-frosting,
thirty. We paid, each of us, our dollar and a half, and carried home
the time-and-muscle-saver in a box of its own, so big that we chose
back streets in preference to fashionable promenades, on our return.
Trembling with exultation, we rushed into the kitchen to display the
treasure.
“Yes, mem! What might it be, mem?”
“Why, Katey! an egg-beater! and the greatest convenience ever
manufactured!”
“Ah! and what a silly was meself, mem, to be thinking it was a
coffee-mill, when I saw you a-screwin’ it on to the table!”
We screwed it “on to the table,” at a corner, for there was not room
for it to revolve at sides and ends. Katey held a bowl with eggs in
it at just the right elevation below; and by turning a crank we moved
a many-cogged wheel which fitted into another wheel, which turned a
whirligig at the bottom. Katey held the bowl steadily; we worked very
fast at the windlass-handle, and in eight minutes the _méringue_ was
ready.
“Well done!” cried housewives, one and all. “Great is the Grand
duplex back (and forward) action Invention, for the amelioration of
weary-wristed womankind! To be sure, it takes two people to work it,
unless one can hold the bowl firmly between the knees in just the right
place, but it is undeniably a wonderful improvement.”
I, with the rest, cried, “wonderful!” even when the bowl tipped over
on the kitchen-floor, with the yolks of ten eggs in it; when I broke
the screw by giving it one turn too many, and was blandly assured
by the artificer in metals, to whom I took it for repairs, that
“them cast-iron articles can’t never be mended, ma’am, without it
is by buying of a new one;” even when the cogs of the wheels became
rheumatic, and hitched groaningly at every round. But when one day, in
full flight through a seething heap of icing, the steel strips of the
triple whirligig that did the whipping, suddenly caught, the one upon
the other, and came to a dead lock; when, as I would have released them
by an energetic revolution of the wheel, they tore one another out by
the roots,—I arose in deadly calm; undid the screw, set the bowl on the
table, straightened my cramped spine, and sent to the nearest tin-shop
for a shilling whisk.
Four years ago, without prevision that one of the blessings of my life
was coming upon me, I paid a visit to _my_ “house-furnisher.” He had a
new egg-beater for sale.
“_Vanitas vanitatum!_” said I, theatrically waving it from me, “I am
cured!”
“It comes well recommended,” remarked he, quietly.
“But, as you say, so many of these things are humbugs! Will you oblige
me by accepting this, giving it a fair trial, and letting me know just
what it is? I will send it up with the rest of your articles.”
For three weeks—I blush to write it—THE DOVER hung untouched in my
kitchen-closet, and I did daily penance for my sin of omission with
the shilling whisk. At last I broke the latter, and with a slighting
observation to the effect that “it might be better than none,” I took
down my gift.
I beg you to believe that I am not in league with the patentee of my
favorite. I do not know whether “Dover” stands for his name, that of
the manufacturing company, or the place in which it was made. “Dover
Egg-beater, Patented 1870,” is stamped upon the circumference of the
iron wheel. I know nothing more of its antecedents. But if I could not
get another I would not sell mine for fifty dollars—nor a hundred.
Egg-whipping ceased to be a bugbear to me from the day of which I
speak. Light, portable, rapid, easy, and comparatively noiseless, my
pet implement works like a benevolent brownie. With it I turn out a
_méringue_ in five minutes without staying my song or talk; make the
formidable “snow-custard” in less than half an hour, with no after
tremulousness of nerve or tendon. In its operation it is impartial,
yolks thickening smoothly under it as easily as whites heighten into a
compact snow-drift, that can be cut into blocks with a knife. Winter
and summer, it has served me with invariable fidelity, and it is to
all appearance, stanch as when it first passed into my reluctant hands.
I hope the gentlemanly and benevolent donor will sell one thousand per
annum for the remainder of his natural existence, and if length of days
be a boon to be coveted, that the unknown patentee will live as many
years as he has saved hours of labor to American housewives and cooks.
WHIPPED CREAM.
THIS enters so largely into the composition of many of our most elegant
desserts, that the mode of preparing it deserves more than a passing
mention. The impression in which I confess that I shared, for a long
time, that a “whip” was a tedious, and sometimes well-nigh impossible
performance, will soon be done away with if one becomes the possessor
of a really good syllabub charm. That which I have used with great
satisfaction for a couple of years is a very simple affair—a tin
cylinder with a perforated bottom, and within it a dasher, similar to
that of an ordinary churn, that plays through a hole in the top. It is
best to churn the cream in a jar or pail, there being in these less
waste from splashing. The churn is held about a quarter of an inch from
the bottom, that the cream may pass freely below it. As the stiffened
froth rises to the top of the cream, it should be removed to a wire
sieve set over a dish. If you have no sieve, lay a piece of coarse lace
or tarletane within a cullender, and put the “whip,” a few spoonfuls
at a time, upon it. The cream that drips into the dish below should be
returned to the pail and churned over. I regret that the name of the
patentee appears nowhere upon the modest but excellent little machine
that has supplied me with so many trifles and Charlotte Russes.
The grand desideratum in making a “whip,” is to have _real_ cream. It
should also be perfectly sweet. The confectioner from whom I always
procure mine advised me once to put the merest pinch of soda in the
cream in warm weather, before beating it, a hint that has proved very
useful to me. With this precaution, unless the cream be really on the
verge of souring, you will never churn your “whip” to butter, of which
lame and lamentable conclusion I had experience several times before I
received the friendly suggestion.
Get good cream, then. It is better worth your while to pay half a
dollar a quart for it than half the sum for the thinner, poorer liquid
sold under the same name at the milk-stores. In the country, of course,
the true article should be abundant, and in town, you can generally
purchase small quantities at the confectioners. A pint well worked will
yield enough “whip” for the dessert of a small family. It should be
kept in a cold place until needed, and not kept long anywhere.
Whipped cream is a delightful addition to coffee. John will relish his
after-dinner cup much better if you will mantle it with this snowy
richness. Remember this when preparing your syllabub or trifle, and set
aside a few spoonfuls before seasoning it.
Don’t be afraid of undertaking “fancy dishes.” Sally forth bravely
into the region of delicate and difficult dainties, when you are
considering family bills of fare, and you will not be dismayed when
called to get up a handsome “company” entertainment. “Grandmother’s
way” may suit Mesdames Dull and Bigott, but you, being accustomed to
use your reasoning powers, should remember that our estimable maternal
progenitors knew as little of locomotives and magnetic telegraphs as of
canned fruits and gelatine.
And, _entre nous_, I for one, and my John for two, are getting so
tired of the inevitable pie! He read aloud to me the other day, with
great gusto, a clever editorial from the _Tribune_, showing with much
ingenuity and force, that the weakness for pie was a national vice.
I wish I had room here to reprint it. Whenever I have been compelled
since to eat a triangle of “family pie-crust,” my usually excellent
digestion has played me false.
“Pie and soda-water! That is a woman’s idea of a comfortable luncheon
on a hot day in the city,” said a gentleman to me. “At a bit of rare,
tender steak, and a mealy potato they would turn up their fastidious
noses. Such gross food is only fit for a _man_.”
The school-girl, rising from a barely-tasted breakfast during which
she has been saying over to herself the chronological table, or French
verb, learned the night before,—“doesn’t care to take any luncheon
with her to-day. Certainly, no bread-and-butter—and sandwiches are
_hateful_! If you insist, mamma, just give me a piece of pie—mince-pie,
if you have it, with a slice of fruitcake and a little cheese. I may
feel hungry enough at noon to nibble at them.”
Papa, running in at eleven o’clock, to announce that he has had a
business telegram which obliges him to take the next train to Boston or
Chicago, “has not time to think of food, unless you can give me a bit
of pie to eat while you are packing my valise.” He jumps from the cars
at five P.M. to snatch another “bit of pie” from a station-restaurant,
and swallows still a third, at midnight, bought from an itinerant
vender of such comestibles, who swings himself on board when the
“through Express” halts for wood and water. If his sick headache is
not overpowering, he is adequate to the consumption of still a fourth
leathery triangle when another stop is made at six A.M.
Pie is the _pièce de résistance_ in rural desserts, at luncheon and at
tea, and the mighty army mustered to meet the attacks of pic-nics and
water-parties in the course of the year is enough to drive a dyspeptic
to suicide, when he reads the sum total of the rough computation.
“I always calculate to bake a dozen of a Saturday,” says the farmer’s
helpmate, resigned to cheerfulness in the narrative. “In haying and
harvesting I make as many as thirty and forty every week. Nothing
pleases our folks so much when they come in hot and tired, as a bit of
pie—it don’t make much difference what kind—apple, berry, squash, or
damson—so long as it is _pie_!”
This is not exaggeration, and the same mania for the destructive sweet
is as prevalent among the working-classes of the city. It is useless to
preach to artisans and laborers of the indigestible qualities of such
pastry as is made by their wives at home, and bought at cheap bakeries;
to represent that baked apples, and in the season, ripe, fresh fruits
of all kinds are more nutritious, and even cheaper, when the prices of
flour, sugar, and “shortening” are reckoned up, to say nothing of the
time spent in rolling out, basting and baking the tough skinned, and
often sour-hearted favorites.
Jellies are scorned as “having no substance into them;” blanc-mange
is emphatically “flummery,” and whipped cream I have heard described
scornfully as “sweetened nothing.”
Do not understand my strictures upon pie-olatry to mean indiscriminate
condemnation of pastry. A really fine mince-pie is a toothsome
delicacy, and the like quality of pumpkin-pie a luscious treat.
Christmas would hardly be Christmas without the one, and I would have
the other grace every Thanksgiving feast until the end of time. But
surely there is an “out of season,” as well as “in.”
“Your Toxes and your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth,
Mrs. Richards,” said Susan Nipper, “but that’s no reason why I need
offer ’em the whole set!”
And when I recall the square inches of hard and slack-baked dyspepsia I
have masticated—and swallowed—at the bidding of civility, and a natural
soft-heartedness that would not let me grieve or shame hospitable
entertainers, I can say it almost as snappishly as she.
Give John, then, and above all, the children, a respite from the
traditional, conventional and national pie, and an opportunity to
compare its solid merits with the graces of more fanciful desserts. I
can safely promise that the health of the family will not suffer from
the change.
FANCY DISHES FOR DESSERT.
JELLY ORANGES. +
12 fine deep-colored oranges.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, dissolved in one cup cold water.
3 cups white sugar.
Juice of the oranges, and grated rind of three.
2 cups boiling water.
¼ teaspoonful cinnamon.
Soak the gelatine three hours in the cup of cold water. Cut from the
top of each orange a round piece, leaving a hole just large enough to
admit the bowl of a small spoon, or the handle of a larger. The smaller
the orifice, the better your dish will look. Clean out every bit of the
pulp very carefully, so as not to tear the edges of the hole. Scrape
the inner skin from the sides with your fore-finger, and when the
oranges are emptied lay them in cold water, while you make the jelly.
Strain the juice and grated peel through coarse, thin muslin over the
sugar, squeezing rather hard to get the coloring matter. Stir this
until it is a thick syrup, and add the spice. Pour the boiling water
upon the soaked gelatine; stir over the fire until well dissolved; add
the juice and sugar, stir all together, and strain through a flannel
bag into a pitcher, not shaking or squeezing it, lest it should be
cloudy. Wipe off the outside of the oranges, set them close together
in a dish, the open ends uppermost, and fill _very_ full with the warm
jelly, as it will shrink in cooling. Set away in a cold place where
there is no dust. Next day, cut each in half with a sharp penknife,
taking care to sever the skin all around before cutting into the jelly.
If neatly divided, the rich amber jelly will be a fair counterfeit of
the orange pulp. Pile in a glass dish, with green leaves around, as you
would the real fruit.
This is a beautiful and delicious dish, and easily made.
GLACÉ ORANGES.
Prepare precisely as in the preceding receipt, and after cutting the
oranges in two, set them where they will freeze. In winter, a few
hours out-of-doors will accomplish this. In summer pile them carefully
within a freezer, and surround with ice and _rock salt_ for six hours;
draining off the water, and replenishing with ice and salt twice during
the time.
These are very refreshing in hot weather.
RIBBON JELLY AND CREAM. +
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water.
2 cups white sugar.
1 pint _boiling_ water.
Juice and half the grated rind of 1 lemon.
1 cup pale wine.
¼ teaspoonful cinnamon.
Enough prepared cochineal or bright cranberry, or other fruit syrup to
color half the jelly.
1 pint rich sweet cream whipped stiff with two table-spoonfuls powdered
sugar, and a little vanilla.
Soak the jelly four hours. Add to it the sugar and seasoning, including
the lemon; pour in the boiling water, and stir until entirely
dissolved. Strain through a flannel bag, after adding the wine. Do
not touch it while it is dripping. Divide the jelly, and color half
of it pink, as above directed. Wet a mould, with a cylinder through
the centre, in cold water, and put in the jelly, yellow and pink, in
alternate layers, letting each get pretty firm before putting in the
next, until all is used up. When you are ready to use it, wrap a hot
wet cloth about the mould for a moment, and invert upon a dish. Have
the cream whipped before you do this, and fill the open place in the
middle with it, heaping it up well.
You can vary the coloring by making white and yellow blanc-mange out
of one-quarter of the gelatine after it is soaked. Instead of water,
pour a large cup of boiling milk over this. When dissolved, sweeten and
beat into half of it the yolk of an egg. Heat over the fire in a vessel
of boiling water for five minutes to cook the egg, stirring all the
time. A stripe of the white or yellow blanc-mange sets off the wider
“ribbons” of pink and amber very tastefully. Or you may make the base
of chocolate blanc-mange, by stirring a great spoonful of grated sweet
chocolate into the gelatine and boiling milk.
EASTER EGGS. (_Very pretty._) +
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked four hours in one pint cold water.
2 heaping cups sugar.
3 large cups boiling milk.
2 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate—sweet, vanilla-flavored, if you can
get it.
2 eggs, the yolks only.
A little prepared cochineal, or bright-red syrup.
Empty shells of 12 eggs, from which the contents have been drained
through a hole in the small end.
Essence bitter-almond, grated lemon-peel, and rose-water for flavoring.
Put sugar and soaked gelatine into a bowl, and pour the boiling milk
over them. Set over the fire in a farina-kettle, and stir until
dissolved. Strain and divide into four parts. Leave one white; stir
into another the beaten yolks; into a third the chocolate; into
the fourth the pink or scarlet coloring. Season the chocolate with
vanilla; the yellow with lemon; the white with rose-water, the red
with bitter-almond. Heat the yellow over the fire long enough to cook
the egg. Rinse out your egg-shells with cold water, and fill with the
various mixtures, three shells of each. Set upright in a pan of meal or
flour to keep them steady, and leave until next day. Then fill a glass
bowl more than three-quarters full, with nice wine-jelly, broken into
sparkling fragments. Break away the egg-shells, bit by bit, from the
blanc-mange. If the insides of the shells have been properly rinsed and
left wet, there will be no trouble about this. Pile the vari-colored
“eggs” upon the bed of jelly, lay shred preserved orange-peel, or very
finely shred candied citron about them, and surprise the children with
them as an Easter-day dessert.
It is well to make this the day on which you bake cake, as the contents
of the egg-shells will not then be wasted. By emptying them carefully,
you can keep the whites and yolks separate.
This dish, which I invented to please my own little ones on the blessed
Easter-day, is always welcomed by them with such delight, that I cannot
refrain from recommending its manufacture to other mothers. It is by
no means difficult or expensive. If you can get green spinach, you can
have yet another color by using the juice.
TURRET CREAM. +
1 pint sweet, rich cream.
1 quart milk.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine.
1 heaping cup white sugar.
3 eggs, beaten light—whites and yolks separately.
½ pound crystallized fruit—cherries and peaches, or apricots.
Vanilla flavoring.
Juice of one lemon.
Soak the gelatine in a cup of the milk four hours. Scald the remainder
of the milk, add the sugar; when this is dissolved, the soaked
gelatine. Stir over the fire until almost boiling hot; strain and
divide into two equal portions. Return one to the fire, and heat
quickly. When it nears the boiling-point, stir in the beaten yolks. Let
all cook together two minutes, and turn out into a bowl to cool. While
it cools, churn the cream very stiff, and beat the whites of the eggs
until they will stand alone. Divide the latter into two heaps. As the
yellow gelatine begins to “form,” whip one-half of the whites into it,
a little at a time. To the white gelatine add the rest of the whites
in the same manner, alternately with the whipped cream. Season the
yellow with vanilla, the white with the lemon-juice beaten in at the
last. Wet the inside of a tall, fluted mould with water, and arrange in
the bottom, close to the outside of the mould, a row of crystallized
cherries. Then put in a layer of the white mixture; on this the
apricots or peaches cut into strips; a layer of the yellow, another
border of cherries, and so on, until your materials are used up. When
firm, which will be in a few hours, even in summer, if set on the ice,
wrap a cloth wrung out in hot water about the mould, and invert upon a
flat dish.
Eat with sweet cream, or, if you like, with brandied fruit.
This is a beautiful dessert, and a handsome centre-piece for a
supper-table. It is also a safe one, even in the hands of a novice, if
these directions be followed exactly. Bitter-almond may be substituted
for the lemon.
NAPLES SPONGE. +
6 eggs. Use the yolks for custard.
1 quart of milk.
2 _large_ cups sugar, and same quantity boiling water.
1 package gelatine soaked in 2 cups cold water.
Juice of a lemon and half the grated rind.
1 stale sponge-cake cut into smooth slices of uniform size.
2 glasses sherry.
Dissolve the soaked gelatine in the hot water. Add a cup of sugar and
the lemon, and stir until the mixture is clear. Set aside in a shallow
pan to cool. Meanwhile, make a custard of the milk, the yolks, and the
other cup of sugar. Stir until it begins to thicken, when turn into a
pitcher or pail, and put away until the “sponge” is ready for table.
Whip the whites very stiff, and beat into them, a few spoonfuls at a
time, the cooled gelatine. Spread the slices of cake, cut of a shape
and size that will fit your mould, upon a flat dish, and wet them with
the sherry. Rinse out a pudding or jelly mould with cold water, put
a thick layer of the “sponge” in the bottom, pressing and smoothing
it down, then one of cake, fitted in neatly; another of the sponge,
proceeding in this order until all is used. The upper layer—the base
when the sponge is turned out should be of cake.
Serve in a glass dish with some of the custard poured about the base,
and send around more in a sauce-tureen or silver cream-pitcher.
Season the custard with vanilla.
AN ALMOND CHARLOTTE. +
1 quart milk.
1 pint rich cream—whipped stiff.
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 great cup white sugar—powdered.
1 pound sweet almonds, blanched and cold.
Rose-water and essence of bitter almond for flavoring.
1 stale sponge-cake sliced.
Icing for top of cake.
1 package gelatine soaked in a cupful of the milk. Heat the rest of
the milk to boiling; put in the sugar and soaked gelatine. Heat again
before adding the almond paste. This should be ready, before you begin
the Charlotte. Blanch the almonds by putting them into _boiling_
water, skinning them, and letting them get cold and crisp. Pound in
a mortar, dropping in rose-water, now and then, to prevent oiling.
Stir this paste well into the hot milk; let it simmer with it two
or three minutes; then strain through coarse muslin, squeezing hard
to get out the strength. Flavor and set by until cold and a little
stiff around the edges. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff and add the
gelatine gradually—beating steadily—alternately with the whipped cream.
Butter your mould, and line with slices of sponge-cake fitted closely
together. Fill with the mixture, pressing it in firmly and evenly. In
eight or ten hours, turn it out upon a dish, and ice as you would a
cake, but on the top only. While the frosting is soft, ornament with
fancy candies, laid on in any shape you may fancy.
_Or,_
You may simplify matters by reserving one large piece of cake—a slice
cut the full width of the loaf; trimming it to fit the bottom of the
mould, and only lining the sides of the latter. The Charlotte will turn
out as well without the top (or bottom), and you can have it frosted
and ornamented by the time you empty the mould. Lay it carefully on the
top of the gelatine.
NARCISSUS BLANC-MANGE.
1 quart milk.
Less than a pint rich cream, whipped with a _little_ powdered sugar.
1 package Cooper’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of cold water.
Yolks of 4 eggs, beaten light.
2 cups white sugar.
Vanilla and rose-water for flavoring.
Heat the milk scalding hot, stir in the gelatine and sugar. When all
are dissolved, beat in the yolks, and heat until they are cooked. Two
minutes, after the custard becomes scalding hot, should suffice. Turn
out into a broad dish to cool. When it stiffens around the edges,
transfer it, a few spoonfuls at a time, to a bowl, and whip vigorously
with your egg-beater. Flavor with rose-water. It should be like a
yellow sponge before you put it into the mould. This should be an open
one, _i.e._, with a cylinder in the centre. Rinse with cold water, and
fill with the blanc-mange. It is best made the day before it is to be
used. After turning it out upon a dish, fill the hollowed centre with
whipped cream, flavored with vanilla and heaped up as high as it will
stand. Pile more whipped cream about the base.
This dessert is named for the pretty yellow and white flower which
came, with the earliest days of Spring, to the old-fashioned gardens.
TIPSY TRIFLE. +
1 quart milk.
5 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 stale sponge-cake.
½ pound macaroons.
1 cup sugar.
Vanilla, or bitter-almond for flavoring.
1 cup sherry wine, and 1 cup jelly or jam.
Make a custard of the milk, sugar and yolks, adding the latter when
the milk _almost_ boils, and stirring constantly until it begins to
thicken. Flavor when cold. Slice your cake, and line the bottom of a
glass dish with it. Wet with the wine, and cover with jam or jelly.
A layer of macaroons over this must also be wet with sherry. Another
layer of cake, moistened with wine and spread with jam; more macaroons,
and so on, until the dish is three-quarters full. Pour the cold custard
over all; beat the whites of the eggs stiff with a few spoonfuls of
bright jelly, and heap smoothly on top. Drop a bit of red jelly here
and there upon it.
STRAWBERRY TRIFLE. +
This is made substantially as above—but the macaroons and wine are
omitted, and the sponge-cake wet with sweet cream. Layers of ripe
strawberries (cut in two, if the fruit is large), sprinkled with
powdered sugar, are substituted for the jam; strawberry-juice, well
sweetened, is whipped into the _méringue_ on top, and this ornamented
with ripe, scarlet berries.
This is very nice.
CRÉME DU THÉ. (_Good._)
1 pint rich cream, whipped light.
½ package gelatine, soaked in 1 cup of milk.
1 large cup of _strong_ mixed tea—the best quality.
1 cup white sugar.
Whites of 2 eggs.
Dissolve the soaked gelatine and sugar in the boiling tea, when you
have strained the latter through fine muslin, and let it cool. Whip the
cream and the whites of the eggs in separate vessels. When the gelatine
is perfectly cold, beat it by degrees into the whites until it is a
pretty firm froth. Then whip in the cream. Rinse a mould in cold water,
fill it with the mixture, and set in a very cold place, or on ice, for
eight or ten hours. Send around a pitcher of sweet cream with it.
CRÉME DU CAFÉ.
Is made precisely as is the _créme du thé_, but substituting a large
cup of strong black coffee for the tea. It is even more popular than
the tea-cream.
It is a good plan to make both at the same time, one package of
gelatine serving for all, and give your guests their choice of tea or
coffee. If set to form in custard-cups and turned out upon a flat dish
in alternate rows, they make a handsome show. The darker color of the
coffee will distinguish it from the tea.
A small pitcher of sweet cream should accompany them.
CRÉME DU CHOCOLAT. +
1 quart of milk.
1 pint of cream, whipped light.
½ package of gelatine, soaked in 1 cup of the milk.
2 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.
1 cup of sugar—powdered.
4 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate.
Vanilla to taste.
Scald the milk, and stir into it while still in the saucepan, the
soaked gelatine and sugar. Heat up once, and when the gelatine is quite
dissolved, strain. The chocolate should be wet up with cold water
before it is put into the hot milk. Stir up thoroughly, return to the
saucepan, and when smoking hot, add it gradually to the beaten yolks.
Set back on the fire and boil very gently five minutes—not more, or the
eggs may curdle. Turn into a broad pan to cool. Whip, when it begins to
coagulate, gradually and thoroughly with the beaten whites, flavoring
with vanilla. Lastly, beat in the whipped cream.
You can add this to your coffee and tea creams, and complete the
assortment. Mould as you do them, but serve with brandied fruit,
instead of cream. Most people are very fond of it.
CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE. +
1 quart of milk.
½ package gelatine, dissolved in 1 cup cold water.
1 cup sugar.
3 great spoonfuls grated chocolate.
Vanilla to taste.
Heat the milk; stir in sugar and soaked gelatine. Strain; add
chocolate; boil ten minutes, stirring all the time. When nearly cold,
beat for five minutes—hard with your “Dover” egg-beater, or until it
begins to stiffen. Flavor; whip up once, and put into a wet mould. It
will be firm in six or eight hours.
CHOCOLATE BLANC-MANGE AND CREAM.
Make the blanc-mange as directed in last receipt. Set it to form in a
mould with a cylinder in centre. You can improvise one by stitching
together a roll of stiff paper just the height of the pail or bowl in
which you propose to mould your blanc-mange, and holding it firmly in
the middle of this while you pour the mixture around it. The paper
should be well buttered. Lay a book or other light weight on the
cylinder to keep it erect. When the blanc-mange is turned out, slip
out the paper, and fill the cavity with whipped cream, heaping some
about the base. Specks of bright jelly enliven this dish if disposed
tastefully upon the cream.
CHOCOLATE CUSTARDS (_baked_).
1 quart of good milk.
6 eggs—yolks and whites separated.
1 cup sugar.
4 great spoonfuls grated chocolate.
Vanilla flavoring.
Scald the milk; stir in the chocolate and simmer two minutes, to
dissolve, and incorporate it well with the milk. Beat up the yolks with
the sugar and put into the hot mixture. Stir for one minute before
seasoning and pouring into the cups, which should be set ready in a pan
of boiling water. They should be half submerged, that the water may
not bubble over the tops. Cook slowly about twenty minutes, or until
the custards are firm. When cold, whip the whites of the eggs to a
_méringue_ with a very little powdered sugar—(most _méringues_ are too
sweet) and pile some upon the top of each cup. Put a piece of red jelly
on the _méringue_.
CHOCOLATE CUSTARDS (_boiled_).
1 quart of milk.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separately beaten.
1 cup of sugar.
4 large spoonfuls grated chocolate.
Vanilla to taste—a teaspoonful to the pint is a good rule.
Scald the milk; stir in sugar and chocolate. Boil gently five minutes,
and add the yolks. Cook five minutes more, or until it begins to
thicken up well, stirring all the time. When nearly cold beat in the
flavoring, and whisk all briskly for a minute before pouring into the
custard cups. Whip up the whites with a little powdered sugar, or what
is better, half a cup of currant or cranberry jelly, and heap upon the
custards.
ROCKWORK. +
1 quart of milk.
6 eggs.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Vanilla flavoring.
Sweeten the milk slightly and set it over the fire in a rather
wide-mouthed saucepan. Beat the whites of the eggs to a very stiff
froth with a table-spoonful or so of the sugar. When the milk boils,
put in the froth, a table-spoonful at a time, turning each little heap
as it is cooked on the lower side. Have only a few spoonfuls in at
once, or they will run together. Take out the cooked froth care fully
with a skimmer and lay on a sieve. When all are done, set in a cool
place, while you make a custard of the yolks beaten up with the sugar
and the boiling milk. Stir until it begins to thicken, and pour out to
cool. Flavor when cold; fill a glass bowl with the custard and pile the
“rocks” on the surface.
A pretty variation of floating island. Serve with sponge-cake.
AN AMBUSHED TRIFLE. +
A round stale sponge-cake.
1 pint milk.
1 teaspoonful corn-starch.
1 cup sweet jelly or jam. Crab-apple jelly is very nice.
3 eggs beaten light.
A pinch of salt.
Vanilla, lemon, or bitter almond flavoring.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Cut the top from the cake in one piece and lay it aside. Scoop out
the inside of the cake, leaving side walls and a bottom about an inch
thick. Coat these well with the jelly. Scald the milk; beat the eggs
with the sugar, and stir into this when it is almost boiling. Crumb the
cake you have scooped out very finely, and beat into the hot custard.
Return to the fire and cook, stirring all the while until thick and
smooth, when add the corn-starch, previously wet with cold milk. Cook a
minute longer and take from the fire. When nearly cold, flavor and fill
the cake with it. Cover the inside of the lid you have laid aside with
jelly, fit neatly into its place; brush the whole cake with white of
egg, sift powdered sugar thickly over it, and set in a cool, dry place
until wanted.
A simple, delightful dessert.
ORANGE TRIFLE. +
1 pint cream, whipped stiff.
3 eggs—yolks only.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
½ package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in a cup of cold water.
Juice of 2 sweet oranges.
Grated rind of 1 orange.
1 cup boiling water.
Stir the soaked gelatine in the boiling water. Mix the juice, rind and
sugar together, and pour the hot liquid over them. Should the gelatine
not dissolve readily, set all over the fire and stir until clear.
Strain, and stir in the beaten yolks. Heat quickly within a vessel
of boiling water, stirring constantly lest the yolks should curdle.
If they should, strain again through coarse flannel. Set aside until
perfectly cold and slightly stiff, when whip in the frothed cream. Wet
a mould, fill, and set it on ice.
APPLE TRIFLE.
1 dozen tender pippins of fine flavor.
1 large cup of sugar, for custard—one—smaller—for apples.
1 scant quart rich milk.
4 eggs.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 pint of cream, whipped up with a little powdered sugar.
Slice the apples; put them in an earthenware or glass jar; cover
lightly and set in a kettle of warm water. Bring to a boil, and cook
gently until the apples are tender and clear. Beat to a pulp, sweeten
with the smaller cup of sugar; add lemon-juice and rind, and put them
into a glass dish. Make a custard of milk, sugar and eggs; boil until
it thickens up well, and let it get perfectly cold. Cover the apple
compote with it, spoonful by spoonful. The apple should be cold and
stiff, or it may rise to the top of the custard. Lastly, pile the
whipped cream over all.
LEMON TRIFLE. (_Delicious._)
2 lemons—juice of both and grated rind of one.
1 cup sherry.
1 large cup of sugar.
1 pint cream well sweetened and whipped stiff.
A little nutmeg.
Strain the lemon-juice over the sugar and grated peel, and let them lie
together two hours before adding the wine and nutmeg. Strain again and
whip gradually into the frothed cream. Serve in jelly-glasses and send
around cake with it. It should be eaten soon after it is made.
QUEEN OF TRIFLES. +
½ lb. “lady fingers,” or square sponge-cakes.
½ lb. macaroons.
½ lb. sweet almonds blanched.
½ lb. crystallized fruit, chopped fine.
1 cup sweet jelly or jam.
1 glass of brandy.
1 glass of best sherry.
Rose-water.
1 pint of cream, whipped.
1 pint of rich milk for custard.
4 eggs, whites and yolks separated.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
1 small cup sugar for custard.
A little powdered sugar for whipped cream.
Vanilla flavoring for custard.
Put sponge-cakes at the bottom of a large glass dish; wet with brandy,
and cover thinly with jelly. Strew the minced fruits thickly upon this.
Next come the macaroons. Wet with the wine and cover thickly with
jelly. Set the dish in a cool place while you prepare the custard. This
will give the cakes time to soak up the liquor.
Scald the milk; beat the yolks and sugar together and make a paste of
the blanched almonds by pounding them in a Wedgewood mortar (or, in a
stout bowl with a potato beetle), adding rose-water as you go on to
prevent oiling. Stir this paste into the hot milk, and, a minute later,
the yolks and sugar. Cook, stirring constantly, for three minutes more,
when put in the corn-starch, wet up with cold milk. Let all thicken
well and smoothly; take from the fire, beat up to break possible lumps,
and turn out to cool.
Whip the cream, and sweeten to taste. Whisk the whites of the eggs
stiff and mix thoroughly with the whipped cream. When the custard is
perfectly cold, cover the cakes in the glass dish with it, and heap the
cream on top.
There is no better trifle than this.
APPLE SNOW. (_No. 1._) +
6 fine pippins.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 lemon—juice and half the grated peel.
1 pint of milk for custard.
4 eggs.
Make a good custard of the milk, one cup of sugar and the yolks. Bake
the apples, cores, skins and all, in a covered dish with a little water
in the bottom to prevent burning. The apples should be so tender that
a straw will pierce them. Take off the skins and scrape out the pulp.
Mix in the sugar and lemon. Whip the whites of the eggs light, and beat
in the pulp by degrees until very white and firm. Put the custard, when
cold, into the bottom of a glass bowl and pile the snow upon it.
APPLE SNOW. (_No. 2._) +
½ lb. macaroons.
1 cup good custard.
4 fine pippins (raw).
Whites of 4 eggs.
½ cup powdered sugar.
Put the macaroons in the bottom of a glass dish, and cover with the
custard before you make the snow. Whisk the eggs and sugar to a
_méringue_ before paring the apples. Peel and grate each directly into
the frothed egg and sugar, and whip in quickly before touching the
next. The pulp will better preserve its color if thus coated before the
air can affect it. It is well for one person to hold the egg-beater and
work in the apple while an assistant grates it. Pile upon the soaked
macaroons and set on ice until wanted. It should be eaten soon after it
is made.
ORANGE SNOW.
4 large, sweet oranges. Juice of all and grated peel of one.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 package of gelatine, soaked in cup of cold water.
Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.
1 cup—a large one—of powdered sugar.
1 pint boiling water.
Mix the juice and peel of the fruit with the soaked gelatine; add the
sugar; stir all up well and let them alone for an hour. Then pour on
the boiling water, and stir until clear. Strain through a coarse cloth,
pressing and wringing it hard. When quite cold, whip into the frothed
whites gradually, until thick and white. Put into a wet mould for eight
hours.
LEMON SNOW. +
3 lemons—if large—4 if small. Grated peel of two.
4 eggs—the whites only—whipped to standing froth.
1 package of gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.
1 pint _boiling_ water.
1 glass sherry or white wine—a large glass.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
2 cups powdered sugar.
Add to the soaked gelatine the juice of all the lemons, and peel of
two, the sugar and spice, and let them stand together one hour. Then
pour the boiling water over them. Stir until dissolved, and strain
into a wide bowl. When nearly cold, add the wine. When quite cold,
begin to whip the mixture gradually into the frothed egg, and beat
until thick, white and smooth. Wet a mould in cold water and set the
snow aside in it until firm.
If you like, you can pour a rich custard about the base after dishing
it.
RICE SNOW.
5 table-spoonfuls rice flour.
1 quart of milk.
4 eggs—the whites only—whipped light.
1 large spoonful of butter.
1 cup powdered sugar.
A pinch of cinnamon and same of nutmeg.
Vanilla or other extract for flavoring.
A little salt.
Wet up the flour with cold water and add to the milk when the latter
is scalding hot. Boil until it begins to thicken; put in the sugar and
spice; simmer five minutes, stirring constantly, and turn into a bowl
before beating in the butter. Let it get cold before flavoring it.
Whip, a spoonful at a time, into the beaten eggs. Set to form in a wet
mould.
Send sweet cream around with it.
This is delicate and wholesome fare for invalids. If you wish to have
it especially nice, add half a pint of cream, whipped light and beaten
in at the last.
SUMMER SNOW. (_Extremely fine._)
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 cup cold water.
2 cups powdered sugar.
Juice and peel of 1 lemon.
Half a pine-apple, cut in small pieces.
2 cups boiling water.
1 glass best brandy.
2 glasses best sherry or white wine.
A little nutmeg.
4 eggs—the whites only—whipped.
Mix into the soaked gelatine the sugar, lemon, pine-apple, and nutmeg.
Let them stand together two hours, when you have bruised the fruit with
the back of a silver or wooden spoon and stirred all thoroughly. Pour
over them, at the end of that time, the boiling water, and stir until
the gelatine is dissolved. Strain through coarse flannel, squeezing
and wringing hard. When almost cold, put in the wine and brandy. Cover
until quite cold. Whip in, by degrees, into the beaten whites. It ought
to be whisked half an hour, even if you use the “Dover.” Bury in the
ice to “form,” having wet the mould with cold water.
This is most refreshing and delicious.
SYLLABUB. +
1 quart rich cream.
4 eggs—the whites only.
1 glass white wine.
2 _small_ cups powdered sugar.
Flavor to taste.
Whip half the sugar into the cream—the rest with the eggs. Mix these
and add wine and flavoring at the last.
VELVET CREAM. +
1 pint best cream whipped very stiff.
½ package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 1 cup cold water.
3 glasses white wine.
Juice of 1 large lemon.
Bitter almond flavoring.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Put sugar, lemon, soaked gelatine and wine into a bowl, cover closely
to keep in the flavor of the wine and let them stand together one
hour. Stir up well, and set the bowl (or jar), still covered, into a
saucepan of boiling water for fifteen minutes, or until the gelatine
is dissolved and the mixture clear. Strain, and let it cool before
flavoring. Beat gradually into the whipped cream. Wet a mould, fill and
set directly upon the ice until wanted.
MACAROON BASKET.
1 lb. macaroons—almond or cocoanut, or “kisses.”
1 large cup white sugar.
1 table-spoonful dry gum arabic.
½ cup of water—_boiling_.
Dissolve the gum arabic in the hot water thoroughly; then stir in the
sugar. Boil gently until very thick. Set it, while using it, in a pan
of boiling water to keep hot. Take a round tin pail (a fluted mould
will not do so well), butter thickly on bottom and sides, dip the edges
only of each macaroon in the hot candy and lay them in close rows on
the bottom until it is covered. Let them get perfectly dry, and be
sure they adhere firmly to one another before you begin the lower row
of the sides. Build up your wall, one row at a time, letting each
harden before adding another. When the basket is done and firm, lift
carefully from the mould; make a loop-handle at each end with four
or five macaroons, stuck together; set on a flat dish and heap with
whipped cream. Sprinkle comfits over the cream, or ornament with red
jelly.
With a little care and practice any deft housewife can build this
basket. A mould of _stiff_ white paper, lightly stitched together and
well buttered, has several advantages above one of tin. You can make
it of any shape you like, and remove it without risk of breaking the
basket, by clipping the threads that hold it together.
JELLY CUSTARDS.
