Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book. Catharine Esther Beecher
water an inch above the top, and simmer them two hours if tender, and three if tough. When nearly done, stir in a bit of butter the size of a goose egg, for every dozen pigeons. Take them up and add a little flour paste to the gravy, with salt and pepper, and pour some of it over them, and put the rest in a gravy dish.
Beef, or Veal Stewed with Apples (very good).
Rub a stew-pan with butter, cut the meat in thin slices, and put in, with pepper, salt, and apple sliced fine; some would add a little onion. Cover it tight, and stew till tender.
To Boil a Turkey.
Make a stuffing for the craw, of chopped bread and butter, cream, oysters, and the yolks of eggs. Sew it in, and dredge flour over the turkey, and put it to boil in cold water, with a spoonful of salt in it, and enough water to cover it well. Let it simmer for two hours and a half, or if small, less time. Skim it while boiling. It looks nicer if wrapped in a cloth dredged with flour.
Serve it with drawn butter, in which are put some oysters.
To Boil Corned Beef.
Put the beef in water enough to cover it, and let it heat slowly, and boil slowly, and be careful to take off the grease. Many think it much improved by boiling potatoes, turnips, and cabbage with it. In this case the vegetables must be peeled, and all the grease carefully skimmed as fast as it rises. Allow about twenty minutes of boiling for each pound of meat.
CHAPTER IV.
ROASTED AND BAKED MEATS.
General Remarks.
Be sure you have your spit and tin oven very clean and bright, and for this end wash them, if possible, before they get cold. If they stand, pour boiling water on to them.
Have a fire so large as to extend half a foot beyond the roaster each side.
When meat is thin and tender, have a small, brisk fire. When your meat is large, and requires long roasting, have large solid wood, kindled with charcoal and small sticks. Set the meat, at first, some distance from the place where it is to roast, so as to have it heat through gradually, and then move it up to roast.
Slow roasting, especially at first, and still more for large pieces, is very important.
Allow about fifteen minutes for each pound of most kinds of meat, and if it is cold weather, or the meat fresh killed, more time is required, probably twenty minutes for each pound.
When the meat is nearly done, stir up the fire to brown it. The meat should be basted a good deal, especially the first part of the time.
Let meat be spitted so as to be equally balanced. When the meat is nearly done, the steam from it will be drawn toward the fire.
A pale brown is the proper color for a roast.
Some dredge on flour and baste, a short time before roasted meats are done.
Whenever fresh lard is used instead of butter, in the dripping-pan, or to rub on meats, more salt must be used.
Flour thickening in gravies must be wet up with very little water till the lumps are out, and then made thin. Never dredge flour into gravies, as it makes lumps. Strain all gravies.
Roast Beef.
The sirloin, and the first and second cuts of the rack, are the best roasting pieces.
Rub it with salt; set the bony side to the fire to heat awhile, then turn it, and have a strong fire; and if thick, allow fifteen minutes to the pound; if thin, allow a little less. If fresh killed, or if it is very cold, allow a little more time. Half an hour before it is done, pour off the gravy, thicken it with brown flour, and season it with salt and pepper. It is the fashion to serve roast beef with no other gravy than the juice of the meat.
Roast Lamb.
The fore and hind quarter of lamb are used for roasting. Rub on a little softened butter, and then some salt and pepper, heat the bony side first, then turn and roast by a brisk fire, allowing about fifteen minutes to a pound, and rather more if fresh killed, or the weather cold. Put a pint of water and a teaspoonful of salt in the dripping-pan, and a little lard, or butter. Lamb is to be cooked thoroughly.
The following is a very excellent sauce for roast lamb. Pick, wash, and shred fine, some fresh mint, put on it a tablespoonful of sugar, and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar; or, chop some hard pickles to the size of capers, and put them to half a pint of melted butter, and a teaspoonful of vinegar.
Roast Mutton.
The saddle, shoulder, and leg are used for roasting.
Rub the mutton with butter, and then with salt and pepper, and some add pounded allspice, or cloves. Put butter, or lard, in the dripping-pan, with a quart of water, or a pint for a small piece, and baste it often. Set the bony side toward the fire, at some distance, that it may heat through before roasting. Allow about a quarter of an hour for every pound. Mutton should be cooked rare.
Make a brown gravy, and serve it with currant jelly.
Roast Veal.
The loin is the best for roasting, the breast and rack the next best. Wash the piece to be roasted in cold water, rub a little butter softened over it, and then some pepper and salt, put a pint or more water in the dripping-pan, and unless there is a good deal of fat, a bit of lard, or butter, and baste often. Set the bony side first to the fire to heat. Allow twenty minutes for every pound, and if cold, or fresh killed, a little more. Veal should be cooked very thoroughly. In roasting any part except the loin, cut slits in the veal and draw through the bits of salt pork, which, while roasting, impart a flavor to the veal.
To Roast a Fillet or Leg of Veal.
Cut off the shank bone of a leg of veal, and cut gashes in what remains. Make a dressing of chopped raw salt pork, salt, pepper, sweet herbs and bread crumbs, or use butter instead of pork. Stuff the openings in the meat with the dressing, put it in a bake-pan with water, just enough to cover it, and let it bake, say two hours for six pounds. Or put it in a tin oven, and roast it two or three hours, according to the size.
Baked, or Roasted Pig.
Take a pig that weighs from seven to twelve pounds, and as much as five weeks old. Wash it thoroughly outside and inside. Take any fresh cold meat, say one pound, and a quarter of a pound of salt pork, and twice as much bread as you have meat.
Chop the bread by itself, and chop the meat and pork fine and mix all together, adding sweet herbs, pepper and salt, half a tea-cup of butter, and one egg. Stuff the pig with it, and sew it up tight. Take off the legs at the middle joint. Put it into a dripping-pan with cross-bars or a grate to hold it up, and with the legs tied, and pour into the pan a pint of water and set it in the oven. As soon as it begins to cook, swab it with salt and water, and then in fifteen minutes do it again. If it blisters it is cooking too fast; swab it, and diminish the heat. It must bake, if weighing twelve pounds, three hours. When nearly done, rub it with butter. When taken out set it for three minutes in the cold, to make it crisp.
To Roast a Spare Rib.
Rub with salt, pepper, and powdered sage. Put the bone side to warm slowly. Dredge on a little flour, and put a little salted water and butter into the dripping-pan, and baste with it. If large, it requires three hours; if small, only one to cook it. Pork must be cooked slowly and very thoroughly.