A much prettier arrangement for dessert is theméringueas it is fashioned at Delmonico’s. Instead of littleméringues, each one is made a half ball, about six inches in diameter. They are dried very slowly, so that the crust is about one-third of an inch thick. When emptied of the soft interiors, and when cold, two shells are placed on a platter, like an open clam-shell. The whipped cream, when about to serve (already set, by being on the ice), is banked between them, reaching as high above as suits the fancy. The cream may be decorated with strawberries, raspberries, etc., or it may be served without ornamentation.
Ingredients: One pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of butter, six ounces of sugar, one egg, half a cupful of rum.
Bake in a pie-pan, pressing the cake until it is aboutone-quarter of an inch high. Before baking, sprinkle sugar and ground cinnamon on top; after it is baked, cut it into squares while it is yet warm.
Ingredients: One pound of butter, one and a quarter pounds of sugar, two pounds of flour, six eggs, four table-spoonfuls of ground cinnamon.
Mix the cinnamon into the flour; rub the butter to a cream, then mix the flour with it. Beat the sugar with the eggs, then all together, as little as possible. Distribute this by the spoonful into rough-looking cakes on buttered tins placed at a little distance apart. This is a very nice lunch-cake.
The old way of making frosting was a half-day’s work. I now laugh at the extra exertion once made to be sure that the eggs were sufficiently and properly beaten. The following is the true way to make frosting, which is done and dried on the cake in ten minutes, allowing three minutes for the making:
Use a heaping tea-cupful of fine pulverized sugar to the white of each egg, or, say, a pound of sugar to the whites of three eggs. Beat the whites until they are slightlyfoamingonly; do not beat them to a froth. The sugar may all be poured on the egg at once, or, if considered easier to mix, it may be gradually added. Either way, as soon as the sugar and eggs are thoroughly stirred together, and flavored with a little lemon or vanilla, the icing is ready to spread over the cake. It would be advisable to ice the cakes as soon as they are taken from the oven. The icing made with the white of one egg is quite sufficient to frost an ordinary-sized cake.
It is very little extra trouble to decorate a frosted cake. One can purchase funnels for the purpose with different shaped ends. In place of no better funnel, make a cornucopia of stiff writing-paper; fill it with the frosting, and press it out at the small end, forming different shapes, according to taste, over the cake. Little centre-pieces or leaves can always be purchased at the confectioner’s to aid in the decoration.
For a cocoa-nut-cake, mix plenty of the grated cocoa-nut into the frosting, which spread over the cake; decorate it then with plain frosting.
For a chocolate-cake, after spreading over the chocolate frosting mentioned in the receipt for chocolate-cake, decorate it with delicate lines of the white frosting.
The appearance of boiled icing (which is generally flavored with lemon) is much improved also by a decoration with the plain white frosting.
Ingredients: One pound of sugar, whites of three eggs.
First, boil the sugar with a little water; when it is ready to candy, or will spin in threads when dropping from the end of a spoon, take it off the fire, and while it is still boiling hot add the whites of the eggswellbeaten, stirring them in as fast as possible. Flavor with lemon (if preferred), vanilla, Jamaica rum, or any of the flavorings, and it is ready for use.
Ingredients: One cupful of best sirup, one cupful of brown sugar, one cupful of white sugar, two cupfuls of grated chocolate, two cupfuls of cream, vanilla, one tea-spoonful of flour mixed with the cream.
Rub the chocolate to a smooth paste with a little of the cream; boil all together half an hour, and pour it into flat dishes to cool; mark it with a knife into little squares when it is cool enough.
Ingredients: Four pounds of sugar, one pint of water, four table-spoonfuls of cream, four table-spoonfuls of vinegar, butter the size of an egg.
Boil all together slowly for about three-quarters of an hour.
Ingredients: Three cupfuls of sugar, half a cupful of vinegar, half a cupful of water, one tea-spoonful of soda.
When it boils, stir in the soda. If the candy is preferred clear, stir it as little as possible; if grained, stir it.
Witha patent five-minute freezer (it really takes, however, from fifteen minutes to half an hour to freeze any thing), it is as cheap and easy to make ices in summer as almost any other kind of dessert. If one has cream, the expense is very little, as a cream-whipper costs but twenty-five cents. A simple cream, sweetened, flavored, whipped, and then frozen, is one of the most delicious of ice-creams. By having the cream quite cold, a pint can be whipped, with this cream-whipper, in five or ten minutes. It will require ten cents’ worth of ice—half of it to freeze the preparation, and the other half to keep it frozen until the time of serving. Salt is not proverbially expensive; a half-barrel or bushel of coarse salt will last a long time, especially as a portion of it can be used a second time. In summer, fruits, such as peaches or pears, quartered, or any kind of berries, are most delicious half frozen and served with sugar. The chocolate ice-cream with fruit is excellent. The devices of form for creams served at handsome dinners in large cities are very beautiful; for instance, one sees a hen surrounded by her chickens; or a hen sitting on the side of a spun-glass nest, looking sideways at her eggs; or a fine collection of fruits in colors. One may see also a perfect imitation of asparagus with a cream-dressing, the asparagus being made of thepistachecream, and the dressing simply a whipped cream. These fancy displays are, of course, generally arranged by the confectioner. It is a convenience, of course, when giving dinner companies, to have the dessert or any other course made outside of the house; but for ordinary occasions, ices are no more troublesome to prepare than any thing else, especially when they can be made early in the day, or even the day before serving.
