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Title: Common Sense in The Household : A Manual of Practical Housewifery
Author: Harland, Marion
Publisher: New York : Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

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> SOUPS.

THE base of your soup should always be uncooked meat. To this may be added, if you like, cracked bones of cooked game, or of underdone beef or mutton; but for flavor and nourishment, depend upon the juices of the meat which was put in raw. Gut this into small pieces, and beat the bone until it is fractured at every inch of its length. Put them on in cold water, without salt, and heat very slowly. Do not boil fast at any stage of the operation. Keep the pot covered, and do not add the salt until the meat is thoroughly done, as it has a tendency to harden the fibres, and restrain the flow of the juices. Strain-always through a cullender, after which clear soups should be filtered through a hair-sieve or coarse bobbinet lace. The bag should not be squeezed.

It is slovenly to leave rags of meat, husks of vegetables and bits of bone in the tureen. Do not uncover until you are ready to ladle out the soup. Do this neatly and quickly, having your soup-plates heated beforehand.

Most soups are better the second day than the first, unless they are warmed over too quickly or left too long upon the fire after they are hot. In the one case they are apt to scorch; in the other they become insipid.

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> VEGETABLE SOUPS.

GREEN PEA. (No. 1.)

4 lbs. beef-cut into small pieces.

1/2 peck of green peas.

1 gallon water.

Boil the empty pods of the peas in the water one hour before putting in the beef. Strain them out, add the beef, and boil slowly for an hour and a half longer. Half an hour before serving, add the shelled peas; and twenty minutes later, half a cup of rice-flour, with salt and pepper. A little chopped parsley is an improvement. After adding the rice-flour, stir frequently, to prevent scorching. Strain into a hot tureen.

GREEN PEA. (No. 2.)

2 qts. of veal or beef broth.

1/2 teaspoonful sugar.

1 tablespoonful butter.

1 qt. shelled peas.

Bring the broth to a boil; put in the peas, and boil for twenty minutes. Add the sugar, and a bunch of green mint. Boil a quarter of an hour more, and stir in the butter, with pepper and salt, if the broth be not sufficiently salted already. Strain before serving, and send to table with small squares of toasted bread floating upon the top.

SPLIT PEA (dried).

1 gallon water.

1 qt. split peas, which have been soaked over night.

1 lb. salt pork, cut into bits an inch square.

1/2 lb. beef,   "   "   "  

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Put over the fire, and boil slowly for two hours, or until the quantity of liquor does not exceed two quarts. Four into a cullender, and press the peas through it with a wooden or silver spoon. Return the soup to the pot, adding a small head of celery, chopped up, a little parsley, or if preferred, summer savory or sweet marjoram. Have ready three or four slices of bread (stale) which have been fried in butter until they are brown; cut into slices and scatter them upon the surface of the soup after it is poured into the tureen.

PEA AND TOMATO.

This is made according to either of the foregoing receipts, in summer with green-in winter with dried and split peas. Just before straining the soup, add a quart of tomatoes, which have already been stewed soft; let the whole come to a good boil, and strain as above directed If the stewed tomato be watery, strain off the superfluous liquid before pouring into the pea soup, or it will be too thin.

BEAN (dried).

The beans used for this purpose may be the ordinary kidney, the rice or field bean, or, best of all, the French mock-turtle soup bean. Soak a quart of these over night in soft lukewarm water; put them over the fire next morning, with one gallon of cold water and about two pounds of salt pork. Boil slowly for three hours, keeping the pot well covered; shred into it a head of celery, add pepper-cayenne, if preferred-simmer half an hour longer, strain through a cullender, and serve, with slices of lemon passed to each guest.

Mock-turtle beans, treated in this way, yield a very fail substitute for the fine calf's-head soup known by the same name.

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BEAN AND CORN.

This is a winter soup, and is made of white beans pre-pared according to the foregoing receipt, but with the addition of a quart of dried or canned corn. If the former is used-and the Shaker sweet corn is nearly as good for the purpose as the more expensive canned green corn-soak it overnight in warm water-changing this early in the morning, and pouring on more warm water, barely enough to cover the com, and keeping it in a close vessel until ready to put on the beans. Let all boil together, with pork as in the bean soup proper. Strain out as usual. Some persons have a habit of neglecting the use of the cullender in making bean soup, and serving it like stewed beans which have been imperfectly drained. The practice is both slovenly and unwholesome, since the husks of the cereal are thus imposed upon the digestive organs of the eater, with no additional nutriment. To the beans and corn may be added a pint of stewed tomato, if desired.

ASPARAGUS (White soup).

3 lbs. veal.   The knuckle is best.

3 bunches asparagus, as well bleached as you can procure.

1 gallon water.

Cut off the hard green stem, and put half of the tender heads of the asparagus into the water with the meat. Boil in a closely covered pot for three hours, until the meat is in rags and the asparagus dissolved. Strain the liquor and return to the pot, with the remaining half of the asparagus heads. Let this boil for twenty minutes more, and add, before taking up, a cup of sweet milk (cream is better) in which has been stirred a tablespoooful of rice-flour, arrowroot, or corn-starch. When it has fairly boiled up, serve


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without further straining, with small squares of toast in the tureen. Season with salt and pepper.

ASPARAGUS (Green soup).

3 lbs. veal--cut into small pieces.

1/2 lb. salt pork.

3 bunches asparagus.

1 gallon water.

Cut the entire stalk of the asparagus into pieces an inch long, and when the meat has boiled one hour, add half of the vegetable to the liquor in the pot. Boil two hours longer and strain, pressing the asparagus pulp very hard to extract all the green coloring. Add the other half of the asparagus--{the heads only, which should be kept in cold water until you are ready for them), and boil twenty minutes more. Then proceed as with the asparagus white soup, omitting the milk, thickening, and salt. The pork will supply the latter seasoning.

TOMATO (Winter soup).

3 lbs. beef.

1 qt. canned tomatoes.

1 gallon water.

Let the meat and water boil for two hours, until the liquid is reduced to little more than two quarts. Then stir in the tomatoes, and stew all slowly for three-quarters of an hour longer. Season to taste, strain, and serve.

TOMATO (Summer soup.)

2 1/2 lbs. veal, or lamb.

1 gallon of water.

2 qts. fresh tomatoes, peeled and cut up fine.

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Boil the meat to shreds and the water down to two quarts. Strain the liquor, put in the tomatoes, stirring them very hard that they may dissolve thoroughly; boil half an hour. Season with parsley or any other green herb you may prefer, pepper, and salt. Strain again, and stir in tablespoonful of butter, with a teaspoonful of white sugar, before pouring into the tureen.

This soup is more palatable still if made with the broth in which chickens were boiled for yesterday's dinner.

TURNIP.

Knuckle of veal, well cracked.

5 qts. water.

Cover closely and stew gently for four hours, the day before the soup is wanted. On the morrow, skim oft the fat and warm the stock gradually to a boil. Have ready an onion and six large winter or a dozen small summer turnips, sweet marjoram or thyme minced very finely. Put these into the soup and let them simmer together for an hour. Strain; return to the fire and add a cup of milk--in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of rice-flour or other thickening--and a tablespoonful of butter. Season with salt and popper, let it boil up once, stirring all the time, as is necessary in all soups where milk is added at the last, and remove instantly, or it will scorch.

POTATO.

A dozen large mealy potatoes.

2 onions.

1 lb. salt pork.

3 qts. water.

Boil the pork in the clear water for an hour and a half, then take it out. Have ready the potatoes, which, after


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being peeled and sliced, should lie in cold water for half an hour. Throw them into the pot, with the chopped onion. Cover and boil three-quarters of an hour, stirring often Beat in a large table spoonful of butter, and a cup of cream or milk in which has been mixed a well-beaten egg. Add the latter ingredients carefully, a little at a time; stir while it heats to a final boil, and then serve

This is a cheap and wholesome dish, and more palatable than one would suppose from reading the receipt.

GRAHAM SOUP.

3 onions.

3 carrots.

4 turnips.

1 small cabbage.

1 bunch celery.

1 pt. stewed tomatoes.

Chop all the vegetables, except the tomatoes and cabbage, very finely, and set them over the fire with rather over three quarts of water. They should simmer gently for half an hour at the end of which time the cabbage must be added, having previously been parboiled and chopped up. In fifteen minutes more put in the tomatoes and a bunch of sweet herbs, and give all a lively boil of twenty minutes. Rub through a cullender, return the soup to the fire, stir in a good tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt, half a cup of cream if you have it, thickened with corn-starch; let it boil up, and it is ready for the table.

OCHRA, or GUMBO.

Ochra, or okra, is a vegetable little known except in the far South, where it is cultivated in large quantities and is very popular. A favorite soup is prepared from it in the following manner:-

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2 qts. of ochras, sliced thin.

1 qt. of tomatoes, also sliced.

4 tablespoonfuls of butter.

2 lbs. of beef, cut into small pieces.

1/2 lb. ham or pickled pork, also cut up.

Put the meat and ochras together in a pot with a quart of cold water--just enough to cover them--and let them stew for an hour. Then add--the tomatoes and two quarts of boiling water--more if the liquid in the pot has boiled away so as to expose the meat and vegetables. Boil three-quarters of an hour longer, skimming often with a silver spoon. When the contents of the vessel are boiled to pieces, put in the butter, with cayenne pepper and salt, if the ham has not seasoned it sufficiently. Strain and send up with squares of light, crisp toast floating upon it.

CORN.

1 large fowl, cut into eight pieces.

1 dozen ears green corn.

Boil the chicken in a gallon of water until tender-if tough, the boiling must be slow and long. Then cut the corn from the cob and put into the pot, and stew an hour longer-still gently, Remove the chicken with a cupful of the liquid, if yon wish to make other use of the meat. Set this aside, season the corn -soup with pepper, salt, and parsley; thicken with rice or wheat flour, boil up once, and serve without straining, if the corn be young and tender.

A tolerable fricassee may be made of the chicken, unless it has boiled to rags, by beating up an egg and a tablespoonl-ful of butter, adding this to the cupful of reserved liquor, from which the corn must be strained. Boil this for a moment thicken with flour, throw in a little chopped parsley, pepper, and salt, pour, while scalding, over the chicken,


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which you have arranged in a dish ; garnish with circular slices of haul-boiled eggs and curled parsley.

> MEAT SOUPS.

BEEF SOUP (à la Julienne).

6 lbs. of lean beef. The shin is a good piece for this purpose. Have the bones well cracked, carefully extracting the marrow, every bit of which should be put into the soup.

6 qts. of water.

The stock must be prepared the day before the soup is needed. Put the beef, bones and all, with the water in a close vessel, and set it where it will heat gradually. Let it boil very slowly for six hours at least, only uncovering the pot once in a great while to see if there ia danger of the water sinking too rapidly. Should this be the case, replenish with boiling water, talcing care not to put in too much. During the seventh hour, take off the soup and set it away, still closely covered, until next morning. About an hour before dinner, take out the meat, which you can use for mince-meat, if you wish; remove the cake of fat from the surface of the stock, set the soup over the fire, and throw in a little salt to bring up the scum. When this has been skimmed carefully off, put in your vegetables. These should be:-

2 carrots.

3 turnips.

Half a head of white cabbage.

1 pt. green corn -or dried Shaker corn, soaked over night.

1 head celery.

1 qt. tomatoes.

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These should be prepared for the soup by slicing them very small, and stewing them in barely enough water to cover them, until they break to pieces. Cook the cabbage by itself in two waters-throwing the first away. The only exception to the general dissolution, is in the case of a single carrot, which should likewise be cooked alone and whole, until thoroughly done? and set aside to cool, when the rest of the vegetables, with the water in which they were boiled, are added to the soup. Return the pot to the fire with the vegetables and stock, and boil slowly for half an hour from the time ebullition actually begins. Strain without pressing, only shaking and lightly stirring the contents of the cullender. The vegetables having been added with all their juices already cooked, much boiling and squeezing are not needed, and only make the soup cloudy. Cut the reserved carrot into dice and drop into the clear liquor after it is in the tureen,-also, if you like, a handful of vermicelli, or macaroni which has been boiled tender in clear water.

The seasoning of this excellent soup is a matter of taste. Some use only salt and white pepper. Others like with this a few blades of mace, and boil in the stock a handful of sweet herbs. And others fancy that, in addition to these, a glass of brown sherry imparts a flavor that renders it peculiarly acceptable to most palates. Send to table very hot, and have the soup-plates likewise heated.

VEAL SOUP WITH MACARONI.

3 lbs. of veal knuckle or scrag, with the bones broken and meat cut up.

3 qts. water.

1/4 lb. Italian macaroni.

Boil the meat alone in the water for nearly three hours, until it is reduced to shreds; and the macaroni until ten


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der, in enough water to cover it, in a vessel by itself. The pieces should not be more than an inch in length. Add a little butter to the macaroni when nearly done. Strain the meat out of the soup, season to your taste, put in the ma-caroni, and the water in which it was boiled; let it boil up, and serve.

You can make macaroni soup of this by boiling a pound, instead of a quarter of a pound, in the second vessel, and adding the above quantity of veal broth. In this case, send on with it a plate of grated cheese, that those who cannot relish macaroni without this accompaniment may put it into their soup. Take care that the macaroni is of uniform length, not too long, and that it does not break while stewing. Add butter in proportion to the increased quantity of macaroni.

BEEF SOUP (brown).

3 lbs. beef cut into strips.

3 onions.

3 qts. water.

Put beef and water into the saucepan and boil for one hour. Meanwhile, slice the onions and fry them in butter to a light brown. Drop into the pot with a teaspoonful of cloves, half as much pepper, same quantity of mace as pepper, a pinch of allspice, and a teaspoonful of essence of celery, if you cannot get a head of fresh celery; also half a tea-spoonful of powdered savory or sweet marjoram, and a tea* spoonful of Worcestershire sauce. Stew all for two hours more, or until the beef has boiled to pieces. Strain the soup and return to the fire. Salt to taste, and just before taking it off, pour in a glass of brown sherry or Madeira wine.

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MUTTON OR LAMB BROTH.

4 lbs. mutton or lamb--lean--cut into small pieces.

1 gallon water.

1/2 teaspoonful rice.

Boil the unsalted meat for two hours, slowly, in a covered vessel. Soak the rice in enough warm water to cover it, and at the end of this time add it, water and all, to the boiling soup. Cook an hour longer, stirring watchfully from tune to time, lest the rice should settle and adhere to the bottom of the pot. Beat an egg to a froth and stir into a cup of cold milk, into which has been rubbed smoothly a tablespoonful rice or wheat flour. Mix with this, a little at at a time, some of the scalding liquor, until the egg is so far cooked that there is no danger of curdling in the soup. Pour into the pot, when you have taken out the meat, season with parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt. Boil up fairly, and serve. If allowed to stand on the fire, it is apt to burn.

This soup may be made from the liquor in which a leg of mutton has been boiled, provided too much salt was not put in with it. It is especially good when the stock is chicken broth. For the sick it is palatable and nutritious with the rice left in. When strained it makes a nice white table soup, and is usually relished by all.

VERMICELLI SOUP.

4 lbs. lamb from which every particle of fat has been removed.

1 lb. veal.

A slice of corned ham.

5 qts. water.

Cut up the meat, cover it with a quart of water, and set it back on the range to heat very gradually, keeping it covered closely. At the end of an hour, add four quarts


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boiling water, and cook until the meat is in shreds. Season with salt, sweet herbs, a chopped shallot, two teaspoonfuls Worcestershire sauce, and when these have boiled in the soup for ten minutes, strain and return, to the fire. Have-ready about a third of a pound of vermicelli (or macaroni), which has been boiled tender in clear water. Add this; boil up once, and pour out.

In all receipts in which ham is mentioned as seasoning, reference is made to corned, not smoked pork. The smoke imparts an undisguisable, and, to many, an unpleasant flavor, especially to delicate soups and ragouts.

MOCK-TURTLE OR CALF'S HEAD SOUP.

1 large calf's head, well cleaned and washed.

4 pig's feet,   "   "   "   "  

This soup should always be prepared the day before it is to be served up. Lay the head and feet in the bottom of a large pot, and cover with a gallon of water. Let it boil three hours, or until the flesh will slip easily from the bones. Take out the head, leaving in the feet, and allow these to boil steadily while you cut the meat from the dead. Select with care enough of the fatty portions which lie on the top of the head and the cheeks to fill a tea-cup, and set them aside to cool. Remove the brains to a saucer and also set aside. Chop the rest of the meat with the tongue very fine, season with salt, pepper, powdered marjoram and thyme, a teaspoonful of cloves, the same of mace, half as much allspice, and a grated nutmeg, and return to the pot. When flesh falls from the bones of the pig's feet, take out the latter, leaving in the gelatinous meat. Let all boil together slowly, without removing the cover, for two hours more; take the soup from the fire and set it away until the next day. An hour before dinner, set on


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the stock to warm. When it boils strain carefully, and drop in the meat you have reserved, which, when cold, should be cut into small squares. Have these all ready as well as the force-meat halls. To prepare these, rub the yolks of five hard-boiled eggs to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar, or in a bowl, with the back of a silver tablespoon adding gradually the brains to moisten them, also a little butter and salt. Mix with these two eggs beaten very light, flour your hands, and make this paste into balls about the size of a pigeon's egg. Throw them into the soup live minutes before you take it off the fire; stir in a largo tablespoonful of browned Hour rubbed smooth in a little cold water, let it boil up, and finish the seasoning by the addition, of a glass and a half of good wine-sherry or Madeira-and the juice of a lemon. It should not boil more than half an hour oil the second day. Serve with sliced lemon. Some lay the slices upon the top of the soup, but the better plan is to pass to the guests a small dish containing these.

