Part 5

Pick the beans, wash them, and put them to soak over night in plenty of water. In the morning pour this water off and put the beans in a kettle of cold water; place them on the fire and let them simmer till quite tender. Take them up and drain them; when thoroughly drained, put them in a baking pan with a large piece of salt pork; score the pork and lay it deep in among the beans, not upon them. Pour boiling water over them and bake till brown. If in a range, leave them in all night. This constant change of water improves the beans very much, and makes them less flatulent.

MUTTON, BEEF AND HAMS

REMARKS ON BOILING MEATS

Meat, whether fresh or salted, smoked or dried, should always be put on the fire in cold water. Dried meats should be soaked before boiling. The delicacy of meat and fowls is preserved by carefully skimming while they are boiling.

STUFFED HAM

Smoked hams are much liked stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, which the only kind of stuffing a salt ham will admit, as bread, crackers or oysters would sour before the ham could be used. If you wish to stuff a ham, look at the recipe for “Aromatic Spices for seasoning Meat, Pies, etc.” Soak your ham all night, scrape it nicely, and boil it half an hour to make the skin tender; then take it from the pot, gash it all over, introduce as much of the pounded spices as the incisions will hold, and then close the skin over the gashes and boil in the same manner, with vegetables thrown in, as in recipe for boiled ham.

BAKED HAM

Soak and clean your ham, boil it with onions, cloves, parsley and sweet herbs until it is nearly done, then let it cool in its own liquor; when cold, pull off the skin and place the ham in the oven gate, with a little sugar and bread crumbs over it till it is brown. If it is to be eaten hot, serve with vegetables and some acid or piquant sauce; if cold, send up savory jelly, No. 21.

TO BOIL A HAM

Run a knife, or skewer, into the thickest part of the ham next the bone; if the knife comes out clean the ham is good, if it smells rank and smears the knife the ham is not good. Select your ham, then, according to this rule, and when good lay it in cold water; scrape and wash it carefully, and let it remain in the water all night. In the morning, when the water--enough to cover the ham--is nearly boiling lay the ham in, and keep the water in a simmer. When it has boiled about an hour throw in two carrots, four onions, two heads of celery, a sprig of parsley, two or three blades of mace and four cloves. If the ham is very salty, it is well to change the water before putting in the seasoning. To obtain tenderness and mellowness the ham must not be allowed to boil hard, only simmer. Too much heat hardens all meat, especially salt meat. When the ham is done set it off in its own water, let it cool in it; by this means it will retain its moisture. When cool take it out, skin it, and dredge sugar over it, set it in the oven till it browns, or hold a hot shovel over it.

DAUBE GLACEE OF BEEF, FOR COLD SUPPERS

Take a thick round of beef--from four to six inches is the best size--make holes in it and stuff them with salted pork or bacon; roll each piece, before it is drawn through the beef, in pepper, salt, sugar, and vinegar, with minced parsley, and a very little minced garlic. If the weather is cold it will be better to keep the meat till the next day before cooking it. Boil two calf’s feet or four pig’s feet until they drop to pieces; pick out the bones and strain the liquor; set it away to jelly, or put it on ice to make it jelly. The next morning, put one half the jelly in a large stew pan, then add the beef, and cover it with the remainder of the jelly. Paste the pan over very tight or cover it extremely well, so that none of the flavor can escape. Cook this about four hours; when done, take out, cover with the liquor, and set it aside till it is jellied. This is delicious to eat cold, for suppers and collations.

BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF, STUFFED

A piece weighing about eight pounds requires five or six hours to boil. Before boiling the beef make a dressing of bread crumbs, pepper, butter, salt, sweet herbs, mace, and an onion, all chopped fine and mixed with a beaten egg. Put the dressing between the fat and the lean of the beef; sew it up to keep the dressing in. Flour a cloth, tie the beef up tight in it, and let it boil five or six hours.

ROUND OF BEEF STEWED BROWN

Make incisions in the beef and stuff with chopped onions, salt, pepper, and sweet basil, thyme and parsley. Dredge the meat with flour, lay some slices of bacon over it, and put it to brown in a close oven. Slice two turnips, four carrots, four salsifies, three stalks of celery and two onions; add a quarter of a cup of tomato catsup or two large tomatoes; season with salt and put all in the oven to cook with the meat. After it has been cooking in the oven two hours and is brown, add a cup of water with the vegetables. Cover again closely, and let this stew for one or two hours more, or until the meat and vegetables are tender.