Flavor and sweeten the cream, making it rather sweet. Whip it, and freeze the froth.
Beat the yolks of eight eggs with three-quarters of a pound of sugar until very light. Put one and a half pints of rich milk on the fire to scald, highly flavored with the powdered vanilla-bean (say, one heaping table-spoonful). When the milk is well scalded, stir it into the eggs as soon as it is cool enough not to curdle. Now stir the mixture constantly (the custard pan or pail being set in a vessel of boiling water) until it has slightly thickened. Do not let it remain too long and curdle, or it will be spoiled. When taken off the fire again, mix in a quarter of a box of gelatine, which has been soaked half an hour in two table-spoonfuls of lukewarm water near the fire. The heat of the custard will be sufficient to dissolve it, if it is not already sufficiently dissolved. Cool the custard well before putting it into the freezer, as this saves time and ice. When it is in the freezer, however, stir it almost constantly until it begins to set; then stir in lightly a pint of cream, whipped. Stir it for two or three minutes longer, put it into a mold, and return it to a second relay of ice and salt. The powdered vanilla can be purchased at drug-stores or at confectioners’. It is much better than the extract for any purpose, and is used by all the bestrestaurateurs.
Ingredients: One and a half pints of cream, one ounce of isinglass, one pound of sugar, yolks of eight eggs, half a pint of milk, vanilla powder.
Scaldthe cream only; then add the isinglass dissolved in the milk, and pour it on the sugar and eggs beaten together to a froth; add the flavoring. Strain, cool, and freeze it; then pack it for three hours and a half at least.
is made in the same way as the vanilla ice-cream, adding a flavoring of chocolate and a little vanilla powder. For instance, to make a quart and a half of cream: Make the boiled custard with the yolks of six eggs, half a pound of sugar, one pint of boiled milk, and a tea-spoonful (not heaping) of vanilla powder. Pound smooth four ounces of chocolate; add a little sugar and one or two table-spoonfuls of hot water. Stir it over the fire until it is perfectly smooth. Add this and a table-spoonful of thin, dissolved gelatine to the hot custard. When about to set in the freezer, add one pint of cream, whipped.
Freeze the different creams in two freezers. Cut a piece of pasteboard to fit the centre of a mold; fill each side with the two creams, remove the pasteboard, and imbed the mold in ice and salt for two hours.
Sprinkle sugar over strawberries, mash them well, and rub them through a sieve. To a pint of the juice add half a pint of good cream. Make it very sweet. Freeze it in the usual way, and, when beginning to set, stir in lightly one pint of cream (whipped), and, lastly, a handful of whole strawberries, sweetened. Put it into a mold, which imbed in ice. Or, when fresh strawberries can not be obtained, there is no more delicious cream than that made with the French bottled strawberries. Mix the juice in the bottle with the cream, and add the whipped cream and the whole strawberries, when the juice, etc., have partly set in the freezer.
Many prefer this cream of a darker red color, which is obtained by using prepared cochineal.
To make a form of three colors: Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice-creams are frozen in three different freezers, and filled in a mold the form of a brick in three smooth layers of equal size.
Make a chocolate cream. When set in the freezer, add about half a pound of assorted French candied or preserved fruits cut into small pieces. Put it into a melon-shaped mold, to imitate a plum-pudding. When ready to serve, turn the cream on a platter, and make a circle around it of whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla. This cream is a decided success, and a beautiful dessert for a dinner-party. It may be improved by sprinkling over it chopped almonds dried of a light-brown color, mixed with chopped pistachios. This is intended to imitate the rugged appearance of the rind of a melon.
Ingredients: One pint of rich milk, one pint of cream (whipped), yolks of three eggs, one and a half cupfuls of sugar, one pint of fresh peaches cut into pieces not too small, or fresh ripe berries.
Beat the eggs and sugar well together. Heat the pint ofmilk almost to the boiling-point, and add it gradually to the beaten eggs and sugar. Return it to the custard-kettle, and stir it constantly until it has slightly thickened, taking care that it does not curdle. When the custard is partly frozen, having stirred it in the usual way, add the whipped cream; stir a few minutes longer, and then stir in the fruit. Put all into a mold, which place in a fresh relay of ice and salt.
This dish was at least a curiosity, served at the table of one of the German steamers. A flat, round sponge-cake served as a base. A circular mold of very hard frozen ice-cream was placed on this, and then covered with améringue, or whipped white of egg, sweetened and flavored. The surface was quickly colored with a red-hot salamander, which gave the dish the appearance of being baked.
The gentleman who told me about this dish insisted that it was put into the oven and quickly colored, as the egg surrounding the cream was a sufficiently good non-conductor of heat to protect the ice for one or two minutes. However, there is less risk with a salamander.
Add one pound of pine-apple grated fine to the yolks of eight eggs well beaten with one pound of sugar, one and a half pints of boiled cream, and a very little salt. Stir all together over the fire until it begins to thicken. When beginning to set in the freezer (having stirred it in the usual way), add a pint of cream (whipped). This addition of the whipped cream is a great improvement, although it is generally omitted. Put it into a form. When ready to serve, press the tuft of leaves, cut from thepine-apple and trimmed, in the top of the cream. Surround it with whipped and sweetened cream.
