Part 4

Half pint green peas, two shredded lettuces, one onion, a small bunch of parsley, two ounces butter, the yolks of three eggs, one pint of water, one and a half quarts of soup stock. Put in a stewpan the lettuce, onion, parsley and butter, with one pint of water, and let them simmer till tender. Season with salt and pepper. When done, strain off the vegetables, and put two-thirds of the liquor with the stock. Beat up the yolks of the eggs with the other third, toss it over the fire, and at the moment of serving add this with the vegetables to the strained-off soup.

CELERY SOUP.

Celery soup may be made with _white stock_. Cut down the white of half a dozen heads of celery into little pieces and boil it in four pints of white stock, with a quarter of a pound of lean ham and two ounces of butter. Simmer gently for a full hour, then strain through a sieve, return the liquor to the pan, and stir in a few spoonfuls of cream with great care. Serve with toasted bread, and if liked, thicken with a little flour. Season to taste.

IRISH POTATO SOUP.

Peel and boil eight medium-sized potatoes with a large onion sliced, some herbs, salt and pepper; press all through a colander; then thin it with rich milk and add a lump of butter, more seasoning, if necessary; let it heat well and serve hot.

PEA SOUP.

Put a quart of dried peas into five quarts of water; boil for four hours; then add three or four large onions, two heads of celery, a carrot, two turnips, all cut up rather fine. Season with pepper and salt. Boil two hours longer, and if the soup becomes too thick add more water. Strain through a colander and stir in a tablespoonful of cold butter. Serve hot, with small pieces of toasted bread placed in the bottom of the tureen.

NOODLES FOR SOUP.

Beat up one egg light, add a pinch of salt, and flour enough to make a _very stiff_ dough; roll out very thin, like thin pie crust, dredge with flour to keep from sticking. Let it remain on the bread board to dry for an hour or more; then roll it up into a tight scroll, like a sheet of music. Begin at the end and slice it into slips as thin as straws. After all are cut, mix them lightly together, and to prevent them sticking, keep them floured a little until you are ready to drop them into your soup which should be done shortly before dinner, for if boiled _too long_ they will go to pieces.

FORCE MEAT BALLS FOR SOUP.

One cupful of cooked veal or fowl meat, minced; mix with this a handful of fine bread crumbs, the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs rubbed smooth together with a tablespoon of milk; season with pepper and salt; add a half teaspoon of flour, and bind all together with two beaten eggs; the hands to be well floured, and the mixture to be made into little balls the size of a nutmeg; drop into the soup about twenty minutes before serving.

EGG BALLS FOR SOUP.

Take the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs and half a tablespoonful of wheat flour, rub them smooth with the yolks of two raw eggs and a teaspoonful of salt; mix all well together; make it in balls, and drop them into the boiling soup a few minutes before taking it up.

Used in green turtle soup.

EGG DUMPLINGS FOR SOUP.

To half a pint of milk put two well-beaten eggs, and as much wheat flour as will make a smooth, rather _thick_ batter free from lumps; drop this batter, a tablespoonful at a time, into boiling soup.

_Another Mode._--One cupful of sour cream and one cupful of sour milk, three eggs, well beaten, whites and yolks separately; one teaspoonful of salt, one level teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a spoonful of water, and enough flour added to make a _very stiff_ batter. To be dropped by spoonfuls into the broth and boiled twenty minutes, or until no raw dough shows on the outside.

SUET DUMPLINGS FOR SOUP.

Three cups of sifted flour in which three teaspoonfuls of baking powder have been sifted; one cup of finely chopped suet, well rubbed into the flour, with a teaspoonful of salt. Wet all with sweet milk to make a dough as stiff as biscuit. Make into small balls as large as peaches, well floured. Drop into the soup three-quarters of an hour before being served. This requires steady boiling, being closely covered, and the cover not to be removed until taken up to serve. A very good form of pot-pie.

SOYER'S RECIPE FOR FORCE MEATS.

Take 1-1/2 lbs. of lean veal from the fillet, and cut it in long thin slices; scrape with a knife till nothing but the fibre remains; put it in a mortar, pound it ten minutes or until in a purée; pass it through a wire sieve (use the remainder in stock), then take 1 lb. of good fresh beef suet, which skin, shred and chop very fine; put it in a mortar and pound it, then add 6 oz. of panada (that is, bread soaked in milk, and boiled till nearly dry) with the suet; pound them well together, and add the veal, season with 1 teaspoonful of salt, 1/4 teaspoonful of pepper, 1/2 that of nutmeg; work all well together; then add four eggs by degrees, continually pounding the contents of the mortar. When well mixed, take a small piece in a spoon, and poach it in some boiling water, and if it is delicate, firm, and of a good flavor, it is ready for use.

