Part 31

Beef glaze, or portable soup, is simply the essence of beef condensed by evaporation. It may be put into pots, like potted meats, or into skins, as sausages, and will keep for many months. If further dried in cakes or lozenges, by being laid on pans or dishes, and frequently turned, it will keep for years, and supply soup at any moment.

1212. Vermicelli Soup.

To three quarts of gravy soup, or stock, add six ounces of vermicelli. Simmer for half an hour; stir frequently.

1213. Vegetable Soup.

Peel and cut into very small pieces three onions, three turnips, one carrot, and four potatoes, put them into a stewpan with a quarter of a pound of butter, the same of lean ham, and a bunch of parsley, pass them ten minutes over a sharp fire; then add a large spoonful of flour, mix well in, moisten with two quarts of broth, and a pint of boiling milk; boil up, keeping it stirred; season with a little salt and sugar, and run it through a hair sieve; put it into another stewpan, boil again, skim, and serve with fried bread in it.

1214. Asparagus Soup.

Two quarts of good beef or veal stock, four onions, two or three turnips, some sweet herbs, and the white parts of a hundred young asparagus,--if old, half that quantity,--and let them simmer till fit to be rubbed through a tammy; strain and season it; have ready the boiled green tops of the asparagus, and add them to the soup.

[BOOKS AND THOUGHT;--THEY SHOULD NOT SUPERSEDE IT.]

1215. Carrot Soup.

Scrape and wash half a dozen large carrots; peel off the red outside (which is the only part used for this soup); put it into a gallon stewpan, with one head of celery, and an onion cut into thin pieces; take two quarts of beef, veal, or mutton broth, or liquor in which mutton or beef has been boiled, as the foundation for this soup. Stock that is equally good may be made by boiling down some cold roast mutton or beef bones. When you have put the broth to the roots, cover the stewpan close, and set it on a slow stove for two hours and a half, when the carrots will be soft enough. At this stage some cooks put in a teacupful of bread-crumbs. Next boil the soup for two or three minutes; rub it through a tammy or hair sieve, with a wooden spoon, and add as much broth as will make it a proper thickness, _i.e._, almost as thick as pea soup; put it into a clean stewpan, make it hot and serve.

1216. Cock-a-Leekie.

Boil from four to six pounds of good shin of beef well broken, until the liquor is very good. Strain it and add a good-sized fowl, with two or three leeks cut in pieces about an inch long, put in pepper and salt to taste, boil slowly about an hour, then put in as many more leeks, and give it three-quarters of an hour longer. A somewhat similar soup may be made of good beef stock, and leeks cut up and put in without a fowl, though this cannot be called Cock-a-Leekie with propriety.

1217. Mince Meat.

Take seven pounds of currants well picked and cleaned; of finely chopped beef suet, and finely chopped apples (Kentish or golden pippins), each three and a half; pounds; citron, lemon peel, and orange peel cut small, each half a pound; fine moist sugar, two pounds; mixed spice, an ounce; the rind of four lemons and four Seville oranges; mix well, and put in a deep pan. Mix a bottle of brandy, another of white wine, and the juice of the lemons and oranges that have been grated, together in a basin; pour half over and press down tight with the hand, then add the other half and cover closely. This may be made one year so as to be used the next.

1218. Minced Collops.

Two pounds of good rump steak, chopped very fine; six good-sized onions, also chopped small; put both into a stewpan, with as much water or gravy as will cover the meat; stir it without ceasing till the water begins to boil; then set the stewpan aside, where the collops can simmer, not boil, for three-quarters of an hour. Just before serving, stir in a tablespoonful of flour, a little pepper and salt, and boil it up once. Serve with mashed potatoes round the dish. The above quantity will be enough for four persons.

1219. Forcemeat Balls.

(For turtle, mock turtle, or made dishes.)--Pound some veal in a marble mortar, rub it through a sieve with as much of the udder as you have veal, or about n third of the quantity of butter: put some bread-crumbs into a stewpan, moisten them with milk, add a little chopped parsley and shalot, rub them well together in a mortar, till they form a smooth paste; put it through a sieve, and when cold, pound, and mix all together, with the yolks of three eggs boiled hard; season the mixture with salt, pepper, and curry powder, or cayenne; add to it the yolks of two raw eggs, rub it well together, and make it into small balls which should be put into the soup or hash, as the case may be, ten minutes before it is ready.

[THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE LEARNED FROM THE MEREST TRIFLE.]