1 quart milk.
6 eggs—whites and yolks.
1 cup sugar.
Flavoring to taste.
Some red and yellow jelly—raspberry is good for one, orange jelly for
the other.
Make a custard of the eggs, milk and sugar; boil gently until it
thickens well. Flavor when cold; fill your custard-glasses two-thirds
full and heap up with the two kinds of jelly—the red upon some, the
yellow on others.
APPLE JELLY. (_Nice._)
1 dozen well-flavored pippins.
2 cups powdered sugar.
Juice of 2 lemons—grated peel of one.
½ package Coxe’s gelatine soaked in 1 cup of cold water.
Pare, core and slice the apples, throwing each piece into cold water as
it is cut, to preserve the color. Pack them in a glass or stoneware jar
with just cold water enough to cover them; put on the top, _loosely_,
that the steam may escape; set in a pot of warm water and bring to a
boil. Cook until the apples are broken to pieces. Have ready in a bowl,
the soaked gelatine, sugar, lemon-juice and peel. Strain the apple pulp
scalding hot, over them; stir until the gelatine is dissolved; strain
again—this time through a flannel bag, without shaking or squeezing it;
wet a mould with cold water and set in a cold place until firm.
This is very nice formed in an open mould (one with a cylinder in the
centre), and with the cavity filled and heaped with whipped cream or
syllabub.
PEACH JELLY.
Is made as you would apple, and with a few peach-kernels broken up and
boiled with the fruit.
STRAWBERRY JELLY. +
1 quart strawberries.
1 _large_ cup white sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon.
⅔ package Coxe’s gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.
1 pint boiling water.
Mash the strawberries to a pulp and strain them through coarse muslin.
Mix the sugar and lemon-juice with the soaked gelatine; stir up well
and pour over them the boiling water. Stir until clear. Strain through
flannel bag; add the strawberry juice; strain again, without shaking or
pressing the bag; wet a mould with cylinder in centre, in cold water;
fill it and set in ice to form.
Turn out upon a cold dish; fill with whipped cream, made quite sweet
with powdered sugar, and served at once.
It is very fine.
RASPBERRY AND CURRANT JELLY.
1 quart currants.
1 quart red or Antwerp raspberries.
2 cups white sugar.
1 package gelatine soaked in 1 cup cold water.
1 cup boiling water.
Whipped cream—made very sweet—for centre.
Crush the fruit in a stoneware jar with a wooden beetle, and strain out
every drop of the juice that will come away. Stir the sugar and soaked
gelatine together; pour the boiling water over them; when clear, strain
into the fruit-juice. Strain again through flannel bag; wet an “open”
mould; fill with the jelly, and bury in ice to form.
Turn out upon a very cold dish; fill the centre with the cream.
LEMON JELLY. +
6 lemons—juice of all, and grated peel of two.
2 _large_ cups sugar.
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups cold water.
2 glasses pale sherry or white wine.
1 pint boiling water.
Stir sugar, lemon-juice, peel, and soaked gelatine together, and cover
for an hour. Pour the boiling water over them; stir until the gelatine
is quite melted; strain; add the wine; strain again through close
flannel bag, and pour into a wet mould.
ORANGE JELLY. +
6 large deep-colored oranges—juice of all.
Grated peel of one.
2 lemons, juice of both, and peel of one.
1 glass _best_ brandy.
1 package gelatine, soaked in 2 cups of water.
1 pint boiling water.
2 cups sugar.
Make as you would lemon jelly.
In each of these receipts, should the fruit yield _less_ than a large
coffee-cup of juice, add more water, that the jelly may not be tough.
TUTTI FRUTTI JELLY. (_Very good._) +
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in 2 cups water.
Juice and grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 fine orange, all the juice and half the peel.
1 glass best brandy.
1 glass white wine.
3 cups boiling water.
½ lb. crystallized cherries.
½ lb. crystallized apricots, peaches, etc., cut into shreds.
½ lb. sweet almonds, blanched by being thrown into boiling water, and
skinned. Throw into cold water so soon as blanched, until you are ready
to use them.
2 cups white sugar.
Mix soaked gelatine, sugar, lemon and orange juice, and peel. Let
them stand together one hour, then pour on boiling water. When the
gelatine is melted, strain; add the liquor; strain again through
double flannel, not touching the bag while it drips. When the jelly
begins to congeal, pour some in the bottom of a wet, fluted mould. A
rather tall one is best. Let this get tolerably firm, keeping the rest
of the jelly, meanwhile, in a pan of warm—not boiling water—lest it
should harden before you are ready for the next layer. Lay a row of
bright-red _glacé_ cherries on the jelly, close to the outside of the
mould; within this ring a stratum of the other fruits neatly shred.
More jelly, and, when it is firm enough to bear them, another ring
of cherries, and, within this, a layer of the almonds cut into thin
shavings. Jelly again, more fruit, and so on until the mould is full or
your materials used up. If possible, have the outer ring of each fruit
and almond layer of cherries. Set in ice to form. If frozen, the jelly
and fruits will be all the better. I have sometimes left mine purposely
where I knew it must freeze.
This is a beautiful centre-piece for a dessert or supper-table.
WINE JELLY. +
1 package sparkling gelatine, soaked in 1 large cup of cold water.
2 cups white wine or pale sherry.
1 lemon—all the juice and half the peel.
½ teaspoonful bitter almond, or two peach-leaves.
2 cups white sugar.
1 pint boiling water.
Put soaked gelatine, lemon, sugar, and flavoring extract together, and
cover for half an hour. Then pour on boiling water, stir and strain.
After adding the wine, strain again through flannel bag. Wet a mould
and set in a cold place until the next day.
CLARET JELLY. +
1 package Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in _large_ cup water.
2 cups sugar.
2 cups fine claret.
1 pint boiling water.
1 lemon—the juice only.
A pinch of mace.
Make as you would other wine jelly.
It is most refreshing in summer.
NOTE UPON JELLIES.
It must be borne in mind that the consistency of jelly depends much
upon the weather. In warm or damp, it is sometimes difficult to make it
either clear or firm. I have tried to guard against failure in the use
of any of the foregoing receipts by setting down the _minimum quantity_
of liquid that can be used without making the jellies too stiff. If
made in clear, cold weather, there will be no risk in having the “large
cup of cold water,” in which the gelatine is soaked, one-third larger
than if the jelly were undertaken on a murky spring day. A little
experience will teach you how to guard this point. Meanwhile, be
assured that you need not fear splashing, weak jellies where you hoped
for firmness and brilliancy, if you follow the directions written down
in this department.
PUDDINGS OF VARIOUS KINDS.
RICE PUDDING WITH FRUIT.
1 quart of new milk, or as fresh as you can get it.
1 cup raw rice.
4 eggs.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 cup sugar, and same of fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup suet (powdered).
½ lb. raisins, seeded and chopped.
½ lb. currants, washed well and dried.
¼ lb. citron, minced fine.
Soak the rice over night, or for five hours, in a little warm water.
Boil until tender in one pint of the milk. Simmer gently, and do
not stir it. Set the saucepan in hot water, and cook in that way to
avoid burning, shaking up the rice now and then. When done, beat
in the butter. Butter a mould well, and cover the bottom with the
bread-crumbs. Cover this with rice; wet with a raw custard made of
the other pint of milk, the yolks of the eggs and the sugar. On this
sprinkle suet; then a layer of the mixed fruit. More bread-crumbs,
rice, custard, suet and fruit, until the dish is nearly full. The top
layer should be crumbs. Bake for an hour in a moderate oven. When
nearly done, draw to the door of the oven and cover with a _méringue_
made of the whites of the eggs whisked stiff with a very little
powdered sugar.
Eat warm, with sweetened cream as sauce. But it is also very good cold,
eaten with cream.
This, in my opinion, deserves the highest rank among rice puddings,
which are, by the way, far more respectable as desserts than is usually
believed. There are so many indifferent, and worse than indifferent
ones made and eaten, that discredit has fallen upon the whole class. If
properly made and cooked, they are not only wholesome, but palatable
dainties.
ALMOND RICE PUDDING.
1 quart of milk.
1 cup raw rice.
5 eggs.
1 cup sugar.
A little salt.
A little grated lemon-peel—about one teaspoonful.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched.
Soak the rice in a very little water for four hours; put it into a
farina-kettle; fill the outer kettle with hot water; pour a pint of
milk over the rice, and simmer gently until it is tender, and each
grain almost translucent. Beat the eggs and sugar together, add the
other pint of milk, then the rice. Mix all well together, flavor with
the lemon-peel (or two or three peach-leaves may be boiled with the
rice, if you do not like the lemon). Boil in a buttered mould. An oval
fluted one is prettiest if you have it—what is known as the musk-melon
pattern. It should be cooked steadily about an hour—certainly not less.
Dip the mould in cold water; let it stand uncovered an instant; turn
out upon a flat dish and stick it all over with the almonds blanched,
and cut into long shreds.
Have ready some rich, sweet custard for sauce, or sweetened cream.
SOUTHERN RICE PUDDING. +
1 quart fresh, sweet milk.
1 cup raw rice.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup sugar.
4 eggs, beaten light.
Grated lemon-peel—about one teaspoonful.
A pinch of cinnamon, and same of mace.
Soak the rice in a cup of the milk for two hours. Turn into a
farina-kettle; add the rest of the milk, and simmer until the rice is
tender. Rub the butter and sugar to a cream. Beat up the eggs, and
whisk this into them until the mixture is very light. Let the rice
cool a little while you are doing this. Stir all together, flavor, put
into a buttered mould, and bake about three-quarters of an hour in a
moderate oven. If baked too long the custard will separate into curds
and whey.
Eat warm with sauce, or cold with sugar and cream.
RICE MÉRINGUE. +
Make according to the above receipt, but when done, draw to the door of
the oven, and cover with the following mixture:
Whites of four eggs, whisked stiff.
1 large table-spoonful powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Spread quickly and evenly. Close the oven and bake three minutes more,
or until it is very delicately browned.
ROSIE’S RICE CUSTARD. +
1 quart of milk.
3 eggs, well beaten.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
1 scant table-spoonful butter.
A little salt.
1 small cup _boiled_ rice.
Boil the rice, and while still warm, drain, and stir into the milk.
Beat the eggs; rub butter and sugar together, and add to them. Mix all
up well, and bake in buttered dish half an hour in a pretty quick oven.
TAPIOCA CUSTARD PUDDING. +
1 cup tapioca, soaked over night in cold water enough to cover it.
1 quart of milk.
1 large cup powdered sugar.
5 eggs.
Half the grated peel of one lemon.
A very little salt.
Make a custard of the yolks, sugar and milk. Warm the milk slightly in
a farina-kettle before mixing with the other ingredients. Beat this
custard into the soaked tapioca; salt; whisk the whites of the eggs to
a standing froth, stir in swiftly and lightly; set the pudding-dish
(well buttered) into a pan of boiling water, and bake, covered, in a
moderate oven until the custard is well “set.” Brown delicately by
setting it for a minute on the upper grating of a quicker oven.
This may be eaten warm or cold, with or without sauce.
ENGLISH TAPIOCA PUDDING. +
1 cup tapioca.
3 pints fresh milk.
5 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup sugar.
½ pound raisins, seeded and cut in half.
Half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Soak the tapioca one hour in a pint of the milk; pour into a glass,
or stone-ware jar; set in a pot of warm water and bring to a boil.
When the tapioca is soft all through, turn out to cool somewhat, while
you make the custard. Beat the eggs very light; rub butter and sugar
together; mix all with the tapioca, the fruit last. Bake in buttered
dish one hour.
ARROWROOT PUDDING. (_Cold._)
3 even table-spoonfuls arrowroot.
2 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
3 cups rich new milk.
¼ pound crystallized peaches, chopped fine.
Heat the milk scalding hot in a farina-kettle. Wet the arrowroot with
cold milk, and stir into this. When it begins to thicken, add sugar and
butter. Stir constantly for fifteen minutes. Turn out into a bowl, and
when almost cold beat in the fruit. Wet a mould, put in the mixture,
and set in a cold place until firm.
Eat with powdered sugar and cream.
ARROWROOT PUDDING. (_Hot._)
3 even table-spoonfuls arrowroot.
1 quart new milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs, beaten light.
A little nutmeg.
Vanilla flavoring.
Scald the milk; wet the arrowroot with cold milk, and pour the hot
gradually upon it, stirring all the time. Beat the eggs very light, rub
butter and sugar together; mix with the eggs; whisk hard for a minute
before pouring the milk in with them. Flavor; put into a buttered
mould. The water should be nearly boiling when it goes in, and boil
steadily for one hour. If you have a steamer, it is best cooked in
that, the heat reaching all parts of the covered mould at the same
time. Set in cold water a minute before turning it out. Eat with brandy
or wine sauce.
SAGO PUDDING. +
1 small cup of sago, soaked over night in cold water.
1 quart of milk.
5 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
A pinch of cinnamon, and same of nutmeg.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
In the morning put the soaked sago into a farina-kettle, with one pint
of milk; bring to a slow boil, and keep it on the fire until it is
tender and clear, and has soaked up all the milk. Make a custard of
the beaten eggs, the milk, the butter and sugar rubbed together, the
spice, and when the sago is nearly cold, beat it in. Bake in a buttered
dish. It should be done in little over half an hour.
You can boil the same mixture, if desired, in a buttered mould. It will
take more than an hour to cook.
Eat cold or hot. If warm, with sauce. If cold, with powdered sugar and
cream. It is nice with a _méringue_ on top.
ALMOND CORN-STARCH PUDDING. +
1 quart of milk.
4 table-spoonfuls corn-starch.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Yolks of five eggs, whites of two.
¼ pound sweet almonds—blanched.
Rose-water, and bitter almond.
¾ cup powdered sugar.
Scald the milk; wet the corn-starch to smooth paste with a little
cold milk, and stir into the boiling milk. Cook until it begins to
thicken well. Take from the fire and stir in the butter. Let it cool
while you make the almond paste and the custard. The almonds should
be blanched long enough beforehand to get perfectly cold before you
pound them to a paste, a few at a time, in a bowl or Wedgewood mortar.
Drop in rose-water, now and then, to prevent them from oiling. Make
a custard of the yolks, the whites of two eggs, and the sugar. Beat
this gradually and thoroughly into the corn-starch paste; flavor with
bitter almond; finally stir in the almond paste. Bake in a buttered
dish about half an hour. When almost done cover with a _méringue_ made
of the whites reserved, and a very little powdered sugar. Eat warm—not
hot, with cream and sugar. It is also good when it has been set on the
ice until _very_ cold. In winter it is easy to freeze it. It is then
delicious, eaten with rich cream or custard.
CORN-MEAL FRUIT PUDDING.
3 pints of milk.
1 _heaping_ cup white Indian meal.
1 cup flour.
4 eggs, well beaten.
1 cup white sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls butter, melted.
½ pound raisins, seeded, and cut in two.
1 teaspoonful, heaping, of salt.
1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.
1 teaspoonful soda, wet up with boiling water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
Scald a pint of the milk, and with it wet the meal. Stir it up well,
and let it get almost, or quite cold. While cooling, beat in the flour
wet with cold milk. Beat all up _hard_ and long. Make a custard of the
remaining milk, the eggs and sugar. Beat gradually into the cooled
paste. When all are mixed into a light batter, put in the butter,
spice, the fruit, dredged well with flour; last of all, the dissolved
soda. Beat up hard and quickly, bringing your spoon up from the bottom
of the dish, and full of batter at every stroke. Pour into a buttered
dish, and bake in a tolerably quick, steady oven. It should be done in
from half to three-quarters of an hour, if the heat be just right. If
it should brown too rapidly, cover with paper.
This is a very good pudding.
CORN-MEAL PUDDING WITHOUT EGGS. +
2 cups Indian meal.
1 cup flour.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar (or molasses).
3 cups sour milk—if thick, all the better.
1 great spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful—a _full_ one—of soda.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
Put meal and flour together in a bowl, and mix them up well with the
salt. Make a hole in the middle, and pour in the milk, stirring the
meal, etc., down into it from the sides gradually. Beat until free from
lumps. Put in butter, spice and sugar—the soda, dissolved in hot water,
at the last. Beat up well for five minutes. Butter a tin mould with a
cover; pour in the batter and boil steadily for an hour and a half.
Eat hot with sweet sauce.
HASTY PUDDING. +
1 heaping cup of Indian meal.
½ cup flour.
1 quart boiling water.
1 pint milk.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Wet up meal and flour with the milk and stir into the boiling water.
Boil hard half an hour, stirring almost constantly from the bottom.
Put in salt and butter, and simmer ten minutes longer. Turn into a
deep, uncovered dish, and eat with sugar and cream, or sugar and butter
with nutmeg.
Our children like it.
RICE-FLOUR HASTY PUDDING. +
1 quart new milk.
3 table-spoonfuls rice-flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Scald the milk and stir into it the rice flour, wet up with cold milk.
Boil steadily, stirring all the while, for half an hour. Add salt and
butter; let the pudding stand in hot water three minutes after you have
ceased to stir, and turn out into deep, open dish.
Eat with cream and sugar.
N. B. _Always_ boil hasty puddings and custards in a farina-kettle, or
a pail set within a pot of hot water. It is the only safe method.
FARINA PUDDING. +
Make according to last receipt, but boil three-quarters of an hour,
and, ten minutes before taking it up, stir into it two eggs beaten
light and thinned with three table-spoonfuls of milk. Cook slowly, and
stir all the time, after these go in. To a quart of milk, use at least
four table-spoonfuls of farina.
A good dessert for children—and not to be despised by their elders.
SUSIE’S BREAD PUDDING. +
1 quart of milk.
4 eggs—the whites of 3 more for _méringue_.
2 cups very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teacupful sugar.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Beat eggs, sugar and butter together. Soak the crumbs in the milk
and mix all well, beating very hard and rapidly. Season, and bake in
greased baking-dish. When almost done, cover with a _méringue_ made of
the whites of three eggs and a little powdered sugar.
Eat cold. It is very nice.
FRUIT BREAD PUDDING. (_Very Fine._) +
1 quart of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
3 _large_ cups very fine bread-crumbs.
½ cup suet—powdered.
½ pound raisins seeded and cut in two.
1 table-spoonful finely shred citron.
½ pound sultana raisins, washed well and dried.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, stirred into the dry crumbs.
A little salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.
3 eggs beaten light.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; next, beat in the whipped eggs
and sugar; the suet and spice. Whip the batter very light before the
fruit—strictly dredged with flour and well mixed—goes in. Put the soda
in last. Beat three minutes steadily, before putting it into buttered
mould. Boil two hours. Keep the water boiling hard all the time. Eat
with brandy-sauce.
BREAD AND RAISIN PUDDING.
1 quart milk.
Enough slices of baker’s bread—stale—to fill your dish.
Butter to spread the bread.
4 eggs.
½ cup of sugar.
¾ pound of raisins, seeded and each cut into three pieces.
Butter the bread, each slice of which should be an inch thick, and
entirely free from crust. Make a raw custard of eggs, sugar and
milk. Butter a pudding-dish and put a layer of sliced bread at the
bottom, fitted closely together and cut to fit the dish. Pour a little
custard upon this, strew the cut raisins evenly over it; and lay in
more buttered bread. Proceed in this order until the dish is full.
The uppermost layer should be bread well buttered and soaked in the
custard. Cover the dish closely, set in a baking pan nearly full of hot
water, and bake an hour. When done, uncover, and brown lightly.
_Or,_
You can spread with a _méringue_, just before taking from the oven.
Eat hot, with sauce.
CHERRY BREAD PUDDING.
Is very good made as above, substituting nice dried cherries—without
stones—for the raisins.
Both of these are more palatable than one would imagine from reading
the receipts; are far more easily made, less expensive, and more
digestible than the pie, “without which father wouldn’t think he could
live.”
WILLIE’S FAVORITE. (_Very good._)
1 loaf stale baker’s bread. French bread, if you can get it. It _must_
be white and light.
½ cup suet, powdered.
¼ pound citron, chopped _very_ fine.
½ pound sweet almonds blanched and shaved thin.
5 large pippins, pared, cored and chopped.
1 cup cream and same of milk.
A little salt, stirred into the cream.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
Cut the bread into slices an inch thick, and pare off the crust. Cover
the bottom of a buttered mould (with plain sides) with these, trimming
them to fit the mould and to lie closely together. Soak this layer
with cream; spread with the suet, and this with the fruit chopped fine
and mixed together. Sprinkle this well with sugar, and strew almond
shavings over it. Fit on another stratum of bread; soaking this with
_milk_; then suet, fruit, sugar, almonds, and another layer of bread
wet with cream. The topmost layer must be bread, and _very_ wet. Boil
two hours. Dip the mould in cold water, and turn out carefully upon a
dish. Sift powdered sugar over it.
Eat hot with sweet sauce.
STEAMED BREAD PUDDING. +
1 pint milk.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
½ pound suet powdered.
½ pound sultana raisins, picked, washed and dried.
3 eggs.
1 dessert-spoonful corn-starch.
1 tablespoonful sugar.
A little salt.
½ pound macaroons or ratifias.
Make a custard of milk, eggs and sugar; heat almost to a boil and
stir in the corn-starch wet with milk. Cook one minute; take from the
fire and pour, a little at a time, over the bread-crumbs; beating
into a rather thick batter. Butter a mould thickly; line it with the
macaroons, and put, spoonful by spoonful, a layer of batter in the
bottom. Cover this with suet, then raisins; sprinkle with sugar—put in
more batter, and so on until the mould is nearly full. Fit on the top;
put into the steamer over a pot of boiling water and steam, with the
water at a hard boil, at least two hours. Dip the mould into cold water
to make the pudding leave the sides; let it stand a moment, and turn
out, with care, upon a hot dish.
Eat hot with wine sauce.
CUSTARD BREAD PUDDING. (_Boiled._) +
2 cupfuls fine bread-crumbs—stale and dry.
1 quart of milk.
6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 table-spoonful rice flour.
1 teaspoonful salt, and ½ teaspoonful soda.
Flavor to taste.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; put into a farina-kettle and heat
almost to a boil. Stir in the rice-flour wet with cold milk; cook one
minute; turn into a basin and beat hard several minutes. When almost
cold, add the yolks of the eggs, the soda (dissolved in hot water) and
the flavoring; finally, the whipped whites, mixing them in swiftly and
thoroughly. Boil in a greased mould an hour and a half. Turn out, and
eat hot with sweet sauce.
MACARONI AND ALMOND PUDDING.
½ pound best Italian macaroni, broken into inch lengths.
3 pints milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup white sugar.
5 eggs.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and chopped.
Rose-water and bitter almond flavoring.
A little salt and nutmeg.
Simmer the macaroni half an hour in a pint of the milk.
Stir in the butter and salt. Cover the saucepan, and take from the
fire, letting it stand covered while you make a custard of the rest
of the milk, the eggs and sugar. Chop the almonds, adding rose-water
to keep them from oiling. When the macaroni is nearly cold, put into
the custard; stir up well, but break it as little as possible; put in
nutmeg, bitter-almond extract; lastly the almonds.
Bake in the dish in which it is to be served.
PLAIN MACARONI PUDDING. +
¼ pound macaroni, broken into pieces an inch long.
1 pint water.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 large cup of milk.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
A little cinnamon and salt.
Boil the macaroni slowly in the water, in one vessel set within another
of hot water, until it is tender and has soaked up the water. Add the
butter and salt. Let it stand covered five minutes without removing it
from the range; put in the rest of the ingredients. Stir frequently,
taking care not to break the macaroni, and simmer, covered ten minutes
longer before turning it out into a deep dish.
Eat hot with butter and sugar, or sugar and cream.
ESSEX PUDDING.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
¾ cup powdered suet.
2 table-spoonfuls sago, soaked over night in a little water.
5 eggs, beaten light.
1 cup of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in cold milk.
About ½ pound whole raisins, “plumped” by laying them in _boiling_
water two minutes.
A little salt.
Set the sago over the fire in a farina-kettle with enough water to
cover it, and let it cook gently until tender and nearly dry. Make a
custard of the eggs, milk and sugar; add the crumbs, beating into a
thick batter; next the suet, corn-starch, sago and salt. Beat all up
long and hard.
Butter a mould _very_ thickly, and lay the raisins in the bottom and
sides, in rings or stripes, or whatever pattern you may fancy. Fill the
mould by spoonfuls—not to spoil your pattern—with the batter. Steam one
hour and a half, or boil one hour.
Dip in cold water; let it stand one minute, and turn out upon a flat
dish. The raisins should be imbedded in the pudding, but distinctly
visible upon the surface.
Eat with jelly sauce.
NOTE.—For instructions about pudding-sauces, please see “COMMON SENSE
IN THE HOUSEHOLD—GENERAL RECEIPTS,” page 419.
BOILED APPLE PUDDING.
6 _large_ juicy apples, pared, cored and chopped.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
1 cup powdered suet.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the peel.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
Mix all together with a wooden spoon, stirring until the ingredients
are well incorporated into a damp mass. Put into a buttered mould, and
boil three hours.
Eat with a good, sweet sauce.
BAKED APPLE PUDDING. +
6 or 7 fine juicy apples, pared and sliced.
Slices of stale baker’s bread, buttered.
½ pound citron, shred thin.
Grated peel of half a lemon, and a little cinnamon.
1 cup light, brown sugar.
Cut the crust from the bread; butter it on both sides, and fit a layer
in the bottom of a buttered mould. Lay sliced apple over this, sprinkle
with citron; strew sugar and a little of the seasoning over all, and
put the next layer of bread. The slices of bread should be not quite
half an inch thick. Butter the uppermost layer very abundantly. Cover
the mould or dish, and bake an hour and a half.
Turn out and eat with pudding-sauce.
APPLE BATTER PUDDING. +
6 or 8 fine juicy apples, pared and cored.
1 quart of milk.
10 table-spoonfuls of flour.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
1 table-spoonful butter—melted.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
½ teaspoonful soda.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar.
Set the apples closely together in the baking-dish; put in enough cold
water to half cover them, and bake, closely covered, until the edges
are clear, but not until they begin to break. Drain off the water, and
let the fruit get cold before pouring over them a batter made of the
ingredients enumerated above. Bake in a quick oven.
Serve in the baking-dish, and eat with sauce.
PEACH BATTER PUDDING.
This is made in the same way, but if the peaches are fully ripe and
soft, they need no previous cooking. The stones must be left in.
This is a delightful pudding.
PEACH LÉCHE CRÉMA.
Some fine, ripe peaches pared, and cut in half, leaving out the stones.
3 eggs, and the whites of two more.
3 cups of milk.
½ cup powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, or rice-flour. If you have neither, take
3 table-spoonfuls best family flour.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Scald the milk; stir in the corn-starch wet with cold milk. Simmer,
stirring carefully until it begins to thicken. Take from the fire and
put in the butter. Beat the eggs light, and add when the corn-starch is
lukewarm. Whip all until light and smooth. Put a thick substratum of
peaches in the bottom of a buttered baking-dish; strew with the sugar
and pour the créma gently over them. Bake in a pretty quick oven ten
minutes. Then spread with a méringue made of the whites of five eggs,
whisked stiff with a little powdered sugar. Shut the oven-door for two
minutes to harden this.
Eat warm with sauce, or cold with cream.
RISTORI PUFFS. +
5 eggs.
The weight of the eggs in flour.
Half their weight in butter and in sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Rub the butter and sugar to a cream, whisking until it is very light.
Beat the whites to a standing froth; the yolks thick and smooth. Strain
the latter through a sieve into the butter and sugar; stir in well; add
the lemon, the soda, and the flour alternately with the whites, beating
up rapidly after these go in. Have ready small cups or muffin-rings,
well-buttered; put the mixture into them, and bake at once. In less
than half an hour they should rise high in the pans. Test with a clean
straw to see if they are done; turn out upon a hot dish, and serve with
jelly sauce.
These are almost sure to be a success if made with _good_ prepared
flour—Hecker’s, for example. In this case, use no soda.
JAM PUFFS.
3 eggs.
Half a cup of sweet jam or jelly.
The weight of the eggs in Hecker’s prepared flour.
Half their weight in sugar and butter.
Beat the eggs stiff, whites and yolks separately.
Cream the butter and sugar, strain the yolks into the cream; beat well
before putting in the whites. The flour should go in last. Put the
mixture in great spoonfuls upon your baking-tin. They should not touch,
and must be as uniform in size as you can make them. Bake fifteen
minutes in a quick oven. When cold, run a sharp knife around each,
leaving about an inch uncut to serve as a hinge. Pull far enough open
to put in a spoonful of jelly or jam; close, and sift white sugar over
all when they are filled.
COTTAGE PUFFS.
1 cup milk, and same of cream.
4 eggs beaten stiff, and the yolks strained.
1 table-spoonful butter, chopped into the flour.
A very little salt.
Enough prepared flour for thick batter.
Mix the beaten yolks with the milk and cream; then the salt and whites,
lastly the flour. Bake in buttered iron pans, such as are used for
“gems” and corn-bread. The oven should be quick. Turn out and eat with
sweet sauce.
LEMON PUFFS.
1 cup of prepared flour. Hecker’s _always_, if procurable.
½ cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
3 eggs, beaten stiff. Strain the yolks.
A little salt, and grated peel of 1 lemon.
3 table-spoonfuls milk.
Mix, and bake in little pans as directed in previous receipt.
VANILLA CREAM PUFFS. +
1 cup boiling water.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
1 cup prepared flour.
2 eggs—beaten well.
1 cup powdered sugar and }
Whites of 2 eggs, } for icing.
1 pint cream whipped with a little sugar.
Vanilla seasoning in cream.
Put the water over the fire with one table-spoonful of butter. Boil
up, and work in the flour without removing from the fire. Stir until
stiff, and work in the rest of the butter. Take from the range, turn
out into a bowl and beat in the eggs. Put upon a greased baking-tin in
table-spoonfuls, taking care not to let them touch. Bake quickly, but
thoroughly. When done and cold, cut a round piece out of the bottom
of each, introduce the handle of a teaspoon, and scrape out most of
the inside. Fill the cavity with the whipped cream into which you have
beaten two table-spoonfuls of icing; fit back the round piece taken
from the bottom; set on a dish, and ice. Put into a quick oven one
minute to dry.
COFFEE CREAM PUFFS.
Make as above, but beat into the icing two table-spoonfuls of black
coffee—as strong as can be made, and a little of this icing into the
whipped cream.
CHOCOLATE CREAM PUFFS.
Instead of coffee, season the cream and icing with 2 table-spoonfuls
sweet chocolate, grated. That flavored with vanilla is best. If you
have not this, add a little vanilla extract.
CORN-MEAL PUFFS.
1 quart boiling milk.
2 scant cups white “corn flour.”
½ cup wheat flour.
1 scant cup powdered sugar.
A little salt.
4 eggs—beaten light.
1 table-spoonful butter.
½ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted into flour.
½ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.
Boil the milk, and stir into it the meal, flour and salt. Boil fifteen
minutes, stirring well up from the bottom. Put in the butter and beat
hard in a bowl for three minutes. When cold, put in the eggs whipped
light with the sugar, the seasoning and soda. Whip up very faithfully;
bake in greased cups in a steady oven.
Turn out of cups and eat with pudding sauce, or with butter alone.
WHITE PUFFS (_Very nice_).
1 pint rich milk.
Whites of 4 eggs whipped stiff.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
1 scant cup powdered sugar.
Grated peel of ½ lemon.
A little salt.
Whisk the eggs and sugar to a méringue, and add this alternately with
the flour to the milk. (If you have cream, or half cream half milk, it
is better.) Beat until the mixture is very light, and bake in buttered
cups or tins. Turn out, sift powdered sugar over them, and eat with
lemon sauce.
These are delicate in texture and taste, and pleasing to the eye.
WHITE PUDDING. +
3 cups of milk.
Whites of 6 eggs—whipped stiff.
1 cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 table-spoonful rose-water.
2 heaping cups prepared flour.
Whip the sugar into the stiffened whites; add butter and rose-water;
then the flour, stirred in very lightly.
Bake in buttered mould in a rather quick oven. Eat with sweet sauce.
RUSK PUDDING. +
8 light, stale rusk.
A little more than 1 quart of milk.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
½ cup powdered sugar, ½ teaspoonful soda.
Flavor to taste, with lemon, vanilla or bitter almond.
Pare every bit of the crust from the rusk, wasting as little as
possible. Crumb them fine into a bowl and pour a pint of milk boiling
hot over them. Cover and let them stand until cold. Make a raw custard
of the rest of the milk, the eggs and the sugar. Stir the soda,
dissolved in hot water, into the soaked rusk, when they are cold, put
in the custard. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking-dish—the same
in which it is to be served—and bake in a brisk oven. It should puff
up very light.
Sift powdered sugar over the top and eat warm with sweet sauce. Cream
sauce is particularly good with it.
This is a good way to use up stale buns, rusk, etc. But they must be
really good at first, or the pudding will be a failure. Rusks soon dry
out, and become comparatively tasteless. _Never_ try to renew their
youth by steaming them. You will only make them as sour and flat as a
twice-told tale.
FIG PUDDING.
½ pound best Naples figs, washed, dried and minced.
2 cups fine bread-crumbs.
3 eggs.
½ cup best suet, powdered.
2 scant cups of milk.
½ cup white sugar.
A little salt.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water and stirred into the milk.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; stir in the eggs beaten light with the
sugar, the salt, suet and figs. Beat three minutes; put in buttered
mould and boil three hours.
Eat hot with wine sauce. It is very good.
FIG CUSTARD PUDDING.
1 pound best white figs.
1 quart of milk.
Yolks of 5 eggs, and whites of two.
½ package of gelatine, soaked in a little cold water.
1 cup _made_ wine jelly—lukewarm.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
Flavor to taste.
Soak the figs for a few minutes in warm water to make them pliable.
Split them in two, dip each piece in jelly, and line the inside of a
buttered mould with them. Make a custard of the milk, yolks and sugar;
boil until it begins to thicken well; take off the fire and let it
cool. Meanwhile, beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth; melt the
soaked gelatine in a _very_ little hot water, by setting the vessel
containing this in a saucepan of boiling water; stir until clear. Turn
out to cool. When nearly cold, whip gradually into the whisked eggs.
The mixture should be white and thick before you stir it into the
custard. Whip all rapidly for a few minutes, and fill the fig-lined
mould. Set on ice, or in a cold place to form.
Dip the mould in hot water, to loosen the pudding, and turn out upon a
cold dish.
_Or,_
Besides lining the mould with figs, you may chop some very fine and mix
in with the custard before moulding it.
This pudding is delicious if made with fresh, ripe figs.
MARROW SPONGE PUDDING.
2 cups fine sponge-cake crumbs—made from stale cake—the drier the
better.
½ cup beef marrow, finely minced.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
½ cup white sugar.
½ teaspoonful grated nutmeg.
½ pound fresh layer raisins, seeded and chopped.
¼ pound citron, minced.
1 cup milk.
4 eggs—beaten light—strain the yolks.
1 table-spoonful flour, and a little salt.
Mix the powdered marrow with the crumbs. Make a raw custard of milk,
eggs, and sugar, and pour over the cake. Beat well; put in the flour,
seasoning, lastly, the fruit very thickly dredged with flour. Stir hard
before pouring into a greased mould. Boil three hours. Turn out and eat
hot, with cabinet-pudding sauce.
Be sure that the water actually boils before you put in a pudding, and
do not let it stop boiling for an instant until it is done. Replenish
from the boiling tea-kettle.
PLAIN SPONGE-CAKE PUDDING. +
1 stale sponge-cake.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs—beaten light.
2 cups of milk.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch wet up with cold milk.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated rind.
Slice the cake and lay some in the bottom of a buttered dish. Make a
custard of the milk boiled for a minute with the corn-starch in it.
Flavor to taste when you have added the eggs and sugar; pour over the
cake; put another layer of slices; more custard, and so on, until the
mould is full. Let it stand a few minutes, to soak up the custard; put
the dish in the oven—covered—and bake half an hour. Uncover a few
minutes before you take from the oven and brown slightly.
COCOANUT SPONGE PUDDING. +
2 cups stale sponge-cake crumbs.
2 cups rich milk.
1 cup grated cocoanut.
Yolks of 2 eggs and whites of four.
1 cup of white sugar.
1 table-spoonful rose-water.
1 glass white wine.
Heat the milk to boiling; stir in the crumbed cake and beat into a
soft batter. When nearly cold, add the beaten eggs, sugar, rose-water
and cocoanut—the wine last. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish about
three-quarters of an hour, or until it is firm in the centre and of a
nice brown. Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over the top.
You can make an elegant dessert of this by spreading it with a méringue
made of—
Whipped whites of 4 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
½ cupful of grated cocoanut.
A little lemon-juice.
Whisk until stiff; cover the pudding and leave it in a quick oven two
or three minutes to harden it.
FRUIT SPONGE-CAKE PUDDING (_Boiled_). +
12 square sponge-cakes—stale.
1 pint milk, }
3 eggs—beaten light, } for the custard.
½ cup sugar, }
½ pound currants well washed and dried.
½ pound sweet almonds blanched and cut small.
¼ pound citron chopped.
Nearly a cup of sherry wine.
Soak the cakes in the wine. Butter a mould very thickly and strew it
with currants, covering the inside entirely. Put a layer of cakes at
the bottom; spread with the chopped citron and almonds; put on three or
four spoonfuls of the raw custard, more cakes, fruit, custard, until
the mould is full, or nearly. The pudding will swell a little. Fit on
the cover, and boil one hour.
Eat cold or hot. If the latter, serve jelly-sauce with it. If cold,
turn out of the mould the day after it is boiled, and sift powdered
sugar over it. Pile a nice “whip” about the base.
FRUIT SPONGE-CAKE PUDDING (_Baked_).
2 cups sponge-cake crumbs—very dry.
2 cups boiling milk.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
½ cup of sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls flour—prepared flour is best.
½ pound currants, washed and dried.
Whites of 3 eggs—whipped stiff.
Bitter almond flavoring.
Soak the cake in the hot milk; leave it over the fire until it is
a scalding batter; stir in the butter, sugar and flour—(the latter
previously wet up with cold milk), and pour into a bowl to cool. When
nearly cold, stir in the fruit, well dredged with flour, the flavoring,
and whip up hard before adding the beaten whites. Bake in a buttered
mould from half to three-quarters of an hour. When done, take from the
oven and let it cool. Just before sending to table, heap high with a
méringue made of—
Whites of 3 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
½ pint cream, whipped stiff.
