COOKING IN OLD CREOLE DAYS COOKING IN OLD CREOLE DAYS
GUMBO FILé
Put into a casserole (saucepan) a spoonful of pure lard and one of flour, stir it well until it is of a light brown. Chop an onion into small pieces and throw them in. Cut up a fat capon or chicken into small pieces and put these in the casserole with the flour and lard. Stir it all the while until the chicken is nearly done. When the whole is well browned, add a slice of ham, cut up small. Throw in two or three pods of red pepper, and salt to your taste. Now add a quart of boiling water, and leave it on the fire for two hours and a half. A quarter of an hour before dinner is served add three dozen oysters with their liquor. Just before taking the soup off the fire, put in a tablespoonful of filet, stirring it all the while. Let it boil one minute and then serve. Do not put in too much filet; the spoon should not be full. Indeed, half a tablespoonful is enough.--LOUISE LIVINGSTON HUNT, New Orleans.
CREME D'ORGE
One pound of lean veal, one pound of lean beef, and two ounces of pearl barley. Put them into a quart of cold water and let it boil down to a pint. Rub all through a sieve. Melt a spoonful of this strengthening jelly when required.
GUMBO FILé
Disjoint and cut up a fowl. Fry in pan with onion cut up. Put in a soup pot knuckle of veal, fried fowl covered in 3 1-2 quarts of cold water, let it simmer on back of range about six hours, strain soup and skim off all grease, cut up white meat of chicken and put in stock with a quart or more of oysters; add salt, cayenne pepper, white pepper. When at boiling point sprinkle in, or sift in, powdered filet enough to thicken it.--MRS. EUGENIA PHILLIPS.
For very many years Mrs. Phillips had the most elegant table and the most delicious dishes in Washington, D.C. No one could rival her in taste and daintiness; her hospitality was boundless.
Leek and potato soup
is another of the same French-woman's dishes. Cut several leeks, or, if they cannot be had, an onion or two, into pieces, and fry them without browning in butter. Add potatoes cut into dice and a seasoning of salt and pepper, and boil. When they are soft push them through a colander, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour and a tablespoonful of butter. For two small onions four potatoes and a quart of water will be wanted. Instead of using the water in which the potatoes have boiled, milk may be used.
OKRA GUMBO
Put into a saucepan a spoonful of pure lard and one of flour. Stir it well until it is of a light brown. Chop an onion into small pieces and throw them in. Cut up a fat capon or chicken into small pieces and put it into the saucepan with the flour and lard. Stir it all the while until the chicken is nearly done. When the whole is well browned, add a slice of ham cut up small. Throw in two or three pods of red pepper, and salt to your taste. Then add a quart of boiling water, and leave it on the fire for two hours and a half. During that time you take either a can of okra or the fresh okra, and chop it up a bit. Put it in a saucepan with a little water and let it simmer a quarter of an hour, stirring it all the time. Then add to it either six fresh tomatoes, or half a can of tomatoes, and let it cook on a slow fire for an hour, uncovered. When your gumbo has been on the fire the two hours and a half, you take it off to cool, and skim all the grease off. Then you put it back in the saucepan and add your okra and tomatoes and let it simmer slowly for an hour or until the okra is thoroughly cooked. Serve hot, and eat it with dry rice served in a separate dish.--MME. EUSTIS, MéRE.
CRAB GUMBO
Take half a pound of nice veal, cut it in slices; or take half a chicken, which you cut in small pieces. Brown it well, as you do for the gumbofilet. Let it simmer on the fire an hour and a half. Pick very carefully twelve or fifteen crabs, keeping the flesh only. Warm them up in a separate saucepan with a spoonful of butter for a few minutes. Pour it then in your pot over your veal. Add a few small pieces of fried ham. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Before you mix the veal and crabs take out all the large pieces of veal, so that the crabs may predominate, It should be of a thick consistency. Serve hot, with dry rice in a separate dish.--JOSEPHINE NICAUD,New Orleans.
HERB GUMBO
Clean and prepare a good handful of fresh spinach leaves, a handful of beetroot leaves, a handful of radish leaves, a handful of mustard leaves, a handful of patience leaves, one head of lettuce. Throw them in hot water and let them boil like spinach, then let them drip in a colander, chop them all together on a nice clean board, as you do spinach. Fry a dozen small pieces of ham cut in pieces an inch long and half an inch wide, and also half a chicken cut in pieces, or a piece of veal, say half a pound. Add a cup of water and let it simmer three quarters of an hour or until all are soft. Then add your herbs. Let them simmer together for a quarter of an hour. If it looks too thick add a few tablespoonfuls of water. It must have the consistency of a thick puree. To be served hot, and eaten with dry rice.--JOSEPHINE NICAUD.
CRAWFISH BISQUE
Take two or three dozen crawfish, throw them in boiling water for a minute or two, clean them thoroughly. Take off the heads, empty them, and clean them and wash them, keeping the fat part of the tails. Put them on a chopping board with the fat, a little chicken or veal, a little stale bread, chop it all fine together, flavor with pepper, red or black, a laurel leaf, or put in a bouquet of aromatic herbs for a few minutes, having tied it with a thread so as to pull it out. Brown all this in a saucepan with a spoonful of lard. Stuff the crawfish heads tight with this. Put them in a saucepan to simmer with a quart of bouillon for an hour or more, until you have a good soup. Serve hot.--MME. JOSEPHINE NICAUD,
Who has been for over forty years in Ambassador Eustis' family.
BOUILLON A LA JAMES MADISON
Two gallons of water, throw in every bone you have (ham bones are excellent), with three good sized carrots, three onions, celery, a can of tomatoes. Salt and pepper pod to taste. Simmer, closely covered, all day and all night. The next morning strain into a large bowl. If in a hurry set bowl in cold water, otherwise put in a celler or on ice. Remove the grease very carefully. Cut up fine, size of dice, three pounds of rump of beef, take two eggs and break them over the cut meat, yolk and white. Stir freely. Add celery, salt and pepper, pour the bouillon on it, settle it on the fire, stir until the froth rises. Skim off very carefully, strain off through a nice clean cloth or flannel. Set aside for use. When ready to serve, warm the quantity desired, throw in small pieces of celery, cover closely, throw a bunch of chervil and a glass of good sherry in the soup according to taste.--Cook, born in James Madison's family.