Wash and parboil half a pound of rice; then put it into a stew-pan, with a quart of milk and a pint of cream, two sticks of vanilla, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and a little salt. Allow the rice to simmer very gently over or by a slow fire, until the grains are almost dissolved, stirring it occasionally with a light hand. When the rice is done, and while it is yet hot, add the yolks of six eggs; then stir all well together for several minutes, in order to mix in the eggs, and also for the purpose of breaking up and smoothing the rice. Let this rice custard be frozen like an ordinary ice-cream, stirring it from the sides until it is set, when put it into a mold, and immerse it in the ice and salt.
While the above part of the process is going on, acompôteof twelve oranges should be prepared in the following manner: First, separate them into sections, and remove every particle of the white pith with a small knife, laying the transparent pulp of the fruit quite bare. When all the oranges are ready, throw them into a stew-pan containing about a pint of sirup (made with one pound of sugar and nearly a pint of clear water); allow the pieces of oranges to boil up gently in this for two minutes, and then drain them in a sieve. Boil the sirup down to about one-half of its original quantity; then add two wine-glassfuls of curaçoa and three table-spoonfuls of peach marmalade or apricot jam; mix all together, and pour this preparation over the oranges in a basin. When about to send the pudding to table, turn it out of the mold on a platter, dress thecompôteof oranges on the top and around the base, pour the sirup over it, and serve.
Beat well eight yolks of eggs, with ten ounces of sugar, and a very little salt; add one pint of cream. Stir over the fire until slightly thickened. Flavor with vanilla powder, the extract of almonds, lemon, or with coffee or chocolate. It may also be made by adding apuréeof peaches, strawberries, raspberries, or pine-apple to the custard. When just beginning to set in the freezer, stir in lightly one-half pint of cream (whipped); then partly fill paper cases with the mixture. Smooth over the tops. Set the cases in the freezer well dried, and allow them to harden until ready to serve.
Ingredients: One pint of clarified sirup, twelve yolks of eggs, two whole eggs, a large wine-glassful of maraschino.
Mix the whole of the ingredients in an earthen basin; then pour the preparation into an egg-bowl that has been previously warmed with hot water and wiped dry. Whisk thesoufflébriskly (the egg bowl being placed on a stove containing hot ashes) until it resembles a well-prepared, firm, sponge-cake batter. Fill the paper cases with the preparation, and smooth over the tops. Place them in a tin pail or in the freezer, surrounded with ice and salt, and half a pound of saltpetre mixed, and let them remain well covered for three or four hours at least, before serving, without stirring them. Or, they may be frozen all together in one mold, and some sifted macaroon powder or grated chocolate sprinkled over the surface, to imitate a bakedsoufflé.
Ingredients: Forty chestnuts, one pound of sugar, flavoring of vanilla, one pint of cream, the yolks of twelve eggs, one glass of maraschino, one ounce of candied citron, two ounces of currants, two ounces of stoned raisins.
Blanch the chestnuts in boiling water, remove the husks, and pound them in a mortar until perfectly smooth, adding a few spoonfuls of the sirup; then rub them through a finesieve, and mix them in a basin with a pint of sirup, made from one pound of sugar, clarified, and flavored with vanilla; one pint of cream, and the yolks of twelve eggs. Set this mixture over a slow fire, stirring itwithout ceasing, until the eggs begin to thicken (without allowing them to curdle), then take it off. When it is cold, put it into the freezer, adding the maraschino, and make the mixture set; then add the sliced citron, the currants, and stoned raisins (these two latter should be soaked the day previous in maraschino, and sugar pounded with vanilla) to the whole. Thus mingled, add a plateful of whipped cream, mixed with the whites of three eggs beaten to a froth. When the pudding is perfectly frozen, put it into a mold, close the lid, place it again in the freezer, well surrounded with pounded ice and saltpetre, and let it remain until the time of serving, when turn it out of the mold.
Ingredients: One and one-half pints of custard, composed of the yolks of four eggs, a pint of boiled milk, four table-spoonfuls of sugar, a flavoring of vanilla, eight ounces of fruits, consisting of equal parts of dried cherries, pine-apple, dried pears, or apricots, all cut into very small squares. These fruits may be selected, or perhaps it would be more convenient to purchase half a pound of the French preserved dried fruits; or add one ounce of candied citron sliced, two ounces of currants, two ounces of stoned and chopped raisins, and half a pint of cream whipped.
Freeze the custard in the usual manner, then mix in the fruits and whipped cream. A gill of maraschino is an improvement to this pudding, but may be omitted. If added, it should be at the same time with the fruit. Put into a mold, and place it on ice and salt. Serve whipped cream around it.
When a rich vanilla cream is partly frozen, candied cherries, English currants, chopped raisins, chopped citron, or any other candied fruits chopped rather fine, are added; add about the same quantity of fruit as there is of ice cream. Mold and imbed in ice and salt. It may be served surrounded with a whipped cream.
An exceedingly nice dish for breakfast, lunch, or tea may be made of quarters of large fresh peaches,halffrozen, and then sprinkled with granulated sugar.
