Pare, core, and slice some ripe tart apples, stew in water enough to cover them until they break to pieces. Beat up to a smooth pulp, stir in a good lump of butter, and sugar to taste.
Apple sauce is the invariable accompaniment of roast pork—or fresh pork cooked in any way. If you wish, you can add a little nutmeg.
Soak a quart of dried peaches in water four hours. Wash them, rubbing them against one another by stirring around with a wooden spoon. Drain, and put into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Stew until they break to pieces. Rub to a soft smooth pulp, sweeten to taste with white sugar. Send to table cold, with roast game or other meats.
Wash and pick a quart of ripe cranberries, and put into a saucepan with a teacupful of water. Stew slowly, stirring often until they are thick as marmalade. They require at least an hour and a half to cook. When you take them from the fire, sweeten abundantly with white sugar. If sweetened while cooking, the color will be bad. Put them into a mould and set aside to get cold.
And this is a nicer plan—strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve, or coarse mosquito-net, into a mould wet with cold water. When firm, turn into a glass dish or salver. Be sure that it is sweet enough.
Eat with roast turkey, game, and roast ducks.
Spread upon a tin plate, set upon the stove, or in averyhot oven, and stir continually after it begins to color, until it is brown all through.
Keep it always on hand. Make it at odd minutes, and put away in a glass jar, covered closely. Shake up every few days to keep it light and prevent lumping.
Put a lump of butter into a hot frying-pan, and toss it around over a clear fire until it browns. Dredge browned flour over it, and stir to a smooth batter until it begins to boil. Use it for coloring gravies, such as brown fricassees, etc.; or make into sauce for baked fish and fish-steaks, by beating in celery or onion vinegar, averylittle brown sugar and some cayenne.
Put the mustard in a bowl and wet with the oil, rubbing it in with a silver or wooden spoon until it is absorbed. Wet with vinegar to a stiff paste; add salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic, and work all together thoroughly,wetting little by little with the vinegar until you can beat it as you do cake-batter. Beat five minutes very hard; put into wide-mouthed bottles—empty French mustard bottles, if you have them—pour a little oil on top, cork tightly, and set away in a cool place. It will be mellow enough for use in a couple of days.
Having used this mustard for years in my own family, I can safely advise my friends to undertake the trifling labor of preparing it in consideration of the satisfaction to be derived from the condiment. I mix in a Wedgewood mortar, with pestle of the same; but a bowl is nearly as good. It will keep for weeks.
Scrape or grind, cover with vinegar, and keep in wide-mouthed bottles. To eat with roast beef and cold meats.
Choose young walnuts tender enough to be pierced with a pin or needle. Prick them in several places, and lay in a jar with a handful of salt to every twenty-five, and water enough to cover them. Break them with a billet of wood or wooden beetle, and let them lie in the pickle a fortnight, stirring twice a day. Drain off the liquor into a saucepan, and cover the shells with boiling vinegar to extract what juice remains in them. Crush to a pulp and strain through a cullender into the saucepan. Allow for every quart an ounce of black pepper and one of ginger, half an ounce of cloves and half an ounce of nutmeg, beaten fine. Put in a pinch of cayenne, a shallot minced fine for everytwoquarts, and a thimbleful of celery-seed tied in a bag for the same quantity. Boil all together for an hour, if there be a gallon of the mixture. Bottle when cold, putting an equal quantity of the spice in each flask. Butternuts make delightful catsup.
Lay in an earthenware pan, in alternate layers of mushrooms and salt; let them lie six hours, then break into bits. Set in a cool place, three days, stirring thoroughly every morning. Measure the juice when you have strained it, and to every quart allow half an ounce of allspice, the same quantity of ginger, half a teaspoonful of powdered mace, a teaspoonful of cayenne. Put into a stone jar, cover closely, set in a saucepan of boiling water over the fire, and boil five hourshard. Take it off, empty into a porcelain kettle, and boil slowly half an hour longer. Let it stand all night in a cool place, until settled and clear. Pour off carefully from the sediment, and bottle, filling the flasks to the mouth. Dip the corks in melted rosin, and tie up with bladders.
The bottles should be very small, as it soon spoils when exposed to the air.
Mix and rub through a sieve. Put in a stone jar, set in a pot of boiling water, and heat until the liquid is so hot you can not bear your finger in it. Strain, and let it stand in the jar, closely covered, two days, then bottle for use.
Chop the oysters and boil in their own liquor with a teacupful of vinegar, skimming the scum as it rises. Boil three minutes, strain through a hair-cloth; return the liquor to the fire, add the wine, pepper, salt, and mace. Boil fifteen minutes, and when cold bottle for use, sealing the corks.
Cut a slit in the tomatoes, put into a bell-metal or porcelain kettle, and boil until the juice is all extracted and the pulp dissolved. Strain and press through a cullender, then through a hair sieve. Return to the fire, add the seasoning, and boilat leastfive hours, stirring constantly for the last hour, and frequently throughout the time it is on the fire. Let it stand twelve hours in a stone jar on the cellar floor. When cold, add a pint of strong vinegar. Take out the bag of celery seed, and bottle, sealing the corks. Keep in a dark, cool place.
