Clam Soup.
50 clams; 1 quart of milk; 1 pint of water; 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; 12 whole peppers; a few bits of cayenne-pods; 6 blades of mace; salt to taste; 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.
Cut the hard parts from the clams, and set by the soft portions. Put the hard bits into the soup-pot, with the clam-liquor, the water, and spices. Boil half an hour; strain, salt, and return to the fire, with the soft parts. When the soup begins to simmer, stir in the butter and corn-starch. Stew five minutes, and pour into the tureen. Stir in the boiling milk, and serve. Send oyster-crackers and sliced lemon around with it.
Boiled Cod.
Sew up the fish in a clean bit of mosquito-net, and cook in boiling salted water, fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap, and pour over it a few spoonfuls of sauce, putting the rest into a boat.
Sauce.
A cupful of the liquor in which your fish is cooking, strained and skimmed. Put into a saucepan; heat, and stir in a great spoonful of butter rolled in a teaspoonful of flour. When this boils, add the pounded yolks of two boiled eggs, and a tablespoonful of minced cucumber pickle. Boil once, and serve. Garnish the fish with rings of whites of eggs, and pickles, sliced.
Purée of Eggs.
8 hard-boiled eggs; 3 raw eggs; 1 cup of gravy saved from yesterday’s chickens; 1 tablespoonful of butter; chopped parsley; pepper, salt, and nutmeg; some fine crumbs; fried bread.
Pound the boiled yolks, and work in butter, parsley, seasoning, and the raw eggs. Beat stiff, and rub through a colander. Mince the whites until they are like coarse snow, and stir over the fire in the hot gravy five minutes, with a tablespoonful of crumbs. Make a mound of the yolks in the middle of a stone-china dish; form a ring of the whites around them, with an outer wall of triangles of fried bread. Sift fine crumbs over all, and brown nicely upon the upper grating of the oven.
Mashed Potatoes.
Prepare as usual, and send in with the fish-course.
Cauliflower au Gratin.
Boil, tied up in a net, in plenty of hot salted water, forty minutes, if large. Put into a buttered bake-dish, blossom upward; cover with drawn butter; sift fine crumbs over it, and set in the oven ten minutes to color the crumbs.
Coffee Custard Méringue.
6 eggs—whites and yolks separated; 1 quart of milk; 1 cup of sugar; 1 cup of strong made coffee.
Whip the whites to a stiff froth with a little powdered sugar. Heat the milk—with a pinch of soda in it; lay the méringue upon it in great spoonfuls, turning when the lower side is poached. Lift with a skimmer, as each spoonful is done, and lay upon a sieve to cool and drain. When all are out of the milk, pour it upon the beaten yolks and sugar. Return to the farina-kettle, and stir until it begins to thicken. Take from the fire, and stir in the hot coffee. When all are cold put the méringues into a glass bowl, and pour the custard over them. The méringues will at once rise to the surface, coated with the custard.