1 glass white wine.
This is a handsome and delightful dessert.
If eaten hot, serve cream sauce with it.
ORANGE PUDDING.
2 oranges—juice of both and grated peel of one.
Juice of 1 lemon.
½ pound lady’s-fingers—stale and crumbed.
2 cups of milk.
4 eggs.
½ cupful sugar.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up with water.
1 table-spoonful butter—melted.
Soak the crumbs in the milk (raw), whip up light and add the eggs and
sugar, already beaten to a cream with the batter. Next the corn-starch,
and when your mould is buttered and water boiling hard, stir in the
juice and peel of the fruit. Do this quickly, and plunge the mould
directly into the hot water. Boil one hour; turn out and eat with very
sweet brandy sauce.
DERRY PUDDING.
2 cups of milk.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
Yolks of 4 eggs and whites of two.
2 oranges. The pulp chopped very fine. Half the grated peel of 1 orange.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Beat eggs and sugar together; whip in the butter until all are a yellow
cream. To this put the orange, and beat five minutes. Rub the flour
smooth in the milk, added gradually, and stir up this with the other
ingredients. Pour at once into a buttered mould, and boil one hour.
Eat hot with jelly sauce.
BOILED LEMON PUDDING.
2 cups of dry bread-crumbs.
1 cup powdered beef-suet.
4 table-spoonfuls flour—prepared.
½ cup sugar.
1 large lemon. All the juice and half the peel.
4 eggs—whipped light.
1 cup of milk—a large one.
Soak the bread-crumbs in the milk; add the suet; beat eggs and sugar
together and these well into the soaked bread. To these put the lemon,
lastly the flour, beaten in with as few strokes as will suffice to mix
up all into a thick batter. Boil three hours in a buttered mould.
Eat hot with wine sauce.
WAYNE PUDDING (_Good_).
2 full cups of prepared flour.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of sugar—powdered.
½ pound Sultana raisins, washed and dried.
1 lemon—the juice and half the grated peel.
⅛ pound citron, cut into long strips—very thin.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten light separately.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream, and strain into this the beaten yolks.
Whip up light with the lemon; then the flour, alternately with the
stiff whites. The raisins should be dredged with flour and go in last.
Butter a mould thickly, line it with the strips of citron; put in the
batter, a few spoonfuls at a time; cover, and set in a pan of boiling
water in the oven. Keep the water in the pan replenished from the
boiling kettle, and bake steadily an hour and a half. Turn out upon hot
plate.
Eat warm with brandy sauce. It is a delicious pudding. Leave room in
mould for the pudding to swell.
ALMOND SPONGE PUDDING.
4 eggs—beaten very light.
The weight of the eggs in sugar and the weight of 5 eggs in prepared
flour.
Half the weight of 4 in butter.
¼ pound sweet almonds blanched and pounded.
Extract of bitter almond.
A little rose-water.
Rub butter and sugar to a light cream; add the yolks and beat hard
before putting in the whites alternately with the flour. The almonds,
pounded to a paste with a little rose-water and bitter almond extract,
should be put in last.
Boil in buttered mould; or set in a pan of water as directed in the
last receipt. The mould should not be much more than half full. Boil
nearly an hour. Eat with lemon sauce—not very sweet.
This is nice baked as a cake.
BOSTON LEMON PUDDING. +
2 cups fine, dry bread-crumbs.
¾ cup of powdered sugar, and half as much butter.
2 lemons, all the juice, and half the grated peel.
2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
5 eggs, beaten light. The yolks must be strained.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream; add the beaten yolks and lemon; whip
very light; put in handful by handful the bread-crumbs alternately with
the stiffened whites, then the flour. Butter a mould, and put in the
batter (always remembering to leave room for swelling), and boil two
hours steadily.
If you have a pudding-mould with a cylinder in the centre, use it for
this pudding. Turn out upon a hot dish, and fill the hole in the middle
with the following mixture:
1 cup powdered sugar, }
3 table-spoonfuls butter, } rubbed to a cream.
Juice of one lemon.
Whipped white of 1 egg.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
Beat all well together.
If you have not an open mould, make this sauce, and pour half over the
pudding, sending the rest in a boat to table.
BOSTON ORANGE PUDDING.
Is made in the same way, substituting oranges for lemons in the
pudding, but retaining the lemon in the sauce.
Both of these are excellent desserts, and if the directions be strictly
followed, are easy and safe to make. Either can be baked as well as
boiled.
LEMON PUDDING.
6 butter-crackers soaked in water, and crushed to pulp.
3 lemons. Half the grated peel.
1 cup of molasses.
A pinch of salt.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
Some good pie-crust for shells.
Chop the pulp of the lemons very fine; stir into the crushed crackers,
with the butter and salt. Beat the molasses gradually into this with
the grated peel. Fill open shells of pastry with the mixture, and bake.
QUEEN’S PUDDING. +
8 or 10 fine, juicy apples, pared and cored.
½ pound macaroons, pounded fine.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ cup crab-apple, or other sweet firm jelly, like quince.
1 table-spoonful brandy.
1 pint of milk.
1 table-spoonful best flour or corn-starch.
Whites of 3 eggs.
A little salt.
Put the apples into a pudding-dish, well buttered; fill half full of
water; cover closely and steam in a slow oven until so tender that a
straw will pierce them. Let them stand until cold, covered. Then drain
off the water. Put into each apple a spoonful of jelly, and a few
drops of brandy; sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Cover again and
leave alone for ten minutes. Scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons,
the salt, the flour, wet in a little cold milk. Boil all together one
minute. Take from the fire; beat for a few minutes, and let it cool
before whipping in the beaten whites. Pour over the apples, and bake
half an hour in a moderate oven.
Eat hot with cream sauce.
ORANGE CUSTARD PUDDING. +
1 quart milk.
5 eggs. The beaten yolks of all, the whites of two.
Grated peel of 1 orange.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar for custard, and 2 spoonfuls for
_méringue_.
Scald the milk, and pour carefully over the eggs which you have beaten
light with the sugar. Boil one minute, season, and pour into a buttered
pudding-dish. Set this in a pan of boiling water, and bake about half
an hour, or until well “set.” Spread with a _méringue_ made of the
reserved whites. Return to oven to harden, but do not let it scorch.
Eat cold.
ROCK CUSTARD PUDDING. +
1 quart milk.
6 eggs.
1 cup powdered sugar for custard and méringue.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour, wet up with cold water.
A little salt.
Vanilla flavoring.
Boil the milk; beat up the yolks of the eggs with three-quarters of
the sugar; cook in the milk until the mixture is smoking hot; stir in
the rice-flour, salt, and boil just one minute. Pour into a buttered
baking-dish, and bake in a pan of hot water until the custard is
nearly, but not quite “set.” Have ready the whites beaten very stiff
with the rest of the sugar, and flavored with vanilla. Without drawing
the dish from the oven, drop this all over it in great spoonfuls,
covering it as irregularly as possible. Do it quickly, lest the custard
should cool and fall. Shut the oven-door for about five minutes more
until the _méringue_ is delicately browned and the custard firm.
Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.
A PLAIN BOILED PUDDING. (No. 1.)
3 cupfuls of flour—full ones.
2 cupfuls of “loppered” milk or buttermilk. Sour cream is best of all
if you can get it.
1 _full_ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
A little salt.
½ cupful _powdered_ suet.
Stir the sour milk gradually into the flour until it is free from
lumps. Put in suet and salt; lastly beat in the soda-water thoroughly,
but quickly.
Boil an hour and a half, or steam two hours.
Eat at once, hot, with hard sauce.
PLAIN BOILED PUDDING. (No. 2.)
1 cup loppered milk or cream.
½ cup molasses.
½ cup butter, melted.
2½ cups flour.
2 even teaspoonfuls of soda, dissolved in hot water.
A little salt.
Mix molasses and butter together, and beat until very light. Stir in
the cream or milk, and salt; make a hole in the flour, and pour in the
mixture. Stir down the flour gradually until it is a smooth batter.
Beat in the soda-water thoroughly, and boil at once in a buttered
mould, leaving room to swell. It should be done in an hour and a half.
Eat hot with a good sauce.
JELLY PUDDINGS. +
2 cups _very_ fine stale biscuit or bread-crumbs.
1 cup rich milk—half cream, if you can get it.
5 eggs, beaten very light.
½ teaspoonful soda, stirred in boiling water.
1 cup sweet jelly, jam or marmalade.
Scald the milk and pour over the crumbs. Beat until half cold, and stir
in the beaten yolks, then the whites, finally the soda. Fill large cups
half full with the batter; set in a quick oven and bake half an hour.
When done, turn out quickly and dexterously; with a sharp knife make
an incision in the side of each; pull partly open, and put a liberal
spoonful of the conserve within. Close the slit by pinching the edges
with your fingers.
Eat warm with sweetened cream.
FARMER’S PLUM PUDDING.
3 cups of flour.
1 cup of milk.
½ cup powdered suet.
1 cup best molasses, slightly warmed.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 pound raisins, stoned and chopped.
1 teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and mace.
1 saltspoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Beat suet and molasses to a cream; add the spice, the salt, and
two-thirds of the milk; stir in the flour; beat hard; put in the rest
of the milk, in which the soda must be stirred. Beat vigorously up from
the bottom for a minute or so, and put in the fruit well dredged with
flour. Boil in a buttered mould at least three hours.
Eat very hot with butter-and-sugar sauce.
NURSERY PLUM PUDDING. +
1 scant cup of raw rice.
1 table-spoonful rice-flour, wet up with milk.
3 pints rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
4 table-spoonfuls sugar.
½ pound currants, washed and dried.
¼ pound raisins, stoned and cut in two.
3 well-beaten eggs.
Soak the rice two hours in just enough warm water to cover it; setting
the vessel containing it in another of hot water on one side of the
range. When all the water is soaked up, shake the rice well and add a
pint of milk. Simmer gently, still in the saucepan of hot water until
the rice is again dry and quite tender. Shake up anew, and add another
pint of milk. So soon as this is smoking hot, put in the fruit, well
dredged with flour; cover the saucepan and simmer twenty minutes. Take
from the fire and put with it the butter, the rice-flour and a custard
made of the remaining pint of milk, the eggs and sugar. Add while the
rice is still hot; stir up well and bake in a buttered pudding-dish
three-quarters of an hour, or less, if your oven be brisk.
Eat warm or cold, with rich cream and sugar.
COCOANUT PUDDING.
1 heaping cup finest bread-crumbs.
1 table-spoonful corn starch wet with cold water.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
½ cup butter.
1 cup powdered sugar.
2 cups milk.
6 eggs.
Nutmeg and rose-water to taste.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; rub the butter and sugar to a cream, and
put with the beaten yolks. Beat up this mixture with the soaked crumbs;
stir in the corn-starch; then the whisked whites, flavoring, and,
at the last, the grated cocoanut. Beat hard one minute; pour into a
buttered pudding-dish—the same in which it is to be served—and bake in
a moderate oven three-quarters of an hour.
Eat very cold, with powdered sugar on top.
IMPROMPTU CHRISTMAS PUDDING. (_Very fine._)
2 cups of best mince meat made for Christmas pies. Drain off all
superfluous moisture. If the meat be rather too dry for pies, it will
make the better pudding.
1½ cups prepared flour.
6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
Whip the eggs and stir the yolks into the mince-meat. Beat them in hard
for two or three minutes until thoroughly incorporated. Put in the
whites and the flour, alternately beating in each instalment before
adding the next. Butter a large mould very well; put in the mixture,
leaving room for the swelling of the pudding, and boil five hours
steadily. If the boiling should intermit one minute, there will be a
heavy streak in the pudding. Six hours’ boiling will do no harm.
Turn out upon a hot dish; pour brandy over it and light just as it goes
into the dining-room. Eat with rich sauce. I know of no other pudding
of equal excellence that can be made with so little trouble as this,
and is as apt to “turn out well.”
If you have no mince-meat in the house, you can buy an admirable
article, ready made, at any first-class grocery store. It is put up in
neat wooden cans (which are stanch and useful for holding eggs, starch,
etc., after the mince-meat is used up) and bears the stamp, “ATMORE’S
CELEBRATED MINCE MEAT.”
And what is noteworthy, it deserves to be “celebrated.” It has never
been my good fortune to meet with any other _made_ mince-meat that
could compare with it.
LEMON SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.
1 heaping cup of prepared flour.
2 cups of rich milk.
½ cup of butter.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very light.
Chop the butter into the flour. Scald the milk and stir into it while
still over the fire, the flour and butter. When it begins to thicken,
add it, gradually, to the beaten yolks and sugar. Beat all up well
and turn out to cool in a broad dish. It should be cold when you whip
in the stiffened whites. Butter a mould; pour in the mixture, leaving
abundance of room for the _soufflé_ to earn its name—and steam one hour
and a half, keeping the water under the steamer at a fast, hard boil.
When done, dip it into cold water for an instant, let it stand one
minute, after you take it out of this, and turn out upon a hot dish.
Eat with brandy sauce.
LÉCHE CRÉMA SOUFFLÉ. +
1 quart of milk.
3 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with cold milk.
1 cup powdered sugar.
½ cup strawberry jam, or sweet fruit jelly.
6 eggs—beaten very light.
Flavoring to taste.
Boil the milk, and stir in the corn-starch. Stir one minute and pour
into a bowl containing the yolks, the whites of two eggs and half
the sugar. Whip up for two or three minutes and put into a nice
baking-dish, buttered. Set in a pan of boiling water and bake half an
hour, or until firm. Just before withdrawing it from the oven, cover
with jelly or jam, put on dexterously and quickly, and this, with a
_méringue_ made of the reserved whites and sugar. Shut the oven until
the _méringue_ is set and slightly colored.
Eat cold, with cream.
CHERRY SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.
1 cup prepared flour.
2 cups of milk.
5 eggs.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Bitter almond flavoring.
½ pound crystallized or _glacé_ cherries.
A pinch of salt.
Scald the milk, and stir into it the flour, wet up with a cup of
the milk. Boil one minute, stirring well up from the bottom of the
farina-kettle; mix in the yolks beaten light with the sugar, flavor,
and let it get perfectly cold. Then whip the whites until you can cut
them with a knife, and beat, fast and hard, into the custard. Butter a
mould thickly; strew with the cherries until the inside is pretty well
covered; put in the mixture—leaving room for puffing—and boil for an
hour and a half.
Dip into cold water; take it out and let it stand, after the lid is
removed, a full minute, before turning it out.
Eat warm with wine, or lemon sauce.
SPONGE-CAKE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +
12 square (penny) sponge-cakes—stale.
5 eggs.
1 cup milk.
2 glasses sherry.
½ cup of powdered sugar.
Put the cakes in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish; pour the wine
over them, and cover while you make the custard. Heat the milk and pour
over the yolks of the eggs, beaten and strained, and half the sugar.
Return to the fire, and stir until quite thick. Pour this upon the
soaked cakes, slowly, that they may not rise to the top; put in the
oven, and when it is again very hot, spread above it the whites whisked
stiff with the rest of the sugar.
Bake ten minutes, or until the _méringue_ is lightly browned and firm.
Serve in the baking-dish.
Eat cold. It will be found very nice.
APPLE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +
6 or 7 fine juicy apples.
1 cup fine bread-crumbs.
4 eggs.
1 cup of sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls butter.
Nutmeg and a little grated lemon-peel.
Pare, core and slice the apples, and stew in a covered farina-kettle,
without a drop of water, until they are tender. Mash to a smooth pulp,
and, while hot, stir in butter and sugar. Let it get quite cold, and
whip in, first the yolks of the eggs, then the whites—beaten _very_
stiff—alternately with the bread-crumbs. Flavor, beat hard three
minutes, until all the ingredients are reduced to a creamy batter, and
bake in a buttered dish, in a moderate oven. It will take about an
hour to cook it properly. Keep it covered until ten minutes before you
take it out. This will retain the juices and prevent the formation of a
crust on the top.
Eat warm with “bee-hive sauce.”
RICE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +
½ cup raw rice.
1 pint of milk.
6 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
Soak the rice in warm water enough to cover it well for two hours.
Put it over the fire in the same water, and simmer in a farina-kettle
until the rice is dry. Add the milk, shaking up the rice—_not_ stirring
it—and cook slowly, covered, until tender throughout. Stir in the
butter, then the yolks of the eggs, beaten and strained, whatever
flavoring you may desire, and when these have cooled somewhat, the
whipped whites. Bake in a handsome pudding-dish, well buttered, half an
hour.
Eat warm—not hot—or _very_ cold.
ARROWROOT SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.
3 cups of milk.
5 eggs.
1 large table-spoonful butter.
3 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 table-spoonfuls Bermuda arrowroot, wet up with cold milk.
Vanilla or other flavoring.
Heat the milk to a boil, and stir into this the arrowroot. Simmer,
using your spoon freely all the time, until it thickens up well. Put in
the butter; take from the fire and beat into it the yolks and sugar,
previously whipped together. Stir hard and put in the whites, whisked
_very_ stiff, and the flavoring.
Butter a neat baking-dish; put in the mixture and bake half an hour.
Sift powdered sugar over it, and serve immediately.
A VERY DELICATE SOUFFLÉ.
5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
2 table-spoonfuls of arrowroot wet up in 4 table-spoonfuls cold water.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Rose-water flavoring.
Beat the sugar into the whipped yolks, and into the whites, little by
little, the dissolved arrowroot. Flavor and whisk all together. Butter
a neat mould, pour in the mixture until half way to the top, and bake
half an hour.
If quite firm, and if you have a steady hand, you may turn it out upon
a hot dish. It then makes a handsome show. It is safer to leave it in
the baking-dish. It must be served at once. It is very nice.
BATTER PUDDING. (_Very nice._) +
1 quart of milk.
16 table-spoonfuls of flour.
4 eggs beaten very light.
Salt to taste.
Stir until the batter is free from lumps, and bake in two buttered pie
plates, or very shallow pudding-dishes.
APPLE AND BATTER PUDDING. (_Very good._) +
1 pint of milk.
2 eggs, beaten light.
1 dessert-spoonful butter, rubbed in the flour.
¼ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
½ teaspoonful of cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
A pinch of salt.
Flour enough for thin batter.
6 apples—well flavored and slightly tart.
Pare and core the apples and put them in a buttered pudding-dish. Pour
the batter over them and bake three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot with
hard sauce.
PUDDING-DISHES.
The baking-dish of “ye olden time” was never comely; often positively
unsightly. Dainty housewives pinned napkins around them and wreathed
them with flowers to make them less of an eyesore. In this day,
the pudding-maker can combine the æsthetic and useful by using the
enameled wares of MESSRS. LALANGE AND GROSJEAN, 89 BEEKMAN STREET,
NEW YORK. The pudding-dishes made by them are pretty in themselves,
easily kept clean; do not crack or blacken under heat, and are set on
the table in handsome stands of plated silver that completely conceal
the baking-dish. A silver rim runs around the top and hides even the
edge of the bowl. They can be had, with or without covers, and are
invaluable for macaroni, scallops, and many other “baked meats.”
Saucepans and kettles of every kind are made in the same ware by this
firm.
FRITTERS.
Not even so-called pastry is more ruthlessly murdered in the mixing and
baking than that class of desserts the generic name of which stands
at the head of this bake. Heavy, sour, sticky and oleaginous beyond
civilized comparison, it is no marvel that the compound popularly known
and eaten as “fritter” has become a doubtful dainty in the esteem of
many, the object of positive loathing to some.
I do not recommend my fritters to dyspeptics and babies, nor as a
standing dish to anybody. But that they can be made toothsome, spongy
and harmless, as well as pleasant to those blessed with healthy
appetites and unimpaired digestions, I hold firmly and intelligently.
Two or three conditions are requisite to this end. The fritters must be
quickly made, thoroughly beaten, of right consistency,—_and_ they must
not lie in the fat the fraction of a minute after they are done. Take
them up with a perforated spoon, or egg-beater, and lay on a hot sieve
or cullender to drain before serving on the dish that is to take them
to the table. Moreover, the fat must be hissing hot when the batter
goes in if you would not have them grease-soaked to the very heart.
Line the dish in which they are served with tissue-paper fringed at the
ends, or a clean napkin to absorb any lingering drops of lard.
BELL FRITTERS. +
2 cups of milk.
2 cups of prepared flour.
3 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs, very well beaten.
A little salt.
½ tea-spoonful of cinnamon.
Beat the sugar into the yolks; add the milk, salt and seasoning, the
flour and whites alternately. Beat hard for three minutes.
Have ready plenty of lard in a deep frying-pan or Scotch kettle; make
very hot; drop in the batter in table-spoonfuls, and fry to a good
brown. Be careful not to scorch the lard, or the fritters will be
ruined in taste and color.
Throw upon a warm sieve or cullender as fast as they are fried, and
sift powdered sugar over them.
Eat hot with lemon sauce.
RUSK FRITTERS. +
12 stale rusks.
5 eggs.
4 table-spoonfuls white sugar.
2 glasses best sherry.
Pare all the crust from the rusk, and cut each into two pieces if
small—into three if large. The slices should be nearly an inch thick.
Pour the wine over them; leave them in it two or three minutes, then
lay on a sieve to drain. Beat the sugar into the yolks (which should
first be whipped and strained), then the whites. Dip each slice into
this mixture and fry in boiling lard to a light golden brown.
Drain well; sprinkle with powdered sugar mingled with cinnamon, and
serve hot, with or without sauce.
LIGHT FRITTERS.
3 cups stale bread-crumbs.
1 quart of milk.
4 eggs.
Salt and nutmeg to taste.
3 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
Scald the milk and pour it over the crumbs. Stir to a smooth, soft
batter, add the yolks, whipped and strained, the seasoning, the
flour—then, the whites whisked very stiff. Mix well, and fry, by the
table-spoonful, in boiling lard. Drain; serve hot and eat with sweet
sauce.
CURRANT FRITTERS. (_Very nice._)
2 cups dry, fine bread-crumbs.
2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
2 cups of milk.
½ pound currants, washed and well dried.
5 eggs whipped very light, and the yolks strained.
½ cup powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful butter.
½ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.
Boil the milk and pour over the bread. Mix and put in the butter. Let
it get cold. Beat in, next, the yolks and sugar, the seasoning, flour
and stiff whites; finally, the currants dredged whitely with flour. The
batter should be thick.
Drop in great spoonfuls into the hot lard and fry. Drain them and send
hot to table.
Eat with a mixture of wine and powdered sugar.
LEMON FRITTERS. +
2 heaping cups of prepared flour.
5 eggs—beaten stiff. Strain the yolks.
½ cup cream.
Grated peel of half a lemon.
½ cup powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful mingled nutmeg and cinnamon.
A little salt.
Beat up the whipped and strained yolks with the sugar; add the
seasoning and cream; the whites, at last the flour, worked in quickly
and lightly. It should be a soft paste, just stiff enough to roll
out. Pass the rolling-pin once or twice over it until it is about
three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut into small, circular cakes with a
tumbler or cake-cutter; drop into the hot lard and fry. They ought to
puff up like crullers. Drain on clean, hot paper. Eat warm with a sauce
made of—
Juice of 2 lemons.
Grated peel of one.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 glass wine.
Whites of 2 eggs beaten stiff.
APPLE FRITTERS.
8 or 10 fine pippins or greenings.
Juice of 1 lemon.
3 cups prepared flour.
6 eggs.
3 cups milk.
Some powdered sugar.
Cinnamon and nutmeg.
A little salt.
Pare and core the apples neatly, leaving a hole in the centre of each.
Cut crosswise into slices half an inch thick. Spread these on a dish
and sprinkle with lemon-juice and powdered sugar.
Beat the eggs light, straining the yolks, and add to the latter the
milk and salt, the whites and the flour, by turns. Dip the slices of
apple into the batter, turning them until they are thoroughly coated,
and fry, a few at a time, in hot lard. Throw upon a warm sieve as fast
as you take them out, and sift powdered sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg over
them.
These fritters require dexterous handling, but if properly made and
cooked, are delicious.
Eat with wine sauce.
RICE FRITTERS. +
2 cups of milk.
Nearly a cup raw rice.
3 table-spoonfuls sugar.
¼ pound raisins.
3 eggs.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 table-spoonful flour.
Nutmeg and salt.
Soak the rice three hours in enough warm water to cover it well. At the
end of this time, put it into a farina-kettle, set in an outer vessel
of hot water, and simmer until dry. Add the milk and cook until it is
all absorbed. Stir in the butter and take from the fire. Beat the eggs
very light with the sugar, and when the rice has cooled, stir these in
with the flour and seasoning. Flour your hands well and make this into
flat cakes. Place in the middle of each two or three raisins which have
been “plumped” in boiling water. Roll the cake into a ball enclosing
the raisins, flour well and fry in plenty of hot lard.
Serve on a napkin, with sugar and cinnamon sifted over them. Eat with
sweetened cream, hot or cold.
CORN-MEAL FRITTERS.
3 cups milk.
2 cups best Indian meal.
½ cup flour.
4 eggs.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
1 table-spoonful sugar.
1 table-spoonful melted butter.
1 teaspoonful salt.
Beat and strain the yolks; add sugar, butter, milk and salt, the
soda-water, and then stir in the Indian meal. Beat five minutes _hard_
before adding the whites. The flour, containing the cream of tartar,
should go in last. Again, beat up vigorously. The batter should be just
thick enough to drop readily from the spoon. Put into boiling lard by
the spoonful. One or two experiments as to the quantity to be dropped
for one fritter will teach you to regulate size and shape.
Drain _very_ well and serve at once. Eat with a sauce made of butter
and sugar, seasoned with cinnamon.
Some persons like a suspicion of ginger mixed in the fritters, or in
the sauce. You can add or withhold it as you please.
PEACH FRITTERS. (_With Yeast._)
1 quart of flour.
1 cup of milk.
½ cup of yeast.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
4 eggs.
2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
A little salt.
Some fine, ripe freestone peaches, pared and stoned.
Sift the flour into a bowl; work in milk and yeast, and set it in a
tolerably warm place to rise. This will take five or six hours. Then
beat the eggs very light with sugar, butter and salt. Mix this with
the risen dough, and beat with a stout wooden spoon until all the
ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Knead vigorously with your
hands; pull off bits about the size of an egg; flatten each and put in
the centre a peach, from which the stone has been taken through a slit
in the side. Close the dough upon it, make into a round roll and set
in order upon a floured pan for the second rising. The balls must not
touch one another. They should be light in an hour. Have ready a large
round-bottomed Scotch kettle or saucepan, with plenty of lard—boiling
hot. Drop in your peach-pellets and fry more slowly than you would
fritters made in the usual way. Drain on hot white paper; sift powdered
sugar over them and eat hot with brandy sauce.
You can make these of canned peaches or apricots wiped dry from the
syrup.
POTATO FRITTERS.
6 table-spoonfuls mashed potato—very fine.
½ cup good cream.
5 eggs—the yolks light and strained—the whites whisked very stiff.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
Juice of 1 lemon. Half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
Work the cream into the potato; beat up light and rub through a sieve,
or very fine cullender. Add to this the beaten yolks and sugar. Whip to
a creamy froth; put in the lemon, flour, nutmeg, and beat five minutes
longer before the whites are stirred in. Have your lard ready and hot
in the frying-pan. Drop in the batter by the spoonful and fry to a
light brown. Drain on clean paper, and serve at once.
Eat with wine sauce.
CREAM FRITTERS. (_Very nice._)
1 cup cream.
5 eggs—the whites only.
2 full cups prepared flour.
1 saltspoonful nutmeg.
A pinch of salt.
Stir the whites into the cream in turn with the flour, put in nutmeg
and salt, beat all up hard for two minutes. The batter should be rather
thick. Fry in plenty of hot sweet lard, a spoonful of batter for each
fritter. Drain and serve upon a hot, clean napkin.
Eat with jelly sauce. Pull, not cut them open.
ROLL FRITTERS, OR IMITATION DOUGHNUTS. +
8 small round rolls, stale and light.
1 cup rich milk.
2 table-spoonfuls sugar.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Beaten yolks of 3 eggs.
1 cupful powdered crackers.
Pare every bit of the crust from the rolls with a keen knife, and
trim them into round balls. Sweeten the milk with the sugar, put in
the spice; lay the rolls upon a soup-plate, and pour the milk over
them. Turn them over and over, until they soak it all up. Drain for a
few minutes on a sieve; dip in the beaten yolks, roll in the powdered
cracker, and fry in plenty of lard.
Drain and serve hot with lemon-sauce.
They are very good.
SPONGE-CAKE FRITTERS.
6 or 8 square (penny) sponge-cakes.
1 cup cream, boiling hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
4 eggs, whipped light.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up in cold milk.
¼ pound currants, washed and dried.
Pound the cakes fine, and pour the cream over them. Stir in the
corn-starch. Cover for half an hour, then beat until cold. Add the
yolks—light and strained, the whipped whites, then the currants thickly
dredged with flour. Beat all hard together. Drop in spoonfuls into the
boiling lard; fry quickly; drain upon a warmed sieve, and send to table
hot.
The syrup of brandied fruit makes an excellent sauce for these.
CURD FRITTERS.
1 quart sweet milk.
2 glasses white wine.
1 teaspoonful liquid rennet.
5 eggs, whipped light.
4 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.
2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Nutmeg to taste.
Scald the milk, and pour in the wine and rennet. Take from the fire,
cover, and let it stand until curd and whey are well separated. Drain
off every drop of the latter, and dry the curd by laying for a few
minutes upon a soft, clean cloth. Beat yolks and sugar together, whip
in the curd until fully mixed; then the flour, nutmeg and whites. The
batter should be smooth, and rather thick.
Have ready some butter in a small frying-pan; drop in the fritters a
few at a time, and fry quickly. Drain upon a warm sieve, lay within a
dish lined with white paper, or a clean napkin; sift powdered sugar
over them, and eat with jelly sauce.
Odd as the receipt may seem in the reading, the fritters are most
palatable. In the country, where milk is plenty, they may be made of
cream—unless, as is too often the case, the good wife _will_ save all
the cream for butter.
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES.
(CONFIDENTIAL—WITH JOHN.)
I do not like that word “allowance.” It savors too much of a stipend
granted by a lordling to a serf; a government pension to a beneficiary;
the dole of the rich to the poor. But since it has crept into general
use as descriptive of that portion of the wife’s earnings which she is
permitted to disburse more or less at her discretion, we must take it
as we find it.
Marriage is to a woman one of two things—licensed, and therefore
honorable beggary, or, a copartnership with her husband upon fair
and distinctly specified terms. When I spoke of the wife’s earnings
just now, it was not with reference to moneys accumulated by work or
investments outside of the home which she occupies with you and your
children. We will set aside, if you please, the legal and religious
fiction that you have endowed her with all—or half your worldly goods,
and put still further from our consideration the sounding oaths with
which you protested in the days of your wooing, that you cared nothing
for pelf and lucre—Cupid’s terms for stocks, bonds and mortgages,
houses and lands—except that you might cast them at her feet. If
you recollect such figures of speech at all, it is with a laugh,
good-humored, or shame-faced, and the plea that everybody talks in
the same way in like circumstances; that pledges thus given are in no
wise to be regarded as promissory notes. Hymen’s is a general court
of bankruptcy so far as such obligations go. Your wife is a sensible
woman, and never expected to take you at your word—at least, such hot
and hasty words as those, in which you declared yourself to be the
most abject of her slaves, and herself the empress of your universe,
including the aforementioned stocks, mortgages, houses and lands, real
and personal estate—all assets _in esse_ and _in posse_.
Having cleared away, by a stroke of common sense, this gossamer, that
like other cobwebs, is pretty while the dew of early morning impearls
it, and only an annoyance afterward; particularly odious when it
entangles itself about the lips and eyes of him who lately admired
it—we will look at the question of the wife’s work and wages from a
business point of view—pencil and paper in hand.
First, we will determine what should be the salary of a competent
housekeeper; one who makes her employer’s interests her own; who rises
up early and lies down late, and eats the bread of carefulness; who is
not to be coaxed away by higher wages, and is never in danger of giving
warning if her “feelings are hurt;” if the servants are insubordinate,
or the master is given to fault-finding, and not always respectful to
herself. It would be to your interest, were you a widower, you confess,
to give this treasure two dollars a day—as women’s wages go. “And,” you
add in a burst of manly confidence, “she would be cheap at that.” But
we will put down her salary in round numbers, at $700 per annum.
Now comes the seamstress’ pay. Again, a “competent person,” one who
is ever in her place; whose work-hours number fourteen out of the
twenty-four, if her services are required by you or the children;
whose needle is always threaded, her eye ever vigilant; with whom
slighting and botching are things unknown by practice; who takes pride
in seeing each of the household trig and tidy; who “seeketh wool and
flax, and worketh willingly with her hands;” who is an adept in fine
needlework as in plain sewing, and not a novice in dress-making; who,
perchance, can “manage” boys’ clothes as well as girls—who will do it,
of a certainty, if you explain that you cannot afford tailors’ bills
for urchins under ten years of age; finally, who possesses that most
valuable of arts for a poor man’s wife,
“To gar auld claes look a’maist as weel as new.”
Shall we allow to this nonpareil the wages of an ordinary seamstress
who “cannot undertake cutting and fitting,”—one dollar a day? Or, is
she entitled to the pay of a dressmaker’s assistant—half a dollar more?
I do not want to be hard with you. We will set her down for $450 a
year. And, again, we conclude that you have made a good bargain.
Next, the nursery-governess, and perhaps the most important functionary
in the household. She must, you stipulate, have charge of the children,
by day and night; guard morals, health and manners, besides teaching
the youngerlings the rudiments of reading and writing; must superintend
the preparation of the elder ones’ lessons for school-recitations,
and look to it that catechism and Bible-lesson are ready for
Sabbath-school; that musical exercises are duly practised; that
home is made so attractive to the boys that they shall not be drawn
thence by the questionable hilarity of engine-house and oyster-cellar.
A lady she must be, else how would your girls be trained to modest
and graceful behavior, and your friends be entertained as you deem
is due to you and to them, in your house? A responsible, judicious
person is indispensable to the comfort and health of you and yours;
one who does not regard the care of a young baby as “too confining;”
nor sleepless nights on account of it, a valid reason for “bettering
herself;” nor a brisk succession of measles, mumps and chicken-pox
cogent cause for informing you that she “didn’t engage for this sort of
work, and would you be suiting yourself with a lady as has a stronger
constitution—immediate, for her trunk is packed.”
Would a thousand dollars per annum provide you with such a hireling? I
knew a wealthy man who offered just that sum for a nursery-governess
during the protracted illness of his wife. She must be intelligent and
ladylike, he stated, qualified to undertake the education of the three
younger children. There were six in all, but there was a tutor for the
boys. The governess’ bed-room adjoined that of the little girls, the
door of which must stand open all night. The baby’s crib was to be by
her bed, and a child, three years old, was also to share her chamber.
She would be treated respectfully and kindly, and every enjoyment of
the luxurious establishment, compatible with the proper discharge of
the duties appointed, would be hers.
_He could get no one to take the place._
This is simple fact, and it is pregnant with meaning.
Nevertheless, what if we put down the wages of your nursery-governess
at the same sum you are willing to give your housekeeper—$700? Oblige
me by adding up the short row of figures under your hand.
$700
450
700
——————
$1,850
This you will please consider as the amount of your wife’s salary, due
from you for services rendered, exclusive of board and lodgings, which
are always the portion of resident employees in your house. There is
no charge for “extras,” you observe. We have said nothing about the
bill for nursing you through that four weeks’ spell of inflammatory
rheumatism last winter, or the longer siege of fever, three years ago,
when this servant-of-all-work sat up with you fourteen weary nights,
and would entrust the care of you to no one else. By her skillful
ministrations, the miracle of her patience, love and prayers, you were
rescued, say the doctors, from the close clutch of death. You cannot
see the figures very distinctly while you think of it, but we agreed,
at the outset, to keep feeling in the background.
You “have tried to be a kind, affectionate husband,” you say, in a very
unbusiness-like way.
I believe you, and so does the blessed little woman whom I have shut
out from this conference, lest her foolish fondness should spoil the
effect of our matter-of-fact talk. I would have you and all husbands
be _just_, no less than loving. Let us return to our figures. The
estimate is for a man of moderate means and modest home, one of
the middle class which is everywhere the bone and muscle of the
community—the class that makes national character, the world over. If
you are wealthy, and put the care of a large and elegant establishment
upon your manager, the remuneration should be in proportion. For a
fancy article you have to pay a fancy price. You misunderstand your
wife and me, if you imagine that we would inaugurate in your household
a debit and credit system and quarter-day settlements. She would be the
first to shrink from such an interpretation of your mutual relations. I
should, of all your friends and well-wishers, be the last to recommend
it.
But I have studied this matter long and seriously, and I offer you as
the result of my observation in various walks of life, and careful
calculation of labor and expense, the bold assertion that every
wife who performs her part, even tolerably well, in whatever rank
of society, more than earns her living, and that this should be an
acknowledged fact with both parties to the marriage contract. The
idea of her dependence upon her husband is essentially false and
mischievous, and should be done away with, at once and forever. It
has crushed self-respect out of thousands of women; it has scourged
thousands from the marriage-altar to the tomb, with a whip of
scorpions; it has driven many to desperation and crime.
“Every dollar is a lash!” I once overheard a wife say, in bitter
soliloquy, as her husband left her presence after placing in her hand
the money for which she had timidly asked him, to pay the weekly
household bills.
Then, still supposing herself unseen, she threw the roll of bank-notes
upon the floor and trampled it under foot, in a transport of impotent,
and, to my way of thinking, righteous wrath.
“An exceptional case?” I beg your pardon! I wish it were. Her husband
meant to be kind and affectionate as honestly as do you. When money was
“easy,” he would give it to her freely and cheerfully, provided his
mood was propitious at the time of her application. He had expended
large sums in the purchase of jewelry and handsome clothing for her,
and exulted in seeing her arrayed in them. He loved her truly, and
was proud of her. His mistake was in ignoring the fact that he _owed_
her anything in actual dollars and cents; that she worked for her
livelihood as faithfully as did he, and that his debt to her was, in
the highest degree, a “confidential” one. If put into the confessional,
he would have admitted that he thought of himself as the only
bread-winner of the family, and was, sometimes, tartly intolerant of
the domestic demands upon his earnings. He made a yet grosser mistake
in feeling and behaving as if the money deposited in her hands for the
current expenses of the establishment, were a gift to her personally.