CROUTONS FOR SOUP.

In a frying pan have the depth of an inch of boiling fat; also have prepared slices of stale bread cut up into little half-inch squares; drop into the frying pan enough of these bits of bread to cover the surface of the fat. When browned, remove with a skimmer and drain; add to the hot soup and serve.

Some prefer them prepared in this manner:

Take very thin slices of bread, butter them well; cut them up into little squares three-fourths of an inch thick, place them in a baking pan, buttered side up, and brown in a quick oven.

FISH STOCK.

Place a saucepan over the fire with a good-sized piece of sweet butter and a sliced onion; put into that some sliced tomatoes, then add as many different kinds of fish as you can get--oysters, clams, smelts, pawns, crabs, shrimps and all kinds of pan-fish; cook all together until the onions are well browned; then add a bunch of sweet herbs, salt and pepper, and sufficient water to make the required amount of stock. After this has cooked for half an hour pound it with a wooden pestle, then strain and cook again until it jellies.

FISH SOUP.

Select a large, fine fish, clean it thoroughly, put it over the fire with a sufficient quantity of water, allowing for each pound of fish one quart of water; add an onion cut fine and a bunch of sweet herbs. When the fish is cooked, and is quite tasteless, strain all through a colander, return to the fire, add some butter, salt and pepper to taste. A small tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce may be added if liked. Serve with small squares of fried bread and thin slices of lemon.

LOBSTER SOUP, OR BISQUE.

Have ready a good broth made of three pounds of veal boiled slowly in as much water as will cover it, till the meat is reduced to shreds. It must then be well strained.

Having boiled one fine middle-sized lobster, extract all the meat from the body and claws. Bruise part of the coral in a mortar, and also an equal quantity of the meat. Mix them well together. Add mace, cayenne, salt and pepper, and make them up into force meat balls, binding the mixture with the yolk of an egg slightly beaten.

Take three quarts of the veal broth and put it into the meat of the lobster cut into mouthfuls. Boil it together about twenty minutes. Then thicken it with the remaining coral (which you must first rub through a sieve), and add the force meat balls and a little butter rolled in flour. Simmer it gently for ten minutes, but do not let it come to a boil, as that will injure the color. Serve with small dice of bread fried brown in butter.

OYSTER SOUP, No. 1.

Two quarts of oysters, one quart of milk, two tablespoonfuls of butter, one teacupful of hot water; pepper, salt.

Strain all the liquor from the oysters; add the water, and heat. When near the boil, add the seasoning, then the oysters. Cook about five minutes from the time they begin to simmer, until they "ruffle." Stir in the butter, cook one minute, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk and send to table. Some prefer all water in place of milk.

[Illustration: IDA SAXTON McKINLEY.]

OYSTER SOUP. No. 2.

Scald one gallon of oysters in their own liquor. Add one quart of rich milk to the liquor, and when it comes to a boil, skim out the oysters and set aside. Add the yolks of four eggs, two good tablespoonfuls of butter, and one of flour, all mixed well together, but in this order--first, the milk, then, after beating the eggs, add a little of the hot liquor to them gradually, and stir them rapidly into the soup. Lastly, add the butter and whatever seasoning you fancy besides plain pepper and salt, which must both be put in to taste with caution.

Celery salt most persons like extremely; others would prefer a little marjoram or thyme; others again mace and a bit of onion. Use your own discretion in this regard.

CLAM SOUP. (French Style.)

Mince two dozen hard shell clams very fine. Fry half a minced onion in an ounce of butter; add to it a pint of hot water, a pinch of mace, four cloves, one allspice and six whole pepper corns. Boil fifteen minutes and strain into a saucepan; add the chopped clams and a pint of clam-juice or hot water; simmer slowly two hours; strain and rub the pulp through a sieve into the liquid. Return it to the saucepan and keep it lukewarm. Boil three half-pints of milk in a saucepan (previously wet with cold water, which prevents burning) and whisk it into the soup. Dissolve a teaspoonful of flour in cold milk, add it to the soup, taste for seasoning; heat it gently to near the boiling point; pour into a tureen previously heated with hot water, and serve with or without pieces of fried bread--called _croutons_ in kitchen French.

CLAM SOUP.

Twenty-five clams chopped fine. Put over the fire the liquor that was drained from them, and a cup of water; add the chopped clams and boil half an hour; then season to taste with pepper and salt and a piece of butter as large as an egg; boil up again and add one quart of milk boiling hot, stir in a tablespoon of flour made to a cream with a little cold milk, or two crackers rolled fine. Some like a little mace and lemon juice in the seasoning.

