The Project Gutenberg EBook of I Go A-Marketing, by Henrietta Sowle This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: I Go A-Marketing Author: Henrietta Sowle Release Date: September 17, 2017 [EBook #55566] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I GO A-MARKETING *** Produced by Emmy, MFR, Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive). For Emmy. Front cover of the book I Go A-Marketing By HENRIETTA SOWLE (“HENRIETTE”) B Publisher's logo BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY · MDCCCC Copyright, 1900, by Little, Brown, and Company. UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. TO MR. EDWARD H. CLEMENT CONTENTS PAGE January 1 February 20 March 43 April 64 May 78 June 94 July 110 August 128 September 142 October 166 November 188 December 209 Index 233 Author’s Note EFORE dipping into this book very far, reader (pray note that I cozen you with neither “gentle” nor “dear”), allow me to suggest that you familiarize yourself with the spirit of Emerson, who has allowed that the truly consistent person changes his mind whenever occasion offers. Then you will be in a frame of mind to acknowledge that I have but exercised my privilege if you chance upon passages that seem to put me in a self- [vii] S Sausages Broiled Pork Chops Piquant Sauce contradictory position. I hold to one opinion till new or increased light shows me I would do well to change, no longer. Is it necessary, I wonder, to say that this compilation of persiflage and cookery is not intended to be the whole culinary library of any housekeeper? In case it may be believed that I have any such inflated idea of its value, let me say at once that any housekeeper who secures this book, by buying or by borrowing, will want just as many of the old-line “cook- books” at hand as if she had never heard of it. Its mission is a supplementary one. It is for those dark and dreary days when the housekeeper “wants something good,” but cannot say what. It suggests. Therein is all of beauty and use, for “beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know and all ye need to know.” Furthermore, it is for the housekeeper who knows by experience, or intuition, how to lay a fire, and how to broil a steak. With kindergarten methods it does not deal—it rather takes it for granted that it will fall into the hands of those who have been graduated from kindergarten cookery. Neither does it attempt to set forth the duties of butlers or of housemaids. It goes on the principle rather that the housekeeper who supports these factotums knows what their duties should be. And is there any necessity for those who cannot attain to such appointments burdening their minds with knowledge never to be used? Think on all these things omitted when you are getting inspiration from this slender source, and be thankful that I have shown so much consideration for you. “Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.” I Go A-Marketing JANUARY “Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, And knavery stealing purses; Still cooks must live by making tarts And wits by making verses.” OME fine day, perchance, I shall to market go and find there what all housekeepers are “a-sighin’ and a-cryin’ for”—namely a new edible; and be it fish, flesh, or fowl, I shall, with all haste, make you acquainted with its nature, and with the name of the marketman who introduces the boon; and methinks that nothing short of canonization should reward the man, or woman, who finds “something new under the sun.” But till that blessed day of discovery really arrives I must be content with telling you of ways that may be new and tricks that are worth trying for the serving of viands which have constituted human nature’s daily food since the world began. Unless, however, I can bring to your minds by my suggestions a state of contentment which will enable you to await that hour of revealment with patience almost amounting to indifference, my duty is but half done. So here goes for a beginning. Don’t you ever feel quite dissatisfied with the ordinary, yes and the extraordinary, sausages of commerce? Of course you do. No need to ask. They are flat, there’s no gainsaying it. But it’s the easiest thing in the world to have home-made sausages seasoned to a point that will make them things of gastronomical joy. There must be equal quantities of lean and fat fresh pork finely minced; then to a pound of this meat add one-quarter of an ounce of salt, more or less, one-eighth of an ounce of good business-like pepper, more or less, and powdered sage ad lib. The use of seasoning, you see, is not bound by any hard and fast rules; in cases of this kind a due regard must be shown the whims and fancies of the palates to be pleased. Once you have added the proper amount of seasoning, add enough well beaten egg to allow of the mixture being moulded to any desired shape, and fried to a nice brown. And there you have a dish fit to put before a king. If the simplicity and homeliness of it somewhat upsets your equilibrium, why call it saucisses grillées; they’ll taste just as well. They can be served either upon rounds of toasted bread or upon a foundation of cold boiled potatoes which have been diced and heated in cream. If you are having them for luncheon then serve them on toast, but with the addition of a tomato purée. No need to tell how to make that; it’s an old story. Another old story, altogether too old, is the way most housekeepers have of frying pork chops. They should never be fried. The only respectable way is to broil them decently and in order over a hot bed of coals. In that way what little [viii] [ix] [1] [2] [3] Apple Croquettes Roasted Pork with Onion Sauce Roasted Ham Cider Sauce Broiled Pigs’ Feet juice they contain will be retained. But even then they will be so dry that you must supplement them with something,—say a sauce made of half a pint of good clear stock, highly seasoned, and having in it a tablespoonful of chopped pickled peppers and some sliced gherkins, with the juice of a lemon added. Or, you can serve with them apple croquettes, made by stewing the apples in a little butter, with a tiny bit of