This is a masculine blunder that poisons the happiness of more women
than I like to think of, or you would be willing to believe. Be
kindly-affectioned as you will, your wife cannot respect you thoroughly
if she sees that you are habitually unreasonable and unjust. And it
is neither just nor rational to speak and act as if all the butter,
flour, sugar, meat and sundries which she saves you the trouble of
buying, and of which, nine times out of ten, she is the more judicious
purchaser, were to be consumed by her, and her alone.
“You never thought of such a thing!” you protest betwixt laughter and
vexation.
Then, do not act as if it were your settled conviction.
Set aside from your income what you adjudge to be a reasonable and
liberal sum for the maintenance of your family in the style suitable
for people of your means and position. Determine what purchases you
will yourself make, and what shall be intrusted to your wife, and put
the money needed for her proportion into her care as frankly as you
take charge of your share. Try the experiment of talking to her as if
she were a business partner. Let her understand what you can afford to
do, and what you cannot. If in this explanation you can say, “we,” and
“ours,” you will gain a decided moral advantage, although it may be at
the cost of masculine prejudice and pride of power. Impress upon her
mind that a certain sum, made over to her apart from the rest, is hers
absolutely. Not a present from you, but her honest earnings, and that
_you_ would not be honest were you to withhold it. And do not ask her
“if that will do?” any more than you would address the question to any
other workwoman. (With what cordial detestation wives regard that brief
query, which drops, like a sentence of the creed, from husbandly lips,
I leave your spouse to tell you. Also, if she ever heard of a woman who
answered anything but “yes.”)
Advise her, for her own satisfaction, and because it is “business
like,” to keep an account of her receipts and expenditures, but apprise
her distinctly that you do not expect her to exhibit this to you,
unless she should need your assistance or advice in balancing her
books, or in some perplexed question of “profit and loss.” She will
be ready to appreciate that the one sum deposited with her is a trust
fund to be used to the best advantage for the general good, and the
proud consciousness that she is the actual proprietor of the other, and
irresponsible, save to her conscience, for the manner in which it is
spent, will make her the more careful not to use it amiss. As to the
housekeeping money—the weekly or monthly “allowance”—you may be very
sure that you and the children will get the benefit of every cent.
However economically she may handle her private store, the bulk of it
will not be increased by surreptitious pinchings from the family supply
of daily bread.
I have known women whose sole perquisites were what they could save
from their not large allowances, who, in the absence of their husbands
from home, would keep themselves and families of hungry, growing
children,—with the consent and co-operation of the latter—upon the most
meagre fare consistent with the bare satisfaction of the cravings of
nature, that the few dollars thus spared might go toward the purchase
of some coveted article of dress for one of the girls; a set of tools
or books for a boy, or a piece of furniture desired by all. Which
bit of economy (!) being reported to the _paterfamilias_ when the
dearly-bought thing was exhibited, was pronounced by him, his hand
complacently finding its way to the plethoric wallet in his pocket, to
be worthy of his august approval. How many husbands have heard their
wives remark how cheaply the family lived when “papa was away?” and how
many have asked themselves seriously why and how this was done?
Other women, and more to be pitied, I am acquainted with, who make
false entries in the account-books, which are showed weekly to their
lords as explanatory of “the way the money goes.” It is easier and less
likely “to make a fuss,” to record that seven pounds of butter have
been bought and used, his lordship having helped in the consumption
thereof, when by sharp management, five have sufficed; to write down
“new shoes for Bobby, $4,00,” when, in reality, the cost of mending his
old ones that they might last a month longer, was only $1,50,—than to
confess to the practical critic who does not overlook a single item,
that the money “made” by these expedients was spent, partly in paying
up a yearly subscription to the Charitable Society; partly for an
innocent luncheon during a day’s shopping in the city.
“Unjustifiable deception?” Have I pretended to excuse it? But I look
back of the timid woman—the pauper, bedecked in silks, laces and
gems,—for most men like to see their wives dressed as well as their
neighbors—the moral coward, who has lied from the natural desire to
handle a little money for herself without being cross-examined about
it—and ask—“by what stress of humiliating tyranny was she brought to
this?”
All women do not manage monetary affairs well, you remind me, gently.
Some are unprincipled in their extravagance, reckless of everything
save their own whims and unconscionable desires. Must a man beggar
himself and those dependent upon him, lest such an one should accuse
him of parsimony? By yielding to demands he knows to be exorbitant, he
proves himself to be weaker even than she.
I have said nowhere that a woman is the best judge of what her husband
ought to appropriate from his gains or fortune for the support of his
family. But he stands convicted of a grave error of judgment, if he has
chosen from the whole world as the keeper of his honor and happiness, a
woman whom he cannot trust to touch his purse-strings.
Let us be patient as well as reasonable. So long as a babe is kept in
long clothes, and carried in arms, it will not learn to walk alone.
The majority of women have been swathed in conventionalities and
borne above the practicalities of business by mistaken tenderness or
misapprehension of their powers, for so long, that, however quick may
be their intuitions, time and practice are necessary to make them
adepts in financiering. The best way to render them trustworthy is
not by taking it for granted, and letting them see that you do, that
they have sinister designs upon your pockets. They are not pirates by
nature, nor are they, even with such schooling as many get from their
legal proprietors, always on the alert to wheedle or extort a few
dollars for their own sty and selfish ends. After all, is there not a
spice of truth in the would-be satire of the old distich?
“What are wives made of—made of?
Everything good, _if they’re but understood_!”
If you chance to be painfully conscious of the mental inferiority and
warped conscience of your partner in the solemn dance of life; if there
is more “worse” than “better” in the everyday wear of the matrimonial
bond; if sloth and waste mark her administration of household affairs,
instead of the industrious thrift you would recommend, and which you
see others practise; if the rent in the bottom of the pouch carries off
the money faster than you can drop it in, you are to be pitied almost
as much as your bachelor neighbor, who sews on his own buttons, and
depends upon boarding-houses for his daily food. Still, my friend, is
there any reason why you should accept the consequences of this one
mistake on your part, with less philosophy; bring to the bearing of it
a smaller modicum of Christian resignation than you summon to support
you under any other? Women have been as grievously misled by fancy or
affection, before now, and have borne the burden of disappointment to
the grave without murmur or reproach.
Then, there is always the chance that your wife is not “understood,”
or that, well-meant as your attempts to “manage” her have been, you
have not selected the most judicious methods of doing this. In this
enlightened and liberal age, nobody, unless he be bigot or fool,
habitually thinks and speaks of women as a lower order of intelligent
beings. But even in your breast, my ill-mated friend, there may lurk a
touch of the ancient leaven of uncharitableness, and in your treatment
of her “whom the Lord hath given to be with you,” there may be a spice
of arrogance, the exponent of which, were you Turk or Kaffir, would be
brute force.
“I do not object to your proposal, my love. You always have your own
way in household affairs,” said a very “kind and affectionate” man to
his wife, with the air of a potentate amiably relinquishing his sceptre
for love’s sake.
“Will you tell me, my dear husband, why, if I conduct ‘household
affairs’ wisely and pleasantly (and you have often acknowledged that I
do!) I should not have my own way?” was the unexpected reply, uttered
in perfect temper—no less sweetly for being an argument. “For twenty
years I have made domestic economy a constant and practical study. Is
it reasonable to suppose that, after all this expenditure of time and
thought, I am not a better judge of ways and means in my profession
than are you, whose life has been spent in other pursuits? For all your
indulgent affection to me, as displayed in a thousand ways since our
marriage-day, I love and thank you. But excuse me for saying that I am
not grateful that you have, as you are rather fond of saying, ‘made it
a point to give me my head’ in all pertaining to housekeeping. That you
do this shows that you are just and honorable. It is no more a _favor_
done to me than is my non-interference with your clerks and purchases,
your shipments and warehouses, a matter for which you should thank me.”
The husband stroked his beard thoughtfully. He was a sensible man, and
magnanimous enough to recognize the truth that his wife was a sensible
woman.
“Upon my word,” he said, presently, with a frank laugh, “that is a view
of the case I never took before. I believe you are right.”
One more hint, which may be of service to those who are not so ready to
acknowledge the superiority—in any case—of feminine reasoning, or to
such as are _not_ blessed with sensible consorts—the best friends of
these ladies being judges.
“Drive him with an easy rein!” said my John in trusting me for the
first time to manage his favorite horse. “His mouth is tender as a
woman’s. You cannot deal with a thoroughbred as with a cold-blooded
roadster.”
“What will happen if I hold him in hard?” inquired I, eyeing the
pointed ears and arched neck with as much apprehension as admiration.
I commend the laconic answer to your consideration, as altogether
pertinent to the subject we have been discussing.
“A rear-up, and a run backward, instead of forward!”
RIPE FRUIT.
THE sight of the fruit-dish or basket upon the breakfast table has
become so common of late years that its absence, rather than its
presence, in the season of ripe fruits would be remarked, and felt
even painfully by some. It is fashionable, and therefore considered
a wise sanitary measure, to eat oranges as a prelude to the regular
business of the morning meal. Grapes are eaten so long as they can be
conveniently obtained. It may be because my own taste and digestion
revolt at the practice of forcing crude acids upon an empty, and often
faint stomach, that I am disposed to doubt the healthfulness of the
innovation upon the long-established rule that sets fruit always in the
place of dessert. I have an actual antipathy to the pungent odor of raw
orange-peel, and have been driven from the breakfast-table at a hotel
more than once by the overpowering effect of the piles of yellow rind
at my left, right, and opposite to me. A cluster of grapes taken before
breakfast would put me, and others whom I know, _hors de combat_ for
the day with severe headache. In the consciousness of this, I can be
courageous in declining the “first course” of an _à la mode_ breakfast,
and at my own table, withholding the fruit until the stomach has
regained its normal tone under the judicious application of substantial
viands. Then, it is pleasant to linger over the vinous globes of
crimson, purple, and pale-green; to dip ripe strawberries in powdered
sugar with lazy gusto; to pare rosy rareripes and golden Bartletts
while discussing the day’s news and plans, in the serene belief that
the healthful, delicious juices are assimilating whatever incongruous
elements have preceded them in the alimentary canal.
I write this, not to guide the practice of other households, but to
enforce a remark I see an opportunity for bringing in here. Be a
slavish follower of no custom whatsoever. It is sensible and expedient
to act in uniformity with your neighbors when you can do so without
moral or physical injury. Conformity to a foolish or hurtful fashion is
always weak, if not positively wicked.
Serve your fruit, then, as the first or last course at your family
breakfast as may seem right to yourself, but, by all means, have it
whenever you can procure it comfortably and without much expense.
In warm weather, you had better banish meat from the morning bill
of fare, three days in the week, than have the children go without
berries and other fresh fruits. Make a pretty glass dish, or silver or
wicker basket of peaches, pears or plums, an institution of the summer
breakfast. In autumn, you can have grapes until after frost; then,
oranges and bananas if you desire. These, being expensive luxuries,
are not absolutely enjoined by nature or common sense. Let the “basket
of summer fruit,” however, be a comely and agreeable reality while
solstitial suns beget bile, and miasma walks, a living, almost visible
presence, through the land.
Fruits, each in its season, are the cheapest, most elegant and
wholesome dessert you can offer your family or friends, at luncheon
or tea. Pastry and plum-pudding should be prohibited by law, from the
beginning of June until the end of September. And in winter, a dish of
apples and oranges flanked by one of boiled chestnuts, and another of
picked walnut or hickory-nut kernels, will often please John and the
bairns better than the rich dessert that cost you a hot hour over the
kitchen-range, when Bridget was called away to a cousin’s funeral, or
Daphne was laid up with “a misery in her head.”
Among the creams, jellies and “forms” of a state-dinner dessert, fruit
is indispensable, and the arrangement and preparation of the choicer
varieties is a matter for the taste and skill of the mistress, or her
refined daughters, as are the floral decorations of the feast.
FROSTED PEACHES.
12 large rich peaches—freestones.
Whites of three eggs, whisked to a standing froth.
2 table-spoonfuls water.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Put water and beaten whites together; dip in each peach when you have
rubbed off the fur with a clean cloth, and then roll in powdered sugar.
Set up carefully, on the stem end, upon a sheet of white paper, laid
on a waiter in a sunny window. When half dry, roll again in the sugar.
Expose to the sun and breeze until perfectly dry, then, put in a cool,
dry place until you are ready to arrange them in the glass dish for
table.
Garnish with green leaves.
FROSTED AND GLACÉ ORANGES.
6 sweet, large oranges.
Whites of two eggs, whisked stiff, }
1 table-spoonful water, } for frosting.
1 cup powdered sugar. }
Cochineal. }
1 cup sugar, }
1 ounce gum arabic, } for glazing.
2 table-spoonfuls hot water, }
Pare the oranges, squeezing them as little as you can, remove every
particle of the inner white skin, and divide them into lobes, taking
care not to break the skin. Take half of the sugar meant for frosting,
and stir it up with a few drops of liquid cochineal. Spread on a dish
in the sun to dry, and if it lump, roll or pound again to powder. Put
the white sugar in another dish. Add the water to the stiffened whites;
dip in one-third of the orange lobes and roll in the white sugar;
another third, first in the eggs and water, then in the red sugar. Lay
them upon a sheet of paper to dry.
Put the gum arabic and hot water together over the fire, and when the
gum is melted, add the cup of sugar. Stir until it is a clear, thick
glue. Set in a pan of hot water and dip the remaining pieces of orange
in it. Lay a stick lengthwise on a flat dish, and lean the lobes
against it on both sides, to dry.
Heap red, white, and yellow together in a glass dish, and garnish with
leaves—orange or lemon leaves if you can get them.
This is a delicate, but not difficult, bit of work, and the effect is
very pretty.
TROPICAL SNOW. +
10 sweet oranges.
1 grated cocoanut.
2 glasses pale sherry.
1 cup powdered sugar.
6 red bananas.
Peel the oranges; divide into lobes and cut these across three times,
making small pieces, from which the seeds must be taken. Put a layer of
these in the bottom of a glass bowl, and pour a little wine over them.
Strew thickly with white sugar. The cocoanut should have been pared and
thrown into cold water before it was grated. Spread some of it over the
sugared oranges; cut the bananas into very thin round slices, and put a
layer of the fruit close together, all over the cocoanut. More oranges,
wine, sugar and cocoanut, and when the dish is full, heap high with the
cocoanut. Sprinkle sugar on this, and ornament with rings of sliced
banana. Eat very soon, or the oranges will grow tough in the wine.
Oranges cut up in the way I have described are more easily managed with
a spoon, and less juice is wasted, than when they are sliced in the
usual manner.
This is a handsome and delightful dessert.
COCOANUT FROST ON CUSTARD. +
2 cups rich milk.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
4 eggs, beaten light.
½ cup powdered sugar.
Rose-water.
1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water and grated.
Scald the milk and sweeten. Stir into it the almonds pounded to a
paste, with a little rose-water. Boil three minutes, and pour gradually
upon the beaten eggs, stirring all the time. Return to the fire and
boil until well thickened. When cold turn into a glass bowl, and heap
high with the grated cocoanut. Sift a little powdered sugar over all.
STEWED APPLES. +
Core the fruit without paring it, and put it into a glass or stoneware
jar, with a cover. Set in a pot of cold water and bring to a slow boil.
Leave it at the back of the range for seven or eight hours, boiling
gently all the time. Let the apples get perfectly cold before you open
the jar.
Eat with plenty of sugar and cream.
Only sweet apples are good cooked in this manner, and they are very
good.
BAKED PEARS. +
Cut ripe pears in half, without peeling or removing the stems. Pack
in layers in a stoneware or glass jar. Strew a little sugar over each
layer. Put a small cupful of water in the bottom of the jar to prevent
burning; fit on a close cover, and set in a moderate oven. Bake three
hours, and let the jar stand unopened in the oven all night.
APPLES AND JELLY. +
Fill a baking-dish with pippins, or other tender juicy apples, pared
and cored, but not sliced. Make a syrup of one cup of water, and half
as much sugar; stir until the sugar is dissolved, and pour over the
apples. Cover closely, and bake slowly until tender. Draw from the
oven, and let the apples cool without uncovering. Pour off the syrup,
and fill the hollowed centres with some bright fruit jelly.
Boil down the syrup fast, until quite thick, and, just before sending
the apples to table, stir into it some rich cream sweetened very
abundantly. Pass with the apples.
BOILED CHESTNUTS.
Put into warm (not hot) water, slightly salted, bring to a boil, and
cook fast fifteen minutes. Turn off the water through a cullender; stir
a good piece of butter into the hot chestnuts, tossing them over and
over until they are glossy and dry.
Serve upon a hot napkin in a deep dish.
WALNUTS AND HICKORY NUTS.
Crack and pick from the shells; sprinkle salt lightly over them, and
serve mixed in the same dish.
Black walnuts are much more wholesome when eaten with salt. Indeed,
they are not wholesome at all without it.
MELONS.
Wipe watermelons clean when they are taken from the ice. They should
lie on, or in ice, for at least four hours before they are eaten. Carve
at table by slicing off each end, then cutting the middle in sharp,
long points, letting the knife go half way through the melon at every
stroke. Pull the halves apart, and you will have a dentated crown.
Wash nutmeg and muskmelons; wipe dry; cut in two, scrape out the seeds,
and put a lump of ice in each half.
Eat with sugar, or with mixed pepper and salt.
CAKES OF ALL KINDS.
NELLIE’S CUP CAKE. +
5 cups of flour.
5 eggs, whites and yolks separated—the latter strained.
1 cup of butter, }
3 cups of sugar, } well creamed together.
1 cup of sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream tartar, sifted with flour.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
If prepared flour be used in this or any other cake, there is no need
of soda and cream of tartar.
Hecker’s flour I have found invaluable in cake-making. Indeed, I have
never achieved anything short of triumphant success when I have used it.
CAROLINA CAKE (WITHOUT EGGS.) +
1 coffee-cup of sugar—powdered.
2 large table-spoonfuls butter, rubbed into the sugar.
1½ cups of flour.
½ cup sweet cream.
½ teaspoonful of soda.
Bake quickly in small tins, and eat while fresh and warm.
WHITE CAKE. +
1 cup of butter, }
2 cups of sugar, } rubbed to a light cream.
1 cup of sweet milk.
6 eggs, the whites only—beaten stiff.
½ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of cream tartar, sifted with flour.
4 cups of flour, or enough for tolerably thick batter.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
CHOCOLATE CAKE. +
2 cups of sugar.
4 table-spoonfuls butter, rubbed in with the sugar.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 heaping cups of flour.
1 teaspoonful of cream tartar, sifted into flour.
½ teaspoonful soda, melted in hot water.
Bake in jelly cake tins.
_Filling._
Whites of two eggs, beaten to a froth.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
¼ pound grated chocolate, wet in 1 table-spoonful cream.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
Beat the sugar into the whipped whites; then the chocolate. Whisk all
together hard for three minutes before adding the vanilla. Let the cake
get quite cold before you spread it. Reserve a little of the mixture
for the top, and beat more sugar into this to form a firm icing.
APPLE CAKE. +
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 cups of flour.
½ cup corn-starch, wet up with a little milk.
½ cup of butter, rubbed to light cream with sugar.
½ cup sweet milk.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted with flour.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
6 eggs, the whites only, whipped very stiff.
Add the milk to the creamed butter and sugar; the soda-water,
corn-starch, then the flour and whites alternately. Bake in jelly cake
tins.
_Filling._
3 tart, well-flavored apples, grated.
1 egg, beaten light.
1 cup of sugar.
1 lemon, grated peel and juice.
Beat sugar and egg up with the lemon. Pare the apples and grate
them directly into this mixture, letting an assistant stir it the
while. The color will be better preserved by this method. Put into a
farina-kettle, with boiling water in the outer vessel, and stir until
it comes to a boil. Let it cool before putting it between the cakes.
It is best eaten fresh.
ORANGE CAKE.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
2 cups of sugar.
Yolks of 5 eggs, whites of three, beaten separately—the yolks strained
through a sieve after they are whipped.
1 cup of cold water.
3 full cups of flour—enough for good batter.
1 large orange, the juice, and half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Cream the butter and sugar; add the eggs; heat in the orange, the
water, soda, and stir in the flour quickly.
Bake in jelly cake tins.
_Filling._
Whites of two eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Juice, and half the peel of an orange.
Whip very light, and spread between the cakes when cold.
Reserve a little, and whip more sugar into it for frosting on top layer.
CHARLOTTE POLONAISE CAKE. (_Very fine._) +
2 cups powdered sugar.
½ cup of butter.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 small cup of cream, or rich milk.
3 cups of prepared flour.
Bake as for jelly cake.
_Filling._
6 eggs, whipped very light.
2 table-spoonfuls flour.
3 cups of cream—scalding hot.
6 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate.
6 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
¼ pound chopped citron.
¼ pound apricots, peaches, or other crystallized fruit.
½ pound macaroons.
Beat the yolks of the eggs very light. Stir into the cream the flour
which has been previously wet with a little cold milk.
Add very carefully the beaten yolks, and keep the mixture at a slow
boil, stirring all the time, for five minutes. Take from the fire
and divide the custard into three equal portions. Put the grated
chocolate, with the macaroons, finely crumbled (or pounded), with one
table-spoonful of sugar, into one pan of the mixture, stirring and
beating well. Boil five minutes, stirring constantly; take from the
fire, whip with your egg-beater five minutes more, and set aside to
cool.
Pound the blanched almonds—a few at a time—in a Wedgewood mortar,
adding, now and then, a few drops of rose-water. Chop the citron very
fine and mix with the almonds, adding three table-spoonfuls of sugar.
Stir into the second portion of custard; heat to a slow boil; take it
off and set by to cool.
Chop the crystallized fruit very small, and put with the third cupful
of custard. Heat to a boil; pour out and let it cool.
Season the chocolate custard with vanilla; the almond and citron with
bitter almond. The fruit will require no other flavoring. When quite
cold, lay out four cakes made according to receipt given here, or bake
at the same time a white cake in jelly-cake tins, and alternate with
that. This will give you two good loaves. Put the chocolate filling
between the first and second cakes; next, the almond and citron; the
fruit custard next to the top. There will be enough for both loaves.
Ice the tops with lemon icing, made of the whites of the eggs whisked
very stiff with powdered sugar, and flavored with lemon-juice.
Lest the reader should, at a casual glance through this receipt, be
appalled at the length and the number of ingredients, let me say that
I have made the “polonaise” frequently at the cost of little more time
and trouble than is required for an ordinary cream or chocolate cake. I
would rather make three such, than one loaf of rich fruit-cake.
A CHARLOTTE CACHÉE CAKE.
1 thick loaf of sponge, or other plain cake.
2 kinds of jelly—tart and sweet.
Whisked whites of 5 eggs.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar—or enough to make stiff icing.
Juice of 1 lemon whipped into the icing.
Cut the cake horizontally into five or six slices of uniform width.
Spread each slice with jelly—first the tart, then the sweet, and fit
them into their former places. Ice thickly all over, so as to leave no
sign of the slices; set in a slow oven for a few minutes to harden;
then, in a sunny window.
This is an easy way of making a showy cake out of a plain one.
FANNY’S CAKE. +
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour—Hecker’s “prepared.”
¼ pound butter rubbed to a cream with the sugar.
8 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 coffee-cupful sweet almonds—blanched.
Extract of bitter almond and rose-water.
Blanch the almonds in boiling water. Strip off the skins and spread
them upon a dry cloth until perfectly cold and crisp. Pound in a
Wedgewood mortar, adding rose-water as you go on, and, at the last,
half a teaspoonful bitter almond extract.
Stir the creamed butter and sugar and yolks together until _very_
light; add to this the flour, handful by handful; then the almond
paste, alternately with the whites. Beat vigorously up from the bottom,
two or three minutes.
Bake in small tins, well buttered. When cold, turn them out and cover
tops and sides with—
_Almond Icing._
Whites of 3 eggs, whisked to a standing froth.
¾ pound of powdered sugar.
½ pound of sweet almonds blanched and pounded to a paste. When beaten
fine and smooth, work gradually into the icing. Flavor with lemon-juice
and rose-water.
This frosting is delicious. Dry in the open air when this is
practicable.
MOTHER’S CUP CAKE.
1 cup of butter, }
2 cups of sugar, } creamed together.
3 cups of flour.
4 eggs beaten light—the yolks strained.
1 cup sweet milk—a small one.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar sifted into the flour.
Nutmeg and vanilla flavoring.
Bake in a loaf, or as jelly-cake.
RAISIN CAKE.
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour.
½ pound butter rubbed to light cream with sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
5 eggs, whites and yolks whipped separately, and the latter strained.
1 pound raisins, stoned, cut in half, dredged with flour, and put into
the cake just before it goes into the oven.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
½ teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
Beat very hard after it is mixed, and bake in small loaves, in a steady
oven.
NEAPOLITAN CAKE. + (_Yellow, pink, white and brown._)
_Yellow._
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup butter stirred to light cream with sugar.
5 eggs—beaten well, yolks and whites separately.
½ cupful sweet milk.
3 cups prepared flour.
A little nutmeg.
_Pink and White._
1 pound sugar—powdered.
1 pound prepared flour.
½ pound butter creamed with sugar.
10 eggs—the whites only—whisked stiff.
Divide this batter into two equal portions. Leave one white, and color
the other with a very little prepared cochineal. Use it cautiously, as
a few drops too much will ruin the color.
_Brown._
3 eggs beaten light.
1 cup powdered sugar.
¼ cup of butter creamed with sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls cream.
1 _heaping_ cup prepared flour.
2 table-spoonfuls vanilla chocolate grated and rubbed smooth in the
cream, before it is beaten into the cake.
Bake all in jelly-cake tins. The above quantity should make one dozen
cakes—three of each color. Of course, half as much will suffice for an
ordinary family baking. But it is convenient to prepare it wholesale in
this manner for a large supper, for a charity bazaar entertainment, or
a church “sociable.”
_Filling._
1st. 2 cups sweet milk.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with milk.
2 eggs.
2 small cups powdered sugar.
Heat the milk, stir in the sugar and corn-starch; boil five minutes and
put in the eggs. Stir steadily until quite thick. Divide this custard
into two parts. Stir into one 2 table-spoonfuls of chocolate (grated)
and a teaspoonful of vanilla; into the other bitter almond.
2d. Whites of three eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup of powdered sugar—heaping.
Juice, and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Whip up well. Lay the brown cake as the foundation of the pile; spread
with the yellow custard. Put the pink, coated with chocolate, next, and
the white frosting between the third and fourth cakes—_i.e._ the white
and yellow. You can vary the order as your fancy dictates. Cover the
top with powdered sugar, or ice it.
This cake looks very handsome cut into slices and mixed with plain, in
baskets or salvers. You can hardly do better than to undertake it, if
you have promised a liberal contribution to any of the objects above
named.
ORLEANS CAKE.
1 liberal pound best flour, dried and sifted.
1 pound powdered sugar.
¾ pound butter, rubbed to a cream with the sugar.
6 eggs beaten light, and the yolks strained.
1 cup cream.
1 glass best brandy.
1 teaspoonful mixed mace and cinnamon.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar sifted with flour.
Add the strained yolks to the creamed butter and sugar; to this, the
cream and soda—then, in alternate supplies, the whites and flour;
finally, spice and brandy. Beat up hard for three minutes, and bake in
two square loaves. The oven should not be too quick, but steady. Cover
with paper if the cake shows signs of crustiness on the top before it
has risen to the proper height. It should bake one hour.
Cover with lemon frosting when it is cool.
It is a good cake, and keeps well.
MORRIS CAKE. +
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup butter, creamed with the sugar.
4 cups flour.
5 eggs beaten light, the yolks strained.
1 rather large cup _sour_ cream, or loppered milk.
½ grated nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Stir beaten yolks, butter, and sugar together, and beat _very_ light.
Put in nutmeg and vanilla, the sour cream, half the flour, the
soda-water, and the rest of the flour. Beat with steady strokes five
minutes, bringing up batter from the bottom of the bowl at every sweep
of the wooden spoon. In this way you drive the air into the cells
of the egg-batter, instead of _out_ of them. This is a knack in the
cake-maker’s art that is too little understood and practised.
Remember, then, that the _motion should always be upward, and the spoon
always come up full_.
Bake in two loaves, or several smaller ones. The oven should not be too
quick.
MONT BLANC CAKE. +
2 even cups of powdered sugar.
¾ cup butter, creamed with sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs, very stiff.
1 cup of milk.
3 cups of flour, or enough for good batter.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Vanilla flavoring.
Bake in jelly-cake tins.
_Filling._
Whites of three eggs, whisked stiff.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
Mix all lightly together, taking care not to bruise the cocoanut, and
when the cakes are perfectly cold, spread between, and upon them.
CREAM ROSE CAKE. (_Very pretty._) +
Whites of 10 eggs, beaten to standing froth.
1 cup butter, creamed with sugar.
3 cups powdered sugar.
1 small cup of sweet cream.
_Nearly_ 5 cups prepared flour.
Vanilla flavoring, and liquid cochineal.
Stir the cream (into which it is safe to put a pinch of soda) into the
butter and sugar. Beat five minutes with “the Dover,” until the mixture
is like whipped cream. Flavor with vanilla, and put in by turns the
whites and the flour. Color a fine pink with cochineal. Bake in four
jelly-cake tins. When cold, spread with,
_Filling._
1½ cocoanuts, pared and grated.
Whites of 4 eggs, whisked stiff.
1½ cups powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls best rose-water.
Instead of cochineal, you can use strawberry or currant juice in their
season, making allowance for the thinning of your batter, by adding a
little more flour. Cochineal is much better, however, since it takes
but a few drops to color the whole cake. Any druggist will prepare it
for you as he does for the confectioners, as a liquid. Or, he will
powder it, and you can add to a pinch of the grayish crimson-dust a
_very_ little water; strain it, and stir in, drop by drop, until you
get the right tint. It is without taste or odor, and is perfectly
harmless.
Heap the cake after it is filled, with the white mixture, beating more
sugar into that portion intended for the frosting.
SULTANA CAKE.
4 cups flour.
1 cup of butter.
3 cups powdered sugar.
8 eggs, beaten light. Strain the yolks.
1 cup cream, or rich milk.
1 pound sultana (seedless) raisins, dredged thickly.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 smaller teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar.
½ grated nutmeg, and ½ teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Cream the butter and sugar. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour.
Dredge the raisins with flour when you have picked them over with great
care, washed and dried them.
Mix the beaten yolks with the creamed butter and sugar; then, the spice
and brandy. Beat three minutes, and stir in the cream or milk lightly
with the soda-water. Put in, first a handful of one, then a spoonful
of the other, the flour and whipped whites. At last, beat in the fruit.
Bake in two large loaves, or four smaller ones. My own preference is
for small loaves of cake. They are safer in baking, and can be cut more
economically, especially where the family is not large. It is better to
cut up the whole of a small cake for one meal, than to halve or quarter
a large one, since the outer slices must be dry at the next cutting,
and are wasted, to say nothing of the effect of the air upon the whole
of the exposed interior.
The Sultana must be baked slowly and carefully, and like all
fruit-cakes, longer than a plain one. Ice thickly. It will keep very
well.
MY LADY’S CAKE. +
2 cups powdered sugar.
½ cup butter, creamed with the sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup of milk.
3 full cups of prepared flour.
Flavor with vanilla.
Bake in jelly-cake tins.
_Filling._
1 cup sweet cream, whipped stiff.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
½ cup grated cocoanut, stirred in lightly at the last.
1 teaspoonful rose-water.
A very delicate and delicious cake, but must be eaten very soon after
it is made, since the cream will be sour or stale after twenty-four
hours. It is best on the day in which it is made.
COCOANUT AND ALMOND CAKE. +
2½ cups powdered sugar.
1 cup of butter.
4 full cups prepared flour.
Whites of 7 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 small cup of milk, with a mere pinch of soda.
1 grated cocoanut.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
Cream butter and sugar; stir in lemon and nutmeg. Mix well, add the
milk, the whites and flour alternately. Lastly, stir in the grated
cocoanut swiftly and lightly.
Bake in four jelly-cake tins.
_Filling._
1 pound sweet almonds.
Whites of 4 eggs, whisked stiff.
1 heaping cup powdered sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls rose-water.
Blanch the almonds. Let them get cold and dry. Then pound in a
Wedgewood mortar, adding rose-water, as you go on. Save about two
dozen to shred for the top. Stir the paste into the icing after it is
made; spread between the cooled cakes. Make that for the top a trifle
thicker, and lay it on heavily. When it has stiffened somewhat, stick
the shred almonds closely over it. Set in the oven to harden, but do
not let it scorch.
You will like this cake.
COCOANUT SPONGE CAKE.
5 eggs, whites and yolks separated.
1 cup powdered sugar.
1 _full_ cup prepared flour.
Juice and half the grated peel of 1 lemon.
A little salt.
½ grated nutmeg.
1 cocoanut, pared and grated.
Stir together sugar, and the whipped and strained yolks. To this put
the lemon, salt and nutmeg. Beat in the flour and whites by turns, then
the grated cocoanut.
Bake in square, shallow tins, or in one large card. It should be done
in half an hour, for the oven must be quick, yet steady.
It is best eaten fresh.
RICHER COCOANUT CAKE. +
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 pound flour, dried and sifted.
½ pound butter, rubbed to cream with sugar.
1 cup of fresh milk.
1 lemon, the juice and half the grated peel.
5 eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately.
1 grated cocoanut.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 smaller teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
Bake in two square, shallow pans.
Ice, when cold, with lemon icing.
COFFEE CAKE.
5 cups flour, dried and sifted.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup made black coffee—the very best quality.
½ pound raisins, seeded and minced.
½ pound currants, washed and dried.
¼ pound citron, chopped fine.
3 eggs, beaten very light.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ teaspoonful mace.
¼ teaspoonful cloves.
1 teaspoonful—a full one—of _saleratus_.
Cream the butter and sugar, warm the molasses slightly, and beat these,
with the spices, hard, five minutes, until the mixture is very light.
Next, put in the yolks, the coffee, and when these are well mixed, the
flour, in turn with the whipped whites. Next, the saleratus, dissolved
in hot water, and the fruit, all mixed together and dredged well with
flour. Beat up very thoroughly, and bake in two loaves, or in small
round tins.
The flavor of this cake is peculiar, but to most palates very pleasant.
Wrap in a thick cloth as soon as it is cold enough to put away without
danger of “sweating,” and shut within your cake box, as it soon loses
the aroma of the coffee if exposed to the air.
MOLASSES FRUIT CAKE.
1½ pound flour.
1 pound powdered sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup sour cream.
5 eggs, beaten very light.
1 pound of raisins, seeded and cut into thirds.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon and cloves.
½ grated nutmeg.
½ teaspoonful ginger.
¾ pound butter.
1 full teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Cream butter and sugar; warm the molasses slightly and beat into this
with spices and cream. Add the yolks of the eggs, stir in the flour and
the whites alternately, the soda-water, then the fruit, well dredged
with flour. Beat all together vigorously for at least three minutes
before putting into well-buttered tins to be baked.
It will require long and careful baking, the molasses rendering it
liable to burn.
UNITY CAKE. +
1 egg.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 cup of cream (with a pinch of soda stirred in).
1 pint of prepared flour.
1 table-spoonful butter.
1 saltspoonful nutmeg.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
Rub the butter and sugar together; add the beaten egg, the cream
and nutmeg. Whip all for five minutes with the “Dover,” stir in the
vanilla, and then very lightly, the flour.
Bake at once.
It is a nice cake if eaten while fresh.
BROWN CAKE.
4 cups flour.
1 cup butter.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup best brown sugar.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 table-spoonful mixed cloves and cinnamon.
1 pound sultana raisins, washed, picked over and dried.
1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Warm the molasses, butter and sugar slightly, and whip with an
egg-beater to a cream. Beat in the yolks, the spices, the whites,
flour, soda-water, and lastly the fruit, dredged with flour.
Beat hard for two or three minutes, and bake in two loaves or in small
round tins.
The oven must be moderate and steady.
MYRTLE’S CAKE. +
5 eggs, beaten light, and the yolks strained.
3 cups of powdered sugar.
1 cup of butter creamed with the sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
4 cups of prepared flour.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
A little nutmeg.
Bake in two loaves. It is a very good cup cake, safe and easy. Cover
with lemon frosting.
RISEN SEED CAKE.
1 pound of flour.
½ pound of butter.
¾ pound powdered sugar.
½ cup good yeast.
4 table-spoonfuls cream.
Nutmeg.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water.
2 table-spoonfuls carraway seed.
¼ pound of citron shred very small.
Mix flour, cream, half the butter (melted) and the yeast together;
work up very well and set to rise for six hours. When very light,
work in the rest of the butter rubbed to a cream with the sugar, the
soda-water, and when these ingredients are thoroughly incorporated, the
seed and citron. Let it rise three-quarters of an hour longer—until it
almost fills the pans—and bake steadily half an hour if you have put it
in small pans, an hour, if it is in large loaves. This is a German cake.
CITRON CAKE.
6 eggs, beaten light and the yolks strained.
2 cups of sugar.
¾ cup of butter.
2½ cups prepared flour, or enough to make pound-cake batter. With some
brands you may need 3 cups.
½ pound citron cut in thin shreds.
Juice of an orange and 1 teaspoonful grated peel.
Cream butter and sugar; add the yolks, the whites and flour by turns,
the orange, and lastly, the citron, dredged with flour. Beat all up
hard, and bake in two loaves.
RICH ALMOND CAKE. +
4 cups prepared flour.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 cup of butter.
10 eggs, whipped light, the yolks strained.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
1 table-spoonful orange-flower water.
Nutmeg.
Beat butter and sugar ten minutes until they are like whipped cream;
add the strained yolks, the whites and flour alternately with one
another, then the almond paste in which the orange-flower water has
been mixed as it was pounded, and the nutmeg. Beat well and bake as
“snow balls,” in small round, rather deep pans, with straight sides.