1220. Beef Extract.

(AS RECOMMENDED BY BARON LIEBIG).--Take a pound of good juicy beef from which all the skin and fat has been cut away, chop it up like sausage meat; mix it thoroughly with a pint of cold water, place it on the side of the stove to heat very slowly, and give it an occasional stir. It may stand two or three hours before it is allowed to simmer, and will then require but fifteen minutes of gentle boiling. Salt should be added when the boiling commences, and this for invalids in general, is the only seasoning required. When the extract is thus far prepared, it may be poured from the meat into a basin, and allowed to stand until any particles of fat on the surface can he skimmed off, and the sediment has subsided and left the soup quite clear, when it may be poured off gently, heated in a clean saucepan, and served. The scum should be well cleared as it accumulates.

1221. Potted Beef.

Take three or four pounds, or any smaller quantity, of lean beef, free from sinews, and rub it well with a mixture made of a handful of salt, one ounce of saltpetre, and one ounce of coarse sugar; let the meat lie in the salt for two days, turning and rubbing it twice a day. Put it into a stone jar with a little beef gravy, and cover it with a paste to keep it close. Bake it for several hours in a very slow oven till the meat is tender; then pour off the gravy, which should be in a very small quantity, or the juice of the meat will be lost; pound the meat, when cold, in a marble mortar till it is reduced to a smooth paste, adding by degrees a little fresh butter melted. Season it as you proceed with pepper, allspice, nutmeg, pounded mace, and cloves, or such of these spices as are thought agreeable. Some flavour with anchovy, ham, shalots, mustard, wine, flavoured vinegar, ragoût powder, curry powder, &c., according to taste. When it is thoroughly beaten and mingled together, press it closely into small shallow pots, nearly full, and fill them up with a layer a quarter of an inch thick of clarified butter, and tie them up with a bladder, or sheet of Indian rubber. They should be kept in a cool place.

1222. Strasburg Potted Meat.

Take a pound and a half of rump of beef, cut into dice, and put it in an earthen jar, with a quarter of a pound of butter at the bottom; tie the jar close up with paper, and set over a pot to boil; when nearly done, add cloves, mace, allspice, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste; then boil till tender, and let it get cold. Pound the meat, with four anchovies washed and boned; add a quarter of a pound of oiled butter, work it well together with the gravy, warm a little, and add cochineal to colour. Then press into small pots, and pour melted mutton suet over the top of each.

1223. Brown Stock (1).

Put five pounds of shin of beef, three pounds of knuckle of veal, and some sheep's trotters or cow-heel into a closely-covered stewpan, to draw out the gravy very gently, and allow it to become nearly brown. Then pour in sufficient boiling water to entirely cover the meat, and let it boil up, skimming it frequently; seasoning it with whole peppers, salt, and roots, herbs, and vegetables of any kind. That being done, let it boil gently five or six hours, pour the broth off from the meat, and let it stand during the night to cool. The following morning take off the scum and fat, and put it away in a stone jar for further use.

1224. Brown Stock (2).

Brown stock may be made from all sorts of meat, bones, remnants of poultry, game, &c. The shin of beef makes an excellent stock.

1225. Brown Gravy.

Three onions sliced, and fried in butter to a nice brown; toast a large thin slice of bread until quite hard and of a deep brown. Take these, with any piece of meat, bone, &c., and some herbs, and set them on the fire, with water according to judgment, and stew down until a rich and thick gravy is produced. Season, strain, and keep cool.

1226. Goose or Duck Stuffing.

Chop very fine about two ounces of onion, of _green_ sage leaves about an ounce (both unboiled), four ounces of bread-crumbs, a bit of butter about as big as a walnut, &c., the yolk and white of an egg, and a little pepper and salt; some add to this a minced apple.

[STRIVE TO LEARN FROM ALL THINGS.]

1227. Bacon.

Bacon is an extravagant article in housekeeping; there is often twice as much dressed as need be; when it is sent to table as an accompaniment to boiled poultry or veal, a pound and a half is plenty for a dozen people, A good German sausage is a very economical substitute for bacon; or fried pork sausage.

1228. Culinary Economy.

The English, generally speaking, are very deficient in the practice of culinary economy; a French family would live well on what is often wasted in an English kitchen: the bones, dripping, pot-liquor, remains of fish, vegetables, &c., which are too often consigned to the grease-pot or the dust-heap, especially where pigs or fowls are not kept, might, by a very trifling degree of management on the part of the cook, or mistress of a family, be converted into sources of daily support and comfort, at least to some poor pensioner or other, at an expense that even the miser could scarcely grudge.

1229. Calf's Head Pie.

Boil the head an hour and a half, or rather more. After dining from it, cut the remaining meat off in slices. Boil the bones in a little of the liquor for three hours; then strain it off, let it remain till next day, and then take off the fat.

_To make the Pie._--Boil two eggs for five minutes; let them get cold, then lay them in slices at the bottom of a pie-dish, and put alternate layers of meat and jelly, with pepper and chopped lemon also alternately, till the dish is full; cover with a crust and bake it. Next day turn the pie out upside down.