sugar; when quite cold, with the aid of a few bread- crumbs, shape the apple into croquettes, roll them in crumbs and beaten egg and fry. Arrange the croquettes, which must be not more than an inch in diameter, with the chops upon a platter in any fanciful way that suggests itself to you, and the condition of the platter at the end of the meal will tell you whether or not the experiment was worth the trying. These croquettes will win favor for themselves if you will try serving them some time with a loin of fresh pork, roasted. You will want to serve with them only the simplest kind of clear gravy. But you may prefer to serve the roasted loin of pork on steamed rice garnished with button onions, which have been boiled till fairly tender and then fried in butter to a light brown. If this is your preference, make a sauce by frying in two gills of oil, half a pound of minced onion, a pinch of parsley leaves, a crushed clove of garlic and a bay leaf, with salt and pepper; dilute with a pint of good stock, preferably white; strain and finish by adding the juice of a lemon and an ounce of fresh butter. By the way, when fresh pork is to be roasted, it is an excellent plan to rub salt well into it about twenty-four hours before cooking. If you slice and serve it cold you will readily see the wisdom of giving the salt a chance to work its way through and season the whole loin. When a ham is to be roasted, and small hams do make excellent roasts, a ham of about five pounds’ weight should be skinned and boiled in enough water to cover it; in this water you will want to put, just for variety’s sake, a carrot, an onion, three bay-leaves, three cloves, one clove of garlic, and six peppercorns. Boil very gently for about one hour; then remove from the fire, drain it well, and coat it with a paste of oil and flour. Be sure that it is well covered with the paste to prevent the escape of the juice, put into the oven and roast for about two hours. Serve it with a sauce made of a sufficient quantity of the stock, to which you have added half its amount of cider, and there you behold what is commonly known as champagne sauce. But, bless you, it’s very doubtful if champagne is often used, as after it is heated it would be a sensitive palate indeed that could tell whether champagne or cider were employed. Just a hint right here of what may be done with bits of cold ham, for we may never be on this subject again. Have some thin slices of toasted white bread, spread well with butter and a trifle of mustard, then equal parts of grated cheese and minced ham, and some cayenne pepper. Send to the oven for a few minutes, or until the cheese is dissolved, and serve immediately. Say what you will, it is a delectable dish, this ham toast, and whether you allow for it in a prearranged luncheon or whether it is concocted on the impulse of the moment, when the necessity suddenly arises for a dish of the kind, trust me, whoever partakes of it will vow that it “relishes of wit and invention.” Perhaps this batch of suggestions would be incomplete with no reference in it to the cooking of pigs’ feet, and yet there’s very little variety in the methods of preparing them. The simplest is the best, it seems to me, and that is dipping them in melted butter, then in bread-crumbs, and broiling over a moderate fire. A piquant sauce is by long odds the sauce par excellence to be served with them. Some chefs de cuisine prepare them elaborately with truffles, to my mind, however, there’s an incongruity in a combination of pork and truffles. But of course it’s only a matter of taste, and it is more than possible that there will be some who read this and deplore my poor taste in devoting so much space to ways and means of cooking pork. Well, to such I offer the suggestion that they call it a chapter on porcine potentials, and pass on. By all means let us be economical—truly economical. But let us never make the grievous but common mistake of thinking that the buying of cheap, downright cheap food is economy. To commit such an error in judgment is to lay the cornerstone of more than one kind of unhappiness. But you know that, too. And with so many inexpensive viands as there are to be had, susceptible as they are of so many ways of serving, one can, with the exercise of a little judgment in such matters, have the appearance of “living high” when in reality one is laying up money out of the weekly table allowance, if one has such an institution in one’s family. For myself, I have a great respect for a housekeeper who keeps within her allowance week in and week out, year after year. But for the one who cuts loose occasionally from all allowance limits when there is a “good thing up” I have the sincerest admiration and sympathy. It is with such a one that I always feel tempted to outstay my welcome if I get the shadow of a chance to be so ill bred. Such an ignoring of trammels of the financial sort is an indication of truancy in other matters now and then that rather appeals to me, to be very honest about it. But I don’t recommend it to you or to any one. Perhaps it hasn’t a place here, but since it is written it shall stand, labelled En parenthèse. And we will talk of codfish—fresh codfish. This is a species of the gadus family that is eligible for duty in a family of any class—high, low, or middle. It may follow the soup at an unlimited course dinner and not be out of its element or it may form the pièce de résistance, or in fact the only piece of any kind at a dinner of another sort and still be quite at home. