Marie’s Soup.
- 2 sweetbreads.
- 1 quart of soup jelly, left from yesterday’s stock.
- 1 quart of cold water.
- 1 onion.
- Bunch of parsley.
- 2 blades of mace.
- A dozen mushrooms.
- Pepper and salt.
- 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch wet up in cold water.
Wash and scald the sweetbreads, and put on to stew in the cold water. When they have boiled slowly half an hour, salt, boil up and skim. Take all the fat from the top of the cold soup-stock, and stir into the liquor already on the fire. Add the onion and parsley minced, and the mace; season to taste, cover and stew gently for one hour. Take out the sweetbreads and lay them where they will cool quickly. Strain the soup, return to the fire; put in a dozen mushrooms (you can buy the French champignons in cans), stew fifteen minutes; cut the sweetbreads into small squares, drop into the soup; thicken with the corn-starch wet with cold water; boil up once and serve.
This soup is very fine.
Ragoût of Calf’s Head and Mushrooms.
- 1 cold boiled calf’s head, cut into slices with the tongue.
- 1 can French mushrooms, minus those used for the soup.
- 1 sliced onion.
- Pepper, salt, and sweet herbs.
- ½ teaspoonful mixed mace and allspice.
- Juice of a lemon.
- Butter or dripping for frying.
Cut three-quarters of the calf’s head—the best parts—into neat slices, also the tongue. Chop the rest, season with the onion, pepper and salt, cover with three cups of cold water, and stew gently down to one cup of gravy. Meanwhile fry the slices of meat in good dripping. Take them out with a wire spoon and put into the bottom of a tin vessel set within another of warm—not boiling—water. Cover and set over the fire. Drain, slice and fry the mushrooms in the fat left in the frying-pan. Drain and lay these upon the meat in the inner vessel. Time the cooking of the gravy so as to have it ready, spiced, and seasoned, to be strained, hot over the meat and mushrooms. Put on a tight lid and simmer fifteen minutes, never boiling once. Strain off the gravy into a saucepan. Thicken, and let it boil up once. Add the lemon-juice, put the meat and mushrooms into a deep dish, and pour the hot gravy over all.
Mashed Turnips.
Boil soft, drain and mash, pressing the water out well, return to the saucepan, with a generous lump of butter; pepper and salt; stir constantly until the butter is dissolved, and all smoking hot, and serve in a covered dish.
Creamed Potatoes.
In mashing them, add more milk than usual, whipping up hard with a silver fork. While still very hot, beat in the white of an egg, already frothed stiffly; pile in a deep dish and set, uncovered, within the oven, until a light crust begins to form on the top, but not long enough to injure the dish. Brush over with butter to glaze it, and serve.
Tomato Soy
Is an excellent “stock” pickle. For directions for making it, please refer to page 488, “General Receipts, No. 1, of Common-Sense Series.”
Sponge-cake Pudding.
- 1 stale sponge-cake.
- 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
- 4 eggs, beaten light.
- 2 cups of milk.
- 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch, wet up with cold milk.
- Juice of one lemon and half the grated peel.
Slice the cake and lay some of it in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Make a custard by scalding the milk, stirring into it the corn-starch, then pouring it, by degrees, upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Add the lemon; pour over the cake, put another layer of slices; more custard, and so on, until the mould is full. Put a small, heavy plate on top, and let all stand until the custard is soaked up. Cover and bake, half an hour, or until done throughout. Turn out upon a flat dish, sprinkle thickly with white sugar, and eat warm or cold.
Nuts and Raisins.
Crack the nuts, and select for table use fair bunches of plump, fresh raisins.