Calf’s Feet Soup.
- 4 calf’s feet.
- 1 onion.
- Bunch of sweet herbs.
- 2 stalks of celery.
- 4 cloves.
- 2 eggs.
- 1 cup of milk.
- Pepper and salt.
- 1 quart of cold water, and the liquor in which the calf’s head was boiled, yesterday.
In bespeaking your calf’s head from your butcher, ask also for four nice feet, already cleaned. (You can secure your sweetbreads at the same time.) Put on the feet in a quart of cold water. Cover closely and heat gradually to a very gentle boil. Keep this up until the feet begin to shrink from the bones—about two hours. Should the water fall perceptibly, fill up from the tea-kettle. Have ready the vegetables, herbs, and spice, the former cut up small. Put them into the liquor left from yesterday’s head, and when you have heated this to a boil, add the feet with the water in which they are cooking. Boil for another hour, still slowly. Strain the soup, cool to make the grease rise. Skim, season, and return to the fire. When again boiling, stir in the milk, and the meat from the feet, cut into dice. Take out a cupful of the soup and pour, by degrees, over the beaten eggs. Return to the pot, stir two minutes, and serve.
A very nice soup, and nutritious. If you cannot get calf’s feet, use those of a pig instead, cooking exactly in the same way.
Salt Mackerel, with Cream Sauce.
Soak overnight in lukewarm water, changing this in the morning for ice-cold. Rub all the salt off, and wipe dry. Grease your gridiron with butter, and rub the fish on both sides with the same, melted. Then broil quickly over a clear fire, turning with a cake-turner so as not to break it. Lay upon a hot-water dish, and cover until the sauce is ready.
Heat a small cup of milk to scalding. Stir into it a teaspoonful of corn-starch, wet up with a little water. When this thickens, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Beat an egg light, pour the sauce gradually over it, put the mixture again over the fire, and stir one minute, not more. Pour upon the fish, and let all stand, covered, over the hot water in the chafing-dish. Put fresh boiling water under the dish before sending to table.
Mashed Potatoes,
Beaten light with milk and butter, and smoothed into a mound, should be served with the fish. If you have a pretty butter-print, wet it, and stamp the top of the mound.
Remember that everything tastes better for looking well.
Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed.
- 3 or 4 fine sweetbreads.
- ¼ lb. fat salt pork, cut into “lardoons,” or long narrow strips.
- 1 cup of gravy (saved from the roast calf’s head of yesterday).
- 1 tablespoonful of tomato or other catsup.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- Season with pepper.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should boil when they are dropped in. Take out and lay at once in ice-cold water. This makes them firm. Leave in this five minutes, wipe dry, and set aside to get cold. Then lard with the strips of pork, passing them quite through, so as to project on both sides. If you have no larding-needle, use a long-bladed penknife. Put them into a saucepan; cover with the gravy. If there is not enough, put in a few spoonfuls from the boiling soup. The gravy should be cold, however, when poured over the sweetbreads. Stew about twenty-five minutes after the boil begins. Take out the sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add catsup, lemon, and pepper, the lardoons having salted it sufficiently. Lay the sweetbreads upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve; in carving, cut perpendicularly.
Stewed Celery.
- 2 bunches of celery, the white stalks only, scraped and cut into short pieces.
- 2 beaten eggs.
- 1 cup of milk.
- 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.
- Pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender. Drain off the water and put in the milk, cold. So soon as it boils, stir in the butter, rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Add a few spoonfuls of the hot milk to the beaten eggs that they may not curdle in the saucepan; put with the celery and sauce over the fire; boil up once, and dish.
Omelette Soufflé.
- 8 eggs.
- 5 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
- 1 tablespoonful of butter.
- Vanilla or rose-water flavoring.
Whip the whites to a very stiff froth, thick enough to be cut with a knife. Beat the yolks smooth and long; add to these the sugar, whip up well, and flavor. Grease a neat pudding-dish abundantly with the tablespoonful of butter. The last thing before you take your seat at the table, do all this; stir whites and yolks together, and put into a steady, not too hot, oven. If you have a teachable cook, let her learn how to put the prepared ingredients together after dinner has gone in. The oven-door should be opened as seldom as possible, certainly not under fifteen minutes. By this time the omelette should have risen high, and be of a golden brown. Partly close the oven-door, to keep it hot, and let it be served as soon as possible in the bake-dish.
Never attempt this or any other nerve-trying dish, for the first time, for others than a family party. Yet it is easy enough when you have once learned for yourself how long to cook it, and how soon it will fall.
Tea and Toasted Crackers.
Split Boston crackers, toast, butter; put where they will keep hot, and pass with an after-dinner cup of tea.