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Volume 1

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COOKERY.-I.

PLAIN COOKERY.-INTRODUCTION.

EVERYBODY knows that a good cook is an economical cook, so that a knowledge of the elementary rules regarding the preparation of food must prove an economy to all, and not only an economy of money, but of life and strength, by enabling people to get better food and thus obtain more actual nourishment out of the materials they can afford to provide.
    The great secret in cooking is to make food palatable and not to waste the nutriment contained in the meat neither to let it boil out or steam out. If you boil your dinner, always keep the liquor in which it is boiled there must be the very essence of the meat in it, and it is therefore always good for vegetable soup. Always cover your pot, and let the steam, which contains the strength fall back into the stew. Never waste anything. Remember the old adage, "Waste not, want not." Save every bone every leaf; every crust, and make them into soup, if not 

for your own children, for the children of those poorer than yourself. It should always be remembered that "wholesome fare" is well-prepared fare, and fare necessary to keep up the system, especially where there is an extra amount of wear and tear by any exhausting labour. In rural districts, where work is done in the open air, and without any excitement to the nervous system, nature does not seem to make such large demands for replenishment and turns out fine muscular men upon no stronger feeding than potatoes and oatmeal. This, however, does not hold good in all cases. With many animal food is a necessity, and reasoning from this necessity, it is not too much to argue that every young woman ought to study the rudiments of cookery - so as to learn that a clear quick fire is required to cook a chop or a steak, which may be rendered tender by beating, either with the point of a knife or a rolling-pin ; that a stew ought never to boil; that meat boiled is meat spoiled, unless simmered; that vegetables must be put in boiling water, and without a cover; that bread goes twice as far, and is three times as whole-some stale as fresh; and that brown flour is much more nutritious and cheaper than white.
    Many people, especially such as live in large towns, abandon altogether the attempt to cook their dinners for themselves, and after preparing it in the rudest possible form, send it to the baker's oven to be cooked, a proceeding utterly wasteful and bad, the reason showing upon the very face of it; for how is it possible that dishes of all sizes and sorts can be equally well cooked in the same heat? Besides, think of the different gases all condensing, and flowing mingled back upon the meat. Fish, flesh, fowl, pastry, and vegetables, all share alike. Then, again, there is the mixture of gravy, for basting must go on quite "promiscuously." You cannot expect the baker's man to dip his ladle into the very dish he wants to baste. Will he not, as a matter of course, dip where the dish is deepest and handiest?
    In many families of moderate means, after the Sunday dinner is eaten, the meat that is left comes in cold day after day through the week until it is consumed. Such a disagreeable sameness might easily be avoided, and a wholesome and pleasant variety be obtained, by a slight 

but sound knowledge of cooking. Of course, some people have greater facilities than others. Where there is a small garden a good dinner may be eaten every day; but even without this, it is possible, by a little judicious economy, to obtain a regular supply of vegetables.
    As almost all who possess a garden may keep a pig and a few hens, they may vary their bill of fare, either by using or selling the home produce. For growing children a full supply of food is a necessary to health and development. Where oatmeal is cheap, nothing can be better than well-boiled porridge; but where any prejudice exists against this, let the breakfast and. supper consist of coarse brown bread, and, if you can get it, skim or butter milk; if not, treacle and toast. and-water.
    Children will generally thrive well upon bread alone, but nature requires something else, and the more you can vary the diet, even by the use of common vegetables boiled down, the better. Onions are easily grown, are cheap to buy, and contain a large amount of nutriment; so, too, do carrots; both are wholesome and palatable, and make a loaf of bread go much further. Always teach children to masticate their food, and eat slowly; half the quantity so eaten will suffice. Bolting food is not only [-5-] wasteful but unhealthy, and ought to be carefully guarded against. 
    In France the culinary art is much more generally known or understood than in Great Britain, and without doubt Scotland and the Border-land come next in attention to it in its simpler branches.
    As a rule people in this country do not pay sufficient attention to the matter of culinary vessels; quite forgetting that it is really the best economy to have such vessels as will enable them to cook their food easily and well without at the same time necessitating any great outlay. In many houses in this country a great deal of fuel is wasted in the large open grates generally in use, and they are being consequently superseded in most places by some sort of cooking range. Fig. I shows a range suitable for a household of moderate means, which will be found convenient and economical; to the details of such a range we shall have occasion to refer in treating of the preparation of various dishes.
    It will be found an economical plan to use a stove like that shown on page 4, Fig. 2, ranging from about two feet and a half by two, and only containing an oven (the larger sizes have a boiler as well). They heat equally all over; will boil, bake, and roast, all at once; use very little fuel, and can be allowed to go out directly their work is done. In addition to this they are easy to manage; the saucepans require little or no scrubbing, as they never come in contact with the smoke; and the consumption of fuel is very small. We use coke to advantage, French people use charcoal, but coal is the best. The first outlay in a stove without a boiler is about £2 10s., with a boiler, £3; and this is soon saved in fuel and time occupied in cleaning the saucepans.
    A frying-pan, a gridiron, a saucepan, and a three-legged pot or "getlin," are all the culinary utensils absolutely necessary for ordinary plain cookery. These vary in price, according to size; for example - a moderate-sized gridiron costing from 1s. 2d. to 2s. 6d.; frying-pan, 1s. to 1s. 6d.; saucepan, 1s. 6d. to 3s. ; iron pot, 4s. 6d. to 7s. With these, a decent cook can do all that is necessary. As for a roasting-jack, nothing is better than a skewer and a hank of yarn.
    The gridiron is a serviceable utensil, which deserves to be kept with special care. It is not unfrequently the friend in need to whom we resort when other means of cooking fail. It has also been made the subject of modern improvements. In olden time a silver gridiron was the pride of aristocratic cooks; but an enamelled or a well tinned one is scarcely its inferior. A good gridiron now has grooved bars (as shown in Fig. 3), which render the double service of keeping the fire clear of dropping fat, and consequently of smoke, and of conducting the gravy to a trough in front, whence it may be poured over steaks or chops in their dish.
    A rusty gridiron will not improve a steak, while one still greasy with last week's broil will spoil it. Although not made of silver, it should be as bright, and scrupulously clean between the bars. For broiling, a charcoal fire is best; a coke fire, second best. With a cinder fire, you must wait till it is quite clear, and then sprinkle it with salt. Then heat your gridiron before laying on the steak, otherwise the parts touching the bars will remain raw when the rest is cooked. If made too hot, the bars will burn and char the steak, marking it with black lines, besides spoiling the flavour. Turning the steak several times keeps the gravy inside. This turning, which should be done not with a fork, but with a pair of meat tongs, will slightly prolong the time of cooking. A good rump steak will take ten minutes; pork chops and mutton cutlets less, according to their thickness; the former, however, should always be well done. For turning chops and steaks without pricking them with a fork, a double grid iron has been invented, the only objections to which are that it is more trouble to keep clean and less easy to heat its bars equally to the proper temperature. When placed on the fire, the gridiron should stand forwards, to cause the fat to run in that direction, instead of dropping into the fire, and so smoking the steak. This position is now insured by making the hind legs of the gridiron higher than the front ones, as shown in our illustration, Fig. 3.
    The foregoing utensils we have indicated as especially useful in a household of moderate means. As our work proceeds, we shall give illustrations of others necessary for the more advanced and elaborate branches of cookery, and proceed now with

SIMPLE RECIPES.

Bread is the Briton's staff of life; we therefore begin our Homely Cookery with that important article of food. It is sometimes a good deal helped out with potatoes, but the use of more than a certain proportion of that vegetable is not desirable for maintaining strength. People who live almost entirely on potatoes become too stout, and are comparatively weak. The Hindoos and other Eastern nations, who eat little besides rice, are inferior in bodily strength not only to the northern peoples of Europe, who consume fish in large quantities, and to the South American races of men, whose diet is meat exclusively, but to bread-and-meat eating people like ourselves. It is the large quantity of bread they consume that maintains the strength of the French labourers, many of whom do not taste fresh meat more than once or twice a year. All the soups so liked by the working classes in France, contain soaked bread in some shape or another.
    Bread, if we think of it, is an ingenious contrivance for rendering corn eatable by human mouths, and digestible by human stomachs, which could only have been discovered step by step. The eating of dry barley, wheat, or rye, must have been working hard for one's living. Even frumenty (new wheat boiled soft and flavoured with sugar, nutmeg, and eggs) is tolerably trying to the jaws. Pounded corn might furnish an ingredient for stews and gruel; after the further invention of grinding it into flour between two flat stones, it would make porridge, and could even be baked on the hearth into cakes, which, however, would not yet be bread. It is the FERMENTATION, the "working," the causing of the dough to "rise" and become light, without which there is no real BREAD. Unleavened bread is an incomplete article, the produce of an unfinished process; and is therefore the symbol of pressure, danger, and consequent haste, in the eyes of the persons who partake of it at stated seasons. We may believe that the discovery of the fermentation of dough, converting it from heavy cake into light bread, was the result of some lucky accident.
    Good Household Bread.-To ten pounds of flour in your kneading-trough, put a small handful of salt. Stir into this about two quarts of water, more or less; but some flours will soak up more water than others. For very white bread, made with superfine flour, the dough should be softer than for seconds or brown bread. In summer the water may be milk-warm; in winter, considerably warmer, but never hot enough to kill the yeast. After the water is mixed with the flour, add the yeast. Much depends on the quality of the yeast. Then knead your bread. After kneading, leave it to rise in a warm place, covered with a cloth. If all goes well, it will have risen m something between an hour and an hour and a half. Then divide it into rolls, loaves, or tin-breads. as wanted, and bake.
    For a three-pound loaf; you must take three pounds and a half of dough; for a four-pound loaf; four pounds eleven ounces; for a six-pound loaf; six pounds and three-quarters; and for an eight-pound loaf; nine pounds of dough. 
    You cannot make good bread without good water. The [-6-] water should be good drinking water, pure both to the taste and smell - water which dissolves soap without curdling, and which boils fresh vegetables green, and dry vegetables (as peas and haricots) tender. None is better than rain-water, when it can be had clean and without the taste of soot. Stagnant water, hard water, and water from melted ice or snow, are all to be avoided. The quality of the water has a considerable effect on the quantity of it which the flour will take up. The quantity varies according to the kind of bread you want to make, and even according to the season. You can put in more water in winter than in summer, because the dough remains firmer in winter than in summer.
    it takes more water to make soft bread, like the French, than to make firm bread, like the generality of bakers' bread in England. When it is kneaded with salt and yeast, as for making unusually light rolls, there enters into the composition of the dough almost as much water as flour. The smaller the rolls are, the less stiff the dough should be. But, as we have already stated, exact precision in these matters is not possible. In kneading dough, too much water is less inconvenient than too little. Nevertheless, when the dough is too moist, the "eyes" in the bread become too big, irregular, and unequal; and the crust is apt to separate from the bread and get burnt.
    Oaten bread requires to be made with warm water, good yeast and plenty of it, and to be well kneaded; to be thoroughly baked in a hot oven, and left there some time, lit according to the size of the loaf; because the inside is apt to be pasty. Barley-bread takes less yeast, but should also t be thoroughly baked in a brisk oven. The German peasantry make bread with a mixture of barley-flour and potatoes, which they highly relish, custom being second .iature. For rye-bread, make a stiff dough with cold water and plenty of good yeast; knead well; when risen, put it into a smart oven, and be in no hurry to take it out. In Sweden, bread is made with a mixture of flour and barley ; in some districts, buckwheat-flour is mixed with rye-flour.
    When yeast cannot be got, we recommend the following way of making
    Bread without Yeast.-To every half-quartern of flour, add one teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, and half a tea-spoonful of salt. Mix all together; then, to the water sufficient to make a dough, add half a teaspoonful of muriatic acid. Set into the oven at once. This makes beautiful sweet bread, and is wholesome. Some use tartaric acid; in which case the bread will contain tartrate of soda, which, although not poisonous, is medicinal - slightly purgative even. On the other hand, muriatic acid neutralises soda just as well as tartaric acid, and the resulting compound is only common salt.
    Potato Pie.-There is one dish, a home invention, which will be found both useful and economical, and

of which an illustration is annexed. Take a good mixed pie-dish. Cut out a tin lid which will fit down an inch at least below the level of the rim of the dish (Fig. 4). This must be perforated, and have a wire handle at each end. Fill the pie-dish with slices of cold meat, two boiled onions, a little seasoning; and a cup of water; flour the meat, and set on the tin lid. Pile upon the lid cold mashed potatoe,. done up with salt, pepper, and a little dripping (as shown in Fig. 5), and bake, either in a regular oven or before the fire, for an hour. When served, lift up the lid and place it with the potatoes upon a spare dish.

