FAMILIAR TALK WITH THE READER.
I should be indeed flattered could I believe that you hail with as much pleasure as I do the renewal of the "Common-Sense Talks," to which I first invited you four years ago. For I have much to say to you in the same free-masonic, free-and-easy strain in which you indulged me then.
It is a wild March night. Winter and Summer, Spring-time and Autumn, the wind sings, or plains at my sitting-room window. Tonight its shout is less fierce than jocund to my ear, for it says, between the castanet passages of hail and sleet, that neither friend nor bore will interrupt our conference. Shutters and curtains are closed; the room is still, bright, and warm, and we are no longer strangers.
The poorest man of my acquaintance counts his money by the million, has a superb mansion he calls "home," a wife and beautiful children who call him "husband" and "father." He has friends by the score, and admirers by the hundred, for human nature has not abated one jot in prudential sycophancy since the Psalmist summed up a volume of satirical truth in the pretended "aside"--"and men will praise thee when thou doest well unto thyself." For all that, ho of whom I write is a pauper, inasmuch as he makes
his boast that he never experienced the emotion of gratitude. He has worked his own way in the world, he is wont to say: has never had helping hand from mortal man or woman. It is a part of his religion to pay for all he gets, and never to ask a favor. Nevertheless, he confesses, with a complacent smirk that would he amusing were it not so pitiable an exhibition of his real beggary--"that he would like to know what it feels like to be grateful,--just for the sake of the novel sensation!"
Poor wretch! I am sorry I introduced him here and now. There is a savage growl in the wind; our snuggery is a trifle less pleasant since I began to talk of him. Although I only used him as a means of "leading up" to the expression of my own exceeding and abundant wealth of gratitude to you, dear Reader and Friend, If I had only time and strength enough to bear me through the full relation of the riches and happiness you have conferred upon me! There are letters in that desk over there between the windows that have caused me to look down with a sense of compassionate superiority upon Nathan Rothschild and the Duke of Brunswick. I am too modest (or miserly) to show them; but now and then, when threatened with a fit of self-depreciation, I come in here, lock the door, stop the keyhole, get them out and read them anew. For three days thereafter I walk on air. For the refrain of all is the same. "You have been a help to me!" And only He who knows the depths, sad and silent, or rich and glad, of the human heart can understand how much I wanted to help you. Verily, I have in this matter had my reward. Again, I say, I
am grateful. Had I "helped" you a hundred times as well as I have, I should still be your debtor.
May I read you somewhat copious extracts from a letter I received, the other day, from a wide-awake New England girl? Not only wide-awake, but refined, original and sprightly; a girl whom though I have never seen her face, I know to be a worker in life as well as a thinker. She says some things much better than I could have put them, and others as noteworthy, which I wish to answer,--or, try to answer-- since I recognize in her a representative of a class, not very large, perhaps, but certainly one of the most respectable and honored of all those for whom I write, the "Common-Sense Series." I should like to give the letter in full, from the graphic touches with which she sketches herself, "sitting upon the kitchen-table, reading 'Common Sense in the Household," one bright morning, when herself and sisters had taken possession of the kitchen to make preparation for "an old New England tea-party," at which their only assistant was to be "a small maiden we keep to have the privilege of waiting upon, and doing our own work into the bargain ; who, in waiting at table, was never known to pass anything on the right side, and has an invincible objection to learning how"--to the conclusion, over against which she has, like the frank woman she is, set her name and address in full.
But the modesty (or miserliness) aforesaid rises in sudden arms to forbid the reproduction at my hand of certain portions of the epistle, and it would be neither kind nor honorable to set down in prospective print her pictures of home life and
dramatis personæ.
Steering clear, when possible, of these visible rocks and sunken reefs, I will indulge you and myself with a part of that which has added sensibly to my treasures--not debt--mind you! of gratitude.
"I want to tell you how much your compilation does for those poor mortals whom it rescues from the usual class of cook-books."
A reef, you see, before we are out of harbor! "We will skip two pages to get at one of the well-said things I spoke of just now.
"You speak of 'company china' and 'company manners.' I detest company
anything! This longing for show and display is the curse and failing of Americans. I abhor the phrase 'Anything will do for us.' I do not believe that a person can be true clear through and without affectations who can put on her politeness with her company china any more than a real lady can deliberately put on stockings with holes in them. I seriously think that, so far from its being self-sacrifice to put up with the meanest every day, and hospitality to use the best for company, it is a positive damage to one's sense of moral fitness. I knew a woman once who used to surprise me with the deceptions in which she unconsciously and needlessly indulged. This ceased to he a surprise when I saw her wear a twenty-dollar hat and a pair of unmended hose, and not seem to know that it was not quite the proper thing."
Orthodox, you perceive, thus far, is our New England correspondent. Honest and outspoken in her hatred of shams and "dodges" of all kinds; quick to see analogies and deduce conclusions. Now comes the pith of the communication:--
"I wish you could set me right on one point that often perplexes me.
Is housekeeping worth while? I do not despise the necessary work. On the contrary, I hold that anything well done is worth doing. But with the materials this country affords,
can housekeeping be well done? Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has, and can use to her own and her friends' advantage, in order to have a perfectly appointed house to wear herself out chasing around after servants and children that things may be always done well, and at the stated time? I have seen so many women of brains wear out and die in harness, trying to do their self-imposed duty; to see that the large establishments their husbands' wealth, position and wishes place in their care shall be perfect in detail. And these women could have been so happy and enjoyed the life they threw away, if they had only known how
not to keep house. While, on the other hand, with a small income and one servant the matter is so much worse. I should not mind if one could ever say "It is a well-finished thing!" But you only finish one thing to begin over again, and so on, until you die and have nothing to show for your life's work. It looks hopeless to me, I confess. I wish you would show me the wisdom--or the folly of it all."
Now, I do not propose to show the folly of anything such as a girl that writes. She is a sincere inquirer after truth. When her letter came I tucked it under my inkstand, and said, "There is a text ready-written, and in clerkly hand, for my next 'Familiar Talk!'" She is altogether too sensible and has too true a sense of humor to be offended when I tell her, as I
shall, that her lament over unfinished work reminded me comically of the story of the poor follow who cat his throat, because, as he stated in his letter of explanation and farewell--"He was tired of buttoning and unbuttoning!" There is a deal that is specious in the threadbare adage set forth in dolesome rhyme:--
"Man's work is from sun to sun
But woman's work is never done."
Nothing in this world, or in all time, is finished. Or, if finished, it is
not well with it. We hear this truth reiterated in every stroke of the artisan's hammer, employed--from the day he enters upon his apprenticeship to that on which the withered hand can no longer, by reason of age, lift the ponderous emblem of his craft--in beating upon what looks to the observer of to-day like that which engaged him yesterday; which to the spectator of twenty to-morrows will seem the same as that which calls out the full strength of the brawny arm this hour. When he dies, who will care to chronicle the circumstance that he made, in the course of a long and busy life, forty thousand horse-shoes, or assisted in the manufacture of one thousand engine-boilers? We learn the same lesson from the patient eyes of the teacher while drilling one generation after another in the details that are the tedious forging of the wards of the key of knowledge;--the rudiments of "the three R's," which, laugh or groan as we may, must be committed to memories more or less reluctant. They were never, I am sure, "learned by heart." It is well, so far as they are concerned, that the old phrase has gone out of fashion. We read the like tale of ever-renewed endeavor in the bent
brows find whitening locks of brain-toilers, the world over. Nature were a false teacher were this otherwise. Birth, maturity, death; first, the blade then the ear, and, after the full corn in the ear, ripening and destruction for the good of man or beast, or decay in the earth that resurrection may come to the buried seed. Seed-time and harvest, summer and winter,--none of these are "finished things." God hold our eyes from seeing many things that are!
A life, the major part of which is spent in sweeping, that the dust may re-settle; in washing, that clothes may he again worn and soiled; in cooking, that the food prepared may be consumed; in cleansing plates and dishes, to put back upon the table that they may return, in grease and stickiness, to the hardly-dried pan and towel, does seem to the superficial spectator, ignoble even for the wife of a struggling mechanic or ill-paid clerk. But 1 insist that the fault is not that Providence has made her a woman, but that Providence has made and kept her poor. Her husband at his bench, or, rounding his shoulders over his ledger, has as valid cause of complaint of never done work. Is there any reason why he should stand more patiently in his lot, waiting to see what GOD the LORD will do, than she?
