Put on the veal and water, and boil slowly until the liquid is reduced to about one-half the original quantity. Strain out the shreds of meat, and put the soup again over the fire. Meanwhile the sago should be washed in several waters, and soaked half an hour in warm water enough to cover it. Stir it into the strained broth and boil—stirring very often to prevent lumping or scorching—half an hour more. Heat the milk almost to boiling; beat the yolks of the eggs very light; mix with the milk gradually, as in making boiled custard, and pour—stirring all the while—into the soup. Season with pepper and salt; boil up once to cook the eggs, and serve. Should the liquid be too thick after putting in the eggs, replenish with boiling water. It should be about the consistency of hot custard.
This soup is very good, if chicken broth be substituted for the veal. It is very strengthening to invalids, and especially beneficial to those suffering from colds and pulmonary affections.
Cut the fowls into pieces as for fricassee. Put these with the ham into the pot with a quart of water, or enough to cover them fairly. Stew for an hour, if the fowls are tender; if tough, until you can cut easily into the breast. Take out the breasts, leaving the rest of the meat in the pot, and add the remainder of the water—boiling hot. Keep the soup stewing slowly while you chop up the white meat you have selected. Rub the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs smooth in a mortar or bowl, moistening to a paste with a few spoonfuls of the soup. Mix with these a handful of fine bread-crumbs and the chopped meat, and make it into small balls. When the soup has boiled in all, two hours and a half, if the chicken be reduced to shreds, strain out the meat and bones. Season with salt and white pepper, with a bunch of chopped parsley. Drop in the prepared force-meat, and after boiling ten minutes to incorporate the ingredients well, add, a little at a time, a pint of rich milk thickened with flour. Boil up once and serve.
A chicken at least a year old would make better soup than a younger fowl.
Cut up the meat; chop the vegetables, and put on with just enough water to cover them, keeping on the lid of the pot all the while, and stew slowly for one hour. Then add two quarts of boiling water, with a few blades of mace and a dozen whole peppers. Or, should you prefer,a little cayenne. Boil two hours longer, salt, and strain. Return the liquor to the pot; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour wet into a smooth thin paste with cold water; add a tablespoonful of walnut or mushroom catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire or other pungent sauce, and a generous glass of Madeira or brown Sherry.
Dissect the rabbit, crack the bones, and prepare precisely as you would the venison soup, only putting in three small onions instead of one, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Hares which are too tough to be cooked in any other way, make excellent game soup. Also, the large gray squirrel of the Middle and Southern States.
Cut the tail into several pieces and fry brown in butter. Slice the onions and two carrots, and when you remove the ox-tail from the frying-pan, put in these and brown them also. When done, tie them in a bag with a bunch of thyme and drop into the soup-pot. Lay the pieces of ox-tail in the same; then the meat cut into small slices. Grate over them the two whole carrots, and add four quarts of cold water, with pepper and salt. Boil from four to six hours, in proportion to the size of the tail. Strain fifteen minutes before serving it, and thicken with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Boil ten minutes longer.
Strain the liquor from the oysters, add to it the water, and set it over the fire to heat slowly in a covered vessel. When it is near boiling, season with pepper and salt; add the oysters, and let them stew until they “ruffle” on the edge. This will be in about five minutes. Then put in the butter with the milk which has been heated in a separate vessel, and stir well for two minutes.
Serve with sliced lemon and oyster or cream crackers. Some use mace and nutmeg in seasoning. The crowning excellence in oyster soup is to have it cooked just enough. Too much stewing ruins the bivalves, while an underdone oyster is a flabby abomination. The plumpness of the main body and ruffled edge are good indices of their right condition.
Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, pour in with it the water. Season with cayenne pepper and a little salt, a teaspoonful of mingled nutmeg, mace, and cloves. When the liquor is almost boiling, add half the oysters chopped finely and boil five minutes quite briskly. Strain the soup and return to saucepan. Have ready some force-meat balls, not larger than marbles, made of the yolks of the eggs boiled hard and rubbed to a smooth pastewith a little butter, then mix with six raw oysters chopped very finely, a little salt, and a raw egg well beaten, to bind the ingredients together. Flour your hands well and roll the force-meat into pellets, laying them upon a cold plate, so as not to touch one another until needed. Then put the reserved whole oysters into the hot soup, and when it begins to boil again, drop in the force-meat marbles. Boil until the oysters “ruffle,” by which time the balls will also be done. Add the hot milk.
Serve with sliced lemon and crackers. A liberal tablespoonful of butter stirred in gently at the last is an improvement.
Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire with a dozen whole peppers, a few bits of cayenne pods, half a dozen blades of mace, and salt to taste. Let it boil for ten minutes, then put in the clams and boil half an hour quite fast, keeping the pot closely covered. If you dislike to see the whole spices in the tureen, strain them out before the clams are added. At the end of the half hour add the milk, which has been heated to scalding, not boiling, in another vessel. Boil up again, taking care the soup does not burn, and put in the butter. Then serve without delay. If you desire a thicker soup stir a heaping tablespoonful of rice-flour into a little cold milk, and put in with the quart of hot.
Those who have only seen the bloated, unsightly “hornpouts” that play the scavengers about city wharves, are excusable for entertaining a prejudice against them as anarticle of food. But the small cat-fish of our inland lakes and streams are altogether respectable, except in their unfortunate name.
Skin and clean the fish and cut them up. Chop the pork into small pieces. Put these together into the pot, with two quarts of water, chopped sweet herbs, and the celery seasoning. Boil for an hour, or until fish and pork are in rags, and strain, if you desire a regular soup for a first course. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, which should be already hot. Next the eggs, beaten to a froth, and a lump of butter the size of a walnut. Boil up once, and serve with dice of toasted bread on the top. Pass sliced lemon, or walnut or butternut pickles with it.
