The Dinner Year-Book. Marion Harland
id="ulink_531cee0c-b267-5367-8b8d-c9ce23b1047c">Tea.
“A comfortable cup of tea” never comes amiss to a fagged housewife, be it served at breakfast, luncheon, or dinner. The best way to insure its goodness—that is, that it be strong, hot and fresh—is to have your own tea-urn or kettle on the table, with a spirit-lamp burning under it. Scald the tea-pot, put in the tea; cover with boiling water; put a “cosey” or a thick napkin about it, and let it stand five minutes before filling with more boiling water. Wait a minute longer and pour out.
Second Week. Tuesday.
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Mutton Soup with Tapioca.
Salmon Pudding. Beefsteak.
Potatoes à la Lyonnaise. Macaroni with Cheese.
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Susie’s Bread Pudding.
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Mutton Soup with Tapioca.
3 lbs. perfectly lean mutton. The scrag makes good soup and costs little.
2 or 3 lbs. of bones, well pounded.
1 onion.
2 turnips.
2 carrots.
2 stalks of celery.
A few sprigs of parsley. If you have any tomatoes left from yesterday, add them.
4 tablespoonfuls of pearl or granulated tapioca (not heaping spoonfuls).
4 quarts of water.
Put on the meat, cut in small pieces, with the bones, in two quarts of cold water. Heat very slowly, and when it boils pour in two quarts of hot water from the kettle. Chop the vegetables; cover with cold water. So soon as they begin to simmer, throw off the first water, replenishing with hot, and stew until they are boiled to pieces. The meat should cook steadily, never fast, five hours, keeping the pot-lid on. Strain into a great bowl; let it cool to throw the fat to the surface; skim and return to the fire. Season with pepper and salt, boil up, take off the scum; add the vegetables with their liquor. Heat together ten minutes, strain again, and bring to a slow boil before the tapioca goes in. This should have been soaked one hour in cold water, then cooked in the same within another vessel of boiling water until each grain is clear. It is necessary to stir up often from the bottom while cooking. Stir gradually into the soup until the tapioca is dissolved.
Send around grated cheese with this soup.
Salmon Pudding.
1 can preserved salmon.
3 eggs.
4 tablespoonfuls melted butter.
½ cup fine bread-crumbs.
Pepper, salt, and minced parsley.
Mince the fish, draining off the liquor for the sauce. Rub in the butter until thoroughly incorporated. Work in the crumbs, the seasoning, at last the beaten eggs. Put into a buttered pudding-mould, set in a dripping-pan full of hot water. Cover the mould, and steam in the oven, keeping the water in the pan at a fast boil, filling up as it evaporates, for one hour. Set it in cold water one minute when you have taken it from the oven. This will make it shrink from the sides and turn out easily upon a flat dish.
Sauce for the above.
1 cupful of milk heated to a boil and thickened with a tablespoonful of corn-starch, previously wet up with cold water.
The liquor from the salmon.
1 great spoonful of butter.
1 raw egg, beaten light.
Juice of half a lemon.
Mace and cayenne pepper to taste.
Put the egg into the thickened milk when you have stirred in the butter and liquor; take from the fire, season, and let it stand in hot water three minutes, covered. Lastly, put in the lemon-juice and turn out immediately. Pour it all over and about the pudding. Cut the latter into slices when helping it out.
Beefsteak.
First of all, let me recommend the plan of broiling a steak under, instead of over the grate. I have found so many and manifest advantages in the former method that I have had a gridiron made to fit beneath my range.
Wipe the steak dry, and broil upon a buttered gridiron, turning frequently, whenever it begins to drip. When done, which should be in twelve minutes, if your fire is clear and strong, lay upon a hot dish—a chafing-dish is best—season with pepper and salt (not until then), and butter very liberally. Put over it a hot cover, and wait five minutes before sending to table, to draw the juices to the surface and allow the seasoning to penetrate the steak.
Potatoes à la Lyonnaise.
Parboil a dozen potatoes at breakfast-time, and set aside, when you have peeled them, as they should get perfectly cold. When you are ready to cook them, heat some butter, or good dripping, in a frying-pan; fry in it one small onion, chopped fine, until it begins to change color—say about one minute. Then put in the potatoes, cut into dice, not too thick or broad. Stir well and cook five minutes, taking care the potatoes do not break to pieces. They must not brown. Put in some minced parsley just before taking them up. Drain dry by shaking in a heated colander. Serve very hot.
Macaroni with Cheese.
Cook half a pound of pipe macaroni, broken into inch lengths, in boiling water until tender. Drain this off, and substitute a cupful of cold milk. When the macaroni has again come to a boil, season with pepper and salt and stir in a great spoonful of butter; lastly, two tablespoonfuls of dry, grated cheese. Turn into a deep dish, strew more cheese thickly over it, and it is ready for use.
Susie’s Bread Pudding.
1 quart of milk.
4 eggs.
3 cups very fine, dry bread-crumbs.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
1 teacupful white sugar.
Juice and half the grated peel of a lemon.