Potato Dumpling.- This cheap, simple, and wholesome preparation of food, not much known in England, a but which forms the daily meal of poor artisans and others in North Germany (who never taste meat, and, as they say, never think of it), will be found to supply a useful variety in nurseries, and for invalids whose allowance of meat is limited. The potatoes, which must be; mealy and of good quality, are cooked in the usual way, and then pounded. To three parts of potatoes put one part of wheat-flour, with a little salt, and mix them well. together. Milk sufficient to make a paste is then stirred in, and it is to be boiled in a cloth or basin. The a proper length of time for cooking can only be learned by experience, but it must be well boiled. It will then be firm and light, and may be eaten either with butter or meat gravy, or with cooked apple, stewed prunes, jam, treacle, or other sweet sauce. It is very palatable with salt fish, or meat, while the addition of suet, currants, raisins, and sugar converts it into a nice plum-pudding.

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COOKERY- II.

SIMPLE RECIPES (continued from p.6).

    Potato Bread. - Boll the required quantity of mealy potatoes in their skins; drain, dry, and then peel them. Crush them on a board with a rolling-pin, till they are a stiff paste without lumps. Then mix your yeast with them, and flour equal in quantity to the potatoes. Add water enough to make the whole into dough, and knead the mass well. When risen, put into a gentle oven. Do not close the door immediately, but bake a little longer than for ordinary bread. Without these precautions the crust will be hard and brittle, while the inside still remains moist and pasty. Other flours can be in like manner made into bread with a mixture of potatoes; but they are best cooked as cakes on the hearth, or in the way given below for potato cake. In Scotland oatmeal is frequently mixed with wheaten flour in making cakes, and in the west of Ireland with maize flour in making stirabout.
    Potato Cake.- Very acceptable to children at supper, especially if they have had the fun of seeing it made. Cold potatoes, if dry and floury, will serve for this. If you have none, boil some, as for potato bread. Crush them with butter and salt ; mix in a small proportion of flour (wheaten, oaten, rye, or maize) and a little yeast (the last may be omitted at pleasure), and with milk work the whole to the consistency of very firm dough. Roll it out to the thickness of an inch and a half or two inches. Cut it out the size of your frying-pan, the bottom of which you smear with grease, and in it lay your cake, after flooring it all over. Bake, covered with a plate, on the trivet of your stove, over a gentle fire, or better on the hearth, when turf or wood is burnt. Shake and shift it a little from time to time, to prevent burning. When half done, turn it, and cover with a plate again. Other cakes of unfermented pastes may be baked in the same way.
    Light Dumplings, steamed. -These, as well as light dumplings boiled, are, in reality, nothing but bread boiled or steamed instead of being baked. In light dumpling countries, housewives buy, in the course of the morning, so many pennyworths of dough at the baker's, and keep it warm and covered till wanted, which saves their having to make bread themselves. Steaming dumplings is by far the neatest way, besides, saving an extra saucepan. The dumpling is cooked in the steamer on the top of the saucepan, while the bit of meat and the vegetables are boiled below. The dough receives a little extra kneading, is rolled into the shape of a good-sized apple, is dusted all over with flour, and then put into the steamer. As the dumplings swell in cooking, they should neither touch each other nor the sides of the steamer. The water must be kept boiling all the while. When done, their outsides are smooth and dry. Set them on the table the minute they are taken out of the steamer. Cold light dumpling, steamerd, sliced across, toasted, and buttered, is not a bad substitute for muffins. Boiled light dumplings are prepared in the same manner, and are thrown into boiling water, which must be kept boiling all the while. They take less time to cook - from twenty minutes to half an hour - than steamed ones do. The outside of boiled dumplings is apt to be a little sloppy.
    The best sauce to eat with these is good roast-meat dripping, with the fat and the brown gravy mixed together. Treacle is also used. A nice way of serving it is to put a bit of butter into the treacle, and then pour a little boiling water over them, stirring till they are mixed together. Equally approved is 
    Matrimony Sauce.- Put a bit of butter into cold water in a saucepan; dust in a little flour, stirring one way till they are completely mixed; then add some brown sugar and a table-spoonful or so of vinegar. Continue stirring till it boils; pour into a basin, and serve with your dumplings.
    Hard, or Suffolk, Dumplings are unleavened dumplings, and as indigestible as unleavened bread. They are nothing but flour and water made into a stiff paste, with a little salt. This is rolled into balls as big as one's fist, floured outside, thrown into boiling water, and boiled three-quarters of an hour. Some housewives (when there is no gravy to eat with them) put a little bit of butter in the middle. They make a dish of eatable cannon-balls, each enclosing a spoonful of oil.
    Drop Dumplings. -Make a thick batter with flour, milk, salt, eggs, and yeast. Set it for an hour in a warm place, to rise. Throw table-spoonfuls of this, one by one, into a saticepam of water boiling galloping. When done, let them drain on your slice an instant as you take them up, and serve with gravy, matrimony sauce, or sugar and butter. They are nearly, if not quite, the same as the popular Bavarian Dampf Knödeln.
    Gingerbread.- Mix well together two pounds of flour, half a pound of butter oiled, one ounce of ground ginger, and a table-spoonful of baking powder; then stir in two pounds of treacle. Bake in a slow oven, putting it in as soon as made, and watching it carefully afterwards.
    Mrs. Smith's Gingerbread -Beat up well together one pound of treacle, one pound of flour, half a pound of oiled butter, two ounces of candied citron-peel, and one ounce of powdered ginger. Put it into shallow tins, and set it into the oven immediately. The addition of powdered cinnamon and a little honey to the above ingredients makes a very nice and striking variety of gingerbread.
    Egg-Powder cake.-Egg-powder, as it is called, is a vegetable compound, intended to serve as a substitute for eggs, to four of which one penny packet professes to be equivalent in cake-making, and sufficient to add to two pounds of flour. Some cooks, however, think it best to use it in addition to eggs. The powder is first mixed with the flour, and then water or milk is added, for plum, batter, and other puddings, cakes, pancakes, &c. For a cake: mix well together one quartern of flour, half a pound of butter, two ounces of sweet pork lard, three-quarters of a pound of well-washed currants, half a pound of sugar, two packets of egg-powder, and three eggs. You may add mixed spices, grated nutmeg, and candied citron-peel, to your taste. When these are thoroughly stirred up together, with enough milk, to bring the whole to a proper consistency, butter the inside of your cake-tin, put the cake in, and bake immediately. The top of the cake may be glazed with beat-up egg.
    Cheap Cake.- While making bread, take some of the dough after it has begun to rise. To every pound of dough knead in an ounce or more of butter or dripping, a quarter of a pound of coarse sugar, some grated nutmeg, and either a quarter of a pound of currants and. chopped raisins or a few caraway seeds. When your [-28-] cake is thus made up, dust it with flour, cover it with a cloth, and set it in a warm place to rise again. When well risen, set it into the oven immediately. Bake thoroughly, but not too fast, and it will turn out firm and light.
    Sally Lunn Cakes.-Make a soft dough with flour, a little salt and butter, two or three eggs, yeast, and milk and water. After kneading well, let it rise before the fire. Then make it into cakes of a size convenient to slice across and toast. Bake slightly, but in an oven sharp enough to make them rise. When wanted, slice, toast, and butter your Sally Lunns, and serve piping hot on a plate which you cannot hold with your naked fingers. There are two objections to these and the following- they are indigestible, and are also terrible "stroys" (destroyers, consumers) for butter.
    Muffins.- With warm milk, a liberal allowance of yeast, flour, a little salt, and an egg or two, make dough still softer in its consistence than the above. After kneading or beating, get it to rise well. Then make your muffins as you would small dumplings; dust them with flour, flatten them, and bake them slightly on a hot iron plate, or in tin rings, turning them to bake the upper side when the under side is done. The great object is to keep them light, moist, and full of eyes. Muffin-making is a profession, but its secrets are not inscrutable. Once possessed of the iron plate (which you will be able to obtain without difficulty from any ironmonger), a few trials will put you in the way; and if you have one or two failures at first, they will be eaten with the greater relish because they are your failures. Before toasting a muffin, cut it nearly in two, leaving it slightly attached in the middle. When toasted brown and crisp on both sides, slip the butter into the gaping slit, and serve on a plate not quite red-hot.
    Crumpets are made in the same way as muffins, only the paste is still softer, approaching batter in its consistency. Let them also rise well. Bake slightly in like manner on an iron plate made for the purpose. The usual size and thickness of crumpets you learn from the specimens sold in the shops. After toasting, muffins should be crisp; crumpets, soft and woolly. It is like eating a bit of blanket soaked in butter. If you are pining for crumpets, and have no iron plate, you may bake them in the frying-pan, which the Americans often use for cake-making.
    Raised Buckwheat Cakes (American).- Warm a quart of water. Stir into it a good table-spoonful of treacle, and a teaspoonful of salt. Mix in enough buckwheat- flour (or oatmeal or Indian corn-flour) to make a stiff batter, together with a table-spoonful of good yeast. Let it stand to rise before the fire. Then bake on a hot plate, in iron rings, like muffins, or in a slack oven. Toast and eat hot with butter.
    Fried Bread Cakes (American).- To a quantity of light dough equal to five tea-cupfuls, add half a cupful of butter, three of brown sugar, a teaspoonful of salt, four eggs, and a little grated nutmeg. Knead these well together with flour; let them rise before the fire until very light. Knead the dough again after it rises; cut it into diamond-shaped cakes ; let them rise; and fry in lard or dripping, as soon as light. These cakes are best eaten fresh.
    Johnny or Journey Cake (American).- Boil a pint of sweet milk; pour it over a tea-cupful and a half of Indian corn-meal, and beat it for fifteen minutes. Unless well beaten, it will not be light. Add a little salt, half a teacupful of sour milk, one beaten egg, a table-spoonful of oiled butter, a table-spoonful of flour, and a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda. Beat well together again. This cake is best baked in a spider (a deep iron pan) on the stove. When browned on the bottom, turn it into another spider, or finish it off on the griddle.
    Plum-Pudding (Economical and Excellent).- Mix together in a bowl one pound of flour; one pound of beef or veal suet, chopped fine; half a pound of currants, previously washed; half a pound of raisins, stoned; two eggs, a little salt, grated nutmeg, and finely minced lemon. peel, with enough new milk to bring the pudding to a proper consistence. You may boil it either in a cloth floured inside, tying it up not too tightly, but allowing a little room for it to swell; or in a pudding-basin buttered inside. In the latter way, it will look handsomer when turned out on the dish, and will be less liable to loss of sweetness from the water getting in; but it will take somewhat longer to boil. In either case, the boiling should be maintained continually. The pudding may be increased in size, by adding bread crumbs and a little sugar, with one more egg and a little more flour, to bind the whole together.
    If pudding sauce is wanted to eat with this, put a little flour and water into a saucepan, stir in a lump of butter and a little brown sugar, and when they are blended smoothly, throw in a glass of orange, ginger, or other home-made wine. An elegant sauce for boiled puddings is made by mixing with the above a dessert-spoonful of red currant jelly.
    Plum-pudding may be "lengthened" (some would call it "adulterated" ) with carrots chopped very fine; it may be enriched with sultana (stoneless) raisins, candied citron-peel, blanched almonds, crushed macaroons, brandy, white wine, and a variety of other good things. But we have eaten plum-puddings with too many ingredients. Enough is as good as a feast.
    Baked Apple-Pudding.- Peel the required quantity of apples ; quarter them ; take out the cores ; set them on the fire in a stewpan with a little sugar and water, and the rind of a lemon chopped exceedingly fine. Boil them, closely covered with the lid, till they are soft enough to be mashed with a fork. While mashing them, add the juice of your lemon. Turn them out of the stew- pan, and set them aside to cool. Butter or grease the inside of a rather shallow pie-dish; line it throughout with good ordinary pie-crust. Beat up (not to a froth) two or three eggs; mix them well with your apple-pulp, and put the mixture into your pie-dish; smooth the top with the back of a spoon, and grate a little nutmeg over it. Bake it in a moderate oven. The pudding is good either hot or cold. For stylish dinners, bake the pudding in a dish or tin with upright, instead of slanting sides. Use puff-paste, instead of ordinary pie-crust; mix orange- flower or rose-water, or some liqueur, as noyau, with the eggs when you beat them up; when the pudding is cold, take out of the tin, and dust the top with pounded lump sugar.
    Sausage Dumpling.- Bend one sausage neck and heels together; enclose it in crust as you did with apple-dumpling, taking care to prevent all leakage. Tie it in a cloth, and boil. Making one large sausage-dumpling, or boiling several sausages in a crust in a pudding-basin, does not produce half the fun nor half the enjoyment as when each child has a dumpling to itself, full of savoury, steaming gravy. It is good, sound, substantial fare. and at the same time wholesome, but it should be prepared with some care, and it is not often that one can buy good hot sausage-dumplings with crusts that keep the gravy in.
    Mincemeat or Bacon Pudding-.- After pig-killing and the like, there are often sundry scraps too small to put in store, and too good to waste. Chop them up with a little salt bacon, season with pepper and all-spice, and make into dumplings like sausage-dumplings.
    Mincemeat or Bacon Roll.- Prepare the meat as for dumplings of the same, and with it make rolls like sausage-rolls, only on a larger scale, so as to be able to stop a little gap in the stomach of a hungry man.