Peel and quarter the fresh peaches; mix them with sugar and cream to taste. Arrange some of the quarters of the peaches tastefully in the bottom of a basin, orcharlottemold, then fill, and freeze the mass solid, without stirring. Turn it out to serve.
Boil three pints of water and one quart of loaf-sugar until reduced to nearly one quart of liquid, skimming it when necessary. When cold, add the juice of seven lemons, and the thin-sliced yellow part of the rind of four of them. Let it infuse an hour. Strain it into the freezer without pressing. When beginning to set in the freezer, stir in lightly and well the beaten whites of four eggs. Put into a mold, and return it to a fresh relay of salt and ice. Or it may be frozen and served in the lemon-skins. A neat slice is taken off the top of the lemon. The juice, etc., is carefully removed. When the preparation is set in the freezer, the skins are filled, the tops fitted over, and all imbedded in the ice. I once saw at one of Delmonico’s dinners a course of these lemons (one for each person) filled with Roman punch.
Boil one quart of water and a pound of sugar until reduced about a pint—i. e., until a pint of water has boiled away; skim it, take it off the fire, and add a pint of currant-juice; when partly frozen, stir in the beaten whites of four eggs. Mold, and freeze again. A good ice for fever patients.
I believeit is the general practice now to give a patient, in almost every kind of illness, food that is very nourishing, yet very digestible, that the system may become strengthened to throw off its disease.
I devote a chapter to “cookery for the sick,” as it is such a useful and delightful accomplishment to know just how to prepare the few available dishes for invalids, so that while they may be most suitable food for the recovery of the patient, they may at the same time be most agreeable to the taste and pleasing to the eye.
The three events of the day to the sufferer are the three meals. How gratefully is it remembered if they have been delicately and carefully administered! Let the mother or the wife prepare them with her own hands; let her never ask an invalid what he will have to eat, but with thought and ingenuity strive to vary the bill of fare each day, always providing proper nourishment. This is an art in itself which can be delegated to no one. It is worth as much to the suffering and beloved patient as is the medical prescription of the physician.
Never leave an article of diet in the sick-room: it is a good means of destroying the appetite, which should be encouraged and not weakened.
Whatever is served, let great attention be paid to giving the dish, after it is properly cooked, a dainty appearance. Place it on the choicest of ware in the house, with the cleanest of napkins, and the brightest of silver, even if that consists only of a tea-spoon.
If tea and toast be served, put the tea, freshly drawn, into the daintiest of tea-cups. Every family might well afford to buy one little, thin china cup and saucer, to use in case of illness; put a square of loaf-sugar into it. A few drops of cream are easily saved for the patient’s tea from a small quantity of milk; and cream in small quantities is considered more digestible than milk.
All cooks think they can make toast. There is about one person in ten thousand who really does know how to make it;who actually appreciates the difference between a thin, symmetrical, well-yellowed, crisp piece of toast with the crust cut off, and just from the fire, and a thick, unshapely slice, unevenly crisped on the outside, and of doughy softness in the centre. One is digestible; the other is exceedingly indigestible. Thescientificmode of making toast is explained on page 67.
Of the laxative articles of diet, undoubtedly one of the most important is the oatmeal porridge. The chemists say, “Oatmeal stands before all other grains in point of nutritive power.” I do not mean to serve gruel, but a thicker preparation, of considerable consistence, which is more palatable. The mode of making it is explained on page 74. Put a heaping table-spoonful of this on a thin saucer; pour some cream over it; then sprinkle over this a little granulated sugar. Now place the saucer on a little salver, on which is spread the whitest of napkins.
Always remember that in cooking any of the grains, as, for instance, corn-meal, oatmeal, hominy, cracked-wheat, etc., let them be thrown intosalted boilingwater. This makes very great difference in the flavor of the dish. Make every thing in small quantities, so that the patient may always have his dishesfreshlymade.
A very nourishing, digestible, and excellent dish for invalids is a raw, fresh egg, the receipt for administering which is given among the invalid receipts (see page 322).
In regard to rice, Dr. Lee remarks: “We regard rice as the most valuable of all the articles of food in cases of the derangement of the digestive organs. It nourishes, while it soothes the irritable mucous membrane; and while it supports strength, never seems to aggravate the existing disease. For acute or chronic affections of the alimentary canal, rice-water for drink and rice-jelly for food seem peculiarly well adapted, and appear to exert a specific influence in bringing about a recovery. These preparations are invaluable also in convalescence from acute fevers and other maladies, and in the summer complaints of young children.”
Jellies made with gelatine or calf’s feet are very appetizing, but must not be relied on as furnishing much nourishment.They afford a pleasant vehicle for administering wine, of which the stimulating properties are often very advantageous. I copy a short article from Booth’s “Chemistry” on the subject:
“Gelatine in domestic economy is used in the forms of soup and jelly as an aliment; but though experiments seem to show that when mixed with fibrous, albuminous, and caseous substances it becomes nutritive, this conclusion is yet doubtful; for the theory of respiration proves that histrose, which produces the gelatine, has accomplished its part in the animal organization, and can no longer afford sustenance thereto. One fact, however, seems positive, and that is its inability alone to yield nourishment to carnivorous animals. The feeble nutritive power of a gelatinous matter seems to be owing to the destruction of its organization.”
