Part 2
=Lobster en Brochette.=—Cut up the tail of a lobster into square pieces; take a few thin slices of bacon and cut into lengths to match the pieces of lobster; place them on a skewer alternately, and broil; baste as in “broiled lobster,” and send to table on a bed of water-cress.
=Baked Shad.=—Make a dressing of bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt worked to a paste; fill the shad with the mixture, sew it up, and place it lengthwise in a baking-pan with a little water and an ounce of butter. Fill the space between the fish and the sides of the pan with slices of raw potatoes one-fourth of an inch thick, and serve fish and potatoes together. Add a spoonful of Barlow’s prepared flour to the gravy, and serve.
=“Tenderloin” Trout.=—Take a large catfish and cut it up into pieces two inches in length and one inch in thickness. Beat up three eggs with a little salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of Worcestershire; dip the fish in the egg-batter, and roll in corn meal or bread-crumbs. Fry a deep brown, garnish with lemon, parsley, or celery-tops, and send to table with a cucumber salad.
=Fricasseed Eels.=—Cut up three pounds of eels into pieces of three inches in length; put them into a stew-pan, and cover them with Rhine wine (or two-thirds water and one-third vinegar); add fifteen oysters, two pieces of lemon, a bouquet of herbs, one onion quartered, six cloves, three stalks celery, a pinch of cayenne, pepper and salt to taste. Stew the eels one hour; remove them from the dish; strain the liquor. Put it back into the stew-pan with a gill of cream and an ounce of butter rolled in flour; simmer gently a few minutes, pour over the fish, and serve with a toasted milk cracker.
=Soyer’s Boiled Salmon.=—I always prefer dressing this fish in slices from an inch to two inches in thickness, boiling it in plenty of salt and water twenty minutes. The whole fish may be boiled, but it requires longer boiling. Salmon eats firmer by not putting it into water until it is boiling. Dress the fish upon a napkin and serve with lobster sauce, or plain melted butter with a few sprigs of parsley boiled a few minutes in it.
I generally boil a salmon whole, or head and shoulders in one piece, with salt, and cover the fish with equal parts of warm water and Rhine wine, two or three bay-leaves, a few cloves, etc. When done I use the water in making sauce by reducing one-half, adding butter rolled in flour to thicken, pinch of cayenne, and the juice of one lemon.
=Eel Patties.=—Take three medium-sized eels and cut them up into inch pieces. Put them in a stew-pan, add salt, and cover them with cold water. When the water comes to a boil take them off the fire, wash them in cold water, scrape off any fat that may adhere, return them to the stew-pan with just enough hot water to cover them, and add a blade of mace, a bay-leaf, a few whole peppers, a few sprigs of parsley, and one lemon cut into slices. Stew gently until the fish will separate from the bone; remove the fish from the broth, pick it into small pieces, and set them aside; reduce the broth a little, strain, and thicken with flour and butter. Return the fish to the broth, simmer a moment, fill your patties and serve; make patty-shells as directed for oyster patties.
=Drawn-Butter Sauce.=—Season a cupful of flour with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg, mix it with some water into a paste, and work in a piece of butter about the size of an egg; put the pan over the fire and boil for twenty minutes; then take it off, add some fresh butter in small portions at a time, stirring continually to prevent the butter from rising to the top. Add the juice of half a lemon before serving.
=Maitre d’Hotel Butter.=—Mix four ounces of butter with a heaping tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and the juice of three lemons; serve with boiled fish, etc.
=Anchovy Sauce.=—An easy way of making anchovy sauce is to stir two or three teaspoonfuls of prepared essence or paste of anchovy (which may be bought at your grocer’s) into a pint of melted butter; let the sauce boil a few minutes, and flavor with lemon-juice.