POT AU FEU
THE POT AU FEU IS SERVED DAILY IN FRENCH FAMILIES
Take two pounds of round of beef, cutting off all the fat very carefully, put it in a good sized saucepan, add cold water enough to cover the meat well, put the lid on half way to allow the steam to evaporate, let it simmer by a fire of live coals an hour, and skim carefully as the scum arises. While your broth is cooking, prepare your vegetables, have them nice and fresh, wash and scrape carefully (requisite care must be taken), throw them into a pan of cold water until the time to use them. Cut three carrots in half, too leeks the same way, or half an onion, a small piece of cabbage and a bit of garlic, a piece of celery, parsley and pepper pod. Put all these vegetables in your broth, adding two or three tomatoes, or two spoonfuls of tomatoes; let it simmer for two hours, skimming it carefully. It can be served with or without vegetables. Without vegetables it can be served as bouillon, to which you add rice, vermicelli, macaroni, or any other Italian paste, or bread dried in the oven, or drop in a poached egg, one for every person, if your dinner is a little short.
These receipts were given to me by an old colored cook who was brought up in James Madison's family, and she said they were served on Mr. Madison's table when he entertained the distinguished guests of his day.
SORREL SOUP
Take a handful of sorrel, cook it ten minutes in a spoonful of fresh butter, add a quart of water, salt and pepper, and let it simmer half an hour over a slow fire. Stir in white of an egg, and then let it cook two minutes only, stirring it all the time. Rub in a cup the yolk of an egg with a small piece of butter. Add a cup of cream. Put some pieces of stale bread cut in slices in the bottom of your soup tureen. Chop fine some chervil and sprinkle on top just as you serve it very hot.-LENONIE PENIN.
BARLEY SOUP WITH CELERY
Melt a heaping spoonful of fresh butter in a frying-pan; put to it a cupful of barley; let it brown a few moments; add to it two quarts of good broth, and salt to taste. Let it simmer two hours or more on a slow fire; chop into it small pieces of celery--let it simmer half an hour. Dissolve in a glassful of sweet cream the yolks of six eggs, a spoonful of fresh butter added in small pieces, and add all to the soup.
OKRA SOUP
Soak in a little cold water for an hour or two one pint of the dried okra, add this with the water to one gallon of good strong beef stock. Also one quart of tomatoes, (strained through a colander), a half cupful of rice, and one pint of chopped Irish potatoes. Season with salt, green pepper, or cayenne, chopped celery and onion. Boil in a porcelain kettle at least five hours, stirring frequently with a silver spoon, or new wooden spoon, or the soup will become dark. The gallon must be maintained by adding boiling water at intervals as required. This should result in a rich, thick soup, such as is liked in the South. Some cooks prefer to boil meat and vegetables together, removing the meat when tender, cutting it into pieces, and returning it to the soup a few minutes before serving.--MRS. WILLIAM C. HILL.
SIMPLE, CLEAR, TOMATO SOUP
Boil your tomatoes with onion and butter thoroughly. Add to clear stock, or broth, half of white of egg to clear. Let it stand, then pass through cheesecloth that has been washed.
TOMATO SOUP
Cut one ounce of ham, a little carrot and onion into thin slices, place these in a stewpan with two ounces of butter, one bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Add two tablespoonfuls of flour, stir together on the fire until it becomes a light brown color. Moisten with a quart of good broth, or stock, stirring it on a slow fire. Add one quart of canned tomatoes, and season with salt, pepper and two ounces of brown sugar. Let it boil together for one hour, after being thoroughly strained.
SOUTHERN TOMATO SOUP
Southern tomato soup is a meal in itself. Wash two quarts of tomatoes, and set over the fire in three pints of water; cook ten minutes, and drain, saving the water for the soup; press the tomatoes through a sieve, add to them one cucumber, peeled and cut small, one large onion sliced, one dozen okras (also sliced), a five cent marrowbone and the water drained from the tomatoes. Simmer for three hours, and just before sending to table thicken with a tablespoonful of flour wet with cold water. Season with salt, cayenne and three pats of butter.
BONNE FEMME SOUP
Shred fine a cucumber (already soaked) and four lettuce, one onion and a handful of chervil. Put these into a soup pot, with two pats of butter, a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Simmer over a slow fire about ten minutes, then add a good spoonful of flour, and three pints of veal broth. Boil for a quarter of an hour. Stir into it a seasoning of six yolks of eggs, half a pint of cream and a dessertspoonful of sugar. Do not let it boil after the egg and cream are added.
SOUP WITHOUT MEAT
Take four or five cucumbers, according to their size, pare and cut them in small square pieces; three cupfuls of lettuce cut in shreds, two sprigs of mint, a little parsley, two or three small onions (all shredded), with a pint of young peas. Put all these herbs into a stewpan, with nearly a quarter of a pound of butter, some salt, and a little cayenne pepper. They must stew gently for an hour. Boil a pint of old peas in a full quart of water. When quite soft run them through a sieve, with a wooden spoon, then add them, together with the water they have been boiled in, to your stewed herbs, and let them all stew together a full half hour. This soup is all the better if it does not stand long before it is served up.
OYSTER AND PEANUT SOUP
Take half a pound of shelled and roasted peanuts, well pounded. Add two spoonfuls of flour, mix well, boil a pint of oyster water and mix with the peanuts and flour, let it thicken slowly for fifteen minutes, stirring all the time. Add a pint of oysters and let them cook five minutes. Flavor with salt, red and black pepper.--JOSEPHINE NICAUD.