Eel soup is made in precisely the same manner as cat-fish, only boiled longer. A chopped onion is no detriment to the flavor of either, and will remove the muddy taste which these fish sometimes acquire from turbid streams.
Boil the lobster and extract the meat, setting aside the coral in a cool place. Cut or chop up the meat found in the claws. Rub the yolks of the eggs to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter. Pound and rub the claw-meat in the same manner, and mix with the yolks. Beat up a raw egg, and stir into the paste; season with pepper, salt, and,if you like, mace; make into force-meat balls, and set away with the coral to cool and harden. By this time the stock should be well heated, when, put in the rest of the lobster-meat cut into square bits. Boil fifteen minutes, which time employ in pounding the coral in a Wedgewood mortar, or earthenware bowl, rubbing it into a fine, even paste, with the addition of a few spoonfuls of the broth, gradually worked in until it is about the consistency of boiled starch. Stirverycarefully into the hot soup, which should, in the process, blush into a roseate hue. Lastly, drop in the force-meat balls, after which do not stir, lest they should break. Simmer a few minutes to cook the raw egg; but, if allowed to boil, the soup will darken.
Crab soup may be made in the same way, excepting the coralline process, crabs being destitute of that dainty.
Chop up the coarser parts of the turtle-meat, with the entrails and bones. Add to them four quarts of water, and stew four hours with the herbs, onions, pepper, and salt. Stew very slowly, but do not let it cease to boil during this time. At the end of four hours strain the soup, and add the finer parts of the turtle and the green fat, which has been simmered for one hour in two quarts of water. Thicken with browned flour; return to the soup-pot, and simmer gently an hour longer. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil them in a separate vessel for four hours, and throw into the soup before taking it up. If not, put in force-meat balls; then the juice of the lemon and thewine; beat up once and pour out. Some cooks add the finer meat before straining, boiling all together five hours; then strain, thicken, and put in the green fat, cut into lumps an inch long. This makes a handsomer soup than if the meat is left in.
For the mock eggs, take the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and one raw egg well beaten. Rub the boiled eggs into a paste with a teaspoonful of butter, bind with the raw egg, roll into pellets the size and shape of turtle-eggs, and lay in boiling water for two minutes before dropping into the soup.
Six tablespoonfuls turtle-meat chopped very fine. Rub to a paste with the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; tablespoonful of butter, and, if convenient, a little oyster-liquor. Season with cayenne, mace, and half a teaspoonful of white sugar. Bind with a well-beaten egg; shape into balls; dip in egg, then powdered cracker, fry in butter, and drop into the soup when it is served.
Green turtle for soups is now within the reach of every private family, being well preserved in air-tight cans.
Lay the fish in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour before it is time to cook it. When it has been wiped free of the salt and water, wrap it in a clean linen cloth kept for such purposes. The cloth should be dredged with flour, to prevent sticking. Sew up the edges in such a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but one thickness of the cloth over any part. The wrapping should be fitted neatly to the shape of the piece to be cooked. Put into the fish-kettle, pour on plenty of hot water, and boil briskly—fifteen minutes for each pound.
Have ready a sauce prepared thus:—
To one gill boiling water add as much milk, and when it is scalding-hot, stir in—leaving the sauce-pan on the fire—two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled thickly in flour; as this thickens, two beaten eggs. Season with salt and chopped parsley, and when, after one good boil, you withdraw it from the fire, add a dozen capers, or pickled nasturtium seeds, or, if you prefer, a spoonful of vinegar in which celery-seeds have been steeped. Put the fish into a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it. Some serve in a butter-boat; but I fancy that the boiling sauce applied to the steaming fish imparts a richness it cannot gain later. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and circles of hard-boiled eggs, laid around the edge of the dish.
Rock-fish and river-bass are very nice, cooked as above, but do not need to be boiled so long as codfish.
Put the fish to soak over night in lukewarm water—as early as eight o’clock in the evening. Change this for more warm water at bed-time and cover closely. Change again in the morning and wash off the salt. Two hours before dinner plunge intoverycold water. This makes it firm. Finally, set over the fire with enough lukewarm water to cover it, and boil for half an hour. Drain well; lay it on a hot dish, and pour over it egg-sauce prepared as in the foregoing receipt, only substituting the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a paste with butter, for the beaten raw egg.
This is a useful receipt for country housekeepers who can seldom procure fresh cod. Salt mackerel, prepared in the same way, will repay the care and time required, so superior is it to the Friday’s dish of salt fish, as usually served.
Should the cold fish left over be used for fish-balls—as it should be—it will be found that the sauce which has soaked into it while hot has greatly improved it.
Prepare the fish precisely as for boiling whole. Cut in pieces when it has been duly washed and soaked, and boil twenty minutes. Turn off the water, and cover with fresh from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil twenty minutes more, drain the fish very dry, and spread upon a dish to cool. When perfectly cold, pick to pieces with a fork, removing every vestige of skin and bone, and shredding very fine. When this is done, add an equal bulk of mashed potato; work into a stiff batter by adding a lump of butter and sweet milk, and if you want to have them very nice, a beaten egg. Flour your hands and make the mixture into balls or cakes. Drop them into boiling lard or good dripping, and fry to a light brown. Plainer fish-cakes may be made of the cod and potatoes alone, moulded round like biscuit. In any shape the dish is popular.
Prepare the fish as for balls. Heat almost to boiling a pint of rich, sweet milk, and stir into it, gradually and carefully, three eggs, well beaten, a tablespoonful of butter, a little chopped parsley and butter, with pepper, lastly the fish. Boil up once and turn into a deep covered dish, or chafing dish lined with buttered toast. Eat hot for breakfast or supper.
Soak, boil, and pick the fish, if salt, as for fish-balls. If fresh, boil and pick into bits. Add an equal quantity of mashed potatoes, a large tablespoonful of butter and milk, enough to make it very soft. Put into a skillet,and add a little boiling water to keep it from burning. Turn and toss constantly until it is smoking hot but not dry; add pepper and parsley, and dish.