They will require some time to bake. Cover with almond icing.
A CHARLOTTE À LA PARISIENNE. +
1 large stale sponge-cake.
1 cup rich sweet custard.
1 cup sweet cream, whipped.
2 table-spoonfuls rose-water.
½ grated cocoanut.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Cut the cake in horizontal slices the whole breadth of the loaf. They
should be about half an inch thick. Divide the whipped eggs into two
portions; into one stir the cocoanut with half the sugar; into the
other the almond paste with the rest of the sugar. Spread the slices
with these mixtures,—half with the cocoanut, half with almond, and
replace them in their original form, laying aside the top-crust for a
lid. Press all the sliced cake firmly together, that the slices may not
slip, and with a sharp knife cut a deep cup out of the centre down to
the bottom slice, which must be left entire. Take out the rounds you
have cut, leaving walls an inch thick, and soak the part removed in
a bowl with the custard. Rub it to a smooth batter, and whip it into
the frothed cream. The rose-water in the almond paste will flavor it
sufficiently. When it is a stiff rich cream, fill the cavity of the
cake with it, put on the lid, and ice with the following:
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 heaping cup of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Beat stiff and cover the sides and top of the cake. Set in a very cold
place until needed.
This is a delicious and elegant Charlotte.
JEANIE’S FRUIT CAKE.
6 eggs.
1 cup of butter.
2½ cups of powdered sugar.
5 cups of flour.
2 cups of sour cream.
½ pound raisins, seeded and chopped.
¼ pound citron, shred finely.
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the yolks; the cream and spices,
whip together for a minute, stir in the flour and whites, the soda,
dissolved in hot water, and, very quickly, the fruit dredged with
flour. Stir up hard and bake immediately.
This will make two good-sized loaves.
POMPTON CAKE. +
2 cups powdered sugar.
3 cups prepared flour.
1 cup rich, sweet cream.
A little salt.
3 eggs whipped very light.
Vanilla and nutmeg flavoring.
Beat the eggs very light—the whites until they will stand alone, the
yolks until they are thick and smooth. Put yolks and sugar together;
whip up well; add the cream, the flour, whites and flavoring, stirring
briskly and lightly; fill your “snow-ball” pans or cups and bake at
once, in a quick oven.
This cake may be made of sour cream, if a teaspoonful of soda be added.
In this case, the prepared flour must not be used.
MAY’S CAKE.
3 cups flour, full ones.
3 eggs.
½ cup of milk.
2 cups of sugar.
½ cup of butter.
½ cup of cream.
½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Nutmeg, and a pinch of grated lemon-peel.
Bake in one loaf.
FRED’S FAVORITE. +
3 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 cup of sugar.
2 cups of flour.
½ cup rich milk—cream is better.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar sifted in flour.
Extract of bitter almond.
Bake in jelly-cake tins and when cold, spread with the following.
_Filling._
Whites of 4 eggs, whipped stiff.
Heaping cup of powdered sugar.
2 table-spoonfuls crab-apple jelly, beaten into the _méringue_ after it
is stiff.
Reserve enough of the frosting before you add the jelly, to cover the
top.
CORN-STARCH CUP CAKE.
5 eggs.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup sweet milk.
1 cup corn-starch.
2 cups prepared flour.
Vanilla flavoring.
Bake at once in small loaves, and eat while fresh. All corn-starch
cakes become dry and insipid after twenty-four hours.
“ONE, TWO, THREE” CUP CAKE. +
1 cup powdered sugar.
2 cups prepared flour.
3 eggs well beaten.
1 table-spoonful butter.
½ cup milk.
A little vanilla.
Bake in jelly-cake tins, and spread with _méringue_ or jelly.
SNOW-DRIFT CAKE.
2 cups powdered sugar.
1 heaping cup prepared flour.
10 eggs—the whites only, whipped stiff.
Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.
A little salt.
Whip the eggs stiff, beat in the sugar, lemon, salt, and finally the
flour. Stir in very lightly and quickly and bake at once in two loaves,
or in square cards.
It is a beautiful and delicious cake when fresh. It is very nice, baked
as jelly-cake and spread with this:
_Filling._
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 heaping cup of powdered sugar.
Juice of 1 orange and half the peel.
Juice of ½ lemon.
Whip to a good _méringue_ and put between the layers, adding more sugar
for the frosting on the top.
NEWARK CAKE.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
4 even cups prepared flour.
1 cup of good milk.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
Nutmeg and bitter almond flavoring.
If you have not the prepared flour, put in a teaspoonful of soda and
two of cream of tartar.
WINE CAKE.
3½ cupfuls prepared flour.
½ cup of butter.
4 eggs—beaten light.
½ cupful cream (with a pinch of soda in it).
½ glass sherry wine.
Nutmeg.
2 full cups of powdered sugar.
Cream butter and sugar; beat in the yolks and wine until very light,
add the cream; beat two minutes and stir in very quickly, the whites
and flour.
Bake in one loaf.
FRUIT AND NUT CAKE. +
4 cups of flour.
2 cups of sugar.
1 cup of butter.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separated.
1 cup cold water.
1 coffee cupful of hickory-nut kernels, free from shells and very sweet
and dry.
½ pound raisins, seeded, chopped and dredged with flour.
1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.
1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.
Rub butter and sugar together to a smooth cream; put in the yolks, then
the water, spice, soda; next the whites and flour. The fruit and nuts,
stirred together and dredged, should go in last. Mix thoroughly and
bake in two loaves.
UNITY GINGERBREAD. +
1 cup of butter.
1 cup sugar.
1 cup molasses—the very best.
1 cup “loppered” milk or buttermilk.
1 quart flour.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves and mace.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 cup raisins, seeded and cut in two.
1 half-pound eggs—beaten light.
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water.
Put butter, molasses and sugar together; warm slightly and whip with an
egg-beater, until light and creamy. Add the eggs, milk, spices; flour,
soda-water. Beat hard for a minute, then put in the fruit, well dredged
with flour. Bake in two loaves, or cards. For the sake of “preserving
the unities” “1 half pound of eggs” is introduced into this _unique_
receipt. It is safe, however, if you do not care to take the trouble
of weighing them, to allow four (or five, if they are small,) to the
half-pound.
RICHMOND GINGERBREAD. +
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of molasses.
1 cup of butter.
1 cup of sweet milk.
4 cups of flour.
4 eggs.
1 table-spoonful mixed ginger and mace.
1 teaspoonful soda—a small one—dissolved in the milk.
Beat sugar, molasses, butter and spice together to a cream; add the
whipped yolks, the milk, and, very quickly, the whites and flour.
Bake in one loaf, or in cups.
EGGLESS GINGERBREAD. +
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of best molasses.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of sour cream.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
1 heaping teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Nearly 4 cups of flour.
Mix, and bake quickly, adding the soda-water last, and beating hard for
two minutes after it goes in.
SUGAR GINGERBREAD. +
1 cup butter.
2 cups of sugar.
4 eggs, beaten very light.
1 cup of sour _cream_.
4½ cups of flour.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
½ grated nutmeg.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
1 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Bake in two loaves. It is very nice, and will keep several days if
wrapped in a thick cloth.
HALF-CUP GINGERBREAD.
½ cup of sugar.
½ cup of butter.
½ cup of best molasses.
½ cup of sour milk.
½ pound of eggs.
½ pound of flour, _or_ enough for good batter.
½ coffee-cup of raisins, seeded and halved.
½ table-spoonful ginger.
½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ _dessert_-spoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
Cream butter, sugar, molasses and spices. Beat thoroughly before
adding yolks and milk. Put in flour and whites alternately, then the
soda-water. Mix well, and stir in the fruit dredged with flour.
Bake in one card or loaf.
CURRANT CAKE. +
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of powdered sugar, creamed with butter.
½ cup of sweet milk.
4 eggs.
3 cups of prepared flour.
½ grated nutmeg.
½ pound currants, washed, dried and dredged.
Put the fruit in last. Bake in cups or small pans. They are very nice
for luncheon or tea—very convenient for Sabbath-school suppers and
picnics.
COCOANUT CAKES. (_Small._)
1 grated cocoanut.
1 cup powdered sugar.
3 eggs—the whites only, whipped stiff.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet in the milk of the cocoanut.
Rose-water flavoring.
Whip the sugar into the stiffened whites; then the corn-starch, the
cocoanut and rose-water last. Beat up well, and drop by the spoonful
upon buttered paper.
Bake half an hour.
ROSE DROP CAKES. (_Cocoanut._)
Mix as directed in last receipt, coloring the _méringue_ before you put
in the cocoanut, with liquid cochineal. Add cautiously until you get
the right tint.
VARIEGATED CAKES.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
½ cup of butter, creamed with the sugar.
½ cup of milk.
4 eggs—the whites only, whipped light.
2½ cups of prepared flour.
Bitter-almond flavoring.
Spinach-juice and cochineal.
Cream butter and sugar, add the milk, flavoring the whites and flour.
Divide the batter into three parts. Bruise and pound a few leaves of
spinach in a thin muslin bag, until you can express the juice. Put a
few drops of this into one portion of the batter, color another with
cochineal, leaving the third white. Put a little of each into small
round pans or cups, giving a slight stir to each color as you add the
next. This will vein the cakes prettily. Put the white between the pink
and green, that the tints may show better.
If you can get pistachio-nuts to pound up for the green, the cakes will
be much nicer.
Ice on sides and top.
SNOW-DROPS.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
Whites of 5 eggs.
1 small cup of milk.
3 full cups of prepared flour.
Flavor with vanilla and nutmeg.
Bake in small, round tins. Those in the shape of fluted shells are very
pretty.
RICH DROP CAKES.
1 pound of flour.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
¾ pound of butter.
½ pound of currants, washed and dried.
4 eggs, beaten very light.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful of soda, wet up with hot water.
Dredge the currants, and put them in last of all. Drop the mixture by
the spoonful, upon buttered paper, taking care that they are not so
close together as to touch in baking.
KELLOGG COOKIES.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups powdered sugar, creamed with the butter.
3 table-spoonfuls sour _cream_.
4 eggs, beaten very light.
5 cups of flour.
1 teaspoonful—an even one—of soda.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
A handful of currants, washed and dried.
Mix all except the fruit, into a dough just stiff enough to roll out.
The sheet should be about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut round, and
bake quickly. When about half done open the oven-door; strew a few
currants upon each cookey, and close the door again immediately, lest
the cakes should get chilled.
BERTIE’S COOKIES. +
1 large cup of sugar.
½ cup of butter.
1 cup sweet milk.
3 eggs, beaten light.
4 cups prepared flour, or enough to enable you to roll out the dough.
Nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cream butter, spice and sugar; add the yolks, then the milk; whites
and flour alternately; roll into a thin sheet with as few strokes as
possible; cut into fancy shapes with tin-cutters, and bake quickly.
SEED COOKIES.
1 cup of butter.
2½ cups powdered sugar.
4 eggs.
4 cups of flour, or enough for soft dough.
2 ounces carraway-seeds, scattered through the flour while dry.
Rub butter and sugar to a cream; add the yolks, and mix up well. Put in
flour and whites in turns; roll out thin and cut into round cakes.
MONTROSE COOKIES. +
1 pound of flour.
½ pound of butter.
½ pound of powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful mixed spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, and a few
raisins.
3 eggs, well beaten.
Juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel.
Roll out rather thin, and cut into round or oval cakes. Sprinkle a
little white sugar over the top; lay a whole raisin in the centre of
each, and bake quickly until crisp.
AUNT MOLLY’S COOKIES.
1 cup of butter.
2 cups powdered sugar.
4 eggs.
4 cups of prepared flour, or enough for soft dough.
2 table-spoonfuls of cream.
Nutmeg and mace.
Roll into a thin sheet, and cut into small cakes. Bake in a quick oven
until crisp and of a delicate brown. Brush them over while hot with a
soft bit of rag dipped in sugar and water, pretty thick.
LEMON MACAROONS.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
4 eggs, whipped very light and long.
Juice of 3 lemons, and peel of one.
1 heaping cup of prepared flour.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
Butter your hands lightly; take up small lumps of the mixture; make
into balls about as large as a walnut, and lay them upon a sheet of
buttered paper—more than two inches apart. Bake in a brisk oven.
LEMON COOKIES.
1 pound of flour, or enough for stiff dough.
¼ pound of butter.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
Juice of 2 lemons, grated peel of one.
3 eggs, whipped very light.
Stir butter, sugar, lemon-juice and peel to a light cream. Beat at
least five minutes before adding the yolks of the eggs. Whip them in
thoroughly, put in the whites, lastly the flour. Roll out about an
eighth of an inch in thickness, and cut into round cakes. Bake quickly.
Keep in a dry place in a tin box, but do not wrap them up, as they are
apt to become soft.
CARRAWAY COOKIES. +
½ pound of butter, }
½ pound of sugar, } rubbed to a cream.
3 eggs, beaten long and light.
1 ounce carraway seeds, sifted through the flour.
Flour to roll out pretty stiff.
Roll into a thin sheet; cut out with a cake-cutter; prick with a sharp
fork, and bake in a moderate oven.
SMALL ALMOND CAKES.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
½ pound of almonds, blanched and pounded.
½ pound of prepared flour.
Rose-water, mixed with the almond-paste.
Whip up the whites of the eggs to a _méringue_ with half the sugar;
stir in the almond-paste. Beat the yolks ten minutes with the remainder
of the sugar. Mix all together, and add the flour lightly and rapidly.
Bake in well-buttered _paté_-pans, or other small tins, very quickly.
Turn out as soon as done upon a baking-pan, bottom uppermost, that
these may dry out.
CREAM CAKES. + (_Pretty and good._)
Some good puff-paste.
Whites of 2 eggs, ½ cup sweet jelly.
1 cup of cream, whipped to a froth.
3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
Vanilla, or other flavoring.
Roll out the paste as for pies; cut into squares five inches across.
Have ready greased muffin-rings three inches in diameter; lay one in
the centre of each square; turn up the four corners upon it, so as to
make a cup of the paste, and bake in a quick oven. When _almost_ done,
open the oven-door, pull out the muffin-rings with care, brush the
paste cups inside and out with beaten white of egg; sift powdered sugar
over them, and brown. This operation must be performed quickly and
dexterously, that the paste may not cool. Let them get cold after they
are taken from the oven, line with the jelly and fill with the whipped
cream sweetened and flavored.
CUSTARD CAKES. +
Some good puff-paste.
Some balls of white, clean tissue-paper.
3 or 4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
2 eggs.
2 cups—more or less, of rich custard.
Roll out the paste _very_ thin; spread it thickly with beaten yolk of
egg, and strew powdered sugar over this. Fold up tightly; flatten with
the rolling-pin, and roll out as for a pie-crust. Line paté-pans well
greased with this; put a ball of soft paper within each to keep up the
top crust; put this on, lightly buttering the inner edge, and bake
quickly until nicely browned. When almost cold, turn out of the tins,
lift the top crusts, take out the papers and cover the tops with icing
made of the whites of the eggs and powdered sugar. Sift more sugar
over this, and set in the oven a minute or two to harden. Just before
sending them to table fill with custard; replace the frosted covers,
and serve.
They are very good. It is well to thicken the custard with a little
corn-starch.
QUEEN CAKES. +
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar.
3½ cups of flour.
½ cup of cream.
4 eggs.
½ pound of currants.
¼ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful of cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Rose-water, worked into almond-paste.
Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add the yolks and almond-paste.
Whip all together for five minutes before putting in the cream, the
soda-water, whites and flour alternately; finally the fruit dredged
with flour. Stir thoroughly, and bake in small tins well buttered.
They should be done in from twenty to thirty minutes. Ice them with
lemon frosting on the tops only.
SMALL CITRON CAKES.
6 eggs.
½ pound of butter.
½ pound sugar, creamed with the butter.
¾ pound of prepared flour.
1 glass best brandy.
¼ pound citron, shred fine.
Nutmeg to taste.
Beat the creamed butter and sugar up with the yolks; add the brandy,
and whip _hard_ five minutes; then the flour, whites, and the citron
shred fine and dredged with flour. Bake in small tins very quickly.
They keep well.
SEED WAFERS.
½ pound of sugar.
¼ pound of butter, creamed with the sugar.
4 eggs, beaten very light.
Enough flour for soft dough.
1 ounce carraway-seeds, mixed with the dry flour.
Mix well; roll into a _very_ thin paste. Cut into round cakes, brush
each over with the white of an egg, sift powdered sugar upon it, and
bake in a brisk oven about ten minutes, or until crisp. Do not take
them from the baking-tins until nearly cold, as they are apt to break
while hot.
GINGER COOKIES. +
1 cup of butter.
2 cups of sugar, creamed with the butter.
¼ cup of milk, with a pinch of soda in it.
2 eggs.
1 table-spoonful ginger.
½ grated nutmeg.
½ teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Flour for stiff dough.
Roll very thin; cut into round cakes, and bake quickly until crisp.
They will keep a long time.
GINGER SNAPS. (_Large quantity._)
1 pound of butter.
2 pounds of flour.
1½ pounds of sugar.
6 eggs, beaten very light.
1 great spoonful of ginger.
1 teaspoonful mixed cloves and cinnamon.
Roll as thin as wafer-dough. Cut into small, round cakes, and bake
crisp. Let them get cool before putting them away, or they may soften.
FRIED JUMBLES.
2 eggs.
1 cup of sugar, }
4 table-spoonfuls of butter, } rubbed to a cream.
1 cup of milk.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar.
4 cups of flour, or enough for soft dough.
Season to taste with nutmeg.
Roll into a sheet nearly an inch thick. Cut into shapes, and fry in
boiling lard, as you would crullers. Drain off every drop of fat; sift
powdered sugar over the cakes while hot, and eat fresh.
GENUINE SCOTCH SHORT BREAD. (_Very fine._)
2 pounds flour.
1 pound best butter.
Scant ½ pound of sugar.
Wash all particles of salt from the butter. Rub this and the sugar
together to a cream, as for loaf cake. The flour should be dry and
slightly warm. Mix this into the creamed butter and sugar gently and
gradually with the hand, until all the ingredients are thoroughly
incorporated. The longer it is kneaded the better it will be. Lay it on
a pasteboard, and press into sheets nearly half an inch thick with the
hand, as rolling has a tendency to toughen it. Cut into such shapes as
you may desire—into oblong, or square cards; prick or stamp a pattern
on top (I have seen the Scotch thistle pricked upon it) and bake in a
moderate oven until it is crisp, and of a fine yellow brown.
It delights me to be able to make public this receipt, for the
excellent housewife and friend, from whom I have procured it, is a
native of the “land o’ cakes,” and, as I can testify from repeated and
satisfactory proofs thereof, makes the most delicious “short bread”
that was ever eaten in this country—quite another thing from the rank,
unctuous compound vended under that name by professional bakers and
confectioners.
TEA.
THE evening meal, call it by whatever name we may, is apt to be the
most social one of the three which are the rule in this land. The
pressure of the business allotted to the hours of daylight is over.
The memory and the conversation of each one who comes to the feast,
are richer by the history of another day. It is sometimes hard to
“make talk” for the breakfast table. The talk of the six o’clock P.M.
dinner, or supper, or tea, makes itself. I frankly own that, however
much may be said in favor, on hygienic grounds, of early meals for the
nursery, the mid-day dinner for adults has always worn for me a grim,
and certainly an unpoetical aspect. The “nooning” should, for the
worker with muscles, nerves, or brains, be a light repast and easily
digested, followed by real physical rest. He is weary when he comes to
it; he eats in haste, his mind intent upon the afternoon’s work, and he
may not tarry when it is dispatched, having already “lost” an hour in
discussing (or bolting) soup, salad, fish, meat and dessert. The weight
of undigested food seems, during the succeeding hours of business or
study, to shift its position and clog and heat the brain.
“I will not preach to roast-beef and plum-pudding!” said America’s
greatest preacher, in refusing to hold a Sabbath afternoon service.
People quoted the _bon mot_ approvingly. Few had common sense enough to
apply it to week-day occupations. If men and women would rest, after
an early dinner on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and
Saturday, as long and absolutely as they do on Sabbath afternoons,
there would be less money made, perhaps, but fewer stomachs destroyed,
and fewer intellects overstrained.
This, however, as Paul candidly remarks touching certain of his
deliverances—“I say of mine own judgment.” And, after all, I should be
the sorriest of the sorry to see the tea-table swept out of American
households. While I write, there come stealing back to me recollections
that tempt me to draw my pen through some lines I have just set
down. Late dinners and late suppers used to be the fashion, seldom
altered—in Southern homes. In summer, the latter were always eaten by
artificial light. In winter, lamps were brought in with the dessert,
at dinner-time. I was almost grown before I was introduced to what the
valued correspondent who gave us the text for the first “Familiar Talk”
in this volume calls, “a real old New England tea-table.” During one
delicious vacation I learned, and reveled in knowing, what this meant.
Black tea with cream, (I have never relished it without, since that
idyllic summer) rounds of brown bread, light, sweet, and fresh; hot
short-cake in piles that were very high when we sat down, and very low
when we arose; a big glass bowl of raspberries and currants that were
growing in the garden under the back windows an hour before; a basket
of frosted cake; a plate of pink ham, balanced by one of shaved, _not_
chipped beef—and _sage cheese!_ I had never eaten it before. I have
never tasted it anywhere else than in that wide, cool tea-room, the
level sun-rays flickering through the grape-vines shading the west side
of the house, and through the open casements opposite, a view of Boston
bay—all purple and rose and gold, dotted with hundreds of white sails.
This was what we had, when, in that Old New England farm-house, Polly,
the faithful—who had startled me, for a time, by saying, “proper glad,”
and “sweet pretty;” who “hadn’t ought” to do this, and “should admire”
to do that—Polly, whom nobody thought of calling a servant, but was a
“help” in every conceivable sense of the word—had “put the kettle on
and we all had tea!”
I do not like to think it possible that in that beloved homestead
they may have kept up with the times so far as to have dinner at six
o’clock, and tea—never!
It is a pleasant practice, in many families, where the late dinner is
convenient, and, for many reasons, preferred during the rest of the
week, to have a “comfortable tea” on Sabbath evening. The servants are
thus released the earlier for their evening’s devotions or recreations;
the housewife has an opportunity of indulging the father, who is seldom
at home at luncheon-time, with dainty wonders of her skill that are not
_en règle_ at dinner, and the children have a taste of old-fashioned
home-life, the memory of which will be carried by them as long and
fondly into their after-lives as I have borne the taste and fragrance
of Cousin Melissa’s sage cheese. We do not say “Cousin,” nowadays
in polite society, nor christen our children Melissa. You will find
elsewhere in this book that I have directed you, as preliminary to
frosting fruit for dessert—peaches, apricots and nectarines—first to
rub off the down (which makes the softness of the blush) with a rough
cloth.
It may be a weakness, but I, for one, like to remember while admiring
the pretty conceit of the _glacé_ peach, how it looked before it was
rubbed bright, and sugar-coated.
BEVERAGES.
TEA À LA RUSSE.
SLICE fresh, juicy lemons; pare them carefully, lay a piece in the
bottom of each cup; sprinkle with white sugar and pour the tea, very
hot and strong, over them.
_Or,_
Send around the sliced lemon with the cups of tea, that each person may
squeeze in the juice to please himself. Some leave the peel on, and
profess to like the bitter flavor which it imparts to the beverage.
The truth is, the taste for this (now) fashionable refreshment is so
completely an acquired liking, that you had best leave to your guests
the matter of “peel on” or “peel off.” There are those whom not even
fashion can reconcile to the peculiar “smack” of lemon-rind after it
has been subjected to the action of a boiling liquid.
Tea _à la Russe_ is generally, if not invariably drunk without cream,
and is plentifully sweetened. It is very popular at the “high teas”
and “kettle-drums,” so much in vogue at this time,—tea being to women,
say the cynics, a species of mild intoxicant, of which they are not to
be defrauded by evening dinners and their _sequitur_ of black coffee.
Others, who cleave to ancient customs, and distrust innovations of all
kinds, will have it that the popularity of these feminine carousals has
its root in remorseful hankering after the almost obsolete “family
tea.” “Since there must be fashionable follies,” growl these critics,
“this is as harmless as any that can be devised, and is, assuredly,
less disastrous to purse and health than an evening crush and supper.”
For once, we say “Amen” to the croakers. The “kettle-drum” is
objectionable in nothing except its absurd name, and marks a promising
era in the history of American party-giving.
COLD TEA.
Mixed tea is better cold than either black or green alone. Set it aside
after breakfast, for luncheon or for tea, straining it into a perfectly
clean and sweet bottle, and burying it in the ice. When ready to use
it, you must fill a goblet three-quarters of the way to the top with
the clear tea; sweeten it more lavishly than you would hot, and fill up
the glass with cracked ice. It is a delicious beverage in summer. Drink
without cream.
ICED TEA À LA RUSSE.
To each goblet of cold tea (without cream), add the juice of half a
lemon. Fill up with pounded ice, and sweeten well. A glass of champagne
added to this makes what is called Russian punch.
TEA MILK-PUNCH.
1 egg beaten very light.
1 small glass new milk.
1 cup very hot tea.
Sugar to taste.
Beat a teaspoonful or so of sugar with the egg; stir in the milk and
then the hot tea, beating all up well together, and sweetening to
taste. This is a palatable mixture, and is valuable for invalids who
suffer much from weakness, or the peculiar sensation known as a “cold
stomach.”
A “COZY” FOR A TEAPOT.
This is not an article of diet, yet an accessory to good tea-making and
enjoyable tea-drinking that deserves to be better known in America.
It is a wadded cover or bag made of crotcheted worsted, or of silk,
velvet or cashmere, stitched or embroidered as the maker may fancy,
with a stout ribbon-elastic drawn loosely in the bottom. This is put
over the teapot so soon as the tea is poured into it, and will keep the
contents of the pot warm for an hour or more. Those who have known the
discomfort, amounting to actual nausea, produced by taking a draught
of lukewarm tea into an empty or weary stomach; or whose guests or
families are apt to keep them waiting for their appearance at table
until the “cheering” (if hot) “beverage” lowers in temperature and
quality so grievously that it must be remanded to the kitchen, and an
order for fresh issued—will at once appreciate the importance of this
simple contrivance for keeping up the heat of our “mild intoxicant” and
keeping the temper of the priestess at the tea-tray down.
COFFEE WITH WHIPPED CREAM.
For six cups of coffee, of fair size, you will need about one cup of
sweet cream, whipped light with a little sugar. Put into each cup the
desired amount of sugar, and about a table-spoonful of boiling milk.
Pour the coffee over these, and lay upon the surface of the hot liquid
a large spoonful of the frothed cream. Give a gentle stir to each
cup before sending them around. This is known to some as _méringued_
coffee, and is an elegant French preparation of the popular drink.
FROTHED CAFÉ AU LAIT.
1 quart strong, clear coffee, strained through muslin.
1 Scant quart boiling milk.
Whites of 3 eggs, beaten stiff.
1 table-spoonful powdered sugar, whipped with the eggs.
Your coffee urn must be scalded clean, and while it is hot, pour in the
coffee and milk alternately, stirring gently. Cover; wrap a thick cloth
about the urn for five minutes, before it goes to table. Have ready in
a cream-pitcher the whipped and sweetened whites. Put a large spoonful
upon each cup of coffee as you pour it out, heaping it slightly in the
centre.
FROTHED CHOCOLATE. (_Very good._)
1 cup of boiling water.
3 pints of fresh milk.
3 table-spoonfuls Baker’s chocolate, grated.
5 eggs, the whites only, beaten light.
2 table-spoonfuls of sugar, powdered for froth.
Sweeten the chocolate to taste.
Heat the milk to scalding. Wet up the chocolate with the boiling water
and when the milk is hot, stir this into it. Simmer gently ten minutes,
stirring frequently. Boil up briskly once, take from the fire, sweeten
to taste, taking care not to make it too sweet, and stir in the whites
of two eggs, whipped stiff, _without_ sugar. Pour into the chocolate
pot or pitcher, which should be well heated. Have ready in a cream
pitcher, the remaining whites whipped up with the powdered sugar.
Cover the surface of each cup with the sweetened _méringue_, before
distributing to the guests.
If you like, you can substitute scented chocolate for Baker’s.
Chocolate or cocoa is a favorite luncheon beverage, and many ladies,
especially those who have spent much time abroad, have adopted the
French habit of breakfasting upon rolls and a cup of chocolate.
MILLED CHOCOLATE.
3 heaping table-spoonfuls of grated chocolate.
1 quart of milk.
Wet the chocolate with boiling water. Scald the milk and stir in the
chocolate-paste. Simmer ten minutes; then, if you have no regular
“muller,” put your syllabub-churn into the boiling liquid and churn
steadily, without taking from the fire, until it is a yeasty froth.
Pour into a chocolate-pitcher, and serve at once.
This is esteemed a great delicacy by chocolate lovers, and is easily
made.
SOYER’S CAFÉ AU LAIT.
1 cup best coffee, freshly roasted, but _unground_.
2 cups of boiling water.
1 quart boiling milk.
Put the coffee into a _clean_, dry kettle or tin pail; fit on a close
top and set in a saucepan of boiling water. Shake it every few moments,
without opening it, until you judge that the coffee-grains must be
heated through. If, on lifting the cover, you find that the contents of
the inner vessel are very hot and smoking, pour over them the boiling
water directly from the tea-kettle. Cover the inner vessel closely and
set on the side of the range, where it will keep _very_ hot without
boiling for twenty minutes. Then, add the boiling milk, let all stand
together for five minutes more, and strain through thin muslin into the
coffee-urn. Use loaf-sugar in sweetening.
The flavor of this is said to be very fine.
WHITE LEMONADE.
3 lemons.
3 cups loaf sugar.
2 glasses white wine.
2 quarts _fresh_ milk, boiling hot.
Wash the lemons, grate all the peel from one into a bowl; add the
sugar, and squeeze the juice of the three over these. After two hours
add the wine, and then, quickly, the boiling milk. Strain through a
flannel jelly-bag. Cool and set in the ice until wanted.
CLARET CUP.
1 (quart) bottle of claret.
1 (pint) bottle of champagne.
½ pint best sherry.
2 lemons, sliced.
¼ pound loaf sugar dissolved in 1 cup cold water.
Let the sugar, water and sliced lemon steep together half an hour
before adding to the rest of the ingredients. Shake all well together
in a very large pitcher twenty or thirty times, and make thick with
pounded ice, when you are ready to use it.
There is no better receipt for the famous “claret cup” than this.
VERY FINE PORTEREE.
1 pint bottle best porter.
2 glasses pale sherry.
1 lemon _peeled_ and sliced.
½ pint ice-water.
6 or 8 lumps of loaf sugar.
½ grated nutmeg.
Pounded ice.
This mixture has been used satisfactorily by invalids, for whom the
pure porter was too heavy, causing biliousness and heartburn.
GINGER CORDIAL.
2 table-spoonfuls ground ginger, fresh and strong.
1 lb. loaf sugar.
½ pint best whiskey.
1 quart red currants.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Crush the currants in a stone vessel with a wooden beetle, and strain
them through a clean, coarse cloth, over the sugar. Stir until the
sugar is dissolved; add the lemon, the whiskey, and the ginger. Put
it into a demijohn or a stone jug, and set upon the cellar-floor for
a week, shaking up vigorously every day. At the end of that time,
strain through a cloth and bottle. Seal and wire the corks, and lay the
bottles on their sides in a cool, dry place.
An excellent summer drink is made by putting two table-spoonfuls of
this mixture into a goblet of iced water. It is far safer for quenching
the thirst, when one is overheated, than plain ice-water or lemonade.
MILK-PUNCH. (_Hot._)
1 quart milk, warm from the cow.
2 glasses best sherry wine.
4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
4 eggs, the yolks only, beaten light.
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
Bring the milk to the boiling point. Beat up the yolks and sugar
together; add the wine; pour into a pitcher, and mix with it, stirring
all the time, the boiling milk. Pour from one vessel to another six
times, spice, and serve as soon as it can be swallowed without scalding
the throat.
This is said to be an admirable remedy for a bad cold if taken in the
first stages, just before going to bed at night.
MULLED ALE.
3 eggs, the yolks only.
A pint of good ale.
2 table-spoonfuls loaf sugar.
A pinch of ginger, and same of nutmeg.
Heat the ale scalding hot, but do not let it quite boil. Take from the
fire and stir in the eggs beaten with the sugar, and the spice. Pour
from pitcher to pitcher, five or six times, until it froths, and drink
hot.
MULLED WINE.
2 eggs, beaten very light with the sugar.
1 table-spoonful white sugar.
2 full glasses white wine.
½ cup boiling water.
A little nutmeg.
Heat the water, add the wine; cover closely and bring almost to a boil.
Pour this carefully over the beaten egg and sugar; set in a vessel of
boiling water and stir constantly until it begins to thicken. Pour into
a silver goblet, grate the nutmeg on the top, and let the invalid drink
it as hot as it can be swallowed without suffering.
A SUMMER DRINK. (_Very good._)
2 lbs. Catawba grapes.
3 table-spoonfuls loaf sugar.
1 cup of cold water.
Squeeze the grapes hard in a coarse cloth, when you have picked them
from the stems. Wring out every drop of juice; add the sugar, and when
this is dissolved, the water, surround with ice until very cold; put a
lump of ice into a pitcher, pour the mixture upon it, and drink at once.
You can add more sugar if you like, or if the grapes are not quite ripe.
RUM MILK-PUNCH.
1 cup milk, warm from the cow.
1 table-spoonful of best rum.
1 egg, whipped light with a little sugar.
A little nutmeg.
Pour the rum upon the egg-and-sugar; stir for a moment and add the
milk; strain and drink.
It is a useful stimulant for consumptives, and should be taken before
breakfast.
CLEAR PUNCH.
½ cup ice-water.
1 glass white wine (or very good whiskey).
White of 1 egg whipped stiff with the sugar.
1 table-spoonful of loaf sugar.
A sprig of mint.
Pounded ice.
Mix well together and give to the patient, ice-cold.
CURRANT AND RASPBERRY SHRUB.
4 quarts ripe currants.
3 quarts red raspberries.
4 lbs. loaf sugar.
1 quart best brandy.
Pound the fruit in a stone jar, or wide-mouthed crock, with a wooden
beetle. Squeeze out every drop of the juice; put this into a porcelain,
enamel, or very clean bell-metal kettle, and boil hard ten minutes.
Bring to the boil quickly, as slow heating and boiling has a tendency
to darken all acid syrups. Put in the sugar at the end of the ten
minutes, and boil up once to throw the scum to the top. Take it off;
skim, let it get perfectly cold, skim off all remaining impurities, add
the brandy and shake hard for five minutes. Bottle; seal the corks, and
lay the bottles on their sides in dry sawdust.
Put up in this way, “shrub” will keep several years, and be the better
for age. It is a refreshing and slightly medicinal drink, when mixed
with iced water.
STRAWBERRY SHRUB.
4 quarts of ripe strawberries.
The juice of 4 lemons.
4 lbs. of loaf sugar.
1 pint best brandy, or colorless whiskey.
Mash the berries and squeeze them through a bag. Add the strained
lemon-juice; bring quickly to a fast boil, and after it has boiled five
minutes, put in the sugar and cook five minutes more. Skim as it cools,
and, when quite cold, add the brandy. Be sure that your bottles are
perfectly clean. Rinse them out with soda-and-water; then, with boiling
water. The corks must be new. Soak them in cold water; drive into the
bottles; cut off even with the top; seal with bees-wax and rosin,
melted in equal quantities, and lay the bottles on their sides in dry
sawdust.
Strawberries, preserved in any way, do not keep so well as some other
fruits. Hence, more care must be taken in putting them up.
LEMON SHRUB.
Juice of 6 lemons, and grated peel of two.
Grated peel of 1 orange.
3 lbs. loaf sugar.
3 pints of cold water.
3 pints of brandy or white whiskey.
Steep the grated peel in the brandy for two days. Boil the
sugar-and-water to a thick syrup, and when it is cool, strain into it
the lemon-juice and the liquor. Shake up well for five minutes, and
bottle. Seal the bottles and lay them on their sides.
CURAÇOA.
Grated peel and the juice of 4 fine oranges.
1 lb. of rock-candy.
1 cup of cold water.
1 teaspoonful cinnamon.
½ teaspoonful nutmeg.
A pinch of cloves.
1 pint very fine brandy.
Break the candy to pieces in a mortar, or, by pounding it in a cloth,
cover with cold water and heat to a boil, by which time the candy
should be entirely dissolved. Add the orange-juice, boil up once and
take from the fire. When cold, skim, put in the spices, peel, and
brandy; put it into a stone jug, and let it stand for a fortnight in a
cool place. Shake every day, and at the end of that time strain through
flannel, and bottle.
This is an excellent flavoring for pudding sauces, custards, trifles,
etc. For tipsy Charlottes and like desserts, it is far superior to
brandy or wine.
NOYAU.
½ pound sweet almonds.
Juice of 3 lemons, and grated peel of one.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
3 teaspoonfuls extract of bitter-almonds.
2 table-spoonfuls clear honey.
1 pint best brandy.
1 table-spoonful orange-flower water.
Blanch and pound the almonds, mixing the orange-flower water with them
to prevent oiling. Add the sugar and brandy, and let these ingredients
lie together for two days, shaking the jug frequently. Put in the
lemon, honey and flavoring; shake hard, and leave in the jug a week
longer, shaking it every day.
Strain through very fine muslin, bottle and seal.
The flavor of this is delicious in custards, etc. As a beverage, it
must be mixed with ice-water.
ROSE SYRUP.
1½ pound of fresh rose-leaves.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
Whites of 2 eggs, whipped light.
1 pint best brandy.
1 quart cold water.
Boil the sugar and water to a clear syrup, beat in the whites of the
eggs, and, when it has boiled up again well, take from the fire. Skim
as it cools, and when a little more than blood-warm, pour it over half
a pound of fresh rose-leaves. Cover it closely, and let it alone for
twenty-four hours. Strain, and put in the second supply of leaves. On
the third day put in the last half pound, and on the fourth, strain
through a muslin bag. Add the brandy; strain again through a double
linen bag, shake well and bottle.
This liqueur is delightful as a beverage, mixed with iced water, and
invaluable where rose-flavor is desired for custards, creams or icing.