MODES OF FRYING

The usual custom among professional cooks is to entirely immerse the article to be cooked in boiling fat, but from inconvenience most households use the half-frying method of frying in a small amount of fat in a frying pan. For the first method a shallow iron frying kettle, large at the top and small at the bottom, is best to use. The fat should half fill the kettle, or an amount sufficient to float whatever is to be fried; the heat of the fat should get to such a degree that, when a piece of bread or a teaspoonful of the batter is dropped in it, it will become brown almost instantly, but should not be so hot as to burn the fat. Some cooks say that the fat should be smoking, but my experience is, that is a mistake, as that soon ruins the fat. As soon as it begins to smoke it should be removed a little to one side, and still be kept at the boiling point. If fritters, crullers, croquettes, etc., are dropped into fat that is too hot, it crusts over the outside before the inside has fully risen, making a heavy, hard article, and also ruining the fat, giving it a burnt flavor.

Many French cooks prefer beef fat or suet to lard for frying purposes, considering it more wholesome and digestible, does not impart as much flavor, or adhere or soak into the article cooked as pork fat.

In families of any size, where there is much cooking required, there are enough drippings and fat remnants from roasts of beef, skimmings from the soup kettle, with the addition of occasionally a pound of suet from the market, to amply supply the need. All such remnants and skimmings should be clarified about twice a week, by boiling them all together in water. When the fat is all melted, it should be strained with the water and set aside to cool. After the fat on the top has hardened, lift the cake from the water on which it lies, scrape off all the dark particles from the bottom, then melt over again the fat; while hot strain into a small clean stone jar or bright tin pail, and then it is ready for use. Always after frying anything, the fat should stand until it settles and has cooled somewhat; then turn off carefully so as to leave it clear from the sediment that settles at the bottom.

Refined cotton-seed oil is now being adopted by most professional cooks in hotels, restaurants and many private households for culinary purposes, and will doubtless in future supersede animal fats, especially for frying, it being quite as delicate a medium as frying with olive oil. It is now sold by leading grocers, put up in packages of two and four quarts.

The second mode of frying, using a frying pan with a small quantity of fat or grease, to be done properly, should, in the first place, have the frying pan hot over the fire, and the fat in it _actually boiling_ before the article to be cooked is placed in it, the intense heat quickly searing up the pores of the article and forming a brown crust on the lower side, then turning over and browning the other the same way.

Still, there is another mode of frying; the process is somewhat similar to broiling, the hot frying pan or spider replacing the hot fire. To do this correctly, a thick bottomed frying pan should be used. Place it over the fire, and when it is so hot that it will siss, oil over the bottom of the pan with a piece of suet, that is if the meat is all lean; if not, it is not necessary to grease the bottom of the pan. Lay in the meat quite flat, and brown it quickly, first on one side, then on the other; when sufficiently cooked, dish on a _hot_ platter and season the same as broiled meats.

FISH.

In selecting fish, choose those only in which the eye is full and prominent, the flesh thick and firm, the scales bright and fins stiff. They should be thoroughly cleaned before cooking.

The usual modes of cooking fish are boiled, baked, broiled, fried and occasionally stewed. Steaming fish is much superior to boiling, but the ordinary conveniences in private houses do not admit of the possibility of enjoying this delicate way of cooking it. Large fish are generally boiled, medium-sized ones baked or boiled, the smaller kinds fried or broiled. Very large fish, such as cod, halibut, etc., are cut in steaks or slices for frying or broiling. The heads of some fish, as the cod, halibut, etc., are considered tidbits by many. Small fish, or pan-fish, as they are usually called, are served without the heads, with the exception of brook-trout and smelts; these are usually cooked whole, with the heads on. Bake fish slowly, basting often with butter and water. Salmon is considered the most nutritious of all fish. When boiling fish, by adding a little vinegar and salt to the water, it seasons and prevents the nutriment from being drawn out; the vinegar acting on the water hardens the water.

Fill the fish with a nicely prepared stuffing of rolled cracker or stale bread crumbs, seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, sage and any other aromatic herbs fancied; sew up; wrap in a well-floured cloth, tied closely with twine, and boil or steam. The garnishes for boiled fish are: for turbot, fried smelts; for other boiled fish, parsley, sliced beets, lemon or sliced boiled egg. Do not use the knives, spoons, etc., that are used in cooking fish, for other food, as they will be apt to impart a fishy flavor.

Fish to be boiled should be put into _cold water_ and set on the fire to cook very gently, or the outside will break before the inner part is done. Unless the fish are small, they should never be put into warm water; nor should water, either hot or cold, be poured _on_ to the fish, as it is liable to break the skin; if it should be necessary to add a little water while the fish is cooking, it ought to be poured in gently at the side of the vessel.

