Cut the meat into dice and slice the onions. Fry the latter brown in some good dripping. Take them out, and fry the meat in the same fat, turning often, until it has a thick brown coat. Put it, drained from the fat, into the soup-kettle, with two quarts of cold water, and set where it will come to a boil in about an hour. The bones should also be fried, and put into the pot with the meat. When these fairly boil, skim, add three quarts of cold water, and stew gently four hours. If you dine early, the soup should go on before breakfast. Put herbs and vegetables, including the fried onions, all chopped up, into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them, and boil to pieces. Strain the soup half an hour before dinner; season, return to the pot; boil and skim. Strain the vegetable liquor into it, without squeezing or rubbing. Boil up once more, skim well, and put in the gelatine, which should have soaked one hour in a little cold water. Simmer five minutes and pour out.
The soup should be of a clear, light brown. Should the color not suit you, burn a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup, add three or four spoonfuls of boiling water, stir until you get a deep color, and turn off the water into the soup. It will not injure the flavor.
Please never lose sight of the cardinal principle that all the essence, strength, and taste should be extracted from meat, vegetables, etc., in soup-making, and that the soup which boils fast is lost. Take plenty of time, and cast an eye into the kitchen from hour to hour until you have educated your cook up to a glimmering appreciation of this law of enlightened cookery.
Drain the liquor from the oysters and cut them up. Add the minced celery. Prepare the seasoning, putting in the vinegar last, and pour the mixture over the celery and oysters. Toss up well with a silver fork. Do this just before dinner, as the salad will be injured by lying long in the dressing.
Wash the liver thoroughly, and soak half an hour in salted water. Wipe, make incisions about an inch apart, and lard with strips of pork, projecting slightly on each side. Fry the onions and herbs in the dripping. Take them out, put in the liver, and fry both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a saucepan, with the vinegar and water to cover the liver—barely. Cover closely, and stew gently an hour and a half. Lay the liver on a hot dish, strain the gravy, return to the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour, put in the sauce and spice; boil up and pour some of it over the liver, the rest into a gravy-boat. What is left from dinner will be nice for luncheon or tea, cut horizontally in thin slices.
Scrape and grate the roots, and stir into a batter made of the beaten eggs, the milk, and flour. Grate the salsify directly into this, that it may not blacken by exposure to the air. Salt, and drop a spoonful into the boiling fat to see if it is of the right consistency. As fast as you fry the fritters, throw into a hot colander to drain. One great spoonful of batter should make a fritter.
Cut the remnants of yesterday’s potatoes à l’Italienne into rounds with a cake-cutter, dipped in cold water. Set like biscuits, but not so near as to touch one another, in a greased pan, and bake quickly, brushing top and sides with beaten egg when they begin to brown. Serve upon a heated napkin folded flat, on a platter.
Scald a pint of milk and wet up the meal with it, stirring well. While it is cooling, add the flour, wet into batter with a pint of cold milk. Heat the remaining pint, and when scalding, add sugar and eggs. Beat this gradually, hard and long, into the cooled paste. When well mixed, put in butter, spice, and the fruit dredged with flour. Beat fast and deep for two minutes. Bake in a buttered dish, in a tolerably brisk oven. Cover with paper as it browns. It ought to be done in three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot, with butter and sugar.