Clean the mackerel and wipe carefully with a dry, clean cloth; wash them lightly with another cloth dipped in vinegar; wrap each in a coarse linen cloth (floured) basted closely to the shape of the fish. Put them into a pot with enough salted water to cover them, and boil them gently for three quarters of an hour. Drain them well. Take a teacupful of the water in which they were boiled, and put into a saucepan with a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, some anchovy paste or sauce, and the juice of half a lemon. Let this boil up well and add a lump of butter the size of an egg, with a tablespoonful browned flour wet in cold water. Boil up again and serve in the sauce-boat. This makes a brown sauce. You can substitute egg-sauce if you like. Garnish with parsley and nasturtium blossoms.
Clean the mackerel, wash, and wipe dry. Split it open, so that when laid flat the backbone will be in the middle. Sprinkle lightly with salt, and lay on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, with the inside downward, until it begins to brown; then turn the other. When quite done, lay on a hot dish and butter it plentifully. Turn another hot dish over the lower one, and let it stand two or three minutes before sending to table.
Soak over night in lukewarm water. Change this early in the morning for very cold, and let the fish lie in this until time to cook. Then proceed as with the fresh mackerel.
Lay in cold salt and water for an hour. Wipe dry and score the skin in squares. Put into the kettle with cold salted water enough to cover it. It is so firm in texture that you can boil without a cloth if you choose. Let it heat gradually, and boil from half to three-quarters of an hour, in proportion to the size of the piece. Four or five pounds will be enough for most private families. Drain and accompany by egg-sauce—either poured over the fish, or in a sauce-boat.
Save the cold remnants of the fish and what sauce is left until next morning. Pick out as you would cod, mix with an equal quantity of mashed potato, moisten with the sauce, or with milk and butter if you have no sauce, put it into a skillet, and stir until it is very hot. Do not burn. Season with pepper and salt.
Take a piece of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay in salt and water for two hours. Wipe dry and score the outer skin. Set in the baking-pan in a tolerably hot oven, and bake an hour, basting often with butter and water heated together in a saucepan or tin cup. When a fork will penetrate it easily it is done. It should be of a fine brown. Take the gravy in the dripping-pan—add a little boiling water should there not be enough—stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with browned flour, previously wet with cold water. Boil up once and put into sauce-boat.
There is no finer preparation of halibut than this, which is, however, comparatively little known. Those who have eaten it usually prefer it to boiled and broiled. You canuse what is left for the same purpose as the fragments of boiled halibut.
Wash and wipe the steaks dry. Beat up two or three eggs, and roll out some Boston or other brittle crackers upon the kneading-board until they are fine as dust. Dip each steak into the beaten egg, then into the bread crumbs (when you have salted the fish), and fry in hot fat, lard, or nice dripping.
Or, you can broil the steak upon a buttered gridiron, over a clear fire, first seasoning with salt and pepper. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter well, and cover closely.
Mince a pound of cold boiled or baked halibut, or the fragments of halibut steak, and make for it the following dressing: The yolks of three hard-boiled eggs rubbed smooth with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, and when there remain no lumps in it, work into a soft paste with a tablespoonful salad oil. Next beat in two teaspoonfuls white sugar, a teaspoonful made mustard, a pinch of cayenne, teaspoonful salt, one of Worcestershire sauce, a little anchovy paste if you have it, and finally, a little at a time to prevent lumping, asmallteacupful of vinegar in which celery-seed have been steeped. It is easy to keep a bottle of this on hand for salads and sauces. Stir all thoroughly into the minced fish, garnish with a chain of the whites of the eggs cut into rings, with a small round slice of pickled beet laid within each link, and you have apiquantand pretty salad for the supper-table.
Wrap the fish, when you have washed and wiped it, in a clean linen cloth—not too thick—baste it up securely,and put into the fish-kettle. Cover with cold water in which has been melted a handful of salt. Boil slowly, allowing about a quarter of an hour to each pound. When the time is up, rip open a corner of the cloth and test the salmon with a fork. If it penetrate easily, it is done. If not, hastily pin up the cloth and cook a little longer. Skim off the scum as it rises to the top. Have ready in another saucepan a pint of cream—or half milk and half cream will do—which has been heated in a vessel set in boiling water; stir into this a large spoonful of butter, rolled in flour, a little salt and chopped parsley, and a half-gill of the water in which the fish is boiled. Let it boil up once, stirring all the while. When the fish is done, take it instantly from the kettle, lay it an instant upon a folded cloth to absorb the drippings; transfer with great care, for fear of breaking, to a hot dish, and pour the boiled cream over it, reserving enough to fill a small sauce-boat. Garnish with curled parsley and circular slices of hard-boiled yolks—leaving out the whites of the eggs.
After serving boiled salmon with cream-sauce, you will never be quite content with any other. If you cannot get cream, boil a pint of milk and thicken with arrow-root. It is not so nice, but many will not detect the difference—realcream being a rare commodity in town.
You may pickle what is left, if it is in one piece. Or devil it, as I have directed you to treat cold halibut.Ormince, mixed with mashed potato, milk, and butter, and stir into a sort of stew. Or, once again, mix with mashed potato, milk, butter, and a raw egg well-beaten; make into cakes or balls, and fry in hot lard or dripping. At any rate, let none of it be lost, it being at once one of our most expensive and most delicious fish.
Wash and wipe dry, and rub with pepper and salt.Some add a soupçon of cayenne and powdered mace. Lay the fish upon a grating set over your baking-pan, and roast or bake, basting it freely with butter, and, toward the last, with its own drippings only. Should it brown too fast, cover the top with a sheet of white paper until the whole is cooked. When it is done, transfer to a hot dish and cover closely, and add to the gravy a little hot water thickened with arrow-root, rice, or wheat flour,—wet, of course, first with cold water,—a great spoonful of strained tomato sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Boil up and serve in a sauce boat, or you can serve with cream sauce, made as for boiled salmon. Garnish handsomely with alternate sprigs of parsley and the bleached tops of celery, with ruby bits of firm currant jelly here and there. This is a fine dish for a dinner-party. A glass of Sherry improves the first-named sauce.
