Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln—than whom there is not a more trustworthy authority upon everything pertaining to cookery—says in a sprightly chapter upon breakfast bacon:
“It has been offered me frequently in thick slices, swimming in grease, browned almost to blackness, and salt as the briny waves. You will seldom find a market-man who will take the time and pains to slice it as thin as it should be, even though they are supposed to have knives especially adapted for thin slicing. For that reason I prefer always to buy it by the strip, and slice it as needed.
“With a strong, sharp knife, begin at one end, trim off the outside strip of lean, the smoked edges and the rind, down about three or four inches; then shave off in thinnest possible slices, as thin as can be cut, and have them whole. When you come to the rind, trim off more of it if more slices are needed. Some prefer to turn the strip over and slice from the lower side down to the rind, but not dividing from the rind until sufficient is sliced. But whichever way you do it, keep the strip entire—that is, do not cut off three inches, or half a pound, and then trim and slice that amount, for the last slice will be quite difficult to hold firmly enough to slice uniformly.
“It can be cut thin much easier if very cold. By wrapping it securely in thick brown paper and changing the paper frequently, it may be kept in the refrigerator without affecting the other food.
“Have a smooth frying-pan hot, and everything else ready. Lay in the bacon and turn it frequently as it changes to the transparent stage, moving it about so all portions will cook equally. The heat should be sufficient to cook it quickly, but not to brown it. As soon as it loses the transparent appearance and begins to crisp, draw it from the liquid fat toward the edge, and you will soon tell by the way it dries off and the sound whether it is cooked enough to be crisp.
“Tilt the pan so the fat will run down away from the bacon, and let it drain thoroughly in the pan. By watching and turning it carefully, every piece will be of a uniform light and color, more or less curly, crisp as a Saratoga potato, and so dry and free from grease that it might be picked up with gloved fingers and leave no stain.
“It is less likely to brown when a little of the fat from a previous frying, or a bit of lard, is put in the pan first, as this keeps the bacon from sticking to the pan.”
I seldom borrow a recipe, for two reasons: First, because I have a few old-fashioned prejudices as to the rights of proprietorship in such products; secondly, because, to be frank, I seldom find one upon which I think I could not improve in the matter of simplicity and directness. I could not write out more clearly my ideas on the subject of cutting and cooking breakfast bacon than my distinguished fellow-laborer has expressed them. I hereby grant her permission to honor me by abstracting the same number of words from any of my printed pages.
This is a favorite southern dish, and good enough to be transplanted.
Slice bacon thin and fry it crisp. Transfer to a platter and keep it hot while you fry thick slices of unpeeled sweet apples in the bacon fat. When these are tender, drain and put in the center of a hot platter. Lay the fried bacon about the edge of the dish, sprinkle sugar over the apples, and serve.
Wet a cupful of fine Indian meal with two cupfuls of cold water and stir it into a quart of boiling water. Add a teaspoonful of salt, beat up hard, and let it cook steadily for two hours, stirring up often to prevent lumping. Should it thicken too much, add boiling water.
When done, pour out into a broad platter and set aside until perfectly cold and stiff. If you are to have it for breakfast, cook it over night. Cut in squares, triangles or rounds, roll in raw meal (salted), and fry in plenty of boiling dripping or cottolene or other fat to a delicate brown. As each piece is done, transfer to a hot colander to drain. Serve in the center of a hot dish, with thin slices of fried bacon laid about it.
A pretty way of varying a plain but excellent dish is to pour the hot polenta into fancy molds wet with cold water, leaving it there until you are ready to cook it, when turn out and fry.
Cut the stem ends from green sweet peppers, handling very cautiously, lest the seeds should touch the walls of the peppers and make them “hot.” With a small sharp knife extract core and seeds and throw them away. Cut the peppers into rings, lay in ice-cold water slightly salted for half an hour. Fry sliced bacon in a clean pan, take up and keep hot. Dry the peppers by patting between two clean cloths and fry until clear and tender in the fat left in the pan. Arrange the peppers in the center of a hot dish, the bacon around them.
