Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-Book, 3rd ed. Eliza Leslie
pepper. Send them to table hot.
FRENCH OYSTER PIE.—Having buttered the inside of a deep dish, line it with puff-paste rolled out rather thick, and prepare another sheet of paste for the lid. Put a clean towel into the dish (folded so as to support the lid) and then put on the lid; set it into the oven, and bake the paste well. When done, remove the lid, and take out the folded towel. While the paste is baking, prepare the oysters. Having picked off carefully any bits of shell that may be found about them, lay them in a sieve and drain off the liquor into a pan. Put the oysters into a skillet or stew-pan, with barely enough of the liquor to keep them from burning. Season them with whole pepper; blades of mace; some grated nutmeg; and some grated lemon-peel, (the yellow rind only,) and a little finely minced celery. Then add a large portion of fresh butter, divided into bits, and very slightly dredged with flour. Let the oysters simmer over the fire, but do not allow them to come to a boil, as that will shrivel them. Next beat the yolks only, of three, four, or five eggs, (in proportion to the size of the pie,) and stir the beaten egg into the stew a few minutes before you take it from the fire. Keep it warm till the paste is baked. Then carefully remove the lid of the pie; and replace it, after you have filled the dish with the oysters and gravy.
The lid of the pie may be ornamented with a wreath of leaves cut out of paste, and put on before baking. In the centre, place a paste-knot or flower.
Oyster pies are generally eaten warm; but they are very good cold.
CLAM PIE.—Take a sufficient number of clams to fill a large pie-dish when opened. Make a nice paste in the proportion of a pound of fresh butter to two quarts of flour. Paste for shell-fish, or meat, or chicken pies should be rolled out double the thickness of that intended for fruit pies. Line the sides and bottom of your pie-dish with paste. Then cover the bottom with a thin beef-steak, divested of bone and fat. Put in the clams, and season them with mace, nutmeg, and a few whole pepper-corns. No salt. Add a spoonful of butter rolled in flour, and some hard-boiled yolks of eggs crumbled fine. Then put in enough of the clam-liquor to make sufficient gravy. Put on the lid of the pie, (which like the bottom crust should be rolled out thick,) notch it handsomely, and bake it well. It should be eaten warm.
CLAM FRITTERS.—Put a sufficient quantity of clams into a pot of boiling water. The small sand-clams will be best. When the shells open wide, take them out, extract the clams from the shells, and put them into a stew-pan. Strain their liquor, and pour about half of it over the clams; adding a little black pepper. They will require no salt. Let them stew, slowly, for half an hour; then take them out; drain off all the liquor; and mince the clams as fine as possible, omitting the hardest parts. You should have as many clams as will make a large pint when minced. Make a batter of seven eggs, beaten till very thick and light; and then mixed gradually with a quart of milk, and a pint of sifted flour, stirred in by degrees, and made perfectly smooth and free from lumps. Then, gradually, mix the minced clams with the batter, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready in a frying pan over the fire a sufficiency of boiling lard. Put in, with a spoon, the batter so as to form fritters, and fry them light brown. Drain them well when done, and serve them up hot.
Oyster fritters may be made as above; except that the oysters must be minced raw, and mixed into the batter without having been stewed.
LOBSTER PATTIES.—Make some puff-paste, and spread it on very deep patty-pans. Bake it empty. Having boiled well two or three fine lobsters, extract all their meat, and mince it very small, mixing it with the coral smoothly mashed, and some yolk of hard-boiled egg, grated. Season it with a little salt; some cayenne; and some powdered mace or nutmeg; adding a little yellow lemon-rind grated. Moisten the mixture well with cream, or fresh butter, or salad oil. Put it into a stew-pan; add a very little water, and let it stew till it just comes to a boil. Take it off the fire, and the patties being baked, remove them from the tin-pans, place them on a large dish, and fill them up to the top with the mixture.
Similar patties may be made of prawns, or crabs.