Dry well with a cloth, dredge with flour, and lay them upon a well-buttered gridiron, over clear hot coals. Turn with a broad-bladed knife slipped beneath, and a flat wire egg-beater above, lest the steak should break. When done to a light brown, lay in a hot dish, butter each steak, seasoning with salt and pepper, cover closely, and serve.
Having cleaned your fish, cut into pieces of a convenient size to go into the fish-kettle, and boil in salted water as for the table. Drain it very dry, wipe it with a clean cloth, and set it aside in a cool place until next morning.
Make pickle enough to cover it in the following proportions: 2 quarts vinegar, a dozen blades of mace, dozen white peppers, dozen cloves, two teaspoonfuls made mustard,three tablespoonfuls white sugar, and a pint of the water in which the fish was boiled. Let them boil up once hard, that you may skim the pickle. Should the spices come away with the scum in large quantities, pick them out and return to the kettle. Set the liquor away in an earthenware jar, closely covered, to keep in the flavor. Next morning hang it over a brisk fire in a bell-metal kettle (covered), and heat to boiling. Meanwhile, prepare the salmon by cutting into pieces an inch and a half long and half an inch wide. Cut cleanly and regularly with a sharp knife. When they are all ready, and the liquor is on the boil, drop them carefully into the kettle. Let the pickle boil up once to make sure the salmon is heated through. Have ready some air-tight glass jars, such as you use for canning fruit and tomatoes. Take the salmon from the kettle, while it is still on the stove or range, with a wire-egg-beater, taking care you do not break the pieces. Drop them rapidly into the jar, packing closely as you go on; fill with the boiling pickle until it overflows, screw on the top, and set away in a dark, cool place. Proceed in the same way with each can until all are full. Salmon thus put up will keep good foryears, as I can testify from experience, and will well repay the trouble of preparation. You can vary the seasoning to your taste, adding a shallot or two minced very fine, some celery and small pods of cayenne pepper, which alwayslookwell in vinegar.
Be sure that the contents of the kettle are boiling when transferred to the cans, that they are not allowed time to cool in the transit, that the elastic on the can is properly adjusted, and the top screwed down tightly, and success is certain. I would call the attention of those who are fond of the potted spiced salmon, sold at a high price in grocery stores, to this receipt for making the same luxury at home.It costs less by one-half, is as good, and is always on hand.
Wash the salmon in two or three waters, rubbing it lightly with a coarse cloth to remove the salt-crystals. Then soak over night in tepid water. Exchange this in the morning for ice-cold, and let the fish lie in the latter for three hours. Take it out, wipe dry, and cut in strips as directed in the foregoing receipt. Drop these, when all are ready, in a saucepan of boiling water, placed alongside of a kettle of pickle prepared as for fresh salmon. Beside these have your air-tight jars, covers laid in readiness, and when the salmon has boiled five minutes—fairly boiled, not simmered—fish out the pieces with your wire spoon, pack rapidly into your can; fill up with the boiling pickle from the other kettle, and seal instantly. In two days the pickled salmon will be fit for use, and is scarcely distinguishable from that made of fresh fish. It has the advantage of being always procurable, and of comparative cheapness, and in the country is a valuable stand-by in case of unexpected supper company.
Take a piece of raw smoked salmon the size of your hand, or larger in proportion to the number who are to sit down to supper. Wash it in two waters, rubbing off the salt. Lay in a skillet with enough warm—not hot—water to cover it; let it simmer fifteen minutes, and boil five. Remove it, wipe dry, and lay on a buttered gridiron to broil. When it is nicely browned on both sides, transfer to a hot dish; butter liberally, and pepper to taste. Garnish with hillocks of grated horse-radish interspersed with sprays of fresh or pickled fennel-seed, or with parsley.
Raw smoked salmon is in common use upon the supper-table,cut into smooth strips as long as the middle finger, and rather wider; arranged neatly upon a garnished dish, and eaten with pepper-sauce or some other pungent condiment.
Clean, wash, and wipe the fish. A roe shad is best for this purpose. Cleanse the roes thoroughly, and having sprinkled both shad and eggs with salt, wrap in separate cloths and put into a fish-kettle, side by side. Cover with salted water, and boil from half an hour to three-quarters, in proportion to the size. Experience is the best rule as to the time. When you have once cooked fish to a turn, note the weight and time, and you will be at no loss thereafter. A good rule is to make a pencilled memorandum in the margin of the receipt-book opposite certain receipts.
Serve the shad upon a hot dish, with a boat of drawn butter mingled with chopped eggs and parsley, or egg-sauce. Lay the roes about the body of the fish. Garnish with capers and slices of hard boiled eggs.
Soak the fish six or seven hours in warm water, changing it several times; wipe off all the salt and immerse in ice-cold water. When it has lain in this an hour, put into a fish-kettle with enough fresh water to cover it, and boil from fifteen to twenty minutes, in proportion to the size. Serve in a hot dish, with a large lump of butter spread over the fish.
Wash, wipe, and split the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay it upon a buttered gridiron, inside downward. When the lower side is browned, turn the fish. One of medium size will be done in about twenty minutes.Serve upon a hot dish, and lay a good piece of butter upon the fish.
Soak over night in lukewarm water. Take out in the morning and transfer to ice-cold for half an hour. Wipe very dry, and broil as you do fresh shad.
This is a popular dish upon Southern tables, and is good anywhere. Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad; split and cut each side into four pieces, leaving out the head, and removing fins and tail. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying pan of boiling hot lard or drippings; put in the fish and fry brown, turning at the end of five minutes to cook the other side. Fry the roe in the same way; lay the fish in the middle of the dish, and the roe outside of it; garnish with water-cresses and sprigs of pickled cauliflower, and eat with catsup.