Tomato and walnut are the most useful catsups we havefor general purposes, and either is in itself a fine sauce for roast meat, cold fowl, game, etc.
Grate the rind of the lemons; pound or grind the spices, and put all together, including the horse-radish. Strew the salt over all, add the lemon-juice, and let it stand three hours in a cool place. Boil in a porcelain kettle half an hour. Pour into a covered vessel—china or stone—and let it stand a fortnight, stirring well every day. Then strain, bottle, and seal.
It is a fine seasoning for fish sauces, fish soups, and game ragoûts.
Put into a preserving kettle and boil slowly four hours, or until the mixture is reduced to one-half the original quantity. Strain through a flannel bag. Do not bottle until next day. Fill the flasks to the top, and dip the corks in beeswax and rosin.
This catsup will keep for years. Mixed with drawn butter, it is used as a sauce for boiled fish, but is a fine flavoring essence for gravies of almost any kind.
Mix all the spices well together; crush in a stone jar with a potato-beetle or billet of wood; pour the vinegar upon these, and let it stand two weeks. Put on in a porcelain or clean bell-metal kettle and heat to boiling; strain and set aside until next day to cool and settle. Bottle and cork very tightly. It is an excellent seasoning for any kind of gravy, sauce, or stew.
Gather green nasturtium seed when they are full-grown,but not yellow; dry for a day in the sun; put into small jars or wide-mouthed bottles, cover with boiling vinegar, slightly spiced, and when cool, cork closely. In six weeks they will be fit for use. They give an agreeable taste to drawn butter for fish, or boiled beef and mutton.
Cut up the celery into small bits, or pour the seed into a jar; scald the salt and vinegar, and pour over the celery stalks or seed; let it cool, and put away in one large jar tightly corked. In a fortnight strain and bottle in small flasks, corking tightly.
Mince the onions, strew on the salt, and let them stand five or six hours. Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved, pour over the onions; put in a jar, tie down the cover, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.
Scald the vinegar and pour over the berries, which must be picked from the stalks and put into a large stone jar. Cover with a pane of glass, and set in the hot sun two days. Strain off the liquor, and boil up with the other ingredients, stirring often, one hour, keeping covered unless while stirring. Let it cool; strain and bottle.
This is used for flavoring brown gravies, soups, and ragoûts, and, stirred into browned butter, makes a good piquant sauce for broiled or baked fish.
Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved; pour over the pepper, put into a jar, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.
This is eaten with boiled fish and raw oysters, and is useful in the preparation of salads.
Scald the vinegar; pour boiling hot over the horseradish. Steep a week, strain and bottle.
“The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more equally distributed throughout the salad.”—Chaptal, a French chemist.
The Spanish proverb says, “that to make a perfect salad, there should be a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together.”
Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,Softness and smoothness to the salad give;Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,To add a double quantity of salt.Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,And twice with vinegar procured from town;True taste requires it, and your poet begsThe pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;And lastly, in the flavored compound tossA magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,Softness and smoothness to the salad give;Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,To add a double quantity of salt.Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,And twice with vinegar procured from town;True taste requires it, and your poet begsThe pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;And lastly, in the flavored compound tossA magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,Softness and smoothness to the salad give;Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,To add a double quantity of salt.Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,And twice with vinegar procured from town;True taste requires it, and your poet begsThe pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;And lastly, in the flavored compound tossA magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,
Softness and smoothness to the salad give;
Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;
Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
True taste requires it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And lastly, in the flavored compound toss
A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.
Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!
’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.
Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.
At least twenty-five years ago I pasted the above doggerel in my scrap-book, and committed it to memory. The first salad I was ever trusted to compound was dressed in strict obedience to the directions of the witty divine, and to this day these seem to me pertinent and worthy of note. The anchovy sauce can be omitted if you like, and a spoonful of Harvey’s or Worcestershire substituted. This is best suited for chicken or turkey salad.
Pick out every bit of the meat from the body and claws of a cold boiled lobster. Lay aside the coral for the dressing, and mince the rest. For the dressing you will need—
Rub the yolks to a smooth paste in a mortar or bowl, with a Wedgewood pestle, a silver or wooden spoon, untilperfectlyfree from lumps. Add gradually, rubbing all the while, the other ingredients, the coral last. This should have been worked well upon a plate with a silver knife or wooden spatula. Proceed slowly and carefully in the work of amalgamating the various ingredients, moistening with vinegar as they stiffen. Increase the quantity of this as the mixture grows smooth, until it is thin enough to pour over the minced lobster. You will need a teacupful at least. Toss with a silver fork and do not break themeat. Some mix chopped lettuce with the salad; but unless it is to be eaten within a few minutes, the vinegar will wither the tender leaves. The better plan is to heap a glass dish with the inner leaves of several lettuce-heads, laying pounded ice among them, and pass with the lobster, that the guests may add the green salad to their taste.