=Lobster Sauce.=—Break the shell of the lobster into small pieces. Pour over them one pint of water or veal stock and a pinch of salt; simmer gently until the liquid is reduced one-half. Mix two ounces of butter with an ounce of flour, strain the liquid upon it, and stir all over the fire until the mixture thickens; do not let it boil. Add two tablespoonfuls of the lobster meat, the juice of half a lemon, and serve.
The spawn and coral mixed with double the quantity of butter, a little cayenne, and pounded in a mortar to a paste, then pressed through a hair sieve, is called lobster-butter; a spoonful of it added to the sauce will improve it; the rest of the butter may be used in garnishing and decorating cold salmon, etc.
=Caper Sauce.=—Chop up two tablespoonfuls of capers and add them to half a pint of melted butter, with the piece of one lemon, a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce, and a pinch of cayenne; put on the fire and simmer a few minutes; mix a teaspoonful of flour with a very little cold water, and add to the sauce.
=Celery Sauce.=—Put two ounces of butter into a saucepan, melt it, and add two heads of celery cut up into inch pieces; stir the celery in the pan until it is quite tender; add salt and pepper, with a little mace. Mix a tablespoonful of flour in a cupful of stock and simmer half an hour. A cupful of cream may be used instead of the stock.
=Oyster Sauce.=—Blanch one dozen oysters in their own liquor; then take the oysters out and add two blades of mace, an ounce of melted butter, and a cupful of thickened cream; return the oysters to the sauce, let them come to a boil, and serve; salt to taste.
=Oyster Sauce, No. 2.=—Take a dozen large oysters and boil them in their own liquor two minutes; remove them from the liquid, and quarter them. Mix an ounce of butter and an ounce of flour in a stew-pan, add the oyster liquor, a pinch of cayenne or two drops tobasco pepper-sauce, with a little nutmeg and half a pint of cream. Stir the whole gently over the fire until the sauce is smooth and thick. Add the pieces of oysters, simmer a moment longer, and serve.
=Egg Sauce.=—Put two ounces of butter into a saucepan with a dessert-spoonful of flour and a very little water; simmer gently. When ready to boil take the saucepan from the fire and stir in two ounces more of butter and three cold hard-boiled eggs cut up small; sprinkle a little salt on the egg.
=Dutch Sauce.=—Blend together two ounces of butter and a teaspoonful of flour; put it into a stew-pan with equal quantities of stock and vinegar (from the bottle containing imported mixed pickles), say a wineglassful of each; stir for two minutes, and add the beaten yolks of two eggs, keeping up the stirring till the mixture thickens; if you let it boil it will curdle. Add the juice of half a lemon before serving.
=Gravy for Baked Fish.=—Brown a sliced onion in a little butter and add gradually a pint of stock; thicken with a tablespoonful of Barlow’s prepared flour, and let the mixture simmer with a bunch of parsley nearly half an hour; strain the gravy and add salt and a teaspoonful walnut-catsup.
_BOILING._
Before boiling joints of meat the cook should think for a moment whether she desires the juices to go into the water, as in soup, gravies, etc., or to be retained in the meat itself. If they are to be retained put the meat into fast-boiling water, and let it boil for ten minutes to make the outside hard and thus prevent the juice escaping; then add cold water equal in quantity to about one-half of the boiling water; this will reduce the temperature to about 160° (Liebig), at which point the meat (raw) should be kept until thoroughly done, which, however, takes a much longer time than the ordinary mode. Care must be taken to remove the scum when the water is on the point of boiling, or it will quickly sink and spoil the appearance of the meat.
If it is desired to extract the juice from raw meat, cover it with cold water and simmer slowly as before.
Salted meat requires longer boiling than fresh meat.
Dried and smoked meat should be soaked for some hours before it is put into the water. Place your meat in a saucepan sufficiently large to contain the joint easily and cover with water, and no more.
=Boiled Leg of Mutton.=—Cut off the shank-bone, trim the knuckle, and wash the mutton; put it into a pot with salt and cover with boiling water. Allow it to boil a few minutes; skim the surface clean, draw your pot to the side of the fire, and simmer until done. Time, from two to two hours and a half.