OYSTER SOUP
Wash and drain two quarts of oysters, put them on the fire with three quarts of water, three onions chopped up, two or three slices of lean ham, pepper and salt. Boil until it is reduced one half, strain through a sieve. Return the liquid into the pot. Put in one quart of fresh oysters. Boil until they are sufficiently done and thicken the soup with four spoonfuls of flour, two gills of rich cream, and the yolks of two nice fresh eggs, well beaten. Boil it a few minutes after the thickening is put in. Take care that it does not curdle, and that the flour is not in lumps. Serve it up with the last oysters that were put in. If the flavor of thyme is agreeable you may put in a little, but take care that it does not boil in it long enough to discolor the soup.--MARY RANDOLPH
NEW ORLEANS OYSTER SOUP
Make "a brown." A brown is made by putting a lump of butter or lard into a saucepan, adding flour, and stirring until it becomes a rich brown, but is not burned. Add to your brown, salt and pepper. Take a quart of oysters, separate them from their water. Add a pint of fresh water to your brown, then put in the oyster water, let it simmer slowly for half an hour. Then put in a little parsley. Add your oysters a quarter of an hour before serving, and small pieces of fried bread or biscuits. A few minutes before serving cayenne pepper can be added to taste, also vermicelli instead of crackers, or small green onions.--JOSEPHINE NICAUD.
BLACK BEAN SOUP
One pint of black Mexican beans, put them in five pints of water (without soaking), boil about five hours. Pass beans and liquid through a sieve, half an hour before serving; do it thoroughly, that it may be thick enough. Put it back into the pot with salt, pepper, bunch of thyme, onions, a quarter of lemon cut in thin slices, and a tablespoonful of butter. Have two eggs, boiled hard, cut up in your tureen, and a wineglass of good wine. Pour soup on it and give it a stir.--MRS. MORRIS ADDISON.
CALF'S HEAD SOUP
First cut the head in half, take out the brains, crack up the head, wash it, put it in the pot, boil half an hour. Take out, wash, clean and scrape it, put back in the pot, boil until soft, take out, pick out all the bones. Part the lean meat from the jelly meat. Cut up the jelly meat fine. Put back in the pot, thicken with flour, seasone with cloves, black pepper, onions and wine.
--"UNCLE JOHN"--the best chef in South Carolina, Mr. Le Garee's and Mrs. Phoenix's cook.
NEW ENGLAND CHOWDER
Have a fresh, firm cod or haddock, a fish about five pounds is the best size. Take saucepan large enough to hold a little more than you wish to make. Cut salt pork in BAMBOULA Quand pat-tat la cuit n'a man-ge li, n'a man-ge li,An illustration of a music sheet with music bars, notes, and the words to the song under them. BAMBOULA
Gottschalks's famous "Bamboule" was written on this themeThere is an illustration of a girl in a dress dancing with a plate of food under her foot. small squares about the size of dice, and fry quite brown. Lay in the same pan alternate layers of thin sliced potatoes first, then slices of fish, then broken water crackers, small fried pork, shreds of raw onion, black pepper and salt to suit the taste. Continue the layers until you have used up your material. Pour over it the pork fat from the scraps and half a pint of water, to keep from burning at the bottom. Close the saucepan tight and set on the fire. Cook slowly, without stirring, for forty-five minutes, when it is ready for the table. As some fish cook drier than others, if you do not find the chowder thin enough to serve well in tureen, add some fresh milk just before taking up, and let it come to a boil.--PARKER HOUSE, Boston, Sept. 23, 1873.
CHOWDER FOR EIGHT PERSONS
Boil, mash and pass through a colander six potatoes. Slice and fry brown six onions. Soak quite soft two ship biscuits. Fry four slices of salt pork, the fat cut in small dice. Cut in pieces about an inch thick three or four pounds of fish, either cod or sea bass, or blackfish, which are the best; then proceed as follows: Put in your pot four tablespoonfuls of butter, and two of salt, scatter a portion of the fried onion in it, then a layer of fish, free from bones, season with a teaspoonful of black pepper, half teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, half of cloves, add a bouquet of thyme, then put in a layer of potatoes. Repeat the same operation, leaving out the spice and thyme. Then pour in stock enough to cover the whole about four inches, place on the fire, add the biscuit and pork, and three tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, and cook slowly for an hour. Then add the juice of a lemon, and five lumps of sugar. Color the soup a dark brown. When ready to serve add a tumbler of sherry.
--Compliments of MR. PETER MARIE.
CHICKEN PANADE
Boil a large fowl in a quart and a half of water, and boil down to a quart. Skim the fowl and pound it, bones and all, in a mortar. Spread this paste in a sieve and rub it through. Then pour it over the liquor in which the fowl was boiled, and pour the mixture hot over a stale French roll, well grated. Take a little frequently throughout the day.
RAW BEEF SOUP
One pound of chipped beef. Put into a preserve jar with four ounces of water and four drops of muriatic acid poured over it. Put the top down tight, shake, and put on the ice for twelve hours, then put the jar into a pan of cold water (bain-Marie) and put it on the fire for an hour until the water is hot, then strain the contents of the jar off with pressure through a cloth, and put it on the ice until it is cold. Take it off the ice and let it stand ten minutes before serving. Salt to taste.
CHICKEN BROTH
Take a chicken or fowl (small pieces of the former make the broth very good) and break the bones. Clean it carefully. Put it into a saucepan with two quarts of water, a very small onion, a little salt, and two tablespoonfuls of rice. When it boils skim and cover closely, and let it simmer slowly for six hours, if a fowl; if a chicken, for five hours.--MRS. JEFFERSON COOLIDGE.
BEEF TEA
Three pounds of lean beef. Cut out all the fat and gristle, put it in a covered saucepan, with one clove, and a lump of ice, the size of your fist, in the centre of the beef, and the remainder of the beef laid over it. Let it stand back on the range and simmer until all the juice is extracted, then let it have one boil up. Only season as much as you intend using at once. The remainder can be kept on ice and seasoned as required with salt, pepper, celery salt, or to suit the taste of the patient.
JUMBALLAYA A LA CREOLE
Add to a cupful of rice, which has boiled five minutes, a rich brown chicken fricassee, put it in a saucepan, not closely covered, let it dry slowly, turn with a fork. The Carolinians make different perlous prepared in the same way by adding cooked tomatoes and butter. Green peas with a little butter is delicious. Okra and tomatoes fried together and added to rice. Oysters a little fried in butter. Hopping John is made in the same way with small pieces of fried ham, fried sausages, to which you add some cow peas that have been partially boiled. Season highly. The St. Domingo Congris is like the Hopping John.