When lettuce is out of season, the following dressing, the receipt for which was given me by a French gourmand, may be used.
Prepare the egg and coral as above, with the condiments there mentioned, but mix with the lobster-meat four tablespoonfuls of fine white cabbage, chopped small, with two small onions, also minced into almost invisible bits, a teaspoonful of anchovy or other sauce, and a tablespoonful of celery vinegar.
All lobster salad should be eaten as soon as possible after the dressing is added, else it becomes unwholesome. If you use canned lobster, open and turn out the contents of the can into a china dish several hours before you mix the dressing, that the close, airless smell may pass away.
Garnish the edges of the dish with cool white leaves of curled lettuce, or with a chain of rings made of the whites of the boiled eggs.
Beat eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, and pepper until light; then, and very gradually, the oil. When the mixture is quite thick, whip in the lemon. Beat five minutes before putting in the vinegar. Just before the salad goes to table add half the whipped cream to this dressing and stir well into the lobster. Line the salad-bowl with lettuce-leaves; put in the seasoned meat and cover with the rest of the whipped cream.
This salad deserves its name.
Mince the meat well, removing every scrap of fat, gristle, and skin; cut the celery into bits half an inch long,or less, mix them, and set aside in a cold place while you prepare the dressing.
Rub the yolks of the eggs to a fine powder, add the salt, pepper, and sugar, then the oil, grinding hard, and putting in but a few drops at a time. The mustard comes next, and let all stand together while you whip the rawegg to a froth. Beat this into the dressing, and pour in the vinegar spoonful by spoonful, whipping the dressing well as you do it. Sprinkle a little dry salt over the meat and celery; toss it up lightly with a silver fork; pour the dressing over it, tossing and mixing until the bottom of the mass is as well saturated as the top; turn into the salad-bowl, and garnish with white of eggs (boiled) cut into rings or flowers, and sprigs of bleached celery-tops.
If you cannot get celery, substitute crisp white cabbage, and use celery vinegar in the dressing. You can also, in this case, chop some green pickles, gherkins, mangoes, or cucumbers, and stir in.
Turkey makes even better salad than chicken.
You can make soup of the liquor in which the fowl is cooked, since it need not be boiled in a cloth.
Rub the yolks to a powder, add sugar, pepper, salt, mustard, and oil. Let it stand five minutes, and beat in the vinegar. Cut the lettuce up with a knife and fork,—a chopper would bruise it,—put into a bowl, add the dressing, and mix by tossing with a silver fork.
You can dress on the table with oil and vinegar only,pulling the heart of the lettuce out with your fingers, and seasoning to taste.
Mix the dressing as for lettuce salad. Cut up the hearts of the lettuce, the radishes and cucumber, into very small pieces; chop the mustard and cress. Pour over these the dressing, tossing very lightly, not to bruise the young leaves; heap in a salad-bowl upon a lump of ice, and garnish with fennel-heads and nasturtium-blossoms.
This is a delightful accompaniment to boiled or baked fish.
Wash and pick over the cresses carefully, pluck from the stems, and pile in the salad bowl, with a dressing of vinegar, pepper, salt, and sugar, well stirred in.
Mix as for lettuce and pour upon the chopped cabbage.
Shred the head of cabbage fine, and dress with—
Put the vinegar, with all the ingredients for the dressing, except the cream, in a saucepan, and let them come to a boil. Pour while scalding over the cabbage, and set away until perfectly cold. Add the cream just before serving, stirring in with a silver fork.
This is a very nice preparation of cabbage, and far more wholesome than the uncooked. Try it!
Rub the yolks to a smooth paste, adding by degrees the salt, pepper, sugar, mustard, and oil. Beat the raw egg toa froth and stir in—lastly the vinegar. Peel the tomatoes, slice them a quarter of an inch thick, and set the dish on ice, while you are making ready the dressing. Stir a great lump of ice rapidly in this—the dressing—until it is cold; take it out, cover the tomatoes with the mixture, and set back on the ice until you send to table.
This salad is delicious, especially when ice-cold.
Prepare the dressing as for tomato salad; cut the celery into bits half an inch long, and season. Eat at once, before the vinegar injures the crispness of the vegetable.
Mince three-quarters of the salmon, laying aside four or five pieces half an inch wide and four or five long; cut smoothly and of uniform size. Prepare the dressing inthe usual way, and pour over the minced fish. Shred the lettuce, handling as little as possible, and heap in a separate bowl, with pounded ice. This must accompany the salmon, that the guests may help themselves to their liking. Or you may mix the lettuce with the fish, if it is to be eaten immediately. Celery, of course, is always stirred into the salad, when it is used. The reserved pieces of salmon should be laid in the dressing for five minutes before the latter is added to the minced fish, then dipped in vinegar. When you have transferred your salad (or mayonnaise) to the dish in which it is to be served, round it into a mound, and lay the strips upon it in such a manner as to divide it into triangular sections, the bars all meeting at the top and diverging at the base. Between these have subdivisions of chain-work made of the whites of the boiled eggs, each circle overlapping that next to it.