Clean, wash, and wipe the fish, which should be a large one. Make a stuffing of grated bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs. Stuff the shad and sew it up. Lay it in the baking-pan, with a cupful of water to keep it from burning, and bake an hour, basting with butter and water, until it is tender throughout and well browned. Take it up, put in a hot dish and cover tightly, while you boil up the gravy with a great spoonful of catsup, a tablespoonful of browned flour which has been wet with cold water, the juice of a lemon, and, if you want to have it very fine, a glass of Sherry or Madeira. Garnish with sliced lemon and water-cresses. You may pour the gravy around the fish, or serve in a sauce-boat. Ofcourse you take out the thread with which it has been sewed up before serving the fish.
Clean and put the fish into the fish-kettle, with salted water enough to cover it when you have enveloped it in the fish-cloth. A medium-sized fish will be done in a little over half an hour. But do not boil too fast. When done, drain and serve in a hot dish. Lay sliced boiled eggs upon and about it, and serve with egg-sauce, mingled with capers and nasturtium seed.
Use smaller fish for this purpose than for boiling. Clean, wipe dry, inside and out, dredge with flour and season with salt. Fry in hot butter or dripping. A mixture, half butter, half lard, is good for frying fish. The bass should be done to a delicate brown—not to a crisp. The fashion affected by some cooks of drying fried fish to a crust is simply abominable.
Fried bass are a most acceptable breakfast dish.
Skin the steaks carefully and lay in salted water (cold) for an hour, to remove the oily taste, so offensive to most palates. Then wipe each steak dry, salt, and broil over hot coals on a buttered gridiron. Serve in a hot dish when you have buttered and peppered them, and send up garnished with parsley and accompanied by a small glass dish containing sliced lemon.
You can pour over them a sauce prepared in this way:—
Put a tablespoonful of butter into a frying-pan, and stir until it is brown—notburned. Add a half-teacupful of boiling water in which has been stirred a tablespoonful ofbrowned flour previously wet with cold water. Add salt, a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce or anchovy, the juice of a lemon, and let it boil up well. Pour over the steaks when you have arranged them in the dish.
A piece of sturgeon weighing five or six pounds is enough for a handsome dish. Skin it and let it stand in salt and water for half an hour. Parboil it to remove the oil. Make a dressing of bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat salt pork, sweet herbs, and butter. Gash the upper part of the fish quite deeply, and rub this force-meat well in; put in a baking-pan with a little water to keep it from burning, and bake for an hour.
Serve with a sauce of drawn butter, in which has been stirred a spoonful of caper sauce and another of catsup.
This is a Virginia receipt, and an admirable one.
Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock, or cod), cut—not chop—into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as follows: the yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with salad oil; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls white sugar, and, lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with half the dressing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the top, and lay blanched lettuce-leaves around the edges, to be eaten with it.
Those who have eaten this prince of game fish in the Adirondacks, within an hour after he has left the lake, will agree with me that he never has such justice done him at any other time as when baked with cream.
Handle the beauty with gentle respect while cleaning, washing, and wiping him, and lay him at full length, still respectfully, in a baking-pan, with just enough water to keep him from scorching. If large, score the back-bone with a sharp knife, taking care not to mar the comeliness of his red-spotted sides. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. By the time he is done—and he should be so well-looked after that his royal robe hardly shows a seam or rent, and the red spots are still distinctly visible—have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream—diluted with afewspoonfuls of hot water, lest it should clot in heating—in which have been stirred cautiously two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a little chopped parsley. Heat this in a vessel set within another of boiling water, add the gravy from the dripping-pan, boil up once to thicken, and when the trout is laid—always respectfully—in a hot dish, pour the sauce around him as he lies in state. He will take kindly to the creamy bath, and your guests will take kindly to him. Garnish with a wreath of crimson nasturtium blooms and dainty sprigs of parsley, arranged by your own hands on the edge of the dish, and let no sharply-spiced sauces come near him. They would but mar his native richness—the flavor he brought with him from the lake and wild-wood. Salt him lightly, should he need it, eat and be happy.
If the above savor of bathos rather than “common sense,” my excuse is, I have lately eaten baked salmon-trout with cream-gravy.
Clean, wash, and dry the trout; envelop in a thin cloth fitted neatly to the shape of the fish, lay within a fish-kettle, cover with salted water (cold), and boil gently half an hour or longer, according to the size. Whendone, unwrap and lay in a hot dish. Pour around it cream-sauce made as for baked salmon-trout—only, of course, with the omission of the fish-gravy—and serve.
Brook trout are generally cooked in this way, and form a rarely delightful breakfast or supper dish.
Clean, wash, and dry the fish, roll lightly in flour, and fry in butter or clarified dripping, or butter and lard. Let the fat be hot, fry quickly to a delicate brown, and take up the instant they are done. Lay for an instant upon a hot folded napkin, to absorb whatever grease may cling to their speckled sides; then range side by side in a heated dish, garnish, and send to the table. Use no seasoning except salt, and that only when the fish are fried in lard or unsalted dripping.
The pickerel ranks next to trout among game-fish, and should be fried in the same manner. Especially—and I urge this with groaning of spirit, in remembrance of the many times in which I have had my sense of fitness, not to say my appetite, outraged by seeing the gallant fish brought to table dried to a crisp throughout, all his juices wasted and sweetness utterly departed—especially, do not fry him slowly and too long; and when he is done, take him out of the grease!
Reserve your largest pickerel—those over three pounds in weight—for baking, and proceed with them as with baked salmon-trout—cream-gravy and all. If you cannot afford cream, substitute rich milk, and thicken with rice or wheat flour. The fish are better cooked in this way than any other.
Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay them in a large flat dish, salt, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying-pan of hot dripping, lard, or butter; put in as many fish as the pan will hold without crowding, and fry to a light brown. Send up hot in a chafing-dish.
