Take and boyle them in the Beef-pot, when they are tender sodden, take off the tops, leaving the bottoms with some round about them, then put them into a Dish, put some fair water to them, two or three spoonfuls of Sack, a spoonfull of Sugar, and so let them boyle upon the Coales, still pouring on the Liquor to give it a good tast, when they have boyled halfe an hour take the Liquor from them, and make ready some Cream boyled and thickned with the yolk of an Egge or two, whole Mace, Salt, and Sugar with some lumps of marrow, boyle it in the Cream, when it is boyled put a good piece of sweet butter into it, and toast some toasts, and lay them under your Hartichoaks, and poure your Cream, and butter on them, Garnish it, &c.
Take a beast kidney with a little fat on, and stuff it all around, season it with a little pepper and salt, wrap it in a kell, and put it upon the spit with a little water in the dripping-pan; what drops from your kidney thicken with a lump of butter and flour for your sauce. To fry your STUFFING. Take a handful of sweet herbs, a few breadcrumbs, a little beef-suet shred fine, and two eggs, (leave out the whites) mix altogether with a little nutmeg, pepper and salt; stuff your kidney with one part of the stuffing, and fry the other part in little cakes; so serve it up.
Take two calf's feet finely shred; then of biskets grated, and stale mackaroons broken small, the quantity of a penny loaf; then add a pound of beef-suet, very finely shred, half a pound of currants, a quarter of a pound of sugar; some cloves, mace and nutmeg, beat fine; a very little salt, some sack and orange-flower-water, some citron and candied orange-peel; work all these well together, with yolks of eggs; if you boil it, put it in the caul of a breast of veal, and tie it over with a cloth; it must boil four hours. For sauce, melt butter, with a little sack and sugar; if you bake it, put some paste in the bottom of the dish, but none on the brim; then melt half a pound of butter, and mix with your stuff, and put it in your dish, and stick lumps of marrow in it; bake it three or four hours; scrape sugar over it, and serve it hot.
Take a large pike, scale and clean it, draw it at the gills.--To make a pudding for the Pike. Take a large handful of bread-crumbs, as much beef-suet shred fine, two eggs, a little pepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg, a little parsley, sweet-marjoram and lemon-peel shred fine; so mix altogether, put it into the belly of your pike, skewer it round and lie it in an earthen dish with a lump of butter over it, a little salt and flour, so set it in the oven; an hour will roast it.
Trim a short fillet, and cut a deep incision in the side, being careful not to go through to the other side or the ends. Fill this with one cupful of veal, prepared as for quenelles, and the whites of three hard-boiled eggs, cut into rings. Sew up the openings, and bind the fillet into good shape with broad bands of cotton cloth. Put in a deep stew-pan two slices of ham and two of pork, and place the fillet on them; then put in two calf's feet, two stalks of celery and two quarts of clear stock. Simmer gently two hours and a half. Take up the fillet, and set away to cool. Strain the stock, and set away to harden. When hard, scrape of every particle of fat, and put on the fire in a clean sauce-pan, with half a slice of onion and the whites of two eggs, beaten with four table-spoonfuls of cold water. When this boils, season well with salt, and set back where it will just simmer for half an hour; then strain through a napkin. Pour a little of the jelly into a two-quart charlotte russe mould (half an inch deep), and set on the ice to harden. As soon as it is hard, decorate with the egg rings. Add about three spoonfuls of the liquid jelly, to set the eggs. When hard, add enough jelly to cover the eggs, and when this is also hard, trim the ends of the fillet, and draw out the thread. Place in the centre of the mould, and cover with the remainder of the jelly. If the fillet floats, place a slight weight on it. Set in the ice chest to harden. When ready to serve, place the mould in a pan of warm water for half a minute, and then turn out the fillet gently upon a dish. Garnish with a circle of egg rings, each of which has a stoned olive in the centre. Put here and there a sprig of parsley.
Put on one three-pound chicken to boil in six quarts cold water. Take one and one-half or two pounds of beef and the same quantity thick part of veal, put in a baking-pan, set in the stove and brown quickly with just enough water to keep from burning. When brown, cut the meat in pieces, add this with all the juice it has drawn, to the chicken soup. Set on the back of the stove, and cook slowly all day. Set in a cold place, or on ice over night, and next morning after it is congealed, skim off every particle of fat. Melt and season to taste when ready to serve. Excellent for the sick. When used for the table, cut up carrots and French peas already cooked can be added while heating. If cooked on gas stove, cook over the simmering flame the same number of hours.
Take three jills of milk, when boiled, take a penny loaf sliced thin, cut off the out crust, put on the boiling milk, let it stand close covered till it be cold, and beat it very well till all the lumps be broke; take five eggs beat very well, grate in a little nutmeg, shred some lemon-peel, and a quarter of a pound of butter or beef-suet, with as much sugar as will sweeten it; and currans as many as you please; let them be well cleaned; so put them into your dish, and bake or boil it.
About three pounds of fillet of beef roasted in a good hot oven for forty minutes; let it be rather underdone. Take three turnips, four good-sized carrots, cut them into jardinière slices. Cook them separately in salted water, drain them and add salt, pepper, a tiny pinch of sugar and one dessert-spoonful of butter. Dress the fillet on a long dish with the garniture of carrots and turnips, and some artichoke-bottoms cooked in water and finished with butter, also add some potatoes château. Be sure the dish is very hot. Put a little water, or, for choice, clear stock, upon the roasting-dish and pour it over the fillet.