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Fresh Codfish, Delmonico Style Broiled Fresh Codfish Baked Fresh Codfish Sweet Corn Croquettes Sublimated Hash Rice Muffins Rhode Island Johnnycake Now let us get to business. Suppose that some day you have a piping hot oven that is as idle as you would like to be and that you have also a fresh codfish in the house split with the backbone removed for broiling. Let me suggest that you dry it well, put it in a buttered baking pan, skin side down, coat it with melted butter, sprinkle it with salt, pepper, lemon juice, chopped parsley and chopped onion. Then bestrew it with bread crumbs moistened in melted butter and set into the oven to brown. Get it out as gracefully as possible when it is done, flip a little melted butter and lemon juice over it and serve. Or, if you can’t break away from tradition and have sworn to have a broiled fish broiled then I am sure that you do keep within your allowance for the table and will treat the fish this way: You will dry it well with a cloth, then brush it with melted butter, sprinkle salt and a little pepper, put it on the buttered bars of the broiler, and let the fire do the rest. Then after it is dished, sprinkle it with perhaps a few capers, surround it with broiled thin slices of bacon, and be on the alert to catch the first expression that flits over the face of the one who furnishes you with the aforesaid table allowance to see if all is well with the fish and consequently with you. Am I right? But I would be willing to wager the price of a whole “catch” of codfish that I can tell you of a bran new way to bake one. Read and see for yourself. Have the size that seems to find most favor in your family and fill it with a forcemeat made by mincing to paste a pound of raw codfish. Add to it half a pint of cream that has been just boiled, that’s all, and thickened with two eggs. Season with salt, a chopped onion—chopped so finely that it is of a paste consistency and fill the fish with the mixture. For pepper let me suggest that you use paprika in preference to any other brand. Cook till the fish is done and serve with any rich sauce that appeals to you. Any or all of the foregoing recipes may be applied to haddock, as you probably suspect—if you know anything at all about fish. You don’t know, you housekeepers of America what a jolly good reputation you’ve got to live up to unless you happen to have read G. W. Steevens’s clever book, “The Land of the Dollar,” in which he says of our national breakfasts: “First you have fruit—wonderful pears that look like green stones and taste like the Tree of Life. Then mush, so they call oatmeal porridge, or wheatmeal porridge or hominy porridge, a noble food with the nectarous American cream. Then fishes and meats, sausages, and bacon and eggs. Then strange farinaceous foods which you marvel to find yourself swallowing with avid gust—graham bread, soda biscuits, buckwheat or griddle cakes with butter and maple treacle. It is magnificent; but it is indigestion. All the same, I look forward to the day when America shall produce an invention that will let me go across the Atlantic every morning for breakfast. I shall take a season ticket.” Now let my humble pen chip in two or three things that shall help you to live up to this estimate of you. Suppose you are having a dish of fried eggs after a manner described later on in this book. Go still further, and see fit to have some croquettes also. Do you know just what they should be? If in doubt let them be of canned sweet corn. Mix with half a can of the corn two-thirds of its quantity of mashed potatoes, salt and a good generous bit of melted butter. Then form into croquettes, dip in beaten egg and crumbs and fry to a fine color in hot fat. Or, as second choice, you might like hash instead of the eggs fried. Now, look here; you know me well enough by this time, I hope, to believe that when I suggest hash it is none of the commonplace minces that you shun at the table of your very best friend. Of what I have to say in the line of hash you won’t be overdoing the thing if you refer to it for evermore as a “sublimated hash.” See for yourself: Chop an onion and fry it in a good bit of butter till it is tender and likewise brown. Then put into the butter two cupfuls of diced cold mutton, diced not chopped, and one cupful of diced cold boiled potatoes. Pepper and salt to your fancy. Then put in four tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce and have ready some chopped parsley for sprinkling over the dish when it is served. You might for a flyer try rice muffins with this hash. Have a cup of flour and sifted through it two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Add to it a tablespoonful of sugar, a saltspoonful of salt, and pass this through a sieve. Have three eggs well beaten in a cup of milk with half a cup of melted butter and stir into the flour. When it is perfectly smooth add to it two cupfuls of cold boiled or steamed rice. Turn into small pans and bake in a hot oven. By grating in a little nutmeg to these muffins you will have a delicious dish for luncheon. Now, our friend Steevens spoke of griddle cakes and buckwheat cakes. Of these you know all that is necessary for any housekeeper to know. But I’ll wager a good sum that Rhode Island meal is an unknown quantity to you. Make its acquaintance then as soon as possible and set about having Rhode Island johnnycakes often. You will want nothing but the meal, some milk and salt. Have them considerably thinner than ordinary flour griddle cakes and fry in a little fat on a hot griddle so that the edges are crisp and toothsome. If you want to bake them have a cup of meal to a cup and one-half of milk with a pinch of salt, and bake in gem pans till brown. Instead of having butter with either the fried or baked specimens of this johnnycake try some of our “nectarous cream.” Is it a go? [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Red Cabbage Salad Spanish Onion Salad Sardine Salad Brussels Sprouts Salad Oyster Salad Nut Salad Fruit Salad Now and then, throughout this book, the directions for making a salad are brought in incidentally to the main topic of discourse. Nowhere are they treated as the pièce de résistance, so to speak, of a chapter. And here are not many— only a few that go especially well in cold weather, when to have any variety at all in salads incurs a considerable outlay of rumination. Just a little inventive faculty and a firm purpose to have your table superior, even in details, to that of your dearest enemy, and you can with materials on hand in January have salads that give the eternal chicken and lobster with mayonnaise the go-by,—though, I fear me, the snubbing in the near future will come from the lobster itself. But