But--"Is it worth while for a woman to neglect the talents she has, and can. use to her own and her friends' advantage, in order to have a perfectly-appointed house, etc?"
Certain visions that stir me to reverential admiration, arise before me, at that query. I see Emily Bronté reading German while she kneads the batch of homemade
bread; Charlotte, laying down the pen upon an unfinished page of Shirley, to steal into the kitchen when poor blind Tabby's back is turned, and bear off the potatoes the superannuated servant insists upon peeling every day, that the "dainty fingers" may extract the black "eyes" the faithful old creature cannot see. I see the Greek grammar fixed open in the rack above Elihu Burritt's forge; and Sherman, reciting to himself by day over his lapstone and last, the lessons he learned at night after work-hours were over. I recollect that the biographer of the "marvellous boy" has written of him--" Twelve hours he was chained to the office;
i.e., from eight in the morning until eight at night, the dinner-hour only excepted; and in the house he was confined to the kitchen; slept with the foot-boy, and was subjected to indignities of a like nature. Yet here it was, during this life of base humiliation, that Thomas Chatterton worked out the splendid creations of his imagination. In less than three years of the life of a poor attorney's apprentice, fed in the kitchen and lodged with the foot-boy, did he here achieve an immortality such as the whole life of not one in millions is sufficient to create."
Note here, too, that Chatterton died of a broken heart; was not driven to suicide by hard work.
Please be patient with me while I tell you of an incident that seems to me pretty, and comes in patly just at this point.
I have a friend--my heart bounds with prideful pleasure while I call her such!--who is the most scholarly woman, and also the best housekeeper I know. She is, moreover, one of the sweetest of our
native poets--one to whose genius and true womanhood even royalty has done grateful honor; a woman who 'has used her' every 'talent to her own and her friends' advantage' in more ways than one. She had a call one day from a neighbor, an eminent professor, learned in dead and spoken tongues. In the passage of the conversation from trifles to weightier matters, it chanced that she differed in opinion from him upon two points. He refused to believe that potatoes could ever be made into a palatable sweet by any ingenuity of the culinary art, and he took exception to her rendering of a certain passage of Virgil. In the course of the afternoon he received from hie fair neighbor a folded paper and a covered dish. Opening the former, he read a metrical translation of the disputed passage, so beautiful and striking he could no longer doubt that she had discovered the poet's meaning more truly than had he. The dish contained a delicious potato custard, A foolscap page of rhymed thanks went back with the empty pudding-dish. It was mere doggerel, for the pundit was no poet, and meant his note for nothing more than jingle and fun, but his tribute of admiration was sincere. I forget the form of its expression, except that the concluding lines ran somewhat thus:--
"From Virgil and potatoes, too,
You bring forth treasures rich and new."
Am I harsh and unsympathetic when I say, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, if a woman has genuine talent, she will find time to improve it even amid the clatter of household machinery? I could multiply instances by the thousand to prove this, did time permit.
But what of the poor rich woman who throws away her life in the vain endeavor to bring servants and children "up to time?" Two things. First, she dies of worry, not of work--a distinction with a difference.
Second, if she possess one-half enough strength of mind and strength of purpose to have made herself mistress of a single art or science, or sufficient tact to sustain her as a successful leader in society, or the degree of administrative ability requisite to enable her to conduct rightly a public enterprise of any note, be it benevolent, literary, or social, she ought to be competent to the government of her household; to administer domestic affairs with such wise energy as should insure order and punctuality without self-immolation.
"If they have run with the footmen and they have wearied them, how shall they contend with horses!"
Let us look at this matter fairly, and without prejudice on either side. I should contradict other of my written and spoken opinions; stultify myself beyond the recovery of your respect or my own, were I to deny that more and wider avenues of occupation should be opened to woman than are now conceded as their right by the popular verdict. But
not because the duties of the housewife are overburdensome or degrading. On the contrary, I would have forty trained cooks where there is now one; would make her who looketh diligently to the ways of her household worthy, as in Solomon's day, of double honor. Of co-operative laundries I have much hope. I would have washing-day become a tradition of the past to be shuddered over by every emancipated family in the land. In "co-operative housekeeping," in the sense in which it is generally
understood, I have scanty faith as a cure for the general untowardness of what my sprightly correspondent styles "the materials this country affords." Somebody must get the dinners and somebody superintend the getting-up of these. I honestly believe that the best method of reforming American domestic service and American cookery is by making the mistress of every home proficient in the art and a capable instructress of others. I know--no one better--how women who have never cared to beautify their own tables, or to study elegant variety in their bills of fare, who have railed at soups as "slops," and
entrées as "trash," talk, after the year's travel in foreign lands their husband's earnings and their own pinching have gained for them. How they groan over native cookery and the bondage of native mistresses, and tell how cheaply and luxuriously one can live in
dear Paris.
"Will the time ever come," they cry, "when we, too, can sit at ease in our frescoed saloons surrounded by no end of artificial flowers and mirrors, and order our meals from a restaurant?"
To which I, from the depths of my home-loving heart, reply, "Heaven forbid!"
Have you ever thought how large a share the kitchen and dining-room have in forming the distinctive characteristics of the home? It is no marvel that the man who has had his dinners from an eating-house all his life should lack a word to describe that which symbolizes to the Anglo-Saxon all that is dearest and most sacred on earth. I avow, without a tinge of shame, that I soon tire, then sicken of restaurant and hotel dainties. I like the genuine wholesomeness of home-fare.
"Madame," said a Frenchman whom I once met at an American watering-place, "one of my compatriots could produce one grand repast--one that should not want for the beautiful effects, with the contents of that pail--tub--bucket--of what the peoples here call the
svill," pointing to a mass of dinner
débris set just without a side door.
"Monsieur," I rejoined, with a grimace that matched his,
"moi, je n'aime pas le svill!"
He was right, without doubt, in the implication that very much is thrown away as refuse which could be reproduced upon the table to the satisfaction and advantage of best and guest. Perhaps my imagination was more to blame than he for my unlucky recollection of his country woman's recommendation of a mayonnaise to a doubting guest;
"You need not fear to partake, madame. The fish has been preserved from putrefaction by a process of vinegar and charcoal!"
It is a substantial comfort to the Anglo-Saxon stomach for its owner to know what he is eating. Call it prejudice, if you like, but it may have something to do with making one "true clear through," as my Yankee girl puts it.
"But such poetic repasts!" sighs my travelled acquaintance. "Such heavenly garnishes, and flowers everywhere, and the loveliest side-dishes, and everything so exquisitely served! When I think of them, I abominate our great, vulgar joints and stiff dinner-tables!"
Yet Mrs. Nouveau Riche dawdles all the forenoon over a piece of tasteless embroidery, and gives the afternoon to gossip; while Bridget or Dinah prepares
dinner, and serves it in accordance with her peculiar ideas of right and fitness.
"Train American servants?" she says, in a transport of contemptuous incredulity at my suggestion that here is good missionary ground, "I have had enough of that! Just as soon as I teach them the rudiments of decent cookery they carry off their knowledge to somebody else, trade for double wages from my neighbor upon what they have gained from me!"
"But," I remark, argumentatively, "do you not see, my dear lady, that so surely as 'ten times one is ten,' if all your neighbors were, in like manner, to instruct the servants who come to
them and desert, so soon as they are taught their trade, the great work of securing wholesome and palatable cookery and tasteful serving would soon be an accomplished fact in your community? and, by the natural spread of the leaven, the race of incompetent cooks and clumsy waiters would before long become extinct? Would it not be worth while for housekeepers to co-operate in the attempt to secure excellence in these departments instead of 'getting along somehow' with 'the materials'--i. e., servants--'this country affords?' Why not compel the country--wrong-headed abstraction that it is!--to afford us what we want? Would not the demand, thus enforced and persisted in, create a supply?"
"Not in my day," she retorts, illogically. "I don't care to wear myself out for the benefit of posterity."
I do not gainsay the latter remark. If she had any desire that the days to come should be better than these, she would see to it that her daughters are rendered comparatively independent of the ungrateful caprices
of the coming Celt or Teuton or the ambitions vagaries of "the Nation's Ward," by a practical knowledge of housewifery. Perhaps she is deterred from undertaking their instruction by the forecast shadow of their desertion of the maternal abode for homes of their own.