You can dress halibut in the same way.
Boil the vinegar and pour it upon the beaten egg, sugar, butter, and seasoning. Wet the flour with cold vinegar, and beat into this. Cook the mixture, stirring until it thickens, when pour, scalding hot, upon the salad. Toss with a silver fork, and let it get very cold before eating.
Mince the shrimps and grate the cheese. Work into the latter, a little at a time, the various condiments enumerated above, the vinegar last. Let all stand together ten minutes before adding the shrimps. When this is done, stir well for a minute and a half and serve in a glass dish, garnished with lemon, or (if you can get one) in a clean crab-shell.
Rub the yolk of the egg to a paste with the oil, adding in order the salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard, lastly thecheese. Work all well together before putting in the vinegar. Serve in a crab-shell.
These mixtures bear a marvellous resemblance in taste to devilled crab, and make a good impromptu relish at tea or luncheon. Eat with crackers and butter. This is still better if you add a cupful of cold minced chicken.
Use none but the best and freshest olive salad oil (notsweet oil, falsely so called) in compounding your salad-dressing. If you cannot obtain this, melted butter is the best substitute I know of.
1. Have them as fresh as possible. Stale and withered ones are unwholesome and unpalatable. Summer vegetables should be cooked on the same day they are gathered, if possible.
2. Pick over and wash well, cutting out all decayed or unripe parts.
3. Lay them, when peeled, incoldwater for some time before cooking.
4. If you boil them, put a little salt in the water.
5. Cook them steadily after you put them on.
6. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Rare vegetables are neither good nor fashionable.
7.Drain well.
8. Serve hot!
Boil in cold water with a pinch of salt. Have them of uniform size, and cook steadily until a fork will pierce easily to the heart of the largest. Then pour off thewater, every drop; sprinkle with salt and set back on the range, a little to one side, with the lid of the pot off. Let them dry three or four minutes; peel very quickly and serve in an uncovered dish.
Pare very thin. The glory of a potato is its mealiness, and much of the starch, or meal, lies next the skin—consequently is lost by slovenly paring, which likewise defaces the shape. Lay in cold water for half an hour, have ready a pot of boiling water slightly salted, drop in the potatoes, and keep at a rapid boil until tender. Drain off the water, sprinkle with fine salt, and dry as just described.
And here comes a conflict of authorities. Says my kind friend and neighbor, Mrs. A., an excellent housewife—“I boil my potatoes in cold water always—with a pinch of salt, of course, and when half-done, throw away the boiling water and fill up with cold, then boil again. This makes the potatoes mealy.” Mrs. B., whose reputation as a housekeeper and cook is in every kitchen, interposes:—“I have tried both ways. My experience is that potatoes melt into a sort of starchy gruel when boiled in cold water. The philosophy of the operation is to heat quickly and thoroughly, and, the instant they are done, to dry out every drop of water. And—” with a touch of pardonable pride—“we generally have delightful potatoes.” This is true, but remembering that Mrs. A.’s are like snow hillocks, ready to crumble at a breath, I come home and try the cold water plan. My cook, unlike most of her tribe, is too sensible to suppose that she knows everything, and willingly abets me. The result of our experiments stands somewhat thus—Garnet, White Mountain, and Early Rose potatoesareapt to dissolve in cold water, giving off their starch too readily, perhaps.We boil them in hot water. Peach Blows, Prince Alberts, and other late varieties are best cooked as Mrs. A. recommends—alwayspouring off the water the instant they are done, and letting the potatoes dry for a few minutes. My housewifely friends can decide for themselves which method is preferable.
Old potatoes are best mashed. Pare, and let them lie in cold water from half to three-quarters of an hour. A longer time will not hurt them. Boil in hot or cold water, according to the toughness of texture. A coarse, waxy potato is best cooked in cold water. In either case, put in a pinch of salt. Drain thoroughly when done, sprinkle with salt, and mash them in the pot with a potato-beetle, or whip with a split spoon, working in a tablespoonful of butter and enough milk to make the paste about the consistency of soft dough. Leave no lumps in it, and when smooth, dish. Form into a mound with a wooden spoon, and leave dots of pepper here and there on the surface, as large as a half-dime.
Brown by setting in the oven until a crust is formed. Glaze this with butter, and serve.
If very young, rub the skin off with a rough towel. If almost ripe, scrape with a blunt knife. Lay in cold water an hour, cover with cold water slightly salted, boil half an hour. Drain, salt, and dry for two or three minutes. Send to table plain.
You may crack each by pressing lightly upon it with theback of a wooden spoon, lay them in a deep dish, and pour over them a cupful of cream or new milk, heated to a boil, in which a great spoonful of butter has been dissolved.