that’s not to be discussed at just this minute. Before this you have probably made red cabbage salad with a French dressing and with a spread of mayonnaise over it, so that you think you know it all, but have you tried adding to it some celery? This is the way it is done. All the coarse outside leaves of the cabbage are removed and the inside is finely shredded. Then the best stalks of a head of celery are cut into inch pieces and put into the salad bowl, a layer of celery, then one of the cabbage, and so on, heaping a bit in the centre. Garnish with the fresh green leaves of the celery; pour a dressing, made of a beaten egg, three tablespoonfuls of oil, two of vinegar, a saltspoon of salt, a dash of cayenne, and a suspicion of mustard, over all, and let stand for half an hour in a cool place before serving. For luncheon, when you are having croquettes of left-over ham bits, or of cold tongue scraps, this goes very near to being what would tempt any sane person to ask for a second helping. Then there is a way to make an onion salad, that sets you to wondering why you never heard of it before. Have the Spanish onions, and soak them four or five hours, after peeling, in cold water, changing the water every hour, or even oftener, if your time isn’t too precious. Then slice and chop them, but not to the mussy stage. Freeze them, not too hard, but so they will be crisp and cold. Meanwhile, prepare a dressing of two-thirds oil to one-third vinegar, with salt and pepper to taste, and pour over them. Serve immediately. But don’t forget the garnish, which naturally suggests itself—parsley, to be sure, and plenty of it. With this salad? Well, we will suppose it is making its début in your household at an after-theatre snack. So have with it toasted water crackers, a bit of Swiss cheese, a smoked herring or two. And beer, of course. Now, don’t skip what is going down here about a sardine salad—you will miss it if you do. I know you will say you wouldn’t fancy the oil in which they are preserved in a salad, and I can see that rather superior curl your lip takes on as you say it. But soak them for an hour in vinegar, then remove the skin from them and arrange in a circle on your salad dish. In the centre heap pitted and quartered olives. Make a dressing of the strained juice of a lemon mixed with a tablespoonful of olive oil, a bit of salt and of paprika, and over all a sprinkling of capers. Then, take a taste of it when your turn comes, and be sorry you were inclined to pass by it. Now and then, you know, we do have a few Brussels sprouts left over from the day before’s dinner, and at the price usually asked we couldn’t throw them away, and yet there weren’t enough to pay for reheating. So, in order to be forehanded, and also to have the “makings” of a delicious salad in the house, get double the quantity you usually have the next time you are getting them, and be glad for every one that is left over, for the next day you will sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice over them, coat them with a mayonnaise, sprinkle with capers and sliced olives, and serve very cold. At a simple little dinner, where you are having “left-overs” daintily fixed up, this salad works in beautifully, or if you are giving a dinner that is as elaborate as anything you ever turn out, count on this salad to be one of the features of your dinner. A delicious offering to put before your household some night is a salad of oysters. Have a quart of them, say, drain and wipe them well from their own liquor. Boil a cup of vinegar, and season it while boiling with salt and white pepper. Pour it over the oysters, and let them stand for two hours or so. Then drain them pretty dry, and lay on a bed of chopped celery in the salad bowl. If the oysters are very large cut in halves or quarters. Have a layer of chopped celery on top of the oysters, and coat thickly with mayonnaise. Be sure, however, that the oysters are perfectly cold before adding to the celery. Garnish with a few oyster crabs, pickled at the same time the oysters were pickled, and some sliced olives. To be very, very extravagant in making this salad, if you so want to be for the purpose of impressing some one, add to it a few sliced truffles that have been soaked in white wine for an hour or two. For some occasions, at this season of the year, a nut salad just fills the bill as nothing else can. Choose almost any kind of nuts, but preferably let them be mainly English walnuts. Have them in halves, or in quarters, and squeeze lemon juice over them fifteen minutes before dressing. Then add to them half their quantity of quartered olives, some very tender little celery leaves, and a thin mask of mayonnaise. Really, when you have turned out this salad, for a party supper, say, you need give yourselves very little uneasiness as to how the other viands will set with your guests. Such a salad is calculated to redeem a good many faults in other directions. Just a word about a sweet salad, and this screed is ended. Oranges. It shall be of oranges—big, luscious, juicy, seedless oranges, that are at their height for the next two months or more. These you slice, after peeling, as you would an apple. Put a layer of them in a bowl, sprinkle with powdered sugar and a few drops of orange curaçoa. Then another layer of oranges, another of sugar, another fall of [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] O Roast Lamb with Caper Sauce Roast Lamb with Onion Purée Roast Lamb with Macaroni Broiled Lamb Slices Fried Lamb with Chutney Lamb Slices with Onions and Mushrooms Lamb Slices in Chafing Dish Lamb Croquettes Lamb Salad curaçoa, and so on till the dish is full. Then, if there are half a dozen oranges used, pour over them about half a gill of brandy, either the plain brandy or apricot brandy. The latter, I find, is possessed of a mysterious flavor that, when added to an orange salad, just sets people to wondering why it is they have to go away from home to find such delights. FEBRUARY “To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.” NCE upon a time, one of the resourceless sort of housekeepers said to me that she was never quite so