The prettiest thing that has ever been said of the informal "talks" I had with you, my Reader, in former days, was the too-flattering remark of a Syracuse (N.Y.) editor, that they were "like a breath of fresh air blowing across the 'heated term' of the cook."
I quote it, partly that I may thank the author, principally that I may borrow the illustration. The heavenly airs that really temper the torrid heats of the kitchen are loving thoughts of those for whom the house-mother makes the home. There is a wealth of meaning in the homely old saying about "putting one's name in the pot." It is one thing, I submit to the advocates of co-operative housekeeping, whether big John's and little John's and Mamie's and Susie's and Tommy's meals arc prepared according to the prescriptions of a salaried
chef, in the mammoth boilers, steamers and bakers of an "establishment" along with the sustenance of fifty other families, or whether the tender mother, in her "order of the day," remembers that while Papa likes smart, tingling dashes of cayenne, garlic, and curry, the baby-tongues of her brood would cry out at the same; that Mamie has an aversion to a dish much liked by her brothers and sisters; that Susie is delicate, and cannot digest the strong meat that is the gift of flesh and brains to the rest. So Papa gets his spiced ragout under a tiny cover--hot-and-hot--and
the plainer "stew," which was its base, nourishes the bairns. Mamie is not forced to fast while the rest feast, and by pale Susie's plate is set the savory "surprise," which is the visible expression of loving kindness, always wise and unforgetting.
You remember the legend that tells how Elizabeth of Hungary, having been forbidden by her lord to carry food to the poor, was met one day by him outside the castle walls, as she was bearing a lapful of meat and bread to her pensioners. Louis demanding sternly what she carried in her robe, she was obliged to show him the forbidden burden. "Whereupon," says the chronicler, "the food was miraculously changed, for his eyes, to a lapful of roses, red-and-white, and, his mind disabused of suspicion, he graciously bade her pass on whithersoever she would."
I have bethought me many times of the legend when I have seen upon very modest tables such proofs of thoughtful recollection of the peculiar tastes and needs of the flock to which the home caterer ministered as made my heart warm and eyes fill, and threw, to my imagination, chaplets lovelier than Elizabeth's roses around the platter and bowl. This is the true poetry of serving, and the loving appreciation of it is the reward, rich and all-sufficient, of thought, care, and toil.
A few words more before we proceed, in due order, to business. This volume is not an amendment to "General Receipts, No. 1 of the Common-Sense Series." Still less is it intended as a substitute for it. I have carefully avoided the repetition, in this volume, of a single receipt which appeared in that. This is designed to be the second story in the edifice of domestic economy, the
materials of which I have accumulated since the first was completed. As money makes money, and a snow-ball gathers snow, so receipts, new, valuable, and curious, flowed in upon me after "No. 1" was given to the world. Some of the earliest to reach me were so good that I began a fresh compilation by the time that book was fairly off the press.
Let me say here what you may find useful in your own researches and collections. My best ally in the classification and preservation of the materials for this undertaking has been the "The Household Treasury," published by Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, and arranged by a lady of that city. It is a pretty volume of blank pages, a certain number of which are devoted to each department of cookery, beginning with soups, and running through the various kinds of sweets, pickles, etc. Each is introduced by a handsome vignette and appropriate motto, with a title at the top of every page. The paper is excellent and distinctly ruled, I wish I could put a copy into the hands of every housekeeper who believes in system of details, and development of her individual capabilities. It has so far simplified and lightened the task of preparing "Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea" for my public, that I cannot withhold this recommendation of it to others.
Yet if "General Receipts " was written
con amore, its successor has been, in a still higher degree, a work of love and delight. There were times during the preparation of the trial volume when I could not feel quite sure of my audience. There has not been a moment, since I began that which I now offer for your acceptance, in the
which I have not been conscious of your full sympathy; have not tasted, in anticipation, your enjoyment of that which I have taken such pleasure in making ready.
Do not think me sentimental when I ask that the Maltese cross, marking, as in the former work, such receipts as I have tested and proved for myself to be reliable, may be to you, dear friend and sister, like the footprint of a fellow-traveler along the humble but honorable pathway of every-day and practical life, bringing comfort and encouragement, even in the "heated term."
EGGS.
"Give me half-a-dozen eggs, a few spoonfuls of gravy and as much cream, with a spoonful of butter and a handful of bread crumbs, and I can get up a good breakfast or luncheon," said a housekeeper to me once, in a modest boastfulness that became her well, in my eyes.
For I had sat often at her elegant, but frugal board, and I knew she spoke the truth.
"Elegant and frugal!" I shall have more hope of American housewives when they learn to have faith in this combination of adjectives. Nothing has moved me more strongly to the preparation of this work than the desire to convert them to the belief that the two are not incompatible or inharmonious. Under no head can practice in the endeavor to conform these, the one to the other, be more easily and successfully pursued than under that which begins this section.
Eggs at sixty cents per dozen (and they are seldom higher than this price) are the cheapest food for the breakfast or lunch-table of a private family. They are nutritious, popular, and never (if we except the cases of omelettes, thickened with uncooked flour, and fried eggs, drenched with fat) an unelegant or homely dish.
EGGS SUR LE PLAT.
- 6 eggs.
- 1 table-spoonful of butter or nice dripping.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Melt the butter on a stone-china, or tin plate, or shallow baking-dish. Break the eggs carefully into this; dust lightly with pepper and salt, and put in a moderate oven until the whites are well "set."
Serve in the dish in which they were baked.
TOASTED EGGS. Cover the bottom of an earthenware or stone-china dish with rounds of delicately toasted bread. Or, what is even better, with rounds of stale bread dipped in beaten egg and fried quickly in butter or nice drip-ping, to a golden-brown. Break an egg carefully upon each, and set the dish immediately in front of, and on a level with a glowing fire. Toast over this as many slices of
fat corned pork or ham as there are eggs in the dish, holding the meat so that it will fry very quickly, and all the dripping fall upon the eggs. When these are well "set," and a crust begins to form upon the top of each, they are done. Turn the dish several times while toasting the meat, that the eggs may be equally cooked.
Do not send the fried pork to table, but pepper the eggs lightly and remove with the toast, to the dish in which they are to go to the table, with a cake-turner or flat ladle, taking care not to break them.
BAKED EGGS. (No. 1.)
- 6 eggs.
- 4 tablespoonfuls good gravy--veal, beef or poultry. The latter is particularly nice.
- 1 handful bread-crumbs.
- 6 rounds buttered toast or fried bread.
Put the gravy into a shallow baking-dish. Break the eggs into this, pepper and salt them, and strew the bread-crumbs over them. Bake for live minutes in a quick oven. Take up the eggs carefully, one by one, and lay upon the toast which must be arranged on a hot, flat dish. Add a little cream, and, if you like, some very finely-chopped parsley and onion, to the gravy loft in the baking-dish, and turn it into a sauce-pan. Boil up once quickly, and pour over the eggs.
Baked Eggs. (No. 2.)
- 6 eggs.
- 1 cup of chicken, game, or veal gravy.
- 1 teaspoonful mixed parsley and onion, chopped fine.
- 1 handful very fine bread-crumbs.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Pour enough gravy into a neat baking-dish to cover the bottom well, and mix with the rest the parsley and onion. Set the dish in the oven until the gravy begins to hiss and bubble, when break the eggs into it, so that they do not crowd one another. Strew bread-crumbs thickly over them, pepper and salt, and return to the oven for three minutes longer. Then pour the rest of the gravy, which should be hot, over the whole. More
bread-crumbs, as fine as dust, and bake until the eggs are "set."
Send to table in the baking-dish.
This dish will be found very savory.
FRICASSEED EGGS. 6 hard-boiled eggs. When cold, slice with a sharp knife, taking care not to break the yolk.
1 cup good broth, well seasoned with pepper, salt, parsley and a suspicion of onion.
Some rounds stale bread, fried to a light-brown in butter or nice dripping.
Put the broth on the fire in a saucepan with the seasoning and let it come to a boil. Rub the slices of egg with melted butter, then roll them in flour. Lay them gently in the gravy and let this become smoking hot upon the side of the range, but do not let it actually boil, lest the eggs should break. They should lie thus in the gravy for at least five minutes. Have ready, upon a platter, the fried bread. Lay the sliced egg evenly upon this, pour the gravy over all, and serve hot.