This is a good way to cook potatoes which are so rank and tough as hardly to be eatable in any other form.
Pare and quarter, if large. Soak in cold water one hour. Put into a pot with enough cold salted water to cover them. When almost done, turn off the water, add a like quantity of milk, and bring to a boil. Before taking up, stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, a handful of chopped parsley, and thicken slightly with flour previously wet in cold milk. Boil one minute, and pour all into a deep dish.
Pare, cut into dice, and soak in cold water half an hour. Stew in enough hot salted water to cover them. Before taking up, and when they are breaking to pieces, drain off half the water, and pour in a cupful of milk. Boil three minutes, stirring well; put in a lump of butter the size of an egg rolled in flour, a little salt and a pinch of pepper; add a little parsley; boil up well and turn into a covered dish.
This is an excellent family dish. Children are usually fond of it and it is very wholesome.
Wash and wipe some large ripe potatoes, and bake in a quick oven until tender, say from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, if of a good size. Serve in a napkin with the skins on. Tear or cut a hole in the top whenyou eat them, put in a bit of butter with salt and pepper. They are good for boys’ cold fingers at supper-time on winter nights.
Take two cupfuls of cold mashed potato, and stir into it two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, beating to a white cream before adding anything else. Then put with this two eggs whipped very light and a teacupful of cream or milk, salting to taste. Beat all well, pour into a deep dish, and bake in a quick oven until it is nicely browned. If properly mixed, it will come out of the oven light, puffy, and delectable.
Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a saucepan, with four or five tablespoonfuls of milk, two or three of butter, pepper, salt, and some chopped parsley. Heat quickly, stirring all the time until ready to boil, when stir in the juice of half a lemon. This last ingredient entitles the dish to the foreign title. Pour into a deep dish, and serve very hot.
Season cold mashed potato with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Beat to a cream, with a tablespoonful of melted butter to every cupful of potato. Bind with two or three beaten eggs, and add some minced parsley. Roll into oval balls, dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in hot lard or drippings.
Pile in a pyramid upon a flat dish, and serve.
Pare, wash, and slice some raw potatoes as thin aswafers. This can be done with a sharp knife, although there is a little instrument for the purpose, to be had at the house-furnishing stores, which flutes prettily as well as slices evenly. Lay in ice-water for half an hour, wipe dry in two cloths, spreading them upon one, and pressing the other upon them. Have ready in the frying-pan some boiling lard or nice dripping, fry the potatoes to a light brown, sprinkle with salt, and serve in a napkin laid in a deep dish and folded over them. To dry them of the fat, take from the frying-pan as soon as they are brown, with a perforated skimmer, put into a cullender and shake for an instant. They should be crisp and free from grease.
Chop cold boiled potatoes into bits, season with pepper and salt, and fry lightly in dripping or butter, turning them constantly until nicely browned.
Pare and lay in ice-water for an hour. Choose the largest and soundest potatoes you can get for this dish. At the end of the hour, pare, with a small knife, round and round in one continuous curling strip. There is also an instrument for this purpose, which costs but a trifle, and will do the work deftly and expeditiously. Handle with care, fry—a few at a time, for fear of entanglement—in lard or clarified drippings, drain, and arrange neatly upon a hot flat dish.
Put into a saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter, a small handful of parsley chopped small, salt and pepper to taste. Stir up well until hot, add a small teacupful of cream or rich milk, thicken with two teaspoonfuls of flour,and stir until it boils. Chop some cold boiled potatoes, put into the mixture, and boil up once before serving.
Take large, fair potatoes, bake until soft, and cut a round piece off the top of each. Scrape out the inside carefully, so as not to break the skin, and set aside the empty cases with the covers. Mash the inside very smoothly, working into it while hot some butter and cream—about half a teaspoonful of each for every potato. Season with salt and pepper, with a good pinch of grated cheese for each; work it very soft with milk, and put into a saucepan to heat, stirring, to prevent burning. When scalding hot, stir in one well-beaten egg for six large potatoes. Boil up once, fill the skins with the mixture, replacing the caps, return them to the oven for three minutes; arrange upon a napkin in a deep dish, the caps uppermost; cover with a fold of the napkin, and eat hot.
You may omit the eggs and put in a double quantity of cheese. They are very good.
Boil, and mash the potatoes soft with a little milk. Beat up light with melted butter—a dessertspoonful for every half-pint of the potato—salt and pepper to taste. Fill some patty-pans or buttered scallop shells with the mixture, and brown in an oven, when you have stamped a pattern on the top of each. Glaze, while hot, with butter, and serve in the shells.
If you like, you can strew some grated cheese over the top.
Boil and peel some large, ripe potatoes, and three-quartersof an hour before a piece of roast beef is removed from the fire, skim the fat from the gravy; put the potatoes in the dripping-pan, having dredged them well with flour. Baste them, to prevent scorching, with the gravy, and when quite brown, drain on a sieve. Lay them about the meat in the dish.