PLAIN BOILED RICE
Take a cup of the best South Carolina rice (whole). Wash it three times in cold water until the water is clear. The fourth time wash it in hot water, put it in a saucepan with enough hot water to cover it, salt it, and cover closely. Let it boil from five to ten minutes. Test it with your fingers. If cooked, pour off the water, add to it a quarter cupful of cold water, cover closely, and set awhile on the stove to soak. If you fear its clinging to the saucepan stir it with a fork, not a spoon. Your rice will soak and dry beautifully.
CHINESE RICE
Take equal parts of rice and cold water. Wash your rice in several waters, put it in a saucepan, salt, and let it boil. When cooked put aside to soak until dry. Be careful, it burns easily. Every grain of rice will be separate and dry.
"Mon Repos," Aiken, S.C. --MISS EUSTIS.
HOPPING JOHN
Cup of cow peas, boil with piece of bacon. When peas are thoroughly done, not till mushy, drain water off, three hours boiling. Boil separately a well washed cupful and a half of rice. Mix together after it is done. Skim off grease from top of pot peas are boiled in, add salt and cayenne pepper, put in oven to dry out. Serve with sliced bacon in centre or fried sausages.--MRS. EUGENIA PHILLIPS, Washington, D.C.
JUMBALLAYA A SPANISH CREOLE DISH
Wash one pound of rice and soak it an hour. Cut up a cold roast chicken, or the remnants of a turkey, and a slice of ham, and fry them in a tablespoonful of lard. Stir in the rice, and add slowly while stirring in, a pint of hot water. Cover your pot, and set where it can cook slowly, until the rice is nearly dry. One or two spoonfuls of cooked tomatoes give it a very good taste. Jumballaya is very nice made with oysters, shrimps or sausages.--MME. EUSTIS, MERE.
DELICIOUS BREAKFAST DISH
Take some hog meat prepared for sausages. Chop up some well boiled pig's feet, mix with it, and wrap up in a lace. Fry it, and serve hot.--MME. ALZIRE DUBROCA, Baton Rouge.
JUMBALLAYA
Take a good sized chicken. Cut it as for fried chicken, season it with salt and pepper, and fry in a spoonful of lard. Cut up half a pound of ham in pieces an inch long, and fry in the same pan. When that is fried, take out and in the same lard fry a spoonful of onions cut very fine. Slice up three large tomatoes, or two spoonfuls of canned tomatoes, and fry them in the same pan. Cut up a little parsley and add when everything is fried. Put back your ham and chicken and add two and a half cupfuls of water. Let it come to a boil, and then add a cupful of well washed rice. Put it again on a quick fire. When the rice is cooked, and the steam begins to rise, put it on a slow fire and add a teaspoonful of butter. If you fear it may burn at the bottom of the pot, use a fork, not a spoon, as the latter makes the rice soggy. Let it soak or dry thoroughly. If it does not dry fast enough, put for a moment in the oven.--LYDIA EUSTIS.
RIZ A LA VALENCIENNE
Make a nice brown fricassee, with a good sized fowl highly flavored; let it simmer for two hours. Make about a pint of tomato sauce, adding to it red and green peppers. It must have cooked two hours. Mix it with the chicken fricassee, let it simmer together. Take a cup of best Carolina rice, prepare it as for boiling in hot water for five minutes. Use a tureen or dish that will go to the fire, put in it your chicken, then the rice on top, add two or three spoonfuls of the best olive oil, put it in a moderately hot oven, watching it closely; if it gets dry baste it with a few spoonfuls of broth on top but do not stir it. Artichokes may be added to it. Serve at table in the tureen. Warmed over the next day is even better.
HOPPING JOHN
Take a cupful of cow peas (small black peas) that have been soaked over night, one onion, parsley and a laurel leaf. Let them boil in a quart and a pint of water for an hour, or until soft. Add two cupfuls well washed raw rice. The rice must cook about fifteen or twenty minutes. Then add a quarter of a pound of well-fried sausages, a slice of ham and a small piece of bacon, both cut in small pieces and fried. Put your saucepan aside to soak, or dry. Cover closely. Be careful it does not burn at the bottom. If the rice has to be stirred use a fork, as it turns easily, and still can not be stirred too much, or it becomes soggy. Those old-fashioned black pots are the best to use.--"UNCLE JOHN," S.C.
DAUBE GLACEE OR BŒUF A LA DAUBE
Take a round of beef, clean and dry it carefully with a towel, rub it in with salt, pepper and cloves, laid with smoked tongue or beef suet or forcemeat and a little garlic. Put it in a cool place and let it remain for three or four days in winter. The night before it is to be cooked, squeeze the juice of a lemon over the beef, on the sides. After breakfast put the beef in a Dutch oven with some drippings--let it boil hot before you put the beef in. Brown well on both sides, then draw the oven from the fire and let it simmer for three hours, then pare and halve six large onions, stew them over the beef--let it continue to simmer for three hours longer, add forcemeat balls, or a calf's foot--serve it with gravy in the dish and sauce boat.--MRS. EUGENIA PHILLIPS, Washington, D.C.
MACARONI
Macaroni must be thrown into plenty of boiling water to cook it well. Then drain it off and put it in a dish with butter, salt and a little powdered mustard and put it in the oven until there is a nice crust on top. Grated cheese of any kind may be added, or a few tablespoonfuls of well cooked tomatoes, or a few tablespoonfuls of Italian mushrooms stirred up with chicken livers, or the remnants of pâte dé foie gras, or chopped ham or salt tongue, in fact almost anything that will give it a nice relish.