stumped as when she felt the economical burden laid upon her to utilize lamb or mutton “left-overs.” Now, this has been quite the opposite of my experience. In fact, I wouldn’t acknowledge that I found cold lamb a facer, anyway. Suppose we talk of a leg of lamb roasted in this way: The bone neatly removed, the cavity filled with a mushroom stuffing, then roasted in a hot oven and served with caper sauce and currant jelly. To be sure I know you would as soon have pledged yourself to break one of the commandments, as to serve caper sauce with roasted lamb, if I had not tempted you. But you will do it, now that the suggestion has entered your consciousness of gastronomical beauties. Or, if, in the first blush, it doesn’t appeal to you, there’s this way of roasting lamb that I dare say is new to you. First, make an onion purée, by mincing one quart of onions and boiling them till tender. Drain very dry, put them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter; season with salt and pepper; let them simmer for ten or fifteen minutes, but don’t let them brown. Then add to them half a pint of cream, and press all through a sieve, when serving as sauce. Can you stand another novelty? It’s this. Put the lamb in the roasting-pan, and just a half hour before you think it is to be done, take it out and cover the bottom of the pan with boiled macaroni. Lay the lamb on this, and prick it all over that the juice may run over the macaroni. Moisten the macaroni with a little stock, too, if it threatens to get too dry or too brown. When the lamb is roasted take it out, heap the macaroni on a dish, pour a little tomato sauce over it, sprinkle with Parmesan and send to table. Have a little tomato, or any other sauce that pleases you, with the lamb, if you feel that you must have a sauce. Now, for the second day—no, the third day, rather. Skip a day before dishing a reheating of the lamb. Then get some good slices from the joint, even as to size and thickness, and lay them for an hour in a dressing of two tablespoonfuls of oil, one of Tarragon vinegar, with salt and pepper. Take them out of the dressing, dip in bread crumbs, broil over a hot fire, and serve with a tartar sauce, or, if you like, with some of the onion purée, if any was left. If you like chutney, and of course you do, have some neat slices of cold lamb spread with this palate-tickler, roll each slice up, coat with crumbs, and fry in boiling fat till brown. Skewer the rolled slices to keep them in shape. When serving, sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice. It will be a question with you, probably, which of these two ways of reheating is better. But that’s the sort of recipes with which to load your intelligence, so don’t complain. Can you digest another warmed-over dish of lamb? This time have the slices thick rather than thin, and put them in a stewpan with enough sherry wine to cover them. Cover closely, and let heat slowly while you are tossing together, in a little butter, some minced boiled onion and button mushrooms. Color slightly, and moisten with a little rich stock. Take up the slices of lamb, arrange in a circle on a dish, fill the centre with the onions and mushrooms, pour the wine over all, and take the trick. It’s yours. In case you don’t like as much wine as is required to cover the lamb, use half wine and half water, and the juice of a lemon. If you want to try the reheating of the lamb in the chafing dish, have it sliced as neatly as possible, and make ready in the chafing dish a sauce of one wineglass of port wine, half a pint of good stock, thickened, a teaspoonful of walnut ketchup, the same of French mustard, and a pinch of salt. When this is hot put in the lamb, and serve as soon as heated through. If with any of the foregoing recipes you think you would fancy a border of rice, have it, by all means. But have plenty of butter in the water in which the rice is boiled; or if it is steamed, have it moistened well with butter just the same. You might fancy this rice border with lamb croquettes. These, you know, are made by having the lamb chopped finely, and added to it half its quantity of chopped mushrooms. Moisten with a little tomato sauce, shape and fry. Surely you will not take offence if I assume, at this stage of the game, that you are educated up to a point where you can appreciate the delights that centre in a lamb salad. You dice the lamb, having it free of all fat and sinew. Then put a layer of it in the bottom of the salad bowl. Have [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] Kidneys en Brochette Fried Kidneys with Mushrooms Minced Kidneys Macaroni Croquettes Fried Calf’s Liver a dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, with a bit of French mustard in it, at hand, and with this sprinkle the lamb. Bestrew it, too, with a chopped anchovy or two, or more, if you are fond of anchovies. Then put in a layer of cold boiled potatoes, diced—more dressing; another stratum of lamb, and so on till the dish is full, having it mound-shaped. Garnish with sliced gherkins and capers, and let it go at that. I would that fewer nursery rhymers had taken trips to market for their text when their pens took to turning out jingles; for goodness knows that what with “To market, to market to buy a fat pig,” and “To market, to market, all on a market day,” keeping up a continuous jig-like theme in my mind, to say nothing of the insistent interruptions by the “little pig that went to market” I am well-nigh distracted when I try to get dry-as-dust facts from the marketman anent commonplace eatables. To be sure, if I go in search of frogs’ legs, say, and the story of the frog who went a-wooing recurs to my mind three or four times in a minute, it seems quite appropriate and doesn’t interfere in the least with my driving a pretty sharp bargain with the fish-dealer. But, so far as I know, no poet or writer of assonance has taken it into his head to sing a song of livers, kidneys, and such like edibles of which I am telling you herein, and no wonder, you may say, if I don’t succeed in making my story fairly interesting, as well as appetizing—though from the nature of it if