This has been well called the "king of soups," and is actually more delicious than the real turtle soup. It is hoped no one will be afraid to undertake the preparation of it on account of the apparently tedious and delicate mode I have described. If the directions be closely followed, the result is sure to be satisfactory, and the task is really much less troublesome than it appears to be.

GIBLET SOUP.

Feet, neck, pinions, and giblets of three chickens, or of two ducks or two geese.

1 1/2 lb. veal.

1/2 lb. ham.

3 qts. water.

Crack the bones into small pieces, chop the giblets (not


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very fine) and cut the meat into strips. Put all together over the fire, with a bunch of sweet herbs and a pinch of allspice. Stew slowly for two hours. Pick out the giblets with a skimmer or fork, and set them aside in a pan where they will keep warm. Take up a teacupful of the hot soup and stir into this a large tablespoonful of flour which has been wet with cold water and rubbed to a smooth paste; then, two tablespoonfuls of butter. Return to the pot and boil for fifteen minutes ; season at the last with a glass of brown sherry and a tablespoonful of tomato or walnut catsup. A little Worcestershire sauce is an improvement. Finally, add the giblets, and serve.

BROWN GRAVY SOUP.

3 lbs. beef.

1 carrot.

1 turnip.

1 head of celery.

6 onions, if small button-onions-2, if large.

3 1/2 qts. water.

Have ready some nice dripping in a frying-pan. Slice the onions and fry them brown. Take them out and set them by in a covered pan to keep warm. Cut the beef into bits an inch long and half an inch thick, and fry them brown also, turning frequently lest they should burn. Chop the vegetables and put them with the meat and onions into a covered pot. Pour on the water and let all stew together for two hours. Then throw in salt and pepper and boil one hour longer, skimming very carefully. Strain; put back over the fire; boil up once more to make the liquid perfectly clear skim, and add a handful of vermicelli that has been boiled separately and drained dry. The safest plan is to put in the vermicelli after the soup is poured into the


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tureen. Do not stir before it goes to table. The contents of the tureen should be clear as amber. Some add half a glass of pale sherry. This is a fine show soup, and very popular.

VEAL and SAGO SOUP.

2 1/2 lbs. veal.

1/4 lb. pearl sago.

1 pt. milk.

4 eggs.

3 qts. water.

Put on the veal and water--the meat chopped finely--and boil for two hours until the liquid is reduced to about one-half the original quantity. Strain out the shreds of meat through a coarse cloth, and put the soup again over the fire. Meanwhile the sago should be washed in several waters, and soaked half an hour in warm water enough to cover it. Stir it into the strained broth and boil-stirring very often to prevent lumping or scorching-half an hour more. Heat the milk almost to boiling; beat the yolks of the eggs very light; mix with the milk gradually, as in making boiled custard, and pour--stirring all the while--into the soup. Season with pepper and salt boil up once to cook the eggs, and serve. Should the liquid be too thick after putting in the sago, replenish with boiling water. It should be about the consistency of hot custard.

This soup is very good, if chicken broth be substituted for the veal It is very strengthening to invalids, and especially beneficial to those suffering with colds or pulmonary affections.

CHICKEN SOUP.

2 young fowls, or one full-grown.

1/2 lb. ham.

1 gallon of water.

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Cut the fowls into pieces as for fricassee. Put these with the ham into the pot with a quart of water, or enough to cover them fairly. Stew for an hour, if the fowls are tender; if tough, until you can cut easily into the breast. Take out the breasts, leaving the rest of the meat in the pot, and add the remainder of the water-boiling hot. Keep the soup stewing slowly while yon chop up the white meat you have selected. Rub the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs smooth in a mortar or bowl, moistening to a paste with a few spoonfuls of the soup. Mix with these a handful of fine bread-crumbs and the chopped meat, and make it into small balls. When the soup has boiled, in all, two hours and a half, if the chicken be reduced to shreds, strain out the meat and bones. Season with salt and white pepper, with a bunch of chopped parsley. Drop in the prepared force-meat, and after boiling ten minutes to incorporate the ingredients well, add, a little at a time, a pint of rich milk thickened with flour. Boil up once and serve.

A chicken at least a year old would make better soup than a younger fowl.

VENISON SOUP.

3 lbs. of venison. What are considered the inferior pieces will do.

1 lb. ham or salt pork.

1 onion.

1 head of celery.

Cut up the meat; chop the vegetables, and put on with just enough water to cover them, keeping on the lid of the pot all the while, and stew slowly for one hour. Then add two quarts of boiling water, with a few blades of mace and a dozen whole peppers. Or, should you prefer, a little cayenne. Boil two hours longer, salt, and strain. Return the liquor to the pot; stir in a tablespoon of butter


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thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour wet into a smooth thin paste with cold water; add a tablespoonful, walnut or mushroom catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcester shire or other pungent sauce, and a generous glass of Madeira or brown sherry.

HARE OR RABBIT SOUP.

Dissect the rabbit, crack the bones, and prepare precisely as you would the venison soup, only putting in three small onions instead of one, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Hares which are too tough to be cooked in any other way, make excellent game soup. Also, the large gray squirrel of the Middle and Southern States.

I have eaten squirrel soup that was really delicious.

OX-TAIL SOUP.

1 ox-tail.

2 lbs. lean beef.

4 carrots.

3 onions.

Thyme.

Cut the tail into several pieces and fry brown in butter. Slice the onions and carrots, and when you remove the oxtail from the frying-pan, put in these and brown also. When done, tie them in a bag with a bunch of thyme and drop into the soup-pot. Lay the pieces of ox-tail in the same; then the meat cut into small slices. Grate over them the two whole carrots, and add four quarts of cold water, with pepper and salt. Bail from four to six hours, in proportion to the size of the tail. Strain fifteen minutes before serving it, and thicken with two tablespoonful of browned flour. Boil ten minutes longer.

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> FISH SOUPS.

OYSTER SOUP (No. 1).

2 qts. of oysters.

1 qt. of milk.

2 tablespoonfuls butter.

1 teacupful water.

Strain the liquor from the oysters, add to it the water, and set it over the fire to heat slowly in a covered vessel, When it is near boiling, season with pepper and salt, and stir in the milk, after which stir constantly, unless, as is wisest you heat the liquor in a vessel set in a pot of boiling water. When the soup again nears the boiling-point, add the oysters, and let them stew until they "ruffle" on the edge. This will be in about five minutes. Then put in the butter and stir well until it is melted, when the soup is ready for use.

Serve with sliced lemon and oyster or cream crackers-Some use mace and nutmeg in seasoning. The crowning excellence in oyster soup is to have it cooked just enough. Too much stewing ruins the bivalves, while an underdone oyster is a flabby abomination. The plumpness of the main body and ruffled edge are good indices of their right condition.

OYSTER SOUP (No. 2).

2 qts. of oysters.

2 eggs.

1 qt. milk.

1 teacupful of water.

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, pour in with it the water. Season with cayenne pepper and a little salt, a teaspoonful of mingled nutmeg, mace, and cloves


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When the liquor is almost boiling, add half the oysters chopped finely and boil five minutes quite briskly, Strain the soup and return to saucepan with the milk. Have ready some force-meat balls, not larger than marbles, made of the yolks of the eggs boiled hard and rubbed to a smooth paste with a little butter, then mixed with six raw oysters chopped very finely, a little salt? and a raw egg well beaten, to bind the ingredients together. Flour your hands well and roll the force-meat into pellets, laying them upon a cold plate, so as not to touch one another, until needed. Then put the reserved whole oysters into the hot soup, and when it begins to boil again, drop in the force-meat marbles. Boil until the oysters "ruffle," by which time the balls will also be done.

Serve with sliced lemon and crackers. A liberal tablespoonful of butter stirred in gently at the last is an improvement.

CLAM SOUP.

50 clams.

1 qt. milk.

1 pint water.

2 tablespoonfuls butter.

If you cannot buy the clams already opened, put them in a large pan or tray, and pour boiling water over them. This will open the shells. Take them out as fast as they unclose, that you may save all the liquor they contain. Drain off this and put it over the fire with a dozen whole peppers, a few bits of cayenne pods, half a dozen blades of mace, and salt to taste. Let it boil for ten minutes, then put in the clams and boil half an hour quite fast, keeping the pot closely covered. If you dislike to see the whole spices in the tureen, strain them out before the clams are added. At the end of the half hour add the milk, which has been heated to scalding, not boiling, in another vessel. Boil up again, taking care the soup does not burn7 and put in the butter. Then serve


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without delay. If you desire a thicker soup, stir a heaping tablespoonful of rice-flour into a little cold milk, and put in with the quart of hot.

CAT-FISH SOUP.

Few persons are aware into what a variety of tempting dishes this much-abused fish can be made. Those who have only seen the bloated, unsightly creatures that play the scavengers about city wharves, are excusable for entertaining a prejudice against them as an article of food. But the small cat-fish of our inland lakes and streams are altogether respectable, except in their unfortunate name.

6 cat-fish, in average weight half a pound apiece.

1/2 lb. salt pork.

1 pint milk.

2 eggs.

1 head of celery, or a small hag of celery-seed.

Skin and clean the fish and cut them up. Chop the pork into small pieces. Put these together into the pot, with two quarts of water, chopped sweet herbs, and the celery seasoning. Boil for an hour, or until fish and pork are in rags, and strain, if you desire a regular soup for a first course. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, which should be already hot. Next the eggs, beaten to a froth, and a lump of butter the size of a walnut. Boil up once, and serve with dice of toasted bread on the top. Pass sliced lemon, or walnut or butternut pickles with it.

EEL SOUP.

Eel soup is made in precisely the same manner as catfish, only boiled longer. A chopped onion is no detriment to the flavor of either, and will remove the muddy which these fish sometimes acquire from turbid streams.

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LOBSTER SOUP.

2 qts. veal or chicken broth, well strained.

1 large lobster.

2 eggs-boiled hard.

Boil the lobster and extract the meat, setting aside the coral in a cool place. Cut or chop up the meat found in the claws. Rub the yolks of the eggs to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter. Pound and rub the claw-meat in the same manner, and mix with the yolks. Beat up a raw egg, and stir into the paste; season with pepper, salt, and, if you like, mace; make into force-meat bulls, and set away with the coral to cool and harden. By this time the stock should be well heated, when put in the rest of the lobster-meat cut into square bits. Boil fifteen minutes, which time employ in pounding the coral in a Wedgewood mortar, or earthenware bowl, rubbing it into a fine, even paste, with the addition of a few spoonfuls of the broth, gradually worked in until it is about the consistency of boiled starch. Stir very carefully into the hot soup, which should, in the process, blush into a roseate hue. Lastly, drop in the force-meat balls, after which do not stir, lest they should break. Simmer a few minutes to cook the raw egg; but, if allowed to boil, the soup will darken.

Crab soup may be made in the same way, excepting the coralline process, crabs being destitute of that dainty.

GREEN TURTLE SOUP.

A glass of Madeira.

2 onions.

Bunch of sweet herbs.

Juice of one lemon.

5 qts. of water.

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Chop up the coarser parts of the turtle-meat, with the entrails and bones. Add to them four quarts of water, and stew four hours with the herbs, onions, pepper, and salt Stow very slowly, but do not let it cease to boil dining this time. At the end of four hours strain the soup, and add the finer parts of the turtle and the green fat, which has been simmered for one hour in two quarts of water. Thicken with browned flour; return to the soup-pot, and simmer gently an hour longer. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil them in a separate vessel for four hours, and throw into the soup before taking it up. If not, put in force-meat balls; then the juice of the lemon and the wine; beat up once and pour out. Some cooks add the finer meat before straining boiling all together five hours ; then strain, thicken, and put in the green fat, cut into lumps an inch long. This makes a handsomer soup than if the meat is left in.

For the mock eggs, take the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and one raw egg well beaten. Rub the boiled eggs into a paste with a teaspoonful of butter, bind with the raw egg, roll into pellets the size and shape of turtle-eggs, and lay in boiling water for two minutes before dropping into the soup.

Force-meat balls for the above.

Six tablespoonfuls turtle-meat chopped very fine. Rub to a paste with the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; tablespoonful of butter, and, if convenient, a little oyster-liquor. Season with cayenne, mace, and half a teaspoonful of white sugar. Bind with a well-beaten egg; shape into balls; dip in egg, then powdered cracker, fry in butter, and drop into the soup when it is served.

Mock turtle for soups is now within the reach of every private family, being well preserved in air-tight cans.

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> FISH.

BOILED CODFISH. (Fresh)

Lay the fish in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour before it is time to cook it. Wipe it dry and put it into the fish-kettle with water enough to cover it, in which has been dissolved a little salt. Let it boil quite briskly A piece of cod weighing three pounds will be cooked in half an hour from the time the water fairly boils, if put in without a cloth. But by far the better plan is, when the cod hag been wiped free of the salt and water, to wrap it in a clean linen cloth kept for such purposes. The cloth should be dredged with flour, to prevent sticking. Sew up the edges in such a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but one thickness of the cloth over any part. The wrapping should be fitted neatly to the shape of the piece to be cooked. Fish cooked thus will require twice as long to boil as when put into the water without such protection; but the flavor is better preserved, and when unwrapped, it will not present the sodden appearance and crumbling grain that disfigure most boiled fish.

Have ready a sauce prepared thus:-

To one gill boiling water add as much milk, and when it is scalding-hot, stir in-leaving the sauce-pan on the fire-two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little at a time, that it may melt without oiling, a tablespoonful of flour previously wet with cold water, and, as this thickens, two beaten eggs. Season with salt and chopped parsley, and when, after one good boil, you withdraw it from the fire, add a dozen capers, or pickled nasturtium seeds, or, if you prefer, a spoonful of vinegar in which celery-seeds have been steeped. Put the fish into a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it. Some serve in a butter-boat ; but I fancy that the boiling sauce applied to the steaming fish imparts a richness it cannot gain later. Garnish


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with sprigs of parley and circles of hard-boiled eggs, laid around the edge of the dish.

ROCKFISH.

Rockfish and river-bass are very nice, cooked as above, but do not need to be boiled so long as codfish.

BOILED CODFISH. (Salt.)

Put the fish to soak over night in lukewarm water-as early as eight o'clock in the evening. Change this for more warm water at bed-time and cover closely. Change again in the morning and wash off the salt. Two hours before dinner take out the cod, examine to see that no crystals of salt adhere to the under part, and plunge into very cold water. This makes it firm. Finally set over the fire with enough lukewarm water to cover it, and boil for half an hour. Drain well; lay it in a hot dish, and pour over it egg-sauce prepared as in the foregoing receipt, only substituting the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a paste with butter, for the beaten raw egg.

This is a useful receipt for country housekeepers who can seldom procure fresh cod. Salt mackerel, prepared in the same way, will well repay the care and time required, so superior is it to the Friday's dish of salt fish, as usually served.

Should the cold fish left over he used for fish-balls-as it should be-it will be found that the sauce which has soaked into it while hot has greatly improved it.

CODFISH BALLS.

Prepare the fish precisely as for boiling whole. Cut in pieces when it has been duly washed and soaked, and boil twenty minutes. Turn off the water, and cover with fresh


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from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil twenty minutes more, drain the fish very dry, and spread upon a dish to cool. When perfectly cold, pick to pieces with a fork, removing every vestige of skin, and bone, and shredding very fine. When this is done, add an equal bulk of mashed potato work into a stiff batter by adding a lump of butter and sweet milk, and if you want to have them very nice, a beaten egg. Flour your hands and make the mixture into balls or cakes. Drop them into boiling lard or good dripping, and fry to a light brown. Plainer fish-cakes may be made of the cod and potatoes alone, moulded round like biscuit. In any shape the dish is popular.

It gives me great pleasure to recommend the desiccated cod-fish put up in boxes by the Boston and Philadelphia Salt Fish Company. The fish is already cooked and shred, and the housekeeper is thus saved the only disagreeable part of the process of malting this delightful breakfast relish-the boiling and the unsavory odor arising therefrom, as well as the care of soaking and picking out the fish. The balls prepared from the desiccated fish are every whit equal in flavor to those made of the home-cooked, and can be ready at half-an-hour's notice. The cost is not more-perhaps less, than when one buys the cod in bulk? bones and all.

SALT CODFISH STEWED WITH EGGS.

Prepare the fish as for balls. Heat almost to boiling a pint of rich sweet milk, and stir into it, gradually arid carefully, three eggs well beaten, a tablespoonful of butter, a little chopped parsley and butter, with pepper, lastly the fish. Boil up once and turn into a deep covered dish, or chafing-dish lined with buttered toast. Eat hot for breakfast or supper.

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CODFISH AND POTATO STEW.

Soak, boil, and pick the ash, if salt, as for fish-balls. If fresh, boil and pick into bits. Add an equal quantity of mashed potatoes , a large tablespoonful of butter and milk, enough to make it very soft. Put into a skillet, and add a very little boiling water to keep it from burning. Turn and toss constantly until it is smoking hot but not dry ; add pepper and parsley, and dish.

BOILED MACKEREL. (Fresh.)

Clean the mackerel and wipe carefully with a dry, clean cloth; wash them lightly with another cloth dipped in vinegar; wrap each in a coarse linen cloth (floured) basted closely to the shape of the fish. Put them into a pot with enough salted water to cover them, and boil them gently for half an hour. Drain them well. Take a teacupful of the water in which they were boiled, and put into a saucepan with a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, some anchovy paste or sauce, and the juice of half a lemon. Let this boil up well and add a lump of butter the size of an egg, with a tablespoonful browned flour wet in cold water. Boil up again and serve in the sauce-boat. This makes a brown sauce. You can substitute egg-sauce if you like. Garnish with parsley and nasturtium blossoms.