DAUBE GLACéE
Take five or six pounds of the round of beef, two inches thick. Two days before cooking it, lard it with strips of lard half an inch thick and three inches long. Tie it in a round with a string, not too tight. Season with salt, and black and red pepper, and put in a good pinch of saltpetre. Let your larding be almost an inch and a half apart. Rub up your daube with an onion and whatever falls from the seasoning. Put it away in a china tureen in a cool place for twenty-four hours. Early the next day take one of these thick, black saucepans and put in the bottom of it a piece of pig skin the size of the saucepan. Put in a bouquet of thyme, parsley, two laurel leaves, one onion, and a small piece of garlic. Take three calf's feet that have been cut in halves by the butcher, lay them on top of the bouquet, and add half a cupful of meat juice. Let it simmer on a slow fire for half an hour, then add enough water to allow the calf's feet to simmer very slowly for five or six hours, until the bones detach themselves from the meat, the gravy to be tested with the fingers until it has a gelatinous consistency. The pot must be closely covered, and a weight put on the cover so that it touches the meat. The calf's feet must be boiled before they are put in the daube, and that gelatinous water used when your daube is cooked. Put it in a clean tureen to take a round form. Take out the calf's feet, skim the grease off the sauce and pass it warm through a flannel bag. Put in two egg shells before straining it, and let it cook a while to clear the jelly. Cut two well cooked carrots in halves. Put them in the bottom of your tureen and place your daube on top. Pour your jelly on the sides of the daube, so that it runs on the bottom of the tureen and on the sides, remembering that when you turn it out in a dish the bottom part will be on top. Put in a cool place, or near the ice. You will have to try several times before you succeed in making this very choice and delicious dish, which is meant for cold weather only.--MME. EUSTIS, MERE.
ROAST BEEF
Take a roast of beef, as many pounds as you need according to the number of persons. Wipe well with a clean cloth, salt and pepper it, and flour it. Before you put it in a roast pan, put in that pan a small piece of bacon, a small piece of onion, and a carrot cut in two, with two tablespoonfuls of meat juice or bouillon, not hot water. Water is very good to wash with, but not to flavor meats with! Put your meat in the roast pan in a moderate oven, and cook it by a good fire a quarter of an hour for every pound of meat. Baste it with the drippings, and watch it carefully.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING TO SERVE WITH HOT ROAST BEEF
One and a half pints of milk, six large tablespoonfuls of flour, three eggs, one small spoonful of salt. Put the flour into a basin with the salt, and stir into it gradually enough milk to make a stiff batter. When perfectly smooth, add the rest of the milk, and the eggs well beaten. Beat the mixture for a few moments and pour it into a shallow tin, which has previously been well rubbed with beef drippings. Put the pudding into the oven and bake for one hour, then for half an hour place it under the beef, to catch a little of the gravy. Cut the pudding into small square pieces. Put them on a hot dish and serve. If the meat is baked, the pudding may at once be placed under it, resting the meat on a small three-cornered stand.--KATIE SEABROOK, Pres. McKinley's Cook.
FILET MARINE
When you have a good roast beef, after using the sirloin for your dinnr, cut out the filet and put it on a dish. Salt and pepper it, rub a little onion over it, pour a tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar and two spoonfuls of best sweet oil over it. From time to time baste it with the drippings. Warm it up for another meal, basting it while it is cooking over a slow fire. Serve with fried potatoes.
When you have a remnant of pâté de foie gras, use it with boiled macaroni. It can be put back in the paste and warmed over in the oven.
TO BROIL A STEAK
Have your gridiron hot. Wipe the steak clean. Put it in a dish with melted butter, and then put on the hot gridiron and broil ten minutes. Turn it twice, and season with salt, pepper and butter.--"UNCLE JOHN," S.C.
BRISKET OF BEEF
Take one pound bag salt, two of saltpetre, a little sugar, and a few cloves. Rub this mixture well into the beef every day for a week. Then it is fit for use. According to the size of the piece of beef, the mixture must be proportionally stronger.
LEG OF MUTTON
Mutton should be kept and hung several days, rub it all over with an onion, or a small piece of garlic, baste from time to time, with tarragon vinegar and black pepper. Make a mop with a nice clean rag and mop it all over several times. Roast it and serve hot, do not let it stand.
TO BOIL A WESTPHALIA HAM
Let the ham soak over night. Boil it three hours in the same water, and let it cool off in the same. Skin it, put a layer of brown sugar on it moistened with sherry wine; let it brown, put in the oven a few moments. A Smithfield ham may be prepared the same way.
A TODD HAM
Soak forty-eight hours, changing water once or twice. Then put in cold water and let it come to a simmer (don't boil), and simmer slowly for four hours. Then skin and dress with sugar and cracker crumbs, and bake half an hour until well browned.
--MRS. BEALE
HAM FRIED WITH SUGAR
Take a few slices of boiled ham. Sprinkle some brown sugar and a little dry mustard over it. Fry in butter until it browns. Serve hot, to be eaten with salad.
KIDNEY STEW
Take a medium sized beef kidney, put on the fire in cold water with an onion,let it simmer, not boil, until tender. Cut in thin slices as large as a ten-cent piece. Put a piece of butter in frying-pan, shake some flour, let it brown, then add some of the liquor it was cooked in. Serve on toast. Veal kidney does not require so long cooking; prepare same way.
TO STEW LAMB AND PEAS
Put the lamb into a stewpan with about a quart of water, when half done add the peas with pepper and salt to taste. Let them stew slowly and have ready some mint and parsley chopped fine, put it in and let all simmer slowly until ready to serve.
MRS. KELLY'S DELICIOUS MUTTON STEW
Cut in large slices some cold mutton. Take the gravy left from the day before and warm it. Take a separate saucepan, put in it a spoonful of butter, a little onion, cut fine, sprinkle a little corn farina, stirring all the time, until warm, then add the gravy. Put all in a double saucepan. Then put in the cold mutton and leave until it gets nice and hot.--WHITCHURCH.
DELICIOUS STEW
Cut some cold meat into small pieces. Brown golden, add small piece of butter, with a suspicion of onion, add a sprinkling of flour, and a little chopped parsley, half a cupful of stock or mutton broth. Let it simmer slowly for half an hour, adding your meat. Set it way back on your stove to get the heat. Keep it tightly covered until called for.--KATIE SEABROOK, Pres. McKinley's Colored Cook.
TOMATO CURRY
A tomato curry is an excellent accompaniment to baked veal. Mix a tablespoonful of curry powder with a quart of cooked and seasoned tomatoes; put this in a dish, with alternate layers of uncooked rice, using a cupful of the latter in all; let the top layer be of bread crumbs; dot with butter, and bake an hour or until the rice is done.
VEAL CROQUETTES
Mince your veal fine. Mix one half cupful milk with one teaspoonful of flour, a piece of butter the size of an egg, cook until it thickens. Stir into it the meat. Roll into balls. Dip in egg with a little milk stirred in. Roll in browned bread crumbs. Fry in hot lard.