TO FRY A STEAK TO TASTE AS IF BROILED

It sometimes happens that when the fire is low and the coals gone out, you are called on to cook a steak. Then get up a quick blaze in the stove with some kindlings. Put in a pan, over the blaze, a little butter; when it is hot lay in your steak; let it fry quickly; while frying cover the pan. Work some butter, salt and pepper together in a tin pan, and when the steak is done to taste, let it lie in this mixture a few minutes, and then serve. Do not salt a steak until it is cooked as salt will toughen it and draw out its juices.

ROUND OF BEEF A LA BARONNE

Boil a fat round of beef for half an hour, take it up and put in a deep dish; cut gashes in the sides of the meat, put pepper and salt into each gash; fill the dish the meat is in with claret wine; set it in to bake, adding as it goes in the stove three blades of mace, a cup of pickled capers, or nasturtiums, three white onions cut small, and a bunch of parsley cut fine. Stew or bake all together until the meat is tender. Toast some slices of bread very brown, lay them in the bottom of a dish, lay in the beef and pour the gravy around it, unless it is preferred in a sauce boat.

ROASTED BEEFSTEAKS

Tenderloin or porterhouse steaks are the best for broiling. Have a clear fire of coals to broil on; rub the gridiron with a little fat of the meat; lay on the steak without salting, let it broil gently until one side is done, then turn. Catch the blood as you turn it, to make the gravy rich. If the steak is a large firm one, take a quarter of a pound of butter and work into it pepper and salt. When the steak is done lay it on to this seasoned butter, keep it hot until the butter melts, turn the steak in it a few times, put the blood with the gravy, and serve hot, with tomato sauce or catsup.

TO ROAST BEEF IN A STOVE

A fine roasting piece of beef may, if properly managed, be baked in a stove so as to resemble beef roasted before a large, open fire. Prepare the meat as if for roasting, season it well with salt, pepper, and a little onion if liked. Set the meat on muffin rings, or a trivet in a dripping pan, and pour into the pan a pint or so of hot water to baste the meat with. Keep the oven hot and well closed on the meat; when it begins to bake, baste it freely, using a long-handled spoon; it should be basted every fifteen minutes; add hot water to the pan as it wastes, that the gravy may not burn; allow fifteen minutes to each pound of meat unless you wish it very rare. Half an hour before taking it up, dredge flour thickly over it, baste freely and let it brown. Take the meat from the pan, dredge in some flour and seasoning if needed; throw into the gravy a cup of water, let it boil up once, and strain into a sauce boat or gravy tureen.

LEG OF MUTTON BOILED A L’ANGLAISE

Select a fat, fine leg of mutton, put it on the fire in warm water; when it boils skim it, and let it simmer gently for two hours and a half; throw in a tablespoonful of salt. When the mutton is done garnish with turnips mashed in cream, butter, pepper and salt, and send it to table with a sauce boat of caper sauce No. 11.

ROAST LEG OF MUTTON

Select a fine, fat leg, cut holes in it, and lard it with fat bacon; season with parsley, pepper, and salt and put it to bake in a slow oven. Roast it for two hours, and serve with tomato sauce.

MUTTON STUFFED WITH MUSHROOMS

Chop up half a pint of mushrooms, put them in a stew pan with some chopped parsley and onion, and a tablespoonful of grated lean and same of fat ham; season with salt and pepper, add the yolks of four eggs, stir it all together, and introduce it in the leg by taking out the bone or by making incisions in the mutton. Bake very brown, froth it up by dusting flour over it, and serve with a good brown gravy, in which some currant jelly is melted. Sauce No. 28 is very nice for stuffed leg of mutton.

MUTTON HAUNCH

Let it lie in vinegar and water a few hours before it is put to cook. When wanted, rub it all over with pepper and salt, and when going to put it in the oven, cover it with a paste made of flour and water, to keep in the juices while baking; allow fifteen minutes to each pound of mutton. When half done, take off the flour paste, baste the meat well and dredge flour over it. Half an hour before serving, stir into the pan a quarter of a pound of butter, baste the meat freely, dredge flour over it again, and brown. Serve with port wine and jelly in the gravy, or if preferred, use one of the sauces mentioned for roast mutton.

MUTTON THAT WILL TASTE LIKE VENISON

Take a hind quarter of lamb or mutton; rub it well all over with brown sugar, half a pint of wine, and same of vinegar. Let it stay in this pickle for a day or two, if the weather is cold. When it is wanted, wash it, dry it, and roast it, or it may be cut into steaks, or made into a pie like venison. Sugar is a great preservative, and gives a finer flavor than salt, which hardens delicate meats. Salt drains out the juices of mutton or lamb.