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COOKERY.- III.

SIMPLE RECIPES (continued from p.28).

    Baked Tapioca Pudding.-To each pint of milk put four table-spoonfuls of tapioca, and boil gently until it is swollen. Sweeten and flavour according to taste. A little bit of cinnamon, or of orange or lemon-peel, boiled with the milk is agreeable. Let it stand to cool until it is tepid. Into the pie-dish in which your pudding is to be baked, break two or three eggs; more, if you can afford them. Break them up with a fork, and stir into them your lukewarm milk and tapioca. Grate a little nut- - meg on the top, and put into a very gentle oven. Watch that it does not boil. Sago and semolina baked puddings are made in the same way. You may, if you like, line the bottom of the dish with a crust, as in making baked apple-pudding; it will make it more satisfying. When eggs are scarce, their loss may be in some measure supplied by the addition of a little flour, arrowroot, or baking-powder; but always use eggs when you can get them.
    Baked Rice Pudding.- Boil rice (after washing it) in a little more milk than it will absorb, with a little bit of cinnamon or lemon-peel, and a small quantity of finely chopped suet; sweeten to taste. When nearly cool mix with it as many eggs beaten-up as are allowed you pour it into a greased pie-dish, grate nutmeg on the top, and bake in a very gentle oven, especially if the allowance of eggs be liberal. The suet directed in this recipe (or a bit of butter instead) will be found a very great improvement. Some people are obliged to leave out the eggs altogether; some do so from choice, but of course when this is the case the pudding becomes a very plain one, and though good, wholesome fare, and not at all to be despised, if well made, it hardly deserves the name of a pudding.
    Savoury Rice Milk - Steep your rice an hour or two in soft water. Set it on the fire in half milk and half good broth, cold. Mutton broth is excellent, with the fat left floating on the top; if turnips have been boiled with the meat, so much the better. Season with a small quantity of finely-chopped onion, and a dust of pepper and salt Keep stirring all the while, to prevent the rice from burning and the milk from boiling over. When the rice is quite tender, the members of the household can be served.
    Sweet Rice Milk is more of a treat for delicate little girls, perhaps a little spoilt. By additions you may easily bring it up to custard or pudding point. Boil rice, previously steeped in new milk, with the same precautions as before; season with a little salt and sufficient sugar. You may flavour with lemon-peel, cinnamon, or grated nutmeg. You may stir in, after taking it off the fire as many beaten-up eggs as you please; and you may if you choose, add to it a bit of butter, a glass of home made wine, or, if needful, on a sharp winter's evening, a table-spoonful of brandy.
    Broken-Bread Pudding, Baked.- You will often have sundry scraps and remnants of bread. Crusts are even better for this purpose than crumb. No matter how dry they are, so long as they are not musty or mouldy. Break up your fragments into small bits, and put them in a bowl Put into a saucepan as much milk as you judge will soak the bread; throw into it two or three tablespoonfuls of suet chopped very fine, sugar to taste, and a pinch of salt. When it boils up, pour it over the bread. When nearly cold, add two or three beaten-up eggs and just a few currants and raisins. Break up and mix the whole equally together with a spoon. Put it into a buttered pie-dish; smooth the top, put a few little bits of butter and raisins on the surface, and set into the oven to bake This pudding is as good cold as hot. The addition of a table-spoonful of rum to the beaten-up eggs is by some thought to be an improvement. By putting in more eggs and a little flour, to make it hold together, broken bread pudding may be boiled in a basin, and turned out on a dish. It may be served with some one of the sweet sauces for which we have already given recipes, poured over and round it, and then becomes a very delicate and presentable form of using up remnants.
    Bread-and-Butter Pudding, without Butter. - This makes a capital pudding, and we strongly recommend our readers to try it. When well made, it is quite equal to the best varieties of marrow pudding. To make it first-rate, however, a liberal allowance of sugar and eggs is indispensable. Bake a nice fat piece of beef - the thin end of the ribs for instance-on a three-legged wire stand, over a dish of potatoes. By putting it into a brisk oven, and turning the potatoes soon afterwards, they will be crusted outside, floury within, and will soak up very little of the dripping. After the beef and potatoes have been served (which may thus be the staple dish of the [-37-] first day's dinner), and before the dripping is quite cold, cut several slices of bread, not too thick, and butter - their upper surface with the cooling fat, until you have enough to half fill the pie-dish which is to hold your pudding. The half left empty is to allow for the swelling of the bread. Stone some raisins; wash a few currants. Lay a few of these at the bottom of your dish; on them slices of bread and fat; then more fruit, and so on. Sweeten, according to taste or your pocket; a little more milk than will cover the whole; add a pinch of salt; beat up with that the number of eggs you can afford - one, two, three, or four. A little brandy can, if desired, be added. Pour this over the sliced bread. Let it stand to soak. If it is all absorbed, fill up the dish with more milk and egg.. On the top drop a few currants and raisins, and some bits of the cold beef dripping as big as hazel-nuts. Put into a moderate oven, and bake very gently, just allowing the top slice of bread to brown. This pudding is richest hot, - but excellent cold. We are inclined to think raisins only to be more economical for these and most other puddings than currants, which may, therefore, be left out. Raisins, especially when opened and stoned, make a greater show and communicate more flavour. But a sprinkling of currants looks prettier.
    Batter is a mixture of flour, salt, eggs, and milk, beaten together, whose proportions depend - first, on the house-wife's means ; secondly, on the purpose for which she wants it. Some batter, as that for pancakes, fritters, and frying things in, is lightened by the addition of yeast or spirit. It may be also lightened by beating the whites of the eggs to a froth, and then mixing them with the batter. Batter, when cooked, should cut firmly, and not stick to the knife like paste. To ensure this, five eggs to every half a pound of flour is a good allowance. Put first the flour and salt (in very small quantity) together in the bowl; then the eggs. When those are incorporated, pour in the milk, a little at a time, beating it with the back of a large wooden spoon till all is smooth and of the required consistency.
    Plain Batter Pudding, Boiled is the above batter tied in a well-floured cloth, or in a buttered basin, and boiled, galloping, from an hour to an hour and a half, according to size. The basin takes longer than the cloth. Do not take the pudding out of the boiler till the minute before you want to serve it. It is eaten most frequently with meat gravy; occasionally, however, with sweet or wine sauce.
    Black-Cap Pudding is nothing more than the above, slightly sweetened, and with the addition of a handful of well-washed currants ; boil in a basin. Let the basin stand on its bottom in the boiler ; the currants in the batter will sink to the bottom, and remain fixed there when the pudding is cooked; and when turned out, they will all be at the top. Serve with any good sweet or wine sauce. Instead of grocers'' currants, fresh fruit, as sliced-apples, cherries, &c., may be used; but the batter must be stiffer, to enable it to hold together ; and the pudding mostly turns out a "mess" in the unfavourable sense of the word. Fruit with batter is much better baked. 
    Baked Batter Pudding, with Apples.- Grease the inside of a shallow pie-dish. Peel, quarter, and core apples enough to cover the bottom of the dish one layer thick. Over this pour enough batter, slightly sweetened, to fill the dish. The layer of apple will float to the top. Bake in a tolerably brisk oven, and serve immediately after taking out. It will then be a great improvement to put a few bits of butter (which will melt immediately), and sprinkle a little sugar on the top. Similar batter puddings may be made with almost any fresh fruit. Even those of inferior quality are softened and mellowed by the baking. Strawberries, cherries, plums of various kinds, even bullaces, make exceedingly nice and wholesome - baked batter puddings.
    Baked Batter Pudding, with Sausages or Bacon.- Exactly as above, only, of course, not sweetening the batter, and using sausages or slices of bacon, or both, instead of fruit. In this case also it is best to lay the meat at the bottom of the dish, and pour the batter over it; because the coating of batter which adheres to it prevents its surface from being scorched, and retains the gravy. 
    Toad in a Hole is a good lump of fat meat, perhaps with plenty of bone - beef is best, veal second best - laid in the middle of a deep dish, and baked with batter poured round it. When done, the toad, or bit of meat, is taken out of its hole, laid on a hot dish, and served, accompanied by vegetables, after the hole itself has been eaten. This is also a capital way of getting all that is to be had out of an underdone joint of cold meat, especially if fat enough.
    Batter Pudding, Baked under Meat, is also very good, when the meat is raised above the batter on a wire stand with three or four legs. The gravy, dropping from the meat, enriches the pudding, which in this case has a level surface, instead of presenting a hollow vacancy as with the toad-in-a-hole. When cooked, the meat is transferred to a hot dish, the wire stand removed, and the pudding left entire without flaw or defect.
    Yorkshire Pudding is batter made a little stiffer than usual, put into a shallow tin, and set in the catchpan under roasting meat, and cooked by the fire which roasts it. Large joints would flood the pudding with too much gravy; while with a small fire the pudding is apt to remain underdone and pasty, for which the only remedy is to put it in the oven for a while. Cold Yorkshire and other baked batter puddings may be heated in a Dutch oven before the fire. Cold boiled batter pudding may be either fried, or sliced, toasted, and buttered like crumpets.
    Carrot Pudding.- Mix together half a pound of flour, half a pound of chopped suet, a pound of chopped carrot, a quarter of a pound each of washed currants, stoned raisins, and brown sugar, with grated nutmeg, a little salt, four eggs, and enough new milk to bring the mixture to the proper consistence. Boil for an hour in a pudding- basin.
    Saratoga Pudding (American).- Beat together three table-spoonfuls of sugar, two of flour, three eggs, and a little salt. Stir into them a quart of hot milk. Beat together again, and bake a quarter of an hour.
    Dr. Dobell's Flour Pudding-That eminent physician, informs us, in his "Manual of Diet and Regimen," that four ounces of flour, an ounce and a quarter of sugar, three-quarters of an ounce of suet, three-quarters of a pint of milk, and one egg, form a combination of alimentary principles in nearly exact normal proportions.
    Gateau, French country cake, for high days and holidays. - Five eggs to every pound of flour is the rule; when they are dear, you may content. yourself with four; when cheap, you may bestow six or seven on each pound of flour; but the more eggs you put, the drier the cake will be. Put also to the same a quarter of a pound of butter (which rich folk increase to half a pound), and either a quarter of a pound of currants, washed, or the same quantity of raisins, stoned and chopped. The plums will thus be few and far between, as if they had been shot into the cake at a long range. Indeed, you have a fair chance of getting a slice of plum cake without plums. No sugar. Work these into dough with water and yeast, and proceed exactly as with bread, making your cake into a long roll-shaped loaf, to bake the more thoroughly. You may use milk instead of water, but it makes the cake drier. Gâteau is eaten in slices spread with butter, at the end of a repast, or at the usual five o'clock collation. It may also be made plain, i.e., without plums.