Fish to be broiled should lie, after they are dressed, for two or three hours, with their inside well sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Salt fish should be soaked in water before boiling, according to the time it has been in salt. When it is hard and dry, it will require thirty-six hours soaking before it is dressed, and the water must be changed three or four times. When fish is not very salt, twenty-four hours, or even one night, will suffice.

When frying fish the fire must be hot enough to bring the fat to such a degree of heat as to sear the surface and make it impervious to the fat, and at the same time seal up the rich juices. As soon as the fish is browned by this sudden application of heat, the pan may be moved to a cooler place on the stove, that the process may be finished more slowly.

Fat in which fish has been fried is just as good to use again for the same purpose, but it should be kept by itself and not put to any other use.

TO FRY FISH.

Most of the smaller fish (generally termed pan-fish) are usually fried. Clean well, cut off the head, and, if quite large, cut out the backbone, and slice the body crosswise into five or six pieces; season with salt and pepper. Dip in Indian meal or wheat flour, or in beaten egg, and roll in bread or fine cracker crumbs--trout and perch should not be dipped in meal; put into a thick bottomed iron frying pan, the flesh side down, with hot lard or drippings; fry slowly, turning when lightly browned. The following method may be deemed preferable: Dredge the pieces with flour; brush them over with beaten egg; roll in bread crumbs, and fry in hot lard or drippings sufficient to cover, the same as frying crullers. If the fat is very hot, the fish will fry without absorbing it, and it will be palatably cooked. When browned on one side, turn it over in the fat and brown the other, draining when done. This is a particularly good way to fry slices of large fish. Serve with tomato sauce; garnish with slices of lemon.

PAN-FISH.

Place them in a thick bottomed frying pan with heads all one way. Fill the spaces with smaller fish. When they are fried quite brown and ready to turn, put a dinner plate over them, drain off the fat; then invert the pan, and they will be left unbroken on the plate. Put the lard back into the pan, and when _hot_ slip back the fish. When the other side is brown, drain, turn on a plate as before, and slip them on a warm platter, to be sent to the table. Leaving the heads on and the fish a crispy-brown, in perfect shape, improves the appearance if not the flavor. Garnish with slices of lemon.

_Hotel Lafayette, Philadelphia._

BAKED PICKEREL.

Carefully clean and wipe the fish, and lay in a dripping pan with enough hot water to prevent scorching. A perforated sheet of tin, fitting loosely, or several muffin rings may be used to keep it off the bottom. Lay it in a circle on its belly, head and tail touching, and tied, or as directed in note on fish; bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. When done, have ready a cup of sweet cream or rich milk to which a few spoons of hot water has been added; stir in two large spoons of melted butter and a little chopped parsley; heat all by setting the cup in boiling water; add the gravy from the dripping-pan, and let it boil up once; place the fish in a hot dish and pour over it the sauce. Or an egg sauce may be made with drawn butter; stir in the yolk of an egg quickly, and then a teaspoon of chopped parsley. It can be stuffed or not, just as you please.

BOILED SALMON.

The middle slice of salmon is the best. Sew up neatly in a mosquito-net bag, and boil a quarter of an hour to the pound in hot salted water. When done, unwrap with care, and lay upon a hot dish, taking care not to break it. Have ready a large cupful of drawn butter, very rich, in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of minced parsley and the juice of a lemon. Pour half upon the salmon and serve the rest in a boat. Garnish with parsley and sliced eggs.

BROILED SALMON.

Cut slices from an inch to an inch and an half thick, dry them in a cloth, season with salt and pepper, dredge them in sifted flour, and broil on a gridiron rubbed with suet.

_Another Mode._--Cut the slices one inch thick, and season them with pepper and salt; butter a sheet of white paper, lay each slice on a separate piece, envelop them in it with their ends twisted; broil gently over a clear fire, and serve with anchovy or caper sauce. When higher seasoning is required, add a few chopped herbs and a little spice.

FRESH SALMON FRIED.

Cut the slices three-quarters of an inch thick, dredge them with flour, or dip them in egg and crumbs; fry a light brown. This mode answers for all fish cut into steaks. Season well with salt and pepper.

SALMON AND CAPER SAUCE.

Two slices of salmon, one-quarter pound butter, one-half teaspoonful of chopped parsley, one shallot; salt and pepper to taste.

Lay the salmon in a baking dish, place pieces of butter over it, and add the other ingredients, rubbing a little of the seasoning into the fish; place it in the oven and baste it frequently; when done, take it out and drain for a minute or two; lay it in a dish, pour caper sauce over it and serve. Salmon dressed in this way, with tomato sauce, is very delicious.

BROILED SALT SALMON OR OTHER SALT FISH.