EGG CUTLETS.
- 6 hard-boiled eggs.
- 1 raw egg well-beaten.
- 1 handful very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
- Ppper and salt, and a little parsley minced fine.
- 3 table-spoonfuls butter or dripping.
- 1 cup broth, or drawn butter, in which a raw egg has been beaten.
Cut the boiled eggs when perfectly cold, into rather
thick slices with a sharp, thin knife; dip each slice into the beaten egg; roll in the bread-crumbs which should be seasoned with pepper, salt and minced parsley. Fry them to a light-brown in the butter or dripping, turning each piece as it is done on the under side. Do not let them lie in the frying-pan an instant after they are cooked. Drain free from fat before laying them on a hot dish. Pour the gravy, boiling hot, over the eggs, and send to table.
STIRRED EGGS.
- 6 eggs.
- 3 table-spoonfuls of gravy-that made from poultry is best.
- Enough fried toast, from which the crust has been pared, to cover the bottom of a flat dish.
- A very little anchovy paste.
- 1 table-spoonful of butter.
Melt the butter in a frying-pan, and when hot, break into this the eggs. Stir in the gravy, pepper and salt to taste, and continue to stir very quickly, and well up from the bottom, for about two minutes, or until the whole is a soft, yellow mass. Have ready in a flat dish the fried toast, spread thinly with anchovy paste.
Heap the stirred egg upon this, and serve before it has time to harden.
SCALLOPED EGGS
(Raw).
- 6 eggs.
- 4 or 5 table-spoonfuls of ground or minced ham.
- A little chopped parsley.
- A very little minced onion.
- 2 great spoonfuls of cream, and 1 of melted butter.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- 1/2 cup of bread crumbs moistened with milk and a spoonful of melted butter.
Line the bottom of a small deep dish, well-buttered, with the soaked bread-crumbs; put upon these a layer of chopped ham, seasoned with the onion and parsley. Set these in the oven, closely covered, until they are smoking hot. Meanwhile, beat up the eggs to a stiff froth, season with pepper and salt, stir in the cream and a spoonful of melted butter, and pour evenly upon the layer of ham. Put the dish, uncovered, back into the oven, and bake five minutes, or until the eggs are "set."
SCALLOPED EGGS
(Hard-boiled).
- 6 eggs boiled, and when cold, cut into thin slices.
- 1 cupful fine bread-crumbs, well moistened with a little good gravy and a little milk or cream.
- 1/2 cup thick drawn butter, into which has been beaten the yolk of an egg.
- 1 small cupful minced ham, tongue, poultry, or cold halibut, salmon, or cod.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Put a layer of moistened crumbs in the bottom of a buttered baking-dish. On this lay the sliced eggs, each piece of which must have been dipped in the thick drawn butter. Sprinkle the ground meat over these, cover with another layer of bread-crumbs, and proceed in like manner, until the egg is all used up. Sift on the top a good layer of dry bread-crumbs. Cover the dish with an inverted, plate, until the contents
are heated through, then remove the plate, and brown the top upon the upper grating of the oven.
WHIRLED EGGS.
- 6 eggs.
- 1 quart of boiling water.
- Some thin slices of buttered toast.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
- A table-spoonful of butter.
Put the water, slightly salted, in a saucepan over the fire, and keep it at a fast boil. Stir with a wooden spoon or ladle in one direction until it whirls rapidly. Break the eggs, one at a time, into a cup, and drop each carefully into the centre, or vortex of the boiling whirlpool, which must be kept in rapid motion until the egg is a soft, round ball. Take it out carefully with a perforated spoon, and put it on a slice of buttered toast laid upon a hot dish. Put a bit of butter on the top. Set the dish in the oven to keep it warm, and proceed in the same way with each egg, having but one at a time in the saucepan. When all are done, dust lightly with salt and pepper, and send up
hot.
POACHED EGGS
à la Bonne Femme.
- 6 eggs.
- 1 teaspoonful of vinegar.
- 1/2 cup nice veal or chicken broth.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- 1/2 cup butter or dripping.
- Rounds of stale bread, and the beaten yolks of two raw eggs
.
Prepare the bread first by cutting it into rather
large rounds, and, with a smaller cutter, marking an inner round on each, leaving a narrow rim or wall on the outside. Excavate this cautiously, not to break the bottom of the cup thus indicated, which should be three-quarters of an inch deep. Dip each round thus prepared in the beaten egg, and fry quickly to a yellow-brown in hot butter or dripping. Put in order upon a flat dish, and set in the open oven while you poach the eggs.
Pour about a quart of boiling water into a deep saucepan. Salt slightly, and add the vinegar. Break the eggs into a saucer, one at a time, and, when the water is at a hard boil, slide them singly into the saucepan. If the yolk be broken in putting it in, the effect of the dish is spoiled- When the whites begin to curdle around the edges, lessen the heat, and cook slowly until they are firm enough to bear removal. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, trim each dexterously into a neat round, and lay within the bread-cup described above. "When all are in their places, pour over them the gravy, which should be well seasoned and boiling hot.
EGGS POACHED WITH MUSHROOMS.
- 6 eggs.
- 1 tea-cupful of cold chicken or other fowl, minced fine.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- About a cupful of good gravy,--veal or poultry.
- 2 dozen mushrooms of fair size, sliced.
- Some rounds of fried bread.
- 1 raw egg beaten light.
Mince the cold meat very fine and work into it the butter, with the beaten egg. Season with pepper and salt, and stir it over the fire in a saucepan until it is smoking-hot. Poach the eggs as in preceding receipt, and trim off the ragged edges. The fried bread must be arranged upon a hot, flat dish, the mince of chicken on this, and the eggs upon the chicken. Have ready in another saucepan the sliced mushrooms and gravy. If you use the French
champignons--canned--they should have simmered in the gravy fifteen minutes. If fresh ones, you should have parboiled them in clean water as long, before they arc 6liced into the gravy, and stewed ten minutes in it. The gravy must be savory, rich and rather highly seasoned. Pour it very hot upon the eggs.
If you will try this receipt, and that for "Eggs
à la bonne femme" for yourself, your family and your guests will be grateful to you, and you to the writer.
ANCHOVY TOAST WITH EGGS.
- 6 eggs.
- 1 cupful drawn butter-drawn in milk.
- Some rounds of stale bread, toasted and buttered.
- A ittle anchovy paste.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Spread the buttered toast thinly with anchovy paste, and with this cover the bottom of a flat dish. Heat the drawn butter to boiling in a tin vessel set in another of hot water, and stir into this the eggs beaten very light Season to taste, and heat--stirring all the time--until they form a thick sauce, but do not let them boil. Pour over the toast, and send to table very hot.
FORCEMEAT EGGS.
- 6 eggs boiled hard.
- 1 cupful minced chicken, veal, ham or tongue.
- 1 cupful of rich gravy.
- 1/2 cupful bread-crumbs.
- 2 tea-spoonfuls mixed parsley, onion, summer savory or sweet marjoram, chopped fine.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 1 raw egg beaten light.
While the eggs are boiling, make the forcemeat by mixing the minced meat, bread-crumbs, herbs, pepper and salt together, and working welt into this the beaten raw egg. When the eggs are boiled hard, drop for a minute into cold water to loosen the shells. Break these away carefully. With a sharp knife divide each egg into halves; cut a piece of the white off at each end (that they may stand firmly when dished), and coat them thickly with the forcemeat. Brown them by setting them in a tin plate on the upper grating of a very hot oven, and heap neatly upon a hot dish. Pour the boiling gravy, in which a little lemon-juice has been squeezed at the last, over them.
A HEN'S NEST.
- 6 or 8 eggs boiled hard.
- 1 cup minced chicken, or other fowl, ham, tongue, or, if more convenient, any cold firm fish.
- 1 cup of drawn butter into which have been stirred two or three table-spoonfuls of good gravy and a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley.
When the eggs are quite cold and firm, cut the
whites from the yolks in long thin strips, or shavings, and set them aside to warm in a very gentle oven, buttering them, now and then, while you prepare the rest.
Pound the minced meat or fish very fine in a Wedge-wood mortar, mixing in, as you go on, the yolks of the eggs, the parsley, and pepper and salt to taste. When all arc reduced to a smooth paste, mould with your hands into email, egg-shaped balls. Heap in the centre of a dish, arrange the shred eggs around them, in imitation of a nest, and pour over all the hot sauce.