[-53-]

COOKERY.-IV.

SIMPLE RECIPES (continued from p.37).

Suet Dumpling.- This is an excellent dish both for rich and poor, for several reasons. It is wholesome, pleasant, and cheap it may be made more or less substantial; and its flavour may be varied according to taste ; it can be eaten either as a savoury or as a sweet. its value as nourishment consists in its containing a good proportion of fat. Writers on cookery cannot too strongly insist, and mothers of families cannot be too fully persuaded, that a certain quantity of  fat in our daily food is absolutely necessary to health. Young people, especially, who have not enough of it to eat, are more liable than others to fall into a consumption at the period when they are making rapid growth. To such persons fat, in the shape of cod-liver oil, is administered as a medicine; [-54-] for it matters little in what shape the fat is taken, whether as dripping, butter, or oil, their effects on the system being exactly the same. Unfortunately, though one man can lead a horse to water, a hundred can't make him drink; and it is useless to set before delicate, perhaps fanciful stomachs things from which, however good for them they turn away with dislike and loathing. The only way is to cheat them, as it were, into taking, almost without knowing it, what is essential for their bodily web fare. The housewife at least ought to be thoroughly convinced of the great importance of all kinds of fat in family dishes, and never to waste any; but, on the contrary, to procure all she can at an economical rate. There are families in which every scrap of fat which we helped to its members seated at table is left on the plate, and thrown to the cat or the pig. This ought never to be. It will not often happen in families who live by outdoor employment, but it will when their occupations are different. We have no right to say an unkind word about "daintiness" and the rest, if persons who are confined nearly all day long to sedentary and monotonous employment, in a close, in-door atmosphere, have not the sharp-set appetite of the ploughman who hears the singing of the lark and feels the freshness of the winds of March, from misty daybreak to ruddy sunset; only, if they can eat no meat but lean, we urge them to use the fat under some disguise. They already take it in many shapes, unconsciously or without thinking of it as in broths, milk, bread and butter, and even in meat which they call and consider lean. Let them buy, therefore, not one ounce the less of good wholesome fat with their meat, and let them employ it in some of the ways we are about to mention. For plain suet dumpling, the best is the kidney fat of beef or veal, which is sold separately in small quantities, and at a moderate price. Chop this fine, and to one pound of flour, put from a quarter to half a pound of chopped suet, according to the richness you wish to make it of. Add a pinch of salt, and water or milk enough to make it into a paste that will hold well together. It is a good plan to mix the salt (and, if you like, the least dust of pepper) with the suet before mixing with the flour. Make this paste into dumplings about the size of your fist. It is better to make several of a moderate size, than a few large ones they boil more thoroughly, and in a shorter time; besides, each person can have his dumpling to himself. Flour them well; tie each one in a cloth, well floured inside, not too tight, but allowing a little room to swell. A very little practice will teach you the degree of tightness. Throw them into boiling water, and keep boiling (galloping) a couple of hours or so, according to the size of your dumplings, and see that none of them e stick to the bottom. Serve them the minute they are taken out of the cloth. They need no sauce; but a little bit of butter, as an indulgence, or some roast meat gravy, does no harm. For sweet suet dumpling, allow a liberal quantity of suet. With the salt mix a little grated nutmeg, and a good table-spoonful of brown powdered sugar; or, instead of using sugar, you may mix a table-spoonful of treacle with the water with which you make the dumpling-paste. Boil as before. If sauce be wanted, give matrimony sauce.
    Plum Dumpling.- As before ; only mix with the salt, sugar, and suet six ounces of washed currants, or of raisins stoned and chopped. Same cooking, and same sauce. We once saw an ailing child crying for plum-dumpling when there was only plain, and refusing to dine. A good-natured friend, who happened to look in said "Give me one of those nasty plain dumplings," and disappeared with it into the kitchen. In two minutes he returned with it stuck over the outside with plums. The child set to with appetite, and ate it. If your quantity of plums is scanty, mix just a few with your flour and suet, and stick the rest on the outside of your dumplings before tying them up in their cloth and boiling them. They will be received by the little ones with a heartier welcome than if the treasures they contained were unseen. It is said that "a pleasing appearance is the best letter of recommendation." You may call them dumplings in their Sunday clothes. Moreover, the plan has a highly-approved precedent. Cabinet pudding (which is nothing but sponge-cake soaked in beat-up egg, and boiled in a mould) ought to have its outside only garnished with dried cherries, or, in default of them, with jar-raisins stoned, by sticking them inside the mould before boiling.
    Suet-Pudding.- Mix up the above ingredients with milk, a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, two or three eggs, a little lemon-peel chopped fine, and a little larger allowance of sugar. Do not make this up into separate dumplings, but boil in one lump, in a well- floured cloth, for a longer time-three or four hours. You see that in this case, as in the soldier's famous flint-soup, we are gradually enriching a preparation which started from a very simple beginning. By adding sundry nice things to suet and flour, we have got from plain suet pudding almost up to plum pudding itself.
    Short Cake.- We now come to things that are made with a crust (which we may call pie-crust, though in many cases it is boiled), enclosing something either sweet or savoury. And as we have said a few words about fat, so now we would call the attention of house-wives to the importance of sugar as an article of food. Its effects on the constitution are similar to those of fat, and it may be used as a partial substitute for, or in addition to it. They should also know that there are three things which, although so different to the taste and the touch, are alike in their nature and their chemical composition. Those three things are gum, starch, and sugar. We often eat these, especially the two last, without being aware of it. Arrowroot is starch. There is starch in potatoes and in bread. Indeed the more of it there is in potatoes, the more nourishing they are. There is sugar not only in most ripe fruits but in many roots, as turnips, carrots, and parsnips and in many vegetables, as in young green peas. When they grow older, it changes into starch. Very much of the sugar eaten in France is made from the beetroot or mangold wurtzel. Sugar helps to fatten, and is therefore one of the aliments which supply animal heat. It is a valuable addition to food, though not an economical one and families who can afford its use are to blame if they pinch themselves in the article of sugar. Sweet things however, require to be backed up with a supply of those kinds of food which nourish the body - that is which supply the materials for growth. Short-cake is merely pie-crust sweetened with a little sugar, rolled out about three-quarters of an inch thick, and then baked in pieces of any convenient size. It is mostly eaten hot, as a little treat, at tea-time or supper, and is often made of what remains over and above of 
    Good Common Pie- Crust. - You may make this by putting six or seven ounces of finely-chopped suet, with a little salt, to every pound of flour, and working it into a paste with a little cold water. But it is better to "try down," or melt in a saucepan over a gentle fire, any suet or fat you happen to have, and put it to the flour just before it gets cold. Very eatable crust may be made with the dripping from roast beef, veal, pork, or mutton. Even goose-dripping makes a not bad crust (though a little strong in flavour) for meat dumplings or pies.
    Butter is really the grease for pie-crust. Sweet fresh pork-lard, too, makes excellent pie-crust, but it is often as dear as butter, so that it is a question of price which you will use. The quantity of fat to each pound of flour is also a matter on which you will consult your pocket, and cut your garment according to your cloth. Ten [-55-] ounces of dripping or lard will make a rich crust. But many things do not want a rich crust. They are the better for its being at once substantial and light, which will somewhat depend on the cook's expertness in the use of her rolling-pin, and in her not being afraid to employ a little of what homely folk call "elbow-grease". A few quick turns and rollings out, with judicious sprinklings of flour between them, will often make, with the same materials, all the difference between a light crust and a heavy one.
    Treacle Pudding.-Roll out your crust, to the thickness of from one-third to one-quarter of an inch, into an oblong shape, approaching to what learned men call "a parallelogram," and simpler people "a long square." Spread this with good treacle; then roll it into the shape of a bolster; work the ends together with your fingers, and give them a twist to keep the treacle in. Tie it up in a well-floured cloth, taking particular care of the ends. An oval boiler is the most convenient, because the pudding must not be bent. Throw it into boiling water, and let it boil well at least two hours. Indeed, it is not easy to boil this class of puddings (roly-polies) too much, unless you sit up all night to do it. N.B. They should be kept boiling till the minute before you want to serve them.
    Sugar Roly-poly.- Make rather a rich crust; spread it with brown sugar, and proceed as above. Matrimony sauce (p. 27) is very nice to eat with this.
    Apple Roly-poly. - Peel and quarter a quantity of apples, and cut out their cores. Set them on the fire in a saucepan with a little water and a clove or two. As they boil, stir them, and mash to a pulp. It will be a great improvement if you can put with them the rind of an orange peeled thin and shred fine. Of the pulp of the orange you will have no difficulty in disposing, especially if there are children in the house. When smooth and tender, reduce your apple-pulp to a thick marmalade by letting it stand by the side of the fire to evaporate. On the Continent, a similar marmalade is made with pears, especially with windfalls after a heavy gale. Sweeten your marmalade, if required, and with it make your roly-poly as in the case of treacle-pudding. It is clear that you can make a roly-poly pudding with any description of fruit, jam, or marmalade; or you may even substitute for them a few plums and currants.
    Apple Dumplings.- Peel and core your apples; cut them into small pieces. Put a small handful of these into the middle of a bit of pie-crust, and with them one clove and a little lemon-peel chopped fine. It is these little additions which make things nice, and it is not the cost, but the thought and the trouble which prevent their being added. You may also put in a teaspoonful of brown sugar. Then work the crust round them, closing it at the top with a clever twist, and tie them, not too tight, nor yet too loose, in cloths floured inside, and boil galloping an hour and a half. There are recipes for baking apple-dumplings, respecting which we beg to observe that when baked they certainly am dumplings no longer, but become turnovers, rolls, or whatever else you please.
    Apple Rolls. - Chop apples very fine, and sweeten them with sugar. Lay three or four tablespoonfuls - of this in the middle of a circular or oval bit of paste, rolled out a quarter of an inch thick. Fold it in two lengthwise; unite the edges, and press or scollop them with the bowl of a teaspoon, or the tines of a fork. Lay your rolls on a flat sheet of iron or baking-tin, that has been previously greased, and set into a moderate oven. To make quite sure of the apple being cooked, it will be found a good plan, instead of chopped or sliced fruit, to use apple marmalade, as made for apple roly-poly pudding.

[-66-]

COOKERY.-V.

SIMPLE RECIPES (continued from p.55).