1230. Sea Pie.

Make a thick pudding crust, line a dish with it, or what is better, a cake-tin; put a layer of sliced onions, then a layer of salt beef cut in slices, a layer of sliced potatoes, a layer of pork, and another of onions; strew pepper over all, cover with a crust, and tie down tightly with a cloth previously dipped in boiling water and floured. Boil for two hours, and serve hot in a dish.

1231. Rump-Steak Pie.

Cut three pounds of rump-steak (that has been kept till tender) into pieces half as big as your hand, trim off all the skin, sinews, and every part which has not indisputable pretensions to be eaten, and beat them with a chopper. Chop very fine half a dozen shalots, and add to them half an ounce of pepper and salt mixed; strew some of the seasoning at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of steak, then some more of the seasoning, and so on till the dish is full; add half a gill of mushroom ketchup, and the same quantity of gravy, or red wine; cover it as in the preceding receipt, and bake it two hours. Large oysters, parboiled, bearded, and laid alternately with the steaks--their liquor reduced and substituted instead of the ketchup and wine, will impart a delicious flavour to the pie.

1232. Raised Pies.

Put two pounds and a half of flour on the pasteboard,--and set on the fire, in a saucepan, three quarters of a pint of water, and half a pound of good lard. When the water boils, make a hole in the middle of the flour, pour in the water and lard by degrees, gently incorporating the flour with a spoon, and when it is well mixed, knead it with your hands till it becomes stiff; dredge a little flour to prevent it sticking to the board, or you cannot make it look smooth. Roll the dough with your hands--the rolling-pin must not be used--to about the thickness of a quart pot; leave a little for the covers, and cut the remainder into six circular discs. Take each of these pieces in succession; put one hand in the middle, and keep the other close on the outside till you have worked it either into an oval or a round shape.

Have your meat ready cut, and seasoned with pepper and salt; if pork, cut it in small slices--the griskin is the best for pasties: if you use mutton, cut it in very neat cutlets, and put them in the pies as you make them; roll out the covers with the rolling-pin, and cut them to the size of the pies, wet them round the edge, put them on the pie. Then press the paste of each pie and its cover together with the thumb and finger, and lastly, nick the edge all round with the back of a knife, and bake them an hour and a half.

[OBSERVATION IS THE BEST TEACHER.]

1233. Wild Duck, To Dress.

The birds are roasted like common ducks, but without stuffing, and with a rather less allowance of time for cooking. For example, a full-sized duck will take from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in roasting, but a wild duck will take from forty to fifty minutes. Before carving the knife should be drawn longitudinally along the breast, and upon these a little cayenne pepper must be sprinkled, and a lemon squeezed. They require a good made gravy, as described below. They are excellent half roasted and hashed in a good gravy made as follows:

1234. Sauce for Wild Duck.

Simmer a teacupful of port wine, the same quantity of good gravy, a small shalot, with pepper, nutmeg, mace, and salt to taste, for about ten minutes; put in a bit of butter and flour; give it all one boil, and pour it over the birds, or serve in a sauce tureen.

1235. Widgeon and Teal, To Dress.

These birds may be roasted or half roasted and baked, according to the directions given for wild duck, and served up with, a sauce or gravy made in precisely the same way. A widgeon will take as long to roast as a wild duck, but a teal, being a smaller bird, will take only from twenty to thirty minutes.

1236. Roast Duck.

Put into the body of the bird a seasoning of parboiled onions mixed with finely-chopped sage, salt, pepper, and a slice of butter. Place it before a brisk fire, but not sufficiently near to be scorched; baste it constantly, and when the breast is well plumped, and the steam from it draws towards the fire, dish and serve it quickly, with a little good brown gravy poured round them, and also some in a gravy tureen. Young ducks will take about half an hour to roast; full-sized ones from three-quarters of an hour to an hour.

1237 Roast Partridge.

Let the bird hang as long as it can be kept without being offensive. Pick it carefully, and singe it; wipe the inside thoroughly with a clean cloth, truss it with the head turned under the wing and the legs drawn close together, but not crossed. Flour partridges prepared in this manner when first laid to the fire, and baste them plentifully with butter. Serve them with bread sauce and good brown gravy.

1238. Partridge Pudding.

Skin a brace of well-kept partridges, and cut them into pieces; line a deep basin with suet crust, and lay in the pieces, which should be rather highly seasoned with white pepper and cayenne, and moderately with salt. Pour in water for the gravy, close the pudding carefully, and boil it for three hours or three hours and a half. When mushrooms are plentiful, put a layer of buttons or small mushrooms, cleaned as for pickling, alternately with a layer of partridge in filling tho pudding. The crust may he left untouched and merely emptied of its contents, where it is objected to, or a richer crust made with butter may be used instead of the ordinary suet crust.