A simple and delightful relish.
OMELETTES. For omelettes of various kinds, please see "Common Sense in the Household, No. 1," page 259.
FISH.
ENTRÉES AND RELISHES OF FISH.
WHAT TO DO WITH COLD FISH.
- 1 cup drawn butter with an egg beaten in.
- 2 hard-boiled eggs.
- Mashed potato--(a cupful will do.)
- 1 cupful cold fish--cod, halibut or shad.
- Roe of cod or shad, and 1 table-spoonful of butter.
- 1 teaspoonful minced parsley.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Dry the roe, previously well boiled. Mince the fish fine, and season. Work up the roe with butter and the yolks of the boiled eggs. Cut the white into thin rings. Put a layer of mashed potato at the bottom of a buttered deep dish--then, alternate layers of fish, drawn butter (with the rings of white embedded in this), roe,--more potato at top. Cover the dish and set in a moderate oven until it smokes and bubbles. Brown by removing the cover for a few minutes. Send to table in the baking-dish, and pass pickles with it.
FRIED ROES OF COD OR SHAD.
- 2 or three roes. If large, cut them in two.
- 1 pint of boiling water.
- 1 table-spoonful of vinegar.
- Salt and pepper.
- 1 raw egg, well beaten.
- 1/2 cup fine bread-crumbs.
- 3 table-spoonfuls sweet lard, or dripping.
"Wash the roes and dry with a soft, clean cloth. Have ready the boiling water in which should be put the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Boil the roes in this for ten minutes, then plunge at once into very cold water, slightly salted. Wipe dry again; when they have lain about two minutes in this, roll in the beaten egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry to a fine brown in the fat.
Sauce for the above. 1 cup drawn butter, into which beat a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, juice of half a lemon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, with a little minced parsley. Boil up once, and send around in a gravy-boat.
ROES of COD OR SHAD STEWED. Wash the roes, and parboil in water with a little vinegar, pepper, and salt added. It should be at a hard boil when the roes go in. Boil five minutes, lay in very cold water for two, wipe, and transfer to a clean saucepan, with enough melted butter to half cover them. Set it in a vessel of boiling water, cover closely, and let it stew gently ten minutes. Should it boil too fast the roes will shrink and toughen. While they are stewing prepare the--
Sauce.
- 1 cup of boiling water.
- 2 teaspoonfuls corn-starch, or rice flour, mixed in cold water.
- 1 table-spoonful of butter.
- 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or good catsup.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- Beaten yolks of two eggs.
- Salt and cayenne pepper.
Stir the corn-starch smoothly into the boiling water, and set it over the fire, stirring constantly until it thickens up well. Add pepper, salt, butter, and parsley; mix well together, put in the lemon-juice and catsup, lastly the roes, which should have been frequently turned in the melted butter. Set within a vessel of boiling water for about eight minutes, but do not let the roes and sauce boil fast. Take them up, lay on a flat, hot dish; add to the sauce the beaten yolks, stir fast and well over the fire for two minutes, pour over the roes, and serve.
Should the receipt for bo simple a dish seem needlessly prolix, I beg the reader to remember that I have made it minute to save her time and trouble.
SCALLOPED ROES.
- 3 large roes.
- 1 cup of drawn butter and yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy paste or essence.
- 1 teaspoonful of parsley.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 1 cup of bread-crumbs.
- Salt and cayenne pepper to taste.
Boil the roes in water and vinegar, as directed in former receipts; lay in cold water five minutes, then
wipe perfectly dry. Break them up with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, but not so fine as to crush the eggs. When ready, they should be a granulated heap. Set aside while you pound the hard-boiled eggs to a powder. Beat this into the drawn butter, then the parsley and other seasoning; lastly, mix in, more lightly, the roes. Strew the bottom of a buttered dish with bread-crumbs, put in the mixture, spread evenly, and cover with very fine crumbs. Stick bits of butter thickly over the top, cover and bake in a quick oven, until bubbling hot Brown, uncovered, on the upper grating of the oven,
Fish-Balls. 2 cupfuls cold boiled cod-fresh or salted.
1 cupful mashed potato.
1/2 cup drawn butter, with an egg beaten in.
Season to taste.
Chop the fish when you have freed it of bones and skin. Work in the potato, and moisten with the drawn butter until it is soft enough to mould, and will yet keep in shape. Roll the balls in flour, and fry quickly to a golden-brown in lard, or clean dripping. Take from the fat so soon as they are done; lay in a cullender or sieve and shake gently, to free them from every drop of grease. Turn out for a moment on white paper to absorb any lingering drops, and send up on a hot dish.
A pretty way of serving them is to line the dish with clean, white paper, and edge this with a frill of colored tissue paper--green or pink. This makes ornamental that which is usually considered a homely dish.
STEWED EELS
à l'Allemande.
- 1 cup of boiling water.
- 1 cup rather weak vinegar.
- 1 small onion, chopped fine.
- A pinch of cayenne pepper.
- 1/2 saltspoonful mace.
- 1 saltspoonful salt.
- About 2 pounds of eels.
- 3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
- Chopped parsley to taste.
Make a liquor in which to boil the eels, of the vinegar, water, onion, pepper, salt and mace. Boil--closely covered--fifteen minutes, when strain and put in the eels, which should be cleaned carefully and cut into pieces less than a finger long. Boil
gently nearly an hour. Take them up, drain dry, and put into a sauce made of melted butter and chopped parsley. Set the vessel containing them in another of hot water, and bring eels and sauce to the boiling point, then serve in a deep dish.
EELS STEWED
à l' Americain.
- 3 pounds eels, skinned and cleaned, and all the fat removed from the inside.
- 1 young onion, chopped fine,
- 4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
Cut the eels in pieces about two inches in length; season, and lay in a saucepan containing the melted butter. Strew the onion and parsley over all, cover the saucepan (or tin pail, if more convenient) closely,
and set in a pot of cold water. Bring this gradually to a boil, then cook very gently for an hour and a half, or until the eels are tender. Turn out into a deep dish.
There is no more palatable preparation of eels than this, in the opinion of most of those who have eaten it.
FRICASSEED EELS.
- 3 pounds fresh eels, skinned, cleaned, and cut into pieces about two inches" long.
- 1 small onion, sliced.
- Enough butter, or good dripping, to fry the eels.
- 1 cup good beef or veal gravy, from which the fat has been skimmed. Season with wine, catsup and lemon-juice.
- Pepper and salt with minced parsley for seasoning.
- A little flour.
Flour the eels and fry in the dripping, or butter, until brown. Take them out and set aside to cool while you fry the sliced onion in the same fat Drain this, also the eels, from every drop of grease. When the eels are almost cold, lay them in the bottom of a tin pail or farina-kettle, sprinkle the onion, parsley and other seasoning over them. Add to your gravy a little anchovy sauce, or flavorous catsup; the juice of half a lemon, and a glass of brown sherry. Pour over the eels, cover closely, and set in a pot of
warm water. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer, after the contents of the inner vessel are heated through, about twenty minutes. Too much, or hard cooking, will spoil them.
Serve upon a chafing-dish.
CUTLETS OF HALIBUT, COD OR SALMON.
- 3 pounds fish, cut in slices three-quarters of an inch thick, from the body of the fish.
- A handful of fine bread-crumbs, with which should be mixed pepper and salt with a little minced parsley.
- 1 egg beaten light.
- Enough butter, lard or dripping to fry the cutlets.
Cut each slice of fish into strips as wide as your two fingers. Dry them with a clean cloth; rub lightly with salt and pepper; dip in the egg, then the bread-crumbs, and fry in enough fat to cover them well. Drain away every drop of fat, and lay upon hot white paper, lining a heated dish.
CUTLETS OF COD, HALIBUT OR SALMONà la reine. Prepare the fish as in the last receipt until after frying it. when have ready the following sauce:
- 1 cup strong brown gravy-beef or veal.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce or mushroom catsup.
- Pepper, salt, a pinch of parsley and a
very little minced onion.
- 1 glass brown sherry and juice of half a lemon.
- Thicken with browned flour.