Whites of six eggs, one cupful of sweet milk, two cupfuls of sugar, four cupfuls of sifted flour, two-thirds of a cup of butter, flavoring and two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Stir the sugar and butter to a cream, then add the milk and flavoring, part of the flour, the beaten whites of eggs, then the rest of the flour. Bake carefully in tins lined with buttered white paper. When using the whites of eggs for nice cakes, the yolks need not be wasted; keep them in a cool place and scramble them. Serve on toast or with chipped beef.
Scald your milk pans every day after washing them; and let them set till the water gets cold. Then wipe them with a clean cloth. Fill them all with cold water half an hour before milking time, and do not pour it out till the moment before you are ready to use the pans. Unless all the utensils are kept perfectly sweet and nice, the cream and butter will never be good. Empty milk-pans should stand all day in the sun. When you have strained the milk into the pans, (which should be broad and shallow,) place them in the spring-house, setting them down in the water. After the milk has stood twenty-four hours, skim off the cream, and deposits it in a large deep earthen jar, commonly called a crock, which must be kept closely covered, and stirred up with a stick at least twice a day, and whenever you add fresh cream to it. This stirring is to prevent the butter from being injured by the skin that will gather over the top of the cream. You should churn at least twice a week, for if the cream is allowed to stand too long, the butter will inevitably have a odd taste. Add to the cream the strippings of the milk. Butter of only two or three days gathering is the best. With four or five good cows, you may easily manage to have a churning every three days. If your dairy is on a large scale, churn every two days. Have your churn very clean, and rinse and cool it with cold water. A barrel churn is best; though a small upright one, worked by a staff or dash, will do very well where there are but one or two cows. Strain the cream from the crock into the churn, and put on the lid. Move the handle slowly in warm weather, as churning too fast will make the butter soft. When you find that the handle moves heavily and with great difficulty, the butter has come; that is, it has separated from the thin fluid and gathered into a lump, and it then is not necessary to churn any longer. Take it out with a wooden ladle, and put it into a small tub or pail. Squeeze and press it hard with the ladle, to get out all that remains of the milk. Add a little salt, and then squeeze and work It for a long time. If any of the milk is allowed to remain in, it will speedily turn sour and spoil the butter. Set it away in a cool place for three hours, and then work it over again. [Footnote: A marble slab or table will be found of great advantage in working and making up butter.] Wash it in cold water; weigh it; make it up into separate pounds, smoothing, and shaping it; and clap each pound on your wooden butter print, dipping the print every time in cold water. Spread a clean linen cloth on a bench in the spring-house; place the butter on it, and let it set till it becomes perfectly hard. Then wrap each pound in a separate piece of linen that has been dipped in cold water. Pour the buttermilk into a clean crock, and place it in the spring-house, with a saucer to dip it out with. Keep the pot covered. The buttermilk will be excellent the first day; but afterwards it will become too thick and sour. Winter buttermilk is never very palatable. Before you put away the churn, wash and scald it well; and the day that you use it again, keep it for an hour or more filled with cold water. In cold weather, churning is a much more tedious process than in summer, as the butter will be longer coming. It is best then to have the churn in a warm room, or near the fire. If you wish to prepare the butter for keeping a long time, take it after it has been thoroughly well made, and pack it down tightly into a large jar. You need not in working it, add more salt than if the butter was to be eaten immediately. But preserve it by making a brine of fine salt, dissolved in water. The brine must be strong enough to bear up an egg on the surface without sinking. Strain the brine into the jar, so as to be about two inches above the butter. Keep the jar closely covered, and set it in a cool place. When you want any of the butter for use, take it off evenly from the top; so that the brine may continue to cover it at a regular depth. This receipt for making butter is according to the method in use at the best farm-houses in Pennsylvania, and if exactly followed will be found very good. The badness of butter is generally owing to carelessness or mismanagement; to keeping the cream too long without churning; to want of cleanliness in the utensils; to not taking the trouble to work it sufficiently; or to the practice of salting it so profusely as to render it unpleasant to the taste, and unfit for cakes or pastry. All these causes of bad butter are inexcusable, and can easily be avoided. Unless the cows have been allowed to feed where there are bitter weeds or garlic, the milk cannot naturally have any disagreeable taste, and therefore the fault of the butter must be the fault of the maker. Of course, the cream is much richer where the pasture is fine and luxuriant; and in winter, when the cows have only dry food, the butter must be consequently whiter and more insipid than in the grazing season. Still, if properly made, even winter butter cannot taste badly. Many economical housekeepers always buy for cooking, butter of inferior quality. This is a foolish practice; as when it is bad, the taste will predominate through all attempts to disguise it, and render every thing unpalatable with which it is combined. As the use of butter is designed to improve and not to spoil the flavour of cookery, it is better to omit it altogether, and to substitute something else, unless you can procure that which is good. Lard, suet, beef-drippings, and sweet oil, may be used in the preparation of various dishes; and to eat with bread or warm cakes, honey, molasses, or stewed fruit, &c, are far superior to bad butter.