it is one it must be the other. Everybody knows, I fancy, that when one has cut off the skin of some lambs’ kidneys, and then cut the kidneys into quarter-inch-thick slices, seasoned them with salt and pepper, dipped them in oil, and then threaded them on skewers with alternating slices of bacon a brochette of kidneys is well under way. To complete the operation they are dipped into oil, then into bread-crumbs and broiled over a slow fire. In serving there’s no reason in the world why one should not indulge one’s fancy for any simple sauce that will help the kidneys to tickle one’s palate. Good as this dish is, I must confess I like it better when chickens’ livers are substituted for the kidneys. By the way, do you know that every up-to-date marketman has them all skewered, and all that you have to do is to add the seasoning and see to the broiling? Another really delightful way of serving lambs’ kidneys is to prepare in a frying- pan a tablespoonful of chopped onions, a small chopped shallot, a clove of garlic and as many fresh mushrooms as you feel like buying, with salt and pepper to taste, and an ounce or so of butter; don’t let the vegetables color at all, and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to add a gill or so of any kind of wine and the same of cream. Let this sauce mull a while on the back of the range, while you broil the number of kidneys desired, after having skinned and split each one in two lengthwise. Dish and pour over them the sauce, removing from it the garlic. If you’ve never heard of this way for preparing kidneys, it seems to me that you should be very grateful to me for calling your attention to it. And may your gratitude be re-enforced after you have tried cooking veal kidneys in this fashion: Mince three very small ones, after removing all the fat and fibrous parts, and fry them in butter over a hot fire. Don’t let them get wizzled up, but just done to a turn, then take from the frying-pan and add to the butter in which they were fried some tomato sauce highly seasoned, half a can of mushrooms, some lemon juice, and chopped parsley; pour over the kidneys and even if you serve them in just this manner they will prove a great success; but should you wish to make it a dish to linger in one’s memory, then garnish it with macaroni croquettes. Ever make them? Well, boil a pound of macaroni in salted water for fifteen minutes. Then drain and cut it into quarter-inch lengths; put back into the saucepan with a little grated cheese, a little salt, cayenne pepper and a gill of cream. Let it get perfectly cold, then mould into croquettes, either cylinder-shaped or any other form, only have them very small; dip in egg and bread-crumbs and fry a pretty brown. These macaroni croquettes, by the way, make a suitable garnish for any number of dishes; try them with veal cutlets some time, or with thin, dainty slices of ham broiled for luncheon, and you’ll get more than your labor for your pains. If you are thinking to have liver, then my advice to you is to get if possible only that of a calf. To buy that of an older “beef critter” is so often a waste of time and money that it’s just as well to forego buying it altogether—it is so apt to have too much flavor, so to speak, or be tough or stringy, and wholly unsatisfactory. But get a calf’s liver, and something of a treat is in store for you, whether you fry it with bacon or prepare it in this way: Cut up finely three or four good-sized white onions and fry them in butter till of a golden brown. Drain the butter off and cover the onions with white stock; let cook for half an hour, then moisten with more stock and season with pepper, salt, chopped parsley, and just a suspicion of lemon juice. Fry the slices of liver, which should not be over half an inch in thickness, in enough butter to keep them from hardening; drain off the butter and add the above sauce; let it boil up once, then serve, and garnish with slices of lemon. Perhaps this is a bit heavy for a breakfast dish—to my mind it is decidedly so—while for luncheon, where one is having a salad of watercress, or for an entrée at dinner it seems to be quite in its rightful place. If the liver is to be served for breakfast, then it is a good idea to roll the slices in a little flour, sprinkle melted butter over them and broil over the coals, squeezing just enough lemon juice and sprinkling just enough chopped parsley over them to make them grateful to the taste and eye when served. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] Sauce for Calf’s Liver Chicken Broth with Oatmeal Purée of Barley Beef Tea Cream Soup Sabayon of Chicken Chicken Custard Tapioca Jelly But why don’t you try to invent a sauce for calf’s liver? Fry it in plenty of butter, then add to the butter, when the liver is removed, anything that your palate suggests or which your common sense approves. For instance, put in a few tiny slices of gherkin, a handful of mushrooms, a soupçon of tomato sauce, a few capers, a little lemon juice, chopped chives or chervil, chopped shallot or any herb or condiment that you may have in the house. Of course you don’t want to use all of these articles, but try a combination of any two or three or more of them, with the addition of a little stock and—who knows?