The many varieties of pan-fish—porgies, flounders, river bass, weak-fish, white-fish, etc., may be cooked in like manner. In serving, lay the head of each fish tothe tail of the onenext him.
Skin, clean, and cut off the horribly homely heads. Sprinkle with salt, to remove any muddy taste they may have contracted from the flats or holes in which they have fed, and let them lie in a cool place for an hour or so. Then put them into a saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently for from half to three-quarters of an hour, according to their size. Add a chopped shallot or button-onion, a bunch of chopped parsley, a little pepper, a large tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of flour mixed to a paste with cold water; boil up once, take out the fish carefully, and lay in a deep dish. Boil up the gravy once more, and pour over the fish. Send to table in a covered dish.
Skin, clean, and remove the heads. Sprinkle with salt, and lay aside for an hour or more. Have ready two or three eggs beaten to a froth, and, in a flat dish, a quantity of powdered cracker. Dip the fish first in the egg, then in the cracker, and fry quickly in hot lard or dripping. Take up as quick as done.
Skin, clean, and cut off the heads. Cut the fish into pieces two inches long, and put into a pot with some fat pork cut into shreds—a pound to a dozen medium-sized fish, two chopped onions, or half a dozen shallots, a bunch of sweet herbs, and pepper. The pork will salt it sufficiently. Stew slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Then stir in a cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of flour; take up a cupful of the hot liquor, and stir, a little at a time, into two well-beaten eggs. Return this to the pot, throw in half a dozen Boston or butter crackers, split in half; let all boil up once, and turn into a tureen. Pass sliced lemon or cucumber pickles, also sliced, with it. Take out the backbones of the fish before serving.
Inquire, before buying, where they were caught, and give so decided a preference to country eels as to refuse those fattened upon the offal of city wharves. Nor are the largest eels the best for eating. One weighing a pound is better for your purpose than a bulky fellow that weighs three.
Skin and clean, carefully extracting all the fat from the inside. Cut into lengths of an inch and a half; put into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them; throw in a little salt and chopped parsley, and stew slowly, closely covered, for at least an hour. Add, at the last, a great spoonful of butter, and a little flour wet with cold water, also pepper. Serve in a deep dish. The appearance and odor of this stew are so pleasing as often to overcome the prejudices of those who “Wouldn’t touch an eel for the world! They look like snakes!” And those who have tasted them rarely enter a second demurrer.
Prepare as for stewing; roll in flour, and fry, in hot lard or dripping, to a light brown.
Take a pound of salt pork, cut into strips, and soak in hot water five minutes. Cover the bottom of a pot with a layer of this. Cut four pounds of cod or sea-bass into pieces two inches square, and lay enough of these on the pork to cover it. Follow with a layer of chopped onions, a little parsley, summer savory, and pepper, either black or cayenne. Then a layer of split Boston, or butter, or whole cream crackers, which have been soaked in warm water until moist through, but not ready to break. Above this lay a stratum of pork, and repeat the order given above—onions, seasoning, (not too much,) crackers, and pork, until your materials are exhausted. Let the topmost layer be buttered crackers, well soaked. Put in enough cold water to cover all barely. Cover the pot, stew gently for an hour, watching that the water does not sink too low. Should it leave the upper layer exposed, replenish constantly from the tea-kettle. When the chowder is thoroughly done, take out with a perforated skimmer and put into a tureen. Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour and about the same quantity of butter. Boil up and pour over the chowder. Send sliced lemon, pickles, and stewed tomatoes to the table with it, that the guests may add, if they like.
Slice six large onions, and fry them in the gravy of fried salt pork. Cut five pounds of bass or cod into strips three inches long and one thick, and line the bottom of a pot with them. Scatter a few slices of onion upon them, a little salt, half a dozen whole black peppers, aclove or two, a pinch of thyme and one of parsley, a tablespoonful tomato or mushroom catsup, and six oysters; then comes a layer of oyster crackers, well-soaked in milk and buttered thickly. Another layer of fish, onions, seasoning, and crackers, and so on until all are used up. Cover with water, boil slowly for an hour and pour out. Serve with capers and sliced lemon. A cup of oyster liquor added to the chowder while boiling improves it.
Choose a lively one—not too large, lest he should be tough. Put a handful of salt into a pot of boiling water, and having tied the claws together, if your fish merchant has not already skewered them, plunge him into the prepared bath. He will be restive under this vigorous hydropathic treatment; but allay your tortured sympathies by the reflection that he is a cold-blooded animal, destitute of imagination, and that pain, according to some philosophers, exists only in the imagination. However this may be, his suffering will be short-lived. Boil from half an hour to an hour, as his size demands. When done, draw out the scarlet innocent, and lay him, face downward, in a sieve to dry. When cold, split open the body and tail, and crack the claws to extract the meat, throwing away the “lady fingers” and the head. Lobsters are seldom served without dressing, upon private tables, as few persons care to take the trouble of preparing their own salad after taking their seats at the board.
Extract the meat from a boiled lobster, as for salad, and mince it finely; reserve the coral. Season highly withmustard, cayenne, salt, and some pungent sauce. Toss and stir until it is well mixed, and put into a porcelain saucepan (covered), with just enough hot water to keep it from burning. Rub the coral smooth, moistening with vinegar until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir into the contents of the saucepan. It is necessary to prepare the dressing, let me say, before the lobster-meat is set on the fire. It ought to boil up but once before the coral and vinegar are put in. Next stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter, and when it boils again, take the pan from the fire. Too much cooking toughens the meat. This is a famous supper dish for sleighing parties.
To the meat of a well-boiled lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt, and powdered mace. Mix with this one-quarter as much bread-crumbs, well rubbed, as you have meat; make into ovates, or pointed balls, with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Roll these in beaten egg, then in pulverized cracker, and fry in butter or very nice sweet lard. Serve dry and hot, and garnish with crisped parsley. This is a delicious supper dish orentréeat dinner.