This is also an accompaniment to roast beef or mutton. Mash some boiled potatoes smoothly with a little milk, pepper, salt, and a boiled onion (minced); make into small cones or balls; flour well, and put under or beside the meat, half an hour or so before you take it up. Skim off all the fat from the gravy before putting them in. Drain them dry when brown, and lay around the meat when dished.
These are nice with roast spare-rib, or any roast pork that is nottoofat.
Cut whole boiled potatoes lengthwise, into slices a quarter of an inch thick, and lay upon a gridiron over a hot, bright fire. Brown on both sides, sprinkle with pepper and salt, lay a bit of butter upon each, and eat very hot.
Make cold mashed potato into flat cakes; flour and fry in lard, or good sweet dripping, until they are a light-brown.
Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and roast until you can tell, by gently pressing the largest between the finger and thumb, that it is mellow throughout. Serve in their jackets.
Sweet, as well as Irish potatoes, are very good for pic-nic luncheon, roasted in hot ashes. This, it will be remembered, was the dinner General Marion set before the British officer as “quite a feast, I assure you, sir. We don’t often fare so well as to have sweet potatoes and salt.”
The feast was cleansed from ashes by the negro orderly’s shirt-sleeve, and served upon a natural trencher of pine-bark.
Have them all as nearly the same size as possible; put into cold water, without any salt, and boil until a fork will easily pierce the largest. Turn off the water, and lay them in the oven to dry for five minutes. Peel before sending to table.
Parboil, and then roast until done. This is a wise plan when they are old and watery. Boiling is apt to render them tasteless. Another way still is to boil until they are almost done, when peel and bake brown, basting them with butter several times, but draining them dry before they go to the table.
Parboil them, skin, and cut lengthwise into slices a quarter of an inch thick. Fry in sweet dripping or butter.
Cold boiled potatoes may be cooked in this way. Or you can chop them up with an equal quantity of cold Irish potatoes, put them into a frying-pan with a good lump of butter, and stir until they are hot and slightly brown.
Pick off the outer green leaves, quarter, examine carefully to be sure there are no insects in it, and lay for an hour in cold water. Then put into a pot with plenty of boiling water, and cook fifteen minutes. Throw away the water, and fill up the pot from the boiling tea-kettle. Cook until tender all through. Three-quarters of an hour will do for a good-sized cabbage when young. Late in the season you must be guided by the tenderness of the stalk. Drain well, chop, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt. Serve very hot. If you boil corned beef or pork to eat with cabbage, let the second water be taken from the pot in which this is cooking. It will flavor it nicely.
Alwaysboil cabbage in two waters.
This, I need hardly say, is a favorite country dish at the South. The old-fashioned way of preparing it was to boil meat and cabbage together, and serve, reeking with fat, the cabbage in quarters, soaking yet more of the essence from the ham or middling about which it lay. In this shape it justly earned a reputation for grossness and indigestibility that banished it, in time, from many tables.
Yet it is a savory and not unwholesome article of food in winter, if the cabbage be boiled in two waters, the second being the “pot liquor” from the boiling meat. Drain thoroughly in a cullender, pressing out every drop of water that will flow, without breaking the tender leaves; and when the meat is dished, lay the cabbage neatly about it, and upon each quarter a slice of hard-boiled egg.
When you eat, season with pepper, salt, and vinegar.
Choose for this purpose a large, firm cabbage. Take off the outer leaves, and lay in boiling water ten minutes, then in very cold. Do this several hours before you are ready to stuff it. When perfectly cold, bind a broad tape about it, or a strip of muslin, that it may not fall apart when the stalk is taken out. Remove this with a thin sharp knife, leaving a hole about as deep as your middle-finger. Without widening the mouth of the aperture, excavate the centre until you have room for four or five tablespoonfuls of the force-meat—more, if the head be large. Chop the bits you take out very small; mix with some cold boiled pork or ham, or cooked sausage-meat, averylittle onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme, and some bread-crumbs. Fill the cavity with this, bind a wide strip of muslin over the hole in the top, and lay the cabbage in a large saucepan with a pint of “pot-liquor” from boiled beef or ham. Stew gently until very tender. Take out the cabbage, unbind carefully, and lay in a dish. Keep hot while you add to the gravy, when you have strained it, pepper, a piece of butter rolled in flour, and two or three tablespoonfuls rich milk or cream. Boil up, and pour over the cabbage.
Pick over carefully, lay in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour; shake in a cullender to drain, and put into boiling water, keeping at a fast boil until tender. A piece of pork seasons them pleasantly. In this case put the meat on first, adding the greens when it is parboiled, and cooking them together. Boil in an uncovered vessel. Drain very well; chop and heap in a dish, laying the meat on top.
Boil a firm white cabbage fifteen minutes, changing the water then for more from the boiling tea-kettle. When tender, drain and set aside until perfectly cold. Chop fine, and add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, three tablespoonfuls rich milk or cream. Stir all well together, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until brown. Eat very hot.