Do not _try_ the leg with a fork to determine whether it is done or not. You will lose all the juices of the meat by so doing.
Serve with caper sauce, or melted butter with a few small capers added.
The liquor from the boiling may be converted into soup with the addition of a ham-bone and a few vegetables boiled together.
English housekeepers hang up a leg of mutton from two days to at least a week before using, weather allowing.
=Corned Beef.=—Put your corned beef in a saucepan or pot and cover with cold water; boil gently until done. Allow half an hour to the pound after it has come to a boil.
The ingredients used in making a pickle for corned beef harden the fibres of the meat, so that to plunge it into hot water would not only make it tough and hard but indigestible.
=Boiled Tongue.=—Soak a smoked or dry tongue over-night. Next morning set it in a pot of water and simmer slowly for five or six hours. Remove the pot from the fire, and when the water has cooled take out the tongue, tear off the skin, and trim off the ragged end.
=Boiled Ham.=—Soak the ham over-night; scrape off the rusty spots, put into a pot, and cover with plenty of cold water; add a bouquet of herbs and a few cloves to the water, and boil very slowly until done; remove the pot from the fire, and when cold take out the ham, take off the skin, trim the fat off around the edge. Take half a cupful of brown sugar, a teaspoonful of prepared browned flour, and moisten with port wine; cover this paste over the fat of the ham, and set it in a very hot oven until the mixture froths.
=Boiled Chicken.=—Wash a chicken in lukewarm water; truss it, put it into hot water, let it come to a boil, then draw it to one side of the fire and let it simmer gently until ready; remove the scum as it rises. The more slowly it boils the whiter and tenderer it will be. Add a very little salt, and half a lemon cut into small pieces, to the water before boiling. Serve with any white or cream sauce.
=Boiled Turkey.=—Cassell’s work on cookery tells us that “there is an old proverb which says that a turkey boiled is a turkey spoiled, but in this couplet there is more rhyme than reason, as a boiled turkey forms a dainty dish, most acceptable to persons with delicate stomachs, who fear the richness of the roasted bird.” Take a plump hen-turkey, singe, draw it, and truss as you would to roast; make a stuffing of herbs, salt, pepper, bread-crumbs, a little mace and grated lemon-peel, with a few oysters chopped up, a spoonful of butter, and a raw egg; mix your dressing well together, fill the bird, and sew it up; tie up the turkey in a flowered cloth to make it white, and simmer until tender. Time, about two hours and a half.
Serve with oyster sauce.
=Boiled Capon.=—Boil a capon as you would a large chicken, add a bouquet of herbs to the water, and serve with egg sauce.
When a boiled fowl has been so far used that meat slices cannot be carved from it, the remains may be cut up for hash, seasoned with salt and pepper, moistened with hot water (or the water in which the fowl has been boiled); stir the dish while it is simmering to prevent burning; serve on a piece of buttered toast, and place two poached eggs on top of the hash for each person. Or mince the remains of fowl very fine with an equal quantity of calf’s brains or sweet-breads; season with salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg; add a little cracker-dust, two raw eggs; moisten with Rhine wine or cream, mix well together, roll into balls the size of an egg, dip into egg-batter, then into crumbs, and fry in very hot fat.
_ENTREES._
=Fillet of Beef.=—Cut the fillet (tenderloin) out of a sirloin of beef; trim off the fat and the sack or skin, and lard it with fat pork cut into narrow strips two inches long. Put each strip of pork (or bacon) into a larding-needle, and with the point of your needle take up as much flesh as will hold the strip of pork, allowing about half an inch of each end exposed after removing the needle; repeat this process as neatly and as evenly as possible and at equal distances until finished. Rub a little sweet oil and salt over the fillet; set it one side a few minutes while you prepare the roasting (baking) pan for it.