In the height of the rose-season, the requisite quantity of leaves may
easily be procured. The receipt is nearly fifty years old.
ORANGE CREAM.
12 large, very sweet oranges.
2 pounds loaf sugar.
1 quart milk, warm from the cow.
1 quart best French brandy.
Grate the peel from three of the oranges, and reserve for use in
preparing the liqueur. Peel the rest, and use the juice only. Pour this
with the brandy over the sugar and grated rind; put into a stone jug,
and let it stand three days, shaking twice a day.
Then boil the milk, which _must_ be new, and pour hot over the mixture,
stirring it in well. Cover closely. When it is quite cold, strain
through a flannel bag. Put in clean, sweet bottles, seal the corks, and
lay the bottles on their sides in sawdust.
It will keep well, but will be fit for drinking in a week. Mix with
iced water as a beverage. It is a fine flavoring liqueur for trifles,
etc.
VANILLA LIQUEUR.
4 fresh vanilla beans.
4 pounds loaf sugar.
1 quart cold water.
1 pint best brandy, or white whiskey.
Split the beans and cut into inch lengths. Put them to soak in the
brandy for three days. Boil the sugar and water until it is a thick,
clear syrup. Skim well, and strain the vanilla brandy into it. Shake,
and pour into small bottles.
I have called this a liqueur, but it is so highly flavored as to be
unfit for drinking, except as it is used in small quantities in
effervescing beverages. But it imparts an exquisite flavor to creams,
whips, cakes, etc., that cannot be obtained from the distilled extracts.
The receipt was given to me as a modern prize by an expert in cookery,
but in reading it over there floated to me a delicious breath from a
certain storeroom, the treasures of which to my childish imagination
rivalled those of the “island of delights,” where the streams were
curaçoa and capillaire, and the rocks loaf sugar. Led by this wandering
zephyr of early association, I did not cease my rummaging until I
unearthed the same receipt from an old cookery-book bequeathed to me by
my mother.
FLAVORING EXTRACTS.
LEMON.
The peel of 6 lemons.
1 quart white whiskey or brandy.
Cut the rind into thin shreds; half fill three or four wide-mouthed
bottles with it, and pour the spirits upon it. Cork tightly, and shake
now and then for the first month. This will keep for years, and be
better for age. It has this advantage over the distilled extract sold
in the stores—country-stores especially, lemon extract being especially
liable to spoil if kept for a few months, and tasting, when a little
old, unfortunately like spirits of turpentine.
ORANGE.
Prepare as you would lemon-peel. Put into small bottles. It is said to
be an excellent stomachic taken in the proportion of a teaspoonful to a
glass of iced water, and slightly sweetened.
It is very nice for flavoring the icing of orange cake.
VANILLA.
2 vanilla beans.
½ pint white whiskey.
Split the bean, and clip with your scissors into bits, scraping out the
seeds which possess the finest flavoring qualities. Put the seed and
husks into the bottom of a small bottle; fill up with the spirits, and
cork tightly. Shake it often for a few weeks, after which it will be
fit for use—and _never spoil_.
BITTER ALMOND.
½ pound of bitter almonds.
1 pint white whiskey.
Blanch the almonds, and shred (not pound them), using for this purpose
a sharp knife that will not bruise the kernels. Put them into a
wide-mouthed bottle; pour in the spirits, cork tightly; shake every
other day for a fortnight. It will then be fit for use. Strain it as
you have occasion to use it, through a bit of cloth held over the mouth
of the bottle.
* * * * *
I introduce these directions for the domestic manufacture of such
extracts as are most used in cooking:, chiefly, but not altogether for
the benefit of country readers. The land—town and country—is so deluged
now with makers and peddlers of “flavoring extracts,” that some, of
necessity, must be indifferent in quality, if not hurtful. I have
purchased from a respectable druggist in a large city, rose-water that
smelled like ditch-water, and tasted worse; essence of lemon that could
not be distinguished by the sense of taste or smell from varnish; and
vanilla that was like nothing I had ever tasted or smelled before—least
of all like heliotrope, new-mown hay, or vanilla-bean.
The answer to my complaint in each of these cases was the same. “I
cannot understand it, madam. The extract is of Our Own Make, and there
is no better in the American market!”
In country stores the risk of getting a poor article is of course
much greater. To this day, I recall with a creep of the flesh that
drives a cold moisture to the surface, the unspoken (at the moment)
agony with which I detected something wrong, and very far wrong in
some nice-looking custards, the manufacture of which I had myself
superintended, and that formed the staple of the dessert, to which I
set down a couple of unexpected guests. As the first spoonful touched
my tongue, I looked at John, and John looked (pityingly) at me! By
mutual consent, we began to press the fruit upon our friends, and I
hastened the entrance of the coffee-tray.
After dinner, we snatched a few words from one another, aside.
“The cook’s carelessness!” said he. “She got hold of the
liniment-bottle by mistake.”
“It was a fresh bottle of ‘pure vanilla!’” answered I solemnly. “I saw
her draw the cork!”
It was after this experience that I was assured there was “no better
article in the American market.”
PRESERVED FRUITS, CANDIES, ETC.
APPLE MARMALADE. +
2 or 3 dozen tart, juicy apples, pared, cored and sliced.
A little cold water.
¾ pound of sugar to every pint of juice.
Juice of 2 lemons.
Stew the apples until tender, in just enough cold water to cover them.
Drain off the juice through a cullender, and put into a porcelain or
enamel kettle; stirring into it three-quarters of a pound of sugar for
every pint of the liquid. Boil until it begins to jelly; strain the
lemon-juice into it; put in the apples and stew pretty fast, stirring
almost constantly, until the compote is thick and smooth. (If the
apples are not soft all through, you had better rub them through the
cullender before adding them to the boiling syrup.)
Put up the marmalade in small jars or cups, and paste paper covers over
them as you would jelly, having first fitted a round of tissue-paper,
dipped in brandy, upon the surface of the marmalade. Keep cool and dry.
The simple precaution of covering jellies, jams, and marmalade with
brandied tissue-paper, will save the housekeeper much annoyance and
inconvenience by protecting the conserve from mould. Should the fungus
form inside the upper cover, the inner will effectually shield the
precious sweet. I have seen the space left by the shrinking of the
cooled jelly between it and the metallic, or paper cover of the glass,
or jar, completely filled with blue-gray mould—a miniature forest that
might appear well under the microscope, but was hideous to housewifely
eyes. Yet, when the tissue-paper was carefully removed, the jelly was
seen to be bright, firm, and unharmed in flavor as in appearance.
PEAR AND QUINCE MARMALADE. +
2 dozen juicy pears.
10 fine, ripe quinces.
Juice of 3 lemons.
¾ pound of sugar to every pound of fruit after it is ready for cooking.
A little cold water.
Pare and core the fruit, and throw it into cold water while you stew
parings and cores in a little water to make the syrup. When they have
boiled to pieces strain off the liquid; when cold, put in the sliced
fruit and bring to a fast boil. It should be thick and smooth before
the sugar and lemon-juice go in. Cook steadily an hour longer, working
with a wooden spoon to a rich jelly. When done, put into small jars
while warm, but do not cover until cold.
ORANGE MARMALADE. +
18 sweet, ripe oranges.
6 pounds best white sugar.
Grate the peel from four oranges, and reserve it for the marmalade.
The rinds of the rest will not be needed. Pare the fruit carefully,
removing the inner white skin as well as the yellow. Slice the orange;
remove the seeds; put the fruit and grated peel in a porcelain or
enamel saucepan (if the latter, those made by Lalange and Grosjean are
the best), and boil steadily until the pulp is reduced to a smooth
mass. Take from the fire and rub quickly through a clean, bright
cullender, as the color is easily injured. Stir in the sugar, return
to the fire, and boil fast, stirring constantly half an hour, or until
thick. Put while warm into small jars, but do not cover until cold.
This is a handsome and delicious sweetmeat.
DUNDEE ORANGE MARMALADE.
12 fine, ripe oranges.
4 pounds white sugar—the best.
3 lemons—all the juice, and the rind of one lemon.
Cut the peel of four oranges into small dice, and the rind of one
lemon. Stew them in clear water until tender. Slice and seed the
oranges; put them into a preserving-kettle with the juice of the lemons
and cook until all are boiled down to a smooth pulp. Rub this through
a cullender; return to the saucepan with the sugar, and keep at a
fast boil until quite thick. Stir in the “dice” from which the water
has been drained; boil two minutes longer and pour into small jars.
Cover with brandied tissue-paper when quite cold, pressed close to the
surface of the marmalade, then, with metal or stout paper tops.
All marmalade should be stirred constantly after the sugar goes in.
Use loaf, or granulated sugar for making marmalade—not powdered. The
crystals are said to make it more sparkling.
CANDIED CHERRIES.
2 quarts large, ripe, red cherries, stoned _carefully_.
2 lbs. loaf sugar.
1 cup water.
Make a syrup of the sugar and water and boil until it is thick enough
to “pull,” as for candy. Remove to the side of the range, and stir
until it shows signs of granulation. It is well to stir frequently
while it is cooking, to secure this end. When there are grains, or
crystals on the spoon, drop in the cherries, a few at a time. Let each
supply lie in the boiling syrup two minutes, when remove to a sieve set
over a dish. Shake gently but long, then turn the cherries out upon a
cool, broad dish, and dry in a sunny window.
GLACÉ CHERRIES.
Make as above, but do not let the syrup granulate. It should not be
stirred at all, but when it “ropes,” pour it over the cherries, which
should be spread out upon a large, flat dish. When the syrup is almost
cold, take these out, one by one, with a teaspoon, and spread upon a
dish to dry in the open air.
If nicely managed, these are nearly as good as those put up by
professional confectioners. Keep in a dry, cool place.
CANDIED LEMON-PEEL.
12 fresh, thick-skinned lemons.
4 lbs. loaf sugar.
A little powdered alum.
3 cups clear water.
Cut the peel from the lemons in long, thin strips, and lay in strong
salt and water all night. Wash them in three waters next morning,
and boil them until tender in soft water. They should be almost
translucent, but not so soft as to break. Dissolve a little alum—about
half a teaspoonful, when powdered—in enough cold water to cover the
peel, and let it lie in it for two hours. By this time the syrup should
be ready. Stir the sugar into three cups of water, add the strained
juice of three lemons and boil it until it “ropes” from the end of the
spoon. Put the lemon-peels into this, simmer gently half an hour; take
them out and spread upon a sieve. Shake, not hard, but often, tossing
up the peels now and then, until they are almost dry. Sift granulated
sugar over them and lay out upon a table spread with a clean cloth.
Admit the air freely, and, when perfectly dry, pack in a glass jar.
MAPLE SYRUP. +
6 lbs. maple sugar—pure.
6 large coffee-cups of water.
Break the sugar to pieces with a stone or hammer; cover with the
water—cold—and let it stand until it is nearly, or quite melted. Put
over the fire and bring to a gentle boil, leaving the kettle uncovered.
Boil, _without stirring_, until it is a pretty thick syrup.
If possible, buy maple sugar direct from the “sugar camps,” or their
vicinity, and in large blocks. The pretty scolloped cakes offered by
peanut venders at treble the price of the genuine article, are largely
adulterated with other substances.
CRANBERRIES.
Instead of expending my own time in covering a couple of sheets of
paper with receipts touching this invaluable berry, I would direct the
reader’s attention to the very admirable and comprehensive circular
issued by MESSRS. C. G. AND E. W. CRANE, as an accompaniment to their
“First Premium Star Brand Cranberries,” raised in Ocean County, New
Jersey. I have never seen finer, or tasted more delicious berries
than those sent out with their stamp upon the crates, and I consider
that I am doing my fellow-housekeepers a substantial service by this
unqualified commendation of the same. The berries are larger, firmer
and of richer flavor than those one is accustomed to see in the markets
(and to buy, knowing no better), and certainly delivered in a more
sightly and wholesome condition.
The receipts go with them, and are clear, safe, and excellent.
The plantations on which the “Star Berries” are grown are in Cassville,
Ocean County, New Jersey.
PEANUT CANDY. (_Very nice._)
1 scant pint of molasses.
4 quarts of peanuts, measured before they are shelled.
2 table-spoonfuls of vanilla.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
Boil the molasses until it hardens in cold water, when dropped from
the spoon. Stir in the vanilla—then the soda, dry. Lastly, the shelled
peanuts. Turn out into shallow pans well buttered, and press it down
smooth with a wooden spoon.
I can heartily recommend the candy made according to this receipt as
being unrivalled of its kind.
The molasses should be good in quality, and the peanuts freshly roasted.
DOTTY DIMPLE’S VINEGAR CANDY. +
3 cups white sugar.
1½ cups clear vinegar.
Stir the sugar into the vinegar until thoroughly dissolved; heat to a
gentle boil and stew, uncovered, until it ropes from the tip of the
spoon. Turn out upon broad dishes, well buttered, and cool. So soon as
you are able to handle it without burning your fingers, begin to pull
it, using only the tips of your fingers. It can be “pulled” beautifully
white and porous.
Those who have read Sophie May’s delightful “Little Prudy,” and “Dotty
Dimple” series, will remember the famous “vinegar candy.”
LEMON-CREAM CANDY. +
6 pounds best white sugar.
Strained juice of 2 lemons.
Grated peel of 1 lemon.
1 teaspoonful of soda.
3 cups clear water.
Steep the grated peel of the lemon in the juice for an hour; strain,
squeezing the cloth hard to get out all the strength. Pour the water
over the sugar, and, when nearly dissolved, set it over the fire and
bring to a boil. Stew steadily until it hardens in cold water; stir in
the lemon; boil one minute; add the dry soda, stirring in well; and,
instantly, turn out upon broad, shallow dishes. Pull, as soon as you
can handle it, into long white ropes, and cut into lengths when brittle.
Vanilla cream candy is made in the same way, with the substitution of
vanilla flavoring for the lemon-juice and peel.
These home-made candies furnish pleasant diversions for the children on
winter evening and rainy days, and are far more wholesome than those
sold in the shops.
CHOCOLATE CARAMELS.
1 cup rich, sweet cream.
1 cup brown sugar.
1 cup white sugar.
7 table-spoonfuls vanilla chocolate.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, stirred into the cream.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
Vanilla flavoring.
Soda, the size of a pea, stirred into cream.
Boil all the ingredients except the chocolate and vanilla extract, half
an hour, stirring to prevent burning. Reserve half of the cream and
wet up the chocolate in it, adding a very little water if necessary.
Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, and stir this in well; put
back on the fire and boil ten minutes longer, quite fast, stirring
constantly. When it makes a hard glossy coat on the spoon, it is done.
Add the vanilla after taking it from the range. Turn into shallow
dishes well buttered. When cold enough to retain the impression of the
knife, cut into squares.
MARBLED CREAM CANDY. (_Good._)
4 cups white sugar.
1 cup rich sweet cream.
1 cup water.
1 table-spoonful of butter.
1 table-spoonful vinegar.
Bit of soda the size of a pea, stirred in cream.
Vanilla extract.
3 table-spoonfuls of chocolate—grated.
Boil all the ingredients except half the cream, the chocolate and
vanilla, together very fast until it is a thick, ropy syrup. Heat in a
separate saucepan the reserved cream, into which you must have rubbed
the grated chocolate. Let it stew until quite thick, and when the candy
is done, add a cupful of it to this, stirring in well.
Turn the uncolored syrup out upon broad dishes, and pour upon it, here
and there, great spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture. Pull as soon as
you can handle it with comfort, and with the tips of your fingers only.
If deftly manipulated, it will be streaked with white and brown.
CHOCOLATE CREAM DROPS.
1 cake vanilla chocolate.
3 cups of _powdered_ sugar.
1 cup soft water.
2 table-spoonfuls corn-starch or arrowroot.
1 table-spoonful butter.
2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.
Wash from the butter every grain of salt. Stir the sugar and water
together; mix in the corn-starch, and bring to a boil, stirring
constantly to induce granulation. Boil about ten minutes, when add the
butter. Take from the fire and beat as you would eggs, until it begins
to look like granulated cream. Put in the vanilla; butter your hands
well, make the cream into balls about the size of a large marble, and
lay upon a greased dish.
Meanwhile, the chocolate should have been melted by putting it (grated
fine) into a tin pail or saucepan and plunging it into another of
boiling water. When it is a black syrup, add about two table-spoonfuls
of powdered sugar to it, beat smooth, turn out upon a _hot_ dish, and
roll the cream-balls in it until sufficiently coated. Lay upon a cold
dish to dry, taking care that they do not touch one another.
SUGAR CANDY. +
6 cups of white sugar.
½ cup of butter.
2 table-spoonfuls of vinegar.
½ teaspoonful of soda.
1 cup cold water.
Vanilla flavoring.
Pour water and vinegar upon the sugar, and let them stand, without
stirring, until the sugar is melted. Set over the fire and boil fast
until it “ropes.” Put in the butter; boil hard two minutes longer, add
the dry soda, stir it in and take at once from the fire. Flavor when it
ceases to effervesce.
Turn out upon greased dishes, and pull with the tips of your fingers
until white.
THE SCRAP-BAG.
FOR SUDDEN HOARSENESS. +
Roast a lemon in the oven, turning now and then, that all sides may be
equally cooked. It should not crack, or burst, but be soft all through.
Just before going to bed take the lemon (which should be very hot), cut
a piece from the top, and fill it with as much white sugar as it will
hold.
“Chock-full—do you mean?” asked an old gentleman to whom I recommended
the palatable remedy.
“If that is _very_ full—pressed down, and running over—I mean
chock-full!” I replied.
Eat all the sugar, filling the lemon with more, as you find it becoming
acid.
This simple remedy induces gentle perspiration, besides acting
favorably upon the clogged membranes of the throat. I have known it to
prove wonderfully efficacious in removing severe attacks of hoarseness.
ANOTHER,
And far less pleasant prescription, is a teaspoonful of vinegar made
thick with common salt. Having myself been, in earlier years, more than
once the grateful victim of its severely benevolent agency, I cannot
but endorse the dose.
But—try the lemon first.
FOR SORE THROAT. +
1 drachm chlorate of potassa dissolved in 1 cupful of hot water.
Let it cool; take a table-spoonful three times a day, and gargle with
the same, every hour.
Before retiring at night, rub the outside of the throat, especially the
soft portions opposite the tonsils, with a little cold water, made so
thick with common salt that the crystals will scratch the skin smartly.
Do this faithfully until there is a fair degree of external irritation;
then, bind a bit of flannel about the throat.
Free use of cracked or pounded ice is also admirable for sore throat of
every kind. The patient should hold bits of ice in his mouth and let
them slowly dissolve.
Desperate cases of ulcerated sore throat are sometimes relieved by the
constant use of this and the chlorate of potassa gargle.
FOR A COUGH.
Eat slowly, three or four times a day, six lumps of sugar, saturated
with the very _best_ whiskey you can get.
Having tested this “old woman’s prescription” for myself, and found
in it the messenger of healing to a cough of several months’ standing
which had set physicians and cod-liver oil at defiance, I write it down
here without scruples or doubt.
FOR CHOLERA SYMPTOMS, +
Summer complaint, or any of the numerous forms of diseased bowels—pin a
bandage of _red_ flannel as tightly about the abdomen as is consistent
with comfort, having first heated it well at the fire or register.
The application is inexpressibly soothing to the racked and inflamed
intestines, and will, sometimes, combined with perfect quiet on the
part of the patient, and judicious diet, cure even dysentery without
medicine. Persons who have chronic maladies of this class should wear
the red flannel bandage constantly.
For years, this has been my invariable treatment of the disorders which
are, particularly in the summer, the torment of children and terror
of mothers, and the results have been most gratifying. I keep in what
may be called my “accident drawer,” red flannel, divided into bandages
of various lengths, and to these is recourse had in slight, and even
violent cases, instead of to drugs. If the patient is suffering intense
pain, steep a flannel pad large enough to cover the affected part,
in _hot_ spirits (you may add a little laudanum in severe cases) and
bind upon the abdomen with the flannel bandage, renewing whenever the
sufferer feels that it is growing cold.
Above all things else, _keep the patient quiet_ in bed, if possible,
but in a recumbent position—and the feet warm with flannel or bottles
of hot water. These are always preferable to bricks, or hot boards for
warming the extremities, being clean, safe and good preservers of heat.
The diet should be light and nourishing, avoiding liquids and acids
as much as possible. Let the patient quench his thirst by holding
small bits of ice in his mouth, or, if he must drink, let him have
mucilaginous beverages, such as gum-arabic water. The burning thirst
consequent upon these diseases may be measurably allayed by eating,
very slowly, dry gum arabic, which has, likewise, curative qualities.
MUSTARD PLASTERS. +
It should be more generally known that a few drops of sweet oil, or
lard, rubbed lightly over the surface of a mustard plaster, will
prevent it from blistering the skin. The patient may fearlessly wear
it all night, if he can bear the burning better than the pain it has
relieved temporarily, and be none the worse for the application. This,
_I know_, to be infallible, and those who have felt the torture of a
mustard-blister, should rejoice to become acquainted with this easy and
sure preventive.
A mustard plaster is an excellent remedy for severe and obstinate
nausea. It must be applied, _hot_, to the pit of the stomach. In less
serious cases, flannel, dipped in hot camphor, wrung out and applied,
still smoking, will often succeed. A drop of camphor in a single
teaspoonful of water, given every twenty minutes, for an hour or so, is
also a good palliative of nausea.
FOR NAUSEA. +
But the specific for nausea, from whatever cause, is HOSFORD’S ACID
PHOSPHATE, a by no means unpleasant medicine. Put twenty drops into a
goblet of ice-water; add a little sugar, and let the patient sip it, a
teaspoonful, at a time, every ten or fifteen minutes. Or, where more
active measures are required, give a drop in a teaspoonful of water,
every five minutes for an hour. At the same time use the mustard
plaster as above directed.
My reader, to whatever “school” she may belong, would not frown at what
may seem to her like unlawful dabbling in the mysteries of medicine,
had she stood with me beside the bed of a woman who had not been able,
for three days and nights, to retain a particle of nourishment upon
her stomach; who was pronounced by physicians to be actually dying of
nausea—and seen her relieved of all dangerous symptoms, within the
hour, by the harmless palliative I have named.
_Inter nos_, sister mine, in the matter of drugs I am heterodox,
choosing, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, to trust dear old,
Mother Nature, and skillful, intelligent nursing. But to become a good
nurse one should possess some knowledge of Materia Medica, especially
in the matter of what are known as “simples.”
FOR CHAPPED HANDS AND LIPS. +
First, wash the hands with Indian, or oatmeal and water, and wipe them
_perfectly dry_. Then—do this just before retiring for the night—rub
the chapped members well with melted—not hot-mutton-tallow, “tried out”
_pur et simple_, or beaten up, while warm, with a little rose-water.
Lubricate thoroughly; draw a pair of old kid gloves—never black
ones—upon your hands, and do not remove them until morning. A single
application will usually effect a cure, but should it fail, repeat the
treatment for two or three nights.
FOR SORE EYES. +
Beat up half a teaspoonful of powdered alum to a curd with the white of
an egg; spread upon soft linen, and lay on the inflamed lid. It is a
soothing, and often potent remedy.
Strong tea, black, green, or mixed, strained and cold, is an excellent
eye-wash. At night, lay cold tea-leaves within a soft linen bag,
squeeze almost dry, and bind over the eye.
For a stye, many physicians advise the sufferer to take internally
brewer’s yeast, a table-spoonful at a dose. It is sometimes singularly
successful, being a good purifier of the blood.
MIXTURE FOR CLEANING BLACK CLOTH, OR WORSTED DRESSES.
Equal quantities of strong black tea and alcohol.
Fine scented soap.
Dip a sponge in boiling water, squeeze as dry as you can, and rub while
hot, upon the sweet soap. Wet with the mixture of tea and alcohol, and
sponge the worsted material to be cleaned, freely. Bub the spots hard,
washing out the sponge frequently in hot water, then squeezing it.
Finally, sponge off the whole surface of the cloth quickly with the
mixture, wiping always in one direction if you are cleansing broadcloth.
Iron, while very damp, on the wrong side.
CLEANSING CREAM.
1 ounce pure glycerine.
1 ounce ether.
1 ounce spirits of wine.
¼ pound best Castile soap.
¼ pound ammonia.
The soap must be scraped fine, the rest of the materials worked into it.
To use it, wet a soft flannel cloth with it; rub grease and dirt-spots
upon worsted garments or black silk, until the cloth is well
impregnated with the cream. Then sponge off with clean hot water, and
rub dry with a clean cloth.
TO CLEAN MARBLE. +
The pumice soap made by the Indexical Soap Manufacturing Co., Boston,
Mass., is the best preparation I have ever used for removing dirt
and stains from marble. I have even extracted ink-spots with it. Wet
a soft flannel cloth, rub on the soap, then on the stain, and wash
the whole surface of mantel or slab with the same, to take off dust,
grease, etc. Wash off with fair water, and rub dry. The polish of the
marble is rather improved than injured by the process. The same soap is
invaluable in a family for removing ink, fruit-stains, and even paint
from the hands. The makers of the pumice soap, Robinson & Co., are also
the manufacturers of the “silver soap,” for cleaning plate which has
nearly superseded all plate-powders, whiting, etc., formerly used for
this purpose.
PUMPKIN FLOUR. +
I remind myself, comically, while jotting down these items of domestic
practicalities, of the lucky chicken of the brood, who, not content
with having secured her tit-bit of crumb, seed, or worm, noisily calls
the attention of all her sisters to the fact. I never secure even a
small prize in the housewifely line, but I am seized with the desire to
spread the knowledge of the same.
About three months ago, my very courteous and intelligent grocer (I
think sometimes, that nobody else was ever blessed with such merchants
of almost every article needed for family use, as those with whom I
deal) handed me, for inspection, a small box of what looked like yellow
tooth-powder, and smelled like vanilla and orris-root. It was pumpkin
flour, he explained—the genuine pumpkin, desiccated by the “Alden
process,” and ground very fine. I took it home for the sake of the
goodly smell, and because it looked “nice.”
The pies made from it were delicious beyond all my former experience
in Thanksgiving desserts—a soft, smooth, luscious custard, procured
without cost of stewing, straining, etc. And the flavor of them upon
the tongue fully justified the promise of the odor that had bewitched
me. It is seldom in a lifetime that one finds a thing which looks
“nice,” smells nicer, and tastes nicest of all. If you, dearest and
patientest of readers, who never quarrel with my digressions, and
hearken indulgently to my rhodomontades, doubt now whether I am in
very earnest, try my pumpkin flour, and bear witness with me to its
excellence.[B]
ANOTHER TREASURE.
Those who are fond of Julienne soups, and would oftener please
themselves and their families by making or ordering them, were not
the work of preparing the vegetables properly, tedious, and so often a
failure, should not hesitate to purchase freely the packages of shred
and dried vegetables now put up expressly for Julienne soups, and sold
in nearly all first-class groceries. They are imported from France, but
are not at all expensive. Full directions for their use accompany them.
SEYMOUR PUDDING.
½ cup of molasses.
½ cup of milk.
½ cup of raisins, seeded, and cut in half.
½ cup of currants.
½ cup of suet, powdered.
½ teaspoonful of soda.
1 egg.
1½ cups of Graham flour.
Spice, and salt to taste.
Boil, or steam for 2½ hours.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE.
1 cup of powdered sugar.
1 table-spoonful of butter, rubbed into the sugar.
3 eggs.
1 cup prepared flour—a heaping cup.
2 table-spoonfuls of cream.
Bake in three jelly-cake tins.
When quite cold, lay between the cakes nearly a quart of fresh, ripe
strawberries. Sprinkle each layer lightly with powdered sugar, and
strew the same thickly over the uppermost cake. Eat while fresh.
WELSH RAREBIT.
½ pound of English cheese.
3 eggs, well beaten.
1 scant cup of fine bread-crumbs.
3 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted.
2 teaspoonfuls of made mustard.
1 saltspoonful of salt.
Mix all well together, and beat to a smooth paste. Have ready some
slices of toasted bread, from which the crust has been pared; spread
them thickly with the mixture, and set them upon the upper grating of
the oven until they are slightly browned. Serve at once.
PARTING WORDS.
ONLY a few, lest the patience I have already had occasion—and more than
once—to praise, should fail at the last pages. And if, in my desire to
be brief, I seem abrupt, you will understand that it is not because I
do not enjoy talking with, and at you.
Be honest with me! Have you ever, in studying these two volumes which I
have tried to make as little dry as the subject would admit, whispered,
or thought something that implied a likeness between the author and the
anonymous gentleman, in whose garden—
“The wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grew higher and higher?”
I used to know Watts from title-page to “finis.” I have taken pains
to forget the creaking numbers of his pious machinery of late years.
But wasn’t the aforesaid personage the one who “talked of eating and
drinking?” Have you ever said, ’twixt amusement and impatience, “This
woman thinks all women born to be cooks, and nothing more?” As I look
at the matter of every-day and necessary duty—the routine of common
life—“common” meaning anything but vulgar—there are certain things
which _must_ be learned, whether one have a natural bias for them or
no. All men and women who would maintain a respectable position in
this enlightened land at this day, must learn how to read and write;
must possess a fair knowledge of the multiplication-table, have a
tolerably correct impression as to what hemisphere and zone they live
in, whether in a kingdom or republic; must be able to describe the
shape of the earth, and to tell who is the President of the United
States. Next to these, in my opinion, stands the necessity that every
woman should know how to use her needle deftly, and have a practical
acquaintance with the leading principles of cookery. The acquisition
of these homely accomplishments can never, in any circumstances, harm
her. The probability is, that she cannot perform her part aright as
spinster, wife, mother, or mistress without them.
I have a lovely child waiting for me on the “thither shore,” whose
many playful and earnest sayings are still quoted by us in our family
talks, quite as often with smiles as with tears. Hers was a sunny life.
We knew that should the Father prolong her earthly existence into
womanhood, the power of _making_ her happiness would be no longer ours.
But while our children _were_ children, to us belonged the precious
prerogative of flooding their hearts with delight, making of home a
haven of joy and peace they would never forget, whatever the coming
years might bring. Our darling, then, was a happy, healthy child, and
symmetrical in mind as body—learning readily, and usually with ease,
the simple lessons suited to her years. Yet at nine years of age, she
said to me one night before going to bed:
“Mamma, when I remember as I lay my head on the pillow, every night,
that I have to say the 9 column of the multiplication-table to-morrow,
I could almost wish that I could die in my sleep, and the morning never
come!”
With my heart aching in the great pity I could ill-express to one so
young, I took her in my arms and told her of the need she would have,
in after-life, of the knowledge gained so hardly; how, setting aside
the actual utility of the multiplication-table, she would be better,
wiser, stronger, always for the discipline of the study.
She lived to laugh at the recollection of the fearful bug-bear. Do I
recall the incident with the least shade of remorse that I did not
yield to my compassion and her pleading eyes, and remit, for good and
all, the dreaded exercise? On the contrary, I am thankful the strength
was given me to teach her how to battle and to conquer. And—I say it in
no irreverent spirit of speculation—I have faith to believe that in the
richer, deeper life beyond, she still, in some way or sense, reaps the
good of that which she won by resolute labor, and by the victory over
her faint-heartedness.
I have thought of the little circumstance, a hundred times, when women
have bemoaned themselves, in my hearing, over the hardship of being
compelled to “understand something about housekeeping.”
Since the “understanding” is a need, and patent even to their unwilling
eyes, what say Common Sense and Duty?
My dear, I would not breathe it if there were a man within possible
hearing—but are you not sometimes ashamed that women are content to
know and to do so little in this world?
“So are many men!” True, but that is the look-out of masculine
philanthropists—not ours. How many ladies in your circle of
acquaintances are willing—much less eager to do anything, except the
positive and well-defined work laid upon them by custom and society?
How many enter into the full meaning, and have any just appreciation of
the beauty of the duties especially appointed to _them_, of the glory
and solemnity of maternity, the high honor of being the custodians of
others’ happiness so long as life shall last; God’s deputies upon earth
in the work of training immortal souls; of forming the characters and
lives that shall outlive the sun?
How many—to descend to a very plain and practical question—could, if
bereft of fortune to-morrow or next week, or next year, earn a living
for themselves, to say nothing of their children?
I talked out this last-named question on paper, a few months ago; threw
arguments and conclusions into a form which I hoped would prove more
attractive to the general reader, than a didactic essay. The last favor
I shall ask of you before closing this volume, is that you will read my
unpretending story through, and answer to yourself, if not to me and
the public, the question put in the title.
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN?
PART I.
“I AM going to think this matter out to a practical issue, if it takes
me all night!” said Mrs. Hiller, positively. “It may be that I am
rowing against wind and tide, as you say, but I will hold to the oars
until I am hopelessly swamped, or reach land!”
Her husband laughed. Not sneeringly; but as good-natured men always do
laugh when women talk of finding their way out of a labyrinth by means
of the clue of argument.
“You will accomplish no more than your conventions and women’s rights
books”—
“Don’t call them _mine_!” protested the wife.
“I speak of the sex at large, my love. No more, then, than women’s
rights books and conventions have achieved. All their battle for the
equality of the sexes; the liberation of women from the necessity of
marriage as a means of livelihood; for more avenues of remunerative
labor, and the acknowledgment of the dignity of the same—now that the
smoke has cleared away, and combatants and spectators can look about
them—is seen to have resulted in nothing, or next to nothing. You
have encouraged a few more women to paint poor pictures, and spoil
blocks and plates in attempts to practise engraving; put some at
bookkeepers’ desks where they are half paid; crowded the board-rooms
of our public schools with applicants at the rate of a hundred for
each vacancy; induced a similar rush upon telegraph offices, and every
other place where ‘light, lady-like labor’ can be procured; brought
down, rather than raised the salaries in each of these departments of
industry—and made marriage more than ever the _summum bonum_ of every
thinking workwoman—the shining gate that is to give her liberation from
ill-requited toil.”
“Philip! how you exaggerate!”
“Not in the least, my dear, sanguine wife! Who puts on her rose-colored
spectacles whenever the subject of ‘woman’s emancipation’ is brought
forward. I have studied this matter as closely as you have; hopefully,
for a while, but, of late, with the fast-growing conviction that Nature
and Society yoked are too strong a team for you to pull against.
Combat the assertion as you will,—it is natural for a woman to look
forward to matrimony as her happiest destiny; to desire, and to bring
it about by every means which seems to her consistent with modesty and
self-respect. And to this conclusion Society holds her by the refusal
to receive into the ‘best circles’ her who earns her living by her own
labor. Mrs. Million treads the charmed arena by virtue of her husband’s
wealth. But, when Mrs. Sangpur is envious of her dear friend’s latest
turn-out in equipage, dress, or furniture, she recurs, tauntingly,
to the time when Mrs. Million was a work-girl in Miss Fitwell’s
establishment, and shrugs her patrician shoulders over ‘new people.’ As
Miss Fitwell’s assistant, forewoman, and successor, Miss Bias—now Mrs.
Million—were she rich, refined, beautiful, could yet never hope for a
card even to one of Mrs. Sangpur’s mass parties.”
“But there are distinctions of social degree, Philip, which must be
maintained. You don’t bring your bootmaker home to dine with Judge
Wright, or Honorable Senator Rider.”
“I am not a reformer, my love. When my bootmaker fits himself for the
society of those you name, he will be welcomed by them, and his early
history referred to as an honor, not disgrace. The annals of Court and
Congress will tell you this. To return to the original question; I
insist there is a want of practicalness—I won’t say of common sense—in
your reform, as heretofore conducted; that no one woman in five
thousand, especially in what are called the higher walks of life, is
able to support herself, or would be allowed by popular sentiment to
do so, were she able. There is a screw loose somewhere, and very loose
at that. I, for one, am never rid of the rattle. Maybe, because I am
the father of three daughters. If I had sons, I should be condemned by
the entire community; stand convicted at the bar of my own conscience,
if I had not trained each of them to some trade or profession. As
it is, the case stands thus: I may live long enough to accumulate a
fair competency for each of my girls, a sum, the interest of which
will support her comfortably; for she, being a woman, will never
increase the bulk of the principal. My more reasonable hope is to see
her married to an energetic business man, or one who has inherited a
fortune and knows how to take care of it. This accomplished, parental
responsibility is supposed to end, so far as provision for the life
that now is, goes. If her husband should fail, or die a poor man—the
Lord help her and her children—if I cannot!”
He was not talking flippantly now. As he knocked the ashes from the tip
of his cigar into the grate, his face was grave to sorrowfulness.
“Our girls have been carefully educated,” said Mrs. Hiller, a little
hurt at the turn the dialogue had taken. “In this country a thorough
education is a fortune. They could set up a school.”
“To compete with a thousand others conducted by those who have been
trained expressly for this profession; whom constant practice has made
_au fait_ to the ever-changing modes of instruction and fashionable
text-books. Why, I, whose Latin salutatory was praised as a model
of classic composition, and who read Horace, Sallust, and Livy in
the original almost every day, cannot understand more than half the
quotations spouted in the court-house and at lawyers’ dinners, by
youngsters who have learned the ‘continental method’ of pronunciation.
I cannot even parse English, for the very parts of speech are disguised
under new names. A noun-substantive is something else, an article is
a pronoun, and, what with adjuncts, subjects, and modifiers, I stand
abashed in the presence of a ten-year-old in the primary department
of a public school. Our girls might go out as daily governesses at
a dollar a day, or run their chances of getting music scholars away
from professionals by offering lessons at half price. They are good,
intelligent, and industrious. I don’t deny their ability to make a bare
living, if forced to do it. I don’t believe they could do more. When
the rainy day comes, He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, must
be their helper. Let us hope that day will never dawn. And by way of
additional provision against it, I must leave you for an hour or two,
to keep an engagement with a client. Don’t let the memory of our talk
depress you. We won’t cross the bridge before we come to it. Here is
‘Old Kensington’ to amuse you. You know, darling, that I would work
brains and fingers to nothing rather than have you and the lassies want
for so much as the ‘latest thing’ in neck ribbons. And so would any man
who is worthy of the name.”
“I know _you_ would.”
The elderly love-couple gazed into each other’s eyes, exchanged a
good-bye kiss as fondly as at their partings twenty-three years before.
“I could ask no fairer destiny for my daughters than has been mine,”
murmured the mother, resettling herself in her luxurious chair before
the sea-coal fire, and putting out her hand for the book the thoughtful
kindness of her husband had provided for her evening’s entertainment.