FOWLS AND GAME

BOILED CHICKEN

After the chickens are cleaned and trussed fold them in a nice white cloth, put them in a large stew-pan and cover them with boiling water; boil them gently, and skim carefully as long as any scum rises; let them simmer slowly as that will make them plump and white, while fast boiling will make them dark and lose flavor. When done lay them on a hot dish, and pour celery, oyster, or egg sauce over them. Serve some also in a boat, as it keeps hot longer than when poured over the fowls. Boiled tongue or ham should be served with boiled chicken. If the chicken is not very tough, an hour or an hour and a quarter is sufficient to boil it.

COUNTRY FRIED CHICKENS

Take a young, fat chicken, cut it up, pepper and salt it, dredge it over with flour, and set it by while you mix a cup of lard, and some slices of fat bacon in a frying pan. Let the lard get very hot, then drop in a few pieces of the chicken, always allowing room in the pan for each piece to be turned without crowding. As fast as you fry the pieces, put them on a dish over hot water to keep the heat in them while you make the gravy. Pour off some of the grease the chicken was fried in, and then dredge into the frying pan some flour, let this brown nicely and then pour into it a cup of sweet milk, little at a time; let it froth up, and then place your chicken back into the gravy for three minutes. If you like the chicken brown and dry, pour the gravy under it on the dish for serving.

BOILED CHICKENS WITH STUFFING

Truss and stuff the chicken as for roasting, dredge it all over with wheat flour, and put it in a pot of boiling water; take the pot off the fire for five minutes after the chicken is put in, or the skin will crack; then let it boil gently according to its age and weight, an old fowl requiring twice as long to boil as a young one; allow fifteen minutes to the pound. Take off all the scum as it rises, and when done serve with hard-boiled egg sauce, or parsley, or oyster sauce. This is a nice way to cook a fat old chicken, as it is much more tender and nourishing than baked, for if the chicken is old baking toughens it.

STEW, OR FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN

Clean and wash the chicken, cut it up as for frying, lay it in a stew-pan with water to cover it; add a teaspoonful of salt and half as much pepper; set it to boil very gently, take off all scum as it rises. When the chicken is tender, which will be in an hour, take a teacup of butter, a tablespoonful of flour worked in it, and a bunch of parsley, put them in the stew-pan with the chicken; let all stew twenty minutes, and serve on toasted bread. Egg-balls around the toast add much to the beauty of this dish.

CHICKEN FRICASSEE A LA MARENGO

Cut the chicken up as for a fricassee, put it in a sauce-pan with a wineglassful of salad oil, and allow it to cook rather briskly for twenty minutes; then put in with it a quarter of a pound of truffles cut up, a bunch of parsley, six chives or small green eschalots, a bruised clove of garlic, and pepper and salt; let them stew for twenty minutes; then pour off the oil and take out the parsley. If only one chicken is used, throw in half a pint of button mushrooms, a ladleful of brown gravy sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Garnish this dish with pieces of fried bread and large crayfish.

ROAST CHICKENS

Draw them and stuff with rich bread and butter stuffing; baste them with butter and a little fat bacon, seasoned with sweet herbs; brown nicely, and serve with their own gravy made by sifting in a tablespoonful of flour and a cup of hot water; add a little chopped parsley, and serve with hard-boiled eggs on the dish with the chickens.

CHICKEN SAUTE WITH OYSTER SAUCE

Cut up the chicken as for frying, roll each piece in salt, pepper, and sifted flour, and fry a light brown. Pour off most of the grease the chicken was fried in, and in the same pan put three dozen oysters with a pint of their juice, and a spoonful of lemon juice. Let them simmer a few minutes, and serve with pieces of fried bread around the dish.

COLD CHICKEN ESCALLOPED

Mince cold chicken without the skin, wet it with gravy or hot water (gravy is best), and season with salt and pepper. To the minced meat of one chicken, put two ounces of sweet, fresh butter, cut small. Rub tin or silver scallop pans with butter, strew over the bottom powdered cracker, lay the minced chicken in, strew cracker over the top, and bake in a hot oven long enough to brown the top. Serve with celery or pickle.

TO BROIL A CHICKEN

Clean it as usual and split it down the back, break the breast-bone with a stroke of the potato beetle, spread it out flat and lay it on the gridiron over clear coals; put the inside of the chicken to the fire first. Put a tin cover over it, let it broil quickly until nearly done, then turn it and finish without the cover. When nicely browned take it on a dish, season it with salt and pepper, and butter it freely; turn it once or twice in the butter and serve it hot.

