The Dinner Year-Book. Marion Harland
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_c35d234d-1c5d-5778-abb7-9a1d491d95e4">Table of Contents
One pair of full-grown fowls.
½ lb. salt pork cut into strips.
2 eggs.
1 cupful of milk.
2 tablespoonfuls of flour and the same of butter.
1 onion.
Parsley, pepper and salt.
Joint the fowls neatly, and cut the back, neck, and breast apart from each other, the latter into two pieces. Lay them in salt water for half an hour. Put them into a pot with enough cold water to cover them, and the pork cut into thin strips. Cover and heat very slowly. Stew constantly, but never fast, for one hour after it comes to a boil, or until the chickens are tender. The time will depend upon their age. If they are tough, put them on early and cook all the more slowly. Add now the onion, parsley, and pepper, with salt, if needed. Heat again, and stir in the flour wet up in the cup of milk. Beat the eggs and pour upon them a cupful of hot gravy; mix well, and put back into the soup with the butter. Just as the stew begins to simmer again, remove from the fire. Take out and pile the chicken upon a dish; then pour the gravy over all.
Potatoes à l’Italienne.
Instead of mashing the potatoes with a beetle or spoon, whip them up light with a silver fork. When they are fine and mealy, beat in a few spoonfuls of milk, a tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of two eggs, pepper and salt. Whip into a creamy heap before adding, with a few dexterous strokes, the stiffly-frothed whites. Pile roughly up on a buttered pie-dish; brown quickly in the oven, and transfer, with the help of a cake-turner, to a flat dish.
Make a rather too abundant dish, according to this receipt, as the residue will be found useful in to-morrow’s bill of fare.
Tomatoes Stewed with Onion.
Stew in the usual manner, adding a small onion minced fine. When they have cooked half an hour, season with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a good spoonful of butter. Simmer ten minutes more, uncovered, and turn out.
Cheese Fondu.
1 cup of bread-crumbs, dry and fine.
2 scant cups of fresh milk.
½ lb. dry, rich cheese, grated.
3 eggs, whipped light.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Pepper and salt.
A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water.
Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat in the eggs, the butter, seasoning—lastly, the cheese. Pour into a neat pudding-dish, strew dry bread-crumbs over the top, and bake in a quick oven until delicately browned. Serve in the pudding-dish, and at once, as it falls in cooling.
Very good!
Sponge Gingerbread.
5 cups of flour, dried and sifted. Measure after sifting.
1 cup of molasses.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 cup of sugar.
1 rather larger cup of sour, or buttermilk.
2 teaspoonfuls of saleratus (not soda), dissolved in hot water.
2 teaspoonfuls ginger.
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon.
Mix molasses, sugar, butter, and spice together. Warm slightly, and beat hard for five minutes. Add the milk, then the soda, lastly the flour. Beat three minutes, and bake in a broad, shallow pan. Take heed that it does not burn. Eat warm.
Chocolate.
6 tablespoonfuls of chocolate to each pint of boiling water.
As much milk as you have chocolate.
Sweeten to taste.
Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water, and stir into the hot. Boil twenty minutes; put in the milk, and boil five minutes more, stirring often. Sweeten at pleasure, while boiling, or in the cups. Send around with the warm gingerbread and some slices of mild cheese. You will not regret not having prepared a more pretentious dessert.
Second Week. Saturday.
——
Clear Gravy Soup.
Oyster Salad. Calf’s Liver à la Mode.
Salsify Fritters. Potatoes à la Duchesse.
——
Corn-meal Fruit Pudding.
——
Clear Gravy Soup.
5 lbs. lean beef, the coarser parts, of course.
Some bones.
2 slices of lean corned ham.
2 carrots.
2 turnips.
6 stalks of celery.
¼ package Coxe’s gelatine.
Pepper and salt.
A bunch of sweet herbs.
Dripping.
5 quarts of cold water.
Cut the meat into dice and slice the onions. Fry the latter brown in some good dripping. Take them out, and fry the meat in the same fat, turning often, until it has a thick brown coat. Put it, drained from the fat, into the soup-kettle, with two quarts of cold water, and set where it will come to a boil in about an hour. The bones should also be fried, and put into the pot with the meat. When these fairly boil, skim, add three quarts of cold water, and stew gently four hours. If you dine early, the soup should go on before breakfast. Put herbs and vegetables, including the fried onions, all chopped up, into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them, and boil to pieces. Strain the soup half an hour before dinner; season, return to the pot; boil and skim. Strain the vegetable liquor into it, without squeezing or rubbing. Boil up once more, skim well, and put in the gelatine, which should have soaked one hour in a little cold water. Simmer five minutes and pour out.
The soup should be of a clear, light brown. Should the color not suit you, burn a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup, add three or four spoonfuls of boiling water, stir until you get a deep color,