Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher

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СКАЧАТЬ chopped; and for boiled fowls, add chopped oysters. Fine bread-crumbs are better than flour for thickening. For macaroni, make in the dish alternate layers with that and grated cheese, and then pour on this sauce before baking, and it is very fine. Some omit the cheese.

      Drawn Butter.—Take six table-spoonfuls of butter, half a tea-spoonful of salt, two tea-spoonfuls of flour or of fine bread-crumbs worked into the butter, and one tea-cup of hot water. Heat very hot, but do not let it boil. Two hard-boiled and chopped eggs improve it much. For fish, add a table-spoonful of vinegar and chopped capers or green nasturtion seeds.

      Mint Sauce for Roast Lamb.—Chop three table-spoonfuls of green mint, and add a heaping table-spoonful of sugar and half a coffee-cup of vinegar. Stir them while heating, and cool before using.

      Cranberry Sauce.—Wash well and put a tea-cup of water to every quart of cranberries. Let them stew about an hour and a half, then take up and sweeten abundantly. Some strain them through a colander, then sweeten largely and then put into moulds. To be eaten with fowls.

      Apple Sauce.—Core and slice the best apples you can get, cook till soft, then add sugar and a little butter. Serve it with fresh pork and veal.

      Walnut or Butternut Catsup.—Gather the nuts when they can be pierced with a pin. Beat them to a soft pulp and let them lie for two weeks in quite salt water, say a small handful of salt to every twenty, and water enough to cover them. Drain off this liquor, and pour on a pint of boiling vinegar and mix with the nuts, and then strain it out. To each quart of this liquor put three table-spoonfuls of pepper, one of ginger, two spoonfuls of powdered cloves, and three spoonfuls of grated nutmeg. Boil an hour, and bottle when cold. See that the spice is equally mixed. Do not use mushroom catsup, as the above is as good and not so dangerous.

      Mock Capers.—Dry the green but full-grown nasturtion seeds for a day in the sun, then put them in jars and pour on spiced vinegar. These are good for fish sauce, in drawn butter.

      Salad Dressing.—Mash fine two boiled potatoes, and add a tea-spoonful of mustard, two of salt, four of sweet-oil, three of sharp vinegar, and the yelks of two well-boiled eggs rubbed fine. Mix first the egg and potatoes, add the mustard and salt, and gradually mix in the oil, stirring vigorously the while. Stir in the vinegar last. Melted butter may be used in place of sweet-oil. The more a salad dressing is stirred, the better it will be.

      Turkey or Chicken Salad, also a Lettuce Salad.—Take one quarter chopped meat (the white meat of the fowl is the best for this purpose) and three quarters chopped celery, well mixed, and pour over it a sauce containing the yelks of two hard-boiled eggs chopped, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a salt-spoonful of black pepper, half a tea-spoonful of mustard, three tea-spoonfuls of sugar, half a tea-cupful of vinegar, and three tea-spoonfuls of sweet-oil or of melted butter. Mix the salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard thoroughly, whip a raw egg and add slowly, stir in the sweet-oil or melted butter, mixing it well and very slowly, and lastly add the vinegar. Garnish with rings of whites of eggs boiled hard. Chopped pickles may be added, and white cabbage in place of the celery.

      Tomato Catsup.—Boil a peck of tomatoes, strain through a colander, and then add four great-spoonfuls of salt, one of pounded mace, half a table-spoonful of black pepper, a table-spoonful of powdered cloves, two table-spoonfuls of ground mustard, and a table-spoonful of celery seed tied in a muslin rag. Mix all and boil five or six hours, stirring frequently and constantly the last hour. Let it cool in a stone jar, take out the celery seed, add a pint of vinegar, bottle it, and keep it in a dark, cool place.

CHAPTER XI.

       FISH.

       Table of Contents

      Stewed Oysters.—Strain off all the oyster liquor, and then add half as much water as you have oysters. Some of the best housekeepers say this is better than using the liquor. Add a salt-spoonful of salt for each pint of oysters, and half as much pepper; and when they begin to simmer, add half a small tea-cup of milk for each pint of oysters. When the edges begin to “ruffle,” add some butter, and do not let them stand, but serve immediately. Oysters should not simmer more than five minutes in the whole. When cooked too long, they become hard, dark, and tasteless.

      Fried Oysters.—Lay them on a cloth to absorb the liquor; then dip first in beaten egg, and afterward in powdered cracker, and fry in hot lard or butter to a light brown. If fresh lard is used, put in a little salt. Cook quickly in very hot fat, or they will absorb too much grease.

      Oyster Fritters.—Drain off the liquor, and to each pint of oysters take a pint of milk, a salt-spoonful of salt, half as much pepper, and flour enough for a thin batter. Chop the oysters and stir in, and then fry in hot lard, a little salted, or in butter. Drop in one spoonful at a time. Some make the batter thicker, so as to put in one oyster at a time surrounded by the batter.

      Scalloped Oysters.—Make alternate layers of oysters and crushed crackers wet with oyster liquor, and milk warmed. Sprinkle each layer with salt and pepper, (some add a very little nutmeg or cloves;) let the top and bottom layer be crackers. Put bits of butter on the top, pour on some milk with a beaten egg in it, and bake half an hour.

      Broiled Oysters.—Dip in fine cracker crumbs, broil very quick, and put a small bit of butter on each when ready to serve.

      Oyster Omelet, (very fine.)—Take twelve large oysters chopped fine. Mix the beaten yelks of six eggs into a tea-cupful of milk, and add the oysters. Then put in a spoonful of melted butter, and lastly add the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Fry this in hot butter or salted lard, and do not stir it while cooking. Slip a knife around the edges while cooking, that the centre may cook equally, and turn it out so that the brown side be uppermost.

      Pickled Oysters.—Take for fifty large oysters half a pint of vinegar, six blades of mace, twelve black pepper-corns, and twelve whole cloves. Heat the oysters with the liquor, but not to boil; take out the oysters, and then put the vinegar and spices into the liquor, boil it, and when the oysters are nearly cold, pour on the mixture scalding hot. Next day cork the oysters tight in glass jars, and keep them in a dark and cool place. Vinegar is sometimes made of sulphuric or pyroligneous acid, and this destroys the pickles. Use cider or wine vinegar.

      Roast Oysters.—Put oysters in the shell, after washing them, upon the coals so that the flat side is uppermost, to save the liquor; and take them up when they begin to gape a little.

      Scallops.—Dip them in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, and fry or stew them like oysters.

      Clams.—Wash them and roast them; or stew or fry them like oysters; or make omelets or fritters by the recipe for oysters.

      Clam Chowder.—Make alternate layers of crackers wet in milk, and clams with their liquor, and thin slices of fried salt pork. Season with black pepper and salt. Boil three quarters of an hour. Put this into a tureen, having drained off some liquor which is to be thickened with flour or pounded crackers, seasoned with catsup and wine, and then poured into the tureen. Serve with pickles.

      Boiled Fish.—Wrap in a cloth wet with vinegar, floured inside. Boil in cold salted water till the bones will slip out easily; drain and serve with egg sauce, or drawn butter, or a sauce of milk, butter, and egg. Try boiling fish with a fork, and if that goes in easily, it probably is done.

      Broiled Fish.—Split СКАЧАТЬ