NICE COLD DISH FOR LUNCH, TO BE EATEN WITH SALAD
Boil a good sized chicken with onion, salt and parsley, (cover closely) for two hours. Add a knuckle of veal. Put enough water to cover your meat, and let it simmer an hour more. Take out your chicken when you put in your veal, and cut it up in half inch squares. When your stock is ready, season well with salt and pepper. Put your chicken in a mold with three hard boiled eggs, cut in halves, small pieces of ham or tongue, chicken livers, etc. Arrange it as directed in the mold. Pour the stock over it, and place to cool in the ice box, remembering that when you turn the mold out to serve, the bottom will be on top. This dish can be made very attractive by coloring the jelly with tomato juice.--MME. EUSTIS, MERE.
BELLE DINDI DE JAMBE DE BOIS
Cha-cun son gout moi j'ai fais choix d'une belle - dindi, de jambe de bois, de jambe de bois, de jambe de bois.An illustration of a music sheet with music bars, notes, and the words to the song under them. TURKEY WITH THE WOODEN LEGSAn illustration of a man dressed in cover-alls showing off his turkey with wooden legs.
POTTED VEAL
The livers to be well larded. Put in stewpan with lard, onion, carrots, pepper, salt, a few aromatic herbs, a glass of white wine, let them simmer for three hours. Add a calf's foot, cut in half, and well boiled for several hours. Take out the bones of the calf's foot, put in a bowl to get cold. Will form a nice jelly to be eaten with salad.
TERRAPIN STEW
Boil your terrapin soft. Put in a small piece of bacon, one or two onions, pepper and butter. Chop fine two or three hard boiled eggs. Put all together. Add a little wine.--"UNCLE JOHN."
TERRAPIN
Put them in tub of cold water for about one hour, after which throw them into boiling water and boil until dead. Then take out and with a rough cloth wipe thoroughly all in and around shell and legs and feet, to get off any black skin or dirt. Then throw again into boiling water and cook until the shell comes off easily, and the claws pull off in the same way. Each terrapin has to be tried separately to see if the legs are soft and pliant and the shell and claws come off easily (age tells), and no amount of cooking in a chafing dish later will make tender if not cooked enough before being picked. Hold your terrapin over a dish so that any of the water that runs from it can be saved, and then take off the lower shell and take out the liver which has the gall bladder in, and, holding that over another dish, cut out the gall bladder as you may break it, and if you do, don't want to spoil your terrapin. Pick your terrapin, leaving the small bones in it, and when picked, to a pint of the meat and liquor add half pound best butter, saltspoonful of dry mustard, wineglass of good sherry or madeira, and salt to taste. Heat when ready to serve, but do not cook, and be sure and have hot plates. If you like it you can add about a cup of cream, but we do not do it at the club.--JAMES H. BARNEY, President Maryland Club, 1870.
VEAL TERRAPIN
One pound lean veal, quarter pound veal liver, teaspoonful onion juice and four cloves. Cover with water and boil until tender. When cold cut meat and liver into small pieces. Thicken the water they were boiled in with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in about the same quantity of browned flour (or a little less of the latter). Pour this gravy over the meat and add two hard boiled eggs, cut fine, and a wineglassful of sherry with red pepper, and salt to taste. Heat and serve in chafing dish.
BALTIMORE STYLE OF MAKING TERRAPIN STEW WITHOUT TERRAPIN
Cut up a rabbit in pieces one inch square, and do the same thing with a calf's head which has been thoroughly cleaned and prepared. Add to it whatever you may have left over of chicken livers, gizzards, and small pieces of fried bacon or ham. Flavor with salt, pepper and a laurel leaf. Let it simmer for two hours a day for two days, (four hours in all). Skim off all grease and add to it two or three hard boiled eggs, cut fine, and a wineglassful of white wine.
--MARSHALL THOMAS, Deer Park, Md., July, 1889.
DELICIOUS FISH BALLS
Take a quart of hot potatoes, freshly boiled, a cup of warmed fish picked very fine, one egg, the white and yellow beaten lightly separately, a teaspoonful of nice butter, a tablespoonful of fresh cream, add salt, red pepper, a little onion juice, and parsley chopped fine. Beat the whole to a light cream. Roll in balls and drop into plenty of very hot lard, like doughnuts, stirring them all the time.
CODFISH BALLS
One cupful raw salt fish, one pint potatoes, one egg well beaten, quarter saltspoonful pepper, and more salt if needed, one teaspoonful of butter. Wash the fish, pick in half inch pieces, and free from bones. Pare potatoes and cut in quarters. Put fish and potatoes in stewpan, cover with boiling water. Boil twenty-five minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Do not allow potatoes to get soggy. Drain off all water, mash and beat until very light. Add butter and salt, and when slightly cooled the eggs, and more salt if needed. Shape them without smoothing much. Slip off into frying hot lard one minute. Fry only five at a time.
CODFISH CAKES
Take six good sized potatoes, pare and boil; one pound codfish, put it over in cold water, do not let it boil. Mash fish and potatoes together. When hot season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a piece of butter, two eggs beat light with a fork, fry in boiling lard five minutes, put on sheets of brown paper. Serve hot with some crisp fried bacon.
CODFISH A L'ESPAGNOLE
Take a salt codfish, let it soak, simmer it on a slow fire, let it drip, and cut it in pieces. Put in the oven three or four large sweet peppers, skin them, slice them lengthwise, salt and pepper them.
Put two spoonfuls of sweet oil in a frying-pan. Chop up fine two onions, a piece of garlic, some parsley, cut up four fresh tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let it all cook for half an hour, add a half cupful of bouillon in which you dissolve a teaspoonful of flour, let it cook ten minutes, take out your parsley.
Boil a dozen Irish potatoes in their jackets, peel and slice them, line the bottom of a dish with them, then put some pieces of codfish, then some slices of sweet pepper, then tomato sauce, and a sprinkling of bread crumbs. Put in the oven thirty-five minutes.--Canned tomatoes and peppers can be used instead of fresh.
POTOMAC HERRINGS WITH ROE
When very fresh simply broil them over a slow fire. Baste them with butter, for quarter of an hour. If a few months old and a little dry, soak them before cooking three or four hours. The roe mixed at table with boiled hominy is most delicious for breakfast.