On the same subject of the dietetical value of gelatine, Professor Youmans says: “It is regarded as a product of the partial decomposition of albuminous bodies in the system, but as incapable of replacing them when taken as aliment. The French attempted to feed the inmates of their hospitals on gelatinous extract of bones. Murmurs arose, and a commission, with Magendie at their head, was appointed to investigate the matter. They reported gelatine as, dietetically, almost worthless.”
Graham bread, corn bread, or the Boston brown-bread, made with part rye flour, are much more nourishing than breads made from bolted wheat. The whiter the wheat flour, the more starch it contains, and the less gluten, which is separated in bolting, and which is the nutritious or flesh-producing portion. The rich Boston brown-bread is especially good cut into thin, even pieces, with a little cream poured over it.
The value of corn-meal for invalids who are thin and incapable of maintaining their natural warmth is scarcely appreciated. Indian-corn contains a large percentage of oil, which is nourishing and fattening. Fat is the heat-producing power.
As to the meats, it seems to me a mistake that that from the ox, with his wholesome food, cleanly habits, sweet breath, and clear eye, is not the most wholesome and digestible of aliments. No meat is so tender and juicy as the cut from the tenderloin or the porter-house steak.
Pork should be avoided in every form by invalids.
I can not but believe that rare-cooked, tender beef is the most valuable dish in the culinaryrépertoirefor invalids; yet Dr. Beaumont, after experimenting with St. Martin, ranks venison, when tender and in season, as the most digestible and assimilable of meats. He classes mutton second; then beef. Lamb is less digestible than mutton. Veal should be avoided as well as pork. Fatty substances are also difficult of assimilation. Poultry is less digestible than beef. Then, again, the manner of cooking beef has a great influence on its digestibility. The best modes are broiling and roasting. Potatoes roasted or baked are digested an hour sooner than potatoes boiled.
Before beginning the receipts for especial dishes, I will copy a little story, which furnishes an illustration that the simplest modes of cooking are, after all, the most satisfactory.
“The Vicomte de Vaudreuil, when appointedchargé d’affairesof France to the Court of St. James’s, brought over with him a young cook, anélèveof the highest schools of thecuisinesof Paris. This young culinary aspirant to fame, shortly after his arrival in London, obtained permission of his master to go and witness the artistic operations of that establishedcordon-bleu, Monsieur Mingay, the cook to Prince Esterhazy, who had been brought up under the Prince Talleyrand’s famouschef, Louis, and previously under that mostbleuof allcordons, the great Carême. On theélève’sreturn, the Vicomte, hearing that his cook was in a state of astonishment from something he had witnessed in Prince Esterhazy’s kitchen, summoned him to his presence, and said, ‘What is this culinary miracle, which I have heard astonishes you, and casts into the shade all other triumphs of the art?’ Vatel’s follower replied, ‘Oh, Monsieur le Vicomte, when I entered thecuisineat Chandos House it was near the time of the prince’s luncheon, for which his excellency had ordered something which should be very simple and easily digestible, as he was suffering from languor. Thechef, Mingay, accordingly cut from under a well-hung rump of beef three slices of fillet, and rapidly broiling them, he placed the choicest-looking in the middle of a hot dish, andafterward pressing the juice completely out of the remaining two, he poured it on the first! Oh, monsieur, how great the prince! how great the cook!’”
RECEIPTS FOR THE SICK-ROOM.
Tea is best, made fresh in the sick-room. A littletête-à-têtechina service is a pretty ornament for a bedroom, and it is a convenient and tasteful arrangement for serving tea to invalids. If one has no little tea-pot like that belonging to the service here referred to, a small one of any other kind is desirable.
Put two tea-spoonfuls of tea-leaves into the small tea-pot; pour two tea-cupfuls ofboilingwater over it; cover it closely, and let it steam for a few moments.
With a small table at the side of the invalid’s bed, it is a decidedly pleasant little diversion to make tea in this manner, being sure at the same time that it is perfectly fresh. However it is made though, do not present a cupful of tea to a sufferer with a part of the tea spilled into the saucer.
To avoid having fat left in the soups, it is safer to allow them to get entirely cold, when the fat can be easily skimmed off. Just enough can be heated each time the soup is served.
Cut, say, a pound of perfectly lean beef into small pieces, put them into a wide-mouthed bottle (a pickle-bottle answers the purpose), cork it tightly, and place it in a pot ofcoldwater in which there is a saucer at the bottom. Heat it gradually, then let it boil slowly for two or three hours, when all the juice will be drawn out of the meat.
Now pour off the juice, season it with salt carefully, as it requires very little. When it is cold, skim off all the globules of fat.
This is an invaluable aliment for invalids who are very ill, or for weak infants, when they need much nourishment in small compass. This beef tea can then be given by the tea-spoonful at regular intervals, administering it as medicine.
Soak three-quarters of a pound of small-cut pieces of lean steak (say a cut from a round steak) in a pint of cold rain-water for half an hour, squeezing the beef occasionally; then put it on the fire, cover it, and boil it slowly for ten minutes, removing the scum. Season with salt, and serve hot. Serve Albert biscuit, or thin wafers (see page 72), with it. The addition of a little boiled rice makes a pleasant change.