Lay the fried cutlets evenly in a broad saucepan with a top, cover with the gravy and heat slowly all through,
but do not let them boil. Take up the cutlets with care, and arrange upon a chafing-dish. Pour the gravy over them.
These are very nice, and well worth the additional trouble it may cost to prepare the sauce.
BAKED COD OR HALIBUT.
- A piece of fish from the middle of the back, weighing four, five or six pounds.
- A cupful of bread-crumbs, peppered and salted.
- 2 table-spoonfuls
boiled salt pork, finely chopped.
- A table-spoonful chopped parsley, sweet marjoram and thyme, with a mere suspicion of minced onion.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce, or Harvey's, if you prefer it. 1/2 cupful drawn butter.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 1 beaten egg.
Lay the fish in very cold salt-and-water for two hours; wipe dry; make deep gashes in both sides at right angles with the back-bone and rub into these, as well as coat it all over with a force-meat made of the crumbs, pork, herbs, onion and seasoning, bound with raw egg. Lay in the baking-pan and pour over it the drawn butter (which should be quite thin), seasoned with the anchovy sauce, lemon-juice, pepper and a pinch of parsley. Bake in a moderate oven nearly an hour,--quite as long if the piece be large, basting frequently lest it should brown too fast. Add a little butter-and-water when the sauce thickens too much. When the fish is done, remove to a hot dish, and strain the gravy over it.
A few capers or chopped green pickles are a pleasant addition to the gravy.
BAKED SALMON WITH CREAM SAUCE.
- A middle cut of salmon.
- 4 table-spoonfuls of butter melted in hot water.
Butter a sheet of foolscap paper on both sides, and wrap the fish up in it, pinning the ends securely together. Lay in the baking-pan, and pour six or seven spoonfuls of butter-and-water over it. Turn another pan over all, and steam in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, lifting the cover, from time to time, to baste and assure yourself that the paper is not burning. Meanwhile, have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream, in which you would do well to dissolve a bit of soda a little larger than a pea. This is a wise precaution whenever cream is to be boiled. Heat this in a vessel placed within another of hot water; thicken with a heaping teaspoonful of corn starch, add a table-spoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, a liberal pinch of minced parsley, and when the fish is unwrapped and dished, pour half slowly over it, sending the rest to table in a boat. If you have no cream, use milk, and add a beaten egg to the thickening.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (FRIED). Cut slices from the middle of the fish, an inch thick.
1 table-spoonful butter to each slice, for frying.
Beaten egg and fine
cracker crumbs, powdered to dust, and peppered with cayenne.
Wipe the fish dry, and salt slightly. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, fry very quickly in hot butter. Drain off every drop of grease, and serve upon a dish lined with hot, clean paper, fringed at the ends.
Sprinkle green parsley in bunches over it.
The French use the best salad-oil in this receipt, instead of butter.
SALMON STEAKS OR CUTLETS (BROILED).
- Three or four slices of salmon.
- 1 table-spoonful melted butter.
- 1/2 cup drawn butter, thickened with browned flour, and seasoned with tomato catsup-Pepper and salt to taste.
Rub the steaks with the butter, pepper and salt slightly. Broil upon a gridiron over a very clear fire, turning often, and rubbing each side with butter as it comes uppermost, When nicely browned, lay on a hot dish, and pour the sauce over them.
SALMON CUTLETS EN PAPILLOTE. Dry and lay in melted butter ten minutes. Dust lightly with cayenne pepper, and wrap securely in well buttered or oiled white paper, stitching down the ends of each cover. Fry in nice dripping or sweet lard. They will be done in ten minutes, unless very thick. Have ready clean,
hot papers, fringed at both ends. Clip the threads of the soiled ones when you have drained them free from fat, slip dexterously and quickly, lest they cool in the process, into the fresh covers, give the fringed ends a twist, and send up on a heated dish.
Salmon
en papillote is also broiled by experts. If you attempt this, be careful that the paper is so well greased and the cutlets turned so often that it does not scorch. The least taste of burnt paper ruins the flavor of the fish, which it is the object of the cover to preserve.
SALMON IN A MOULD
(Very good.)
- 1 can preserved salmon or an equal amount of cold, left from a company dish of roast or boiled.
- 4 eggs beaten light.
- 4 table-spoonfuls butter--melted, but not hot. 1/2 cup fine bread-crumbs.
- Season with pepper, salt and minced parsley.
Chop the fish fine, then rub it in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl with the back of a silver spoon, adding the butter until it is a smooth paste. Beat the bread-crumbs into the eggs and season before working all together. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, and boil or steam for an hour.
Sauce for the Above.
- 1 cupful milk heated to a boil, and thickened with a table-spoonful corn-starch.
- The liquor from the canned salmon, or if you have none, double the quantity of butter.
- 1 great spoonful of butter.
- 1 raw egg.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy, or mushroom, or tomato catsup.
- 1 pinch of mace and one of cayenne.
Put the egg in last and very carefully, boil one minute to cook it, and when the pudding is turned from the mould, pour over it. Cut in slices at table.
A nice supper-dish.
STEWED SALMON. 1 can preserved fresh salmon, or remains of roast or boiled.
- 1 cup drawn butter.
- 2 eggs well beaten.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy or Harvey's sauce.
- Cayenne and salt to taste.
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
- Some capers or minced green pickles.
Stew the salmon in the can liquor, or a very little water, slightly salted, ten minutes. Have ready, in a larger saucepan, the drawn butter thickened with rice-flour or corn-starch. Season and stir in cautiously the beaten raw eggs, then the salmon. Let it come to a gentle boil, add the chopped eggs and pickles and turn into a covered deep dish.Or--
Add the hard-boiled eggs and capers to the salmon, with a table-spoonful of butter, toss up lightly with a fork, pepper slightly, and heap in the centre of a hot flat dish, then pour the boiling sauce over all.
It is very appetizing served in either way.
MAYONNAISE OF SALMON. If yon use canned salmon, drain it very dry and pick into coarse flakes with a silver fork. If the remnants of roast or boiled fish, remove all bits of bone, skin and fat, and pick to pieces in the same way.
1 bunch of celery, or 2 heads of lettuce.For Dressing.
- 1 cup boiling water.
- 1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
- 2 table-spoonfuls best salad-oil.
- 1 teaspoonful made mustard.
- 1/2 cup vinegar.
- 1 small teaspoonful black pepper, or half as much cayenne.
- 1 teaspoonful salt.
- 1 table-spoonful melted butter.
- 2 raw eggs--yolks only,--beaten light.
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, yolks only.
- 2 teaspoonfuls powdered sugar.
Wet the corn-starch with cold water and stir into the boiling water until it thickens well; add half of pepper, salt, sugar, and all the butter. Remove from the fire, and beat in the raw yolks while still scalding hot-Set aside to cool, while you cut the celery or lettuce into small pieces, tearing and bruising as little as may be. Mix this lightly with the fish in a deep bowl. Rub the boiled yolks to a powder, add the salt, sugar and pepper, then the oil, little by little, beating it in with a silver spoon; next, the mustard. When the thick egg sauce is quite cold, whip the other into it with an egg-beater, and when thoroughly incorporated, put in the vinegar. Mix half the dressing through the fish and celery, turn this into a salad-dish, mounding it in the centre, and pour the rest.of the dressing over it.
Garnish with rings of boiled white-of-egg or whip-ped raw whites, heaped regularly on the surface, with 2 caper on top of each.
Do not be discouraged at the length of this receipt. It is easy and safe. Your taste may suggest some modification of the ingredients, but you will like it, in the main, well enough to try it more than once.
DEVILLED SALMON.
- 1/2 pound smoked salmon, cut into strips half an inch wide and an inch long.
- 4 table-spoonfuls good beef gravy, seasoned with onion.
- 1 table-spoonful tomato or walnut catsup.
- 1 table-spoonful vinegar.
- 2 table-spoonfuls melted butter or best salad-oil.
- 1 teaspoonful made mustard.
- Cayenne to taste.
Boil the salmon ten minutes in clear water. Have ready in a saucepan the gravy and seasoning, hot and closely covered, but do not let it boil. Lay the salmon for ten minutes more in the melted butter, turning it several times. Then put into the hot gravy, cover and simmer five minutes. Pile the fish upon a hot platter; pour the sauce over it, and serve with split Boston crackers, toasted and buttered.
SMOKED SALMON
(Broiled).