Fry slices of cold boiled ham on both sides. Transfer to a hot dish. Cook together in a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a teaspoonful of granulated sugar, a teaspoonful of French mustard, and a dash of paprika. Stir until very hot and pour over the fried ham. If raw ham be used, cook for fifteen minutes in a frying-pan in boiling water to which has been added a tablespoonful of vinegar; lay in cold water for ten minutes, wipe dry and fry as directed.
Grind in a sausage-mill or meat-chopper six pounds of lean, fresh pork and three pounds of fat. Mix with this twelve teaspoonfuls of powdered sage, six, each, of black pepper and of salt, two teaspoonfuls, each, of ground cloves and of mace, and one nutmeg, grated. When the seasoning is well mixed with the meat, pack all down in stone jars and pour melted cottolene or other fat on top to exclude the air, or put into long bags of stout muslin. Dip these in melted grease and hang in the cellar.
They may be made in small quantities and used at once, and are much better than those we buy in market or shop.
Lay the sausages (“bulk sausage meat” is best) in a frying-pan, cover with hot water and bring quickly to a fast boil. At the end of five minutes pour off the water and fry on both sides, turning twice. Lift them, drain over the pan, and lay in a hot colander in the open oven, while you fry sliced and cored apples in the fat that ran from the sausages in frying.
If you use link sausage, prick each before boiling.
Cover with boiling water and boil slowly until they rise to the surface of the water. Drain and rub over with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and made mustard.
Are too heavy as breakfast food for any stomach save that of a hod-carrier or ditcher. But people will eat them in the “killing” season, and should have them properly cooked.
Trim away the fat and the skin from the small end; broil over clear coals, and thoroughly, for fear of trichinæ. Pepper and salt to taste. Send around tomato catsup with them.
Cutlets and spare-ribs are cooked in like manner.
Broil as in foregoing recipe and keep hot (covered) over boiling water. Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan, and as soon as it hisses fry in it a tablespoonful of minced onion. When the onion has browned, strain it from the fat, return the latter to the pan, and pour in a cupful of boiling water, with half a cupful of apple sauce. Stir while it simmers for ten minutes. Cook two minutes, and pour over the chops. Leave covered in the oven for five minutes and serve.
A much-maligned article, meet for good men’s tables. It is despised and set at naught by people who should know better, because it is rarely cooked daintily. At its proper estate under the hands of a cook who recognizes its real worth it is said to be both nourishing and digestible. It is certainly palatable, if tender and properly prepared. Buy from your butcher the prepared tripe—that is, tripe which has been thoroughly cleaned and is ready for boiling. No matter how you intend to cook it, boil it first.
Lay the tripe in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range, where it will come slowly to a boil, and simmer steadily for at least four hours. Drain, and set in a cool place until wanted.
Cook as in the preceding recipe, but cut the tripe in half-inch squares. At the end of four hours drain off all the water except a gill; add to this a cup of stewed and strained tomatoes, a dash of onion juice, salt to taste and a pinch of paprika. Rub together a heaping teaspoonful, each, of butter and flour, and stir into the tripe mixture. Stir until the sauce is smooth and thick. Some persons like a teaspoonful of Parmesan cheese added to this stew just before it is served.
Lay cold, boiled tripe in a mixture of equal parts of salad oil and vinegar for two hours. Drain in a colander for fifteen minutes. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for several hours. Sauté in a frying-pan to a light brown.
Or you may dip squares of cold boiled tripe into good fritter batter and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. When done, drain free of grease and serve with a sauce made according to the following recipe:
Into the yolk of an egg beat very slowly, a few drops at a time, a half-cup of salad oil. When as thick and smooth as cream add, still slowly, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a coffeespoonful of French mustard, a tablespoonful of minced parsley and salt and paprika to taste.
Drop three dozen oysters into their boiling liquor, cook for just one minute, and drain. Cut cold boiled tripe into pieces of uniform size. Put it over the fire with enough water to cover it and simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Drain off the water. Have ready a pint of fresh, scalding milk in a double boiler and drop the tripe into this. Cook for fifteen minutes; add two teaspoonfuls of flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter, and stir until smooth and thick. Season to taste, add the oysters and cook until they are heated through. Last of all, stir in very slowly one beaten egg, and remove at once from the fire.