A SEA-COAST PIE.—Having boiled a sufficient number of crabs or lobsters, extract all the meat from the shells, and cut it into mouthfuls. Have ready some fine large oysters drained from the liquor. Cover the bottom and sides of a deep dish with puff-paste; and put in a thick layer of crab or lobster, seasoned with a little cayenne pepper, and a little grated lemon-peel; and mixed with some hard-boiled yolk of egg, crumbled fine, and moistened with fresh butter. Next, put a close layer of oysters, seasoned with pounded mace and grated nutmeg. Lay some bits of butter rolled in flour on the top of the layer. Proceed in this manner with alternate layers of crab or lobster, and of oysters, till the dish is nearly full. Then pour in, at the last, a tea-cupfull of more of the oyster liquor, with an equal quantity of rich cream. Have ready a thick lid of puff-paste. Put it on the pie; pressing the edges closely so as to unite them all round; and notch them handsomely. Make a wreath of leaves cut out of paste, and a flower or knot for the centre; place them on the top-crust; and bake the pie well. While it is baking, prepare some balls made of chopped oysters; grated bread-crumbs; powdered nutmeg, or mace; and grated lemon-peel; with a little beaten yolk of egg to bind together the other ingredients. Having fried these balls in butter, drain them, and when the pie is baked, lay a circle of them round the top; between the border of paste-leaves and the centre-knot.
This pie will be found so fine that it ought to be baked in a dish which will contain a large quantity.
LOBSTER RISSOLES.—Extract the meat of a boiled lobster; mince it as fine as possible; mix with it the coral pounded smooth, and some yolks of hard-boiled eggs pounded also. Season it with cayenne pepper, powdered mace, and a very little salt. Make a batter of beaten egg, milk, and flour. To each egg allow two large table-spoonfuls of milk, and a large tea-spoonful of flour. Beat the batter well, and then mix the lobster with it gradually, till it is stiff enough to make into oval balls, about the size of a large plum. Fry them in the best salad oil, and serve them up either warm or cold.
Similar rissoles may be made of raw oysters minced fine; or of boiled clams. These should be fried in lard.
Very young Indian corn, grated from the cob, prepared in the above manner, made into balls, and fried in fresh butter, is excellent. Previous to grating it is best to boil the ears of corn.
TO DRESS A TURTLE.—The turtle should be taken out of water, and killed over night in winter, and early in the morning in summer. Hang it up by the hind fins, and before it has had time to draw in its neck, cut off its head with a very sharp knife, and leave the turtle suspended. It should bleed two or three hours or more, before you begin to cut it up. Then lay it on its back upon a table: have at hand several vessels of cold water, in which to throw the most important parts as you separate them; also a large boiler of hot water. Take off the fins at the joint, and lay them by themselves in cold water; next divide the back-shell from the under-shell. The upper part of the turtle is called the calipash—the under part the calipee. In cutting open the turtle, be very careful not to break the gall, which should be taken out and thrown away; if broken, its bitterness will spoil all around it. Take out the entrails, and throw them into a tub of cold water. When well washed, open them from end to end with a small penknife, scrape off the inside skin, and, to cleanse them thoroughly, draw them several times through a woollen cloth. Wash, also, the liver, lungs, heart, kidneys, &c., and lay them in cold water; the liver in a pan by itself. If there are eggs, put them also into cold water. Having extracted the intestines, stand up the turtle on end, to let the blood run out. Afterwards cut out all the flesh from the upper and under shells, and remove the bones. Cut the calipee (or meat belonging to the under-shell) into pieces about as large as the palm of your hand, and break the shell. The calipash, or meat next the back-shell, may be cut smaller—the green fat into pieces about two inches square. Put all the meat into a large pan, sprinkle it slightly with salt, and cover it up. Lay the shells and fins in a tub of boiling water, and scald them till the scales can be scraped off with a knife, and all the meat that still adheres to the shells easily removed, as it is worth saving. Clean the fins nicely, (taking off the dark skin,) and lay them in cold water. Wipe the back-shell dry, and set it aside. Then proceed to make the soup. For this purpose, take the coarser pieces of flesh with the bones and entrails. Put them into a pot with a pound of ham cut into pieces, and eight large calves’-feet (two sets) that have been singed and scraped but not skinned. If you cannot conveniently obtain