- 1/2 pound smoked salmon, cut into narrow strips.
- 2 table-spoonfuls butter.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- Cayenne pepper.
Parboil the salmon ten minutes; lay in cold water for the same length of time; wipe dry, and broil over a clear fire. Butter while hot, season with cayenne and lemon-juice, pile in a "log-cabin" square upon a hot plate, and send up with dry toast.
SALT COD
au maître d'hôtel. About a pound of cod which has been soaked over night, then boiled, picked into fine flakes.
- 1 cup milk.
- 2 table-spoonfuls butter.
- Bunch of sweet herbs.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 1 table-spoonful corn-starch. Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the butter, then the corn-starch; stir until it thickens, when add the fish; pepper and cook slowly fifteen minutes. Turn out upon a dish, strew thickly with chopped green herbs--chiefly parsley; squeeze the lemon-juice over all and serve.
Mashed potato is an improvement to this dish.
SALT COD WITH EGG SAUCE.
- 1 pound salt cod, previously soaked, then boiled and allowed to cool, picked or chopped fine.
- 1 small cup milk or cream.
- 1 teaspoonful corn-starch or flour.
- 2 eggs beaten light.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- A little chopped parsley.
- Half as much mashed potato as you have fish.
- Pepper to taste.
Heat the milk, thicken with the corn starch; then the potato, rubbed very fine; next the butter, the eggs and parsley, lastly the fish. Stir and toss until smoking hot all through, when pour into a deep dish.
Or,
Make a sauce of all the ingredients except the fish and potato. Mix these well together, with a little melted butter. Heat in a saucepan, stirring all the while; heap in the centre of a dish, and pour the sauce over all.
SALT COD WITH CHEESE.
- 1 pound boiled codfish, chopped fine.
- 1 cup drawn butter.
- Pepper and parsley.
- 2 table-spoonfuls grated cheese. Bread-crumbs.
Heat the butter to boiling, season and stir in the fish, then the cheese; put into a baking-dish; strew fine bread-crumbs on the top, and brown in the oven.
SALT COD SCALLOPED.
- Boiled cold cod, minced fine.
- 1 cup oyster liquor.
- 1 table-spoonful rice-flour or corn-starch.
- 3 table-spoonfuls butter.
- Chopped parsley and pepper.
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine.
- 1 cup fine, dry bread-crumbs.
Boil the oyster liquor, thicken and stir in two table-spoonfuls of butter with seasoning. Let it cool. Put a handful of bread-crumbs on the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, cover these with the oyster sauce, next comes a layer of fish; one of chopped egg; then more sauce, and so on, leaving out the bread-crumbs until the dish is full, when put a thick layer, with bits of butter set closely in it. Bake covered until hot through, then brown.
FRICASSEED LOBSTER.
- Meat of a good-sized lobster, boiled.
- 1 cup rich veal, or chicken broth-quite thick.
- 1/2 cup cream.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 1 table-spoonful of butter.
- Pepper and salt to taste.
Cut the lobster-meat in pieces half an inch square; put with the gravy, pepper and salt, into a saucepan. Cover and stew gently for five minutes. Add the cream, and just as it is on the point of boiling, stir in the butter. When this is melted, take the sauce-pan from the fire, and stir in, very quickly, the lemon-juice.
Serve in a covered dish.
Boston crackers, split, delicately toasted, and buttered while hot, are a nice accompaniment to this fricassee.
Canned lobster may be used if you cannot procure fresh.
LOBSTER RISSOLES.
- 1 large lobster-boiled.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- Yolks of 3 eggs.
- Handful of bread-crumbs.
- 1 table-spoonful of anchovy sauce.
- Cayenne, salt, and chopped parsley to liking.
Pick the meat from the boiled lobster, and pound it in a Wcdgewood mortar with half the coral, seasoning with salt and cayenne pepper. When you have rubbed it to a smooth paste with the butter, add a table-spoonful
of anchovy sauce and the yolk of an egg, well beaten. Flour your hands well and make the mixture into egg-shaped balls. Roll these in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry to a light brown in sweet lard, dripping, or butter.
For the Sauce.
- The coral of the lobster rubbed smooth.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
- 4 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
- 1 table-spoonful of cream.
Have ready in a saucepan 4 table-spoonfuls of melted butter; the remainder of the coral of the lobster pounded fine, and stirred in carefully, and a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce. Let this heat almost to boiling; add the cream, and pour hot over the rissoles when you have arranged these upon a heated dish.
Garnish with parsley or cresses.
LOBSTER CUTLETS Are made precisely as is the paste for rissoles, except that enough flour is added to it to enable you to roll it out into a sheet about as thick as your finger. Cut this into strips about three inches in length and one in width. Fry these quickly and drain dry before arranging them in the dish.
Pour the sauce over them. If properly made and fried, they are light and palatable.
LOBSTER CROQUETTES.
- 1 fine lobster, well boiled, or a can of lobster.
- 2 eggs, well beaten.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of butter, melted, but not hot.
- 1/2 cup bread-crumbs.
- Season with salt and cayenne pepper.
Pound the lobster-meat, coral and all, in a Wedgewood mortar. Mix with this the bread-crumbs, then the seasoning and butter. Bind with the yolk of one egg. Flour your hands and make into oblong croquettes. Dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry quickly to a light-brown in sweet lard or butter. Drain off fat, by laying upon a hot, clean paper, before dishing them.
Make a border of parsley close about them when you have piled them tastefully in the dish.
LOBSTER PUDDING.
- 1 large lobster well boiled, or a can of preserved lobster.
- 1/2 cup fine bread-crumbs.
- 1/2 cup cream or rich milk.
- Cayenne pepper and salt.
- 1 teaspoonful of Worcestershire or Harvey's sauce.
- 1/4 pound fat, salt pork, or corned ham, cut into very thin slices.
- 3 eggs.
Pound the meat and coral to a paste. Mix into this two eggs well beaten, the seasonings the bread-crumbs, and one table-spoonful of cream. Stir all together until light. Line the pudding-mould with the sliced ham. Pour the mixture into this and fit on the top. Set into a pot or pan of boiling water, and boil steadily for one hour.
Sauce for Pudding.
- 1/2 cup drawn butter.
- The remainder of the cream.
- A little chopped parsley.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
Heat almost to boiling; stir in a beaten egg, and so soon as this begins to thicken, take from the fire.
Turn the pudding out carefully upon a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it. Cut with a sharp thin knife.
Send around lemon cut into eighths, to be squeezed over each slice, should the guests wish to do so.
CURRIED LOBSTER.
- 1 large lobster, boiled.
- 1 large cup of strong veal or chicken broth.
- 1 shallot.
- 1 great spoonful of butter.
- 1 great spoonful chopped thyme and parsley.
- Juice of 1 lemon.
- 1 table-spoonful corn-starch.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
- 1 table-spoonful curry-powder.
Pick the meat very fine and set aside in a cool place. Mince the onion, and put it with the chopped herbs, the butter and a table-spoonful of hot water, into a small covered saucepan. Set this over the fire until it begins to simmer, then add the broth. Boil all together for five minutes, strain as for soup, stir in the curry powder and corn-starch, and stew gently ten minutes longer, stirring often. Season as directed, and add the picked lobster. Let the saucepan stand in a pan of boiling water ten minutes, but do not let the contents of the inner vessel boil. Pour into a deep dish.
Send around wafery slices of toast buttered while hot, and pieces of lemon to be added if necessary.
DEVILLED LOBSTER.
- 1 lobster, well boiled.
- 3 table-spoonfuls butter.
- 1 teaspoonful made mustard.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
- 1 wine glass of vinegar.
- Cayenne pepper and salt.
- 2 hard-boiled eggs.
Pick the meat carefully from the shell, breaking it as little as may be. Rub the coral to a smooth paste with the back of a silver spoon. Chop the meat fine. Stir into this the butter, melted, but not hot, the yolks of the eggs, rubbed smooth with the coral, the pepper, mustard and salt, and put all together in a saucepan over the fire. Stir until it is smoking hot, then turn into the shell, which should be washed and heated.
STEWED LOBSTER.
- 1 large lobster, well boiled.
- 1 cup good gravy--veal is best.
- 1 blade of mace.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of melted butter.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- Cayenne and salt to liking.
- 1 glass sherry.