Cut into inch pieces enough celery to make a cupful, and stew tender in salted, boiling water. Drain and set aside while you stew the tripe, first in water, then in milk, as in the recipe for tripe and oysters. Instead of adding the oysters to the thickened milk, stir in the stewed celery, and cook for a minute before serving.
Rub the hot gridiron with a bit of suet before you lay the steak upon it. The fire should be clear and hot, and yourself at leisure to watch and to turn quickly when the meat begins to drip. There are houses in which a flavor of creosote would seem to be inseparable from a broiled steak. Turn swiftly to keep the smoke from it, and the juices in. Try with the point of a keen knife at the end of ten minutes. If the center of the steak be ruddy, and not purple, and the outside of a fine brown, it is done. Remove to a hot platter, pepper and salt and butter well on both sides. Fit a close cover on the dish and set in the open oven for five minutes to draw the juices to the surface.
Cook as just directed. Have ready three tablespoonfuls of minced onions, cooked for five minutes in hot butter. They should be tender and clear, but not crisp. After the steak is dished spread the hot onion thickly over it, let it stand in the open oven, with a close cover over it, five minutes.
Broil a neatly-trimmed tenderloin steak, transfer to a hot dish, butter generously and cover with broiled mushrooms cut into quarters.
Chop a pound of lean beef very fine, and stir into it a beaten egg, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of mace. Mix well, mold into flat cakes, dredge with salted flour, set on the ice for an hour, roll again in flour, and sauté in good dripping or butter.
(A Mexican dish.)
Beefsteak (round), one tablespoonful of hot dripping, two large red peppers (dry), two tablespoonfuls of rice, one-half pint of boiling water, salt, onions, flour.
Cut steaks into small pieces. Put into a frying-pan with hot dripping, hot water and rice. Cover closely, and cook steadily until tender. Remove seeds and part of rind from red peppers. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until cold, then squeeze them in the hand until the water is thick and red. If not thick enough, add a little flour. Season with salt and a little onion if desired. Heat and pour sauce on the meat. Serve very hot.
Provide for it two pounds of steak, six red chillies, two cloves, one tablespoonful of flour, a little garlic, thyme, dripping. Seed the chillies and cover with boiling water. Soak until tender and then scrape the pulp into water. Cut steak in small pieces and fry brown in dripping or butter; add flour and brown it. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until the meat is tender and the gravy of the right consistency.
Scrape round steak, season to taste with salt and pepper; form with the hands into small, flat cakes and broil over a quick fire.
Cut one pound of liver into slices. Chop a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork. Spread a layer of the pork in the bottom of the inside kettle of a double boiler. Cover the pork with slices of liver, sprinkle this with a teaspoonful, each, of minced onion and parsley, add more pork, more liver, onion and parsley until all the ingredients are in the pot. As you do this, sprinkle each layer lightly with pepper. Pour a half-pint of seasoned weak stock over all, cover the pot closely and keep the water in the outer pot at a gentle boil for two hours and a half. Now strain out the meat and keep hot while you return the gravy in the pot to the fire and thicken it with a brown roux. Boil up once and pour the gravy over the liver.
First of all, they must be perfectly fresh. If not, they have an odor, and a peculiar “tang” that the unfortunate eater never forgets, and which causes him to feel an aversion for kidneys henceforth and forever. Care should also be exercised in removing all bits of fat and gristle. Last of all, cook the kidneys in a savory way and spare no pains to make them appetizing.
Split the kidneys, wash them, drain and cut into small pieces of uniform size. Pour cold water over these and set at the side of the range, where they will come slowly to a boil. Just before the boiling point is reached turn off the hot water, substitute cold, and bring to the boil. Drain the kidneys and keep them hot while you cook together a tablespoonful of browned flour and the same quantity of butter. When these are blended pour upon them a scant teacupful of salted boiling water, and stir until thick and smooth. Now add salt and pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, the same quantity of Worcestershire sauce, a half-teaspoonful of lemon juice and a tablespoonful of currant jelly. Turn the kidneys into this and stir until very hot.
Skin and slice three pairs of lambs’ kidneys. Cut into halves fourteen canned mushrooms. Heat together a cup of bouillon and a half-cup of the liquor from a can of mushrooms. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and when these bubble pour upon them the bouillon and mushroom liquor. Stir to a thick sauce and add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the same quantity of tomato catsup, a half-teaspoonful of onion juice, salt to taste and a dash of paprika. Now stir in the mushrooms and sliced kidneys. Cook for five minutes after the boil is reached, stirring constantly.