DEVILLED CRABS
Twelve crabs, half pint of milk, two tablespoonfuls of flour, one tablespoonful of butter, salt and cayenne pepper to taste, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Put the milk on to boil, rub the butter and flour together, add the milk, stir and cook two minutes. Take from the fire and add the crab meat. The yolks of three hard boiled eggs mashed fine, then parsley, salt and pepper. Fill the shells, brush over with the white of an egg, cover with bread crumbs and put in a quick oven, or cook in a frying basket.
DEVILLED CRABS--NEW ORLEANS STYLE
Scald your crabs only in boiling water. Pick and clean them carefully. Take out the firm white flesh, and throw out the yellow. Moisten the flesh with a little sweet cream. Taste to see that it is not bitter. Put with it stale breadcrumbs, salt and pepper it, and put this back into the shells; sprinkle with bread crumbs, and put in the oven to brown. Serve hot.--MME. JOSEPHINE NICAUD.
SAUCE A LA NEWBURG, FOR LOBSTER
Take a quarter of a pound of melted butter, and a whiskey glass of sherry wine, two yolks of eggs, a little salt and pepper to taste, a little lemon juice and half cupful of sweet cream, mixed well with half teaspoonful of corn starch. Stir all together well on the fire without allowing it to burn or turn.
--Compliments ofMARSHALL THOMAS.
COURTBOUILLON OF FISH
Make a good brown with a spoonful of lard and a little flour. Add a piece of garlic and half an onion, cut fine--let them brown well. Add two tablespoonfuls of well cooked tomatoes, salt, black coarse pepper, red pepper, two laurel leaves, and a coffeespoonful of saffron. Add enough bouillon to cover your fish, and to make a good sauce. Add half a cupful of good white wine. Take two pounds of very fresh, fine fish, take out the bones, and cut it up in pieces from two to three inches long and wide, salt well, and fry it in a little lard. Add the fried fish to your sauce and let the whole simmer together for half an hour. Do not turn your fish, so you may not break the pieces. Cover your pot half way, as you do for a soup, and serve hot.--JOSEPHINE NICAUD, New Orleans.
"MONICA'S" WAY TO COOK FISH
There are stock fish sometimes called tautog, Monica cooks them thus: Put the fish into a pan with a little butter. Let them fry until pretty nearly cooked, then put in a little wine, pepper and salt, and let them stew. Use no water A little more wine, pepper and salt to make a good gravy--so says "Monica."
POTATO BALLS
Pare and boil dry some potatoes. Then put them into a hot pan and mash with a lump of butter, salt and pepper. Beat this well, and make into small flat cakes. Dip them into egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Fry a nice brown.
PARTRIDGE A LA "UNCLE JOHN"
Take six or eight partridges, or small quails, brown them in a small pan with lard and a light sprinkling of flour. Add three tablespoonfuls of raw tomatoes, half a cupful of meat juice, onion, salt and pepper. Let them simmer an hour, covered. Baste them from time to time with the gravy. Serve with hot rice."UNCLE JOHN,"
Chef for Mr. Le Garee, of South Carolina.
STUFFINGS FOR TURKEYS AND DUCKS
Wild turkeys should be stuffed with corn bread, pecan nuts and truffles. Take a piece of corn bread left over from breakfast, moisten with a teaspoonful of sauce. Add about a dozen peeled pecan nuts, three or four cut truffles, mix well. Cook in saucepan. Stuff your turkey the day before. Always let your fowls hang by the legs. A wild turkey should cook an hour, perhaps a little more or less. Be careful it does not dry, as the flesh is rather dry. Carve it as you would a wild duck, in thick slices. Put a buttered paper on the breast of the wild turkey, to prevent its drying. Tame turkeys can be cooked and stuffed in the same way. Sausages well fried, with mashed potatoes, salt, and red pepper, make deliciou stuffing for fowls.
TURKEY STUFFING
Equal parts of stale baker's bread and nice corn bread left over from breakfast, a hard boiled egg. Chop up a few raw oysters, mix well together with butter, salt, pepper, red and white. Put in the oven to bake. Add to it a remnant of pâté de foie gras and stuff the turkey. Turkey should not cook more than an hour or an hour and a quarter. Do not let it dry, the juice should run from it when it is carved, baste it with soup or stock.
STUFFING FOR FOWLS
Oysters, stale bread, onions, parsley, salt and pepper put in the fyring-pan with a little butter make delicious stuffing. Truffles with stale bread and butter, warmed up together in a frying-pan, and flavored with salt, pepper, etc.
Spanish chestnuts and bits of ham are delicious stuffing.
Stuff your fowls the day before, and hang them up by the legs four hours before cooking.
Chop fine a pound of young calf. Season with salt, pepper, and onion juice. Let it fry in a saucepan with a little butter and a sprinkling of flour. Add enough oyster water to soften it, and half a pint of oysters. Let all fry together to the consistency of a paste. This may be used for small pâtés also, and pigeons may be stuffed in the same way, and allowed to simmer in a saucepan, with a little gravy, closely covered.
CHICKEN CASSEROLE
Take a medium sized chicken, singe and draw and prepare it, put in casserole whole, add a good lump of butter, onion, salt and pepper. Steam gently on top of range two hours, then add mushrooms and vegetables to taste; brown and serve hot.--LIZZIE TOMNEY.
CANVASBACK DUCK
Lose as little of the juice or blood as possible. Split it down the back. After singeing it very carefully, lay it on a gridiron with the split side toward the fire, which must be very hot. Keep flat on the gridiron by pressing the other half, but do not bruise the flesh by pressing too much. Allow the duck to remain over the fire twelve or fifteen minutes, then take off, and expose the breasts to the heat just long enough to brown the skin nicely. It is then cooked, and must immediately be served. A salad of celery mayonnaise is the proper thing to eat with it.--MRS. WILCOX, Aiken, S.C.
