Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher
to scorch at first, it will not cook in the middle without burning the outside.
Baste often with the drippings and with salted water, (about half a pint of water with half a tea-spoonful of salt,) which has been put in the oven bottom. Just before taking up, dredge on some flour, mixed with a little salt; then baste and set it near the fire, turning it so as to brown it all over alike. Half an hour before it is done, pour off the gravy, season it with salt and pepper, and thicken with corn or potato-starch, or flour.
To roast in a Cook Stove.—Put the meat in an iron pan, with three or four gills of water, and a tea-spoonful of salt. Turn it occasionally, that it may cook evenly, and baste often. When done, dredge on some salted flour, baste again, and set it back till browned.
Roast Pork.—Cover a spare-rib with greased paper, till half done; then dredge with flour, and baste with the gravy. Just before taking it up, cover the surface with cracker or bread-crumbs, wet up with pepper, salt, and powdered sage; let it cook ten minutes longer, and then baste again. Skim the gravy, thicken it with brown flour, season with a little powdered sage and lemon-juice, or vinegar; strain it, and pour over the meat. Pork must be cooked slowly and very thoroughly, and served with apple-sauce. Tomato catsup improves the gravy.
Roast Mutton.—The leg of mutton may be boiled. The shoulder and loin should always be roasted.
Put the meat in the oven or roaster, and then pour boiling hot water over it, to keep in the juices. Baste often with salt and water at first and then with the gravy. With a hot fire, allow ten minutes for each pound. If there is danger of burning, cover the outside with oiled white paper. Skim the gravy; strain it and thicken with brown flour. Serve with acid jelly. Lamb requires less time in roasting; but mutton should be rare. Make a brown gravy, and serve with currant jelly.
Roast Veal.—Follow the above directions for roasting mutton, except to allow more time, as veal should be cooked more than mutton. Allow twenty minutes to each pound, and baste often. Too much roasting and little basting spoils veal. To be served with apple-sauce. It much improves roast veal to cut slits in it, and insert bits of salt pork.
Roast Poultry.—No fowl should be bought when the entrails are not drawn; and the insides should always be washed with soda-water—a tea-spoonful of soda to a pint of water. Rinse out with fair water. Stuff with seasoned bread-crumbs, wet up with eggs. Sew and tie the stuffing in thoroughly. Allow about ten minutes’ cooking for each pound, more or less, according to the fire and size of the fowl.
Put a grate in the bake-pan, with a tea-cup of salted water. Dredge the fowl with flour at first, and baste often. Strain the gravy, and add the giblets, chopped fine. Many dislike the liver, and so leave it out. If fowls are bought with the intestines in, or if they have been kept too long, the use of soda-water, and then rinsing with pure water, will often prevent the tainted taste; so it is well to do this, except when it is certain that the fowl is just killed. Put a tea-spoonful of soda to a pint of water.
Pot-Pie, of Beef, Veal, or Chicken.—The best way to make the crust is as follows: Peel, boil, and mash a dozen potatoes; add a tea-spoonful of salt, two table-spoonfuls of butter, and half a cup of milk, or cream. Then stiffen it with flour, till you can roll it. Be sure to get all the lumps out of the potatoes. Some persons leave out the butter.
Some roll butter into the dough of bread; others make a raised biscuit, with but little shortening; others make a plain soda pie-crust. But none are so good and healthful as the potato crust; so choose what is best for all.
To prepare the meat, first fry half a dozen slices of salt pork, and then cut up the meat and pork, and boil them in just water enough to cover them, till the meat is nearly cooked. Then peel a dozen potatoes, and slice them thin. Roll the crust half an inch thick, and cut it into oblong pieces. Then put alternate layers of crust, potatoes, and meat, till all is used. The top and bottom layer must be crust. Divide the pork so as to have some in each layer.
Lastly, pour on the liquor in which the meat was boiled, until it just covers the whole, and let it simmer till the top crust is well cooked—say half or three quarters of an hour. Season the liquor with salt, at the rate of a tea-spoonful for each quart, and one sixth as much pepper. If you have occasion to add more liquor, or water, it must be boiling hot, or the crust will be spoiled.
The excellence of this pie depends on having light crust, and therefore the meat must first be nearly cooked before putting it in the pie; and the crust must be in only just long enough to cook, or it will be clammy and hard.
Mutton and Beef Pie.—Line a dish with a crust made of potatoes, as directed in the Chicken Pot-Pie. Broil the meat ten minutes, after pounding it till the fibres are broken. Cut the meat thin, and put it in layers, with thin slices of broiled salt pork; season with butter, the size of a hens egg, salt, pepper, (and either wine or catsup, if liked;) put in water till it nearly covers the meat, and dredge in considerable flour; cover it with the paste, and bake it an hour and a half, if quite thick. Cold meats are good cooked over in this way. Cut a slit in the centre of the cover.
Chicken-Pie.—Joint and boil two chickens in salted water, just enough to cover them, and simmer slowly for half an hour. Line a dish with potato crust, as directed in the recipe for pot-pie; then, when cold, put the chicken in layers, with thin slices of broiled pork, butter, the size of a goose egg, cut in small pieces. Put in enough of liquor, in which the meat was boiled, to reach the surface; salt and pepper each layer; dredge in a little flour, and cover all with a light, thick crust. Ornament the top with the crust, and bake about one hour in a hot oven. Make a small slit in the centre of the crust. If it begins to scorch, lay a paper over a short time.
Rice Chicken-Pie.—Line a pudding-dish with slices of broiled ham; cut up a boiled chicken, and nearly fill the dish, filling in with gravy or melted butter; add minced onions, if you like, or a little curry powder.
Then pile boiled rice to fill all interstices, and cover the top quite thick. Bake it for half or three quarters of an hour.
Potato-Pie.—Take mashed potatoes, seasoned with salt, butter, and milk, and line a baking-dish. Lay upon it slices of cold meats of any kind, with salt, pepper, catsup, and butter or gravy. Put on another layer of potatoes, and then another of cold meat, as before. Lastly, on the top put a cover of potatoes.
Bake it till it is thoroughly warmed through, and serve it in the dish in which it is baked, setting it in or upon another.
Calf’s Head.—Take out the brains and boil the head, feet, and lights in salted water, just enough to cover them, about two hours. When they have boiled nearly an hour and a half, tie the brains in a cloth and put them in to boil with the rest. They should be skinned, and soaked half an hour in cold water. When the two hours have expired, take up the whole, mash the brains fine, and season them with bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, and a glass of port or claret, and use them for sauce. Let the liquor remain for a soup the next day. It serves more handsomely to remove all the bones. Serve with a gravy of drawn butter.
CHAPTER VIII.
BROILED AND FRIED MEATS AND RELISHES.
Broiled Mutton or Lamb Chops.—Cut off the skinny part, which only turns black and can not be eaten. Put a little pepper and salt on each one, and broil by a quick fire. Mutton chops should be rare.
Broiled Beefsteak.—Have the steak cut three quarters of an inch to an inch in thickness. The sirloin and porter-house are the best. The art of cooking steak will depend on a good fire and turning often after it begins to drip. When done, lay it on a hot platter, season with butter, pepper, and salt; cover with another hot platter, and send to the table. Use beef-tongs, as pricking lets out the juices. Slow cooking and much cooking spoils a steak.
Broiled Fresh Pork.—Cut in thin slices, broil