This is prepared according to the receipt for devilled lobster—substituting for the coral in the vinegar some pulverized cracker, moistened first with a tablespoonful of rich cream. You can serve up in the back-shell of the crab if you like. Send in with cream crackers, and stick a sprig of parsley in the top of each heap, ranging the shells upon a large flat dish.
Mince the meat and dress as in lobster salad. Send in the back-shell of the crab.
Many will not eat hard-shell crabs, considering them indigestible, and not sufficiently palatable to compensate for the risk they run in eating them. And it must be owned that they are, at their best, but an indifferent substitute for the more aristocratic lobster. But in the morning of life, for him so often renewed, his crabship is a different creature, and greatly affected by epicures.
Do not keep the crabs over night, as the shells harden in twenty-four hours. Pull off the spongy substance from the sides and the sand bags. These are the only portions that are uneatable. Wash well, and wipe dry. Have ready a pan of seething hot lard or butter, and fry them to a fine brown. Put a little salt into the lard. The butter will need none. Send up hot, garnished with parsley.
Land-terrapins, it is hardly necessary to say, are uneatable, but the large turtle that frequents our mill-ponds and rivers can be converted into a relishable article of food.
Plunge the turtle into a pot of boiling water, and let him lie there five minutes. You can then skin the underpart easily, and pull off the horny parts of the feet. Lay him for ten minutes incoldsalt and water; then put into more hot water—salted, but not too much. Boil until tender. The time will depend upon the size and age. Take him out, drain, and wipe dry; loosen the shell carefully, not to break the flesh; cut open also with care, lest you touch the gall-bag with the knife. Remove this with the entrails and sand-bag. Cut up all the rest of the animal into small bits, season with pepper, salt, a chopped onion, sweet herbs, and a teaspoonful of some spiced sauce, or a tablespoonful of catsup—walnut or mushroom. Save the juice that runs from the meat, and put all together intoa saucepan with a closely fitting top. Stew gently fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, and add a great spoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet in cold water, a glass of brown Sherry, and lastly, the beaten yolk of an egg, mixed with a little of the hot liquor, that it may not curdle. Boil up once, and turn into a covered dish. Send around green pickles and delicate slices of dry toast with it.
Drain the liquor from two quarts of firm, plump oysters; mix with it a small teacupful of hot water, add a little salt and pepper, and set over the fire in a saucepan. Let it boil up once, put in the oysters, let them boil for five minutes or less—not more. When they “ruffle,” add two tablespoonfuls of butter. The instant it is melted and well stirred in, put in a large cupful of boiling milk and take the saucepan from the fire. Serve with oyster or cream crackers, as soon as possible. Oysters become tough and tasteless when cooked too much, or left to stand too long after they are withdrawn from the fire.
Use for frying the largest and best oysters you can find. Take them carefully from the liquor; lay them in rows upon a clean cloth, and press another lightly upon them to absorb the moisture. Have ready some crackers crushed fine. In the frying-pan heat enough nice butter to cover the oysters entirely. Dip each oyster into the cracker, rolling it over that it may become completely incrusted. Drop them carefully into the frying-pan, and fry quickly to a light brown. If the butter is hot enough they will soon be ready to take out. Test it by putting in one oyster before you risk the rest. Do not let them lie in the pan an instant after they are done. Serve dry, and let the dish be warm. A chafing-dish is best.
Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to a cupful of this add the same quantity of milk, three eggs, a little salt, and flour enough for a thin batter. Chop the oysters and stir into the batter. Have ready in the frying-pan a few spoonfuls of lard, or half lard, half butter; heat very hot, and drop the oyster-batter in by the tablespoonful. Try a spoonful first, to satisfy yourself that the lard is hot enough, and that the fritter is of the right size and consistency. Take rapidly from the pan as soon as they are done to a pleasing yellow brown, and send to table very hot.
Some fry the oyster whole, enveloped in batter, one in each fritter. In this case, the batter should be thicker than if the chopped oysters were to be added.
Crush and roll several handfuls of Boston or other friable crackers. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Wet this with a mixture of the oyster liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Next, have a layer of oysters. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay small bits of butter upon them. Then another layer of moistened crumbs, and so on until the dish is full. Let the top layer be of crumbs, thicker than the rest, and beat an egg into the milk you pour over them. Stick bits of butter thickly over it, cover the dish, set it in the oven, bake half an hour; if the dish be large, remove the cover, and brown by setting it upon the upper grating of oven, or by holding a hot shovel over it.
Choose large, fat oysters; wipe them very dry; sprinkle salt and cayenne pepper upon them, and broil upon one of the small gridirons sold for that purpose. You candredge the oyster with cracker-dust or flour if you wish to have it brown, and some fancy the juices are better kept in in this way. Others dislike the crust thus formed. Butter the gridiron well, and let your fire be hot and clear. If the oyster drip, withdraw the gridiron for an instant until the smoke clears away. Broil quickly and dish hot, putting a tiny piece of butter, not larger than a pea, upon each oyster.
Pour into your inner saucepan a cup of hot water, another of milk, and one of cream, with a little salt. Set into a kettle of hot water until it boils, when stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter and a little salt, with white pepper. Take from the fire and add two heaping tablespoonfuls of arrow-root, rice-flour, or corn-starch, wet with cold milk. By this time your shells should be washed and buttered, and a fine oyster laid within each. Of course, it isselon les réglesto use oyster-shells for this purpose; but you will find clam-shells more roomy and manageable, because more regular in shape. Range these closely in a large baking-pan, propping them with clean pebbles or fragments of shell, if they do not seem inclined to retain their contents. Stir the creamveryhard and fill up each shell with a spoon, taking care not to spill any in the pan. Bake five or six minutes in a hot oven after the shells become warm. Serve on the shell. Some substitute oyster-liquor for the water in the mixture, and use all milk instead of cream.
