The Dinner Year-Book. Marion Harland
minutes; take out a cupful and pour over the beaten egg. Mix well, and put with the soup; let all stand covered, off the fire, two minutes, and serve.
Langue de Bœuf, or Beef’s Tongue.
Get your butcher to save you a fresh, large beef’s tongue, the finest he can get. Soak, in cold water, a little salt, six hours—overnight, if you choose—changing the water before you go to bed. Wipe it, trim and scrape it, and plunging into boiling water, keep it at a slow boil for an hour and a half. Take it up, pepper and salt; brush over with beaten egg and coat thickly with bread-crumbs; lay in your dripping-pan and bake, basting often with butter melted in a little water. Half an hour in a good oven should suffice. Put on a hot dish and cover while you prepare the sauce.
Sauce Piquante.
1 cupful of the liquor in which the tongue was boiled.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of made mustard.
A little salt and pepper.
1 heaping tablespoonful of browned flour.
1 teaspoonful mixed parsley and sweet marjoram.
1 tablespoonful of onion vinegar.
Brown the butter by shaking it over a clear fire in a saucepan. Heat the cupful of liquor to a boil, skim and season it with salt and pepper. Skim again before stirring in the flour wet up with cold water. As it thickens, put in the butter, herbs, mustard, and vinegar. Boil up, pour half over the tongue, the rest into a sauce-boat.
Fried Brains and Green Peas.
Open a can of green peas an hour before cooking them, and turn into a bowl. If there is not liquor in the can to cover them, add a little water, slightly salted, and cook over twenty minutes after they boil. Drain, pepper and salt; stir in a lump of butter nearly as large as an egg, and put into a vegetable dish, the fried brains arranged along the base of the mound.
Wash a calf’s brains in several waters; scald in boiling, then lay in ice-cold water, for half an hour. Wipe, and beat them into a paste; season, work in a little butter, a beaten egg, and enough flour to hold the paste together. Fry upon a griddle in small cakes. Drain off every drop of fat. Eat hot.
A nice and savory garnish.
Hominy Croquettes.
2 cups fine hominy, boiled and cold.
2 beaten eggs.
1 tablespoonful of melted butter.
Salt to taste.
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
Work the butter into the hominy until the latter is smooth; then the eggs, salt and sugar. Beat hard with a wooden spoon to get out lumps and mix well. Make into oval balls with floured hands. Roll each in flour, and fry in sweet dripping or lard, putting in a few at a time and turning over with care as they brown. Drain in a hot colander.
Cold Slaw.
Chop or shred a small white cabbage. Prepare a dressing in the proportion of one tablespoonful of oil to four of vinegar, a teaspoonful of made mustard, the same quantity of salt and sugar, and half as much pepper. Pour over the salad, adding, if you choose, three tablespoonfuls of minced celery; toss up well and put into a glass bowl.
Brown Betty.
2 cups chopped apples, tart ones.
½ cup of sugar.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg.
Put a layer of chopped apple in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Sprinkle well with sugar, stick bits of butter here and there and add a pinch or two of nutmeg. Cover with bread-crumbs, then more apple. In this order of alternation fill the dish, spreading the surface with bread-crumbs. Cover, steam nearly an hour in a moderate oven; then brown quickly.
For sauce, mix a teaspoonful of cinnamon with a cup of powdered sugar. Butter the hot “Betty” as you fill each saucer, and strew with this mixture. Or it is excellent, eaten warm, not hot, with cream and sugar.
Fourth Week. Friday.
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Potato Soup.
Fried Oysters. Roast Mutton.
Spinach à la Crème. Potatoes Stewed Whole.
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French Tapioca Custard.
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Potato Soup.
1 dozen mealy potatoes.
1 can of tomatoes.
2 onions.
3 stalks of celery.
4 tablespoonfuls of butter, cut into bits and rolled in flour.
1 bunch of sweet herbs.
1 lump of white sugar.
Salt and pepper to taste.
3 quarts of water.
Fried bread.
Parboil the potatoes; then slice and put them into the soup-pot with the tomatoes, the onions, minced, and the celery and herbs chopped small. Pour on three quarts of water, and stew for one hour, or until the vegetables can be rubbed easily through the colander. Strain, return to the pot, drop in the sugar, pepper and salt judiciously, boil up and skim. Stir in the butter, and simmer, covered, for ten minutes. Have dice of fried bread in the tureen, upon which pour the soup.
Fried Oysters.
Select for this the finest oysters. Drain, and wipe them by spreading them upon a cloth, laying another over them, and pressing lightly. Roll each in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs with which have been mixed a little salt and less pepper, and fry in a mixture of equal parts of lard and butter.
Drain each in a wire spoon, and eat them hot, with bread and butter.