Cut three pairs of lambs’ kidneys into halves. Fry eight thin slices of bacon until done; remove from the fire and keep hot while you fry the halved kidneys in the bacon fat. Cook slowly for ten minutes, turning often. Remove the kidneys and keep hot with the bacon while you stir a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and the same quantity of catsup into the gravy left in the pan.
Put crustless slices of toasted bread on a platter, lay the kidneys on these, pour the gravy over them and dispose the crisp slices of bacon about the edge of the platter.
Cut the kidneys into thick slices. Melt a little butter and stir into it a saltspoonful of mustard and a dash of lemon juice. Dip each slice of kidney in this, roll in cracker dust, and set aside until this coating stiffens. A half-hour will be long enough. Broil on a small gridiron over a clear fire, turning often that the kidneys may not burn. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Serve very hot.
Cut the kidneys in halves, remove all the fat and cover the kidneys with hot water, bring to the boil and drain. Cover with more hot water, again bring to the boil and drain. Repeat this process a third time. Remove them from the liquor, slice thin, and thicken the gravy with browned flour rubbed smooth with two teaspoonfuls of butter. Return the kidneys to the gravy, and when very hot add pepper, salt, two tablespoonfuls of mushrooms, minced, two teaspoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce, a little lemon juice, and two tablespoonfuls of sherry. Serve immediately.
Split the kidneys, trim off all fat and cut each kidney into quarters. Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, sprinkle the kidneys with pepper and salt and roll each piece in flour before laying it in the frying-pan. Cook, turning often, until brown. Lay upon a hot platter and add to the grease in the pan a wineglassful of sherry, a quarter of a teaspoonful of onion juice and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup. Boil this sauce up once, and pour it over the kidneys.
Split the kidneys, put over the fire in cold water, and bring to a rapid boil. Drain, wipe and slice each half. Cut the same number of thin slices of bacon the same size and freed from rind and hard lean. Arrange the bacon and kidney slices alternately on small skewers or stout straws, and broil them quickly. Send to table on the skewers.
Said a maid to me once: “Indeed, mem, I niver see sich another as yersel’ for cookin’ wild things and innards!”
The “wild things” to which she referred were quail, woodcock and hare, while the “innards” of which she spoke with such scorn were sweetbreads, kidneys and brains. I may remark, en passant, that the lower classes seldom like viands most prized by the epicure, and the cooking of them, to be done properly, must be performed by the mistress—not the maid—unless the latter be an accomplished cook.
Wash a pair of sweetbreads, throw them in boiling salted water, and cook for ten minutes. Drain, and lay in iced water until thoroughly cold. This process is called “blanching” the sweetbreads, and should be done as soon as the perishable dainties are brought home from the butcher’s. Wipe them dry, rub with butter, and broil them over a clear fire. Watch them that they do not scorch. When done, put them on a hot dish, pour a little melted butter over them, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and serve.
Blanch and split each sweetbread in half, lengthwise. Dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for this coating to harden. At the end of an hour, fry in deep cottolene or other fat brought slowly to a fast boil.
Blanch the sweetbreads and cut them in half, lengthwise. Grease a small gridiron, lay the split sweetbreads on this, and broil over a clear fire, turning frequently and watching carefully lest they scorch. When done, lay on rounds of crustless toast, rub thoroughly with butter, salt and pepper to taste, and cover with minced mushrooms fried in butter.
Parboil, blanch and mince enough sweetbreads to make two cupfuls. Put into a saucepan with a little white stock and bring to a boil. Thicken with a white roux, and when smooth stir in gradually two beaten egg yolks; then turn the mixture upon a dish to cool and stiffen. Form with floured hands into cutlets, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.
Blanch and cut two pairs of sweetbreads into neat dice. Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon them a pint of cream. Stir to a smooth sauce, add the sweetbreads and cook, stirring steadily until very hot. Season with salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of minced parsley.
It is not known to all housewives, even to those who practise economy from necessity or from choice—sometimes from both—that lamb’s liver, which costs one-fourth as much as calf’s liver, is quite as palatable—some say better than the more expensive viand. The hint may be borne in mind in studying the following recipes.