—you may invent a sauce that will make you as famous as was Béchamel, Condé or Carême. Success be with you! “Do be kind enough some of these times when you are scribbling about the good things at market to bear in mind that not every one is hale and hearty and blessed with digestive organs that could stand a diet of shingle nails. Give a thought to the poor unfortunates that are obliged to think twice before gratifying their appetites once.” Thus wailed one of the said “poor unfortunates” once upon a time, and as a result of the complaint I have since been “holding them in thought” to a considerable extent, with a view to making the material aspect of a period of invalidism and convalescence a bit the brighter. Of course we all know that the list of eatables allowed an invalid or a convalescent is of necessity a rather short one; but there is an infinite number of ways for varying the list, if one will use a little judgment and good taste in preparing the dishes. We have all had experience in seeing a sick person make a wry face at the mention of gruel or porridge, and precious little we blamed him for it, to tell the truth. But the whole condition of affairs may be changed by preparing it in this way: Have a pint of good clear chicken broth, free from fat and not too strong; boil it, and into it shake slowly a cup of oatmeal or wheaten grits; let it cook for half an hour or so, pass it through a wire sieve, and add to it a little more broth if that is necessary to make it fit to be sipped easily from a cup without using a spoon. Take it to the sick-room with the remark, “I have brought you a little purée of oatmeal,” and my word for it you will not see a drop left in the cup. And a purée of barley will be quite as acceptable. Soak the barley over night, and the next morning cover it with chicken broth; boil until the barley bursts, adding broth from time to time as it cooks away; when the broth begins to thicken, which will be at the end of about three hours’ time, strain it through a very fine sieve. Serve it in a cup; and if you dare do such a thing, add a tiny bit of butter to it. It makes it a deal more palatable, and I don’t believe it will harm the patient; but it’s quite possible the physician in charge may think otherwise. There are ways and ways for making beef tea; but the best of all ways, it seems to me, is to have round steak about one inch in thickness, broil it for two minutes on each side over a brisk fire, cut it up into inch squares, cover it with cold water, and let it steep, not boil, for two hours. Serve it in a cup, and salt when serving. You and the ailing one will find, I think, that the broiling of the steak gives the tea a flavor that makes it “hit the spot”—a consummation devoutly to be wished when one is catering for an invalid. Cream soups make a pleasing change after plain broths or teas. Take any white stock that is rich, free from fat and well seasoned. Put into a saucepan half a pint of the stock and the same quantity of cream. When it comes to a boil add one tablespoonful of flour thoroughly moistened with cold milk, and let it boil at once. Serve with it finger-pieces of thin buttered toast. A highly nutritious dish is made by putting four egg-yolks into a double boiler, diluting them with half a pint of clear chicken broth, and beating the mixture with a whip or beater until it becomes thick and frothy. When it is done add two teaspoonfuls of sherry to it, and serve in a cup; have it just as hot as possible. And if the person for whom you concoct this appetizing affair insists upon knowing its name, you may say that it is a sabayon of chicken. And, by the way, what an endless amount of dainty edibles may be made from chicken! Take a chicken custard, for instance; could anything be daintier? Have a cupful of good clear chicken stock, and add to it an equal quantity of cream; cook it for a few minutes, then put it into a double boiler, and add the beaten yolks of three eggs and a little salt. Cook until the mixture thickens a little, and then pour it into custard cups to be served cold. It’s an ungrateful, whimsical, and grumpy sort of an invalid who doesn’t reckon as a red-letter day the time when he first tasted of a chicken custard. But whether or not this is the case, you will have to keep right on shaking up your ideas and producing other dishes. In all probability you will try your hand at jelly-making; and when you have exhausted your own stock of recipes try making a tapioca jelly. To prepare it, soak one cup of tapioca in three cups of water over night. In the morning put it into a double boiler with a cup of hot water, and let it simmer until perfectly clear, stirring often. Sweeten to taste and flavor with the juice of half a lemon and two tablespoonfuls of wine. Pour into cups, and set away to get perfectly cold. When serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar and heap a little whipped cream on it. Or it may be that a blanc-mange made with tapioca will seem to you worth the trying. If so, soak a cupful of tapioca in [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] Violet Jelly Steamed Rice Invalid’s Chop Creamed Oysters Flaked Cold Cod in Tomato Lobster Newberg Chicken Livers with Olive Sauce two cups of water over night. In the morning put it into the double boiler, and stir into it two cups of boiling milk, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Cook it slowly for fifteen minutes, stirring several times. Take it from the fire, and flavor with wine or vanilla. Let it harden in small moulds, and serve with powdered sugar and whipped cream. And some day when the patient is unusually capricious try surprising him or her with a violet jelly. A woman I know told me not long ago that she had found it more efficacious than a dozen “soft answers.” Have a pint of clear boiling syrup, and into it throw a heaping handful of fresh violets, after removing the stalks; let this simmer, tightly covered, for half an hour. Then strain the liquor, and add to it half an ounce of gelatine dissolved in a very little water, the juice of an orange, and two teaspoonfuls of violet vegetable coloring, which is as harmless as so much cold water. Turn it into a mould, and set on ice to harden. When boiled or steamed rice is ordered, try preparing it in this way. Wash a cupful of it thoroughly and put into the double boiler with just enough water to cover it. When the rice is nearly done, pour off the water, if any remains, and add one cup of milk and a little salt. Let the rice cook thoroughly till done. Beat an egg well, and the last thing before taking the rice from the fire stir the egg in as lightly as possible, and serve hot with sugar and cream. The egg makes the dish a bit more attractive and considerably more nutritious. I wonder if you have ever tried cooking a lamb chop or cutlet in this way. Have three cutlets cut, two of them rather thinner than the third, then tie them together, the thick one in the middle. Broil over a hot fire till the outside cutlets are burnt to a crisp, and at