Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea. Marion Harland
boiled), mixed with a boiled onion also chopped. Season with beef gravy, from which the fat has been skimmed.
Imitation paté de foie gras.
Livers of four or five fowls and as many gizzards.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
A chopped onion.
1 table-spoonful Worcestershire, or other pungent sauce.
Salt and white pepper to taste.
A few truffles, if you can get them.
Boil the livers until quite done, drain and wipe dry, and when cold, rub them to a paste in a Wedgewood mortar. Let the butter and chopped onion simmer together very slowly at the side of the range for ten minutes. Strain them through thin muslin, pressing the bag hard to extract the full flavor of the onion, and work this well into the pounded liver. Turn into a larger vessel, and mix with it the rest of the seasoning, working all together for a long while. Butter a small china or earthen-ware jar or cup, and press the mixture hard down within it, interspersing it with square bits of the boiled gizzards to represent truffles. Of course, the latter are preferable, but being scarce and expensive, they are not always to be had. If you have them, boil them and let them get cold before putting them into the paté. Cover all with melted butter and set in a cool, dry place. If well seasoned it will keep for a fortnight in winter, but should be kept closely covered.
This paté is a delicious relish, and is more easily attainable than would at first appear. The livers of a turkey and a pair of chickens or ducks will make a small one, and these can be saved from one poultry-day to another by boiling them in salt water, and keeping in a cool place. Or, one can often secure any number of giblets by previous application at the kitchen of a restaurant or hotel.
Or—
A fair imitation of the foregoing dish can be made from the liver of a young calf, with bits of the tongue for mock truffles.
CROQUETTES.
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These popular little roulettes, although comparatively new to the tables of most private families in America, hold their place well where they have been once introduced. Like the paté, their name is Legion as regards shape, nature and quality.
In a housewifely conversation with a lady a few months since, the word “croquette” chanced to escape me, and I was caught up eagerly.
“Now,” with an ingenuous blush, “do you know, I was offered some at a dinner-party the other day, and was completely nonplussed! I thought croquet was a game.”
“Croquette!” I interposed, making the most of the final t, and e.
“The gentleman who sat next me said ‘croquay,’ very plainly, I assure you. But never mind the name. What are they made of? Hominy?”
“Yes,” returned I. “Or rice, or potato, or lobster, crab, salmon, halibut, cod, chicken, turkey, duck, game, veal, lamb, or beef. In short, of all kinds of fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetable. The smaller varieties are familiarly known to readers of cookery-books as ‘olives’ of meat, poultry, or game; the larger as rissoles or croquettes, the largest as cannelons or mirotons.”
“Good gracious!” uttered my overwhelmed friend. “Before I would bother my brain with such puzzling nonsense, I would set my family down to cold meat three times a day three days in a week!”
I believed she meant what she said. But not the less is it a “good” and a “gracious” thing for the housewife to conjure out of such unconsidered and unsightly trifles as the mutilated cold fowl from which half the breast and both legs are missing, or the few chops “left over,” or “that bone” of lamb or veal, or three square inches of cold fish, a pretty plat for breakfast or luncheon, of golden-brown croquettes, imbedded in parsley, or in a ruby setting of pickled beets, that shall quicken John’s flagging appetite, and call from the little ones the never stale plaudit, “Mamma can always get up something nice.”
“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost,” is a text from which the thoughtful house-mother may preach to herself, as well as to her servants. That no opportunity of making home fairer, and even one hour of the day a little brighter, be lost or overlooked. That no possibility of proving her constant, active love for the least of her flock be passed by. These daily cares and hourly assiduities are the rivets in the chain that binds her best beloved ones unto The Family. Lacking them, the relation, instituted by law and continued by custom, has no stancher securities than habit and convenience—a hay-rope that will shrivel at the first touch of Passion, be rent by one resolute wrench of Expediency.
“A serious view to take of croquettes?” do I hear you say. Then hearken to something positive and practical.
Unpalatable food is not wholesome. It may be medicinal. Nothing forced upon an unwilling appetite, and that does not gratify the palate, can impart that freshness of animal spirit and vigor which we call Life—spontaneous vitality. Indifferent fuel—green or sodden wood, or slaty coal—may keep a fire from going out. There is not begotten from these the leaping flame that gladdens, while it warms. And cold meat and bread, dried into sawdusty innutrition, should no more form the staple of John’s meals, even three times a week, than his grate be filled, on December nights, with coke-dust and mica.
Chicken Croquettes.
Minced chicken.
About one-quarter as much fine bread-crumbs as you have meat.
1 egg, beaten light, to each cupful of minced meat.
Gravy enough to moisten the crumbs and chicken. Or, if you have no gravy, a little drawn butter.
Pepper and salt, and chopped parsley to taste.
Yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed fine with the back of a silver spoon, added to the meat.
Mix up into a paste, with as little handling as may be. Nor must the paste be too wet to mould readily. Make, with floured hands, into rolls, or ovate balls, roll in flour until well coated, and fry, a few at a time, lest crowding should injure the shape, in nice dripping, or a mixture, half lard and half butter. As you take them out, lay in a hot cullender, that every drop of fat may be drained off. Serve in a heated dish, and garnish with cresses or parsley.
Turkey, duck, and veal croquettes can be made in the same manner. They are even nicer if dipped in egg and cracker-crumbs before frying.
Beef Croquettes.
Minced cold roast or boiled beef.
One-quarter as much potato.
Gravy enough to moisten meat and potato, in which an onion has been stewed and strained out. Season also with catsup.
Pepper and salt