- 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Cut the meat of the lobster into pieces an inch long and half as wide, keeping the coral until the last. Put the meat, with the broth and seasoning, into a sauce-pan
pan and heat gently, stirring frequently until it is near boiling. Then add the coral and butter (which should previously be well rubbed together) and the chopped parsley. When the mixture again nears the boiling point, add the wine and lemon-juice and turn into a deep dish.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER (No. 1).
- 1 boiled lobster.
- 4 table-spoonfuls of cream.
- 2 eggs well beaten.
- 1/2 cup bread-crumbs.
- 2 tablespoonfuls butter.
- 1 tea-spoonful anchovy sauce.
- Season to taste with cayenne, salt and nutmeg.
- Juice of half a lemon.
Rub the meat of the lobster, including the coral, a little at a time, in a Wedgewood mortar with the butter, until it is a soft paste. Put this into a saucepan with the seasoning, and heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from the fire, and add the cream and lemon-juice, stirring in well. Fill the lobster shell with this mixture. Strew bread-crumbs over the top, and set on the upper grate of a quick oven until the crumbs begin to brown.
Send to table in the shell, laid upon a hot dish.
You can scallop crab in the same manner.
SCALLOPED LOBSTER. (No. 2).
- 1 lobster, well boiled.
- 3 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- 1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce.
- 1/2 cup of bread-crumbs.
- 1/2 cup of cream.
- 2 eggs well beaten.
- Season with cayenne pepper and salt.
Cut the lobster carefully into halves with a sharp knife. Pick oat the meat carefully, and set aside while you prepare the sauce. This is done by rubbing the coral and the soft green substance, known as the "pith," together in a mortar or bowl, adding, a little at a time, a table-spoonful of butter. Put this on the fire in a covered saucepan, and stir until it is smoking hot. Then, beat in the anchovy sauce, pepper and salt before adding the cream. Heat quickly to a boil, lest the cream should curdle, put in the picked meat, and again stir up well from the sides and bottom until very hot. The eggs, whipped to a froth, should now go in. Remove the saucepan from the fire so soon as this is done.
Have the upper and lower halves of the shell ready buttered, strew bread-crumbs thickly in the bottom of each, moisten these with cream, and pour in the lobster mixture while still very hot. Put another layer of bread-crumbs, well moistened with the remainder of the cream, on the top. Stick bits of butter all over it, and brown on the upper grating of a hot oven.
In either of these preparations of scalloped lobster, should the canned lobster be used, or should you chance to break the shell in getting out the meat, you may bake the mixture prepared, as directed, in a pudding-dish or small
pâté pans.
CRABS Are so near of kin to the lobster family that the same receipts may easily be used for both. Only, bear in mind that the lesser and tougher shell-fish needs more boiling than does the aristocratic lobster. If underdone, crabs are very unwholesome. Also, in consideration of the crab's deficiency in the matter of the coral which lends lusciousness and color to lobster salads and stews, use more butter and cream in "getting him up" for the table.
Cayenne pepper is regarded by many as necessary in dishes of lobster or crab, because of its supposed efficacy in preventing the evil effects which might otherwise follow indulgence in these delicacies.
SOFT CRABS. For a receipt for preparing these, please see " Common Sense in the Household, No. 1," page 71.
TURTLE FRICASSEE.
- 3 pounds turtle steak.
- 1 large cup strong veal gravy.
- 4 hard-boiled eggs--the yolks only.
- 1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.
- 1 teaspoonful Harvey's sauce.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- 2 dozen mushrooms.
- 1 small onion, minced fine.
- 1 bunch sweet herbs, minced.
- 1 glass wine, and butter for frying.
- Browned flour for thickening, with cayenne and salt.
Cut the steak in strips as wide and as long as three of your fingers; fry brown (when you have floured them) in butter. Take up; drain off the grease; put with the gravy, which should be ready heated, into a tin vessel with a close cover and set in a pot of hot water. It must not boil until you have put in the rest of the ingredients. Slice the onion and mushrooms, and fry in the same butter; add with the herbs and other seasoning to the meat in the pail, or inner sauce-pan. Cover and set to stew gently. To the butter left in the frying-pan, add three spoonfuls of browned flour (large ones) and stir to a smooth unctuous paste, without setting it on the range. Add the lemon-juice to this, and set aside until the turtle has simmered half an hour in the broth. Take up the meat, and arrange upon a covered hot-water dish; transfer the gravy to a saucepan, and boil hard five minutes uncovered. Put in the brown flour paste; stir up until it thickens well; add the wine and yolks of eggs, each cut in three pieces, and pour over the turtle.
PANNED OYSTERS.
- 1 quart of oysters.
- Rounds of thin toast, delicately browned.
- Butter, salt and pepper.
Have ready several small pans of block tin, with upright sides. The ordinary "patty-pan" will do, if you can get nothing better, but it is well, if you are fond of oysters cooked in this way, to have the neat little tins made, at a moderate price, at a tinsmith's. Cut stale bread in thin slices, then round-removing all the crust-of a size that will just fit in the bottoms of
your pans. Toast these quickly to a light-brown, butter and lay within your tins. Wet with a great spoonful of oyster liquid, then, with a silver fork, arrange upon the toast as many oysters as the pans will hold without heaping them up. Dust with pepper and salt, put a bit of butter on top and set the pans, when all are fall, upon the floor of a quick oven. Cover with an inverted baking-pan to keep in steam and flavor, and cook until the oysters "ruffle." Eight minutes in a brisk oven, should be enough. Send very hot to the table in the tins in which they were roasted.
Next to roasting in the shell, this mode of cooking oysters best preserves the native flavor of the bivalves.
FRICASSEED OYSTERS.
- 1 pint good broth-veal or chicken--well strained.
- 1 slice of ham--corned is better than smoked.
- 3 pints oysters.
- 1 small onion.
- 2 table-spoonfuls of butter.
- 1/2 cup of milk.
- 1 table-spoonful of corn-starch.
- 1 egg beaten light.
- A little chopped parsley and sweet marjoram.
- Pepper to taste and juice of a lemon.
If the ham be raw, soak in boiling water for half an hour before cutting it into very small slices, and putting it into the saucepan with the broth, the oyster liquor, the onion minced
very fine, the herbs and pepper. Let these simmer for fifteen minutes, and boil fast for five, then skim and put in the oysters. Boil
up once briskly, keeping the contents of the saucepan well stirred. Have ready the corn-starch, rubbed smoothly into the milk. Stir this in and heat carefully, using the spoon constantly until it boils and begins to thicken, when the butter should go in. So soon as this is melted take out the oysters with a skimmer; put into a hot covered dish, heat the broth again to a boil, remove the saucepan from the fire, and stir in cautiously the beaten egg. A better way is to cook the latter gradually by beating in with it a few tablespoonfuls of the scalding liquor, before putting the egg into the saucepan.
Turn the gravy over the oysters, and serve at once. Squeeze in the lemon-juice after the tureen is on the table, as it is apt to curdle the mixture if left to stand.
Send around cream crackers, and green pickles or olives with this savory dish.
OYSTERS BOILED IN THE SHELL. Large shell-oysters, washed very clean and scraped, but not opened. Pot of boiling water over a hot fire. Sauce of melted butter with chopped or powdered parsley. A lemon, cut in half. Put the oysters, one by one, quickly and carefully into the water, which must be kept at a hard boil all the time. In five minutes, turn off every drop of the water by inverting the pot over a cullender, dry the shells rapidly with a soft cloth and send to table upon a hot dish. Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon
each oyster, and put a little hot melted butter with pepper over it before eating it from the shell.
The epicurean oyster-lover may consider boiled oysters insipid, but they are liked by many.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 1).
- Large, fine shell-oysters.
- Butter.
- Fine bread-crumbs, or rolled cracker.
- Minced parsley, pepper and salt.
- Lemon-juice.
Open the shells, setting aside for use the deepest ones. Have ready some melted butter,
not hot, seasoned with minced parsley and pepper. Roll each oyster in this, letting it drip as little as may be, and lay in the shells, which should be arranged in a baking-pan. Add to each a little lemon-juice, sift bread-crumbs over it, and bake in a quick oven until done.
Serve in the shells.
SCALLOPED OYSTERS (No. 2).
- 1 quart of oysters.
- 1 teacupful very dry bread-crumbs, or pounded cracker.
- 2 great spoonfu