BROILED MACKEREL. (Fresh.)

Clean the mackerel, wash, and wipe dry. Split it open, so that when laid flat the backbone will be in the middle. Sprinkle lightly with salt, and lay on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, with the inside downward, until it begins to brown; then turn the other. When quite done, lay on a hot dish and butter it plentifully. Turn another hot dish


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over the lower one, and let it stand two or three minutes before sending to table.

BROILED MACKEREL. (Salt.)

Soak overnight in lukewarm water. Change this early in the morning for very cold, and let the fish lie in this until time to cook. Then proceed as with the fresh mackerel.

BOILED HALIBUT.

Lay in cold salt and water for an hour. Wipe dry and score the skin in squares. Put into the kettle with cold salted water enough to cover it. It is so firm in texture that you can boil without a cloth if you choose. Let it heat gradually, and boil from half to three-quarters of an hour, in proportion to the size of the piece. Four or live pounds will be enough for most private families. Drain and accompany by egg-sauce--either poured over the fish, or in a sauce-boat.

Save the cold remnants of the fish and what sauce is left until next morning. Pick out as you would cod, mix with an equal quantity of masked potato, moisten with the sauce, or with milk and butter if you have no sauce, put into a skillet, and stir until it is very hot. Do not let it burn. Season,with pepper and salt.

BAKED HALIBUT.

Take a piece of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay in salt and water for two hours. Wipe dry and score the outer skin. Set in the baking-pan in a tolerably hot oven and bake an hour, basting often with butter and water heated together in a saucepan or tin cup, When a fork will penetrate it easily it is done. It should be of a fine brown. Take the gravy in the dripping-pan-add a little


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boiling water should there not be enough-stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the juice of a lemon, and thicker with browned flow previously wet with cold water. Boil up once and put into sauce-boat.

There is no finer preparation, of halibut than this, which is, however, comparatively little known. Those who have eaten it usually prefer it to boiled and broiled. You can use what is left for the same purpose as the fragments of boiled halibut.

HALIBUT STEAK.

Wash and wipe the steaks dry. Beat up two or three eggs, and roll out some Boston or other brittle crackers upon the kneading-board until they are fine as dust. Dip each steak into the beaten egg then into the bread crumbs (when yon have salted the fish), and fry in hot fat, lard, or nice dripping.

Or, you can broil the steak upon a buttered gridiron, over a clear lire, first seasoning with salt and pepper. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter well, and cover closely.

DEVILLED HALIBUT.

Mince a pound of cold boiled or baked halibut, or the fragments of halibut steak, and mix with it the following dressing: The yolks of three hard-boiled eggs rubbed smooth with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, and when there remain no lumps in it, work into a soft paste with a tablespoonful salad oil. Next beat in two teaspoonfuls white sugar, a teaspoonful made mustard, a pinch of cayenne, teaspoonful salt, one of Worcestershire sauce, a little anchovy paste if you have it, and finally, a little at a time to prevent lumping, a small teacupful of vinegar in which celery-seed have been steeped. It is easy


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to keep a bottle of this on hand for salads and sauces. Stir all thoroughly into the minced fish, garnish with a chain of the whites of the eggs cut into rings, with a small round slice of pickled beet laid within each link, and you have a piquant and pretty salad for the supper-table.

BOILED SALMON. (Fresh.)

Wrap the fish, when you have washed and wiped it. In a clean linen cloth--not too thick--baste it up securely, and put into the fish-kettle. Cover with cold water in which has been melted a handful of salt. Boil slowly, allowing about a quarter of an hour to each pound. When the time is up, rip open a corner of the cloth and test the salmon with a fork. If it penetrate easily, it is done. If not, hastily pin up the cloth and cook a little longer. Skim off the scum as it rises to the top. Have ready in another sauce-pan a pint of cream--or half milk and half cream will do--which has been heated in a vessel set in boiling water; stir into this a large spoonful of butter, a little salt and chopped parsley, and a half-gill of the water in which the fish is boiled. Let it boil up once, stirring all the while- or, what is better, do not remove from the inner vessel. When the fish is done, take it instantly from the kettle, lay it an instant upon a folded cloth to absorb the droppings; transfer with great care, for fear of breaking, to a hot dish, and pour the boiled cream over it, reserving enough to fill a small sauce-boat. Garnish with curled parsley and circular slices of hard-boiled yolks--leaving out the whites of the eggs.

After serving boiled salmon with cream-sauce, you will never be quite content with any other. If you cannot got cream, boil a pint of milk and thicken with arrow-root. It is not so nice, but many will not detect the difference--real cream being a rare commodity in town.

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You may pickle what is left, if it is in one piece. Or, devil it, as I have directed you to treat cold halibut. Or mince, mix with mashed potato, milk, and butter, and stir into a sort of stew. Or, once again, mix with mashed potato, milk, butter, and a raw egg well-beaten; make into cakes or balls, and fry in hot lard or dripping. At any rate, let none of it be lost, it being at once one of our most expensive and most delicious fish.

BAKED SALMON.

Wash and wipe dry, and rub with pepper and salt. Some add a soupcon of cayenne and powdered mace. Lay the fish upon a grating set over your baking-pan, and roast or bake, basting it freely with butter, and, toward the last, with its own drippings only. Should it brown too fast, cover the top with a sheet of white paper until the whole is cooked. When it is done, transfer to a hot dish and cover closely, and add to the gravy a little hot water thickened with arrow-root, rice, or wheat flour,-wet, of course, first with cold water,-a great spoonful of light tomato sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Boil up and serve in a sauce-boat, or you can serve with cream sauce, made as for boiled salmon. Garnish handsomely with alternate sprigs of parsley and the bleached tops of celery, with ruby bits of firm currant jelly here and there. This is a fine dish for a dinner-party, A glass of sherry improves the first-named sauce.

SALMON STEAKS.

Dry well with a cloth, dredge with flour, and lay them upon a well-buttered gridiron, over clear hot coals. Turn with a broad-blade knife slipped beneath, and a flat wire egg-beater above, lest the steak should break. When done to light brown, lay in a hot dish, butter each steak, seasoning with salt and pepper, cover closely, and serve.

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PICKLED SALMON. (Fresh.)

Having cleaned your fish, cut into pieces of a convenient size to go into the fish-kettle, and boil in salted water as for the table. Drain it very dry, wipe it with a clean cloth, and set it aside until next morning.

Make pickle enough to cover it in the following proportions : 2 quarts vinegar, a dozen blades of mace, dozen white peppers, dozen cloves, two teaspoonfuls made mustard, three table spoonfuls white sugar, and a pint of the water in which the fish was boiled. Let them boil up once hard, that yon may skim the pickle. Should the spices come away with the scum in large quantities, pick them out and return to the kettle. Set the liquor away in on earthenware jar, closely covered to keep in the flavor. Next morning hang it over a brisk fire in a bell-metal kettle (covered), and heat to boiling. Meanwhile, prepare the salmon by cutting into pieces an inch and a half long and half an inch wide. Cut cleanly and regularly with a sharp knife. When they are all ready, and the liquor is on the boil, drop them carefully into the kettle. Let the pickle boil up once to make sure the salmon is heated through. Have ready some air-tight glass jars, such as you use for canning fruit and tomatoes. Take the salmon from the kettle, while it is still on the stove or range, with a wire egg-beater, taking care you do not break the pieces. Drop them rapidly into the jar, packing closely as you go on; fill with the boiling pickle until it overflows, screw on the top, and set away in a dark, cool place. Proceed in the same way with each can until all are full. Salmon thus put up will keep good for years, as I can testify from experience, and will well repay the trouble of preparation. You can vary the seasoning to your taste, adding a shallot or two minced very fine, some celery and small pods of cayenne pepper, which always look well in vinegar.

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Be sure that the contents of the kettle are boiling when transferred to the cans that they are not allowed time to cool in the transit, that the elastic on the can is properly adjusted, and the top screwed down tightly, and success is certain. I would call the attention of those who are fond of the potted spiced salmon, sold at a high price in gro cery-stores, to this receipt for making the same luxury at home. It costs less by one-half, is as good, and is always on hand.

PICKLED SALMON. (Salt.)

At certain seasons of the year fresh salmon cannot be procured, even by the dwellers in cities, while those who live in the country sometimes do not see it from one year's end to the other. But dried salmon can always be had in any tolerably well-kept grocery, and a very nice relish prepared from it.

Wash the salmon in two or three waters, rubbing it lightly with a coarse cloth to remove the salt-crystals. Then soak over night in tepid water. Exchange this in the morning for ice-cold and let the fish lie in the latter for three hours. Take it out, wipe dry, and cut in strips as directed in the foregoing receipt. Drop these, when all are ready, in a saucepan of boiling water, placed alongside of a kettle of pickle prepared as for fresh salmon. Beside these have your air-tight jars, covers laid in readiness, and when the salmon has boiled five minutes--fairly boiled, not simmered--fish out the pieces with your wire spoon, pack rapidly into your can; fill up with the boiling pickle from the other kettle, and seal instantly. In two days, the pickled salmon will be fit for use, and is scarcely distinguishable from that made of fresh fish. It has the advantage of being always procurable, and of comparative cheapness, and in the country is a valuable stand-by in case of unexpected supper company.

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SMOKED SALMON. (Broiled.)

Take a piece of raw smoked salmon the size of your hand, or larger in proportion to the number who are to sit down to supper. Wash it in two waters, rubbing off the salt. Lay in a skillet with enough warm-not hot-water to cover it; let it simmer fifteen minutes, and boil five. Remove it, wipe dry, and lay on a buttered gridiron to broil. When it is nicely browned on both sides, transfer to a hot dish ; butter liberally, and pepper to taste. Garnish with hillocks of grated horse-radish interspersed with sprays of fresh or pickled fennel-seed, or with parsley.

Raw smoked salmon is in common use upon the supper-table, cut into smooth strips as long as the middle finger, and rather wider; arranged neatly upon a garnished dish, and eaten with pepper-sauce or some other pungent condiment.

BOILED SHAD. (Fresh.)

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish. A roe shad is best for this purpose. Cleanse the roes thoroughly, and having sprinkled both shad and eggs with salt, wrap in separate cloths and put into the fish -kettle, side by side. Cover with salted water, and boil from half an hour to three-quarters, in proportion to the size. Experience is the best rule as to the time. When you have once cooked fish to a turn, note the weight and time and you will be at no loss thereafter. A good rule is to make a pencilled memorandum in the margin of the receipt-book opposite certain receipts.

Serve the shad upon a hot dish, with a boat of drawn butter mingled with chopped egg and parsley, or egg-sauce. Lay the roes about the body of the fish. Garnish with capers and slices of hard-boiled eggs.

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BOILED SHAD. (Salt.)

In those States where shad are plenty they are salted, and used freely, as are salt mackerel elsewhere. They form ft delightful breakfast-dish, and are welcome on the supper table on winter nights.

Soak the fish six or seven hours in warm water. changing it several times; wipe off ail the salt immerse in ice-cold water. When it has lain in this an hour, put into a fish-kettle with enough fresh water to cover it, and boil from fifteen to twenty minutes, in proportion to the size. Serve in a hot dish with a largo lump of butter spread over the fish.

BROILED SHAD. (Fresh.)

Wash, wipe, and split the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay it upon a buttered gridiron, inside downward. When the lower side is browned, turn the fish. One of medium size will be done in about twenty minutes. Serve upon a hot dish, and lay a good piece of butter upon the fish.

BROILED SHAD. (Salt.)

Soak over night in lukewarm water. Take out in the morning and transfer to ice-cold for half an hour. Wipe very dry, and broil as you do fresh shad.

FRIED SHAD.

This is a popular dish upon Southern tables, and is good anywhere. Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad; split and cut each side into four pieces, leaving out the head, and removing fins and tail. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying-pan of boiling hot lard or drippings; put in the fish mid fry brown, turning at the end of five minutes to cook the other side. Fry the


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roe in the same way; lay the fish in the middle of the dish, and the roe outside of it; garnish with water-cresses and sprigs of pickled cauliflower, and eat with catsup.

BAKED SHAD.

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish, which should be a larg one. Make a stuffing of grated bread-crumbs steeped in sweet milk, butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs, moistened with a beaten egg. Stuff the shad and sew it up. Lay it in the baking-pan, with a cupful of water to keep it from burning, and bake an hour, basting with butter and water, until it is tender throughout and well browned. Take it up, put in a hot dish and cover tightly, while you boil up the gravy with a great spoonful of catsup, a tablespoonful of browned flour which has been wet with cold water, the juice of a lemon, and, if you want to have it very fine, a glass of sherry or Madeira. Garnish, with sliced lemon and water-cresses. You may pour the gravy around the fish, or serve in a sauce-boat. Of course you take out the thread with which it has been, sewed up before serving the fish.

BOILED SEA-BASS.

Clean and put the fish into the fish-kettle, with salted water enough to cover it when you have enveloped it in the fish-cloth, A medium-sized fish will be done in a little over half an hour. But do not boil too fast. When done, drain and serve in a hot dish. Lay sliced boiled eggs upon and about it, and serve with egg-sauce, mingled with capers or nasturtium seed.

FRIED SEA-BASS.

Use smaller fish for this purpose than for boiling, Clean, wipe dry, inside and out, dredge with flour and season with salt. Fry in hot butter or dripping, A mixture,


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half butter, half lard, is good for frying fish. The bass should be done to a delicate brown-not to a crisp. The fashion affected by some cooks of drying fried fish to a crust is simply abominable.

Fried bass are a most acceptable breakfast dish.

STURGEON STEAK.

Skin the steaks carefully and lay in salted water (cold) for an hour, to remove the oily taste, so offensive to most palates. Then wipe each steak dry, salt, and broil over hot coals on a buttered gridiron. Serve in a hot dish when yon have buttered and peppered them, and send up gar-nished with parsley and accompanied by a small glass dish containing sliced lemon.

Or,

You can pour over them a sauce prepared in this way;-

Put a tablespoonful of butter into a frying-pan, and stir until it is brown--not burned. Add a half-teacupful of boiling water in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of browned flour previously wet with cold water. Add salt, a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce or anchovy, the juice of a lemon, and let it boil up well. Pour over the steaks when you have arranged them in the dish.

BAKED STURGEON.

A piece of sturgeon weighing five or six pounds is enough for a handsome dish. Skin it and let it stand in salt and water for half an hour. Parboil it to remove the oil. Make a dressing of bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat salt pork, sweet herbs, and butter. Cash the upper part of the fish quite deeply, and rub this force-meat well in ; put in a baking-pan with a little water to keep it from burning, and bake for an hour.

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Serve with a sauce of drawn butter, in which has been stirred a spoonful of caper sauce and another of catsup.

This is a Virginia receipt, and an admirable one.

MAYONNAISE. (Fish.)

Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock, or cod), cut-not chop-into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as follows : the yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with salad oil; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls white sugar, and? lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with six tablespoonfuls of vinegar and half the dress-ing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the top, and lay blanched lettuce-leaves around the edges, to be eaten with it.

BAKED SALMON-TROUT.

Those who have eaten this prince of game fish in the Adirondacks, within an hour after he has loft the lake, will agree with me that he never has such justice done him at any other time as when baked with cream.

Handle the beauty with gentle respect while cleaning, washing, and wiping him, and lay him at full length, still respectfully, in a baking-pan, with just enough water to keep him from scorching. If large, score the back-bono with a sharp knife, taking care not to mar the comeliness of his red-spotted sides. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. By the time he is done--and he should be so well-looked after that his royal robe hardly shows a seam or rent, and the red spots are still distinctly visible--have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream--diluted with a few spoonfuls of hot water, lest it should clot in heating--


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in which has been stirred cantiously two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a little chopped parsley. Heat this in a vessel set within another of boiling water, add the gravy from the dripping-pan, boil up once to thicken, and when the trout is laid--always respectfully--in a hot dish, pour the sauce around him as he lies in state. He will take kindly to the creamy bath, and your guests will take kindly to him. Garnish with a wreath of crimson nasturtium-blooms and dainty sprigs of parsley, arranged by your own hands on the edge of the dish, and let no sharply-spiced sauces come near him. They would but mar his native richness--the flavor he brought with him from the lake and wild-wood. Salt him lightly, should he need it, eat and be happy.

If the above savor of bathos rather than "common sense," my excuse is, I have lately eaten baked salmon-trout with cream-gravy.

BOILED SALMON-TROUT.

Clean, wash, and dry the trout; envelop in a thin cloth fitted neatly to the shape of the fish, lay within a fish-kettle, cover with salted water (cold), and boil gently half an hour or longer, according to the size. When done, unwrap and lay in a hot dish. Pour around it cream-sauce made as for baked salmon-trout--only, of course, with the omission of the fish-gravy--and serve.

FRIED TROUT.

Brook trout are generally cooked in this way, and form a rarely delightful breakfast or supper dish.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish, roll lightly in flour, and fry in butter or clarified dripping, or butter and lard. Let the fat be hot, fry quickly to a delicate brown, and take up the instant they are done. Lay for an instant upon a hot


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folded napkin, to absorb whatever grease may cling to, their speckled aides; then range side by side in a heated dish, garnish, and send to table. Use no seasoning except salt, and that only when the fish are fried in lard or unsalted dripping.

FRIED PICKEREL.

The pickerel ranks next to trout among game-fish, and should be fried in the same manner. Especially--and I urge this with groaning of spirit, in remembrance of the many times in which I have Lad my sense of fitness, not to say my appetite, outraged by seeing the gallant fish brought to table dried to a crisp throughout, all his juices wasted and sweetness utterly departed--especially, do not fry him slowly and too long; and when he is done, take him out of the grease!

