Put it into hot water, and boil gently for five minutes or longer if the fish is very thick. Take it out of water and put it on to a hot dish, rub a small piece of cold butter over it and cook for a few minutes either in the oven or in front of the fire. One or two soft boiled eggs broken over it is a nice way of serving it, or a few very thin slices of bacon well cooked may be placed round the dish as a garnish.
Pick and draw the birds immediately after they are brought in. Before you roast them, fill the inside with pieces of a fine ripe orange, leaving out the rind and seeds. Or stuff them with grated cold ham, mixed with bread-crumbs, butter, and a little yolk of egg. Lard them with small slips of the fat of bacon drawn through the flesh with a larding needle, Roast them before a clear fire. Make a fine rich gravy of the trimmings of meat or poultry, stewed in a little water, and thickened with a spoonful of browned flour. Strain it, and set it on the fire again, having added half a pint of claret, and the juice of two large oranges. Simmer it for a few minutes, pour some of it into the dish with the game, and serve the remainder in a boat. If you stuff them with force-meat, you may, instead of larding, brush them all over with beaten yolk of egg, and then cover them, with bread-crumbs grated finely and sifted.
Put the butter into a saucepan, and when it is melted stir in the flour and cook well, but do not brown. Boil the onion, herbs, and peppercorns in the milk, strain them out, pour the milk over the butter and flour, and stir till it boils. Cut the meat into cutlets, lay them in and simmer very gently till the meat is tender, then take it up and arrange nicely on a dish. Beat up an egg with a drop or two of lemon juice and a spoonful of gravy or milk. Pour into the sauce in which the meat was cooked, and stir briskly over the fire until it thickens; strain over the meat, and serve.
A few very small fat rashers of bacon rolled up and fried are a great improvement to this dish.
In the selection of meat it is most essential that we understand how to choose it; in beef it should be a smooth, fine grain, of a clear bright red color, the fat white, and will feel tender when pinched with the fingers. Will also have abundant kidney fat or suet. The most choice pieces for roast are the sirloin, fore and middle ribs. Veal, to be good, should have the flesh firm and dry, fine grained and of a delicate pinkish color, and plenty of kidney fat; the joints stiff. Mutton is good when the flesh is a bright red, firm and juicy and a close grain, the fat firm and white. Pork, if young, the lean will break on being pinched smooth when nipped with the fingers, also the skin will break and dent; if the rind is rough and hard it is old. In roasting meat, allow from fifteen to twenty minutes to the pound, which will vary according to the thickness of the roast. A great deal of the success in roasting depends on the heat and goodness of the fire; if put into a cool oven it loses its juices, and the result is a tough, tasteless roast; whereas, if the oven is of the proper heat, it immediately sears up the pores of the meat and the juices are retained. The oven should be the hottest when the meat is put into it, in order to quickly crisp the surface and close the pores of the meat, thereby confining its natural juices. If the oven is too hot to hold the hand in for only a moment, then it is right to receive the meat. The roast should first be washed in pure water, then wiped dry with a clean dry cloth, placed in a baking pan without any seasoning; some pieces of suet or cold drippings laid under it, but no water should be put into the pan, for this would have a tendency to soften the outside of the meat. The water can never get so hot as the hot fat upon the surface of the meat, and the generating of the steam prevents its crispness, so desirable in a roast. It should be frequently basted with its own drippings, which flow from the meat when partly cooked, and well seasoned. Lamb, veal and pork should be cooked rather slower than beef, with a more moderate fire, covering the fat with a piece of paper, and thoroughly cooked till the flesh parts from the bone, and nicely browned, without being burned. An onion sliced and put on top of a roast while cooking, especially roast of pork, gives a nice flavor. Remove the onion before serving. Larding meats is drawing ribbons of fat pork through the upper surface of the meat, leaving both ends protruding. This is accomplished by the use of a larding needle, which may be procured at house-furnishing stores. Boiling or stewing meat, if fresh, should be put into boiling water, closely covered and boiled slowly, allowing twenty minutes to each pound, and, when partly cooked, or when it begins to get tender, salted, adding spices and vegetables. Salt meats should be covered with cold water, and require thirty minutes very slow boiling, from the time the water boils, for each pound; if it is very salt, pour off the first water and put it in another of boiling water, or it may be soaked one night in cold water. After meat commences to boil the pot should never stop simmering and always be replenished from the boiling tea-kettle. Frying may be done in two ways. One method, which is most generally used, is by putting one ounce or more (as the case requires) of beef drippings, lard or butter into a frying pan, and when at the boiling point lay in the meat, cooking both sides a nice brown. The other method is to completely immerse the article to be cooked in sufficient hot lard to cover it, similar to frying doughnuts. Broiled meats should be placed over clear, red coals free from smoke, giving out a good heat, but not too brisk, or the meat will be hardened and scorched; but if the fire is dead the gravy will escape and drop upon the coals, creating a blaze, which will blacken and smoke the meat. Steaks and chops should be turned often, in order that every part should be evenly done--never sticking a fork into the lean part, as that lets the juices escape; it should be put into the outer skin or fat. When the meat is sufficiently broiled it should be laid on a hot dish and seasoned. The best pieces for steak are the porterhouse, sirloin and rump.