“But to every prize, there are so many blanks! It is worse for a woman
to sell herself for a home and a livelihood than for her to fight,
hand-to-hand with poverty, all her life. If girls would only believe
this. I mean that mine _shall_!”
She did not open the book yet. Unrest and dissatisfaction were in the
face that studied the seething, glowing pile in the grate.
“There are the Payne girls, for instance!” she said, presently, with
increasing discomfort.
The book lay, still shut, in her lap. She folded her hands upon it;
lay back in the chair, and did not move again in an hour. She was
“thinking it out;” pulling: hard on the oar in the teeth of head-wind
and fog.
She was haunted by the Payne girls. Their father, a popular physician,
had lived handsomely; worked hard; been exemplary in his home, his
profession, in church, and in city. He sent his five daughters to the
best schools, and fitted them by culture and dress to make a creditable
appearance in the world—the only world they cared for—a round of
visits, parties and show-places for marriageable young people of both
sexes. They were nice girls, said complaisant Everybody. Not beautiful,
or gifted, but sprightly, well-bred and amiable—the very material
out of which to make good wives and mothers. Two did marry before
the sad day on which their father was brought home in an apoplectic
fit, from which he never rallied. They married for love, but not
imprudently. Their husbands were merchants with fair prospects, steady,
enterprising, moral young men, who were yet not quite disposed to be
burdened with the care of a maiden sister-in-law-and-a-half apiece in
addition to the support of their families proper. That somebody would
have to “look after the unmarried daughters” was soon bruited about.
There were two boys—five and ten years old—to be educated; the widow to
be provided for, and, when the estate was settled up, nothing except
a life-insurance of eighteen thousand dollars was left with which to
compass all this. Tenderhearted Everybody was sorry for the fatherless
boys; sorrier for the widow, who had loved her husband very truly;
sorriest for “the Payne girls.” Before their mourning was rusty,
appreciative Everybody began to nudge Everybody Else slyly, when in
company with the Payne girls, to call attention to the fact, daily more
and more palpable, that the sisters three were anxious to get married.
Not more anxious, if the secrets of feminine hearts had been revealed,
than were dozens of others in their set, but they had not the art to
dissemble their eagerness. Nobody stayed his, or her laugh at them by
considering that, since they had deliberately, conscientiously, and
humanely determined to relieve their mother from the crushing weight of
their dependence, and saw no other way of doing this than by selling
themselves in the licensed and respectable shambles of matrimony, they
should have been commended for doing with all their might whatsoever
their hands found to do. They angled earnestly, but with a zeal so
little according to knowledge that the most bull-headed gudgeon in the
preserved waters of bachelor and widowerdom scorned to be imposed upon
by the bait. They borrowed the finery of their better-off sisters; made
their own and their mother’s over and over again; went every where and
tried every phase of fascination, “from grave to gay, from lively to
severe,” until their eager, ceaseless smiles wore wrinkles about lips
and eyes that ill-natured Everybody called crows-feet, and the tales
of their fawnings, toadyisms, and manœuvres were stale in the ears
of greedy Everybody—yet were still, at thirty-six, thirty-eight, and
forty years of age, the Payne girls, “whose brothers were now able to
do something for them.” What more suitable than that these fine young
fellows—one of whom had chosen his father’s profession, while the
other had gone into partnership with his brother-in-law, should bind
pillions upon their backs whereon their sisters could ride in reputable
indolence, behind the wives they had wedded and had a right to cherish?
“It was a pity,” considerate Everybody now began to whisper, “that they
should be thus hampered; but what else could be done?”
Mrs. Hiller’s fresh-colored, matronly face might well be grave, as she
recounted these things to herself, had the history of the Payne girls
been an isolated case.
“But they are a type of so many!” she said, sadly. “Society is
encrusted with such, like barnacles sticking to a ship. There is Lewis
Carter, one of the ablest young lawyers at the bar, Philip says. He
and Annie Morton have been in love with one another ever since he was
twenty-one, and she nineteen, ten years ago. It is eight since his
father died, and left him in charge of his mother and three sisters,
only one of whom is younger than himself. They have not married,
and, until they do, he cannot. Annie may wait for him until they are
both fifty years old and upward—maybe all their lives—for the older
the sisters grow, the more dependent they will become. They make a
pleasant home for him, people say; manage his money judiciously, and
fairly worship their benefactor. Yet he must compare them, mentally,
to leeches, when he reflects how youth and hope are ebbing out of his
heart and Annie’s. No doubt leeches are sincerely attached to what they
feed upon. What right have they to expect a support from him, more than
he from them? They are strong and well, and as much money was spent
upon their education as upon his. Housekeepers, forsooth! Does it take
four women to keep one man’s house?”
She was rowing very hard now, and the fog was denser than ever.
“There is Mr. Sibthorpe, with his four girls and three boys, and
a salary, as bank-teller, of two thousand dollars a year. The
daughters all ‘took’ French and music lessons at school. One of them
is ‘passionately fond’ of worsted work; another does decalcomanie
flower-pots and box-covers for fairs, and all crochet in various
stitches, and one is great upon tatting. They ‘help about house,’ as
our grandmothers used to say, all four of them; do contrive, with the
aid of their mother and a strapping Irish girl, to keep the housework
tolerably in hand, and ‘have in’ a dressmaker and seamstress, spring
and fall, to give them a fresh start. They don’t read a book through
once a year; they have no connected plans about anything, except to
appear as well as girls whose fathers are worth ten times as much as is
theirs—and to get married! They murder time by inches while waiting for
the four coming men; _mince_ it into worthlessness with their pitiful
fal-lals of fancy work and the fine arts (save the mark!). Evelyn told
me, the other day, that the sprig of wax hyacinths she showed me—a
stiff, tasteless spike, that smelled of oil and turpentine—‘occupied’
her for ten hours! What will become of them when their pale, overworked
father dies? It is frightful to think of a vessel thus freighted and
cumbered being tied to safety by such a worn, frayed cord as that one
man’s life.”
A dash of sleety rain against the window interrupted her.
“Philip said there would be a storm before morning. I wonder if he took
his umbrella? He never thinks of himself. I am sorry he had to go out
at all with such a cold.”
“One man’s life!” What flung the words back at her? What had
she and her petted daughters between them and comparative—maybe
absolute—poverty, save the life of this man, who, with a heavy cold on
his lungs, had gone out into the fierce March night? Who would dare
prophesy that his dream of amassing a competency for his children would
be fulfilled? Why should she be vexing her soul with speculations about
the Payne, and the Carter, and the Sibthorpe girls, when other women,
as wise and far-sighted as she, were perhaps asking aloud, in friendly
or impertinent gossip over their respective firesides, what would
become of the “poor Hillers,” in the event of their father’s death.
She felt very much as if her barque had, like Robinson Crusoe’s ship,
“with a shock,
Struck plump on a rock!”
What were _her_ daughters good for, if the question should arise how to
keep the wolf from their own door? There was Philip’s life-insurance
(everybody insured his life nowadays) of fifteen thousand dollars,
secured to herself; and this house in which they lived, the lowest
valuation of which was twenty thousand—and something—she wasn’t sure
how much besides. That is, she supposed something would be left when
all outstanding accounts were paid. Say, however, that they would
have thirty-five thousand clear. At six per cent. interest, this would
bring, she estimated, after a pause, an income of twenty-one hundred
dollars per annum. Provided she sold the house! That was a pang, even
in imagination. Out of this sum must come rent, fuel, clothes, and a
thousand etceteras for a family of four grown people, whose present
income was, at the least, ten thousand a year.
“Good Heavens!” The rosy face blanched even under the ruddy rays of the
sea-coal fire. “Say, then, that we were worth fifty thousand dollars,
free of incumbrance. That would be only three thousand a year; and,
as Philip says, we could do nothing to increase the principal. Why we
would have to be economical, if we had double that sum. And few men’s
estates yield more. How do widows and orphans who have been reared in
luxury, live, when the strong staff is broken? I seem never to have
understood until this instant what helpless wretches women are; how
most helpless of all classes are those who know themselves, and who
have always been known as _ladies_, born and bred. Is there a remedy,
a preventive for this? Is it impracticable to throw out an anchor to
windward? What was the origin of this insane, wicked, cruel prejudice
against independent thought and vigorous work on the part of women,
that fills every rank of life with miserable wives, and mothers who
ought never to be entrusted with the care of children? Does He, who
can make even wickedness the instrument of His purposes, permit this
to flourish rank in Christian lands, that the world may be lawfully
populated?”
In the boat again, and in very deep, murky waters, but tugging at the
oar with all the energy of her practical, common-sensible character.
“Philip says teaching does not pay any longer; nor painting, nor music,
nor fine sewing. What does?”
Through the smooth, oily heart of the big lump of coal on the top of
the mass in the grate, placed there carefully by Mr. Hiller’s tongs
before he went out, ran a concealed layer of slate, not wider than
a man’s finger, nor thicker than a plate of mica. But when the fire
touched it, it cracked, and the big, justly-balanced lump exploded with
force that sent the fragments helter-skelter in every direction.
Mrs. Hiller jumped up with a little scream, and shook her dress
violently, inspected every flounce, lest the flutings might harbor a
live coal or spark.
“All safe, fortunately,” she congratulated herself, after brushing off
rug and fender, and pushing her chair a few paces further from the
hearth. “It is a real calamity to scorch a dress in this day, when one
pays so much for having it made. Our bills are absolutely shameful.
Whoever loses money, or fails to make it, the milliners and dressmakers
ought to be fat and flourishing. Their profits must be enormous,
yet all of them—the competent and obliging ones—are overrun with
work. Madame Champe, for example, gives herself the airs of a queen
dispensing favors, when she consents to undertake a dress for me.”
At that instant, with that tart speech, Mrs. Hiller reached land and
beached her boat.
The three girls did not return home from the party to which they had
gone until twelve o’clock. The rain had not touched them in the close
coach their father always hired for them on such occasions. Tossing
off their wrappings as they ran, they trooped into their mother’s
sitting-room, adjoining her chamber, where she awaited them.
“With such a super_lu_gious home-sy fire! bright and warm as her own
heart,” chattered Blanche, the youngest, rushing forward to throw
herself on the rug at her mother’s knee. “And a heavenly cup of tea! I
enter now into the full comprehension of the reason why it is called
the celestial herb,” sniffing the air. “There never was, there never
will be, there never _could_ be, such another mamma.”
“You are right there!” cried the others, kissing her less noisily, but
as fondly, as did the madcap of the flock.
Any mother might be proud of the trio, clustered about her, sipping the
tea they declared to be more delicious than all the delicacies of the
supper table; talking as fast as their nimble tongues could move of
what they had done, and seen, and heard, since she had superintended
their toilets, four hours before. That the understanding between her
and them was perfect, hearty, and joyous, was plain.
Emma, the eldest, was twenty-one, tall, shapely, with a complexion
and gait that bespoke healthy nervous organization, a sound mind
and judgment. Her excellent sense and happy temper made her a safe
counsellor, as well as agreeable companion, for her more volatile
sisters. She dressed tastefully, as did they all; moved with composed
grace through a systematic round of daily duties; was her father’s
pride, the mother’s helper, and not a whit less popular in her circle
than if she had been both wit and beauty, whereas she was neither.
Imogen was far handsomer, a decided blonde, while Emma had gray eyes
and dark hair. The second daughter liked to set off her fairness by
all justifiable and lady-like appliances of art and fashion, and knew
how to do it. She was never florid or conspicuous in appearance, yet
never _en déshabille_ in the simplest attire. Her clothes became a part
of her so soon as she put them on. A few touches of her deft fingers
brought fitness out of disorder; added the nameless, inestimable air we
term “style,” for the want of a fitter word, to whatever she touched or
wore. A very busy bee she was in her way, with a mania for renovating
her own paraphernalia and that of everybody else who would allow her
the privilege; giving to the parlors, which were her especial charge, a
new aspect every day by the variety of her elegant devices.
Blanche—eighteen and just “out,” was _petite_ in figure, with light,
fluffy hair, dancing blue eyes and small white teeth that somehow made
more arch her merry smile. She was the pet and the mischief-maker of
the household, affectionate and frolicsome, with innumerable tricksy,
yet dainty ways that belonged only to herself; quick of wit and
fearless of tongue, and facile in hand as Imogen, her room-mate and
confederate in all her schemes of pleasure or work.
“Emma lays the foundation; Imogen builds thereupon. Mine is the
ornamental department—the glossing over and decking, after the scaffold
is down,” she had once said.
The mother recalled it, now, watching them as with unsealed eyes, and
was confirmed in the resolutions which were the fruit of her evening’s
musings.
“Away to bed, magpies!” she said, at length, “I won’t hear a word more!
You are warmed and refreshed now. And unless you go soon, you will not
be down in season to recount your adventures and conquests to papa at
breakfast. He considers himself an ill-used person when he has to go
off without getting the evening’s report. Moreover, I want you to have
your brains steady and clear, for I must have a long business talk with
you to-morrow forenoon.”
“Business! that sounds portentous,” said Imogen, in affected
consternation.
“It sounds entrancing!” commented Blanche. “It savoreth of new dresses,
and, perchance, jewelry—peradventure, though _that_ is a bold flight of
fancy, of a trip across the sea next summer.”
“Nothing has gone wrong, I hope, mother?” queried Emma.
“Nothing at all, my dear Lady Thoughtful,” was the smiling reply.
“Dear Lady Owl, you mean!” cried saucy Blanche, and she went off
singing:—
“And what says the old gray owl?
To who? To who?”
“Happy children!” Mrs. Hiller heaved a confidential sigh to the fire
that had shone on the young faces a moment ago. “Will what I have to
tell them make them less happy or gay? Is mine, after all, the needless
croak of the owl instead of a wise warning?”
The thought pierced her again, next day, when they met in her boudoir,
eager and curious, their eyes and cheeks unmarred by the moderate
dissipation of the preceding night. But she stood fast to her purpose;
unfolded her scheme in bulk and detail, with the assured tone of one
who had considered the cost to the last farthing. She was not accounted
an eccentric woman by her acquaintances, but her proposal was novel,
and, to her listeners, startling. Their days of school-study were
over, she reminded them. It was time that upon the foundation of
general information thus laid should be erected the superstructure of a
profession.
“A specialty, if you prefer the word,” she said; “since I earnestly
hope you will not be called upon to practice it for a livelihood. While
papa’s strength and health last, he finds no more delightful use for
his earnings than to purchase comfort and luxury for us. Were he to
die, or to be unfortunate in business, or become incurably diseased—and
such things are of almost daily occurrence—our style of living would
be at once and entirely altered. You would be driven to the study of
small, minute economies and false appearances, such as must rasp and
narrow the souls of those who resort to them; to escape these by a
marriage of convenience, or the lucky accident of a love-match, or
to engage, in earnest, in some business that would, thanks to your
previous training, continue to you the elegancies, with the decencies
of life.”
This was the preamble to an abstract of the conversation with her
husband, the troubled reverie and calculations that succeeded it.
“Of artists in music and painting, there are, perhaps, twenty in
this city,” she observed. “Of pretenders and drudges in these arts,
there are more than a thousand. Since not one of you has developed
any decided talent for such pursuits, or for literature, and, since
teaching for a living has become but another name for bondage and
starvation, my plan is this: You, Emma, shall learn bookkeeping;
Imogen, dressmaking; Blanche, millinery. Don’t look horrified! I
shall not expose you to the uncongenial associations or unwholesome
atmosphere of the crowded shop or work-room. All that affection and
money can do to make the term of your novitiate pleasant shall be done.
You shall fit up the old nursery as your academy of the useful arts, if
you choose to call it by so dignified a name. I shall engage competent
instructors for you and pay well for the lessons. But there must be no
play-work, no superficial, amateur performance on either side. When
your trades are learned, I shall expect you to keep yourselves in
practice, and up with the latest improvements and fashions by practice
in domestic manufactures. Milliners’ and dressmakers’ bills shall be
among the things that were. Emma shall have charge of the housekeeping
accounts and papa’s books. He will pay her as he would any other
skilful accountant, and what you, Imogen and Blanche, shall adjudge to
be a reasonable price for every dress and bonnet made for yourselves,
your sister, or for me.”
The, for once, dumb trio found simultaneous voice at this.
“Mamma! would that be right? Would it not be an imposition?”
“It is his own proposal. We talked it all over last night after he
came home, and again this morning. I need not tell you that he is the
best, most indulgent father that ever loved and spoiled three loving
daughters. I had some difficulty in persuading him to let me try the
experiment. The tears stood in his dear eyes, while he debated the
_pros_ and _cons_ of the case.
“‘My bonnie bairns!’ he said. ‘If I could, I would be their shield
always. They should never dream of privation; never ink or prick their
pretty fingers except for amusement, if I were sure of ten years more
of life and prosperity.’”
She stopped to steady her voice.
Imogen was crying outright; Emma’s gray eyes were cloudy. Blanche broke
forth, half-laughing, half-sobbing:—
“The angelic old papa! isn’t he a born seraph? I would peddle rags
with a lean mule, and a string of bells across the cart, to save him
an hour’s anxiety. I wish _he_ would wear French hats—all flowers and
moonshine! And have four every season. Would not I furnish them for
nothing, kisses thrown into the bargain?”
The others had to laugh at the vision of papa’s six feet of stature,
broad shoulders, strong features, and iron-gray hair crowned with a
fancy hat of the prevailing mode. Mrs. Hiller went on:—
“‘But,’ he added, ‘I will not, while I can take care of them, derive
one cent’s profit from their work. There is no surer way of learning
how to take care of money than having money to manage. I will furnish
each of the pusses with a bank-book. She shall make out quarterly bills
against you, or me; deposit her gains in her own name, and invest
as she will. Her earnings may thus be the nest-egg of a neat little
fortune. I can’t imagine—I won’t believe that they will ever become
mercenary. But I am sick of the limpness and insipidity and general
know-nothingness of the women with whom I have business dealings.
‘My dear husband never suffered me to be annoyed by these matters,’
says the widow, her handkerchief to her eyes. And—‘If my poor papa
had foreseen this day, it would have embittered his life!’ sobs the
interesting spinster of forty-seven, who ‘hasn’t an idea how to make
out a checque,’ and really doesn’t know the difference between real and
personal estate!”
“The Payne girls!” uttered Imogen and Blanche, in wicked glee. “Mamma,
you ‘did’ Arethusa to the life.”
She resumed more seriously. “Something papa heard last night caused us
to lay this subject especially to heart. Doctor Jaynes says there is
no doubt that Mr. Sibthorpe is threatened with softening of the brain.
He has been doing extra work this winter—bookkeeping and copying in
the evenings, at home, as he could pick up such jobs, to eke out his
salary, and it has been too much for him. Nothing but absolute rest and
freedom from care can save him. Doctor Jaynes told him so plainly, and
he answered, with tears, that it was out of the question—he must die in
harness. It was natural that the news should interest and sadden us.”
“He has a very helpless family,” remarked Emma, compassionately.
“Because so many of them—all who are grown up—are girls!” cried
Blanche, impetuously. “That tells the whole story. And such a pitiful,
disgraceful, humiliating one it is! I could be ashamed of being a
woman. Mrs. Sibthorpe—indeed a majority of American mothers of the
genteeler sort, ought to turn pagans, and drown their baby-girls
as soon as they are born. That would be better than turning them
loose—great, overgrown babies, forever whining, with their fingers in
their mouths, over their feebleness, and timidity, and sentimental
ignorance—upon a grinning, or groaning public!”
“But how strange that we have never taken this subject into serious
consideration before,” said sensible Emma. “That other people do not,
is certain. Mother, you won’t mind if I ask you a question or two?”
“My precious child! as many as you like. I wish you to state every
objection frankly. You are of age, you know. I could not compel you to
adopt my suggestion, if I were disposed to do so. Nor will I coerce the
judgment of one of you three. We must go into this enterprise heartily
and all together, or not at all.”
“Will not our action excite much talk when it is known, give rise to
unpleasant surmises, and subject us to many impertinent inquiries?”
“Undoubtedly it will. We may as well prepare ourselves for this. And
the same kind guardians of their neighbors’ behavior and general
interests would buzz and sting yet more industriously were one of us to
sicken with small-pox, or the house to burn down to-morrow. Or, if papa
were to go off in a rapid consumption, they would bewail the number of
girls in our family as loudly and as delightedly as they will soon be
gossiping about poor, distraught Mr. Sibthorpe, and his quartette of
what Blanche calls overgrown babies; would dole out to us such charity
of word and deed as falls to the share of the Payne girls. My darlings,
if I could tell you how I long to see you independent of such changes
in fortune and fair-weather friends! each of you armed in herself to
meet reverses and to defy them, with GOD’S help and blessing upon those
who are trying to help themselves!”
Whatever error the tender mother may have made in her calculations of
what was to be risked, gained, and lost by the bold step she purposed,
she had not overrated the amount and quality of gossip caused by the
practical operation of her scheme. Stories, having “Mrs. Hiller’s queer
whim” for a starting-point, increased and multiplied, and flew over
the town like thistle-down in a windy September day. The mother was
a tyrant; the daughters were peculiar and strong-minded. The parents
refused to maintain their offspring because they were not sons, and
had informed them of their intention to bequeath every dollar of their
property to a Boys’ Orphan Asylum. The offspring disdained to be fed
and clothed by the hated parents. Mr. Hiller was insolvent; Mrs. Hiller
was insane; both were misers. The sisters were engaged to be married to
missionaries, and were bent upon engrafting the multifarious iniquities
of the modern and Christian woman’s garb upon the scantily-clothed
trunk of Ashantee, or Papuyan, or Root-digger fashions.
At first our heroines were annoyed, then diverted. In less than three
months they ceased to think of the babble at all, in their growing
interest in their active, varied home-life.
Just a year from the March night on which Mrs. Hiller had used so many
nautical figures in her speech and reverie, two cards were brought up
to the “academy of useful arts,” as the fair students therein persisted
in calling a large room at the back of the house. It was airy and
sunny, and, to-day, was full of life and enjoyment, for mother and
daughters were gathered there, and the chirping was like that of a
happily-crowded robin’s nest.
“The ladies say, _do_ let ’em run right up, without ceremony,” reported
the servant.
“‘Arethusa Payne,’ and ‘Marietta Sibthorpe,’” read Blanche from the
cards. “Ask them to walk up to the work-room, Jane. Mind that you say
‘the work-room.’” As the amused girl left the chamber, the young lady
continued: “An Inspection Committee! Let them come! Won’t I make them
open their eyes, though?”
“I had no idea you were engaged with a dressmaker. I am afraid we
intrude,” simpered Miss Payne, tiptoeing, like a cautious hen, between
Blanche’s work-stand, piled with bonnet frames and linings, and
Imogen’s, down which flowed a river of silken flounces, half gathered
at the top; noting likewise, by turning her sharp face to the right,
then the left, as she stepped (still like an inquisitive Partlet), that
Emma’s tall desk, with a ledger open upon it, was in a corner.
Mrs. Hiller was ripping up a black silk dress; Emma was pulling a
velvet hat to pieces.
“Only practising our trades a little in furbishing up things; giving
a spring-ish look to hats and gowns,” rejoined Blanche, with saucy
politeness. “One gets so sick of winter clothes!”
“Dear me, how convenient! What a source of amusement it must be to have
that sort of knack!” said Miss Sibthorpe, self-compassionately. “It is
a genuine talent, isn’t it now? downright genius! And can you actually
_make_ a hat, Blanche! I couldn’t put a bit of ribbon on mine to save
my life!”
“But we are professionals,” put in Imogen. “You have no idea how
we have worked to acquire the artistic touch. We had Miss Tiptop’s
forewoman with us at the country cottage we rented last summer, all the
‘dull season,’ on purpose to teach me dressmaking, besides the lessons
I had had in town. Blanche ran down to the city every week for an
all-day lesson.”
“But how very odd!” ejaculated Arethusa.
“That people should pay such exorbitant milliners’ bills all their
lives, when they could learn the business with one-fourth the labor
and in one-tenth of the time music requires?” Blanche said, in wilful
misunderstanding, setting her head on one side, and holding her
unfinished hat off at arm’s length to examine the effect. “It is queer,
as you say. I’ll be generous, girls. I’ll _give_ you instructions, if
you wish—take you as my apprentices. I should enjoy it hugely.”
Both laughed shrilly and affectedly, to disguise the offence her
proposal gave them.
“I haven’t the least taste for such employment,” said Arethusa.
“You are very kind, but my social engagements are _so_ numerous!”
pleaded Marietta. “Honestly, what do you do it for? You can’t really
like it! It seems so—so—very peculiar! such a queer whim, you know!”
“That is just what everybody says—such a queer whim! You get so
much talked about, you know,” subjoined Arethusa. “And it is _so_
excessively disagreeable to be talked about! I couldn’t stand it.”
“But you do not understand,” pursued Blanche, solemnly, “that you might
make a living by it. Why, we three expect to be a rich firm in the
course of time; to buy up bank stock and railway shares, and speculate
in real estate, and all that. Emma is a capital book-keeper. Papa says
she could command a salary of a thousand dollars a year already. Then,
think of the luxury of having a new dress, or, what is the same thing,
one that is made over to look like new, at every party; and as many
hats a season as you want, for what it would cost to buy one at Madame
Lavigne’s. And finally, you see, one respects herself so thoroughly and
deliciously for being able to fill up a real place—a worker’s place—in
the world. Most women remind me of marbles that have rolled somehow
into holes. Sometimes it is a fit. But as often as not the marble is
round, and the hole is square!”
PART II.
“ALL aboard!”
As the cars glided out of the lighted depot into the darker streets,
leading to the utter gloom of the open country, two gentlemen settled
themselves into their seats with audible sighs of satisfaction.
“Homeward bound!” said the elder, a man of fifty, hale in figure and
face, although his hair was almost white.
“For which let us be thankful!” responded his companion, heartily.
“This has been a long week to me, although a busy one—longer than a
fortnight would have been at home.”
“You may blame the twin babies for that,” said the other, smiling
indulgently at his impatience.
“_Bless_ them for it, you mean—the boys and their mother. A man may
well be impatient to get back to such treasures as are mine.”
He was a fine-looking fellow, manly in every gesture and tone,
six-and-twenty years old, the son-in-law of the gentleman beside him,
and had been for a year his law-partner.
“You are right. Emma is a good girl—a noble woman; her mother’s own
daughter for sense, discretion, and warmth of heart. There is nothing
frivolous or shallow about her. Let me see—the boys are almost three
months old, are they not?”
“Just three months to-morrow. It is marvellous what strength the
thought of them puts into my heart and arm. The cunning little rascals!
Emma writes that they grow every day. She is sure they will recognize
me on my return. I suppose you experienced papas, who have outlived the
novelty of this sort of thing, amuse yourselves vastly at our expense;
but it pleases me to believe what she says. They are very bright,
healthy in mind and body, as the children of such a mother should be.
They and I are blest beyond comparison in having her for the angel in
our house. Should it please GOD to spare our lives”—
The sentence rested on the shocked air, incomplete, never to be
finished. One terrific jar!—a crashing and splintering, and reeling,
an awful sense of falling down, down, through utter darkness, over
and over, then a blow that ended everything—surprise, consternation,
fearful questioning—in blank, black silence.
When the débris of the telescoped cars was cleared away, the two men
were found lying, as they had sat, side by side. The younger was dead.
The elder moved and groaned as he was lifted from the wreck. Papers
upon their persons established their identity beyond a doubt.
Early next morning a telegram was brought into a pretty dressing-room,
where the sunshine, peering through the vine-leaves about the window,
made dancing shadows on the floor, laughed, and leaped, and flashed
in reflection from the water in a China bath, set in the middle of
the chamber. In this splashed and crowed two baby-boys, one held by
the mother, the other by the grandmother, and between these knelt two
younger women—all four in delighted worship of the tiny cherubs. There
was a breathless hush as the youngest of the party sprang up to seize
the envelope, and tore it open.
“_Collision!_” said the missive. “_Frederick Corwin killed instantly.
Philip Hiller badly injured. Both will be sent on in next train._”
In this ghastly shape came disaster to the long-exempt household.
Life and the world had dealt so benignly and bountifully with them
heretofore, that they had insensibly learned to look upon their
possession of health, love, and happiness as assured for years and
years to come. Emma’s marriage had removed her from them but a couple
of blocks, and all concurred in the opinion that this was a charming
variety upon their former estate.
“How did we ever get along without Fred’s and Emma’s house to run
into? It is as good as having two homes,” the girls often said among
themselves.
When the twins came—bouncing, healthy boys—the excitement and joy in
one house equalled that in the other. It seemed now, indeed, that
they could ask nothing more of Heaven; that the brimming cup of bliss
was mantled all over with rose-leaves. And when “Papa and Fred” were
obliged to be absent from their homes for a week, in attendance upon
the doings of a court a hundred miles away, Emma and her babes were
transferred with much ceremony and rejoicing to her mother’s care;
given up to the petting and admiration of the doating aunties without
reservation, beyond Fred’s earnest entreaty that they would not kiss
the boys away to skeletons before he returned, and a threat to have
them protected by copper sheathing from the fate of St. Peter’s brazen
toe.
Dear Fred! the merry, handsome, stalwart brother; their only one,—who
was never to jest with them again; never again to hold wife and
babes in his embrace. Imogen and Blanche mourned for him only less
passionately than did she who had proudly and gladly borne his name.
Poor wife! she was denied the satisfaction of hearing that her name
had been the last in his thoughts and speech; that the loyal heart
had never beat more lovingly for her than in its latest throbbings;
for weeks passed before Mr. Hiller could speak at all, and then the
disjointed utterances of the palsied tongue told nothing beyond the
terrible fact that the brain had sustained serious, it might be
irreparable, damage. A paralytic cripple he would remain until the day
of his death, although this half-life might be prolonged for years,
pronounced the best medical authorities in the land, summoned without
regard to distance or expense, by the agonized wife.
Stricken, smitten of GOD, and afflicted, the four women sat them down
together in the mother’s room, a month after the double bereavement,
and took mournful but deliberate counsel together. Their affairs were
not at a desperate pass, as they already knew. There was the house in
which they lived, free of mortgage, which would bring at least thirty
thousand dollars in the market; ten thousand dollars in bank stocks and
other securities—solid, paying investments, and five thousand dollars’
worth of real estate—chiefly unimproved lots in a growing part of the
city, that might be very valuable in time, if they could be held and
the taxes paid. Fred had invested four thousand dollars in the latter
kind of property, and his life was insured for ten thousand more. If
Emma were to sell everything—furniture, lots and all—she would have
just seventeen thousand dollars with which to support herself, to rear
and educate her boys. By living upon the interest of the life-insurance
fund, and paying taxes on the real-estate for some years, she might
double the little fortune bequeathed to her, without reserve, by her
husband’s will.
“I shall not touch a cent of it, if I can help it,” she said, in sad
decision. “It shall be the father’s provision for his sons. They will
need it all, in order to educate themselves as he would have wished.
For the present I shall work for them and myself. You foresaw this
years ago, mother. I thank GOD, and thank you, that you prepared us to
meet it!”
“Amen!” said her sisters fervently. “Dark as is the day—so much darker
than we ever dreamed it would be,” added Imogen, tearfully, yet trying
to smile, “we have much to be thankful for. We are strong; we know how
to work; and there are papa and the babies, darling Fred’s sons, to
work for.”
“Papa and the babies!” Even the fond wife did not resent the
classification. The hale gentleman whose half-century of honest,
temperate life had not bowed his head or dimmed his eye; the sage,
shrewd man of business, than whom none were more respected by his
fellow-citizens, was a tremulous, timid child, who wept if his meals
were delayed one minute, or his wife, his faithful, tender nurse, were
out of his sight for an hour.
“Utterly incapable of attending to the simplest matters connected with
his business!” cried open-eyed Everybody, hovering, harpy-like, about
the human wreck. “Why, he couldn’t count one hundred to save his life.
Of course, they will get a certificate of lunacy from the court, and
sell the house, lots, and whatever they can realize anything upon; put
all they have together, and live as prudently as possible. The girls
ought to marry before long. They are pretty and popular, in spite of
their little eccentricities. It isn’t to be expected that they will
make brilliant matches now, of course; but they must bring down their
ambition to a reasonable level. Beggars mustn’t be choosers. It is
unfortunate that poor Mrs. Corwin has those two children. But they may
not live. Twins are more likely to die than other babies. And, if they
_should_ be taken, she’ll be likely to pick up another husband. Her
little property would be a consideration to some men.”
Even the true friends of the sorely-tried family wished sincerely and
aloud that “each of the dear girls had a husband to take care of her;”
recommended them warmly to the compassionate and favorable notice of
their bachelor acquaintances, and devised pious plans of matchmaking
for their relief from the inconveniences of their altered circumstances.
“The worst part of it all was that poor Emma was encumbered with the
children, who would be more and more expensive every year, and that
poor, dear Mr. Hiller would be a helpless imbecile all his life. And
what a mistake in them to refuse to treat him as such, and have him
examined by a commission who would give his family the right to dispose
of his property!”
If the Ruler of the intellects and lives of men had hearkened to these
benevolent economists, the crippled man and the brace of “unfortunate”
infants would have been taken speedily and comfortably out of this
present evil world.
“Thank heaven for the babies!” uttered Blanche, throwing her arms about
Emma’s waist. “You darling sister! I bless you for them every hour.
What should we have done through all these last fearful weeks without
them—and you? Touch their weeny teenty patrimony! Indeed you shall not!
And more than that, we’ll make it a big one by the time they are ready
to enter college.”
The mother, as chief counsellor, had her plan ready for their
consideration. The house—a large double one—was still to be occupied
by them. The front parlor was to be used for the millinery department,
and put entirely under Blanche’s care. In the back, Imogen would hold
sway; and a smaller apartment in the rear of the hall should be the
fitting and trying-on chamber. The library across the hall, adjoining
the dining-room, was to be the family parlor. In every other part of
the house things were to remain unchanged.
“Who deserves to live more comfortably and luxuriously, to rest in soft
chairs and sleep upon elastic mattresses, to have generous food served
elegantly to tempt the appetite and strengthen the body, than she who
purchases all these with her own toil?” said the strange logician whose
daughters were too used to her “queer notions” to be startled by them.
“I do not say that you will make money fast, or at once. I do contend
that, saving rent, bookkeeper’s and saleswoman’s wages, as you will do,
you ought to be able to clear your business and personal expenses the
first year—if nothing more.”
“If the customers come,” suggested Emma.
Mrs. Hiller nodded confidently. “They will come! In the beginning, out
of curiosity and the love of novelty. It will depend upon your skill
whether they continue their custom.”
All previous sensations respecting the Hillers—their odd fancies and
daring talk and levelling theories; Emma’s marriage and the birth
of her twins; the tragical death of her husband and Mr. Hiller’s
deplorable condition—faded into the realms of forgottenness before
that excited by the appearance in all the leading papers, the following
month, of an advertisement to the effect that the “Misses Hiller would
open on Tuesday, the 15th instant, at their father’s residence on Lofty
Avenue, a first-class millinery and dressmaking establishment, and
pledged themselves to use their best efforts to give satisfaction to
their customers.”
The sudden intrusion of a bee-moth into a well-regulated, honey-lined
hive might create such commotion among the inhabitants thereof as
prevailed in the “best circles” of the city when the Incredible was,
at length, developed by means of printer’s ink and paper, into the
Certain. The Hiller philosophy had wrought its legitimate fruits, said
the wise ones. Such sympathy with the lower classes, and familiarity
with their modes of thought and personal history, amounting to
fanatical imitation of their language and habits and mercenary views of
life; such bold scoffing at the ethics and usages of SOCIETY (this in
capitals half an inch long, if you please, Mr. Printer!) could have but
one sequel, and that a catastrophe.
“Be it so!” enunciated resigned Everybody, in the calm of sinless
despair. “Since the Hiller girls prefer to sink to the level of mere
working women; to fly in the face of Providence that would, if they
were more reasonable and less sentimental, endow them with property
to the amount of at least fifty thousand dollars—sixty thousand, if
poor Mrs. Corwin’s be included, with the certain prospect of fifteen
thousand more at poor Mr. Hiller’s death—if they prefer, instead of
taking the goods thus offered them and living like ladies in the
sphere to which they were born, faithful to the principles that
control refined SOCIETY—to delve and plan and accumulate, let them be
recognized forthwith as _laborers_—nothing more, and nothing less! We,
the loyal leaguers of SOCIETY, true to the traditions of our class and
age, cannot more effectually and dignifiedly exclude them from our
sacred circle than by patronizing and _paying_ them _as_ dressmakers
and milliners. They have exquisite taste. That we, being candid even
where our enemies are concerned, will admit. They have also, tact and
energy, and association with US in the past has given them just ideas
of our style and needs. While we do not budge an inch from our belief
and precept that they should have starved genteelly; lived on bread
and tea, dyed and turned and otherwise rejuvenated their friends’
cast-off dresses; shivered over pinched-in grates in winter and
sponged upon obliging acquaintances in summer—sooner than thus degrade
themselves and betray their caste for the sake of pampering their
flesh with the delicacies of the markets, and their pride by indulging
in purple and fine linen, in damask and cut-glass, in Brussels and
satin—we”—concluded breathless Everybody, “accept the situation as they
have set it before us.”
“But it is suicidal!” actually sobbed the well-wishers of the
recalcitrant trio. “_They will never marry well now!_”
“Tuesday the 15th inst.” arrived—sharp but clear November weather,
and the desecrated Hiller mansion wore its most cheerful aspect. In
the back parlor the decks had been cleared for action, as Imogen
phrased it, by removing the piano, a large sofa, and an inlaid stand
or two. Imogen’s sewing machine and chair were by the side window.
Before the embayed recess at the end of the room was a long, rather
narrow table of singular construction, the plan being her own. The
top was covered with enamelled leather, with morocco pouches at each
corner, rather larger than the pockets of a billiard-table, and deep
drawers underneath. A tape-measure and a case of scissors lay upon
this. The pictures on the walls; the carpets; the rich hangings of the
windows; the lounging-chairs set invitingly about, the easel, with its
collection of fine engravings in one corner, a _chiffonier_ loaded with
attractive articles of virtu, and a few fresh, attractive books—even
the stand of flowers in the bay-window were the same that had so often
challenged the admiration of Mrs. Hiller’s guests, as giving her
parlors “_such_ an air of home-like elegance.”