CREAM PICKEREL.

Reserve your largest pickerel--those over three pounds in weight--for baking, and proceed with them as with baked Salmon-trout--cream-gravy and all. If you cannot afford cream, substitute rich milk, and thicken with rice or wheat flour. The fish are better cooked in this way than any other.

FRIED PERCH, AND OTHER PAN-FISH.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay them in a large flat dish, salt, and dredge with Hour. Have ready a frying-pan of hot dripping, lard, or butter; put in as many fish as the pan will hold without crowding, and fry to a light brown. Send up hot in a chafing-dish.

The many varieties of pan-fish--porgies, flounders, river-bass, weak-fish, white-fish, etc., may be cooked in like manner. In serving, lay the head of each fish to the tail of the one next him.

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STEWED CAT-FISH.

Skin, clean, and cut off the horribly homely heads Sprinkle with salt, to remove any muddy taste they may have contracted from the flats or holes in which they have fed, and let them lie in a cool place for an hour or so. Then put them into a saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently for from half to three-quarters of an hour, according to their size. Add a chopped shallot or button-onion, a bunch of chopped parsley, a little pepper, a large tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful flour mixed to a paste with cold water; boil up once, take out the fish carefully, and lay in a deep dish. Boil up the gravy once more, and pour over the fish. Send to table in a covered dish.

FRIED CAT-FISH.

Skin, clean, and remove the heads. Sprinkle with salt, and lay aside for an hour or more. Have ready two or three eggs beaten to a froth, and, in a flat dish, a quantity of powdered cracker. Dip the fish first in the egg, then in the cracker, and fry quickly in hot lard or dripping. Take up as soon as done.

Cat-fish cooked in this manner are sweet and savory--a trifle too rich for delicate persons, but very lace for those who are blessed with good digestions.

CAT-FISH CHOWDER.

Skin, clean, and cut off the heads. Cut the fish into pieces two inches long, and put into a pot with some fat pork out into shreds--a pound to a dozen medium-sized fish, two chopped onions, or half a dozen shallots, a bunch of sweet herbs, and pepper. The pork will salt it sufficiently. Stew slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Then stir in a cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of


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flour; take up a cupful of the hot liquor, and stir, a little at a time, into two well-beaten eggs. Return this to the pot; throw in half a dozen Boston or butter crackers, split in half; let all boil up once, and turn into a tureen, Pass sliced lemon, or cucumber pickles, also sliced, with it. Take out the backbones of the fish before serving.

STEWED EELS.

Inquire, before buying, where they were caught, and give so decided a preference to country eels as to refuse those fattened upon the offal of city wharves- Nor are the largest eels the best for eating. One weighing a pound is better for your purpose than a bulky fellow that weighs three.

Skin and clean, carefully extracting all the fat from the inside. Out into lengths of an inch and a half; put into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them; throw in a little salt and chopped parsley, and stew slowly, closely covered, for at least one hour. Add, at the last, a great spoonful of butter, and a little flour wet with cold water, also pepper. Serve in a deep dish. The appearance and odor of this stew are so pleasing as often to overcome the prejudices of those who "Wouldn't touch an eel for the world ! They look so like snakes!" And those who have tasted once rarely enter a second demurrer.

FRIED EELS.

Prepare as for stewing; roll in Hour, and fry, in hot lard or dripping, to a light brown.

CHOWDER (No. 1).

Take a pound of salt pork, cut into strips, and soak in hot water live minutes. Cover the bottom of a pot with a


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Layer of this. Cut four pounds of cod or sea-bass into pieces two inches square, and lay enough of these on the pork to cover it, Follow with a layer of chopped onions, a little parsley, summer savory, and pepper, either black or cayenne. Then a layer of split Boston, or butter, or whole cream crackers, which have been soaked in warm water until moist through, but not ready to break. Above this lay a stratum of pork, and repeat the order given above - onions, seasoning (not too much), crackers, and pork, until your materials are exhausted. Let the topmost layer be buttered crackers, well soaked. Four in enough cold water to cover all barely. Cover the pot, stew gently for an hour, watching that the water does not sink too low. Should it leave the upper layer exposed, replenish cautiously from the boiling tea-kettle. When the chowder is thoroughly done, take out with a perforated skimmer and put into a tureen* Thicken, the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour and about the same quantity of butter. Boil up and pour over the chowder. Send sliced lemon, pickles, and stewed tomatoes to the table with it, that the guests may add, if they like.

CHOWDER (No. 2).

Slice six large onions, and Try them in the gravy of fried salt pork. Cut five pounds of bass or cod into strips three inches long and one thick, and line the bottom of a pot with them. Scatter a few slices of onion upon them, a little salt, half a dozen whole black peppers, a clove or two, a pinch of thyme and one of parsley, a table-spoonful tomato or mushroom catsup, and six oysters; then comes a layer of oyster crackers, well-soaked in milk and buttered thickly. Another layer of fish, onions, seasoning, and crackers, and so on until all arc used up. Cover with water, boil slowly for an hour and pour out. Serve with capers and sliced lemon. A cup of oyster-liquor added to the chowder while boiling improves it

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> SHELL-FISH.

To BOIL A LOBSTER.

Choose a lively one -- not too large, lest he should be tough. Put a handful of salt into a pot of boiling water, and having tied the claws together, if your fish-merchant has not already skewered them, plunge him into the prepared bath. He will be restive under this vigorous hydropathic treatment; but allay your tortured sympathies by the reflection that he is a cold-blooded animal, destitute of imagination, and that pain, according to some philosophers, exists only in the imagination. However this may bo, his suffering will be short-lived. Boil from half an hour to an hour, as his size demands. When done, draw out the scarlet innocent, and lay him face downward, in a sieve to dry When cold split open the body and tail, and crack the claws to extract the meat, throwing away the "lady-fingers" and the head. Lobsters are seldom served without dressing, up on private tables, as few persons care to take the trouble of preparing their own salad after taking their seats at the board.

DEVILLED LOBSTER.

Extract the meat from a boiled lobster, as for salad, and mince it finely; reserve the coral. Season highly with mustard, cayenne, salt, and some pungent sauce. Toss and stir until it is well mixed, and put into a porcelain sauce-pan (covered), with just enough hot water to keep it from burning. Rub the coral smooth, moistening with vinegar until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir into the contents of the saucepan. It is necessary to prepare the dressing, let me say, before the lobster-meat is set on the fire. It ought to boil up but once before the coral and vinegai are put in. Next stir in a heaping tablespoouful of butter


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and when it boils again, take the pan from the fire. Too much cooking toughens the meat. This is a famous supper dish for sleighing-parties.

LOBSTER CROQUETTES.

To the meat of a well-boiled lobster, chopped fine, add pepper, salt, and powdered mace. Mix with this one-quarter as much bread-crumbs, well rubbed, as you have meat; make into ovates? or pointed balls, with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, Roll these in beaten egg, then in pulverized cracker, and fry in butter or very nice sweet lard. Serve dry and hot, and garnish with crisped parsley.

This is a delicious supper dish or entrée at dinner.

DEVILED CRABS.

This is prepared according to the foregoing receipt -- substituting for the coral in the vinegar some pulverized cracker, moistened first with a tablospoonful of rich cream. You can serve up in the back-shell of the crab if you like. Send in with cream crackers, and stick a sprig of parsley in the top of each heap, ranging the shells upon a large flat dish.

CRAB SALAD.

Mince the meat and dress as in lobster salad. Send in the back shell of the crab.

SOFT CRABS.

Many will not eat hard-shell crabs, considering them indigestible, and not sufficiently palatable to compensate for the risk they run in eating them. And it must be owned that they arc, at their best, but an indifferent substitute for the more aristocratic lobster. But in the morning


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ing of life, for him so often renewed, his crabship is a different creature, and greatly affected by epicures.

Do not keep the crabs over night, as the shells harden in twenty-four hours. Pull off the spongy substance from the sides and the sand-bags. These arc the only portions that are uneatable. Wash well, and wipe dry. Have ready a pan of seething hot lard or butter, and fry them to a fine brown. Put a little salt into the lard. The butter will need none. Send up hot, garnished with parsley.

WATER-TURTLES, OR TERRAPINS.

Land-terrapins, it is hardly necessary to say, are uneatable, but the large turtle that frequents our mill-ponds and rivers can be converted into a relishable article of food.

Plunge the turtle into a pot of boiling water, and let him lie there five minutes. You can then skin the under-part easily, and pull off the horny parts of the feet. Lay him for ten minutes in cold salt and water; then put into more hot water--salted, but not too much. Boil until tender. The time will depend upon the size and age. Take him out, drain, and wipe dry; loosen the shell carefully, not to break the flesh; cut open also with care, lest you touch the gall-bag with the knife, Remove this with the entrails and sand-bag. Cut up all the rest of the animal into small bits, season with pepper, salt, a chopped onion, sweet herbs, and a teaspoonful of some spiced sauce, or a tablespoonful of catsup--walnut or mushroom. Save the juice that runs from the meat, and put all together into a saucepan with a closely-fitting top. Stew gently fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, and add a great spoonful of butter, or a teaspoonful browned Hour wet in cold water, a glass of brown sherry, and lastly, the beaten yolk of an egg, mixed with a little of the hot liquor, that it may not


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curdle. Boil up once, and turn into a covered dish. Send around green pickles and delicate slices of dry toast with it.

STEWED OYSTERS.

Drain the liquor from two quarts of firm, plump oysters; mix with it a small teacupful of hot water, add a little salt and pepper, and set over the fire in a saucepan. When it conies to a boil, add a large cupful of rich milk. (Cream is better.) Let it boil up once, put in the oysters, let them boil for five minutes or less--not more. When they "ruffle," add two tablespoonfuls of butter, and the instant it is melted and well stirred in, take the saucepan from the fire, Serve with oyster or cream crackers, as soon as possible. Oysters become tough and tasteless when cooked too much, or left to stand too long after they are withdrawn from the fire. A good and safe plan is? to heat the milk in a separate vessel set in another of hot water, and after it is mingled with the liquor and oysters, stir assiduously or it may "catch," as the cooks say--i. e., scorch on the sides or bottom of the saucepan.

FRIED OYSTERS.

Use for frying the largest and best oysters you can find. Take them carefully from the liquor; lay them in rows upon a clean cloth, and press another lightly upon them to absorb the moisture. Have ready several beaten-eggs, and in another dish some crackers crushed fine. In the frying-pan heat enough nice butter to cover the oysters entirely. Dip each oyster first in the egg, then into the cracker, rolling it over that it may become completely incrusted. Drop them carefully into the frying-pan, and fry quickly to a light brown. If the butter is hot enough they will soon be ready to take out. Test it by putting in one oyster before you


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risk the rest. Do not let them lie in the pan an instant after they are done. Serve dry, and let the dish be warm. A chafing-dish is best.

OYSTER FRITTERS.

Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to a cupful of this add the same quantity of milk, three eggs, a little salt, and flour enough for a thin batter. Chop the oysters and stir into the batter. Have ready in the frying-pan a few spoonfuls of lard, or half lard, half butter; heat very hot, and drop the oyster-batter in by the tablespoonful. Try a spoonful first, to satisfy yourself that the lard is hot enough, and that the fritter is of the right size and consistency. Take rapidly from the pan as soon as they are done to a pleasing yellow brown, and send to table very hot.

Some fry the oyster whole, enveloped in batter, one in each fritter. In this case, the batter should be thicker than if the chopped oyster were to be added.

SCALLOPED OYSTERS.

Crush and roll several handfuls of Boston or other friable crackers. Put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Wet this with a mixture of the oystor liquor and milk, slightly warmed. Next, have a layer of oystery. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay small bits of butter upon them. Then another layer of moistened crumbs, and so on until the dish is full. Let the top layer he of crumbs, thicker than the rest, and beat an egg into the milk you pour over them. Stick bits of butter thickly over it, cover the dish, set it in the oven, bake half an hour; if the dish is large, remove the cover, and brown by setting it upon the upper grating of oven, or by holding a hot shovel over it.

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BROILED OYSTERS.

Choose large, fat oysters; wipe them very dry; sprinkle salt and cayenne pepper upon them, and broil upon one of the small gridirons sold for that purpose. You can dredge the oyster with flour if you wish, to have it brown, and some fancy the juices are better kept in in this way. Others dislike the crust thus formed. Butter the gridiron well, and let your fire be hot and clear. If the oyster drip, withdraw the gridiron for an instant until the smoke clears away, Broil quickly and dish hot, putting a tiny piece of butter, not larger than a pea, upon each oyster.

CREAM OYSTERS ON THE HALF-SHELL.

Pour into your inner saucepan a cup of hot water, an other of milk, and one of cream, with a little salt. Set into a kettle of hot water until it boils, when stir in two table-spoonfuls of butter and a little salt, with white pepper. Take from the fire and add two heaping table spoonfuls of arrow-root, rice-flour, or corn-starch, wet with cold milk. By this time your shells should be washed and buttered, and a fine oyster laid within each. Of course, it is selon les regles to use oyster-shells for this purpose; but you will find clamshells more roomy and more manageable, because more regular in shape. Range these closely in a large baking-pan, propping them with clean pebbles or fragments of shell, if they do not seem inclined to retain their contents. Stir the cream very hard and fill up each shell with a spoon, taking care not to spill any in the pan. Bake five or six minutes in a hot oven after the shells become warm. Serve on the shell. Some substitute oyster-liquor for the water in the mixture, and use all milk instead of cream.

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OYSTER OMELET.

12 oysters, if large; double the number of small ones.

6 eggs.

1 cup milk.

1 tablespoonful butter.

Chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

Chop the oysters very finely. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately as for nice cake--the white until it stands in a heap. Put three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, and heat while you are mixing the omelet. Stir the milk into a deep dish with the yolk, and season. Next put in the chopped oysters, beating vigorously as you add them gradually. When they are thoroughly incorporated, pour in the spoonful of melted butter; finally, whip in the whites lightly and with as few strokes as possible. If the outter is hot, and it ought to be, that the omelet may not stand uncooked, put the mixture into the pan. Do not stir it, but when it begins to stiffen--"to set," in culinary phrase, slip a broad-bladcd, round-pointed dinner-knife around the sides, and cautiously under the omelet, that the butter may reach every part. As soon as the centre is fairly "set," turn, out into a hot dish. Lay the latter bottom upward over the frying-pan, which must be turned upside-down dexterously. This brings the browned side of the omelet uppermost. This omelet is delicious and easily made.

OYSTER PIE.

Make a rich puff-paste; roll out twice as thick as for a fruit-pie for the top-crust--about the ordinary thickness for the lower. Line a pudding-dish with the thinner, and fill with crusts of dry bread or light crackers. Some use a folded towel to fill the interior of the pie, but the above expedient is preferable. Butter the edges of the dish, that


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may be able to lift the upper crust without breaking. Cover the mock-pie with the thick crust, ornamented heavily at the edge, that it may lie the more quietly, and bake. Cook the oysters as for a stew, only beating into them at the last two eggs, and thickening with a spoonful of fine cracker-crumbs or rice-flour. They should stew but five minutes and tame them so that the paste will be baked just in season to receive them. Lift the top crust, pour in the smoking hot oysters, and send up hot.

I know that many consider it unnecessary to prepare the oysters and crust separately; but my experience and observation go to prove that, if this precaution be omitted, the oysters are apt to be wofully overdone. The reader can try both methods and take her choice.

PICKLED OYSTERS.

100 large oysters.

1 pint white wine vinegar.

1 doz. blades of mace.

2 doz. whole cloves.

2 doz. whole black peppers.

1 large red pepper broken into bits.

Put oysters, liquor and all, into a porcelain or bell-metal kettle. Salt to taste. Heat slowly until the oysters are very hot, but not to boiling. Take them out with a perforated skimmer, and set aside to cool. To the liquor which remains in the kettle add the vinegar and spices. Boil up fairly, and when the oysters are almost cold, pour over them scalding hot. Cover the jar in which they are, and put away in a cool place. Next day put the pickled oysters into glass cans with tight tops. Keep in the dark, and wnero they are not liable to become heated.

I have kept oysters thus prepared for three weeks in the


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winter. If you open a can, use the contents up as soon as practicable. The air, like the light, will turn them dark.

It is little trouble for every housekeeper to put up the pickled oysters needed in her family; and besides the satisfaction she will feel in the consciousness that the materials used are harmless, and the oysters sound, she will save at least one-third of the price of those she would buy ready pickled. The colorless vinegar used by "professionals" for such purposes is usually sulphuric or pyroligneous acid. If you doubt this, pour a little of the liquor from the pickled oysters put up by your obliging oyster-dealer into a bell-metal kettle. I tried it once, and the result was a liquid that matched the clear green of Niagara in hue. I cannot compare it justly with anything else.

ROAST OYSTERS.

There is no pleasanter frolic for an Autumn evening, in the regions where oysters are plentiful, than an impromptu "roast" in the kitchen. There the oysters are hastily thrown into the fire by the peck. You may consider that your fastidious taste is marvellously respected if they are washed first. A bushel basket is set to receive the empty shells, and the click of the oyster-knives forms a constant accompaniment to the music of laughing voices. Nor are roast oysters amiss upon your own quiet supper-table, when the "good man" conies in on a wet night, tired and hungry, and wants "something heartening." Wash and wipe the shell-oysters, and lay them in the oven, if it is quick; upon the top of the stove, if it is not When they open, they are done. Pile in a large dish and send to table. Remove the upper shell by a dexterous wrench of the knife, season the oyster on the lower, with pepper-sauce and butter, or pepper, salt, and vinegar in lieu of the sauce, and you have


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the very aroma of this pearl of bivalves, pure and undefiled.