1239. Roast Ptarmigan.

The ptarmigan, which is either a variety of grouse or grouse in its winter plumage, and black game, when roasted, are cooked in precisely the same manner as grouse.

1240. Roast Grouse.

Truss the birds in the same manner as pheasants, and set down before a brisk fire. When nearly ready--they will be done in from twenty to twenty-five minutes--baste well with butter and sprinkle with flour in order to froth them, and send to table with some good brown gravy and some fried bread crumbs and bread sauce. These accompaniments should be served in different sauce tureens.

[SMALL BEGINNINGS MAY LEAD TO LARGE ENDS.]

1241. To Truss and Roast a Pheasant.

The following method of trussing a pheasant--which applies equally to partridges, grouse, &c., and to fowls, guineafowls, &c.--is prescribed by Francatelli in his "Cook's Guide":

"Rub the scaly cuticle off the legs with a cloth; trim away the claws and spurs; cut off the neck close up to the back, leaving the skin of the breast entire; wipe the pheasant clean and truss it in the following manner, viz.:--Place the pheasant upon its breast, run a trussing needle and string through the left pinion (the wings being removed); then turn the bird over on its back, and place the thumb and forefinger of the left hand across the breast, holding the legs erect; thrust the needle through the middle joint of both thighs, draw it out and then pass it through the other pinion, and fasten the strings at the back; next pass the needle through the hollow of the back, just below the thighs, thrust it again through the legs and body and tie the strings tightly; this will give it an appearance of plumpness."

Roast and send to table in the same manner, and with the same accompaniments as directed for Roast Partridge (_par._ 1237.)

1242. Cold Partridge Pie.

Bone as many partridges as the size of pie to be made may require. Put a whole raw truffle, peeled, into each partridge, and fill up the remaining space in each bird with good forcemeat. Make a raised crust; lay a few slices of veal in the bottom, and a thick layer of forcemeat; then the partridges, and four truffles to each partridge; then cover the partridges and truffles over with sheets of bacon, cover the pie in, and finish it. It will take four hours baking.

Cut two pounds of lean ham (if eight partridges are in the pie) into very thin slices, put it in a stewpan along with the bones and giblets of the partridges, and any other loose giblets that are at hand, an old fowl, a faggot of thyme and parsley, a little mace, and about twenty-four shalots: add about a pint of stock. Set the stewpan on a stove to simmer for half an hour, then put in three quarts of good stock; let it boil for two hours, then strain it off, and reduce the liquid to one pint; add sherry wine to it, and put aside till the pie is baked.

When the pie has been out of the oven for half an hour, boil the residue strained from the bones &c., of the partridges, and put it into the pie. Let it stand for twenty-four hours before it is eaten.--_Do not take, any of the fat from the pie, as that is what preserves it._ A pie made in this manner will be eatable for three months after it is cut; in short, it cannot spoil in any reasonable time. All cold pies are made in this manner. Either poultry or game, when put into a raised crust and intended not to be eaten until cold, should be boned, and the liquor that is to fill up the pie made from the bones, &c.

1243. Veal Pie.

Take some of the middle or scrag of a small neck; season it with pepper and salt, and, put to it a few pieces of lean bacon or ham. If a high seasoning is required, add mace, cayenne, and nutmeg to tho salt and pepper, and forcemeat and egg balls, truffles, morels, mushrooms, sweetbreads cut into small bits, and cocks' combs blanched, can form part of the materials, if liked, but the pie will be very good without them. Have a rich gravy to pour in after baking.

1244. Mutton Pie.

The following is a capital family dish:--Cut mutton into pieces about two inches square, and half an inch thick; mix pepper, pounded allspice, and salt together, dip the pieces in this; sprinkle stale bread-crumbs at the bottom of the dish; lay in the pieces, strewing the crumbs over each layer; put a piece of butter the size of a hen's egg at the top; add a wineglassful of water, and cover in, and bake in a moderate oven rather better than an hour. Take an onion, chopped fine; a faggot of herbs; half an anchovy; and add to it a little beef stock or gravy; simmer for a quarter of an hour; raise the crust at one end, and pour in the liquor--not the thick part. (_See_ POTATO PIE. _par_, 1118).

[IF NONE ENDEAVOUR, THERE WOULD BE AN END TO DISCOVERY.]

1245. Seven-Bell Pasty.

Shred a pound of suet fine, cut salt pork into dice, potatoes and onions small, rub a sprig of dried sage up fine; mix with some pepper, and place in the corner of a square piece of paste; turn over the other corner, pinch up the sides, and bake in a quick oven. If any bones, &c., remain from the meat, season with pepper and sage, place them with a gill of water in a pan, and bake with the pasty; when done, strain and pour the gravy into the centre of the pasty.

1246. Apple Pie.