In Blanche’s realm there had been more and material alterations. In
the niches on each side of the mantel were tall, shallow cases, with
sliding glass doors. These were made of black walnut, and bright
silver-plated knobs and pegs set in the back. Beneath the doors were
drawers with handles of the same metal. An attractive array of bonnets
and hats hung in one case; of caps, and headdresses and wreaths,
bouquets, sprays of flowers in the other, these last apparently
springing from a box filled with moss set in the bottom. Opposite the
mock conservatory was a show-case, being a walnut table handsomely
carved, with a glass box on top containing ribbons arranged with a
nice regard to harmony and contrasts of colors and shades. This also
had drawers beneath with silver knobs. At one of the front windows
stood Blanche’s chair and wicker-work stand. Hanging-baskets of living
flowers swung between the curtains; a mocking-bird’s cage in the arch
dividing the rooms.
Emma was walking slowly up and down the length of the two apartments,
ready to retire, at the approach of customers, to her desk in the
fitting-room. Her sisters had insisted upon her right to seclude
herself from general observation.
“We don’t mind being made a show of! In fact, we rather like it!” the
irrepressible Blanche was saying. “But they sha’n’t come to stare at,
and whisper about you, Queenie!”
Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were red as the French poppies in the
glass case near by. Every crimp in her blonde hair seemed to stir in
the breeze of excitement that swept and swayed her merry spirit. She
flitted about from Imogen’s dominion to her own, altering, admiring,
exclaiming, like a restless humming-bird.
“I am sorry for you, too,” she ran on, “for I anticipate great fun
during the next few weeks. All the calls to-day that are not prompted
by curiosity, more or less ill-natured, will be of condolence. Don’t I
know how our dear friends will pull out eye-glass and handkerchief in
the same tug. ‘You poor, dear girls!’ Mrs. Smith will sniff. (No matter
what happens to you, whether you lose a front tooth, or your fortune,
or your life, your best wishers will call you ‘poor dear!‘) ‘Now _do_
you think—honestly, now, you know—that it was _really_ necessary for
Philip Hiller’s daughters to take this un_pre_cedented step?’”
“Miss Allfriend will kiss us all around, and drop a tear on each of
our noses, with—‘My _dear_ children! it makes my heart bleed! And
_how_ does mamma stand it?’ And Mrs. Williams will trot in, eye-glass
up—‘Bless me! bless me! I thought I should drop when I read it in
the papers! Such a shock! You can’t really conceive! Bromide and red
lavender all night, my dears! I assure you!’”
“Hold your saucy tongue!” laughed Imogen, in spite of herself, and even
Emma smiled at the spirited mimicry.
Blanche rattled away faster than ever. “I am going to be prim and
proper when they begin to come! One and all will criticise our
appointments as ‘shockingly extravagant;’ declare that ‘the like was
never seen before in store or work-room—quite out of keeping, you
know!’ and prophesy swift ruin if we keep on as we have begun. And we
won’t hint that we paid for everything, our very own selves, with the
money papa has forced upon us for the work we have done in the last
four years. It’s none of their business! nor that we have some left, to
repair losses, should we have any!”
“Dear papa! all we can do won’t bring back health and reason to him!”
sighed Emma. “Or life to”—
Her eyes filled suddenly, and she would have hastened from the room,
but Imogen caught her in her arms.
“For _their_ sakes—those who loved and believed in us—and for the
babies; we will acquit ourselves bravely, sister. There are times when
work that we must do—systematic and sustained effort for others, is
GOD’S best cure for soul-morbidness. _I_ know!”
The others exchanged a silent look over the bright head bowed on Emma’s
shoulder—a glance of blended pity and indignation. Then, Blanche pulled
back the glass door of her flower-case with needless rattle, and busied
herself with a pendant of glossy ivy.
“Another year I will devise some such plan as this for showing off my
feathers—something like an aviary—see if I don’t!”
Not one of the three ever referred, in so many words, to the fact
that handsome, accomplished Harding Walford had not entered the house
in more than a month; that his visits had slackened perceptibly in
frequency and length since it became generally known that Mr. Hiller
would never recover. He had been Imogen’s most devoted attendant for
almost a year. Her family had not doubted what would be her answer to
the declaration they saw was pending. The world reported that he had
broken a positive engagement, and ran no risk in so doing, since she
had neither father nor brother to defend her rights. But there was not,
on this account, meted out to him a formidable share of censure. He
was “the best judge of his own affairs.” He was not rich. Had he been,
he might still, with reason, hesitate to take a step that would entail
upon him such a weight of responsibility as would a connection with the
no longer prosperous Hillers, even had not Imogen’s eccentric conduct
of late, in banding with her sisters “to undermine the distinctions
of SOCIETY,” been ample excuse for his defection. He was wise in his
generation, and the applause showered upon him who doeth good unto
himself, was his due. SOCIETY always pays this sort of debt.
Only—Imogen had believed in him; and the shivering of her trust beyond
the hope of repair, was very hard to bear. So much more cruel than
the thought of being the target of gossip’s shafts, that the latter
rattled unheeded against her armor of proud rectitude that day, and
ever afterward. Desertion had stung its worst when the man she loved
had looked for the last time, with love-full eyes, into hers.
Customers did come; singly, in twos and threes, and, a little past
midday, when they had discussed the Hillers’ affairs comfortably
over their luncheon-tables, in droves. They gathered in the spacious
rooms, as Mrs. Hiller had predicted, not so much to buy or order, as
to criticise and wonder. The most comic part of the exhibition to
fun-loving, dauntless Blanche was that so many were disconcerted at
finding that they were not singular in their curiosity and the resolve
to gratify it. Hardly second to this was the ludicrous uncertainty on
the part of most of the visitors as to the proper line of conduct to
be pursued in greeting the gentlewomen so abruptly transformed into
trades-people whom they were here to scrutinize. That the cordial yet
respectful familiarity of equals was not to be thought of, now, was
the dominant impression with the majority. Yet few were so indurated
in worldliness, or so barefaced in the display of it as to attempt to
treat their late social compeers exactly as they would “quite common
persons.” The result was a combination of stiffness and patronage
totally at variance with the carriage of well-bred ease, flavored with
hauteur, they adjudged to be “the thing in the circumstances.”
The proprietors of the elegant apartments were mistresses of
themselves and the position from the beginning. With a single eye to
business, they adroitly evaded all allusion to the novelty of the
scene; received the compliments to their establishments and their
wares with smiling composure; showed the stock and took orders with
professional dexterity, and entirely ignored glances and veiled hints
of commiseration.
“Have you _no_ assistants?” queried more than one.
“At present, none,” Imogen returned, quietly. “Should our business
require it, we shall procure help, keeping everything, of course, under
our own personal supervision.”
“It is not an untried field to us, you know,” subjoined Blanche, in her
blithest tone. “Much practice has taught us swiftness and the artistic
sleight of hand that distinguishes the work of the _modiste_ from that
of the amateur.”
The rooms were quite full when a plain but handsome carriage stopped at
the door. A lady alighted with her arms full of bundles, followed by
two slender girls of eighteen and twenty, each with a parcel, although
the footman stood idly by, holding the door.
“Just like her!” murmured a spectator inside the front window, peeping
through the lace curtains. “She prides herself on her want of what she
calls false shame, and on being able to wait on herself.”
A hum ran from the tattler through the little assembly. Blanche, who
was showing a box of feathers to a customer, feigned not to hear
it; dared not to steal a look at her sister, although she longed to
know how she comported herself in view of the approaching ordeal.
She was the only one present whose eyes were not directed instantly
toward the young dressmaker as she advanced a few steps to meet the
new arrivals. Foremost in the group was the mistress of the carriage,
a stately figure, richly attired, who wore her own gray hair folded
smoothly above a pair of black brows and searching, usually severe
eyes. They softened and shone at sight of the form in deep mourning,
awaiting her pleasure, perhaps reading through the guise of lady-like
self-possession the secret trouble that fluttered heart and pulse,
while the trained features served the resolute will faithfully.
“My dear child!” she said, impulsively, holding fast to her parcels,
but bending to kiss the cheek which flushed high under the salute.
Her daughters pressed forward to bestow caresses as affectionate upon
“dear Imogen,” the family having recently returned from abroad. Their
mother allowed them no time for inquiries or condolence.
“I am very, very glad to see you looking so well and bright!” she
pursued, in a breezy, cheerful tone, neither shrill nor loud, but one
that could make itself heard whenever and by whomsoever she willed.
“I didn’t mean that my first call should be one of business, but I
suppose you wouldn’t admit me upon any other plea, in business hours.
But there’s the great Huntley wedding, week after next, you know, and
the girls haven’t enough finery to warrant their appearance there—just
from Paris, too! So we have come to cast ourselves upon your generosity
and beg you, for the sake of old times and present friendship, to make
us presentable. Unless you are too severely taxed already by the
importunate friends of whom I see so many present. How is the dear
father to-day? You must let me see him and mamma before I leave—and
Emma and the babies! You mustn’t exclude us from the other parts of
the house because you have taken to practicalities in sober, serious
earnest. We would rebel outright, and _en masse_—after having been
welcomed, during so many years, to the pleasantest home in the city!”
Imogen had led the way into the other parlor while the lady talked, and
was now undoing the wrappings of the three silk dresses, and opening
boxes of rare, fine lace on the long table. Her back was to the groups
of attentive listeners to the foregoing monologue, and the keen eyes
beside her saw her fingers shake, the long, brown lashes fall quickly
to hide the unshed tears.
“You are _very_ good!” said a gentle, grateful voice. “But I felt sure
you would be!”
“My love!” A strong and not small hand—ungloved—a superb diamond
_solitaire_, in itself a fortune, flashing on it as the guard to a
worn wedding-ring—covered the chill, uncertain fingers, busy with
paper and twine. Imogen felt the warmth and thrill of the pressure
to her very heart. “If you ever dare to say another word like that,
I’ll never forgive you! Trimmings, style, everything—we leave to you,
Imogen, my dear!” she continued, aloud. “If you can make my girls
half as _distingué_ as you are yourself in full dress, or home-dress
either, for that matter, I shall be satisfied. I always told you you
were a genius in your profession—creative, not merely imitative
genius. It was a shame that you did not give others the benefit of it
before now. It is refreshing to one who has cultivated any taste for
the æsthetic, to look about your rooms. I have lively hopes that dress
may be understood and studied as one of the fine arts among us in
time. You will be known in this generation and region, at least, as a
benefactress. We go into another room to be measured, did you say?”
She swept her daughters before her into the fitting-room, and a buzz
and rustle succeeded the silence her entrance had caused.
In Blanche’s hearing no one could comment openly upon what had passed.
But there were significant whispers and wondering looks, and by the
time the gossips reached the street, much and prolonged discussion with
regard to this episode in the history of “opening day.”
For the eccentric old lady who could afford to defy the dictate of
SOCIETY, and exercised her right, was Mrs. Horatio Harding, whose
own veins were full of old, rich Dutch blood, and whose husband was
a merchant prince, and Mr. Harding Walford was her nephew-in-law. If
she had set her mind upon making the Hiller girls the fashion, she had
carried her point triumphantly. With a sort of insolent grace, perhaps,
at which people grumbled while they obeyed her, but she had had her
way, as usual. Mrs. Horatio Harding had “opinions,” and it was not
always safe or pleasant to oppose her.
“You may not know that you have done us a great service—one for which
we can never pay you aright,” said Imogen to her at the close of “the
season’s” work. “But you have! That we have succeeded beyond our most
sanguine expectations is due, in a large measure, to the foothold you
gave us that first day. If other women who have as much influence
would use it to free, not enslave, their sex; to overcome, instead of
strengthening the prejudices that bear so hardly upon us already, what
a change would be wrought in homes where the few strive and toil, and
the many are served!”
The strong white hand with the glittering _solitaire_, was raised
threateningly.
“What did I tell you? I will not be praised for doing a simple act of
justice, especially when my heart, as well as my conscience, moved me
to it. And _you_, my sweet child, may not know that you have had a
narrow escape from marrying a man who has proved himself no more worthy
to mate with you than am I with one of the holy men of old—those of
whom the world was not worthy. But you have. That is all I shall ever
_say_ on the subject. But I think the more for my reserve when with
you. And Harding Walford knows that I do. I am not reticent in his
hearing. Don’t attempt to defend him! He has lost _you_, and that ought
to be punishment enough for one who is capable of appreciating you. Not
that he ever was.”
“I don’t want him to be punished, dear Mrs. Harding,” replied Imogen,
gently. “He only swam with the tide.”
“Precisely! and to deserve such a wife as you would make, a man ought
to be strong of soul and right of purpose. Don’t talk to me about moral
cowards! I think I was born hating them!”
Two years later, this steady friend dropped in to see the sisters on
a gloomy afternoon in February. The light from the front windows made
long, clean cuts in the clinging yellow fog without, across the rimy
pavement to the carriage, with its liveried coachman and fine horses.
Passers-by, on their way to humble homes, lifted eyelids beaded with
the icy damp, and thought how lucky were the dwellers in the stately
house; how much-to-be envied the guest who rode in state above the
mire of the common ways. Those who recognized the liveries, and knew
whose was the dwelling, pondered, more or less wonderingly, upon the
incongruity of the unabated intimacy, and speculated, perhaps, upon
the probabilities that the Harding pride would have revolted at a
matrimonial alliance between a scion of their house and one of the
“reduced” family, for all Mrs. Horatio’s show of friendship. It was
a lucky thing, decided eight out of ten of those who considered the
matter, that young Walford had not committed himself irrevocably before
the “misfortune” that showed him how near he was to the edge of the
abyss. He had made a desirable match last fall, and was now travelling
in Europe with his heiress bride.
Little cared guest or hostesses what the outside world thought or
believed respecting their intercourse. Emma’s boys were building block
houses on the back parlor floor. The three sisters were gathered about
the centre-table in the other room, talking in low voices over their
work. Mrs. Harding stopped in the doorway on seeing their grave faces,
and that they were making black _crêpe_ bonnets.
“A mourning order!” she said, in her unceremonious way. “Anybody that I
know?”
“Not an order exactly,” explained Imogen, when they had welcomed her.
“But poor Mr. Sibthorpe has gone at last, and Blanche proposed that
we should spare the widow and three unmarried daughters the expense
of bonnets and veils; so we are making them and the widow’s caps out
of work hours. We do our charity work at such odd times you know—and
together.
“You are the Blessed Three Sisters—_that_ everybody knows!” uttered
the visitor. “I don’t believe I _could_ set a stitch for that tribe of
lazy locusts! Amelia, the married one, is no better. Her husband failed
awhile ago, as you may remember, and she is too proud to help him in
the small haberdasher’s shop he has lately set up; sits at home like
a—I won’t say lady—but an idiotic automaton—”
“Who ever heard of an intellectual one?” laughed Blanche.
“No pertness, miss! I don’t pick my terms when I am excited. She sits
in the small parlor over the store, as I was saying, and curries favor
with wealthy and charitable ladies by cutting sponge and velvet into
monkey and black-and-tan terrier pen-wipers for fancy fairs. What are
the Sibthorpe’s going to do, now that the man they murdered among them
is dead?”
“His life was insured”—began Emma.
“Humph!” interrupted Mrs. Harding. “You needn’t proceed. They will eat
the insurance up to the last dollar, and by that time the boys will be
big enough to divide the women among them; to carry them bodily—their
expenses, that is—as we see ants running about with egg sacs bigger
than themselves on their shoulders. I know the old, hideous story by
heart. Drop the subject.”
“Let me give you a piece of news that will entertain you better,” said
Blanche, merrily. “One of the Payne girls—Sophia, the youngest—is going
to marry a widower with eight children—all at home.”
“Serves her right! But I am sorry for the children. Go on!”
“The happy man is a Mr. Gregorias, of Spanish extraction. He is small
and withered, and reported to be rich as cream. So Arethusa says.
The wedding dress is to be of white satin, with point lace veil and
flounces—the gift of the groom.”
“Have you undertaken the trousseau?” queried Mrs. Harding, fixing her
keen gaze upon Imogen.
“No,” she answered, coloring as she smiled. “I have declined making any
engagements for the spring. I am going abroad for a year in May, and
Blanche does not want a stranger here in my place.”
“Markham Burke _is_ the man, then! My love! I congratulate you with
all my heart. I have been on thorns all winter about you and the noble
fellow. I was afraid you had some Quixotic notions that would stand in
the way of his happiness and yours.”
“No; why should I have?” rejoined the _fiancée_, speaking quietly and
sensibly. “We are not vowed to our trades, or to celibacy. Markham says
there is no need that he, with his ample means, should let me keep up
my business. Whatever I have made, he insists upon settling upon me.
He would have had me divide it all between Blanche and Emma, but they
would not allow it.”
“I should hope not!” cried Blanche, energetically. “Two women who can
take care of themselves!’”
“Blanche will enlarge her department,” continued Imogen, “now that
I will leave her room. You should hear her plans of making a temple
of art—not of fashion alone—in these two parlors. It will be very
beautiful. She can afford to indulge her taste in these respects. She
is making money.”
“Means to be a nabob-ess before she dies—or marries,” interjected the
youngest sister.
“You are a mercenary witch,” said Mrs. Harding. “Emma, Mr. Harding
says your lots are rising in value fast, and the price of land in that
quarter of the city is sure to increase with tenfold rapidity during
the next dozen years. He would not advise you to close with the offer
made you last week, unless you need the money.”
“Thank you and him!” replied the young widow. “I am not anxious to
sell. Let it grow for the boys. It belongs to them. The rest of us
are provided for. Even for mamma there is enough and to spare. We
have never been tempted by the various straits of poverty and shabby
gentility to wish for our father’s death, that we might profit by _his_
life-insurance policy. Feeble as he is, his cheerfulness, his patience
and affection for us all, make his a very bright presence in our home.
It is a priceless comfort to us all that he is not compelled, when he
needs them most, to relinquish the home and luxuries he toiled so long
and bravely to obtain for us.”
“You can’t imagine what pride and delight he takes in the boys!”
exclaimed Blanche. “We really hope he may live to see them grown.”
“It is the story of the old storks and their young, to the life,” said
Mrs. Harding to her husband that night. “I used to think it a fable. I
believe now that it is true, out and out!”
INDEX
PAGE
EGGS 18
A hen’s nest 27
Eggs baked (_No. 1_) 20
(_No. 2_) 20
Egg cutlets 21
Eggs forcemeat 27
fricasseed 21
poached _à la Bonne Femme_ 24
poached with mushrooms 25
scalloped (_hard-boiled_) 23
(_raw_) 22
stirred 22
sur le plat 19
toasted 19
whirled 24
with anchovy toast 26
FISH 29
_Entrées and Relishes of Fish_ 29
Cold fish—what to do with 29
Cod or halibut—baked 36
(_salt_) _au maître d’hôtel_ 43
with cheese 44
scalloped 44
with egg sauce 43
44
Cutlets of halibut, cod or salmon 35
Cutlets of halibut, cod or salmon
_à la reine_ 35
Eels stewed _à l’Allemande_ 33
_à l’Americain_ 33
fricasseed 34
Fish-balls 32
Roes of cod or shad (_fried_) 29
Sauce for the above 30
Roes of cod or shad (_stewed_) 30
Sauce 30
Roes scalloped 31
Salmon, baked with cream sauce 36
cutlets _en papillote_ 38
devilled 42
in a mould 39
Sauce for the above 39
Salmon, _mayonnaise_ of 40
Dressing for above 40
Salmon, smoked (_broiled_) 42
steaks, or cutlets (_fried_) 37
steaks, or cutlets (_broiled_) 38
stewed 39
SHELL FISH.
Lobster, curried 48
devilled 49
cutlets 46
croquettes 46
fricassee 45
pudding 47
Sauce for the above 47
Lobster rissoles 45
Sauce for the above 46
Lobster scalloped (_No. 1_) 50
(_No. 2_) 50
stewed 49
Oysters, boiled in the shell 55
broiled 57
devilled 57
in batter 58
panned 53
scalloped (_No. 1_) 56
(_No. 2_) 56
stewed 58
Oyster Patés 59
pie (_cream_) 59
Turtle fricassee 52
PATÉS 68
Patés, chicken 69
70
of fish 70
Swiss 71
Paté of beef and potato 73
_de foie gras_ (_imitation_) 73
Stella 72
of sweetbreads 68
White sauce for the above 69
CROQUETTES 75
Croquettes, beef 78
chicken 77
fish 79
game 81
hominy 82
of lobster or crab 80
potato 83
rice 83
veal and ham 81
venison or mutton 78
Cannelon of veal 84
beef 85
A pretty breakfast dish 85
SWEETBREADS 86
Sweetbreads, brown, fricassee of (_No. 1_) 86
brown, fricassee of (_No. 2_) 87
white, fricassee of 88
broiled 90
larded (_fried_) 90
(_stewed_) 89
roasted 91
_sautés au vin_ 92
KIDNEYS 93
Kidneys, _à la brochette_ 96
broiled 95
fried 93
94
stewed 96
with wine 95
toasted 94
HASTE OR WASTE? 98
MEATS, INCLUDING POULTRY AND GAME 108
Calf’s brains, fried 115
on toast 116
head, a mould of 114
ragoût, or imitation turtle 112
ragoût of, and mushrooms 113
liver, _à l’Anglaise_ 108
_à la mode_ 111
_au domino_ 109
fricassee of 111
_sauté_ 110
Chickens, fried 132
whole 133
“smothered” 133
with oysters 134
or other white meat, fondu of 135
and eggs minced 129
fricassee _à l’Italienne_ 128
Fowl, devilled 125
Galantine 136
Game or poultry in savory jelly 138
Jellied tongue 137
whole 140
Meat and potato puffs 119
Mince of veal or lamb 121
Mock pigeons 117
Ollapodrida of lamb 109
Quenelles 130
131
Rabbit, brown fricassee of 122
white fricassee of 121
curried 123
devilled 124
roast 126
Rechauffée of veal and ham 131
Roast quails 127
Roulade of beef 131
mutton 132
Salmi of game 125
Scalloped chicken 119
120
beef 120
Veal cutlets 116
turnover 118
Wild duck or grouse braised 127
GRAVY 141
SALADS 146
Salad, cabbage 147
chicken 149
lobster, without oil 148
dressing 148
oyster 146
cream dressing for 151
dressing, golden 152
potato 153
VARIOUS PREPARATIONS OF CHEESE 154
Cheese biscuits 156
fingers 156
fondu 157
with macaroni 155
patés 160
pudding 161
sandwiches 161
with eggs 154
toasted 154
Cream Cheese (_No. 1_) 158
(_No. 2_) 160
Ramakins 161
POTATOES 163
Potatoes _à la Duchesse_ 166
_Lyonnaise_ 163
_à l’Italienne_ 165
fried 164
scalloped 164
stewed 163
Potato eggs 166
LUNCHEON 168
VEGETABLES 172
Baked tomatoes 174
Devilled 174
Fritters of canned corn 173
Fried egg plant 172
Mock fried oysters 172
stewed 173
BREAKFAST-ROLLS, MUFFINS, TEA-CAKES, ETC. 176
Batter or egg-bread, southern 179
bread (_No. 2_) 180
Boiled mush, to be eaten with milk 180
Brown biscuit 186
Corn-bread, Adirondack 176
loaf 177
Chrissie’s 179
cake 176
meal muffins (_raised_) 178
(_quick_) 178
Cream toast 140
Crumpets, hominy 189
Crumpets, rice 183
Excellent muffins 186
Graham gems (_No. 1_) 187
(_No. 2_) 187
(_No. 3_) 188
Milk porridge 181
Minute biscuit (_brown_) 187
Oatmeal biscuit (_for breakfast_) 181
gruel (_for invalids_) 181
Rolls, French 182
plain, light 183
tea 182
all day 184
Quick loaf 185
Rusk (_No. 1_) 188
Susie’s (_No. 2_) 189
Soda biscuit, without milk 189
Unity loaf 185
GRIDDLE CAKES 191
Cakes, buttermilk 191
Corn-meal flapjacks 192
Cakes, farina griddle 194
grandma’s 192
Graham, griddle 195
rice 193
rice or hominy 192
sour milk 191
Susie’s flannel 194
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT EGG-BEATERS 196
WHIPPED CREAM 203
_Fancy Dishes for Dessert_ 208
An almond Charlotte 214
215
Chocolate blanc-mange 219
and cream 220
custards (_baked_) 220
(_boiled_) 221
Créme du café 218
chocolat 218
thé 217
Easter eggs 210
Glacé oranges 209
Jelly, apple 231
custard 231
claret 236
lemon 233
orange 234
oranges 208
peach 232
raspberry and currant 233
strawberry 232
wine 235
Jellies, note upon 236
Macaroon basket 230
Naples sponge 213
Narcissus blanc-mange 216
Ribbon jelly and cream 209
Rockwork 221
Snow, apple (_No. 1_) 226
(_No. 2_) 226
lemon 227
orange 227
rice 228
summer 228
Syllabub 229
Trifle, an ambushed 222
apple 223
lemon 224
orange 227
strawberry 217
tipsy 216
Trifles, queen of 224
Turret cream 212
Tutti frutti jelly 234
Velvet cream 230
PUDDINGS OF VARIOUS KINDS 238
Puffs, chocolate 259
coffee cream 259
corn-meal 260
cottage 258
jam 257
lemon 258
Ristori 257
vanilla cream 259
white 260
Pudding, almond corn-starch 244
rice 239
sponge 269
apple batter 255
and batter 283
soufflé 280
arrowroot (_cold_) 242
(_hot_) 243
soufflé 281
baked apple 255
boiled apple 254
lemon 268
Boston lemon 270
orange 270
bread and raisins 249
batter 282
cocoanut 276
sponge 265
corn-meal fruit 245
cherry bread 250
custard bread 251
cherry soufflé 279
corn-meal without eggs 246
Derry 267
dishes 283
English tapioca 242
Essex 253
farina 247
farmer’s plum 274
fig 262
custard 262
263
fruit bread 248
sponge cake (_boiled_) 265
sponge cake (_baked_) 266
hasty 246
impromptu Christmas 276
lemon 271
soufflé 277
macaroni and almond 252
marrow sponge 263
nursery plum 275
orange 267
orange custard 272
peach batter 256
plain boiled (_No. 1_) 273
(_No. 2_) 273
plain macaroni 253
plain sponge-cake 264
Queen’s 271
rice-flour, hasty 247
rice with fruit 238
rusk 261
rock custard 272
rice soufflé 281
southern rice 240
sago 243
sponge-cake soufflé 279
Susie’s bread 248
steamed 251
tapioca custard 241
Wayne 208
white 261
Willie’s favorite 250
Jelly puddings 274
A very delicate soufflé 282
Léche créma soufflé 278
Peach léche créma 256
Rice méringue 240
Rosie’s rice custard 241
FRITTERS 284
Fritters, apple 287
bell 284
corn-meal 289
cream 291
curd 293
currant 286
lemon 287
light 286
peach (with yeast) 290
potato 291
rice 288
roll, or imitation doughnuts 292
rusk 285
sponge-cake 292
CONCERNING ALLOWANCES 294
(_Confidential—with John._)
RIPE FRUIT 308
Apples and jelly 313
Baked pears 313
Boiled chestnuts 314
Cocoanut frost on custard 312
Frosted peaches 310
Frosted and glacé oranges 311
Melons 314
Stewed apples 313
Tropical snow 312
Walnuts and hickory nuts 314
CAKES OF ALL KINDS 316
Cake, apple 317
_filling_ 318
a Charlotte _à la Parisienne_ 336
a Charlotte cachée 321
brown 334
Carolina, without eggs 316
Charlotte polonaise 319
_filling_ 319
chocolate 317
_filling_ 317
cocoanut and almond 330
_filling_ 330
cocoanut sponge 331
cocoanut—richer 331
coffee 332
cream rose 327
_filling_ 327
citron 335
corn-starch cup 339
currant 344
Fanny’s 321
Fred’s favorite 339
_filling_ 339
fruit and nut 341
Jeanie’s fruit 337
mother’s cup 322
Morris 326
Mont Blanc 326
_filling_ 327
molasses fruit 333
Myrtle’s 334
my lady’s 329
_filling_ 329
May’s 338
Neapolitan (yellow, pink, white,
and brown) 323
yellow 323
pink and white 323
brown 324
_filling_ 324
Newark 341
Nellie’s cup 316
“One, Two, Three” cup 340
orange 318
_filling_ 319
Orleans 325
Pompton 338
raisin 333
risen seed 335
rich almond 336
snow drift 340
_filling_ 340
Sultana 328
unity 333
white 316
wine 341
Cakes, almond—small 350
cocoanut—small 345
cream 350
custard 351
citron—small 352
Queen 352
rich drop 346
rose drop 345
snow drops 346
variegated 345
Cookies, Bertie’s 347
carraway 350
Kellogg 347
lemon 349
Montrose 348
Aunt Molly’s 348
seed 348
ginger 353
Lemon macaroons 349
Ginger-snaps 354
Fried jumbles 354
Seed wafers 353
Almond icing 322
Genuine Scotch short-bread 354
Gingerbread, eggless 343
half-cup 344
Richmond 343
sugar 343
Unity 342
TEA 356
BEVERAGES 360
A cozy for a teapot 362
A summer drink 362
Coffee with whipped cream 368
Café _au lait_, frothed 363
Soyer’s 364
Chocolate, frothed 363
milled 364
Claret cup 365
Curaçoa 371
Ginger cordial 366
Mulled ale 367
wine 368
Noyau 371
Orange cream 373
Porteree, very fine 366
Punch, milk (hot) 367
rum milk 368
clear 369
Rose syrup 372
Shrub, currant and raspberry 369
lemon 370
strawberry 370
Tea _à la Russe_ 360
iced 361
cold 361
milk punch 361
Vanilla liqueur 373
White lemonade 365
FLAVORING EXTRACTS 375
Bitter almond 376
Lemon 375
Orange 375
Vanilla 375
PRESERVED FRUITS, CANDIES, ETC. 378
Candy, peanut 383
Dotty Dimple’s vinegar 384
lemon cream 384
marbled cream 386
sugar 387
Candied lemon peel 381
Cranberries 383
Cherries, canned 381
_glacé_ 381
Chocolate caramels 385
cream drops 386
Maple syrup 382
Marmalade, apple 378
Dundee orange 380
orange 379
pear and quince 379
THE SCRAP-BAG 388
Another treasure 395
Cleansing cream 393
For cholera symptoms 389
a cough 389
chapped hands and lips 392
nausea 391
sore eyes 393
throat 389
For sudden hoarseness 388
388
Mixture for cleaning black cloth, or
worsted dresses 393
Mustard plasters 391
Parting words 398
Pumpkin flour 394
Seymour Pudding 396
Strawberry short-cake 396
To clean marble 394
Welsh rarebit 397
PRACTICAL—OR UTOPIAN? PART I 402
PART II 425
“The very best, the most sensible, the most practical, the most honest
book on this matter of getting up good dinners, and living in a decent,
Christian way, that has yet found its way in our household.”—WATCHMAN
AND REFLECTOR.
COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL HOUSEWIFERY.
By MARION HARLAND.
New Edition. One volume, 12mo, cloth, Price, $1.75
KITCHEN EDITION, IN OIL-CLOTH COVERS, AT SAME PRICE.
_This edition is printed from new electrotype plates and bound in a
new pattern cloth binding, and also in the favorite “Kitchen Edition”
style._
The popularity of this book has increased steadily for the last ten
years, and the sale has reached the extraordinary number of
Over 100,000 Copies.
Many housekeepers will gladly welcome their old friend in a new
dress, and renew their copies worn by constant use; or, as the author
herself expresses it, “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.”
With the new edition of “_Common Sense_,” the Publishers will issue, in
uniform style:
THE DINNER YEAR BOOK.
One volume, 12mo, 720 pp., cloth, or “Kitchen Edition,”
without colored plates $1.75.
BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON, AND TEA.
One volume, 12mo. Cloth, or “Kitchen Edition,” $1.75.
_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.
⁂ _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. PUBLISHERS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
“One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed of all recent
works of fiction.”—LONDON SPECTATOR.
ROXY.
BY
EDWARD EGGLESTON,
Author of “The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” “Circuit Rider,” Etc.
One volume, 12mo, cloth, with Twelve full-page Illustrations from
original designs by Mr. Walter Shirlaw.
Price, $1.50.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
“‘Roxy’ may be accepted as the latest example of a
purely American novel, and to say the least, one of the
very best.”—_New York Tribune._
“In this novel Mr. Eggleston’s powers appear at their
best and amplest, and he has accomplished the by no
means easy task of excelling himself.”—_Boston Journal._
“There can be no doubt whatever that ‘Roxy’ is the best
product of Dr. Eggleston’s activity in the field of
fiction.”—_New York Eve. Post._
“As a pure, but vigorous American romance, Mr.
Eggleston’s new work is better even than his ‘Hoosier
Schoolmaster’ and ‘Circuit Rider.’”—_Phila. Eve.
Bulletin._
“It strengthens the author’s position as a writer who
has brought new life and a decided manliness into our
native fiction.”—_Boston Courier._
“‘Roxy,’ a story whose purport and power
are much deeper than the author has before
reached.”—_Springfield Republican._
“The story is powerfully told, and if Mr. Eggleston
had written nothing else, ‘Roxy’ would place him in
a foremost position among American authors.”—_N. Y.
Commercial Advertiser._
“Its pictures of Western life are vivid, and throughout
betray the hand of a master in literature and
fiction.”—_Episcopal Register._
“As a faithful picture of American life, it ranks far
above any novel published in the United States during
the past twenty years.”—_Brooklyn Times._
“We advise our readers to buy and read ‘Roxy.’ They
will find the plot deeply interesting, and will gather
from it not only transient pleasure, but permanent
good.”—_Louisville Post._
“The story of ‘Roxy’ is Dr. Eggleston’s best work. It
attains a higher merit than his other works in epic
purpose as well as a dramatic form.”—_The Methodist._
“Buy the book and read it, as it is well worth the time
spent to do it.”—_Washington Chronicle._
⁂ _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
“_To those who love a pure diction, a healthful tone,
and thought that leads up to the higher and better
aims, that gives brighter color to some of the hard,
dull phases of life, that awakens the mind to renewed
activity, and makes one mentally better, the prose and
poetical works of Dr. Holland will prove an ever new,
ever welcome source from which to draw._”—NEW HAVEN
PALLADIUM.
Complete Writings of Dr. J. G. Holland.
WITH THE AUTHOR’S REVISION.
Each one vol., 16mo, (sold separately,) Price, $1.25.
Messrs. CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS have now completed the issue of a New
Edition of Dr. Holland’s Writings, printed from new plates, in a very
attractive style, in artistic binding, and at a greatly reduced price.
It is believed that the aggregate sale of Dr. Holland’s Books,
amounting as it does to half a million volumes, exceeds the circulation
of the writings of any other American author. There is not a single
book of his which has not had an unquestionable success, and most of
them have been in such constant and increasing demand that the plates
were actually worn out.
ESSAYS.
TITCOMB’S LETTERS, GOLD FOIL, THE JONES FAMILY,
LESSONS IN LIFE, PLAIN TALKS,
EVERY-DAY TOPICS, First Series,
EVERY-DAY TOPICS, Second Series. A New Volume.
POEMS.
BITTERSWEET, MISTRESS OF THE MANSE, KATHRINA,
PURITAN’S GUEST, AND OTHER POEMS.
NOVELS.
ARTHUR BONNICASTLE, BAY PATH, NICHOLAS MINTURN,
MISS GILBERT’S CAREER, SEVENOAKS.
16 Volumes, in a Box, per set, $20.00.
Complete Poetical Writings of Dr. J. G. Holland.
With Illustrations by Reinhart, Griswold, and Mary Hallock Foote, and
Portrait by Wyatt Eaton. Printed from New Stereotyped Plates, Prepared
expressly for this Edition.
One Volume, 8vo. Extra Cloth, $5.00.
“_Dr. Holland will always find a congenial audience in the homes of
culture and refinement. He does not affect the play of the darker and
fiercer passions, but delights in the sweet images that cluster around
the domestic hearth. He cherishes a strong fellow-feeling with the
pure and tranquil life in the modest social circles of the American
people, and has thus won his way to the companionship of many friendly
hearts._”—N. Y. TRIBUNE.
⁂ _For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid upon receipt of price
by_
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _See Page 200._
[B] Prepared at the Alden Fruit Factory, Colon, Michigan.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation retained which
will be most obvious in table-spoonfuls and tea-spoonfuls.
Four instances of “pâté” were changed to “paté” to match the 22 other
instances.
Page 14, “ragout” changed to “ragoût”
Page 92, “ouce” changed to “once” (wine, boil up once)
Page 114, “juce” changed to “juice” (wine and lemon-juice)
Page 118, “resistance” changed to “résistance” (well as the _pièce de
résistance_)
Page 143, “beafsteak” changed to “beefsteak” (fry beefsteak in lard)
Page 164, “stiring” changed to “stirring” (Cook two minutes, stirring)
Page 179, “alwed” changed to “allowed” (if allowed to cool)
Page 201, “browine” changed to “brownie” (a benevolent brownie)
Page 213, “beautifnl” changed to “beautiful” (is a beautiful dessert)
Page 217, “meringue” changed to “méringue” to match rest of usage (into
the _méringue_ on)
Page 236, “mininum” changed to “minimum” (the _minimum quantity_ of)
Page 244, word “milk” added to text (into the boiling milk)
Page 285, BELL FRITTERS was missing the actual second ingredient on
list though the measurement was there. As flour is mentioned in the
directions, it is assumed that the measurement referred to that and it
was added to the text (2 cups of prepared flour)
Page 299, “bo” changed to “be” (you and all husbands be)
Page 306, “magnaminous” changed to “magnanimous” (and magnanimous
enough)
Page 344, “I” changed to “1” for SUGAR GINGERBREAD (1 teaspoonful of
soda)
Page 345, number “1” added to the first ingredient of “grated cocoanut”
for (COCOANUT CAKES.)
Page 451, “Entrèes” changed to “Entrées” (Entrées and Relishes)
Page 456, “meringue” changed to “méringue” (Rice méringue)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea" ***
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