     Sausage Rolls.-Lay one sausage whole, without re moving the skin, in the middle of the rolled-out pie-crust, and then proceed as with apple-rolls. This is capital. cold or hot, for hungry boys.
    Beef .Pudding.-Cut beef into bits half the size of a walnut, fat and lean together; they need not he the primest parts. Make them into a pudding, as you would make apple-pudding, seasoning with pepper, salt, allspice, and chopped onions. Put in a little water to make gravy. People that can get them, add mushrooms and oysters; but these are not absolutely necessary. This pudding takes a great deal of boiling.
    Saffron Cakes or Buns are a nice little treat for children; pretty to look at, and easy to make. Their slight medicinal quantity is stimulant-likely to do more good than harm. Their tendency is to help digestion, and they are said to kill or drive out intestinal worms. To make your saffron loaves, cakes, or buns, buy at the druggist's as small a quantity of saffron as he will sell, infuse enough of this in the water with which you make your dough as to give it a clear, light, yellow tinge, and the decided taste and smell peculiar to the flower, both which it will retain after baking. Then make your cake exactly as the gateau-.directions for making which were given in a previous number (page 37) - with the addition of a little sugar, and taking care that it rises well. If to be kept some time, make it into good-sized loaves; if to be consumed or distributed immediately, make it into small buns or rolls. Bake in a moderate oven, neither fierce nor slack.
    Good Common Cake.--Mix a teaspoonful of good yeast with half a pint of milk ; warm it slightly; Stir it into two and a half pounds of flour, and half a pound of brown sugar, and set it to rise. Then melt half a pound of butter with another half-pint of milk, and add it to the former ingredients, with half a pound of washed currants, or a few caraway seeds a little bruised. Again leave it for awhile to rise. When well risen, put it into tins, and bake.
    Pancakes.-As these are a holiday treat, you will try and make them as good as you can. Shrove Tuesday comes but once a year. Allow eight eggs to a pound of flour. Separate the yolks from the whites. With the flour mix the yolks, a pinch of salt, a little milk, and some good yeast. The quality of the yeast is more important than the quantity. Beat the whites of the eggs to a froth with a little milk; this is done to help the yeast in making the pancakes light. Mix this with the flour and other ingredients. Stir in as much more tepid milk as will bring the whole to the thickness of batter. Some people add a glass of rum or brandy, and a little grated nutmeg. Cover with a cloth, and set it for two or three hours somewhere near the fire, to rise. Always wipe out your frying-pan immediately before using it. You may have hung it up clean, but dust falls, blacks fly, and rust goes to work. When the pan is warm, put in a liberal quantity of dripping, pork lard, or butter. When that is hot, pour into the middle of the pan enough batter to make a pancake. As it fries, keep raising the edges with a knife or with a fish-slice. When the under side is done, turn it quickly, taking care not to break it; to do this cleverly requires practice. [-67-] When the pancake is cooked, sprinkle its surface with a little moist sugar after it is laid on a very hot dish' and so on, until your pile of pancakes is finished, sprinkling each with sugar in its turn. Over the top pancake squeeze the juice of one or two oranges. The oranges are quite an excusable extra. Peel them before squeezing, and dry the peel, if not wanted for immediate use. It will serve to flavour puddings and stews. Boiling water poured over it, with a lump of sugar, makes a pleasant drink to quench feverish thirst, the bitterness and essential oil in the peel being slightly tonic. Some people prefer the juice of lemons with the pancake, so it will be well to give them the opportunity of choosing.
    Apple Pancakes. - Put a little less milk into your batter-that is, make it a little stiffer, and sweeten it slightly. Chop apple very small, mix it with the batter and proceed as before. The pancakes will require more care in turning, to keep them whole, but they are very nice when you do succeed. Stir up the batter every time you use it, to mix the apple equally.
    Apple Fritters.- Peel a few large apples ; cut out their cores with an apple-scoop, and cut them across in slices a quarter of an inch thick. Some cooks will tell you to soak them an hour in brandy, in a soup-plate, with a little sugar dusted over them ; but that expenditure of time, trouble, and materials is perfectly unnecessary. We do not say that it does no good, but you may make capital apple fritters without it. Let your batter be even stiffer than the preceding, with the allowance of one or two more eggs to the same quantity of flour. The frying-pan, which may be smaller and deeper, should also contain plenty of hot fat. With a fork, dip each slice of apple first into flour, then into the batter, to make as much stick to it as you can; then with your slice push it off the fork into the frying-pan. Turn it, if necessary; but there should be fat enough to cover it. When you think the apple is tender, take up your fritters, let them drain on the slice an instant, then pile them in a pyramid on your dish. Fritters should be fried so dry as to be eaten, like cake, with the fingers, and served hot enough to burn the mouth. Other fruit may be fried in the same way as apples We have eaten peach fritters; in the course of our travels but hold them to be inferior to apple, the peach being one of the fruits which lose flavour by cooking, while both the apple and the apricot gain by the process. Small slices of meat, cold cooked vegetables, as carrots and celery, joints of fowl, &c., are all excellent fried in batter. It is worth knowing, not only that a great many little remnants may be dressed again in this way, in a pleasing shape, but (in case you have to help to cook a stylish dinner) are actually used to ornament and accompany other dishes. They are largely so employed both by French and American cooks.
    Parsnip Fritters (American).-Boil the parsnips in salted water, so as to flavour them through; make a light batter; cut the parsnips into rounds, and dip them in the batter. Have ready hot lard; take the parsnips out of the batter with a spoon, and drop them into the lard while boiling. When they rise to the surface, turn them; when browned on both sides, take them out; let them drain and set them into the oven to keep hot. Serve them with broiled, fried, or roast meats or fowls. Proceed in the same way for turnip fritters, to be used as garnish for fried meats, hashes, stews, &c.

FISH.

    Perch, Eels, and small Pike are excellent fried but frying is rather a costly way of cooking fish. The fat it takes would be better employed in making sauce to be eaten with them boiled. With roach, dace, and bream (the· bigger these are the better), you may make a very nice, light, and extremely palatable dish in the following manner:-
    After cleaning your fish, salt them for a night. Throw them into as much boiling water as will cover them. Let them boil about five minutes, and as soon as the flesh will come away from the bone, take them up, and pick the flesh off with a knife and fork, taking care not to leave any of the little bones in it. You will then have a plateful of fish without any bone. Boil some mealy potatoes; mash them; season with pepper and salt; add a bit of butter or some roast meat dripping, and mix up the fish with the mashed potatoes equally, so that there is not more of it in one place than in another. You may then turn it out on a dish, and serve it; or you may put it in a basin, and set it before the fire, to keep it hot till wanted. When once made, it will warm up again easily.
    Eels are occasionally to be had in tolerable plenty. There are two easy ways of cooking them which are convenient, because in both they are as good cold as hot. The first is- 
    Potted Eels. - For people with good stomachs and hearty appetites, there is no need to skin eels. There is no doubt, however, that their flavour and digestibility arc increased by skinning, although the skin contains fat, which greatly helps to warm us, by supplying fuel for the slow combustion within us, by which our animal heat is maintained. The pickled eels that are sent in casks from the northern countries of Europe to the south are never skinned. After cleaning your eel; and cutting off their heads, cut them into pieces about two inches long. Put them into a brown earthen pot, to which, if there is not an earthen cover, you have fitted a wooden one. Season them with pepper, salt, and allspice; if you have parsley and thyme in your garden put in a few sprigs. Pour over the eels a little more vinegar and water than will cover them; put on the lid, and set the pot into a slow oven, or on the ashes on your hearth. They should not be too much done; -as soon as the flesh will come away from the bone, they are done enough. They will keep some time. When herrings are cheap, and before they are shotten, you may pot them in the same way. These you scale, cut off the heads and tails, and cut them across into two or three pieces.
    Collared Eels, though a little more trouble than potted eels, make a very good and handsome dish. For this, the larger the eels the better ; quite small eels can hardly be collared. Empty your eel; cut off its head; open it at the belly the whole of its length; wash it; take out the backbone, tearing the flesh as little as may be. Dry it by pressing it with a coarse cloth. You will then have a flat strip of eel-flesh, broad at one end and narrow at the other. Season the inner surface of the eel by dusting it with salt, pepper, and allspice. Then roll it tightly upon itself, as you would a ribbon, beginning at the broad end, until you have rolled it into a lump something like a short, thick-sausage, blunt at both ends. Tie it with broad tape (not with string, which would cut into the flesh when cooked), to keep it from unrolling, and then cook in an earthen pot with a lid, exactly as you do potted eels.
    One large eel will be enough to do at a time, and be as much as there is room for in your pot. If undersized, you can collar several (rolling each one separately) at once. When you want them, you take them out of the pot, and after cutting off as many slices as are required, you return them to their liquor for future use. They will keep thus several days or longer, and are very convenient to have in store, to save cooking in hot weather.
    Conger Eel Pie.- In many parts of the country congers, or sea eels, are often plentiful and cheap. In Cornwall, where they put everything into a pie, conger pie is one of the most approved. Take congers not thicker than your wrist (they may be less); empty, and cut them into two- inch lengths, rejecting the heads. Wash, drain, and dry them in a coarse cloth. Roll the pieces in flour, then [-68-] place them in your pie-dish, seasoning, as you do so, with pepper, salt, and allspice. You may sprinkle amongst them a little chopped parsley and lemon, or common thyme. Pour over them a tumbler of water, with a tablespoonful of vinegar in it, to help to make gravy. Two or three hard eggs quartered will be a nice addition. Cover all with a good solid crust, and bake in a moderate oven. This dish may be eaten either hot or cold; if cold, the pie may be a little more highly flavoured with spice and vinegar.
    Large Conger, Roasted is very good and easy to do. Take a cut, about a foot long, out of the middle of one of the largest. Clean it without opening the belly. If you can manage to stuff it with a stuffing made of bread crumbs, chopped parsley and lemon thyme, pepper, salt, and shred fat or suet, bound together with a raw egg, your roast will be all the better, as well as all the bigger, for it. Tie it round with string, and after a good dredging with flour, roast it. Put into your catch-pan a lump of butter or some roast-meat dripping, and, if you live in a cyder country, a tumbler of cyder; if.not, the same quantity of one-third vinegar, two-thirds water. Baste veil your roasting conger with this, dredging it with flour from time to time. When half-done, change the end by which it hangs before the fire, and continue basting till it is done enough. Serve the gravy with it. Large conger, so prepared, can be baked in a dish, if the shape and size of the oven allow of its being basted now and then with the liquor (the same as you put into the catch-pan) in the dish, into which you may also put a few potatoes. Baking the fish is less trouble than roasting it, but if cooked in this way it is more liable to over-doing and drying up.
    Skate is a wholesome fish, often to be had at a reasonable price, as it bears travelling well, and is indeed, in cool weather, the better for being kept a couple of days after catching. It is best in autumn, but is never exactly out of season. Choose fish with the brown skin clear and healthy-looking, the flesh and under skin very white. Young skate, called "maids," are tender fleshed and delicate; larger fish are firmer, and altogether more profitable, having thicker flesh in proportion to the quantity of gristle, for they have no real bones. The upper skin should be removed. If you have to do it yourself, strip it from the middle outwards. Save the liver. Cut your fish into pieces about four inches square-  some out of the thick parts, some out of the thin. After washing, throw the thick pieces and the liver into boiling salt and water; when they have boiled up a couple of minutes, put in the thin. They will take from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour in cooking. When they are done, arrange them on your dish, and make for them some liver sauce, for which we subjoin a recipe.
    Liver Sauce.-Chop some of the liver into pieces smaller than peas. Put some of the water in which the fish has been boiled into a saucepan; thicken it with a little flour and butter or dripping; add some vinegar, with a very small quantity of mustard mixed in it. Then put in your chopped liver; let it come to a boil, and it is ready.
    Plain Boiled Mackerel, with Fennel Sauce. - if the fish have roes and milts, by making an opening near the vent, you will be able to draw the entrails at the opening made by the removal of the gills, at the same time leaving the roe or milt in its place, and also to wash the inside of the fish through those two apertures. The mackerel will thus have a much plumper appearance than if the roes were taken out and laid beside them. When the fish-kettle boils, throw in a few sprigs of the freshest light green fennel you can get. Add a little salt, and when the water boils again, throw in your mackerel. Skim carefully. They will take from twenty minutes to half an hour, according to the size. When done, lay your mackerel on the strainer in your dish, previously warmed. Have ready some melted butter, not too thick. Take the oiled fennel out of the fish-kettle, chop it fine, and add enough of it to the melted butter to give it a light green me. Add a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, either common or flavoured with tarragon. You may also stir in a very little made mustard, but so little as scarcely to be perceptible. When well mixed over the fire, serve separately a a sauce-boat.
    Cods' Heads.- In some places, fishmongers take the heads off their codfish before they cut up the rest of the fish to retail it by the pound. In that case, the heads are told cheap; and when they can be had for somewhere about twopence each, they are well worth buying. They are in season through the whole of autumn and winter; and we have enjoyed many a cheap fish-treat with a dish of cods' heads, which contain several of the tit-bits prized by epicures-namely, the tongue, the cheek-pieces, and the nape of the neck. The fishermen in the northern regions, who take cod in large numbers for salting (to do which they are obliged to cut off the heads), might be expected to throw them away, and waste them, in the midst of such abundance. But instead of that they turn them to the best possible account. The tongues and the neck- pieces, as well as the sounds, or swimming bladders of the fish, are cut out and salted. Even the fins are dried, to furnish glue. The only inconvenience attending cods' heads is, that if there are several, they require a large kettle to boil them in; but they can be cooked one or two at a time, reserving the flesh from the second batch for next day's use. After taking out the eyes, wash the heads, drain them, and if you can let them lie all night with a little salt sprinkled over them, they will be none the worse for it. Put them into a kettle of boiling water, and boil from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes, according to size. Dish them on a strainer, if you can, and help with a spoon.v
    For sauce, oiled butter is good - i.e., simply set a lump of butter in a cup before the fire until it melts, and with a spoon pour a little of it over the fish on your plate. In some English counties, nice mealy potatoes are considered a necessary "sauce" for codfish.
    For sharp sauce, take a few table-spoonfuls of the cods head boilings; put them in a saucepan with a lump of butter or dripping, and a table-spoonful of vinegar dust in a little flour, and keep stirring in one direction till they are all mixed smooth and come to a boil.
    Both these sauces go well with any boiled fish and are very nice served with many sorts of vegetables To these we will add a third, which will be found equally simple and good.
    For brown sauce, put a good lump of butter or dripping into a saucepan. Set it on a brisk fire, shake it round - now and then, and keep it there till it is browned, not burnt. Take it off the fire, and stir into it a good tablespoonful of vinegar. When they are well mixed, pour  into your sauce-boat, and serve. The mixing of the vinegar with the hot fat had better be done out of doors on account of the quantity of vapour that rises when they are put together. Although the reverse of an unhealthy smell, it may not be agreeable to the persons in the house.
    Any meat remaining on cods' heads after a meal should separated from the skin and bone before it gets cold. This rule applies to all other fish. Arrange it neatly on a plate, and dust a little pepper, and drop a little vinegar over it. It will furnish a nice little delicacy when cold or you may warm it up with potatoes, adding any sauce that may be left, in the way we have already directed for roach and bream; or, after putting on it the cold sauce left, or a bit of butter, you may sprinkle over it bread crumbs or mashed potatoes, and brown before the fire or in the oven.