Choose a thick cut of fine, fresh, juicy steak without fat. Broil it over the coals for only a minute, or long enough to merely heat it throughout. Put it over a warm bowl set in a basin of hot water; cut it in many places, and squeeze out all the juice with the aid of the meat-squeezer (see page 56). Salt it very slightly. It should be served immediately, freed from every atom of fat, and accompanied with a wafer cracker.
Cut up a fowl, and crack the bones. Put it into three pints of cold water. Boil it slowly, closely covered, for three or four hours, or until the meat falls in pieces. Strain it, then add two table-spoonfuls of rice which has been soaked for half an hour in a very little warm water, also a chopped sprig of parsley, if you have it. Simmer it for twenty minutes longer, or until the rice is thoroughly cooked. Season with salt and pepper, but not too highly. Serve with crackers, which should be broken into the broth the last minute.
Ingredients: One half-pint of chicken broth, beaten yolks of three eggs, a little salt. Mix well, and cook it in the custard-kettle (as for boiled custard) until it has thickened. Serve in custard-cups.
Roast a small chicken, and take out the breasts, or use more of the meat if preferred, and add a little salt; chop it as fineas possible, pound it, and pass it through a colander. Soak half the amount of the crumb of French rolls, or good bread (not too fresh), in tepid milk; squeeze it nearly dry, and mix it with the chicken. Thin it with a little strong chicken broth (which may be made with the remainder of the chicken) or with boiling water. Serve it in a custard-cup, to be eaten with a spoon. For convalescents, a very little finely minced parsley may be added.
Cut half a raw chicken into small pieces, and break the bones; put it on the fire with a quart of cold water. Boil it slowly until it is reduced to less than half; season with salt and a little pepper, if the invalid is not too ill for pepper. Strain it first through a colander, then a jelly-bag, into a mold or a bowl. If the chicken is quite tender, broil carefully the breast of the other half of it; cut it into dice, or put it whole into the mold or bowl, and cover it with the liquid. When the jelly has hardened, scrape off the layer of fat at the top of the mold before turning the jelly on a little oval platter.
Cut a small fowl (two pounds) into small pieces, and put it over the fire with three pints of cold water, four ounces of Ceylon moss (which can be obtained at the drug-stores), and half a tea-spoonful of salt. Boil all together an hour; then strain it through a jelly-strainer or napkin into little cups or molds.
may be made in the same manner as chicken broth, allowing a quart of cold water to each pound of meat.
Ingredients: Two pounds of knuckle of veal cracked to pieces, two quarts of cold water, three table-spoonfuls of best pearl sago soaked in a cupful of cold water, one cupful of cream heated to boiling, and the yolks of two eggs beaten light.
Boil the veal and water in a covered saucepan very slowlyuntil reduced to one quart of liquid; strain, season with salt, and stir in the soaked sago (having previously warmed it by setting for half an hour in a saucepan of boiling water, and stirring from time to time). Simmer half an hour, taking care it does not burn; beat in the cream and eggs. Give one good boil up, and turn out.
Soak one pound of beef, cut into pieces, in a quart of cold water for half an hour; then boil it slowly, keeping it closely covered for two hours. Strain it. The last half hour, add half a cupful of tapioca (which has been soaked an hour in a little water), a small sprig of parsley, and a thin cut from an onion. When done, remove the parsley and onion; season with a very little pepper and salt, and two or three drops only of lemon-juice. When just ready to serve, put into the soup an egg, carefully poached in salted water, the white being merely set.
If patients are not too ill, any kind of beef soup made from stock, as explained on page 80, ought to be advantageous.
This is a delicate, strengthening, and valuable preparation for an invalid.
Beat well the yolk and a tea-spoonful of sugar in a goblet; then stir in one or two tea-spoonfuls of brandy, sherry, or port wine. Add to this mixture the white of the egg beaten to a stiff froth. Stir all well together. It should quite fill the goblet. If wine is not desired, flavor the egg with nutmeg. It is very palatable without any flavoring at all.
Ingredients: One cupful of tapioca, four cupfuls of water, juice and a little of the grated rind of one lemon, and sugar to taste.
Soak the tapioca for four or five hours in the water. Sweeten it, and set it in a pan of boiling water to cook an hour, or until it is thoroughly done and quite clear, stirring it frequently. When nearly cooked, stir in the lemon; and when done,pour it into little molds. Serve with cream sweetened and flavored.
Wash the moss well, and soak it for half an hour or more in a little cold water. To half an ounce or a handful of moss allow one quart of water, or rather of rich milk, if the patient can take milk. When the water or milk is boiling, add the soaked sea-moss, and sugar to taste. Let them simmer until the moss is entirely dissolved. Strain the juice into cups or little molds. Many boil a stick of cinnamon with the water or milk, and flavor also with wine; but the simple flavor of the sea-moss is very pleasant. It may be served with a little cream and sugar poured over it.
Add two heaping tea-spoonfuls of best arrowroot, rubbed smooth with a little cold water, to a coffee-cupful ofboilingwater or rich milk which has been sweetened with two tea-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir and boil it until it has thickened. It may be flavored with lemon-juice if made with water, or with brandy or wine if made with milk. It is very nice without flavoring. Pour into a cup or little mold. Serve with cream and sugar poured over, or with acompoteof fruit around it.
are explained among the regular receipts for puddings. Little circular molds come in form of Fig. A, on page 59. It is a pretty form for any of these puddings or blanc-manges, with acompoteof apples, peaches, plums, or any other kind of fruit, in the centre.