HOW TO ROAST DUCKS
Don't wash your ducks, but wipe them thoroughly with a clean cloth, inside and outside. Rub the back (inside and outside) with a small piece of onion. Salt and pepper them the same way. Tie them up tightly so the juice does not escape. Rub the breast of each duck with a spoonful of olive oil. Lay in your dripping-pan a slice or two of bacon, one carrot, one leek, two bay leaves, a piece of celery. Place the ducks on this, and let them cook in a moderate oven twenty-five minutes. Put in any dressing you would make for a roast chicken. With all your roast meats put in the bottom of your roast-pan a carrot cut in half, a piece of onion, celery and parsley. The same with boiled meats or fish, to give a foundation taste to your food.--KATIE SEABROOK, President McKinley's Colored Cook.
HOW TO SERVE CHICKEN
Wash your chicken, dry with a nice clean cloth, put it in a tray of salt and water to cover ten minutes, dry it and salt and pepper and flour it well, throw it in a pan of hot lard, hot enough to make it a golden brown, when done lay it on a piece of very clean paper to absorb the grease. Throw off the top grease, put a handful of flour, stir to a brown, add to it a pint of stock, stir and strain, then put your chicken in and let it simmer slowly until the chicken gets soft; make a nice pot of mush, let it get cold, cut it and fry and serve with the chicken. Fry Jerusalem artichokes and let them simmer with the fricassee; this is also delicious.--ELLEN WHITE, Mrs. Madison's Cook.
FOR BROILING CHICKEN
To prepare chickens to roast and broil, when once you have washed your chickens, wipe them carefully with a dry cloth. Salt and pepper them two or three hours before cooking, put them in the refrigerator. Put a little sweet oil over them before broiling them on a slow fire; while cooking baste them with a little water. For roasting chickens do the same as for broiling. Stuff them, put three or four large spoonfuls of butter inside the chicken. Bake one hour, slow fire.
NEW ORLEANS WAY TO COOK SNIPE
Take some jelly made of calf's feet and madeira wine. A small piece of salt pork and a piece of liver. Chop the meat up fine, with seasoning of salt, red and black pepper. Put a few soda crackers in the oven and toast and pulverize them. Mix them with your chopped meat. Add chopped truffles and mushrooms, and just enough meat juice to soften it. Cut your snipe in two. Put them in a china tureen and fill in the empty places with this hash. Put it on a very slow fire for several hours, basting it with the jelly.--MRS. CUTHBERT SLOCUM.
CHICKEN PIE
Make a rich brown chickenfricassee. Tie a bouquet of aromatic herbs with a thread and let it stand in the fricassee five minutes, then take it out. Cut up two hard boiled eggs and put them in the fricassee. Cook thoroughly over a slow fire. Have your pie crust ready, and put the fricassee in it, not forgetting to prick the top crust with an iron fork in several places to allow evaporation. Otherwise it will ferment and the result will prove disastrous.--AUNT RACHEL COFFIN.
CHICKEN CROQUETTES
Pair of fowls weighing six pounds. Choose those with most breasts. Boil in sufficient water to cover them, with two onions, two carrots, small bunch of thyme and parsley, a few cloves and half a grated nutmeg. After they have become cold and very tender, divest them of skin, fat CHANSON DE MéRANCE Que fais-tu dans ce monde que tu n'téais pas au près des prêtres ras t'en mau-dite en-fant vas t'en dans les en-fers vas t'en dans les en-fers.An illustration of a music sheet with music bars, notes, and the words to the song under them. NURSE MéRANCE OF THE DESTREHIAN PLANTATION, JUST ABOVE NEW ORLEANSAn illustration of a woman working at a table with a wooden spoon gristle and tendons, and chop the meat as fine as possible. A half pound of best butter to each chicken should be put into a saucepan with a tablespoonful of flour, and cook together, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Add a gill or so of the stock in which the chickens are boiled, and a tumbler of rich cream. Boil eight or ten minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from the fire and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Mix well. Stir in milk rapidly, add the yolks of four eggs. Put all on the fire and stew the mixture for a moment, stirring briskly, after which pour the mass out in a flat dish, and let it remain until perfectly cool. Then make it up into pear shaped rolls with the assistance of a little flour to prevent the mixture from sticking to the fingers. When all are ready, dip each one separately into the yolk of eggsbeaten with a little cream, and roll them as fast as dipped into fresh bread crumbs made from day old bread. Let them stand for an hour or so to dry. Now fry them a delicate brown in plenty of clear frying hot lard. Lay them in a colander to drain. Serve on a napkin in a warm dish.
NEW ORLEANS VEAL WITH OYSTERS
Make a brown with a spoonful of nice fresh butter, or lard. Chop a pound of nice, tender young veal. Flavor with salt and pepper. Put it in the frying-pan. Add a little flour. Let it come to a good color. Add a cupful of oyster water, and some well chopped parsley. Let it cook for half an hour over a slow fire. Add your oysters and let them cook five minutes. Never allow your parsley to fry. This makes a delicious stuffing for chickens and ducks by adding a little stale bread. It may be used also for small pâtés, or simply serve on pieces of toast.
--JOSEPHINE NICAUD.
BLANQUETTE OF VEAL
Cut some very tender pieces of veal into square pieces. Let them brown in a saucepan with lard until they are a golden color. Add just enough cold water to cover them, with salt, pepper, onion, one carrot, parsley and laurel leaf, and let them simmer on a slow fire for two hours. Put in a fresh saucepan a tablespoonful of fresh butter and two of flour. Stir it well over the fire until it takes a good color. Moisten with a little meat juice and let it simmer. Dissolve in a cup the yolk of an egg with a little lemon juice, or a small spoonful of vinegar, and a large spoonful of cream. Stir it a bit and then add to your simmering sauce. Simply mix, and do not let them boil. Pour it over your meat which has been simmering in its juice. You can add mushrooms or chopped truffles to this dish for a dinner party.--LEONIE PENIN.
SAUCE BEARNAISE
To make this admirable sauce--a souvenir of the mountain home of Henri de Navarre--put in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of chopped shallots (small green onions), and four of white wine vinegar. Reduce to one half. Add six yolks of eggs, two tablespoonfuls of beef extract and stir on the fire with a wooden spoon, until it thickens. Put a little to the side, and add, a bit at a time, a half pound of good table butter, dropping a little water in when the sauce becomes too thick. Press through a napkin. Finish with finely chopped tarragon, chervil, parsley, and a pinch of red pepper.
DUTCH SAUCE
Yolks of two eggs, quarter pint of cream, two and a quarter spoonfuls of