[-86-]

COOKERY.-VI.

FISH (continued from p. 68).

    Plain Broiled Mackerel.- Moderate-sized fish are the most convenient for broiling. Open them at the belly the whole of their length. Remove the head; you may leave the tail - it will make the dish look more important. In districts where fish is a rarity, it is common to leave every fin, even on fried fish - that is, on fish truly fried by plunging them in boiling fat - for the sake of improving their appearance; it makes them look half as big again. When the fish is opened, and laid flat on its back, you may remove the bone; but leaving it will help you to handle it, and save all tearing of the flesh. Dry the inside of the fish with a napkin ; sprinkle it with a little pepper and salt. Grill the inside of the mackerel first. After turning it, while the back of the fish is exposed to the fire, lay on the upper surface a few little bits of butter. These will melt and enrich the fish while the broiling is being completed. As soon as done, serve at once. No special sauce is usually served with broiled mackerel. Those who like it can add a few drops of catchup, or other flavouring. When broiling is not convenient, mackerel so split open can be fried. In that case, the tail-fin is best cut off. The fish must be well dried on both sides, between the folds of a napkin, and then rubbed with flour before frying. Putting butter to it afterwards is needless. No sauce is absolutely required, but anchovy sauce may be sent up with it.
    Potted Mackerel.- Clean the fish in the way directed for plain broiled mackerel; cut off the heads and tails, and divide each fish across into three pieces, so as to have the shoulders, the middles, and the tails. After washing, let them drain. Have an earthen pot, a pate dish, with a cover of the same material. A common glazed deep stoneware pot, with a wooden cover, will do in case of need. At the bottom put a layer of mackerel; season with salt, ground pepper, whole pepper, bay-leaf, and cloves. Then put in more mackerel, and season again, and so on, until all is in its place. Over this pour a little more vinegar than will cover the mackerel. If, however, the vinegar be very acid, or if it be desired to keep the fish for any time, the vinegar must be diluted with cyder, water, or beer ; because, in either case, too strong vinegar would dissolve the fish, instead of allowing the flesh to remain firm, which it will do if the strength of the liquid is nicely adjusted, even after the back-bone has become so soft as to be eatable. Cover the dish or pot with its lid, and set into a slow oven for an hour or two -  if very slow, it may pass the night there. Mackerel so potted, and closely covered, will keep good for a week or a fortnight, or longer. It may be eaten with a little of its own liquor poured over it, to which a little salad oil is a great addition when people are not frightened by the words "eating oil." With the accompaniment of a well-dressed salad, it makes a nice cool supper dish after a fatiguing evening's work. It is economical, because the mackerel can be bought when they are plentiful and cheap, and kept in this way till their season is over. Potted mackerel, too (being classed with hors d'oeuvres, side dishes, and kickshaws), may be presented even at wealthy tables, as a supplement to any meal.
    Pickled Herrings, French Way (excellent cold).- Towards the end of the herring season, the fish is often very cheap ; but it is better to pay a trifle more before they are shotten. Choose herrings which, retaining their shape, are plump, and not too bloodshot about the eyes- i.e., which have not been crushed together in large heaps, either in the fishing-boats, or in casks, or baskets. If many of the scales come off, it is a sign they have so suffered. For this reason, when you live near the coast, the fishings of small boats are often to be preferred. The [-87-] herring is one of the fishes which die almost instantly they are out of the water. Comparatively few people have seen a live herring. Scale your herrings ; draw the entrails, leaving the milts and roes in their place ; cut off their heads, wash them, wipe them dry with a cloth ; salt them four-and-twenty hours in an earthen vessel. Then put them into a weIl-tinned or enamelled saucepan with whole pepper, cloves, sliced onions, and bay leaf. Pour over the fish enough vinegar and water to cover them, set them on a brisk fire, and let them boil two minutes. Take them off the fire, and let them get nearly cold in the saucepan before you put them into the covered dish in which they are to be kept for rise. Arrange them in that with care not to break them; pour the liquor over them, put on the lid, and set them in a dry cool place. Sprats and pilchards may be pickled in the same way ; indeed, all that is directed for herrings, is applicable to the latter of those fishes especially.
    Fresh Herrings, Broiled - Frying herrings is a needless expenditure of fat; their flesh is quite oily enough in itself to broil them, and they will need no butter to be eaten with them, particularly if they are salted for a night, which renders them firmer, and improves their flavour. Scale the fish, draw the entrails without opening them ; score them crosswise on each side in two or three places, cutting the flesh down to the backbone, but not dividing that. Heat your grid-iron, anti then lay your fish upon it over a clear fire, into which (if of coal cinders) you have first thrown a little salt. While the fish are broiling, raise them gently now and then to prevent them sticking to the bars. When well done on one side, turn them to the other without breaking the skin. Although they should not be dried up, they require thorough cooking, especially if they have roes and milts. Serve on a hot dish, immediately they are taken off the gridiron. They need no sauce, but a little salt and a loot mealy potato are proper accompaniments.
    Siamese Herrings, Broiled as Twins - Scale your herrings, cut off their heads, open them at the belly the whole of their length, from the tail upwards. Flatten them ; with great care, draw out the backbone, and remove any little bones that have not come away with it. Sprinkle the inner surface of each fish with pepper, salt, and a dust of flour. Then place them together in pairs, pressing the two inner surfaces into as close a contact as you can. Lay them on the gridiron ; when the undermost fish is broiled, turn them with a pair of tongs or between a couple of spoons without separating them. When thoroughly broiled and served on their dish, each person can have a pair of herrings still holding; together, as his rightful portion.
    Red Herring.- Lay a red herring in deep dish, pour boiling water over it, and let it lie there five or ten minutes, according to the degree of dryness and saltness. Take it out of the water, peel off the skin, open it in the belly, and by laying hold of the head, carefully draw out the backbone and every little bone that springs from it. Lay the herring-flesh on a board, and cut one-half of it into long narrow strips or fillets, the whole length of the fish, the other half into small squares. Make some buttered toast; cut each round of toast into quarters. In the middle of each quarter lay a square of herring-flesh, encircling it with one of the narrow strips. This will give you mock anchovy toast. Slice bread and butter ; lay squares and fillets of herring upon it ; place another slice of bread and butter over it, and you have mock anchovy sandwiches. Put a few bits of herring-flesh into a mortar; pound them well. Put them into a saucepan with a lump of butter, and some flour and water. Keep stirring in one direction till they are mixed thoroughly and smooth. When it boils, you obtain mock anchovy sauce, to be eaten with beef steaks or fish. N.B. If this and similar sauces oil in the making, the introduction of a small quantity of cold water will set all to rights. The same pounded herring-flesh may be used in a similar way to essence of anchovies, for heightening the relish of several brown soups - hare-soup for instance.

PLAIN SOUPS.

    Boil some water in a saucepan, with a clove of garlic chopped small, and a small quantity of salt. Cut very thin slices of bread into a soup-tureen, pour over them a table-spoonful of good eating oil, grate a little nutmeg over them, and, when the water boils galloping, pour it over the bread. This, which is the genuine Provençal water boiled, does not read like a very substantial mess; nevertheless, a hundred thousand families in the south of France have nothing else but this for breakfast, and enjoy good health, notwithstanding. You may make the same kind of thing, only better, thus : If you dislike, or have not, garlic, chop two or three onions into a saucepan of new milk, or skimmed milk, or even butter-milk. Put slices of bread and butter into your soup-tureen, grate nutmeg on them, and pour your boiling milk over them. Let the tureen stand to soak three or four minutes before the fire, before serving. Instead of buttering the bread, you may use unbuttered slices, and, to make up for the deficiency of oily matter, boil some finely-chopped suet with the milk, which will be found a very tolerable substitute.
    Cabbage Soup (from "Wholesome Fare, or the Doctor and the Cook").- Please try this. Wash thoroughly, and shred very fine - as if for making pickled cabbage - the hearts of one or two summer cabbages, or of a very delicate savoy, according to size. Slice and mince some carrots, turnips, and two or three leeks, all very fine, and mix these chopped vegetables well together in a salad-bowl. Have ready a good broth; pork or beef-boilings will do, when not too salt - the great point is that the meat should not have been too long in salt; not more, say, than three or four days - French cooks prefer a variety of meats boiled together ; for instance, a piece of lean beef, a knuckle of veal, a small piece of salt pork, and a bit of the neck or shoulder of mutton. These meats should not be cooked so much as to render them uneatable, either cold or warmed up in a stew, or even served hot at the same dinner at which the soup appears. (Thus, the beef, served in the middle of a stew made of sliced carrots, turnips, and onions fried brown, will be welcomed as a dish of beef a la mode; the veal, covered with a little parsley and butter, will be excellent boiled knuckle of veal; the neck of mutton, masked with caper or nasturtium sauce, accompanied by mashed turnips, will give you the dish a Welshman so prizes; and the pork, cold, will be delicious for breakfast, or to cap a thumb-piece in the field.) For these purposes, they are invariably used in France; instead of being thrown out to the dogs, as broth-meat too frequently is in England. When the meat is enough done, according to your judgment, take it out, make the broth boil galloping, and then throw in your bowlful of well-drained shred and chopped vegetables. Let them boil on, without the lid, till the cabbages, &c., are quite tender, but not cooked to a mash. While the vegetables are boiling, slice and chop one or two large onions; fry them, in butter or dripping, to a rich brown. If more convenient, they may be prepared beforehand, and set by, cold, till wanted. And them to the soup, and mix them up with it.
    Meagre Cabbage Soup, for abstinence days, is made is the same way as above, using water instead of broth, and often adding to the cabbage a large handful of chopped sorrel - an excellent anti-scorbutic and purifier of the blood. A larger quantity of fried onions is used, and, at the time of adding them to the soup, a small basinful of grated crumb of bread is also incorporated with it, to make it more nourishing.