I can conscientiously recommend this dish even to those who are not fond of any of the ordinary preparations of cabbage. It is digestible and palatable, more nearly resembling cauliflower in taste than its coarser and commoner cousin—German.
Chop cold boiled cabbage, and drain very dry, stirring in a little melted butter, pepper, and salt, with three or four tablespoonfuls of cream. Heat all in a buttered frying-pan, stirring until smoking hot; then let the mixture stand just long enough to brown slightly on the under-side. It is improved by the addition of a couple of beaten eggs. Turn out by putting a flat dish above the pan, upside-down, and reversing the latter. This is a breakfast dish.
Shred or chop the cabbage fine. Line a barrel, keg, or jar with cabbage-leaves on the bottom and sides. Put in a layer of the cut cabbage, three inches in depth; press down well and sprinkle with four tablespoonfuls of salt. When you have packed five layers in this way, press hard with a board cut to fit loosely on the inside of the barrel or jar. Put heavy weights on this, or pound with a wooden beetle until the cabbage is a compact mass, when remove the board and put in more layers of salt andshred cabbage, repeating the pounding every four or five layers, until the vessel is full. Cover with leaves, and put the board on the top of these with a heavy weight to keep it down. Set all away to ferment. In three weeks remove the scum, and if need be, cover with water. Keep in a cool, dry cellar. It can be eaten raw or boiled, and seasoned with pork.
This is the modesimpleif notpureof preparing this, to nostrils unaccustomed to it, malodorous compound. Some add to the salt whole black peppers, cloves, garlic, and mace,—“then put it away,” as a mild, motherly Teuton dame once told me, “in the cellar to r—”—“Rot!” interpolated a disgusted bystander, anticipating her deliberate utterance. “No, my dear,” drawled the placid Frau, “toripen.”
Pick off the leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom of the bunch of flowers. Lay in cold water for half an hour. Unlessverylarge, do not cut it; if you do, quarter neatly. Tie a close net of coarse bobbinet lace or tarlatan about it to prevent breaking or bruising; put into boiling water salted, and cook until tender. Undo and remove the net, and lay the cauliflower in a hot dish. Have ready a large cupful of nice drawn butter and pour over it. A little lemon-juice makes of this asauce tartare.
Cut with a silver knife and fork in helping it out, and give a little of the sauce to each person. Take it out of the water as soon as it is done, serve quickly, and eat hot. It darkens with standing.
Use for this dish the smaller and more indifferent cauliflowers.Cut them into small clusters; lay in cold salt and water half an hour, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn most of this off, leaving but half a teacupful in the saucepan. Add to this a half-cupful of milk thickened with a very little rice or wheat flour, and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, pepper, and salt. Shake the saucepan over the fire gently until it boils; take out the cauliflowers with a perforated skimmer, lay in order upon a dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Boil until tender, clip into neat clusters, and pack—the stems downward—in a buttered pudding-dish. Beat up a cupful of bread-crumbs to a soft paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and six of cream or milk; season with pepper and salt, bind with a beaten egg, and with this cover the cauliflower. Cover the dish closely and bake six minutes in a quick oven; brown in five more, and serve very hot in the dish in which they were baked.
Pick over, wash carefully, cut off the lower part of the stems and lay in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour. Cook quickly in boiling water, with a little salt, until tender. This will be in twelve or fifteen minutes. Cook in an uncovered saucepan. Drain well, lay in a neat pile lightly heaped in the centre of a dish, and pour drawn butter over them, or serve this in a tureen.
Boil two or three heads of broccoli until tender. Have ready two cupfuls of butter drawn in the usual way, and beat into it, while hot, four well-whipped eggs. Lay butteredtoast in the bottom of a hot dish, and on this the largest head of broccoli whole, as a centre-piece. Arrange close about this the others cut into clusters, the stems downward, and pour the egg-sauce over all.
Peel and lay in cold water, slightly salted, until the water boils in the saucepan intended for them. Put them in and boil until very tender. The time will depend upon their age. Drain and mash in the cullender with a wooden spoon, stirring in at the last a tablespoonful of butter with pepper and salt to taste, and serve hot.
If eaten with boiled corned beef, you may take a little of the liquor from the pot in which the meat is cooking; put it into a saucepan, boil up once to throw off the scum, skim clean, and cook the turnips in this.
If the turnips are young, rub them when tenderthroughthe cullender; add a little milk, butter, pepper, and salt; heat to boiling in a clean saucepan and serve.
Pare smoothly, and trim all into the same size and shape. Lay in cold water half an hour. Put on in boiling water, with a tablespoonful of butter, and stew until tender. Drain dry, without crushing or breaking them; pile in a deep dish, and cover with a white sauce made of butter drawn in milk. Turnips should be eaten very hot always.