Or, you may open while raw, leaving the oysters upon the lower shells; lay in a large baking-pan, and roast in their own liquor, adding pepper, salt, and butter before serving.

RAW OYSTERS.

It has become quite fashionable to serve these as one of the preliminaries to a dinner-party ; sometimes in small plates, sometimes on the half-shell. They are seasoned by each guest according to his own taste.

STEAMED OYSTERS.

If you have no steamer, improvise one by the help of a cullender and a pot-lid fitting closely into it, at a little distance from the top. Wash some shell oysters and lay them in such a position in the bottom of the cullender that the liquor will not escape from them when the shell opens, that is, with the upper shell down. Cover with a cloth thrown over the top of the cullender, and press the lid hard down upon this to exclude the air. Set over a pot of boiling water so deep that the cullender, which should fit into the mouth, does not touch the water. Boil hard for twenty minutes, then make a hasty examination of the oysters. If they are open, you are safe in removing the cover. Serve on the half-shell, or upon a hot chafing-dish, Sprinkle a little salt over them and a few bits of butter; but be quick in whatever you do, for the glory of the steamed oyster is to be eaten hot.

OYSTER PÀTéS.

1 qt. oysters.

2 tablespoonfuls of butter.

Pepper, and a pinch of salt.

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Set the oysters, with enough liquor to cover them, in a saucepan upon the range or stove; let them come to a boil; skim well, and stir in the butter and seasoning. Two or three spoonfuls of cream will improve them. Have ready small tins lined with puff-paste. Put three or four oysters in each, according to the size of the pâté cover with paste and bake in a quick oven twenty minutes. For open pâtés, cut the paste into round cakes: those intended for the bottom crust less than half an inch thick; for the upper, a little thicker. With a smaller cutter, remove a round of paste from the middle of the latter, leaving a neat ring. Lay this carefully upon the bottom crust; place a second ling upon this, that the cavity may be deep enough to hold the oysters; lay the pieces you have extracted also in the pan with the rest, and bake to a fine brown in a quick oven. When done, wash over with beaten egg, around top and all, and set in the oven three minutes to glaze. Fill the cavity with a mixture prepared as below, fit on the top lightly, and serve.

Mixture.

To half the liquor from a quart of oysters add an equal quantity of milk, and let it come to a boil. Put in all the oysters, leaving out the uncooked liquor; heat to boiling, and stir in--

1 tablespoonful butter.

2 tablespoonfuls corn-starch, wet with a little milk.

A little salt.

Boil four minutes, stirring all the time until it thicken, and fill the cavity in the paste shells. These pâtés are very nice.

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SCALLOPS.

The heart is the only part used. If you buy them in the shell, boil and take out the hearts. Those sold in our markets are generally ready for frying or stewing.

Dip them in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard.

Or,

You may stew like oysters. The fried scallops are generally preferred.

SCALLOPED CLAMS.

Chop the clams fine, and season with pepper and salt. Cayenne pepper is thought to give a finer flavor than black or white; but to some palates it is insufferable. Mix in another dish some powdered cracker, moistened first with warm milk, then with the clam liquor, a beaten egg or two, and some melted butter. Stir in with this the chopped clams. Wash as many clam-shells aa the mixture will fill; wipe and butter them ; fill, heaping up and smoothing over with a silver knife or tea-spoon. Range in rows in your baking-pan, and cook until nicely browned. Or, if you do not care to be troubled with the shells, hake in patty-pans, sending to table hot in the tins, as you would the scallop-shells.

CLAM FRITTERS.

12 clams, minced fine.

1 pint of milk.

3 eggs.

Add the liquor from the clams to the milk ; boat up the eggs and put to this, with salt and pepper, and flour enough for thin batter; lastly, the chopped clams. Fry in hot lard, trying a little first to see that fa; and batter are right. A tablespoonful will make a fritter of moderate size. Or, you


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can dip the whole clams in batter and cook in like manner. Fry quickly, or they are apt to be too greasy.

CLAM CHOWDER.

Fry five or six slices of fat pork crisp, and chop to pieces. Sprinkle some of these in the bottom of a pot; lay upon them a stratum of clams; sprinkle with cayenne or black pepper and salt, and scatter bits of butter profusely over all; next, have a layer of chopped onions, then, one of small crackers, split and moistened with warm milk. On those pour a little of the fat left in the pan after the pork is fried, and then comes a new round of pork, clams, onion, etc. Proceed in this order until the pot is nearly full, when cover with water, and stew slowly-the pot closely covered-for three-quarters of an hour. Drain off all the liquor that will flow freely, and, when, you have turned the chowder into the tureen, return the gravy to the pot. Thicken, with flour, or, better still, pounded crackers; add a glass of wine, some catsup, and spiced sauce ; boil up, and pour over the contents of the tureen. Send around walnut or butternut pickles with it.

> POULTRY.

Poultry should never be eaten in less than six or eight hours after it is killed ; but it should be picked and drawn as soon as possible. There is no direr disgrace to our Northern markets than the practice of sending whole dead fowls to market. I have bought such from responsible poultry-dealers, and found them uneatable, from having remained undrawn until the flavor of the craw and intestines had impregnated the whole body. Those who are conver-uaoit with the habit of careful country housewives, of keeping


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up a fowl without food for a day and night before kill ing and dressing for their own eating, cannot but regard with disgust the surcharged crops and puffy sides of those sold by weight in the shambles. If you want to know what you really pay for poultry bought in these circumstances, weigh the offal extracted from the fowl by your cook, and deduct from the market weight, "But don't you know it actually poisons a fowl to lie so long undressed?" once exclaimed a Southern lady to me. "In our markets they are offered for sale ready picked and drawn, with the giblets- also cleaned-tucked under their wings."

I know nothing about the poisonous nature of the entrails and crops. I do assert that the custom is unclean and unjust. And this I do without the remotest hope of arousing my fellow-housekeepers to remonstrance against established usage. Only it relieves my mind somewhat to grumble at what I cannot help. The best remedy I can propose for the grievance is to buy live fowls, and, before sending them home, ask your butcher to decapitate them.; the probabilities being greatly in favor of the supposition that your cook is too "tinder-hearted" to attempt the job.

One word as to the manner of roasting meats and fowls. In this day of ranges and cooking-stoves, I think I am speaking within bounds when I assume that not one housekeeper in fifty uses a spit, or even a tin kitchen, for such purposes. It is in vain that the writers of receipt-books inform us with refreshing naïveté that all our meats are baked, not roasted, and expatiate upon the superior flavor of those prepared upon the English spits and in old-fashioned kitchens, where enormous wood-fires blazed from morning until night. I shall not soon forget my perplexity when, an inexperienced housekeeper and a firm believer in all "that was writ" by older and wiser people, I stood before my neat Mott's "Defiance," a fine sirloin of beef


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ready to be cooked on the table behind me, and read from my Instruction-book that my "fire should extend at least eight inches beyond the roaster on either side!" I am not denying the virtues of spits and tin kitchens-only regret-ting that they are not within the reach of every one. In view of this fact, let me remark, for the benefit of the unfortunate many, that, in the opinion of excellent judges, the practice of roasting meat in close ovens has advantages. Of these I need mention but two, to wit, the preservation of the flavor of the article roasted, and the prevention of its escape to the upper regions of the dwelling.

The directions hereafter given touching roasting will apply either to turnspit, "kitchens," or ovens.

ROAST TURKEY.

After drawing the turkey, rinse out with several waters, and in next to the last mix a teaspoonful of soda. The inside of a fowl, especially if purchased in the market, is sometimes very sour, and imparts an unpleasant taste to the stuffing, if not to the inner part of the legs and side-bones. The soda will act as a corrective, and is moreover very cleansing. Fill the body with this water, shake well, empty it out, and rinse with fair water. Then prepare a dressing of bread-crumbs, mixed with butter, pepper, salt, thyme or sweet marjoram, and wet with hot water or milk. You may, if you like, add the beaten yolks of two eggs, A little chopped sausage is esteemed an improvement when well incorporated with the other ingredients. Or, mince a dozen oysters and stir into the dressing; and, if you are partial to the taste, wet the bread-crumbs with the oyster-liquor. The effect upon the turkey-meat, particularly that of the breast, is very pleasant.

Stuff the craw with this, and tie a string tightly about the neck, to prevent the escape of the stuffing. Then fill


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the body of the turkey, and sew it up with strong thread, This and the neck-string are to be removed when the fowl is dished. In roasting, if your fire is brisk, allow about ten minutes to a pound; but it will depend very much upon the turkey's age whether this rule holds good. Dredge it with flour before roasting, and baste often; at first with butter and water, afterward with the gravy in the dripping-pan. If yon roast in an oven, and lay the turkey in the pan, pub in with it a teacup of hot water. Many roast always upon a grating placed on the top of the pan. In that case the boiling water steams the underpart of the fowl, and prevents the skin from drying too fasts or cracking. Roast to a fine brown, and if it threaten to darken too rapidly, lay a sheet of white paper over it until the lower part is also done.

Stew the chopped giblets in just enough water to cover them, and when the turkey is lifted from the pan, add these, with ihe water in which they were boiled, to the drippings; thicken with a spoonful of browned flour, web with cold water to prevent lumping, boil up once, and pour into the gravy-boat. If the turkey is very fat, skim the drippings well before putting in the giblets.

Serve with cranberry sauce, Some lay fried oysters in the dish around the turkey.

BOILED TURKEY.

Chop about two dozen oysters, and mix with them a dressing compounded as for roast turkey, only with more butter, and wet with the oyster-liquor and a like quantity of milk. Stuff the turkey as for roasting, craw and body, and baste about it a thin cloth, fitted closely to every part. The inside of the cloth should bo dredged with flour to prevent the fowl from sticking to it. Allow fifteen minutes to a pound and boil slowly.

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Serve with oyster-sauce, made by adding to a cupful of the liquor in which the turkey was boiled, the same quantity of milk and eight oysters chopped fine. Season with minced parsley, stir in a spoonful of rice or wheat flour, wet with cold milk, a tablespoonful of butter. Boil up once ana pour into an oyster-tureen. Send around celery with it.

TURKEY SCALLOP.

Cut the meat from the bones of a cold boiled or roasted turkey left from yesterday's dinner. Remove the bits of skin and gristle, and chop up the rest very fine. Put in the bottom of a buttered dish a layer of cracker or breadcrumbs ; moisten slightly with milk, that they may not absorb all the gravy to be poured in afterward ; then spread a layer of the minced turkey, with bits of the stuffing, pepper, salt, and small pieces of butter. Another layer of cracker, wet with milk, and so on until the dish is nearly full. Before putting on the topmost layer, pour in the gravy left from the turkey, diluted-should there not be enough-with hot water, and seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, catsup, and butter. Have ready a crust of cracker-crumbs soaked in warm milk, seasoned with salt, and beaten up light with two eggs. It should be just thick enough to spread, smoothly over the top of the scallop. Stick bits of butter plentifully upon it, and hake. Turn a deep plate over the dish until the contents begin to bub-ble at the sides, showing that the whole is thoroughly cooked; then remove the cover, and brown. A large pudding-dish full of the mixture will be cooked in three-quarters of an hour.

This, like many other economical dishes, will prove so savory as to claim a frequent appearance upon any table.

Cold chicken may be prepared in the same way;

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Or,

The minced turkey, dressing, and cracker-crumbs may be wet with gravy, two eggs beaten into it, and the forcemeat thus made rolled into oblong shapes, dipped in egg and pounded cracker, and fried like croquettes, for a side dish, to "make out" a dinner of ham or cold meat.

RAGOÛT OF TURKEY.

This is also a cheap, yet nice dish. Cut the cold turkey from the bones and into bits an inch long with knife and fork, tearing as little as possible. Put into a skillet or saucepan the gravy left from the roast, with hot water to dilute it should the quantity be small. Add a lump of butter the size of an egg, a teaspoonful of pungent sauce, a half-teaspoonful of cloves, a large pinch of nutmeg, with a little salt. Let it boil, and put in the meat. Stew very slowly for ten minutes-not more-and stir in a tablespoonful of cranberry or currant jelly, another of browned flour which, has been wet with cold water; lastly, a glass of brown sherry or Madeira. Boil up once, and serve in a covered dish for breakfast. Leave out the stuffing entirely; it is no improvement to the flavor, and disfigures the appearance of the ragoût.

ROAST CHICKENS.

Having picked and drawn them, wash out well in two or three waters, adding a little soda to the last but one (should any doubtful odor linger about the cavity. Prepare a stuffing of bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, salt, &c. Fill the bodies and crops of the chickens, which should be young and plump; sew them up, and roast an hour or more, in proportion to their size. Baste two or three times with butter and water, afterward with their own gravy. If


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laid flat within the dripping-pan, put in at the first a little hot water to prevent burning.

Stew the giblets and necks in enough water to cover them, and, when you. have removed the fowls to a hot dish, pour this into the drippings; boil up once; add the giblets, chopped fine ; thicken with browned flour; boil again, and send to table in a gravy-boat.

Serve with crab-apple jelly or tomato sauce.

BOILED CHICKENS.

Clean, wash, and stuff as for roasting. Baste a floured cloth around each, and put into a pot with enough boiling water to cover them well. The hot water cooks the skin at once, and prevents the escape of the juices. The broth will not be so rich as if the fowls are put on in cold water; but this is a proof that the meat will be more nutritious and better flavored. Stew very slowly, for the first half-hour especially. Boil an hour or mores guiding yourself by size and toughness.

Serve with egg or bread sauce. (See Sauces.)

FRICASSEED CHICKEN. (White.)

Clean, wash, and cut up the fowls, which need not be so tender as for roasting. Lay them in salt and water for half an hour. Put them in a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and half a pound of salt pork cut into thin strips. Cover closely, and let them heat very slowly; then stew for over an hour, if the fowls are tender. I have used chickens for this purpose that required four hours' stewing, hut they were tender and good when done. Only put them on in season, and cook very slowly. If they boil fast, they toughen and shrink into uneatableness. When tender, add a chopped onion or two, parsley, and pepper.


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Cover closely again, and, when it has heated to boiling, stir in a teacupful of milk, to which have been added two beaten eggs and two tablespoonfuls of flour. Boil up fairly; add a great spoonful of butter. Arrange the chicken neatly in a deep chafing-dish, pour the gravy over it, and serve.

In this, as in all cases where beaten egg is added to hot liquor, it is best to dip out a few spoonfuls of the latter, and drop a little at a time into the egg? beating at the while, that it may heat evenly and gradually before it is put into the scalding contents of the saucepan or pot. Eggs managed in this way will not curdle, as they are apt to do if thrown suddenly into hot liquid.

FRICASSEED CHICKEN. (Brown.)

Clean, wash, cut up, and skin a pair of young chickens. Lay in clear water for half an hour. If they are old, you cannot brown them well. Put them in a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them well, and set over the fire to beat slowly. Meanwhile, cut half a pound of salt pork into strips, and fry crisp. Take them out, chop fine, and put into the pot with the chicken, Fry in the fat left in the frying-pan one large onion, or two or three small ones, cut into slices, Let them brown well, and add them also to the chicken, with a teaspoonful of allspice and one of cloves. Stew all together slowly for an hour or more, until the meat is very tender; you can test this with a fork. Take out the pieces of fowl and put in a hot dish, covering closely until the gravy is ready. Add to this a great spoonful of walnut or other dark catsup, and nearly three tablespoonfuls of browned flour, a little chopped parsley, and a glass of brown sherry. Boil up once; strain through a cullender, to remove the bits of pork and onion; return to the pot, with the chicken; let it come to a final boil, and serve, pouring the gravy over the pieces of fowl.

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BROILED CHICKEN.

It is possible to render a tough fowl eatable by boiling or stewing it with care. Never broil such! And even when assured that your "broiler" is young, it is wise to make this doubly sure by laying it upon sticks extending from side to side of a dripping-pan full of boiling water, Set this in the oven, invert a tin pan over the chicken, and let it steam for half an hour. This process relaxes the muscles, and renders supple the joints, besides preserving the juices that would be lost in parboiling. The chicken should be split down the back, and wiped perfectly dry before it is steamed. Transfer from the vapor-bath to a buttered gridiron, inside downward. Cover with a tin pan or common plate, and broil until tender and brown, turning several times; from half to three-quarters of an hour will be sufficient. Put into a hot chafing-dish, and butter very well. Send to table smoking hot.

FRIED CHICKEN (No. 1).

Clean, wash, and cut to pieces a couple of Spring chickens. Have ready in a frying-pan enough boiling lard or dripping to cover them well. Dip each piece in beaten egg when you have salted it, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry until brown. If the chicken is large, steam it before frying, as directed in the foregoing receipt. When you have taken out the meat, throw into the hot fat a dozen sprigs of parsley, and let them remain a minute -- just long enough to crisp, but not to dry them. Garnish the chicken by strewing these over it.

FRIED CHICKEN (No. 2).

Cut up half a pound of fat salt pork in a frying-pan, and fry until the grease is extracted, hut not until it


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browns. Wash and cut up a young chicken (broiling size); soak in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry, season with pepper, and dredge with flour; then fry in the hot fat until each piece is a rich brown on both sides, Take up, drain, and set aside in a hot covered dish. Pour into the gravy left in the frying-pan a cup of milk-half cream is better; thicken with a spoonful of flour and a table-spoonful of butter; add some chopped parsley, boil up, and pour over the hot chicken. This is a standard dish in the Old Dominion, and tastes nowhere else as it does when eaten on Virginia soil. The cream-gravy is often omitted, and the chicken served up dry, with bunches of filed parsley dropped upon it.

CHICKEN POT-PIE.