Slice the liver, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, and roll in salted flour. Set on ice while you fry twice as many thin strips of bacon as you have slices of liver. Remove the bacon from the pan and lay in the floured liver. Fry slowly until done, turning often. It should cook for at least fifteen minutes. Drain the liver, holding each piece over the pan that the grease may drip off, and arrange on a heated platter, the bacon around it.
Cut the bacon thin and the slices of liver into pieces of the same length and width. Run a wooden skewer or stout straw through each piece of liver and, alternately, through a slice of the bacon. Proceed in this way until each slice of bacon is fastened to a slice of liver, and each skewer is full. Lay on a broiler and broil over a clear fire. When done lay the liver and bacon, still skewered together, on a hot platter.
Cut the liver into strips half an inch wide and four inches long. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter—or dripping—in a frying-pan and fry a sliced onion in it. Strain out the onion. Have ready the liver, peppered and salted and rolled in flour. Put this into the fat and cook, turning once. Take up the liver and keep hot over boiling water. Stir into the fat left in the pan two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, one teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, and a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour wet to a paste in cold water. Add salt and paprika to taste, boil up once, put in two tablespoonfuls of sherry and pour over the liver.
There is no nicer way of cooking liver for breakfast.
Chop, very fine, one pound of calf’s liver. Put one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add the liver with two tablespoonfuls of chopped bacon; cover and cook gently for one hour. When nearly done add a half-teaspoonful of salt, a quarter-teaspoonful of pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of boiling water. Serve on a platter upon buttered toast.
Joint a tender chicken as for fricassee. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in salted cracker dust until thoroughly coated. Set aside for an hour before frying in boiling cottolene or other fat to a golden brown. Be sure to fry long enough for the thickest pieces of chicken to be cooked all the way through.
Prepare the chicken as directed in the last recipe. Fry half a pound of bacon, sliced thin. When crisp, but not burned, strain off the fat and return to the pan. Keep the bacon hot while you fry the chicken (prepared with egg and cracker dust) in the fat, turning twice. Should there not be fat enough, add dripping or cottolene or other fat. When done, arrange upon a hot dish and garnish with the bacon.
(A Maryland dish.)
After dishing the chicken cooked as in foregoing recipe, strain the fat again, stir in a lump of butter rolled in flour that has been slightly browned, and, when it bubbles, a small cup of hot cream or milk to which a pinch of soda has been added. Stir for two minutes to prevent scorching, add a tablespoonful of minced parsley and pour over the chicken.
Use none but undeniably young chickens for broiling. Clean well and split down the back. Lay for an hour in a marinade of salad oil and lemon juice, if there is any doubt on this point.
If certain of your subject, wash over with butter and lay upon a greased and heated gridiron, breast uppermost. The fire should be red and strong. Broil about ten minutes to the pound, lifting when it begins to drip and turning four times to insure thorough cooking. When dished it should be sprinkled with pepper and salt and well buttered.
Cook a heaping tablespoonful of flour in one tablespoonful of hot butter and one cup of chicken stock, added gradually. Season with celery salt and pepper and pour half of this sauce into a small, shallow, buttered pan. Chop one cupful of cold chicken quite fine, season and spread it evenly over the top of the sauce after it has thickened. Cover with the remainder of the sauce, place on ice, and when very cold and hard cut into rounds or squares. Dip them quickly into batter and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken dripping.
These should be prepared over night. The fritters will keep their shape if left a long time before the paste is cut up.
Beat four eggs very light, season with salt and pour into a greased frying-pan. Have ready a cupful of minced chicken (heated) and a pint of hot white sauce in which a tablespoonful of minced parsley has been stirred. When the omelet is “set” and ready to be removed from the pan, sprinkle over it the minced chicken, fold it over and transfer to a hot platter. Pour the white sauce about the omelet.
Cut fine sweet peppers in half lengthwise; remove core and seeds, taking care not to touch the sides of the peppers, and soak for an hour in cold water slightly salted.
Mince fine the cold meat of a chicken and add it to one-fourth as much fine crumbs as you have chicken; moisten with gravy or sauce; fill the peppers, sprinkle fine crumbs over the top, dot with bits of butter, bake half an hour covered, then brown.