[-103-]

COOKERY.-VII.

SOUPS AND MEAT DISHES AT MODERATE COST.

 Pea Soup.-The quality of this will much depend upon the water with which it is made. The peas are often found fault with when it is the water which is really to blame. Nevertheless, some peas are good boilers - others not; but unfortunately there are no means of knowing them beforehand. Split peas, when good boilers, are cooked sooner than whole ones; but split peas will often behave as badly as the worst whole peas. The water to cook dry peas, either white or blue, should be soft-rain or river-water, without a particle of salt. Soak them for a night in some of this, and then set them on the fire separately (i.e., not with the meat nor with the meat-broth to make the soup), in a saucepan with the water cold. Let them come to a boil gradually, and simmer slowly till they are quite tender. Then pour them into a cullender placed over a bowl, and squeeze them through it with the back of a wooden spoon, so as to retain the skins (if the peas are whole) in the cullender. The crushed peas which have passed through the cullender are what is called the purée of peas. Take any good meat-broth or stock you have, not too salt. When it boils, throw into it a good quantity of celery cut into short lengths and a smaller quantity of chopped carrot and turnip. The flavour of the celery ought to prevail ; when it is not to be had, a little celery seed crushed will be a good substitute. When the vegetables are tender, stir in your puree, and serve accompanied by toasted bread, cut into squares, to soak in it. Another flavour much approved with pea soup is that of sage. Dry the leaves before a gentle fire, rub them to powder between your hands, and serve in a saucer for each person to dust into his plate of soup as much as he chooses. Pea soup, a good thing in itself, may be made still better by taking one or two hocks of pork, slightly salted (or, if much salted, well steeped in tepid water to draw out the brine), and making the broth for the soup with them, and when the soup is made, by cutting up the pork into small pieces and adding it thereto. Your pea soup then becomes victuals and drink in one - substantial diet for a hard-working man. Peas are a valuable article of food, and their use might be  extended with great advantage. For instance, if you bake your bread at home, sometimes add one pound of pea-meal to every stone of flour, and it will make the bread all the more nutritious. Peas are a very supporting food both for grown people and for children. They should be eaten - we are told on medical authority - once or twice a week all the year round.
    Vegetable Soup.- Slice into a pail of cold water two or three lettuces, a leek or two, a few onions and potatoes, and one turnip. Any garden vegetables you have may be added to the above. Put a good lump of dripping into a saucepan with a close-fitting lid ; when it is melted, put in the vegetables, with no more water than hangs to them; shut down the lid, and let them stew gently, shaking them about to avoid burning. When they are half done, stir in enough broth or water to make the quantity of soup you want, add a few leaves of celery and sorrel (if to be had), and a teacupful of green peas, or, cook half a pint of dry peas, and mash them through a cullender into your soup. Let it boil till the vegetables are done enough; season with pepper and salt ; stir in a little bit of butter. Put slices of toasted bread into your tureen, and pour the soup over them.
    Shin of Beef Soup- A departed humorist has said, "Of all the birds that fly in the air, commend me to the shin of beef. There's marrow for the master, meat for the mistress, gristle for the servants, and bones for the dogs." By successive stewings and warmings-up, it becomes better and better every day, until it is all of it consumed. It may be cooked as follows:- Take three or four pounds of shin of beef, cut the meat into two or three slices down to the bone, which should remain undivided and still enclosed in the flesh. Plug up each end of the bone with a stiff paste made of flour and water, to keep in the marrow.  Set it on the fire in a boiler of cold water, with six or eight peppercorns and three or four cloves. Skim as long as any scum rises. If you season with salt, it must be very slightly; otherwise, by continued boiling and warming- up, the broth will be so reduced as to become too salt.  Let it boil gently for four hours, then make it boil fast, and throw in a few peeled turnips, carrots, and  onions, with a small bunch of thyme and parsley. When the vegetables are tender, you may serve the soup with bits of toasted bread floating in it. When the soup has been served, take up your beef, remove the slices of meat from the bone, separate them, if needed, with a knife and fork, put them in the middle of a hot dish, and arrange the vegetables round them, cutting the carrots and turnips into shapely bits. For sauce, fry chopped onions brown, stir in amongst them a dessert-spoonful of flour, dilute with a little of the soup, add two dessert-spoonfuls of mushroom catchup (for the making of which we will give a recipe in due course), pepper and salt, stir all together, and pour it over your slices of shin, then serve. For the marrow toast a large round of bread, lay it on a hot plate, spread the marrow roughly on it, season with pepper, salt, and a little mustard, cut it into as many pieces as there are persons sitting at the table, and serve.
    Sausages and Cabbage.-Shred a fine-hearted cabbage or savoy into a pail of cold water, picking it over leaf by leaf to see that no impurities are left ; rinse the shred cabbage well therein, then put it into a deep saucepan of boiling soft water, without salt. Let it boil, with the [-104-] lid off, and with only just water enough to cover it till the cabbage is tender. Stir now and then, to prevent its sticking to the bottom, and if the liquor evaporates too much, fill up with hot water. Contrive, when the cabbage is done, to have just enough liquor left to moisten it Then bury in the cooked cabbage a pound or more of uncooked sausages. Put the lid close down on the sauce pan, to keep in the heat and vapour; let them stew, not too slowly, shaking them now and then, for twenty or five-and-twenty minutes. Have ready, on a hot dish, a thickish round of toasted bread. Take the sausages out of the cabbage with a spoon, and arrange them in a row on the toast. Squeeze the cabbage in the saucepan with the back of your spoon, and pour the liquor over the sausages and toast. Then serve the cabbage, neatly piled on another hot dish. This dish has the advantage of being easily heated up again, when it is quite as good as at first. If no sausages are left when the cabbage is warmed-up again, spread it in a layer on a dish, and on it put a few poached or fried eggs, or three or four slices of toasted bacon.
    Epping Sausages.- Take sage, thyme, and especially knotted marjoram, if you can get it. If they have been splashed with earth or sand by the rain, as often happens, you must wash them thoroughly clean and let them dry in a current of air. When quite dry, strip the leaves from the stalks, and chop them very fine together. Mix a small quantity of this thoroughly with the chopped sausage-meat (which should be seasoned with allspice and nutmeg) before putting it into the skins. The dose of this will depend upon taste; at the first trial, it is better not to overdo it. These aromatic herbs can be dried in a slow oven, rubbed between the palms to a powder, and kept in bottles for future use. In a fresh state, a very small proportion of parsley and chervil may be mixed with them.
    Roast Pork and Potatoes, Fried Whole - The pig must be scalded, not singed. Take a good piece of the loin or spare rib, score the skin, to make nice "crackle," and let out the fat. Roast it before the fire, over a catch-pan. Take middle-sized or small potatoes; first wash and dry, then peel them, so as not to have to wash them after peeling; wipe them dry with a napkin. When the pork is roasted, pour the fat into a small deep saucepan; set it on the fire ; when quite hot, fry the potatoes in it to a light clear brown. The fat will serve again, or for other purposes. 
    Haricot Mutton. -Take the chump end of the neck, or the breast, of mutton ; cut it up into small pieces, of a size to be helped with a spoon. Set them on the fire, in just enough water to keep them from burning. Keep turning them about in this, till they are half-cooked and nicely browned. Then take them out and lay them on a dish. To the gravy remaining in the saucepan, add more water, with flour, pepper, salt, and a sprig of thyme and parsley. Stir these well together, then return your mutton to the saucepan. After it has boiled a few minutes, put in some peeled potatoes (whole, if small, halved, if large), a carrot sliced, a turnip the same, and either small onions whole, or large ones sliced. When the  vegetables are cooked, your mutton is ready. Serve the whole together on the same dish. You may lay slices of toasted bread, as sippets, at the bottom of, or round, the dish. They will make it both more sightly and more plentiful.
    Pigs' Fry is much nicer, tenderer, and more economical, baked than fried. Into a large pudding-basin, put slices of the heart and liver, pieces of the chitterling "frill," and spleen, intermixed with sliced onions, and seasoned with pepper, salt, and allspice. Cover them with water, in which a little flour has been carefully mixed; put a plate on the top, and set in the oven till sufficiently cooked.
    Pigs' Liver.- Open the liver, by cutting it in halves horizontally, but without detaching the separate portions. Lay it thus open on a dish, season it with pepper and salt, and pour over it a little oiled butter ; let it so remain a quarter of an hour. Then spread over it equally a stuffing made of bacon, chopped parsley, and shalot or whatever other stuffing suits your taste and judgment. Then close the liver, and wrap it in caul, or "leaf," or thin internal sheet-fat of a pig or calf. Lay this in a deep dish with a slice of bacon under and upon it ; cover it closely with another dish over it, and set in a gentle oven. When done, take it out of the leaf-fat, and serve it with its own gravy, relieved by a little vinegar.
    Black Pudding (a much-approved recipe).-Have ready a well cleansed pigs' entrails, exactly the same as are used for containing sausages. Keep them steeped in cold water, until you want them. To one pint of fresh-drawn pigs' blood, take three pints of onions ; chop them tolerably fine, and cook them till they are nearly or three-quarters done, in a saucepan, with the least drop of water at the bottom, stirring them all the while, to prevent them browning. Take two pounds of fresh pork, without bone fat and lean in equal proportions; chop it up fine. Mix well together the minced pork, the onions, and the pigs' blood, seasoning with salt, pepper, and allspice, or mixed spices ground together. Tie one end of your sausage-skin, and, by means of a funnel or sausage-stuffer, fill it at the other with the mixed ingredients. Then tie the upper end of your pudding, coil it in the desired shape, or tie it into short lengths, and throw it into boiling water, which you will keep galloping for twenty or five-and-twenty minutes, according to the thickness of the pudding. Then take it out, and set aside to cool. So prepared, it will keep a good two or three days in summer, a week in winter. When wanted to serve, you may broil it gently over a slow fire ; but this requires care, to prevent the skin from cracking. A better way is to set it a few minutes in the oven of a cooking-stove, or in a Dutch or American oven, in front of an open kitchen-range.
    Pigs' Head, Boiled with Vegetables.-  Take half a pig's head (without the brains and tongue), put it into an earthen vessel, with half a pound of coarse salt, and leave it three or four days, turning it frequently, and basting it with the brine that forms. Put it into a soup- kettle, with six quarts of cold water ; bring it to a boil, skim, add pepper, shred onions, cabbage, and celery; let it simmer over a gentle fire, and add potatoes three-quarters of an hour before serving dinner. Then taste if the broth is salt enough ; soak with it some bread in your soup-tureen ; pour the broth over it. Drain the head and serve it, accompanied by the cabbage and potatoes With a little pea -powder, previously steeped, and a boil up after mixing it, you can convert the broth into pea soup.
    Pumpkin and Rice Soup - Wash in cold water the quantity of rice required to make your soup; set it on the fire in cold water, let it boil till nearly done enough, set it aside. Pare your pumpkin, and cut it into bits as big as a walnut; put it in a saucepan with two or three sliced E onions, one or two cloves, a leaf each of celery and parsley, a trifle each of pepper, salt, and sugar, and amply sufficient water to make your soup. Boil till you can crush the onions and pumpkin to a mash; mash them well with a large wooden ladle ; pour all through a cullender, to strain off the fibrous portions. Then set the strained purée on the fire again; add to it the boiled rice and a good bit of butter, and keep stirring (to mix well, and prevent sticking to the bottom) until the rice is tender, Then serve, and you will have an excellent autumnal soup. There is no reason why, instead of water, you should not use any good meat or poultry-broth (not salt) which you happen to have.