Line the bottom and sides of a pot with a good rich paste, reserving enough for a top crust and for the square bits to be scattered through the pie. Butter the pot very lavishly, or your pastry will stick to it and burn. Gut up a fine large fowl, and half a pound of bam or salt pork. Put in a layer of the latter, pepper it, and cover with pieces of the chicken, and this with the paste dumplings or squares. If you use potatoes , parboil them before putting them into the pie, as the first water in which they are boiled is rank and. unwholesome. The potatoes should be sliced and laid next the pastry squares; then another layer of pork, and so on until your chicken is used up. Cover with pastry rolled out quite thick, and slit this in the middle. Heat very slowly, and boil two hours. Turn into a large dish, the lower crust on top, and the gravy about it.

This is the old-fashioned pot-pie, dear to the memory of men who were school-boys thirty and forty years ago. If you are not experienced in such manufactures, you had better omit the lower crust; and, having browned the


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upper, by putting a hot pot-lid or stove-cover on top of the pot for some minutes, remove, dexterously without breaking. Pour out the chicken into a dish, and set the crust above it.

Veal, beef-steak, lamb (not mutton), hares, &c., may be substituted for the chicken. The pork will salt it sufficiently.

BAKED CHICKEN PIE

Is made as above, but baked in a buttered pudding-dish, and, in place of the potatoes , three hard-boiled eggs are chopped up and strewed among the pieces of chicken. If the chickens are tough, or even doubtful, parboil them before making the pie, adding the water in which they were boiled, instead of cold water, for gravy. If they are lean, put in a few bits of butter. Ornament with leaves cut out with a cake-cutter, and a star in the centre. Bake an hour --more, if the pie is large.

CHICKEN PUDDING

Cut up as for fricassee, and parboil, seasoning well with pepper, salt, and a lump of butter the size of an egg, to each chicken. The fowls should be young and tender, and divided at every joint. Stew slowly for half an hour, take them out, and lay on a flat dish to cool. Set aside the water in which they were stewed for your gravy.

Make a batter of one quart of milk, three cups of flour, three tablespooufuls melted butter, half a teaspoonful soda, and one spoonful of cream tartar, with four eggs well beaten, and a little salt. Put a layer of chicken in the bottom of the dish, and pour about half a cupful of batter over it- enough to conceal the meat; then, another layer of chicken, and more batter, until the dish is full. The batter must form the crust. Bake one hour, in a moderate oven, if the dish is large.

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Beat up an egg, and stir into the gravy which was set; thicken with two tea-spoonfuls of rice or wheat flour, add a little chopped parsley; boil up, and send it to table in a gravy-boat.

CHICKEN AND HAM.

Draw, wash, and stuff a pair of young fowls. Cut enough large, thick slices of cold boiled bam to envelop these entirely, wrapping them up carefully, and winding a string about all, to prevent the ham from falling off. Put into your dripping-pan, with a little water to prevent scorching; dashing it over the meat lest it should dry and shrink. Invert a tin pan over all, and bake slowly for one hour and a quarter, if the fowls are small and tender--longer, if tough. Lift the cover from time to time to baste with the drippings--the more frequently as time wears on. Test the tenderness of the fowls, by sticking a fork through the ham into the breast. When done, undo the strings, lay the fowls in a hot dish, and the slices of ham about them. Stir into the dripping a little chopped parsley, a tablespoouful of browned Hour wet in cold water; pepper, and let boil up once. Pour some of it over the chickens--not enough to float the ham in the dish; serve the rest in a gravy-boat.

ROAST DUCKS.

Clean, wash, and wipe the ducks very carefully. To the usual dressing add a little sage (powdered or green), and a minced shallot. Stuff, and sew up as usual, reserving the giblets for the gravy. If they are tender, they will not require more than an hour to roast. Baste well. Skim the gravy before putting in the giblets and thickening. The giblets should be stewed in a very little water, then chopped fine, and added to the gravy in the dripping-pan, with a chopped shallot and a spoonful of browned flour.

Accompany with currant or grape jelly.

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TO USE UP COLD DUCK.

I may say, as preface, that cold duck is in itself an excellent supper-dish, or side-dish, at a family dinner, and is often preferred to hot. If the duck has been cut into at all, divide neatly into joints, and slice the breast, laying slices of dressing about it. Garnish with lettuce or parsley, and eat with jelly.

But if a warm dish is desired, cut the meat from the bones and lay it in a saucepan, with a little minced cold ham; pour on just enough water to cover it, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter. Cover, and heat gradually, until it is near boiling. Then add the gravy, diluted with a little hot water; a great spoonful of catsup, one of Worcestershire sauce, and one of currant or cranberry jelly, with a glass of wine and a tablespoonful of browned flour.

Or,

You may put the gravy, with a little hot water and a lump of butter, in a frying-pan, and when it is hot lay in the pieces of duck, aud warm up quickly, stirring in at the last a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and a tablespoonful of jelly.

Serve in a hot chafing-dish.

(For wild ducks, see GAME.)

STEWED DUCK.

This is a good way to treat an old and tough fowl.

Clean and divide, as you would a chicken for fricassee Put into a saucepan, with several (minced) slices of cold ham or salt pork which is not too fat, and stew slowly for at least an hour-keeping the lid on all the while. Then stir in a large chopped onion, a half-spoonful of powdered sage, or a whole spoonful of the green leaves cut fine, half


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as much parsley, a tablespoonfnl catsup, and black pepper. Stew another half-hour, or until the duck is tender, and add a teaspoonful brown sugar, and a tablespoonful of browned flour, previously wet with cold water. Boil up once, and serve in a deep covered dish, with green peas as an accompaniment.

GUINEA FOWLS.

Many are not aware what an excellent article of food these speckled Arabs of the poultry-yard are. They are kept chiefly for the beauty of their plumage, and their delicious eggs, which are far richer than those of chickens.

Unless young they are apt to be tough, and the dark color of the meat is objected to by those who are not fond of, or used to eating game. Cooked according to the foregoing receipt they are very savory, no matter how old they may be. Put them on early, and stew slowly, and good management will bring the desired end to pass. There is nothing in the shape of game or poultry that is not ame nable to this process, providing the salt be omitted until the meat is tender.

But a pair of young Guinea fowls, stuffed and roasted, basting them with butter until they are half done, deserve an honorable place upon our bill of fare. Season the gravy with a chopped shallot, parsley, or summer savory, not omitting the minced giblets, and thicken with browned flour. Send around currant, or other tart jelly, with the fowl. A little ham, minced fine, improves the dressing.

ROAST GOOSE.

Clean and wash the goose--not forgetting to put a spoon-full of soda in next to the last water, rinse out well, and wipe the inside quite dry. Add to the usual stuffing of bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, etc., a tablespoonful melted butter,


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a large-sized onion chopped fine, a tablespoonful chopped sage, the yolks of two eggs, and some minute bits of fat pork. Stuff body and craw, and sew up. It will take fully two hours to roast, if the fire is strong. Cover the breast until it is half done with white paper, or a paste of flour and water, removing this when you are ready to brown.

Make a gravy as for roast duck, adding a glass of sherry or Madeira, or (if you can get it) old Port.

Send to table with cranberry or apple sauce.

GOOSE PIE.

An old goose is as nearly good for nothing as it is possible for anything which was once valuable, and is not now absolutely spoiled, to be. The best use to put it to is to make it into a pie, in the following manner. Put on the ancient early in the morning, in cold water enough to cover it? unsalted, having cut it to pieces at every joint. Warm it up gradually, and let it stew-not boil hard-for four or five hours. Should the water need replenishing, let it be done from the boiling kettle. Parboil a beef's tongue (smoked), cut into slices nearly half an inch thick; also slice six hard-boiled eggs. Line a deep pudding-dish with a good paste; lay in the pieces of goose, the giblets chopped, the sliced tongue and egg, in consecutive layers; season with pepper, salt, and bits of butter, and proceed in this order until the disk is full. If the goose is large, cut the meat from the bones after stewing, and leave out the latter entirely. Intersperse with strips of paste, and fill up with the gravy in which the goose was stewed, thickened with flour. Cover with a thick paste, and when it is done, brush over the top with beaten white of egg.

In cold weather this pie will keep a week, and is very good.

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ROAST PIGEONS.

Clean, wash, and stuff as you would chickens. Lay them in rows, if roasted in the oven, with a little water in the pan to prevent scorching. Unless they are very fat, baste with butter until they are half done, afterwards with their own gravy. Thicken the gravy that drips from them, and boil up once; then pour into a gravy-boat. The pigeons should lie close together on the dish.

STEWED PIGEONS.

Pick, draw, clean and stuff as above directed. Put the pigeons in a deep pot with enough cold water to cover them, and stew gently for an hour, or until, testing them with a fork, you find them tender. Then season with pepper, salt, a few blades of mace, a little sweet marjoram, and a good piece of butter. Stew, or rather simmer, for five minutes longer-then stir in a tablespoonful of browned flour. Let it boil up once; remove the pigeons, draw out the strings with which they were sewed up, and serve, pouring the hot gravy over them. A little salt pork or ham, cut into strips, is an improvement. This should be put in when the pigeons have stewed half an hour.

BROILED PIGEONS OR SQUABS.

Young pigeons or "squabs" are rightly esteemed a great delicacy. They are cleaned, washed, and dried carefully with a clean cloth; then split down the back, and broiled like chickens. Season with pepper and salt, and butter liberally in dishing them. They are in great request in a convalescent's room, being peculiarly savory and nourishing.

They may, for a change, be roasted whole, according to the receipt for roast pigeons.

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PIGEON PIE

Is best made of wild pigeons. (SEE GAME.)

> MEATS.

ROAST BEEF.

The best pieces for roasting are the sirloin and rib pieces. The latter are oftenest used by small families. Make your butcher remove most of the bone, and skewer the meat into the shape of a round. If you roast in an oven, it is a good plan to dash a small cup of boiling water over the meat in first putting it down, letting it trickle into the pan. This, for a season, checks the escape of the juices, and allows the meat to get warmed through before the top dries by said escape. If there is much fat upon the upper surface, cover with a paste of flour and water until it is nearly done. Baste frequently, at first with salt and water, afterward with the drippings. Allow about a quarter of an hour to a pound, if you like your meat rare; more, if you prefer to have it well done. Some, when the meat is almost done, dredge with flour and baste with butter-only once.

Remove the beef, when quite ready, to a heated dish; Skim the drippings; add a teacupful of boiling water, boil up once, and send to table in a gravy-boat. Many reject made gravy altogether, and only serve the red liquor that runs from the meat into the dish as it is cut. This is the practice with some-indeed most of our best housekeepers. If you have made gravy in a sauce-boat, give your guest his choice between that and the juice in the dish.

Serve with mustard, or scraped horse-radish and vinegar

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ROAST BEEF, WITH YORKSHIRE PUDDING.

Set a piece of beef to roast upon a grating, or several sticks laid across a dripping-pan. Three-quarters of an hour before it is done, mix the pudding and pour into the pan. Continue to roast the beef, the dripping meanwhile falling upon the latter below. When both are done, cut the pudding into squares, and lay around the moat when dished. If there is much fat in the dripping-pan before the pudding is ready to be put in, drain it off, leaving just enough to prevent the batter from sticking to the bottom.

Receipt for Pudding.

1 pint of milk.

4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.

2 cups of flour.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Be careful, in mixing, not to get the batter too stiff.

This pudding, which the cook who introduced it into my family persisted in calling "Auction pudding," is very palatable and popular, and not so rich as would be thought from the manner of baking. It should be a yellow-brown when done.

BEEF-STEAK.

It is not customary to fry beef-steaks for people who know what really good cookery is. To speak move plainly, a steak, killed by heat and swimming in grease, is a culinary solecism, both vulgar and indigestible.

Cut the steak thick, at least three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and if you cannot get tender meat for this purpose, it is best to substitute some other dish for it. But since tender meat is not always to be had, if the piece you have purchased is doubtful, lay it on a clean cloth, take a blunt heavy carving-knife, if you have not a steak mallet,


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and hack closely from one end to the other; then turn and repeat the process upon the other side. The knife should be so dull you cannot cut with it, and the strokes not the sixtieth part of an inch apart. Wipe, but not wash, and lay on a buttered gridiron over a clear fire, turning very often as it begins to drip. Do not season until it is done, which will be in about twelve minutes, if the fire is good and the cook attentive. Rub your hot chafing-dish with a split raw onion, lay in the steak, salt and pepper on both sides, and put a liberal lump of butter upon the upper. Then put on a hot cover, and let it stand five minutes to draw the juices to the surface before it is eaten. If you have neither chafing-dish nor cover, lay the steak between two hot platters for the same time, sending to table without uncovering. A gridiron fitting under the grate is better than any other. If a gridiron is not at hand, rub a little butter upon the bottom of a hot, clean frying-pan, put in the meat, set over a bright fire, and turn frequently. This will not be equal to steak cooked upon a gridiron, but it is infinitely preferable to the same fried.

I shall never forget the wondering distrust with which my first cook, a sable "professional," watched me when I undertook to show her how to prepare a steak for the third breakfast over which I presided as mistress of ceremonies. And when, at the end of twelve minutes, I removed the meat, "rare and hot," to the heated dish in readiness, her sniff of lofty contempt was eloquent as indescribable.

"Call dat cooked! Folks 'bout here would 'a had dat steak on by day-break!"

A remark that has been recalled to my mind hundreds of times since at the tables of so-called capital housewives.

The best-nay, the only pieces for steak are those known as porter-house and sirloin. The former is the more highly esteemed by gourmands; but a really tender sirloin is more


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serviceable where there are several persons in the family, the porter-house having a narrow strip of extremely nice meat lying next the bone, while the rest is often inferior to any part of the sirloin.

BEEF-STEAK AND ONIONS.

Prepare the steak as above directed. While it is broiling, put three or four chopped onions in a frying-pan with a little beef-dripping or butter. Stir and shake them briskly until they are done, and begin to brown. Dish your steak and lay the onions thickly on top. Cover and let all stand five or six minutes, that the hot onions may impart the required flavor to the hot meat. In helping your guests, in-quire if they will take onions with the slices of steak put upon their plates. I need hardly remind the sensible cook how necessary it is to withdraw the gridiron from the fire for an instant, should the fat drip upon the coals below, and smoke or blaze. Yet those who have eaten steaks flavored with creosote may thank me for the suggestion.

BEEF À-LA-MODE.

Take a round of beef; remove the bone from the middle, and trim away the tougher bits about the edges, with such gristle, &c., as you can reach. Set these aside for soup-stock.

Bind the beef into a symmetrical shape by passing a strip of stout muslin, as wide as the round is high, about it, and stitching the ends together at one side. Have ready at least a pound of fat salt pork, cut into strips as thick as your middle finger, and long enough to reach from top to bottom of the trussed round. Put a half pint of vinegar over the fire in a tin or porcelain saucepan; season with three or four minced shallots or button onions, two teaspoonfuls made mustard, a teaspoonful nutmeg, one of


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cloves, half as much allspice, half - spoonful black pepper; with a bunch of sweet herbs minced fine, and a tablespoonful brown sugar. Let all simmer for five minutes, then boil up once and pour, while scalding hot, upon the strips of pork, which should be laid in a deep dish. Let all stand together until cold. Remove the pork to a plate, and mix with the liquor left in the dish enough bread-crumbs to make a tolerably stiff force-meat. If the vinegar is very strong, dilute with a little water before moistening the crumbs. With a long, thin-bladed knife, make perpendicular incisions in the meat, not more than half an inch apart, even nearer is better; thrust into these the strips of fat pork, so far down that the upper ends are just level with the surface, and work into the cavities with them a little of the force-meat. Proceed thus until the meat is fairly riddled and plugged with the pork. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with the dressing and bits of pork; rub the upper side of the beef well with the spiced force-meat. Put into a baking-pan, with a little water to prevent burning; turn a large pan over it to keep in the steam, and roast slowly for five or six hours, allowing half an hour to each pound of meat. If the beef be tough, yon had better stew the round by putting it in a pot with half enough water to cover it. Cover tightly and stew very slowly for six hours; then set in the oven with the gravy about it, and brown half an hour, basting frequently.

If you roast the round, do not remove the cover, except to baste (and this should be done often), until fifteen minutes before you draw it from the oven. Set away with the muslin band still about it, and pour the gravy over the meat.

When cold, lift from the gravy, - which, by the way, will be excellent seasoning for yoar soup-stock, - cut the stitches in the muslin girdle, and remove carefully and send the meat to table, cold, garnished with parsley and


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nasturtium blossoms. Carve horizontally, in slices thin as a shaving. Do not offer the outside to any one; but the second cut will be handsomely marbled with the white pork, which appearance should continue all the way down.

I cannot too highly commend this as a side-dish at din ner, and a supper and breakfast stand-by. In winter it will keep a week and more, and as long in summer, if kept in the refrigerator-except when it is on the table.

BREAKFAST STEW OF BEEF.

Cut up two pounds of beef-not too lean-into pieces an inch long; put them into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, and stew gently for two hours. Set away until next morning, when season with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram or summer savory, chopped onion, and parsley. Stew half an hour longer, and add a teaspoon-ful of sauce or catsup, and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold water; finally, if you wish to have it very good, half a glass of wine. Boil up once, and pour into a covered deep dish.

This is an economical dish, for it can be made of the commoner parts of the beef, and exceedingly nice for winter breakfasts. Eaten with corn-bread and stewed potatoes , it will soon win its way to a place in the "stock company" of every judicious housewife

ANOTHER BREAKFAST DISH.

Cut thin slices of cold roast beef, and lay them in a tin saucepan set in a pot of boiling water. Cover them with a gravy made of three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful of vinegar, a little salt and pepper, a spoonful of currant jelly, a teaspoonful made mustard, and some warm water. Cover tightly, and steam


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for half an hour, keeping the water in tho outer vessel on a hard boil.