In respect to quantity, spinach is desperately deceitful. I never see it drained after it is boiled without bethinking myself of a picture I saw many years since, illustrative ofthe perils of innocent simplicity. A small (lucky) boy and big (unlucky) one have been spending their holiday in fishing. While the former, well satisfied with the result of his day’s sport, is busy putting up his rod and tackle, the designing elder dexterously substitutes his own string of minnows for the other’s store of fine perch. The little fellow, turning to pick it up, without a suspicion of the cruel cheat, makes piteous round eyes at his fellow, ejaculating, “How they haveswhrunk!”
A young housekeeper of my acquaintance, ordering a spring dinner for herself and husband, purchased a quart of spinach. When it should have appeared upon the table, there came in its stead a platter of sliced egg, she having given out one for the dressing. “Where is the spinach?” she demanded of the maid of all work. “Under the egg, ma’am!” And it was really all there.
Moral.—Get enough spinach to be visible to the naked eye. A peck is not too much for a family of four or five.
Pick it over very carefully; it is apt to be gritty. Wash in several waters, and let it lie in the last half an hour at least. Take out with your hands, shaking each bunch well, and put into boiling water, with a little salt. Boil from fifteen to twenty minutes. When tender, drain thoroughly, chopveryfine; put into a saucepan with a piece of butter the size of an egg, and pepper to taste. Stir until very hot, turn into a dish and shape into a flat-topped mound with a silver or wooden spoon; slice some hard-boiled eggs and lay on top.
Rub the yolks of the eggs to a powder; mix with butter, and when your mound is raised, spread smoothly over the flat top. Four eggs will dress a good-sized dish. Cut the whites into rings and garnish, laying them on the yellow surface. This makes a pleasant dressing for the spinach.
Boil and chopveryfine, or rub through a cullender. Season with pepper and salt. Beat in, while warm, three tablespoonfuls melted butter (this is for a large dish). Put into a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly. When smoking hot, add three tablespoonfuls of cream and a teaspoonful white sugar. Boil up once, still stirring, and press firmly into a hot bowl or other mould. Turn into a hot dish and garnish with boiled eggs.
Shell and lay in cold water until you are ready to cook them. Put into salted boiling water, and cook from twenty minutes to half an hour. If young and fresh, the shorter time will suffice. If just gathered from your own vines and tender, season only with salt. Market peas are greatly improved by the addition of a small lump of white sugar. It improves taste and color. The English always put it in, also a sprig of mint, to be removed when the peas are dished. Drain well, and dish, with a great lump of butter stirred in, and a little pepper. Keep hot.
Cook a pint or three cups more peas than you need for dinner. Mash while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter. Put by until morning. Make a batter of two whipped eggs, a cupful of milk, quarter teaspoonful soda, a half teaspoonful cream tartar, and half a cup of flour. Stir the pea-mixture into this, beating very hard, and cook as you would ordinary griddle-cakes.
I can testify, from experience, that they make a delightfulmorning dish, and hereby return thanks to the unknown friend to whom I am indebted for the receipt.
Cut your stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody or lower portions, and scraping the white part which remains. Throw into cold water as you scrape them. Tie in a bunch with soft strings—muslin or tape—and put into boiling water slightly salted. If very young and fresh, it is well to tie in a piece of coarse net to protect the tops. Boil from twenty to forty minutes, according to the age. Just before it is done, toast two or three slices of bread, cutting off the crust; dip in the asparagus liquor, butter, and lay in a hot dish. When you take up the asparagus, drain, unbind the bundle, and heap it upon the toast, with bits of butter between the stalks.
Cut twenty-five or thirty heads of asparagus into bits half an inch long, and boil fifteen minutes. Have a cupful of rich drawn butter in a saucepan, and put in the asparagus when you have drained it dry. Heat together to a boil, seasoning with pepper and salt, and pour into a buttered bake dish. Break five or six eggs carefully over the surface; put a bit of butter upon each; sprinkle with salt, and pepper, and put in the oven until the eggs are set.
You may beat the eggs—yolks and whites separately—to a froth; season with butter, pepper, and salt; stir them together, with the addition of three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, and pour evenly over the asparagus mixture in the dish. This is decidedly the better way of the two, although somewhat more troublesome.
Cut off the tender tops of fifty heads of asparagus; boil and drain them. Have ready half a dozen (or more) stale biscuit or rolls, from which you have cut a neat top slice and scraped out the crumb. Set them in the oven to crisp, laying the tops beside them that the cavities may be well dried. Meanwhile, put into a saucepan a sugarless custard made of a pint—if you need so much—of milk, and four well-whipped eggs. Boil the milk first, before beating in the eggs; set over the fire and stir until it thickens, when add a great spoonful of butter, a little salt and pepper; lastly, the asparagus tops, minced fine. Do not let it boil, but take from the fire so soon as the asparagus is fairly in; fill the rolls with the mixture, put on the tops, fitting them accurately; set in the oven three minutes, and arrange on a dish, to be eaten hot.
The number of rolls will depend upon their size. It is better to have them small, so that one can be served to each person. They will be found extremely nice.