Chop up into small pieces a few beef or veal bones, and cover the bottom of your pan with them. Add three slices of bacon, two carrots, two onions, and one turnip sliced, with a pint of stock. Season with salt, bruised whole peppers, a bay-leaf, a few cloves, and a blade of mace. Place the fillet in the pan with the larded side up. Moisten it with a wineglassful of vinegar, and bake. When done remove the fillet, add a tablespoonful of Barlow’s prepared flour and a glass of sherry or port to the pan, mix, and strain the sauce on to the fillet. Chop up half a dozen button-mushrooms, sprinkle over the meat, and serve.
=Beef a la Mode.=—Take three pounds of fresh rump of beef; remove the fat and sinews. Cut fat bacon into long strips and lard the meat with it through and through. Mix together a few cloves, mace, allspice, whole peppers, salt-spoonful of cayenne, a tablespoonful of powdered herbs, and a clove of garlic, with half a pint of vinegar. Put the meat into an earthen crock or deep stew-pan, with a thin piece of bacon under it; add the vinegar and seasoning and a pint of stock, with a walnut of butter rolled in flour. Cover the crock and simmer gently until done. When preferred vegetables may be added and served with the beef, allowing plenty of stock or water for them to boil nicely.
=Beef Stew.=—Take a three pound piece of rump of beef; remove the bone, bind it up tight, and put it in a pot or stew-pan that will just hold it. Season with ground spices. Fry two large onions sliced, and add them to it, with two carrots, two turnips, a few cloves, a blade of mace, a head of celery, and a potato quartered; add stock enough to cover the meat. Simmer as gently as possible until quite tender. Remove the fat, take out the meat, and add half a pint of port, a wineglassful of vinegar, a tablespoonful Worcestershire sauce to the gravy; strain over the meat, and serve with a garnish of assorted vegetables arranged neatly around the dish.
=Beefsteak Pie.=—Cover the sides of a raised pie-mould with butter, and put a lining of paste made in the following manner neatly into it: Chop a quarter of a pound of suet; put it into a stew-pan with the same quantity of butter and a pint of water. When boiling pass them through a sieve into two pounds of flour, and stir it with a spoon until cold. When the paste is quite smooth roll it out and it is ready for the lining. Cut up two pounds of round or rump steak into pieces about two inches square; dust them with flour; season with parsley, salt, and pepper; lay them round the mould; fill it with alternate layers of potatoes cut into quarters, and meat. Make a lid for the mould with some of the paste, brush it over with beaten egg, and bake three hours. Put an ornamental centre to the cover, that it may be more easily raised to throw in some gravy as soon as it is baked.
=Calf’s Head.=—The first thing to do on receiving a calf’s head is to remove the brains, throw them into cold water for an hour, drain, then boil them in salt and water for twenty minutes, and set them aside.
Put the head into cold water and wash it well, and leave it there to draw out the blood for an hour; then take it out and dry it well with a towel.
Bone a calf’s head in the following manner: Place the calf’s head on the table with the front part of the head facing you; draw the sharp point of a knife from the back part of the head right down to the nose, making an incision down to the bone of the skull; then with the knife clear the scalp and cheeks from the bones right and left, always keeping the point of the knife close to the bone. If you have not previously removed the brains, chop the head in two and remove them as carefully as possible.
When the head has been boned wash it well, wipe it with a clean cloth, season the inside with salt and pepper, roll it up with the tongue, tie it up, and blanch it in hot water for ten minutes; then put it into cold water a few minutes, wipe it dry, and set it aside until wanted.
=Fried Calf’s Head.=—Cut the prepared calf’s head into pieces two inches wide; lay them for three hours in a pickle made of two tablespoonfuls of lemon-juice, a wineglassful of Rhine wine, salt and pepper, and a pinch of mace. Take them out, drain them, and dip each piece in egg-batter; roll in cracker-dust, fry in hot fat, and send to table with sauce tartare.