that stage you will find the inside one in just the right condition for serving; salt it, and serve piping hot. With it serve a baked potato that has been pressed through a sieve. Sprinkle the potato with salt and moisten it with a little cream. To be sure you may think that a somewhat expensive way of cooking a lamb chop, and so it is from some points of view; but it will set any self- respecting convalescent at least two days ahead on his journey to complete recovery, and when you think of it in that way you see it’s positively cheap. All these things, yea, and a thousand more, must be taken into consideration when one is in attendance upon a sick person. To say that every one should have a chafing-dish in these days were to be trite—everyone should have seven chafing- dishes, or as near that number as possible; not one for every day in the week exactly, but rather that, if you are having a little after-the-opera or after-the-theatre jollification and have a dozen or so hungry ones to feed, there may be enough to go round, and also that you may have a variety of dainties. Not all will want creamed oysters, of course, but you can set a pretty girl to preparing this dish for those who do want it. Give her about half a pint of rich, thick cream, an ounce or so of butter and a teaspoonful of flour which she will braid together in the most approved cooking-school fashion for thickening the cream when it is hot. Then she should put in two dozen or so oysters that have been well drained and freed from any bits of shell. If you can trust her to do so, let her season the dish with a dash of red pepper, and salt, and a shake or two of celery salt. When the edges of the oysters begin to frizzle, have ready for her either little strips of toast or some crackers on hot plates, on which to serve the oysters. If you find that more than three persons will be apt to bid for the creamed oysters, you will want rather more than two dozen, I fancy; still, you will know best about that. If you have any cold fish in the house, halibut or cod or haddock that has been boiled or baked, not fried, have it flaked up in good-sized pieces and marinated for three or four hours in a tablespoonful each of oil and vinegar, a dash of cayenne, the juice of an onion and salt to taste. When you are to use it have hot in the chafing-dish three teaspoonfuls each of rich tomato sauce, sherry wine and butter, putting the butter in and melting it first. When these are well blended together, lay in the fish and stir it about in the sauce till quite hot. This, let me tell you, will not go a-begging for admirers. It is a particularly savory tidbit, and on a cold night is its own best recommendation. I wonder if you will say a recipe for lobster à la Newberg is altogether too stale if I undertake to tell it to you. I know its age just as well as you do, and I also know that I could weep bitterly, if it would do any good, at some of the concoctions called by that name that I have had put before me, and which, worse than all, I have been expected to eat. So right here I shall put on record my way of preparing that delicious dish, and if you don’t care to read it, why skip it, of course. Into the chafing dish put two ounces of butter and let it melt; then put in the meat of a two-pound lobster cut into dice-shaped pieces and let them cook till they are really fried a bit. Then turn low the flame of the lamp while you pour in a little less than a pint of cream in which has been beaten three eggs, seasoned with salt and red pepper. Just as this is hot add a scant wineglass of sherry and let it heat once more, regulating the flame all the time so that it cannot boil. For if it does the jig is up, the eggs will be sure to curdle, and you will wish to goodness you hadn’t undertaken it. Have little triangles of toasted bread on which to serve the lobster, and if it turns out the success it should, your reputation among your guests will be for all time established as a hostess who knows her business from A to Z. If you will get some chicken livers you can prepare a very appetizing dish with [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] T Welsh Rabbit Golden Buck Eggs Poached in Tomato Curried Eggs Creamed Chicken Salt Fish with Cream very little trouble. Melt an ounce of butter in the chafing dish and in it put, say, eight or ten livers that have been salted well and rolled in a little flour. Let them cook pretty fast for ten minutes, or till you think they are done, then put with them half a pint of hot water and a teaspoonful of any extract of beef, with what salt and pepper your superior judgment deems suitable. When this is hot turn in a gill of sherry, and a dozen olives pitted and quartered. Just a dash of lemon juice and the deed is done, provided you have ready some toast for the serving of the livers. If you haven’t at the time of night when you will be serving these dishes a fire over which you can toast the bread, you can have one of the guests preparing the bread in a chafing dish. Cut the slices of the size you like and fry them delicately in a very little butter and they will go finely in this way. Because you may think I don’t know how to make one if I say nothing, I suppose I shall have to offer a word or so about Welsh rabbits. Melt an ounce of butter in the chafing-dish and then stir in and let melt slowly a pound of cheese cut up into very small pieces. Season this as you go along with paprika, a little salt, and mustard as you think you like it. When the cheese is quite melted pour in, very slowly, a little beer or ale, about two gills in all. Then when it is well blended with the cheese stir in a couple of eggs well beaten and serve on crackers. Did you ever try making your rabbits with ginger ale? Really they are good in that way, and it is very palatable to drink when you are eating them. And cider is delicious served with rabbits, also—the champagne cider. Try it some time. For a golden buck, prepare the cheese as for a rabbit, but on each plate when you are serving it place a poached egg. These must be prepared in another dish while the rabbit is under process of construction. So, you...