Mix enough water to two heaping tea-spoonfuls of rice flour to make a thin paste; then add to it a coffee-cupful of boiling-water. Sweeten to taste with loaf-sugar. Boil it until it is transparent. Flavor by boiling with it a stick of cinnamon if the jelly is intended for a patient with summer complaint; or add, instead, several drops of lemon-juice if intended for a patient with fever. Mold it.
Vanilla should never be used for flavoring any dish for an invalid. Homeopathic books can never say enough about its poisonous effects on even healthy androbustpersons.
is made in the same way, in the proportion of a table-spoonful of rice flour to a quart of boiling water.
Break ice into small pieces about as large as a pea; mix with it about the same quantity of lemon jelly, also cut into little pieces. This is very refreshing.
Parch rice to a nice brown, as you would coffee. Throw it into a littleboilingsalted water, and boil it until it is thoroughly done. Do not stir it more than necessary, on account of breaking the grains. Serve with cream and sugar.
Put a dozen raisins into two cupfuls of milk. Bring it to a boil; then add aheapingtea-spoonful of flour rubbed to a paste with a little cold water or milk; boil it three or four minutes. The raisins may not be eaten, yet they give a pleasant flavor to the milk; in fact, they may be taken out if the dish is intended for a child.
For a change, the well-beaten white of an egg may be stirred into this preparationjust afterit is taken from the fire, and, again, the raisins may be left out, and the porridge simply flavored with salt or sugar, or sugar and nutmeg.
Scrape very fine two or three table-spoonfuls of fresh, juicy,tender, uncooked beef; season it slightly with pepper and salt; spread it between two thin slices of slightly buttered bread; cut it neatly into little diamonds about two and a half inches long and an inch wide.
Tie up a pint of flour very tightly in a cloth, and put it into boiling water, and let it boil three hours. When untied, the gluten of the flour will be found in a mass on the outside of the ball. Remove this, and the inside will prove a dry powder which is very astringent. Grate this, and wet a portion of it in cold milk. Boil a pint of milk, and when it is at the boiling-point stir in as much of the wet mixture as will thicken it to the quality of palatable porridge. Stir in a little salt, and let this be the article of diet until the disease is removed. Relieve it at first by toasted bread, or a mutton broth, which latter is also astringent. If the disease has not progressed to the degree of inflammation, this diet will generally preclude all need of medicine.
The author would also add, for a change of diet, well-boiled rice with a little cream, parched rice, beef juice, toasted water or milk crackers, a little tea (avoiding generally too much liquid), and a little wild-cherry brandy; or to Mrs. Mann’s flour porridge, when cooked, and just taken hot from the fire, the well-beaten white of an egg might be added; and, after stirring them well together, the preparation should be served immediately.
Toast one or two thin slices of bread with the crust cut off; if there are two slices, have them of equal size. When still hot, spread evenly over them a very little fresh butter, and sprinkle over some salt. Now pour over a small tea-cupful of boiling milk, thickened with half a tea-spoonful of flour, and salted to taste. If the invalid can not take milk, the toast may be moistened with boiling water. Serve immediately. It is a very appetizing dish, when fresh made and hot.
Sprinkle a little salt or sugar between two large Boston, soda, or Graham crackers, or hard pilot-biscuit; put them into a bowl; pour over just enough boiling water to soak them well;put the bowl into a vessel of boiling water, and let it remain fifteen or twenty minutes, until the crackers are quite clear and like a jelly, but not broken. Then lift them carefully, without breaking, into a hot saucer. Sprinkle on more sugar or salt if desired: a few spoonfuls of sweet, thick cream poured over are a good addition for a change. Never make more than enough for the patient at one time, as they are very palatable when freshly made, and quite insipid if served cold.
Toasted bread cut into thin even slices may be served in the same way. This is also a good baby diet.
A panada may be made by adding an ounce of grated bread or rolled crackers to half a pint of boiling water, slightly salted, and allowing it to boil three or four minutes. It may be sweetened, and flavored with wine or nutmeg, or both; or the sugar and nutmeg may be simply sprinkled over.
Wet corn-meal, salted to taste, with enough cold water to make a soft dough, and let it stand half an hour or longer; mold it into an oblong cake, about an inch and a half or two inches thick. A clean spot should then be swept on the hot hearth, the bread placed on it, and covered with hot wood-ashes. The bread is thus steamed before it is baked. It should be done in a half to three-quarters of an hour, and brushed and wiped before eaten. There is no better food than this for dyspeptics inclined to acidity of the stomach, on account of the alkaline properties of the ashes left in the crust. In other extreme cases of dyspepsia where acids are required, I have heard of cures being effected by the use of buttermilk.
Sweeten a glass of milk to taste, and add one or two table-spoonfuls of best brandy. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.
Stir well a heaping tea-spoonful of sugar, and the yolk of an egg together in a goblet, then add a table-spoonful of best brandy. Fill the glass with milk until it is three-quarters full,then stir well into the mixture the white of the egg beaten to a stiff froth. The receipt for “Eggnog” among the “Beverages” is similar to this, and better, of course, as whipped cream is substituted for milk.
are made by pouring boiling water over one or two tea-spoonfuls of the herbs, then, after covering well the cup or bowl, allowing it to steep for several minutes by the side of the fire. The tea is sweetened to taste. Camomile tea is quite invaluable for nervousness and sleeplessness; calamus tea, for infants’ colic; cinnamon tea, for hemorrhages; watermelon-seed tea, for strangury.