If the meat is under-done, this is particularly nice.

BEEF HASH.

To two parts cold roast or boiled corned beef, chopped fine, put one of mashed potatoes , a little pepper, salt, milk, and melted butter. Turn all into a frying-pan, and stir until it is heated through and smoking hot, but not until it browns. Put into a deep dish, and if stiff enough, shape as you would mashed potato, into a hillock.

Or, you can cease stirring for a few minutes, and let a brown crust form on the under side; then turn out whole into a flat dish, the brown side uppermost.

Or, mould the mixture into flat cakes; dip these in beaten eggs and fry in hot drippings.

The remains of beef à-la-mode are very good prepared in any of these ways. A little catsup and mustard are an improvement to plain cold beef, thus hashed.

BEEF-STEAK PIE.

Cut the steak into pieces an inch long, and stew with the bone (cracked) in just enough water to cover the meat until it is half done. At the same time parboil a dozen potatoes in another pot. If you wish a bottom crust--a doubtful question--line a pudding-dish with a good paste, made according to the receipt given below. Put in a layer of the beef, with salt and pepper, and a very little chopped onion; then one of sliced potatoes , with a little butter scattered upon them, and so on, until the dish is full Pour over all the gravy in which the meat is stewed, having first thrown away the bone and thickened with browned flour. Cover with a crust thicker than the lower, leaving a slit in the middle.

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CRUST FOR MEAT-PIES.

1 quart of flour.

3 tablespoonfuls of lard.

2 1/2 cups milk.

1 teaspoonful of soda wet with hot water, and stirred into the milk.

2 teaspoonfuls of cream-tartar sifted into the dry flour.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

Work up very lightly and quickly, and do not get too stiff.

BEEF-PIE, WITH POTATO CRUST.

Mince some rare roast beef or cold corned beef, if it is not too salt; season with pepper and salt, and spread a layer in the bottom of a pudding-dish. Over this put one of mashed potato, and stick bits of butter thickly all over it; then another of meat, and so on until you are ready for the crust.

To a large cupful of mashed .potato add two tablespoon fuls of melted butter, a well-beaten egg, two cups of milk, and beat all together until very light. Then work in enough flour to enable you to roll out in a sheet-not too stiff-and, when you have added to the meat and potato in the dish a gravy made of warm water, butter, milk, and catsup, with what cold gravy or dripping remains from the "roast," cover the pie with a thick, tender crust, cutting a slit in the middle.

You can use the potato crust, which is very wholesome and good, for any kind of meat-pie. It looks well brushed over with beaten white of egg before it goes to table.

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BEEF'S HEART.

Wash the heart well, and cut into squares half an inch long. Stew them for ten minutes in enough water to cover them. Salt the water slightly to draw out the blood, and throw it away as it rises in scum to the top. Take out the meat, strain the liquor, and return the chopped heart to it, with a sliced onion, a great spoonful of catsup, some parsley, a head of celery chopped fine, and cayenne pepper, with a large lump of butter. Stew until the meat is very tender, when add a tablespoonful of browned flour to thicken. Boil up once, and serve.

TO CORN BEEF.

Rub each piece of beef well with salt mixed with one-tenth part of saltpetre, until the salt lies dry upon the surface. Put aside in a cold place for twenty-four hours, and repeat the process, rubbing in the mixture very thoroughly, Put away again until the next day, by which time the pickle should be ready.

5 gallons of water.

1 gallon of salt.

4 ounces saltpetre.

1 1/2 lb. brown sugar.

Boil this brine ten minutes; let it get perfectly cold; then pour over the beef, having wiped the latter entirely dry.

Examine the pickle from time to time to see if it keeps well; if not, take out the meat without delay, wipe it, and rub in dry salt, covering it well until you can prepare new and stronger brine.

BOILED CORNED BEEF.

If your piece is a round, skewer it well into shape, and tie it up with stout tape or twine when you have washed it


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in three or four waters and removed all the salt from the outside. Pat into a pot, and cover with cold water. Allow, in boiling, about twenty minutes to a pound. Turn the meat three times while cooking.

When done, drain very dry, and serve with drawn butter in a sauce-boat. Send around mashed turnips with the meat. They should be boiled in a separate pot, however, or they will impart a disagreeable taste to the beef.

The brisket is a good piece for a family dinner.

BEEF TONGUE.

Soak over night in cold water when you have washed it well. Next morning put into a pot with plenty of cold water, and boil slowly until it is tender throughout. This you can determine by testing it with a fork.

When it is cold, pare off the thick skin, cut in round slices, and dish for tea, garnishing with fresh parsley.

Tongue sandwiches are generally held in higher esteem than those made of ham.

DRIED BEEF.

The most common way of serving dried or smoked beef is to shave it into thin slices or chips, raw; but a more savory relish may be made of it with little trouble.

Put the slices of uncooked beef into a frying-pan with just enough boiling water to cover them; set them over the fire for ten minutes, drain off all the water, and with a knife and fork cut the meat into small bits. Return to the pan, which should be hot, with a tablespoonful of butter and a little pepper. Have ready some well-beaten eggs, allowing four to a half-pound of beef; stir them into the pan with the minced meat, and toss and stir the mixture for about two minutes. Send to table in a covered dish.

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> MUTTON AND LAMB.

ROAST MUTTON.

The parts which are usually roasted are :-

The shoulder,

The saddle, or chine, and

The loin and haunch (a leg and part of the loin).

The leg is best boiled, unless the mutton is young and very tender. Wash the meat well, and dry with a clean cloth. Let your fire he clear and strong ; put the meat on with a little water in the dripping-pan. If you think well of the plan (and I do), let this be a cupful of boiling water dashed over the meat when it is first put down to roast, and left to trickle into the pan. I have elsewhere explained the advantages of the method. Allow, in roasting, about twelve minutes per pound, if the fire is good. Baste often - at first with salt and water, afterward with the gravy, If it is in danger of browning too fast, cover with a large sheet of white paper. Roast lamb in the same manner, but not so long. Skim the gravy well, and thicken very slightly with browned flour. Serve with currant jelly.

ROAST MUTTON à la Venison.

A Christmas saddle of mutton is very fine, prepared as follows: Wash it well, inside and out, with vinegar. Do not wipe it, but hang it up to dry in a cool cellar. When the vinegar has dried off, throw a clean cloth over it, to keep out the dust. On the next day but one, take down the meat and sponge it over again with vinegar, then put it back in its place in the cellar. Repeat this process three times a week for a fortnight, keeping the meat hung in a cold place, and covered, except while you are washing it. When you are ready to cook it, wipe it off with a dry cloth, but do not wash it. Roast - basting for the first


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hour with butter and water; afterward with the gravy, and keeping the meat covered with a large tin pan for two hours. A large saddle of mutton will require four hours to roast. When it is done, remove to a dish, and cover to keep it hot. Skim the gravy, and add half a teacupful of walnut, mushroom, or tomato catsup, a glass of Madeira wine, and a tablespoonful of browned flour. Boil up once, and send to table in a sauce-boat. Always send around currant or some other tart jelly with roast mutton. If properly cooked, a saddle of mutton, prepared in accordance with these directions, will strongly resemble venison in taste. An old Virginia gentleman whom I used to know, always hung up the finest saddle his plantation could furnish six weeks before Christmas, and had it sponged off with vinegar every other day, until the morning of the important 25th; and the excellence of his mutton was the talk of the neighborhood. It can certainly be kept a fortnight anywhere at that season.

BOILED MUTTON.

Wash a leg of mutton clean, and wipe dry. Do not leave the knuckle and shank so long as to be unshapely. Put into a pot with hot water (salted) enough to cover it, and boil until you ascertain, by probing with a fork, that it is tender in the thickest part. Skim off all the scum as it rises. Allow about twelve minutes to each pound. Take from the fire, drain perfectly dry, and serve with melted butter, with capers, or nasturtium seed; or, if you have neither of these, some cucumber or gherkin-pickle stirred into it. If you wish to use the broth for soup, put in very little salt while boiling; if not, salt well, and boil the meat in a cloth.

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MUTTON STEW.

Cut up from three to four pounds of mutton,--the inferior portions will do as well as any other,--crack the bones, and remove all the fat. Put on the meat--the pieces not more than an inch and a half in length-in a pot with enough cold water to cover well, and set it where it will heat gradually. Add nothing else until it has stewed an hour, closely covered; then throw in half a pound of salt pork cut into ships, a chopped onion, and some pepper; cover and stew an hour longer, or until the meat is very tender. Make out a little paste, as for the crust of a meat-pie; cut into squares, and drop in the stew. Boil ten minutes, and season further by the addition of a little parsley and thyme. Thicken with two spoonfuls of flour stirred into a cup of cold milk. Boil up once, and serve in a tureen or deep covered dish.

If green corn is in season, this stew is greatly improved by adding, an hour before it is taken from the fire, the grains of half a dozen ears, cut from the cob.

Try it for a cheap family dinner, and you will repeat the experiment often. Lamb is even better for your purpose than mutton.

MUTTON CHOPS.

If your butcher has not done it,--and the chances are that he has not, unless you stood by to see it attended to,--trim off the superfluous fat and skin, so as to give the chops a certain litheness and elegance of shape. Dip each in beaten egg, roll in pounded cracker, and fry in hot lard or dripping. If the fat is unsalted, sprinkle the chops with salt before rolling in the egg. Serve up dry and hot.

Or,

You may omit the egg and cracker, and broil on a gridiron over a bright fire. Put a little salt and pepper upon each


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shop, and butter them before they go to table. Cook lamb chops in the same way.

MUTTON CUTLETS. (Baked.)

Cut them from the neck, and trim neatly. Lay aside the bits of bone and meat you cut off, to make gravy. Pour a little melted butter over the cutlets, and let them lie in it for fifteen minutes, keeping them just warm enough to prevent the butter from hardening; then dip each in beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and lay them in your dripping-pan with a very little water at the bottom. Bake quickly, and baste often with butter and water. Put on the bones, &c., in enough cold water to cover them; stew, and season with sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, with a spoon-ful of tomato catsup. Strain when all the substance is extracted from the meat and bones; thicken with browned flour, and pour over the cutlets when they are served.

MUTTON HAM.

For a leg of mutton weighing 12 lbs., take-

1 ounce of black pepper, or 1/2 ounce of cayenne,

1/4 lb. brown sugar,

1 ounce saltpetre,

1 1/4 lb. salt.

The day after the sheep is killed, mix the sugar, find saltpetre, and rub well into the meat for nearly fifteen minutes, until the outer part of it is thoroughly impreg nated with the seasoning. Put the ham into a large earthenware vessel, and cover it with the salt. Let it remain thus for three weeks, turning it every day and basting it with the brine; adding to this, after the first week, a teacupful of vinegar. When the ham is removed from the pickle, wash with cold water, then with vinegar, and hang


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it up in a cool cellar for a week, at least, before it is used.

Soak an hour in fair water before boiling.

Or if you choose to smoke it for several days after it is corned, it can be chipped and eaten raw, like jerked venison or dried beef.

Most of the receipts above given will apply as well to lamb as to mutton. There are several exceptions, however, which you will do well to note. Lamb should never be boiled except in stews. It is tasteless and sodden cooked in this manner, on account of its immaturity. But, on the other hand, a lamb-pie, prepared like one of beef or venison, is excellent, while mutton-pies have usually a strong, tallowy taste, that spoils them for delicate palates.

Roast lamb should be eaten with mint sauce (if you fancy it), currant jelly, and asparagus or green peas. Lettuce-salad is likewise a desirable accompaniment.

MUTTON OR LAMB RECHAUFFé.

Cut some slices of cold underdone mntton or lamb; put them in a frying-pan with enough gravy or broth to cover them. Or, if you have neither of them, make a gravy of butter, warm water, and catsup. Heat to boiling, and stir in pepper and a great spoonful of currant jelly. Send to table in a chafing-dish, with the gravy poured about the meat.

Or,

You can put a lump of the butter in the bottom of the pan, and when it boils, lay in the slices of meat, turning them before they have time to crisp. As soon as they are thoroughly heated take them out, lay upon a hot dish, sprinkle with pepper aud salt, and serve with a small spoonful of jelly laid upon each.

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> VEAL.

Despite the prejudice, secret or expressed, which prevails in many minds against veal,-one which the wise and witty "Country Parson" has as surely fostered among reading people, as did Charles Lamb the partiality for roast pig,-the excellent and attractive dishes that own tins as their base are almost beyond number. For soups it ia invaluable, and in entrées and rechauffés it plays a distinguished part. From his head to his feet, the animal that furnishes us with this important element of success in what should be the prime object of cookery, to wit, to please while we nourish, has proved himself so himself as an ally that it behooves us to lift the stigma from the name of "calf," provided he be not too infantine. In that case lie degenerates into an insipid mass of pulpy muscle and gelatine, and deserves the bitterest sneers that have been flung at his kind.

ROAST VEAL.

LOIN.

Veal requires a longer time to roast than mutton or lamb. It is fair to allow at least a quarter of an hour to each pound. Heat gradually, baste frequently-at first with salt and water, afterward with gravy. When the meat is nearly done, dredge lightly with flour, and baste once with melted butter. Skim the gravy; thicken with a teaspoonful of flour, boil up, and put into the gravy-boat.

Should the meat brown too fast, cover with white paper. The juices, which make up the characteristic flavor of meat, are oftener dried out of veal than any other flesh that comes to our tables.

BREAST.

Make incisions between the ribs and the meat, and fill with a force-meat made of fine bread-crumbs, bits of pork


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or ham chopped "exceeding small," salt, pepper, thyme, sweet marjoram, and beaten egg. Save a little to thicken the gravy. Roast slowly, basting often, and the verdict of the eaters will differ from theirs who pronounce this the coarsest part of the veal. Dredge, at the last, with flour, and baste well once with butter, as with the loin.

FILLET.

Make ready a dressing of bread-crumbs, chopped thyme and parsley; a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, rubbed together with some melted butter or beef suet; moisten with milk or hot water, and bind with a beaten egg.

Take out the bone from the meat, and pin securely into a round with skewers; then pass a stout twine several times about the fillet, or a band of muslin. Fill the cavity from which the bone was taken with this stuffing, and thrust between the folds of the meat, besides making incisions with a thin, sharp knife to receive it. Once in a while slip in a strip of fat pork or ham. Baste at first with salt and water, afterward with gravy. At the last, dredge with flour and baste with butter.

SHOULDER.

Stuff as above, making horizontal incisions near the bone to receive the dressing, and roast in like manner.

VEAL CUTLETS.

Dip in beaten egg when you have sprinkled a little pepper and salt over them; then roll in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping or lard. If you use butter or dripping, add a little boiling water to the gravy when the meat is dished; thicken with browned flour, boil up once, sending to table in a boat.

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Or,

You can rub the cutlets well with melted butter, pepper and broil on a gridiron like beef-steak, buttering very well after dishing.

VEAL CHOPS

Are more juicy and less apt to be tough and solid than cutlets. Trim the bone as with mutton chops, and fry, dipping in beaten egg and cracker-crumbs. Add a little parsley and a minced shallot to the gravy.

VEAL STEAK.

This should be thinner than beef-steak, and be done throughout. Few persons are fond of rare veal. Broil upon a well-greased gridiron over a clear fire, and turn frequently while the steaks are cooking. Put into a saucepan four or five young onions minced fine, a great teaspoonful of tomato catsup, or twice the quantity of stewed tomato, a lump of butter the size of an egg, and a little thyme or parsley, with a small teacupful of hot water. Let them stew together while the steaks are broiling, thickening, before you turn the gravy out, with a spoonful of browned flour. Add, if you please, a half-glass of wine. Boil up once hard, and when the steaks are dished, with a small bit of butter upon each, pour the mixture over and around them.

Spinach is as natural an accompaniment to veal as are green peas to lamb.

VEAL PIES.

Let your veal be juicy and not too fat. Take out all the bone, and put with the fat and refuse bits, such as skin or gristle, in a saucepan, with a large tcacupful of cold water to make gravy. Instead of chopping the veal, cut in


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thin, even slices. Line a pudding-dish with a good paste and put a layer of veal in the bottom; then one of hard boiled eggs sliced, each piece buttered and peppered before it is laid upon the veal; cover these with sliced ham or thin strips of salt pork. Squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon the ham. Then another layer of veal, and so on until you are ready for the gravy. This should have been stewing for half an hour or so, with the addition of pepper and a bunch of aromatic herbs. Strain through a thin cloth and pour over the pie. Cover with crust and bake two hours.

Or,

Butter a large bowl very thickly, and line with sliced hard-boiled eggs. Then put in, in perpendicular layers, a lining of veal cut in thin slices, and seasoned with pepper. Next, one of sliced ham, each slice peppered and sprinkled with lemon-juice, more veal and more ham, until the dish is packed to the brim. Cover with a thick paste made of flour and hot water, just stiff enough to handle with ease. Press this closely to the outside of the bowl, which should not be at all greasy. Let it overlap the rim about half an inch. Some cooks substitute a cloth well floured, but it does not keep in the essence of the meats as well as the paste. Set the bowl in a pot of hot water, not so deep that it will bubble over the top. It is better that it should not touch the paste rim. Boil steadily-not hard-for at least three hours. Remove the paste the next day, when bowl and contents are perfectly cold, and turn out the pie into a large plate or flat dish. Cut in circular slices-thin as a wafer-beginning at the top, keeping your carver horizontal, and you have a delicious relish for the supper-table, or side-dish for dinner. Set in a cool place, and in winter it will keep several days.