Chop the oysters very fine. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately as for nice cake—the white until it stands in a heap. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, and heat while you are mixing the omelet. Stir the milk into a deep dish with the yolk, and season. Next put in the chopped oysters, beating vigorously as you add them gradually. When they are thoroughly incorporated, pour in the spoonful of melted butter; finally, whip in the whites lightly and with as few strokes as possible. If the butter is hot, and it ought to be, that the omelet may not stand uncooked, put the mixture into the pan.Do not stir it, but when it begins to stiffen—“to set,” in culinary phrase, slip a broad-bladed, round-pointed dinner-knife around the sides, and cautiously under the omelet, that the butter may reach every part. As soon as the centre is fairly “set,” turn out into a hot dish. Lay the latter bottom upward over the frying-pan, which must be turned upside-down dexterously. This brings the browned side of the omelet uppermost. This omelet is delicious and easily made.
Make a rich puff-paste; roll out twice as thick as for a fruit-pie for the top crust—about the ordinary thickness for the lower. Line a pudding-dish with the thinner, and fill with crusts of dry bread or light crackers. Some use a folded towel to fill the interior of the pie, but the above expedient is preferable. Butter the edges of the dish, that you may be able to lift the upper crust without breaking. Cover the mock-pie with the thick crust, ornamented heavily at the edge, that it may lie the more quietly, and bake. Cook the oysters as for a stew, only beating into them at the last two eggs, and thickening with a spoonful of fine cracker-crumbs or rice-flour. They shouldstew but five minutes, and time them so that the paste will be baked just in season to receive them. Lift the top crust, pour in the smoking hot oysters, and send up hot.
I know that many consider it unnecessary to prepare the oysters and crust separately; but my experience and observation go to prove that, if this precaution be omitted, the oysters are apt to be wofully overdone. The reader can try both methods and take her choice.
Put oysters, liquor and all, into a porcelain or bell-metal kettle. Salt to taste. Heat slowly until the oysters are very hot, but not to boiling. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, and set aside to cool. To the liquor which remains in the kettle add the vinegar and spices. Boil up fairly, and when the oysters are almost cold, pour over them scalding hot. Cover the jar in which they are, and put away in a cool place. Next day put the pickled oysters into glass cans with tight tops. Keep in the dark, and where they are not liable to become heated.
I have kept oysters thus prepared for three weeks in the winter. If you open a can, use the contents up as soon as practicable. The air, like the light, will turn them dark.
It is little trouble for every housekeeper to put up the pickled oysters needed in her family; and besides the satisfaction she will feel in the consciousness that the materials used are harmless, and the oysters sound, she willsave at least one-third of the price of those she would buy ready pickled. The colorless vinegar used by “professionals” for such purposes is usually sulphuric or pyroligneous acid. If you doubt this, pour a little of the liquor from the pickled oysters put up by your obliging oyster-dealer into a bell-metal kettle. I tried it once, and the result was a liquid that matched the clear green of Niagara in hue.
There is no pleasanter frolic for an Autumn evening, in the regions where oysters are plentiful, than an impromptu “roast” in the kitchen. There the oysters are hastily thrown into the fire by the peck. You may consider that your fastidious taste is marvellously respected if they are washed first. A bushel basket is set to receive the empty shells, and the click of the oyster-knives forms a constant accompaniment to the music of laughing voices. Nor are roast oysters amiss upon your own quiet supper-table, when the “good man” comes in on a wet night, tired and hungry, and wants “something heartening.” Wash and wipe the shell-oysters, and lay them in the oven, if it is quick; upon the top of the stove, if it is not. When they open, they are done. Pile in a large dish and send to table. Remove the upper shell by a dexterous wrench of the knife, season the oyster on the lower, with pepper-sauce and butter, or pepper, salt, and vinegar in lieu of the sauce, and you have the very aroma of this pearl of bivalves, pure and undefiled.
Or, you may open while raw, leaving the oysters upon the lower shells; lay in a large baking-pan, and roast in their own liquor, adding pepper, salt, and butter before serving.
It is fashionable to serve these as one of the preliminariesto a dinner-party; sometimes in small plates, sometimes on the half-shell. They are seasoned by each guest according to his own taste.
If you have no steamer, improvise one by the help of a cullender and a pot-lid fitting closely into it, at a little distance from the top. Wash some shell oysters and lay them in such a position in the bottom of the cullender that the liquor will not escape from them when the shell opens, that is, with the upper shell down. Cover with a cloth thrown over the top of the cullender, and press the lid hard down upon this to exclude the air. Set over a pot of boiling water so deep that the cullender, which should fit into the mouth, does not touch the water. Boil hard for twenty minutes, then make a hasty examination of the oysters. If they are open, you are safe in removing the cover. Serve on the half-shell, or upon a hot chafing dish. Sprinkle a little salt over them and a few bits of butter; but be quick in whatever you do, for the glory of the steamed oyster is to be eaten hot.
Set the oysters, with enough liquor to cover them, in a saucepan upon the range or stove; let them come to a boil; skim well, and stir in the butter and seasoning. Two or three spoonsful of cream will improve them. Have ready small tins lined with puff paste. Put three or four oysters in each, according to the size of thepâté; cover with paste and bake in a quick oven twenty minutes. For openpâtés, cut the paste into round cakes: those intended for the bottom crust less than an eighth of an inch thick; for theupper, a little thicker. With a smaller cutter, remove a round of paste from the middle of the latter, leaving a neat ring. Lay this carefully upon the bottom crust; place a second ring upon this, that the cavity may be deep enough to hold the oysters; lay the pieces you have extracted also in the pan with the rest, and bake to a fine brown in aquickoven. When done, wash over with beaten egg, around top and all, and set in the oven three minutes to glaze. Fill the cavity with a mixture prepared as below, fit on the top lightly, and serve.