=Sauce Tartare.=—Mince two small English pickles, one-fourth of an onion, and a few sprigs of parsley together. Add them to three tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise sauce, and the juice of half a lemon. Mix and serve (see mayonnaise sauce). A few tarragon leaves will improve the sauce.
=Calf’s Head, Maitre d’Hotel.=—Cut up your prepared calf’s head into neat slices, and simmer gently for two hours; take out the pieces of meat, place on a hot dish, and cover them with Maitre d’Hotel sauce; garnish with parsley.
=Calf’s Head Broiled.=—Cut up a prepared calf’s head into pieces quite three inches wide; place them in a saucepan, cover with water. Add a wineglassful of vinegar, and simmer half an hour; then place them in cold water a few minutes, dry them on a towel, rub a little sweet oil over each piece, and broil. When done brush melted butter over them with the juice of half a lemon.
=Calf’s Head Collared.=—Bone a calf’s head carefully, wash it well, and wipe it dry; lay the head on the table, and spread on it a force-meat made of the brain and tongue, and a very little ham mixed with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful of thyme, a teaspoonful of marjoram, the minced yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, a wineglassful brandy, and a little salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Roll the head as tightly as possible, and tie it in a cloth, binding it with tape. Put it into a saucepan with stock enough to cover it, and add a carrot, a parsnip, one onion, a sliced lemon, a few bay-leaves, salt, and a dozen bruised peppers.
Let it boil gently three hours; then take it out of the cloth and pour round it a sauce made of a pint of the liquid in which it was boiled, with a little lemon-juice, two small pickles, and four button-mushrooms chopped fine.
=Calf’s Brains en Matelotte.=—Wash the brains in several waters, remove the skin, and boil them in salt and water with a little vinegar in it for ten minutes. Take them out and lay them in cold water until wanted. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, and mix with it a teaspoonful of flour. Add three button-onions sliced, a teaspoonful Worcestershire, a clove, a bay-leaf, half a pint of stock, and a wineglassful of Rhine wine. When these are mixed thoroughly together put the brains with them and let them stew twenty minutes.
=Calf’s Brains Fried.=—Prepare the brains as in the foregoing receipt. Cut them into slices, dip them in egg-batter, roll in crumbs, and fry in hot fat or butter; garnish with fried parsley.
=Calf’s Brains and Tongue.=—Prepare the brains as heretofore recommended, and chop them. Put them in a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little chopped parsley, the juice of half a lemon, salt, and cayenne pepper. Skin and trim the boiled tongue, place it in the middle of the dish and pour the sauce and brains round it, and send to table.
=Stewed Sweet-Breads.=—Soak two sweet-breads in cold water for one hour; change the water twice; put them in boiling water ten minutes till they are firm, then take them out and place them in cold water until wanted.
Place them in a stew-pan, cover them with stock, and simmer nearly an hour; take them out, place them on a hot dish, remove the gravy from the fire a minute, and add to it gradually the yolk of an egg and four tablespoonfuls of cream; put this over a fire till the sauce thickens, but do not let it boil. Before serving add the juice of a lemon, pour the sauce around the sweet-breads, and send to table with a dish of green peas.
They may be cut up and fried after dipping in egg and rolled in crumbs.
Sweet-breads are very nice broiled and served with Maitre d’Hotel butter; garnish with parsley.
=Pork Chops, Tomato Sauce.=—Broil three nice pork chops, and when well done sprinkle them with pepper and salt, place on a hot dish, and serve with tomato sauce poured around them.
=Tomato Sauce.=—Stew half a dozen tomatoes in a pint of stock, with a slice of ham cut into dice, a bay-leaf, a blade of mace, three drops of tabasco pepper-sauce, and three small pickled onions; stir the whole over a gentle fire until done, then press them through a sieve, add salt, and put the sauce again upon the fire till it is very hot.
Pork tenderloin baked or broiled is acceptable with sauce Robert.