This is the "weal and hammer pie" endorsed by Mr.


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Wegg as a good thing "for mellering the organ," and is a great favorite in England. It is a good plan to butter the eggs as well as the dish, as much of the success of the pie depends upon the manner in which it is turned out. Also, upon the close packing of the sliced meat. The salt ham prevents the need of other salt.

STEWED FILLET OF VEAL.

Stuff, and bind with twine as for roasting. Then cover the top and sides with sliced ham which has been already boiled, securing with skewers, or twine crossing the meat in all directions. Lay in a pot put in two large cups of boiling water, cover immediately and closely, and stew gently-never letting it cease to boil, yet never boiling hard, for four or five hours. A large fillet will require nearly five hours. Remove the cover as seldom as possible, and only to ascertain whether the water has boiled away. If it is too low, replenish from the boiling kettle. Take off the strings when the meat is done; arrange the ham about the fillet in the dish, and serve a bit with each slice of veal. Strain the gravy, thicken with flour, boil up once, and send in a boat.

Serve with stewed tomatoes and spinach.

STEWED KNUCKLE OF VEAL.

Put the meat into a pot with two quarts of boiling water, half a pound of salt pork or ham cut into strips, a carrot, two onions, a bunch of parsley and one of summer savory-all cut fine-two dozen whole pepper-corns, and stew, closely covered, for three hours. When done, take the meat from the pot and lay in the dish. Strain the gravy, thicken with rice-flour, boil up once, and pour over the meat.

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VEAL SCALLOP.

Chop some cold roast or stewed veal very fine, put a layer in the bottom, of a buttered pudding-dish, and season with pepper and salt. Next have a layer of finely powdered crackers. Strew some bits of butter upon, it and wet with a little milk; then more veal seasoned as before, and another round of cracker-crumbs, with butter and milk. When the dish is full, wet well with gravy or broth, diluted with warm water. Spread over all a thick layer of cracker seasoned with salt, wet into a paste with milk and bound with a beaten egg or two, if the dish be large. Stick butter-bits thickly over it; invert a tin pan so as to cover all and keep in the steam, and bake--if small, half an hour three-quarters will suffice for a large dish. Remove the cover ten minutes before it is served, and brown.

This simple and economical dish should be an acquaintance with all who are fond of veal in any shape. Children generally like it exceedingly, and I have heard more than one gentleman of excellent judgment in culinary affairs declare that the best thing he knew about roast veal was that it was the harbinger of scallop on the second day.

Try it, and do not get it too dry.

VEAL PÂTéS.

Mince the veal as above, and roll three or four crackers to powder. Also, chop up some cold ham and mix with the veal in the proportion of one-third ham and two-thirds veal. Then add the cracker, and wet well with gravy and a little milk. If you have no gravy, stir into a cup of hot milk two table spoonfuls of butter and a beaten egg. Season well to your taste, and bake in pate pans lined with puff-paste. If eaten hot, send to table in the tins. If cold, slip the pates out and pile upon a plate, with sprigs of parsley


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between. A little oyster-liquor ia a marked improvement to the gravy.

STEWED CALF'S-HEAD.

Wash the head in several waters, and taking out the brains, set them by in a cool place. Tie the head in a floured cloth and boil it two hours in hot water slightly salted. Wash the brains carefully, picking out all the bits of skin and membrane, cleansing them over and over until they are perfectly white. Then stew in just enough water to cover them. Take them out, mash smooth with the back of a wooden spoon, and add gradually, that it may not lump, a small teacupful of the water in which the head is boiled. Season with chopped parsley, a pinch of sage, pepper, salt, and powdered cloves, with a great spoonful of butter. Set it over the fire to simmer in a saucepan until you are ready. When the head is tender, take it up and drain very dry. Score the top, and rub it well over with melted butter; dredge with flour and sat in the oven to brown. Or, you can use beaten egg and cracker-crumbs in place of the butter and flour.

When you serve the head, pour the gravy over it.

Never skin a calf's-head. Scald as you would that of a pig. A little lye in the water will remove the hair-as will also pounded rosin, applied before it is put into the water.

CALF'S, HEAD (Scalloped).

Clean the head, remove the brains, and set in a cool place. Boil the head until the meat slips easily from the bones. Take it out and chop fine, season with herbs, pepper and salt; then put in layers into a buttered pudding-dish with bits of butter between each layer. Moisten well with the liquor in which the head was boiled. Wash the brains very thoroughly, removing all the membrane. Beat


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them into a smooth paste, season with pepper and salt, and stir in with them two eggs beaten very light. Spread this evenly over the scallop, dredge the top with a little flour, and bake to a delicate brown. Half an hour will be long enough.

SWEET-BREADS (Fried).

Wash very carefully, and dry with a linen cloth. Lard with narrow strips of fat salt pork, set closely together. Use for this purpose a larding-needle. Lay the sweet-breads in a clean, hot frying-pan, which has been well buttered or greased, and cook to a fine brown, turning frequently until the pork is crisp.

SWEET-BREADS (Broiled).

Parboil, rub them well with butter, and broil on a clean gridiron. Turn frequently, and now and then roll over in a plate containing some hot melted butter. This will prevent them from getting too dry and hard.

SWEET-BREADS (Stewed).

When you have washed them, and removed all bits of skin and fatty matter, cover with cold water, and heat to a boil. Pour off the hot water, and cover with cold until the sweet-breads are firm. If you desire to have them very rich, lard as for frying before you put in the second water. They are more delicate, however, if the pork be left out. Stew in a very little water the second time. When they are tender, add for each sweet-bread a heaping teaspoonfnl of butter, and a little chopped parsley, with pepper, and salt, and a little cream. Let them simmer in this gravy for five minutes, then take them up. Send to table in a covered dish, with the gravy poured over them.

If you lard the sweet-breads, substitute for the cream in


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the gravy a glass of good wine. In this case, take the sweet-breads out before it is put into the gravy. Boil up once and pour over them.

SWEET-BREADS (Roasted).

Parboil and throw into cold water, where let them stand for fifteen minutes. Then change to more cold water for five minutes longer. Wipe perfectly dry. Lay them in your dripping-pan, and roast, basting with butter and water until they begin to brown. Then withdraw them for an instant, roll in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and return to the fire for ten minutes longer, basting meanwhile twice with melted butter. Lay in a chafing-dish while you add to the dripping half a cup hot water, some chopped parsley, a teaspoonful browned flour, and the juice of half a lemon. Pour over the sweet-breads before sending to table.

JELLIEL VEAL.

Wash a knuckle of veal, and cut it into three pieces. Boil it slowly until the meat will slip easily from the bones; take out of the liquor; remove all the bones, and chop the meat fine. Season with salt, pepper, two shallots chopped fine as possible, mace and thyme, or, if you like, sage. Put back into the liquor, and boil until it is almost dry and can be stirred with difficulty. Turn into a mould until next day. Set on the table cold, garnish with parsley, and cut in slices. The juice of a lemon, stirred in just before it is taken from the fire, is an improvement.

CALF'S-HEAD IN A MOULD.

Boil a calf's-head until tender, the day before you wish to use it. When perfectly cold, chop--not too small--and season to taste with pepper, salt, mace, and the juice of a


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lemon. Prepare half as much cold ham, fat and lean-also minced-as you have of the chopped calf's-head. Butter a mould well, and lay in the bottom a layer of the calf's-head, then one of ham and so on until the shape is full, pressing each layer hard, when you have moistened it with veal gravy or the liquor in which the head was boiled. Pour more gravy over the top, and when it has soaked in well, cover with a paste made of flour and water. Bake one hour. Remove the paste when it is quite cold, and turn out carefully. Cut perpendicularly.

This is quite as good a relish when made of cold roast or stewed veal and ham. It will keep several days in cool weather.

VEAL OLIVES WITH OYSTERS.

Cut large, smooth slices from a fillet of veal, or veal chops will do quite as well. Trim them into a uniform shape and size, and spread each neatly with force-meat made of bread-crumbs and a little chopped pork, seasoned with pepper and salt. Over this spread some chopped oysters, about three to a good-sized slice of veal. Roll them up carefully and closely, and pin each with two small tin or wooden skewers. Lay them in a dripping-pan; dash a teacupful of boiling water over them, and roast, basting at least twice with melted butter. When they are brown, remove to a chafing-dish, and cover, while you add a little oyster-liquor to the gravy left in the dripping-pan. Let this simmer for three or four minutes; thicken with a teaspoonful of browned flour, and boil up once. Withdraw the skewers cautiously, so as not to break the olives; pour the gravy over and around them, and serve. If you have no skewers, bind the olives with pack-thread, cutting it, of course, before sending to table.

Serve with cranberry jelly.

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MINCED VEAL.

Take the remains of a cold roast of veal fillet, shoulder or breast, and cut all the meat from the bones. Put the latter, with the outside slices and the gristly pieces, into a saucepan, with a cup of cold water, some sweet herbs, pepper, and salt. If you have a bit of bacon convenient, or a ham-bone, add this and omit the salt. Stew all together for an hour, then strain, thicken with flour, return to the fire, and boil five minutes longer, stirring in a tablespoonful of butter.

Meanwhile, mince the cold veal, and when the gravy is ready put this in a little at a time. Let it almost boil, when add two tablespoonfuls of cream, or three of milk, stirring all the while. Lastly, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and a moment later half a glass of sherry or Madeira wine.

The mince-meat should be dry enough to heap into a shape in a flat dish or chafing-dish. Lay triangles of buttered toast about the base of the mound, and on the top a poached egg.

The remains of cold roast beef treated in this manner, substituting for the toast balls of mashed potato, will make a neat and palatable dish.

Send around spinach or stewed tomatoes with minced veal; scraped horseradish steeped in vinegar with the beef.

VEAL CUTLETS À LA MAINTENON.

The cutlets should be nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, and trim in shape. Dip each in beaten egg, then into pounded cracker which has been seasoned with powdered sweet herbs, pepper, And salt. Wrap each cutlet in a half-sheet of note or letter paper, well buttered; lay them upon a buttered gridiron and broil over a clear fire, turning often and dexterously. You can secure the papers by fringing


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the ends, and twisting these after the cutlets are put in this is neater than to pin them together. In trying this dish for the first time, have ready a sufficient number of duplicate papers in a clean, hot dish. If your envelopes are much soiled or darkened while the cutlets are broiling, transfer quickly when done to the clean warm ones, twist the ends, and serve. Cutlets prepared in this manner are sent to table in their cloaks, ranged symmetrically upon a hot chafing-dish.

The expedient of the clean papers is a "trick of the trade," amateur housewives will observe with satisfaction. Epicures profess to enjoy veal cooked in covers far more than when the flavor and juices escape in broiling without them. Empty every drop of gravy from the soiled papers into the clean over the cutlets.

CROQUETTES OF CALF'S BRAINS.

Wash the brains very thoroughly until they are free from membranous matter and perfectly white. Beat them smooth; season with a pinch of powdered sage, pepper, and salt. Add two tablespoonfuls fine bread-crumbs moistened with milk, and a beaten egg. Roll into balls with floured hands, dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry in butter or veal-drippings.

These make a pleasant accompaniment to boiled spinach. Heap the vegetable in the centre of the dish, arrange the balls about it, and give one to each person who wishes spinach.

CALF'S LIVER (Roasted).

Soak the liver in salt and water an hour to draw out the blood. Wipe perfectly dry, and stuff with a forcemeat made of bread-crumbs, two slices of fat salt pork, chopped small, a shallot, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; sweet marjoram


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and thyme, and, if you choose, a little sage. Moisten this with butter melted in a very little hot water, and two raw eggs, well beaten. In order to get this into the liver, make an incision with a narrow sharp knife, and without enlarging the aperture where the blade entered, move the point dexterously to and fro, to enlarge the cavity inside. Stuff this full of the forcemeat, sew or skewer up the outer orifice; lard with strips of salt pork, and roast for an hour, basting twice with butter and water, afterward with the gravy in the dripping-pan. Pour the gravy over the liver when done.

Roasted liver is very good cold, cut into slices like tongue.

CALF'S LIVER (Fried).

Slice the liver smoothly, and lay in salt and water to draw out the blood. Lard each slice, when you have wiped it dry, with slices of fat salt pork, drawn through at regular distances, and projecting slightly on each side. Lay in a clean frying-pan and fry brown. When done, take out the slices, arrange them neatly on a hot dish, and set aside to keep warm. Add to the gravy in the frying-pan a chopped onion, a half-cup of hot water, pepper, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with brown flour. Boil up well, run through a cullender to remove the onion and the bits of crisped pork that may have been broken off in cooking, pour over the liver, and serve hot.

Pigs' livers can be cooked in the same way.

CALF'S LIVER (Stewed).

Slice the liver and lay in salt and water an hour. Then cut into dice and put over the fire, with enough cold water to cover it well. Cover and stew steadily for an hour, when add salt, pepper, a little mace, sweet marjoram, pars


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ley, and a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce. Stew again steadily, not fast, for half an hour longer, when put in a table-spoonful of butter, two of browned flour-wet with cold water, a teaspoonful of lemon-juice and one of currant jelly. Boil five minutes longer, and dish. A little wine is an improvement.

Or,

Put in with the liver-dice some of salt pork-say a handful-and when you season, a chopped onion, and omit the jelly at the last, substituting some tomato catsup.

IMITATION PÂTéS DE FOIE GRAS.

Boil a calf's liver until very tender in water that has been slightly salted, and in another vessel a nice calf's tongue. It is best to do this the day before you make your pâté, as they should be not only cold, but firm when used. Cut the liver into bits, and rub these gradually to a smooth paste in a Wedgewood mortar, moistening, as you go on, with melted butter. Work into this paste, which should be quite soft, a quarter-teaspoonful of cayenne pepper, or twice the quantity of white or black, half a grated nutmeg, a little cloves, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, salt to taste, a full teaspoonful of made mustard, and a tablespoonful of boiling water, in which a minced onion has been steeped until the flavor is extracted. Work all together thoroughly, and pack in jelly-jars with air-tight covers, or, if you have them, in pâté-jars. They give a foreign air to the compound, and aid imagination in deceiving the palate. Butter the inside of the jars well, and pack the pâté very hard, inserting here and there square and triangular bits of the tongue, which should be pared and cut up for this purpose. These simulate the truffles im bedded in the genuine pâtés from Strasbourg and elsewhere.

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When the jar is packed, and smooth as marble on the surface, cover with melted butter. Let this harden, put on the lid, and set away in a cool place. In winter it wil keep for weeks, and is very nice for luncheon or tea. Make into sandwiches, or set on in the jars, if they are neat and ornamental.

The resemblance in taste to the real pâté de foie gras is remarkable, and the domestic article is popular with the lovers of that delicacy. Pigs' livers make a very fair pâté. If you can procure the livers of several fowls and treat as above, substituting bits of the inside of the gizzard for truffles, you will find the result even more satisfactory.

VEAL MARBLE.

Boil a beef-tongue the day before it is to be used, and a like number of pounds of lean veal; or, the lean of a well-cooked fillet will do as well. Grind first one, then the other, in a sausage-cutter, keeping them in separate vessels until you are ready to pack. If you have no machine for this purpose, chop very fine. Season the tongue with pepper, powdered sweet herbs, a teaspoonful of made mustard, a little nutmeg, and cloves-just a pinch of each; the veal in like manner, with the addition of salt. Pack in alternate spoonfuls, irregularly as possible, in cups, bowls, or jars which have been well buttered. Press very hard as you go on, smooth the top, and cover with melted butter. When this cools, close the cans, and keep in a cool, dry place. Turn out whole, or cut in slices for tea. It is a pretty and savory relish, garnished with parsley or the blanched tops of celery.

You can use ground ham instead of tongue. It is hardly so good, but is more economical.

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> PORK.

At the South, where, in spite of the warm climate, the consumption of pork is double that of the North, the full-grown hog is seldom represented by any of his parts at the table, fresh or pickled, unless it be during killing-time; then fresh spare-ribs, chine, and steak, with other succu-lent bits, are welcome upon the choicest bills of fare. The rest of the animal-ham, shoulders, and middlings-is consigned to the packing-barrel, and ultimately to the smoke-house. But, in cool weather, "shoat"-i. e., pig under six months of age-is abundantly displayed in market, and highly esteemed by all classes. The meat is fine and sweet, and, unless too fat, nearly as delicate as that of chicken-a very different looking and tasting dish from the gross, oleaginous joints and "chunks" offered for sale in many other regions as "nice young pork." Those of my readers who can command "shoat" are to be heartily congratu-lated. Those whose butchers dispense only portions of the mature porker will do well, in my opinion, if they rarely admit him to their families before he has been salted, and been thereby purged of many unwholesome properties. Few stomachs, save those of out-door laborers, can digest the fresh meat of a two or three, or even one year old hog. This is the truthful, but, to unaccustomed ears, offensive name for him at the South and West, where his qualities and habits are best known.

The parts of a properly dissected hog are the hams, shoulders, griskin or chine, the loin, middlings, spare-ribs, head, feet, liver, and haslet. The choice portions are hams, shoulders, and, for roasting, the loin. All hogs should be kept up and well fed for three weeks, at least, before they are killed; their styes be frequently cleaned, and furnished with abundance of water, renewed every day. Sir Grunter


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would be a more cleanly creature if he were allowed more extensive water privileges. If it were possible--and in the country this may sometimes be done--to build his pen on the bank of a running stream, he would speedily redeem his character from the stain cast upon it by the popular verdict, and the superior quality of the meat repay the thoughtful kindness of his owner. It is a disgrace to humanity, hardly second to the barbarities of swill-milk manufactories, this compulsory filth of any domestic animal, Those who, like myself, have been loathing