Cat-fish Soup.
6 fresh-water cat-fish, in weight about half a pound each; 1 pint of milk; 4 tablespoonfuls of butter; 1 tablespoonful corn-starch, wet with cold milk; 1 onion; 1 teaspoonful essence of celery, and same of anchovy sauce; 2 tablespoonfuls chopped celery; 2 beaten eggs; 3 quarts of cold water.
Cut up the fish, when you have skinned them and removed the heads. Put into a pot, with the onion and water, and boil until the fish are in rags. Strain, return to the pot, add the corn-starch, and, when this has thickened, the butter, a teaspoonful at a time. Season with pepper, salt, celery, and anchovy, and pour into the tureen. Have ready the hot milk, mixed and cooked one minute with the beaten eggs and parsley. Add this to the hot soup; stir well, and serve. Pass sliced lemon and oyster crackers with it.
Scalloped Oysters.
3 pints of oysters; 1 cup of rolled cracker; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; pepper; salt; juice of a lemon. (Cayenne pepper is best for this purpose.)
Butter a neat pudding-dish. Strain the oysters from their liquor; spread upon a cloth; take up, one by one, and put on a drop or so of lemon-juice; roll in cracker-dust, pepper, and salt, and lay in the dish. When the bottom is covered, drop bits of butter here and there, and proceed to put on another layer of crumbs and seasoned oysters. Having filled your dish, strew cracker-dust over all; stick bits of butter upon it, and wet well with a cup of oyster-liquor. Bake, covered, half an hour, or until the juice bubbles up at the edges; then brown upon the upper grating of the oven.
Roulettes of Chicken.
Cut off the meat from the skeletons of your roast chickens. Put on the bones and stuffing in a quart of water, and stew down to one pint. Meantime, chop the chicken meat fine; mix with one-fourth as much fine crumbs, wet with yesterday’s gravy; add the gizzards, boiled and minced, and the boiled livers pounded; season to taste; bind all with beaten egg; make into balls, and dip into a batter made of three-quarters of a cup of milk, two eggs, about one scant cup of prepared flour, or just enough to make rather thin batter, salted to taste. Fry, as you dip each roulette, in hot lard, or dripping; drain off the fat, and pile them upon a dish. Cool, strain, and season the gravy from the bones; thicken, should it need it; boil once, and serve in a boat to go around with the roulettes. They are a nice entrée.
Beets.
Cut off the tops and wash. Boil one hour in hot, salted water; scrape and slice. Dish and pour over them a mixture of one tablespoonful of melted butter heated, with one of vinegar, and seasoned with pepper and salt.
Fried Sweet Potatoes.
Boil, and let them get cold. Then, scrape off the skins; slice lengthwise, and fry to a light brown in good dripping or salted lard.
Amber Pudding.
6 eggs beaten light; 1 cup of sugar, creamed with ½ cup of butter; juice of a lemon, and half the grated peel; a good pinch of nutmeg; puff paste.
Mix sugar, butter, eggs, together; put into a custard-kettle, set in hot water, and stir until it thickens. Stir in lemon and nutmeg, and let it get cold. Put a strip of paste around the edge of a pie-plate; print it prettily; pour in the cold mixture, and bake in a steady, not too hot oven. Eat cold.