CHICKEN CURRY

Cut up the chicken and stew as usual for the table. When done add a tablespoonful of curry powder. Serve rice with the dish.

CHICKEN PIE, A LA REINE

Cut two chickens up as for frying, lay some veal cut in small pieces in the bottom of your pie dish, cut up over the veal a slice of fat ham; on this place your chickens; place hard-boiled yolks of eggs in among the chicken. Take half a pint of white sauce, made with butter, flour, and milk or water; pour this over the chickens, season with a cup of chopped mushrooms, some parsley, pepper and salt (a good pie can be made if you omit the mushrooms and ham, but not so rich as this recipe); now cover your pie with a good paste, and bake for an hour or two.

PLAIN CHICKEN PIE

Take two nice chickens, or more if they are small, cut them up as for frying, and put them in a pot to stew with some slices of fat meat. Let them cook for half an hour, then add a few onions and four Irish potatoes sliced small, so that in cooking they may be thoroughly dissolved in the gravy. Season with pepper, salt, a little parsley, and a quarter of a pound of sweet butter. When it is cooked well there should be gravy enough to cover the chickens. If you want it very nice, beat up two eggs, and stir into the stew with half a pint of milk. Line a five-quart pan with a crust made like soda biscuit, only more shortening; put in the chickens and gravy; then cover with a top crust. Bake until the crust is done and you will have a good chicken pie.

CHICKEN POT PIE

Cut up a chicken, parboil it, save the liquor it was boiled in. Wash out the kettle, or take another one, and in it fry three or four slices of fat salt pork, and put it in the bottom of the dish in which the pie is to be made; then put in the chicken and the liquor, also a piece of butter the size of a teacup, and sprinkle in some pepper; cover with a light crust and bake an hour.

BONED TURKEY

Chop up one pound of white veal, with a pound of fat bacon; season high with chopped mushrooms, parsley, pepper, salt, and a bunch of sweet herbs; when chopped fine, pound them in a mortar or pass them through a sausage grinder; add to this the yolks of three eggs, and place it by in a basin for use. Peel a pound of truffles, and cut up a boiled smoked tongue, a pound of fat bacon, or a pound of calf’s udder or veal. Next bone a turkey, or two fine capons, or fowls, and draw the skin from the legs and pinions inside. Take the turkey on a napkin--it is now limp and boneless--cut slices from the thick breast and place it on the skin where it seems to be thin, distribute the flesh of the fowl as evenly as you can on the skin; season it slightly with pepper and salt. Spread a layer of the prepared force-meat in the basin, let it be an inch thick; then place the cut-up tongue, bacon and veal, lay a row of chopped truffles and a layer of the force-meat until the skin is covered, or as full as it will hold. It must be sewed up the back, the ends tied, like a cushion, or roly-poly; to do this you must butter a cloth and put it tightly over the turkey skin, as it will be quite too tender to stand the cooking, etc., unless supported by a napkin. Tie it up tightly and place it in a round stewpan with the bones and any trimmings of veal or poultry at hand, add to it two boiled calf’s feet, or an ounce of gelatine, two onions stuck with four cloves, a bunch of parsley, six green onions, a bunch of sweet basil, and a bunch of thyme, two blades of mace, and a dozen pepper corns, or whole peppers; moisten all with half a pint of wine or brandy. Warm this up and put in your tied-up gelatine, pour over it as much white veal stock as will cover it well, put it back in the stove to simmer gently for two hours and a half; let the gelatine get cold in its own seasoning, and then take it out and put it under a weight while you remove the stock or gravy; take off all the cold grease from the surface and clarify with eggs in the usual way. When the gelatine is quite cold, remove the weight, take it from its napkin, wipe it and glaze it, and place it on a dish. Decorate it with the strained gravy, which should have been placed on ice as soon as clarified and strained. It will now be a firm jelly; if not, put it on ice again, and trim the boned turkey or fowls with it.

Gelatines of turkeys, geese, capons, pheasants, partridges, etc., are made in the same way. This is from the finest source, and will repay any one who tries to make this magnificent dish. It has never, to my knowledge, been given in an American cook-book, as it was obtained from one who was _Chef de Cuisine_ to a crowned head of Europe.

WILD TURKEY

If the turkey is old, or tough, it must be boiled one hour before being stuffed for baking. Then stuff it with oysters, bread and butter, and season with pepper and salt; baste with butter, and the juice of the turkey. Make the gravy by putting in the pan a pint of oysters, or button mushrooms, throw in a cup of cream, or milk, salt and pepper, and send to table hot, with the turkey.

A PLAIN WAY TO COOK A TURKEY BY ROASTING