Take a pound or more of salt pork, and having half boiled it, cut it into slips, and with some of them cover the bottom of a pot. Then strew on some sliced onion. Have ready a large fresh cod, or an equal quantity of haddock, tutaug, or any other firm fish. Cut the fish into large pieces, and lay part of it on the pork and onions. Season it with pepper. Then cover it with a layer of biscuit, or crackers that have been previously soaked in milk or water. You may add also a layer of sliced potatoes. Next proceed with a second layer of pork, onions, fish, &c. and continue as before till the pot is nearly full; finishing with soaked crackers. Pour in about a pint and a half of cold water. Cover it close, set it on hot coals, and let it simmer about an hour. Then skim it, and turn it out into a deep dish. Leave the gravy in the pot till you have thickened it with a piece of butter rolled in flour, and some chopped parsley. Then give it one boil up, and pour it hot into the dish. Chowder may be made of clams, first cutting off the hard part.
This soup is not as expensive as it appears, for the bacon is served as a dish of meat, either after the soup or cold for breakfast or tea. Put two quarts of water into a saucepan; when it boils put in a pound of bacon neither too lean nor too fat. Let it boil slowly for one hour. The bacon must be well washed and scraped before cooking, and when it boils skim the pot thoroughly. Well wash the cabbage and soak it in hot water for half an hour. Take all the water away and put the cabbage into the saucepan with the bacon and vegetables cut up, and the peppercorns tied in a piece of muslin; let them simmer together for two and a half hours, take up the cabbage, and cut it into quarters. Take one quarter and cut it into small pieces and put it into a soup tureen. Cut some stale pieces of bread into thin slices and lay on the top, pour over the boiling liquor, and serve. Dish the bacon, pull off the rind, and put the rest of the cabbage round the dish.
Take a nice rasher of mild bacon; cut it into squares no larger than dice; fry it quickly until nicely browned; but on no account burn it. Break half a dozen eggs into a basin, strain and season them with pepper, add them to the bacon, stir the whole about and, when sufficiently firm, turn it out into a dish. Decorate with hot pickles.
Score the skin in strips about a quarter of an inch apart; place it in a dripping-pan with a very little water under it; cook it moderately at first, as a high heat hardens the rind before the meat is heated through. If it is very lean, it should be rubbed with fresh lard or butter when put into the pan. A stuffing might be made of bread crumbs, chopped sage and onions, pepper and salt, and baked separately on a pie dish; this method is better than putting it in the meat, as many persons have a great aversion to its flavor. A loin weighing about six pounds will roast in two hours; allow more time if it should be very fat. Make a gravy with flour stirred into the pork drippings. Serve with apple sauce and pickles.
Clean well, inside and out, a dozen small birds, quail, snipe, woodcock, etc., and split them in half; put them in a saucepan with about two quarts of water; when it boils, skim off all scum that rises; then add salt and pepper, a bunch of minced parsley, one onion chopped fine, and three whole cloves. Cut up half a pound of salt pork into dice, and let all boil until tender, using care that there be enough water to cover the birds. Thicken this with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour and let it boil up. Stir in a piece of butter as large as an egg; remove from the fire and let it cool. Have ready a pint of potatoes cut as small as dice, and a rich crust made. Line the sides of a buttered pudding dish with the crust; lay in the birds, then some of the potatoes, then birds and so on, until the dish is full. Pour over the gravy, put on the top crust, with a slit cut in the centre, and bake. The top can be ornamented with pastry leaves in a wreath about the edge, with any fancy design placed in the centre across the slit. Rockaway Beach.
The carver in cutting a ham must be guided according as he desires to practice economy, or have at once fine slices out of the prime part. Under the first supposition, he will commence at the knuckle end, and cut off thin slices toward the thick and upper part of the ham. To reach the choicer portion of the ham, the knife, which must be very sharp and thin, should be carried quite down to the bone through the thick fat in the direction of the line from 1 to 2. The slices should be even and thin, cutting both lean and fat together, always cutting down to the bone. Some cut a circular hole in the middle of a ham gradually enlarging it outwardly. Then again many carve a ham by first cutting from 1 to 2, then across the other way from 3 to 4. Remove the skin after the ham is cooked and send to the table with dots of dry pepper or dry mustard on the top, a tuft of fringed paper twisted about the knuckle, and plenty of fresh parsley around the dish. This will always insure an inviting appearance. Roast Pig.--The modern way of serving a pig is not to send it to the table whole, but have it carved partially by the cook; first, by dividing the shoulder from the body; then the leg in the same manner; also separating the ribs into convenient portions. The head may be divided and placed on the same platter. To be served as hot as possible. A Spare Rib of Pork is carved by cutting slices from the fleshy part, after which the bones should be disjointed and separated. A leg of pork may be carved in the same manner as a ham.