[-119-]

COOKERY.-VIII.

MEAT DISHES AT MODERATE COST.

     Sheep's Trotters.-When these can be bought, as in many large towns, ready scalded and with the hair removed, they are not dear. Keep them steeped in cold water till you set them on the fire to boil, which will take at least three or four hours. When done, they may be eaten with pepper, salt, and vinegar. A nice sauce for them is, to put some fat and flour in a stewpan, to mix in smoothly some of the broth, to throw in a little chopped parsley, and season with salt and a dash of vinegar. Cold sheep's trotters can be covered with melted fat, rolled in bread- crumbs, and broiled over a clear fire.
    Sheep's Feet Paté - (French).-Have a coarse earthen pot or pâté-dish, with a well-fitting cover. Get at the tripe-shop, or of your butcher, three gangs of sheep's feet (twelve) ready cleaned and scalded. Divide them at the joints into two or more pieces ; boil them a couple of hours; then pack them closely in the pâté-dish, interspersing with them equally, as seasoning, sprigs of thyme and parsley, a few bay leaves, cloves, pepper, allspice, salt, and button-onions, whole. Put in the liquor in which the feet were boiled ; then put on the cover ; tie it in its place with string passed over it round the dish ; cover it down closely all round with paste, and send the pâté to pass the night in a baker's oven after the bread is drawn. Next morning, the pâté will be done, and may be either eaten hot or allowed to get cold. The oven being slow, the feet will be cooked to a jelly. If the oven is too fierce, they will of course be dried up, burnt, and rendered good for nothing. When properly done, this is an excellent dish ; but success entirely depends on the moderate temperature of the oven, the close fastening down of the lid with paste, and care on the part of the baker to prevent its drying up.
    Pigs' feet and pettitoes may be dressed in exactly the same way.
    Calf's Liver, Stewed. - Choose it fresh killed, of a clear bright colour, without spots. Dr. Edward Smith, a high authority, says,* [*"Practical Dietary," p.256]  "Liver should be cut into thin slices, and boiled or fried with bacon. Cook it well, but not with a hot fire, and do not make it dry and hard. See that it looks healthy." It is perhaps the part of our butchers' meat which is most liable to be affected by disease. By our mode of dressing liver, it is just as good warmed up again as it was at first; indeed, nobody would know, unless they were told, that this was the second, or even "the third time of asking." Having as much calf's liver as your family want, cut it into pieces the size of a hen's egg, season them with pepper and salt, roll them in flour, and let them so remain on a dish while you are doing what follows. Peel potatoes, halve or quarter them, if large; do the same with onions ; slice two or three carrots. Put some fat or dripping into a broad shallow saucepan or stewpan, and when it is melted, brown in it a soup-spoonful of flour. Stir in a little water ; mix well ; then put in your liver, shaking it about ; then enough warm water to cover it. When it boils, put in your vegetables ; when they have boiled a few minutes, draw the saucepan aside, and let them simmer till they are done enough. Taste if sufficiently seasoned. It will be a great improvement if you can put in with the vegetables a sprig of parsley, celery leaf, and thyme. Lay the pieces of liver in the middle of your dish, put the vegetables round them, and pour the gravy over all.
    ]f you fry slices of liver and bacon, thicken the grease [-120-] left in the pan with flour and water, season with pepper, allspice, and vinegar, and pour it over them for gravy.
    Sliced Calf's or Sheep's Liver Fried. - Cut up the liver into small thin slices. Cut some onions crosswise into very thin slices. Brown them in a stewpan with a lump of butter; dust in a little flour; stir in enough boiling water to cook them tender; season with pepper and salt. In your frying-pan fry the sliced liver in butter, taking care not to do them too much. Grate a little nutmeg over them, and add a dash of vinegar; then put them with the onions in the stew-pan; mix them together; let them stew gently for five or six minutes, and serve with the gravy poured over them, which may be further thickened, if too greasy, with a little flour and hot water.
    Calf's Liver Cheese.-Chop fine a couple of pounds of calf's liver, half a pound of beef suet, half a pound of white bacon, and a few mushrooms, if there happen to be any. Mix these well together, then add to them three or four good-sized onions chopped and browned in butter in the frying-pan, six egg-yolks, a small glass of brandy, pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg, and lastly, stir in the whites of six eggs beaten to a froth. Line the bottom and sides of a well-tinned iron saucepan with very thin slices of white bacon; put in the minced liver, &c., and cover with thin slices of bacon. Close the saucepan tightly with a lid on which you can heap hot cinders or ashes. Cook over a very gentle fire. It does very well on a hearth where wood is burnt, with the hot ashes piled round it. Let it remain in the saucepan till quite cold and stiff. To turn it out, set the saucepan a minute or two in boiling water ; place the dish over it, and then reverse it.
    Bullock's Heart a la Mode.-Split open the heart at its thinnest side, without cutting it in two ; take out the arterial cartilage and the coagulated blood left in it; fill its inside with bacon cut into dice, seasoned with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Tie it round with string into Its original shape. Stew it in a saucepan, covered with broth, and half as much cider, if it comes handy; add a bunch of sweet herbs, and as many onions and carrots as there is room for. When it has simmered gently full four hours, lay it on a dish; put the carrots and onions round it; let the liquor boil a few minutes longer to thicken, then pour some of it over the heart, and serve the rest in a sauce-boat. If you like it, you may flavour the latter with mushroom catchup and a little red wine, which will give the heart the flavour of hare.
    Bullock's Kidney.-This is often cut up into dice, and made into kidney pudding, as we have previously directed (p. 66) for beef pudding. The crust helps it out very well; but it is less agreeable cold, and the kidney is very apt to be hard. As a change from this, cut up the kidney into very thin slices, dust them plentifully with flour, and season with pepper and salt. Put a lump of butter into a saucepan; as soon as it begins to melt, put your sliced and seasoned kidney to it ; add a little cold water, just enough to prevent burning; if you live in a cider country, use cider instead. You may add a table-spoonful of catchup. Keep shaking and stirring over a gentle fire without ever letting it come to a boil. If it does, your kidney will be hard and leathery. The secret of success consists in not letting it cook too much, too fast, nor too long. Lay bits of toasted bread round the edge of a dish. With a spoon put the kidney in the middle; give the gravy a boil up, and pour it over it. Some cooks would garnish with sliced lemon, and stew in red wine, or even in champagne; for the latter, the cider is not a bad substitute, and is often more obtainable. If any is left, let it be warmed up over a very gentle fire.
    Tripe Normandy Fashion. - Wash your tripe, scald it; wash it again, scald it again; scrape it, wash it, re-scrape, and re-wash it in several waters; then cut it in pieces, and put it to cook in a boiler with chopped bacon, carrot; onions, garlic, cloves, thyme, bay-leaf, parsley, and peppercorns. Moisten with white wine or cider, and the fat skimmed from the pot-au-feu, or family soup-kettle. Instead of these, you may use good soft water, setting on cold. Let it simmer gently for about eight hours (we say, till tender, which will probably come to pass in a little less time). Before cooking tripe to serve it in any way, cut it into neat pieces two or three inches square. Tripe has been recommended to invalids, stewed with beef, seasoned to taste, and with thickened gravy poured over it. It may also be stewed with onions and milk, seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. It can be fricasseed brown with fried onions and gravy, and the flavour be heightened, just before serving, with allspice and tarragon vinegar. In all these cases the tripe must have long stewing, unless it has been done very nearly enough by the regular tripe-dresser of whom it was bought. One of the nicest ways of cooking tripe so prepared is to fry it in batter in the way already directed for other things. It then requires no sauce whatever ; if any is wished for, make it with water, flour, butter, a little vinegar, and still less mustard.
    Lady Harriet St. Clair, in her "Dainty Dishes," gives three recipes for tripe, of which we borrow two, on account of their excellence and simplicity.
    Stewed Tripe.- Select two pounds of double tripe well cleaned and blanched, cut in pieces of rather less than a quarter of a pound each; put in a clean stew-pan with a pint of milk and one of water, two teaspoonfuls of salt, one of pepper, eight middle-sized onions carefully peeled. Set it on to boil, which it should do at first rather fast, then simmer till done, which will be in rather more than half an hour. Put it into a deep dish or tureen, and serve with the milk and onions.
    Tripe a la Lyonnaise (Lyons Fashion). -. When any cold tripe remains, cut it in thin slices about an inch square, and wipe it very dry. Mince two onions, put some butter (in the proportion of three ounces to a pound of tripe) into a frying-pan with the onions. When they are about half done put in the tripe, and let all fry for about ten minutes; season with pepper and salt, and three tablespoonfuls of vinegar to each pound of tripe. Serve very hot. This is a favourite dish in Lyons with all classes.
    Besides these ways, French cooks serve tripe broiled in oiled paper, bread-crumbed, white, with sauce piquante; with sauce Robert, au gratin, or browned in the oven, like fricasseed fowl; in flat sausages after chopping, with skate sauce, like ox-palates; Provençal way, plenty of garlic and oil; Milanese way, with grated cheese; Italian way, stewed with macaroni, &c. &c.
    Neat's Foot or Cow Heel.- The feet are mostly sold so nearly cooked as only to require a warming-up; but the substance of neat's feet consists of so little else besides gelatine and bone (the oil, strong in flavour, being extracted in their preparation), that we consider them more fit to enrich other dishes - soups, stews, fricassees, &c.- than to be served as a dish by themselves.
    Neat's Foot with Parsley Sauce.-Warm up or finish cooking your neat's foot in as little water as may be. When ready to serve, make sauce with a little of the liquor, flour, butter, chopped parsley, and a dash of vinegar. Pour this over the foot, and serve.
    Breast of Pork with Rice (Economical).-Wash and scald a pound of rice. Wash and cut up into dice half or three-quarters of a pound of breast of pork, fat and lean together; then add to it a little butter in a stew-pan. When nicely browned, add the rice ; stir in gradually three pints of water or broth and a little pepper. Let it stew for five-and-twenty minutes, stirring now and then, to keep it from sticking to the bottom. When done, serve it in a heap in the middle of a dish. A few boiled or fried sausages laid round it make a very pleasant addition.

[-139-]

COOKERY.-IX.

MEAT DISHES AT MODERATE COST (continued from p. 120). 

    Calf's Cheek, and the Soup from it.- Get your butcher to cut the calf's cheek in halves, just below the cheekbone, so as to leave the fleshy part of the cheek and the nape of the neck entire. The fresher slain it is, the better. Remove the eye-ball and the cartilage of the nose; shorten the jawbones, so as to get rid of the teeth, but leaving the meat which covered them, and throw them away. You would get no good out of them, they only take up room in th