Make a white roux of two tablespoonfuls of butter and half as much flour; when it bubbles add a cupful of cold chicken cut into dice, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste and enough stock to keep all from burning. Cook for ten minutes before stirring in two hard-boiled eggs chopped fine and a cup of rich milk heated with a pinch of soda stirred in.
Proceed as directed in last recipe, adding at the last, the juice of half a lemon and a glass of sherry. Boil up and serve at once.
Mince enough cold roast turkey to make two cupfuls, season with salt, pepper and a half pint of oyster liquor. Put into a saucepan and make scalding hot. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of white roux, stir it into the turkey mince, and when the boiling point is reached remove it from the fire. When cold and stiff form into croquettes, crumb these and set on the ice for two hours before frying to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken drippings, if you have it.
Mince remnants of cold turkey rather coarsely and mix with it one-third as much stuffing or bread crumbs. Moisten with gravy, oyster liquor or stock, season well; fill scallop shells or pâté pans with the mixture, cover with fine crumbs, with dots of butter over all and bake in a quick oven.
Heat a great spoonful of butter in the frying-pan and when hot, stir in a tablespoonful of flour. Add a gill of cream with salt and pepper, chopped parsley and a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet. Put a pinch of soda into the cream. When heated, put in the brains, which have been previously blanched and cut into large dice. Cook ten minutes, stirring constantly, and serve hot.
Blanch the brains by boiling them in salted water for ten minutes. Throw into ice-cold water and leave there for half an hour. When cold, mash to a paste with a wooden spoon. Stir into them two eggs, beaten light, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half-teaspoonful of salt and enough flour to make a fritter batter. Beat hard for three minutes and drop this mixture into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. When golden brown in color, drain free of grease in a hot colander. Serve very hot.
Blanch as above directed, leave in cold water until firm, and wipe dry. Slice into pieces of uniform size; pepper and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs. Do this over night. In the morning roll again in egg and cracker-dust; leave on the ice for half an hour and fry quickly in hot cottolene or other fat. Drain free from fat and serve hot. Pass thin slices of crisp toast with them.
Trim neatly and broil over a clear fire, turning several times. Allow ten minutes to the pound. Transfer to a hot dish and cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and minced parsley. Cover and set in a hot oven for a few minutes before serving.
Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set on ice until morning. Repeat the process, leave on ice for half an hour and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat. Drain, dish and send to table with tomato sauce.
Chop raw lean veal fine, season well with celery salt and pepper, and with your hands mold into oval shape. Roll in egg and fine crumbs and leave on ice all night. In the morning fry thin slices of bacon, remove them to a hot dish and fry the cutlets slowly in the fat left in the pan. Drain, arrange on a platter and lay the bacon about them. Pass tomato sauce with them.
Trim off the fat, broil carefully and arrange them around a mound of mashed potatoes. Garnish with a garland of parsley laid about the base of the mound.
Open a can of lambs’ tongues and spread on a platter. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. Lay in a sauce made by stirring together three tablespoonfuls of salad oil and one of vinegar. Let them stand in this mixture over night. In the morning heat a little butter in the frying-pan, lay the tongues in this and sauté, turning often.
Chop the meat fine, removing bits of fat and gristle. Season with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. (It is always better to grate, than to slice onions for seasoning.) Mix with the minced meat one-fifth of its bulk of fine bread crumbs wet with the gravy and work in the beaten yolk of a raw egg to “bind” the mixture. Mold into flat cakes, dip these into a beaten raw egg, then in cracker crumbs and set in a cold place over night. Fry quickly, as you would doughnuts, in deep cottolene or other fat (never in lard) made very hot. Take up as soon as they are done, drain off every drop of fat and lay upon rounds of lightly browned toast in a heated dish. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.
Make three cups of good well-seasoned tomato sauce, thickened with a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Keep hot in a double boiler set at the side of the range.
Toast slices of bread, butter them, spread on a platter and put a tablespoonful of tomato sauce on each. Into the remainder of the tomato sauce turn two cupfuls of minced mutton, put the saucepan over the fire, stir until the meat is thoroughly heated, season to taste and pour upon the toast.