Pour one and one-half pints of boiling water on a ten-cent package of boneset. Let it steep at the side of the fire for ten or fifteen minutes, when strain it. Sweeten it with two and a half coffee-cupfuls of loaf-sugar, then add one half-pint of Jamaica rum; bottle it. A child should take a tea-spoonful before each meal; a grown person, a sherry-glassful.
This book is not a medical treatise, yet I can not resist the temptation to add the following receipt, given me by Mrs. H——, of Buffalo. Many cases of long and aggravated cough have been entirely cured by its use. If the patient has a tendency to vertigo, the bloodroot may be omitted from the receipt; but for pale persons of weak vitality it will be found a valuable addition.
Ingredients: Elecampane, one ounce; spikenard, one ounce; cumfrey root, one ounce; bloodroot, one ounce; hoarhound tops, one ounce.
Add two quarts of water to these herbs, and steep them five hours in a porcelain or new tin vessel; add more boiling water, as it boils away, to keep the vessel as full as at first. At the end of this time, strain the liquid, add one pound of loaf-sugar, and boil it until it is reduced to one quart.
Dose.—A dessert-spoonful before each meal and before retiring. It should be kept in a cool place; or a little spirits may be added to prevent its spoiling.
ARRANGEMENT OF DISHES FOR INVALIDS.
Cut out the tender part of the beef from a porter-house or a tenderloin steak. The slice from these steaks, if large, can be cut in two, as it is sufficient for two meals for an invalid. Let it be three-quarters of an inch thick; trim or press it into shape (it should be oval in form). Broil it carefully over a hot fire, cooking it rare: the inside should be pink, not raw. To cook it evenly without burning, turn it two or three times, but do not pierce it with a fork nor squeeze it. It does not require over two minutes to finish it. Do not put pepper and salt over it until it is cooked, as salt rubbed on fresh meat contracts the fibres and toughens it. However, as soon as it is cooked and placed on a little hot oval platter, sprinkle salt and pepper over it; then, placing a small piece of fresh butter on the top, set it into the oven a minute to allow the butter to soak into the meat: it only requires a small piece of butter. Beefsteak swimming in butter is unwholesome, and as slovenly as it is wasteful.
If an invalid can eat beefsteak, he can generally eat some one vegetable with it; and to make the little plump, tender morsel of beef look more tempting, garnish it with the vegetable. If with potatoes, bake one or two equal-sized potatoes to a turn. When quite hot, remove the inside; mash it perfectly smooth, season it with butter, or, what is better, cream and salt, and press it through a colander. It will look like vermicelli. Place it in a circle around the steak.
If with pease, when they are out of season, the French canned pease or the American brand of “Triumph” pease will be found almost as good. One can, if kept well covered, should furnish three or four meals for an invalid. Merely heat them, adding a little salt and butter. Do not use much, if any, of the juice in making a circle of them around the beef.
If you garnish with tomatoes, make them into a sauce, as follows: After cooking and seasoning them with salt and pepper, turn off the watery part, add a little stock, if you have it (however, it is nice without it, if the word stock frightens any body), and press it through the sieve. Pour it around the steak.
If with Lima beans, cook them as in receipt (see page 201) with parsley. Lima beans, as well as string-beans, green corn, and onions, should not be trusted, in severe cases of illness. A few water-cresses around a steak would not be injurious to a convalescent.
Scrape the bone, and trim the chop into good shape; this adds much to the appearance, and requires but little time for one chop. Rub a little butter on both sides, and broil it carefully, having it well done; season it as explained for beefsteak. It can be garnished in the same way.
Choose a tender chicken, and cut out the breast; season it, rub a little butter around it, and throw it on a fire of live coals which is not too hot. Watch it constantly, turning it around to cook evenly on all sides. If skillfully done, the surface will be very little charred, and the inside meat will be more tender and juicy than if cooked in any other way. Cut off such parts as may be much crisped. Season with butter, pepper, and salt. Form the breast into a cutlet, with the leg, as described on page 175. Rub it with butter, and broil it carefully on the gridiron. Garnish it with rice steamed with rich milk. It is especially nice with tomato-sauce.
The second joint of a leg of chicken thrown into a little salted boiling water, or into stock, makes a delicious dish, with a chicken-sauce (see page 123) poured over it. I think this second joint is more tender, and has more flavor, than the breast.
A tender cut from a venison steak should be broiled thesame as a beefsteak. It is nice with mashed potatoes (à la neige), or a currant-jelly, or a tomato-sauce around it.
I remember the effects of a quail so well, eaten when very ill, that I have a decided disinclination to mention the word “bird” in association with “invalid dishes” at all. But there is a difference in the tenderness of birds, of course; and, then, a bird need not be swallowed whole, if one should be ever so hungry. If a bird is to be served, be sure that it is a tender one. Broil it carefully, or cook it whole in this manner: Put it into a close-covered vessel holding a little boiling water, and place it over a very hot fire; steam it for a few minutes; then brown it in the oven, basting it very frequently. Serve a tomato, currant-jelly, or wine sauce around it.